Chapter 21

Iwas pacing and worried. I wasn't just worried about Sorcha. My dad was in danger, too. They thought he was nearly powerless, so that gave him the upper hand. Still, they knew how to deal with us. My father got overruled by his council about taking rocks from Idric. Nestran and Idric didn't trade much, but there were a few pubs that wanted random spices and the Barons wanted their rocks.

The pommels of their swords all had a polished rock at the end. They made the arrowheads with it. The swords would weaken us, but not completely take our powers away because the stone was small. The arrows were a different story. It was bad if it entered our blood stream.

I was stressing about both of them and neither of them were here. Sorcha was closest, so I decided to have my meltdown about her.

"What if she went Idric without us," I asked Leodos, wringing my hands.

"She won't. He has answers she wants."

"So does Belisarus," I pointed out.

"And she just found out he lied to her about literally everything and kept her basic biology a secret from her. Sorcha probably trusts a Farkhi she just met over the man who raised her at this point. I'd be surprised if she even likes him that much right now."

"I don't think she likes me either," I confessed.

Which was devastating. I knew she was mine. It wasn't just the eyes, ears, or that she looked like me. She wasn't going to believe a damned thing about who she was until the person who knew for sure told her. Which was exactly like me. I thought I was just like that because I was raised that way to deal with the Barons, but maybe there was more to it.

"She just doesn't know you. Instead of trying to convince her to come back and insisting she's Lisana, why don't you try getting to know her and let her get to know you so she's not so uncomfortable around you all the time?"

I knew Leodos was right. I was about to comment when two eagles flew to the campsite and she watched them transform into Sorcha and the dark-skinned man. Sorcha looked like she had been crying and was upset. I couldn't help it and went over and embraced her. I sighed when Sorcha pushed me away and asked me not to.

Mafir had been cooking and so had Frog. We all sat down by the fire to eat. Sorcha looked tense, and I thought at first no one was going to speak.

"Are you going to tell me what I am?" she asked tensely.

"You aren't a what, you're a who," Volaris told her. "You're a very special person and we have been waiting for you for so long."

I was confused. We didn't worship the same god as the tribes. The humans didn't just domesticate us. They took away a lot of our culture and isolated us from the rest of the tribes. Belisarus filled in some of the gaps when he was brought in to tutor me, but my father and I never changed religions because we technically couldn't. The girl looked uncomfortable and curious at the same time.

"If I'm special and you've been waiting for me why was I always told you would hurt me if you found out about me?"

"We've never understood that old fool. The only reason my father's generation didn't kill him was because he helped the royal family when he resurfaced. I can't answer why he lied to you and kept you from us. I'm going to Idric with you because I want to ask him."

"I still don't know why you'd come with us when you can't be who you are there?"

"Because I want him to answer why he kept you from us. I want him to tell me why he taught you to fear us. He would have known who you were this entire time and how important you are. Surely, you have seen we mean you no harm and just want to protect you. You need to learn to use the gifts you were given."

"I don't know how I was given them. Do you know who my parents are?" Sorcha asked.

"I don't. But you look very much like Esylle. The Farkhi were probably the only people outside of Esylle, Joron, and Leodos who knew about those beautiful eyes of yours. When the Princess Lisana went missing, the Barons blamed us. They did unspeakable things to us, so the Farkhi spies watched the Barons since they actually had motive.

"They didn't take her either, but didn't really want her found. They just needed to put on a show of finding her. We didn't watch all the humans, but most of them like the Tempris more than they like the Barons. They had no reason to take her either. If you're Lisana, Belisarus had every reason to kidnap you as a baby and we had no way of checking Idric."

"You're going to have to explain to me how the man who raised me could have kidnapped me from someone he cared about. I don't see how some mutt is that important. Also, a Tempris and a human wouldn't make me."

"I had eyes on you since you first appeared. I suspected it, but I was waiting for you to play the Vudos flute to confirm it."

