The King's Challenge #28

TKC 28

Women touch my cloak as I pass, eyes filled with hope. Men bow their heads, eyes containing both relief … and doubt. Children scamper asking question after question, not one of which I have an opportunity to answer before another is aired.

This is expectation, and it frightens me.

I will lead them to safety? How dare Damin tell them that?

I cannot even think about the how, when all I have in my mind is Damin’s kisses. Idiot man. If he needs me thinking straight, he should be more constrained. Never mind the fact that I now believe he is able to read my mind. By the stars, how did life become this complicated?

Damin shoos the kids away, sits me on a wet tree stump and hunkers before me. “You can do this, Lyra. I have researched the two eyes …”

I shake my head.

“Just listen,” he says. “There are four types. Rainmakers, Sages, Elementals and Healers. All have the essence of each talent, but one is ever dominant. The Healers have the blue and green eye combination, as you do. What you did with the water may appear as elemental magic, but you were saving people … as a healer would.”

“None of what you say tells me how to save them,” I whisper. “Do you expect me to forge a path through the floodwater?”

“Yes,” he answers simply.

I throw my hands in the air. “How?”

“You believe it. You trust yourself.”

I lift an eyebrow at him. Now that is not an answer, not for me. I need specifics.

“Specifics will cloud your mind,” he murmurs.

That does it. I fall to my knees before him. “Damin, you are hearing my thoughts. How?”

He grins. “Only a Delver partners a Healer. Did you not know?”