CHAPTER 2

Wind crashed through the trees like the lightning overhead, the rain driving into my body even with my rain cloak over my shoulders.

It was so hard to follow my parent’s tracks in the rain, the one thing I had learned to do passably from them and my own time hunting in the forest. The figures I had seen left no visible tracks, whether on the ground or in the shrubbery along the forest floor.

If it hadn’t been for the screaming and sounds of fighting, I might not have known where to look for anyone and gotten myself lost.

“Get to higher ground, Laretha!” Father bellowed over the crushing sound of thunder that rang out overhead.

A whistling sound reached my ears as I skittered to a stop behind a young tree closer to the whole of the village. Massive creatures with bloodied helms and huge bulging muscles swung tree limbs with familiar bark on them. They had been in our orchard!

My gaze darkened, but the one that swung at my father fell with two arrows piercing the side of his neck, mother calling, “Get the children to safety!”

Father snarled and cut the creature’s throat for good measure, my dark mood lifting and giving way to terror. I wasn’t supposed to be here and my parents were killing things. These weren’t trolls, they were something else.

The figures gathered around the dirt-path street and surrounded the invaders and my father. While the three other invaders gathered that my parents were their biggest threats, the figures moved in.

“Father look out!” One of the figures had gotten closer to him and he stiffened, realizing that I was here and the invader closest to him pounced.

The figure that had snuck up on him shoved him aside and lifted their hand to slap aside the branch that should have slammed against their head.

The figure chose then to become visible and began to fight back, a sword of elvish glass slid from the cloak and up into the creature’s leg, then slid it out and into the chest before the person moved on.

The other figures converged on the remaining invaders and made short work of them before revealing themselves. My father stood and prepared for a fight when the figure who shoved him aside took their hood off and revealed themself.

It was a woman, her blonde hair short and straight down to her ears. Her eyes, golden and serious looking even from where I was, took in her surroundings before she spoke, “Is everyone alright?”

“Who are you, and why are you here?” Father spoke in a clipped tone, reaching toward me.

The woman regarded him a second before turning her sight to me, “I am Revina, representative of the Seelie Court, hunting this group of scum red caps. Thank you for your assistance.”

“You should be speaking to me.” My father growled and stepped forward.

“I am, my gaze is on the child because I wonder how he saw us.” She cleared her throat and raised her voice, “All families with military age children are to present themselves to us within the hour.”

“This is the Middling Forest, Seelie.” My mother joined my father, his hand falling on her shoulder but she shrugged it off. “You have no power here. We govern ourselves.”

Revina, nodded as if she understood, then shrugged, “Seelie have saved this village from being taken over by the enemy of governance and these Red Caps, and as such, demand recompense in the form of soldiers for the coming war. You have forty-five minutes.” She turned her gaze to some of the people she had brought with her, “The rest of you ensure there were no others who could have come with them to attack. Report back to me in ten minutes.”

My parents turned angrily toward me, then their frowns turned to horror as a hand clamped down on my shoulder. A grizzled-looking elven man stared down at me with his one good eye, green as the leaves above our heads, and grunted, “You’re to come with me.”

“No!” My mother shrieked and pulled her bow taut and loosed an arrow toward the man behind me.

He tilted his head and the arrow slid past his ear as if he were avoiding a fly whizzing by. Four other Seelie surrounded my mother and father and pushed their hands out to keep them contained. Revina raised her voice, “Do not resist us, and you will survive this.”

“You want to save them?” The man grunted at me softly, to which I gave him a small, stiff nod. “Tell them it’s alright. You’ll see what we want and then it will all be okay. Tell them.”

I stared up at him in confusion until I heard a snap and saw that one of the Seelie had slapped my mother hard enough to put her onto the ground. “Mother!” I tried to rush forward and the hand gripped tighter, almost as a reminder. “It’s okay! I’ll see what they want so just stop. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

That last bit was more for their benefit than mine. I hoped that if I apologized they might be a little more lenient on me after all of this.

Judging from their stares and the leering on my mother’s face, I would be lucky if I ever saw the outside world again.

The man guided me away from the others and my parents to a building that looked almost like a shed. He put me next to it so that my back was against the wall and he could look at me up and down. A tense and silent moment after that, Revina joined us and stared at me with a blank stare for a moment before turning to the man and asking, “Why did you single him out, Draughtby?”

“He was the one who was watching us.” Draughtby stated as he continued to stare at me. “Aren’t many who could see us when we’re ghosted as is, but he saw all of us except me.”

“I missed you?” I asked before good sense stopped me. He grinned at me and nodded. “How?”

“Because I let the others go and followed you.” His grin widened, “He tracked his parents and followed the sound of battle, then saw all of the others while they were getting into position.”

“So what do we do with him?” Revina’s face was still a mask devoid of emotion. “Kill him?”

My eyes widened and my stomach dropped into my knees, but my eyes darted around me as I searched for an escape route.

“Look at him, Revina!” Draughtby chuckled and knelt so that he could look up at me, pointing to my eyes. “See that? That would floor children his age, they’d pee themselves but this one is looking for a way to get away!”

“Tell me, how would you do it?” He smiled at me as the woman just tilted her head to the side curiously.

The voice of the quest giver rang through my ears, Quest received: Explain how you would escape your current situation. Reward: 10 EXP, improved or declining interest from your captors.

That last part was new, I had never cared about that before and neither had the system. Better if they liked me though, right? Hoping they wouldn’t hear me, I whispered beneath my breath, “Accepted.”

