Chapter 1

The gray light of dawn, which painted the sky in oranges and yellows and pinks and inspired men to dream, brought no respite. There was no where to hide, no where to vanish. The dogs still howled and bayed (the closest thing to bells she would ever receive) in the distance, though farther away now. Her breath came in short, rapid gasps as she tore through the undergrowth, her desperation to get away leaving a clear trail for her pursuers to follow. Every now and then her clothes were caught on some bush or branch or briar and a new rip was formed. Blood oozed from various scratches she’d gathered on her flight. There were other wounds, as well – from stones thrown  in malicious ignorance and still others more that were very old but had broken open yet again on this chase. She glanced furtively over her shoulder as she ran. They were closer now, gaining on her through her bloody trail. She stumbled – was it over a tree root? – and fell. She didn’t know, she didn’t care, her mind was intent on her survival and nothing else. The darkness was lifting, was no longer all-encompassing, but she couldn’t see. She kept running – her lungs burned and her legs ached, but still she ran, as fear moves bodies far past their limits. She ran until she stumbled again – but this time there was no ground to fall on. She was falling into air, into nothingness. A short scream escaped her lips as her panic took over, but then her reason took over. Above her she heard satisfied masculine laughs and the infernal barking of the dogs.

Her life did not flash before her eyes. There was nothing there to remember, to regret. But she could still cry, cry for what she’d never had. She’d never done anything wrong, she’d never hurt anyone. And yet they hurt her. Corikich – Corikich had betrayed her, and with her he’d betrayed his grandmother. The grandmother who had taken him in and loved him – with the love she had coveted – after his parents’ sacrifice to topple the very government he’d betrayed them to – the one run by his great-grandfather, a traitor to everyone in the city. Nakekrim was nowhere near the kind, compassionate leader he proclaimed and was proclaimed he was. He was, in truth, a demon, a Haru H’resch, a sworn enemy of the world.

And yet it was she that was attacked, was hurt. It was the same everywhere she went, ever since those brilliant flames in the middle of such a cold winter – flames for sequestering the spawn of a demon. But she was no demon; she had never been a demon – that was Nakekrim, he was the demon, and Corikich was his spawn. Iyuso – her eyes welled up with tears as she remembered the kindly old woman who had nursed a hate for her father and had mourned her lost brothers and cousins, the woman that she could never think of as a demon, the woman who had been the first to truly show her the love she starved for. The love that Corikich had destroyed with his betrayal. Someone always destroyed her happiness. And she remembered flames on a cold winter night.

The ground was rushing up to meet her. She had no need to close her eyes, that would not stop its coming. She shed no tears, she didn’t need them. She’d been waiting for this day, anticipating its coming for two long, painful years, ever since the coldest winter night of her life, watching her brothers, her mother, her father, her life go up in such beautiful, disgusting flames while people laughed and celebrated. She had cried then, cried all of the tears she could ever shed. But that life – that girl – was just a distant, distant memory, and it was time for the bitter, angry child-woman who took her place to die.

She smacked into the ground, arms and legs askew, her right arm stretching out before her in a way that was not natural, her right hand near her face. In her last moments of life, she looked up and saw what had caused all of her misery and clenched her hand through the pain.


The noise of the revelers – and, she supposed, their minds, dull and lifeless as they were – woke Zaluyi from her deep sleep. No one ever came this far into the forest this late at night – or for that matter, any other time of the day. She shook off the lethargy of sleep and pulled on a warm robe. It wasn’t really cold (it never was in these points) but it covered every inch of skin from her neck down. She really didn’t want to face half-drunk (more like totally drunk) villagers half-dressed, thank you very much.

Zaluyi entered the narrow gorge on her most-used door entered on to. The villagers were leaving now, shouting victoriously and laughing raucously, the wind breaking their speech so that she could make nothing of it. The smell of their greasy torches, also brought by the wind, made her gag, but then a fresh breeze came whipping down the gorge. Zaluyi closed her eyes and breathed it in, enjoying its coolness and how free it was of the villagers’ scent until she caught the scent of blood it just barely carried. Jerking out of her revere, she turned her head towards the source of the wind. Peering into the night, she could just barely make out the shape of a…child?

