The Kingfisher

XV : Ailyn

Ailyn had been perched on her mother's lap as the woman tapped the floor with her heels, combing the girl's golden hair with her fingers. The sailors on the boat were spitting at the sea as if it was their sworn enemy and yelled orders at each other, and soon the schooner was sailing on the placid water. She had turned around to stare into her mother's azure eyes through wide innocent sockets.

"Why did we leave home, mommy?" she asked curiously, glancing at the hostile strangers around her in terror.

Her mother sighed, slowly pulling her child's soft locks into a braid. "Ailyn," she muttered, forcing a smile on her face. "You were born different. You have something in you that Flouorn has not learned to appreciate yet."

"What do I have? Am I sick?" 

She shook her head. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Magic," she whispered. "Magic can save wars and destroy nations. Magic can influence and manipulate."

Ailyn nodded reluctantly.

"But remember the strongest magic of all, the one you can't go wrong with. It's love, Ailyn. Love will always show you the way when your light might not."

She wasn't so sure love could get her out of that situation. Because no matter how much she gave to him, he still found a way to hurt her.

The pain first reached her heart. It felt like a stampede of a thousand soldiers who jostled violently against her ribcage, causing her arm to shoot up and clutch the fabric of her shirt between tight claws. An agonized moan escaped her lips. The darkness was alive, moving along her chest, seeping into her blood, tainting every inch of her body. This is it, she thought, and this time she was sure. This is the day I die. 

Her knees buckled, sending her to the soft blanket of snow. Her face was buried in the soil as she struggled to gasp in a shuddering breath, inhaling water and dirt. A cold wave of needles overwhelmed her spine, pinching her nerves, releasing another scream of misery. If her face wasn't sodden already, the stream of hot tears licking down her cheeks made up for it.

She called for the light. It never reached her. The only thing she received was another pang in her chest, another skipped beat. The more she strained to produce even the tiniest glimmer of light, the more intensely her head pounded. Myriads of dark spots obscured her vision, and Kage's stumped expression blurred out into a pale dot. Your face is the last thing I get to see. Some muscles worked together to tug the corners of her lips up. A month ago, I would have killed a man to make you look at me that way.

She forced her dry mouth open, gulping down a last dose of saliva. "Help me," she croaked, the words scraping her throat like a hundred needles.

The first sound she heard was a distant shout. Soon, a figure slid down to her level, frantically grabbing her face and shaking it left and right. A hand scurried to her throat and pressed under her chin a little too hard. Her pulse was still there, a mere quiver instead of a beat, a muffled whisper begging to faint. And it did. Until a pair of lips closed around hers, blowing a long whiff of air into her lungs.

Her eyes snapped open.

Everything was still blurry, but the tannish face above her couldn't be mistaken. His eyes were clenched shut, yet she didn't need to see those to understand the one who had helped her was Salo. Not Ela, not Nora. Not Kage. But the reserved boy who barely talked and looked at her with sincere awe. The one who had defended her in the hotel. The one who had carried her when her feet were burned. And now, the one who was saving her life. Somehow he had always been there. She was simply too caught up in her own absurd ambitions that she failed to recognize his kindness.