A rustle of fabric made everyone turn as the king and queen approached them. The queen, a tall woman dressed in a silvery, rose-colored gown, trained her eyes on Braeden.
“What has happened here?” she asked in a soft but commanding voice.
Braeden bowed as everyone else curtseyed. Issina had never been in the king and queen’s presence before, but she didn’t feel submissive as she thought she might. The queen seemed tender and kind.
“I’m not certain, Your Majesties.” Braeden rose from his bow and gave Odele an urgent look. He nodded to Genevieve, who stood behind the king and queen, a silent, regal statue.
Odele stepped forward. “I must apologize,” she stuttered. “Sybil has a gift for seeing visions when she sings, and I’m afraid she saw danger at our home.”
“Then why are you still standing here?” the king asked. His crown glittered in the moonlight.
Odele pressed her lips together, unable to answer the question. She glanced at Issina.
“I believe we should follow the crowd,” Genevieve said. Everyone moved their attention to her as she glided forward. “The festival will continue at a later time.”
Issina glanced at Sybil, whose tears glistened on her cheeks. There was no doubt she believed—or had read in somebody’s mind—that her chances of becoming a grower were dashed. When she moved her attention to Issina, her tragic expression turned to malice. Edryn’s expression was an exact replica. The two sisters then exchanged a dark look, plunging Issina’s heart to the ground.
“Come,” Braeden said, and held his arm out for Edryn. “If your home is in danger, I will do everything in my power to fix it.”
“Lord Ashcombe, are you with this young woman?” the queen asked with a half-smile.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Our engagement has not been officially announced, nor have I had a chance to request His Majesty’s royal blessing.” Braeden bowed to the king as Edryn’s crushed expression brightened.
“You have it,” the king said with the same half-smile as his wife. “She is a lovely match for you. If her magic is half as dazzling as her sister’s, you are a lucky man.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Edryn gushed, and she and Braeden moved aside to let the monarchs step forward.
The group moved together up the road, the king and queen in front, and Issina in the back with Odele gripping her arm.
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” she hissed, practically dragging Issina, “but you’ll pay for your disobedience.”
“Yes, Mother.” She stared at the ground as her shoes scuffed along the dirt. Her dress looked hideously dirty poking out beneath Sybil’s fine cloak. Nobody had seemed to notice that she had stolen clothing.
Odele gave her a sharp look. “Explain to me how a tree is growing through the house.”
“I can’t,” she said quietly. “I’m as confused as you.” Her voice cracked as she looked into Odele’s beautiful face. “I have a feeling Genevieve will know what to do.”
“Hmph.” Odele’s eye flashed. In the moonlight she reminded Issina of a swan once more. Her silk gown and golden hairclips created an elegance about her that Issina envied despite her better judgment. “We shall see,” she mumbled. “If this ruins Sybil’s chances to become a grower, I will find a way to destroy you.”
Her grip tightened until Issina’s fingers went numb.
As Oken had said they would, the tree’s leaves waxed silver. From the branches hung golden apples so beautiful they looked good enough to eat.
The crowd had gathered around the house, every neck craned back, every eye lifted up. Voices whispered.
Is the fruit true gold? Are those leaves made of silver?
It was difficult to tell. In the starlight, everything glistened like precious metal. Every eye sparkled with an eager lust that frightened Issina. She turned to see Odele’s face change from anger to wonderment. Even Braeden’s attention was riveted to the tree. His hold on Edryn seemed voracious.
Issina looked around for Oken. Her frustration with him had long since subsided and was quickly dissolving into an intense need to see him again. What was she supposed to do now? She looked for Genevieve and saw her standing apart from the crowd, her eyes cast down instead of up. Whispers danced through the air, fluttery anticipations.
Should we climb to get a branch? Chop the tree down? We could be rich. We could sell to other lands and build up our own reserves. Finer clothing, bigger homes, stronger armies, expand the kingdom.
Even the king and queen whispered to one another after the group around them did their curtseys and bows and turned back to the tree. It seemed all-consuming, except to Issina and Genevieve. Odele’s grip on her arm slackened, allowing her to slip away and move toward Genevieve. The slender elf looked up.
“You have met Oken,” she said flatly.
Issina wasn’t surprised by the statement. She nodded. “Do you know what I’m supposed to do now?”
“Supposed to do?” She laughed. “I have an idea, but it is Oken you must speak with.”
“He told you about me?”
“Oh, yes. We have known about you since you were a child. The market. A jewelry cart.”
“Lily told you about me.” The knowledge slid into place, a puzzle piece she hadn’t known was missing.
Genevieve nodded. “She is a powerful fairy.”
Issina glanced over her shoulder, even though she knew nobody was paying attention to her or Genevieve. “There are fairies too?”
“Oh, yes. Fairies are the most powerful beings. You will probably never encounter another one again. Some humans who have been aware of their existence believe they are gone or fading from the face of the earth, but that is not true, of course.”
“What else is out there?” She grew warm, her hands tingling with excitement. The crowd behind her seemed small and insignificant. With Genevieve in front of her, Odele’s threats dissolved into emptiness.
