The Falcon Princess

Chapter 3

Ugh, seriously! All the blood is rushing to my brain, you imbecile!

Zelly was very irritated but calmly accepted the situation because she could at least breathe now. She didn’t want to be choked again by that ridiculously strong grip for throwing another fit.

She looked the man up and down from her position. Why did it have to be someone high up on the ladder? She blamed her bad luck. She thought back to what the knight had called him. Commander. Of course, a military group as large as this one had to have someone in charge.

Wait. Commander? As in commander-in-chief? Zelly nearly passed out, realizing that the allied camp she’d flown into had a commander-in-chief from the Roymund Kingdom. That meant this was the Roymund Kingdom’s Black Barrier, Rohaneim, the pro-queen army and the strongest army in the kingdom. The commander-in-chief of all three armies during wartime was always the general of Rohaneim.

Zelly slowly lifted her eyes and met his icy gaze. Then this man was… Valhyle Rumares?

She had never met this man before. Every time she’d had the chance to meet him, she pretended to be sick, just like she’d done every time she wanted to survive around her bloodthirsty second-oldest sister.

She did the same thing now—she pretended to be dead once again, but more clearly this time. Despite the fact that Zelly was completely stretched loose in his hand, he held on. All he did was lift her and look her over. It was clear he was still suspicious based on how he grabbed her wings tightly again.

“Sir, I’m here on the orders of the colonel of the third regiment. What seems to be the iss—”

The soldier skidded to a stop in front of them at the sight of Zelly in the commander’s hand.

Valhyle’s voice rumbled powerfully as he asked, “This bird—are you certain it escaped from our camp?”

The soldier hesitated. “Uh…”

“Look closely.”

Valhyle shoved Zelly into the hands of the soldier like he was giving him a piece of trash he didn’t want to touch anymore. The soldier turned her over like the commander had and checked the tag on her ankle. She started to wonder if there was something on her to indicate that she was theirs.

After examining the markings on her tail, the soldier hesitantly said, “This is the bird that escaped our camp a few hours ago. It was shrieking for hours this morning, so we wondered if there was something wrong with it. It escaped while we were looking it over.”

Zelly cracked her eye open and looked at the hands of the soldier holding her. Oh, dear. Seeing the scratches on his hands, he had to have been the soldier she’d scratched earlier.

“How are you maintaining our messenger birds? We don’t have that many in the first place.”

“My apologies, sir!”

The man let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.

“Um… sir? Do you know… why it’s like this?” the soldier asked, pointing at the limp bird.

“That’s what I should be asking you. Why did this bird act that way?”

“Did something happen, sir?”

“The bird suddenly dove like it was aiming for my throat or heart. I caught it before it could strike, but it was clearly an attack. Do birds normally act this way?”

“They don’t, sir. Rather, their instinct is to avoid whatever obstacles are in their way.”

The man frowned. “Could the enemy have trained the bird to attack me?”

The soldier jolted. “Sir? That’s impossible. In my opinion… I think this bird may be inexperienced.”

“Inexperienced?”

“Yes, sir. This one isn’t as developed as the others.”

Valhyle sounded dissatisfied as he said, “It flew quite well for an inexperienced bird.”

“It’s grown up enough to fly, sir. But it hasn’t received enough training, so we have yet to use it as an official messenger bird. I’m pretty sure this is the first time it’s flown outside the camp. It’s quite amazing that it flew back.”

“Perhaps its attacking me was a mistake.”

“I believe it was, sir.”

“Very well. You may go.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the soldier turned around, holding her carefully, Zelly sighed to herself. She was about to sigh aloud when the man spoke.

“Leave the bird.”

No! Why?!

“Sir?”

“That bird has a secret document from a dispatch rider. I must know the full story, so leave it.”

“But it doesn’t look in good condition, sir.”

“Is it dead?”

“No, sir.”

Damn it, he caught me. Zelly, who was still playing dead, glared at the soldier who’d clearly stated that she was alive. And right then, her eye met Valhyle’s.

“It isn’t dead. Tie it up in front of my barracks so it can’t fly away,” he said coldly.

“Yes, sir…”

He confirmed that she was tied up tightly before he entered his barracks.

And so, Zelly became a hostage in her own allied camp.

* * *

The knight from before came to the barracks. Despite still being tied up, Zelly felt a little twinge of joy seeing the knight who’d saved her life. The knight was confused at her gentle behavior as he entered the barracks.

“Commander Valhyle, we cannot hear Buzzing Beehive. There must have been a problem, as he should have arrived by now.”

“If there was a problem due to the enemy, then how is it that the escaped bird brought the information Beehive should have brought us? It’s a bird that hasn’t been properly trained, so it’s impossible for it to differentiate allies from enemies.”

