Seekers call, p.19
Seeker's Call, page 19
Kurnin started again, trying to keep his voice calm so as not to be scolded again. "You... expect us to believe that you two have managed to defeat the witch that succeeded in stealing the life of the Great Warrior, Latos, even with the Great Tragor at his side?"
"Circumstances played out differently in our case," Iviana answered plainly. "We could not have done it without the help of the Great Friend—I mean, the Great One." She regretted her slip.
"Blasphemous!" Kurnin roared. He stood and marched over to Iviana. "Even if this string of lies were true, Rhimesh is healed and," he turned to the council, "the girl disrespects this fact and curses her reign as Realm Leader by bringing this boy to us."
Rhimesh did not stand or add to the show Kurnin was creating. She simply sat with a restful smile on her face and spoke, "Iviana was the one who provided my healing."
The whole room was a circus of outbursts. Even Naii looked surprised at the news.
Rhimesh proceeded, "She is a powerful Healer and a gifted Seeker from the sound of it -"
"But she lies!" Kurnin shouted in an irritating, high-pitched voice that Iviana never dreamed could come out of the big, bearded man. "No one has ever been granted more than one gift before—except that Marquen."
Iviana was surprised at this information, but was distracted when Rhimesh gave Kurnin a cold glare, silencing him, and said, "We would be wise to embrace her and we would be wise to embrace this Flynn, I think." She waved a hand, absently saying, "Council dismissed." Then she stepped from her chair and said, "Flynn, I would like to speak with you alone, in my home. I'll meet you there in a few minutes." She immediately waltzed out the back door, before any member of her council had a chance to protest.
Flynn gave Iviana a look of surprise and shook his head as if he couldn't believe what was happening.
"Don't worry. She's not as intimidating as she appears," Iviana offered.
"Oh, I'm not worried about her. She's amazing. Did you see the way she handled those people?"
Just then Naii came up to them and quickly escorted them out of the building. "Lets get out of here before Kurnin or one of his group eats you."
As they stepped onto the path outside, Iviana spotted Nimua and Darist running up to them. Darist scooped Iviana up and spun her around until Nimua yelled at him to put her down so she could hug her too.
"Thanks for the goodbye," Darist said.
"Sorry, I-"
"Don't worry about it," he stopped her. "At least we knew where you were, thanks to Nimua, who sure took long enough to fill us in."
"I wanted to give her time to look. I didn't know she'd left the realm!" Nimua defended.
Naii turned to Darist, asking, "Will you please show Flynn to Rhimesh's hut?"
Darist looked curiously at the man who had been standing there. He raised an eyebrow and put an arm over Flynn's shoulders, escorting him away. "So, you're Flynn, huh?"
"Mhm. Darist, I take it?"
"Yep. You attempted to kill a dragon? That's twenty years bad luck, ya know."
"Is it?"
"Naw..."
Their voices trailed away and Nimua lowered her voice to say, "Oh, he's dashing, Ivi..."
Her mother broke in, "Nimua, not now." She looked around at all the staring faces. "Lets get her home."
The next few weeks, Rhimesh skillfully worked on the council until they were open to the concept of Flynn being her eventual successor, though they did not care much for his gift. It seemed to intimidate them. Even so, everyone recognized that Flynn must have done something right because the Realm Leader invited him to accompany her in everything she did, allowing him to swiftly learn all he possibly could about the islands and what it was going to take to be leader over the entire realm one day.
Iviana and her friends teased him for being pet to the Realm Leader, but Iviana knew Flynn's position aided in making her more accepted in the eyes of the realm. Her friendship with the Realm Leader's favorite was an advantage that couldn't be ignored. It also helped that Kurnin was quietly removed from his position as Island Leader and replaced with Naii, another factor that didn't damage Iviana and Flynn's standing in the community.
When things had been as sorted as they could for the moment, everything seemed to fall into semi-normalcy. Nimua and Darist chose this time to clue Iviana in on their relationship.
"You're kidding!" Iviana exclaimed. "Who have you told about this?"
"No one," Darist replied with a smirk. "Nimua would prefer to keep it quiet until she's able to wrap her head around the horrific thought of marrying me."
"Oh, it's not quite like that," Nimua defended. "We simply agreed we wouldn't promise ourselves off to anyone else... without talking to the other first, at least. I suppose that makes us a little more than just plain old friends... wouldn't call it an engagement though." She winked at Darist who shrugged at Iviana.
And, though the couple spent more time together than they had before, Iviana had trouble wrapping her own mind around the relationship. It was a struggle to see it succeeding if Nimua persisted in gushing about how charming and handsome Flynn was. Iviana scolded her for this one day, but Nimua would have none of it. "Oh, don't be so bitter, Ivi, just because Nico and Leilyn are engaged."
Truth be told, Iviana was happy that Nico had found another to care for. She'd always known his feelings for her were shallow and she only hoped the two were going to make each other happy. Besides that, it helped Leilyn overcome her dislike of Iviana, now that she was engaged and not running around after Darist.
Yes, things were settled fairly for her, Iviana realized one afternoon when she was on her way to meet Tragor, who was waiting for her on the beach.
"Where are you going?" Flynn's voice asked behind her.
She turned around to face him, her travel bag packed on her back. "I'm going home."
"Home," he tried the word on his tongue. "I thought you said you didn't have a home."
"I don't. I have a house and I'm going back."
He wanted to stop her but knew better. With a sad, half smile he spoke, "Well, I think it's safe to say, I'll never forget you, dragon-savior."
