Sorceress

Chapter 38:

My cheek lay against Call's beating heart, thrumming to his soft breathing. I pull the skins tighter around me and stare into the twisting and contorted flames which leap high and brilliant into the sky, and then plunge back down to earth, warming me and flushing my face. Call coughs in his sleep, and I lift myself off him, dragging myself out of my woozy state, and grabbing a hunk of bread and slowly pulling chunks off, chewing them slowly. A caw high above me startles me as I see Deegan falling down from the sky, and landing on the earth in front of me. He cocks his head to the side, cawing at me, his eyes reflecting the flames, soft and huge, staring at my own face. "Deegan! You came back?" He jumps onto my shoulder pecks at my hair, and shuffles a bit.

"This is the hawk that followed you from the North?" Codi, to my left, asks me. Shocked, I turn around, I was under the impression that apart from the warriors guarding the camp, I was the only one awake, "He's beautiful- but that name is unusual, I have only ever heard anyone else being called that; my grandfather, who was named after the mythical Deegan O'Connel, who, as legend says- long before the thousand year war, when faeries still walked freely amongst humans- rescued a young girl from two poukas, and then subsequently married her." I smile, and laugh,

"I am related to Deegan- but distantly- and my mother," I shake my head, "Was going to name her unborn child Deegan if he was a boy, and she was convinced that he was going to be a boy." Cori smiles warmly, and rubs my hand quickly,

"Your mother would be proud of you- look at what you have done! You are saving our people, and our race!" Cori passed her hands over the flames, and they turn a bluish hue, and a beautiful girls face appears in the flames, and quickly disperses- in a blink you could have missed it, "My daughter," Cori gestures to the flames, "She died young- drowned in a lake by a stray pooka," Cori rubs her eyes, "But you know, my daughter would not have wanted me to sit around a fire with Aine O'Connel and talk about the pain and the sorrow; she would have wanted me to tell Aine to harness her pain and turn it into reason- pain can make you bitter, but it can make you harder, grow a shell and retract from others, or you can fight happily for those you love and remember, knowing that they are behind you wherever you go," Cori smiles, tears running down her cheeks, and I immediately jump up and encase her in a hug, Deegan soars ahead into the heights of the sky, "That is what you have done, and what I am working every day to do. And I see you, seventeen and a beautiful grown woman, but so strong- I would follow you and your lead to the ends of the earth, and, with your leadership, beyond," Cori coughs, and pulls away from the hug, patting my arm in thanks. She turns away and goes to sleep, lulled by the crackle and hiss of the flames. I lay down next to Call and drift off, the earth on my back, the sky dazzlingly far above me.