Free Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier

herself would become mortal?"
    "Not exactly. Our kind live long, Fainne; far beyond the human span. But it did mean she in her turn would die. She would survive to see her family perish of old age before she herself moved on. Her descendants bore the blood of the cursed one, through the ages. Every one of us has her eyes. Your eyes, girl. Every one has the craft, but narrowly, you understand. Some things will always be beyond us. That rankles. That hurts. It should be ours. The punishment was unjust; too severe."
     
    I opened my mouth, thought better of what I was about to say, and shut it again.
    "Thinking of your father, are you?" she said, unsmiling. "Thinking he seems to manifest a somewhat wider range of talents than those I described? You're right, of course. I chose his father well: no less than Colum, Lord of Sevenwaters: They're druid folk, that family. Look how they live, shut away in their precious forest, surrounded by those Others. They've got the blood of the Old Ones, mixed with the human strain. Ciaran's different. Special. He should have ruled there after Colum. Isn't he the seventh son of a seventh son? But I was foiled. Foiled by that wretched girl and her cursed brothers. They're the ones you need to watch out for. The ones with the Fomhoire streak in them."
    I frowned in concentration. "Why would that be dangerous, Grandmother? The Fomhoire were not users of high magic."
     
    "Ah. There's high magic, and there's sorcerer's magic, and there's another kind. You might call it deep magic. That's what the folk from Sevenwaters have, and we don't, child. Not all of them, mind. Most of them are simple fools like your mother, weak-willed and weak-minded. How my son ever fell for that empty little featherhead, I cannot understand. Niamh ruined his life; she weakened him terribly. But now there's you, Fainne. You're my hope."
     
    I had learned that snapping back was pointless, though her dismissal of my mother wounded me. "Deep magic?" I queried. "What is that?"
     
    "The magic of the earth and the ocean. That's where those folk came from, long ago. That's why they cling to the Islands. They are no sorcerers. They don't work spells. But some of them have the ability to speak to one another in the mind, without words. You don't know how hard I tried to develop that. Wore myself out. Either you have it or you don't. One or two of them can read the future. Powerful tools, both of them. And some of them have healing skills far beyond a physician's."
     
    "Is that all?"
     
    "All, she says!" Her laugh mocked me. "Isn't that enough? Those gifts shut me out of achieving my goal for nigh on two generations, girl. They took my son from me and turned him soft. But now it's different. I have you, Fainne, and I have a new goal, a far grander one. You've got a little bit of everything in you, thanks to your mother. That was the one good thing she did for you, pathetic wretch that she was. I've never understood it. If Ciaran had to throw himself away on one of the Sevenwaters brats, why not choose the other sister? A child of that liaison would have had rare skills indeed. Never mind, Fainne. You bear the blood of four races. That has to count for something."
     
    This time I found it impossible not to challenge her. "I don't like you to speak of my mother that way," I said, glaring.
     
    "No? I speak only the truth, child. Besides, what would you care? You scarcely remember her, surely. But I suppose all your attitudes come from your father. He'll hear no ill spoken of his beloved Niamh. To him she was a princess, a creature of perfection who couldn't set a foot wrong. He let losing her eat him up. Now, Fainne." Her tone had changed abruptly. "You've done quite well so far, child; we should be ready in time if you keep your mind on learn-
     
    ing. Tomorrow I'll outline what is expected of you at Sevenwaters. All this, you understand, the airs and graces, the easy conversation, the skills of the bedchamber, all this is only a