Chapter 3
Elah woke up in the morning, hungry. She felt light headed and her stomach groaned, all she could think about was a big bowl of whatever had been prepared for breakfast, she didn't even care what it was. Although, thinking about the different options that might have been prepared made her mouth water.
As she slipped her feet out from under the blankets she looked down at the blue socks she had made, her mother had insisted she learn how to make at least the basic articles of clothing. Her stomach growled loudly, forcing her from her thoughts of her parents and her warm bed.
As Elah step into the kitchen she noticed some used plates in the sink and a pot of warm oats on the stove. She looked around wondering how long she had slept and where everyone else was. Usually her mother fussed in the kitchen until mid morning, while the boys trained but the entire house seemed too quite.
Taking the lid off the pot of oats, Elah noticed it was apple and cinnamon, her favourite. Adding a little bit more milk to moisten the contents of the pot she continued to warm the oats and stuck her fingers in several times to taste it before filling a bowl.
While sitting at the table Elah wondered what had happened the day before, she had never healed anything other than small forest animals. The first animal she healed was a small colourful bird that came to her with an injured wing. At first she didn’t know what to do and was scared when she touched it because her hands started to glow. At that time something deep within her, told her not to worried but she still did.
She had sat with the he bird for quite some time, touching it whenever she felt brave enough. By the time she had felt brave enough to keep her hands on the bird to see what would happen, the bird had become so relaxed that it had fallen asleep.
It only took a couple of minutes to completely heal the bird but the energy it took from Elah, left her feeling weak. She had rested under a tree for hours under the watchful eye of the small bird. It stayed with her until Elah felt strong enough to walk home.
It was difficult for Elah to walk at first but as she kept moving she felt her strength build. Although, she kept trying to light her hands up as she walked, by concentrating on trying to bring the feeling she had felt when she touched the bird back but all she did was wear herself out again.
After that day, Elah had healed many of the forests small animals and her strength had increased over time until she no longer felt weak after healing them. Elah had even started to feel a bond grow between her and the animals of the forest but she never told anyone about her healing gift. She didn’t want to scare anyone especially since she had heard the stories of her grandmother but when she saw River lying on the forest floor she responded out of instinct.
At that point Elah dropped her spoon on the table and ran out to the training area. With her heart beating wildly she searched the area for River and in her frantic search she backed into Lavi. Letting out a squeal, Elah spun around to face him.
Lavi took a couple of seconds to look at Elah before wrapping his powerful arms around her. “It’s okay” he whispered in her ear.
“River” she managed to say, trying look around Lavi.
“He’s perfectly fine, thanks to you” Lavi said, giving her a knowing smile and causing her heart to skip a beat.
Tears started to roll down her face as she looked into Lavi’s dark green eyes, searching for more answers than strength to ask. Lavi watched her as she searched his face. He had beautiful olive skin and shoulder length chocolate brown hair that he pulled back with a piece of leather. His soft facial features gave him a kind look, hiding his deadly ability with a sword. Although he was young, his smile could melted the hearts of many young ladies and even though Elah was younger than him, she loved it when he smiled.
“Where is he?” she whispered, through sobs.
“He’s gone deep into the forest for some training with your father” Lavi said, before pausing to watch Elah’s face soften. “Talib is leading us in our training today, I just came to check on you as your mother is in the forest looking for herbs, you know the smelly ones.”
Elah felt confused as to why her father would take River on a training assignment after what had happened the day before and why her mother would leave without waiting for her to wake. Elah figured she would find out what they were up to soon but had a sinking feeling about it.
As Lavi let Elah go he looked up to see Talib and Varg running toward them and stood out of the way as Talib took his sister in his arms, causing her to fall off balance and straight into his chest. Varg went and stood next to Lavi not knowing what to do with himself but was happy to see Elah out of bed. Varg had never been good around girls, he always seemed to look awkward and out of place.
“I would have come with Lavi but Varg took his time in his archery training today, maybe you could teach him a few things” Talib joked, as he noticed Elah had been crying and wanted nothing more than to see a smile on her face again.
“You can’t rush perfection” Elah said, smiling up at her brother and flashing a smile at Varg who was looking very serious.
Varg flashed a small smile, slightly softening his strong face. At his young age he was the tallest and most muscular of the boys. Varg’s sliver eyes stood out against his flawless dark skin. Despite his large body, Varg was very talented in close combat and could move like a sleek cat.
Varg had nearly completed his training and would be sent to join the kings personal guard, a great honour for any warrior. He had successfully completed his testing last time Jabin had taken the boys into the city. King Ceawlin had expressed how impressed he was with the training, this confused Jabin as he was soon only going to have one student.
