Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (27 page)

Zane kissed Dawn tenderly. “Good job,
sweets.”

Dawn groaned and handed the baby back
to me.

Zane’s eyes widened.

Dawn gave a couple more pushes and Mel
smiled. “Don’t worry, Zane. You’re the proud daddy of one. That was
just her body getting rid of everything else.”

I looked lovingly on my niece who had
gone to sleep and kissed her forehead. “What are you going to name
her?” I gave her back to her parents.

Dawn smiled at the little bundle in her
arms. “Kara.”

We cleaned everything up and let the
men into the room. Little Kara was passed between all of her aunts
and uncles.

There was a knock on the door and
Matthew walked in. “Is everything alright?”

Zane smiled and handed his daughter
over to him.

Matthew’s eyes were wide with wonder.
“She’s so small! And pale.” He looked up at me. “You’re sure she’s
alright?”

I nodded.

Kara stretched her little arms over her
head and my jaw dropped. Jasper was up in a flash with Alex right
behind him. Everyone turned to look at what I was looking
at.

Mel frowned. “Is that…?”

Jasper shook his head. “No. It can’t
be.” He looked at Matthew. “Can it?”

I took Kara’s tiny hand in mine and
looked at her thumb. “It is.”

Everyone looked at each other in shock.
The next White One had been born. I pulled her ear forward and
checked for a mark. I glanced up in astonishment. “It’s a
circle.”

“But Namaels have lines and Majs have
crescents.” We all looked at Zane as he stated the
obvious.

“Could you check her aura?” Jasper was
gazing at the tiny infant with amazement. I touched Kara softly
with my nudge. Jasper’s head turned in my direction at the surprise
I projected.

“It’s… well, it’s white.”

“Faren said yours was white as well,
no?”

I nodded and we all looked at the
little bundle with awe. Melana was going to be handing her reign
over to a Namael and Maj cross breed and we had no way of telling
if Kara was going to shift into a cat or a dog.

Everyone jumped at the knock on the
door.

Matthew handed Kara back to Dawn and
handed her an extra blanket to put over her. We all stood
defensively around the bed.

The door opened and Melana walked in.
She looked at us and stopped short. “Is everything alright? Marco
was walking by and said he heard a babe crying. Are they all
ok?”

I looked at Jasper. He nodded, reached
back and took Kara from Dawn. He walked to Melana and placed the
baby in her arms. There was no reason to delay this meeting.
“Melana, we’d like for you to meet Kara.”

Melana smiled and made cooing noises to
the baby. Kara opened her eyes and two pairs of almost white eyes
looked at each other. The queen caught her breath and looked at us.
I nodded. Jasper showed her both marks. She gazed back down at the
baby and smiled. “Well, now, little Kara. Out of everything that’s
happened today, I’d say you win hands down for the most shocking.”
Her smile softened. “What took you so long to get here?” She walked
to the bed and handed Kara back to her parents.

Jasper put his arm around me and I lay
my head on his shoulder.

Melana glanced at us. “I’ve decided you
may be right. Go talk to Damian. I’m willing to declare a truce
until this situation with the humans is settled.”

I looked over at her and nodded. One
down, one to go, I thought to myself.

*****

It took all of five minutes with
Marilynn to find that I liked her. The fifty-three year old Namael
sorceress was the kind of woman who told it like it was and if you
didn’t like it, you could leave.

She was facing away from us looking at
something on a shelf when we walked into her shop.

“Well, hello, Hayden.” She reached up,
grabbed what she needed, then turned to us. “Jasper.” She
smiled.

“Marilynn. How goes your
day?”

“Terrific now that you have finally
brought Hayden to see me.”

“How did you know it was me walking
in?” I was positive she hadn’t seen us coming.

“Energy. I can’t tell everyone apart,
mind you, but a few people project more of it so I can tell who
they are. I only know of one other being that radiates this much
energy and I highly doubt that Rainen is here to see me.” She
walked around, taking jars and dried plants off the shelves and
putting them in a basket. “Now,” she strode to the front door,
locked it, and started walking through a door that led to the back
of the shop, “let’s go teach you some spells.”

I smiled and followed after her. Jasper
gave a chuckle. Obviously he was used to her forward
manner.

We exited through the back into a large
yard surrounded by a rock fence.

“First things first.” Marilynn dropped
her basket on a table and turned to face me. “You can
heal?”

I nodded.

“How much have you done?”

“Well, the regular wave I use quite
often. The darker wave not so much.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You use the
darker wave? How many times?”

“There’s been two times when I’ve given
quite a bit of energy to Jasper otherwise he would have died. The
once I gave to Kacey, but not quite so much. Then there’s been
about twenty or thirty times where we’ve experimented with it, to
see how much could accomplish what.”

“What of the darkest wave?”

I shook my head. “I’ve tried, but I
haven’t been able to.”

“We have a theory that because she
doesn’t like to hurt or kill, taking energy from one being to heal
another goes against what she feels is right and that that might be
why she can’t.” Jasper put an arm around me.

Marilynn nodded. “That could very well
be. Now, wind. Can you push it?”

I pushed a light grey wave and ruffled
her long grey hair.

“Is that it?”

“No. But I don’t want to blow you
over!”

“Hayden, dear, I’m going to run through
all of the waves. I want you to throw the darkest of each as hard
as you can at me.”

“But…”

She held up her hand.
“Grey.”

I looked at Jasper and he
shrugged.

I let the greys move in front of me and
pulled the darkest grey I had. I threw it as hard as I could.
Marilynn laughed at my frown. The grass and air around her was
blowing with hurricane strength winds but Marilynn herself was
untouched.

