wasn’t thinking about what was going on around her. I extended a hand to her to help her up. She grasped it, groaned, and then threw her bloody arm across my shoulder. “Help me out of here, will you? My ankle’s messed up, too.”
Leaning heavily on me, she hopped over to the others at the edge of the clearing. They all introduced one another and shared smiles; Tamhan congratulated the blessed, and then they all looked at me expectantly. I got out my journal and turned to the page where I’d written down the Seekers’ names.
“Four blessed out of thirty-three seekers, including myself,” I said. “That’s a pretty low success rate if that holds true.” Their smiles disappeared. “Let’s give them all to Kalaad in the sky.”
We turned to the fallen, and I read their names one by one. Our bodies are no more than meat that falls on the plains one day and feeds some other meat, but I wished their spirits peace because I think they were all seeking that more than anything else when they followed me to the grove. Certainly Hanima had, and maybe Adithi, too. I suppose all Seekers are after peace of some kind, and make the calculation that one way or another—in death or blessing—they’ll get it.
But I wondered if peace was possible for us. Even though we called ourselves blessed, I didn’t see a future of bliss and contentment waiting ahead.
—
Plenty of chatter ensued once Fintan dispelled his seeming. Increased strength, speed, and healing as well as a connection to animals? The Sixth Kenning was truly a blessing even if it had a high mortality rate in those seeking it—the people nearest me were murmuring excitedly about Hanima’s recovery. If her brain injury could be healed with a blessing, then what other infirmities might be cured?
It certainly made me wonder if my old knee injury could be fixed after all this time. I imagined so. What trouble could mere tissue be compared to the complexity of the brain? I mean, except the very large drawback that you most likely would die trying to get yourself healed. No thanks. I was fine. I had lived with my bad knee for longer than I had enjoyed a stable one, and coping with it was neither good nor bad, just a fact of my existence.
I also found it interesting that seeking the Sixth Kenning, like the Fifth, involved potentially being consumed with the trade-off of some kind of symbiosis and new physical abilities. For perhaps two seconds I marveled that this was the first time we were hearing about this, and then I realized the Nentian government would have tried to keep it quiet if they didn’t control the source of the kenning. If there were still only four of the blessed and they were roaming the plains rather than spreading the word in the cities, then it was no wonder that we hadn’t heard more of them. And we’d had our own problems to occupy our attention.
The bard let people talk for a while then held up his hands, a seeming stone in one hand. “Let’s check in with Viceroy Melishev before we finish for the day.” He cast it down at his feet, and the sour leader of Hashan Khek materialized, this time in a muted, somber tunic of black and dark blue.
I miss Dhingra. This new man, Khaghesh, who bubbled up from the cesspool of the bureaucracy, seems competent, but I do not enjoy the same rapport. He smells like onions and sweat. And he has an unsightly boil or mole or something growing on his face below his right eye. Perhaps it is a reservoir for his evil thoughts. Or it’s a spider egg sac and one night soon the creatures will burst out and eat him in his sleep. One can only hope: I’m fairly certain he is a spy for Talala Fouz, so everything I do and say could all be reported later in writing to an unsympathetic pair of eyes. I don’t know when I will find someone to confide in again. I never should have sent Dhingra away.
That Raelech courier returned today with news of what was happening to the south: two thousand burned conscripts, Ghuyedai laying a toothless siege, and the juggernaut doing nothing about it.
“Tell me, Master Courier, has Gorin Mogen, in your view, violated the Sovereignty Accords?”
“It matters little what my views are, but I think he has.”
“Then by the terms of those accords,