Korah: Heir of Gnamalea

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TAFITI

~ 1422 ~

Delevigne had been missing for hours. Tafiti hadn't known where she had disappeared to; no one did. The coven had sent their pack to patrol the border, whereas others would try to indirectly track her. They were desperate, especially when her mother, the Queen. Tafiti had wished Delevigne had just told her she'd leave; her mother now saw her responsible. It was stupid. Really stupid. Delevigne had a duty here, one that could change her life the moment she sits on that throne. Although, Tafiti knew how she had felt about taking the throne, leading a coven, to feed a village of her own. She had always wanted to live in freedom without her mother teaching her in the opposite direction. She felt she was going backwards, impossible to go forwards with no way of dodging the giant wall in front of her.

Tafiti sat on her bed in the cabin beside her mothers, the largest room out of them all. Delevigne had ordered that she shared a room with her. Now, one bed empty in the late nights of Wêlwyn, Delevigne was missing. She stared at Delevigne's side of the room, her bed messy, books strewn on her table and floor. The window curtains still open and her pillow untouched. She grazed her fingers along the soft fabric of her quilt before coming across the mirror hanging above the table and chair. She looked back at her reflection. Her jet black hair reaching her lower waist, the front strands of hair tied back into a pond tail, keeping the hair from her eyes. The young woman she had become, beginning young adolescence, with less responsibility than she had realised. She hadn't been brought up in the world that Delevigne had.

She hadn't envied her but wished her mother had acknowledged Tafiti like the woman she is. Her mother never expected anything from her; she was somewhat grateful for that. Still, she had wished her mother had taken responsibility for herself: the rum, the stealing, the lovers – all a distraction from the desperate life in Wêlwyn.

Without thought, she ran out of the room to the dining hall, the Queen's head in her hands. She kept scanning the room before she spotted the person she had been looking for. Dark hair like ink laid down her back. She stood by the wall opposite the table and directed her attention to the girl. She had laughed at something one of the girls on her table had said; at this, she pulled her cup to her face taking a long sip before noticing Tafiti's presence. She stared back at her with almost a grim look before walking around out of the room, knowing the girl would follow.

"Tafiti", she turned around and pulled the girl to the shadows of the building. "Did you find her?" Tahiti shook her head. The smile on the girls face reached her eyes but quickly turned into a feared expression. She – much like Tafiti – saw Delevigne as a sister.

"But I think I know where to look, but even you know that telling a soul would be stupid" she immediately knew what she meant. "Would you come with me?"

"Tafiti, I don't know–"

"I'm not letting your stupid brother get into our friends head, Kèla!" she nodded in understanding and turned to the door, checking for snoopy muttonheads.

"Meet me in the rose garden in fifteen" Tafiti nodded and walked back other room; she dressed in a black dress and pulled her black hooded coat over her head and shoulders before slipping her laced shoes. She grabbed her lantern at her bedside and walked out the door, and walked to the rose garden.

Both of them walked out of the garden and ran into the trees and shrubbery, just far enough that the pack couldn't smell them out. The girl led Tafiti deeper into the woods before clicking her fingers and lighting the lantern. They had begun to walk South into the next border. Kéla stopped in front of Tafiti's tracks before looking up into the trees, where a small cabin had sat at the branches' base. She walked to the tree base and grabbed the rope hanging from the unit which held the house. She blew out the lantern and placed it on the ground, bringing her legs to the tree trunk, pulling herself up and making her way up the rope. Tafiti following, she wondered what they would be doing up here. Why so far out from the Wêlwyn border?