I think I’m starting to understand these visions a little better. They are like sorcery, I have to rely on Azern to give me what I need, when I need it.
Because of my last vision, I was able to save my eye. And perhaps Magnar’s life as well. I touch the bandage wrapped over my face and glance back at the broken man slumped over the back of the horse that I borrowed from Popov, seeing as he probably won’t miss it. Blood leaks through his own bandages, wrapped all over him like he is one of the dead being prepared for burial. But he is still breathing for now.
And Laellina tells me I probably should be able to see out of my eye once the skin around it heals enough for me to open it.
The townsfolk were terrified and didn’t know what to think of the lord of their small village dying. Or the Higher Elf who screamed in the streets till they came out to help. But they were kind enough to provide us with bandages and their healer’s services, the best she could provide. I know they probably did it to help Magnar, but since our goals aligned, I don’t have any arguments. There were Higher Elves who had been mining and they gave me some food to take on the journey. Then I took one of Popov’s horses. At the outskirts of the village I ran into Laellina rushing in after hearing the commotion coming from the city.
After that we started traveling. One day and night, sometime on the second day, I should find what I am looking for. That was what my vision seemed to have been telling me. I hadn’t thought that Magnar would last two days but the healer’s salve has helped. And miraculously he is still alive.
I keep my eyes on the mountains, looking for that ruin, and when I finally spot it, I lower my gaze and just like my vision promised. There is a cottage.
I hurry forward, leaving Laellina to lead the horse. I bang my fist against the coarse wood door until finally it opens. I am holding my breath as it swings open revealing the familiar face of a man I have never seen before.
I have never been so happy to see a complete stranger in my entire life.
“Hello?” the man from my vision asks, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Can you help my friend here?” I ask, gesturing back at Magnar. “He was attacked by werewolves.”
“My pack didn’t—” the man cuts himself off and blushes, he ducks his head. “Can you pretend you didn’t hear that?”
“You’re one of the other packs in the area,” I murmur, glancing around, but there are no other buildings around. Just the cottage at the foot of a mountain.
He shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.
“I still need your help. I think you may be the only one able to help him.”
He stares at Magnar for a long moment before sighing. “All right.” He strides forward and pulls Magnar off the horse. He is a beast of a man, practically a giant in Higher Elf standards and able to carry Magnar as if he is nothing. He turns to me. “Do you want to come in?”
I look up at the mountains and sigh. “No.”
I lower my gaze to the stranger and he nods. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Thank you, his name is Magnar, and he is a royal pain in the butt.”
Perhaps the future will lead me back here, perhaps I will even see it before I do. But for now… Magnar is a werewolf and a magicker.
And I’m a sorceress chosen by Azern herself.
For whatever reason I had my vision about him, I suppose only time will tell what role he will play in all this. Until then I have some chosen ones to find. I haven’t had any more visions, but I need to be ready when they come. The Lady of Dawn tasked me with helping the gods chosen ones. I still don’t know who they are, or if Magnar is one of them or not. But I have a feeling that when the time comes for me to know, I’ll know.
Laellina steps up beside me as the stranger disappears into the cottage with Magnar. “After all that, you will just leave him?”
“He is outside of my help now.” I can rest easy in knowing that at least he lived.
“What now?” Laellina asks, patting the horse’s nose. “We return to the temple?”
“No,” I reply. “There is nothing for us there.”
“Then where?”
“Did you find anything about our fellow priests while you were looking?”
“I actually have a lead about Priest Gallenhort, but the only name I got was of a village halfway across Ruskhazar.”
I dip my chin and stride away from the cottage. “Then I know where I am going.”
Laellina tilts her head, silent for a long moment. “Lead, my friend, and I will follow.”
I grin, as much as I can grin with half my face buried under bandages before I turn toward the mountains. Even though I’m leaving Magnar behind, I know that we will meet again. Perhaps someday when I am more accustomed to the world and he has had time to come to terms with the fact that he is now a werewolf. The timing is up to the gods or the demigods or whoever else might be controlling our fate.
But we will meet again, and I don’t even need to see the future to be certain of that.