Chapter 23: Chapter 22: Tensions rising

Eirlathion was shocked when he’d heard about members of the village guard being found dead at their posts, a single arrow to the eye of each.  a panicked man had come to his house, telling him about the situation. As soon as he heard the situation, his apprentice Kiiria, went pale.

[Do NOT gather together!] she yelled all of a sudden, attracting the eyes of both Eirlathion and the man who delivered the message.

[Kiri, what is going on?] Eirlathion asked.

[This! This is the dark elves! It’s what they do when they attack! First, they kill the evening guards. Then, they attack when the village’s defense forces are rallying up, and they take them all out at once with fire magic!] she explained.

[What? Is that true?] the man who’d brought the message asked.

[Ok,] Eirlathion said, [gather everyone at the nursery tree a few at a time. It has awoken as a nymph, and the seals I have put up a year ago seem to be feeding it a great deal of power from the humans who belong to Tiaren and Asaren. That power was meant for the girls, but it very well may save us tonight.]

[Also, bring the humans and the children first,] he added. [Giving “Nymph” even more energy to resist their elemental magic will be crucial.] Even after a year, it still felt really strange for him to use the name their village’s nymph (sikitii) had taken on its own. Or rather, they reported that Asaren had named them, which was even stranger. Now was not the time to be bothered by something like that, though. If they were going to be depending on Nymph for their safety, it would be best to go along with whatever the tree spirit wanted.

That tree spirit was troublesome. It had already been rather disagreeable with the people of the village, and the energy heart he’d created for it from those humans was going to accelerate their development into a dryad (lukis.) This village will likely have to be abandoned the day that nursery tree awakens into a dryad. But, for now, it may very well be the thing to help them through this night.

The man took Eirlathion’s instructions, and ran to pass the word along. Meanwhile, Eirlathion turned to the woman apprenticed under him, who had been struggling for a while to remain sane since even before this night.

When Kiiria was brought to this village, four cycles of the seasons ago, all anyone knew was that she was the only person they could find who had survived the destruction of the village nearest to the Heaven Fall.

Four years ago, a great column of light struck down from the sky, shaking the very earth they stood on. The fey court had said that this was an incursion from the great cosmic space, and one with so much power that even the foundation felt the impact.

The village Kiiria lived in had been an unfortunate victim. It was completely removed from existence. It was not directly in the way of the light that fell, but it struck with so much force that even the surrounding trees and soil were swept away and pushed to the edges of the barren rocky area now called the Heaven Scar.

She somehow miraculously survived, having been blown high into the air and flung through the forest. The column of light, it had turned out, was pure spirit energy. While its arrival had grievously injured her, the vast spirit energy it had brought with it miraculously healed and strengthened her. She also somehow managed to keep the twin daughters she carried within her at that time.

For a long period of time after Tiiaren and Asaren were born, Eirlathion had assumed it was because of this vast amount of spirit energy they were exposed to early in the womb that caused them to have skin of such an unhealthy color. The deathly grey and pale color that usually indicated an elf was suffering from spiritual depletion. A deadly condition for any who did not receive a large amount of spirit energy to restore them.

However, the girls were quite healthy despite their ghastly skin color. As Eirlathion saw this, along with the silvery color of hair they had as it grew out, he began to suspect something else. Deep down, he had known for a while that the initial things he had assumed had been wrong.

He had realized Kiiria was hiding something horrible that had happened, likely on the same night  the Heaven Fall occurred. He had always refused to think about it. Even though Kiiria refusing to even be near the girls made it almost impossible to ignore, he still made excuses to himself and to the others in the village. Whether they believed him or not, the others at least pretended that they continued to be convinced by the lie that it was mere spirit deprivation sickness that caused the unhealthy color of the girls.

The girls grew quickly, reaching the same size and state of physical development as a human child would at the same respective age. He had managed to convince everyone that this was caused by the human boys they had found. Those two boys were an incredible find. Finding one child with such incredible and pure spirit energy was unheard of, but there were two in the same human village...

