Her eyes flicked to where the Companion remained curled on the floor, and Yerra watched adoration slide onto the bride-to-be’s face.
“You have the opportunity to make all of Valdemar a happier place with Taren,” Yerra said.
“Yes,” Marli said, but her tone was tinged with sadness.
Yerra made herself continue. “If anyone from our little town is an ideal Herald candidate, it’s you. You can apply your skills on a grander scale for a more noble cause.”
“But I love this place, and this is the cause of my heart.” Marli’s voice grew wet. “I want to stay.”
And Yerra wanted to leave, wanted it more than she wanted her next breath. No amount of wanting would make it possible for her, though.
“It’s not about what either of us wants,” she said. “It’s about what we have to do. You must go to Haven, Marli, to become a Herald. You’ve been Chosen. Valdemar needs you. I don’t have any choice but to stay here and be a dutiful daughter.”
A final realization hit her, and she gasped at the shock of it. “With you leaving, I’ll probably have to marry Barret next year when I come of age.”
To her surprise, Marli laughed, though tears threaded through the sound. “Looks like we have drawn each other’s desired lots, with no way to trade them.”
She reached across the bed and caught Yerra’s hands. “The only way we can make this okay is if we can trust each other to fill those roles the way we’d want them filled. You will work to return peace to our town, and I will do what I can to serve Valdemar as a Herald.”
Now it was Yerra’s turn to laugh. Here sat Marli, the town’s problem solver, spouting another ridiculous solution. “I don’t think I ever had Valdemar’s best interest at heart. I just wanted to escape.”
Marli shook her head. “Look at this Waystation. All the work you’ve done to keep it up and running, it has not gone unnoticed. Even if no other Herald has been this way in the past two years, I appreciated the stocked shelves and ready firewood when I needed sanctuary tonight. Being in here, I can feel your devotion to the Heralds in every bit of comfort you’ve brought inside.”
Yerra gulped down a fresh wave of tears. From the floor, Taren whickered, his eyes steady on her. From their depths, she drew up the confirmation that he’d sensed her devotion as well.
“I’d thought for a moment that I’d been too wrapped up in my dreams for myself,” Yerra said, “but I do want what’s best for Valdemar. Of the two of us, you’re it.”
“And,” Marli continued, “if you can provide me with the secure knowledge that our town will be as well-maintained as this Waystation, that you will care for Barret where I cannot, I can gather the strength to see that your hopes for Valdemar are carried out, too.”
Yerra did not trust her voice any longer, so she swept Marli into a tight hug. Marli returned it, and after a few chiming footsteps, Taren dropped his nose into their embrace. Both girls laughed, then cried, then laughed again.
“I wish you and I had been brave enough to be friends before this,” Marli said as they broke apart to wipe their eyes.
Yerra agreed. “We can be brave now. The engagement celebration is still going. Maybe our families have stopped fighting.”
Marli’s eyes slid out of focus. “They haven’t.”
“Then we’ll have to go together to make them stop.”
“But first, we should take care of that pie you stole for me.”
“We can eat it on the way. The fighting’s gone on too long already.”
The two girls worked together to bank the fire and tidy the Waystation. When all was set right, Yerra followed Taren and Marli outside, closing the door behind her with a firm tug as she always did. She didn’t want any forest creatures creeping inside to make a mess of her place.
Marli pulled herself onto Taren’s back, the movement natural and smooth. She held a hand out to offer Yerra a ride as well, but Yerra shook her head. They were going to make a statement to their families, and her place was on the ground.
Taren’s hooves chimed as the three of them headed back to town through the darkened forest, and though Yerra’s emotions tugged at her so she hardly knew one thought from the next, she joined Marli in eating the stolen pastry. Both of them agreed that her mother’s berry pie had never tasted so good as when it was sealing a pact of peace for their families, their town, and their country.
Only Family Matters
D. Shull
Serril walked unseeing down the hill, away from the cluster of buildings that housed the Healers’ Collegium, away from the yelling that—once again—marked whatever fight had started this time between Ostel and Brone. No doubt it was the same old song that had been sung for the past three weeks since Marta had passed away in her sleep: who would be the next Dean of the Healers’ Collegium. No doubt they would find him eventually, begging him to be the neutral party to mediate between them. Unless he simply wasn’t there to begin with.
Being a neutral party had seemed so reasonable, back when he was in training to become a Healer. Don’t get involved, don’t pick sides, just keep your head down and let things get resolved by the people in charge. It had worked just fine, thank you very much, though more often than he’d have liked, he found himself caught in the middle of a fight because he didn’t pick sides. And as he gained seniority, his neutrality itself became a target when other Healers asked him to mediate.
Serril was fairly certain that none of them had ever noticed that his breath got short when they did that. Serril was very certain that none of them knew about the bile that rose in his throat, the edges of panic, the sudden sense that everything was finally going to fall apart, the way it had in his family. Healers were often passionate people; it wasn’t their fault that when they started yelling at each other, he had entirely too clear memories of his childhood hiding place under his brother’s bed.
