The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

“Why then?” she pleaded, clutching his arm. She needed to touch something to keep the dizziness from making her collapse.

“Because you cannot force the Medium. It knows your thoughts. It knows when you have lost your courage. There is something in your mind that is stopping it from working. It could be your longing for the Abbey. It could be fear. It could be misery.” He did not shake off her grip, but she could see him flinch, see his eyes glance at her hand and narrow coldly. “I have seen this before. When I was a learner, it happened now and then among us, especially when something terrible happened. It even happened to me when my father died. I could not use the Medium because I was too angry that he had been taken away, that my sister and I were orphans, that I had to be both father and mother as well as brother. The Medium knew my feelings and abandoned me to my resentment.”

“How long before…how long before you could use it again?” she asked, her hope withering with the look in his eyes.

“Months,” he answered bitterly. His jaw clenched. “We cannot dwell here that long. The sheriff’s men are hunting us. This is a swamp, not a road. We have no water.” He rubbed his mouth on his arm. His look hardened. “Whatever it is, we must discover it. We must not abandon hope. You get what you secretly desire. You claim a right to use the Medium by expecting to receive it. You are strong in the Medium. Very strong. But as strong as you are, you are still bound by its laws and impeded by your own doubts. You must overcome whatever is hindering you.”

“How?” Lia asked, confused. “I have never not been able to use it. I have sensed the Medium since…that night of the storm. I know it is real.” She let go of his arm and fished the ring out of her dress and pinched it hard between her fingers, letting the edge bite into her skin as she shook it at him. “I know it is real! I do not doubt it!”

“Yes, but you are a wretched. In one way it is a privilege because you have lived inside an abbey. You have never faced the thousand mutable fears that roam the lands outside those walls. Spirits of aether you cannot see that make you fear and doubt and crave the things that will only do you harm.” His eyes burned with passion and he uttered a cough, almost a chuckle. “You are so innocent. I doubt you have ever been fully tempted by the Myriad Ones.” He waved his hand around at the trees and the mist. “They live in the world among us, feeding our most selfish selves with their thoughts. This is the world outside the safety of Muirwood. It is a world ripe with things poisonous to the Medium. I know I speak vaguely, for there are things mastons are taught that we cannot share. It is forbidden to speak of certain knowledge outside of an abbey. Trust me, girl. You lived within borders that have protected you from them, where gargouelles watch day and night and drive the Myriad Ones away.”

He stepped even closer to her. “I studied at Billerbeck Abbey. The Aldermaston there taught every first year learner these words from the tome of Hadrion - ‘we wrestle not against blood and bone, but against kingdoms, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Against brooding wickedness in high places, and even their puppets called kings.’” His voice changed, softened. “Sevrin Demont fought against the Myriad Ones his whole life and even against his own king when he realized he was but a puppet. Demont failed at Maseve because he gave up hope. The Medium…it abandoned him. Darkness has veiled the land ever since. Mastons are being put to death in secret. I ride to Winterrowd to change that. The orb knows our need. But it also recognizes your fears and doubts. Your feelings are what is stopping it.”

Lia stared at him, wondering what to believe. She knew a great deal about mastons, but she had never heard of Myriad Ones or invisible things that could influence her thoughts. She did know this. She was cold and miserable. She was afraid.

After a period of silence, she said, “I feel what I feel, Colvin. I cannot just change my feelings, like a dirty cloak or a new dress, can I?”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, you can. It all begins here, with a thought.” His finger grazed the center of her forehead. She shivered at his touch.



“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors – that which it loves, and also that which it fears. Thus circumstances do not make the maston; they only reveal him to himself. It means that blessedness, and not wealth, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not poverty or lack of Family, is the measure of wrong thought. A maston will find that as he alters his thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him. For you will always draw near towards that which you, secretly, most love. Humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt. Only the wise maston, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, can make the winds and the storms of the soul obey him.”





- Cuthbert Renowden of Billerbeck Abbey



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