I shrugged, my shoulders lifted high, but then they stayed there with tension. “I don’t know. I know stuff: like I know the isles once didn’t belong together; that this island we call our own, once belonged to land nearer where our enemies come from.”
“And who are our enemies?” Her serious pale blue eyes reflected the turmoil etched on my own face. “The Druia? Are they going to attack? We are receiving more and more displaced people every day. It seems nowhere is safe.”
I closed my eyes, dipping deep within the vast well of golden energy humming in my chest. “No, the Druia want peace, they are worried.”
My hand automatically splayed onto the log, my fingernails digging into the surface. The log was dead and had been for a long, long while, but the moss and creeping weeds which scattered over its surface thrummed with vitality. I reached towards them seeking answers. The water of the river slowed beneath our swinging feet.
“They march through the southern lands.” I could see them in my mind, hear the vicious stamp of feet, the pull and whirl of wheeled chariots carrying supplies. “They carve the land, creating their own straight roads, ignoring our ancient ways.”
Alana squeezed my hand and I cast my thoughts further afield. Ebrehered of the Druia clan was sat by a fire; wrapped in animal skins he stared into the flames. His head bent towards a slender shape in a black cloak, a woman it must have been with that fragile frame. Her head tilted so I couldn’t see her face, but beneath the edge of her hood was grey hair.
“Ebrehered talks with a stranger. She wants to know who we are and what we have here.”
“What’s he telling her?” Alana prompted without need. I was already searching what I could see.
“He doesn’t want to tell her anything.” Just then I saw him motion a large rectangle shape with his hands. The stones—Father’s stones—he was telling her of them. I gasped loudly, clutching my hand to my mouth. As if she heard me, the woman turned and stared at my vantage point. It was madness, because I knew she couldn’t see me, but I felt her seeking glance all the way down to my bones, and the flitting smile which grazed her lips set a chill across my skin. Her hand flew in my direction and I was severed from the image. Crying out, I toppled off the log and into the rapid river below.
Shocked by the icy pull of the current, I splashed and flailed. Alana shouted from above but from under the water all I could hear was a muffled bleat. The image of the woman’s face chased me down to the river bed, my dress dragging my helpless body.
Water gushed in my mouth, rushing up my nose, and my ears built with painful pressure. The woman’s face, I knew it from somewhere. It teased me as I screwed my eyes shut against the floating black dots drifting across my eyes. I was going to die in the river I’d played in as a child.
The next thing I knew I was on the bank. My lungs screamed for air, my chest heaving, as I choked on water rushing out of my mouth.
“Mae,” Alana’s scream tore through the air, and my head landed in her lap as she rolled me over.
“I’m fine.” But, I wasn’t fine. I was burning from the inside out. “Thank you for pulling me out.” I gasped around my words.
Her eyes were wide orbs. “I didn’t, Mae, I didn’t.” She sobbed, her chest rising and falling, the patter of her tears mixing with the river water on my skin.
I reached for her face, cupping my hand around her cheek. Two motherless sisters tied together with love. “There is magic in my veins.”
She sobbed a bit harder. “I know. Don’t you think I know?”
A wild sob of my own clamoured up my throat. “I never wanted this.”
“Shh.” She soothed my hair. “It wanted you.”
My chest tightened, the vision all too clearly coming back to me. “I don’t think magic is the only thing that wants me.”
“No?”
She leaned down closer, her skin smelled of comfortably familiar lavender water. Water that I distilled for her with my own hands. “Someone is coming. And it’s me she’s searching for.”
Alana’s eyes hardened. “Who? When?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just feel it.”
She sat in silence for a moment, her thoughts deep.
“We will keep you safe. I know Tristram will keep you safe.”
That strangling sob tightened my throat again. “Father won’t let me tell him anything. He says I can’t trust him.”
Alana clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth but didn’t speak ill against our parent. “You need to tell him what you saw.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Her pale-blue gaze searched my face, the ivory skin around her eyes creasing with concern. I pushed myself up. It was futile to wallow in regret. I may not understand who I was, but I had to embrace it.
“I will help our people. I will always help our people, even if it takes my last breath.” Standing, I, kicked my wet dress away from my chilled legs. “I’m going to tell Father I want to use my magic for good. He can’t allow for me to not use it when we are in such desperate need. Have you seen poor Mary’s leg? It oozes with poison. It will kill her soon unless it heals.”
Alana’s face stayed calm, but a waver shook her voice. “And you can heal Mary of poison?”
“By the god’s I will try.”
I reached for Alana’s hand. Her own clothes were also wet now from my hair. We wrapped our arms tight around one another’s waist and walked back towards the settlement. I knew where I would find Father.
There he was. Standing amongst his
