Ryn’s house was burning.

Hellish red and orange leaping from the walls, licking the ceiling, belching black smoke.

He reached outand tried to manipulate the flames, willing them to recede.

“Go back!”

Nothing happened, except that his arms ached; his powers had deserted him.

And there was his mother, holding up her hands, cowering. The black-armoured, flame-haired Imperial officer Vorr standing in front of her with his huge sword drawn.

His mother looked at him, chestnut eyes pleading.

“Do something, Ryn! Please, help me! This is all your fault!”

“No!” Ryn whimpered. “I...I can’t!”

And then Vorr’s sword went into her. It ran her right through the chest, making a slippery, slithery sound. When it came out so did a gushing flow of red.

She hit the floor.

“NO!”

Ryn ran at Vorr.

He had a sword in his hand, which he swung at Vorr with all that remained of his feeble strength as he screamed with rage.

The General batted away his strike easily with his own blade, laughing as he did so; a deep, mocking, mirthful laugh.

“The boy from Cleasor!” Vorr laughed. “How did you manage to survive the crash? How did you even get here?”

“You murdered my parents!” Ryn screamed back. “You destroyed my hometown!”

“Did I?” Vorr laughed even harder. “Oh yes, I suppose I must have…”

As those casual words echoed in Ryn’s mind, Vorr’s sword plunged through Ryn’s chest just as it had through his mother’s.

The shock of it sliding through his flesh.

It’s all my fault. I should have saved her. I killed my mother.

Did I? Oh yes, I suppose I must have…

The scene contorted, and now Ryn was running through the burning buildings of Cleasor looking for someone, but he couldn’t remember who.Damn the Imperials! They destroy everything… They burn everything… They gave us no warning. There’s no joy in this world. I’ll never be happy again. I’m going to die burned and broken and alone.

A man lay on the grass in front of him; a tall, middle-aged man with one of his legs missing, lying in a pool of his own blood.

“Dad!” Ryn cried.

He ran to his father and knelt at his side, cradled his face with his hand.

The flames leapt high around them.

“You’re hurt...let me help you…”

“No! Leave it, son… I am past help… I will be gone soon…”

“I don’t want you to die, Dad…”

“Take it now.”

“Take what?”

“The ruby.”

“I already did, Dad, but I lost it!”

“That’s right,” said his father. His voice was getting quieter, and harder to hear over the crackle of the flames; his eyes were glazing over. “You took it and you lost it. You’re a failure, Ryn. You’ve failed. You lost us because you failed.”

Hot tears ran down Ryn’s cheeks. “No! I’m sorry! Please, Dad, give me another chance! Come back!”

His father’s eyes lost focus completely.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“COME BACK!” Ryn yelled…

...and resurfaced, sitting up violently and shouting.

“Argggh—!”

“Easy, lad!” When Ryn realised he had been dreaming he stopped shouting and breathed in sharply.

An old man was holding him by the shoulders where he sat. The man had bushy white eyebrows and a white beard.

“You’ve just had a brush with the void. Best if you take things slowly.”

Beyond the old man’s head was the face of a beautiful blonde woman in a tattered cream dress, brow crinkled in concern.

“Are you alright, Ryn? We thought you had died.”

Memory returned to Ryn slowly, seeping into his mind and mingling with the aftertaste of the nightmare.

Cid released him and he took another few gulps of air. They were still in the woods, it was cold, and it was getting dark. It must be early evening.

“I guess it was your turn to be worried about me,” Ryn croaked to Nuthea. “I’m fine now. I was having a nightmare before I came to…” His most recent memory fnally caught up to him. “I was stabbed! What happened to me?”

“I healed you,” said Cid.

“I thought you had ridden on...” said Ryn. “I thought you had left me and Vish behind…” He looked round. Imperial soldiers littered the forest floor. Sagar, Elrann and Vish stood nearby with thecochobos.

“Of course we wouldn’t leave you behind,” said Nuthea.

“S’right,” said Sagar. “Soon as we realised that the Imperials had caught up to you and the scumsucker, I turned round straight away and led the charge back to rescue you.”

“Way I remember it,” said Elrann, “you did want to leave him behind. Princess-girl was the one who wanted to turn around. You took quite a lot of convincing.”

“Whatever,” said Sagar.

