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The sun had slipped behind the mountains and darkening shadows were starting to appear in the quietest corners of the city. Aya shivered, wishing she had the cloak back around her shoulders, for at least that had been warm. She had run as fast as she could from the training square, away from Villid who she had come to trust, and had wandered through markets and streets for what seemed like hours. She had no idea which way was north or south, or how to get back to the inn.
At first she had been glad to get away from Villid – the way he had tormented her, spoken so lightly of what had been a terrible, never ending nightmare for her – had been a shock. She had come to trust Villid, as he had had so many opportunities to kill her and hadn’t. She had even come to like him, appreciate him as another speaking, thinking, intelligent person for who he was, despite the fact that he was a Tyran and she was Elf. She had even come to care for him, thinking he was different to other Tyrans, and that perhaps he cared for her too.
But it was clear now – he was only mocking her, maybe using her to amuse him for a while before he brushed her off. This city, Fort Valour, made her feel safe – there were other people here, other
Elves – had she not met a keeper before named Eria, who guarded the E
lf town? Aya knew now that she meant nothing to Villid. She had been a
fortunate survivor of the attack. He had only not killed her because he thought she was the Seer.
Aya stopped in her tracks. She had never asked Villid why he had wanted to find the Seer that night. Did she have something, or know something, that he needed? Is that why he was letting her go to find the Seer right now? Was he going to kill them both once they were reunited, and take whatever information or valuable item she had, for himself?
She let out a long, rattling sigh, which turned to blue-grey steam as she exhaled. She was shivering, and twilight was rapidly fading into darkness. She felt betrayed. Villid was simply using her to get what he wanted.
She decided. She would go to the
Elf town, mix with those of her own race, and hide herself from the Tyran she thought was her friend. Then she would tell the keeper about the attack on the forest village. How they didn’t already know was a mystery, but she would inform them, and about their Seer being missing, too. Then they would find her, and bring her back. Then Llyliana would be safe, Aya would be back with her own kind, and then... she didn’t know. What would she do then?
She started to walk in a random direction, a plan forming in her mind. Then she stopped again. Most of the people around her had retired to inns or cottages – a few houses were scattered around her, some with smoke rising from the chimneys. She wouldn’t head to the
Elven village now – although she wasn’t sure where she was, she knew the Elven
civilization was far, far away, further than the inn anyway. She would confront Villid first, ask him what information he wanted from the Seer, Llyliana. He wouldn’t attack her, he needed Aya to find the Seer... but if he did attack, she decided
, then she would just have to shout for help.
She strode down the pathway she was following, her boots pattering on the dirt. Lanterns had been lit to light the pathway, and they swung slightly in the cold breeze, casting moving shadows in the light. Aya felt a longing for her home village – there had been lanterns there too, but they had been warm and friendly, not eerie like these.
Villid was furious with himself. Not only had he let Aya run from him until she had escaped from his sight, but he knew she now thought of him as some sort of monster, cruel and vile! He slammed his hand against the wall in frustration, and ignored the angry shouts of protest from next door’s room.
He was back at the inn where he and Aya were staying. Angrily he flung himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling. What a fool he had been, taunting her like that when he knew that the way of
Elves was not the way of Tyrans. He exhaled loudly, his heart still thumping with rage at his own idiocy.
Would she come back? He didn’t know. There were many
civilizations in this city, after all, including one of Elves. He knew she still didn’t fully trust him. And just because she didn’t voice her pain, didn’t mean she wasn’t suffering. He couldn’t believe how incredibly stupid he had been.
He hadn’t been taunting her on purpose. Tyrans used rage as an attack – the opposite of fear, of hesitance, of common sense. Tyrans taught youngsters from an early age that anger was important, and more often than not, they used their worst memories to seduce their rage, taunting them until pain engulfed their whole mind.
