A Few Notes:
-A friend of mine on Livejournal helped me with the chapter title.
-This is still rough, obviously. I had a hard time describing the part where the figures (toward the end of the chapter) came and told Kaliyah to go with them, but that's something that can be worked on when I go to edit it, after the draft is finished.
-As far as critiquing goes, just basic stuff, other than grammar and stuff (I plan on dealing with that eventually). Characterization, plot, that kind of stuff works. I don't plan on dealing with the grammar and whatnot until after I've finished the first draft (because otherwise it tends to frustrate me and I give up), which is why I ask for more generalized critiques that don't include grammar if possible.
-Anne is not going to be her actual middle name, mainly because it's too modern for when this takes place and I haven't been able to think of another name.
Chapter One:
Stranger's Entrance
The stench of dust filled her nostrils as she entered the abandoned throne room. It was evident that she was possibly the first to step in to the room in more than forty years.
Kaliyah’s green eyes darted around the room. Straight above was a high, arched ceiling made of glass. Below a balcony with stairs on either side was a dais where a throne awaited. She walked slowly to the dais and climbed the small set of stairs, standing in front of the throne. She lifted her fingers back up and looked at the dust that now covered her finger before flicking it off.
Her eyes narrowed to the ground as she heard footsteps from behind her. She turned slowly and found herself staring in to a set of dark brown eyes.
“Hello, Archer.”
Kaliyah sat up, a tight frown on her face. It took her a minute to realize where she was after looking around and saw that she was in her room. With a sigh of relief, she pushed the covers off her legs and moved to stand so she could get dressed.
A few minutes later, she walked out of her room and down the hall to the top of a back staircase. After pushing her red hair behind her ear, she walked slowly down the stairs, which led to the kitchen of her parent’s house.
Sitting at the table eating their breakfasts were her youngest and oldest brothers, Jasek and Kaldar.
“Good morning, Kaliyah,” her mother greeted as she came from the other entrance.
Kaliyah looked up as her mother walked over to her and planted a kiss on her forehead. She then stepped back and raised an eyebrow, placing her hands on her hips.
“Kaliyah Anne, what are you wearing?”
Kaliyah looked down at her clothes. She wore a pair of brown boots going to just below her knees, partially covered by a pair of brown pants.
She wore a white tunic with loose sleeves and leather arm guard on each wrist.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Kaliyah asked, frowning.
“I think you know what,” her mother replied.
“You better not let Father catch you wearing that,” Kaldar teased, looking up at his sister.
She shrugged after a moment’s hesitation, “So I won’t let him see me.” She walked toward the kitchen entrance. “I’ll be back later.”
After waiting to hear the front door close, Kaldar shook his head, “Too much like Erabus for her own good.”
“Kaldar, shh! Do you want Kaliyah to hear you?” her mother scolded in a soft whisper. “Your brother meant the world to Kaliyah. If she heard you say that . . .”
“Jealous, Kaldar?” Jasek interrupted.
“No, of course not,” Kaldar said, eyebrows coming together as he frowned. “It’s just . . . she needs to grow up, and part of that means putting her bow and arrow away and forgetting about it.”
“I still think you’re jealous,” Jasek teased.
Kaldar scowled at his brother, moving to stand up. He pushed his chair back to the table.
“Perhaps she does need to grow up,” her mother cut in, looking at her son. “But putting her bow and arrows away would just be more of a reminder of Erabus’s disappearance. Besides, she’s only seventeen; there’s still time for her to grow up on her own without jealous brothers trying to make her do so,” she smiled a bit.
“I’m not jealous!” Kaldar glared at his mother before walking to his mother, who stood with her arms crossed at her chest, watching as her children bickered. He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek before pulling the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “I’m heading back to the barracks. I’ll be training a lot over the next few weeks, so you won’t see me for a while.”
As he started walking toward the main kitchen entrance, Kaliyah, who had been leaning against the wall, immediately walked toward the door and opened it.
“Kaliyah, wait,” Kaldar said as soon as he saw her standing there.
Kaliyah just looked up at him somberly before opening the door wider and walking outside, closing the door shut behind her.
*****
The streets of Kalevi were crowded today, though Kaliyah suspected that it was due to being market day. She kept walking further from her house, not looking over her shoulder to see who was standing at the door when she heard it creak open.
She didn’t know whether to be frustrated or hurt by the words of her siblings; perhaps she was a bit of both. The mention of Erabus, her second oldest brother that she had been closest to, had brought up old feelings that she hadn’t felt for almost a year now.
