Reaching Retribution(55)

Liam stops talking and looks toward me. I can see the sadness in his eyes. I lean into him and ask him to continue. “My mom met my dad, Axsher, when she was twenty. He was banished from his home tribe. She would never tell us why. In fact, I never even knew the guy. After I was born, he left. He didn’t leave any clues as to his whereabouts. I don’t think mom even knew why he left. One day, he just disappeared.

“Bragden knew him, but briefly. I don’t think he remembers anything specific about him though. When I was six or seven, Pavander, asked Valdus to begin to work with me. He concluded that I would probably end up being a dream-walker like him. I don’t know how the elders were always able to determine what our mage powers would be, but they were usually correct. Occasionally, you’d hear of a story where they got it wrong, but those were rare.

“Bragden was another one of the mages that the elders weren’t sure about. They didn’t give him the option to choose like my mother though. Every day while I was training with Valdus, he was training too. He was building up his strength. That’s why he’s so big. Since they weren’t sure what his powers would be, they prepared him in other ways. Bragden became the best fighter in our tribe. People were afraid to oppose him. He was one of those people whom you always wanted to remain on their good side.

“After all of my dream sessions with Valdus, I would come home and my mom would have made multiple pieces of jewelry and have dinner prepared and ready. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. Bragden would come in from his training sessions before me and would literally eat everything. Mom always made a side portion for me. I came home every night and found a small plate of food in the refrigerator.

“I remember being so jealous when mom pulled Bragden aside and handed him his pendant. Growing up, that’s one of the moments you look forward to. Even though it happens when you’re ten, it’s one of the first steps to becoming a man. After you get your pendant, you get to start training. Bragden was already doing that. He was always one step ahead of me.

“One of the other things about my mom was that she was great with animals. They flocked to her side. Our house always had random birds with broken wings or rabbits with injured feet. She would nurse them back to health, and then release them back into the wild. We also had two horses. She rode Ava, while Bragden and I rode Ranger.

“One day while I was working with Valdus and Bragden was training, mom decided that she wanted to go out riding. She used to ride almost every day when she was younger. When she had us, she had to give it up to take care of us. I came home that day after my dream sessions and found the house empty. Pieces of jewelry were thrown about the kitchen table, but dinner wasn’t prepared. Bragden was walking through the house looking for her. I came in right as he was heading out. Mom wasn’t home and neither one of us knew where she was.

“The first place we looked was the barn. We instantly knew that she was out when we saw Ava missing. Bragden and I went running down the trial that we knew she frequently rode on. We found her unconscious on the trail about a mile in. Ava was nowhere in sight. I rushed back into town and got Valdus. He was…I guess, he still is, our tribe leader. He told Bragden and me to go home while they worked on mom. Bragden and I went and stayed with our neighbor.

“The next morning we found out that she was paralyzed from the waist down. There was nothing they could do about it. Our tribe didn’t have any healers at the time. Healers are incredibly rare. It’s a very coveted power. Bragden and I spent months after her accident helping her. Like you, she doesn’t like looking weak. She didn’t feel like her accident was a bad thing. She looked at it as a flicker in the flame or at least she did at first.

“It was then that she fully told me about the flame. She sat Bragden and me down one night in the kitchen and turned all the lights off. She lit a single candle and told us to just watch the flame for a few moments.

“At the time, we thought she was crazy, but we listened. I watched as the candle flame danced around, casting shadows on Bragden’s and mom’s faces. The slight draft in the room caused the flame to flicker dramatically. A candle flame doesn’t stay still for long. There’s always some invisible force acting against it. After a few minutes, she started talking.

“She told us how before the accident, her flame was burning bright. It brightened with each of our births. She had everything she wanted in life: two sons on their destined paths and a love for what she was doing with her life. The accident was just a flicker in the flame. It was just an obstacle that she had to overcome in order for the flame to burn bright again. ‘With each passing day, the flame will get brighter,’ she said. Being seven, I didn’t really understand the importance of what she was telling me.