Blazing Earth by Terri Brisbin Page B

eased symptoms. Concoctions, teas, and ointments made people feel better. The touch of hands could make tightness go away, but heal? It was like something out of a legend or, worse, deviltry. She made the sign of the cross in reaction to such a thought. God-fearing people did not believe in such things.
    The stinging on her arm made her hiss. Tugging back the sleeve, she found the area there was now larger and more defined. More frightening was that, as shewatched, it moved and changed shape, until it was perfectly round like the sun. But this time it did not fade away as it had done before. It remained there, undulating as though something swirled under her skin.
    â€œYou are deep in thought, Thea,” Linne said.
    Blinking and shaking herself from her reverie, Thea found that her feet had taken her to Linne’s home. The young woman sat on a bench, outside the door, in a place where the warmth of the sun would reach her. Young Medwyn at her breast, Linne was the image of health.
    â€œAye,” Thea said, smiling at the young woman who should be dead and buried. “I am almost out of herbs for one of the ointments I make. Just thinking of how to manage it.”
    â€œYou are always thinking of others, Thea.”
    Linne rubbed the babe’s head and Medwyn answered with a burp and a sigh, sliding off her breast, asleep. Thea never felt so empty as she did just now.
    â€œWill you come for supper?” Linne asked. “We will not keep you late.” A wink spoke of Linne’s knowledge of the pattern of Tolan’s visits.
    â€œI would like that,” Thea said. It would keep her from sitting in her cottage, listening for every sound that could mean Tolan approached. “But I have made other plans this evening.”
    But later, after spending the remaining hours of the day before the evening meal in her garden, pulling at weeds and the preparing the soil, she did exactly that.
    And when she sat in her chair listening for hisfootsteps outside her door, Thea was no more at peace with the changes happening in her life than she was clear in her understanding of what caused them. She only hoped that Tolan would be the one person she could trust, even if she did not want him to know all the secrets she bore.
    Southampton, England
    Hugh smiled smugly as his ships approached the port of Southampton on England’s southern coast. The only reason his ships made it across the channel from his lands in Brittany and Normandy was that the attentions of the Warriors were turned away.
    They thought and acted like the humans they used to be, not the beings of power that they were now. The first four had not yet accepted or understood the extent of their powers or their range. And Hugh was glad he had not told them all of it. Or he would have yet been stranded on the sea.
    As they grew closer to the shoreline, Eudes, his commander, walked to his side and waited to be acknowledged. Hugh nodded.
    â€œMy lord, everything is readied.”
    â€œOur man?” The spy he’d left within those who fought with the Warriors had sent word of the discovery of the prophecy.
    â€œHe should be waiting when we dock,” Eudes said confidently. Not comfortably, though.
    â€œSend him on to my cousin as soon as he gives hisreport,” Hugh said, turning to face the man who was his half brother. “Is there a problem?”
    â€œOnly that we are behind them.”
    â€œWorry not. They are wandering and we will march with purpose and arrive from a different direction,” Hugh said, closing his eyes and searching for signs of the others. Another ability they had yet to master. “And they have no idea of where we are.”
    Ripples in the air told him of their position. The four others were north and west of him now. Stretching out his mind, he could only detect the presence of the other two, the ones whose powers had not yet erupted.
    There was still time. Time to find them and bring them into the