Dreigiau Book 1: The Gift of Flame

Chapter 15

"I can't believeit!" AsaHi stared at the map. She turned it upside down. She turned it backwards and forwards. No matter how she looked at it, it indicated the same thing. "The map says the place should be right here. But I don't see anything at all!"

"Maybe it was eaten?"

AsaHi blinked at Kaze. He had a strange way of attributing the loss of things to being eaten. Considering he didn't need to eat, she found it rather unusual. When the fire-maker disappeared, it was "eaten." When her bracelet came up missing, it was "eaten." When the hairbrush, which was ironically the item Kaze most disliked, vanished, it was "eaten."

Each time she gently explained to him that things like that went "missing." They weren't "eaten." Yet, it still seemed a mistaken phrase that he was fond of.

"Kaze..."

He looked at her, "I know. You'll say, 'Places aren't eaten.' Right?"

"Yes, that's right. Places can't be eaten. A city isn't food."

"Depends," he beamed his trademark sly grin.

It really unnerved her when he smiled that way. It was as if there was something terribly important he knew that she didn't, and he wasn't about to tell her.

When the girl didn't reply, a concerned expression replaced the clever grin, "What's wrong?"

"I'm afraid that we're lost," AsaHi admitted. "I thought I was following the map exactly. I mean, this is where I was told to go, but nothing's here."

Kaze peered at the map from over her shoulder and studied it for a while. Then he leaned back on his heels, folding both hands behind his head. In a very deliberate way, he turned his gaze towards the blue expanse of sky. AsaHi was tempted to look up, too. When she did, she saw nothing more than the bottoms of the high-rising clouds.

He cracked another big fangy smile.

"Kaze, do you know something?" she prompted.

"Maybe," his tone was teasing.

"Please, this isn't a time to joke," AsaHi frowned up at him.

His face remained unabashed. Then he pointed upwards. The girl's eyes followed his indication.

"There are many people," he told her with a curt nod.

"What?" She squinted upward, "How can that be? People don't live in the clouds, Kaze."

"Maybe they do now," he didn't seem to be joking this time.

Aunt SaRa said that the place I was going to was special. Maybe it really is somewhere up in the sky?

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"Many people are up there," he reassured her quickly. "You don't feel them?"

She shook her head. All she could do was peer up, squinting at the wide bellies of the clouds in wonderment.

What if he's right? What if there are really...

The sound of an unfamiliar voice echoing across the hollow pulled her from her pondering, "It's time for you to move along, strangers. This territory has already been claimed."

AsaHi turned, taking an unconscious step closer to Kaze, "Who...?"

"He's been following and watching us," Kaze murmured under his breath. "Thinks he's clever."

A man stood on the crest of the hillside, framed by the blue behind him. He was tall and his white hair was streaked with the pale silver of weathered decades. Despite his age, his eyes were young and a brilliant, fiery green. His expression was fiercely intent, watching their every move with careful calculation. Between his clenched fists he held a strange weapon – a hooked metal blade attached to a silver chain.