The Gifted Heart (Marks of Inheritance: The Orkeia Cycle #1)

7. In Search of a Legend

Chapter seven

In Search of a Legend

I stayed there until it was almost time for dinner. Neal had invited me to join him again, but I’d eaten most of my dinners with the Patersons over the last month, and Shae was starting to take it personally. She was setting the table when I entered and gave a squeal of delight, wrapping me in a tight hug before Lyra called her over to help serve the food.

Julius had managed to catch a few birds earlier that day, and Lyra prepared them with seasonings she borrowed from Brynna. Gideon smiled at me from across the table, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was still bothered by our conversation. But as he looked away, his smile fading, he didn’t seem angry anymore. Now he just seemed sad.

Lyra’s food was of course delicious—I maintained that all green witches must be natural cooks—but as Shae talked my ear off about everything she’d been learning in the last month, I kept glancing at Gideon. I could just see the circular mark poking out of his sleeve. After some hesitation, and when Shae finally stopped to take a breath, I cleared my throat.

“Julius, what do you think Gideon’s gift is?”

Gideon groaned and put his head in his hands.

“I don’t know,” Julius admitted, eyes darting to his son.

“I still think he’s a witch,” Shae teased. Lyra gave Shae a reproachful look. Clearly she said this often to bother Gideon, even though she herself was a witch and knew there was nothing wrong with that.

“Well,” I ventured, putting down my fork, “I have a theory.”

“An impossible theory,” Gideon mumbled, through his hands.

“How do you know it’s impossible?”

“Because it's insane!” he suddenly snapped, standing. “The more you talk about your idea, the more I’m convinced the power couldn’t possibly exist!”

I flinched and Lyra and Shae both stared. I opened my mouth to retort, but Julius raised a hand to call for silence. Reluctantly, Gideon sat, his eyes locked on mine in a silent debate.

“What’s your theory, Kenna?” Julius said.

“Dad—”

“That’s enough, Gideon.”

I broke eye contact with Gid and looked to his father. “I thought it may be power over the planets.”

Gideon’s lips pressed tightly together. Shae coughed as she almost choked on a bite of her food.

“Like the legend of Hanson?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Exactly like that,” I said with a breath. “It makes sense. The Earth, moon, sun, and stars are all round, just like Gideon’s mark. And I’m pretty sure I remember Elizabeth saying his mark was also a circle.”

“He didn’t exist, Kenna,” Gideon muttered.

“Yes he did,” Lyra said matter-of-factly. “His wife’s writings prove that.”

“Those are just stories,” Gideon retorted.

“I don’t think so,” Julius said, “but it doesn’t matter. The only way to prove whether or not you have this power is to try.”

He eyed his son sternly. Gideon shifted in his seat. Shae and Lyra watched him as well, and he sank under the pressure. Our eyes met for a second, and in that second I could tell he loathed me for voicing the idea. But at the same time, I thought I saw a glint of hope in his eyes.

Almost as soon as it appeared, the hope vanished, and he let out a deep sigh. “Fine. But who would be my mentor?”

Even I was at a loss for words. Young sorcerers need mentors to prevent them from exhausting energy or causing damage, and usually, mentors were someone with a similar power. I hadn’t thought about the fact that if I was right, Gideon wouldn’t have anyone on Earth to teach him how to control his powers…

Suddenly, it dawned on me, and I almost dropped my fork.

“Hanson would.”

All eyes turned to me. For the first time, Gideon looked curious, not just incredulous.

“What do you mean?” asked Lyra.

“I’m a white witch,” I said breathlessly. “Someone who can visit the other worlds. I could find Hanson there and relay messages back and forth.”

Gideon opened his mouth slowly, considering my proposal. “If he’s even real, how would you find him?”

I bit my lip. Searching for someone you had never met in the Other Worlds is difficult, but possible. The fact that I knew some information about him—his gift, his name, and the name of his wife—would add to the chance of success.

“It won’t be easy,” I said, “but it’s possible. I’m willing to try if you are.”

The room fell silent, no one touching their food. For what felt like an eternity, Gid just stared at me. Conflicting expressions and emotions crossed his face as we all waited for his response. Finally, he gave a small, hesitant nod.

“All right,” he said. “You can look for him if you want. But I doubt you’ll find anything.”

My lips split into a smile. “We’ll see,” I said.

Gideon shifted in his seat, averting his gaze, and excused himself from the table. Julius frowned a little as we watched him go before looking back at me.

“I think it would be wise to temper your expectations, Kenna,” he said gently. “This is a pretty far-fetched idea. You’re right that it’s worth trying, but Gideon has been disappointed enough times before. I don’t want to get his hopes up with premature excitement.”

“I’m going to start the search regardless—if nothing else, Hanson would be an interesting person to meet,” I said.

Standing, I thanked Lyra for the food, gave Shae a hug and promised to come over to try some of her potions the next day, and left. While I understood where Julius was coming from, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance. Had Gid’s own family given up on figuring out his gift as well?