With a heavy sigh, Kaliyah set out into the streets, heading toward the center of town.
A family friend named Jacira lived in one of the smaller houses on the main street. For the longest time Kaliyah had been convinced that Jacira and her grandfather would have made a perfect match, despite the two denying such a possibility, though not in front of each other.
She walked toward the house and opened the unlocked door, which was usual for Jacira. As soon as she stepped in, her nose caught wind of the aroma of a freshly baked pie.
Kaliyah walked straight ahead and in to the kitchen area, where she saw Jacira in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, rocking slowly and knitting what looked to be a blanket. Sitting on the windowsill was a pie, steam still coming from the top of it.
The woman, who was seventy in age but far from frail looking, looked up from her knitting, squinting at Kaliyah and peering at her. “Kaliyah?” she asked. “Well, where’ve you been, girl? You haven’t visited in . . . five, six weeks now!”
Kaliyah gave a soft smile, moving to pull a chair from the table in the middle of the room and sit down. “Sorry, Jacira. I’ve been a little busy.” Not entirely true, but it would serve her purpose for now, which was to avoid talking about what she had actually been doing.
Jacira raised an eyebrow and looked carefully at Kaliyah through her deep blue eyes; she narrowed them before putting her knitting on a small table by her chair.
“Your father tells me he’s worried about you,” she said. “And I don’t blame him. You’ve been . . . distant lately.”
Kaliyah shook her head, “I’m fine, Jacira. I’ve just been keeping to myself more than I used to, that’s all. Besides, my father always worries about me.”
“He didn’t used to,” Jacira countered. “Not when Erabus was around to watch after you.”
Kaliyah bit down on her lower lip at the mention of her brother’s name. What was with people bringing him up all of a sudden? Why can’t they just . . . let him stay dead and leave it?
No one knew for sure if Erabus was dead, of course; they had searched for a few months for him and found no trace. Eventually they gave up searching and assumed that he had been killed.
“Yes, well . . . I’ve grown up. I don’t need anyone to watch after me,” she replied in a grumble. “Look . . . if all you’re going to do is ask me questions so that you can report how I’m doing to my father, I’m just going to leave.”
Jacira looked taken aback by the harshness in Kaliyah’s tone, but the hurt disappeared from her face after a moment. She nodded slowly, “I was only trying to help, Kaliyah. That’s all any of us are trying to do. “
Kaliyah sighed and nodded, considering the woman’s words. She knew that they were all just trying to help, even though she didn’t believe she needed the help. She had slowly begun getting over the disappearance of her brother some time ago, and it didn’t help when people continuously brought him up. It just makes things worse for me in the end, she thought.
Her head turned and she looked out the window. She stood and moved toward it, watching as various people passed by and went about their business.
Wandering through the street to the right was a cloaked figure, huddled over and walking in a hurry. It was tall and it was hard to make out any other features as it walked further and further away. But for some reason, Kaliyah’s eyes were drawn to it, watching as it continued walking.
Jacira looked at the girl curiously, turning her head to one side. “What are you watching?”
Just as the figure disappeared from sight, Kaliyah tore her eyes away, looking to the floor. “Nothing,” she replied after a moment. “I just thought I saw . . . something.” She looked back up at Jacina, who raised an eyebrow. “It was nothing, Jacira. I’m going to head out now.”
She turned to start walking away, but stopped when she felt the older woman grab her wrist. She looked down at the hand before looking back up.
“Kaliyah . . . be careful,” she said before slowly letting go of her wrist.
With a small frown, Kaliyah nodded slowly before turning away and walking back to the front door. She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned it, then looked back over her shoulder at Jacira. With a sigh, she looked away and opened the door, walking back out in to the crowded street once more.
A few buildings away from Jacira’s house was a weapon’s shop that Kaliyah visited often. Mostly she liked to just look at any new weapons the sword smith who owned it had that he’d made. On some days she bought new arrows, since her brother hadn’t been able to teach her how to make them himself before he disappeared.
Kaliyah entered the weapon’s shop just as a robed figure with the hood pulled up started walking out of the entrance, making it very awkward. Once she squeezed through, she turned her head over her shoulder and watched as the figure walked away. She frowned as she recognized it as being the man she had seen outside of Jacira’s. After a moment, she turned her head back and began looking around. Save for the owner sitting behind one of the cases of weapons, the shop was empty of anyone else besides her.
