A year had passed. She was barely seen in the heart of the land, surfacing here and there every handful of weeks or so, before back to Bulwark's Cove to the north-east of the city. The Four Keeps, its out-buildings, her home and a few other areas of Bulwark's Cove were finally repaired; brought back to life from the ruins they had been. The process had taken a staggering two years to accomplish, but such was it when a wave of a hand and the force of magic was not used to make things suddenly as they were wanted. To have done that would have been against her oaths and to have done that would have robbed a dozen or more hearty, good men of the opportunity to earn coin for their good work.
Valucia Sedai stood on the grounds that lay between the Four Keeps and her home. In the not-so-far distance, she could hear the waves of the waves against the rocks and shore at the bottom of the cliffs that overlooked the cover below. She faced in that direction, facing north-east. A dress of blue and black, worn in thick layers of wool and cotton, kept her warm enough but she had errored on the side of caution and added her dark brown traveling cloak about herself when she had left her home a few hours earlier. Snows had fallen the night before and were still inches-deep along the main pathway of stones. Snow was still falling while she stood there, seeming to stare at a tree or two and very much deep in her thoughts.
"Valucia Sedai..?"
She turned to regard the man that had called to her. He seemed to have an expression that it might not have been the first attempt at addressing her.
Tomas Nur, the man that had been in her employ to help with the restoration of what she called Ashandarei (Sword-spear) -- an inclusion of the Four Keeps, its buildings and her home at Bulwark's Cove. His face had three, thick scars raking over one side of it and on that side his eye had a milkiness to it that gave some evidence that he could not see out of it.
"I did not expect to see you, Tomas."
"And yet, here I am." The man was used to hard work and wasn't anything close to being a dullard. He shifted a shoulder and yanked his battered cloak about himself as if someone had just poured cold water over his head. "Why are you out here in the cold, woma-- Valucia Sedai?"
"I like to walk. My sister and her family, along with my parents, have been gone for weeks. With that done," She paused with a fleeting moment of amusement. It had felt as if it had been a very lengthy task to have them around for so long. A bitter-sweet matter, to be certain. Valucia shook her head, fractionally. "and with that done, I have been able to see to the purchase of things needed in the keeps, the hall, and other areas."
" 'bout to be done? I mean, readying for your friends to arrive?" Tomas wasn't sharing thoughts either, but mutely he was hoping none of the Reds were among them. Ever.
Darkluster eyes turned to Tomas curiously before she slowly smiled. "Two will be arriving in a week or so. Such depends on their journey and if there were any delays." Valucia was not expecting a horde by any stretch of the imagination. Their world was very different than RhyDin but she found herself settling well over the past years. A fine brow barely moved, while her gloved right hand curled about her left wrist before her. "You were not underpaid. Nor any of the men you employed to do the work?"
"No. All is in order. All the work done and all paid for well."
She stood there a bit longer, watchful of the man before her. "And yet you are here. What is the reason for that, I wonder."
Tomas Nur looked at her while they both stood on the pathway between the Blue Ajah's home and the Four Keeps. "That strange creature, Skeliten --or whatever he's called -- saw me passing the Great Archive the other day." Nur frowned. The creature looked like a very old lizard of some sort with his reptilian skin and stranger with his claw and wearing robes and claws.
"Skelrisan." Valucia offered quietly, helpfully.
"That's him." Tomas started digging about in a leather bag he carried beneath his cloak. His head was down and eyes were on the task. "Told me to give you this. Something about sky people and time." A brass sphere with etchings all over the outside of it in patterns that didn't seem to be anything but design was handed out to her.
Valucia gathered her skirts just enough not to hinder her steps when she closed the minute distance between Nur and herself. She reached for the object. "Fascinating," Murmured to find it warm and not cold in that weather as she expected. "What is it, I wonder. Did he say what its purpose is, Tomas?"
The man nodded, frowning at the snow and cold. He stomped his boots against the ground with a few quick thuds. "He did at that. 'said it was for time and position. 'said it works in the dark, too. Tap on the top, where the triangle is etched in it. Mhm. There." Tomas eyed it, then her.
The end of her right forefinger, warm in its glove, tapped lightly against the sphere where the little triangle was. The brass sphere, small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, popped open exposed a black ball within it. Whirring quietly, it came to life with a hum. What appeared to be a ball of onyx -- shiny and glass-like -- looked more akin to a black bubble then, lit from within and little images appearing against its surface.
