Felin

Fourth Adian

Kelkera bolted away leaving them in the darkness. Kicit started to form ideas in his head of how he would stall Elacce. How could he coerce information out of the Master? Through his entire Apprenticeship he had done nothing but look up to him but now…now felt odd. But he didn’t have a chance to form more than an echo of an actual idea before the dried resin strips wrapped around his talons shattered to dust, instantly freeing them. Then, in a singular motion, the ropes untied themselves, leaving a throbbing in his talons as the blood rushed back into them. It forced a sharp breath and Kicit rubbed his scaly hands together, relieved to be in control of himself again. 

A voice, neigh unrecognizable, emerged from the darkness. It’s timbre filled with a sort of malice that scared Kicit to his brittle bones.“Kicit, we’re leaving.” It said and he instantly shot to his feet. Master Elacce had never used that tone with him. It had been reserved for those he was fighting and dictating demands against; as if he was ordering every movement, every twitch of a muscle. Kicit watched the darkness and finally he materialized, his beak pointed low, cloak loosely draped over his head, hiding his normal warm eyes. Instead it sent shivers down Kicit’s wings. He made a movement and Kicit had barely a moment to catch his pack as it was tossed to him. 

“Master I-” Kicit began but it was as far as he got. 

“You follow me or I will make you follow, is that understood?” Elacce’s eyes zeroed in on Kicit like arrows on their target and instantly Kicit’s feathers ruffled with an icy fear. This was different. This was not the Master that he’d grown up with. The Avian who stood before him was something else entirely, something that had replaced the Master that’d taught him Magic. The Master who had given him his cloak. A blackness welled inside Kicit’s stomach, he’d felt it many times before but never because of Elacce. Kicit was terrified. Every ounce of his body, every feather, screamed at him to step back, to run, to fly up and escape. But that couldn’t be right… right? For as ominous as the Corvid was, it was still Elacce…right? Kicit let his beak open slightly but the creature was not content with waiting and swooped in on his apprentice. “Kicit,” he demanded, anger coursing through his words, “am I understood?” 

“Yes, Master,” was all Kicit could say. Nothing else could come out; nothing else would come out. It was the only answer that he could give, and Kicit felt that Elacce knew it as well. When he deftly turned and made a few steps towards the threshold of the Refuge, Kicit felt himself hesitating. His talons refused to move. 

“Kicit?” It was a demand and all he had to say before Kicit trotted after him, following Elacce out of Beast’s Refuge and back into the Ruptured Grove. 

***

Kicit didn’t even notice that the sun had risen. That the feral birds had started to whistle and sing. That the forest around them had started to change from its nocturnal slumber to its morning revelry. No. Nothing would have broken him from the centered gaze he had on the back of Elacce’s covered head. The old Avian had continued to walk at a brisk pace, unbothered by his recent actions, retracing their steps from their last mission to Atheson. But instead of assigning a task or problem to think about, Elacce was silent. Everything swirled in Kicit’s head. He could only drown out the silence by shouting to himself within his mind's eye to and ignore it. But it was far too late, not even the swirling winds could distract him. 

There was something with Elacce. Not like he was disappointed in his Apprentice or that something had happened back home, no, Kicit had seen all of those before. This was true emotion; a thorough intensity beyond what Kicit thought possible from the Master. Yet he could not shake the thought, and fact, that this emotion was brought out by Kicit himself. 

The thread that connected them frayed. He’d always seen Elacce standing by his side the moment he selected his own student. Always imagined asking about the best way to mentor, the best way to teach, the best way to help his own Apprentice. But those all seemed a fantasy now. Some far off missed potential that had flown by without him realizing. 

In that Kicit felt slighted; like Elacce had stopped him from doing what he was good at. Like Elacce had kept his talons dug into his wings and clipped them, preventing him from soaring to his full height. The sun had already risen to cast long morning shadows before Kicit worked the courage to say something, anything. 

“Master,” he finally got out, pushing the word out with such force that it sickened him, “master, what are you doing?” Elacce continued to walk a few paces but stopped in his tracks, glancing over his shoulder. 

“We’re on a mission Kicit. Shut your beak and let me handle it.” The words pierced him farther than any weapon could have. A shiver formed in Kicits talons, radiating up his wings and deep into his stomach as his breaths grew quicker. He wasn’t going to take that. No, he wouldn’t take it. The dam broke. 

“You’re on a mission Master…I’m just….just here! For eight years I've done everything, performed everything, practiced everything, listened to every damn thing that you gave me. I accepted every excuse that you threw at me, thinking that there was some angle that I wasn’t seeing. Thinking that you’d include me in that. Thinking that one day I may finally be able to prove to you that I’m a Mage, that I deserve an equal place in the Order and not just your Apprentice. But you…” Kicit squeezed his talons. “But you will never think of me beyond an Apprentice…will you.” He stopped, digging his gaze into Elacce’s back, willing the Avian to turn and face him but he didn’t move. 

“Kicit I…” 

“What are you not telling me?” He wasn’t about to let more platitudes escape his beak. “What are you doing with Tontashi? What did Kelkera ever do to us? What are we even doing here?” Kicit took a step towards Elacce but paused and let the words sink in, sensing hesitation from the Master. But he just stood there, unmoving. His talons, dropped to his sides, balled into fists. 

“Kicit…” Elacce started, the name seeming so difficult for him. Like he’d never said it before. Like someone had picked it out of his vocabulary and tossed it aside. “So is it now then,” he said and Kicit snapped his beak. 

“I’ll not let you take another step. Tell me, tell me everything!”

Elacce let his head fall to the ground before he drew in a very long breath. “I just…just didn’t want you to be me,” he said. The words soft with more emotion than Kicit had ever heard from the aged beak. At one point it would have softened Kicit’s pointed words, but he felt it was beyond that. There were secerets he would dig out one way or another. 

