The Blight of Muirwood

The thought brushed against her mind.

Blood would redeem the Abbey. That was what was needed. Not her skill in the Medium. Not her devotion to the Aldermaston. It was her blood. Or the Aldermaston’s. A price to be paid for the power to save them all.

Lia cringed from the weight of the thought.

Was it true? Was it her tiredness speaking or was it the Medium? How could she be sure? Ever since her experience in the Bearden Muir with Colvin when she learned about the Medium, it had whispered to her and given her insights and thoughts. It helped her remember the things she learned. The Medium was a close friend to her. Would a friend send her to die?

She swallowed, feeling her heart burn inside of her. Was this what the Medium was asking of her? The thought struck her like lightning. She felt it through her bones. In her mind, the image of Colvin and Ellowyn on a boat crossing a stormy sea. Foam crashed against the hull. She could smell the salt in the air. But just as assuredly as she could see them, she knew that she was not with them. Colvin steadying Ellowyn as the vessel pitched and lunged in the sea. She would not be journeying to Dochte Abbey with them.

The Gift of Seering struck her like a mountain, the irrespressible weight of the Medium confirming her thought. She would not be going to Dahomey with them.

Pain. The thought brought a wrenching pain inside her heart. Being separated from Colvin would be agony. In her mind’s eye, she remembered as the two of them had stacked stones on Jon Hunter’s body. Instead of that, she saw Colvin and Ellowyn standing there, clutching stones, burying her.

No!

Lia nearly sobbed with the thought, the pain that it caused her. Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away. This was the Medium’s will for her? To die as a hunter protecting Colvin and Ellowyn? Was this what the Aldermaston had foreseen? The reason she needed to be trained? The reason he had used her?

Each step was terrible. She was cold, wet, miserable. All of the feelings she had experienced in the Bearden Muir a year before came crashing down. Loneliness, despair. Abandonment. The Medium was abandoning her to die. To save the lives of others. To save…

She wrestled with her thoughts. She struggled against them. How could the Medium expect this of her? She was so young…her life unlived. But had she not, once before, offered her life to save Colvin’s? At the fields of Winterrowd, had she not bargained with the Medium to save him? To take her instead? She remembered the moment. She remembered the Medium being satisfied with her offering. Then its powers had come. The power that saved Demont’s men from falling in battle. Not just Colvin, but all of them.

The power to save them all.

Even though her heart was nearly bursting with pain, she summoned thoughts of Muirwood again. The faces, all of them. Pasqua. Sowe. Bryn. Astrid. Prestwich. The Aldermaston. Even Getman and Reome and Tresa. All of the wretcheds she had grown up with. All of them helpless at the Abbey, surrounded by soldiers bent on destroying their master. They had no one to defend them. No one, but a girl who was feeling sorry for herself.

Lia clenched her jaw. Had Jon realized he was going to die before it happened? Had the Medium prepared him as it was preparing her? How brave he seemed. Or was it better not to know? Not to understand the Medium’s will until it was too late. That was the necessity – to surrender oneself to the Medium’s will. That was the way of invoking its greatest powers. Holding back, even her thoughts, was enough to send it flying away. She did not do that. She turned the information over in her mind. The Leerings that defended the Abbey borders were in the woods beyond the Cider Orchard. They were hidden amidst the oaks. To be protected, one had to be inside the circle of stones.

Determination filled her. She had to get Colvin and Ellowyn inside that protective ring. She did not know how she was going to do it. But she had to. If her blood was required, then she would do it. She would not shrink from it. Something squeezed her heart with pain and she glanced back at Colvin. His face was a mask of fatigue and impatience. He looked furious as he walked. Was he hearing the Medium as well? Or was his anger blotting out the murmur?

Seeing his face in the darkness, his scowl and expression made the pain even more intense. Ellowyn looked exhausted, her eyes nearly shut as she stumbled after, trying and failing to keep up. She remembered his confession in the mountains of Pry-Ree. It was such a relief to have heard it. To die knowing that he loved her. She would set him free at last. Did the Aldermaston of Pry-Ree know? When he read the writing on the orb, tears had come to his eyes. He had looked at her with such sympathy and compassion. He had kissed her forehead. Did he know what she was facing? The choice that would be only hers to make?