Liadrin is six and a half when she sees the Light.
It starts with a spark, bright and blinding against the black of night.
So warm she thinks she can feel it all over—warmth that touches her skin, tousles her hair, fills her lungs, stings her eyes.
And it's burning through all she's ever known.
At the crest of the hill, she's got a top-notch scenic view of her village, a panorama that's attracted a bit of popularity amongst artists and lovers alike. It's the way the stars frame the treetops, twinkling through the boughs.
So she's been told, anyway.
She doesn't see any artists or lovers now. Smoke tends to send people scurrying, whether they're six and a half or centuries old.
Mother said run—don't look back, Lia, run—to the sanctum, don't stop for anything.
So that's exactly what Liadrin does.
Well, almost exactly.
She's a good girl, really—everyone tells her so—but she does look back. More than once, in fact, each time a little longer than the last. Just to scan the smoke for any sign of her parents—even one would do, if both was too much to ask—a familiar face, a friendly voice, or anything less than a menacing roar might do.
But all she's seen so far are troll-shaped shadows, broken and bloodthirsty grins stretched taut over tusks that drip dark and shiny, in a way that has her guessing they shouldn't be so thirsty after all. And the shadows laugh like Liadrin laughs when she plays make-believe with Father, and the shadows' eyes gleam much the same, glittering with glee.
Or maybe it's just a trick of the light.
The flames are roaring when she glances over her shoulder for the last time—crackling, popping, snapping, consuming everything to the rhythm of Amani war drums.
Liadrin knows the sound. She's heard them before, echoing off the mountains to the east. But they're not echoes anymore.
They're close—ever-advancing, like the fires, far-reaching—so close she feels them more than she hears them. They kick the breath out of her lungs with every beat, shake her bones, rattle her teeth—the loose one on the top row most of all.
The smoke stings her eyes till they're wet at the corners, drying in a salt-white crust whenever the wind picks up, but she's not ready to sob yet. When she finds her parents, she wants to tell them she didn't cry.
She's not very fast, or so say the boys across the street, but she's certainly a sound optimist, and hope carries her quicker than fleet feet ever could.
So she doesn't look back anymore.
She tugs her blanket tight around her shoulders, because it's a cold night and no fires will change that, and sets off for the sanctum at a sprint.
...
She arrives at the Sanctum of the Moon with sweat on her shoulders and the rising sun on her heels, just barely breaking past the horizon to spill some silvery light over the spires.
Liadrin has always liked sunrises. She likes them best when she's seated on Father's shoulder, arms outstretched to savor its warmth.
Well, she supposes it's a little late to catch the dawn's rays from her usual perch, but she's willing to bet Father's already sitting in that sanctum, staring at the first slivers of sunlight the way he always does, just waiting for his favorite girl.
He'll be proud when he hears how tough she was. And how she ran the whole way, and never stopped—except when she stepped on a thorn, but she didn't cry. And how she saw a lynx, but she wasn't even scared—it was actually scared of her. And it was actually three lynxes.
By the time she's made it up the steps to the sanctum, it's thirteen lynxes, and one was as big as a sofa—she's wearing a smile to make sure her story seems convincing, with a hand on either hip to emphasize her triumph.
But the man at the door is not her father, and he doesn't seem impressed. More appalled, by the looks, but Liadrin would guess her muddy feet and ragged dress are mostly responsible for that. The gap-toothed grin isn't helping.
"I'm Liadrin," she announces. "My house got on fire and I'm supposed to meet Mother and Father here."
The man's lips twitch in the tightest smile she's seen to date as he plucks a twig from her hair. "Your parents? Here?"
"That's right," she tells him, "and I fought fourteen lynxes."
"I see." He doesn't look all that fascinated. Liadrin guesses he's a magister. "Might I ask their names?"
She tilts her head to the side. "The lynxes?"
"Your parents."
Thank the Light. She forgot to think of names for the lynxes. But she'll make certain all fifteen have nice, proper names by the time she tells her family.
"Mother and Father," she says with a nod.
