Free Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 by Jacob Falling Page B

“I hope I will see this day.”
    And Shísha turned her eyes upon Adria, and they stilled, and Adria knew that, somehow, she could be seen. “Then know this, Adria Idonea, Princess of Hei-Land and Hunter of the Aesidhe... You will see this day, for you will be among those who return.”
    The Voice of One as Many.
    Adria could not turn away, could not close her eyes, could not even breathe for a long moment. And when breath came, it felt as if she had risen from the water, drowning.
    Despite the myths of her childhood, despite the years of Sisters and their tenets and their unknown god, and despite the servants and their superstitions, for the first time Adria believed something without having understood it.
    Blind faith , Adria wondered… The faith of blindness . It is something she had once prayed for, when her vision of the world had grown too terrible, her place within it too difficult to understand. Knowing without seeing .
    “ You have taught me well, ”Adria whispered.“ And I have no gift for you, Chosen Mother .”
    And she simply rose, leaned over, and kissed the women upon her forehead — more an Aeman parting than and Aesidhe one. Shísharaised her hand and touched Adria’s cheek gently, smiling. “Bring me something from across the sea…sneak it home in your pack.”
    Adria laughed, cried. “ Until that day, you have my thanks and my love. ”
    “You are welcome, Chosen Daughter. You always will be.”
    And Shísha returned to the full consideration of her fire, without speaking again, and without even seeming to notice Adria’s parting.

    Just outside of camp, Mateko dropped from a tree behind Adria in an attempted surprise, so she turned suddenly, clutched her blade hilt, and widened her eyes in pretend shock. He laughed, then held something out to her from behind his back.
    “I… offering… you... carry.” He struggled with the Aeman words, then corrected himself somewhat, “I carry offering you.”
    He means to give me a gift, she thought reflexively, but there was no reason to correct this particular. She was impressed he knew the word “offering” — he had not grown up with the Sisterhood, but among a People where an offering to the Spirit Helpers and a gift to a friend were not so different. Adria had taught him a little Aeman in her time among them, and he remained eager to learn more. They shared a fascination with language.
    Mateko nodded and smiled, and urged the package into her hands. It was a bundle of cloth tied with twine. The cloth was thin, and a violet color that seemed strange in Aesidhe hands. It must have been salvaged from a raid. She thought.
    But even as she opened it, even as she recognized it, her mind had trouble comprehending. It was a tabard of the House of Idonea — the silver hex star on a black and violet field. She blinked at it, then held it up to the firelight. Mateko had done his best to clean it, but the blood from an arrow had left a stain, just a little darker than the shade of the cloth.
    This is from the first man I killed, Adria realized. He has kept this for more than two years.
    “This… you… make remember…” he struggled to explain, smiling with the clumsiness of his own tongue around the words, particularly the r’s, which did not exist in Aesidhe. Adria had certainly never taught him everything he knew. He must have learned more from Preinon or Shísha. He was half-signing with his hands, reflexively trying to reinforce the words. “You… make sturong for… both your… people.”
    “ You once said that I tried to be too strong for a woman.” Adria teased. “Is it still true? ”
    Mateko bit his lip and shook his head slowly, abandoning the Aeman for the better poetry of his own tongue. “L ó zha lozhani zhuhiwi tagli t’úmno. Zho ch ó li zazhuwe.” I believe that you are graceful and gentle . I will always love you...
    He had such trouble finishing, and Adria had filled so quickly with equal measures of joy and sadness,