KYMALIN IARO cannot give up. With her brother running out of time and their mother powerless, Kymalin embarks on a journey to find a cure. So when a powerful organization becomes her only hope, she has to prove she belongs to it, even if it means ge...
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2406 Tull 18, Velpa
The wind blowing through her brother's room was cold and damp, typical of a normal day in this damned mountain. Kymalin stared at the unmoving boy propped on his bed, her heart becoming numb. It had been this way for years. Nothing had changed. And from the looks of it, nothing would.
Kymalin crossed her arms and leaned back against her seat, the wood creaking underneath her weight. The healers, clad in their long tunics and silly sashes, had their heads bowed in a corner. She clicked her tongue. "Quit bowing your heads like that," she snapped. "My brother is not dead."
The healers flinched as a group, making waves run down their little line. It was almost amusing had it not been in her current circumstance. She glanced at her brother. He was still out cold after being flushed down with countless potions to drown out the pain in his system. A temporary solution, Kymalin knew, but it was the only thing they could do. It has been the only thing they're doing for years on end.
Vaeri Iaro was the second child of the High Priestess of the Temple of Souls, the most important establishment in all of Carleon. Kymalin wasn't going to remind herself that she's the first. That usually meant she realizes who she was and how unfair everything was. Because despite having all the power, despite having all the resources, they still couldn't figure out what's wrong with her brother.
The faces of the past healers who visited the Temple and this very room for the past decade had been engraved in Kymalin's face. They had been hand-picked from the best of the best, at least that's what the Rekshais told her when she asked, but when they got here, all they could do was blabber about vague things and prescribe more pain medicine that wouldn't even work on a half-blood, much less a banshee.
Idiots, the lot of them. Kymalin clicked her tongue again, annoyance creeping into her system so early in the morning. Well, no use in putting herself in a dark mood over some fools who thought they're significant. As far as Kymalin was concerned, the Rekshais were desperate they'd call just anyone who claimed they could brew a potion or two.
She couldn't blame her mother's advisers though. Even she was getting desperate. It had been too many years of nothing but this. The times she had seen her brother leave the bed in the past year could be counted with one hand. When she asked the healers for a detailed report of her brother's condition, all they told her was that he was in pain.
Constant, never-ending pain.
"Where?" Kymalin remembered asking.
The healer she talked to merely bowed his head. "All over," he said. "It wasn't just the soul, Priestess."
Oh, how she hated that title. If anything, she was a healer more than she was a priestess because of the amount of time she found herself wandering around her brother's quarters since she had the ability to sneak past her tutors and the Serzhakis running around in the Temple.
