The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

dancing in the skies and mastering the breezes.
    When Simon finished, it seemed as if all of him was light, and the glow from his body was shining outwards, softening the blankness around him and the crisp whiteness of the raven. He thought that if he only opened his mouth, the world would be flooded with the song inside them both.
    He reached out to the raven, wanting to touch the smooth warmth of his feathers, wrap himself in the safety of his wings until all should be forgotten. And everything remembered. The raven’s dark eyes turned towards Simon, and he laughed to see the kindness in them. The instant that he touched the bird however, he could feel something begin to change.
    A line of peppered sourness began to uncurl in his stomach. Groaning, Simon let the raven go and pressed his hands to the pain, but it swooped within like the onset of night. The next moment, he’d doubled over, writhing onto his side, with sweat pouring from his face and body as if he’d been dipped in fire. Raw waves of pain crashed through his blood. When he looked up, the snow-raven appeared almost translucent, his shape splitting and reforming into tiny angles a thousand times, and then a thousand times again.
    And then, nothing.
    A tapping on his arm woke him. Simon had no idea how long he’d been asleep. The air smelled damp; the aftermath of rain. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was an expanse of pale blue, stretching out into the distance. Somebody groaned. He thought it was him.
    When the tapping continued, he tried to straighten from the foetal position he was in to see what it might be. His stomach felt raw and his limbs ached. He focused on the tall white bird next to him, whose beak was tap-tapping at his arm.
    Then he remembered.
    It took a while for Simon to sit up. His mouth tasted of iron and dirt, all the bright gold honey of before vanished as if it had never been at all. No, that wasn’t quite true; his mind felt different. As if something had been added and then taken away, but not without the memory of it embedding itself in the thoughts. He couldn’t say what that thing might be however. As he mentally reached for it, the knowledge slipped away to a place he couldn’t access.
    He waited until the wild pace of his heart had slowed before facing the raven again.
    “The worm,” he whispered. “And the leaf. Is that for you the contrast between what dies when tested, and what does not?”
    You speak with song.
    “Truth? Truth is song?”
    The bird didn’t answer but Simon felt a wave of lightness power its way through his belly. Yes.
    “So, you want to test me?”
    Again that feeling of lightness.
    “Well, good,” Simon sighed. “I seem to have had a lot of tests recently, so I imagine that one more will make no difference. I…”
    The light vanished away with the rise of the raven’s wings. They brought darkness and an airless intensity that crossed over Simon’s vision for only a moment, but which felt as if his existence had been wiped from the earth.
    “No.” His scream was internal, a cry which scrabbled for life on a sheer cliff-face, but the swoop of it was over as quickly as it had begun. The raven settled his wings again.
    “All right,” he gasped, his words breaching the sudden stillness with staccato rhythm. “All right . I can see that you have more power than I do. That’s understood. Gods and stars, but everyone I have met since my journey started is more powerful than I. So. No more jesting, I promise you. But, then again, still you let me live, don’t you? You let me live. Why?”
    Staggering to his feet, Simon stared at the raven but knew he would get no answer. At least not in a way he comprehended. It almost made him want to laugh. Here he was, in a world he knew nothing about, and each path he took led only to deeper mystery. A surge of bleakness through his gut brought to mind his companions: Isabella, with all her strange silences, Johan, and of course the boy. No matter how difficult the first two were, he wished they could be with him now.
    “When will you take me back?” he asked, the words pouring unchecked from his lips before he knew they were there at all. “When can I be with my friends again?”
    Even the worm must wait for the sun.
    Simon sighed and swallowed back tears, not for the raven’s command, but for the truth—unseen until now—of what he had said. His friends. The boy of course, but Johan too. Simon had begun to think of him as a friend.