CHAPTER 1 - A DESTINY
"Lyra!" My mother called to me as I carried the water bucket up the path. It was heavy, but my arms had been hardened by years of carrying the water bucket and doing other such menial tasks, and so it was not as difficult as it might have been had I been smaller and weaker than I was.

"I'm coming!" I called back, sweating only a little, but not at all short of breath.

When I reached the front step where my mother stood wiping her hands on her apron, I set the pail down beside the steps. I wiped my brow with the kerchief she handed me, and sat down on the steps for a moment. She lowered herself down beside me and took my hand. We sat in silence together, watching the sunset and thinking.

"I'll be fifteen tomorrow," I said softly, almost to myself. I was glad I would be a woman in less than a day, but I was sad at leaving behind my childhood. I had enjoyed being a child.

"I know," she said, and she leaned over and kissed my forehead.

I looked at her for a moment. She didn't often show huge displays of affection, and so her kiss was a surprise to me. For the first time, I noticed how old my mother was. Her hair was just as black as it had always been, but now there were streaks of grey in it, and the wrinkles beside her eyes and around her mouth had deepened since the last time I'd looked. She was an old woman.

"I have a special gift for your birthday, Lyra," she said after another long pause.

I turned to her. I had been daydreaming, trying remember things just beyond reach. "What?" I asked, a dreamy look on my face. My vision was slightly out of focus, but I re-focused on her face before she answered and tried hard to pay attention.

I had often found my mind floating away, thinking of other things. It hadn't happened when I was little, but after I started my monthlies, I noticed that I was moody, and daydreaming almost constantly. There were often times when I had thought for a moment that I was in another place entirely, because my vision would blur around the edges and the real world would fall away like rain. Then I would find myself, more often than not, in a strange place with faeries drifting on the wind, their butterfly wings fluttering in the cool breeze, and elves looking at me with sad faces. And then their expressions would become glad - ecstatic, even. But always, at the end of these daydreams, there would be a strange man with sad red eyes - the only eyes that remained the same through the dreams.

I brought myself out of this thought just in time to hear my mother speak. "Give me your hand, child," she said, as though I were the daughter of a merchant passing through, and not hers. She had never called me, "child&". She only called the young women who came to her for help "child", because as she often told me, she was much older than them. Although I doubted that. She couldn't have been that old. She was old, to be sure. At least, in my eyes she was. But the women who came to see her couldn't have been more than a couple years younger than her at most. And some were even older than her, appearing as grandmothers, although that was rare.

I gave her my hand. She took it in both of hers, her rings flashing in the dying sunlight. She closed her eyes, like I'd seen her do when she read people's future. Why would she read mine? She had always made a point of telling me that I didn't need to know my future. Why would she read it for me now?

Suddenly, I felt a white-hot surge of energy shoot up my arm. I cried out and tried to pull my hand away, but my mother didn't let go. Her eyes were squeezed shut in concentration, and her lips were pursed.

"Let go!" I cried. "It hurts!" I tried to pull my arm away. I pressed on her hands, trying to pry them off of me. When I drew my hand away, it was red, raw and peeling. I looked at it in horror, open-mouthed and terrified.

The pain grew, and my mother began to mutter something under her breath, shaking a little every few moments, as though she were seeing something horrible beneath her closed lids.

I tried again and again to pry my hand out of hers, making the skin on my other hand turn the color of flames. I glanced at the wrist of the hand she held. It was white, and it burned. Steam seemed to be coming off of it.

When my mother opened her eyes, they were completely white, and she was convulsing. She seemed to be in just as much if not more pain than me. But the pain I felt was excruciating. I shrieked, an unearthly shriek that I didn't know could come out of my mouth. I began to convulse as well, shaking in pain and fear. I watched as the redness on my arms started to climb, until I knew that my whole body was bright red. I opened my eyes wide, the pain immense.

Then my mother spoke, in a droning chant that frightened me more than the pain did. "You are more than you appear," she said, her voice low and almost deadly. "You have a long journey ahead of you; a great destiny Sorrow, pain, fear, death - all of these things lie waiting for you beyond the forest walls." She grabbed my hand tighter then, and said in a voice of warning, "Beware! Beware the Blind One! He will bring you ruin!"

Then her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she let go of my hand, collapsing. I gasped, holding my wrist. The flesh was nearly black, and it was still hot to the touch. The rest of my body was bright red, and I could feel the burns sinking lower into my skin.

In a frenzy, I ran into the forest to where the stream ran a few yards in. It was where we got our fresh water. In haste, I tore off my clothes and plunged into the freezing water. It was colder now because it was fall. Though the days were warm, the nights were cold and the stream didn't have time to warm during the day.

I shivered as the fire inside my veins slowly ebbed and subsided. I made sure, although I was certain I was alone, that my body was submerged up to my neck, just in case. I didn't want to be caught naked.

It was lucky I made sure of that because, just beyond the trees I saw a pair of green eyes staring at me amidst a tousling of dark hair. I shivered and sank lower into the water. I waited there until he was gone.

The thing that bothered me the most about the man though was that he had seemed to stare straight over my head. And then I remembered what my mother had said in her trance...

"Beware the Blind One! He will bring you ruin!"

I shivered as I got out of the water and dressed, though the sun was warm and soon dried the water trickling down my back. I walked home barefoot, letting the grass dry the water from my feet. When I got there, my mother was standing in the doorway of the house, looking no worse for the wear.

"How was your swim?" She asked, as though having read my mind.

I nodded. "Good," was all I said before I went inside to change my clothes, unable to get out of my thoughts the man with the green eyes.

When I had changed, my mother came in and bandaged my hand, acting as though nothing had happened. I knew better than to ask, but I asked anyway.

"What was that?" I whispered in a frightened voice. My wrist was peeling and dark. I could barely feel the skin underneath it as the dead skin peeled away while she spread a strong-smelling cream on the wound.

"A stronger magic than I have felt in a long time," she replied softly, her voice filled with reverance and a touch of fear.

"What does it mean?" I asked as she tied a bandage around my wrist. Her hands were shaking slightly.

"That should be completely healed by tomorrow," she said, ignoring my question. Then she stood and left me alone in my room with my thoughts.