A little girl across the square sang a rhyme I half remembered from my childhood. “Storm witch, storm witch, eyes full of flame.” Her mother yanked here away, scolding, but not before darting me a fearful glance.
On the steps of the shrine a Priestess stood still, hands folded, not speaking, only watching, lips moving silently as though fixing my image in her memory.
Every noise was too loud, every laugh too brittle and every whisper aimed like a dart, following me down the lane. I was used to the whispers, they had always circled like gnats, irritating but familiar, the hum of being tolerated rather than welcome.
But these whispers….
I caught them. “…lightning in her eyes.”
I froze, breadbasket in hand. A boy said it, he was no older than ten, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. She quickly hushed him, but his wide-eyed stare never left me.
Another voice, lower, behind a cart of roots was next, “…Storm-touched. Always knew it. Marked.”
I turned my face away and walked faster, my pulse climbing with every step until the rhythm in my hand seemed to drum in time with the whispers.
They weren’t looking at me the way people usually did, the wary sideways glance reserved for a bookkeeper tolerated more than welcomed. No, today they looked straight on, like the storm had left a brand visible to anyone with eyes.
I thought of going home, but instead my feet took me to the healer’s house.
The Verdant healer was old, according to some whispers, even older than the court itself. She had eyes like muddy water and fingers stained green from years of grinding herbs. If anyone could make sense of the storm’s mark, it would be her.
Her home smelled of dry sage and sharp resin. Rows of jars lined the shelves, some glowing faintly with trapped foxfire. A crow’s skull hung above the doorframe, watching with hollow sockets. Even here, in a place meant for healing, the storm somehow seemed present.
She listened while I spoke or seemed to. When I unwrapped the bandage and showed her my palm, she only sighed.
“It isn’t healing,” I said, “it isn’t fading.” Her gaze flicked from my hand to my face, then away again. “Curses don’t fade, girl. They root.”
The words landed like stones.
“I’m not cursed,” I whispered, though it sounded far too fragile to believe. Her lips thinned, she pressed a paste ofcomfrey and feverfew against my palm, it only hissed faintly like steam against iron. She bound the cloth again and leaned back, eyeing me wearily.
“The storm takes what it will. You’re lucky it left you anything at all.”
For a heartbeat, I thought she would say something more. Her lips parted as if to shape a different word, one sharper than “curse,” but she swallowed it, her jaw tightening. The silence frightened me more than her verdict.
I left before she could say anything more.
In my haste I nearly collided with Mistress Anwen, the apothecary’s widow. She caught my arm, steadying me, her face pinched with concern. For a moment relief loosened the knot in my chest, she had always been kind, always offered a smile when others didn’t.
“Don’t listen to them,” she said quickly. “Fear makes a fool of us all.”
The warmth in her voice almost made me believe it, until her grip tightened on my wrist. My eyes widened, she leaned closer, lowering her voice.
“But you must be careful. Keep your gaze lowered. Don’t let them see too much of your eyes, Caelira. The lightning unnerves them, better to go unseen, until it passes.”
Better to go unseen.
I couldn’t unhear it, the words burrowed deep, striking some hollow place inside me that had always feared it was true. That perhaps I was never meant to be seen, not fully.
Her hand fell away, and with it, the illusion of safety. Pity was not the same as understanding. Pity kept its distance. It softened its voice. It offered sympathy like a crust of bread and called it mercy.
But it still asked me to shrink.
To lower my eyes. To make myself small enough to fit inside their comfort.
Even the gentlest voices wanted me contained.
But the storm had never let me be unseen, it had watched me since the night it took my parents. It had pressed at my shutters, prowled at my steps, whispered in the cracks between dreams.