But Aya wasn’t like that. He had been ignorant of the
Elf ways, and dived into teaching her the Tyran way without thinking of the consequences. How could he have possibly told her that he wanted to teach her so she would be able to protect herself? How could he express in words why he wanted to do this? How could he tell her that he enjoyed her company, and that it would be a great honour to give her the talent he cherished?
“Villid, Villid,” he muttered to himself. “I can’t believe you’re saying this, but you need to put this right.”

It wasn’t long before Aya knew where she was – at the entrance of the village! How different it looked from the inside, she thought. It was nothing but the side of the mountain, and a long, prominent black crack in the middle, with a thin gap, barely big enough for a man to shift through. There was no sign of the drawbridge they had crossed on the way in – perhaps it was inside the mountain
itself.
Then she saw the stables to the right, and thought she could go and visit Acotas the horse before going to confront the Tyran. She made her way to them, wondering if they would be locked.
There were windows along the wooden stable, but it was too dark to see inside them. She wondered if the stallion was sleeping.
“Acotas!” she whispered.
Almost immediately the long, graceful black head of the stallion came out of the window. Acotas neighed quietly as she lay a hand on his silk-soft nose.
“Hello, Acotas,” she said softly, and wished she’d brought something for him to eat. It looked as if there was enough hay for fifty horses, however. “You’re a beautiful animal,” she cooed, reaching to touch his soft mane. She felt tears springing to her eyes again, and didn’t bother wiping them away. She suddenly wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck, and sobbed into his grey fur. “It’s all wrong, Acotas,” she wept. “What do I do?”
A sudden loud cracking noise behind her made her jump terribly; the horse neighed in panic. The crevice in the mountainside was splitting; with a deep rumble the wall opened, and a large drawbridge appeared from inside the wall, dropping slowly with the same loud grate of metal sliding on wood. Aya exhaled, her heart hammering against her ribcage. Acotas butted Aya softly with his great head,
as if trying to reassure her. Swallowing, and feeling slightly foolish, Aya patted the horse’s head and moved closer to the drawbridge. Who would be arriving here at the dead of night?
The drawbridge lowered and stopped with another loud rumble that echoed through the darkness. Aya squinted, and a silhouette stumbled towards her. A young boy, no older than sixteen, was staggering across the drawbridge, clutching his side as he went. He was a Knabi, Aya realised, and his wings were half-spread; Aya was alarmed to see that half of one was covered in blood. The boy held his ribs, panting, half-dragging himself to the entrance, where he collapsed at the edge of the drawbridge.
“Are you all right?” Aya asked, rushing to his aid. He didn’t respond, but breathed in short rasps, his arm wrapped round his ribcage. Aya bent and lifted him to his feet; the boy cried in pain as he sagged against her, his great white wings barely holding themselves in the air, as Aya struggled to help him along. She heard the drawbridge shut fast behind them.
“It’s all right,” she said desperately, as the boy clung to her, his breathing dangerously shallow and raspy; he was barely able to drag himself along. Aya pulled him along the dark, cobbled streets. There was no one about – not even a guard to help her. She had no choice; she would take him to the only place that she knew was safe – the inn. She could confront Villid later.

Villid paced up and down the room, wondering whether he should go and look for Aya. She had been gone for hours, and it was nearing midnight. He sighed; perhaps she wouldn’t want to see him now. Eventually he swung open their bedroom door. He could hear the mutter of people drinking downstairs; none of them gave him a second glance as he approached the front door.
He opened it, and Aya stood there, a half-conscious Knabi boy slumped against her, his eyes flickering, groaning in pain as he clutched himself; there was blood everywhere. “Everyone move out the way!” Villid called behind him, pulling Aya inside and shutting the door. At first people stared; Villid angrily shooed them to the corners, and with a great scraping of chairs and tables they left a clear space to carry the Knabi boy through. Villid grabbed his legs, two other men, a human and a
Dwarf, took his arms, and together they carried him up the stairs towards the bedrooms.
