“Lo, wanderer.”

  The woman who greets me is wary; I see the tension in her shoulders and in the way she holds a hammer as tall as she is. I don’t recognise her, her accent it wrong too.

  “Lo, tribe.”

  “Heightened?” She nods towards my shoulder where my ragged clothing covers little. I nod, proud of my advancement but uncertain too. More of her tribe peer from behind trees and bushes. Most look to be Heightened, like me, but I see two more with their sleeves cut to show their marks. One man and one woman bearing the mark of advancement as the first does.

  She bites her lip and her nose crinkles. “Not seen a Heightened wanderer before.”

  Someone chimes in from the crowd. “Not a living one, anyhow.” His words are met with a chorus of chuckles.

  “Thank you, Garl.” The Marked woman reaches out her hammer; she grips it by its long handle and holds the gnarled iron head beside my own. Her arm is straining but even for a Marked it is an impressive feat. “You sound odd, wanderer. I have people here to care for, what would you have of us?”

  I swallow. It has taken me four days of stumbling through the forest and eating monsters to find this tribe and I don’t want them to think me so queer as to want me gone from their sight. This group is not one known to me, I’ve been to enough trials in my sector with all the tribes, thirty seven living and three dust in the wind, to recognise each of them. There is no chance that I would see so many members of one of the thirty seven and not know a single face among them.

  “Honoured Marked, I’ve found strife in these past days. I’ve been attacked by monsters and have lost my way. I would ask only to join you, for a time, for shelter, water, food, and company.”

  She bites her lip again and I know it to be a facet of her thinking. The other Marked watch her but don’t leap in with their own thoughts. If a wanderer had approached Lucil in this manner, Oran would have butted in with his opinion before the first words tumbled from her mouth.

  She lowers her hammer until it rests on the floor. The weight of its massive iron head sinks it into the loamy litter. “We have food enough for our tribe and another; water too.” She rakes me with her eyes and sighs. “Garl, this wanderer is near naked in our presence and we cannot abide this. You have a shirt that he can wear?”

  “Scara! I only finished my shirt this past week.” Garl is a man of my stature, taller than most, not slender and not overly broad. It is no wonder that Scara has pointed to him as my match.

  “This wanderer asks only shelter, food, and water of us while he shivers from the elements. It is right that he be dressed. Another shirt can be made.”

  Garl grits his teeth. “As you say, Honoured Marked.” He hesitates with his hand over his pouch as though seeking a way to deny me. I could protest, tell Scara that I do not want the shirt, that I cannot take it. She is right, though, my clothes are but rags and I could sorely do with a new shirt.

  My stomach knots with guilt; Garl may have made a jest at my expense but a shirt is the work of weeks or months to fashion from found and beaten fibers. For a stranger to take the work of your sweat and labour…it must sting.

  I accept the bundle Garl offers with both hands and I bow my head over it. My voice catches in my throat as I thank him. “May the sun shiny brightly onto you, Garl.” It is a gift not freely given, but it is the first gift I’ve received since reaching the age of maturity and my advancement stalled. Would they have given it to me had I remained Unenlightened?

  I turn my mind from my thoughts before the memories take root in soil best left fallow.

  “You are welcome, wanderer. Bathe you in the light of the sun.” Garl grumbles through his response and bites off the last word. He turns quickly and stalks back to his place behind a tree, takes out a blade, and starts whittling a branch to a point.

  “Come, wanderer. There is a pool nearby in which you might bathe; best that you clean yourself before you dress anew.” Scara points to another young man, no, a boy, and has him escort me the short way to the pool. Before I leave the glade in which we’ve met, she calls out one more time. “What is your name, wanderer?”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Pik, honoured Marked.”

  “What was your tribe?”

  I am not sure what to answer. The truth? Will they understand? Will they think we worthy of succor if I am not of their sector? I want to do right so I cannot start my relationship with a lie. “The fifth tribe, honoured Marked.”

  “We have no fifth. We —” She points to those people around her, most of whom have come out from hiding and are treating me with mild curiosity while they go about their normal tasks, “— are the tribe of the leaf.” She glares at me.

  Another Marked, the man, steps forward with his glaive across one shoulder and skin with the tell-tale glisten of metal. He’s half a head taller than me and twice as broad. “Your tribe was scattered.” He states it as fact.

