“Thank you, sir.” Athan’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he didn’t argue the point. Instead, he motioned for Dnara to come closer. “This is Dnara. She... I truly do not know if she is a mage, sir, but I know her to be a healer with a great knowledge of apothecary and a kind, earnest heart.”
His unexpected words brought a warmth to her cheeks even as the stifling air in the room made it unpleasant to breathe. “Sir,” she said with a dip of her head in respect to his station. “I don’t know if I’m a mage, either, but I will do what I can.”
“Beothen said he saw you do magic,” Darrius argued, holding onto what hope he could. “Said you cured that bread seller’s wife... Pella, was it?”
“Penna, sir,” Athan corrected. “And I saw it, too. Wouldn’t believe it otherwise, if I’m to be honest. I didn’t think even magic could expel the blight, but Penna hacked it up onto the floor, and Beothen had to toss the blasted thing into the fire.”
“Remarkable,” Elder Rellius whispered like an exaltation to the gods, with his eyes raised upwards. “Faedra works in mysterious ways indeed. To give a young girl such power as to heal our sickened land. Praise be.”
“Praise be,” Darrius repeated.
“That’s also the night the fires began dying,” Dnara said, bringing their gazes back down to earth. “I may have been the cause.”
Athan made an augmentative grunt. “That was the blight, not you.”
“We don’t know that,” she argued back. “And what about poor Jenny? And Jorn? I nearly killed the man!”
“That wasn’t your fault-”
“Killed someone?” Darrius interjected, now stepping closer to his daughter as if to shield her prone, unmoving figure. “What’s this about?”
“I assure you, sir,” Athan spoke carefully. “It wasn’t her fault.”
“It was,” she said with more conviction. “They need to know the truth of it, Athan, if I am to touch his daughter.” When Athan gave no further argument aside from a pained expression at her clear guilt over matters he thought not within her control, she turned to the priest and the mayor with bandaged arms held out to them in a want for understanding. “I don’t know if this is magic, or a curse, or a spirit, or all three. What I do know is that I cannot fully control it or what it does. It... It frightens me.”
“Dnara,” Athan whispered her name with pain in his eyes and reached out, but his hand stopped short as Rellius came forward.
“Oh, dear child.” Elder Rellius gently set his aged hand upon her shoulder and gave her the warmest of smiles. “What a burden has been placed upon your small shoulders. Beothen told me of the dangers, of what happened at the river with the bandits and with the blackrope in town. I am pleased you have thought to warn Darrius of them, to consider his daughter’s life more important than holding onto your secrets.”
“You knew?” Athan looked up from his thoughts. “A test, then?”
“As is life,” Rellius contemplated. “But, from Beothen’s telling, it is clear that your life had been in danger when this... Well, let’s just call it magic for want of a clearer word, acted to defend you, and then it acted in kind service to you when you wished to free Penna from the blight. And, like good Athan, I believe the blight is to blame for the dying fires, not you, child.”
Dnara didn’t know if it was his words or the way in which he spoke them, but they brought long held tears to her eyes which shed without a hope to stop them. Athan said nothing but drew her close to him, his thumbs trying their best to wipe away each drop of water that fell. In his eyes, her sadness mirrored, but over her came the feeling of relief. They did not think her a monster for those things, they did not blame her for the fires, and they- he did understand her fear.
“Papa?” a weak voice broke into the silence, and the mass on the bed shifted within a mountain of blankets. “Is someone crying?”
Darrius rushed to his daughter’s bedside, helping her to sit up and gently passing his hand over hair the color of honeyed wheat. “Sorry to wake you, sweetie, but the woman I told you about is here.”
A pair of grey eyes, that at one time may have been the brightest blue, glanced over Darrius’s shoulder and squinted at the dim room beyond. In her face and hair and eyes, Dnara caught a subtle glimpse at the beautiful girl Elizabeth was, and the likeness to Garrett was unmistakable. “Twins?”
She gasped the word out then clamped a hand over her mouth in embarrassment, but Elizabeth’s weary expression broke into a smile. “You know my brother? Have you seen him? Is he here?”
“I’m sorry,” Athan said as the light in Elizabeth’s eyes diminished with disappointment. “He had town matters to attend to.”
Elizabeth nodded, leaning her tired head on her father’s shoulder. “Do not think poorly of him for not visiting me. He has so much responsibility, and... And it pains him greatly to see his mirror image cast into the shadows of blight.”
With slow grace, Elizabeth slid from her father’s support to rest back upon the mattress, pulling the covers around her with a shivering quiver. “So cold.”
Even as she said those words, a bead of sweat trickled down Dnara’s back, the room’s air feeling hotter and more stifled the longer they stood there, contemplating what to do. Sweat also dotted Darrius’s brow as he