Zaluyi hurried towards the small huddle. It wasn’t stirring, though the wind moved its hair. It lay as if it had fallen from the top of the gorge, which Zaluyi knew from experience was a long way. She knelt and touched the child, who didn’t stir. Zaluyi glanced to where the child’s right hand lay, in an obviously uncomfortable position, balled into a fist. She shoved down the urge to untangle the child’s fingers, as the child’s health most certainly mattered more than her own curiosity.

Sighing, Zaluyi picked up her small burden and turned towards her small – but comfortable – home. She glanced down and realized she was holding a young girl, one who might just be a heartbreaker, if she survived long enough. Already, Zaluyi could tell that she was either very young or malnourished and therefore small for her age. Zaluyi would stake good money that she was malnourished.

Sad thoughts were milling about in Zaluyi’s mind as she took the young girl into one of her empty spare rooms (Zaluyi having only furnished what she needed, which would have been about five rooms total). With another sigh, she conjured the image of a child’s bed up in her mind, and then pictured that same bed in the room. Having never had much patience with details or colors, Zaluyi had usually let them be dictated by the personality of whoever she was conjuring for (most of the things she conjured for herself came up in an ash gray color and with minimal decorating). This lead to some interesting surprises in Zaluyi’s life, but she had learned to take everything in stride. However, she was still shocked when she opened her eyes to find that the main color of the bed was black, a rather unchildish color. After recovering from her initial shock, Zaluyi laid the small girl on the bed, noting how the top sheet was actually a very dark violet and carefully embroidered with flowing dragons and twisting, flowering vines that ran together in no apparent pattern.

Zaluyi somehow managed to pull back the myriad covers while not fully placing the child down, then gently settled the child down on the bed. She didn’t stir, but Zaluyi could still feel the slight hum of her shallow breathing, her slowing heart. Sighing, Zaluyi brushed back the girl’s ill-cut bangs before leaving the room to get medical supplies.


Floating. She was floating. And in nothingness, too; or so she assumed, as she didn’t feel wet and she could breath so she couldn’t be in water and she couldn’t think of anything else she could float in. Knowing in the way of all the world-weary that opening your eyes breaks the spell, she sighed and opened her eyes anyway, having to close them again almost immediately. Ahead of her was a blinding silver light, but even though its intensity nearly burned away her sight, it was…welcoming. Kind.

She reached out towards, and at the thought of moving closer, she slowly began to float forward. The shining silver light drew closer and she could others also moving towards it like she was, swarming in great masses, their faces holding delight and rapture mixed in a way she knew she’d only ever see here. She squinted at the light, and she could just make out the details of what that beautiful light harbored.

It was a great shining city of silver interlaced ever so slightly with gold. It was the most beautiful place in existence, more beautiful than she could have ever imagined, let alone see. Not even the cities of the elves with their twisting, piercing spires could compare, could even slightly tarnish this city. She felt eager to be close, to be enfolded into that city, and she came closer and closer and then…

Stopped. Completely and utterly stopped.

No matter how hard she wailed or tried, she couldn’t get any closer. Her heart seemed to shatter into her chest and she cried out, but not a single noise escaped her lips. Hot tears slid down her cheeks, and the then the light was fading from her, moving away faster than she had been approaching. A single soul stopped, and turned to mournfully watch her go, a soul whose face she would have known anywhere, a soul whose face had lost the marks of her painful passing. Iyuso raised one hand in greeting, recognition, farewell before she was swallowed by the silver light.

No! No no no no no no! she cried, as much as she was able. She reached for Iyuso, reached for what she was being denied.

It is not yet time, little one, a voice that one might qualify as motherly and caring resonated in her head.

No! No! she screamed, trying to fight.

You have yet to fulfill your destiny, the voice continued.

What destiny? she snarled, I am dead. If not now, then soon.

No, little one, you are not yet dead, nor is your death anytime near. Your destiny is as my hand, as my sword. Your destiny has just begun, little one.


