The hand here is delicate and clear as ever, and only here and there veers off into jagged scribbles that suggest something has broken through the writer's control

Xanthias...is gone. He has left for a while, gone far away, far beyond the mountains in Branishor. He has left... He has left. His is going into danger...for me. Because he is right. I cannot give myself over to him. I do not even know how I feel. I try to ask myself, but...it is the Light's truth. I do not know.
Once, when I was a child, Aquila and I were sitting by the fire, after we had made camp for the night. I had been with him for some months, and we had come to a place far from my village, far from the lands I knew. It was sharp, harsh land, closer to a desert than the lands I had known since my birth even in the terrible worsening drought. We had been walking long and hard, and we were weary, weary to the bones. But I could not sleep. The air was dry and harsh with sand and cut at my throat as I breathed. I looked over to where Aquila was lying in his bedroll and I saw his eyes were open, that he was lying with his hands behind his head, staring into the flames. He looked oddly far away somehow, and so, wanting to bring him back, I asked him, in the hand-talk we had worked out over the months, how he knew his way so well amongst the rough terrain. He rolled over, and told me a tale of many years ago, how he and another man had travelled through this place with no supplies, no water, to bring a vital message to a general. It was the first purely serious story he had ever told me, with none of his wry sense of humour in it, and as he spoke, even though his eyes held mine, he seemed at times to be looking through me. He told me of what he and this man had done to keep each other alive, to keep going, to pull each other through that terrible journey in this terrible place. He told me of how they staggered, barely able to stand, leaning on each other, into the city where the general was, the vital message still in his belt.
He sat in silence for some moments, and I thought the story was over. And then suddenly, in an odd voice, he said "He died, three years later. Amiel, I mean. In K'Nar'Rirsch. I woke up one morning to find a stray arrow through his heart, from the back. He died instantly, as he slept. He was cold when I touched him, and the blood soaked the blankets. And he had never moved."
I looked at him, and his eyes were shining unnatrually bright, though the fire was little more than embers. And I realised that there were things he had lost, locked in his heart as some things were in mine. And I asked him, with a crook of my finger. And he looked at me, really looked, seeing Venus, and he said, softly "My heart and I don't talk any more, little one. It is safer that way, and, in the end, it was the only way. Now sleep. There is a long road yet to go."
Is that who I have become? Is the loss of Mar as locked in my heart as Amiel's was in his? Sealed shut, the loss growing around it like vines so that, in the end, the only way to let anything out would be to break the heart fully?
I love Isolde. But Aquila loved me. I know he did.
Is that what I have become?

I...did not expect this...
A while ago, I wrote of Xanthias. He was an adventurer I had seen and known of by rumour long, but I had met him but little until a day or two after I recovered from my fever. He struck me oddly that day. I had always thought him, well...attractive, one the rare occassions in my first months in Valorn that such things filtered through.
It has been long since I truly thought of men. Once or twice. I was tempted by offers, but... as I once told WhiteShiva, often enough if ever I thought of I thought of finding comfort in warm arms and soft touch, I thought - I think - of Mar. Mar was not only my love, he was the only man I have ever had. Perhaps because I never knew my father...I was never able to treat the subject with the casual attitude Naranthil tended to. These days, I realise I have forgiven my mother, but at that time... I was still angry with her. For having five childer and no husband and making us outcasts in the village; for keeping having childer when food was growing scarcer and scarcer as the drought worsened; for the way she became after the Second Born died, when she devoted herself to the infants and to all the sicknesses of the people who despised us, who would have thrown us all out the village to starve if they had not needed her so desperately as more and more became sick with the lack of food.
But whattever the root, Mar was the love of my heart and the only man I had ever been with. He taught me the ways of love. And sometimes, if I caught myself thinking even idly about another man in that way... It would be as if I was back...there again. back, wherever it was that we were...and he was... There. Hearing what they did to him. Catching glimpses... I could not even hide my eyes as I hung in the chains. And after he... after he died, my memory becomes blurry. Did I touch his body? I seem to remember the feel of cold flesh against me as I implored him not to be gone, but... it seems impossible that I could have got free of the chains, but I know I must have. Or I would not be here. It is only... on my Oath to the Gods, I could not tell how. But the touch of cold flesh, flesh that I had loved, that had been warm against me when my soul was cold with what I had seen.,..what we had seen, what we had had to do. That had become a part of me...cold, dead, empty. That touch haunts me when a man touches me now.
So, I have had no man, Not since the day my memory fails, when Mar died, when the heart I broke for him finally gave out. But Xanthias... Xanthias has come to me. We came to talk long into the night. He...the things he has told me... I shall record them when I can get my head around them. Who he is, what he has see... when I try to think about it, really, my life seems odder than I could ever have imagined. The look in Xanthias's eyes... he seems to understand loss so well. His compassion frightens me even as it draws me. And he too has scars.

