Jenny paused in her story to laugh; a laughter syncopated by pain and on the cusp of tears. “Then, ...then one spring, the goats stopped producing kids. Many of them died, right there in the field, with babies still in their round bellies. The ones that lived, their milk went sour. But, I didn’t know. I didn’t know a damn thing...”
Her face fell into shadow and she sucked in an unsteady breath. “Annabelle drank some of that milk, straight from the bucket like she’d done since she were but five and started helping me with chores. But, everything had changed, and I wasn’t prepared for it. None of us were.
“The milk made her sick, sucked all the joy right from her eyes. She died within the week, along with the rest of our goats. And my husband, my sweet Peter,” she stopped, choking on the bitterness then pushed through it. “He went blightmad and tossed himself into the river with a net of stones around his ankle. Then, the king’s men came and burned down what was left. Within one season, I lost everything. Everything but the anger.”
In her palm, Jenny produced a spark. It crackled like blue lightning surrounded by an inky black cloud, setting Dnara back on edge. That magic felt very different from the magic brought to her by the wind. This felt dangerous. Hungry. Unnatural.
“Everything but the anger, and this,” Jenny finally said, her eyes lit by the blue lightning. “We all start that way, with a story of blight and misery, and we all end the same - angry and bitter with a touch of magic. Maybe it’s a form of blightmadness, or maybe it’s a curse from Demroth for not dying alongside our farms and families. Them mages at the Black Conclave who train us aren’t sure. Don’t matter, in the end, except that it’s bonded to us; left us with not but one purpose. We can track people better than the Elvan hunt their quarry, we are more fearless than the Orc’kothi, because we feel nothing but the anger, and we only feel relief from that anguish when a neck is in our ropes.”
Jenny’s fist closed, snuffing out the unnatural light. “We don’t see it.” Her eyes clenched shut and her voice quivered. “We don’t see it at all. We take the blight that destroyed our lives and we use it to destroy the lives of others.”
Her face ashen, jaw clenched and silver hair reflecting the dwindling sunlight, Jenny sat cast in the shadows of regret so deep it reminded Dnara of the great black sea she had nearly drowned in. Never had she seen someone so broken, so fully fractured it gave question as to how they could ever become whole again. The wind caressed Dnara’s cheek and wove its way into her hair, whispering words that gave voice to her heart. She reached out to Jenny across the sea, wanting to guide her back to shore.
“I’m terrified of what my magic can do,” Dnara admitted. “That it can hurt people; that I have hurt people, but I’m also learning how it can help people. Perhaps we can learn how to help people together?”
Jenny’s eyes fluttered open and stared at Dnara’s open hand like it was an unexpected gift. Kneeling down at the bedside, she took Dnara’s hand within her grasp and kissed Dnara’s fingers with her tears. Jenny’s shoulders, scarred and weary, shook in a sob.
“Gods, I want to,” Jenny said through the sniffling and tears. “Faedra be my witness, on the spirit of my husband and child, I must atone for what I’ve done these past years, for forgetting the joy I had in my life, for... Gods, for forgetting the sound of my Annabelle’s laugh.”
She lifted her head then, cheeks tearstained but lips smiling. “I’d forgotten her laugh. I don’t know what you did, but you gave it back to me. You took away the shadow covering my heart and clouding my eyes, and you gave my Annabelle back to me.”
An argument arose in Dnara’s throat, a sense of unworthiness plying to be heard, but so too arose the wind. The breeze tangling in her hair reprimanded with a few tugs of her bed-messed black locks. How it knew of her thoughts and self-doubt, she’d stopped questioning, and she understood its message as clearly as it understood her reservations. Giving in, because questioning everything had become a tiresome task, she gave Jenny a smile.
“I’m glad you are no longer trapped within shadow.” Not a full acceptance of her part in Jenny’s transformation, but the wind relented and let Dnara keep at least some of her desired humility. “I like seeing you smile,” she added, because it was the truth.
Jenny wiped her tears and nose with a handkerchief pulled from a pocket in the vest Penna had given her. “I like to smile,” she said. “Peter used to say he married me because of my smile.” The handkerchief stopped in its drying and her eyes widened. “Gods, I’d forgotten that, too.”
They shared another smile before Dnara asked, “What should I call you now?”
Jenny thought on that for a moment as she stood, stuffing the
