“By his own choice or by your touch?”
Her smile became shy. I feared him when Snowdance called to me with news of his coming. We found him fallen from his horse, raving with fever from his wound. The others wanted to kill him but I wouldn’t let them. I knew what he was, a man with his skills may have been useful to us, and so I touched him. She paused, looking down at her gloved hands. Nothing happened. For the first time, no rush of power, no sense of control. A slow flush crept up her cheeks. I can touch him.
Something for which I’m sure he’s very grateful, Vaelin thought fighting a pang of envy. “He does not do your bidding? He is not…” he fumbled for the right words, “enslaved?”
Mother told me it would be this way. One day I would meet someone who would be immune to my touch, and we would be bound together. It is always this way for those with our gift. Your brother is as free as he ever was. Her smile faded, sympathy colouring her eyes. More free than you, I think.
Vaelin looked away. “He told me what Weaver did for him,” he said, desiring a change of subject. “All the people here are touched by the Dark are they not?”
Her hands twitched in annoyance and a frown creased her brow. The Dark is a word for the ignorant. The people here are Gifted. Different powers, different abilities. But Gifted. Like you.
He nodded. “That’s what you saw in me, all those years ago. You knew it before I did.”
Your gift is rare and precious. My mother called it the Hunter’s Call. In the days of the Four Fiefs it was known as the Battle Sight. The Seordah…
“Blood-song,” he said.
She nodded. It’s grown since our last meeting. I can feel it. You have honed it, learnt its music well. But there is still so much to learn.
“You can teach me?” He was surprised at the hope evident in his voice.
She shook her head. No, but there are others, older and wiser with the same gift. They can guide you.
“How do I find them?”
Your song links you to them. It will find them. All you must do is follow. Remember, it is a rare gift you hold. It may be years before you find one who can guide you.
Vaelin hesitated before asking his next question, he had kept the secret so long it was a habit he found hard to break. “There is something I need to know. How can it be that I have faced two men, now dead, who both spoke with the same voice?”
Her face was suddenly guarded and it was a moment before her hands spoke again. They wished you ill, these men?
He thought of the assassin in the House of the Fourth Order and the murderous desperation of Hentes Mustor. “Yes, they wished me ill.”
Sella’s hands now moved with a strange hesitancy he hadn’t seen before. There are stories among the Gifted… Old stories… Myths… Of Gifted who could return…
He frowned. “Return from where?”
From the place where all journeys end… From the Beyond… From death. They take the bodies of the living, wear them like a cloak. Whether such a thing can truly be done I don’t know. Your words are… troubling.
“Once there were seven. You know what this means?”
There were once seven orders of your faith. An old story.
“A true story?”
She shrugged. Your faith is not mine, I know little of its history.
He glanced back at the camp and its fearful inhabitants. “These people all follow your beliefs?”
She gave a small laugh and shook her head. Only I follow the path of the Sun and the Moon here. Amongst us are Questers, Ascendants, followers of the Cumbraelin god and even some adherents of your faith. Belief does not bind us, our gifts do that.
“Erlin guided all these people here?”
Some. There was only Harlick and a few others when he first brought me here. Others came later, fleeing the fears and hatreds our kind attracts, called by their gifts. This place. She gestured at the surrounding ruins. Once there was great power here. The Gifted were protected in this city, vaunted even. The echo of that time is still strong enough to call us. You can feel it, can’t you?
He nodded, the atmosphere seemed less oppressive now he knew its meaning. “Nortah said you have bad dreams of this city. Of what happened here.”
Not all bad. Sometimes I see it how it was before the fall. There were many wonders here; a city of artists, poets, singers, sculptors. They had mastered so much, learned so much, they felt themselves invulnerable, thinking the Gifted among them all the protection they needed. They had lived in peace for generations and had no warriors, so when the storm came they were naked before it.