My OperaTHE KIESHA'RA - VOLUME ONE: HAWK SONG - THREE
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 11:21:15 AM
CHAPTER THREE
I was a child, unversed yet in politics. The first thing that interested me in the court was a representative from the shm'Ahnmmik, a group not allied with my mother, the Tuulia Thea. He was a falcon boy only a few years older than me, twelve to my eight. I was too young to know that my playmate made my mother very nervous, or than he was in the Keep for any reason different from the other children's. Too young to know that he represented an empire older and stronger than our own, without whose support we would never be able to keep our heads above water when fighting the serpiente.
I was just a child, with no responsibilities, no understanding of politics, war or pain. So I remember the falcon very fondly, as my last memory of childhood.
One of my tutors stepped out to speak with my mother in the hallway. "Milady Shardae, have you seen Andreios?" I looked up, hearing the name of my friend despite the tutor's attempt at discretion. "I'm worried that he's gone out to the field... to look for his father."
I was too young to understand death, but I understood that my friend was upset and so I had to find him.
I stood to sneak out before my mother returned. I had known Rei all eight years of my life, since he was three years old and I was newly born. He would listen to me more than anyone else. The falcon tried to stop me from leaving, but he had no authority over me and I refused to listen to reason.
My first breath of death hit me as I flew over the field. Yes I knew of the war, but I had never seen the carnage up close, smelled the blood before... and in the middle of it all, my friend Rei, hunched protectively over his father's body, crying.
I landed at his side.
I hardly had a chance to speak before the serpient appeared. Rei pushed me behind him; they scuffled, and I saw the fangs slice into my friend's skin. Someone else attacked me from behind, but when I fought back, I was struggling with something as harmless as a wool blanket.
I realized suddenly that I was dreaming a scene I relived in my mind almost every night. I had been knocked out; Rei had saved my life. His brush with death had changed him, forcing him to grow up faster. After that day he had made a point of training. He had joined the avian army when he was thirteen and the Royal Flight when he was fifteen, and he had been the captain of that group for three years now.
Despite knowing I was asleep, I could not wake. Lucid dreams had been a curse of mine for years.
I walked the battlegrounds in my mind, through the woods and fields that I had been drawn to ever since Rei's father died. Pain, bloodshed, war. They stained me that day.
AMELIA ATWATER-RHODES
