Touch of the Ancient Chapter 1

Hello my darling fans! This is Ivy. For those of you new I am the official writing companion of Lise Brandes. So it's been awhile since anyone said anything on here but we're back! So here's what I discovered today to share with y'all. This is the first chapter of Touch of the Ancients. This book will hopefully be the first of many:

Chapter One

Chapter One

The Priestess’ Daughter

Growing up in the home town of Byzales Hunter did come with some pride, everyone in Relesu knew who he was and that outside he was known, occasionally people even came to the village to see where the great archer had grown up and learned. Truth be told people in Relesu didn’t care that much because it meant little in their day to day lives, his wife on the other hand….

Ansrilyn Hunter was the head Priestess of the town, it was she who performed the Naming Ceremonies, she who performed weddings, she who prayed with the sick and dying and she who performed the funeral rights. Rarely did she talk about her life before unless it involved her conversion to the Creator of All. She made sure we as her children knew how to seek the Creator’s will and maybe she had hopes that one of us would follow in her footsteps, but that wasn’t likely.

Jairon was born first and within five days of learning how to walk he kept trying to go out the front door. During weekly services he would try to sneak out at age four. He settled down a little when Dad gave him some leather scraps.

Then there was me, their second born whom they named Nikara. (Jairon insisted on calling me Nik) For hours as an infant I would lay silently holding objects. When such objects were taken away I would fall asleep for long periods of time and wake up crying and usually with a fever.

“Either she is just sickly… or she’s an Aethermancer,” the Herbalist Minaya suggested after I’d been experiencing the fever for a month “if she is an Aethermancer no telling what she’s doing she would have to be an Internal of some type.”

It wasn’t until I was four that it was confirmed. Dad was out participating in tournaments. Mom was home still doing everything needed to keep the spiritual needs of Relesu met. Normally she would have left us with our grandparents Anma and Anpa but Anma was sick so she took us with her on her rounds.

As we stepped into the home of an elderly woman I felt something in the house an overwhelming sense of age (though I didn’t understand it at the time) I touched the wall and my family vanished:

In the room just beyond the wall five children were playing. They were all elves with tan skin, bark brown hair with green strands mixed in, their eyes were all forest green. The woman shared all of the same features. A wooden figure with a teal dress stood in front of her. She held several pins in her mouth as she muttered something I couldn’t make out.

One of the children, a boy who appeared to be about five ran into the figure causing it to wobble.

The woman grabbed the figure and glared at the child. Saying nothing she returned to her work. She placed pins in the dress and then grabbed a needle and some thread.

For One hour and forty one minutes the woman worked on the dress. After one hour and forty one minutes the world turned black and my mind began to burn. I screamed unsure if anyone could hear.

After one day, five hours and twenty nine minutes I woke up in my own bed with Dad sitting next to me. I reached for his hand as my mind still burned.

Dad smiled as he grasped my hand “How do you feel?” he asked.

“My head burns,”

“You still have a fever,” he muttered “but it will pass. What do you remember?”

I sat up to tell him about the tailor and the children.

Dad bit his lip as I finished. “Rest some more,”

“But I’m not sleepy,” I folded my arms.

“Alright then,” he grabbed some parchment, a quill and wooden board and placed them on my lap.

I began to draw the scene as I’d seen it but of course without the color.

Three days, twenty-one hours and 31 minutes later there was a knock on the door .

Jairon answered.

“This is where Nikara Hunter lives?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, why?” Jairon’s eyes narrowed.

“Out of my way boy!” she pushed past him and studied our house.

Mom was in the kitchen cooking something for lunch, Dad was sitting in a chair conditioning his bow.

I was on the floor at Dad’s feet drawing flowers and animals.

“You must be Nikara,” she clasped her hands “from what I hear you are one special girl,”

Dad put down his bow and stood. “I’m Byzales Hunter,”

The woman rolled her eyes “I’ve seen the trading portrait, I know who you are,” she frowned “and I really don’t care about mundane archery,”

“I am Nikara’s father and you are Madame?” He folded his arms

“Athena from the Seresien Academy,”

“I’m Jairon,” my brother announced holding out a hand.

Athena glared at the hand and scoffed.

“Would care to join us for lunch?” Mom asked.

“Yes I suppose but let us talk first,”

Mom walked into the living room area “I’m Ansrilyn Hunter,”

“You are a Shadow Elf?” Athena’s eyes narrowed as she glanced from Mom to Dad, then down at me.

Mom nodded.

