The Falcon Princess

Chapter 4

Zelly awoke with a start. Someone had kicked her. She glared up at the person who’d woken her from her sleep, but she didn’t do anything. She calmed herself. It was the knight who couldn’t understand anything.

Sir Luke, was it? She’d definitely heard that name somewhere but couldn’t place it. However, the reason she’d calmed herself wasn’t because the one who’d tapped her with his foot was Sir Luke—it was because the bowl he’d placed in front of her had food in it.

“You must be hungry. You should eat.”

Zelly forgot about who she was and dove toward the bowl.

Huh? This is…

“Skree!”

Zelly screamed and leaped away from the bowl, which contained two mice, freshly killed and still warm.

Sir Luke watched as she moved away from the bowl and mumbled, “Maybe she doesn’t like it? I heard she normally eats them…”

Zelly sighed. Merlin falcons must have eaten these as their main source of food. But she was human—she couldn’t rip apart mouse corpses to eat as food. The problem was that she was insanely hungry.

“Then do you want to eat this?”

Sir Luke rummaged around and took out something else. Zelly smacked her lips and stared at the lump in his hand.

“Skreeee!”

She leaped backward once again and flapped her wings, screaming mentally as well. Get it away! Get it away!

Sir Luke looked confused as he watched her freak out and put the lump away.

“I’m sure I heard she likes frogs too…”

He cocked his head from side to side as he walked into the barracks. She could hear very clearly what was being said inside.

“Commander Valhyle.”

“Keep things quiet outside.”

“Pardon? I simply tried to feed her.”

Zelly heard nothing. She knew that silence—it was distrust.

“It’s true, sir. I was going to tell the soldier in charge of the messenger birds to feed her, but I was coming here anyway, so I figured I would do it. I carried her food all the way here, but she wouldn’t eat, even though she must be starving.”

“If it won’t eat, then make it eat. It’ll be difficult if the bird dies before the truth is revealed.”

“How can you force a beast to eat when they refuse to? And I did say this earlier, but that bird is crazy. Refusing to eat is proof that a beast is crazy.”

You idiot. Zelly glowered at him from outside the barracks. She couldn’t see her reflection but imagined herself looking dangerous, perhaps even threatening. She decided she would give Sir Luke this look when he came out in a few moments.

“And the search?”

“It’s underway, sir. Only two search parties remain unaccounted for. They will return shortly.”

“Commander!”

As one of the cavalry captains ran toward the barracks, Zelly moved out of his way. If she hadn’t, her tail feathers would have been stepped on. She jerked her head toward the soldier as he ran into the barracks.

“We found the fourth regiment dispatch rider!”

She heard someone jump to their feet.

“Where did you find him?”

“He was closer to us than we’d thought. He was severely wounded, so he was brought to the barracks and is being treated.”

“And how is he?”

“It doesn’t look fatal, sir. We’ve been on the move these past few weeks, so if you hadn’t ordered us to search for him, we might not have found him, sir.”

“That’s true!” Sir Luke exclaimed. “He didn’t request help in the secret message, so we would have assumed he was dead. Commander Valhyle, you have saved yet another Roymundian life.”

“The search parties did good work. Go and get some rest.”

The soldier left with a bounce in his step as Valhyle ordered Sir Luke, “Bring in the bird.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zelly was once again in Sir Luke’s grip. This time, she tried to act like a bird as much as possible, blinking her eyes innocently. She knew that whenever she was in front of Commander Valhyle, all she got was suspicion and animal abuse. She emphasized that she was a bird with her body language as much as she could, looking up at Valhyle, all wide-eyed and innocent.

He frowned down at her, arms crossed.

“Colonel Luke, you should also go and get some rest. Leave the bird’s food.”

“Ah. Yes, sir. Keep her tied up tightly so she can’t attack you,” he said, sounding a little amused.

Then he left in a hurry. Zelly thought hard about what rank Sir Luke was, seeing that he was respectful but somehow strangely comfortable with the commander.

Valhyle tied Zelly to the stake as tightly as possible and sat back down behind his desk. He started shuffling through some papers, trying to decrypt the secret message. Then he wrote some things down and pushed the papers aside.

Zelly picked up on the train of thought she’d abandoned for a moment while this was happening. All sorts of questions flowed out without her even trying. How did I become a bird? And what happened to my original body? How she became a bird, why it had to be a bird, why it was her, what she had to do with this bird—she had no idea about any of that.

Am I really… dead already? Is that why I became a bird? She couldn’t help but be pessimistic, but she forced herself to shake her head. No, nothing’s for certain yet. At least she didn’t have any memories of dying.

Zelly thought she needed to figure out whatever she could about this first. This was an allied camp, so she would most likely be able to figure out what had happened to her. She’d probably be able to find out about the Roymund Kingdom and her siblings as well.

Then first… the secret document from before. Zelly kept that in mind as she tried to look around for the letter she’d brought earlier. I worked so hard to bring it here—I deserve to know what it says. And she was a princess, so there was an even greater need for her to know. Does it make sense that I can’t read what I carried to them? No! But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find the document, and all Valhyle did was twirl his pen.

