The Chief gripped Idan’s shoulder as they wound up their discussion.
‘I won’t let the invaders reach the Wadi,’ Idan promised, in a somber timbre. ‘How are the patients from the hospital faring?’
‘Very well, most are back to normal life,’ the Chief added. ‘All thanks to Muna.’
Idan turned back to Sheba. ‘Salkia, speaking of, there’s someone you need to greet.’
He guided her toward a circular stone hut where the air hung heavy with the scent of fragrant herbs, dried sage, and damp earth.
A woman with skin the texture of polished mahogany and eyes bright and emerald, peered up from a basin of steeped roots.
She rose, curtsied, and welcomed them inside as Idan bowed toward her in a gesture of respect.
‘Sheba, meet Muna,’ Idan told his woman. ‘She’s the local healer, filling the gap since the medical center got razed.’
‘I’ve never been busier,’ Muna said with a smile.
Sheba bowed to the woman. ‘I’m so sorry for the burden it must have placed on you.’
‘The hospital was well regarded, Nurse Munene, and its absence leaves a hole in our hearts,’ Muna said. ‘But caring for my own is never a burden. My ancestors left me with a tradition of natural healing plants that I enjoy sharing with those I can. We’re coping, though a new center would be a sanctuary for our laboring mothers and the elders whose bones have turned fragile.’
Their conversation halted as three men arrived in a commotion.
They carried in a young boy with a splintered shin bone, his skin shredded from a fall on the mountain scree.
Sheba’s instincts ignited, her hands reaching out to assist, but Muna waved her away.
In respect, Sheba knelt beside Idan as they observed the healer work.
Muna pressed a thick poultice of vibrant, neon-green moss against the bloody wound, humming a resonant, vibrating song under her breath.
Before Sheba’s stunned eyes, the torn edges of the dermis pulled together as if stitched by invisible fingers. The angry crimson of the wound faded to a dull, healthy pink in seconds.
‘Amazing,’ Sheba breathed.
‘Tis, the healing is being accelerated all over the valley for a span now, and we’re grateful for it,’ Muna murmured. ‘The gods are more than generous.’
As she spoke, she glanced at Idan with narrowed eyes and a tilted head. This caused Sheba to gaze at him, too.
He shrugged, but his sigils shifted. He canted his head and ignored them both to study the now-calm child.
Sheba once more wondered about just how extensive his powers were.
He ushered her from the hut soon after, his eyes glinting.
‘Where to next?’ she asked, her mind still reeling.
‘I have a side mission,’ he said, a cryptic smile tugging at his lips.
After saying farewell to their village friends, they traveled further west.
They left the lush valley for the stark, haunting beauty of the Silent Deserts, the Wadi Tansin, and the Okama Plateaus.
In the heart of the deep freeze, the landscape was a surreal collision of extremes. The permafrost had turned the vast, rolling dunes into ivory sculptures, their ridge lines accentuated by the dazzling snow.
The Wadi Tansin was a corridor of shadow and hoarfrost.
Frozen waterfalls hung like silvery rib cages from the canyon walls, and the seasonal riverbeds were choked with slush that moved with the slow, heavy grind of broken glass.
