Role

Chapter 5

She didn't make it very far.

With blood streaming down her face wher the window glass had cut her,
skin crawling as if beset by a thousand angry ants, she dashed out the
northwest gate and out onto Shepherd's Row. She ran blindly, like
cornered prey, her flight instinct the only thing keeping her on her
feet until even that wasn't enough and she collapsed in a small glen
just off the road. Lucky for her, the glen was not unoccupied.

It was the home of an itinerant wood-elf healer. The sylvan looked on
in clinical curiosity at the pitiable creature that was Ydane as she
staggered into his glen, collapsed, and began to convulse weakly as if
set upon by some invisible tormentor.

This was not far from the truth.

It became obvious to the healer that Ydane had suffered not only
physical trauma but also something worse. Much worse. He dressed the
jagged wound on her face, and, settling down, solemly uttered a prayer to
cleanse her body of toxins. Then he began to wait, with her, as she
underwent the slow, agonizing, terrifying process of detoxification.

She would never speak to him of what had happened to her, and he did not
ask, but it was abundantly obvious to the old sylvan that the girl was
damaged in more ways than merely the physical.

He spoke to her of the ancients and of the free folk who know them best.
He spoke of the warders who protect the wild places and the harbingers
whole hold dear the great cycle of death and rebirth. He spoke the names
Ergush and Strienat; Amaranthe and Sebeok; Innis and Uller. These
things he did so they might create a way for the girl to escape the hell
into which she'd been imprisoned; the means for her to pull herself back
from the brink.

But he did not speak to her of the reavers, nor did he utter the names
Lyristeon or Aylosi, for surely no solace could be found among them for
one such as she? Yet, where his solitary voice fell silent, the many
voices of the ancients rose up feverishly in its stead.

And Ydane heard. And Ydane listened. And, deep within her breast, a
fire began to kindle.