“It is very soon, and the life is young. But there will be a child,” he predicted with certainty.
I turned to Tiras, who took my hand and pressed a kiss on my palm where the prior had merged our blood months before. Joy trembled on his lips and took root in my breast. His pleasure was well noted by Shenna and the old healer, and their eyes warmed and their wariness ebbed.
“Thank the Gods,” Tiras breathed, as if another bridge had been crossed, another battle won, and the roots of joy in my chest grew tiny thorns.
“Thank the Gods,” the Healer repeated. “Now let us begin.”
From the room beyond, a woman named Gwyn was summoned, a woman so ancient and so familiar, I could only stare. It was the old woman from the cathedral, the woman who had anointed my feet and had bade me wait on my wedding day. She bowed gingerly before me, and my spirits lifted with her smile.
“When we last met, you were not yet a queen.”
I curtsied deeply, grateful to see her again.
“We meet again, and you are not yet a mother, though you will accomplish this too.” Her eyes moved to Tiras, and she acknowledged him with a deferential nod of her silver head.
“Majesty, how can we serve you?” she asked him, though I suspected she already knew.
“What is your gift, Mother Gwyn?” Tiras asked, bestowing the title with obvious respect.
“I see things others cannot. I know things others do not. And I recognize the Gifted, Highness,” she said without artifice.
You are a seer? I interrupted, surprised.
She smiled at me, as though my voice in her head was pleasing.
“My ears are not as sharp as they once were, but I hear you perfectly.”
I bowed again. It is good to be heard.
“I am a Teller, as are you, my queen,” Gwyn continued, answering my original question. “Though the things I see I cannot change. I can’t command the wind or water. But I know when a storm is coming.”
“What is the king’s gift, Mother Gwyn?” Sorkin pressed her gently, steering the conversation to the matter of most importance. He wanted to know if Tiras was sincere.
She tipped her head and studied Tiras, taking note of his golden eyes and his pale hair. “His gift is strange,” she reflected.
“Aren’t they all?” Kjell cut in acerbically.
The old woman simply smiled and nodded at the bristling captain of the king’s guard. “Indeed, good man. But your gift is not simply your ability to change, Majesty,” she said, directing her words to Tiras once again. He raised his brows and glanced at me.
“Your gift is your will,” she said. I could attest to that. “People obey you,” she continued. “They yield to your demands. Even your brother, who bows to no one, would prostrate himself before you if you asked him.”
Kjell scoffed but extended his hand, palm forward, as if to keep the woman at a distance. She closed her eyes briefly and almost sniffed the air, reminding me of Boojohni, before she opened her eyes and regarded Kjell patiently.
“The gift of the Healer is the easiest to deny, especially among those who are comfortable with war and suspicious of love. There is power in you, young man,” she said softly, but she let Kjell be, and let us all make what we would of her words.
Throughout the long afternoon, the Gifted arrived in small groups, as if the parade was being carefully controlled. We didn’t know where they came from. We didn’t ask. No gift was an exact replica of another. Each was different, each unique.
And the display was truly staggering.
The Changers and the Spinners were most eager to share. Healing was a harder gift to demonstrate, and the Tellers impossible to verify. The future hadn’t happened yet, and none seemed to be able to use their words the way I did.
A man the size of a boulder, who had to stoop to enter the house, spun stones into bread and fed us all. A child spun cotton into coal with a flick of his wrist. We watched a woman spin Kjell’s sword into a length of rope, and a rope into a snake. I jumped back, startled.
“It is not a real snake,” the Spinner laughed.
I watched it coil around itself and raised my eyebrows in question. It certainly looked real.
“I can turn one object into another. But I cannot create life where there is no life. It is simply the appearance of life.”
“What do you mean?” Tiras asked, and Sorkin explained.
“Some say that the Volgar were created when a lonely spinner attempted to turn vultures into humans. It can’t be done. The Volgar may have human parts, but they don’t have human hearts. They have no souls or conscience. No ability to reason or love. There is no virtue. Only instinct. They simply became a different sort of beast.”
“But the vultures are living things . . . unlike the rope,” Kjell interjected.
Sorkin picked up the snake, and without warning, he pulled its head off. The frayed edges of the rope stuck out from the scaly body of the snake where the head had just been.
“It cannot strike. It does not eat. It does not sleep. It does not have the instincts or the inner workings of a snake. It is a rope, animated by a touch. A man can become a beast. But a beast cannot become a man.”
The room grew silent, and Tiras turned his eagle eyes on me for a heartbeat. “What makes a man a beast?” he asked quietly, addressing Sorkin but still looking at me.
“His choices.”
“Not his gift?” Kjell asked bitterly.
“Not his gift,” Sorkin answered. “What a man does with his gift is the true measure.”
Kjell had no response and the demonstrations continued. Lu, a little girl with green eyes and inky black hair became a kitten that scampered at my feet. A troll with a long, red beard became a goat that neighed incessantly and bit everything in sight. A boy named Hazael became a horse, all coltish legs and flowing mane, and a mother of three became whatever animal she wished, morphing from one to the other at the king’s request.