Zaluyi was carefully gathering up medical supplies when she noticed that something was off. She stopped to think about it, and then she realized she could no longer feel the thrum of the girl’s life. She unceremoniously dropped the supplies and rushed back to the child’s side. She was completely still, the blankets now undisturbed by her shallow breathing. She quickly sat down beside the child on the bed and placed her hands on the child’s temples. Focusing her thoughts and gathering her power, she pushed her way into the child’s mind.

Only to be encompassed by an all-consuming darkness that whipped over Zaluyi, swarming with hatred and fury…and an odd sadness. Zaluyi gathered herself and pushed down her panic and took an experimental step forward.

The whirlwind of dark emotions increased. Whoever the child happened to be, she was not fond of strangers, even ones who had rescued her. Not in the least. Every defense in the girl’s mind – all subconscious, as far Zaluyi could make out – was set on keeping out unwanted visitors. Zaluyi knew that every step would be a struggle, and that the center of the child’s mind (and therefore the center of her being) was a distant goal. It was futile, but Zaluyi was nothing but stubborn, so she took yet another step forward.

“NO!”

The shout ripped through Zaluyi’s defenses and obliterated her sense of self, forcing her completely out of the child’s mind.

Zaluyi came back to her body gasping and shattered. She had to sit for a few minutes to gather herself, to become Zaluyi again. The shout had spread her memories to the wind, broken her into little pieces that she had to gather to be Zaluyi again.

When she regained some sense of self, she noticed that she was sitting on the floor. She picked herself up off the floor and carefully dusted herself off, lost in her newly refitted thoughts. No one had ever been able to force Zaluyi out of their minds once she was there. Telepathy may not have been her strong point, but stubbornness was one of her strongest qualities, and that was what made it possible for her to stay much longer than those highly gifted in telepathy. But this young, half-dead (Zaluyi finally understood what it meant to be half-dead) child had done it so easily, and yet had done it without meaning to, with a response that some instinctual part of Zaluyi told her wasn’t directed at her.

The shout had not been directed at Zaluyi’s intruding presence, but rather something – or someone – else. The thought was actually was very disturbing.

Zaluyi shook those thoughts off while reminding herself that the child still needed medical attention. While she chided herself for forgetting such an important detail, and then directed her attention to the girl. Who was healing. Zaluyi blinked and shook her head, but the sight did not prove to be a hallucination. Zaluyi frowned, and then checked to make sure that she wasn’t healing the girl (after her lapse of being, she couldn’t be sure), which she wasn’t. So who was healing the child?

Tentatively, Zaluyi reached out with what she defined as her magical senses, only to jerk them back as fast as possible. The child was healing herself. Such magic had not been used since…since…

Since the time of Maefas Symbolhand.

Maefas Symbolhand was the closest thing to a hero Zaluyi’s people had. He’d led them to victory time and time again, led them to victories that had kept the world intact and the sun shining, only to be betrayed by his own allies who his victories had saved. But before his own death defending his people, he cursed the traitors to a fate much worse than the one he’d had. No one slays the chosen hand of a god and manages to get away with it without retribution. He said he would return from the grave to give to them a thousand fold what they’d wrought. In retaliation, they’d burned his body, singing mocking songs the entire time. And they had yet to be punished.

Only one of her people’s allies had not participated in the Great Betrayal. The Dwarves, their eldest friends, had not even known about it. They had not been cursed. Only the elves and their followers. The list was long and the deeds bone-chilling. Even now, Maefas’ people, the L’song, dared not show their faces to the rest of the world for fear of horrific death. But even with this careful hiding, the L’song’s numbers were dwindling. If Maefas did not find his way back to the world of the living soon, he wouldn’t have a people to avenge. Though Zaluyi found it highly ironic that even though the elves and those they’d managed to convince to stray had mocked Maefas’ curse but now destroyed every L’song they could, as if they were afraid of the curse.

Sighing, Zaluyi resigned herself to her own fate. Caring for the human child – who was now sleeping soundly with barely a scratch on her – and maybe teaching her magic. What a human would be capable of. But for now, she left the girl to her dreams.