“Out of the way, I’m a herbalist!” scurried a woman, who was even shorter than Aya, with a lot of frizzy, mousy-brown hair. Villid, holding onto the boy’s legs, carried him into his and Aya’s bedroom, and lay him on his bed, which was closest to the fire.
The herbalist woman pushed them impatiently out of the way. “Rearrange his wings,” she barked the order at Aya, who quickly took his great, feathery wings and tucked them comfortably onto the bed. The boy groaned, his eyeballs
rolling towards the ceiling, still hidden beneath his eyelids. The human man and the
Dwarf who had helped carry him in just gaped.
“If you’re not helping, please leave,” said the herbalist, shooing them away with her hand, which held a heavy-looking, crudely cut ring. The men nodded and left, the human strolling, the
Dwarf lumbering clumsily. Aya sat on the remaining bed, feeling worried and scared.
“Where did you find him?” said the woman, as she took off the Knabi’s blood-stained shirt and sighed in pity at the wound in his side.
“He... he stumbled across the drawbridge, at the entrance,” said Aya nervously. “No one was
with him, and he looked hurt.”
“Yes, well, I can see that,” she replied sarcastically.
“He came across the bridge alone, you say? So he’s only been unconscious for a little while... that’s good...” she gingerly opened the boy’s eyelid and peered into his pupils. “You!” she barked at Villid, who had been standing in the corner. “Tyran! Why are you still here?”
“This is our room,” he said, his hands behind his back. “I paid to stay here,”
“All right, all right,” she said, losing interest in him. “Just don’t get in the way. Elf,” she added, glancing at Aya. “Name?”
“Aya, miss.” she said nervously.
“Aya,” the woman paused. “I’m Alicia. Go downstairs
and get me some bandages, valiant herbs and a mortar and pestle. Run along now.”
When Aya had gone, Alicia spoke to Villid. “You and Aya are staying together?”
“That’s right,” said Villid.
“A Tyran and an Elf,” she said, more to herself than to him. A small smile appeared on her lips; she looked almost pretty. She didn’t look at him, but pressed the boy’s tunic against his side. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “The boy, I mean. He is in shock, but except his side and a bit of his wing, he’ll be fine,”
Aya came back in clutching bandages and herbs and a small bowl and crushing instrument. “Ah, excellent,” Alicia said, taking the bandages and tending to the Knabi’s wound. “You did well to get him here so quickly, Aya. He should be all right, but I don’t know when he will be fully conscious.” She crushed the whole plateful of herbs into the bowl until it was a green mush. Dabbing the bandage into it, she covered the material in the substance and pressed it against the wound. The boy cried in pain, as if screaming in a nightmare. “Shh, now.” said Alicia firmly, and wrapped the wound safely in thick bandages.
She sent Aya to get things three more times, and soon the boy’s wounds were attended to, and the blood had been cleaned away.
Alicia turned to Aya and Villid. “I will leave him here until he wakes up,” she said. “Since he’s using your bed, you can
stay here for an extra few days. Deal?” without waiting for an answer, she glanced at the Knabi boy. “Let me know when he wakes up.”and she moved swiftly out of the room, her thick red skirt flowing behind her.
Aya and Villid looked at each other for a moment, before Aya turned to look at the Knabi boy. His eyes were still closed, and he was lying on his back, his bare
chest heaving up and down, his young face contorted in pain as he shifted in and out of nightmares.
“What do you think happened to him?” Aya asked, when she could stand the silence no longer. Villid sighed.
“Who knows,” he said. He then touched Aya on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry about before,” he said.
“Forget it,” Aya replied distantly. She felt cold towards Villid now, as if she didn’t want to know him. She knew now he couldn’t be trusted. She felt for the boy on the bed who was in a great deal of pain –
Elves and the Knabi were friendly towards each other, even meeting two or three times a year for the great harvests. He looked so young, too.