She walked to the case that the sword smith sat behind and looked down in to it. There were some long swords on the top shelf, and below them on the same shelf were a few jeweled daggers. Beneath them on the bottom shelf were some knives and throwing stars.
“’Ello, Archer,” the sword smith greeted.
Kaliyah looked up and looked at the sword smith with a grin, “Hello Andrius,” she greeted. “Got any new arrows in stock today?”
“Not today, Archer. Been getting requests for swords lately. I’ll probably have some more arrows within a few weeks,” he replied. The sword smith stood to his full height, which was a mere 5’5,” and showed the rest of his plump body. He reached up to scratch at the start of a beard on his chin as he walked over to one of the other cases full of weapons. He reached in to the case from behind and pulled out a long sword, sheathed in a scabbard, placing it on top of the case and unsheathing it.
The sword was decorated with three different colors of jewels, totaling five, with blue and green as repeated colors. On the blade was a rose design, with small writing beneath it.
“I made this just a few days ago. I was able to buy the jewels in the market for a cheap price, and I used a method my Pa taught me when designing the rose,” Andrius replied.
Kaliyah watched as Andrius pulled the sword out of its sheath; her eyes were instantly drawn to the jewels, first, then to the rose on the blade. “May I?”
With a nod, Andrius handed Kaliyah the sword by the handle first. Kaliyah took the handle and used her other hand to hold the heavy blade up. It was lighter than most swords she’d held before. She turned the blade over once before looking up at the sword smith. “How much?”
The sword smith thought for a moment before responding. “Thirty-five Adrostos, and nothing less.”
Kaliyah thought her eyes were going to bulge out of their sockets when she heard that price. Thirty-five Adrostos was a lot of money; money that Kaliyah didn’t have even on her best days in archery tournaments.
With a soft smile, she placed the sword back on the counter. “I think I’ll pass. Swords were more my brother’s weapon, any way,” she said, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.
“Aye, your brother did have a good hand with a sword . . . shame what happened to him, that,” Andrius replied.
The theme of the day seemed to be “remind Kaliyah about her brother’s disappearance.” All it did was bring more pain to her heart.
She turned away and walked to the door of the store, opening it and walking back out in to the streets. She didn’t know where else she wanted to go; she had gone to the two places she had planned on, and they had brought her nothing but pain with old memories. She walked down the street once more until she finally came to an opening between some buildings on the left side of the street where she could see a large clearing and a forest behind it. She turned to walk between the two buildings and in to the clearing.
Just as she was about to step in to the clearing, two men stepped out from next to the buildings in front of her. She stopped and turned to walk back between the buildings but a third man stood in her way. She turned back to look at the first two men. All three wore long brown cloaks with the hoods pulled tightly over their faces.
“Are you Kaliyah Pentalas?” the man on her right asked.
“I . . . am. How did you know my name?” she replied hesitantly.
“That’s not important right now. What is important, however, is that you come with us, and quickly,” he replied.
“Go with you where? And why should I?” she replied.
“Because if you don’t, Balin here will have to use . . . physical force,” the one on her left replied, nodding to the man behind her.
She looked over her shoulder to see a tall man at least six feet tall, with a buff chest and shoulders. In his hand he held a small dagger. She didn’t have a choice but to go with them. “All right . . . I’ll go with you,” she said as she looked back at the men.
They began leading the way, the first two men walking in front of her with Balin behind her.
*****
The men led her in to the forest and through one of the main trails, one that she’d been on many times when at the side of her brother. In fact, the last time she had walked the trail was not long after he had disappeared.
The men stayed quiet, and so she did the same. Thoughts ran through her head as she wondered where she was being taken. She supposed those who had . . . certain intentions wouldn’t know her name before hand. Perhaps these were the friends of one of her brothers; yes, that had to be it . . .
They entered a large clearing where three other cloaked figures stood awaiting them, all with the hoods pulled tight around their faces. A total of eight rocks large enough to sit on sat in a circle within the middle of the clearing.
The three figures that had brought Kaliyah to the clearing moved to three of the rocks and stood behind them, saying nothing. Kaliyah watched them move behind the rocks and frowned. She opened her mouth to ask why they had done that and what was going on but was interrupted.
“Greetings, young Pantelas,” one of the figures who had been waiting for them greeted. “My name is Faran. Do you know why you are here?”
