One
City of Anue, Regia.
13 years after the war of the wizards
A rage burned in Erin’s twelve-year-old heart, branding her with darkness. Rage at her mom for dying. Rage at her mother’s family for not even bothering to show up to the funeral. Rage at her own powerless state. Her soul wept. She’d cried an ocean, but her eyes were dry, empty shells now.
“Mom…” she whispered, pinching her eyes shut tight. “Mom, I just wish you could hold my hand once more.”
Erin put her hands together and imagined her left hand was her mother’s.
Cold swept up her back as she realized she was an orphan. Her dad still lived in a technical sense only. He breathed, he spoke, his face was the same. He was there, and at the same time, he wasn’t. The moment her mother had died, so had he. Erin watched it happen. The light went out of his eyes. His soul, forever tied to her mother’s, left when hers left. There was no comfort she could offer her father. Witnessing him lose his destined life mate terrified Erin. The gravity of his loss seemed to dwarf her own, and Erin’s grief was so severe it maimed her.
She raged at the injustice of reality. She was shunned by her mother’s family because she was a Halfling. Cursed to suffer the stupidity of racism because her father was a vampire and her mother was an elf. But destiny had chosen to lock her parents together with the famous soul bridge shared by life mates. Destiny was a heartless bitch. Everyone said Regia had changed and now it was acceptable for the races to mix, and perhaps it had been worse before she was born. That didn’t change the fact that her grandparents didn’t even acknowledge her existence.
Erin leaned out her bedroom window, took as deep a breath as she could, and let it out slowly, gazing at the nearby homes that lined the humble street. Not one window was lit. Everyone slept. She was adrift in the dark quiet, and she would have to learn her own strength. No one else was going to hold her up. Halflings had to be tough, because the world would kick the shit out of you just for being mixed. She had to learn to kick back harder. How could she do that? She wasn’t skilled or strong.
A faint rustling startled her. She pulled back into the house and used her elf DNA to turn invisible. Through the gap in the curtains, a hooded figure walked closely past her window and around the side of the house.
Creeping from her room, slowly she approached the front window and looked out. The figure was there, leaning down by the front door. The size and shape of the stranger let her know it was a boy maybe just a little older than herself. His hands caught her attention. A mark, like a medallion, the size of a coin, glowed on his wrist in a beautiful gold.
He placed an envelope and a white flower on the front step. The breeze snatched the envelope and lifted it up. He caught it, put it back down, grabbed a rock from the ground, and set it on top of the envelope and flower stem. Before he moved away a surge of warm light from his marked hand went into the rock. She watched him walk away until the shadows swallowed him.
Erin waited a few minutes just to make sure he was really and truly gone before opening the door. Clasping the envelope, flower, and rock to her chest, she locked the front door and sat down on the floor. She opened the envelope and gasped. A small fortune of silver coins and a simple note spilled out into her hand.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I know money fixes nothing and cannot soothe your pain, but I have nothing else to give you.
It wasn’t signed.
She put the note and money on the kitchen table before taking the flower and rock to her bedroom. She sat on her bed, brought the flower close to her face and inhaled its sweet fragrance. Kindness from a stranger. It touched her battered, broken heart. She pressed the flower inside the book on her bedside table. She didn’t want to lose it.
Erin climbed into bed, the rock clutched in her hands. It glowed very faintly—the same gold as the mark on the stranger’s hand. What kind of power was imbued inside? She instantly and inexplicably attached strong feelings to the stone. Lying face up, she put the stone over her heart. There was something about it…the tightness that held inside her chest for the last few days, eased. The stone made her feel better, healthier, and oddly enough…luckier.
In the years that followed, rumors spread about the benevolent, anonymous person who left help to those who needed it the most, and there was always a stone that the recipient kept and considered lucky. Erin listened to the rumors and would argue with any skeptic that indeed the generous stranger did exist.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, if she had a hard time sleeping, Erin got up and snuck out. She lurked in the shadows, invisible, just watching and hoping she might catch the gift giver in the act. A desire to know his identity only grew through the years and she had more than a few fantasies about him. Even though she didn’t know his name, had never seen his face, or heard his voice, she loved him. Just that such a person existed gave her hope.