The scents were the first thing she registered. There was acridity here, no scent of stone. There were also no roars or bellows, no language from an ancient time, no rock protecting her.

  Her eyes stayed closed, their lids too heavy to lift, but she tried to speak, to extend a greeting in reply and ask where she was. All that came out was a croak, answered by the cool rim of a cup and water to soothe her throat.

  Both were followed by cool fingers set against her lips, when the cup had been removed.

  Soothing words sent her into a rest far different to the one she’d found before, and four more days passed, until her next awakening

  The priests of Novarin’s Keep kept close vigil throughout, plying their deity with more requests for healing.

  She felt the warmth of a new day, when she woke, again. No sound greeted her until she set the covers rustling as she shuffled to sit upright in a bed she couldn’t remember. The smell of incense lingered, along with the scent of fresh herbs, but no-one greeted her.

  Air moved as if a window had been left open, and the bard slid her legs over the edge of the bed, stretching until her bare feet met the soft warmth of a woolen rug. Carefully, she stood, and followed the air flow until she reached the window.

  The feel of a gown about her gave her small comfort. Someone had replaced her clothes. It worried her, but she stopped as her questing hand found the window ledge and she felt the sun’s warmth on her face.

  A door opened behind her, and she heard feet scuff lightly in a newly-opened doorway.

  “I see you’re awake,” a soft voice said, and the bard turned to face her visitor.

  “My thanks, father,” she returned, puzzled by the change from welcome to confused affront that followed.

  She heard another join the first and cocked her head to listen, although she couldn’t catch the words exchanged in low voices, straight after. A studied silence followed, then a mirthful chuckle, and the bard sensed the puzzlement of her first visitor deepen as the second laughed.

  “You’re blind!” That surprised exclamation explained it all.

  “An accident,” she replied, not understanding why this should be so great a shock.

  Boots trod swiftly to where she stood, and as they neared, the bard heard the well-oiled click of armor. She frowned.

  “Would you like to see again?”

  That voice came from the second presence, now standing before her. The request was followed by the slither of a gauntlet being removed, and the metallic clank as it was set on the sill beside her.

  She sensed the hand held toward her, and reached for it, touching her fingers to sword-hardened callouses, before sliding them onto the plate-mail sleeve of a knight.

  “If the gods will,” she replied.

  There was a smile in the voice that answered. “We shall see.”

  Another hand took hers and wrapped it over a metal forearm.

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  “Step this way, and we will ask.”

  She went with him, curious to see where this part of her story would take her, for if this was a waking dream, it was one of the more interesting she’d had.

  They stopped in the center of the room, and her other visitor came toward them. This time the shuffling steps spoke of someone more advanced in age, a person whose sprightliness was leaving.

  Wrinkled hands rested, one on each of her cheeks, and the bard’s guide, the knight, rested his free hand in the center of her back. The atmosphere about her changed and she bowed her head in respect for the deity whose power flowed from the old man’s hands.

  When he spoke, she heard another ancient tongue, but the meaning of its words still remained elusive. Sweet as honey and as full of melody as power, they brought more warmth.

  The power flowed from the old man’s hands spreading across her cheeks to seep into her closed eyes, and warm their sockets. As it did, the flow of words faltered and stopped, and silence fell.

  The bard waited, head bowed, eyes closed, until the older man spoke.

  “Open your eyes,” he instructed. “Slowly now. ’Ware the light.”

  The bard hesitated, not daring to believe the gods had delivered what had been promised, and not wanting to be disappointed. Her escort waited patiently, their presence a polite insistence, until finally, she found the courage to obey.

  “When she did, she found herself standing in a small, simply appointed room. A single quilted bed stood against the far wall, a wooden bookshelf against the wall at its foot, and a small dresser of matching timber beside it. Bare stone walls lined the room, and the woolen rug lent both color and warmth.

  Tilting her head to take in the two men standing beside and before her, she noted the wrinkled visage and silver hair of an elderly man, and the hard-face of a warrior in his middle years.

  The elderly man wore the robes of a high priest of Staravan, and the knight…

  She took a hasty step away from both.

  A high priest, and a champion of the gods…which explained why she still lived.

  “But…how did you know?” she asked, meaning, how did they know where to find her, or even to look.

  “Vens’kleth’arnor overflew our lands,” the knight explained. “We followed and saw when she challenged S’krevexnathren…and we defeated her, once she had defeated him.”

  His face had gone from hard-edged to solid granite.

  “It won’t bring back those they slew, but they will not kill again.”

  His voice was bleak, but then his face lost some of its grimness, and he looked her in the eye.

  “At first, we thought you were dead,” he explained, “And then we found you were not.”

  From the sound of it, that had come as an inconvenience, so the bard waited.

  After a moment’s silence, and a meaningful glance from the priest, the knight continued.

  “And then it was suggested you might return the price of your salvation—”

  “And your sight,” the priest broke in, earning a look of chagrin from the knight.

  “And your sight,” the knight agreed, “To the gods who gave it.”

  The bard’s heart plummeted.

  There was always a price.

  I glanced about at my audience. They were waiting. The moment was right but, as I opened my mouth to speak, a shadow loomed over me.

  The knight had returned.

  “Come, squire,” he ordered. “You’re a bard no longer, and it is well past time the horses were tended, and your duties begun.”

  Sighing, I rose and bowed my head in obedience.

  “My lord,” I said, and followed him without looking back.

  I would have apologized to the merchant and his crew for not completing my tale, but, as I’d risen, I’d seen no apology was necessary. The knowledge of the price paid for the blind bard’s sight, as well as that of her true identity, was clear on their faces, and they were already beginning to smile.

  I cursed my master and his timing as I heard their laughter flow into journey talk, but I followed him to our camp in the shadow of the trees. I would have thought it was pure chance that he always stole the punchline of my tale except I had caught the glimpse of a self-satisfied smile on his face once too often to believe in coincidence.

  It made me smile, too, as I turned to the horses. For one thing, it was good to see my lord knight smile, since that occurrence was rare enough, and for another, my service was a small price to pay for both survival and sight, and I did not begrudge it.

  Truly.

  The life of a squire would give me many more tales to tell, far more than I could have found on my own, as blind as I had been.

  Even if it had meant a change in my destiny, for while the destiny of a bard is find tales and spin them for teaching and entertainment, the destiny of any squire is to become a knight, and I had sworn myself to it.