He frowns at that, like he's never heard the names before, even though Liadrin knows for a fact there are at least three other couples named Mother and Father in her village alone. But the frown is a fleeting one, and he's smoothing the creases out of his composure along with the wrinkles in his tunic as he kneels down to her level.
"And how old are you, little girl?" he asks. "If you don't mind my asking, that is."
"Six and a half," she says, holding out six fingers and a seventh bent at the knuckle for proof.
He rubs his chin, somehow managing to look even less impressed than before. "I see, I see."
"How old are you?" she asks, arms crossed in the way Mother likes to call "petulant."
"Very old," he says, like he's not really paying attention, which Liadrin does not appreciate. "Apologies—may I have a moment, please?"
Before she can so much as blink, he's taking a step back and pulling the door shut behind him, which Liadrin appreciates even less.
She thinks that "very old" people tend to use very polite words to excuse very impolite gestures. Like shutting the door on her.
She also thinks that "very old" people tend to forget that "very young" people can hear through doors. Especially because "very young" people have an easier time bending down to the ground to press their ears against the crack.
"—mentioned a girl before he gave out, didn't he? I couldn't make out the name, but I'm just afraid—well, it seems like an unlikely coincidence, doesn't it?"
"Take her upstairs, then," says a woman. Not Mother. "See if she recognizes him."
"Terrible idea. What if she does, hm? Do you want to traumatize the girl?"
"Oh, please. She'll be traumatized either way. How old?"
"Too young for us to be showing her any corpses, that's for—"
Huffing out a sigh, Liadrin hops to her feet and takes a seat on the steps. While "very young" people can hear through doors just fine, she thinks conversations meant to happen behind closed doors tend to be a bit boring, least as far as she's seen.
She doesn't know what a "corpses" is, and she's sure she's plenty old enough for them to show her, but if she knows one thing about "very old" people, it's that they never believe the "very young" ones in matters such as these.
So she puts her attention to better use, scratching some crude artwork into the second-to-last step with a stray pebble. She draws herself—with her nightgown before it had holes—and gets halfway done with Mother's hair before she hears her name from the doorway.
"—did I pronounce that right?" the man is asking. "Liadrin, yes?"
She nods, too busy chewing at her thumbnail to offer any more of a reply.
"I—I might have seen your father, but—"
That's enough to yank the girl off her feet like a marionette doll, but the man catches her by the shoulder before she can get very far. He doesn't look as excited as he should, but Liadrin's willing to bet it's just because he's "very old."
"—but I don't know for sure," he finishes, pursing his lips. "Do you mind answering a few questions for me?"
She nods vigorously, peering past him in search of her father.
"Look at me, please," says the man, giving her the saddest smile she's ever seen. "Can you tell me if he has blond hair?"
"Mother says it's sun-colored!" She's still nodding, but she's managed to quit flailing, at the least. "And it's very long. Even more than Mother's."
"I see," says the man. Again. "Freckles?"
"Oh, yeah, a whole lot. Right here—" The girl pokes at her cheeks for emphasis. "And here and here," she adds, prodding either arm. "And here. And here." She stops to smile at him once she's pointed at each individual limb—twice. "Mother thinks they're the best thing I got from him."
The man is silent a moment. "I...I...just want to be sure, before I…" He reaches for Liadrin's hand, rubbing a thumb over each knuckle, save the one with the scratch, still sticky with blood. "Any scars?"
"Mm-mmm." Liadrin speaks through her thumb, which has found its way back between her teeth. "Don't think so."
"None?" the man asks. "By the Well, that's a bit of a relief. You're absolutely certain, child?"
She holds her bangs out of her face when she nods this time. "Mmhm!"
"Ah, thank th—"
"Except for the squiggly one on his cheek, but it's not a real scar," she tells him. "It's just a mark. He says he's always had it."
"Oh," is all he has to say to that. "I…" The magister takes more than her hand this time, pulling her into an inescapable hug, the sort that "very old" people seem to favor. "I'm so sorry."
