The Healer’s Touch — “Heralds of Spring”

Start reading with Chapter I.

The woman stood next to a grave, but her gaze went far into the southern valleys and plains. The sun warmed her body and filled her soul with light. The snow melted under the onslaught of heat and rushed in cascades of brown grey water down the mountain sides. Drops of water fell from the trees like rain where the ice liquefied.

She breathed the humid smell of spring into her lungs. Life had never felt so fresh. She closed her eyes, smiled and breathed, in and out, in and out.

She turned and stared down on the single grave next to the small house that had saved her life over the past season. The winter soil had resisted her in digging the grave, but with her sword she had managed to rip a shallow grave out of the ground. The weapon now rested with the corpse, never to be used by her again.

Death was a thing of the past. No longer would she take lives, but share the life that had been granted her with others. She knelt down on one knee, her left arm on her other thigh, the right hand touching the earth of the grave.

She half expected to feel a heartbeat. And she did, only that it was her own. A source of life given to her by one who had almost lost his own life once, but resumed it to heal and spend life. What less could she do now to give thanks? What less could she do to value the gift given to her? A gift she had wanted to throw away — but no longer.

Life was full of the riches of joy and service and healing. “Thank you.”

She arose and pulled a pouch over her shoulder. The world was full of suffering. There was sorrow hidden in the hearts of man the eye couldn’t see. She had experienced the depth of pain, but had found healing.

As she made her way down the mountains, she carried on the gift of life the Healer had given her.