I try to subtly gesture Runa forward. She takes a step closer.
“Runa could do it,” I say. “One of the brightest healers in the village, and already very knowledgeable about herbs and magical plants. She’d be a perfect fit for the job.”
“Is that so?” Elder Ingvar says, and I can’t decipher his expression. “And do you want this apprenticeship, Runa?” he asks.
“Er, um, yes, I am interested in the position, yes,” she stammers.
Elder Ingvar nods. “Well, you’ve always been one of my more knowledgeable customers, so I don’t see why we couldn’t try something out. It’s not a paid position, you understand?”
“Yes, I know.”
He smiles. “All right, then. Would you like to start tomorrow?”
We leave the shop a few minutes later, and as soon as the door swings shut behind us, Runa jumps up and down with excitement. “Yes, yes, yes!”
I grin. “See, what did I tell you? He must already think you’re brilliant, or he wouldn’t have given you the job so easily, you know.”
“True,” she says, grinning back at me. “I don’t think he bought any of your Seeker nonsense for a second.”
“Well, I think he bought it a little, maybe.”
She rolls her eyes. “Nope. It was entirely due to my brilliance.”
“Okay, whatever. The point is, you have an apprenticeship! That’s amazing!”
“I guess,” Runa says with a shrug, like she wasn’t just excitedly jumping around a second ago. “I’d rather be a doctor than an herbalist. But this seems like a good place to start, and I like Elder Ingvar.”
“Maybe he’ll let you experiment with some of the herbs in the shop, for the potion,” I say.
“That’s an awful lot to ask before I’ve really even started the job, but we’ll see.”
“You’ll be whipping up cures in no time, I’m sure. And once everyone sees how brilliant you are, there’s no way you won’t be able to be a doctor.”
Runa doesn’t reply, but she smiles as we make our way out of the village and down the path toward her home. “So what’s happening in the Realm?” she asks finally. “Has the plague spread?”
“I don’t know.” I cross my arms. “The Seekers still aren’t letting me and Ari into the Realm much, so I don’t know what’s happening there. I don’t know how the gyrpuffs are doing. Haven’t seen anything except the icefoxes and the missing phoenixes.” Quickly I explain to Runa what Ari and I observed the day before. Runa listens, nodding intently.
“I’ll get to work right away, I promise,” she says. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. I could really use some peppermint; I think it will balance out the meadowsweet. But it doesn’t grow on the island. I’ll have to get it from the Laekens—it’s Trading Day. Can you come with me and bring something to trade?”
“Of course,” I say. “We always go together! Besides, the other Seekers haven’t given me anything else to do.”
“Great,” she says, brightening a little. “But I don’t have anything to trade, and peppermint is expensive, so you’ll have to bring something from the Realm.”
“No problem. You’re looking at the best Seeker in the Realm, after all.”
Runa would usually tell a joke in response, but now her eyes are serious. She brushes a finger over the petals of the meadowsweet and says, “Let’s just hope the potion works.”
I nod. “Good luck.”
* * *
After a break for lunch, Runa and I head down to the docks, where the three mainland trading ships—from the Ermandi, the Laekens, and the Midjans—have already arrived, and the villagers are flocking to greet them. I’m always eager to visit the Ermandi ship, but Runa loves to see the herbs and medicines that the Laekens bring to trade.
We approach the tent that’s been assembled on the dock beside the Laeken ship, where an elderly woman in a colorful shawl greets us.
“Hello, Elder Margret,” Runa says. “We were hoping to find some peppermint today.”
Elder Margret smiles. “Well, you’re in luck. I have the highest quality you’ll find anywhere.” She leans forward and says, in a conspiratorial whisper, “The Ermandi have been trying to grow it themselves, but don’t let them fool you. Our peppermint is the only way to go.”
Elder Margret drives a hard bargain; she takes two silver dragon scales and the snowpetal flower in exchange for the peppermint, which Runa accepts eagerly.
“Do you want to see the Ermandi next?” she asks as we exit the Laeken tent and stroll along the docks.
