Deceivers

Prologue: Nolta, the Wilding

"What is your name?" the shadow whispered, leaning toward her in the darkness.
The differences between what set a human apart from just another animal in the vicious cycle of nature, became indistinguishable when a person began to feel like prey. All living things were made of an adrenaline-pumping heart, reactive muscles and tendons, and widened eyes that turned white with terror. When a human is chased and cornered in the dark abyss of the forest by some unfamiliar figure, sometimes the only choice they are given is to fight after their initial choice of flight is taken from them. It's the line that is crossed that turns mankind into beasts.
And the little girl, who had fled miles from the two pursuers until she had reached her safe hollow in the forest's giant elm, did not recognize or understand the words that were whispered to her in the frozen night by these strangers.
The man before her shuffled closer to her in the dark, crunching the frosted leaves at his feet and breaking the fragile branches between them. She could faintly make out the man's beard through the gloom, and the snow that blanketed the top of his dark hood suddenly rained down on her into the tree's narrow opening, spreading blooms of cold along her already frozen skin. She balked at the hand that reached for her and let out a faint sound that was as close to a snarl that a human child could mimic, having no option but to resort to her self-preservative animal-like fight instincts.
"Kobos," she heard another deep voice murmur out from behind him, "The child is a wild thing. I'm sorry, but we do not have time for it."
The bearded man before her did not reply but strained once more, more urgently but still in a manner that communicated he was also trying his best not to startle her further. The stranger slid back his hood to reveal his shadowed, angular face, and his partner hissed with displeasure that he had revealed his identity to her. Even in the gloom, the trembling child could see the silver glint of the moon in the man's pale eyes. It made him all the more terrifying.
"Don't be so frightened, you rabid little creature," he whispered softly, adding kindness to each teasing word. He pulled back from the tree until his face was all that could be seen through the narrow opening of the tree. "I just want to help you. You must be absolutely freezing."
Even though she couldn't understand his tongue, she flashed him her teeth in warning which earned her a quiet and surprised chuckle in response, a sound like a warm drumming in his chest. The reaction confused her, but the gentle laughter made her a little less afraid.
"Kobos!" she heard the second man whisper urgently, "If we don't leave now, we'll be discovered and most likely killed. I must urge you to leave the child behind—"
The man before her slowly turned his head and flashed his companion an expression that must have been murderous because the other stranger stopped mid-sentence, spat out an unfamiliar brusque comment, and stalked away back toward the snorting, oddly-shaped animals they had pursued her with.
When the bearded man turned back around to face her, he was able to gently graze her arm with his gloved fingertips, "Please come out, little fox."
Then, what frightened the girl more than this reaching man, was the other voices that started to float to them through the darkness. Those same high-pitched calls that had driven her from her home, calling her words like "demon," and "evil-one." The people who had beaten her for trying to go back to the warmth of her mother after she had been outcast.
The gentle-voiced man before her jerked his head toward the noise and an alarmed shout rang out from somewhere she couldn't see from her hiding place. They had been spotted.
Panicked, the bearded stranger turned to her one last time, a command in his voice and in his eyes that had not been there a second ago. "Now," he implored, "You must come out now if you want to survive. Otherwise, you're going to die out here. Do you know what that means?."
It was the sudden tone of fear in his unrecognizable speech that persuaded the child to finally let her elbow be taken between the grasping fingers and finally pulled from the hollow of the tree.
. . . . . . . . . . .
It was a woman, pale-skinned with long wheaten hair, that had finally attempted to take the girl from the stranger's arms. After hours of clinging to the man for her life as they had thundered over the ground on four-legged monsters, the shivering child had cried when the bearded man had tried to pass her over to someone else for the first time. Her little hands tightened in his tunic as she hissed at the woman who reached for her.
"Be careful," her savior chuckled warmly once again, pulling the child closer to his chest. "She is as wild as an animal. She bites, too."