  I stare back at him, then my eyes flick back and forth between the two Marked, then three as the other joins them.

  Scara is back to biting her lip. “There might be more then, Lakal.”

  The man shrugs. “Perhaps. Pik. Why was your tribe scattered?”

  “I don’t…I expect it has. I’ve been alone for some days and I wasn’t with my tribe when…maybe they are not scattered? We had a difficult trial and lost most of our Marked, perhaps it is that the architects don’t think well of our chances.”

  “Perhaps.” Lakal shrugs again. “Wash, dress yourself, and tonight we will speak more of this fifth tribe.”

  I follow the boy out a small way from the main group to a place within earshot but out of sight; I appreciate the privacy as I strip out of my blood stained and tattered clothing.

  The pool in the middle of the small clearing bubbles in the middle with water so clear that I can see the bottom. It is shallow and pebbled, with small frilly, waving fronds of green peeking from beneath smooth rocks. I dip my foot into the water. It’s cool, not frigid, and certainly not a match for the snowy segment from which I’ve recently escaped.

  I sigh as I submerge beneath the placid surface and am enveloped in its watery embrace. I breach the surface and blow water in a glittering fountain.

  “Blazing sun, that feels good.” I peer at the boy who is sat at the side of the pool; his legs are pulled up to his chest and his chin rests on his knees. He has set his back to a large tree.

  “You’ve got injuries.” His head tilts to the right as he observes me.

  “These?” I make a show of turning to reveal all the cuts and welts I’ve gathered in my fight with monsters. “I suppose I’ve got a few.”

  “Did you slip?”

  “Pardon?” I frown.

  “Your injuries. Did you fall down? I almost slipped when we came in; the slope’s too steep.”

  “No, I didn’t fall down.” I grumble and take a moment to collect myself before dipping my head below the water and scrubbing some of the stubborn dirt that clings to my hair. I surface with less fanfare this time and wipe the water from my face. “I fought a monster. That’s how I got hurt.”

  “Oh.” The boy is unimpressed by my achievement and that rankles. He should be impressed, the beast was terrifying and the only weapon I have is a blazing claw!

  “You,” I wave towards his covered shoulder. He lifts his sleeve enough to show me the faint patch of a Heightened. “How about the rest, is everyone else Heightened too? Is it only the three I saw that are Marked?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe.” I parrot his word back at him. The boy could be simple or, more likely, he is playing me. From the glint in his eye I wager that it is the latter. Still, the water is cool and pleasant on my skin and for the first time in…I can’t recall a time when I’ve felt safer. Three Marked? A whole tribe around me and, I think, the final weight on the scale is my own power. I might not conjure lightning or flame like a Marked, but I am far stronger than I was as an Unenlightened.

  I flex my arms and tense my legs, admiring how the simple act of advancing the first stage of my power has taken my pathetic body and honed it. I have muscles where a week ago I had only sinew.

  I lift my hand to my face, swallow, and turn to the boy. “How looks my face?”

  He cocks his head in the same manner as before and I see that he does so when contemplating his reply. “Narrow. Handsome. But the left side.” He lifts a finger and gestures broadly to the left side of my face while grimacing. “Was this the creature too? It looks healed, no? Old battle?”

  “Not so old. Is…it hideous?” I feel the scars beneath the pads of my fingers, Oran’s hands are flame and I feel the marks he left on my face.

  He shrugs. “To some. It looks tight, like your skin is stretched. Where you eye was, that is the worst of it.”

  His words are confirmation of a fact that I knew but refused to internalise. It wasn’t the monsters that have wounded me so deeply, it is the violence of a Marked who was supposed to be my protector that has robbed me of the sight in my left eye. My skin is ridged beneath my fingertips. I can feel where the flesh has parted, cauterised, and formed back again in a sunburst knot.

  I try a smile but it falters before it forms. I turn away instead, my bravado and confidence flowing out of me like water from a bladder. I take sand from the bottom of the pool and scrub at my skin methodically until I am raw and clean. I dry quickly in air and slip into Garl’s, no, my shirt. It is uneven in the collar and the sleeves come one to right elbow and the other to the middle of my left forearm. I’m thankful and will need to give him thanks again and a gift if I can conjure one. I have nothing of matching value so I will need to look hard.

  “I’m ready to go.”

  The boy nods, rises, and leads me back through the trees.