“You couldn’t take that I was going to be like you? What sort of idiot do you think I am? You’re training me to be you.” A silence filled the air and Elacce pulled his talons to his face, as if trying to hide it from Kicit even more. 

“I…I know,” he said, voice wavering in a way that Kicit had never heard. “It’s my greatest failure.” 

Kicit couldn’t bring himself to even begin to comprehend the insanity Elacce was spewing and it held his tongue long enough for Elacce to finally gather the courage to turn and face his Apprentice. Kicit, one foot planted in front of him in defiance bore Elacce down, anger exploding within him.

“Now I’m a failure to you?” Kicit snarled, on the verge of Casting a release to punish Elacce for even saying it. But the Master looked at him through hazy eyes.

“I’m the failure Kicit, not you. It looks as though I couldn’t protect you. Couldn’t shield you from the Order.” 

“Shield me from the Order? You have been holding me back! I deserve to be in it, I deserve to pick my own Apprentice!”

“You have been poisoned by a lie!” Elacce interjected, cutting Kicit off. “Sweet platitudes that we…I have been bound to ever since I took upon the Order in my youth. I fear your friends have as well. Rukheim’s Order is not one of righteous valor. It’s not an allyship, it’s not a coalition. It’s none of those things. It’s a threat.” 

“Of course it’s a threat. If anyone attacks the Avians then the Canines will retaliate.” Kicit had heard it before, it was a foundation of how Avians had survived over the last thousand years. Under the watchful eye of the Canines and Rukiem’s Order who kept the relationship strong. But Elacce’s tone didn’t change. 

“It’s not a threat to would-be attackers.” Elacce’s voice cracked and he drew a short breath. “It’s a threat to us.” 

“It’s…a threat to us?” Kicit repeated; the cogs of his mind making connections he hadn’t before. Connections that should have been there the whole time. Realizations that had always been within his grasp. Something felt like it broke, some sort of understanding, some kind of connection severed with an audible snap and Kicit drew a few paces back. 

“It’s a threat to those of Magical ability. Follow orders…’until the great moons no longer glow’ and ships will not decent upon The Risen Isle. Any Avian of magical ability, any Avian who can truly weave a Release, enters the Order handed down by Rukheim is beholden to the Canines.” A short breath cut his words. “For life.” 

“Kelkera was right.” Kicit said but Elacce recentered his gaze on Kicit. 

“I told you to stay away from her!” He called, showing the anger once again. 

“Isn’t that exactly why you brought me along! To see new things and meet new people?”

“Not those kinds of people!” Elacce turned aside. “What would the Canines think? Their most prominent tool befriending a Fox!” They tore into Kicit, the revolting choice of words breaking his vision of his old Master. But he seemed to retreat and avoided the gaze of Kicit’s stare. 

“Tool?” Kicit questioned but Elacce didn’t respond and kept his gaze at the ground. Elacce wasn’t talking about himself, he was referring to him, to Kicit. Some silent moments passed as the two stood, unsure of what to say. 

“I didn’t want you to be hurt Kicit.”

“Right, because you’ve done such a good job of not hurting me. You’ve lied to me. You’ve held me back. You’ve fed me nothing but nonsense! What would Kelkera even do to me, to us?” 

“Nothing…yet,” Elacce whispered. Kicit took a step forward. 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” There wasn’t an answer. The words had stopped but Kicit’s mind still churned, he hadn’t done anything. But he will, or, he would have. 

Elacce just stood quietly as Kicit struggled to get it until he thought back to what Elacce had originally told him. Why had Elacce been so curious about the guards who were protecting the Esurian King? Why had he kept a distance from everyone in the refuge, especially the Vulpines? Then Elacce did something he never thought he’d see. The Master fell to the ground, chest heaving with sobs as he struggled to speak.

“Don’t say it Kicit,” his broken words barely understandable between heaves. “Please, I’m begging you. Just don’t.” But there was no getting around it. It was clear. They weren’t mere diplomatic spies. 

“You’re after the King.” Kicit choked as the idea formed within him. 

“No no no.” 

For a half a heartbeat, Kicit thought he was denying the idea, but he wasn’t. It served as a confession to Elacce’s true purpose. He was an Assassin. All Avian Mage’s, all those within the Order were assassins, soldiers, agents, or whatever the Canine’s demanded of them. 

“But…” Kicit felt his wings drop, like he were falling out of mid air. Tumbling to the ground in an irreversible death spiral. His entire Apprenticeship was a lie. “Why the Vulpines unless…it’s a set up.” He finished and Elacce met his eyes, again confirming what he already knew. 

“I’ve been searching since I chose you for a way out of all of this. A way to let you break from the Order without calling the destruction of our people.” He opened his wings. “I think I found it, but it’s not perfect and not ready just yet…you’ll need to trust me.” Elacce muttered but Kicit, sensing control over the Master leaned over the kneeling Avian. 

“Trust you?” He screeched, putting as much contempt between his words as he could. “I…I’m going to do more than that.” Kicit resolved and formed an order of Releases and Cantos in his head.

“Don’t do what you know you can’t,” was all Elacce was able to get out before Kicit spoke his Canto. It was quick, only perceivable by a practiced ear.

“I won’t let you,” Kicit said and drew his Release, its bright rapport hidden under his cloak. An overwhelming sense of righteous rage filled Kicit and he channeled it into his will. 

Burn hot and bright, surround Elacce in flames. Don’t let anything survive. 

His Release burst forth, drawing fire from the morning air and converging on Elacce. Sulfur singed the air and the inferno forced Kicit to shield his face from the fireball. Then, the fatigue hit, sending needles of pain coursing through his wings and legs but he wouldn’t stand down. It would take more than that to stop Elacce.