Children of Fyre

Chapter Five

I looked him over carefully as I sat down. My head was spinning as I recalled Acacia's words. Damien, your brother... I had not fully believed her. Now I did.

He's taller than me, I thought. But he seems to be just as strong. Same eyes, though, and brown eyes. I shook my head thinking this was a dream.

"Damien," I breathed out carefully.

"Lif, I can help him now. Please head back to the group." Damien replied easily. He seemed rather relaxed, though, in contrast, I felt like I was about to explode. Everything was changing too fast for me.

Lifvia walked off, carefully watching me until he disappeared like he did not trust me. I looked up at Damien quietly, seeing him studying me.

"What," I ask, carefully avoiding his gaze by looking down to inspect the sword that was still unsheathed on my lap.

"You're short," he said without a trace of sarcasm. His voice was neutral, as if he was still making up his mind about me as I was of him.

"I'm still growing," I reply indignantly. I roll my eyes for emphasis in hopes of aggravating him some more. My shock had now passed, and my normal cocky self was back in business.

"Yeah, okay, just like that sword in your hand, right?"

I scowled at Damien. "Are you always like this, or is it because your hair is spiked today?"

His face went flat for a moment before he started laughing. Hard.

I rolled my eyes as he began to relax a bit. "What do you want," I asked him carefully. Brother or not, I do not know this guy too well. Nor did I have any intention to get to know him.

"Alright, let's get going," he finally managed to tell me. "We have some travels to make up because of you and some other wounded." He stretched out a hand to help me up, which I gladly ignored. Instead, I got up on my own and sheathed the sword.

As Damien started walking off, I took one final glance around. Something with a slight shine caught the corner of my eye. As I got closer, I began to realize it was an arrow, several arrows, in fact, held within a quiver. Laying nearby the quiver of arrows was an ornate bow. Damien had not yet noticed me lagging and so was almost out of sight. Without thinking, I grab both the quiver and bow and race to catch up with Damien.

"You any good with a bow," he asked, immediately seeing it on my arm.

"Better than a sword."

He nodded and we completed our walk back to the makeshift camp in silence. Upon our return, I abandoned Damien to seek out Acacia in the mess of bodies lounging around. He tried to follow, but, being smaller, I managed to shake him off.

It took some time, but eventually I found Acacia helping a small group of women patch up discarded clothing. "Acacia," I said softly to pull her attention away from her work and on to me.

Acacia set aside her work and rose to her feet, quickly wrapping me into a tight hug.

"I'm sorry." I murmured, hugging her back. "I shouldn't have acted like that. I had no reason to be so rude."

"Shh, it's okay. It's okay." Acacia pulled away and looked over me. "You look great in that," she said of the chainmail.