WAVES CRASHED on the rocky coast. Rain came rushing down in torrents, and the wind whistled and screamed through the trees. A loud horn blew; shouts of men mingled with the sounds of the midsummer thunderstorm. Beads of light appeared throughout Livton as hundreds of torches were lit and men rushed out into the storm, calling to each other and grabbing ahold of ropes and lanterns. The horn blew again, louder, yet hardly to be heard amid the chaos, then it was drowned out entirely as the siren atop the lighthouse began to wail. Men leapt into rowboats and shoved off the shore, carefully avoiding sharp boulders jutting from the frothing waters and going in search of the ship that had met a cruel end upon the rocks of the Single Star Channel. Lightning flashes of purple-white split the furious green sky and thunder exploded with enough force to vibrate the very earth.

On the ground floor of an inn, not far from the lighthouse or the sea, a young woman, heavily pregnant, unrolled herself from the sheets, shivered as she crawled out of bed, and fumbled about the room for a light. At last she stumbled upon a lantern, frowning, she bent gingerly and picked it up; she was certain it had not been there when she fell asleep. She fumbled through the drawer in the nightstand; no matches.

She sighed, walked over to the bed, picked up a pillow, and pounded the other side with it intending to ask her husband where he had stored the matches. She didn't feel like shouting, and the effort of leaning across the bed to shake him was more than she was currently capable of. Her eyes grew wide as between flashes of lightning she saw the bed was empty and heard the shouts from the shore magnified—her dream came rushing back into the front of her mind; what could it all mean? –she rushed to the window and saw the rows of torches snaking down to the water and into rowboats, which in turn were making their way out towards the sinking ship.
Rasa must be out in the storm helping. I should wait it out...stay here.

Even as she thought it she knew it wouldn't work. Something important was happening, something beyond the nausea she felt now, something even beyond the lives that would be lost in this horrific storm. And that voice in her head, the one in her dream... she knew it was more than a simple dream, and dimly suspected that her thoughts were not her own at the moment either; rushing out into a storm while pregnant and swimming to a burning ship—Myrtle might be headstrong sometimes, but she would never do anything that might put her baby in danger. Suddenly she realized that she had a heavy cloak over her head and was running through the rain toward the shore. She hurried down to the water's edge and hesitated by three figures about to launch another rescue boat.

This isn't right. How did I get here?

You ran, a voice whispered in her mind.

She shivered. She recognized the voice from her dream, and now she was certain it was not her own. I...I think I'm going to go back to the inn now, she thought, hoping the voice wouldn't respond. It did.

Myrtle Haolims. You think you are the only one with the future in your hands—or your abdomen really. I hold more than simply a child, I hold life or devastation. It is up to you to see which way it will go. Now, relax. I am taking control, but you shall be returned presently.

It only took Myrtle a split-second to register what those words meant, but by then it was too late. Her eyes glazed over, and her voice took on a slightly deeper, but still feminine, pitch. She turned to the three men on the beach just before they pushed off.

"Wait!" she called, willing her voice to be heard above the roar of the wind. The tallest figure spun in surprise.

"Myrtle?" He coughed into his sleeve, flushing slightly with embarrassment. "Mrs. Haolims," he stammered, "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but what—why are you here?"
She hurried to the boat, stopping to reply only when her feet splashed in the water, and she discovered she couldn't get up unaided. She turned to the man, called Jome, and set her jaw with determination, her voice became her own again. "I have to come,"

"No, you—"

Her voice changed again, it was deeper, richer, more heavily accented, "You will take me to the ship." It was nothing short of a command and seemed to have some effect on the simple townsman.

Jome's brow furrowed, and his jaw clenched and unclenched before he finally said in a distant, confused tone, "Yes, I suppose I do need to take you with..."

He helped Myrtle rather roughly into the dingy, then sprang in beside her, and at his signal another man shoved them off.

