Chapter 15 Declan
My eyes cracked open.
Everything hurt.
I tried to sit up, but the forest spun and the ground rose up to meet me. I blinked at the star-filled sky.
Night? How long have I been out?
“You’re awake!” the excited voice of a perky young girl said from several paces away.
I ignored my queasiness and raised my head.
Aside from the lush island palms, the land was empty around me.
But I was sure I’d heard someone.
I edged onto my elbows before lifting myself to a sitting position. I was relieved when nausea didn’t return.
My muscles ached.
I glanced around again and found the area just as dark and empty as before.
“What are you looking for?” the girl’s voice asked.
I wheeled around a little too quickly and was punished by another wave of dizziness. I braced myself with a palm to the ground and asked, “Who’s there?”
“I am, silly. You fell down.”
I held my head and swiveled to the left.
Still nothing.
órlaith hopped onto my lap.
I stroked her head and smiled at her coo-purr.
“I love when you scratch with your fingernails.”
My eyes flew wide as the bird’s beak moved with the sounds of the child’s voice. I threw myself backward so suddenly she had to scamper off to avoid being thrown.
She cocked her head. “Done that fast? I really like the scratches.”
“Spirits, I’ve lost it. I’ve gone mad.” I rubbed my eyes, then returned my gaze to the owl. “órlaith?”
“I prefer órla. órlaith sounds so stuffy.”
“How . . . are you talking?”
“Well, I open my beak and my thoughts make sounds, pretty much the same way you do it—and you talk a lot, mostly to yourself. That makes you look crazy. You know that, right?” She giggled. Her feathers ruffled with the sound.
“But . . . órla . . . I can . . . understand you now. You’re not just peeping.”
“Peeping? That sounds gross. Like pooping. Why would anyone peep? Unless they really had to go.” She giggled again, her big eyes squinting with owlish glee.
I leaned back on my elbows and tried to remember the moments before I’d blacked out. I’d stepped on the path, there was an old man shouting something, and I couldn’t breathe . . . then órla glowed and breathed something into me.
That had to be it.
“What did you do to me? What was that glowing mist?”
“I don’t know. You couldn’t get air, so I gave you some of mine. I was scared.” She hopped toward me. “I thought you were dying. I didn’t know what else to do. You can breathe now, right?”
I rubbed my chest. It still burned when I breathed, but the air flowed in and out freely. “Yes.”
As I struggled to my feet, I noticed we rested about ten paces from the first stone of the path. Whatever happened must’ve thrown me back pretty hard. That explained some of the sharp pains in my legs, buttocks, and back.
I reached back, placing my hands on my lower back to stretch, when a glow flared from behind. I jumped forward, and my hand flew to the knife hanging from my belt. I spun around, knife extended—and found nothing but empty grass.
This just keeps getting better.
“Did you see that?” I asked órla.
“See what?”
“The blue light? You didn’t see it?”
“Oh, sure. You mean that light that came out of your hands? I saw that. What were you doing?”
Light out of my hands? What in all that’s holy is she talking about?
I leaned forward to dig my waterskin from my pack and realized that my back no longer hurt. In fact, nothing hurt anymore—and the burning in my lungs was gone.
I took a sip of the magical wine and tried to think about what had happened.
None of it made any sense.
As I stood, Larinda’s voice whispered through the trees as if carried by the wind.
Follow yer path. Trust yer Light.
The skin fell from my grasp as my head whipped about, but the old woman was nowhere to be seen.
“Whacha looking for?”
“Larinda. Didn’t you hear her just now?”
órla tilted her head to the side. She seemed endlessly amused. “Nope. Nobody’s talking except you. I’m used to that. Did I mention you talk a lot?”
“Yes, you said that. Thanks for the reminder.” I scowled.
“You’re welcome. You forget things sometimes, too,” she said, oblivious to my sarcasm.
The mountain was shrouded in milky darkness, illuminated only by the moon that loomed larger than I remembered. Was it this close to the land in Melucia as well? Was it always that bright? I couldn’t remember.
Unsure how to proceed up a path that cared so little for visitors that it hurled them off its stones, I found a boulder nearby, sat on the ground, and leaned against it.
órla tottered over and took her place in the crevice formed by my shins, preening for only a moment before tucking her beak deep into her feathers and closing her eyes.
I watched the rise and fall of her tiny body, and a smile bloomed in my soul.
I wasn’t sure how something so tiny could bring joy simply by sleeping, but she did.
A hint of the golden glow that I vaguely remembered before blacking out still shifted around her, an aura of sparkling majesty unlike anything I had ever seen.
