Timeless Allegiance

Chapter 1

The first time I saw her, she took my heart away into a place where I could no longer call it my own. She was a stranger, yet at the same time, someone familiar. I wanted her for myself, in all ways, in all moments, in all eternity. Everything about her was like gifting me peace after a lifetime of war as I watched her move across the earth. Does such beauty exist in this realm? For days after meeting her, I dreamt of a place and time where we had once sang songs together in tribal uniforms. I had danced with her in front of fires that glowed fiercely and I had plucked vines from the trees to tie her long black hair. I'd waken feeling as if I knew her from somewhere far away and yet I couldn't grasp where I had seen her.

I would find an excuse to go to the town market and search for her face in the crowd. Anyone whose body looked similar and I would bump into them, only to find a true stranger gawking at me. I searched the fields during new years and I would find her dressed in traditional coin sashes around her slim waist, her head in a purple turban with the stripe ribbon indicating she was available for wooing, and my heart would pound with glee. Suitors of all types hung around her like a bee to a sap on a flower. Jealousy tore at me and I couldn't see straight. I wanted her for myself. But I couldn't just pluck her out of her family's life. I had to do it with reason, with an exchange of promise, with a true heart of love. The question was, would she love me? Would she love me, a man who at night suffered the nightmares of a spiritual world? Would she love me, a shaman whose gift was to seek broken souls to come home? Would she love me?

I grew up in a small home with my parents and was their only son. My mother had multiple miscarriages and when I finally was born full term and healthy, she'd vowed to never let the sun scorch me or let me go hungry. Of course, I was also a very sickly child and it didn't help my mother much for she was constantly sick with worry. After giving birth to me, she'd lost another two children and lost the courage to try again. My father had enough of watching my mother go blind with tears so he kept away from her and I became an only child.

I knew I was different from most people when I hit the age of 10. I was doing things I saw elders do at ceremonies and singing chants I didn't know the meaning of. My mother was frightened because her father had been a shaman and she knew the signs. When I took my first test as a shaman on the bench, I felt the world around me light up like fireworks. The energy that pounded and pulsated through my veins was enough to wake in me the warrior that had been hiding. Once he emerged, I threw the cloak of illness away and became stronger than ever before. I never went back to the sickly Boua.

I knew that marriage would be the next point of my chapter. I had wondered through town trying to find someone who would be able to steal my heart. And no one measured up to the job until I saw Mai Thao. I knew exactly who she was and I knew she was the last daughter to be wed. I also knew she was quite a red mouthed girl. But so was my mother and I knew she would get along fine. That night, while washing her feet before going to bed, I approached my mother. My mother, Yia, was a plump woman with a head of salt and peppered hair, who spoke without holding back. Most thought she was rude but she was also the type to cry easily. The two cocktail mixed together was a bad one and she often held grudges from ages ago.

"Mother, I want to talk to you about something."

"What?" she asked focusing on the water around her feet. Her short fingers were scrubbing the dirt from between her toes, having worked the garden all day. "What do you want?"

"I want to get married." She paused and looked up with a shocked expression. "I want to get married."

Laughing, she replied, "Son, getting married means you need a woman. Didn't I tell you that?"

I smirked. "Mother, do you think so low of your son that you don't think I have a woman in mind?"

She reached for the towel and dried her feet as she eyed me with suspicion. "Who is she? Do I know her? Most importantly, can she kill a chicken without crying bloody murder?"