I returned to my room and hurried to arrange my summoning candles. I felt a surge of energy and excitement despite Julius’s words. When the candles were placed, I stood in the center, chanting and tracing a pentagram against my chest.

“Do you desire to visit the Saved or the Lost?”

“The Saved,” I said. Someone as renowned as Hanson was probably not Lost.

The familiar breeze blew through the room, and my spirit was pulled away once more to the Land of the Saved. As always, a large crowd waited for the gates to open. I approached in anticipation. It was hard to tell which spirits had passed on and which hadn’t, so I went up to the gates to speak to the spirits on the other side.

Not sure how else to start, I began by asking if anyone happened to have met Hanson or his wife. Unfortunately, none of them had, and most of them seemed surprised I would even ask. To my relief, however, there were a handful of people who said they thought they’d heard others here in the Land of the Saved talk about meeting him. I eagerly asked them if they could search for me and bring word back to the gates.

Just when I had decided to end my search for the night, a familiar voice called my name, and I turned to see Elizabeth running toward the gates.

“Kenna!” she called. “Sybil told me about the attack.”

My delight at seeing her was tempered by that statement. “Oh?”

She nodded, her expression difficult to read. “Of course, she didn’t really need to. I was there, after all.”

My breath caught in my throat. “You…remember it?”

“It was very strange,” she said, her eyes scanning my face as if searching for something. “Once you’ve passed through the gates, you’re not supposed to be able to return. But one minute I was here, and the next… ”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I didn’t—I didn’t really think about what it would be like for you , I just—”

She shook her head and gave a comforting smile. “You did the right thing, Kenna. And what you did—well, it was incredible. Certainly more than enough evidence that you are worthy to be the new Mother white witch.”

I bit my lip and looked down at my hands. She reached out through the bars, sighing when she remembered that we couldn’t touch. After a long moment, she spoke again in a low tone.

“I hope this has changed your mind,” she said.

“About what?”

“Going to the city.”

I frowned and reluctantly met her gaze. I hadn’t exactly told her that was my plan, but I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that she guessed it.

“Shouldn’t the king get what he deserves?” I whispered.

“You don’t know what he deserves—only the Giftgiver does.”

If I hadn’t been standing in front of the golden gates, I probably would have argued, but that didn’t exactly seem appropriate.

Time to change the topic.

“Can you help me with something?” I asked.

Elizabeth sighed, but didn’t press the issue. “Of course. What is it?”

“I’m looking for someone. Hanson, the sorcerer with power over the planets.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Have you made any progress?”

“Well, this is my first time searching, but no,” I grumbled. “No one I’ve talked to has ever seen him, and most of them aren’t even sure he’s a real person.”

“Oh, he’s real,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll ask around. Maybe I can find other white witches who know his wife, Kindra. In the meantime, keep asking at the gates—you never know who might be passing by. And, though I know it’s a long shot, it wouldn’t hurt to look in the Lost as well.”

I nodded, but I didn’t really agree with her. If Hanson was indeed a real person, and if the records that his wife wrote were true, he couldn’t be Lost. I would just have to bide my time and hope he came out to welcome spirits, or that Elizabeth found him inside.

As I returned to my body, I had to admit that Julius was probably wise to tell me not to get too excited. But that didn’t mean I was about to give up.

***

Over the course of the next two weeks, I checked the Land of the Saved every night to see if any of the spirits I’d spoken to had any news. Despite Elizabeth’s counsel, I didn’t feel comfortable journeying to the Land of the Lost on my own.

Shae had heard of him before, but she didn’t know as many of the legends that I did. While I helped her work on her potions as promised, I recounted to her some of my favorites from when I was young. She knew the stories about him filling the sky with stars and stopping a never ending storm, but she hadn’t heard the legend of Hanson and the Sea Serpent.

“Elizabeth said that this serpent had been sinking fisherman’s ships for generations, always on the full moon,” I said as I chopped up some roots for her. “The moon’s power over the tides gave the creature power as well. The town reached out to Hanson for help, and he traveled from the South, arriving just before the full moon. When the serpent appeared, Hanson reached his hands to the sky and blocked out the moon with his gift, taking away all of the serpent’s power and strength in an instant. To make sure the creature couldn’t return, he then raised an island where the serpent had appeared, stranding it on land and bringing an end to its days. Elizabeth said that island was the beginning of the kingdom of Orkeia.”

“Wait—are you saying that a sorcerer founded Orkeia?” she asked with shock.

I shrugged. “That’s what Elizabeth said. I don’t think it was called Orkeia then, obviously. But she said he created these islands, or at least some of them. ”

Shae stared. “If a sorcerer created them, how did the Slaughters happen? What made the king think magic was evil?”

“It’s been hundreds of years, Shae,” I said with a wry smile as I passed her the ingredients. “If the stories are true, even the Gifted barely remember them, and most people—like your brother—don’t believe they really happened. The Ungifted probably don’t have a record of him at all, or if they do they just think of them as myths and legends.”

