When the old one’s voice finally trailed off, her tears drying on her cheeks, Sasha rose and emptied the basin of lukewarm water outside of the earthen hut, pulling the thick flaps over the opening and leaving the ties loose so she could return quickly if the old woman cried out.
But the origin story continued on in her head—the Changer, the Spinner, the Healer, and the Teller, and the children that came after them. Hundreds of years. Generation upon generation, gifts celebrated and revered, then squandered and abused, and finally buried and denied as the only Gifted who remained became hated and hissed at. One by one, the Tellers, the Healers, the Changers, and the Spinners were destroyed. The forces of the king cut off the Spinners’ hands. They burned the Tellers at the stake. They hunted the Changers like the animals they resembled and stoned the Healers in the village squares, until those with special gifts—any gift—were afraid of their abilities and hid their talents from each other.
The village of Solemn was quiet, the air scorched of light or life, the heat of the day slumbering with the stricken hamlet. A sob suddenly pierced the air, and Sasha braced herself for the name that rose on the scream. It came, the identification making her lips tremble and her eyes smart. Another child had died. Edwin. The little boy with the bent leg.
The weakest were being taken first.
Sasha moved away from the rows of huts and the more stately structures of the elders, working her way on weary legs toward the water that flowed through the canyons. It wasn’t as close as the river that came from the east, but she didn’t think it would make her sick the way the water from the east had made Mina sick. When Mina had started to decline, Sasha had gone to the kindest of the elders, Mina’s brother, and told him to warn the people not to drink the water, that the water carried something dark. He counseled with the other elders. None of them were ill, and they’d been drinking from the eastern river for a long time. They said she was mad and she would frighten the people. They told her to hold her tongue or she would lose it.
Not long ago, there had been a great battle in the land of Jeru. Wrongs righted. Oppression lifted. But little had changed in the villages of Quondoon. The merchants came to Solemn from Jeru City bearing wares and tales, and Sasha’s master had sat with the elders, hearing the stories of the powerful King Tiras who could fly like a bird and who had done away with the old laws. Now the Gifted were free to roam and do their worst, the elders said, though no one had ever seen a Spinner or a Healer in Solemn. There were Changers in Doha, the village nearest them—an old man and a child, though they could only partially change, sprouting wings or powerful haunches at will, but unable to completely transform. Sasha had never seen them, but the elders were dismissive, laughing at the oddity, claiming it more a curse than a gift. The merchants brought more talk from Bin Dar—the land to the north—of great birdmen who made nests and ate human flesh, but no one from Solemn had seen them either. Sasha was not a Changer, a Spinner, a Healer, or a Teller. She was something else entirely. No one talked about Sasha, but their silence did not equate to safety, and Sasha had no confidence in a king so far away or laws that were supposed to protect everyone. Even slaves.
He had a face that she wouldn’t forget and one she couldn’t remember. She shouldn’t have been able to see him so clearly. It was night and he hovered above her, shadowed beneath a half-eaten moon. His eyes were like the sea, blue but not untroubled, and his mouth was her anchor, making promises that kept her from floating away. His hands were gentle, his words were rough, and when he asked her to come with him, she did, rising from her body and becoming someone new.
But they still found her.
Figures moved in and out of the mist, shifting and searching. People screamed and shadows flew through the air, diving and swooping. She hid, flattened against the ground, her face in the dirt. She tried to draw breath but choked and coughed as she breathed in bits of earth. She covered her face with her scarf to strain the air and crawled forward. There was no sound. She tried to shout and felt the shape of his name on her lips, a word she couldn’t hear. A word she didn’t know.
Whop, whop, whop.
The sound echoed in her head and her chest, and the world of hidden figures and flying death whirled away as the beating grew louder.
She’d fallen asleep too close to the fire.
Again.
Her hair and face would be streaked with soot, and she’d drawn ash into her lungs. The house was too hot for a fire, but she hadn’t been able to keep Mina warm, and the coals were slower to die than the old woman had been. Her heart was pounding and her throat was raw. The slapping sound became sharper, heavier, and it left her head and shook the air with the sound of a thousand wings.
“Sasha! Let me in. Untie the flaps.”
Sasha rubbed at her eyes and rose unsteadily to her feet, drunk on the old dream. She was weary and her cheeks burned. She’d been too many days at her master’s bedside, tending the old woman until, like the dream, Mina had drifted away. She’d mourned alone, setting up a call into the night that had been met with moans and little more. Mina’s brother had come with the elders only hours before. They had taken the body of her master away and left her behind.
“Sasha! Let me in!”
“Maeve! You’ll wake the whole village,” she warned, stumbling to the door and unknotting the ties with weary hands. The girl, small and dark like many of the people of Quondoon, tumbled through the opening and fell into Sasha’s arms.
“Sasha. Run. Go now! They’re coming for you,” Maeve gasped. “Mina can’t protect you anymore. They’re coming. I heard them. They’re scared, and they blame you.”
“For what?” Sasha cried. But she knew. Maeve knew too, and didn’t waste time with unnecessary words, grabbing at her hand and pulling her forward.
“Where will I go?
“You’re free. Go wherever you wish.”
“But this is my home.”
“Not anymore. Mina is dead. And you soon will be if you don’t leave now!”
“I’m not properly dressed.” Sasha reached frantically for her head covering, needing to shield her pale skin and her bright hair. Her shoes were outside the door.
“You’ve no time!”
Then Sasha heard it. Felt it. And she recognized it. She’d seen this moment. The sensation of loss and . . . relief washed over her. It had come. There was always relief when visions became truth. She didn’t know why.
From far off there were shouts and cries, as if the village was under attack. But there were no pillagers on the borders, seeking entry. There were no dragons in the air, breaching the borders of the city of Solemn. The enemy was within the gates.