Athena was pale almost white, with white hair and icy blue eyes. She glanced at Dad and shrugged. She frowned as I looked up at her “Ill omen those eyes,” she muttered. She clasped her hands again “First let’s start with the parents and then I will speak with Nikara,”

“What’s an omen?” I asked as Dad walked into a room with Athena and closed the door.

Mom knelt down and hugged me “It’s a sign,” she responded.

I tilted my head “How can a sign be sick?”

Jairon laughed “Ill can also mean bad,”

Mom glared at him as he sat down next me.

“She’s wrong, Nik. Your eyes are a good sign, they show people you’re both Forest and Shadow,” he hugged me.

Mom smiled and hugged him. She returned to the kitchen to turn down the heat on dinner.

Thirty-two minutes later Dad returned and nodded to Mom. Once Mom was in the room, he fixed three bowls of the stew Mom had been working on.

Forty-seven minutes later Athena emerged with Mom.

Mom bit her lip and took a deep breath “Nikara, your turn to speak with Athena,”

I shook my head and returned to my drawings.

“Nikara sweety, I’m here for you, I just want to talk.”

I finished drawing a petal on a flower.

“With me you will learn how to control your gift, and not allow your gift to control you,” Athena’s voice spoke in my mind.

I looked up and at Mom’s stern face. With a groan I stood up and followed Athena into my brother’s room.

She had pulled his desk from the wall and placed a chair on either side. “Have a seat, Nikara,”

I sat down across from her and waited.

“So, sweety…”

“My name is Nikara,”

“Perhaps you would prefer Nik?”

“Only Jairon is allowed to call me that,” I folded my arms.

Athena sighed “Very well, Nikara, did you draw this?” she pulled out my drawing of the tailor’s family,”

I nodded.

“You have a gift,”

I smiled, it was my hope that someday I would draw trading portraits and perhaps other things from nature that people of the world could enjoy, perhaps even becoming an Inkmancer and creating animated drawings.

“Your gift is seeing the past. You see things that happened before. That is amazing. You need to learn to focus and use that when you want to. Now tell me what happens when you see things like this?” she pointed to the drawing “Is there anything you do before it happens?”

“I touch things,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“They feel different…”

“Different how?”

I shrugged.

“Hm, well that is something we can figure out together,” she smiled “ and once we figure that out and you learn control, then you will have respect and I’m sure a career that is promising,”

“I’m going to be an Inkmancer,” I announced straightening my back.

Athena laughed “My dear, you don’t understand, Aether flows through you. Craftmancy is for people who want to imimate Aethermancers, and they make a poor mockery of them. Your Aether Gift makes you superior to all people,”

“Mommy says we’re all created equal,” I sat back and folded my arms.

“Well your Mommy isn’t an Aethermancer,” she sighed “so of course she would say that, she doesn’t understand,” she ran a hand through her hair “would you mind if I tested you Nikara?”

I shrugged.

She removed a ring from her left hand “What can you tell me about this?” she asked holding it out towards me “Go on take it in your hand, I expect it back,”

Eyes narrowed I took the ring from her, it didn’t feel interesting at all “There’s nothing here,”

Athena’s eyes widened “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t feel interesting, the walls felt interesting,” I started to hand it back to her.

She placed her head in her hands for a moment and took a deep breath. “When you saw this scene, do you know how long ago it was?” she pointed to the drawing of the tailor.

Four days, six hours and 29 minutes

Athena blinked “I mean do you know when the scene took place?”

I nodded “One hundred years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours and twenty six minutes from that time,”

“Alright,” she nodded “I want you to control the time period you go back, try focusing five hundred years on the ring for five minutes,”

I focused five hundred years and nothing. “I don’t think it’s that old,”

“Well try four hundred,” she bit her lip.

I shook my head after the attempt and without her prompting tried three hundred, then two hundred, hundred, fifty, twenty-five, five, one year, six months, three months, one month… shaking my head and informing her of the time period until two weeks: I saw a man the same complexion and hair color as Athena kneeling in front of her. I stood inside him as he held out the ring and said something I couldn’t hear.

Athena shouted silently as she took the ring from him and placed it on her finger.

He said something else before I released my focus.

“Two weeks and a few days,” I informed her “he gave it to you two weeks ago,”

“Yes…” she nodded “can you tell me how many more days older it is?”

“Maybe,” I focused on the ring again, focusing back a day each time, at two weeks and three days I saw the man buying the ring from a merchant in a back alley. I released my focus again and began adding hours until I focused and got nothing “It’s two weeks, three days, six hours and seven minutes old,”

Athena’s face turned red as she took the ring back and put it in her pocket. “Well that tells me all I need to know,” she grumbled as she stood up “now we need to inform your family that you are going to the Seresien Academy,”

“No,” I folded my arms and glared at her.