“But if it is true,” she said earnestly, “wouldn’t that make a difference?”

I fell quiet at those words. While I was sure that the king and his people would dismiss any such claims by the Gifted as being outrageous, it was definitely something significant to consider. Maybe there was something in their history that could be used to show that the Gifted and Ungifted had lived in harmony in Hanson’s time.

But I couldn’t make that connection without having access to Ungifted records, something that seemed impossible. Even if I could make my way to the city and blend in with their society, wouldn’t any historical records be carefully guarded? And even if I did find something that seemed to make a connection between our legends and the founding of Orkeia, would the king ever listen?

No. He was too determined to destroy us.

The conversation did cause me to start thinking again about what I could do to stop him. It seemed clear to me that he would need to be stopped by force. Gathering an army would never work—even with our powers, we were severely outnumbered by the knights. In fact, no one was really sure how many clans were still surviving on the islands given how difficult it was for us to communicate. So if someone was going to put a stop to the king’s crusade, it needed to be done carefully through infiltration.

I thought about my mark once again. Why would the Giftgiver have placed it somewhere it could be easily hidden if not to give me the chance to get close to the king? Why would I have been spared when the rest of my clan was destroyed if He didn’t have a destiny for me to fulfill? As daunting as the task seemed, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had to be the one to make the journey.

But every day, it was harder to imagine leaving the Grison clan. My heart felt heavy as I returned to my room that evening. I didn’t want to leave Gideon, or Neal, or Shae, and I didn’t want to abandon the duties Sybil had passed on to me. But if I stayed here, nothing would ever change.

Before I closed my door, I heard a voice behind me.

“Hey, Kenna,” Gideon said a little awkwardly.

I bit my lip and turned to face him. “Hey, Gid,” I replied.

We hadn’t talked much in the past two weeks. I was sure he had been avoiding me, and with how awkward that dinner was, I couldn’t really blame him. Neal kept me distracted when I wasn’t doing things for Julius or Ethel and Helen, but I had to admit that I had felt lonely without my regular walks with Gideon.

He glanced through my door past me to where my summoning circle was set up. I hadn’t taken it down in the past two weeks, figuring it was easier to just leave it until I decided to give up on the search. I couldn’t quite read his expression as he looked at it.

“How are you?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from the circle to meet mine.

I shrugged. “Tired. I spent the morning looking for stones that could be used for spellcasting focuses on the beach. Ethel is being very particular about the one’s she’ll use. Then your sister sequestered me for the afternoon.”

Gid rolled his eyes. “Tell Ethel she can get them herself. And as for Shae, she’ll understand if you just say you need to rest.”

“Oh, spending time with Shae didn’t bother me,” I said with a bit of a smile. “It was nice, actually. She just—well, you know how much she likes to talk.”

He chuckled and nodded. I watched the way his smile slowly started to grow and felt a pang in my chest at the thought of eventually leaving. Once again, I considered inviting him to journey with me to the city, and I almost said something before he spoke .

“I just wanted to apologize,” he said after another minute, shifting his feet where he stood. “I know you’re just trying to help me, and I appreciate that you think highly enough of me to even entertain your theory. I just … I wanted to let you know that I’m okay. I’m not miserable and I don’t feel useless to the clan. And…I don’t want to feel like I can’t spend time with you without you bringing up my gift.”

“I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that, Gid,” I said with a frown.

“It’s all right, it’s just—I’ve made my peace with it, you know?” he said with a shrug. He smiled again, a hopeful smile, and added, “Can we just go back to normal? I don’t want you spending every night looking for someone who might not even exist.”

I glanced back at my summoning circle. With a heavy breath, I looked back towards him and nodded, forcing a smile. “If that’s what you want.”

“Thanks,” he said, sounding relieved. “Maybe I can help you look for the stones or whatever else you need in the morning?”

“Sure. I’d like that.”

He gave me another smile before saying goodnight and heading back to his room. I shut my door and leaned against it, closing my eyes as I did.

One more night. Then I’ll put the candles away.

Pushing aside all my other conflicting thoughts and feelings from the day, I moved into the circle and performed the now very familiar ritual to pass into the Land of the Saved. It wasn’t long before I spotted Elizabeth’s golden hair. Sybil stood beside her and to my surprise, they were outside the gates. As I approached, they saw me and stopped their conversation, both of them turning to smile.

“Back again?” Elizabeth said.

“Yes,” I said with a pained smile. “I’m assuming you haven’t heard anything?”

They exchanged a glance, and I saw a familiar glint of excitement in Elizabeth’s eyes. “Follow us,” she said, turning to walk along the wall of the city.

My heart leapt and I hurried after them, hardly daring to hope. The crowd began to thin as we moved further from the main gate, and at length, it finally parted enough that I could see a large man standing off to the side, clearly waiting for someone. He had golden hair that fell below his shoulders and a kingly beard to match. There was a sense of majesty about him, and when he saw us approaching, he beamed and stepped forward.

“Kenna,” said Sybil, “I’d like you to meet Hanson.”