Walking Among Her Army

With all that time spent in these conditions on the pilgrimage, and before receiving the call, one would think Islana’s body would get used to it. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been but it still was not good. Would it take months or perhaps years before she ever was used to this,maybe it would never happen completely? Fair skin and red hair just did not go well with hot and dry.

When she handed her camel over to one of the guards and decided to walk with her people, her advisors didn’t try to stop her but it was unclear if they were alright with the idea or not. Sister Loctus wanted the connection being among the Ozanine would allow her. It seemed as if there might be a lot of times when she didn’t agree necessarily with her advisors.

Agizul and Amastan had been kind to her long before she was the Prophetess. When the only title currently on her was one of Shalia’s slaves. The two had not needed to answer the young woman’s many questions but they had. They could have been dismissive of her but they weren’t. Between that and the last Prophetess's whispers, the redhead knew the two could be trusted. She did not regret telling them they could tell her their thoughts. The question was how to navigate it when they did not see eye to eye.

That brought to mind, the problem of whatever was following them. She needed to find out what it was but looks crossed between her advisors making the young woman think that they did not like the idea of using her magik to contact it. There had not been much time to discuss it but both priests had been invited to her tent for dinner after the camp was set again. It would probably be brought up then. Maybe, it would be necessary to just contact whatever it was without them being there but Islana was nervous to be alone when attempting her magik again, especially not knowing what would be at the other end of that link.

The wind stopped for a few minutes, long enough to take a drink of water from her skin and look around at her army. It was still an odd and almost overwhelming thought. The original idea of keeping her head down and making sure she wasn’t noticed, which had been her plan when first arriving in Ostiarium, seemed almost comical now. Nineteen, soon to be twenty, in charge of an entire people that she had not even known of not so long ago.

The only people that knew of her upcoming natalday were her advisors, as far as the young woman knew. What Islana did know was that she had never really had any large natalday celebrations, just her family, and even those became scarce once her brother died. Of course, the other times spent in Helias were not ones in which celebrating the day of her birth would have been. She really did not know what to expect in this situation whether the large celebrations in honor of Sister Loctus birthday’s were common, or not. Maybe it was completely up to her. It seemed as if the voices of the past were a little quiet on the issue as well. The idea of a celebration seemed strange enough, adding the impending war and it seemed very selfish. Then again maybe a celebration at the camp would let her people blow off some steam.

The walk continued, for as long as the woman could stand it or they stopped whichever came first. It was likely going to be that her body would start strongly protesting before they made it to the day's end. There had been worse her body had been through - she might still surprise herself.