Jome and a partner nimbly went to work at the oars, and after a brief battle against the sea, they came within a reasonable distance of the flaming ship, the upper half of which was no longer sinking, but wedged tightly between two rocks. The rest had vanished under the dark waters.

"We wait here," Jome called out, "watch for survivors in the water," One of his companions was already helping aboard a man, who had managed to swim away from the wreck.

For a moment something changed, wavered. Myrtle and Jome both blinked and looked around in confusion. Neither one knew what Myrtle was doing there, and both knew she should not be on that boat. Then whatever it was snapped back into place. Myrtle lost control again, and the deeper voice quieted her doubts.

A mist surrounded the dingy, chilling her, though the others paid no attention to it. Myrtle shivered, and nearly fainted when a voice seemed to hiss from the fog, "I resort to this at last, my worst enemy... yet to you it must go. The things that would destroy it if not are too much for the mortal mind to bear... Take it, protect it, danger would follow it to destroy it outside. Hidden at his front door, hidden in the trees. Below the earth...he thinks the boy still lives... he won't be looking for this one. Sweet one, that such must fall on your shoulders...come to the ship, Cursed One. Come to me, steal my pride and joy. Preserve it, Cursed One."It was the voice from in her head, only it was no longer in her head. It surrounded her, filled her, grabbed her, and dragged her towards the burning ship. The men stopped what they were doing; they looked through the mist in panicked confusion. One man yelled and scrambled back, hands shielding his eyes—he fell into the water and didn't resurface. A woman's scream echoed from somewhere nearby. Someone to Myrtle's left cursed and screamed unintelligible words.

"Hurry, Cursed One," the Voice hissed, "or by my death, I will kill them all..."
Myrtle choked back a sob, but the Voice was right. The others were going mad, raving at figures in the mist that weren't there, falling overboard never to come up again. She had to go.

~*~*~*~

The instant she disappeared under the water the spell was broken. The mist dissipated or raced off in the direction of the ship. Jome saw a splash as Myrtle dove into the water and hollered as loudly as he could. The misty hallucinations had been terrifying, but they were nothing compared to what he was facing now. He rushed to the edge, stripped off his shirt and yanked off one boot, then reached for the other. Someone was grabbing his arm, yelling at him, shaking him. Lazlo, one of Jome's companions was wrestling with him, trying to keep him in the boat. Jome shook free and was on the point of diving in when Lazlo yanked him up short, and he grunted as his chest was rammed painfully on the edge of the boat, he could feel splinters of wood driving into his flesh.

"Lazlo! What are you doing? She'll drown, I've got to get her...Lazlo, let me go—"

"No! Jome, listen to me, you aren't thinking clearly, you barely know how to swim, you would only drown alongside her, and what good would you have done then? For all you know, she can swim better than you, or she wouldn't have jumped in."

"But—her eyes, Lazlo, you didn't see her eyes! There's something out there, she wasn't... wasn't trying to..."

"She dove in, Jome! No one does that unless they mean to. Here," Lazlo helped him up and handed Jome his shirt back, now drenched to little more than a wet rag.

Jome shakily pulled the shirt over his head, "Lazlo," he mumbled, "no one can swim that far, and pregnant...I never should have let her come. She'll drown, and then Rasa will...he'll take out his fancy sword tricks and kill me...chop me up into carved mincemeat...he'd be right to, you know. Lazlo, I just as well murdered a woman and her baby...what'll they do, Laz? Hang me?"
Lazlo regarded Jome with a mixture of pity and frustration, "No, they won't hang you, Jome. Look, I'm sorry about the girl, all right? And the baby too. But people are dying by the dozen out there right now, and we've got to do what we can for the majority. Look around you, Jome! That bloody mist..." he leaned in a dropped his voice to a whisper, "Half our men are dead or drowned, Jome. Whatever witchcraft that was...if that girl caused it, I want no part in it. The things I saw..." he shuddered.

