The Truest Power

But that was not the greatest gift he had brought to her life. Although it seemed so at the time, Lysandra now knew that what Renan had truly given her was love.

Somewhere, somewhen, along their difficult journey, helpful stranger had turned to friend —and friendship had blossomed into that rarest flower of true and everlasting love. The dark wall behind which she had hidden the deepest part of herself, where she had once believed it would and must always remain, had crumbled bit by bit.

But the pieces, so long in place, had not come easily down. It was not until she had to battle her way back from the depths of dark magic cast by their enemy, back into the light of life again, that she had finally let the wall around her heart tumble. Within the Light that had become her chosen reality, no Darkness —of magic or of self —could survive.

But Renan was still a priest; the love Lysandra felt for and from him would remain unspoken. Lysandra told herself that did not matter. Love existed —and the friendship, which they could share, was all the deeper for it.

There were other places and people through whom her healing had come. There was Eiddig, the aged Guide and leader of the Cryf, the forgotten beings who lived in their wondrous Realm beneath Aghamore's mountains and whose souls were as beautiful as their appearance was strange. Their name meant the Strong, and that is what they were — possessed of amazing strength in their compact, haircovered bodies and, above all, strong in their belief of the One whom they called simply the Divine.

No one had demonstrated this strength more surely than Talog, the young Cryf Guide-in-Training who had left the underground Realm to travel with Lysandra and Renan as they searched for Selia. While all of the Cryf had impressed Lysandra with the faith and the compassion that created their amazing, harmonious society, none had done more than Talog. Terrified to travel Up-world, as the Cryf called the surface land of Aghamore, and in physical pain from the brightness of the sun he had never before seen, Talog had proved himself invaluable time and again. Lysandra knew they would never have succeeded in finding or getting Selia to safety without him.

And there was Selia herself. She, too, had helped heal Lysandra in ways the older woman was still discovering. Both the Thirteenth Scroll of Tambryn and the Holy Words of the Cryf named Selia the Font of Wisdom. When their minds had touched that first time, Selia's own gifts — unrecognized and unwanted by the girl —had served as a catalyst to unlock Lysandra's undiscovered potential. Together, they had been able to banish the Darkness that had so nearly destroyed Lysandra and bring her back into life again.

It was then that Lysandra's Sight, that wondrous inner vision that had allowed her to live and function as a healer through all the long years of solitude, had blossomed. But for nearly ten years, her Sight had come and gone of its own accord, and though she had learned to use it, she could find no way to control it.

Nor was what the Sight revealed the same as physical vision. There were moments when it would erupt into colors and images, showing her all that her eyes had learned to do without —but most of the time her Sight came in patterns of light and shadow that dwelt within the heart of living auras.