" 'said you need to just say time or to ask it location and it shows you." He shrugged and looked to her ageless face.
"Location." Valucia simply stated it and wondered curiously what the little thing would do. What it did next made her smile; warm and genuine with pleasant surprise. A map of the immediate area and half a mile in distance was suddenly shown to her on the air just above the gadget. "Extraordinary.."
Tomas whistled. It was obvious that the creature hadn't shown him what it could do. "Now, it if could give you gold coins.." He chuckled and shook his head. "I guess he thinks you might get lost and need to know the time while you're lost." Jesting he shook his head. "Snow's coming down more and I need to get home."
"Thank you, Tomas Nur." Valucia regarded him again while she closed the sphere. As soon as she did, the image of the map disappeared. "I am certain there will be use for it."
He grunted and shrugged. "Nothing I'd have use for. Be well, Valucia Sedai." The farewell was as formal as the man seemed to get. Still, he made certain that the respect was offered to the woman before he hurried off. It was cold and he didn't have any intention of catching his death being out in the snow any longer than he needed to be.
The Blue Ajah remained there a long time. She watched until the workman was out of sight before she finally moved. Her skirted strides carried her towards her home. She had been out in the cold long enough to feel it by then and gave a slight shiver when she moved up the stairs and into the place of wood and stone.
There were a few missives to write to those near and far and plenty of time was at hand for doing so. She paused just inside the door and opened the gadget again. It popped open, she eyed it closely, then snapped it shut once more. She smiled, more often than some assumed, and did so again to receive the gift from her scholarly friend, Skelrisan.
After the well-used travel cloak was hung by the door, the oil lamps were lit with a manner of necessity through routine. She was unhurried in the mundane task and allowed her thoughts to wander back to days when Alrin Martan still lived. She smiled a little to think how many of her Sisters of the Tower who thought her to be a stone-heart. It was, in fact, quite the opposite. The veil of calm and seeming indifference she wore in public not often a cast-aside image. Valucia cared deeply and worried about some matters, whether she could bring change to them or not. Alrin Martan had been loved, though they had fought in forging their alliance until both saw the enormous benefit of The Bond. Her sister and family were loved. These were thing that would not chair.
Her little niece, Sashanii, occupied her thoughts: the child's whimsical and energetic ways. The pureness and light-heartedness the little girl had was purely disarming to Valucia. She welcomed every visit from her.
The last of the lamps was lit and the fire in the hearth that had died down to embers was given more wood and stoked back to a vibrant dance of light and heat. Her home there are Bulwark's Cove was modest by most standards of those who resided in Tar Valon. It was two stories high with two bed chambers and a bathing area on the second floor. The main level where she stood was open, affording a view at every angle from the section of the large room where the meals were prepared and cooked, a place to sit and eat those meals and a couple of chairs and a table set before the stone hearth.
An iron arm and hook were pulled out. She hung a small pot of water on its crooked end, then swiveled inside so that the water could boil. A strand of black fell loose from the strip of leather she had tied her hair back with earlier that morning. The lock was pushed back neatly and tucked in among the other dark lengths; neatly done.
Her hand dropped to her skirted side to withdraw the brass sphere from a pocket. It was looked at a little closer this time. A tiny hole, barely large enough for a weevil to have wriggled in or out of, could be made out. "Well then, what is this, I wonder."
She took from a trunk on the floor, against the southern wall of the home, a box of wood and placed it on the table in the kitchen area. The lid of the box was opened and a little piece of metal was removed. An approach of one of the lamps allowed her to see the hole better and pushed the end of the metal pin into it.
Sudden movement from the brass sphere the scholar had sent her made her blink. It whirred and gave a brief high-pitched sound-- like a whistle, but distant in its way -- before it popped open from left to right on its almost unseen hinge. An image of an old, reptilian looking sort of creature holding a book in his clawed grasp was there but it was not solid. It reminded her of stories of specters.