“There are many other beings,” Genevieve said, and gestured toward a path. Issina walked with her, glancing back only once to see several men attempting to climb the tree.
Genevieve led her into the forest. They walked along a path she didn’t recognize, and soon they were on a path like the one she had found before, made of white, flat stones. This time, however, they didn’t glow.
“Everything was lit up last time,” she said, mostly to herself.
Genevieve smiled. “Yes, it was raining. Our world illuminates when it rains.”
“Why?”
“I will show you.”
They continued along the path. Darkness enveloped them, the only light emanating from Genevieve. Her skin, like Oken’s, shimmered with light that seemed to radiate from within her.
“I don’t understand how people haven’t seen what you are,” Issina said as she watched the hem of Genevieve’s gown tumble along the stones. “You... glow, and your ears are pointed. You’re magical. You don’t age.”
“People see what they want to see.” She stopped and turned to face her. “Also, I am unable to shield my true self as convincingly when I am in need of warmth, so you are seeing more of my natural state than you would otherwise.”
Issina’s face twisted with confusion.
“Every elf is cold the one night of the year it doesn’t rain.” Genevieve lifted her arm as an invitation for her to continue walking. “Just around the corner, you will see.”
She stepped forward cautiously. The dark trees seemed to part for her as the path ended and she entered a large, circular clearing lined with elves, each one standing straight and tall as they clasped hands and stared silently at the sky. Like Genevieve, their skin glowed, but it seemed to be fading.
Issina stiffened with surprise. “What are they doing?”
“Nothing, really, and that will keep the rain away.”
“You’re the reason it rains?”
“Yes.”
She took a step backward. “Why?” They were so quiet. Their expressions seemed sad and long
ing.
Genevieve stepped forward and grasped Issina’s hands. “It looks like Oken helped close your wounds,” she said, rubbing a thumb along the scars.
Her skin flushed at the memory of Oken’s kindness. “Yes, he did something with the roots.”
Genevieve nodded once and focused her gaze on a particularly tall elf standing in the circle. He lowered his eyes and broke free of the circle. He approached them with a calm, saddened expression.
“Would you like Elden to make you something to eat, Issina?” Genevieve asked as the tall elf stopped at a tree nearby.
Issina touched her stomach and looked down. She hadn’t thought about food since she had gone to the festival and smelled apples and cooking meat. At the thought of food, her stomach growled. “I guess so.”
Genevieve turned to the elf. “Go ahead.”
He nodded and knelt in front of the tree. His clothing was earthy and made of thin, leathery leaves layered and sewn together. Some were brown, some green and almost transparent. He reminded her of late summer when the trees were their most beautiful. He lifted his arm and extended his long fingers as he began chanting words similar to what Edryn and Sybil sang.
The earth below his hand groaned and opened up, and like so many snakes, roots slithered up to his fingers. Issina stared in wonder, surprised at the calmness in the air. The roots didn’t frighten her. They were beautiful, glowing with white light as they wavered beneath his fingers. For a long moment, the light from the roots drifted and spiraled to his hand, disappearing as soon as it reached his skin. His glow brightened as his saddened expression melted into satisfaction. A pocket of cold air wrapped around her, and she shivered as it rose into the sky.
Genevieve shifted her feet. “Elden.”
He whispered something Issina couldn’t understand and withdrew his hand. Pulling a knife from one of his pockets, he sliced through the roots, gathering them into a small leather pouch around his waist. He ran his hands across the ground and an empty silver plate appeared, and then a goblet and a platter.
When he pulled some of the roots from his pouch, Issina’s heart sank. They were no longer glowing. Now they looked exactly like the roots in the cellar. She wasn’t very excited to eat those, especially in front of Genevieve.
She opened her mouth to tell her she would rather pass on the meal, but then Elden placed a root on the plate and uttered some more words she couldn’t understand. The root transformed into cooked, steaming potatoes smothered in herbs. Her mouth watered as he also created bread and wine and the sugared dates she had learned to crave.
He stood and smiled, nodding respectfully to Genevieve before he returned to the circle.
“You must have noticed the drop in temperature every evening,” Genevieve said as she gestured to the food for her to eat.
“Yes, of course.” She stepped forward cautiously, hesitating only a moment before she knelt down to start eating.
“Have you not noticed how warm it is tonight?”
Issina pulled her cloak closer around her. “Yes, but it is still cold, and when Elden was... doing something... with those roots, it got colder.” She looked up at Genevieve’s perfect features. The glow on her skin looked almost frigid, like frozen crystals.
“We are made from the earth, Issina. Our magic is from its core, and we cannot survive without its warmth. Just as you need nourishment to keep your body functioning, we need to absorb the earth’s warmth to sustain our magic. We cannot die by a human hand, or by time, but we are miserable without magic. We might as well be dead without it. As the earth gives us its warmth, it illuminates the world around us, but that warmth does not stay inside us for long, as you can see.” She swept a hand across the pale glow on her face.
Issina swallowed a mouthful of bread. “But my sisters have magic, and they don’t need this warmth you speak of.”
“That is why your race is special. Oken must have explained to you how much we envy your mortality and ability to wield and maintain magic, to grow and change.”
