Caution to the Wind: Book One of the Elementals Series (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Two months later…

              “Loren! Loren!” The child ran into the hut. In her small, brown hand was a clutch of large feathers. “This! This!”

Loren turned in her seat, leaving her sewing unattended on the table. She’d never get the hang of it anyway. “What is it, Lily?” The child hadn’t learned to speak much Common yet—what the inhabitants of Kahsh called English—and she spoke far too quickly for Loren to understand her. “Slow down. What did you find?” She held out her hand.

Lily thrust the golden feathers at her. “This.” Her dark eyes were wide with alarm.

Loren took the feathers, understanding them to mean something grave by how Lily presented them. They didn’t belong to any of the smaller fowl she’d encountered here. What sort of creature was this? Loren ran her fingers over the feathers. They were beautiful. “Where?”

The child grabbed her other hand and pulled Loren from her chair. She led her out of the hut. It was a warm day but was due to rain later. Loren could tell by the feel of the air and the great, huge clouds looming in the distance. She followed Lily through the village.

The people here had welcomed the three strangers when they’d arrived, bedraggled and weary two months later. The villagers gave them food, water, and a place to rest. They were safe here. The dark-skinned, simple natives of this land took to Loren immediately. They had even given her a name in their tongue.

Ael
. It meant Air. Loren thought it sounded beautiful.

Some of the villagers smiled and lifted their hands in greeting when they saw her pass, others bowed, but Loren didn’t have time to greet them back.

“
Sesith
,” she said to the girl pulling her arm, using her name in their tongue rather than the Common translation, “wait!
Wsie
!”

The girl slowed. She looked up at Loren. “Found. Here.” She gestured toward the ground near the well. There were a few more feathers there and Lily scrambled to scoop them up.

“What are they from?” Loren asked.

Lily stared at her blankly and Loren tried again, trying to remember the word that meant
from
. “
Hlir
?”

The girl shrugged. She held out her arms to indicate wings, stretching them out as far as they could go.

Loren smiled. “Wings. Big wings. Okay.”

She presented her with the other gathered feathers. Loren put them with the others and studied the strange golden bouquet in her hand. Someone in the village would know what these feathers meant. She patted the top of the girl’s head to express her thanks and started back toward her hut. She would ask Callum. He’d been much quicker to catch on to the language and customs of Kahsh.

She drew her wool skirt higher to avoid it trailing through the mud. As if he’d known she was looking for him, Callum stepped out of his hut. He held a cup in hand.

“Hey.” She smiled when she saw him and held up the feathers. “Any clue what these belong to?”

Callum looked thoughtful as he studied the feathers. “Big Bird,” he answered, seriously.

Loren rolled her eyes, but a smile threatened to break through. “Haha, that’s cute, but I’m serious. Lily brought these to me. She looked worried.”

“May I?” Loren nodded as Callum took one of the feathers from her. He ran his fingers along it. “They’re lovely,” he said, admiringly. He looked them over another moment. “I’m not sure. I’ll ask around though. Someone might know.”

“That would really be appreciated.” She hesitated a few moments before she ventured to ask the question that was always on her mind lately. “No word from Avery yet?”

              “No. None. I’m sorry.”

              She tried not to look disappointed. “Oh, well, it’s only been two weeks. They say sometimes the bad weather takes them twice as long to make it there.” Alash was the largest nearby city—or at least what the villagers considered a city in this region. Supplies came from there. A group of men had left to venture on the bi-yearly expedition and Avery had gone with them. He’d claimed he wanted to go, to see more of the land and hear if there were rumors of Mal’s influence anywhere else. Loren couldn’t help but feel there was something more to it than that. Each day, she worried whether or not he’d make it back.

“Just give it time. He’ll be fine.”

Loren kept her worries to herself and nodded. They’d been fortunate so far. Two months without an ounce of true danger. Mal had not yet resurfaced. “Yeah. Of course he will.”

Callum gave her a small smile and twirled the feather. “Do you want something to drink?” He offered her the cup in his hand. “Goat’s milk?”

“I’ll pass for now. Thanks.”

“Or food?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Unfortunate. That’s where my hospitality ends. I truly have nothing else to offer.”

She smiled. “Thanks anyway. I’ll uh stop by later tonight maybe? If you wanted?”

“I would like that very much.” He mirrored the smile. “You know, a thought occurred to me the other day.”

“Oh? What thought?”

“We never did finish your training.”

It seemed like so long ago. “No. I never did. But I’ve had practice in the meantime, though.”

“Oh yeah? Do you want to show me what you can do? A little demonstration?”

She bit at her lip. “No, I don’t think so. It’ll rain soon. I don’t want to accidentally kick start that or something.”

“You won’t, Loren. Just a small trick. Nothing fancy.” His smile grew.

Lily tugged at Loren’s skirt. “Trick?” she asked. Of course, she knew that word. “Fly.” She flapped her wings again, like a bird. “Find
shlehheh
in the sky. Make fly.”

“
Shlehheh
?” Loren repeated the unfamiliar word. “What does that mean?”

Callum shrugged. “I have no idea.” He put his mug aside and stooped down to pick up Lily. The child wrapped her arms around his neck as he stood.

“Make fly,” she repeated.

“Yes, Loren. Make fly.” Callum grinned at her.

A small crowd of people had gathered around her. Since becoming here, the villagers had looked to her as if she were a goddess. They worshiped her. “And if that’s not an important someone in an important position, then I don’t know what is,” Avery had told her, grinning.

She still wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but right now, it felt good.

“All right, all right.” Loren gave in. “I’ll make fly.”

She handed the rest of the feathers off to a woman nearby. The crowd parted, forming a circle with Loren in the center. She closed her eyes and concentrated. A small wind swirled around her, encompassing her from head to toe. When it touched Loren’s feet, she took a step up and lifted off the ground. Murmurs of awe surrounded her.

She opened her eyes to see Callum smiling at her. When she closed her eyes again, she could see Avery smiling at her too. Wherever he was, she knew he’d have been proud of her.

She allowed the currents of air to guide her up. When she was several feet above the ground, she glanced back down one more time. She smiled at them all and gave a small wave.

With the smile still there, Loren lifted her face to the sky and soared into the clouds.

About the Author

From a very young age, F. R. Southerland was interested in things that weren’t quite normal. As soon as she could write, she grabbed her crayon and started scribbling out short stories about all manner of strange and paranormal creatures.

Her combined love of writing and the supernatural grew and in 2002, she began writing on her first serious piece of fiction--a short story about werewolves she called “Sweet Moon Dreams”. With a lot of work, she fleshed out the tale and published the novel--and the subsequent series it spawned--under the pen name Rose Marie Wolf.

 Now, F. R. Southerland has begun rebranding herself and her author presence. She lives in Indiana with her husband and daughter and is currently working on her next novel.

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