The other two lu-ong were equally eye catching. One an azure blue with a silver mane and the other white with flecks of gold.
Aeron and the wanderer drew back in fear as water cascaded off the lu-ong’s bodies to shower the platform.
“See, Elise,” Kira said softly, not taking her gaze off the lu-ong. “I told you it wouldn’t be that easy.”
The lu-ong would have stopped Elise before she ever made it across the bridge. She would have died for nothing.
A deep voice resounded in Kira’s mind.
“Daughter of Harding, Beloved of the Mea’Ave, we have come to witness the birth of the lenacht.”
As if sensing their presence, the chrysalis split to reveal a creature the size of Kira’s palm. Curled into a fetal position, its shape was humanoid—at least on the upper half. The lower half looked more like a lu-ong’s tail.
Wings that resembled a butterfly’s fanned the air gently. Miniature horns jutted from its head.
Colors shimmered across the surface of its translucent skin in a beautiful display that made Kira forget for a moment how dead she felt inside.
Sensing her attention, it lifted its head to fix eyes filled with a wisdom far beyond the span of its short existence.
Kira fell into its gaze, getting lost for a timeless second.
Another voice, this time female, inserted itself into Kira’s mind. “Will you be this child’s future?”
Kira’s lips curved as she brushed a finger down the young one’s cheek. Ki nipped at her skin.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
She didn’t know how she knew that. Just that she did.
It was like the knowledge was inserted into her mind. There, the second she needed it.
The Mea’Ave, she’d learned, didn’t communicate with words. Rather it relied on a more nebulous method of conveying its meaning.
It was odd, but everything in her told her she was right.
She wasn’t called to carry the child to its next home. That task lay with another. The wanderer. Her duties were in a different direction.
For now, she was here to witness the lenacht’s birth along with the lu-ong. A kind of godmother. Someone to watch the lenacht’s journey and who would pick up the slack if the wanderer fell before his task was complete.
Kira withdrew her hand as tendrils of the ki wafting off the lenacht sank into her skin, burrowing below the surface to write itself into her bones.
A symbol formed above the Overlord’s bands that the Mea’Ave had given her after the uhva na. Two crescent moons facing in opposite directions one above the other, spikes coming off them. Small dots of varying sizes created a curvy line above and below the moons.
Kira’s touch was gentle as she ran her fingers along the violet lines. “Another mark.”
It seemed she was collecting them.
She looked up to see the wanderer reach for the lenacht, Aeron a fascinated bystander beside him.
“Welcome, young one. May your chosen guide you with wisdom and courage,” the scarred lu-ong intoned.
The lenacht butted its head against the wanderer’s hand. Its body started glowing with the same light its sphere had seconds before it burst into millions of tiny sparkling lights that surrounded the wanderer.
At the first touch of the light, the wanderer froze, his body locked in place like it had just been zapped by an electric wire.
He trembled as the lights sank into him one by one, creating an after image of the creature before it too vanished.
Seconds later, his body relaxed.