The next few hours passed in a blur of dull activity. Jome's mind continuously wandered back to Myrtle. He didn't know the Haolims very well, but he had always suspected that something was different about them. He had met Rasa two and a half years previously, as a talented bright-eyed young bachelor, muscular with broad shoulders and wide, dark eyes, who had been on a trip to Livton for business, although he was very close on what type of business. Small town as Livton was, he had wandered around it for two days marveling at the people and markets. Jome remembered clearly the look on Rasa's face the day he first met him. Rasa had walked into the inn, looking a bit grubby, with eyes round as full moons.

Jome had asked what he could do for them, and had had to repeat himself before Rasa finally answered, the young man had been so lost in thought.

"Oh...just a room, thank you. This place," Rasa had gestured around in wonder, "Livton. It's huge. How are there so many people?"

Jome had laughed, then, partly from the awe on Rasa's face, and partly from the funny lilting accent, "Huge, lad? Why, Livton's about as small as you get, save perhaps Bridgewater! I take it you're not from around here?"

"No, I'm from...further north." Rasa gestured vaguely and dug into his pockets to find coins. He pulled out three coppers and handed them to Jome. "This your inn?"

Jome shook his head. "My older brother. By nearly ten years. I could never be an innkeeper, I'd never look the part. Why," he laughed, "can you see me trying to fit into some of those clothes they give the innkeepers? Or that they buy. Fattest men on earth!" Jome had doubled over in gasping wheezing laughter. He stopped abruptly seeing the wonder on Rasa's face.

"You don't say! I've heard it's a running joke that innkeepers grow with their inns but have never half believed it."

He frowned. "You ever seen an inn, lad?"

"Oh! Well, yes. We have one where I live." Rasa had nodded to himself, deep in thought. "But not half so big as this. Neither is the innkeeper. He's not much older than me, Wittbe Bur. Maybe by five years, and not even married...you know, I'm to be married soon. Only a year, then I'll be old enough, and so will she."

Jome's eyebrows rose, he had never heard tell of a certain age for marriage before. A hometown custom perhaps? But it would be impolite to pry. How old was he anyway? That probably fell into the category of prying. But he couldn't help asking Rasa about his fiancée. "What's she like?

A pretty girl?"

Rasa's eyes lit up and took on a dreamy look. "Oh, she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen! Nearly as tall as I am, and not the squeamish squealing type. She's so...perfect. I don't know, words can't say. And she wants to see the world. So do I. That's what we're doing as soon as we get married, we'll go south, down to the Four Pine Lake, then east. We'll go all the way to the Single Star Channel, and—we'll come here! That's a wonderful idea, I'll bring her right here to Livton, people are so...interesting here." Jome's eyebrows had risen even further at that. Rasa saw and shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, people are wonderful where I come from, but more than a bit wary of strangers. The outside world has always fascinated me. I'll bring her here, to meet you, and your brother too!"

He seemed to get lost in thought, and his face looked so blissful that Jome had found it hard to rouse him. "What's the pretty girl's name?"

Rasa had given a long, sigh, eyes far away, a look of pure ecstasy in them. "Her name is Myrtle. Myrtle Bluefeather. The most wonderful person in the whole world!"

A shout brought Jome back to the present with a jerk, and he remembered that day with a painful thought. What will he ever do without her? Not yet two years married, and he'll lose his beautiful wife and unborn baby and it will all be my fault.