Zelly decided to set aside her task of looking for the document for now. She was so hungry that she didn’t even have the strength to use her eyes, let alone her head. She sat down on the ground, squishing her hungry belly down, and tucked her head under her wing. Seeing that she was hungry and angry, she decided to just sleep.

Right when Zelly was about to fall asleep, someone entered Valhyle’s barracks.

“Your supper, sir.”

A soldier entered, set up a table of very simple food, and left. There was water, coarse bread, a little quail, a plate of what looked like steamed vegetables, and a small chunk of cheese—things one could find in heaps wherever they went in the Roymund Kingdom.

Zelly blinked her tired eyes. They then widened so much they nearly bulged out of her head. It was nothing like what she’d eaten in the palace, but it was still human food. Her eyes gleamed as she looked longingly at the food on the table. Valhyle, on the other hand, continued to read and write, completely ignoring the food.

Zelly couldn’t let this go on. She started to grumble. Of course, her grumbling was just bird noises, but Valhyle’s pen stopped for a moment. She chirruped in approval, but he soon started writing again. She wanted to bite that ignorant hand so badly. She huffed and puffed inside.

Then he rolled up the piece of paper he was writing on, tied it with twine, and approached Zelly.

He crouched in front of her and said, “You must not have been that hungry before. You seem hungry now, so eat.”

He so very kindly placed the corpses of the mice and frogs in front of her. She didn’t have the slightest intention of treating food with disrespect, but looking at the horrific corpses again with her exceptional vision was even more horrific than before. So, Zelly kicked with her talon and sent the bowl flying.

Valhyle looked at her carefully as she clamped her eyes shut and waited for him to punish her. Who would believe that she was the eighth princess of the Roymund Kingdom, looking like this? No, who would even believe she was human? Zelly thought she might go insane from everything that was happening. And yet, the fear she felt about being hurt and the beastly hunger she felt didn’t dissipate at all.

When the expected strike didn’t come, Zelly opened her eyes and looked up at Valhyle.

“If it won’t eat that… Then what does this bird eat?” he muttered, still stone-faced.

She quickly flapped her wings toward the amazingly aromatic quail on the desk.

That’s what I eat! I want to eat that! Give me that!

Valhyle got up and looked in the direction Zelly had flapped. She was excited that he’d finally understood her.

He frowned again. “There’s no way it understands what I’m saying.”

“Skree!”

She felt a wave of irritation hit her as he focused on whether she could understand him instead of the food. However, his expression didn’t change at all, even at her tantrum.

He called for the soldier outside.

“Bring the soldier in charge of this bird. I have something to ask him.”

“Yes, Commander Valhyle.”

When the soldier left, Zelly gave up on the food and started looking for the document again. Considering he called for the soldier in charge of me, it seems he’s planning on sending me to the birdcages soon. She had to read at least one secret message and find out how the Roymund Kingdom was doing.

Valhyle watched as Zelly looked here and there, swiveling her head, and mumbled to himself, “What is it looking for? Food?”

Zelly glared at him menacingly for a second, then turned her attention back to the neat pile of papers on his desk. He came closer. She went still at his intimidating size.

While she wasn’t moving, the cord around her ankle was loosened. Valhyle had loosened it and was watching her. Zelly took a few steps and dragged the cord along. She became excited and headed toward the desk. Valhyle must have thought what she was looking for was food because he tore off a piece of bread and tossed it to her.

Oh. This ability to see moving things is the best. Seriously! Zelly snatched the bread right out of the air. It was a reflex. She was calmly waiting for the bread to fall, but when it became crystal clear in the air, her entire body moved like a magnet toward the food. She held it in her mouth and swallowed. It didn’t really taste like much, but she ruffled her feathers with the joy she felt from eating anything at all. Valhyle furrowed his brow, as if he thought it was strange that a bird would eat bread.

Finished with her bread, Zelly started looking for the secret document again. She hopped onto Valhyle’s desk and started shuffling through the papers with her beak. She was a little nervous that he wasn’t coming after her, but her nerves didn’t even factor in when she thought about her human body, which she didn’t know the status of.

She was busily going through the papers when she heard Valhyle’s voice.

“Looking for this?”

* * *

“Looking for this?”

There was a bit of amusement in his voice. Zelly whipped around, and she leaped up toward Valhyle’s hand without thinking too much about it.

There it is!

Valhyle lifted his hand so she couldn’t reach the secret document.

“So this what you were looking for…”

He simply watched as she kept jumping up and doing everything she could, then tucked the document into his breast pocket, safe and sound.

Zelly stilled for a moment. But just because she was still didn’t mean she was calm—she was angry.

I did my best to bring that to him, and this is how he repays me? Give it to me!

Valhyle was observing Zelly as she glowered at him. He then suddenly tossed her the quail. Zelly was so mad that she tried not to eat the insanely delicious-smelling meat. She swore she wouldn’t—definitely not.

A few minutes later, she was ripping into the quail, scarfing it down. She felt like she was about to cry but held it in. Her belly had to be full in order for her to plan her next steps or whatever.

Zelly’s next act was going to be pecking out that man’s eyes. He looked like he didn’t have a drop of warm blood in him, but having his eyes pecked out should still hurt, right? She grinned savagely.

He stood there with his arms crossed, watching her eat, and coldly said, “Don’t obsess over it.”