Chapter 1 - Stitches

It began much like it ended—torches burning in the brackets, dust clinging in the corners, smoke rising from the incense burner, and water rippling in the wake of past footsteps. The Infirmary was a wreck.

A young woman of eighteen lay face-first on one of the cots, breathing deeply as the room’s other occupant stitched together a large gash in her upper arm. She felt no pain as the curved needle pierced her skin, only a slight tugging as the equally young Healer pulled the thread tight.

“You never learn, do you?” the Healer said, leaning back to examine her handiwork. “First trees, then beehives, now you’re ambushing our own scouts. I’m getting sick of picking up the pieces.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think he’d flip out on me, Morna. Usually the Amber Waters Scouts are calmer.”

“When some crazy girl leaps out of the brush with a sword, the general response is to attack,” Morna replied, pulling a small knife from her pouch and cutting the string. “You’re lucky Zagato’s not here right now, Hazel. Your brother asked him to keep an eye on you as best he could.” As Morna spoke, the door of the Infirmary creaked open, and a cold breeze ruffled Morna’s white-blonde hair. “Speak of the devil…” she muttered, as a taller man in his mid-twenties entered the room, arms laden with parcels.

“Cold, is it, Zagato?” asked Hazel pleasantly, propping herself up on her elbows.

Zagato snorted in distaste as he set a few wooden boxes on the ground beside the fireplace. “Understatement, that,” he commented. “The entire lake is frozen over.” He dropped the rest of the oddly lumpy packages rather unceremoniously next to the herb pots. “What happened to you?”

Hazel smiled sweetly. “Slipped,” she said. “I cut my arm.”

With a sigh, Morna nodded. “She hit a rock. I just have to wait for the numbing effects to wear off so I can apply the bandages.”

“Can’t you do that sooner?” muttered Hazel. “You always wait for the herbs to wear off, and it hurts when you wrap these things.”

“If you can’t feel your arm, you can’t tell me if the bandages are too tight. I don’t want to cut off your circulation.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Hazel flopped back down on her cot. From the far corner of the room, Zagato smirked as Morna started dabbing at the dried blood on Hazel’s arm with a damp rag.

After a few minutes of silence, save for the popping of the fire in the hearth, Zagato put down the parcel he was unwrapping and crossed the room to where Morna knelt scrubbing Hazel’s blood off the floor. “I’ll take care of this,” he said gently, gesturing to the mess. “Why don’t you grab those last few packages from the wagon? It’s parked by the entrance to the Greenwood.”

Morna nodded gratefully and passed the rag to Zagato. As a Healer’s apprentice, she spent a good majority of her time up to her ears in herbal poultices, blood and bandages. Any break from the monotony of it all was more than welcome. While Zagato resumed scrubbing, Morna tugged on her cloak and a pair of well-worn gloves that left her wrists exposed. She’d been meaning to get new ones for ages, but could never seem to find the time.

After her cloak was securely fastened around her shoulders, Morna slid out the door, careful not to let in too much cold air. Zagato had been right—it wasn’t just cold. It was freezing! But even the sub-zero temperatures weren’t enough to put a damper on Morna’s spirits as she followed the stone path for about half a league in the bitter cold. She bowed her head against the wind as she walked, absently changing her pace to skip over the cracks in the flagstones. Patches of fragile brown grass peeked out from the gaps between stones, and became thicker as the minutes passed.

Twenty minutes later, Morna’s fingers were numb through the shabby leather of her gloves, but the wagon was in sight at the edge of Greenwood Forest, just as Zagato said. She jogged the last 300 yards, and stopped to catch her breath as she reached the large blue cart. There wasn’t much left in it, Morna noted, except for a few cloth-wrapped bundles in the far corner. She would only need to make one trip to carry them all.

She clapped her hands together to restore circulation, then carefully climbed the iron ladder on the side of the wagon. It was only a few steps, but the iron was rusty and there were a few sharp spots on the handrails. Morna had given more sets of stitches than she could remember, yet she had never once been on the other end of the needle. And she didn’t intend to be anytime soon, she thought, as she stepped into the wagon and started digging through the parcels.

