Author's note: Hey. I am not dead. Sorry this chapter is late.
Anyway, we are starting to get into the interesting part. And by the way, I think Manon can be a great sister once she warms up to Giza.
So, here is the next chapter.
Enjoy
Giza had been wrong. Being in a clan was that bad. Even worse.
First, she had to follow orders and rules, which meant that she couldn't just gut Iskra the moment she made her mad and about which the matron…her grandmother, had reminded her with the help of the four bloody scratches now decorating Giza's right cheek. Second, she had almost no time to draw, fly to somewhere or even eat properly because she had to train flying with Manon and the Thirteen in the morning and the afternoon and to train her fighting skills in between, which mostly ended up with Giza being literally thrown out of the battle ring by Sorel or Asterin. Manon's third and second, even though being great in teaching her how to survive at the battlefield, were as silent as rocks when she tried to get some information about her mother, Manon or the matron.
That morning Giza was a little more optimistic about the day, mostly because it was her fourteenth birthday. The moment she saw the storm clouds and felt the icy freezing wind though all her optimism went to hell.
-Get on the saddle and do it faster!-Manon shouted at Giza. Great. She was also in bad mood.
The flight was horrid. It was so cold that Giza's teeth started to chatter. No one of the others seemed bothered, so she just kept quiet. Then suddenly she started feeling warmer. Not that terrible hotness that had appeared under her skin that day in the library, but just nice warmness.
"So fire magic actually has a good side, huh?" Giza thought. Then she noticed something. Wyverns started appearing at their sides. On one of them, together with the rider, was a man, probably older than forty-five. Giza remembered him from a meeting the matron had made her go to. He was duke Perrington.
Giza then realized that they were flying over a canyon she hadn't seen before. And that there was a human village ahead.
-"What's going on?"-she was able to shout over the wind to Asterin, who was closest to her. Asterin grinned over her shoulder, iron teeth glowing.
-"Welcome to your first bloodshed."-then her Wyvern dove down. Giza had no choice but to follow her. Aradace had just landed when the screams started.
Children and men and women having their throats slashed and insides torn out of their bodies. Horses running around like crazy.
-"Are you waiting for an invitation? Go on!"-Manon shouted at her left while piercing a man's chest with her sword.
Giza took her sword out and strode behind the small cottages those people had lived in. She noticed a woman holding a small baby behind one of the houses. The woman also saw Giza and tried to run, but slipped and fell down. Giza came closer, the sword in her arm growing heavier and heavier with each step. To the moment she just couldn't wield it.
-"There is a mountain path not a mile from here. Take a horse and whatever else you can and go!"-Giza had seen the path while they were flying over the canyon. The woman didn't move.
-"Go!"-Giza shouted.
The woman got up and ran. Giza walked back to Aradace. She shot into the skies before anyone could stop her.
Giza had merely closed the door of her room when an icy voice said from behind her.
-"What. Was. That."
She turned to see Manon standing in the middle of the room, covered in blood and with her arms crossed. Even though her expression was cold, Giza could see the fire burning in her eyes.
-"This was the most simple mission you could have, and you still were able to not do what you had to."
At first Giza was shocked. Then she became furious.
-"And what exactly-she hissed-was I supposed to do? Nobody mentioned that by becoming a Blackbeak I was also supposed to kill innocents."
-"By becoming a Blackbeak you were supposed to follow orders."
-"There were children there, Manon! Babies!"
The older witch just stared at her for a long second. Then she circled around Giza and went to the door.
-"If a little bloodshed is the worst thing you have been through, then I don't know how would you be able to handle the war."-she said while going out.
-"You have no idea what I have been through."-Giza said quietly. Then Manon closed the door.
Manon POV
At the training that afternoon Giza acted different than usual. She didn't smile or grin as other times and she fought so furiously that when the combat practice was finished, Asterin was bleeding and covered in bruises. After that the little witch had stormed out of the training hall and went to somewhere. Manon decided to follow her. The girl had the bad habit to disappear somewhere a little before flying practice and then make stupid excuses.
After following her for a while, Manon realized that Giza wasn't going to her room but to the tower where the Wyverns stayed. There was something not right in the way the girl kept in the shadows and opened the tower door carefully, so it wouldn't creak. Manon got in just in time to see Giza climbing on the roof by stepping onto the giant sticks montaged in the outside of the tower for the Wyverns to stand on.
Manon climbed after her and when she steeped on the roof, Giza had her back turned to her. The girl said:
-"If you came to push me, just go on and be done with it."
Instead of answering, Manon asked:
-"Why were you hiding while coming here?"
-"Well-Giza answered-I wasn't completely sure I was allowed to. I have been coming for a while already."
-"And why, exactly?"
-"I like the view."
Manon sat next to Giza.
-"You know, sometimes I wonder, what happens if we don't win the war?"
-"We are going to win."
Giza sighted.
-"I hope so. I really want to see the West Desolation one day."
-"Me too."-Manon said.