Being one of six "very young" people in a village full of adults, Liadrin has learned by now that it's best just to be patient and try not to suffocate. "May I go see Father now?" she asks, doing her best to keep still. "He's worried about me, I just know it—"
"A magister showed up on the doorstep in the dead of night, about as dirty and bedraggled as you," he says. "Wasn't all that coherent—he'd taken quite a nasty hit on the head—but he kept going on about fires. He didn't know where his family was. We didn't know what to make of it, my sister or I, but I was on my way out the door to send for help when she called me back, said I should go ahead and get the coroner instead."
"Father doesn't like corn," Liadrin tells him, frowning.
The man shakes his head, working a snarl out of the girl's hair with an idle hand. "Coroner," he tells her. "To identify the body."
The girl's frown deepens. "Is he all right?"
"He, ah…" Furrowing his brow as he chooses his words, the man settles for one last shake of his head. "I'm afraid not. He's...no longer living. Quite, ah...quite dead, as a matter of fact. I'm terribly sorry, child, r—"
In the span of a split-second, Liadrin has stopped squirming, standing still as stone in the man's arms, save for a single shudder as she sucks in a shaky breath.
She exhales a scream.
At some point, the screams become sobs and the sobs become sniffles, soft enough to bring her inside without disturbing the other magi, as long as she stays upstairs, but Liadrin doesn't stop shaking till sunset.
"It looks like a sunrise," she says, watching with wet lashes as dusk creeps across the horizon. "But it's not. The light's leaving instead."
The magister says nothing, because there's not much he can say. He stays silent as Liadrin pulls herself into his lap, because there's nowhere else to go, and nothing left.
But when she wakes, tangled up in a sea of too-big sheets, she's screaming again.
She's screaming before she so much as cracks an eye, in fact, screaming because that first sniffle smelled like smoke.
"Belo'vir!" cries the shrill woman, with a screech that gives the girl's quite a contest. "The kid is shrieking again!"
The magister appears in a pillar of purple light that splits the darkness right down the middle, and before the spell has even faded, he's throwing back the curtains to let in some sun. "Shhh," he's insisting, "it's fine, everything's fine, I...ah, lit your lunch on fire, that's all—"
Liadrin doesn't think she could "shhh" if she wanted to, so she goes on screaming until the man clamps a hand over her mouth.
"You've got to keep it down, all right?" The words are stern, but his expression shows something more like a plea. "Did you hear that harpy downstairs? Yes? That's my older sister. You have to forgive her—she's not, ah, all there—but she's threatened in agonizing detail to strangle you with three different household objects if you aren't quiet. I don't want that."
Neither does Liadrin, really, so she shakes her head, and the rest of her body trembles too.
"Thank you," he says, sighing. "I'm sorry about the food, truly. I've opened all the windows—the smell should be gone soon."
She doesn't have much to say, save for a whimper. "I'm not hungry."
"Ought to be," the man tells her. "You slept for sixteen hours."
The girl wipes her nose on the blankets and breathes her first steady breath of the day. "Is that a long time?"
"Must be, for someone so small," says the man, shrugging. "But I'll admit, I don't know much about children." The briefest of smiles flickers across the magister's features as he considers this. "Or cooking, it seems."
"Is Mother here yet?" she asks.
His smile dies like a guttered flame. "I—I'm afraid not," he says gently. "I...um, I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you."
Her nose crinkles in a frown. "Mother says I'm good at that."
When the magister laughs, it's a strangled sound, like it got stuck on its way out of his lungs. "So it would seem, girl."
"I bet she's worried about me," the girl tells him. "I bet she'd want me to eat. A lot, probably."
The man is quiet for a moment. "I have a nephew, just a couple years younger than you, I think. He's a sucker for sweets—anything sugary. But he's got a special place in his heart for raspberry tarts. I like make sure I've always got some on hand in case my father drops him by for a visit."
"I want a raspberry tart!" Liadrin exclaims.
"Hm, but I wouldn't want to spoil your appetite," the man muses. "What a conundrum."
"I want a raspberry tart!"
"And you've not even had a real meal, have you?"
"I want a raspberry tart!"
"Guess that's not your fault though, is it?" The magister hums as he thinks, tapping two fingers at the tip of his chin. "Well, I'll tell you what. I think we can make a deal."
