He is the embodiment of love, yet Tavaris will seek to destroy him---Sirah Anath Sorrel of Dunaya
Crunching footsteps crossed the still open gate and Canúden opened his eyes. He stopped listening. The pale, dark haired girl he'd seen leaving Ocher stood there clutching the baby in a sling. Her eyes were wide and dark with fatigue and worry, but the Object's power infused her with energy. Both she and the baby glowed brighter than anything he'd ever seen, except the Object. Her eyes glanced between Gizelle, Canúden, the sky, then behind her into the forest, like she expected something was there to see. Her eyes were so wide and her manner so hesitant, he thought she looked scared. He hoped she wasn't scared because of the light as Gizelle had been.
As she stepped closer, he noted she smelled nice, unlike the village girls he knew at school. Even though she wore an ordinary, wrinkly dress and her hair stuck out of the cloth that was supposed to hold it back, she looked nicer too, like she had expensive soap and actually took a lot of baths. There was something refined about the girl, though scratches covered the parts of her arms he could see where her sleeves had crumpled up, like she'd not been very careful picking berries. She was probably distracted by the light too.
It was unusual for a girl to carry her brother or sister in a sling like that, but she was way too young to be a mother, and too thin, so she must have been from a large family and was helping out her ma. The baby pricked some recognition, like somehow he recognized her, but he felt connected to all of nature and anyone he saw.
"I needed to come here," said the girl.
Gizelle silenced abruptly and turned towards her. "Who are you?"
She shifted the little baby, who seemed to be looking around at their faces. A tear appeared in the girl's sunken eye. "This bright light... it's been doing something to me. It... showed me where I needed to go to be whole. I am so alone. Please help me."
"Of course, child," said Gizelle. She looked calm and happy now, and like she was years younger, as though the light had healed some skin conditions and done something to heal her heart. Images of the things she'd done touched Canúden's mind again and he couldn't help but take a step away from her. She kept her eyes mostly closed, as blind people did. "I am Gizelle, and I am what you Galians call a healer. I've been having some visions, too. I think you were sent to me. Let me touch your hands, dear. I am blind."
The girl stepped hesitantly forward until she touched Gizelle's outstretched hand. The old woman gripped the girl's fingers firmly then smiled. "You are special, too," said Gizelle.
"What does that mean? Don't tell me I'm special because I'm the..."
"You are a healer, too, and I haven't seen another in many years. Let me heal you, dear."
Gizelle cupped the girl's face in her hands and sang another song, one the old woman sometimes used when she healed someone. The girl's eyes widened then filled with tears. Gizelle gasped, her eyes popped open, and she touched her own eyelids. "You are a powerful healer."
"I have been trained only a little," said the girl. She looked down at her forearms. The scratches were gone. "I was taken from my trainer rather abruptly. I've been so lost. It's been so horrible."
"I can see again," said Gizelle.
Canúden gasped.
"I don't know how to do that," said the girl.
"Two water mages together make a wonderful combination. My wari directed yours, and now I can see." Wari was more than a person's life force; it connected a person's soul to the world; it's what connected people, allowed them to bond and share the mental connection. It was said that when a person died, wari was what the Escort cut in order to free the person from the earth.
"Water mage?" said Canúden.
"Here in Galia, people call us healers," said Gizelle. "The name has to do with the feel of the flow of energy in our bodies."
"Can you teach me?" said the girl.
"I think I am meant to teach you, or at least guide you," said Gizelle. "But only if you tell me your name."
"My name is... Dylin..." her lips twisted awkwardly, "siran... Mangoran Alhollen of Whelung."
That was the First Siran's name, the first wife of Galia's Chief Counselor, Kel Tutang the Tenth. Neighbors talked about how beautiful and quiet she was, but this girl was running around in a crumpled villager's dress. She couldn't really be the First Siran. But with nature and the Ancestors singing, this wasn't exactly a time for lying.
"You're not really the First Siran, are you?" said Canúden.
The girl folded her hands together and looked at them and then at the baby. She pointedly ignored Canúden. "Please don't turn me away. I need this."
"Turn you away?" said Gizelle. "I'm more than happy to have you live here. I'm just surprised the palace guards let the little heir out of Gallel. The palace can be pretty confining, I'm told, with the guards watching your every move."
Dylin shrugged and squeezed the baby closer. "They didn't, exactly, let us out. Gallel's in an uproar over this thing in the sky, and most of the guards are as blind as you were. We kind of, well, snuck out." She took a deep breath. "I was in my garden with Lianna, and I had a vision as clear as the sky. There is a healer on the outskirts of Ocher. Someone who could teach me, this close to Gallel! And no one ever bothered to tell me. That's the kind of pomposity I've come to expect there."
"Undoubtedly," said Gizelle. "We will find a way to meet together as often as we can. For today, let's enjoy Hallel's Star." She lay in soft grass and invited the two young people to join her. Dylin took the baby out of the sling and lay down a foot or so from Gizelle, with the baby snuggled on her side. Canúden remained on his feet.
Gizelle had killed and done who knew what else. Canúden still needed to find a way to justify that. No wonder Ma didn't trust her.
Canúden sat down a few paces from Gizelle and Dylin, near the orangeberry hedge. The old woman sang again, echoing the Ancestors in the sky. The words were again in that other language that the Ancestors in the sky were using. He watched the object's undulating rays dancing to the music. He looked at the girl and the baby again, then at his own hands, which glowed like sunshine through amber, as brightly as Dylin and the baby glowed. Everything was more distinct, more real than he'd ever comprehended. He stretched as if to touch the sky and he could feel the Ancestors within his understanding. His heart beat inside his head.
Dylin's eyes brightened as she looked up to the figures, and she held the baby's cheek to hers. The baby opened her eyes and focused intelligently on the sky too. When little Lianna stretched chubby fingers, she giggled and bounced. Her eyes glimmered with diamonds reflecting the silver swirls of the heavens in their pewter depths, as though the silver swirls were not a reflection at all but stars in an inward universe, a universe inside her. The infant seemed so light, surreal, like she'd float away as a soap bubble if Dylin let her go, and it would be all right if she did fly free, if only to be closer to the Ancestors.
The sun had disappeared behind the glowing Amethyst Mountains, and the sky brightened as the object rose.
Lianna's giggles formed into words on her chubby lips, clear as the words of an adult with no teeth. "He's coming! Mama, he's there!" Dylin's fingers jolted apart and she dropped the baby, but Lianna stood on legs too rounded to ever have take a step, and patted her mother's side. Lianna jumped up and down in her little blue dress and clapped. "The Creator. Hallel."
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Don't miss the beginning of Gallel's Heir!
Prologue: River Flowing
Chapter 1.1: Blindness
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