Secrets and Guardians: Devious Intentions

Shade lived in Trimain, a small village in the northwest corner of Korin, close to the edge of the ancient forest of Pandean. Her mother, Summer, was the wise woman of the village and, like Shade, beautiful. Beauty wasn’t the only thing they possessed. Summer had taught Shade everything she knew about healing: what herbs and plants to use for everything from headaches to infections, spots to indigestion, sewing up wounds with horse hair, splinting broken bones, and, of course, delivering babies. Now, she was sixteen and considered a wise woman in her own right. But there was one thing she thought she would never learn. Her mother had brought her a young kestrel when she was twelve.

She was to train it, which had been the tricky bit, to ‘mind merge’ with it. Her mother had taught her to meditate and visualize the kestrel in her mind, trying to feel its feathers, claws, and wings, see through the kestrel’s eyes, and learn to let her spirit fly. She thought the kestrel would probably die of old age before I got the hang of this. Her mother had been very patient with her. ‘If it were easy, everyone would be able to do it,’ she used to say. After four years, the kestrel was well trained, and she no longer fell asleep while meditating, but she was no longer at mind merging. Until one cold winter day, while sitting in front of a roaring log fire, staring at the flames, not thinking of anything, Shade closed her eyes about to doze off and found herself looking at the snow falling. Feeling desperately cold, she shook her feathers.