I splashed my feet, sending droplets of shimmering water flying. “What can it do?”
“Ask it.” She shrugged, and I groaned.
“Are we going to talk in riddles again? I’m tired, I didn’t sleep.” I didn’t want to tell her about the muddled dark dreams. I was unable to make sense of them, but it was as though I were being called but I didn’t know how to answer.
Her lips tipped up in a sad smile. “Of course, you didn’t sleep. Yesterday was a big day.”
“Everything changed,” I grumbled, “And not for the better.”
She shrugged again. “Everything changed for you.” She peered at the neckline of my dress. “And the gem, you’ve been wearing it?”
Lifting a hand, I slipped it out from where it was hidden under the dark wool of my clothes. “Yes, although it’s strange; sometimes it feels hot, others cool.”
“It’s coaxing the magic out of you, unlocking your skills.”
I stared at her. Then I stared some more, ready to see her gap-toothed grin as she smacked the floor at her hilarity. She didn’t.
“I don’t have magic. Magic is given by the gods to a select few. No bard has seen real magic in our lifetime.”
Although bards and baduri’s were trained in the law of old and could appeal to the gods, some of us—my father was one—could influence the weather sometimes, although even that skill seemed to be slipping. But we hadn’t seen real magic, the type that flowed through the earth, for a long time, although each settlement, each tribe, liked to maintain they were the ones with the old skill. It kept the neighbouring clans in line. No one liked the prospect of fire and brimstone coming down.
How did I know this?
My eyes widened, and I stared at Heather.
I hadn’t bothered to listen to the early law. Forgotten laws and skills bored me. I wanted to know about herbs; real talents I could learn and help people with. It was why Father despaired of me ever finishing my training.
“Heather, something is happening to me.”
She grinned and there was the toothless smile I’d been expecting. “Embrace it.”
“I don’t know what it is.” My skin prickled, my hair standing on end.
“Neither do I, but I’ve always sensed it in you. Since you were a babe landing in my hands.”
“Sensed what?” I wanted to pull my feet from the water. The gentle waves lapped around my ankles in silken pulses and as crazy as it sounded it was as if the water was listening to our conversation.
“Something old.”
My mouth dried until my tongue tingled. “What do you mean old?”
She shrugged which was becoming increasingly annoying. “Old as the hills, as old as the water, maybe even as old as the air we breathe in here.” She tapped beneath my chest, beneath the pendant.
“Me?” I pushed my hair back, trying to regulate my haggard breathing. “Me?”
“You.” Her eyes twinkled.
“But you’re the magical one: always disappearing, always managing to guide babies so successfully into our world.” I glanced at the world we brought them into. Swaying trees, green and brown. The shimmer of crystal clear water… and then the threat of attack… death.
“I’m no more magical than those trees.”
I frowned at our sacred grove. Out of sight were the ghastly stones Father was rolling in.
“But—”
She cut me off. “I’m a conduit. I feel energy. Sometimes I feel the old ways, sometimes the new.” She quizzed me with an appraising glance. “Sometimes the unknown.”
A conduit? What in the name of the gods was that? “Does my father know?”
Her smile transformed into a smirk. “Your father doesn’t know everything.” Her smile faltered at the edges, the deep wrinkles in her face transforming into soft creases. “And he’s on a dangerous path, misguided, like a fool searching for riches where they can’t be found.”
She was only telling me what my soul had already hinted at. Father and those stones; it was a dark path into his future he was walking.
“And this necklace?” I lifted the now cool gem into my hand. It only warmed when Tristan was near. “What’s this for?”
“It’s not just for this life.” Her wrinkles creased until she resembled the bark of the nearby trees. “It’s to guide you in the others. To help you connect—to help you remember.”
“What do you mean?”
Heather closed her eyes. This wasn’t the time to go to sleep. I wanted to know more. Wanted to know what she meant.
“Mae, there you are.” I jumped and my feet splashed out of the water. Alana moved through the shadows of the forest glade, her dark dress blending with the murky canopy of the trees, making her pale-silver hair stand out in vibrant contrast. She stared at me, her face crinkled. “What are you doing out here? The burial is waiting to start. Father says you must come.”
I turned to Heather, as if my sitting next to her was answer enough, but again the lady was gone. My skin prickled. “I was...” I lost my words. I was what? Talking to a ghost? Someone who I wasn’t sure actually existed? How else could I explain the mysterious comings and goings of the Kneel Woman. “I don’t know if I can come.”
Alana frowned and settled next to me on the riverbank. “Why? Alen was our leader. It is proper and right we show him full respect on his passing to his next life.”
I fingered the gem at my throat. The next life. What if this gem was meant to do something for the next life like Heather had said? I wished she didn’t talk in riddles as much as she did.
Alana’s shoulder nudged my gently. “Mae, Tristram needs you.”
“Does he? He doesn’t seem to like me very much right now.”
She smiled, a small sad flirting curl of her lips. “Tristram will always like you above any other. I don’t know what it is about the two of you, but you seem tied together in your friendship.”
I snorted low. “I