"I want a raspberry tart, please!"
"Ah, and you've even located your manners!" he says, smiling. "But you've got to listen, all right? I'm going to take you downstairs, and you're not going to say a word, understood?"
Liadrin stifles a squeal in her hand, nodding her head back and forth till her ponytail comes loose.
"There's a carriage out front, should be waiting for us by now," the magister tells her, "and if you can make it out the door without bothering my sister, you can have not one, not two, but three raspberry tarts."
"Where we're going?" While the prospect of three raspberry tarts is admittedly tempting, the girl doesn't think she should leave the sanctum—Mother will be back any time now, she's certain of it. "We gonna look for Mother?"
The man holds out a hand for her, but he looks the other way, his gaze hovering high above her. "I've got till nightfall to find a place for you," he says, staring intently at the wall across from him. "I don't—I wouldn't—I'm sorry."
Liadrin takes his finger in her fist, anchoring herself to the magister. When she speaks, she keeps her voice low, softer than a sigh: "Where we're going?"
His smile looks a little too tight at the corners, but then, so is her hold on his hand. "You want to meet a friend of mine?"
Two hours and three raspberry tarts later, Liadrin and her magister screech to a halt at the steps of a sprawling building, several stories high and draped in golden banners. The way they billow when they catch the breeze, Liadrin thinks it wouldn't take more than a strong gale to pick the building right up off its foundation and carry it all the way to the coast.
When she tells the magister, he says she's "so silly" and sets her on his shoulders, swaying as he heads up the stairs.
She's clutching tight to his ears to keep her balance, muffling giggles in his hair the whole way. "Where we're going now?" she wants to know.
She also wants to know if he can run fast and pretend he's a hawkstrider, but she doesn't ask.
"You've never seen a temple before?" He's trying to smile, somewhat friendly, but it gets closer to a wince every time the girl tugs his head in a new direction. "Keep your voice down, now," he says as they cross the foyer. "There're people meditating in there."
Meditating?
Liadrin hopes they aren't too sick. But she stays good and doesn't say a word.
By the time the man brings them to a halt, the girl has managed to transfer all the jam from her hands—and chin and cheeks and forehead, for that matter—to his hair, in spite of his fervent pleas.
He's muttering as he knocks at the door, something about his new theory that jam is a better adhesive than any of that new stuff the Kirin Tor has patented, swears he ought to—
The door swings open before he can finish, and the man behind it wants to know what Belo'vir is swearing about now.
"Afternoon, Vandellor." He smiles stiffly as the girl gives his ears a good yank, the way any hawkstrider rider worth her salt would bring her beast to a swift stop. "This is Liadrin."
The girl gives him a half-second glance—tall man with a dress down to his heels, hair the color of hay around harvest, unfamiliar, kind eyes. She leans in close to whisper in the magister's ear, pulling it closer to close the distance. "Tell him I like his dress."
The magister's wince is looking more like a wry grin. "And she likes your dress."
But Vandellor doesn't look all that fazed, save for one ever-so-slightly elevated eyebrow. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he tells her. Even lifts her knuckles to his lips like the gallant gentlemen in her bedtime tales. "What brings you here?"
Perhaps the question is directed toward her magister-turned-hawkstrider, but the girl is happy to explain on his behalf: "Looking for Mother!"
"She showed up at the sanctum yesterday morning," Belo'vir adds, thoroughly ruining the illusion that he's her faithful mount. "Said she'd run all the way from her village—sacked by Amani, I'd guess—wanted to know if I'd seen her parents." He shakes his head, making a gesture that Liadrin neither recognizes nor cares to. "But she seems pretty unharmed. Few scrapes and bruises, but she's all washed up now. Aren't you?"
He shrugs a shoulder to grab Liadrin's attention; she'd been thoroughly engrossed with her thumbnail again.
"He's got the biggest washtub I ever saw," she tells them. "Biggest in the world, probably."
"Oh, certainly." Vandellor's nod is nothing short of earnest. "I thought the same thing when I first laid eyes on it."
Liadrin smiles past a couple fingers, sucking at the sticky raspberry remnants.