Snow. Before I came to Valorn, I never saw such a thing. And neither has Isolde. This day, I took her out finally from the inn and Milltown to the plains south of Dundee. I have done wrong in keeping her sequestered so long. She is growing so fast, getting so big, so fearless... She deserves to see this land, this beautiful land that is her home. And mine, now.
I carried her by the forest and we came by the paths over the river, to the plains. It was cold, and our breath smoked in the air. The plains seemed vast, and, as we to the breast of them, snow began to fall from the sky.
I have seen snow before, but only in the mountains, falling in howling blizzards and gales. I had never seen it drift soundlessly down as day darkened into night, suspended in the air like the apple blossom that Mar used to sing to me of. I had never seen it come to cloak a familiar landscape, making all strange, all soundless, all unearthily beautiful. Isolde seemed enchanted by it, caught in its wonder. The two of us sat long, in our silence of togetherness, merely watching it fall from the side of the little fire I had built under a slight overhang. After the landscape became cloaked in it, she ran out and ran about in it for a while. Her steps are already so sure, so light, and only when the snow became too deep for her to easily stand did she come back to me and fall asleep snuggled under my cloak. I sat, still watching it fall as the fire burned lower, and I thought of my cheek, which bled, slowed by the cold but still flowing gently down my face. It marks me. It marks me as what I am.
I killed today. Whether I did it for the right reasons or the wrong I am unsure, but I ended a life. Savannah Stone's. Danin...I knew he had not slain her. I knew it. He took me to where he can constrained her to a tree, deep in the dark forest.
She...she was gone far beyind humanity in her madness. I could see the toll of it alone in Danin's eyes, but hers...hers were not those of a souled being. They were darkness through and through. But I tried...I tried to see the spark of humanity in them. I was sure it must still remain. Surely such a thing cannot be lost, while anyone lives still. Danin cautioned me, but I ignored him. I approached her. Fool that I am. Arrogant fool...
I came within a few yards of her, confined to the tree like a blood-eagle, but there was no blood, only an eaten and ravaged human form that nonetheless lifted its head and stared at me with its dead eyes. And my head began to ring, as though I had been struck on the skull. I ignored it, and walked closer, with some difficulty as I suddenly had trouble keeping my balance. The ringing became louder and I became dizzy, suddenly unable to tell down from up. I thought...I thought for a moment I was ill again, and I clutched my hands to the sides of my head. But it was too late. I fell...
The pain. The pain was excruciating. But it was not the worse. What came to me as I fell, in the interval between standing and hitting the ground...that was worse. The faces...the faces of everyone I ever killed rose up to meet me, those who fell under my shafts or my blade and those who died under my hands as I tried to save them back in the Land. All the deaths I ever had a part in. The soldiers I shot as the one and the many of a unit, our bows and our hands working as one thing that killed. Those I shot while sniping with naranthi's unit in the hills. Those I cut the life from with my blade, in battle, or when attacked, in the land in here in Valorn. All those I ever tried to heal with herblore or with Cleric's grace, or whose suffering I tried to ease, and whom I failed, in the end. Aquila's face was among them, for he also I could not save. He coughed his life out under my hands.
All of this came to me, enveloped me, and I was drowning under it, screaming. But there was worse. I saw myself. I saw myself kill. I saw myself a thing of blood, blade in my hand. I saw myself slay my friends, my mother, Aquila, Naranthil, Mylor, Steel, Esh, Llye...I saw their lives go out under my hands. Mar... Even now my mind shies away from that. And Isolde...
But at that, I found suddenly my body again. I found my hands, even as I screamed, and I coaxed them into movement. Hardly knowing what I did, I found my scabbard and I withdrew my blade. And as I saw that thing that was myself raise blade...I raised mine. The pain in my cheek was sharp, nothing to the pain that rang through me, but clear, bodily. I could use it as a reference point. I found my way to my body through it, and, like a sleepwalker, I used that far away body to get me step by step away from the figure tied to tree. And as I stumbled further away, my head cleared, and I knew myself again. And I could see.
I saw Danin. He must have tried to help me, but he was caught as I had been, caught in the creature's terrible aura of darkness. I did not even think. I half-ran, half fell forward, reaching for him, trying to pull him back. But as I draw nearer, I found my head begin to buzz again, and, without thinking, I threw up my hand, over my face, over my eyes. And my Ring...lit. Light, so bright it blinded me for many moments. I heard...I thought I heard...terrible unearthly screaming, but I do not know. I seem to have lost the use of my senses until the Light cleared, and Danin and I were alone in the clearing. The figure tied to tree...was gone. No trace of Savannah Stone remained. And my cheek still bled.
And as I sit here, it bleeds still. A sign of guilt, or so the saying goes, a wound that bleeds without cease or staunching, though that is of a murdered corpse. It is supposed to bleed in the presence of its murderer. But my cheek...it will not heal. I heal it, and moments later...the bleeding has begun again. If I leave it alone, it bleeds slow. So, for now, I leave it. I cannot think what else to do.
If it is a sign of my guilt...which one? There are so many... so much I have done, so much I am responsible for. So much I should have prevented, or at least died in the prevention of. But I do not want to die. Despite everything...I feel Isolde curled up against me, I breathe the crisp air, tasting it, savouring it in my lungs, and I watch the snow drifting out of the sky. I am alive, and whatever I have done, whatever I am... I feel blessed for it. I am glad to be here, even as the blood drips slowly from my face, turning the white to scarlet.
And perhaps that is the greatest guilt of all.