"Good. I wouldn't want you to. Perhaps, I'll come back and visit someday."
She turned to go, but Flynn stopped her retreat, asking, "In what village is this house?"
"FairGlenn." She smiled. "Goodbye, Flynn."
Tragor flew Iviana from the realm of the Greater Archipelagos and into the world she still did not know, but where her mentor had raised her from a child into a young adult. Leaving was not altogether easy, though it would have been if she knew she had her mentor to go home to.
Even so, she would not fear. That is what she had learned: not to fear. It was what Marquen had told her when she said her goodbye to him before leaving the realm: "Do not fear." It was a command she would take into her heart and never let go of.
But she was not necessarily unafraid now. She simply forced herself to not dwell on those things that made her heart heavy and she did not want to use fear as an excuse to leave her mentor's home. She knew she could not remain in the island realm anyway. They had been willing to accept her for her friendship with Flynn, Naii and Rhimesh, but somehow they had found it impossible to overcome the Great Gifts the Great One had given her.
Besides that, she felt deep inside that there was something left unfinished in her childhood home and she felt herself being called back. She was certain the Great One was the One calling her, though she did not know why.
Seek me. I am waiting.
"WE WONDERED WHERE you'd gone. The villagers haven't known what to do without Naphtali."
"Nonsense. They always knew 'what to do' without Naphtali or myself," Iviana replied matter-of-factly.
The young widowed woman, the girl who had been Iviana's only childhood friend for no more than a day, cast her eyes downward. "I know," she said, laying her hand upon Iviana's hand. "I'm very sorry for your loss, Iviana."
Iviana looked into her eyes and smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Merri."
A friendship developed after that and a true one. Iviana learned that Merri had come that day because she was worried. She had heard that the villagers had found a grave beside the cottage and Iviana was missing. When there were signs that someone was within the cottage, Merri felt she must stop in for a visit.
Merri promised she would return the next day and she continued to visit often in the days that followed. Some days she would come accompanied by her three children and other days would invite Iviana to her own home where she would spoil her with sweet breads and meats.
As time passed, and Tragor left his hiding place in the woods to return to his home, Iviana discovered that she didn't feel so lonely anymore. The quiet that had laid like an eery blanket over her mind before was now a sweet solitude and she knew she was not truly alone anymore.
The Great One spoke to her daily and, in time, Iviana came to depend on His company. The moment she awoke in the early morning, she knew He was there and she bid Him good morning. She always felt He replied with joy and urged her to hurry and see the new day He had brought her.
Even the animals came to visit again and surrounded her with their company, wanting to be near the Great One's invisible presence.
One day, Iviana awoke to the realization that she had friends now: the Great One, who put all to rights, the forest animals and the villagers, who were miraculously melting to her presence in their community.
This became apparent one afternoon when, while Iviana sat in the warm grass milking her cow, she spotted a man carrying his daughter up the walk to her home. She stopped her milking, patting the cow to encourage it on its way, and met the man at the front stoop.
The man looked down helplessly at his unconscious daughter who lay in his arms. "Can you help?"
"We'll see. Bring her in." Iviana invited him to lay the girl upon a couch and asked what had happened.
"I don't know," he answered, brushing his fingers worriedly through his tousled hair. "We were gathering walnuts and then... she took my hand, saying everything was going dark. I told her to lay down, but she couldn’t seem to hear me... and then she collapsed."
Iviana smirked at this. "It's alright, good man. She'll be alright and will soon wake. She's only fainted. The only worry we have left is why." She remembered back to her mentor's fainting spells and prayed this girl's case was not the same. "It's a hot day, that's a factor. How long have you been out in this heat?"
"All day until just before I arrived here. We're planning to sell the walnuts on market day and were wanting plenty."
"I see. How much water has she had while you've been out."
"Er, none at all, that I can recollect. Why? Is that bad?"
"Yes and no. It's nothing to worry about. In fact, be grateful. It means the lack of water is all that caused her to faint. Have her drinking plenty of water from here on out and she'll be fine." As she said this, she fetched a vial of smelly liquid and placed it under the girl's nose, waking her.
"Daddy, where are we?" the girl said dreamily.
The man embraced the girl, "Oh, Taia, we're in a very kind lady's home." He turned to Iviana saying, "Thank you. I remember when I was a boy, Naphtali saved my mother from what would have been certain death. I'll never forget her."
The man's words pleased Iviana more than anything in the world could, save her Great Friend. She knew it must be her Friend who caused the change in the community's attitude toward her and her late mentor. The community that made her cold and afraid formerly now warmed her with the multitude of love she felt pouring over her everyday. It was a love she never dreamed she could have and an acceptance from the Great One that made her place in this world so, so dear. For as He was so tightly tucked in her heart, so was she, even more so, in His. The reason for this was unknown to the Healer-Seeker-Seer, but she did not need one. She simply relished it.
She was thinking about these things while working in her garden one afternoon. She was pruning the climbing roses that were trying to block the entrance to her front door. As she carefully wedged her arm behind the sticky branches, a feeling like something exploding in her heart jolted through her in an instant, causing her to scrape herself on the thorny thing she was fighting.
Immediately she knelt to the ground and held her heart until it settled.
Yet even after the effects of the jolt had completely passed, she could not keep from weeping, for she knew it was not her own body that suffered. Rather, it was the heart of another that had stopped altogether. She remembered now the words Rhimesh had spoken to her long ago. The ageless woman had conveyed that when the Realm Leader of the Greater Archipelagos passes, no islander can escape the knowledge of it.
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Boyson, Cassandra, Seeker's Call