Lazlo's words echoed in his mind. Witchcraft though...he had a hard time wrapping his head around it—but the longer he thought about it the more it made sense. The Haolims were very close-lipped about their past. He knew that Rasa and Myrtle had grown up together in a tiny village called Raye placed on the banks of its namesake, the Raye River. What part of the Raye River? Jome had prodded. Rasa's reply had been vague; Oh, just north. Up by the Liean Woods.
That had given Jome a start. Any other forest would not have gained a reaction...but the Liean Woods were different. All sorts of tales (none of them good) originated in the Liean Woods. If a youngster wanted a scary story his nurse would tell him of the trolls, goblins, and ghouls of the Liean Woods, or of the Lincho de Hornitas; but that forest was across the channel, the Liean Woods were much closer. Of course, the tales were agreed upon as nonsensical, but there was something ominous about that particular forest regardless. People stayed away. It was said that if you went in alive, you came back either dying, dead, raving mad, or (and this was the most likely possibility), you did not come back at all. Its borders were just hardly visible from the northeastern outskirts of Bridgewater, where a vein of the River of Hope broke into the open.
Witchcraft... the word filled Jome's mind again. But what if it's something else? Something...bigger. More powerful. Deadly.

~*~*~*~

Myrtle crawled onto the top deck of the ship, half of which was underwater. She stood and ran, as best as she could, to the other side of the deck where Rasa was kneeling beside a figure lying prone on the floor. She gingerly dropped down to her knees beside her husband and looked at the shape stretched in front of him in concern, it was hardly breathing.

"Myrtle!" Rasa gasped, "You should not be here. Not now. Myrtle, the baby..." Despite his attempt to sound angry Rasa's voice trembled slightly and there was unmistakable fear in his eyes. "Myrtle...please! What were you thinking?" He was shaking his head as though that would make her reappear back at the inn.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," She whispered, laying her hand on his arm.

"Here?" Rasa gestured around. "For us? No. I'm not afraid of anything. I'm afraid for you; you shouldn't be here. I'm afraid for the life of our baby, Myrtle. Not the fire, and heaven knows not the water." Their eyes locked and held, then finally Rasa turned away, nodding. "You are here now, anyway, and that can't be changed. I need your help."

He nodded towards the woman who was lying in front of him, for Myrtle now saw that it was indeed a woman, with long, tangled auburn locks, a mud-streaked face, and torn, ragged clothes. She wore no shoes, and her sharp green eyes were filled with such intense agony that Myrtle found it hard to look at her. Her face looked as though it might have been radiantly beautiful at one time, yet now, an ugly wound along the left side of her face stole the idea of beauty away. Myrtle shuddered at the look of the wound, almost as though there was a blossom where the flesh had rotted and decayed, spiraling outward, growing. It oozed a foul-smelling liquid, and Myrtle gagged, her stomach heaved, and she swallowed hard. The scent of death surrounded the woman. But there was still something startling about her. Her face, her eyes...she frightened Myrtle for some reason she could not explain. The woman was clearly on the verge of death, but power seemed to radiate from her.
Suddenly the woman's eyes flashed in pain, and a stifled moan escaped her.

"O-h-h..." Myrtle gasped, rubbing her own swollen belly, "She's—"

Rasa nodded, nervously rubbing his young wife's shoulder, "Yes... Some children are born out of the utmost misery and pain. Death leaving a new life..." he trailed off and his voice lowered into a choked whisper, "Something's wrong, Myrtle. Her baby will fight hard for life, and...I fear that the woman will not live either. I hate it, Myrtle. This should be joyful, the welcome of a new life, but at its start, the line between life and death is so fine..." He pulled his wife close, arm around his shoulders as he realized what he had said. "You will be fine, and our baby too." He murmured, almost trying to convince himself. "I wish it could be so with all. I need to go. I'm going to see if there is anyone below deck, you will not come with me. I leave this woman in your charge; save what hope you have, I do not believe that there is anything that you can do for her but see what can be done for that child, your mother was a midwife, I trust you know what to do."

Myrtle nodded wordlessly, and Rasa placed a kiss on her head then rushed off to join the search for survivors. The woman abruptly snatched at the former's arm, and whispered hoarsely, in a revolting, rasping voice, yet holding something of the quality that reminded Myrtle of the Voice in the mist, "Save the child. Its father is dead and soon I too will go from the land of the living." Myrtle tried to object, to insist that there was hope even yet, but the woman interrupted, saying,

"Nay, there is no hope left for me, but promise me this,"

"Anything," Myrtle replied, repressing a shudder and taking hold of the cracked, bloody hand.

