Andalon Legacy by T. B. Phillips

Author:T. B. Phillips [T.B. Phillips]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Adventure, Epic Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy, Magical Realism, Pirate Fantasy
Publisher: Andalon Studios
Published: 2022-09-08T16:04:21+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tara folded the dough, kneading it with a pounding fist as she beat her muffled frustrations into the hearth beneath. With each punch she imagined her mother, cursing the day she dumped her in the fireside with the old woman. Every day since had been the same, wasted cooking, cleaning, or doting on the hag as if she were a maid. She scooped up the flattened mixture and sprinkled leaven, folded, and beat it once more.

“You’ll waste energy like that,” the girl warned.

Lina, Tara remembered. Her name is Lina and her brother is Adsil. “I don’t care. It helps me pass the time.” A kind hand touched her arm and Tara froze, suddenly regretting her anger toward her mother. She looked up, meeting the girl’s eyes and trembled beneath their kindness. Her breath shook as it left her breast and the tears fell at once. “How could she leave me here?” she demanded. “With people who hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Lina offered.

“No. You pity me, the daughter of a shappan sent as a slave to your grandmother.”

“You’re mistaken.”

Tara opened her mouth to argue, but the girl’s sincerity deflected any accusation she could offer.

“I’m sure your mother has a reason, to send you to the fireside.”

“She hates me.”

“No. She wants you to become Pescari.”

“I am Pescari!”

“Pescari is earned by more than just birth.”

Tara paused, considering.

“Felicima did not choose us as her people because we are born under her eye,” the girl explained. “She observes our actions, appraises, and decides our worthiness of the name.”

“I don’t know...” Tara began.

“What don’t you know?” the girl asked gently. “Are you unsure whether you believe?”

“Yes.”

“That is normal. As a child I saw her as nothing but a fire in the sky. Every child disbelieves until they witness her miracles.”

“I am not a child,” Tara protested.

“In the eyes of Felicima we all are children.”

“I... I do not know her. Felicima is my mother’s goddess, not mine. To me she is just that, a fire in the sky that warms us and greens the crops.”

Lina took her hands in hers, placing them atop the mound of dough. “Do you feel her warmth?”

“No. Only cold.”

“Come.” The girl led her to the window, where several mounds rose in the sunlight. “Have you ever wondered why bread rises in the heat?”

“It’s a process. Robert said it’s because the yeast becomes more active and gives off gasses to fluff the mixture.”

“But why rise better under the eye of Felicima, and not in cool darkness?”

“I... I don’t know.”

Lina pounded one of the rising loaves, flattening the center.

Tara flinched, not expecting the ferocity with which the girl had struck.

“This bread will rise, just like the others. But if I place it in a cooler place, away from the gaze of Felicima, it will rise slowly. Even the dough yearns to please her, rising triumphant beneath her eye.”

Tara paused. She gingerly touched the risen mounds on either side, feeling the heat emanating from within. “Nonsense,” she said. “They absorb the heat and rise, but that does not mean the sky fire is a goddess.

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