“No. I was hoping you would tell me,” Kaliyah replied with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for them to explain what was going on.
A smile played at the tips of Faran’s lips, “Aye, and that we will, Kaliyah. But I do not think it is my job to tell you.”
“Then who’s is it?”
“Mine,” replied the hooded figure in the middle of the three. The figure pulled its hood back, revealing a man standing not much taller than Kaliyah herself, at about 5’9”. He had a long scar running from just below his left eye to above his top lip, and brown hair pulled back in to a short ponytail. His eyes settled on Kaliyah, attempting to make eye contact.
Kaliyah stood there with her mouth agape. If it weren’t for the dark blue eyes she made eye contact with, she wouldn’t have believed who it was.
“Erabus?” she asked in a half whisper.
He nodded slowly, walking toward her. “It’s me, Kaliyah.”
Kaliyah looked up at him; her eyes landed on the scar along his cheek. That hadn’t been there the last time she had seen him.
It was then that a sudden burst of anger began to grip at her heart, deep within her chest. Her brother was standing there like nothing had ever happened, and she hadn’t been mourning for him for the past year. The more the anger gripped at her heart, the harder she found it to resist.
So when she found herself walking at a fast pace toward him, and her left fist swinging toward his cheek, hitting it hard, she was surprised at herself but relieved at the same time to know that he wasn’t a ghost come to haunt her from the grave. The smacking sound from his cheek hitting teeth confirmed that he was definitely not a ghost.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said through gritted teeth. “Everyone thought you were dead.”
Erabus stumbled as his sister’s fist punched him hard in the cheek, his head turning to one side. After a moment he turned his head back to look at her, a look of surprise on his face for a moment. Of all the reactions he had been expecting from his sister, a punch in the face was not one of them.
“I’ve been alive all this time, Kaliyah. I just . . .” He sighed, as though beginning to realize that perhaps he had made a mistake. “I was forced in to hiding for a while.”
“A year is hardly “a while,” Erabus. And it still doesn’t excuse your not telling me you were just going to disappear for a while,” Kaliyah replied.
“It was for the best, considering the circumstances,” the figure on Erabus’s left said. “For reasons we’ve yet to tell you, we had to make it seem like Erabus was dead until the right time.”
Kaliyah looked at the figure for a moment before her eyes traveled back to her brother. “Mother and Father gave up looking for you. Everyone believed you had been murdered, even though no body was found . . .”
“It’s better for them to keep thinking I am dead,” Erabus replied.
“Even me?” Kaliyah snapped. “Your own sister . . . we used to tell each other everything, and you couldn’t even tell me that you had to leave?”
“Kaliyah, it wasn’t that simple. There wasn’t time to tell you, and you wouldn’t have believed me. I’m still not sure that you will believe us, but we’re here, now, at an important time,” Erabus said with a sigh. “I wanted to tell you, believe me. I didn’t want to hurt you by leaving.”
Just then, Kaliyah heard a branch snap from behind her and whirled around to see another cloaked figure approaching. This time, however, Kaliyah recognized him as the figure she had seen outside of Jacina’s and in the weapons shop when she had entered.
“You . . . what are you doing here? Have you been following me?” Kaliyah asked.
“Not quite,” the figure replied, smirking. He looked to Faran. “We’re all set. Should only take us a few days at most,” he said.
Kaliyah was about to ask what he was talking about when Faran spoke again. “Ah, good,” he said. He then moved toward the circle of rocks, standing in front one of them. Erabus and the other figures followed, standing behind the rocks as the ones who escorted her did. “Kaliyah, please. Join us.”
She hesitated; things were happening a little too fast for her. First she was told to follow strangers in to a forest, and then the brother she thought had disappeared had come back from the dead. And yet . . . she found her feet moving her forward despite her hesitation. Faran motioned for her to sit down on a rock next to Erabus, and she did. The figure that had just entered moved to the last remaining rock, still standing.
“And now, Kaliyah, I believe we owe you an explanation,” Faran said.
-------
Okay, that's it for chapter one. I'm probably going to start working on chapter two tomorrow. Took a few days off from writing, so I can get back to it. ^_^
Pronunciations (to the best of my ability):
Kaliyah (character)- Kuh-lee-uh
Erabus (character)- Eh-ray-bus
Adrostos (currency)- Uh-dros-tus
Andrius (character- An-dry-us
Jacira ((character)- Juh-ceer-uh
Kalevi (place)- Kal-ev-eye
