Forests of Grandeur and Malice (A Mage's Influence Book 4) by Melanie Cellier

Author:Melanie Cellier [Cellier, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Luminant Publications
Published: 2022-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Cadence

I slipped out of Nan’s house and looked around. I should probably have asked for directions to their healing clinic before running straight out the door. I would feel foolish to go back in and ask now, though.

Surely the clinic would be somewhere central—probably on that square in front of the main gates. I lingered for another moment, still unsure, and a girl approached. She looked several years older than me, and as she got closer—clearly aiming for Nan’s house—she regarded me curiously. When she reached me, she stopped.

“Are you one of the king’s party?” Her voice was eager and her eyes bright.

I blinked, taken aback by her phrasing. I shouldn’t have been, though. Something had changed since we arrived at the settlement. Zeke was clearly in charge now, and he was leading the effort to reclaim his kingdom. It was past time I got used to yet another change in his status.

“Yes, I’m Cadence,” I said.

“Cadence!” She took a step closer. “Airlie’s sister? The power mage?” Her eyes grew wider with each question.

“Ah, yes, that’s me,” I said awkwardly.

“I’m Luna.” She glanced at the closed door behind me. “Marissa’s daughter. Have you been visiting Nan?”

I nodded, realizing the opportunity she presented. “Yes, but now I’m on my way to your healing clinic to help our healer. Except I don’t know where it is. Could you show me?”

“Of course!” She gestured in the direction of the square, as I had guessed, and I fell in beside her.

“It’s exciting that you brought a healer. Do you think they’ll let me come in and watch?”

“Are you by any chance Marissa’s eldest daughter?” I asked.

She gave me an odd look. “Yes?”

“She mentioned you have a healing seed. She asked Hayes—that’s our healer—if he would assess your strength.”

“So embarrassing!” she muttered, but I caught the excited light in her eyes.

She must have been waiting impatiently for years for the chance to be activated, wondering if her time would ever come.

“It will have to wait until he’s finished examining everyone who’s been using the wild power, though,” I added quickly.

“Oh, is that what he’s doing? Yes, of course, that’s much more important.” Her steps faltered a little. “I don’t have a power affinity, so I can’t sense the wild power normally, but when I’m around some of them, I can feel a sort of…wrongness.” She wrinkled her nose. “That probably sounds silly. Maybe I’m imagining it. I haven’t even been activated yet.”

“No, that makes sense to me.” I smiled encouragingly at her. “Without being activated, you can’t use power, but your seed must be more than ready for activation. I had a similar experience as I reached the point of being ready. I could feel power around me like a weight in the air, although I didn’t know what it was then because I didn’t know I had a power affinity.”

“Didn’t know!” She shook her head. “Even here in the settlement we have people who can identify someone’s seed.”

“In Tartora they didn’t know how to recognize the power affinity—knowledge of it has been widely suppressed.

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