Midnight walked down the sky with the moon in her hand. The stars of Zintila glittered upon the velvet blanket of darkness, framing the Konti’s siren smile with an ethereal glow. Kamalia’s delicately-webbed fingers curled around Trista’s hands. The Konti’s white hands were warm despite the cold winter night. “Slipping from the material world into the Chavena is not hard for one marked by the Mother of Seers. To use Divination, you must learn to understand the chavi. I have learned to read chavi upon my eleventh Spring. I will take you through it step by step. In time, it will become second nature—you will do it all the faster than you can think of it—but now it is best to go slowly. Close your eyes, please,” she murmured softly, before gently shutting her eyes close. “Clear your mind. Empty your thoughts. There is only one thing in your mind: the bud of a Seer’s Lily. Only that. Only the bud.”
“You can see the lily in every detail,” she said, her musical voice melding with the breeze like a sea song. “You can smell it, feel it, every curve of every petal, every vein of every leaf. You can feel the sap pulsing. Feel it. Know it. Be it. You and the bud are one.” The song droned almost hypnotically, caressing the akvatari’s ears. If Trista did as Kamalia asked her to do, she would see a perfect lilium bud in the depths of darkness. It was light pink which whitened at the tips, with soft petals that rose in perfect unison of one another. Yet suddenly there was something else. Light. Light pressed on the petals from the inside of the floral bulb. Slowly the petals unfolded, releasing light. A vibrant golden center glowed incandescently as if it were an organic tiara. “Feel the Mother in your heart. Let go. Let your soul fly,” Trista could still hear Kamalia’s voice until it drifted off.
Suddenly Trista was pulled from her body as a maternal peace enfolded her. The akvatari dreamed that she and the Konti maiden had slipped past Leth and were flung beyond the vast ocean of stars to drift across the world of dreams. Their souls swam in a sea of visions and poignant memories. It was a world full of refracting lights that weave and drift and spiral across infinity. Terribly beautiful and wistful, this is the Chavena, the sea of dreams, the cosmos of memories, where all truths were anchored. Luminous strands formed complex geometric shapes that danced and undulated to the rhythm of Mizahar. The realm of Nysel was nothing Trista was prepared for.
Here she would watch tendrils of colourful energy—each strand linking to a single living creature like an umbilical cord— weave an elaborate fabric of dreams. Trista swam, spun and floated in an expanse of colourful memories and as if unbidden, it slipped into her mind that these were Kamalia’s memories. Her chavi appeared almost like a lotus flower daubed with a blend of serene colours. The lotus sang a beautiful yet lonely song. Fragments of Kamalia’s past glimmered before her like gemstones. One filament had shown Kamalia reading a heavy, ancient-looking tome in a gleaming hallway crammed with endless shelves of books. Another had shown Kamalia swimming in depths of a placid lake. There she drifted in arches over a flourishing bed of freshwater mussels. Sunlight filtered through the waters, turning the lake into a silvery dreamlike world. Yet another had shown Kamalia serenading the moon with her harp and siren song.
Trista would learn that despite the peaceful life she lived in Mura, Kamalia alone waged a fierce battle against something—something terrible Trista could not understand. It was dark, malevolent, and possessive, waiting for a moment of weakness from the Konti sorceress.
A luminescent silvery filament slipped along Trista’s skin, pleading to be deciphered. This memory was more vivid. The dream tightened around the akvatari and suddenly she was in a world stripped of grotesque imperfections, a memory that teemed with juvenile emotions.
There sat a tiny, smiling Konti about five years of age, staring at her reflection in a mirror. She was a tiny duplicate of Kamalia. The child’s face was oval and her features delicate and beautiful. A mop of silky silvery white curls tumbled about her shoulders, brushing across the baby skin that had the sheen and texture of white satin. But most striking were the violet-blue eyes that shone with intelligence and a passion for life.
She waited until her mother took out her favourite treasure, a small brush with a skyglass handle engraved with vian blossoms and studded with diamonds, and began to ease it through her daughter’s tousled silvery hair. Mother was her world. To the child’s eyes, this Konti woman was the greatest beauty and the wisest wizard in all of the Konti Isle. Her mother’s laughter was music and fairy song. Her long white hair streamed behind her like silken moonlight.