"And how old did you say you were, Liadrin?" Vandellor's words are aimed at the girl, but he's got his gaze trained on Belo'vir.
She dries her hands in the magister's hair so she can show them "six and a half" fingers, with a gap-toothed grin to counter Belo'vir's grimace.
"Six?" Vandellor echoes, incredulous. "No, that's impossible." When he reaches for Liadrin, the magister hands her over willingly, muttering about much-needed-haircuts as he takes a step back. "You're much too small for six. Isn't there a height requirement?"
"Nuh-uh!" she says with a scowl. "I'm not so small! My shirt's just too big 'cause I ripped up my pajamas when I was running."
"That so?" says Vandellor, smiling.
"Sure is," she tells him. "I'm strong. Father says so." She proceeds to headbutt him square in the forehead for emphasis.
"Spirited," Vandellor observes, rubbing at his hairline. "That your tunic she's wearing, Belo'vir?"
The magister shrugs. "Had to put her in something. It was better than rolling her up in a throw rug."
"Your sister?" he asks, lifting a brow. "She didn't have anything for her to wear?"
"She's not so keen on sharing," says Belo'vir.
"Well, I suppose you'll just have to go shopping, hm?" He shifts the girl from his hip to his shoulder, smoothing a wrinkle out of her too-big tunic. "I know a tailor in Tranquillien. We could take a trip up there, make a whole day out of it."
Liadrin swings her bare feet as she squirms, twisting up her fingers in Vandellor's hair. "I forgot my shoes."
"Well, we can talk to a cobbler too." His gaze flits to Belo'vir for confirmation. "How's that sound?"
The magister's still combing the raspberry jam out of his hair, but that prim smile he's wearing curdles quicker than fresh milk in the sun. "I can't keep her."
Liadrin looks at him like he's stopped speaking Thalassian.
"Keep her?" Vandellor repeats, mimicking the girl's expression. "She's a child, not a stray cat."
Liadrin makes a very convincing mew, though neither man appears to notice.
"My sister—" Belo'vir clears his throat, tugging at his collar like it's gotten too tight, but his words come out strangled anyhow. "She won't have it."
"She doesn't have an ounce of sympathy?"
The magister's shoulders hitch in a shrug. "You know her."
"I know she's got a kid of her own. And evidently, no maternal instincts to speak of."
"Still my sister," Belo'vir reminds him. "She's not entirely incorrect, you know…" But when he angles his head to run a hand through his hair, he doesn't bother lifting his gaze. "The sanctum's no place for a child. There's a reason her son stays with my parents. Aside from the, ah, aforementioned lacking maternal instincts, I guess."
"What're you planning to do with her, then?" Vandellor's words aren't pointed, just genuine. His eyebrows, however—those are a different matter entirely.
The magister holds up his hands, palm-up and helpless. "I can't—I don't know. I was hoping you'd know where to take her."
"To get shoes," Liadrin chimes in. She's only been listening to about half of the conversation, having decided about twenty seconds ago that she ought to try her hand at whistling, and then that she ought to just give up about ten seconds in. "And Mother!"
"I've got till dusk," Belo'vir adds, "because my sister's dramatic like that. Otherwise, I suppose the orphanage is my best bet."
"The orphanage on Augur's Row?" His knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on the girl's ankles. "Absolutely not. It's right between a brothel and that pawnbroker where everyone takes their stolen goods. What's his name? Firehand? Fire...head? Fireheart? Not important. You know the one. No, you're not taking her there."
"I don't know what to do." The magister's pinching the bridge of his nose now, turning the words into a nasally whine, but Liadrin smothers her laughter in her fist, because she's polite like that. "Shall I stand on the side of the street and auction her off to the highest bidder?"
"To find Mother?" the girl guesses.
When Belo'vir finally looks her way, he's looking surprisingly lost, for someone who found his way here without any instruction. "I don't suppose we'll be seeing much of your mother any time soon, neither you nor I," he says, hushed and hopeless. "And if you do, Light bless you."
