Path Of The Broken

5. Hope

5

Hope

Before The Sundered War

Katrina looked over her results, methodically triple-checking them, her excitement growing as her data told her what she thought it had the last ten times she had run them. Her results in the lab spoke for themselves; she had enough evidence to go to a trial. If this worked as she knew it would, she would help her people no end.

She’d seen how her brother had suffered through transition, his world transformed into a horrible nightmare. He didn’t know where he began and others took over. They weren’t a rich family, or connected. Those strong in the power, like her brother, were left to muddle on through by themselves, unless they were rich, a family with connections to get them into the palace. He didn’t get the luxury of even being under the guidance of others who had been though transition before him, and as a result he suffered appallingly.

She was grateful that her own use of the power had guided her to the Healers’ Guild. The Guild was extremely well set up, controlled with strict, proven rules. She, unlike her brother, had had her emerging powers bound as a small child as soon as the journeyman healer had detected that she had the gift. Enrolment in the Healers’ Guild when she came of age had been mandatory, like every other child who bore the gift. They had taken her in and guided her. She’d been under the care of the training healers as her powers grew and she’d battled for her hard-won control.

The memory of that made her shudder. What torment her brother must have gone through alone. She had long argued that the Healers’ Guild should expand to accept those born with power like her brother’s, or at least there should be a new guild set up to guide and train those born with that great power, not just the little powers that most grew up with that was handled from family to family. Children learned from their own parents just as they learned to walk, communicate and interact with the world. It had been accepted that it was impossible for her parents to guide, train and protect her as she learned to use her own gift. They had not been expected to. The Guild took care of that. And yet, for some reason her parents were left to try to help her brother. They were woefully unprepared and didn’t have the skill nor power level themselves to understand. Her father and mother had the ability to heat their food or drink, push the salt bowl across the table. Her mother, with great effort, could speak mind to mind with someone she knew well. There was no way for them to understand and help her brother; he’d even destroyed the whole barn in spectacular fashion by accident.

The difficulty was getting someone to listen. Still, in the meantime there was the possibility Katrina could help those not born with privilege. She was too late to help her brother, but not too late to assist others like him, help them not to go through the torment that her brother had.

Katrina gathered up her paperwork and the small vial containing the medication she’d developed and scurried out the door. She most definitely didn’t want to run, but she knew her last-minute double-checks of her data had potentially made her late. That wasn't desirable either. She turned the corner and took the stairs up to the Guild Masters’ domain two at a time. Seeing the junior trainees on the boardroom door agitatedly gesturing at her to hurry, she left her dignity behind and ran the last distance to the doors that would determine the fate of her life’s work so far, and indeed her own fate.

She tried to pause just outside the doors, only to have the juniors unceremoniously haul open the double doors to the boardroom and push her through. Katrina stumbled through the door, her hand outthrust to break her fall. As the papers she carried fell out of her hands and scattered across the floor, she juggled the medication vial in her other hand. Breathing a sigh of relief as she secured it before it fell to the floor and glancing up to murmur an apology, she scrambled after her paperwork. She stood up and made her way over to the table, paperwork crumpled and clutched to her chest, and dumped her research in the place before the chair waiting for her. She raised her gaze from the table and her paperwork, which she realised with dismay was now out of order. Her eyes darted around the Guild Masters, hoping she conveyed her apology, both for her tardiness and her undignified entrance.

The silence in the room stretched until she became even more uncomfortable than she had been to start with. Then she saw a small smile quirk on the face of the Grand Guild Master.

“Come, Katrina, relax. You are among friends here. You have, from what I have heard, remarkable results from your research. Take us through the pertinent details.” His eyebrow rose as he looked at the mess of her crumpled paperwork on the table. “As best as you can.”

Katrina closed her eyes, blocking out the stares from the Masters gathered at the table, and took a deep breath. Then, still clutching the vial of the medication, she ran though her results in a calm, clear voice, the words of her research appearing in her mind’s eye just as if she were reading from her notes.

She could help those who channelled high levels of the veil with her medication. It would help to reduce their confusion and pain by controlling the incoming power they received. All she needed was the approval of the Masters and she could start the actual trials. Then, hopefully, no one else would ever have to suffer as her brother had.