“Anyway,” went on Nuthea, “once we eventually got back you did fight very valiantly, Captain Sagar. Shadowfinger Vish here had succeeded in dispatching most of the soldiers, but even he couldn’t cope with all of them at once—”

At that, Vish made a disapproving noise inside his head covering. “Please. I had them all taken care of. I think I deserve some poppy.”

“In time, in time…” said Cid. “I’ve told you, you need to space the hits out, or they’ll diminish in intensity.”

“If I don’t get another hit soon everything will diminish in intensity.”

“Hang on,” said Ryn, “you can’t have done that good a job at fighting them ‘all’ off because one of them stabbed me through the chest.”

Vish went quiet at that, narrowing his eyes to slits as he looked at Ryn.

For the first time, Ryn thought to look down at his tunic. It had torn where the sword had gone through and blood stained it. But there was no wound in his chest. It ached awfully, yet there was no visible sign of the sword having pierced it. He couldn’t even work out exactly where the blade had gone in.

“He did...” Ryn said. “He ran me right through. Just like…” Mum. Dad. Cleasor. He swallowed. “How the hell am I still alive?” he asked of Mid in general.

“Well, to be honest,” said Sagar, “we did think you were a goner, pup.” Was that disappointment in his voice? “But then the old timer here got to you and worked his magic. I don’t care what you say about your healing skills any more, old timer, that was magic and I know it was.”

Ryn’s eyes grew wide as he stared at Cid. The old man’s face was solemn, jaw set behind his beard. He seemed tired, the crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes more pronounced.

“I was basically dead...” Ryn said. “How powerful a healer are you?”

“Yeah, come on,” said Sagar. “Spill the beans, old timer. Pup here was basically dead when you got to him. What did you do?”

They sat and waited for Cid to speak.

It took him a while, staring at the ground, but eventually he said “I brought you back to consciousness with a ‘Life’ spell. I am Jewel-touched too, as the three of you are.”

“I knew it!” said Sagar triumphantly. “You have healing powers as well as healers’ training! I knew all that stuff about ‘miracles’ was garbage!”

“It’s still a miracle!” protested Nuthea at once. “The One can also work through the magic of the Jewels.” For some reason, she didn’t seem all that surprised at the revelation that Cid was Jewel-touched.

“Whatever,” said Sagar.

“Indeed,” said Cid, “whatever we call it, I’m afraid this young man is right. I have healing abilities from my contact with the Life Chrysolite. I think of these as being miraculous too, Granddaughter, but it is also true that I received them from my contact with that Jewel.”

“So you can bring people back from death?” said Ryn.

“No,” said Cid.

“Huh?”.

“Let me be very clear on this. A Life spell can resuscitate a person who is dying or who has been brought near death. If someone loses consciousness from injury, or is so injured that they are slipping away into death, I can bring them back. But once they have fully passed into it, once they have died, I cannot bring them back. I cannot people back from the dead. Only The One could do that.”

Sagar snorted. “Yeah, if ‘The One’ existed.”

“Hold on,,” said Elrann, motioning for the rest of them to listen, then massaging her forehead. “Let me get this straight. What you’re saying is that these magical jewel-thingamies—”

“The Primeval Jewels,” interrupted Nuthea.

Elrann blinked at her. “Right. What you’re saying is that these magical primeval jewel-thingamies that we’re trying to get princess-girl back to her homeland to tell her parents about can also give people healing powers, and that pops here has come into contact with one before, and that it’s because of this that he was able to able to heal princess-girl, and pirateman, and bountyhunterman, and bring farmboy here back from near-death after he got stabbed by that Imperial soldier?”

A pause.

“Yes,” said Nuthea, Sagar, Ryn and Cid at the same time.

“You’re all crazy…” mumbled Elrann, shaking her head and pinching her nose. “Ok—let’s assume for a moment that I believe you: How did you ever get ya hands one one of these jewel-thingamies then, pops?”

“Primeval Jewels,” Nuthea felt obliged to correct her again.

They all looked at Cid. Even Vish stared intently.

“I led a rich and full life before I settled down in Nont…” Cid said defensively, shrugging his shoulders and holding out his hands. “Is it so surprising that I would have come across one of the Primeval Jewels?”

“You’re right,” said Nuthea, “it’s not. And followers of the One are all the more likely to come across such things. It must have been your destiny.”