"Whose baby is this?" the woman spoke with a desperate, trembling voice. Despite the child's dark-eyed, vicious stare in her direction, the woman rubbed the girl's back concernedly as she continued to cling with fists and legs to the man who had plucked her out of the forest. "What have you done, Yurik?"
The woman had burst into the room the minute that the bearded man had brought her to this new and unfamiliar place. And only when the woman had stopped trying to take her from him, did the frightened girl untuck her face from his cloak to see that it was a small shadowy space with a glowing fire and small sitting chair in the corner. Some sort of walled-in shelter that the child had never witnessed the likes of before. It was all very warm—much cozier than her tree—-and she never wanted to leave it now that she was here. There was a red thickly-woven blanket on the floor which the man sat down on, grabbing the fair woman by the hand and pulling her down beside them.
Yurik did not release her, but instead held the little malnourished and mud-covered human in his lap as she growled at the lady who ignored her attempts to frighten her. Instead, the woman was whispering to the child in the same soft way that the man had spoken to her in the forest.
"I found her in the borderland of Ruarc," Yurik whispered above the child's dark head, leaning his forehead in towards the pale woman in secrecy. "I had heard tales about the girl from the people there and decided to find her for myself. When I followed her home, she curled up all alone in the hollow of a tree. You should have seen that terrible camp, Adaleih. I couldn't leave her there to starve or be killed. Those people—they were more than superstitious."
"Thank the Mother you were able to find her in time," the woman replied as they both bowed over the girl as if she were a precious treasure that they had miraculously discovered and must protect at all costs. Once again, the girl did not comprehend the words in which these people were speaking, but some part of her instincts told her that these two affectionate-voiced people meant life. These people were not like the many who chased her back into the woods every time she appeared just beyond the firelight circle of their camp. After so much cold, this man and this woman, and the cozy new place she had found herself made her feel full despite her empty stomach.
After the child's unsure hissing finally quieted, the woman caressed the child's thickly matted head and whispered. "I've never seen such beautiful hair. She's so breathtaking."
The man looked up into the pale woman's eyes, which were filled with dancing, hopeful firelight. "She's yours, if you'll have her. She needs a mother."
The woman looked away with tear-filled eyes and began to weep suddenly, and the hand that the child had started to lean into began to wobble on top of her hair. In response, the little girl cocked her head and bent towards the woman curiously when that sad, pallid, beautiful face looked back at her longingly. "Can she really be mine? Ours?" she whispered. "Would the clan allow it?"
"I am the Kobos." he assured her, holding her gaze. "If you want her, she will be yours."
The tears were falling heavily now, and the child squinted her eyes at the strange behavior that this woman was displaying. She whispered in sorrow, "Is it wrong to replace the one we lost?"
Yurik gently cupped Adaleih's cheek as he spoke, "We are not replacing the baby; we are only giving our family another chance to grow. I believe that the Mother has blessed a woman with a child who is motherless. I promise you, as long as I live, nothing will take her from you."
"What about Malik?" Adaleih asked again, reaching once more for the child who clung to the man. "What will he think of this?"
Yurik's deep voice answered, "Fate brought you and I together, and Fate gave us our son. And now, Fate has brought us another. In the eyes of Fate, she is now as much ours as Malik is. He will see her as such. I think he'll enjoy a sibling as wild as himself, don't you agree?"
And then the little wildling was being squished between the two as they suddenly reached for one another in the crowded space. The child let out a disapproving hiss and the couple broke apart. They both giggled down at her.
"You'll have to tame her first, Adaleih," Yurik smiled down at her and stroked her tangled hair. "She's a fox, I'm telling you."
"Don't listen to him, little tree fox." Adaleih crooned to her, using the word the man kept calling her, tapping the child on the nose as she did so, to which the child crinkled at and frowned deeply. "I'm sure once you're cleaned up, fed, and shown a little love, we'll find nothing but a little girl underneath all this dirt."
In response, the child growled lowly, and her new family laughed