The Falcon Princess

Chapter 5

Zelly lifted her head from the quail she was stuffing her face with.

Obsess? Obsess?! This guy… So he feeds me a bit of meat, then tells me I’m obsessing over it?

She huffed through her nose from the unfairness of all this. Although it was a little embarrassing to be so greedy with her food in front of a total stranger, at least she wasn’t a princess right now—she was a bird. But calling it an obsession just because she ate a little greedily?

Are you serious? This is unfair!

Zelly flapped her wings to express her feelings, but Valhyle didn’t react even the slightest bit. A while later, he made a face like he thought she was pathetic, then continued reprimanding her.

“Obsessing over a secret document is not a necessary virtue for a messenger bird. If you delivered the message, you can forget about it.”

This time, Zelly was the one who made a face. Talking about virtue with a bird? Ha! Who’s the crazy one now? She felt pity for the forty thousand men who had to serve with him as their commander-in-chief in the Rohaneim army. Then she felt pity for her second sister, for whom this man was a marriage prospect—if she was still alive.

“The more you obsess over the document, the less need we have for you.”

“Skreee!”

It’s not an obsession!

Zelly used the energy she got from her belly full of quail to screech with all her might and stomp hard. Valhyle scowled, but she was already focused on the quail again. She tore into the flesh, imagining it was him, and was disappointed that she didn’t have teeth. If she did, she would have eaten him up.

The door to the barracks opened, and Sir Luke came in, accompanied by another soldier. It was the soldier she’d scratched earlier.

“Sir, I’ve fetched him as you ordered.”

“This bird…” Valhyle said curtly.

“Yes, sir?”

“How long will it take for it to be trained and made useful?”

“It does differ from bird to bird, but it should be about a month, sir.”

“Very well. Take this bird and train it when it’s done eating. Right now…”

He glanced at Zelly.

“I don’t think it’s normal,” he finished.

“Yes, sir. Oh, but… Did you feed it cooked meat?”

“Is that not allowed?”

“No, sir. It’s just that… It should like raw meat better, so it’s interesting to see it eating cooked meat.”

“It’s picky for a bird.”

Valhyle neatly picked up the salted vegetables and bread and took a bite.

“It wasn’t like this when we raised it. It could have had a shock or something… It started acting strangely this morning.”

Valhyle paused and asked, “Can birds understand human speech?”

“Pardon?”

The soldier looked dumbfounded as he repeated the commander’s question.

“Or can it explain things?”

“Pardon?!”

For a second, the soldier wondered whether the man leading this army of forty thousand men was sane. When Valhyle recognized that and frowned coldly, the soldier immediately looked down at the ground.

“Birds… Birds cannot understand us or explain things. All they can do is carry out simple orders through training. Even if we assume a bird will bring something because we ordered it to, it’s not because it understands our speech. They are trained to know that when a human points at something a certain distance away and says something short, they can get a reward if they bring it to them. That’s what makes them do it.”

Valhyle said nothing.

Due to the doubtful silence from his commander, the soldier hastily continued, “It’s impossible for a bird to explain something from its own perspective.”

“I see.”

The soldier kept an eye on Valhyle as he untied the cord on Zelly’s ankle. Then he took hold of her wings and held on to them tightly. Zelly stared at Valhyle’s chest with her wings wrenched back. He saw her looking and glared back at her. He seemed uncomfortable.

“Then I’ll take my leave, sir.”

Sir Luke was about to leave as well, trying to read the room to see if he could slip out with a short goodbye, but hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Uh, Commander Valhyle?”

“What?”

“Who… were you speaking to earlier?”

Valhyle’s eyebrows shot up. “Speaking to?”

“Yes, sir. Before we came in…”

“There was no one else in the barracks. It seems you misheard.”

“But I’m sure I heard someone say, ‘The less need we have for you.’”

Valhyle looked flabbergasted for a moment, then said, “That was just me talking to myself.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll take my leave, then. Good night, sir.”

After Sir Luke left and Valhyle was finally alone, he leaned back in his chair and let out a deep sigh.

Talking to a bird… He felt a little disgusted that his rationality had been muddled. They’d been on the move after a battle, and because the situation was so bad, there were so many things for him to look after. However, he shook his head. Saying I’m tired is just an excuse.

He rubbed his face with both hands and brushed the crumbs off his desk. Suddenly, he thought back to the eyes of that bird, full of red-hot anger like a beast of prey. It bothered him for some reason. Valhyle shook his head again and removed any thoughts of those eyes from his mind.

It was a quiet night—so quiet that one could hear owls hooting.

* * *

Zelly was in the middle of training.

The soldier pointed at the yellow flag on the right and said, “Bring the wooden stick from over there.”

She leaped off the ground, flew, wrapped her talons around the wood, and brought it back. A piece of meat was her reward. The soldier in charge of her now knew she didn’t eat raw meat, so he fed her cooked meat instead.

He pointed at the same flag again and said, “Bring the wooden stick from over there.”

Ugh, seriously! Zelly was about to stomp her foot, but she barely managed to control herself. So this is how birds are trained… poor things, having to listen to the same thing over and over again, thousands of times.