Seven were wrapped in the customary brown cloth that indicated its destination: Earth was the Element used by most Healers. The red-wrapped packages would be spices and traps for the Hunters, the blue boxes would more than likely contain sharpening stones, Ever-Oil, and weapons for the Warriors, and the yellow bundles were probably full of rare stones and vials of whatnot that the Spellcasters found useful.

Morna had piled all seven brown bundles into her arms when an eighth package caught her eye. She instantly realized why she’d missed it; the white silk blended in perfectly with the small pile of snow in the corner of the wagon. White. White was the colour of the Seers.

A pang of curiosity struck Morna as she stacked the brown-wrapped parcels beside her. The Seers were usually the first to pick up their items, since they usually Saw the driver arrive. Nobody knew what was in the lumpy packages the Seers received, but then again, nobody in the Clan really cared about such things. The Seers weren’t exactly the most social people, which was good for them because their duties usually kept them away for months at a time. It was their job to watch for unexpected changes in the weather, visitors, births, and deaths, among many other things. They normally saw daylight for maybe two months every year, but they never seemed to mind.

Morna’s fingers hovered over the silver-threaded rope holding the bundle shut. Perhaps just a peek, then she could return it to the Viewing Room herself. “Alright, then,” she whispered, tugging on one end of the cord. The rope stuck for a moment, then fell free from the shimmering cloth. Morna gently pushed the cloth aside, and was immediately confused at what she saw.

A large shard of what looked to be glass lay swaddled in the white silk, glinting ominously in the twilight. Confusion faded to disappointment. “Is that it?” she asked no one in particular.

But the shard seemed to hear her. And what’s more, it answered.

Morna had just reached out to grab her other parcels when the shard suddenly began emanating its own light, almost as if the sun shining down on it were high in the sky, not half-obscured by the horizon. She jumped and pulled her hand back as though burned, but the sudden movement of Morna’s knees knocked the shard into the air and down onto the tip of her index finger.

“Oh…” Morna’s dove-grey eyes widened as she felt the glass pierce her fingertip, but she couldn’t move her hand back the way her reflexes were screaming for her to. Her whole body went rigid, and she felt herself rise, as though she were floating.

Except, her body hadn’t moved.

Morna stared through a pair of eyes she knew weren’t hers, because there was no way she could be staring into her own eyes. There was no way she should be able to see the top of her head, and there was no way she was actually hovering ten feet above her own body.

Was there?

Feeling her heartbeat—or the equivalent to such in her out-of-body experience—slow, Morna peered down at her real self. She was still frozen with an odd expression of mixed terror and surprise on her pale face. The glass shard was balanced perfectly on the tip of her finger, and even in her bodiless state, Morna could feel its point puncturing her flesh. Well, not much I can do about that, she thought distastefully, popping what should’ve been her finger into her mouth. It didn’t help the pain in the slightest, but it provided some feeling of comfort on a rather obscure level.

Morna had just begun to (rather vainly, though she would never admit it) admire the way the dying sun cast shadows across her face, when another shadow blocked her view. A tall man, perhaps twenty-something, stood directly in front of her physical body, ear-length black hair dancing in the breeze as he reached out to touch her shoulder with one pallid hand…

“I’m sorry!” cried Morna, surprising herself more than the stranger had. The sudden ability to speak caused her to overbalance, and she, now unceremoniously re-united with her body, toppled over into the bed of the wagon. “I-I’m sor—” she broke off as she looked up, and realized she was talking to thin air. “—ry… Where’d he go?” But look as much as would, the black-haired man was nowhere in sight. Nor, she realized, was the bundle she’d carelessly opened.

Morna began to shiver, and it had nothing to do with the cold wind leaking through the openings in her cloak. Quickly, and stumbling slightly as she did so, Morna scooped up the packages intended for the Infirmary and jumped out of the wagon, not even bothering to use the iron ladder on the side. She ran along the path for as long as she could, which—in her under-fed and over-worked condition—was about five minutes. But she did manage to jog the rest of the way, eager to put as much distance between the wagon and herself as possible.

She risked a glance at her finger, and was only half-surprised to discover the cut wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense! The wound would’ve required at least two stitches!

Morna shivered again, and slowed to a brisk walk as she neared the Infirmary, face red, heart racing, and sweat trickling down her pale face. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps there was a reason why no one seemed to care about the Seers’ business.

And it just made her all the more curious.