Miryil

Miryil was peeved. A Light Bringer sent like a common courier. She didn’t dare argue when the Holy Father issued the command, however. He had said she was to fetch a message of dire import. But none of the missives she had collected seemed terribly urgent. Their sender’s, while certainly eager to part with them to see her leave, also seemed to share her bafflement at why she would be sent to collect them instead of the customary courier.

The moment the terrified looking girl with the muddy green eyes had begun to sing, was the moment she understood. She reached out to hold onto her, the girl looked like she might bolt and Miryil wanted to hear that song again, to take her to the Holy Father if at all possible. Hollowed and swallowed light was a dire message, indeed. The attack took her by surprise.

She woke with a throbbing head and her left eye was swollen. She began to murmur the words of the healing light and her pain faded and vision cleared. A terrified looking groom was standing in the doorway. Miryil realized that she was bound and covered in a horse blanket. The girl had taken her armor, and probably her horse. Unfortunately, she was smart enough not to leave her own things behind.

Miryil yanked at her bonds as she murmured again under her breath and they came unraveled. She looked at the groom sourly. “I require clothes and a master of the guard. I want to know who that girl was.”

No one contested a Light Bringer, in or out of their armor. She dressed quickly and spoke to the master of the guard that had been brought. One of the chosen had escaped. No one knew the girl’s name because she hadn’t stopped singing since she’d been blessed. That was uncommon, it had been a hundred years or more since such a blessed child had been sent.

The Keam himself wanted to see this creature. And he wasn’t the only one. She’d stolen the divine staff of the Black Prince of Cearazon; and though she had lost it, that dark soul wasn’t one to let a matter like that go, even after it had been retrieved. Getting her hands on that staff would be the easiest way to find her, but the Black Prince wasn’t likely to entertain the request.

Miryil asked about the girl’s personal effects, only to be told she had none when she was brought. The priest of Anyk who had dragged her, and he had dragged her, to Anykrocath reluctantly offered up that she had tried to rob him, and they hadn’t looked for any personal effects she might have hidden away. The girl had sung for three days, unceasingly. They had simply bound her and brought her, she was undeniably blessed, no matter her provenance.

It was a guardsman that noticed the bloody marks left behind on the wall. Blood would do. Miryil obtained a white cloth and purified it with light. Using it and blessed and purified water she transferred the blood from the stone to the cloth carefully. Miryil could feel the girl’s pain and fear. And her fury.

She had to smile as she told the priest, “You thought you collected another simple songbird, but this one won’t stay caged for long. Your goddess has blessed a falconet with song.”

With the girl’s blood on the cloth, she could feel the direction she had gone, better than if it were a trail that could be seen. A trail could be muddied, but there was nowhere to hide when a Light Bringer hunted you. Miryil imposed upon the Keam to send one of his swift winged message carriers to Lallareth Heights. There were always Light Bringers waiting there for word of duties to be done, she wouldn’t get far on the Oryr Road. She would be taken to the Holy Father to deliver her message and then she would be returned to Anykrocath.