"Promise me that you will take the infant and care for it. I do not wish for another to have it. Do not search for its family. It has no living relatives, or, if it had so, and if you were to deliver this child to them, they would surely kill it. For in its veins run my blood, and the blood of one more powerful than I. Take it in with you and accept it as one of your kind, teach it in your manner, and bring it up as one of you. But do not tell this child the story of its birth until it becomes utterly necessary, for I would rather have it brought up as one of your kind than anyone else, for in that way it will be safest."

"But—" Myrtle tried to protest, the woman interrupted her.

"And if you will," the woman continued, drawing breath painfully, "name it for me, call her... Narolia... And never, on pain of death...never reveal to her who she truly is...the more she knows the more she will ask, and the more she will be pursued. They come, even now, they are coming for me..."

"But... you do not even know me," Myrtle objected. "And you know far less of my kind," And I know nothing of you and your kind. How would I tell the child who it is? I do not even know who its mother is beyond a name. Who is coming for you, and why?

The woman fumbled at her neck with a swollen, decayed hand and wrenched free a tight necklace and a small ring from her finger, forcing them weakly at Myrtle. "Birthright...she will have them...and on that day, the world will shatter...love alone counters hate. The world is hate. Beware of its shattering! The pain of love can destroy as surely as the other... When you give them to her...tell her...that..." Suddenly her eyes shot wide and a strangled cry escaped her, than she fell back limply.

Just at that moment, the child was born, the shriek of a new life entering the world split the night sky, and the woman's arm dropped from Myrtle's hand as she breathed her last. Myrtle's eyes grew wide in shock and horror, then wrapping the infant—a girl, as the woman had predicted, which disturbed Myrtle in a way she could not tell of—in her cloak, she murmured her promise.

Then she let out a scream to rival even the newborn's wails, for gouged into the deceased woman's forearm was a scar, a mark of branding. The fang of a wolf with a drop of blood on the end about to fall and another drop falling already, with a flower reaching up to swallow the drop.

Realization dawned on her and with it came the horror. The living dead...so that was what it meant.

"Makezen!" She screamed in terror. She sat back hard, still clutching the new, wailing infant, quite forgetting for the moment that the woman was dead. Then she shook her head and began mumbling desperately, "The Makezens are cursed to their mountains...they're cursed...they—" she swallowed hard and ended shouting as if to convince the dead woman of the truth she had just seen shattered. "They cannot leave their mountains until the curse is broken or they shall meet a painful prolonged end..." She broke off. This woman has died, and painfully too. But the baby...she screamed again. Think...the baby...oh no...no, please no. Is this child the one? The one foretold in the prophesies to break the curse?

"No, not that! Please, anything but that, please!" She was screaming, sobbing to the wind and rain. She gradually calmed down a bit. What do I know about Makezens? Recite that. I must be missing something. She started to recite all she knew.

Makezens are nearly like humans, except exceedingly more beautiful, but with their beauty comes great pain, which lies in one fact, they are a cursed people. They dwell in the northern mountain range known as High Peaks just above the Liean Woods and are the deadly enemies of those who call themselves Lieans. The Makezens are most commonly known as the Mountain People.

There is one solitary unaltered line of kings of the Makezen people, and those descended in a straight line from father to eldest child were each born with power, although the actual gaining of the powers did not come about until the death of the present king, because...
Myrtle thought hard, Because why? It has to do with the fact that so many kings and queens have come to an untimely end due to the heir's growing power and influence in the kingdom, and impatience for the throne...move on, then.