There's one word in a six-and-a-half-year-old's vocabulary that can be spoken as a gasp, and Liadrin does it quite well: "What?"
The magister presses his lips together, so tight it's a wonder he gets any words out at all. "Trolls are known to desecrate the bodies of their enemies for profane—"
"Belo'vir!"
"Vandellor...?"
"Why did you think that was an appropriate reply?"
"Well, I can't lie to her! Sacred halls and all."
"Seriously?"
"Someone tells me so at least once every time I visit," Belo'vir says. "If I recall correctly, it's usually you. Don't you have a saying about hope, too? False hope being an insult to faith, or something like that?"
Vandellor lifts a hand, maybe meant to detangle his hair, but he doesn't get very far before Liadrin latches on with a grip that makes raspberry jam look like the second best adhesive on all of Azeroth. "Stop. Look, you're frightening her."
"Frightening her?" His words drip with disbelief, but the girl's eyes are dripping too now, fresh tears flowing freely, spattering Vandellor's hair. "Oh, Light. Oh dear."
"I want Mother," says the girl through trembling lips. "I want Mother and Father and my house before it got on fire."
"Should've brought more raspberry tarts," Belo'vir says with a shake of his head.
That's worth a frown from Vandellor; he stops halfway through prying Liadrin off his shoulders just to make sure the magister gets a good look at it. "As always, your hindsight is impeccable, Ley-Keeper."
"I didn't think—"
"Shh," says Vandellor, though Liadrin can't be certain whether the words are meant for her. (Neither does Belo'vir, by the looks.) "Has she eaten?"
"Three raspberry tarts," Belo'vir reports, with a wizard's precision. "And a glass of water before bed last night."
"That's it?" Vandellor asks. "She can't survive on sweets, Belo'vir."
"Seemed appropriate," says the magister, smiling at Liadrin. "Ah, but we promised we wouldn't tell anyone, didn't we?"
Stuffing a couple more fingers in her mouth, the girl stifles a sob and shakes her head up and down.
"Belo'vir."
"You know, you'd have done the same thing if you'd seen her grin." Belo'vir states it like a fact, unspoken law. "Show him, girl—the missing tooth, that's what does it."
Not that she doesn't want to do as he says, but even if she were emotionally capable of the slightest smirk—just the tiniest curve of her lips, at minimum—she's still got about half a hand jammed in her mouth. Least it kept her quiet.
"I pray you never have children," says Vandellor flatly. "But…" He tugs at the girl's toes, searching for a smile and receiving a scowl instead—she's ticklish, and very unhappy about it at the present moment. "Well, I don't know. She seems to like you, so you'll have to visit more often if I'm going to be keeping her."
Lips parted and blank-faced, the magister's suddenly looking a little like he's been hit with a wave of relief bigger than the Great Sea's breakers during a summer storm. "Keeping her?"
"Oh, please," Vandellor mutters, "how long have we known each other? Don't be coy. You knew what you were doing when you brought her to me. Play with my hypersensitive sense of sympathy. See if I care."
Liadrin sniffles and transfers her fingers to the corners of her lips so she can show them a proper frown. "Where we're going?"
"Long as you promise to fix her grammar," Belo'vir tells him. "Deal?"
When the magister holds out a hand to shake on it, Vandellor betrays all his stern words and scolding with a smile, soft and gentle. "Sounds fair to me."
Her gaze flits between the both of them, splitting her uncertainty two ways, but Liadrin stays quiet, somewhat sure her lips have forgotten how to make words anyhow.
"Ought to let you guys get better acquainted and all, then?" the magister asks, already with the familiar glow of a teleportation spell at his fingertips.
Vandellor rolls his eyes, not surprised in the least. "Bring a better excuse next time you plan to make such an abrupt exit, hm?"
"It's just the two of us at the sanctum this week," he tells him. "Magister Thaelis is down by the border, mapping ley-lines, and Magistrix Silene is gone for the week—death in the family, poor girl—I really should be getting back. You know I'd stay if I could, but—"
"—it's no matter, I've got to be at the chapel in a few—"
Magisters can be difficult to argue with, at times—her mother said so often, that's how she ended up married to one—but a burst of light and the stinging smell of displaced air left behind by a short-range teleport spell can be even harder. Just like that, Belo'vir has vanished, gone without a trace, save what remained of Vandellor's frown.