I shake my head. “I’d rather just get to work on the potion. Is there anything I can do to help you with it?”
She shrugs. “I just have to finish putting everything in. Shouldn’t take too much longer. I can have it ready for you tonight.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll meet you in the pasture again after dinner.”
Runa looks down at her feet. “Assuming nothing goes wrong with the potion. I might mess it up.”
“Oh, please. The best healer in the village would never.”
Runa looks uncertain.
I give her hand a squeeze. “You’ll do great. I know it.”
I say goodbye to her as we reach my family’s hut, and she continues toward her home. I haven’t made any other plans for this day off, and I’m not sure how best to spend it. Surely there’s something else I can do to help the Realm….
“Brynja,” Mama says in surprise as I walk through the door. “Back so soon?”
“Yeah,” I say glumly, sliding into a kitchen chair beside Elisa.
Mama frowns. “You and Runa used to love spending all day down at the docks when the ships come in. Is something wrong?”
“No,” I say, too quickly.
Mama looks up. “Elisa,” she says, “why don’t you take your dolls outside for a moment?”
Elisa makes a face. “I want to hear the secrets!”
“Out,” Mama says firmly, pointing to the door. Elisa slumps her shoulders and slowly makes her way to the door, pouting.
“All right,” Mama says, turning to me. “What’s been going on?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you. It’s Seeker business.”
Mama’s eyebrows fly upward. “You told your papa, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
Mama waits. I sigh.
“Okay, fine. There’s an illness spreading in the Realm. A few creatures have gotten sick. The older Seekers have seen this illness before, and they say it’s very deadly and very contagious to all of the Realm’s creatures.”
Mama’s gaze softens. She sits in the chair beside me. “And what have the other Seekers proposed to do about this?”
“Basically nothing,” I say with a huff. “They quarantined the area where we found a sick gyrpuff, but they’re not doing anything to cure him.”
“Let me guess,” Mama says. “You’ve taken it upon yourself to come up with a cure?”
“Of course. I’m a Seeker now. It’s my job.”
Mama fixes me with her lecturing stare. “Being a Seeker isn’t a solo job, Bryn. All of the Seekers are meant to work together to share experience and find solutions.”
Share experience. Meaning, I don’t have any, and the other Seekers do, so I should listen to them. I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t know why I told you this,” I say. “You think I can’t do it.”
Mama leans back. “I never said that.”
“I can tell. You don’t think I can really do anything as a Seeker. You think I should just leave all the hard work to the others.”
“I certainly don’t think that.” Mama stands, wiping her hands on her apron. “What gave you that impression?”
“Everyone thinks it,” I say. “I thought once I won the competition and became a Seeker officially, everyone would take me seriously. But they don’t. Because I’m young, and because I’m a girl, nobody treats me the way they treat the other Seekers. Even the other Seekers don’t take me seriously or listen to me. I have
to do things alone, because I don’t have any other choice.”
Mama rests one hand on my shoulder. “You knew this would be difficult when you entered the competition,” she reminds me. “And you’ll prove yourself as a Seeker the same way you proved yourself in the competition. But do you remember how you accomplished that?”
I frown. “You mean stopping a Vondur attack and saving the whole village? I can’t exactly do that again.”
“No,” she says, “before that. You teamed up with Ari in order to learn the skills you needed, remember? It was your teamwork—you and Ari together—that allowed you both to become Seekers.”
“We can’t be a team if the other Seekers don’t want to be one,” I say, shrugging her hand off my shoulder. “Even Ari doesn’t listen to me, not when the other Seekers say something different.”
Mama starts to speak again, but I stand up. “I’m going to go play with Elisa.”
Elisa and I are still playing dolls when Papa strides up the path and enters the garden, returning from an errand. “Well, there are my two favorite girls!” he booms. Elisa flings down her doll and rushes into his arms, telling him all about our game (which currently features a flying unicorn, for some reason).
