Ker had experienced that firsthand. It was impossible to hide the Talent when it came.
“The mages’ magic also. Finds. Its. Root. In. The. Individual’s. Body. And. Psyche. But. Without. Rigorous. Training. Using what they call soul stones. And. Determined. Focused. Discipline. Their. Magic. Is. Never. More. Than. A. Spark. Your. Forebears. All. Your. Forebears. Deemed. This. Magic. Unnatural. And. Had. Outlawry. As. Their. Price. For. Aiding. Jurianol. To. The. Luqs’. Seat. They will kill you if they can.”
Ylora nodded slowly. “All right, then. If we do make common cause with you, what are your terms?”
Everyone looked at Luca, but he looked at her. “We can’t make terms with you,” she said. “The only one who can is Cohort Leader Silvertrees, and he’s back in the camp.”
Volor leaned forward. “We’re not walking some military man through the path, no matter what,” she said. “Talent Guardians are one thing, and griffins.” She bobbed her head at Weimerk, who blinked one eye at her. “But a soldier who’s trained to remember pathways? Ylora, no one would agree to this.” From the look on the others’ faces, Volor’s “no one” included everyone on the council.
“She’s right,” Ylora said. “No one will.”
“Then we’ll have to go to him,” Luca said, but Ylora was already shaking her head.
“I’m not up to walking that far,” she pointed out.
Privately, Ker agreed. The thought of having to walk back through all those twists and turns was more than her leg muscles could bear. “Weimerk, would you carry her?”
“Don’t matter if he will, I won’t be carried.” The blood had drained from the older woman’s face.
Ker blew out a breath. “Well, then. Will you carry Wilk?”
“Even. If. I wished to, which I do not. He. Is. Too. Heavy.”
Ker drummed her fingers on her knee and shifted on her stool. There was no way to get Weimerk to do what he didn’t want to do. “You said once you’d carry Jerek.”
Weimerk shrugged his wings. “I would. He. Is. Part. Of. The. Prophecy. As I am.”
“Then you could carry his representative,” she said as firmly as she could. Before Weimerk could respond, she added. “Would you carry Tel?”
* * *
• • •
Tel Cursar could afford to find the look on the Ruby Cohort Leader’s face funny, since Wilk Silvertrees aimed the look at Cuarel. The other two soldiers developed a sudden interest in straightening firewood and examining the ground. The Cohort Leader’s face wasn’t the only thing making Tel smile. For him, the most important part of Cuarel’s news was that Ker was safe and sound. Except for duty shifts, he hadn’t been separated from her since she’d unjeweled him. Watching her walk off with the Feelers of the Springs and Pools had been almost more than he could take.
A chance to fly with the griffin—that was what really made him smile.
“I’m sorry, Cohort Leader,” Cuarel was saying. “I’m only passing along what the griffin tells me. A speaker for the Luqs is needed, and it can’t be you. Of the rest of us, Weimerk the griffin will only carry Tel Cursar.”
Silvertrees squeezed his eyes shut and Tel took the chance to exchange a grin with the other soldiers. Nothing entertained the lower ranks more than a top officer being annoyed by someone else, though Tel kept that feeling off his face when the Cohort Leader turned to him. The older man frowned, fists on hips, and finally sighed. He opened the collar of his tunic and pulled out a gold plaque, careful to touch only the chain it hung on. He gestured Tel forward and transferred the plaque to Tel’s neck, again carefully slipping it under Tel’s tunic by the chain alone.
Jerek the Luqs had been the last person to touch the plaque, when he’d pressed his thumbprint into the warmed gold. Any Talent would know it was real and given freely as the Luqs’ token.
“Tell the griffin he may come,” Wilk said.
Cuarel didn’t say anything, but Tel knew from the look on her face that Weimerk hadn’t waited for permission.
* * *
• • •
“What people would you actually need?”
Tel took a deep breath and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. He’d lost the thin strip of leather he used to tie his hair somewhere over the last bit of moorland, and the braiding had been blown out by the griffin’s speed. Ker could tell he didn’t know he was still smiling.
“Well, Far-seers and Lifters would be the most useful, obviously,” Tel said, dropping his hands and leaning forward, elbows on knees. He was too tall to stand comfortably in the meeting hall. “But Far-thinkers are also a real asset for communications.”
“So, you’d take the most useful among us, leaving us without communications or protection for ourselves.” Volor looked around and nodded at the others, as if to say: “I told you so.” For some reason, the UnGifted was the most against them.
Ker frowned. Suspicion she could understand, all things considered. But could this be something more? She triggered her Talent again and allowed her awareness to float away from the council meeting. Just how many Springers were there? And how many of them were Feelers?
<
Ker gritted her teeth. She liked to at least pretend her thoughts were her own.
<
<
Did that mean more Feelers had been brought here in the first place, or that they did something with—or to—the UnGifted who were born among them? They wouldn’t be the first poor village or community who exposed children or their aged when they couldn’t afford to feed them. It hadn’t happened in the Polity for generations, but technically these people weren’t part of the Polity.
Ker shivered. Did she want to know? They needed the help of any willing Feeler. Could they afford to look too closely into how those people lived?
