Their Prophecy

Rejection

There was a small group that stood in a line, each awaiting their turn to step to the center of the hall where they were surrounded by the attendees. As each hit a sharp salute before the Chieftain, he would sing in a deep tone, words of the ancient tongue and the elves, in like, would say their part as a warm acceptance of each person who had chosen to pledge their allegiance to the Northern Tribe.

The ceremony, as beautiful as they’d dressed it to be, was simple enough.

Still, Analise knew this wouldn’t end well.

Couldn’t.

Allowing the others to pass—orphans she’d met in passing before, ones who gazed at her curiously from where she stood rooted in her spot—she wondered if she shouldn’t just make a break for it. Out of the back of the tent. Away from this mess.

Still, she’d have to face it sooner or later.

The inevitable.

Just as there was a way for the elves to accept their new tribe member, there was a way to reject them. Chieftain Brentik hadn’t mentioned that. Nor, Analise suspected, did he have any notion that his kin might utilize it against her.

Analise wasn’t so naïve.

“Ana.” She felt a nudge form Azalea who had approached from the sideline. “Go on.”

Last to step before the Chieftain—she didn’t hit a salute.

There was a hushed silence and the Chieftain gazed down at her with curiosity.

Standing there stubbornly, she could feel the sharp gazes of the elves surrounding them, could hear her mother whisper, “Ana, what are you doing?” from where she was watching.

Ana stood in silence, awaiting the verdict she’d already known she’d receive all along.

Eyes flashing emerald, the song was started by an elf to the left.

The green animosity spread like wildfire, and just as the ominous voices hit a deeper timber, no longer singing in soprano, no longer singing a song of welcome and praise, she could feel the sting of exile in their voice. Though it at been anticipated, it didn’t bother her any less.

“Wait,” the Chieftain muttered, glancing over his shoulder. He was obviously stunned by the verse they were singing, by their choice in the matter. Just as quickly, though, his head had snapped forward, eyes latching on to the little girl he’d been privately tutoring for weeks now.

The one he’d personally invited to join the ceremony.

Analise knew the Chieftain had good intentions. Likewise, she’d known all along that most of the elves didn’t. Still, she wondered if they knew, as Brentik had quickly learned during their sessions, that she was well versed in the ancient language. That she, too, could sing.

Raising her chin, the child’s eyes flashed white.

There was a horrified gasp around the room.

Chieftain Brentik looked visibly shaken at the sight.

There was no doubt that he was scared for his fellow tribesman. After all, he was one of the few there that actually knew what she was capable of.

“Ana.” Zechariah was already next to her, hand hovering over her shoulder. To touch her, to stop her. But he was hesitating. Waiting.

It was odd.

It was unlike him to have any faith in her.

Then again, Zech seemed just as upset by the song they’d chosen to sing.

Inhaling softly, she could sense their fear.

Trepidation.

Anxiety.

It was ripe in the air, thickening the already sickening feeling in the room.

She wondered if that was all anyone would ever feel in her presence.

Everything she did was considered threatening.

Everything she was seemed to bring up negative emotions in everyone.

Still, despite their obvious wish for her silence, she parted her lips.

Softly, clearly, she let out a gentle melody.

It was the same one the faerie sang to her at night, next to the elder tree as she munched at the enchanted mushrooms. The one she hummed when she was in deep thought, while she imagined what it would be like to live in a world where she wasn’t ostracized. Where even the people who claim to accept her weren’t just attempting to use her for their own personal agenda. Where she didn’t have some grand purpose for existing.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, from youth she will mature—”

The burst of power was much more than she’d anticipated, wind whipping wildly through the hall, the ground rumbling under her bare feet.

“Lest you wish to fall along with her enemies, you’ll answer to her lure—”

Letting her head fall back, she could sense everything. The thrumming of their heartbeats, loud and erratic. The soft cries of frightened onlookers. The sound of her mother calling out her name. There was no need to look at them, to watch their reactions—they had never listened to her attempts at kindness but perhaps that wasn’t a language they understood.

“For the call to action may be faint, but from your false truth you must all ween. For there is nobody who will come to save you, none except the one true Queen.”

As the tune came to an end, she felt the wind subside.

All it left in its wake was a deafening silence.

Dropping her gaze back to the Chieftain, the little girl saw that he, and every creature in the hall, had hit a sharp salute before her. The only people left standing, she saw, were her parents.

Her mother looked shellshocked but there was a gleam in her father’s silver eyes.

He was the only one who ever truly saw her, it seemed.

The only one who never flinched away.

Taking a step backwards from the circle, from the group that only seemed to answer to direct threats, she could see how the elves shook with each of her careful movements, could feel the apprehension as they held on to their children, visibly trembling under her sharp gaze.

Hadn’t they just boldly rejected her?

Did they not know how wretched their chosen lyrics had been?

Where had all that blind confidence gone?

Turning her back to them, she felt a hand catch her wrist.

From where he was knelt, Zechariah had made a point to touch her.

To extinguish the rage.

To calm the emotions brewing just beneath the surface.

It was a precaution, she had come to learn. Skin contact was the weapon he used to keep her from “overreacting”. He wasn’t worried for her, she knew, but for anyone who might come into contact with her.

Even her link was wary of her.

Of what she was.

His betrayal—his degradation of her—was a heavy weight to hold.

And she knew with an overwhelming sense of dread, that it would only get worse with time.

Ripping her arm from him, she stormed out of the tent in acceptance of the exile they’d attempted to cast down upon her, toward the only place that ever really felt like a home: The woods.