“Aya,” Villid sighed again. How was it that an
Elf could make him feel so small? “Perhaps I should explain something. When Tyrans are young, perhaps four or five years of age, it has been a long tradition to show them something terrible, something vile, that they will never forget for the rest of their lives,”
Aya’s stare remained fixed on the Knabi boy. When she
didn’t speak, Villid pressed on.
“I said I never had a family, except for my brother,” he said. “To some extent, I spoke the truth. I have not had a family since I was four years old.”
Despite herself, Aya raised her head to look at Villid. Still she didn’t speak, but Villid’s face looked honest enough. He swallowed.
“Tyrans are taught not to love, not to care, that mothers are made just to teach the child to survive, in preparation for training once the child can walk and speak. I have a brother – an older brother, called Swift, and two sisters who I have not seen for years. I was the youngest, and my mother smothered me with love. She loved me too much, I suppose. The Elders saw me as someone who had the skill to fight, but not the hate, or the want, to kill someone. They tried to kill me, too, saying I was an anomaly, an abnormality, a glitch in the perfect world of Tyrans who know nothing but hate.”
Villid’s hand found her arms, where he clutched her shoulder.
“My mother protected me. She begged them not to kill me, but to take me away to early training, to force the love out of me and teach me to be a regular Tyran – normal, like my sisters and brother before me. They listened to her. But they punished her – and me – in the worst way,” Aya shook her head, not wanting to hear any more, but he went on. “They dragged her to the middle of the street, and
made me watch as they threw rocks at her until she lay dead on the ground.”
Aya felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Then I was put into the training academies, where they forced me to know nothing but anger and hate. Forget your mother, they said, for she was my weakness, the glitch in my power. They taunted me, filling me with memories of her, of how she died, to provoke anger and rage. And it worked. Within a year I had caught up with everyone else in the training school,” he said it bitterly, as if nothing brought him more despair than to use his pain for talent. “I never knew my sisters, but my older brother, Swift, stood by me, always helping me train, giving me advice – but, like everyone else, never dared show compassion or love towards me,” he sighed. “The only one who cared after that was the Seer,”
Painful memories flooded his mind of the frail old man who he had been so close to. “I would never say he loved me,” Villid mused. “Tyrans don’t know love, except my mother, who paid for it. But he was always there to give me guidance, more so than Swift. He made sure I was always well-fed, warm at night, and, as far as a Tyran can get, happy,” he slumped onto the bed, his hand sliding from Aya’s shoulder. He looked so pitiful that Aya felt her anger and fear dissolve.
“Foolishly, I thought that the provocation of painful memories would work on you, too,” he mumbled. “You have no idea how stupid I feel. I’m sorry, Aya.”
Aya sighed. She felt so sorry for him – he had watched his mother die, and been punished for something that was only natural, perhaps the most natural thing in the world. “I forgive you,” she whispered. “But, Villid... I must ask you something.”
“What?” he said.
“Why do you want to find the Seer?” she sat beside him on the bed, to show she wasn’t asking in a hostile
way. He looked at her sadly.
“I can understand why you would think, maybe, that I wanted to kidnap or kill her,” he said. “And that’s why, if you desire, I will not accompany you to this
hidden temple where she fled to.”
Aya was taken aback. “Not accompany me?” she asked.
“Of course,” Villid said, looking away from her and at the opposite wall. “You probably still don’t trust any Tyrans, including me. We attacked your village, killed many
E
lves...” he stopped for a moment to steady himself. “Your Seer is important to you, naturally. If you wish, I will remain here, and you can find her. Not alone,” he added hastily. “I’ll make sure people go with you – people we can trust –
Elves or Knabi, perhaps. And as I can’t possibly re-join my tribe, I’ll stay here. You’ll have a number of options once you find your Seer – and I will respect whichever one you choose.”
Aya felt surprised. She doubted herself now. If Villid had been with her just to find the Seer and use her, surely he wouldn’t propose such a thing.
Aya said she would think about it. She wanted to approach Llyliana in full confidence that she could protect her – and yet, it just wouldn’t seem safe or right if Villid wasn’t there.
