The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

would have loved it here. She prays that, by the power of Gelahn, he might soon see it. As she continues to gaze, she realises that what she has assumed are bridges are far more vibrant than that. They are moving.
    At the same time, Hartstongue sees this too. He reaches out his hand and takes hold of her fingers. For an instant he feels warm to the touch before she pulls herself free. In that heartbeat, Isabella can hear the knowledge in his mind: she’s hiding something .
    How can he know that?
    The scribe shakes his head and frowns.
    “Come on,” he says, slowly and still she senses him puzzling over information he should not be able to access. “Let’s go and see.”
    Leaving Johan and the boy at the oak tree, Hartstongue and Isabella step over soft white cloud towards the nearest bridge. She takes care not to touch him, all the time rebuilding her defences. Has his contact with the mind-cane given him this power? If so, how much does he know now? As they pass each rock, the shape of it undulates with the breeze from their movement.
    At the first of the bridges, Isabella crouches down. Her hair tumbles over her cloak’s torn fabric and she brushes it back at once with a click of the tongue.
    “Look,” she says, “It’s alive.”
    When the scribe hunkers down next to her, but not too close, the bridge is moving. The greyness is not slate, but a living mass of twigs and feathers and the underside of leaves. As they continue to watch, she hears a crackling noise followed by a series of high-pitched squeaks, and a small beak emerges from the depths.
    “It’s a nest,” Hartstongue exclaims. “It must be the snow-ravens’ home.”
    Isabella know that, in spite of it all and in spite of how much she hates him, the same expression of wonderment on the scribe’s face is mirrored on her own.
    “A nest ,” she repeats with a sigh. “Yes, you’re right.”
    But a nest like none she has ever seen before—long enough to span the stream underneath it and broad enough for a man, or a woman, to walk on, though she doubts its structure will take any person’s weight. As she watches, another beak bursts forth from the twigs nearest the water. It hesitates for a few moments before drinking deeply from the stream and disappearing again. Another follows suit and then another, and then stillness descends again. She does not know what to say to Hartstongue, how to discover how much he must now suspect.
    “A good way for the young to drink their fill.”
    Johan’s words break into the music of the trees and the boy runs into the scribe’s arms.
    “Indeed,” Hartstongue says. “And there are so many of these…nests. There must be thousands upon thousands of these snow-ravens here.”
    “It seems that way.”
    As Isabella looks up at Johan, he glances at her and then at the scribe, and a shadow passes over his face. Does he sense something in spite of her best efforts? And if so, what? Before he can ask any questions, a white flurry of ravens begins to wheel and dance in the skies. They fly towards the group and sweep overhead, their high cries providing a counterpoint to the trees’ music. Three, four times, they circle the travellers, bright wings dipping as if to draw them upwards into their world of air and song. And then suddenly, they are gone. Hartstongue watches the flock become a line in the sky, travelling away. They circle once more and land next to the largest of the oak trees, one after the other, a manoeuvre perfectly timed and executed.
    Then, as if they are of one mind, all the birds fold up their wings and turn their eyes towards the people.
    “I think they want us to go to them,” her brother says.
    As he speaks, it comes to Isabella that she must do something to hasten the time of rebirth. Perhaps this too is a test Gelahn has set before her.

    Johan
    Without waiting for an answer, Johan begins to make his way towards the flock of resting ravens. He hopes that his stride exudes some kind of confidence that his mind does not possess, but suspects that Isabella at least has already read his uncertainty. There are times when being a mind-dweller is not the blessing it should be. He has never been in this situation before; the snow-ravens have never come this close.
    Behind him, his companions follow. As they approach, the sound of singing becomes more evident. Not enough to be disturbing; it doesn’t feel like a threat. If Johan listens carefully, he can hear the undercurrent of harmonies