I feel...frozen. Cold. I feel anger somewhere. but it is not near me. My soul feels merely numb. I am so tired of this. I am so tired of it all.
Teraminis...has not left me alone for days. Everywhere I go, he follows me. I have gone with him to talk a few times at his request because he is so insistent. I fear that if I had refused him, there would have been a fight. I do not want to harm him, nor do I want anyone else to harm him on my behalf. And there have been...offers, that way. The last time, I ahd come down from tending to Isolde and he waylaid me in the middle of Milltown inn. He seemed...wild. Paranoid, impassioned, strange. Korrith was there, and he looked naxiously at me as I came down the stairs. No wonder, given some of the things Teramninis was raving about. he even accused Korrith of being an agent of some unspecified power, although so wildly and rounaboutly it was impossible to be offended. Korrith looked even more anxious when I left with him, but I knew I was going to ahve to say something and I did not want a scene in the middle of the inn.
I took him to the forest canopy. Sea of waving branches, a floor that is both solid and delciate, shifting, waving. You go up and down on it, keeping your feet amidst the shifting and sawying floor as it moves. It is easy and safe for me, as I am so light. Harder for a man, especially one of Teraminis's size. I made sure I was on a seperate branch from him before we talked. I asked him to leave me alone, to stop trying to touch me, to stop harassing me. He...was angry. Furious, in fact, but this time I was not to be dissauded. I was hard and unyielding. I buried my compassion and spoke simply, making sure he could not touch me from the seperate branches that carried us swaying up and down in front of each others eyes. I could have jumped between branches, but he was too heavy and had little practice. I was free to move as I wished.
As I said, he was angry. He said a great many things, things about betrayal, things about his wife, things about his suffering that was too great to be endured. And then...then he drew his sword and stabbed himself. In front of my eyes.
I immediately leapt over to his branch and began to heal him as swiftly as I could, withdawing the sword slowly as I closed to wound ahead of it, staunching the bleding as it went. It missed internal organs but it was deep and he would have bled to death in hours if not less. But then I paused. If his pain truly was so great, if he could not bear his life any longer... I had no right to do this. I sat back, still holding the sword against slipping in deeper and doing greater damage, bmy hands charnal and sticky with dark blood. I offered him the chance to let it end, if that was what he truly wanted. In fact, I offered to let him go then, quietly, without pain. I could have done it. that must be why the healer's oath is. With what one learns about healing...one could become such a better killer. if one let oneself. And after all I ahve done... I would take that burden on my souls gladly, if the suffering was great enough. Gods know, it could not be heavier...
He refused.
I saw then from that and from the look in his eyes, that quick look of fear and an oddly calculated pleading, that he had not wanted release. He had done it as he had done so many things, to seek my pity. To manipulate me into...what? To Being with him?
And this odd state of numbness descended on me. The anger was there, as it is now, and it is great. but it is far away. I did not scream at him, or twist the sword. I did not leave him. I healed him the rest of the way, and withdraw the sword, and laid it gently beside him. And then I left. I leapt away lightly over the swaying branches and descended down to the tree, leaving him alone in the liminal world of waving branches with his lies, and his manipulations, and his betrayals.