After a quiet meal downstairs at the inn, and one or two visits from Alicia to check on the Knabi boy, they retired to the room. Villid stared at the fire in the grate as Aya tucked the Knabi boy into the second bed, wishing that she at least knew his name. His hair was wispy and a faded auburn colour, curling around his ears with a tuft on top. He wore the band on his head that most Knabi wore, which was black with white Knabi script on that Aya couldn’t understand. She knew the bands represented something worthy of respect – he must be of a higher class in his homeland.
His eyes moved under his eyelids – bad dreams again. Every few moments his wings twitched – they were softer than they looked, with pure white feathers, half-tucked into his back, and his left wing half-crooked from his wound. She covered him with a blanket and stared down at him for a few more seconds, pity welling up inside her.
With the fire crackling merrily, casting comforting dancing light about the room, Aya climbed into the bed and Villid lay on the floor, using the rug and an extra pillow.
“We’ll leave to find Llyliana tomorrow,” said Aya, watching the fire as it crackled and burnt. Villid grunted in response.
“I want you to come with me.”
There
was a silence. “I’d like that
,” he said.
Aya didn’t reply, but smiled to herself as she pulled the blanket over her. She looked at the ceiling. “Villid?”
“Mmm?”
“You told me about your childhood,” she stated, resting on her elbow as she looked down at him. “You said you have a Seer,”
“We did,” Villid corrected her. “He died the night I met you.” it seemed a lot more tactful than ‘before we wiped out your village’.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aya said. “How many
are left?”
“He was the last one.” Villid grunted.
“That’s odd,” said Aya. “There are Seers for every race. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“We had six at one time. The last thing I knew, we had two. I suppose Llyliana is the last one now,” she fingered a part of her long, black hair. Villid was looking at her, his eyes glowing in the
reflection of the fire. “Usually, when a Seer dies, he passes his talents onto his son or daughter, so they can become the next,” she looked at Villid again. “Did your Seer have a child?”
“I don’t think so,” Villid wondered why he had never asked the Seer before. “I suppose he didn’t, for he was with me a lot, and if he had his own son he wouldn’t have needed me.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Aya said, lying down again. “Seers are important in a race, but maybe they have to die out sometime.”
There was a silence for a few seconds, until Villid spoke again. “The Tyrans never believed in the Dragons, really,” he said. “We had some, once, I suppose. The Seer told me that long ago, the Tyrans had one Dragon god and one Dragon goddess,” Aya listened intently. “But the Tyrans gave up on religion, and over time, the Dragons were forgotten. I suppose you’ve heard of the fire era?” Aya nodded. Who couldn’t remember it – that terrible time two centuries ago
where the deadliest of Tyrans had roamed the land, burning, capturing and enslaving every other race? Aya had first heard of it when she had been twelve years old, when one of the storytellers had reminisced about it. It had been a scary story for children, but, as he had put it, “an important part of history that shouldn’t be forgotten”. Aya’s heart ached to remember the number of old
Elves who sat on several colourful pillows, Elf children huddled eagerly around them for the newest story. She remembered the sweet aroma of the gardens where they sat and listened, and the cool breeze in their hair as they laughed at a funny tale, or gasped at a frightening story...
“Aya?” Aya shook her head in surprise. “Sorry,” she apologised quickly.
“Well – about the era,” he said, punching his pillow into a
more comfortable position. “It went on for years until we were stopped by
‘the dark creatures from the west’, as Seer called them. When the Tyrans seemed to be all-powerful, we were thwarted by them, and almost wiped out.”
“Dark creatures?” Aya repeated. “From the west?”
“Darkma,” said Villid. “They sprung from the beneath the earth one day, as a result of dark magic, evil and corruption. The Seer used to say that the Dragons cursed us for almost destroying Theldiniya, and the Red Wars have been raging ever since. Maybe the Dragons left us after that.”