"Valucia Sedai. Greetings! I knew you would have the interest enough to figure it out and here I am, with a message for you!" Skelrisan chucked in his visual and audible message the sphere held for her to discover. "Now, you know I am often staff-deep in studies. Learning about this. Learning about that. I was out at Lord Yalvek's estate -- he has a vast library, you see -- and overheard talk about a girl that suddenly manifest powers. Off this continent and due south-west. It sounded to me like she has what those at Tar Valon call a 'spark'. Yes, yes. I believe that is it. The child's name is Jahlen and she has reached her seventh year. A place called Ptoren. Ask on the docks for Captain Zhaeron. He'll get you there. Knew you would be interested. Use this when you go," He grinned. He knew that she would at some point. "It will light your way, help you when you are lost, and if things are dire enough just tap the triangle on the outside with three rapid taps. I'll know it swiftly and send someone to your aid. Enjoy the gift, Valucia Sedai!"
The image of the scholar then vanished. She frowned a little. "Strange, small male." Valucia had always found him starkly different than the rest of those she had encountered in RhyDin. But she didn't mind too much. He knew what he was talking about and never send her information about something unless he was certain. Yet, she was left to wonder why he helped at all. He had approached her within a couple of weeks of her arrival to the realms and sent her books, scrolls, and other items through the years that could be useful to her, though he never asked for anything in return.
Ginger touch of her fingers applied pressure to the split, open brass orb to bring it back together and whole. It clicked when she shut it, then tucked it back into her skirt pocket. Jahlen in Ptoren. "We shall see." Murmured pensively while the pin was returned to its box.
She might as well have been in the tiny place of Two Rivers for as lost and untethered from things as she had felt for months. There was little or no news from Tar Valon for weeks. Not until she had made her way to the Red Dragon Inn in RhyDin Proper. There had be nothing for almost a moon and here in that stack on the table before her were no fewer than five letters.
"Extraordinary." The mother dragon and the blind girl that had been in the inn must have assumed her unsociable in her sudden silence and then disappearance without so much as a polite farewell. The Blue Ajah had left the inn the day before to hurry back to Ashandarei at Bulwark's Cove that overlooked the north-east coastline and its vast ocean.
Three missives were sealed with yellow, brown, and blue; from the sects of Ajah, certainly. The other two had wax seals of red as was often used by everyone else. It wasn't the three from the women of the shawl that she reached for first. Theirs were plainly marked and she could tell exactly who they were from. The fourth was from a Lord Welborne. She knew him well enough that anything he was writing about was very likely already in the correspondence from the Sisters.
The ends of her fingers rested on the table next to the fifth letter. She had kept it 'sandwiched' between the others and had not touched it directly yet. Lord Welborne's letter was used to nudge the fifth missive away from the other and then turned it over so that she had clearly seen both sides of it. Waves of a weave could be felt washing outwards from the neatly folded and sealed parchment. Other than her name and the city's name of RhyDin on it, there was nothing else written on the outside of it. Her hand that bore the ring of the great serpent laid the other letter down and passed that now-empty hand over the weave that she could just barely feel and see. And the seal was too darkly colored to be regular wax.
"Blood," Valucia cursed. "blood and ashes!" She swore but it was also what was mixed into the wax. It had been tainted and then a weave placed about it. Obviously it was not to harm just anyone or the letter would have never arrived to her -- it would have killed any that had touched it, if that were the case. It was a trick or text and she was not amused by either possibility.
Black-pearl colored eyes steadfastly held the image the letter as her hand still rested above it by a few inches. It took a few moments, then a few more to unravel the threads of the weave that someone had tangled up so well. Those threads soon fell away and disappeared in ways that she and her Sisters could see, while others normally could not. She only reached for the letter after the threads were completely gone from her sight. The parchment that covered the pages within was carefully torn away -- around the seal, not touching the defiled wax directly. A bit of paper that held the wax was tossed into the fireplace where it exploded with a bit more ferocity than she expected.
"By the Light!"
The woman's voice behind her was familiar, but unheard for a long time. Valucia turned where she stood. Skirts of dark and light blue whispered against the floor of her home when she did. Letters were loosed to the table to cross the room to where the Brown Ajah stood in her doorway. Behind her was a man a full head taller than the small woman with brown hair, looking all the height of six feet and more and his shoulders almost as wide as the doorframe. "Adriahnu!"
Adriahnu lowered her hand from her eyes, having fended off the glare of the explosion a second too late. She blinked brown eyes at Valucia and smile. They both laughed in a welcoming embrace then stepped further into the open, first level of Valucia's home.
"Valucia Sedai." The respect was coupled with a bow of his head. The Warder had been seen years ago, just before news of Adriahnu and his Bonding. Sometime before Arlin Martan had been murdered.
