She had only the truth left to her. “It would seem so, though I don’t know why. I mean no one harm and it has only served to help me.”
He stared at her as if contemplating this unexpected revelation. “Does anyone know about this?”
She shook her head. “Nay, I was too fearful to speak a word of it. It is my secret alone and now yours… I hope.”
“It is a dangerous secret to keep.”
“And even a more dangerous secret to reveal,” she countered.
“You will alert me to these visions and share them with me,” he ordered.
He commanded as if he was used to doing so and Elara once again questioned if he had once been a warrior and one used to command. If so, what had happened to him to make him choose the solitary life of a wanderer?
“Your visions could prove helpful to us as they just did,” he added.
“And you will share my secret with no one?” she asked, needing a direct answer from him.
“It will not slip past my lips, but you are foolish to think it will remain a secret. These visions do not come upon by will but unexpectedly. One day someone will see how you grow unsteady on your feet and look dazed and begin to question.”
“I can feign illness.”
“Not for long. The history of dark magic and how it almost took control of Scotara lives long in people’s memories. They are quick to spot it and eradicate it before it spreads.”
“Yet the king searches for the healer who has Driochmor blood running through her. How is that different?”
“That you would have to ask the king, and he does not take well to being questioned from what I hear,” he cautioned. “We best not linger. We have a journey ahead of us that will be made easier by the horses that are now ours.”
Elara’s eyes turned wide, the violet color glowing like a polished amethyst stone. “Feena, the old healer, maybe she can at least advise me on how to control my visions.”
“You will need to see if you can trust her first,” he said, taking hold of her hand and leading her to the horses.
“I will be careful,” she assured him.
“I know,” he said firmly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The forest closed around them. The leaves whispered overhead, faintly gold in the morning light, and Elara knew something within her had changed—her gift no longer whispered quietly, it had woken, never to sleep again.
They reached a small village by late afternoon, a scatter of cottages and market stalls gathered along a dusty lane. The air carried the smell of baking bread and wood smoke, and the faint cries of traders bartering over their wares.
Dar’s eyes swept the market. “We’ll rest here awhile. I will see if I can sell the two horses we don’t need. That will bring us needed coins.”
Elara nodded. “I’ll wander the market and keep to myself.”
“Make sure that you do. Speak to no one and keep your hood worn low,” he warned, tucking it further down on her head, his thumb brushing her cheek. He stared at her for a moment, words about to slip off his tongue, then he turned, disappearing with the horses toward a stable.
Elara wondered over his look and that he held onto words not sure if he should speak them. The struggle troubled him and her as well since she worried what it might mean. Did he think differently of her now that he knew she had visions? Could she truly trust him to keep her secret?
She brushed the troubling thoughts aside to remain focused as she strolled through the market. She passed a stall of rough-spun cloth, another of clay jugs, until she came to one where bundles of dried herbs hung from a wooden frame. She stopped without thinking, her fingers brushing a generous length of rosemary tied with twine. The scent sharp, stirring memory and instinct. Her eyes lit when she spotted the bundles of comfrey and foxglove, Maelis would barter for them. She shook her head lightly when a woman haggled with the stall keeper over the price of marigold that was well worth the asking price.
“Ah, you know herbs,” the stall keeper, a gray-haired woman with quick, clever eyes, said after the woman left minus the marigolds.
“I’ve studied them a bit,” Elara said carefully, not wanting to draw attention.
The woman smiled faintly. “More than a bit, I’d say. You admire them like a healer would.”
Elara froze. “Why would you think that?”
“Because only a healer’s eyes would admire the comfrey and foxglove as you did,” the woman replied, tapping one bundle with her knife. “And I saw how you shook your head a bit when the fool woman argued over at the price of marigold—only healers know its worth.” Her brow scrunched. “Or an herb-scribe, their knowledge greater than that of healers.”