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It was not unprecedented for an elven child to develop skills such as walking and talking more quickly when exposed to a lot of human spiritual energy. The spiritual energy of the humans helped the spirit of the child to bind to the physical world more quickly, carrying down the memories of the soul. However, this would be the first time it had actually caused an elven child to physically grow at such a speed.

The problem was that if they were receiving enough spiritual energy to enhance their physical growth, it made it far harder to believe that the color was due to spiritual deprivation. Eirlathion had needed to spin excuse after excuse about it being due to the exposure to the Heaven Fall shortly following conception. Fortunately, this excuse had been made easier to believe when the girls showed a remarkable amount of mental growth as well, even outstripping the already remarkable physical growth. Eirlathion had managed to teach them how to behave as though they were far weaker, as though they really were lacking in energy, at least when there were others watching.

No. It was a certainty that the girls were truly grey elves, and if that is the case then it was very clear how they had come to be conceived.

He walked up to the apprentice, who now must be re-living the most horrible moment she had ever experienced, and placed a hand on the shoulder of the trembling young woman. [Kiiria, you still wish to avoid the nursery tree, correct?] he asked. The woman shook and she raised her weak and frightened eyes up to him. [You do not have the ability to fight yet. You were exposed to the energy from the Heaven Fall. This has strengthened you in body and spirit far beyond what is normal for a young elf. You even have power that surpasses me. But, you do not know how to use that strength yet. You are simply not ready to fight.]

He kept a solemn expression as he stepped past her. [I will have the spirit of my house cover the windows over in bark. You can hide on the upper level, in my indoor garden.]

He would like to have said more, to assure her perhaps, but there was not time to waste on fortifying the emotions of a single young woman. Neither one of them had that luxury. He was needed elsewhere.

***

The din from the people arriving downstairs continued to grow. The children were a ball of nerves when they arrived, but their fear was more based on the tense air and strange behavior of the adults than any actual awareness of what was going on. There were no more happy voices from the odd person who showed joy at seeing the four denizens of the nursery. Most of them were just quiet, some whispering in worried tones, others trying to reassure younger children in a way that suggested they were really trying to reassure themselves. An example of this would be the girl who almost seemed to want to use me as a security blanket.

In contrast, the adults downstairs were being quite noisy. The din was mostly hushed whispers, but there were a few voices rising up from among the lower floor and making the children up here even more nervous. Some of what I was hearing from down there raised some concerns.

At first, it was just senseless mutterings like [I knew it! I knew it this whole time! Master Eirlathion has been lying to us!] The individual, or individuals, ranting about this were quickly shushed by several others in the crowd. After a while, though, there was at least one out of the crowd of indignant individuals who was driven by fear and agitation to ignore what seemed to be the popular opinion favoring to remain calm.

[You can’t just allow this to happen, we might all die because of this!] a female voice said. There were some harsh groaning sounds of several frustrated people, and some whispers that were harder to make out. Generally, though, they seemed to be aimed at this discontent speaker with an aim to talk them down.

There were phrases like, [think of where we are!] and [your talking is what could get us killed!]

I had only a vague idea that what they were referring to might have something to do with me and Tia. That was fairly concerning. They had said something about Eirlathion lying, and the comment about “think of where we are” could easily refer to Nymph, who would show no mercy to someone she thought was threatening me.

There is trouble brewing, that’s for sure. I didn’t like it. It looked like some precautions had to be made against whatever was cooking up downstairs. I placed my hand on the floor again and told Nymph to seal us off from the lower floor.

The children up here stirred when the opening to the lower floor covered itself, and there were several even more agitated voices from downstairs. Of course this would upset some people. But, at the rate things were going, it would have been far worse to allow one of those agitated individuals to make their way up here.

A battle not fought is a battle won. Whatever these people were planning, this was the worst possible time for it.

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