“It’s possible the dispatch rider from the fourth regiment discovered the bird and made it deliver the document.”

“That seems a bit improbable, doesn’t it?”

“Sir, what is it that you’re suspicious of?”

“It might be a fake document. The enemy might have captured our dispatch rider, tortured him, and made him tell them how we encrypt our messages. They could have faked a message to trick us.”

“Have you read the document, sir?”

“Yes, I have. But there was no request for help. If he was so wounded that he was unable to deliver the document, there would have been markings on the outside of the document requesting help and giving his coordinates.”

“It might not have been from the enemy, sir.”

“And so we have come full circle. How is it that the message that should have been carried in by our dispatch rider was carried in by an untrained bird, and directly to me at that? It’s much too strange to call it coincidence.”

“Then what will—”

“Skree! Skreee! Skree! Skreeee!!!”

Zelly was eavesdropping when she shrieked as loudly as she could. The knight hastily opened the door in confusion and took hold of her, lifting her. She immediately became quiet, as if she’d been waiting for that to happen. The knight blinked rapidly, looking very confused.

Then, Zelly started to play charades. She suddenly flopped over like she was dead. Now, the knight was even more confused. Seeing how he couldn’t understand her, Zelly wriggled out of the knight’s hand and started to act it out again. She was walking fine, then suddenly flopped over onto the ground. She repeated this five times before a look of recognition finally appeared on the knight’s face.

“Commander Valhyle!”

He ran into the barracks, yelling for the commander-in-chief. Zelly felt a little proud.

“What happened?”

Go ahead, tell him that the dispatch soldier has collapsed somewhere, just as I told you! We have to save every soldier we can, right? Zelly felt excitement in her heart as she craned an ear to hear what the knight was saying.

“I was watching the bird for a moment…”

“Is it sick? Hurt?”

“No, I don’t think so, sir.”

The knight sounded so full of certainty as he exclaimed, “It’s gone mad.”

Zelly felt like someone had struck her with a frying pan.

* * *

Valhyle took a moment before asking, “Mad?”

“Yes, sir. It was repeating ludicrous movements like it was trying to tell me something. I am quite sure it’s gone mad.”

Despite having just heard something absurd, Valhyle didn’t laugh—not even a little. Zelly wanted to peck at the stone-faced man with her new beak, but saving the dispatch rider was much more urgent. She flapped her wings again and started shrieking.

This time, Valhyle approached her. She stopped immediately and stared straight at him. A nearly undetectable frown appeared on his stony face, as if he thought he’d been deceived. Zelly ignored it and started acting again.

Flop. Flop. Flop. Flop.

She was ridiculously embarrassed. A princess acting this way? But the sound of the dispatch rider’s weak heartbeat made her forget all that.

A person’s life depends on this. Zelly put her pride aside and did her best to communicate. Valhyle ran his eyes from her talons to the top of her head. The knight had followed him out and was pointing at her.

“Look at it, sir. I’ve never seen a bird act that way. It seems crazy, does it not?”

“Colonel Luke, just in case, search for the dispatch rider. Stay close to camp.”

“Pardon?”

“Search for him.”

“Yes, sir…”

The knight looked wary of the order but took his leave, and Zelly stopped playing charades immediately. Yes! She flapped her wings once in celebration and then looked proudly at the man who’d understood her. Good job, Commander!

As Zelly shook her tail feathers to signal her satisfaction and praise, he watched her, and his face became stony again.

“It’s true… It doesn’t seem completely normal,” he muttered.

Then he turned around and went back inside the barracks.

Zelly’s beak dropped open. He’d just called her crazy. She stomped a foot into the ground. The cord around it was very annoying. The irritation that was slowly bubbling up inside her made her tremble. I went through all that just for them to call me crazy? If they were going to call her crazy, then why didn’t they untie her?

However, she had to admit it made sense in her situation. She couldn’t lose her cool and confirm their suspicions, so she forced down the anger simmering inside her. If she kept acting crazy, she might be released into the wild as a genuinely crazy bird. She didn’t know how to hunt and had just barely made it to an allied camp, so she couldn’t allow herself to be kicked out. Even she could feel that if she went any further, she would actually become a crazy bird.

I mean, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m a bird. Nothing good would come out of losing her mind. Faced with this horrible tragedy, Zelly stopped thinking about it completely. No, no. That’s enough of that.

It was better this way. Birds didn’t have many facial expressions, right? She might even be a bit freer than when she was a princess since she didn’t have as many expressions.

Zelly looked angry as she huffed and plopped down on the ground. Being a bird made it quite comfortable to sit down with her belly resting on the ground. She soon started to doze off.