I...Steel has invited me to join the Clan of the Shrouded Bunnies! He told me that there had been a vote running for my entrance, and that I had been unanimously accepted. I was deeply honoured. Steel himself appeared to swear me in. He tracked me down by the lakeside with Llyewell and Isolde. Although I would have been more than willing, he feared Llye's wrath should he use the brand he bears on his own arm, and handed me a small insignia I now wear with pride.
It was good to see Steel again, even aside from my joy at my acceptance. He has been in Branshior a great deal, recently. Ironic, with it being the city of Clerics. I admit, beautiful and splendid as it is, I much prefer the homeliness of Milltown. I remember Xanthias once making a comment about how barren the streets of Milltown appeared. It seemed an odd comment to me at the time. We may be shabby, but our streets tend to be full at all times of the day with the mill shifts coming on and off.
It was not long after I returned from the Tavern of Glass, I think. I remember, as Issy was still clingier than usual. I suppose I must have frightened her, when I was ill. Or perhaps they kept her away from me? I do not remember...
Either way, we were sitting by Grinwolhd's stall outside the inn. I was feeling glad enough to see the sky after being cooped up so long, and mindful enough of Mistress Venteli's wrath at my sudden departure and return without explanantion, not to mind the chill. I remember Mylor and Alastair were there with us. My head was still oddly light, and I kept thinking that I would not be at all surprised if we were all to float away on one fo the gusts from the mountains, be blown away over the town to drift over the forest and the plains, still sitting around in a circle with Isolde in my lap. Xanthias appeared, and though I had not seen him for some time, it seemed oddly fitting. He had razed off all his beautiful hair, though. Razed it to his scalp. There was something oddly wounded looking about him that day. Perhaps it was only the hair. Or perhaps it was the rumours of an ugly end to his liason with Ravenna and Danica. Perhaps that was why he made that comment. I knew what he meant, in an odd way. Ever since...ever since I was ill, the streets have of times seemed to take on a shadow that may be of my own mind's making, and may not be.
But only of times. That day was one of sweet and joyous laughter. We began an impromptu play, with mylor as Balthazar and Sam as Cory. And Redti as an obelisk. I think he admitted that it suited his acting talent nicely. Issy was roped in as a demon helper (unsure of that was a comment by Mylor there) but, as ever, she found herself her own roile by vanquishing Mylor with a stick. I had no idea he could dance so well...
It was a good day. And afterwards, even Xanthias's face looked less raw. He gave me a gift. A ball of light for Isolde. I have a thong on it, for her to play with now, and to hang around her neck until she is old enough to earn her own Amulet of Evilsbane. I hope it will light her way for her, as she does for me.

