The Falcon Princess

Chapter 8

Zelly was still fuming. She shoved her beak into the bowl of water in her cage, gulped some down, then started screaming again in protest.

“Skree! Skreee!”

Valhyle stared at her with icy eyes. “What a racket.”

“Sir, I’ve brought what you asked for.”

A soldier came in carrying a pile of rolled-up maps and put them down. He bowed and was about to leave when Valhyle told him to wait. The soldier quickly turned around. Zelly held her breath when the commander jerked his head toward the cage.

“The bird is making so much noise that I think it’ll be a distraction during the meeting. Take it with you.”

Her beak fell open in shock. This was how he was paying back her kindness? So you think you can have your way? Just because you’re a human? Huh? Just because you’re human?!

The soldier cautiously approached the cage.

“Kack, kack, kack.”

Zelly tried her best to sound menacing. Valhyle saw that and drove the final nail into her coffin.

“Take it outside and leave it in front of my barracks.”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier lifted the birdcage and took it outside. Zelly glared at Valhyle as she was being lifted and continued to do so as she got further and further away from him. After Valhyle disappeared from her line of sight, she was tired of making a fuss, so she hopped onto her perch. Ahh, that’s nice. If she were to compare it to when she was a human, it felt like she was lying down on a soft bed.

Not long after, Sir Luke and a few knights approached the barracks. He looked at the birdcage quizzically.

“Huh? What are you doing out here?”

He slapped his forehead.

“Oh. You got kicked out for making a fuss, didn’t you?”

You brat!

Zelly clamped down on the birdcage with her beak and screeched.

“Skreee!”

Sir Luke backed away and said, “Okay, okay. I get it. It did look like you delivered everything well, even though you are crazy.”

He chuckled as he slipped into the barracks.

Ugh, that man! And not just him—all of them are so irritating!

Zelly pecked away at her cage in anger, but it didn’t do anything to improve her situation.

* * *

“Will… cross it…”

“But… that…”

Zelly pricked her ears and focused all her hearing on the conversation inside the barracks.

“Sir Evan must have been flustered as well.”

She couldn’t hear the other men’s voices well, but she could hear Sir Luke’s voice very clearly. She wasn’t sure if it was because he naturally had a loud voice or because his voice got louder when talking about useless things.

“Of course, he…”

It sounded like Valhyle, but the speaker lowered their voice so she couldn’t hear any more. She grumbled a little to herself as she leaned closer to the bars of the birdcage to hear a little better.

I should have thought about the fact that I’d be able to pick up a few things if I were in the room. But she had been much too angry back then—she had no choice but to throw a tantrum. Now, however, she was feeling regret about not having the foresight to stay calm and eavesdrop in the room. Zelly pouted and groomed her disheveled shoulder feathers as she listened to Sir Luke’s voice, which she could still hear loud and clear.

“If we push them to the Great Black Wall, then we’ll have the upper hand geographically.”

Zelly nodded in agreement.

The Great Black Wall was a long stone wall dividing Roymund’s central and eastern territories. It was built when only the central territory was part of the Roymund Kingdom, but it was burned in the Gromeidi War, which had been waged for control over the eastern territory. In books, people had written that the wall was first built in white stone and was blinding in the sun, but now after being ravaged by flames, it was black and monstrous. However, its grotesque appearance did not detract from its strength, so it was useful during wartime.

The greatest army in Roymund and the protector of Rohaneim stood watch over this wall, so the Great Black Wall became Roymund’s boundary in wartime. That was also the reason Rohaneim gained the nickname “the Black Barrier,” for they were just as integral to the kingdom’s protection as the wall itself. After Rohaneim took over guarding the Great Black Wall, there was not even one instance of other countries crossing that boundary. Of course, this war had broken that streak.

But if we reclaim that wall, it’ll help boost morale among the troops.

Roymundians of every banner trusted the Great Black Wall with its yellow flag flapping in the wind. There was merit in recapturing the wall, even if it was just for that trust. Zelly hoped that Sir Luke would let more information slip with that loud voice of his. She really couldn’t hear any of the rest of them.

That aside, she’d remembered exactly what family Sir Luke was from while she was flying—the Tunealf family, one of the core families of pro-queen Rohaneim. The Tunealfs had a deep relationship with the Rumares family, the commander’s people. Zelly was sure she’d tried her hardest to stay away from both the Rumares family and the Tunealf family when she was a princess.

If I hadn’t become a bird, there would have been no reason for me to meet them…

Suddenly, she could hear Sir Luke’s voice again.

“…ledyl, Zeline, Riteh…”

Zelly only heard a few words, but they shook her to the core. Wait. Say that again! What did he say? She trembled from what she’d heard.

Zeline. She was sure she’d heard it. I couldn’t have misheard that, right?