Serril let the tears fall even as he sped farther away from his home of more than a decade. He hadn’t even talked to any of the precious Mindhealers, because it wasn’t as though he was actually broken in mind. It’s just scarring from a painful childhood, and everyone has that, he thought for the thousandth time as he put even more distance between himself and the Collegia. And he was certain that if Brone or Ostel found him, they’d either laugh it off (Brone was astoundingly insensitive for a Gifted Healer) or sigh and say that their present was more important than his past (Ostel’s parents had been doting and wealthy; their donations had built a greenhouse and let Ostel learn Healing craft).
Enough! Serril ducked into an alley and ran through the breathing exercises he’d learned from Marta when she mentored him. It hadn’t even occurred to either of the two contenders that he might be dealing with the additional grief of losing a friend and a mentor. Neither one had ever trained with Marta, except perhaps in their early classes with several other students at the same time. Marta had been an Empath as well as a Healer, and she had immediately picked Serril out as needing extra attention.
Keep breathing. Exhale all the hurt and sorrow, inhale the untainted air. Marta’s words came back so strongly that for a moment, Serril thought she’d come back from the Havens to scold him. He hiccupped, felt the tears slow, and let the cool autumn air flow in through his nose, and out, warmed, from his mouth. Marta had been a mother to him, more of one than either of the parents who’d raised him.
It took him a good while to calm down and set himself in order. He hadn’t been wearing his Greens when he’d left—bolted, let’s be honest here—so to any passersby, he was just another face in the crowd. He thought it might serve him better to hide here in the crowds around the city; after all, if he wasn’t a Healer today, nobody would need him, right? With a sigh, Serril acknowledged that the urge to disappear was another leftover from his childhood. Sooner or later, he’d have to go back up to the Collegium and face his colleagues; but if he had his way, it’d be later
rather than sooner.
Once he’d made the decision to stay in the city for a while, Serril found it fairly easy to just blend into the crowds. It was a market day, when the farmers brought fresh-picked fruits and vegetables to the city, and more than once Serril regretted not bringing his money along. The apples in particular were quite fragrant, and more than once his mouth watered at the sight of a roasted ear of corn.
His wandering also brought him to the edge of a cheering and laughing crowd. The throng was large enough that Guards were stationed nearby, but even they appeared to be enjoying themselves. Serril wove and ducked through the crowd to find a good spot to see what was going on, and he found himself in front of one of his favorite vendors. Linn always had good food and was good company, and she grinned at Serril as he leaned against one of the awning poles.
“Not having any of their nonsense today, are you?”
Serril had recovered enough to nod and smile a bit; his voice would probably take a little while longer to be usable.
Linn, who had seen him this distraught before, handed him a flaky pastry in a bowl. “Eat, it’ll do you good. And pay attention, this is one of the best traveling shows I’ve seen. They should cheer you right up.” She grinned at another customer and allowed as how her chicken was the best flavored for ten streets in any direction, even those fancy restaurants where you’d have to pay in gold for the privilege of standing in a line.
Serril had tucked into his food, finding the chicken inside to be very tasty, and tried to manage both the bowl and looking over the crowd. A raucous cheer suddenly arose, and the people in the front waved their hands in the air. Then, to his amazed eyes, they circled around the crowd to the back, letting the people behind them move forward to see more clearly. He’d seen it happen, and still he couldn’t quite believe it.
Linn said, loud enough to hear, “Like I said, they’re one of the best I’ve seen. Got the whole thing down to an art, so it’s clear they’ve been doing this for a while. You should go up when you’re done; they change the audience when they change the act.” Serril gaped a moment, then ate more of the delicious pie. I haven’t seen that level of coordination outside of military training. It took him a few moments to finish his meal while watching what he could of the show.
It looked to be several people, performers and musicians, and this particular act seemed to revolve around people hitting each other with inflated sheep’s bladders on sticks. Apparently this was incredibly funny for the people in the front, so there must have been dialogue to go with it, but Serril couldn’t hear anything over the laughter in front of him. At the last, right before the last sheep’s bladder popped, he deposited the empty bowl onto Linn’s counter and managed a “Thank you,” before the crowd surged forward, taking him with it.
Where the last act had been comedy, this one was fairly dangerous. A young woman juggled knives at first, prompting gasps from the crowd as she started with two, then moved on to three, then four. Serril found himself wincing every time a knife came down point first, and cheering as the young woman caught them with a grin and a relieving lack of blood.
He’d thought it was a solo act, but then someone else came on stage, bowed to the audience, and was strapped to a large plank with a bullseye painted on it; for the literate in the crowd, the word TARGET was painted above the bullseye. The target strapped to the board was grinning as though this was the best joke ever heard or seen as the knife juggler became a knife thrower.
The first knife went thunk into the board between ribs and underarm, and Serril had a brief moment of panic at the thought of the knife missing. There were several major blood vessels very near that spot, and even he would be hard pressed to Heal a wound like that, given how far he was from the stage. After the next three knives hit the board and not the person, Serril realized that his breathing was quick and shallow. The knife thrower seemed to know what she was doing, but that didn’t stop Serril from being anxious about an accident. A number of the crowd in front of him apparently didn’t like this particular part of the show; he moved forward so that he could now hear the people on the stage.