I saw Llye tonight. It has been too long, for both myself and for Isolde. Sge loves Llye so. It makes me glad to see it. All the more tragick...

The rest of the page is ripped out, here, none too neatly, and there is a slight blurring of the few words half left above the tear, as though by water.

I...have left the Legion...
I feel such shame at writng these words, but I can no longer lie to myself. I have long known that the Legion was hollow at its heart. Milord Nexus built us around a adream, and then he left, and, in all probability, he is dead. I cannot see him leaving us so long otherwise. Ot makes me heartsick that we have not preserved his vision for him, but I cannot hide form the truth; we have not. We ahve long been little more than a semblance.
Steel has recently been elcted the leader of the Clan of the Shrouded Bunnies. I know his dedication, and I am so proud of him. I caanot but applaud the Bunnies' good sense. Indirectly, though, it is Steel;'s election that has determined my choice. I had a long discussion with him after his appointment and in the course of that I realised the hollowness of my decision to remain with the Legion until it fell. It was not, as I thought, fortitude. It was cowardice, standing by something I no longer beleived in simply for the sake of it. Only a coward cares about what others think. A healer must be honest with themself, and act accordingly.
I have written my letter of resignation to milord Ovimik. I hope he can forgive me...

I...I am beginning to feel trapped...
Teraminis will not leave me alone again. For a time, he let me be as I asked him too, and I saw him rarely. I heard by common report that he had developed a liason with Hazen, and I was glad. I felt he must be getting over his infatuation with me...and perhaps moving on from his wife's death as well. Hazen looks nothing like me, and from common report, she is madcap and playful. A good person to awaken a heavy heart, as I thought. I saw him as I became ill, but not after, and so I felt sure he have recovered from the strange infatuation.
Then, just after I returned to Milltown after my illness, I ran into him with a wound that was ugly and painful, if not severe. Naturally, I healed it for him. He seemed sad, full of pain that had nothing to do with the wound. Again, and perhaps deeply unwisely, I felt pity for him clutch my heart. I asked him, and he talked, and as he came to the end of it, he clutched me suddenly in his arms and tried to kiss me.
I stiffened, and pushed him away. He was reluctant to let me go. "You have already pushed too many people away." I did not want to hurt him, and so luckily he let me go when I continued to push. I did not have to hurt him to make him let me go. And I have heard since that he has broken off his bondong to Hazen, and now he is on at me again, not letting my be, not letting me find my peace.
It is a strange fact to write, but...there are quite a number of men here who are inclined to be...physical with me. They kiss my hands, or hug, unexpectedly. Perhaps they are simply greetings or social customs from the lands they come from, but I freely admit it makes me uncomfortable. And I know I have...admirers. I have had to turn down several offers? requests? in the past couple of weeks. It, again, makes me uncomfortable, the more so because I cannot undertsand it. There is no shortage of women in Valorn, and many of them are beautiful. I cannot imagine what any man could find attractive about myself. I am small, practically stunted. I am, after my illness, so thin I am almost gaunt, and though I am slowly regaining my physical condition and capibilities as I train, I have had little success in regaining the little softer flesh I gained when I first came to this land of plentiful food. I am scarred...how much most them cannot know, but there is the one on my cheek to mar whatever beauty may once have been seen in my face.
He... Mar thought I was beautiful. I know not why. He was a man who saw beauty in odd things I suppose, in odd patterns of light, in landscapes turned to dust, in...in that croaking, broken, uneven voice of a woman, newly freed from silence, who hesitantly spoke her heart to him one soft dawn in the long-gone morning of the world.