"He grows on you, after a while," he says to the silence. "Took me a year or two."
But his idle shrug dislodges a whimper the girl never meant to set free—muted by three fingers and a thumb, but a whimper all the same. "Where he's going?"
"Back to the sanctum," Vandellor tells her. "He and his sister and a couple other magi all oversee the maintenance of some minor ley-line conver—"
Liadrin isn't listening; she's filling her lungs—slowly, sniffle by sniffle—till she's sucked in enough air to straighten up, and she uses her newfound height to broadcast a shriek so ear-piercing that half the temple ought to have gone out shopping for a new pair of earrings. Not that there was any shortage of ear-ringing anyhow.
Vandellor isn't impressed. He must spend a lot of time with Belo'vir.
He sets her down with a sigh and stoops down to smooth back her hair. "That's usually how I feel when he starts talking about magic, too."
Shaking the last remnants of post-scream air supply from her lungs with a shudder, she draws another breath—steadier than the last—and produces a wail with enough impact to ruffle the flyaways she'd pulled loose from Vandellor's ponytail during her stay on his shoulders.
"Come back," she's insisting, punctuating the words with a sob—a pathetic sob, founded on a dwindling breath, but that should've made it all the more effective. "Please come back—don't want—I'm scared—come back—"
"None of that, sweet girl." He scrubs at her tear-tracked cheeks with the hem of his sleeve. "Cry if you need to, but there's no need for wailing. I assure you, it won't score you much pity down here. This is the infirmary ward. We've all heard worse."
Liadrin hiccups in reply. "Want Mother," she says in a whisper. Her voice is hoarse from a night spent screaming, and by now, she guesses there's no one left to hear her. "Want Father, want Bevir—"
"Belo'vir will be back," Vandellor assures her. "We have dinner every week."
"How do you know?" She's shaking her head—she doesn't believe him. She's not a cynic, she's six and a half and scared senseless. "He didn't say bye!"
"He's never missed one yet," Vandellor says with a smile. "I don't expect he'd disappear on me now."
Neither had Liadrin, though. The unexpectedness is the hardest to swallow. It's worse than asparagus.
"He's not coming back," she decides. "Everyone keeps going and no one's staying."
When he drops his hands to his sides, she takes it as an invitation to clutch him close, clinging at his collar. Must've forgotten how strong she was, because he sways when she throws herself at him—but he never topples.
He stays still and silent, save the heartbeat thumping out a slow and steadfast tempo against her ear, with an arm wrapped around her to keep her upright.
And only when he's held her tight enough to squeeze the sobs into steady breaths does he work his way out of her stranglehold, offering her a hand instead as he rises to his feet. "I'd like to show you something, if you don't mind."
Quick to oblige, Liadrin grasps his fingers with both her hands, tucking them against her chest so she can keep them close with all her weight.
"Stay close, now. Wouldn't want to get in anyone's way." He makes an idle gesture to the robed figures that bustle about before them, garbed in gloves and dirty smocks. "This is where we house the injured and ill, till their condition improves enough to send them home, anyway. It's the largest temple in the Southlands—we get patients from all over. Mostly Farstriders, though."
Liadrin is sucking at her lower lip, running her tongue over a split in the center as she watches with wonder. Almost forgets to nod, but she's listening intently, in between sniffles.
"My mother came all the way from Tranquillien," he tells her. "I was born right down that hallway."
She's seen hallways before—they're narrow, long, and universally alike. It's the gore-stained young women who catch her attention, toting bandages and bottles in their arms as they hurry between barely-conscious bodies.
"Didn't know my father," he says with a flick of his wrist. "Became pretty apparent as I grew older that my mother hadn't either." His shrug carries a casual sort of familiarity, like he's shrugged this specific shrug several times. "They're both just stories, far as I'm concerned. Never met the woman. She had me two months early, and I was baptized in a river of blood to prove it. Good thing, too—don't think anyone planned on blessing me. Holy water is to be used sparingly, you see, and I wasn't supposed to survive the night. But, well…"
Liadrin keeps on nodding, scared she might forget if she stops, even for a second.
