And then placing a firm supporting hand on her shoulder, he walked with her as she moved towards Lull. As she neared him, Lull rose both his hands a bit in the air. They stopped somewhere close to his chest, upturned, with the palms facing upward and the back of his hand facing downwards. And then the child’s mother placed the baby in Lull’s arms.
“Shewit,” she told Lull.
“What?” Lull asked, looking puzzled.
The mother sniffed.
“I said Shewit,” she repeated. “Her name, the name of the child is Shewit.”
Lull stared at her, and the woman stared back. Lull could see the fire in her eyes, and he knew that this woman was ready to brave almost anything for her child.
‘Fine,” he replied. “Shewit is her name. The whole of Toas lies at your feet today for this sacrifice you have made for the kingdom. We will never forget you.”
Such is the way of things, Lull thought; the way of necessity.
As the men drove away with their Shewit, it dawned heavily on the couple that they would not be seeing their daughter ever again.
The woman turned her face, buried it into her husband’s chest, and cried. Her husband simply stared ahead, watching the company of horsemen as they carried on down the road, growing into tiny dots until they disappeared once and for all. He sighed and bent down to kiss the top of his wife’s head. He did not tell her it was okay. Because in truth, it was not. He felt just as bad without the tears. Their only hope at having a semblance of peace was in each other.
Now the being of Balance and Chaos had come into the palace, everyone set making sure that everything was okay for her stay in the palace. She was their savior after all and deserved to be given all the adoration and the worship before the event that would shape the entire kingdom, and even that was years ahead from now.
The moment Lull brought Shewit into the palace, even before he had mentioned her name, Lady Adiam, the woman in charge of the child’s housekeeping, sensed that this being of Balance and Chaos was going to be a different child. When she had whispered it to the other ladies in attendance:
“I’ve got a feeling this one is going to be different from the others.”
“Why?” one of them asked. “Because it is Lull who carries her himself and not one of his men?”
Lady Adiam snorted. “You have not lived as long as I have,” she said. “Or you would know the carrier of the child handles the babies only if collection is more difficult.”
“You mean those whose parents refuse to give them up?”
“No,” Adiam replied, rolling her eyes, “it’s not that. In all my years as housemistress, I have never heard of parents who have refused their children the chance to be a hero of Toas. Usually, it is seen as a great honor. But some never wanted that for their child, those who are giving them up will be emotionally difficult. The carrier of the child intervenes for those. Somehow, his presence should make letting the child go, a little easier.”
“Okay,” the others agreed. “But why did you say this one is different?”
“She is not crying,” Adiam replied shrewdly.
Just then, Lull explained to the king (who had been curious about the child’s silence) that the baby had been given a sleeping drug to prevent her cries from getting to the parents and making an already difficult situation worse.
The ladies in attendance turned and giggled at Adiam. There was a more tangible reason as to why the baby had kept mum all the while. This was much better than her unjustifiable hunch that the child was different. But even then, Adiam felt it within her bones that the girl, soporifics or no, was different.
It did not take long for her hunch to become a reality. Everyone began to see the difference as Shewit grew. In retrospect, the beings of Balance and Chaos that had graced the court before had always been exuberantly joyful and playful girls. These behaviours stood to change as they grew older, but in their younger years, they would always constitute most of the noise in the palace, squealing and running about, taking their caretakers through a lot of trouble, while also reminding them the joy of what it felt to be young and free.
But not Shewit.
Shewit was quiet and reclusive, choosing to keep things to herself no matter how weighty than to confide in another soul. It was easier to get words out of her mouth during training, and that was either because the specific moves she wanted to make required spells, or her teachers had asked her a question. Her quietness made it difficult for her caretakers to give her fitting care. Lady Adiam three hundred years of age allowed her to see three other beings she had taken care of, each one expressing what they liked or disliked, moaning, laughing, or complaining – but not so with Shewit, who would move through her care passively.
Shewit was as unusual in the control of her powers as she was in her demeanor. Lull and the rest of the teachers noticed a special ability in the young being of Balance and Chaos: her ability to retain instructions, skills, and utilize them as if she had been practicing magic for eons.
This quality saw her advance through training quicker than the previous sacrifices, and this uncanny ability of hers to retain and internalize instructions was first noticed when Lull taught her how to control the element of air. In the past, it was usual for Lull to hit a temporary dead-end when it came to teaching the being of Balance and Chaos this particular skill. Controlling the elements was always very tricky.
Being elements of nature, they stood on their own and could be accessed both as a battle magic and an ordinary magic. Accessing the elements through ordinary
