Her hands twitched in annoyance and a frown creased her brow. The Dark is a word for the ignorant. The people here are Gifted. Different powers, different abilities. But Gifted. Like you.
He nodded. “That’s what you saw in me, all those years ago. You knew it before I did.”
Your gift is rare and precious. My mother called it the Hunter’s Call. In the days of the Four Fiefs it was known as the Battle Sight. The Seordah…
“Blood-song,” he said.
She nodded. It’s grown since our last meeting. I can feel it. You have honed it, learnt its music well. But there is still so much to learn.
“You can teach me?” He was surprised at the hope evident in his voice.
She shook her head. No, but there are others, older and wiser with the same gift. They can guide you.
“How do I find them?”
Your song links you to them. It will find them. All you must do is follow. Remember, it is a rare gift you hold. It may be years before you find one who can guide you.
Vaelin hesitated before asking his next question, he had kept the secret so long it was a habit he found hard to break. “There is something I need to know. How can it be that I have faced two men, now dead, who both spoke with the same voice?”
Her face was suddenly guarded and it was a moment before her hands spoke again. They wished you ill, these men?
He thought of the assassin in the House of the Fourth Order and the murderous desperation of Hentes Mustor. “Yes, they wished me ill.”
Sella’s hands now moved with a strange hesitancy he hadn’t seen before. There are stories among the Gifted… Old stories… Myths… Of Gifted who could return…
He frowned. “Return from where?”
From the place where all journeys end… From the Beyond… From death. They take the bodies of the living, wear them like a cloak. Whether such a thing can truly be done I don’t know. Your words are… troubling.
“Once there were seven. You know what this means?”
There were once seven orders of your faith. An old story.
“A true story?”
She shrugged. Your faith is not mine, I know little of its history.
He glanced back at the camp and its fearful inhabitants. “These people all follow your beliefs?”
She gave a small laugh and shook her head. Only I follow the path of the Sun and the Moon here. Amongst us are Questers, Ascendants, followers of the Cumbraelin god and even some adherents of your faith. Belief does not bind us, our gifts do that.
“Erlin guided all these people here?”
Some. There was only Harlick and a few others when he first brought me here. Others came later, fleeing the fears and hatreds our kind attracts, called by their gifts. This place. She gestured at the surrounding ruins. Once there was great power here. The Gifted were protected in this city, vaunted even. The echo of that time is still strong enough to call us. You can feel it, can’t you?
He nodded, the atmosphere seemed less oppressive now he knew its meaning. “Nortah said you have bad dreams of this city. Of what happened here.”
Not all bad. Sometimes I see it how it was before the fall. There were many wonders here; a city of artists, poets, singers, sculptors. They had mastered so much, learned so much, they felt themselves invulnerable, thinking the Gifted among them all the protection they needed. They had lived in peace for generations and had no warriors, so when the storm came they were naked before it.
“Storm?”
Many centuries ago, before our kind came to these shores, before even the Lonak and the Seordah, there were many cities like this, this land was rich in people and beauty. Then the storm came and tore it all down. A storm of steel and twisted power. They swept aside the Gifted who fought them and vented all their hate on this city, the city they hated most of all. She paused, a shudder making her pull her shawl around her shoulders. Rape and massacre, the burning of children, men ate the flesh of other men. Every horror imaginable was visited here.
“Who were they? The men who did this?”
She shook her head vaguely. The dreams tell me nothing of who they were or from where they came. I think it’s because the people who lived here didn’t know either. The dreams are the echo of their lives, they only show me what they knew.
She closed her eyes for a moment, clearing her head of the memory, then deftly folded the scarf on her knees and held it out to him.
“I can’t,” he said. “It was your mother’s.”
Her gloved hands took his and pressed the scarf into them. A gift. I have much to thank you for and only this to show it.