Papa sits down on the garden bench, pulling Elisa into his lap. “And how is my eldest daughter doing today?” he asks me, patting the bench beside him.
I sit down with a heavy sigh. “Well, I—”
“Papa,” Elisa interrupts. “Tell us a story.”
“A story?” His eyes twinkle. “What story do you want to hear?”
Elisa thinks for a moment, cupping her chin with her hand. “Tell the one about Finn and the fairies!”
Papa pretends to frown. “Oh, that old legend? Surely you don’t want to hear that one.”
“Fairies!” Elisa chants. “Fairies, fairies, fairies!”
“Once upon a time,” Papa says, and Elisa quiets immediately. “There was a brave young Seeker named Finnur who set out to discover all the secrets of the Wild Realm.” Papa winks at me, and I can’t help but smile. Even though I’ve heard this legend a thousand times, Papa always makes it fun.
“One day, Finn was walking deep within the forest when he encountered an injured unicorn. Finn was an expert healer, so he quickly healed the unicorn and sent it on its way with an offering of figroses. To his surprise, a bright, golden light then appeared in the forest, and a soft voice spoke to him.”
“What did the voice say?” Elisa asks eagerly.
“The voice said, ‘Thank you, young Seeker, for healing the creatures of this forest. We would like to reward you for your selflessness.’ As Finn studied the light, he was able to make out a small shape within it—the shape of a fairy, with wings like a butterfly. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Fairies, in the forest! He thought he must be dreaming.”
“But he wasn’t,” Elisa says.
“He wasn’t,” Papa says with a nod. “He followed the fairy still deeper into the forest, and she led him to a golden, flowering plant he had never seen before. Its petals were coated in golden dust, and Finn knew instantly that it was real gold. ‘With this,’ he said, ‘I’ll be rich!’ ” Papa’s voice turns grave. “But it was here that Finn made his big mistake.”
Elisa’s eyes widen. “What was the mistake?”
“Finn got too greedy,” Papa says. “Instead of taking only a few pinches of gold, as the fairy asked him to, he dug up the entire plant, roots and all, and carried it from the Realm. He took flakes of gold from its petals, and that evening, he went into the village and spent the gold wildly, telling everyone who would listen that he was now a wealthy man.”
“Did the flower die?” Elisa asks, clutching her doll to her chest.
“No,” Papa says. “Because, you see, the fairies are smarter than that. They knew that humans could not be trusted with such a precious gift. So they had enchanted the flower. Under the spell, all of the gold the flower created disappeared into thin air at dawn. So greedy Finn, who had tried to spend all of the gold, was now left with nothing but angry villagers when the gold he’d given them vanished. Worse, the flower no longer produced any gold. Desperate to repay his debts, he returned the flower to the Realm and replanted it exactly where he’d found it. Within a day, the flower produced gold again. This time, Finn took only the gold dust, as the fairy had instructed, and returned to the village. But the damage was done. The fairies no longer trusted him, and they didn’t lift their spell. All of the gold vanished at dawn once more. When Finn returned to the Realm, he could never find the flower again.”
“Never?” Elisa whispers.
“Never,” Papa replies. “The Fairy’s Gold had vanished. Some say that the magical golden flower still lives within the Realm, but it’s revealed only to those who are worthy of it. And even those who find it must never be greedy with the Realm’s gift, for the flower’s gold will always disappear at dawn.”
“What about the fairies? Did Finn ever see them again?”
Papa shakes his head. “No Seeker has ever seen a fairy in the Realm, before or since.”
Elisa frowns. “Then how do we know what happened to the fairies? Are they okay?”
Papa smiles. “Don’t worry. The fairies lived happily ever after.”
Elisa wriggles down from his lap, holding her doll up. “I’m going to play a new game about the fairies! Bryn, come with me!”
“Okay,” I say with a sigh as she skips toward the hut. I look accusingly at Papa. “You’ve created a monster.”
He laughs. “But my storytelling skills have improved, eh?”
