I leaned against the wall next to the door, one foot crossed over the other and waited.
Still nothing.
“Veda,” I called again, “I just need five minutes, then I promise I’ll leave if you want me to.”
The moon moved miles across the sky while I stood there by myself, holding up the wall. I’d never had to chase a girl before. Any time I did something to offend one of the tavern girls, I simply continued on with my life and they came back the next day pretending like nothing happened. The thought stung in my chest. I hadn’t exactly been the most upstanding guy. Maybe I deserved this. I’d done so many people wrong that now I had to pay the price. Except, I never knew karma would be so all-consuming. Veda deserved to be mad at me. I deserved to be standing out in the dark begging for her forgiveness. But who knew that it would sting this bad?
"She's either not home, or I screwed up even worse than I thought,” I said to Alizeh as I snaked back down the path. She'd already made herself in a comfortable pile, but as I approached she laid her massive head on the ground, her eyelids drooping as she fought sleep.
I sat beside her and leaned against her wing as the slow rhythmic rise and fall of her lungs provided a warm cushion behind my back. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable sleep, but I’d had worse over the last few days. Besides, even though Veda’s comfy old couch lay only fifty feet away, I couldn’t risk violating her trust again by breaking into her house. If she’d found me sleeping there in the morning, she’d likely throw me off the mountain and deserved the right too. I pulled the shoulder bag onto my lap and dug through the contents. Mainly fruit peels and scraps remained, but I found a squished sandwich along with a couple of bright orange clementines near the bottom. I peeled back the rind and took a bite of clementine. The sweet juice exploded in my mouth as I closed my eyes and let the weight of the day pin me down.
Slowly my mind sunk into the emptiness of sleep. The future king, the Crown Prince of Aboria, laying in the dirt, waiting on a girl.
4
30th May
My body ached. Every inch of flesh pressed against the hard ground as I tossed and turned the night away, my subconscious shouting at me for being so cruel. Anything else not beaten by my restless sleep burned deep with the scars of sunburn, and I still had who knows how many days of searching I had left.
I stretched my arms above my head and finally opened my eyes.
Ahhh!
Two massive yellow eyes hovered just above me. I screamed again and clawed myself backward, ripping the tops of my fingers as I pulled myself away.
Alizeh squawked and shook her head. Small bits of fluff from her feathers billowed around her, like bronze snow.
"Don't do that when I'm sleeping."
She tilted her head and stared for a moment, then ignored my panic and tried to rummage through the bag I'd been using as a pillow.
I let go and fell back to the ground digging the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and letting my heartbeat go back to a normal rhythm. Alizeh had a point though. Time for breakfast.
I staggered over to the side of the yard and pulled the last fish from the box. I tossed it in the air for Alizeh, then stared up at the lone tree and its shady branches. Small apple-like fruits grew in several clumps within the blanket of leaves and hung just low enough that I might be able to reach. I jumped up and swiped with my arm, dragging down a few branches and shaking a few little green orbs to the ground. I scooped them up, wiped off the dust, then wolfed them down and choked on their tartness. I bit into another and my lips puckered tight. Awful. But the contents of my mother's care package had run low after last night's dinner so unless Veda came to the door this was all I had. I flopped down beneath the tree and enjoyed the cool shadow the leaves overhead provided. Nothing seemed to move in the cottage, no silhouettes in the windows or open doors to let in the morning breeze.
I rolled my neck in a circle, still trying to stretch out the stiffness from sleeping on the ground. Maybe Veda really wasn't home, or maybe she'd tiptoed around me this morning and already disappeared. But unless she had another bird, which could be possible, she wouldn't have left Alizeh here. A giant thing like her would be hard to miss, and definitely made the worst alarm clock.
But leaving here without trying again would be foolish. I stumbled toward the cottage and knocked on the door, each pound slow and solemn as it echoed through the wooden panels.
Nothing.
I slumped against the door frame. What now? I still had the higher peaks to search, but the probability that my father could've climbed that high seemed unreasonable. Maybe I should just sweep back over the valley, go home and refresh before going out again? Besides, what if Captain Amir already had news of a sighting? Or maybe, I stood up straighter as the faint glimmer of hope sparked in my veins, maybe he'd already come home. If that were true, then wasting another day searching would be useless.
Except, since I’d already spent nearly a whole day flying all the way up here, I could always go the rest of the way up to the temple. I could give one last quick check through the mountain peaks for my father, I’d