“Enough.” Ylora clapped her hands. “Or rather, it’s not enough. Even if we agree the Prophecy’s real, and I guess with the griffin breathing into our doorway we pretty much have to, how does that mean we should come out of hiding, let alone help the Battle Wings?”
“Citizenship—”
“Look, you seem like a nice boy, and I’m sure you believe what you’re telling us—and maybe this new Luqs of yours does as well, but don’t you see? We had citizenship. That didn’t stop the Talents from turning against us and arranging to have us outlawed.” She looked around. “No offense intended to present company.”
Ker just stopped herself from rolling her eyes. According to what she’d been told by both the Feelers in the Mines and Luca Pa’narion himself, that accusation was, more or less, the truth.
Tel’s lips were pressed together, his breath coming short through his nose. Don’t lose your temper, she willed at him, praying to the Daughter that he somehow heard her. Weimerk’s chuckling was like a tickle in her head. “What, then?” Tel asked. “Is there something else that might persuade you to help us?” Well, sarcasm wasn’t much of an improvement over shouting, but Ker supposed it would do.
“The girl offered to heal me,” Ylora said.
Speechless, Ker looked from Ylora to the others. “I said I would try.”
“That’s it?” Now Tel didn’t care how much of his anger showed. “We heal you and you’ll send us help?”
“Not me.” Ylora spoke so quietly Ker almost missed it. She put her hand on Tel’s arm, again willing him to be quiet. “I’m old, I’m used to my leg.” Ylora shrugged. “The Mother knows I’d probably miss the limp if the girl actually fixed it. No, it’s not me.” She looked off into the middle distance, Far-thinking.
By the time she relaxed, two women had presented themselves at the open doorway, edging with much nodding and bowing around Weimerk’s front paws. He retrac
ted his claws again with an air of great politeness. They brought a small boy, maybe three or four, maybe older, who wriggled in his mother’s arms, reaching for the griffin. Ker found it hard to tell whether his small size was due to age, or to the fact that he didn’t look all that well fed. Judging from the similarities in their eyes and brow ridges, the woman carrying him was likely his mother by blood. The other followed with a small crutch, little more than a twisted bit of tree branch, in her hand. When the mother set him down, the boy balanced on his right leg and Ker saw that his left leg was too short to reach the ground. There was a knot the size of Ker’s own fist in the boy’s left thigh, the leg hanging crookedly from that point as if he had a second knee.
“First tell me, ‘Griffin Girl,’ whether this lad has a Gift.” Ylora sat back, arms crossed.
Paraste. Ker scanned the child’s aura and got the answer she expected. There was no telltale Feeler color, no matter how faint. Only the three colors shared by all human beings. <
<
“This child isn’t a Feeler,” Ker said. “He’s UnGifted.”
“You can’t tell yet,” the second woman protested. “He’s too young.”
“The griffin can tell.” Ker didn’t bother to say she was sorry. Her sympathy wouldn’t be welcome.
The mother spun around to the doorway. Weimerk tilted his head down and fixed his left eye on her. His wings hung low. Finally, the woman nodded and turned back, laying her hand with great gentleness on her son’s head.
“Qela.” Ylora’s voice held all the sorrow and caring Ker couldn’t express. “Even if we didn’t trust the griffin, you know we’d have no choice. The boy’s too young to have learned a useful skill. He can’t walk or run, or even stand comfortably by himself for any length of time.” The Speaker looked down at her own twisted leg. “He was injured too young,” she said. “Even without the griffin,” she repeated, “we couldn’t afford to wait and see if he had a Gift. You know we’d have no choice.”
The one mother nodded. The other, still holding the crutch, pressed her lips tight together but otherwise didn’t move.
Ker swallowed, and forced herself not to look away. Her worst fears were confirmed, but she found she couldn’t condemn these people—not completely. They had the survival of their whole group to think about.
“So, Qela, knowing what our options are, would you and Birroc be willing to let this Talent try something?”
“Something that would help the boy?” Birroc asked. Qela looked afraid to speak.
“It might not work,” Ylora said before Ker could. “She can’t promise anything. But seeing what the alternative is, I thought you might want to let her try.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Please.” Ker found herself in Birroc’s arms, so startled she almost didn’t feel the little crutch poking into her back. “Help him if you can, please. We’d do anything for you. Anything.”
“Just wait, Birroc,” Ylora said. “If she can do it, you won’t be the only one in her debt.” She turned to Ker. “What do you need, Talent?”
“Your best Lifter,” she said. “And a few hours’ rest.”
* * *
• • •
Three hours later Ker was back in the meeting hall, being introduced to a Lifter almost as tall as Tel, though much thinner and much, much older. Older even than Ganni.
Lifters were so-called after the most obvious part of their Gift, the ability to lift and move things, or people, without touching them. They could lift items too heavy for normal strength, they could push or hold things out of the way. And if their Gift was strong, they could move the edges of wounds together and encourage them to heal. It was Mind-healers who could help anyone sick in spirit, sometimes even those who had severe flaws of character, but neither Feeler could heal a physical, interior wound. Lifters couldn’t move or lift anything they couldn’t see. And that included any interior sickness of the body.
