“Maralekty! Maralekty! Good and honest maralekty! Gleaming blood she has indeed. Golden glowing blood she bleeds.”

The orphan sat up as the familiar voice of Hethys reached her from beyond the trees. The aged hag hobbled toward her young acquaintance with a wide grin plastered on her face. Once she was near enough, she leaned onto her gnarled staff and cleared her throat. “It appears the power in your blood has truly awakened.”

Still cautious after the bloodletting that punctuated their last encounter, the orphan got to her feet and moved to keep some distance between herself and the elder. “You believe me?” she asked.

Hethys nodded. “Seeing is believing, maralekt. I have watched you exercise the power that flows in your veins. I have tasted your power for myself. And, having done so, I may work Wonders in your name.” Carefully, Hethys lowered herself onto one knee and turned her face toward the ground. “You are my master now, child of The Ancestor’s blood, kin of the blessed Ikorae.”

The orphan’s features twisted in confusion at the hag's string of arcane ramblings. She had grown quite accustomed to hearing Hethys speak in incomprehensible riddles, but there was an uncharacteristic sharpness to her words and her gaze that made madness seem an unlikely cause for the strangeness of her speech on this occasion. Indeed, the orphan wondered if she’d ever seen the isolated elder so coherent.

It was clear enough that she had answers, at least, and the urchin was interested in hearing them. She took a careful step closer to the hag, who stood back up in response.

“What is Ancestor?” asked the orphan. “What is Ikorae?”

“Two questions with rather lengthy answers,” responded Hethys. The orphan recoiled as the hag moved to close the distance between them, eliciting an airy chuckle from the latter. “Do you fear me so after a single slight?”

“Hardly just the one.”

Hethys scoffed. “Come now, child. I should think your recent experience would render you rather less fearful of physical reprisal.”

Absently, the orphan ran a hand over the place where once a wound had been: the very hand that the young Master had sought to take from her. “They couldn’t hurt me,” she observed. “Their weapons did no harm.”

“And rightly so!” Hethys exclaimed. “It is a foolish mortal who thinks himself able to spill immortal blood. Come. Permit me to show you what it is to be Ikorae.”

Hethys neglected to wait for the orphan’s permission before suddenly reaching out and placing her palm against the girl’s forehead. Golden light overtook the orphan’s eyes as the world around her fell away, eclipsed by a series of visions.

She saw as a luminous figure descended from the heavens to meet waiting throngs of unfortunate souls.

She saw it shatter their chains, heal their infirmities, and lead them away from the land of their captors.

She saw it raise great cities and monuments by the sheer might of its will for the people it had come to cherish.

She saw it fill a mortal with its light, and from that union, four new lights were born.

Hethys removed her hand, and the orphan stumbled backwards onto the ground. “That should be quite enough for now,” Hethys said as she shook off ephemeral flecks of light from her hand. “I wouldn’t want to overburden your mind. Took the liberty of fixing your speech while I was at it. You’re quite welcome.”

The orphan frantically patted her head as the visions flitted in and out of sight. Her rapid breaths slowed once she was certain that her mind was back in the physical plane. “What was that?” she asked.

“A Wonder of Mind,” answered Hethys. “I’m rather rusty, but it was a passable performance all the same, was it not?”

“What did I see? Was that The Ancestor?”

“It was. An ancient immortal whose blood was carried forth by the four children born of its bond with a fortunate mortal. You, I surmise, must be of Brizelda’s line; one does not often hear of children of the others outside of Auberalea.”

The orphan quirked a brow. “Auberalea?”

“The Ancestor’s kingdom, preserved by the continuity of its bloodline. It prospers so long as Ikorae sit the Throne, and by its light are the kingdom’s people afforded the power of Wonderworking.”

Slowly, the girl got back onto her feet. Brow furrowed as her mind raced, she took a moment to put the pieces of the widening puzzle together. “I can do magic?” she asked.

Hethys winced. “You can work Wonders, yes,” she corrected. “And you do: it appears you’ve quite a natural affinity for Wonders of Might, but that is but a taste of your potential.”

“You know more?”

A wicked smile snaked across the aged hag’s face. “Much more.”

The orphan stood at the precipice of an opportunity she’d never dreamed of: a chance at last to seize something for herself that others could not take away. So accustomed to hunger was she that the feeling taking root in her gut was not at all foreign to her: it was not a desire to fill her belly, but it was hunger just the same.

“Teach me.”