The Spirit Wilds: Magic of the Green Sage (Fall of the Sages Book 1), стр. 32

Tuni’s face burned. “S-so sorry!” She pulled up the blanket to cover her face, but then brought her face back out. “You’re very beautiful.” Then she blushed even harder and ducked back in cover. “Sorry!”

Gayla just laughed. A sweet sound. “Tuni, this is Shandi, my…well, assistant I suppose would be too simple an explanation. She’s my friend and companion and helps me with my sagely duties.”

Shandi scoffed. “Sometimes she makes things very difficult for me. Like when she brings back strange girls to our home.”

“Oh, come now, Shandi, I couldn’t let her die. Have a heart.”

“I have a heart. But not for idiots.”

“Look at her, she’s a wildling, not one of those simpletons from Reshni’s city.”

“I know.”

Tuni peeked her eyes out from the blanket, her cheeks not so warm anymore. “I… I’m sorry for inconveniencing you.”

Gayla pshh-ed. “Don’t listen to my grumpy friend here. It was no trouble. I always help those in need when I can. I wouldn’t be a good sage if I didn’t.

“Your first duty is to the Earth, hence why you’re called the Sage of the Earth.”

“I am charged with bringing balance to nature. Humans are a part of nature, as harmful as they can be. I will not have this argument again with you, Shandi. Not for the thousandth time.”

Tuni just sat back and watched this exchange with fascination. There was definitely a bond between the two that she longed for, a deep friendship. It was odd since Gayla was so young and Shandi was a grown woman, at least in her second decade. Wait…

“How old are you, Madam Sage?” she blurted. She immediately realized how rude that question probably was. As her mother would say, it’s rude to ask a woman her age, Tuni! But this was a girl not a woman.

Shandi promptly scoffed, rolled her eyes, and folded her arms across her chest. “Rude girl.”

Gayla, ever the smiling one, ignored the rudeness. “Oh, I’ve lost track, my dear. As I am now, Gayla, in this incarnation, I am well over a thousand. I am the oldest of the current line of sages.”

One thousand? Tuni’s mouth fell open. So her looking no older than the sixteen years that Tuni was didn’t matter. She was ancient.

“So you’re immortal then?”

“In the sense that I don’t age? Yes. I can be killed though, but I’ll toot my own horn and admit that it is exceedingly difficult.”

Tuni ran a hand through her hair. “Wow.” She smiled and took that information in stride. “So, how old are the other sages? How many other sages are there? Do you all have the same magic? Can you—”

Shandi put a hand up. “Easy there, girl.”

“My name is Tuni.”

“As if that matters to me, girl.”

Tuni stuck out her tongue.

With a smile that hid an annoyed scowl, Gayla slammed her staff onto the floor. No magic or anything, but it made the them both shut their mouths.

“Enough, please,” Gayla answered. “I will answer your questions, Tuni, because I appreciate an infinitely-curious mind, as I was once very much like you.”

Shandi scoffed and sat down.

“There are five sages in all. Me, Reshni the Red, Sage of the Sun and Sky; Brokar the Blue, Sage of the Seas; Bishta the Black, Sage of the Dark; and Grear the Gold, Sage of the Light. As they are in their current incarnations, Reshni is a century or two younger than me. So, in a word, ancient.”

“Too bad she doesn’t have your grace or humility,” Shandi said with bared teeth.

“Now, Shandi, let’s not talk ill of the others.”

Tuni frowned. “Do you not like Reshni?”

Shandi scoffed. “Reshni is on the Council of Al-Sevara. She lets them expand into the wilds as they see fit, never stopping them from causing harm or destroying whatever they wish. She’s never cared about nature or spirits, even though keeping that balance is a responsibility of all sages.”

“We do not see eye to eye on many things, Reshni and I,” Gayla said with a sigh. “That being said, she is still an ally, someone the world can depend on against evil.”

Her assistant scoffed again. Tuni was growing tired of those. “We’ll see about that,” she muttered.

“Anyway,” Gayla mused, “Brokar is about five hundred years old, give or take. Bishta a little under a century. The Sage of the Light, Grear, is new. The old sage, Arnem, passed on his powers to Grear, who I understand was his student. He’s only been a sage for a few months, so I haven’t been afforded the pleasure of meeting him, but I do hope to make his acquaintance someday.”

Tuni nodded. “Ah. And how does one pass along sagely powers?”

Shandi slammed her hands on the table. “Okay, enough of this. Gayla, we don’t have time to babysit this wildling. We have important matters to attend to.”

“I suppose you are right,” Gayla agreed with a sigh. “Okay, Tuni, I’ll take you back to your village now.” She grabbed her staff in both hands and was about to start chanting some spell that no doubt would have been interesting to see, but Tuni launched out of bed, ignoring the pain that flared to life throughout her body.

“Wait!” she yelled, hands out. She dropped to a knee, wincing, but forced herself to stay on upright. Gayla and Shandi both raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“Let me stay here.”

Shandi frowned. “What?”

Tuni cleared her throat and tried to exude as much confidence as she could muster. “Let me stay here with you and learn from you.”

“And what, pray tell, leads you to believe that you would be remotely qualified to stay with the Sage of the Earth?”

“I— Plants are my great love. I know all about them. I— My journals!”

“Come again?”

Tuni looked around frantically. “My things, my bow, my pack. What I had on me when you found me. Did you take them with you?” Tuni didn’t know what she would do if she lost her journal. The bow could be replaced, but that journal had years’