Kamalia giggled at what happiness was offered her, suddenly a coddled daughter being told stories by this white empress. She popped into her mouth star-shaped confectionaries all the while Mother combed her hair clean. “Would you like the moon for your hair, Kamalia? On the night you were born, Leth himself had glided down from the lake of stars to touch your hair and turn it white and Zintila sprinkled it with silver.”
“You are such a terrible liar, Mother,” little Kamalia chided, grinning. Mother laughed musically in reply. Usually she loved this nightly ritual, often she wished she could purr throughout the brushing like a petted cat. Tonight, though, she would have answers or she would burst. “Where is Father? What kind of man is he? Is he a wizard like you?”
The brush paused in mid-stroke. “Mother Avalis!” her mother exclaimed. “Where do you get these questions, child?”
Kamalia gave a little shrug. “Well?”
The brush resumed its rhythmic stroking, but the effect was no longer soothing. The girl absorbed with each stroke her mother’s emotions: tension, grief, longing, loss. The temptation to pull away was dizzying, but she fiercely pushed aside the impulse. She wanted answers. Perhaps this pain was part of the knowing. “There is nothing to learn about your Father, child.”
“This brush,” the girl pressed on, “It is made of skyglass, is it not?”
Her mother nodded smilingly, unaware of the web her daughter had woven for her, “Yes, daughter.”
“Is he from Lhavit?”
Mother’s smile faded then. She did not answer her question, but the child was a truth-seer. The look in her mother’s eyes was sad and knowing. Mother began to sing in a rich, sorrowful voice. Her song was starlight and magic and wind and every sorrowful emotion Trista could name. The song trailed off in the wind, and an invisible force snatched Trista back from the fathoms of her goddess-given reverie.
The dream flicked and her mind slipped back into the sphere of the present. Reality opened Trista’s eyes and she would find herself staring at Kamalia. She smiled—a simple curve of the corners of her lips. She murmured a soft Kontinese prayer to Avalis.
“That is how you call on Divination,” Kamalia said softly.
Dawn silvered the skies from the east. The new sisters would chat for a while so that Trista could complete her drawing. Reluctantly, Kamalia rose to leave, and with a start she realized that she did not really part ways with the Akvatari. Already there seemed to be a bond between them, an easy sisterhood that was compelling as it was unexpected. “We will meet again, Trista. We shall serenade the moon another time.”
“Walk with the Sight of the Seer Mother. May She light your path,” Kamalia said, before she left the gazebo.
If Trista completed the drawing, she would sometimes get the feeling that Kamalia was smiling back at her. Sometimes there were too much shadows around her, as if she were about to be swallowed by them, but there were times when the Konti’s light fought the looming darkness.
The night was as elusive as a dream.
“You can see the lily in every detail,” she said, her musical voice melding with the breeze like a sea song. “You can smell it, feel it, every curve of every petal, every vein of every leaf. You can feel the sap pulsing. Feel it. Know it. Be it. You and the bud are one.” The song droned almost hypnotically, caressing the akvatari’s ears. If Trista did as Kamalia asked her to do, she would see a perfect lilium bud in the depths of darkness. It was light pink which whitened at the tips, with soft petals that rose in perfect unison of one another. Yet suddenly there was something else. Light. Light pressed on the petals from the inside of the floral bulb. Slowly the petals unfolded, releasing light. A vibrant golden center glowed incandescently as if it were an organic tiara. “Feel the Mother in your heart. Let go. Let your soul fly,” Trista could still hear Kamalia’s voice until it drifted off.
Suddenly Trista was pulled from her body as a maternal peace enfolded her. The akvatari dreamed that she and the Konti maiden had slipped past Leth and were flung beyond the vast ocean of stars to drift across the world of dreams. Their souls swam in a sea of visions and poignant memories. It was a world full of refracting lights that weave and drift and spiral across infinity. Terribly beautiful and wistful, this is the Chavena, the sea of dreams, the cosmos of memories, where all truths were anchored. Luminous strands formed complex geometric shapes that danced and undulated to the rhythm of Mizahar. The realm of Nysel was nothing Trista was prepared for.