“The last time you told that story, it was a sea wolf that Finn heals, not a unicorn,” I say accusingly.
“Was it?” Papa scratches his beard. “Well, I’m sure the unicorn is how it really happened.”
I roll my eyes. “Sure, Papa.” Everyone knows there’s no such thing as fairies, and no Seeker has ever really seen one. Some do say that Fairy’s Gold is real, but no Seeker has found it in decades. It’s all probably just legend.
“Bryn!” Elisa calls. “Come on, I need you to be a fairy!”
I sigh. “A Seeker’s work never ends,” I say, and Papa chuckles.
I manage to survive playtime with Elisa and dinner that evening. Mama glares at me the entire time, apparently still upset from our conversation earlier, but she doesn’t protest when I ask to see Runa after dinner. Runa is true to her word and meets me in the sheep pasture again.
Before I can even speak, she reaches into the pocket of her cloak and withdraws a small, gleaming vial. The liquid inside is pale yellow.
“One plague cure potion,” she says triumphantly, holding it out to me.
I take the vial, which is so small it fits in the palm of my hand. “Are you serious? You really did it?”
“Obviously I don’t know if it works,” she says. “But I combined the ingredients, just like we talked about. I had enough for one vial, for now. But that should be plenty to test it out. If it works, I can make more, especially if I can get Elder Ingvar’s help at the herbalist shop.”
I tilt the vial in my hand, watching the pale liquid shimmer inside. It isn’t much, but it’s a start. “Have I mentioned recently that you’re the best?”
“Not recently enough,” Runa says with a grin.
I watch the liquid inside the vial shimmer. This could be it—the cure that will save the gyrpuffs.
“So,” I say, “what’s the best way to test it out?” I don’t really want to give a mysterious potion to the sick gyrpuffs when we don’t know exactly what it will do. We might have to risk it if it’s the only way to save their lives, but…
“I have an idea,” Runa says. “Follow me.”
ELEVEN
Runa leads me into her family’s barn, where she steps expertly around an assortment of farm tools. I stumble over everything in the dark, and Runa shushes me. “Don’t let my parents hear you!”
At the back of the barn, she lights a lantern and reveals a w
orktable covered with a line of potted plants, all in a row. But not just any plants, I realize—magical ones. The meadowsweet, the mountain avens—all the remains of the plants I’ve been giving her for the potion.
“So what’s your idea?” I whisper.
“Well, I was thinking… You said the plague feeds on magical energy, right? So we want the cure to do the opposite—to give the magical creatures more energy.”
“I’m not sure, though,” I say. “Because won’t giving them more energy just give the plague more to feed off?”
“True. I don’t think it’s enough on its own just to boost energy. We need something that will eradicate the plague itself. But it’s impossible to know what will do that without testing it. Anyway, I thought that, at the very least, there should be some sort of test of this potion before you give it to the gyrpuff, to make sure that it won’t harm them. Why not test it on these plants? We can’t know if it will actually cure the plague with this test, of course, because the plants aren’t sick. But at least you can see what happens to their energy. If the potion seems to give them a boost and keep them healthy, then we’ll know it’s probably safe for the gyrpuffs, or at least not likely to harm them. It’s a safety check, you know?”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” I say. “But how do I give the potion to plants?”
Runa rolls her eyes. “Hand it over.”
I pass her the vial, and she pours the tiniest of drops into the soil of the nearest plant. We wait a moment and then tentatively reach out with our gifts. The flower’s energy is bright and strong and… growing. Yes, it’s definitely getting stronger.
“It worked!” I say, and Runa nods. “Let’s try the rest.”
One by one, we pour a few small drops of the potion into each pot and study their energy afterward. All of the plants respond positively to the potion.
“Okay,” Runa says. “Obviously, a gyrpuff is not a plant, so I can’t say for sure how it will affect them, or how the plague will react to it. But at the very least, I think it’s safe to say I haven’t created some sort of horrible poison. It’s certainly giving their magical energy a boost.”
Legend of the Realm Page 10