"Calichniye, Gaidin," The Warder, Elan Ashren by name, was formally greeted in the old tongue. "And you, Adriahnu. Welcome."
"Thank you, Valucia. Now, by everything that's against the White Cloaks, what was that?" Adriahnu hated the White Cloaks, the Men of Light, or whatever they were calling themselves that century. Adriahnu had names for them that were not kind at all, so using them as an entirety as a curse suited her fine.
"That...? Well, that, was a warning." Valucia did not look at all unsettled by the awful wax seal that could have been poisoned, the magical weave that could have stopped her heart being, or the explosion that could have maimed or killed her. If she was, it was buried deep behind her placid visage that wore a welcoming smile for the one of the Brown.
Adriahnu scoffed and started pulling her gloves off while Ashren closed the door against the cold, snowing day. "It is nothing we do not see daily at the Tower." Beneath her breath, she whispered an ancient saying of blessing on the Tar Valon and all that keep the weak from harm. "Did you get my letters?"
"Yours, yes. Then nothing more until a short time ago. That was in among the carrier's worth."
"And the messenger did not die." It was easy to see the proverbial wheels of though turning in the head of the Brown Ajah. "Interesting, truly interesting. That takes much skill and strong magic, Sister."
"Yes. The same had occurred to me as well."
"To try to kill a specific person and not any who touched it along the way. Very interesting, indeed! It is too bad that you tossed what portion of it you did into the fire. I could have studied it."
Valucia laughed, softly and kindly. It was expect of all Brown Ajah to have an interest in all things mundane, arcane, and else. The read, they studied, they experimented too if there was a need for it to understand the puzzle or problem before them. "I will remember that next time, Sister. Come. Allow me to show you both to the Hall and Keeps."
She left the letters on the table for later reading. They would be seen to their chambers and food brought to them by the newly-hired scullery. Talks were just at their beginning and a lengthy, winding road for such things lay ahead.
"Very well. But I want to know how someone came by your blood and hair -- since you don't seem to be missing your teeth or bones!"
"Yes, yes... it is quite a wonder, is it not?" Murmured at the Sister as they left the simple home and crossed the great yard to the Four Keeps. Valucia knew exactly how that could have happened. It was up to her if the tale was going to be told to the Brown or not.
________
Ardiahnu Sedai
Brown Ajah
http://valuciasabet.webs.com/photos/Ardiahnu%20Sedai.jpg
Elan Ashren
Warder to Ardiahnru
http://valuciasabet.webs.com/photos/IanAershaen2.jpg
Valucia Sedai stood on the grounds that lay between the Four Keeps and her home. In the not-so-far distance, she could hear the waves of the waves against the rocks and shore at the bottom of the cliffs that overlooked the cover below. She faced in that direction, facing north-east. A dress of blue and black, worn in thick layers of wool and cotton, kept her warm enough but she had errored on the side of caution and added her dark brown traveling cloak about herself when she had left her home a few hours earlier. Snows had fallen the night before and were still inches-deep along the main pathway of stones. Snow was still falling while she stood there, seeming to stare at a tree or two and very much deep in her thoughts.
"Valucia Sedai..?"
She turned to regard the man that had called to her. He seemed to have an expression that it might not have been the first attempt at addressing her.
Tomas Nur, the man that had been in her employ to help with the restoration of what she called Ashandarei (Sword-spear) -- an inclusion of the Four Keeps, its buildings and her home at Bulwark's Cove. His face had three, thick scars raking over one side of it and on that side his eye had a milkiness to it that gave some evidence that he could not see out of it.
"I did not expect to see you, Tomas."
"And yet, here I am." The man was used to hard work and wasn't anything close to being a dullard. He shifted a shoulder and yanked his battered cloak about himself as if someone had just poured cold water over his head. "Why are you out here in the cold, woma-- Valucia Sedai?"
"I like to walk. My sister and her family, along with my parents, have been gone for weeks. With that done," She paused with a fleeting moment of amusement. It had felt as if it had been a very lengthy task to have them around for so long. A bitter-sweet matter, to be certain. Valucia shook her head, fractionally. "and with that done, I have been able to see to the purchase of things needed in the keeps, the hall, and other areas."
" 'bout to be done? I mean, readying for your friends to arrive?" Tomas wasn't sharing thoughts either, but mutely he was hoping none of the Reds were among them. Ever.
