A Song of Silence

Chapter 19: A Quarrel in the Dark

It had been hours since Karasi had fallen into a deep slumber. She had not moved since the tea and her exhaustion had taken full effect. I had stayed by her side in the gardens for hours, hoping that she would wake up so I could explain the emotion inside to someone. Anyone. I couldn't go to Brynn, for she would be angry at me for leaving her, so I would content myself with the hope that Karasi would be more understanding than Brynn. It would be half an hour more until the sun started to set and I would have to bring Karasi inside for the night.

Karasi woke with a start, her hand going to her sternum. She looked around in confusion and started in surprise when she saw my exhausted form sitting next to her. "How-how long was I out?" She asks, her voice rough and frail. I offer her some water from the table next to me before looking to the sky to gauge the time.

About 6, maybe 7 hours.

"That long?" She looks to her shaking hands in surprise. "How am I not..." she pauses in thought. She turns to me, a serious look on her face despite her fragile demeanor mere minutes before. "I should be dead, Aerilynn. Why am I not dead?"

How much do you remember? I sign with a reluctance I have not felt in a long time. Once I tell her this, there will be no going back. Truthfully, there never was any going back once I decided to save Karasi's life.

"Not much," she places her hand on her temple as if trying to recall every detail. "I remember demanding to go to the gardens and pain. Oh my gods, I was in so much pain. And then you making me choke down some foul, foul concoction. There was peace after that." Karasi looks to me in question, "What happened?"

I raised my fingers to try to explain but the words evaded me, probably a product of my nerves. I held up my hands once more. Well, after you collapsed, everything occurred as you said. I brought you to the gardens and forced you to drink a tea that helped to heal you.

Karasi interrupted me, "But there is no tea to help my condition, or cure me of the effects of my power for that matter."

What do you mean no cure. I taught healer Alamey before I left. I would never leave a seer alone without that tea recipe being given to a healer for that healer to create. (pronounced Ala-may)

Karasi propped herself up on her elbows, her strength slowly returning, "Healer Alamey? Aerilynn, Healer Alamey has been dead for almost forty years."

What! What do you mean dead? I would have heard about her death and come back if I'd known she was dead!

"Brynn, what does Healer Alamey have to do with the tea?"

How much do you know about the responsibilities of the personal healers of the seers that came before you?

"Not much, why?" She asks, a confused and affronted expression on her face.

Aside from caring for the physical well-being of their patient, a personal healer of a seer has the responsibility of administering a certain blend of herbs to the seer in order to help them with the burden of their power. Only one healer is supposed to know the blend because it can be easily manipulated to become poison. Karasi seems stunned by these revelations. Her mouth opens and closes, as if to say something, but closes instead. Healer Alamey was supposed to be the healer that knew the herb brew for the next seer to be born after the 200 years elapsed. In other words, Healer Alamey was supposed to be Karasi's healer. Every 200 years 1 seer was given as a gift from the gods to the fae of Altreya. More often than not there would be only one seer at a time on Altreya because the seers usually died close to the 200 years had elapsed.  There was one healer specifically chosen by the previous healer to aid the new seer with the burdens of their power. If Healer Alamey had passed before she had the chance to pass on the tea brew, then Karasi had been left to bear the burden of her power for more than forty years, without the herb brew to help her ease the pain.