Stargazer

Chapter 16

Just then, a tall figure ducked through the wood-thatched doorway, interrupting our session. It was Dru and his face beamed when he saw I was awake.

"She's alive! Yet again!" He showed his pearly whites in excitement. I noticed how clean he looked after being around the dusty Dru for a few days. He had borrowed a thin white shirt from someone and a pair of colorful soft pants. His dark brown curls reflected the sunlight creeping through the hut from outside as he tucked them behind his ears and his face showed a short layer of stubble as if he had shaved with something that had been dull. But it suited him well to not look perfect and royal.

"Listen," he grabbed my hands in his, and looked into my eyes. I was surprised by the flip of my stomach."What I had said when we were in the desert together about you needing to answer a lot of questions. That has to happen right now." I pulled my hands away angrily, recalling what Mia had said about him wanting me to be okay for the wrong reasons.

"I just woke up and from what I hear, could have died! You could give me a bit of time to recover!" I said in annoyance.

"Exactly! I can't afford all these questions to go unanswered! I need to know them now!" I could tell his royal ass was used to getting his way immediately.

"Young man," Makawlah looked up at his towering height. "You may be a king but that does not entitle you to be rude. You are interrupting my reading. I highly advise you to sit down and join us. Perhaps you will get some answers you seek." Dru recoiled at the woman's irritability and took a seat at the table, silently.

"So what kind of reading is this anyhow,?" Makawlah shot him a look of daggers and turned back to me.

"Don't be afraid dear, hold my hands." She reached out and I felt the callouses and scars of the woman, stories of her past. "Allow me to harness your energy." As she held my hands, she closed her eyes and I felt very light, as if floating on air.

Makawlah began to glow. Purple light engulfed her from head to toe and it was a startling site. Almost pulling my hands from her hold, I jumped back and cried out in surprise. Magic doesn’t exist! I attempted to reason in my thoughts. It’s only in children’s stories!

The purple glow resonated and traveled from her head down to her fingertips until moving into my hands and changing to pink. As soon as I saw my hands begin to glow, I couldn’t handle it any longer and pulled my hands from hers.

“What kind of trickery is this!?” I stood from my chair and demanded an explanation. “Are you playing some sort of game with me? Because I won’t sit around and let you make a fool out of me!”

“Ah, I see.” Mackalaw said as she looked down at her own hands, still emitting a gentle purple haze. “You don’t believe in magic.”

“Of course I don’t, because it doesn’t exist! I have lived my entire life without experiencing such a thing other than straight out of made up stories! So you had better explain or I’m out of here!” I began to walk to the door threateningly and Dru, still sitting at the table, smirked, shaking his head.

“How peculiar!” Makawlah looked at me as if I were a fascinating individual, and I couldn’t even begin to fathom why.

“Sole, come sit back down,” Dru instructed. “I insist.” His words took on a demanding tone.

“You can’t force me to do anything,” I snapped back with the attitude of a child. “You aren’t my King.” I regretted the immaturity at the sound of it leaving my lips and felt my cheeks grow warm. Instead of Dru becoming upset with my comments, he spoke calmly, and I was grateful he didn’t have as rash of a temper as I had.

“No, I may not be your King,” he raised his eyebrows revealing the deep brown of his eyes and they stared straight into my soul, capturing it; taming it. “But I’m asking you, as an ally, please come sit down and listen.” He had me. And even though I knew it was possibly to gain information for his own insight, I couldn’t resist his kind request. As I walked back to the wooden chair, Makawlah held up her purple glowing hand in the air towards me with her face contorted in surprise.

“But, she doesn’t know!” She exclaimed to Dru.

“No, it would seem not.” He turned towards me, excitement on his face. “Magic is real, Sole. It is a normal thing in Geldel, that some possess. Makawlah here for one, is proof of that.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but they both looked at me with a genuine seriousness. It was apparent they believed what they were saying to be true.

“Okay, if magic is real, then how come I never came across anyone before that had it?”

“Because magic isn't allowed in Sordova. It doesn’t exist there, and if it does, surely a person wouldn’t admit to possessing it.” I grew wary of hearing Dru speak of Sordova in the way he had, realizing it would be easy for an enemy to create lies of another realm to gain the upper hand.

As I sat taking in the new info, pondering if what they said was true, Makawlah gently took my hand. She wasn’t reading me any longer, her hand did not carry the purple glow of her magic. She looked at me, eyebrows lifted in concern as if she were trying to read me, but this time as a person.

“Sole,” she spoke with a quivering voice. “You must know. It isn’t about you not knowing magic existed that surprises me most.” A smile lifted to one side of her tattooed cheek.

“What surprises me most, is it would seem you aren’t aware that you, yourself, harness magic ability.”

“What!?” I jerked my hands from hers and furrowed my face in disbelief. “No, you’re mistaken. This is insane, you’re insane-both of you!” I yelled in a panic. As I flew up from the chair, I felt the fresh sting of my side splitting back open beneath the fresh bandages and ran for the thick bramble door.

The powerful sunlight hit me in a surprise of hot rays and I shielded my eyes for a second to adjust to the new light. As I blinked against the white light, a contrasting wide blue expanse greeted my vision.

I gasped and took in the views of the ocean waves as they crashed along the shoreline. A group of seabirds called out to each other in flight and dived into the water, occasionally scooping up a small fish.

I immediately felt the need to be down there at the water’s edge. A worn path at the cliff’s edge in the tall, green grasses of Altawny beckoned to me. Everything looked so green now that I could see in daylight that grass filled the ground of the village. It was a beautiful place to live where the sea breeze blew the long grasses in a calming wind that joined the crashing waves in a duet. I ran along the path, ignoring the villagers' odd glances at me as I passed them by.

The path eventually dropped off the side from the grass and became embedded into the cliff edge where it continued down in a zig-zag pattern. It was a long and exhausting climb, but eventually, the dark sand met the souls of my leather boots at the bottom.

My boots came off quickly as I felt an urgent desire to feel the ocean on my feet for the first time. The sand was a dark color, rather than the white I had pictured, but the softness was the same. Maybe more so than I could picture as it squished between my toes and gathered in ashen clumps at the tops of my feet.

A smile that couldn’t be helped appeared on my face. The ocean made me feel free, more than I had ever felt. I stopped thinking for once of all the things I was supposed to be doing, of all the people I should have been making happy, and instead, just thought of the ocean; of how vast and beautiful it truly was.