Darkluster eyes turned to Tomas curiously before she slowly smiled. "Two will be arriving in a week or so. Such depends on their journey and if there were any delays." Valucia was not expecting a horde by any stretch of the imagination. Their world was very different than RhyDin but she found herself settling well over the past years. A fine brow barely moved, while her gloved right hand curled about her left wrist before her. "You were not underpaid. Nor any of the men you employed to do the work?"
"No. All is in order. All the work done and all paid for well."
She stood there a bit longer, watchful of the man before her. "And yet you are here. What is the reason for that, I wonder."
Tomas Nur looked at her while they both stood on the pathway between the Blue Ajah's home and the Four Keeps. "That strange creature, Skeliten --or whatever he's called -- saw me passing the Great Archive the other day." Nur frowned. The creature looked like a very old lizard of some sort with his reptilian skin and stranger with his claw and wearing robes and claws.
"Skelrisan." Valucia offered quietly, helpfully.
"That's him." Tomas started digging about in a leather bag he carried beneath his cloak. His head was down and eyes were on the task. "Told me to give you this. Something about sky people and time." A brass sphere with etchings all over the outside of it in patterns that didn't seem to be anything but design was handed out to her.
Valucia gathered her skirts just enough not to hinder her steps when she closed the minute distance between Nur and herself. She reached for the object. "Fascinating," Murmured to find it warm and not cold in that weather as she expected. "What is it, I wonder. Did he say what its purpose is, Tomas?"
The man nodded, frowning at the snow and cold. He stomped his boots against the ground with a few quick thuds. "He did at that. 'said it was for time and position. 'said it works in the dark, too. Tap on the top, where the triangle is etched in it. Mhm. There." Tomas eyed it, then her.
The end of her right forefinger, warm in its glove, tapped lightly against the sphere where the little triangle was. The brass sphere, small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, popped open exposed a black ball within it. Whirring quietly, it came to life with a hum. What appeared to be a ball of onyx -- shiny and glass-like -- looked more akin to a black bubble then, lit from within and little images appearing against its surface.
" 'said you need to just say time or to ask it location and it shows you." He shrugged and looked to her ageless face.
"Location." Valucia simply stated it and wondered curiously what the little thing would do. What it did next made her smile; warm and genuine with pleasant surprise. A map of the immediate area and half a mile in distance was suddenly shown to her on the air just above the gadget. "Extraordinary.."
Tomas whistled. It was obvious that the creature hadn't shown him what it could do. "Now, it if could give you gold coins.." He chuckled and shook his head. "I guess he thinks you might get lost and need to know the time while you're lost." Jesting he shook his head. "Snow's coming down more and I need to get home."
"Thank you, Tomas Nur." Valucia regarded him again while she closed the sphere. As soon as she did, the image of the map disappeared. "I am certain there will be use for it."
He grunted and shrugged. "Nothing I'd have use for. Be well, Valucia Sedai." The farewell was as formal as the man seemed to get. Still, he made certain that the respect was offered to the woman before he hurried off. It was cold and he didn't have any intention of catching his death being out in the snow any longer than he needed to be.
The Blue Ajah remained there a long time. She watched until the workman was out of sight before she finally moved. Her skirted strides carried her towards her home. She had been out in the cold long enough to feel it by then and gave a slight shiver when she moved up the stairs and into the place of wood and stone.
There were a few missives to write to those near and far and plenty of time was at hand for doing so. She paused just inside the door and opened the gadget again. It popped open, she eyed it closely, then snapped it shut once more. She smiled, more often than some assumed, and did so again to receive the gift from her scholarly friend, Skelrisan.
After the well-used travel cloak was hung by the door, the oil lamps were lit with a manner of necessity through routine. She was unhurried in the mundane task and allowed her thoughts to wander back to days when Alrin Martan still lived. She smiled a little to think how many of her Sisters of the Tower who thought her to be a stone-heart. It was, in fact, quite the opposite. The veil of calm and seeming indifference she wore in public not often a cast-aside image. Valucia cared deeply and worried about some matters, whether she could bring change to them or not. Alrin Martan had been loved, though they had fought in forging their alliance until both saw the enormous benefit of The Bond. Her sister and family were loved. These were thing that would not chair.
Her little niece, Sashanii, occupied her thoughts: the child's whimsical and energetic ways. The pureness and light-heartedness the little girl had was purely disarming to Valucia. She welcomed every visit from her.
