Fireborn

Chapter Eight: Evening Feathers

She couldn't sleep.

    The crackling fire cast a warm glow and long shadows that stretched out to the trees. Around her, the horses were still awake, grazing and lapping water from a small pond surrounded by tiny white alyssums that speckled the grass like snow.

The cool wind and the soft breath of those around her that set thin clouds of cold mist did nothing to calm the writhing in her guts. Her heart was thudding against her ribs, pumping fire in her blood. Agren kept looking up. The moon was hidden behind a heavy swath of clouds. She shivered in spite of the heat flushing in her veins.

She heard a quiet mumbling and looked around. She released the breath locked in her lungs, clouding in the air like smoke. It was just Luna, who appeared to be talking in her sleep. Raiden's black eyes flicked open. Clearly she'd heard her too.

Luna turned over and mumbled again, slightly louder. They stifled a giggle and shuffled closer to listen to her. Her saccharine voice shimmered through the smoke and mist and firelight, soft and sweet and gentle.

"It's okay. Just jump. The Deep Edge isn't that far down."

Agren and Raiden exchanged a look of startled horror. The Deep Edge was a sheer cliff that plunged into the icy northernmost waters. It was so high up and the water was so deep that it was deadly in the winter when ice and snowmelt could send someone over the edge and into the frigid waters below.

Raiden stifled a chuckle. She lay back down, covering Luna with her black wings. If Agren wasn't so nervous about finding a wolf wraith she might've thought that they were adorable.

She sighed and reclined against a tree. There was a rustling in the dry brown autumn leaves. She looked up for the seventh time in ten minutes. The leaves shuddered and a falcon drifted down and landed beside her, feathers puffed against the cold.

The Thesronae used birds to send messages, mostly falcons due to their speed. Armaadic falcons were swift and strong, but most importantly, they were reliable, and their mottled shadowy brown feathers served to camouflage them if they carried secret messages. She plucked the note from the bird's back. The falcon instantly flew off, as silent as an owl. The message was written on a scroll, sealed with blue wax and stamped with the mark of Ironwood. She unfurled it.

She moved closer to the fire and held the scroll near the rippling flames, the yellow light leaping over the parchment as she read the hastily scrawled ink.

Agren,
Come to the Whispering Grove when you have
a chance.. Come alone. Tell no one.
    -Mother

    The Whispering Grove? Why would her mother want her to go there? It was a circle of trees in the fields, and it boasted nothing but dust, dingy dead leaves and nightmist. The rattling of the wind through the skeletal branches gave it its name... Or that's what people said. There, of course, were always the rumors of nightmist and the murmurs of the dead.

    Agren couldn't see the moon, but she knew that it was waning and it would soon be new. If her mother was willing to send her a message in secret and ask her to come alone, there must've been something wrong. She read the note again. Tell no one? She knew that she shouldn't, but she felt like she had to. Perhaps it would be best to tell Arid? Or maybe for once she should listen to her mother.

    She stood and dusted herself off. Agren walked through the trees, meandering past looming trunks and long shadows. She needed to respond. At least that way she was discussing it, but not with anyone else. When she was far enough from the others, she called out, "Kanaleya," the Asheeri word for messenger.

    Though she wanted another falcon, a spotted owl with jet eyes and dappled fawn and bronze feathers spiraled down and landed on her shoulder, digging talons into the base of her wing. Dragonscale was tough, but it wasn't invincible. A trickle of blood bloomed below the bird.