Zaluyi silently slid the door shut and hurried to her own rooms, done in the gray that seemed to characterize her magic. She was well used to the gray of her own magic. In the middle of room (which had only the necessities) sat a gray rug, a little worn from use. It wasn’t really a rug, if you wanted to get picky about things, as it was not heavy as the name ‘rug’ implied, but rather silk and wood craftily woven together in a way only the L’song could.  There was a simple pattern in it, twisting in circles that looked almost like smoke in the wind. But Zaluyi noticed none of this, she was too preoccupied. She simple arranged herself upon it and focused her thoughts and herself.

She was bounding over rivers and mountains and lakes in single steps, looking for him. He was north, far north. It was cold. Why was he always where it was cold?

- Asha?  She whispered.

-Zaluyi! He exclaimed, happy to hear from her, and his voice radiated that happiness, that joy that he only seemed to exude around her. Still using the visual system, I see.

-I was never good at long distance, she replied, her curt tone telling him that this was not a visit for pleasure.

-No, Asha sobered, Why are you contacting me? He wanted to keep this as short as possible, it hurt him when she was so near and yet so far.

-Is it possible for a human magician to know self-heal? She asked, careful to keep her voice neutral, to lock him out. Yet again.

Asha laughed, rich and warm, but friendly. It was one of the things she liked most about him, that laugh. Not even we know how to self-heal. We lost the talent long ago. No human ever had the patience for healing others, let alone learning enough to heal themselves. They were too busy fighting. Asha’s voice became sorrowful at the last, full of regret and hidden anger.

With that, Zaluyi broke her connection with Asha. The child couldn’t have been healing herself. Maybe it was an old family blessing of some sort. She’d heard of such things, where some grateful L’song had given a family a magical gift that they and their descendants would carry, but only few of the L’song had seen such things in practice, as many of the families that had carried them had been butchered along with the L’song. So maybe the child didn’t have any magic of her own. And maybe she did. Zaluyi would only be able to tell when she actually got around to teaching the child. Until then, she could speculate all she wanted, which probably wasn’t going to be much. All of this going around in circles was giving her a headache.


Today’s breakfast would be delicious. Zaluyi’s mouth salivated at the thought of eating fresh kitberries with cream. Zaluyi had always loved the taste of fresh kitberries (well, she liked them anyway she could get her hands on them, but she liked them best fresh)…the tart, delicious kitberries! She was so –

They were gone. Zaluyi blinked a little, and then went to inspect her table, where the kitberries had been sitting not long ago. Zaluyi lifted her plate and looked under it as well as flipping it over just to make sure it wasn’t some type of illusion. But there was no sign of the kitberries anywhere! She brought her plate up to her face and inspected it closely, only to find that it was sparkling clean – like the kitberries had never been placed upon its surface (which was a shiny gray – but still gray), which was impossible as kitberries were very messy. And there was only one other person in the house, so there was only one suspect for who had eaten her kitberries.

Zaluyi stalked over to her ward’s room and pulled open the sliding door quite forcefully. The bed was where Zaluyi remembered it, but its sheets were mussed and thrown about, and the child was in the center of the room, and to one side of her there were dirty plates neatly stacked. The mystery of the kitberries was solved!

“It was a simple trick, really. I just put out clean plates while you weren’t looking.”

Zaluyi jerked her gaze away from staring longingly at the dirty pile of plates, thinking of her kitberries. When the child’s words actually penetrated her skull, she shook her head. The girl made it sound so simple, so easy, but Zaluyi knew it wasn’t. “Doesn’t something like that take a lot of planning?” she asked carefully, her eyes narrowing.

The girl flashed Zaluyi a quick grin over her shoulder – but even in that brief space of time, Zaluyi saw that the smile did not reach her eyes. “Not if you’re good,: she informed Zaluyi.

Zaluyi gaped. She’d felt nothing. Nothing. Her senses were very well attuned since her parents had made it their goal to be constantly popping out child after child after child. Zaluyi had learned that privacy was bought at a high price. As the loner of the family, everyone had thought it was there place to poke into her doings. And so, Zaluyi had attuned her senses so that she could feel anyone approaching from quite far away. Not even the most powerful of the L’song could slip into her general vicinity unnoticed. It was what first alerted them to the fact that she was one of them.

