Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
ELLIE
“The deeper the roots, the fiercer the storm they can weather.”
Sayings of the Earthvein Sages
Morning light filters through the windows, and across the small table where I’m sitting.
I spent the night at the settlement instead of returning to Ashenvale.
Vorith showed me to a small two-room cottage that they keep for visitors, and introduced me to the woman who maintains it.
Kessa had greeted me warmly, then offered it for me to use for as long as I wanted to stay.
One night of real sleep has done wonders.
It’s the first time since landing in that alley that I haven’t woken at the slightest sound, with my senses on high alert.
My muscles have finally unknotted from constant tension, and even my connection to Sacha seems less …
fraught. A warm pulse somewhere deep in my chest confirms he’s still alive.
The sensation brings both comfort and frustration.
I can sense his presence, but nothing more.
I have no way to tell him I’m safe, no way to know if he worries.
I have to trust he can feel this thread between us the same way I do.
Movement catches my eye and I turn my head to look out of the window.
Kessa is outside, tending her garden. She’s kneeling in front of a row of vegetables, hand hovering over the plants.
Her fingers tremble slightly, reaching toward wilting leaves before pulling back, an almost-touch that never quite happens.
She looks up, a smile breaking across her face, and she speaks to someone who’s just out of view. A few seconds later, there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in.” The door swings open to reveal an older woman with red hair.
“I’m Nava.” She doesn’t come inside. “Vorith thought you might like to get some fresh air. I have a workshop nearby, if you’d like to come and see?”
“I’d like that very much.”
I follow her out, and she leads me through the village to where her workshop is at the edge of the settlement. Inside, tools hang from pegs along the walls, wooden bowls sit on shelves, a partially carved chair stands in one corner, and various projects scatter the workbenches.
“What do you do here?”
“I mostly make furniture, and take it to sell in the Ashenvale markets.” She runs her fingers along the edge of a table. “I’ve been working with wood for over twenty years now. It keeps my hands busy, but sometimes I wonder what I might make if I could work the way I was meant to.”
The longing in her voice is clear. Here is a woman with gifts beyond measure, forced to ignore them.
“How would anyone know if you did that?”
“Most wouldn’t, but doing so would become a habit, and that makes the risk of being seen higher, so it’s best to use more …
accepted methods.” She glances toward the door, then moves to a trunk in the corner.
She pauses before lifting the lid, and takes something out.
“That’s not to say I don’t sometimes take that risk though.
” She unwraps the cloth. “I made this for my daughter’s wedding. ”
Two figures dance together, their forms carved with such skill they seem alive within the wood. As I watch, they actually do move—a slow, graceful rotation that suggests music only they can hear. The grain spirals through their joined hands, creating patterns that shift and change as they turn.
“It’s beautiful.”
The word feels inadequate. This marriage of artistry and magic shouldn’t exist under Authority rule, yet here it is, dancing in defiance of their laws.
“It can’t be displayed openly, of course.
Far too risky. But we brought it out on her wedding night and watched it dance while we celebrated.
” Nava’s voice grows soft. “This is what I dream of. Making things that bring joy instead of hiding everything that matters.” She rewraps the sculpture and returns it to its hiding place.
The raw longing in her voice hurts my heart.
“What abilities do you have?”
“We’re Earthveins. My daughter lives two valleys over now, in another community. Her husband is also Earthvein.” Her smile brightens her face. “Their children could be extraordinary … if they were allowed to use their powers instead of suppress them.”
“How do you bear it? Watching them hide who they are?”
“By hoping that someday we won’t have to make that choice.” She turns back to me. “If you’re here now, it means the stories are true. And if the Vareth’el really has returned …”
“You’re wondering if that someday might actually be closer than you thought.”
“We have told ourselves for years that it would arrive eventually. We have raised our children on stories of better times, when Veinbloods didn’t have to hide. But hoping and believing are very different things.”