Elah looked into her brothers eyes looking for answers she couldn't find in Lavi’s eyes but she found nothing and was not sure how much he knew or was suppose to know. “What’s going to happen now?” Elah asked Talib, not sure if he even had an answer.
“I don’t know” he answered, before looking at the other two, “but I do know what happened yesterday needs to remain a secret”.
“It’s not my place to speak of this” Varg said, looking at Elah like she was his sister and felt the need to protect her.
Lavi nodded agreeing. “Its not me you have to worry about, your parents looked freaked out” Lavi said, looking at the relieved expression on Talib’s face.
“If you are okay Elah, we need to get back to training” Talib said, feeling the need to make sure the days tasks were completed before his father returned. Talib knew his father was proud of him but always looked for his approval, especially when it came to physical activities, which was not his strong point.
“Can I come?” Elah asked, she loved training with her brothers, she knew she was never going to be the best but loved it anyway.
Talib sighed looking at his sister not sure if training was a good idea. “You can only come if you take it easy” he told her with concern, knowing she would be within sight so he could keep an eye on her.
Elah nodded and started skipping towards the training area. Lavi had to run to catch her, telling her to slow down as he ran. She only stopped when he put his hand on her right shoulder and she flashed him a cheeky smile.
Once they reached the training area, Elah went straight to the bows and picked up her favourite. Although the bow was too big for her, she had always used it and it had taught her well. She was able to hit the centre of the target each time and was now working on hitting moving targets.
Varg went straight out and set up the moving target, he knew that was what Elah wanted to work on, even though he also knew she would benefit greatly with some hand-to-hand combat training. However, he did know she was not supposed to be training in the first place. Girls needed the kings permission to train otherwise it was not permitted. The girls that did train, trained in secret and became the queens guard or guards for female dignitaries.
On his way back, Varg collected the arrows he had used earlier and went to collect a bow for
himself. Elah had been watching Talib and Lavi sparing nearby while she waited and didn't appear to mind that Varg had taken his time.
As Varg stood next to Elah, he could see that her world had closed off as she concentrated on the target. He could see her breathe in holding as she tracked just ahead of her target and breathed out as she released the arrow hitting it to the left.
As Elah reached for another arrow, Varg stopped her by gently placing his hand on her arm. “You need to pay more attention to your surroundings” he said, watching the target move.
“How, when I need to watch the target?” she asked.
“Use your other senses and obviously your peripheral vision” he told her and watched her think about what he had just said with amusement.
As she took out an arrow she took note of how the surrounding forest looked, how it smelled and what it sounded like. As she concentrated on the target, she used her peripheral vision to watch her surroundings. It wasn't easy but she was determined to master the skill.
Breathing in she aimed and then slowly she let her breath out and released the arrow, hitting closer to the centre of the target than her last arrow. Smiling she felt more confident and realised she had a lot more to learn. This obviously that meant that she was going to have to spend more time practicing, which was something she looked forward to.
Once Varg saw Elah’s smile he started practicing, using techniques from his morning session with Talib. He only stopped to watch Elah every now and then because she had a close to perfect technique and he tried to copy her.
They both worked for what must have been hours, only stopping due to hunger. Varg mumbled something about relief and ran off leaving Elah to pack up. She didn’t mind the day was beautiful, warm and sunny with a light breeze. She could smell the seasonal flowers wafting through from the forest and she closed her eyes for a moment to take it all in.
Elah packed away the equipment and watched the boys walk towards the main house, ensuring they were gone. Standing in front of the bows she lightly ran her fingers over her bow thinking about how she wanted to go hunting in the forest and figured the only way she was ever going to get a chance was to sneak away.
Jabin would take the boys into the forest to hunt for meat when required but Elah was never allowed to go, no matter how much she pleaded with her father. She mostly wanted to go for the practice and to be with her brothers but she also wanted to get out of staying at home with her mother and learning about things like sewing or gardening.
As Elah lightly brushed her fingers over the length of the bow one last time she whispered 'I'll be back, my friend' before turning to stand face to face with Lavi.
Gasping in surprise, she looked up at him with wide eyes and a look of guilt. "Where did you come from?" she managed to ask, hoping he didn't hear her talking to her bow and not just because she felt silly for talking to a bow.
He smiled down at her, his eyes wide and lose hair falling to his face, exposing the points of his ears. His soft skin glistening in the sunlight and if she didn't want to run and hide from embarrassment, she would want to run her fingers down his arm.
"I hope you're not planning on doing any stupid" he stated, raising his eyebrows at her, causing her stomach to drop.
"No, I was hoping we would come back after lunch" she lied, looking down at her feet.
She was secretly planning to take her bow into the woods before sunrise and have a go at hunting on her own. She felt she was ready but knew she couldn't convince anyone else of that.
