The children ran, flew, and played in the middle of the village in a hodgepodge of dark skin, blue skin, feathers, scales and various colored hair. She couldn’t help but smile. One little girl that looked Tavean was yelling at a winged boy who had taken off during a game of tag. By the look on the little girl’s face, she considered him to be cheating. Pulling back her hands, the little girl attempted to force some air in his direction, assumedly to knock the boy clean out of the sky. The most she managed was some rumpled feathers as the winged boy made a clean getaway. Kiora couldn’t help but laugh.
The mothers milled around, glancing occasionally at the action. Some sat talking with another. Others worked in front of looms that seemed to be working themselves. Kiora noticed with some interest that every woman near the looms was half bird, half person. There were no Shifters in the square; she could only assume they were squirreled away somewhere doing whatever needed to be done.
Alcander walked over to the women. Each stopped to bow her head in respect before smiling and greeting him. He smiled back and spoke with them for a minute. Then he turned, catching sight of Kiora in the window.
She jumped back with a curse, pulling the curtains shut. She had no reason to hide—she had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t long before she heard the knock at the door.
“Come in, Alcander,” she yelled from the bed.
Alcander opened the door and stepped inside, the sun flaring behind him. The brightness left him as a black silhouette, but his white hair created a halo from his head down past his shoulders. As he shut the door behind him, the lighting returned to normal, and so did he. “Lomay sent me over to talk to you,” he announced.
“I thought he wanted me to study,” Kiora said, crossing her legs in front of her.
“There will be time. He wanted me to give you more of the history of our people. He is hoping the more knowledge you have, the faster the dreams will come.”
Kiora shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “What dreams?”
“He seems to think,” Alcander pursed his lips, “that the answers we are looking for will come to you through your visions.” He sounded more than skeptical.
“And you think he is just a crazy old man?”
“I don’t know what to think. I never do with you.” Kiora wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but he was already evaluating the room. “Lomay removed every bit of furniture when he made room for the three of you. I will have to summon a chair if we are to talk.” A second later a familiar wooden stump of a chair appeared next to him.
Kiora turned her head to the side, her eyebrows pulling together. “Is that Lomay’s chair?”
“Yes. I do hope no one was sitting on it,” Alcander said, taking a seat and looking rather pleased with himself.
Kiora knew immediately that someone had been sitting in it, and she had a sneaking suspicion of who. Emane would be furious when he arrived home later and found the chair.
Kiora pushed herself up against the wall. “All right, now that you have your chair, what are you going to tell me about?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her.
“The Creators.”
“Oh, I had Drustan explain that to me last night.”
“I see,” Alcander said, his eyes moving to the floor.
“You could tell me about the Shadow,” Kiora said, perking up a bit. “The gate was closed right after the first light was taken, so Drustan didn’t know much.”
“Very well.” Alcander somehow managed to relax against the wall and still look regal. “What would you like to know?”
Kiora chewed her bottom lip. “If we are supposed to fight against it, I need to know everything.”
Alcander took a deep breath, crossing his ankle over his other knee. “No one knows who the Shadow is or where it came from. The first time it appeared was when it stole the first of the lights. The people saw a great Shadow rising out of the ground, the light from the jewel shining weakly from within it. As it left, things dulled. Most people thought it was crazy, that no one could find the lights, that maybe the first one had been a fluke.” Alcander looked at her, his eyes intense. “But the Shadow came. And when it did, all magic failed. Every ward, every trap,