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Orlagh straightens and wipes her hands on her apron. Her expression says she understands. I am relieved I don’t need to explain it further, because I wouldn’t know what to say.

A dozen rattan bowls congest the table on either side of me. I run a finger across the textured glaze of the mug and watch Orlagh divide the dough into six equal portions. With a deft twist of the hands, she transforms the craggy heaps into smooth mounds and deposits them into the proofing bowls. Flour puffs up and drifts through the air.

The stately wood fire oven, glowing on the other side of the room, stands ready to transform the work of her hands. It provides all the light in the space. But it is still abnormally bright in the warm room, because of me.

My shoulders draw in. “What do you think it means?”

A heavy bowl thumps onto the work surface. Orlagh rests her hands on either side of it and peers at me.

“Child, yeh have to be a bit more specific than that,” she says, her breaths escaping in short bursts.

I sigh and stand up, leading her out the door and into the humid night.

“This.”

Arms raised at shoulder-height, I rotate slowly. The clawed fingers of the ténesomni grow desperate in their attempt to push through my invisible barrier. My hands stretch out as far as they can go, and still, there is space between where they end and the shadows begin.

Only when the darkness pulls back can you truly see how thick it was.

Chin raised to the sky, I breathe in. “I don’t understand how this gift is mine.”? I face Orlagh and let my arms fall. She pulls her shawl taut around her shoulders, but no hint of surprise shows in her features. I search them, pleading silently.Make this make sense.

Her brows and jaw work for a while, tensing and relaxing as she formulates an answer. “There’s a callin’ on your soul, Amyrah. It’s always been there, since yeh were a wee babe.”

A sharp inhale inflates my chest. My pulse picks up pace.Don’t stop.

“Yer father didn’t see it for years, not in the presence of yer sweet ma. How could he? She never let you stray more’n five feet from her reach. But on the rare occasion when she left yeh with me, I saw what he could not. No matter how deep the dark, somethin’ always kept it from reaching your heart. It was so small tha’ no one woulda ever noticed who wasn’t lookin’ for it.”

My hands move of their own accord to cover the place where I can feel my heart lurching in my chest. “Where did it come from?”

Orlagh shakes her head. “Tha’ I can’t know for cer’ain. But if I had to guess, I’d say Elyon put it there himself.”

I frown.The Highest?

An airy laugh shudders from my lungs. “That’s ridiculous. Why would he be concerned with my life? I thought he finished his work a long time ago.” A guilty grimace puckers my face. “I have never so much as uttered his name other than in a passing reference.”

Her smile is a little sad. “Neither had I, until recen’ly. But I am more and more convinced tha’ he’s more’n just a story mothers whisper to their bairns as they fall asleep. He’s keepin’ all things together, an’ he’s workin’ it all according to his purpose.”

Something inside me has always drawn my thoughts toward Elyon, although I hardly know who he is. Even still, everything that is beautiful in this black-stained world, no matter how small, has always screamed his name.

My eyebrows come together. “But that doesn’t explain why I am more deserving than everyone else.”

If anything, I deserve it less. I know my heart.

“I’m not sure it has much to do with deservin’ anythin’. Yer of a different race.”

A chill runs down my spine.

Orlagh continues, “I can’t say where yer from or what yeh are, except that yeh don’t belong in the Vale. That much has always been cer’ain. Somethin’ is bent on setting you apart. And I fear for yeh, that the fate of yer mother will find yeh if yeh don’t find a way to escape the land of the kaligorven.”

I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong in the Vale, but that had nothing to do with me. I thought my father made me that way.

My father.

My stomach twists at the thought of him shut in our musty cottage.

“What can I do for Pada?”

Orlagh steps out of the darkness. I clutch her hand and draw her in so she can use me for support. We walk down the street at her easy pace. “Yeh must be gentle on him. I don’t think he knew all Ellehra’s closeness did for him, as it did for all who got near enough to feel it. But his entire bein’ must have depended on it. And when the bond between them snapped, he lost more than the love of his life.”