Chapter 12
A Sign of Good Things
Hamal didn’t know what was about to happen. At the inn in Redsprin, he’d had a dream—a bad dream—the very first night with Rosy. Tonight, outside the small town of Gallank Tree, he, Rosy, and Will were sitting around the campfire staring awkwardly at one another.
Something was about to happen.
Something was supposed to happen.
Would he have another dream, but this time perhaps it would be a good dream—or at least a better dream? Would he have no dream at all, but Rosy would see the Creator, and her eyes would fill with fire, and this time that fire would be a sign of good things and not bad things?
Hamal had no idea. But he hoped, for Rosy’s sake, that the Creator made things easy for her. This little child was only a few years old—just six—and already sorrow had marked her bones. That wasn’t right, for such a small child to have experienced this much pain and suffering. Perhaps…
Hamal looked down at the child. She was seated next to him on the blanket with the argumentative gray kitten in her lap. The same kitten that liked sitting on people’s heads. The kitten’s huge blue eyes were focused on Mercy the sand wolf, lying next to Will on the other side of the fire.
Perhaps, Hamal thought again, tonight will be good for her heart.
“Hamal,” Will said.
Hamal looked at him over the flames.
“I confess I do not entirely know what is expected of me tonight.”
Hamal didn’t know either. He lifted both shoulders in a shrug. Rosy shuffled around beside him, gripping the gray kitten and gently running her fingers over its head. Hamal thought this was a good sign. Just a few days ago, he’d had a difficult time imagining little Rosy responding positively to anything, even a cuddly kitten.
“I think,” Hamal said slowly, “my grandfather wants you to do just…what you would normally do. What do you normally do at night? I know you like to sleep on the ground and speak to the Creator about the earth, but what does that mean at night?”
Will took his time answering. He lifted his tea and, for the first time, actually took a sip. Hamal’s cup was nearly empty, sitting in the soil near his feet. Rosy hadn’t touched hers yet. Did she even like tea? Hamal wasn’t certain, but it had seemed good to give her a cup anyway.
“Most nights,” Will said quietly, “I listen to the story of the ground, and where it is hurting, I make repairs.”
“Oh,” Hamal said, leaning forward a bit. “That sounds exciting.”
“I am afraid you would likely find it dull.” Will’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe not. You are a sage after all. But most people would find what I do to be rather slow and uneventful. I speak to the Creator, and he shows me where the ground has been wounded and how to heal it. Much of the time, the healing is minimal and cannot be seen on the surface. This is not my land. I have no relationship with this town or any of its people; there is only so much I can do.”
Hamal looked at Will closely. “You have never mentioned this to me. About healing the earth. That’s very interesting. I don’t know anything about healing the earth, but I would like to know about it.”
Will’s face darkened. Even in the moving lights of the fire, Hamal could see the change. The charter glanced down at Rosy, who had picked up her tea and was trying to offer it to the kitten.
Will reached up and rubbed his face. His hand was dirty, and he increased the smudge marks on his skin. “My clan doesn’t discuss the earth with outsiders. We don’t tell other clans what we can do with it. We don’t find employment with a seer who works for the throne. We don’t help that seer accomplish tasks assigned to him by that throne. And we do not ever leave the land we were born on.”
The night fell quiet. The fire crackled.
“But, Will,” Hamal said carefully, “you have done all those things.”
The charter laughed once, but it wasn’t an overly happy sound. “I know.”
Hamal remembered the feel of Will’s bones. Every time he touched the charter, his bones tried to talk about sadness. It was an old sadness, something that had happened long ago. Was this the reason they were sad? Why did charters never leave the land they were born on, and yet Will had traveled up here into the North Territory with Cale? Hamal didn’t know anything about Will’s history. Nobody did. Well, maybe Cale did, but he knew only what his gifting had shown him.
Will took a deep breath. “Yes, Hamal. I will tell you a little about healing the earth—or, as you and your grandfather have asked, I will show you.” He looked pointedly at Rosy.
Rosy didn’t seem to notice.
Will stretched out face down on the ground. He avoided the patches of long, straggly grass and put his body directly onto the cold soil. As interested as he was in what Will was doing, Hamal kept one eye on Rosy. This was about her too. The little girl looked at Will curiously as he set himself on the ground, without a bedroll or blankets or anything else, but then she returned to playing with her kitten, which had quite loudly decided it did not want any tea.
What would it be like to watch a charter heal part of the earth? Hamal remembered what it was like to travel with Will under the earth, when they had been trying to arrest Lord Masgrave and escape his dragons. He had seen Will do extraordinary things with the ground then. He could move it and make it change.
Hamal set his hand on the ground, the same way Will often did, and wondered if he would be able to feel what Will was doing. The ground was chilly and damp, and he pulled his hat down over his ears and scooted a little closer to the fire.
Will didn’t move. For someone who was praying, he seemed oddly quiet. The moon rose higher above their heads, coating the land outside Gallank Tree with silvery, mysterious light. A wolf howled off to the west somewhere, and Mercy the sand wolf lifted her head and looked toward the sound. Rosy’s head began tipping toward her chest, and Hamal spread out her bedroll and helped tuck her in. Tonight she let him do it. The kitten went into the bedroll too. It accepted the bedroll much more easily than it had accepted the tea.
“Good night, Rosy,” Hamal whispered, giving her a warm smile.
She stared up at him with dark eyes and didn’t speak, nor did she smile in return. He breathed a sigh. He knew they were making progress—he could wait.
He sat back on his bedroll and studied Will’s prone form on the other side of the fire. Healing the earth. He rubbed his hand against the dirt and then looked at the dark grains left behind on his palm.
An hour later, when nothing noticeable had occurred, Hamal finally gave in to the pull of sleep and lay down, his arms under his head as he stared up at the moon. He thought of the Creator, who had made that moon, and wondered what he and Will were talking about. His eyes closed, and when he opened them, it was morning. He had not dreamed, not even a tiny bit.
For the next three days, they stayed in Gallank Tree.
Hamal, Rosy, and Will slept outside under the stars with Mercy the sand wolf and the little gray kitten. Each morning they would head to the inn for breakfast, where Shel Galen would look at Hamal and ask, “Well?”
And Hamal would shrug helplessly and reply, “I cannot tell that anything has happened. We are still waiting.”
“Well then, keep at it,” his grandfather would answer.
Finally, on the fourth night spent out-of-doors, Hamal asked Will quietly, “Do you think he’s going to come?”
Will seemed genuinely confused by the question. “Who?”
“Why, the Creator, of course,” Hamal said. “The one called Ruwok. The one you pray to.”
Will looked at him in surprise. “Yes. He has been here. I have heard his voice.”
Hamal felt his eyebrows crawl up toward his hair. “He has? Do you think Rosy saw him? I can’t tell that anything has happened with her.” He hadn’t seen her fire eyes in at least two days.
Will rubbed his face with a dirty hand as he thought about it. The two of them looked at the little girl asleep by the fire.
“Is it possible something has happened, but it just wasn’t the way it was before?” Will asked. “With that other god, I mean.”
“Oh,” Hamal said. “Oh, that’s an interesting idea. Maybe you’re right. I think she’s been going to sleep more easily these past few nights.”
The next morning at breakfast, Shel asked, “Well?”
Hamal shrugged again, just like all the other mornings, but this time he said, “Maybe something has happened. Maybe.”
Shel nodded. “Excellent.”
They left Gallank Tree a few hours later.
Unexpectedly, Shel went with them.
– H –
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Comment below or find us on Facebook. Copyright notice: © 2026 by Lauren Stinton. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or sapient plants is purely coincidental.