“Nikara, sweety… they are welcome to come with you but you need to learn control or you’ll go insane,” she walked out the door.

I followed slowly.

“Have a seat at the table,” she ordered.

Mom and Dad exchanged a look before sitting down.

I climbed into Mom’s lap.

Jairon pulled up an extra chair for Athena before seating himself between Mom and Dad.

“This doesn’t involve the boy,” Athena sniffed.

“He is a member of the family,” Dad responded with a glare folding his arms “it does,”

Athena waved her hand “Fine,” she smoothed her skirt “First I can say for certain Nikara is an Aethermancer, her gift is something called Psychometry, she is what we call an Internal Mental,” she sighed “perhaps I should back up, what do you know of Aethermancers?”

“They are granted a gift by the Creator to do something special via Aether within them,” Mom answered wrapping her arms around me.

Athena rolled her eyes “No, she does not have Aether trapped within her body… Aether is all around us, it flows around everything and everyone except Aethermancers. It flows through Aethermancers and when it flows through them this causes something to happen. We do not know how the Gift is determined but they are divided into types as follows: External Centered,” she took a deep breath “We like to use Fire to describe the Externals- so External Centered is when the Gift is centered on the Aethermancer and affects the world around them for example an Aethermancer who bursts into flame and the fire warms the area around them, External Projected is when the Aethermancer can cause an effect elsewhere for example they create a fire ball over there,” she pointed to the wall “External Mental is when they affect the minds of other people for example making a person think they are on fire and they suffer all of the side effects of believing themselves to be burning. Now for the Internals, those are more tricky to explain. An Internal Visual has a Gift that is visible to others but it has no impact on the world for example they can make it look like the wall is on fire but there is no heat and nothing burns and then we have Internal Mental… Nikara’s Gift will do nicely as an example, when she touches an item she can see the past of that item, but only she can percieve it, no one else can. For that reason Internal Mentals are difficult to diagnose and they are the rarest of the Aethermancers,”

“So what does this mean for next steps?” Mom asked.

“She goes to the Seressien Academy to learn control for the next two years,”

I tried to cuddle more into Mom.

“She’s only four years old,” Mom gasped.

“You’re all welcome to come with her to the city. Some people seem to think it’s better if family is nearby,”

“Two years…” Mom whispered she met Dad’s eyes and he nodded “Jairon why don’t you and Nikara go play.”

“We don’t have time!” Athena snorted.

Dad stood up and met her eyes “We have time to discuss what is best for our family!”

I went with Jairon outside where we played a game of hide and seek until Mom called us back inside.

Athena was still sitting at the table with her arms folded.

Jairon raised his hand in a rude gesture towards her.

“Jairon Hunter!” Mom hissed as she pulled his hand down.

“She keeps talking in my head and I don’t like it!” he snapped pulling away from her.

“Good you’ve made a decision,” Athena sighed.

Mom hugged me to her “Listen closely,” she pushed back a strand of my hair “I need to stay here, because the people of Relesu need me,”

“Then I’m staying here,” I stamped my foot.

“Nikara,” she embraced me tighter “You need to go, but Daddy is going to go with you,”

“What about the tournaments!” Jairon shouted “Dad you’re the greatest Archer in the world, you can’t throw that away!”

“You exaggerate,” Dad smiled “I’m not throwing anything away. For two years I can take a break and keep my skills up,”

“Good, the boy will stay with his Mother then,” Athena smiled.

“Jairon!” my brother snapped “I want to go to Seressien! There is bound to be a Leathermancer there that we could talk too for later,”

Athena laughed “Typical, the boy wants to be a Craftmancer…”

Dad exchanged another look with Mom who nodded “We were going to give you the choice,”

“I want to go,” Jairon affirmed.

“That is what we suspected,” Mom sighed “I will visit as often as I can,” she promised as she embraced us both.

The next morning we left.

Dad started working as an instructor at an archery range.

Jairon began attending a school in the city that taught trades such as Leather working. He was among the youngest in his class. After the two years he was instructed to keep practicing and when he was fifteen, the age of Apprenticeship he already had a Master Leathermancer ready to train him.

As for me: Two years of learning how to focus my Aether Gift, how important my Aether Gift was, how much my Aether Gift mattered, what the residual effects of the Aether running through me were (perfect time sense and sensing age of items) At the end of those two years I knew I was an Aethermancer and somehow my abiltity to touch the past was the only thing that would shape my future, but how?