What was that? What had she done? Clearly, the owl possessed some sort of magic or Gift. I hadn’t even known animals could possess Gifts. The Mages never mentioned such a thing in all my time living in their midst. It seemed fantastic to the point of unbelievable.
So what was it about órla? What did she possess?
Or perhaps . . . should the question be, “What is she?”
I ran a thumb across her head, and my smile widened when she rumbled with high-pitched pleasure.
She’s just an owl. I’m being ridiculous. The magic must’ve been something related to the path and its stones.
But that didn’t explain the light that had flowed from my own palm. Even behind me, I saw the brilliance of its shine.
And it Healed me.
I Healed myself?
I had to bite back a laugh lest I wake my sleeping beauty, but the thought was even more outrageous than an owl with powers.
Long ago, magic made it clear that it wanted nothing to do with me.
I was a Mute as a child and would remain so for the rest of my life.
There was no way the mystical powers that ruled our world, whatever they might be, had suddenly changed their minds and bestowed their grace upon me.
But . . .
I Healed myself.
It had to be the stones or path or whatever.
It could have been this mountain everyone seems to think is sacred.
For all I know, Larinda sent her own Healing from the village. She hadn’t been shy about speaking from that distance. Could she also send magic that far? Did she have the power to Heal?
I laid my head back against the cold stone and stared up at the night sky.
It was so different than the one back home, yet so familiar.
The clouds had retreated, leaving a blanket of the darkest, bluest velvet sprinkled with pinpricks of light.
I breathed deeply, savoring the tropical air that carried the slightest hint of sweetness.
The forests along the Kingdom border had always brought me peace, but this place .
. . the comfort that flowed from the land and sky, from the sea and its ever-flowing waves—even from its people and their lilting tones—everything about this place felt like peace personified.
It felt like home.
At some point in my star-staring and soul-searching, my eyes must have closed. I woke with the skies still blackened and an owl nibbling on my earlobe.
“Sweet Spirits, that hurts!” I jerked my head to one side and freed my aching lobe. “Can you find another way to wake me, please?”
“But I like how your lobes taste, all salty and chewy. The rest of you is so hard.”
What do I even say to that?
I laughed and rubbed my eyes.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, still not believing I was talking to an owl—and she was talking back.
“Nope. There are lizards everywhere. I had one before hopping on your shoulder for dessert.”
She bounded down my arm and onto the ground, then scooted to stand beside the first stone of the path. “Ready to try again?”
“You sound so excited about this,” I grumbled. “You weren’t the one who got his arse kicked by a walkway.”
She giggled. “It did get you pretty good. You should’ve seen your face . . . I mean, before you blacked out.”
I rolled my eyes and got to my feet. “Thanks, I think. Can we come up with a way to go up this mountain that doesn’t involve me getting beaten unconscious?”
Stepping up to the path, I shivered at the thought of touching it again.
“It’ll be okay this time,” órla said as she scurried onto the first stone.
“Hey, wait!” I released a breath, then stared at how the stone hadn’t reacted to her presence. It lay there, undisturbed, like . . . a rock. “You sure? That last time wasn’t fun—and I don’t want to see what that old man would do if he got really angry.”
She nodded. “Yep. Trust me. It’ll be okay. Just breathe—and do that thing with your hair again. It’s cute.”
“What?” I chuckled as I pulled my hand out of my hair. “Sorry, old habit.”
I tossed my pack over my shoulder and took a series of deep breaths.
“All right. Mister Keeper, I come in peace.”
I set my foot on the first stone.
This time, the stone didn’t react with violence. It flared brightly, then faded until it returned to its dull gray with only a hint of a glow. A smattering of sparkling blue mist drifted into the air above the stone before vanishing into the night.
The old man didn’t return.
No one bellowed or shouted.
Nothing hurt.
There was no blackness.
Relief washed over me. My shoulders relaxed as tension released.
Still, I couldn’t help but be a little wary.
The second step was the same as the first—bright flare fading to gray with a slight glow and sparkly mist.
We continued up the path for a solid half hour, winding back and forth as it led us up the mountainside.
We rounded a sharp switchback, and a clearing came into view.
The cottage I had seen in Larinda’s magical window appeared before us.
The old man sat on the porch exactly as before, rocking and staring out at the landscape, not even glancing our way as we approached.
It looked as if he had not moved at all in the hours since I’d first seen him.
The man’s head rose. “Declan, you made it.”
He knew my name? I nearly missed a step.