The last of the lamps was lit and the fire in the hearth that had died down to embers was given more wood and stoked back to a vibrant dance of light and heat. Her home there are Bulwark's Cove was modest by most standards of those who resided in Tar Valon. It was two stories high with two bed chambers and a bathing area on the second floor. The main level where she stood was open, affording a view at every angle from the section of the large room where the meals were prepared and cooked, a place to sit and eat those meals and a couple of chairs and a table set before the stone hearth.
An iron arm and hook were pulled out. She hung a small pot of water on its crooked end, then swiveled inside so that the water could boil. A strand of black fell loose from the strip of leather she had tied her hair back with earlier that morning. The lock was pushed back neatly and tucked in among the other dark lengths; neatly done.
Her hand dropped to her skirted side to withdraw the brass sphere from a pocket. It was looked at a little closer this time. A tiny hole, barely large enough for a weevil to have wriggled in or out of, could be made out. "Well then, what is this, I wonder."
She took from a trunk on the floor, against the southern wall of the home, a box of wood and placed it on the table in the kitchen area. The lid of the box was opened and a little piece of metal was removed. An approach of one of the lamps allowed her to see the hole better and pushed the end of the metal pin into it.
Sudden movement from the brass sphere the scholar had sent her made her blink. It whirred and gave a brief high-pitched sound-- like a whistle, but distant in its way -- before it popped open from left to right on its almost unseen hinge. An image of an old, reptilian looking sort of creature holding a book in his clawed grasp was there but it was not solid. It reminded her of stories of specters.
"Valucia Sedai. Greetings! I knew you would have the interest enough to figure it out and here I am, with a message for you!" Skelrisan chucked in his visual and audible message the sphere held for her to discover. "Now, you know I am often staff-deep in studies. Learning about this. Learning about that. I was out at Lord Yalvek's estate -- he has a vast library, you see -- and overheard talk about a girl that suddenly manifest powers. Off this continent and due south-west. It sounded to me like she has what those at Tar Valon call a 'spark'. Yes, yes. I believe that is it. The child's name is Jahlen and she has reached her seventh year. A place called Ptoren. Ask on the docks for Captain Zhaeron. He'll get you there. Knew you would be interested. Use this when you go," He grinned. He knew that she would at some point. "It will light your way, help you when you are lost, and if things are dire enough just tap the triangle on the outside with three rapid taps. I'll know it swiftly and send someone to your aid. Enjoy the gift, Valucia Sedai!"
The image of the scholar then vanished. She frowned a little. "Strange, small male." Valucia had always found him starkly different than the rest of those she had encountered in RhyDin. But she didn't mind too much. He knew what he was talking about and never send her information about something unless he was certain. Yet, she was left to wonder why he helped at all. He had approached her within a couple of weeks of her arrival to the realms and sent her books, scrolls, and other items through the years that could be useful to her, though he never asked for anything in return.
Ginger touch of her fingers applied pressure to the split, open brass orb to bring it back together and whole. It clicked when she shut it, then tucked it back into her skirt pocket. Jahlen in Ptoren. "We shall see." Murmured pensively while the pin was returned to its box.
She might as well have been in the tiny place of Two Rivers for as lost and untethered from things as she had felt for months. There was little or no news from Tar Valon for weeks. Not until she had made her way to the Red Dragon Inn in RhyDin Proper. There had be nothing for almost a moon and here in that stack on the table before her were no fewer than five letters.
"Extraordinary." The mother dragon and the blind girl that had been in the inn must have assumed her unsociable in her sudden silence and then disappearance without so much as a polite farewell. The Blue Ajah had left the inn the day before to hurry back to Ashandarei at Bulwark's Cove that overlooked the north-east coastline and its vast ocean.
Three missives were sealed with yellow, brown, and blue; from the sects of Ajah, certainly. The other two had wax seals of red as was often used by everyone else. It wasn't the three from the women of the shawl that she reached for first. Theirs were plainly marked and she could tell exactly who they were from. The fourth was from a Lord Welborne. She knew him well enough that anything he was writing about was very likely already in the correspondence from the Sisters.