And then this child had slipped past her senses without truly trying or even knowing what she was doing. Either she was very good at going unnoticed, or she was very powerful. Zaluyi preferred the former. For a human child to be that powerful required a lot of blood magic and terrible deaths for thousands, possibly millions of innocents, most who would have been fresh out of the womb. If that was the case, Zaluyi was probably a very enticing victim to her, as L’song were very powerful and few and far between.

Well, Zaluyi was NOT going to be some moronic blood mage’s victim. She’d watch the girl, and at any sign of hostility, she’d kill her and hope that whoever had created her was not trying to find her. Resigned to this plan,  Zaluyi turned smartly on her heel and headed out of the room. As her hand reached for the door, the child said, “You know, I’ve never understood them.”

Zaluyi froze. Them? Could it be? “Understood who?” Zaluyi asked, her voice soft, to keep any sort of emotion out of it.

“Blood mages. They sacrifice everything that could possibly mean anything to them for a lost cause. The power will never last, and eventually they’ll run out of victims,” she said matter-of-factly.

The child seemed ready to go into further detail, but Zaluyi headed her off by leaving the room, her mind in turmoil. How could the girl slip past all of Zaluyi’s hardened mental defenses that not even Asha, the greatest of the L’song telepaths, could in any way dent? That was why he had approached her, all those years ago, in that long-abandoned field.

“You have so much more awaiting you,” he had said. And she, wishing to escape a dreaded marriage and the stifling confines of her family, had taken one look at his warm, welcoming smile and put her hand in his. She had never seen her family again, had never desired to, not even now. Not like it mattered, they were all long dead, buried in the special family cemetery that used to be one of Zaluyi’s favorite haunts. It had been so long since she had even thought of her family. How long had it been? Thoughts of her must have plagued some of them forever, but she knew most of them had shrugged it off as more of Gana’s strangeness, and forgotten it, and her, beyond the marker that rested in that cemetery, bearing the name she’d discarded so long ago for that of Zaluyi, for when she, in return, had forgotten they who put it there, while she began a life of wonder, exploring the heritage she hadn’t even known she had.

Somewhere, in the midst of all of it, she had fallen in love with Asha and his warm smile and laughing eyes. Fallen in love with his gentleness, with how different he had been than anyone else she’d ever known, so willing to look upon her as an equal, even though they had very different talents.

It had been one of the best times of her life. Together, they had brought forth a beautiful son, whom Asha had named Jorin, after some ancestor of his. Zaluyi had been happy, for once in her life, oh-so-happy, and then…

She had to get away – from Asha, from their son, from everything. She couldn’t take it anymore. And so, she left the last true stronghold of the L’song. For good. Asha had his heart broken, and loved her still, even though she had left him. Whenever she contacted him, he always answered with hope, letting her know that he still waited for her, hinting at what they once shared. But Zaluyi didn’t want to go back. She was happy here, all isolated and alone. Or as happy as she could ever be.


Days, perhaps weeks passed. Zaluyi had never paid much attention to the days,
which all seemed to slip together. She was putting off teaching the child any type of skill since the girl was obviously avoiding her. Occasionally, she’d find food missing and that was how she knew the child was eating. She supposed she should be more concerned about the child, but she couldn’t bring herself to be.

They’d barely spoken more than ten words to each other since the kitberries incident. Something about the child’s presence unnerved her, set her on edge. She had no idea why. The girl had not threatened her in any way, and Zaluyi knew that she wasn’t a threat.

Zaluyi sighed in exasperation. That was another thing. She really needed to learn the girl’s name. She couldn’t go around calling her “the girl” or “the child” for the rest of eternity. Which seemed to be how long the child would stay here.

“My name is Nershioh,” said a voice near to her. The girl’s – Nershioh’s – voice was no help. It was cold and emotionless, the voice of a killer. Zaluyi merely nodded and returned to her cooking, feeling her flesh beginning to creep because of Nershioh’s nearness.