For the same reason, no Makezen kings ever had more than one child, for if the eldest heir of the King perished before producing a child to take his or her place, then the heir's next sibling would gain not only the throne but the powers given to the eldest as well. The powers often started simply, such as the capability to sense the presence of another living being, then grew, to things as controlling as full disclosure of another's mind on command. The longer the power was possessed, the stronger it became. They were cursed, the sword would never leave the house of their king, if ever they left their mountains they would become the living dead, to decay and...it was too overwhelming to think of the rest.

Alright, then don't bother, not now. But that's not all you know.

A sudden thought rammed into her with such force that she gasped; This can't be the one to break the curse, I'm holding a baby girl, and if there's one thing the prophecies all agree on is that the one to break the curse is going to be a boy. A boy! See? It won't work, not with her. Think of Josua, and the Wars of Freedom.

Myrtle didn't have a chance to do that, however. Because even as she thought it a strange, green mist, heavy and damp, came sliding out of the sea, whispering in pained tones, and surrounded the body lying on the deck. It swirled, completely shrouding the corpse, then a shriek of anguish emitted from the mist and it grew denser still. Then it was gone, as fast as it had come, slipping through the broken rails of the ship with a sigh. And the body was gone. Not knocked into the sea, nor did Myrtle see it carried off. It was simply gone, vanished, the soul stolen to roam in agony until the curse was broken or the end of time, whichever came first.

In horror, Myrtle stumbled backwards, and working hard to keep the baby's head above the water, leapt into the sea. Soon she was back at the rowboat where she had left Jome, her head spinning and her breath coming in short, panicked gasps, all her limbs trembled, though not with exhaustion. Such strange, ghostly happenings were far beyond her previous realm of experience, and were nerve wracking, to say the least. 

~*~*~*~

In the meantime, Jome and his companions had not been idle, the small rowboat was now crowded with people, young and old, men and women, and even a few children. Myrtle pushed the child over the side before pulling herself up also. A middle-aged woman helped her abord and handed her a cloak. Shivering, she wrapped back up in it, and insisted on taking the baby back. Jome looked like he was either going to be sick or cry when he saw her, and when he saw the newborn...Myrtle could only imagine what was going through his head at that point, then his jaw fell open and stayed so when he saw her still pregnant belly, but he wisely kept silent.
Myrtle wrapped the baby tightly and held it close to her body, trying to warm it. The mother was a Makezen, as then was the daughter. For a moment she looked at it as if it were not a baby at all, but a monster of some kind...a sudden urge to throw the screaming babe overboard and drown it overtook her. Then, shuddering violently and clutching the child tighter, she pushed the notion out of her mind.

She wondered briefly what she and Rasa would do about it. But what was there to wonder about? They would take it to the Hawk Hills for a Prophecy, as was the custom of their kind with all firstborn children, then she would keep it as her own and raise it as one of her kind, just as the woman had asked. They might stay away from Raye for a while for it to seem as if she had given birth to the baby, after all, it would not be that hard to believe, pregnant as she was. She could say she had twins... No one could ever learn the child was a Makezen, no one.
After that, it never again occurred to Myrtle that she was not required to keep the child, she had given her promise, and was not one to break her word. Especially not to the dead, she was not overly superstitious, but it had been firmly stamped into her head at a young age that the matters of the deceased were not to be meddled with by the living.

Even if the dead happens to be a Makezen? Myrtle wondered doubtfully. She didn't know. But she was in the habit of keeping her word, and so she would do what she always had. She grimaced as a wave of queasiness rushed over her.

It would be easy enough to convince Rasa to keep the girl, if she knew her husband well enough his heart would melt at the sight of the tiny babe with the fuzz of dark hair and bright emerald eyes. She would name it Narolia, after its birth mother. But what of a middle name? Pervinca. Narolia Pervinca Haolims. It was a bit long, and not her favorite as far as names went, but that was hardly up to her. It would be fine.