Her heart thudded in her chest as she desperately shoved her head toward the barracks. She could only hear muffled mumbles but felt like she might cry at any moment.

Zeline. That was the name of the eighth princess of the Roymund Kingdom—her name.

* * *

—Zeline Vumaha Meredyth, princess and fourteenth descendant of the Vumaha royal family of the Roymund Kingdom.

This was a line from a book she’d found on the royal family when she was sixteen. Only members of the royal family were allowed to use their first names in written records. Nobles existed for the sake of their household, which was why only their family names mattered.

It was an unwritten law for a noble society that prioritized the family over the individual to an almost ridiculous degree. The only instance in which the individual’s name was important and in which the individual’s name could be passed down was with the king and his sons. If there was an heir apparent among the sons of Rezpel the First, that son would have changed his name to Rezpel during his ascension to the throne and would have lived his life as Rezpel the Second.

While most nobles’ names were made up of a surname and a name in that order, royalty had a middle name for their sect. For instance, if Zeline was her name, Vumaha was her sect, and Meredyth was her surname. In that sense, Zeline Vumaha Meredyth was the perfect name for a royal princess. There was no need to think twice about it. But when she first came across the record of her name, Zeline made a promise to herself: She would do everything in her power not to let another line be added underneath that entry.

Zeline knew that leaving her mark on the world might be the honorable thing to do, but for her, things like that didn’t really matter. If something were added to that entry, that would mean she had exposed herself to the world in some way, and in that instant, she would die. If she went along with what her eldest sister said to her on her eighth birthday, she could be almost completely sure of that. Zeline was not allowed any honor in this country.

After she made that promise, she wished her name would never, ever appear on any important documents. But as she was eavesdropping on an army meeting from inside a cage, this turned out to be the exception.

What is it? Why is my name coming up during a meeting about a secret message?!

Taking a guess from what was said before it, it sounded like a list of royals. The problem was that she didn’t know if it was a list of royals who were alive or dead. Zeline’s level of concentration was not at all important because the meeting quickly ended, and Sir Luke and the other knights left the barracks.

Sir Luke cheerfully sent the knights on their way and picked up the birdcage.

“You shouldn’t have made such a fuss and got yourself kicked out.”

He chuckled amiably and walked back into Valhyle’s barracks to hang up the cage.

“I’ll take my leave then, sir.”

Valhyle nodded from where he was, staring at the map on his desk.

Zeline was quiet due to exhaustion, so an awkward silence hung in the barracks for thirty minutes. She was still not completely over what happened, and Valhyle hadn’t moved the entire time, completely engrossed in whatever he was doing.

“You were hurt.”

When his voice finally broke the silence, Zelly nearly fell off her perch in surprise.

Wait, did he just talk to me? She fluttered her wings a few times and barely held on.

He was looking down at the desk and not at her when he added, “I noticed you had scratches.”

Zelly looked down at her body. There were indeed scratches from when she was flying away from the arrows. But… They were covered by her feathers, and they didn’t hurt that much.

As she was quietly inspecting her body, Valhyle asked, “How did you get hurt?”

Then, Zelly realized that he was looking for an answer from her.

Gods! This human is talking to a bird!

He wasn’t just talking to himself—they were comments and questions aimed at her as if he wanted her to answer him. Zelly became nervous because the commander-in-chief was asking her a question that fell outside the scope of a simple yes or no answer.

Is he insane? He kept telling me I was crazy, so maybe he is now…

She pointedly avoided looking at him, but Valhyle curtly said, “If you say you won’t go crazy, I’ll let you out for a few moments.”

When he glanced at Zelly, her eyes met his dark gray ones, and she swallowed. It was stuffy in the cage, but that human didn’t seem normal either. However, she was curious enough about her name coming up earlier that she nodded.

Valhyle must have understood her movements because he opened the door to her cage, and she flew out. Zelly landed gently on Valhyle’s desk, where he’d been sitting. He tied a long cord to her leg and anchored it to the leg of the desk before sitting back down in his chair with the cord wrapped around his hand. Zelly was suspicious of his reason for letting her out of the cage and kept an eye on him. Meanwhile, Valhyle took his free hand, the one unencumbered by the cord, and cleared a few papers from his desk.

“I’ll have the soldier in charge of you take a look at your wounds.”

She wanted to tell him she’d run into a group she suspected were Granorian scouts.

“Koooo.”

But the only sound she could make was a low trill in her throat. It sounded nothing like the language humans spoke with their flexible tongues. She thought about drawing out what she could, which was her only method of communication, but that had its limits too. She might be able to draw a circle or an arrow with her talon, but it would be difficult for her to relay her thoughts accurately.

Zelly let out a low, plaintive cry that made Valhyle lift his head and look at her.