Nershioh was not done speaking. She knew Zaluyi wasn’t fond of her, and she wished to move on. “I would have told you sooner,” she said, “but it took me awhile to remember.” And with that, she moved away, knowing Zaluyi didn’t want her close.

“How could you forget your own name?” Zaluyi asked, her voice dripping ice. She looked up to find Nershioh with her back to Zaluyi. She tensed ever-so-slightly, just enough for Zaluyi’s eyes to pick up, but she didn’t turn around.

“I haven’t used it often,” Nershioh said. She continued toward the door, but she could feel Zaluyi’s eyes on her back, almost as if they were trying to bore a hole through her.

“So what have you been using?” Zaluyi asked. She sounded innocent, but Nershioh could hear the implications in her voice. She was so very used to hearing them.

Nershioh had made it to the door. She lightly touched the door frame with her right hand and half-turned so that she could meet Zaluyi’s gaze. “Demon spawn,” she said very quietly, her voice becoming that of someone who knew the truth of the world and its opinions. She saw the flash of surprise and shock in Zaluyi’s eyes, and she saw Zaluyi open her mouth to speak, but she didn’t care. She turned her eyes away from Zaluyi’s and left the room quickly, almost running. She needed to get out before Zaluyi hurt her.


Zaluyi sank into a chair in shock. Everything she’d though about Nershioh had just changed. She was absolutely convinced of what she’d just seen. And that was just amazing.

Nershioh had L’song script upon her right palm.

Zaluyi didn’t know how she’d missed it. She’d spent all of her time thinking the child was some sort of supernaturally strong human and had completely missed the right assumption, the assumption she should have made upon meeting the child. There had only ever been six other L’song with script on their palms, let along the right palm. The only other L’song to have script upon their right palm had been Maefas Symbolhand. Did this mean that Nershioh was equal or greater in power than Maefas? O did it mean that - ?

Zaluyi shook her head. Such thoughts were foolish and childish. Maefas’ curse was null and void because a dead man couldn’t rise from the grave and come back to life. There was no way – magic didn’t extend that far. Lots of scholars had spent their lives argued that he would simply be reincarnated. It was always how and when that the reincarnates had differed over, and the fights had, in some cases, been spectacular. Zaluyi had never participated in such arguments, though Asha had tried. She preferred to think that the curse would never come to pass.

And now she was sitting in her kitchen, in the little haven she’d made for herself, questioning her beliefs. Could Nershioh actually be Maefas reincarnated, the one that thousands of L’song scholars had sworn up and down was coming and that they would know as soon as the child was born? But, from what she heard, Nershioh’s personality was nothing like Maefas’. With a sigh, Zaluyi put away her cooking (which was, by that point, quite burnt and therefore inedible anyway) and headed to her ill-used study.

Surveying her study, Zaluyi had to think for a few moments to remember how exactly she had organized her masses of never-used books (the ones she actually used all lived her bedroom and no self-respecting person would ever let the world see them as they were quite literally in pieces) and headed towards a new-looking book. It was actually one of the oldest books she owned, but thanks to the fact she had never had interest in reading it before and someone else’s bizarre preservation method, it was practically brand new. She opened, and flipped through the pages, waiting for something to catch her eye.

About five minutes later, when nothing had caught her eye, Zaluyi finally conceded to look at the table of contents. Which, she silently admitted to the part of her head she didn’t listen to often, should’ve been the first thing she did. There was some random chapter title that alluded to the fact that it might discuss some part of Maefas’ personality. Honestly, if she ever wrote a book, she was going to name her chapters so that the reader knew exactly what was in them. To some unimaginably horrific place with being cryptic in chapter titles, especially when there was no index.

Maefas Symbolhand was said to be an affable man, very friendly and open and honest. Many people who met him said they immediately felt that they could trust him –

Zaluyi gritted her teeth. That was definitely not Nershioh, who projected distrust in a mile-wide radius. And not only that, it was pretty much useless drivel, not what she needed at all to solve the mystery of Nershioh. She scanned the rest of the page, and the next, finding that the author found it necessary to repeat himself every couple of sentences, just in more and more flowery terms. Nothing popped up until about half-way through the chapter.