“I have strong shields. Believe it or
not, Hayden, you’re shielding right now. I’ll show you how to do it
like this after.”

“How am I shielding?”

“You’re doing it without realizing it.
I’m also going to show you how to take that shield down. It keeps
you from projecting and throwing full strength. If that were
happening, I’m not even sure I could hold this back.”

“You’re saying that Hayden is more
powerful than she seems?”

Marilynn nodded. “I think her fear of
hurting people keeps her from using her full strength. Let’s try
red.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have very
good control on red. I can use the light one to start fires or heat
water, but the deep red…”

“I heard about Ream. That wall of fire
was the talk of the magic wielders’ community for months afterward.
What else have you done with it that was shocking to
you?”

I thought about it for a bit. “There
are two other times. At the supper last night, I hit Sonia in the
head with the hilt of my dagger. Her face was burnt and the burn
radiated from where I had hit her. Also I managed to get flames to
come out of the ground under Ternach so that they shot up at him
and he didn’t see it coming.”

“You faced off with
Ternach?”

I nodded. “He’s the one who sent me to
the humans.” I tried to keep the memories from flooding back from
wherever it was I had been hiding them.

“Tell me about it.”

I shuddered and closed my eyes. Jasper
tensed beside me. “It’s ok.” I put a hand on his arm. I started my
story with Faren and ended it when we crossed the Wedelven Bridge.
Marilynn listened intently.

“Emotions.” She seemed to think about
this for a bit. “You, Hayden, are a very emotional
being.”

I had never really thought that I was
and told her so.

Jasper burst out laughing. “Not
emotional. By the moons Shlova, you’d think differently if you were
on the receiving end of those emotions.”

I projected my annoyance which caused
him to laugh harder.

“So you feel everything that she is
feeling?”

Jasper nodded. “Well, I used to. Not so
much anymore. She can pull back on them now. She can project them
too. For the most part it’s like a dull hum. I can’t always tell
exactly what she’s feeling, but I always feel her
there.”

“Interesting.” She went to the table
and started spreading the basket’s contents on its surface. When
she was done she called me over. “Identify these items for
me.”

I started at one end and moved along,
naming all of the items there. They were all plants and seeds that
Fillian had taught me to use in broths, drinks, and pastes used for
healing.

Marilynn nodded. “Very good.” She
looked at me. “Tanna dex.”

I frowned. “Why does that sound
familiar?”

“Just think. What does it
mean?”

I looked at Jasper. He
shrugged.

“Tanna dex.” Marilynn looked at me
expectantly.

“Slow?”

“That’s right.”

“How do I know that?”

Marilynn laughed. “You were born
knowing it. Now, you just have to learn how to use it. How about
parn kant wort.”

I thought about it for a minute.
“Freeze.”

“Good. We’ll start with those two
today. They’re the simplest. Now what you want to do is say the
words, think of the action while looking at your target, and then
send your nudge. Do it in that order. Once you get good at it, it
becomes second nature and happens all at once.” She looked at
Jasper. “Why don’t you go to the end of the yard then walk toward
us. We’ll see if she can get you to freeze.”

He jogged to the end of the yard and
turned to us.

“It won’t hurt him?”

She shook her head. “You won’t need
much of a nudge. The more in tune to magic a being is, the bigger
the nudge you have to use.”

I took a deep breath and looked on as
Jasper started walking toward us.

“Parn kant wort.” I said the words
clearly, imagined Jasper freezing midstride, then pushed the magic
toward him. I felt my nudge hit him and he stopped.

“Very nicely done, Hayden.”

“Eyt concart.” The words for resume
came to my head and I sent out another nudge.

Jasper continued walking as if he had
never stopped. He laughed and gave me a long kiss. “Good
job.”

We spent the rest of the day working on
different things that ranged from spells, to shielding, to
controlling the color waves.

*****

“What about this one?” Jasper held up a
length of dark green cotton material with gold silk thread weaved
into it.

Tara looked it over and nodded. He
added it to the pile.

“You should take this one. Shondai
loves purple. You’re guaranteed that she’ll get a dress made with
this one.” The fabric I was holding was almost the same violet as
Leslie’s eyes.

Tara smiled. “That’s a great one.” She
followed Ben to the vendor’s desk where they paid for their
purchase of fabrics, thread, and buttons.

“Alright. Where to next?” Jasper held
the door open for us.

“I need to go to the tanner’s. I want
to find a bag to carry things around for healing.”

“Why wouldn’t you just use the waves?”
asked Ben.

“Well, I will when I can. But if
something happens that I get hurt and there’s no one around to heal
me, then I can’t use the waves. So I’ll have to do my healing the
old fashion way.”

Jasper looked at the little package I
had bought at the fabric shop. “And that’s what the needle and
thread are for?”

I nodded. “Hanna has been teaching me
some more manual ways of doing things.”

Hanna was one of Pinsaber’s best
healers. She had been one of the Namael army’s healers for thirty
years and had had to heal in almost every situation imaginable.
Being in situations where she was unable to use the waves due to an
injury had taught her to be creative and quick on her
toes.

I found a bag that would suit my needs
and we continued on to Marilynn’s shop so I could purchase herbs
and plants that were hard to find in these parts. I placed them in
my new bag.

“If you come back tomorrow, dear, I’ll
have those haspin leaves you want. They’re dried, mind you, so they
won’t be as strong as the fresh ones, but they’ll be handy in an
emergency.” Marilynn handed me a small package and smiled. “This
one is a gift.”