I have taken on Redti Qucikfeet as a pupil in the Clerichood. I confess I look forward to teaching him. He has a quick mind, and an enthusiasm for the work which I have recently learned is due to the tragic death of his sister as a babe. I am rather embarrassed to find how naturally teaching comes to me, and how much I enjoy it. He knows a little herblore already, from helping out a wise woman in the home, but he has learned a great deal of what I know already, though it is difficult to test his knowledge well. I manage though, in small ways, time and time. I know many Clerics consider herbal cures redundant with the great power we have in us that can do so much, but wondrous though it is, the longer I have it the more I find ailments that could still be aided by herbs as well of or even instead of Healing. In cases of sickness, for example, the Healing power is more difficult to work with than with wounds; ordinary sickness like Isolde's colds even rather than the...fever I suffered a few weeks ago. I find Healing requires the body to be wroked with using all that is at its disposal, but little more. It is neither simple nor easy, and I begin to see that careless or badly-taught Healing could undersome circumstances be dangerous - even fatal. I intend that Redti be well taught.

Tear stains dot this page like watermarks, smudging some of the delicate curving script here and there.

My friends... What have I done? Given what I have done, how could I ever have been judged worthy of any of the blessings that have found me here in Valorn? A proof, I suppose, to show that the Gods are beings of mercy as well as judgement.
I have been...preoccupied ever since my illness. I cannot stop thinking...of him, of Milltown, of Issy, of what I have...seen. Quite often, I am sitting somewhere, with my friends, reading or writing, playing with Issy, even exploring, and In suddenly come top myself anf realise i have been sitting for many moments staring at nothing. I know Mylor in particulat has noticed it. He says nothing, of course, but I see it in him. He is worried about me. I have tried to reassure him, and everyone, but I admit have found it difficult to shake this darkness that seems to have settled on me.
I was up in the upper room of the inn again, glad to be home despite the dark thoughts it inspires in me time and time, with Mylor and Steel and Isolde playing on the floor. Llye came on. She had been soujourning long in the mountains, and was blue and frozen to the extent she needed a hot bath to thaw her. She brought a gift for Issy that could not fail to raise a smile on me, so generous and thoughtful was it; a little suit made from the skins and soft furs of snow hares with a hood and mittens to go with it. Issy was delighted, though I think it was as much from seeing Llye as from any gift she brought.
But my friends...my dear friends had brought a gift for me as well. Llye had brought it. She told me softly "I ken tha' ye've been havin'... a hard time as o' late. An' I'm sorry fer it. I dinnae like tae see ye troubled, gel. But I was wond'rin'...dae ye 'member tha tale I tol' 'bout tha Ring o' Hope?"
I told that of course I did. I do. She told the tale on another night of darkness I once had, not long after I returned weary beyond measure from the mountains north of Caernivale, carrying as burden a tiny scrap of life that seemed heavier than anything else I had ever carried despite - because - of its frailty. It was atale that reminded me of the value of that little spark and what I must do for her, what I could not afford to lose because of what she could not afford to be deprived of. So that every time I look at her, I am reminded of that tale. Of my respnsibilities to her. Of the great value and the fragility of hope.
Gently, Llye said "I ken, gel, I ken. But we were thinkin'.... well, we ken ye wear tha ring o' yer profession, an' a righ' nice ring tis, tae, but...we were thinkin' mebbe if'n ye have yer own ring o' Hope 'bout yer person, ye migh' 'member a bit easier tha' it's ne'er tha end, an' ye can gae on."
I held the Ring in my hands as she and Steel and Mylor stood around me, and I am ashamed to admit it but I lost all control and wept like a child myself. Their love and their support surrounded me as they did, made for that moment almost tangible as air and flesh. Such friends...I can never close to deserving them, but for the mercy of the Gods in granting them to me anyway, I can never be thankful enough.