“Yes.” She looked down at her hands and thought of the hot blood coursing through her veins. “Are you in need of warmth now? Is that what Elden was gathering from the roots?”
“Yes, but we are all right for one evening.”
“Tomorrow it will rain?”
“Yes. As we absorb the earth’s warmth every night, cold air is pushed upward. You felt the cold air from Elden. In large amounts, this causes clouds and rain, and if a storm would have occurred without our presence, it increases tenfold when we partake of the earth’s warmth. So, you understand why we had to help your kind when you settled here. Our comfort and need for warmth creates an environment where you cannot maintain enough food to live.”
“Unless our growers bring balance.”
She nodded slowly, and Issina looked at the group of elves. She searched for Oken, but didn’t see him. “Is this all of you?”
“No, this is a small group. We are spread across the land, as numerous as the trees.”
It was then that she remembered Lily’s words. I sense the earth in you. Earth is dark, like this stone, but filled with light.
“Why did Lily say she sensed the earth in me? She told me my eyes might one day be like my father’s, like a stone filled with light.”
Genevieve smiled. “Your father was a healer, and his abilities passed to you. Your sisters did not get them. They received our simple earth-magic instead—the magic which allows them to grow plants, probably passed down by your mother.”
“His abilities?” She dropped a sugared date, her hunger vanishing as her mind filled with the only image of her father she knew—those angry tiger eyes. She blinked. “Oken said I don’t have any magic. How can I possibly—”
“Healers don’t use elemental manipulation, or magic, as you call it— they use emotions.”
“I don’t understand.” She thought back to the story of her father healing an injured man with an arrow in his chest. Sybil had said he was so calm and filled with joy.
“It is simple,” Genevieve said as she stepped forward and knelt in front of Issina. She lifted her face in her smooth hands. “Pure, raw emotion is more powerful than any magic. It comes from within you, but only certain humans possess the ability to channel that emotion into healing—or destruction. It goes both ways. You are one of these humans, but you must remove all negative emotions from your heart before you can progress.”
Her heart sped at the thought of something magical inside her, even if Genevieve didn’t call it magic. She was beginning to understand why the plants had withered in her hands—and why her father was dead. “So I’m a... healer?”
“You can be.”
6
Thirds
She looked up at the stars and understood what it might mean to become a healer. She knew next to nothing of what it would entail, but deep inside her heart she felt at peace. The darkness in the sky made the stars shine bright. She took a deep breath and held it in as Genevieve told her she would leave for a moment to fetch Oken.
“He will help you transform,” she said, and Issina’s heart felt fragile.
Transform.
Her hands trembled at her sides. Sybil’s cloak grew heavy on her shoulders, pulling her down, down, down to the ground until she was kneeling, still staring at the stars.
Two-Eyes. She was more than Two-Eyes. Her sisters had been wrong when they told her she was nothing. Healers were revered above all humans, even royalty. They were the only ones who possessed the ability to heal wounds even the most skilled physicians surrendered to death. Healers could see the future. They were heavenly creatures, but she had never seen her father as such a being. She couldn’t see herself as such a being.
She looked at the scars on her hands and sank beneath the weight of Odele’s scorn. Nothing could change the years of anger Odele had harbored against her. Those years were like the scars on her hands, impossible to wipe away. An imperfect soul could not be a heavenly soul.
; “Issina?”
She looked up to see Oken kneeling down beside her. His expression was calm, his skin still luminous. Her heart leapt at the sight of him.
“I’m sorry I left you,” she said with a whimper. “I was angry about the tree, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “It’s quite all right.” He smiled. “You handle your emotions well. For the most part, you have kept anger at bay. You are very pure, and that’s why I’m here to help you start your journey as a healer.”
“How?”
“I will need to guide you. It’s your choice, Issina. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t wish.”
The look in his eyes said he wished she would. She wanted to be with him more than anything else in the world. She looked at his offered hand, at his flawless, luminescent skin, and placed her scarred hand in his. He helped her up and they walked past the clearing and to another white stone path. The air was peaceful. Oken held her hand tightly as they walked. He led her off the path and into a thick grove of trees standing so close together she wasn’t sure she could squeeze between them.
“Follow behind me,” he said, and let go of her hand.
Reluctantly, she moved behind him. She remembered when he had closed her wounds and the connection she had felt to him—only it had never felt complete. That sensation returned, a tight thread of energy wrapping around her body and his. It wasn’t anything she could see, but she knew it was there. It loosened and tightened, and then wavered. Every inch of her wanted the connection to stay, to strengthen. She reached out for him, but stopped as she turned sideways to slip between two trees, her steps as quiet as a rabbit’s.
“Remember when I told you about bonding?” he asked as they walked.
She moved a branch out of her way. “You didn’t say very much about it.”
“In our tongue it’s called skel’sam’ielt. When an elf bonds with a human, the two are permanently connected for as long as the human lives and desires the connection. They read each other’s thoughts, feel each other’s emotions. The elf can share the human’s knowledge and experiences with the other elves, and this allows our entire race to learn and grow.”
Bonded: Three Fairy Tales, One Bond Page 21