"My flute?" Sorcha asked, confused. "It's just a flute. He gave it to me when I was really young and taught me a few songs. I played it enough because there wasn't much else to do that I learned to make up my own songs."

"That's not any flute. It was yours before you came back to us. The two of you belong together. I have no idea where he found it. That tune you played before the Tall Man took it away from you in the forest was the Farkhi War song. We all heard it, even though we were nowhere near you. I don't think I could have stopped them from coming to you if you had played long enough for them to locate you. You just played enough to let them know you are back. I'm sure the other songs he taught you are for the other tribes. If you played those songs now, they would all be here. We've been waiting for you for so long."

"If the flute is special, it was the flute calling to you and not me. I don't know why he would give me something like that and tell me to play it on the way back, knowing you would come."

"Maybe he meant this journey to be more than just delivering a message. Not just anyone can play that flute and call to us. If anyone else in this group played it, it would just be a flute. My entire tribe heard it and wants to meet you, finally."

"How do you know I'm this person and now the results of someone breaking your stupid fucking laws," Sorcha told him.

"Dear child, I haven't even told you who you are. I thought you wanted answers? Why don't you let me tell you before you decide you are not who we have been waiting on?"

"I can't be who you are waiting on. I'm just a girl."

"Think of what you can do. Have you met anyone else who can do what you can do? You were given those abilities for a reason and you've only scraped the surface of your powers."

"You mean it gets worse?"

"Why don't you explain to her who she is? Start from the beginning because she's already confused. She's just going to argue she doesn't think she's the person you're looking for until she hears the entire story and I have a feeling she still will after hearing it," Leodos finally interjected.

"Why do you argue about everything," I asked her. "You keep insisting you are not Lisana and you keep telling Volaris you are not who they have been waiting on without hearing his full story. You don't know anything about yourself. How are you so sure you are not?"

"Because I think Belisarus found me as a child and didn't have the heart to kill me. I think he kept me there and told me not to show myself to anyone because I'm not supposed to be the way I am! I think if he had the stomach for it, he would have killed me as soon as he knew what I was. Since he couldn't, he told me to stay hidden so I couldn't hurt anyone. I've already hurt Tollam, and I nearly killed three of you earlier today!" Sorcha blurted out.

I saw she was losing control again and her eyes had flames dancing in them. If she erupted again, they were all sitting close to her and would be hurt.

"Why don't you let Volaris explain who he thinks you are? He seems to know Belisarus, too, and if Volaris knows who you are, Belisarus did, too. Maybe it's not that he didn't have the stomach to kill you, he knew you were special and tried to keep you there because he thought it would keep you safe," I said.

"That is the only reason I can think that he would keep you on Idric," Volaris told Sorcha. "He may have thought he needed to keep you there to protect you while you were a helpless child. I don't know why he thought he could protect you there better than we could and I don't know why he didn't tell you who you are."

I watched as Sorcha blew out an exasperated sigh and stormed off into the forest. She wasn't ready to hear she was special. Both Volaris and Leodos started after her but Frog stopped them.

"She runs to calm herself. When she comes back, she'll be ready to talk."

I thought I knew what was wrong. "I think she's been waiting for these answers so long that now you're here telling her you have them and she's not bad like she's convinced herself she is, she's not ready to hear it. I think she's gone so long thinking there's something wrong with her, it's hard for her to hear that you think she's someone special."

"She's always thought something was wrong with her," Frog said in his strange voice. "She talked to me in the garden all the time. She thought the reason she could never leave the house, and everyone would hurt her if they found out about her was because no one was supposed to be the way she is."

"Why didn't he just tell her when she was older?" I asked, confused. "If she has really reached her nineteenth name day, why didn't he tell her years ago? If she is Lisana and had been raised with me, she would have been married two years now. Why did he let her continue to think there was something wrong with her?"

I knew everyone had things they wanted to say to Belisarus when we saw him again. Some of them probably weren't that nice.

I wasn't going to be nice either when I saw him again.