Ker rubbed at an area under her left arm, where there wasn’t a scar puckering the skin between two ribs. Lifters could heal what they couldn’t see, if she could show it to them.
“Here.” She beckoned to the old man with her left hand, laying her right on the child’s thigh. “Put your hand here, where the injury is.”
“Doesn’t he have to be asleep or something?” the old man said as he came forward.
“I don’t think so,” Ker said. “It shouldn’t make any difference.” But the old man’s attitude could make a difference. He seemed too withdrawn and cold to be able to work with her. She’d set bones any number of times with Lifters in the Mines, but they’d all been eager and enthusiastic.
Nevertheless, whether it was fear or disbelief, the man didn’t let it stop him. He placed his left hand on the boy’s thigh next to Ker’s right, and allowed Ker to hold his right hand in her left.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Paraste. The old man’s aura was brighter and more robust than he was, and that gave Ker some hope. His six colors, though vibrant and glowing, were tightly contained, almost as if he held his breath.
“Can you relax?” she asked. “Do you need a Mind-healer?”
“Child, just get on with it.” But the bands and waves of his colors did seem to loosen.
“Can you see anything?” she asked.
“Got my eyes closed, like you told me.”
So that’s a no. She nodded without speaking aloud. She took three deep breaths, letting each one out slowly. At first, the red pattern of her jewel distracted her, until she had to deliberately set it to one side. Then she allowed her own band of turquoise, the color that marked her as a Talent, to join the old man’s aura, slipping around and through his colors and wrapping them loosely.
<
<
<
Ker swallowed, and filed that away for later.
“I don’t think this is working, Talent.”
Ker couldn’t understand; this was all she did when she worked with the Feelers in the Mines and Tunnels. Were they simply more open to working with her? Or was there something else? The Shekayrin certainly didn’t seem to have any trouble influencing their victims. Wincing at the thought, Ker was still desperate enough to try it. She pulled her red thread closer and ran through its patterns until one felt right. She took the turquoise ribbon of her Talent and spun it thinner, looping and threading it through and over, augmenting the pattern of red almost as if she was making lace. Just as she closed the net around the old man’s aura, he grunted.
“Wait a bit.” His hand clamped down on hers and Ker gritted her teeth. “There’s something. I see it. Don’t move,” he said, but Ker wasn’t sure who he spoke to.
“You see where the healing went wrong?” she asked him.
“I do, I do. This is marvelous. Can you see this all the time?”
“When I’m Flashing, yes,” she said.
“Well, Mother bless me, and Daughter slap my face. It’s marvelous, that’s all. Marvelous.”
“Can you see how to fix the break?” she asked him. “You see here.” She wasn’t pointing—she had nothing to point with—and yet, somehow, she was. “Can you move that?”
The old man nodded. “I can. It’s going to hurt the little bugger, but I can.”
“Quickly.”
Almost too fast for Ker to follow, the knot of misshapen bone cracked open. The boy cried out, but there were suddenly other hands, other auras, holding him still and giving what comfort they could. The boy’s thigh bone suddenly straightened, chips of bone and bits of cartilage moving into place and fusing together.
“Get that bleeding,
” Ker said.
“I see it, I see it.” The tiny spurt of blood stopped. “Anything else?”
“I don’t think so,” Ker said. “I think we’re done.” She gently disengaged her turquoise-and-red pattern. Terestre. She sagged back on her heels, found Tel supporting her shoulders. When she opened her eyes, the boy was asleep; there was a bad bruise on his thigh, but the leg was straight.
“Might be a bit shorter,” the old man said, appraising the limb with his head to one side. “But not enough to make a real difference.” There was a light in his eye, and a smile hovered around his lips that hadn’t been there before. “There’s others,” he said. “Maybe not bad like the boy here, but others we can help.”
Before Ker could answer Tel spoke up. “I believe you were about to make a decision.”
Ylora rubbed her face, as if she’d been the one doing all the work. “What says the council?” She waited until she had nods from everyone. “So, then. We’ll help you, in exchange for healing—and the citizenship,” she added at a signal from one of the others. “But it must be volunteers, mind. I can’t order anyone to go with you.”
“That’s all we want,” Tel said.
Of course, it was, Ker thought. It had to be. The old man still grinned at her, eager and fresh. How many others would he want her to look at? And how long would it take? Even her eyelashes felt tired. She leaned her head back against Tel’s arm. She’d just rest her eyes for a minute.
BAKURA Kar Luyn took deep, steady breaths, flexing the fingers of both hands. Breathing deeply to keep her hands from trembling, her face from twisting, tears from springing to her eyes. Her brother the Sky Emperor had said sending her away would keep her alive. She wondered if this would be so. She had foreseen nothing of her voyage, not the boat, nor the storm at sea the Shekayrin averted—nothing at all of her future, nor anything else since she had been netted.
“Honored One, we arrive.”
Baku shook herself. The clouds that had fogged her brain were slowly fading, as were the tints of red she saw from the corners of her eyes. But she had little hope that her sightings of future events would return. “Speak in the language of Farama, Kvena. We must practice.”
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