“Speak up, boy.” The man grunted and prodded my chest with a thin finger.

“I would scream as though you were trying to kill me, my parents would manage to overpower at least one of the others together, injuring him and then moved on to the next.” I looked at her cloak and found what I thought was another weapon hanging from her belt. “I would have tried for your weapon on the way through your legs and cut you if I could, but my goal would have been to get to my parents so they could lead the way out of here to safety.”

Revina looked unimpressed, but Draughtby just grinned wider as the voice chirped in my head, Quest completed, 10 EXP earned. Error. No Catalyst. Standing and interest improved with Draughtby Sliverbren and Revina Doranda.

I almost gasped at their full names, but tried my hardest to seem like I was just a partly scared kid.

“He’s not old enough for the academy, Draughtby.” Revina almost sounded disappointed by that fact and it took all my self control not to jump for joy as the man growled in agreement.

He frowned and sat back on his heels as he stared at me, “No. No he’s not. But he could be an exception if you backed him.”

“I’m not wasting my vote of confidence on someone I just met, even if he is interesting.” She crossed her arms and stared at the man with again, no emotion other than maybe budding annoyance.

“Would you use it even if you had someone in mind?”

She stared at him and he just raised his eyebrows slowly, so she countered, “What makes you think I would not vote that my sister finally join the cause?”

“Because your sister already has your father and mothers’ vote and you know it.” He pointed to me. “If you had him in the class with her, he could keep an eye on her for you to ensure that she’s okay.”

Revina stared at him like she was trying to decide something, then turned her icy gaze on me. “How old are you?”

Lie! I opened my mouth and she just blinked once and suddenly this insurmountable feeling of something I couldn’t describe washed over me and I was fascinated by her. Up close, I could see all of her.

Her short blonde hair hung forward as she slowly leaned down and her eyes locked on mine, my heart throbbed and beat wildly, my mouth dried and it was all I could do to say, “Fourteen.”

“I doubt that he could physically keep up with children two years his senior at a minimum.” She sounded disappointed and I hated that.

So much so that I almost whined, “I chase down dryads all the time, I could keep up with them!” It was so weird to hear how insistent my voice sounded, even to me. Like I was truly a child my own age like the others in the village.

“I believe him, Revina.” Draughtby grinned and stood up. “With good food and training he could do really well. Maybe he could even make it to the black-leaf ops like us?”

“It would take him forever to get there.” Revina actually smiled at that, my heart flip flopping in my chest as she continued to stare at me. “But you are right. I could use someone on the inside to watch over my sister. At least just to ensure she is not being her normal lazy self.”

I was happy about that, at least, from where I watched my mind and body moving without me meaning for them to.

“You turned the charm on too high, Revina.” Draughtby muttered to his partner softly. “The kid stopped breathing a heartbeat ago.”

She blinked down at me and the surge of inexplicable attraction washed away like water leaving a pool that I had made once with sun-baked mud. “I don’t want to go.”

She smiled at me, and suddenly I wanted to go again, but this time it was like I had thought of the idea of going to this academy myself years ago. Like I had always wanted to go.

“You should tell your parents not to worry about you and that you’ll be going to the academy to make sure that they stay safe.” She suggested and I nodded to myself. “Draughtby, see it done, then start back with him to the camp. The others and I will reconvene with you this evening to head back and report.”

He nodded and grabbed me by the shoulder as she made a slight shooing motion for me to follow the man.

I squirmed, not wanting to be out of her presence, but his grip was firm and insistent. By the time I had gotten back to mother and father with Draughtby, I knew what I would say.

“Saemus, what’s going on?” Father’s voice was uncertain, a bruise beginning to form under his left eye and his lip split. They hadn’t been before I had been taken away.

“What’s going on with his eyes, Seelie?” Mother hissed at Draughtby venomously, her seething rage bubbling forth. “What did you do to him!”

“Mother, it’s okay.” I tried to reassure her, but even I was nervous. I wondered if Revina would think less of me if she knew that? “I’ll be going to the academy to make sure that things like this never happen again.”

“No!” I mother shrieked and threw herself at the Seelie in front her. “Not my baby!”

Father grabbed her and pulled her back as one of their captors decided he had heard enough from her and tried to slap her again.

Something in me snapped and I surged forward, snapping my foot into the back of his knee as hard as I could. The leg buckled inward and my mother rushed forward. Her hands wrapped around my arm and pulled me toward her. My feet lifted from the ground and I was almost to her chest when I could feel hands around my waist pull me back.

My legs kicked and I bucked every way I could, but the hands pulling me were too strong and the Seelie overwhelmed my mother and father, fists and feet flying and landing everywhere they could.

“Relax, boy.” Draughtby growled as his grip loosened. “Lads! Easy now. They tend the grove here, can’t have them too hurt to work the land.”

My father watched from where he laid on the ground, “You have another thing coming if you think we’ll do anything for you.”

Draughtby shook his head, “Not me—him.” He nodded to me and my father frowned in confusion. “The academy looks highly upon those who donate toward the cause. Status and privilege are given to those who are related to those who do so. I would say if you wanted to provide any sort of comfort for your brave little warrior here, well… I can imagine you get the idea.”

He turned toward me and muttered, “Brave, but stupid, boy. Come on.”

He put me down and clamped his hand over my shoulder one more time and walked me away from the only life I had ever known.