There is a record of our struggles against the Myriad Ones. Seek the High Seer of the mastons in Naess. She carries the record. What is your Gift?
Again Maia was flustered. The image was as clear as a sky free of clouds. A woman among the Dochte Mandar? The kingdom of Naess was far to the north, the hub of all the kingdoms. It was the land of the Naestors. They would kill any woman caught attempting to make or use a kystrel, let alone any who tried to learn to read. It was hundreds of leagues away, past three other kingdoms sworn to obey the Dochte Mandar’s order. They were the enemies of her father’s realm. Despair struck her heart.
What is your Gift?
Maia barely heard the question. She had known it was coming, though. She had been prepared since the first moment she read the book and then was given her kystrel by her mentor. It was required to become a Dochte Mandar.
“I give my life.”
A sense of certainty settled into her bones.
Your Gift is accepted. Go now, Daughter. Seek the High Seer with the Dochte Mandar. Hasten on your journey, lest the Unborn claim them all.
A single image struck her mind before the woman’s thoughts abandoned Maia. The Myriad Ones were attacking the kishion outside.
*
Maia heard the sounds of the fight before she saw it. A ruckus of yelps and shrieks and barks flooded the length of the tunnel. The noises grated down her spine and filled her with loathing and despair. As she jumped the last of the stairs and left the lair of the lost abbey, her stomach seized with fear. The kishion stood against a dozen black wolves. Others padded in a circle through the ruins, raising their muzzles to the sky and howling like trumps. The kishion’s legs were slashed and bleeding, his pants a wreckage of blood-soaked tatters. Dead wolves lay twitching and snorting by the steps near him as he danced from one rock to another, one pillar to another, his blades spilling death with every stroke. As Maia tried to call for him, the black wolves barked and charged toward her.
Maia was preparing to use the kystrel when she was crushed to the floor. The smell of sweat and vomit, the feeling of hands and knees as they kicked and punched her was smothering. Soon she was pinned under a heavy weight.
“Around her neck! Pull it off! Hurry now!”
Maia felt strong hands tug at her cloak, choking her with their frenzy to get at the kystrel. It was Rawlt’s voice, and she was aware of another man nearby. She struggled to breathe and kicked out, but his weight made her bones groan.
“The chain! Yank it off her!”
Several lacings on her bodice snapped, and she felt a dirty hand grab the coin-sized medallion and tighten into a fist.
“I got it! I got it!”
“Yank it loose! Hurry man, yank it loose!”
Fire exploded from the kystrel in a white-hot blaze. Someone screamed and howled with pain. Maia nearly blacked out when Rawlt slammed her head against the stones, but the kystrel flared again, blasting a wave of resentment and fury throughout the ruins. Maia felt it build up inside her, a wave of power that joined with her anger, her self-pity, her rejection. The cup overflowed, and the kystrel’s power subsumed her. Thunder boomed overhead and a storm razed the ruins of the lost abbey. Tongues of lightning flashed, blinding her even behind her eyelids. The man’s weight left her body and she fought to her feet, gripping the stone pillar to stand. Pressure in her ears swelled, the pain becoming unbearable. Still, the force writhed and roiled, summoning more thunder and causing the sky to darken like dusk.
Maia felt the ancient magic of the Medium shoot through her, wakening within her a source of strength and a sense of freedom. It was power. Pure power. Bellowing thunder threatened to rip the sky apart. The earth spasmed, sending jolting shockwaves through the ruins, toppling boulders as if they were pebbles.
Then she was spent, empty, dead inside.
Maia sagged to her knees as the letdown from using the magic took everything from her. Thunder continued to boil in the sky for several moments, but the wind calmed and the trembling earth quieted, leaving nothing, not even the chirping of a cricket. She collapsed, her mind numb.
There were no dreams. Only blackness.
*
She heard the kishion’s staggering steps near her head and then his weight settled next to her. Pain throbbed in her skull. It hurt to breathe. She had no sense of how long she had been unconscious.
“You jolted. Are you awake, Lady Maia?”
She tried to open her eyes and failed. Every morsel of strength had fled from her body. She felt weaker than a blind pup nosing for her mother’s milk.
“I think so,” she whispered. His hands assisted her as she struggled to rise. Her body felt like the bell towers in the keep after a victory had been rung, the stones still thrumming with the echoes.