Here she would watch tendrils of colourful energy—each strand linking to a single living creature like an umbilical cord— weave an elaborate fabric of dreams. Trista swam, spun and floated in an expanse of colourful memories and as if unbidden, it slipped into her mind that these were Kamalia’s memories. Her chavi appeared almost like a lotus flower daubed with a blend of serene colours. The lotus sang a beautiful yet lonely song. Fragments of Kamalia’s past glimmered before her like gemstones. One filament had shown Kamalia reading a heavy, ancient-looking tome in a gleaming hallway crammed with endless shelves of books. Another had shown Kamalia swimming in depths of a placid lake. There she drifted in arches over a flourishing bed of freshwater mussels. Sunlight filtered through the waters, turning the lake into a silvery dreamlike world. Yet another had shown Kamalia serenading the moon with her harp and siren song.
Trista would learn that despite the peaceful life she lived in Mura, Kamalia alone waged a fierce battle against something—something terrible Trista could not understand. It was dark, malevolent, and possessive, waiting for a moment of weakness from the Konti sorceress.
A luminescent silvery filament slipped along Trista’s skin, pleading to be deciphered. This memory was more vivid. The dream tightened around the akvatari and suddenly she was in a world stripped of grotesque imperfections, a memory that teemed with juvenile emotions.
There sat a tiny, smiling Konti about five years of age, staring at her reflection in a mirror. She was a tiny duplicate of Kamalia. The child’s face was oval and her features delicate and beautiful. A mop of silky silvery white curls tumbled about her shoulders, brushing across the baby skin that had the sheen and texture of white satin. But most striking were the violet-blue eyes that shone with intelligence and a passion for life.
She waited until her mother took out her favourite treasure, a small brush with a skyglass handle engraved with vian blossoms and studded with diamonds, and began to ease it through her daughter’s tousled silvery hair. Mother was her world. To the child’s eyes, this Konti woman was the greatest beauty and the wisest wizard in all of the Konti Isle. Her mother’s laughter was music and fairy song. Her long white hair streamed behind her like silken moonlight.
Kamalia giggled at what happiness was offered her, suddenly a coddled daughter being told stories by this white empress. She popped into her mouth star-shaped confectionaries all the while Mother combed her hair clean. “Would you like the moon for your hair, Kamalia? On the night you were born, Leth himself had glided down from the lake of stars to touch your hair and turn it white and Zintila sprinkled it with silver.”
“You are such a terrible liar, Mother,” little Kamalia chided, grinning. Mother laughed musically in reply. Usually she loved this nightly ritual, often she wished she could purr throughout the brushing like a petted cat. Tonight, though, she would have answers or she would burst. “Where is Father? What kind of man is he? Is he a wizard like you?”
The brush paused in mid-stroke. “Mother Avalis!” her mother exclaimed. “Where do you get these questions, child?”
Kamalia gave a little shrug. “Well?”
The brush resumed its rhythmic stroking, but the effect was no longer soothing. The girl absorbed with each stroke her mother’s emotions: tension, grief, longing, loss. The temptation to pull away was dizzying, but she fiercely pushed aside the impulse. She wanted answers. Perhaps this pain was part of the knowing. “There is nothing to learn about your Father, child.”
“This brush,” the girl pressed on, “It is made of skyglass, is it not?”
Her mother nodded smilingly, unaware of the web her daughter had woven for her, “Yes, daughter.”
“Is he from Lhavit?”
Mother’s smile faded then. She did not answer her question, but the child was a truth-seer. The look in her mother’s eyes was sad and knowing. Mother began to sing in a rich, sorrowful voice. Her song was starlight and magic and wind and every sorrowful emotion Trista could name. The song trailed off in the wind, and an invisible force snatched Trista back from the fathoms of her goddess-given reverie.
The dream flicked and her mind slipped back into the sphere of the present. Reality opened Trista’s eyes and she would find herself staring at Kamalia. She smiled—a simple curve of the corners of her lips. She murmured a soft Kontinese prayer to Avalis.
“That is how you call on Divination,” Kamalia said softly.
Dawn silvered the skies from the east. The new sisters would chat for a while so that Trista could complete her drawing. Reluctantly, Kamalia rose to leave, and with a start she realized that she did not really part ways with the Akvatari. Already there seemed to be a bond between them, an easy sisterhood that was compelling as it was unexpected. “We will meet again, Trista. We shall serenade the moon another time.”
“Walk with the Sight of the Seer Mother. May She light your path,” Kamalia said, before she left the gazebo.
If Trista completed the drawing, she would sometimes get the feeling that Kamalia was smiling back at her. Sometimes there were too much shadows around her, as if she were about to be swallowed by them, but there were times when the Konti’s light fought the looming darkness.
The night was as elusive as a dream.
Secret :