"Elah you know we have to do chores after lunch" Lavi said, knowing she had always been a terrible liar. "Come on let's go" he added, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her toward the main house.
Lavi let go of Elah’s hand just outside the house making sure the others didn’t see him holding her hand, as he was afraid they would make fun of an innocent thing. Once he let her go she ran ahead, her golden hair blowing in the breeze.
Once inside everyone quickly made themselves sandwiches for lunch. Once Elah had placed her sandwich on the table, she quickly grabbed her bowl from breakfast and cleaned up the mess she had left. She was sad to see her favourite breakfast food go to waste but it had been sitting for far too long and was now hard as a rock.
Elah sat silently next to Talib at the dinning table, he appeared to be deep in thought and she didn't want to bother him but he still joined in the conversation the other two were having. Their conversation wasn't difficult to keep up with and Elah quickly grew bored with it anyway.
It was a large table that had images of animals carved tastefully into it. Elah’s favourite was a carving of a large wolf. River had told her about seeing one in the forest when he was hunting and told her how it was hunting for its own breakfast. He also told her that it had a black coat that shone in the early morning sun giving it a healthy look and that it was a sign that the environment was healthy and full of life.
She sat looking at it remembering the story while the boys talked about their morning training sessions. Talib seemed very proud to have successfully completed all the training tasks set out by his father and knew there was more than enough time to complete all their chores in the afternoon for some free time afterwards.
As Talib talked Elah could see he was a little stiff and placed her hand on his thigh and began to concentrate on his muscles. She could feel the blood pumping through his leg, which gave her access to the energy that ran through his body. She sent out her healing energy through his blood stream and into his muscles, relieving him of his pain.
Talib could feel Elah’s healing energy surging through his body and looked down to see her hand glowing on his leg. He gasped in surprise but tried not to draw attention to what she was doing. He sat in his chair, taking note of how it felt and how fast his body began to heal in hopes of adding the new information to his book. He couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt and how refreshed he was when her hand dropped away from his leg.
He looked at her face and noticed how drained she looked and how close to losing consciousness she was. He quickly grabbed her shoulder just as she was starting to fall forward. Saving her from hitting her head on the table and ultimately hoped the others didn't notice.
“Elah” he whispered, not noticing the looks of alarm the other two boys had at the events taking place.
She glanced weakly at him, too weak to speak. As she breathed out, her whole body leaned forward and rested against Talib’s hand. Although she was small, she was too heavy for him to hold up and he shifted her to lay against his chest.
Talib was startled when Lavi handed him a glass of water, he wasn't expecting it and now he knew that the others were aware of what was going on. With a sigh, Talib offered the water to Elah and assisted her by holding the glass to her mouth. She quickly drank the water, which helped her gain more strength. The glass was quickly replaced by Varg, which was again quickly consumed by Elah.
She rested against Talib for some time before she felt strong enough to finish her sandwich. Once She finished her sandwich, she smiled at Talib and thanked him for helping her.
“Elah, I should thank you but you really shouldn’t have done that” Talib told her, not sure if he should be taking her to bed for a nap or not.
“It helps to strengthen me” she said, playing with the crumbs on her plate.
“What do you mean?” he questioned, looking at her curiously.
“When I helped the small forest creatures it was hard at first but as I did it more, I got stronger” she told him, looking up at him sweetly. She knew she probably should have waited to heal him, especially when she knew he would eventually go and find somewhere quiet to read.
“What… how long have you known?” he asked, shocked.
“It’s been a couple years since I healed my first creature, a little bird” she answered, with a shrug.
Talib was stunned to find out she had kept it a secret for so long. “I thought that if I healed something small like your ac
hing muscles it would help me to get stronger, since what happened with River” Elah added. “What if it happened again, I might not have enough energy.”
“You should have told me and stopped sooner” Talib said, worried healing him may have harmed her, especially since it had not been a day since she had healed River. He was thankful that she had healed him but that did not stop him from worrying. “Your gift should strengthen as you age anyway.”
“How do you feel Talib?” Elah asked, wanting to know if she had helped him and what it was like to be healed. She also wanted to change the topic.
“Wonderful, like I had never trained in my life but I still feel strong” he answered. “Most importantly, how are you feeling?”
“Still worn out, like as if I have been running all day but I’ll live” she answered, smiling at him with a sigh.
“Well then we should go and get our chores done and Elah I want you to get some rest, you can read any of my books if you want” Talib said.
Elah smiled at him knowing how much he loved his books and that it was a big deal for him to offer them. “Thanks Talib” Elah said, giving him a hug before heading up to his room.
A Healer's Destiny Page 3