Myrtle's wandering train of thought was interrupted by a sharp pang. She looked up in surprise, and suddenly realized that she felt more than a bit seasick. Just tonight's activities catching up, I guess. Then her water broke. Twenty minutes later she was on shore with two women helping her back to the inn. Then time fell to a blur that was separated into waves of pain and nausea rather than minutes and seconds. She was vaguely aware of Rasa's return. His panic, the look on his face as he paced the length of the room endlessly.

Eight hours later the sun was peeping tentatively through the curtains, and Rasa was rocking young Narolia Pervinca while Myrtle lay buddled in comforters and blankets nursing a baby boy, while his identical twin was cradled snugly in her arm. Exhausted though she was, and still numb with shock over the previous night's happenings, Myrtle gave a small sigh and happy little smile. Then a small giggle. Rasa looked up, his eyes were surrounded by dark rings, Myrtle couldn't imagine she looked much better, but he too seemed happy.

"What is it?" He asked softly.

Myrtle sighed again, and gently shifted the boy cradled in her arm. "They're so tiny...and so delicate," she murmured. "I was just thinking how when we went to bed last night it was just like any other night. Now it's morning and we have not one, but three babies. Funny how life moves. You never know what is going to happen next. I never would have imagined this, I know. But I would never give it back either."

~*~*~*~

Only later did Myrtle have a chance to study the trinkets forced upon her by the dying Makezen woman upon the birth of Narolia. The necklace was small, with a single strand of metal forming the fang of a wolf with a drop of blood falling from it, and a flower reaching up to swallow it. The ring fit easily around her finger and had some thin lines etching what she assumed to be words along it, though they were long since unintelligible. Inscribed on the inside of the design of the necklace were the words "Nari Holomer, sixth month of the second year of His Grace King Mordali, made this as tribute to the Princess Harma." So tiny and fine were the words that Myrtle could hardly make them out and used a glass to magnify them in the end. Then she copied the words into her diary, sealed the ring and necklace into an envelope, and placed them into the leather-bound journal. She made an entry for that day, giving what details she could pertaining to the adoption of Narolia, and the curiosities surrounding her birth. It was all dim though, and certain moments blanked out and vanished altogether. She finished off her last paragraph:
"It would seem as though my whole life had been overrun by curses and prophecies...at times I wish I had never left Raye. But had I not, nothing would have ever happened to me, and like as not I would have spent my final days gray and old, wishing I had done something adventurous. Well, here it is, in this little envelope; the most dangerous thing I have ever dared to keep. That, and little Narolia. We're going to the Hawk Hills as soon as the babies are old enough to travel a bit, though how we are going to make the trip is yet to be determined. By ship, I should think. But most of that will be left up to Rasa to decide, and I can hardly focus now on anything anyway. Between the babies and the...horrors of last night... I feel quite overwhelmed."
She gazed down at her entry, nearly ten pages were taken up with it. But nothing like it had ever happened to her, and so she was more than willing to use up the whole book if need be, so that she might be able to accurately record the miracles surrounding that one night in Livton.

~*~*~*~

A month later the five Haolims headed east, and made the long, dangerous, and difficult journey towards the Hawk Hills, to where and old and wizened prophet lived; he had great knowledge of the past, and made wise decisions according to the present, and had a great foresight into the future. So it was said. Myrtle couldn't say for sure, she had never met him, being the youngest in her family. And when her oldest brother was born there was a prophet still living in the Liean Woods. After that visit she was convinced of everything they said in his praise, and once she was safely returned to her home, there was still one scene that stood out in Myrtle's mind very clearly, and always would. Whenever she thought back on it though, she omitted her own responses. They made her blush and wonder why she had said anything at all. He had made her feel like a young child being accused of some wrong they weren't aware they committed.
Rasa had been off somewhere at the time, looking after the babies most likely, while Myrtle had been sitting at a large desk in a dimly lit room, which she thought smelled old and stale. Then an ancient man, thin and wrinkled, yet erect; he walked without a cane or support, entered slowly. He sat down opposite her, rested his elbows on the heavy oak desk, which was really more like a table, and in a deep, soft, steady voice in which one could feel the very years and wisdom loaded upon his shoulders, he began to speak.

