Orhan moved his face to the side so one eye peeked out of his hiding place. “What kind of dinosaurs?”
Amber paused. “What kind do you think they were?”
“Big, scary ones.”
Amber nodded. “Of course. They couldn’t have been any other.” She licked her lips. “Sam and Jane lived in the most beautiful valley you could ever imagine. There was a lake that the sun would shine down upon, making its waters look like a million sparkling diamonds. And when Sam and Jane looked up, that same sun would blaze in a sapphire-blue sky. It was almost magical, because the sky seemed to have the power to pull up a gossamer veil out of the lake’s deep waters and cast a shimmery haze across the expanse of the lush green grass. Life was good in their valley.”
Seth tore his gaze from Amber to look across the huddle of children. He doubted any of them understood all the words she was saying, but it didn’t matter. She used a hypnotic, melodious tone that seemed to be soothing the children and carrying them away from the terrors of their memories.
“Sam and Jane loved adventure and had left the rest of their herd to go exploring in a nearby cave. The cave was dark as midnight without the shinning moon or winking stars for light. A thrill of the unknown sent their hearts racing as they plunged into the darkness. They encouraged each other farther, each wanting to prove that they were the braver of the two. Then suddenly, a loudbangsounded from outside the cave and the whole earth shook under their feet. ‘What was that?’ they asked each other.”
“Was it a missile?” Sonia asked.
Amber stroked the girl’s cheek with the back of her finger. “Sam and Jane didn’t know what it was, so they turned around and headed out of the cave to investigate. Turns out a great big rock had fallen out of the sky and landed right in the middle of their perfect valley. They couldn’t believe it. At first, they just sat there at the entrance of the cave in stunned silence. Then sadness crushed down on them until they thought the weight of it would cause their hearts to fall out of their chests.”
Amber continued the story in the same quiet and calm tone of voice. She told how the two dinosaurs had dealt with their grief. How they had to come to the realization that it was okay for them to feel grateful that they had survived when the rest of their herd hadn’t. And how they had to decide if they were going to stay there in their valley and wish they had died too, or if they were going to move forward, even though nothing seemed right anymore, and make a new life for themselves in a new valley that would be different than theirs but perhaps just as beautiful.
Seth felt a reverent hush deep in his soul. A kind of still after a turbulent storm, where wreckage was visible as far as the eye could see, but a ray of sunshine split open the gray skies, offering light and hope.
With a simple story, she had given them that. Hope. Where he had mentally floundered on what to say or do to offer these young hearts comfort—for what did one say in the face of all they’d suffered?—she’d easily spun a tale that acknowledged that their lives had been irrevocably shattered, but also that they had a choice to move beyond it. To create a new future for themselves in a new homeland.
And she doubted her calling? Because of what, her gender? He shook his head. Inconceivable.
Open her eyes so she can see.
Because what he was witnessing on these kids’ faces as they stared up at her looked an awful lot like a miracle to him.
Chapter Thirteen
Holy Roman Empire, 1527
Christyne tracked the progress of the procession as it climbed the incline, swatches of color from the landsknechte winking behind the thick groves of the forest.
Too soon.
Her nails dug into the stone of the half-wall along the parapet, rough edges biting into her tender skin as she willed the cavalcade to evaporate before her eyes. She blinked, yet still they came. The sun glinted off the long flamberge swords of the mercenaries, blades longer than the soldiers were tall, as they marched along. Garbed in the colors of the house of Heidelbraum, mounted upon his prized Palomino stallion and leading the pack, was her father, proud chin jutted in the air, his graying hair hidden beneath a feathered cap.
Her innards squeezed.Too late.
An hourglass had been turned the second Christyne had stumbled upon Lorenz in the woods, his healing forced to duel every grain of sand that slipped down the neck of the timepiece and plunked to the bottom like a bolder sinking beneath a crystalline surface.
Like the watery grave into which he would descend if his presence were discovered.
Her father’s form became fully visible as he exited the woods, the sun shining upon him with the full force of its splendor as the last granule of sand dropped to the bottom of the hourglass.
'Tis time.
In a swirl of skirts, she turned from the rampart and descended the steps that would lead her to the great door to meet her father as was expected. Already, servants were drawing open the heavy wood, allowing rays of afternoon light to pool in the castle’s middle.
She glanced to her feet, her thoughts transcending the floor beneath her soles to settle in the undercroft below. To Lorenz. How was she to tend his wounds now that her father the prince was returned? Any sound, a sneeze or a cough, could alert one of a growing number of people to the hidden room beneath the castle. Had she managed to prolong the young scholar’s life only to see his candle snuffed out so soon?
“I am returned, daughter.” Prince Ernst’s voice boomed around the courtyard as he dismounted his steed.
Christyne hurried down the steps and lifted onto her toes to press a kiss to his grizzled cheek. She took a pace back and folded her hands demurely in front of herself, her gaze arrested by the ranks of men filing into their midst. She lost count as they entered, her head growing dizzy with the colors and patterns of the many landsknecht. For what purpose was there such a number? She flicked a worried glance at her father, stilling her feet from retreat and her tongue from calling out a warning to Lorenz.
Fool she was to have not apprised the man ahead of time. She’d known of her father’s looming return. Why had she not prepared the accused? Alerted him to the mounting danger at his door? Mayhap she could have borne his weight again or spun a tale and drafted the help of Nikolaus to move Lorenz into the village. To a cellar or the bottom of a haymow.
The answer to those questions was near at hand. So near she had no troubled closing her fingers about it. She had been distracted. By Lorenz’s words of God’s grace and love, which speared her soul. By his expressive and intense eyes, which pierced her heart.