And yet, despite all of these qualities, most who met him could not spend an extended amount of time in his presence. They merely stated that he made them nervous or paranoid, and that these feelings only ever occurred in his presence – especially as many of them did not like being snuck up on, even though Maefas insisted that he was projecting his presence when he walked into a room.

Zaluyi stared at the page with wide eyes. That was exactly what it was like with Nershioh. She always felt like there was something wrong, that she was about to be attacked, and she almost never noticed Nershioh slipping around her residence.

With a sigh, Zaluyi closed the book and put it back on the shelf, quietly noticing the amount of dust that usually collected on her books was gone. She gave a small smile, realizing that Nershioh had been in her study, reading the books she’d never wanted to. No matter who Nershioh was, she was still a L’song, and Zaluyi had found her.

Thinking of her charge, Zaluyi wondered exactly what she was doing. She didn’t find the girl in the residence, which was odd. Nershioh had not even looked outside through an open door or window since her arrival. She expanded her senses to go outside, though not very far. When she didn’t find Nershioh in that area, she began to panic.

She ripped out of her study and outside, her eyes scanning for Nershioh while she widened her senses even farther, actively searching for the child. When she caught just the barest idea of where she was, Zaluyi launched herself in that direction, searching desperately.

Why hadn’t she realized exactly what that flash of fear in Nershioh’s eyes meant? She’d found the girl half-dead (well, more than half-dead), chased by villagers into the ravine. Nershioh had been avoiding Zaluyi even more than Zaluyi had been avoiding her. And yet she hadn’t noticed. Now Nershioh had left, and it was highly likely she would die this time.

“Nershioh!” she yelled, not finding any trace of the child. Nor was Nershioh going to answer her, as the child thought she was going to hurt her, and probably try to kill her. Zaluyi gritted her teeth and kept searching, trying desperately to even get a clue of Nershioh’s whereabouts.

It was when she was just about to give up that she heard quiet sobbing. She focused on it and followed it down a slippery slope that she just barely avoided falling down. On the slope she noticed a slide mark that did not look like the person who had created it and had gone down easily.

“Nershioh?” she asked when she reached the bottom of the slope. The crying stopped almost immediately, but Zaluyi knew she was close. She knelt down, and using the skills she had learned long ago as Gana, began tracking the child, which was not difficult at all.

She was hiding in a bush. Zaluyi knelt by it. “Nershioh,” she said, reaching in to get the girl, who skittered away from her hand. “No, stop!” Zaluyi cried, “You’ll hurt yourself!”

“And you won’t?” Nershioh asked, her voice bitter and biting, the tone that Zaluyi thought she would have never heard from a child.

“No, I won’t hurt you, Nershioh,” Zaluyi promised in a soothing voice, but even as she said it, she knew Nershioh wouldn’t believe her, so she went on. “You’re not a demon, Nershioh. I know you’re not a demon. I know because we are the same.”

“How are we the same?” Nershioh sneered, still staying as far away from Zaluyi as possible.

“We are of the same people, Nershioh,” Zaluyi said, “The writing on your hand marks you as L’song.”

Nershioh looked at her through reddened disbelieving eyes, but didn’t move. Zaluyi guessed the child had hurt herself in some way, as well as not trusting her. She sighed and moved back from the child’s chosen hiding place, reaching for the bottom of her shirt. Nershioh’s eyes narrowed and darkened, and Zaluyi could see the anger boiling in them still. She lifted her shirt just enough to show Nershioh the script she had worn since a young age but had carefully kept hidden. “I don’t mean you any harm,” Zaluyi said softly, “I was surprised because I didn’t think you were L’song, which was foolish of me. Please, let me help you.”

Nershioh crawled out of the bush, but didn’t stand. Zaluyi simply lifted the girl into her arms, wincing when Nershioh let out a nearly inaudible hiss. She adjusted the girl carefully and then slowly and surely picked her way back to their home.

No matter what happened, it was going to be an interesting few years.