The ends of her fingers rested on the table next to the fifth letter. She had kept it 'sandwiched' between the others and had not touched it directly yet. Lord Welborne's letter was used to nudge the fifth missive away from the other and then turned it over so that she had clearly seen both sides of it. Waves of a weave could be felt washing outwards from the neatly folded and sealed parchment. Other than her name and the city's name of RhyDin on it, there was nothing else written on the outside of it. Her hand that bore the ring of the great serpent laid the other letter down and passed that now-empty hand over the weave that she could just barely feel and see. And the seal was too darkly colored to be regular wax.
"Blood," Valucia cursed. "blood and ashes!" She swore but it was also what was mixed into the wax. It had been tainted and then a weave placed about it. Obviously it was not to harm just anyone or the letter would have never arrived to her -- it would have killed any that had touched it, if that were the case. It was a trick or text and she was not amused by either possibility.
Black-pearl colored eyes steadfastly held the image the letter as her hand still rested above it by a few inches. It took a few moments, then a few more to unravel the threads of the weave that someone had tangled up so well. Those threads soon fell away and disappeared in ways that she and her Sisters could see, while others normally could not. She only reached for the letter after the threads were completely gone from her sight. The parchment that covered the pages within was carefully torn away -- around the seal, not touching the defiled wax directly. A bit of paper that held the wax was tossed into the fireplace where it exploded with a bit more ferocity than she expected.
"By the Light!"
The woman's voice behind her was familiar, but unheard for a long time. Valucia turned where she stood. Skirts of dark and light blue whispered against the floor of her home when she did. Letters were loosed to the table to cross the room to where the Brown Ajah stood in her doorway. Behind her was a man a full head taller than the small woman with brown hair, looking all the height of six feet and more and his shoulders almost as wide as the doorframe. "Adriahnu!"
Adriahnu lowered her hand from her eyes, having fended off the glare of the explosion a second too late. She blinked brown eyes at Valucia and smile. They both laughed in a welcoming embrace then stepped further into the open, first level of Valucia's home.
"Valucia Sedai." The respect was coupled with a bow of his head. The Warder had been seen years ago, just before news of Adriahnu and his Bonding. Sometime before Arlin Martan had been murdered.
"Calichniye, Gaidin," The Warder, Elan Ashren by name, was formally greeted in the old tongue. "And you, Adriahnu. Welcome."
"Thank you, Valucia. Now, by everything that's against the White Cloaks, what was that?" Adriahnu hated the White Cloaks, the Men of Light, or whatever they were calling themselves that century. Adriahnu had names for them that were not kind at all, so using them as an entirety as a curse suited her fine.
"That...? Well, that, was a warning." Valucia did not look at all unsettled by the awful wax seal that could have been poisoned, the magical weave that could have stopped her heart being, or the explosion that could have maimed or killed her. If she was, it was buried deep behind her placid visage that wore a welcoming smile for the one of the Brown.
Adriahnu scoffed and started pulling her gloves off while Ashren closed the door against the cold, snowing day. "It is nothing we do not see daily at the Tower." Beneath her breath, she whispered an ancient saying of blessing on the Tar Valon and all that keep the weak from harm. "Did you get my letters?"
"Yours, yes. Then nothing more until a short time ago. That was in among the carrier's worth."
"And the messenger did not die." It was easy to see the proverbial wheels of though turning in the head of the Brown Ajah. "Interesting, truly interesting. That takes much skill and strong magic, Sister."
"Yes. The same had occurred to me as well."
"To try to kill a specific person and not any who touched it along the way. Very interesting, indeed! It is too bad that you tossed what portion of it you did into the fire. I could have studied it."
Valucia laughed, softly and kindly. It was expect of all Brown Ajah to have an interest in all things mundane, arcane, and else. The read, they studied, they experimented too if there was a need for it to understand the puzzle or problem before them. "I will remember that next time, Sister. Come. Allow me to show you both to the Hall and Keeps."
She left the letters on the table for later reading. They would be seen to their chambers and food brought to them by the newly-hired scullery. Talks were just at their beginning and a lengthy, winding road for such things lay ahead.
"Very well. But I want to know how someone came by your blood and hair -- since you don't seem to be missing your teeth or bones!"
"Yes, yes... it is quite a wonder, is it not?" Murmured at the Sister as they left the simple home and crossed the great yard to the Four Keeps. Valucia knew exactly how that could have happened. It was up to her if the tale was going to be told to the Brown or not.
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Ardiahnu Sedai
Brown Ajah
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Elan Ashren
Warder to Ardiahnru
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