I think I understand what she’s not saying. Hope can sustain you through years of hiding, but belief demands action. Belief requires risk … and these people have hidden for so long, that taking that risk might never happen.
“Why don’t we take a walk around the village, and I’ll introduce you to some more people?”
I accept her change of subject without argument, and follow her out of the workshop.
Each person I meet over the next few hours has found their own ways to blend in while hiding their true natures, but while they all have different abilities and suppress things in various ways, one thing remains true for them all.
They’re tired of hiding. Tired of pretending to be something they’re not.
But they’re too scared of what will happen if they show what they are to do anything about it.
We stop to watch a man tending a small flock of sheep in a paddock near the village’s edge.
“That’s Torven,” Nava says. “His wool is sought after by traders from three valleys over.”
“He uses magic to enhance it?”
The shepherd overhears me, and comes over.
“I could encourage better grass growth, or use subtle wardings to prevent predators, and heal injuries before they become bigger problems. I could also double the flock’s size.
” Frustration is clear in his voice. “But bigger flocks would draw attention, and raise questions about how one shepherd manages so well. So instead, I focus on making the wool slightly better. Most of it is through knowledge rather than magic.”
“But every day you choose to be less than you could be.”
“Every day.” He points toward a ewe that is limping slightly.
“See her? She injured her leg yesterday. I could heal it completely in minutes, but then if anyone comes by who saw her when she was injured, they would ask why a lame sheep suddenly walks perfectly. So I treat it the way any shepherd would, with poultices and rest and time.”
“But who would see it? Vorith said you don’t get many outsiders here.”
“We don’t. But what if I do it once and get away with it? Then I’ll do it again when the next animal gets hurt, and again after that. Each success makes the next seem safer, until I’m using my abilities without thinking. Eventually, someone will arrive at the wrong moment, and I’ll be discovered.”
His logic makes sense, but watching the injured ewe struggle creates a knot of anger inside me.
We move on, and Nava introduces me to others.
A weaver whose cloth holds warmth longer than it should, the fibers coaxed to remember summer, but only in pieces for her family.
A metalworker whose knives never dull, the steel shaped with fire that asks it to hold its edge, but only for his private use.
The small sacrifices add up. The sculpture hidden in the trunk, the sheep that limps, the children who learn to suppress their gifts. Their lives are shaped entirely by fear. Not the acute terror of battle, but the grinding, constant pressure of never being able to fully exist in their truest form.
That afternoon, Vorith finds me sitting by the village’s small pond, watching children play skipping stones across the water. She hands me a small wrapped package of cold meat and bread, and a water skin.
“I thought you might like something to eat. What do you think of our village?”
I unwrap the food and pick at it. “I understand the reasons you hide, and the fact that you’ve managed to survive when everyone thinks you no longer exist is a miracle.
But I think Kalliss is right. Eventually Veinblood abilities will die out.
Children are going to want to leave, and find lives elsewhere …
the restlessness is already there. And then what will happen? ”
“He is right. We’ve preserved something precious, but preservation isn’t enough if it slowly withers away.
Each generation becomes more detached from what we truly are.
” She watches a young boy chase after the other children, his laughter reaching us.
“Eventually, we’ll become nothing more than stories told by old people who remember when Veinbloods existed. ”
We both fall silent. I take a sip of water from the skin, washing down the bread and meat, my mind going over everything I’ve seen here, everything I’ve heard.
“The dreams you sent me. How did you know I was here?”
“I felt the disruption when you were pulled to Meridian. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, then Kalliss came to me with a vision.
A voice proclaiming ‘In sunlight and shadows, the storm has returned.’ As a Windvein, I have the ability to reach through dreams. I searched, hunting for a sign that it meant you were back in Meridian.
At first, I didn’t realize you had found the Vareth’el.
Only that you were here, and that the prophecy might finally be unfolding.
I needed to send you the visions Kalliss had, and hope that you could decipher them. ”
“It would have been easier if you hadn’t spoken in riddles. Why not just tell me exactly what you needed me to know?”