"Long have I studied the lore of these Makezens, Mrs. Haolims, or shall I call you Myrtle? Very well then, Myrtle, I know their exact genealogy, with a few exceptions, and in places I know their history far better than themselves. But, more to the point, I also know that descended in a direct line from father to eldest living child in the family of kings, from the very first king they ever had, (this is one of the exceptions, even the Makezens themselves do not know how many thousands of Centuries ago that was, you have lived a sheltered life, Myrtle, our world is older than many even dare to assume). As I was saying, in that particular line, and that line only mind you, the eldest child was found to possess certain strange, shall we say, gifts. The child was branded at birth with a scar.
"Yes, you have seen this scar once, have you not? The fang of a wolf, the drops of blood, the Bloodshade Flower swallowing it. Not too long ago, not long enough for you to forget the hideousness of it, nor the pain from which it was contrived. I trust you remember it with great clarity, more perhaps, because you knew then to what tribe she belonged, for I know it was a woman. (I spoke with your husband already, remember? He revealed more than he thought. Actions and expressions speak louder than words.) So filthy, ill, and exhausted you never would have guessed otherwise, no, the great beauty of their people is not exaggerated, but even after the scar I believe that deep down inside you there was still a bit of doubt. As I have said before, you have lived a sheltered life, you knew the tales of the Makezens, but you never more than half believed them, if even that. You still had a bit of doubt about if she really was a Makezen. Yet the mist that stole her body away re-convinced you, if even after the scar you still wondered, you stopped after the mist.
"Ah, daughter, had you known what the mist and scar had truly meant, you would have cast the babe into the sea to drown and be torn apart by sharks! You see, for these past years, things have been happening. I would say nearly two years ago, those of out few scouts remaining in the outside world brought back reports to our king of Makezens roaming free through Ohmar, Sading, Loial, and other coastal cities and towns. I say 'free', yet not truly so. Some were young and seemed untouched as of yet by their curse. Others...they had clearly been in the open longer. Their skin peeling, flesh rotting, exposing blackened bone, swollen hands, oozing with pus and filth...I care not to expand any more. You have seen; you know. The living dead, as it were, albeit some seemed more dead than alive.
"They were searching for something, as far as out scouts could tell. They wanted someone with a rather peculiar name...Narolia? It would seem a conflict arose between her and her brother, the later wishing for the throne, and her power, like as not, and the former fleeing with her husband, one they called Hendrix, in order to save their child."

Myrtle had gasped and asked if he thought baby Narolia was who they were after, for if the oldest child gained the powers, and the mother was dead...

But the old man had shaken his head, "They were searching specifically for a boy, born two years ago. They know nothing of this little one. I would recommend hiding her away in Raye, where they will never think to look. They feel this type of power, Myrtle. Taste it, smell it, sense it, and follow it. At every usage it becomes more apparent and easier for them to track. If they track the older one, the boy, they may never learn of the existence of little Narolia."
Myrtle had thanked him, and risen in numb shock to leave when he called to her, and she turned back. He had hesitated, then spoke quickly at last, "I would dismiss you now, Myrtle, and never meet you again, except for the warning of my heart."

"Warning, sir?"

"Yes, child. Nothing has ever happened like this before, and even the wisest guess is still a guess, which may yet fall far from the mark of destiny. Do not allow suspicions to be aroused, no one must know that you have adopted a child from outside. I cannot say why, beyond that she is a child of the enemy of our people. But also...I have felt something strange about her. Watch her closely. Logic tells me she cannot be of any great significance to the curses and prophecies, yet my heart contradicts that logic. There is some mark of destiny surrounding her, some wonderful or dreadful fate... Curses and prophecies—all I'm saying is that I would not hang too closely on my words; who knows if or for how long the other child lives? If ever he dies, his power would pass on to his sister, and if so, the world would change."