"I was raised here," he continues, slowing his pace and his words both. "I had many mothers, growing up, but not a single Mother, if that makes any sense."
She's nodding as he guides her to the far end of the room; she's nodding as he ushers her through an archway, draped with heavy hangings that glitter gold like the sun itself; she's nodding as she steps past the curtains, walking on the balls of her feet, because everything is muted here and she gets the sense that she ought to be too—
And then she stops.
Stops nodding, stops breathing, stops blinking—she's not stunned, she realizes with a start, one that never jolts her. She's...something else entirely. Something she can't speak—something she can sense.
Sunlight streams through a wall of windows on either side, velvet light cut into shafts by stained glass—warmth she can see, and that hum echoing all around her has her wondering if perhaps she can hear it too.
But when she listens closer, she can recognize a rhythm to the thrum, soft and subtle, but ever-present. There are words beneath the rhythm, unfamiliar but comforting all the same.
"This is the chapel," Vandellor tells her, and his words are soft, nigh silent, but they sound clearer than the dawn's first birdsong. "I spent a lot of time here, as a boy. Was the only place I wanted to be when I felt like I was lonely—all that adolescent business—guess when I was here, I wasn't."
He leads her past rows of rosewood pews, swathed with satin finery—how it shimmers, glimmers, glows—and Liadrin follows along on tiptoe, lips parted in a gasp that asks for no air. She hardly notices the people as she passes, so still are they, heads bowed with the sunbeams shining in their hair. Or perhaps it's just that they seem to belong, as if they're more than merely praying in the pews, like they're a part of the chapel itself.
One entity.
She understands, rather abruptly, what Vandellor meant; all of the sudden, she's not lonely either.
And as she stares ahead at the approaching altar, an impressive work of marble and gold, she can make out the words embroidered on the sun-faded banner that hangs above them:
"Upon sacred ground
No fear is found.
Have faith."
"Suffused," Vandellor tells her. He's watching from his periphery as he lowers himself to his knees, and with a tug at her wrist, she does the same. "That's how I describe it. Feel free to call it whatever you'd like."
The girl's shoulders rise and fall in a momentous sigh, but it's as though the air never leaves her lungs. She's sustained. Or something.
"Full," she says softly.
His smile is just as warm as every ounce of sun pouring through those vaulted windowpanes. "How much do you know about the Light, Liadrin?"
"Um…" It's an idle sound, the sound of thoughts spinning on the surface of a mind slicked with childish wonder. "It goes after "by the," like when you're scared?"
His laughter is light—appropriately so. "There's a little more to it than that, I'm afraid," he tells her, a helpless gesture on his free hand. "It's a...force. Does that make sense? It warms, it heals—it's benevolence turned tangible. I don't suppose I can make you understand. It's something you find on your own—the Light speaks to us all, but it sounds different to everyone, do you see?"
She understands. But she doesn't think she's found the Light; seems like she's been found, rather.
She's not sure how to say so, but she trusts Vandellor gets it anyhow. She can sense the understanding in him, too.
He's chanting now, lending his voice to the unintelligible chorus, and Liadrin's ears twitch as they strain to separate the sounds. But she thinks they're closer to warmth than words of any sort—warmth, set to the rhythm of speech.
There's understanding in them all—in the man bent to his hands and knees beside her, in the woman sitting stiffly in the bench behind her, in everyone within these walls. It's an unspoken solidarity—she can't see it, can't speak it, can't speak at all, but she can sense it.
When she closes her eyes, it's like nothing she's ever seen before.
Liadrin is six and a half when she first sees the Light.
It starts with a spark, bright and blinding against the black behind her eyelids.
So warm she thinks she can feel it within her—in her bones, in her lungs, the very air she breathes, in Vandellor's fingertips as they press into her palm, a comforting squeeze, a transfer of faith.
And if everything she knows lies in ashes around her, well, she doesn't suppose she needs much more than this.