I call to her, weeping, praying she hears,
Don’t be afraid, child,
The stories are always there.
Truth rides the wind,
Listen and it will find you.
I will find you.
—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I lay on my stomach in the meadow, carefully turning the brittle pages of the ancient manuscript. I had shooed off Eben under threat of his life. Now he maintained a safe distance, playing with the wolves and showering them with something I hadn’t thought he even possessed—affection.
Apparently he had been burdened with the task of watching me while Kaden went to pay his respects to the God of Grain. How great this god must be that he would entrust me to Eben, though I was sure Kaden knew I was no fool. I needed to regain some strength before I parted ways with them. I would bide my time. For now.
I also felt the pull of something else.
There was more I needed here besides food and rest.
The words of the old manuscript were a mystery to me, though some I could guess at, given their frequency and positions. Many of the words seemed to have the same roots as Morrighese, but I wasn’t sure, because several of the letters were formed differently. A simple key would have helped enormously—the kind the Scholar had in abundance. I had showed it to Reena and the others, but the language was as foreign to them as it was to me. An ancient language. Even on the page, I could see that it was written differently from the way they spoke. Their words were breathy and smooth. These had a harsher cadence. I marveled at how quickly things were lost, even words and language. This may have been written by one of their ancestors, but it was no longer understood by the Tribe of Gaudrel. I touched the letters, handwritten with a careful pen. This book was meant to last the ages. What did the Scholar want with it? Why had he hidden it? I traced my fingers over the letters again.
Meil au ve avanda. Ve beouvoir. Ve anton.
Ais evasa levaire, Ama. Parai ve siviox.
Ei revead aida shameans. Aun spirad. Aun narrashen. Aun divesad etrevaun.
Ei útan petiar che oue, bamita.
How would I ever learn what the book said if Gaudrel’s own people didn’t know? The Tribe of Gaudrel. Why had I never heard of this book before? To us they had been only vagabonds, rootless people with no history, but they clearly had one the Scholar wanted hidden. I closed the book and stood, brushing bits of grass from my skirt, watching the meadow go from green to gold as a last sliver of sun dropped behind a mountain.
A haunting silence pressed down on me. Here.
I closed my eyes, feeling a familiar ache. The bitter need swelled inside. I felt like a child again, staring into a black starlit sky, everything I wanted beyond my reach.
“So you think you have the gift.”
I whirled and found myself looking into the deeply lined face of the old woman, Dihara. I blinked, caught off guard. “Who told you that?”
She shrugged. “The stories … they travel.” She carried a spinning wheel and a burlap sack hung over her shoulder. She walked past me, the tall grass shivering in her wake as she carried the wheel to where the meadow met the river. She faced one direction then the other, as if listening for something, and set the wheel down in a clearing where the grass was shorter. She dropped the sack from her shoulder to the ground.
I ambled closer but still kept some distance, unsure if she’d welcome my presence. I stared at her back, noticing that her long silver braids almost touched the ground when she sat.
“You may come near,” she said. “The wheel will not bite. Nor will I.”
For an old woman, she had very good hearing.
I sat on the ground a few paces away. How did she know about my supposed gift? Had Finch or Griz told her about me? “What do you know of the gift?” I asked.
She grunted. “That you know little of it.”
She didn’t get that information from Griz or Finch, since they were thoroughly convinced of my abilities, but I couldn’t argue with her conclusion. I sighed.
“It’s not your fault,” she said as her foot pushed the treadle of the wheel. “The walled in, they starve it just as the Ancients did.”