The soldier had already commanded Zelly to bring the stick to the left eleven times. She set her beak to keep from blowing her top. If she wanted to get out of here and find out whatever secrets this camp held, then she had to complete her training. She leaped off the ground again and flew up.

The soldier who was ordered by Commander Valhyle—or Commander Vile, whatever his name was—was carrying out his orders to train her very, very diligently. Zelly was so sick of it that she wanted someone to figure out that she understood what they were saying. It almost made her miss Commander Valhyle, the only one who seemed to somewhat understand her human-like expressions. Zelly made it even more obvious that she understood human speech, but the soldier just believed she was acting cute, and he favored her for it.

Zelly sighed. She wanted to let everything go. She still didn’t know if her father, the king, or her siblings were alive. She didn’t even know if she was alive.

She tried to reassure herself. But someone has to be alive. If not, then there’s no way Rohaneim would still be fighting such a difficult fight.

Zelly was picking things up like an actual bird would, flitting from here to there. But unlike an actual bird, she understood everything. For the past four days, she hadn’t been able to leave the barracks where the birds were kept, but she could still hear the murmurings around her. Rohaneim was being chased, but there was definitely something they were struggling to find. With the camp moving often and dispatch riders coming and going, Zelly cautiously suspected they were looking for someone of the royal Roymundian bloodline.

All she hoped for was that she was one of them.

* * *

It had been five days since she’d seen Commander Valhyle.

Zelly glanced at him as he said, “It’s dirty.”

What did he say?! That’s all he has to say after all that time?!

As Valhyle gave the soldier a reproachful look, Zelly quickly scanned herself. She had to admit that she was in fact dirty. But how could she bathe when they didn’t give her water to bathe in? She sheepishly nibbled on a feather in her wing and ended up pulling it out. Valhyle looked down at her like she was pitiful.

The soldier knew how to read the room and said, “I’ll bathe the bird, sir. I didn’t have the time with us moving camp so often these days.”

“Do it immediately,” Valhyle snapped.

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier started to undo the cord around her ankle.

“This bird is the only messenger bird we have left. We will not make it a laughingstock by leaving it looking like this,” the commander continued.

The soldier’s head whipped up. “This one is the last? What does that…”

“The messenger bird we sent off last time didn’t come back.”

The soldier’s face fell. Valhyle’s expression didn’t look so good either.

“The five… we sent to Ropeche?”

“Yes. One did come back, but it was severely injured. It should be in the barracks.”

“May I go see it, sir? There aren’t that many who can treat birds…”

“You have to wash this one.”

The soldier quickly replied, “Birds can bathe on their own, sir. I will fill a basin with water behind your barracks, sir. If you loosen the cord enough, it’ll hop in and wash itself.”

Valhyle nodded. “We have to save that bird, so that will have to do.”

Zelly was nervous because she’d heard the word “Ropeche.” It seemed Rohaneim wasn’t the only allied army left. During wartime, the leader of Rohaneim was the commander-in-chief, so Ropeche would also have fallen under Valhyle’s command. But the fact that the messenger birds weren’t coming back…

When the soldier went off to fetch the water, Valhyle said, “There has to be a Granorian camp between us.”

He trained his cold eyes on Zelly.

“If it weren’t for you, it would have been hard to be this sure,” he said.

Zelly’s eyes became round. Even if he was speaking coldly, it seemed like he was saying she was somewhat of a help. She smiled in relief. Of course, it wouldn’t look like she was smiling.

“Sir, it’s me, Luke.”

Sir Luke entered the barracks and froze when he saw Zelly. He cocked his head to the side.

“Oh. This bird… Why is it here?”

Valhyle glanced at the tethered Zelly and said in a voice full of exhaustion, “I’m going to send this bird to Ropeche.”

Zelly jolted. What? He’s going to send me to Ropeche as a messenger?!

However, Sir Luke then spoke as if he were speaking on her behalf.

“It couldn’t have had enough training yet.”

“That’s what they say. I heard the only training it got was flying from flag to flag.”

“Then shouldn’t we wait to send it out?”

“It just has to recognize a yellow flag.”

Sir Luke took a moment before asking, “And… It has to be that one? Do you not think the bird is crazy, sir?”

“That’s enough with calling the bird crazy.”

“Still, sir—”

Valhyle cut him off and said, “There is a Granorian camp between our camp and Ropeche’s, and it is too great a risk to send a dispatch rider. We can’t waste human lives like that, so we have no choice but to use birds.”

Sir Luke nodded. “Understood, sir. What message are you trying to send?”

Valhyle waved a hand, dismissing his question. “It’s on a need-to-know basis.”

A secret message that even Sir Luke isn’t privy to… Could it be an incredibly important matter?

Suddenly, her heart started pounding. She decided she had to go to Ropeche, no matter what. She might be able to find out what happened to her and her siblings.

Zelly kept thinking about that as she stared at Valhyle and Sir Luke. The commander must have felt her eyes on him because he glanced at her—a bird and a human, locked in each other’s gaze.