In the evening they shared a brace of rabbits Nortah had brought back from his hunt, regaling Sella with the more humorous tales of their days in the Order. Strangely, the stories felt dated, as if they were two old men spinning yarns of long ago. It occurred to him that for Nortah the Order was now part of his past, he had progressed, Vaelin and his brothers were no longer his family. He had Sella now, Sella and the other Gifted, huddling in their ruin.
“You know it’s not safe to stay here,” he told Sella. “The Lonak will not tolerate your war-cat forever. And sooner or later Aspect Tendris is bound to send a stronger expedition to solve the mystery of this place.”
She nodded, hands moving in the firelight. We will have to leave soon. There are other refuges we can seek.
“Come with us,” Nortah suggested. “You do have more right to join this odd company than I, after all.”
Vaelin shook his head. “I belong with the Order, brother. You know that.”
“I know there’s nothing but war and killing in your future if you stay with them. And what do you think they’ll do when they find out your secret?”
Vaelin shrugged to mask his discomfort. Nortah was right of course, but his conviction was unshaken. Despite the burden of many secrets and the blood he had spilled, despite his ache for Sherin and the sister he would never know, he knew he belonged with the Order.
He hesitated before saying what he knew he had to say next, the secret had been kept too long and the guilt weighed heavily. “Your mother and your sisters are in the Northern Reaches,” he told Nortah. “The King found a place for them there after your father’s execution.”
Nortah’s face was unreadable. “How long have you known this?”
“Since the Test of the Sword. I should have told you before. I’m sorry. I hear Tower Lord Al Myrna is tolerant of other faiths within his lands. You may find refuge there.”
Nortah stared into the fire, his face tense. Sella put her arm around his shoulders and laid her head on his chest. His face softened as he stroked her hair. “Yes, you should have told me,” he said to Vaelin. “But thank you for telling me now.”
Some children came running out of the darkness, laughing and clustering around Nortah. “Story!” they chanted. “Story! Story!”
Nortah tried to placate them, saying he was too tired but they pestered him even more until he relented. “What kind of story?”
“Battles!” a little boy cried as they sat around the fire.
“No battles,” insisted a little girl Vaelin recognised as the fearful, wide eyed child from the camp. “Battles are boring. Scary story!” She climbed into Sella’s lap and settled into her arms.
The other children took up the cry and Nortah waved them to silence, his face taking on a mock serious countenance. “Scary story it is. But,” he held up a finger, “this is not a story for the faint at heart or the weak of bladder. This is the most terrible and frightful of tales and when I am done you may curse my name for ever having voiced it.” His voice dropped to a whisper and the children leaned closer to catch his words. “This is the tale of the Witch’s Bastard.”
It was an old tale Vaelin knew well; a Dark afflicted witch from a Renfaelin village snared the local blacksmith into lying with her and of their union a vile creature in the shape of a human boy was born, destined to bring about the ruin of the village and the death of his father. He thought it an odd choice of story for these children, given as it was often used to warn of the dangers of dabbling in the Dark, but they listened avidly, eyes wide as Nortah set the scene. “In the darkest part of the darkest woods in old Renfael, before the time of the Realm, there stood a village. And in this village there dwelt a witch, comely to the eye but with a heart blacker than the blackest night…”
Vaelin rose quietly and made his way through the darkened ruins to the main camp where suspicious eyes stared at him from makeshift shelters. There were a few guarded nods of greeting but none of the Gifted spoke to him. They must know I’m one of them, he thought. But still they fear me. He continued on to the building where he had awoken that morning, the place Nortah called a library. There was a faint glow of firelight in the doorway and he lingered outside a moment to ensure there were no voices. He wanted a private conversation with Harlick, the one-time librarian.
He found the man reading by his fire, the smoke escaping through a hole in the ceiling. Looking closer at the fire Vaelin noted it had an unusual fuel. Instead of wood the flames licked at curled, blackened pages and blistered leather bindings. His suspicions were confirmed when Harlick turned the last page of his book, closed it and tossed it into the flames.