Forsaken: The Chosen Trilogy - Book One

Chapter Ten

Syrthil - ninth month of the year; the beginning of harvest

REYCE

The Rose Farm, Northwestern Valory

4 Syrthil 575A.F.

I was ten when I first met the Lady.

She woke me in the middle of the night. The room was dim, lit only by the weak moonlight filtering through the window, and yet I could still see that she was beautiful, radiant and resplendent even in the shadow. Her eyes were large and lovely as she raised a slim finger to her lips to keep me from speaking, then rose and walked silently from the room.

I scrambled from the bed and followed her, barely remembering to grab my boots as I stepped over my sleeping siblings. The long white gown she wore seemed to float around her slender form as she strode gracefully to the front door, opening it without a sound.

It made me pause, but only for a moment- how strange that she opened it so quietly, when it normally squeaked like a large, frightened mouse.

She glanced over her shoulder at me, and all thought vanished.

The moonlight was brighter outside, though it bleached the color from her hair, so that all I could tell was that it was dark, piled atop her head in an intricate bun and held in place with a long, delicate chain. Her face was exquisite, made of finely crafted bones and sharp, stunning features. A sword rested in a sheath at her hip, and a bow and quiver of arrows were strapped to her back. Glittering vambraces encircled her forearms; I had only ever seen such armor made from leather before, and the intricate patterns stamped into the metal were so complicated my head ached to look at them.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I found myself stumbling over the familiar ground, unable to take my eyes from her.

I finally realized where she was taking me, as she led me out past the fields toward the edge of our land, and I slowed, questions buzzing in my mind. But she only looked over her shoulder, and I all but ran to catch up.

To call it a pond was generous, as it was only a few feet wide and maybe a foot deep, but it was secluded, cut off from the rest of the farm by a fence of scrubby pines, and so it was my favorite place to be alone, when the misery of home grew too much and I needed to escape.

I wondered briefly how she knew of it.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice trembling.

She sat on one of the large, ungainly stones that erupted from the ground near the pond, as regal and elegant as a queen upon a throne. "I am a friend."

Even her voice was dazzling, and I found myself swaying toward it. "Why?" I managed through clumsy lips.

"I am here to help you."

"Help me?" I shook my head, trying to think past the bemused fog in my mind. "Help me with what?"

"There is evil in the world, Reyce." Her voice was gentle and mournful, and I yearned to say anything she wished to ease her sadness. "A great darkness, which threatens to destroy all I love, all you could love. I've come to prepare you for it."

Great darkness? I closed my eyes, trying to clear my muddled thoughts; it was difficult to focus past her intoxicating beauty. "But I'm only ten."

"You won't always be ten." I opened my eyes, and she smiled at me. The entire night was filled with sudden, blinding light. "One day you will be a man, and others will look to you to lead them. You're already different, aren't you? So unlike your brothers and sisters."

I thought of blue flames and swallowed in abrupt fear, retreating a step away from her. "How do you know that?"

"I know many things." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight, seeing far too much. She held out a hand to me, offering. "And I will teach them all to you."

I stared at her, torn between the prudent fear that urged me back toward my bed, and my curious desire to throw myself at her feet in rapture. I bit my cheek in indecision. "Who are you, really?"

"I have told you, I am a friend."

"But what is your name?" I insisted.

"I suppose, if you must call me a name, you may call me Lady."

Logic told me that I should run, fleeing back to the relative safety of my house on the hill. But I was a Rose, and we did not give in to fear- we stared it down, defiant and unyielding. If the others could face the terror that reigned over our lives without flinching, then surely I could handle this woman- no matter how beautiful she was.

I took her hand.

I half-expected her touch to reduce me to ashes, and sighed in relief to find her grip warm and human, her fingers calloused. She laughed at my expression, and I blushed a little for my thoughts.

She released my hand, and pulled the bow and quiver from her shoulders, handing them to me. The wood felt smooth and firm beneath my fingers, and I grinned as I gripped it, feeling somehow stronger than I ever had before.

She taught me how to string it, and draw it back, the muscles in my arms straining, aiming for a tree maybe twenty paces away. The sound the arrows made as they whistled through the air was like music, and the alluring aroma of the Lady as she corrected my stance bedazzled my senses.

The moon traveled almost too quickly across the sky, and she at last returned me to the house with only a few hours left until dawn. The others hadn't stirred, and I made my way between them carefully, slipping back into the bed to fall immediately asleep.

In the morning, I thought that I had dreamed it all, the Lady and the lesson, though my arms still ached. I wanted to weep, certain I would never see her again. But she returned that night, and the next, leading me out each time to the pond to teach me.

Her lessons varied as the nights passed into months, and then into a year. She taught me archery, until I could strike a pine cone from over a hundred paces by only starlight, knocking it from a branch high overhead. She taught me swordplay, which I enjoyed even more than archery, the heaviness of the blade a comforting weight in my hand. She taught me to read the stars, and the earth, to track both animals and the passage of men, to listen to the calm, still voice of the world. I never grew tired in her presence; though I got little sleep, I was never exhausted from it, and performed the same in the day as I did at night.

I do not know how much of what she taught me was magic, though it seemed I lived those days bewitched. I do know that she was always beautiful, and she always dazzled me, no matter how often I saw her face. She spoke to me often of great darkness, but there were no shadows when I was with her, only light.

And I could not help but love her for it.