Page 22 - The Window_ A Foundations' Style Rapier

Continued from page 20
I don’t even know where we are, except a little ways past the Saeven. We’re cold, hurt, and
lost, and it’s all my fault.
Just then Iris came out of the tent. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Thinking that you led us into a hole that we can’t get out of?”
“How’d you―”
“Lucky guess. You didn’t, though. We’re all in on this. We want to do it as much as you. I
don’t think you get it, but this war impacted all of us. We all want it to be over, and I think we
can do that. You still have that photo, right?”
Lily had forgotten about the photo. She thought it would have washed away, but she
found it in her pocket with….
“My feather! I thought I lost it!” Lily was happy that her feather was still in her pocket.
“Better not lose it again. Do you have a cord that I can borrow?”
Iris gave Lily a cord that had fallen loose off her belt. Lily fastened the feather on it, and
put it around her neck, tucking it under her shirt.
“At times like these I like to look at the trees,” said Iris. Lily’s hand pointed to the trunk,
but Iris moved it upward. “No, not the trunks, the leaves. The ones on the very top. They calm
me down. See how those ones are flapping like crazy, but still holding on to the branch? I think
that it means that we can be a little lenient to mistakes, because the path we start on we keep
going on. We can’t change branches and regrow. We’re already too accustomed to how this
path works. Keep the photo. It’s a good goal to have. We might meet those kids in Cente, or
maybe the Fallen Kingdom if they were disgraced from the Ferst.” Iris was doing all she could to
comfort Lily.
Being disgraced from anywhere was a terrible thing in Volaria. You really had nowhere to
go. It was like a blemish that wouldn’t come off of an otherwise perfect gem; you try so hard to
make it go away, but it won’t leave.
Lily smiled when Iris finished talking. They lay down in the grass on the side of the path
and waited for the sweet sensation called sleep to come. For Lily, who had been worrying
nonstop all day, and found herself calmed, sleep came easy.

~ Months Later~

“Are you Tenebris?”said a black-haired girl with big, dark blue eyes and skin like his, pale
and clear, unlike the rest of the Ferst.
“I am. Did you expect someone else?”
“No, sir, but, I have a photo of you!”
A photo? He hadn’t taken photos in a very long time.
“What is it of?”
“You―oh my. You and another girl were the last people in Tentra’s craft, weren’t you?”
Lily realized he was a grown version of the young boy in the picture with Tentra she had;
the last people in Tentra’s trade. He looked like him; the bushy eyebrows, the tall composure,
the tiniest bit of a slouch in his posture, and of course, the small, narrowed eyes.
“Just come in.” The girl walked in, and took in everything with wide open eyes.
“Why do you want to talk to me, sir?” Lily asked timidly.
“You have passed Lor, correct?”
“Well, yes! I don’t know someone that hasn’t.”
“Think again.”
“You mean―but, wait―” Lily put it together in her mind.
“My sister and I did not pass. We were disgraced from the Ferst because of that. I
founded the Fallen Kingdom, for people that, like me, were disgraced from the Ferst. I asked her
to come with me, but she said she would rather move to Cente. I founded this kingdom from
the ground up, when all she did was take on the job of protecting the already-guarded city.”
“Who is your sister?”
“Why should I tell you?”
21 “Well, if I want to spy on your sister,” Lily gave a small smile. “I need to know who she is.”
Tenebris was afraid of this. She had backed him into a corner. There was no way out now.