“Serves you right, Zanner! You shouldn’t be making fun of my age!” The young woman mock snarled as she grabbed another knife from the table next to her.
“But, Jayin! Just because you’re sixteen as of right this morning—”
The young woman screeched. “ZANNER, NOBODY IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!” The musicians began playing a fairly common melody, usually played for autumn birthdays, and at that the young woman yelled, “AND DON’T YOU START, MOTHER! I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!” The woman leading the musicians merely grinned and continued playing. The crowd, sensing the mood, started cheering at Jayin, wishing her a happy birthday and throwing coins onto the stage.
Jayin held up a silver piece that had landed at her feet, and yelled, “This doesn’t excuse this lowlife of a sibling for telling people it’s my birthday!” Zanner continued grinning, and Jayin spun on the erstwhile target with a clearly mock glare. By this point, Serril was not even ten feet from the stage, and he saw the wicked gleam in the young woman’s eye. “Why don’t we scare your ears a bit, make sure you don’t hear anything you’re not supposed to anymore!” The first knife flew true and thunked into the board on the side facing mostly away from the audience. The second knife flew, and thunked solidly into the board on the side toward the audience, clearly missing the young person’s ear.
“I give, I give, I’ll never listen for things I’m not supposed to know again, like how your favorite stuffed animal is a—”
Jayin screamed for all she was worth, the crowd cheered and threw more money onto the stage, and a man ran to the front and said so everyone could hear, “Thank you so very much for coming to see the Avelard Family Traveling Show! That’s our last act of the morning. We’ll be back after the midday bell to continue to astound, entertain, and amuse you! We hope to see you again soon!”
A couple of people picked up the board with Zanner still on it and ran off the stage to the accompaniment of fast, silly music. Jayin bowed and immediately took herself off the stage in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, a couple of the musicians went around the stage, gathering the coins people had thrown, looking pleasant and cheerful and waving to the now disappointed crowd as it began to disperse.
Serril narrowed his eyes. Something was very wrong, but he might have been the only person in the audience to notice the trail of blood that led off the stage.
• • •
Now Serril cursed his lack of Greens. He had a medallion under his shirt that marked him as a Healer, but he had no idea whether that would be as recognizable. There was nothing for it, however, so he pulled himself up onto the stage even as the performers started yelling at him to get down.
To the nearest one, a young man dressed in autumn colors that suited his hair, he said, “I’m Healer Serril. I was out for a walk this morning, and didn’t want to get mobbed, but I saw at least part of what happened. Please, let me help.” To punctuate this, he pulled out the metal disc, embossed with the mark of the Healers Collegium, and showed it to the young man. “If it’s not serious, then I’ll be on my way after a bit of bandaging. If it is serious, then at least you’ll have someone with the Gift who can mend your friend.”
Before the young man could answer, a woman—the very one Jayin had identified as her mother—bustled out. “I suppose you won’t go away even if we tell you it’s a minor cut, will you?” Her voice was firm, as much as the glance she gave him, and she narrowed brilliant green eyes. “Fine, fine, you might as well come backstage. First time for everything, I suppose. Avelard family secrets and props all exposed to strangers and meddlesome busybodies who just happen to be standing by.” She didn’t reach out and grab him, she just gave him a look that reminded him of some of the governesses he’d had as a child. Serril bit his lip, but now that he was on stage, he could see that there was more blood than co
uld be accounted for by a minor cut.
“I’ll follow, I’ll keep my eyes down, and once I’m done, I’ll be out of your way.”
“I suppose that’ll do. I’m Ella, Master of the Music, and the one who herds all the cats of this show. You’ll do well to jump when I say, sit when I say, and speak politely while you’re here. We’re a family and not performers backstage.”
“I understand.” And Ella strode off, leading Serril through a series of halls that were nothing more than cloth strung on rope until they arrived at an open space enclosed by a small ring of wagons. There, Serril saw that Zanner was still strapped to the board, and Jayin was kneeling next to the injured performer, biting her lip and looking concerned. At least the young woman wasn’t prone to panic, even when she’d managed to wound someone by accident. Maybe it’s the performing life, Serril thought.
“We’ve got a Healer who just happened to be in the crowd and not in his Greens. Young man, why don’t you introduce yourself before you go over to Zanner and see what’s what.”
Jayin stood up immediately. “Do we know he’s a Healer? He just jumps up on the stage and you believe him?”
Ella sighed. “He’s got the medallion they give to the ones who’re Gifted, my heart, so he’s not a fraud by any means.” She paused and gave her daughter a look. “So, we make sure Zanner’s all Healed up before the next performance, and you’ll need to practice your throwing a bit more, my heart.”
“It wasn’t my throwing that was the problem, Zanner moved!”
“I’m right here, you don’t need to yell.” Zanner sounded a bit stressed but, oddly calmer than Serril would have expected. He shrugged, marking it as another oddity of the performing life.
“Do I have your permission to come over, examine the wound, and, if necessary, Heal you?”
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