Chapter 2: Faith or Fear

“What do you mean, we’re leaving?” I said.

My cousin, Earon, smirked at me. “I don’t know how that’s confusing. Da just told me. Pack up ‘cause we’re headed out tomorrow.”

I sat on the edge of a cot in a back room of a shoe shop in the city of Landen. Calling it a room was generous; it was more like a closet barely big enough for me and Carys to squeeze in there to sleep.

I groaned. “But we just got here.”

Earon was three years older than me and a little taller. Thin and lanky, he had dark hair and eyes. “We’ve been here for almost five days, Caleb. We’ve been other places for less.”

That was true. Carys and I had lived with my Uncle Reyan, Aunt Kendra, and Earon for a little more than five years, and we never stayed anywhere more than a month. We hunkered in small apartments or storage rooms, not ventilated well or too drafty, staying with humans that would hide and protect a wandering preacher who defied the Empire by daring to speak of El, the Creator.

My parents had hidden rebels like us, as this shoemaker did now.

The back rooms – closets and storage areas – were filled with stale and heavy air of the southern port city. Water surrounded Landen, and the walls didn’t guard against the humidity. They only contained it.

At almost fifteen years old, this was my life.

“I don’t have to like it,” I said.

Earon leaned against the tattered door frame. “No one said you did.”

I growled and rose from the cot. When I shouldered past Earon, he rocked back on his heels. He was taller and older, but I was stronger, the better athlete.

My cousin grunted. “Wait. Where are you going?”

Silent, I continued down the narrow passage to the larger storage room, piled with wooden crates, and most had been stacked high against the wall to give space in the middle.

Aunt Kendra knelt in a corner, beginning to pack. Kendra was also tall with longer, straight dark hair tied back, and when I entered, she stood to her full height, stretching her back. She smiled. “Hey, Caleb.”

I grinned back. “Good morning.” It was difficult to stay upset in her presence. She emanated love and acceptance, calmed me.

Carys sat cross-legged in another corner playing Roundback, a single player version of Tablets. My sister also glanced up for a moment but then went back to her game.

Reyan sat in the center of the room on a small barrel, and he leaned over parchments spread out across the top of a larger crate like a table. The parchments on the left were written in the First Tongue, an ancient copy of the Fyrwrit, one of the two sacred texts of El along with the Ydu.

Reyan translated the old writings into the Common Tongue, the Kryan language, on new blank parchments on his right.

Since the Kryan Empire had conquered and colonized the human lands, the elves had converted all documents and communication to their own language, over hundreds of years, until only a few rebellious humans like Reyan even knew the First Tongue, much less the older forms, and my uncle spent countless hours of his life translating into modern common so everyone could read those parchments.

Reyan was motionless except for a slight turn of his head from the ancient, worn parchments to the newer, and the meticulous movement of the ink pen in his right hand.

After a moment, I had to collect my anger to get the courage to talk to him. “Are we leaving again?”

The room fell quiet, tense.

Reyan finished a word and paused. “I thought you would be glad to leave, the way you complain about your room.”

“You mean the rat motel?” I stuck my thumb over my shoulder. “No, it’s critty. But we just got here.”

My uncle inhaled and sat up straight. He slowly, methodically moved his hand with the pen away from the parchments. Reyan looked up at me. “One of our contacts has been compromised. The elves may have information about our whereabouts. We must stay ahead of them.”

“How do you know they’ve been compromised?” I said. “You have evidence he was taken or something?”

Reyan frowned. “You know better than that. She missed a check-in point.”

“So you don’t know.” I put my hands on my hips.

“I know she missed the check-in,” Reyan said, “and I know we must be careful.”

In my periphery, Carys raised her gaze from the Tablets, and when I glanced over, she begged with her eyes to just let it go. We all knew nothing was going to change, talking with him.

“We’re going to run, then, even though we don’t know for sure what’s going on.” I shrugged my shoulders. “You’re not even going to investigate and see what happened to her?”

Reyan inclined his head. “Someone will, as you know. Just not me.”

“No, we scurry away like roaches when someone lights a lamp,” I said. “The last thing we’ll do is stay and actually help someone.”

“We have encouraged men and women while here,” Reyan said. “We can’t control how long we stay. All we can do is use the time we have to the best of our ability.”