Lord Tolen returned home in silence. He kept the vial, but did not use it.
He prayed and fasted, yet his beloved wife's condition deteriorated. Her fair face turned pale, and her usually cheerful smile became barely a shadow. All the Turstone priests were already praying for her recovery. Lord Tolen, himself, spent all his waking hours with her, fasting and pleading with God who gave every soul its spark of life to spare his beloved and allow them more time with each other in this world.
Pained and desperate, he searched his heart for any memory of sin that he might have recently committed, but could not think of neither a greedy deed, nor a haughty thought. Several times, Tolen took the glowing vial in his hands, and then hid it again.
When the priest elder, the laeden of the Turstone, came to visit and pray for Tolen's kind wife in person, he found the man bleary-eyed by his wife's side. The priest was alarmed when Tolen questioned him feverishly whether his wife's illness was God's punishment for some hidden wrong he had done.
"Have you done any wrong, for which you did not offer recompense?" The priest inquired cautiously, studying the man. Tolen confessed that he could not think of anything. Gaedus advised him to then entrust his worries to God, and suggested to the lord to depart to his quarters to sleep.
"Surely, they'll run and call for you at once if needed." The elder told the distraught man, and sir Tolen obeyed. While still pleading fervently within his heart, lord Tolen refused to lie down unto his comfortable bed, but lay down upon the rough mat on the floor of his room, where he finally fell into a fitful, restless sleep...
Again, Tolen found himself walking over rough stones next to the shallow stream on the bottom of Durnaldeen cliffs.
Coming around the bend, he beheld the same wounded demon standing with his back against the rocky wall. He seemed even more human in Tolen's dream. His green-hazel eyes swept up from the viciously barking dogs and calmly met Tolen. This time, he did not pleadingly reach out his hands to him, but held them at his sides and regarded sir Tolen with guarded sadness.
Tolen's vague feeling of wrongness grew. His heartbeat quickened. The barking of dogs seemed to fade away into distance.
"You repaid mercy with cruelty... I had spared your life..." Tolen heard the man say to him with reproach, as clearly as though they stood next to each other, even though the man's lips did not move. The knight could not look away, held captive by the demon's gaze. He noticed now that his green-hazel eyes flowed with subtly changing shades.
"You called me 'slayer'. But where are those that you accused me of murdering? You did not find any victims. Did our children harm you? Their innocent blood still cries out from the ground. The wind scattered their ashes, unmourned. So very few lived. What happened to them, knight? All they wanted was to leave your cruel world. But you would not let them. And when they struck against you in their desperation, you judged them wicked beasts and sought to slay them, too. And you think yourself just? Is it just then, to be cruel? And you think that you have not done any wrong."
The man accused, his eyes darkening. Tolen stood before him and trembled.
"Forgive me, I had judged you wrongly." He finally whispered. "I believed evil tales about you..."
The man said nothing, at first. Then, he signed softly, and his eyes calmed back to a gentle sea green.
"Justice demands blood for blood, and wounds equal in measure. But mercy heals, and forgiveness brings peace. God comforts and shelters those who were killed and were innocent..."
The man studied Tolen. "I did not curse you. It is not my doing that your beloved wife is ill, but one of the many natural evils to be found in your world. I am angry with you, but I have no ill wish against you... Do what you can to help your wife. If I could, I would do the same for those I love."
The man reached the familiar glowing vial to the knight, and after a moment of hesitation, Tolen took it from the man's hand.
"Do not judge again so rashly. And show mercy that you have been shown." Tolen perceived kindness in the man's green-hazel gaze resting upon him.
Light dawned around them. The man nodded to Tolen. He looked away and reached out his hand to another - a young girl with a gaunt, yet pretty face that Tolen thought hauntingly familiar. Her face bore tear-tracks. Gently, the man laid a protective hand on her shoulder. The girl looked up at Tolen shyly from beneath long eye-lashes. Her eyes were amazingly clear and green, reminding him of the sea. The girl nodded to him, and smiled through her tears. Tolen distinctly perceived that she was granting him permission and saying a farewell, though she also did not speak.
"Farewell, knight. I hope we won't meet again for a very long time." The man said firmly. The light engulfed him and the young girl, and separated them from Tolen as though it were a blindingly bright wall...
Tolen awakened slowly, the dream still vivid in his mind. He took and looked at the hidden vial. And coming to his unconscious wife's side, he looked at her beloved, pale face, saw her laboring breath, and with poured the vial's glowing contents on her bluish lips.
By morning, Tolen's wife had recovered a little. Later that day she delivered forth a living daughter. She was exceedingly tiny, and struggled to breathe, and did not cry to announce her birth until hours later. The physician said that the child was born much too soon and doubted that it would live much longer.
Lord Tolen, however, said nothing in the face of his lady's joy, who stated in faith that their little daughter would live. Rowena was still very weak and Tolen feared to upset her.
He approached the quiet infant, and as he did, the little girl opened her eyes. Lord Tolen unwillingly pulled back, his grasp on the crib edge tightening so hard that his knuckles went white. The eyes that looked at him were amazingly clear and green, like the eyes of the girl he saw in his dream.
"What is it?" His wife asked, concerned by the tense way he looked as he stood there.
"Nothing." Lord Tolen whispered and slowly relaxed his grip. Turning back, he beheld his wife's worried, pale face, and smiled at her encouragingly. He hurried to come and kiss her on her head, and embraced and held her.
"I wish to call her Annelein." Lady Rowena smiled. The infant in the crib began to cry, weakly at first, but then stronger and more insistent. Lord Tolen knew his wife's unspoken request, and gently picked up the child and laid her in lady Rowena's waiting arms.
"Annelein." He whispered, watching the child grow content at her mother's breast. Doubt gave way to fierce love awakening within him. He hugged them both, wishing to protect them from all the evils of the world, and grateful that he could hold them, could hear his wife's beating heart and feel the warmth of her skin. Grateful, he held them tight, and prayed that God's truth would illumine and wash away his fears and doubts, and surrendered his heart to hope that all would be well...
His wife had spoken true, because in the following days his tiny daughter's health strengthened. Her eyes had also shifted in color to the same light blue as her father's. Lord Tolen wondered if the green he glimpsed was perhaps due to the trick of the light and his over-wrought imagination. Still, persistent fear gnawed on him, however he sought to cast it away, that there was something wrong with his child, that she had somehow become tainted by the demon's blood that saved her life.
When the royal invitation arrived from Reolth, the king's city, for Tolen's household to attend the traditional winter festival held by the king and the royal priests, lady Rowena asked to be excused from attending. Lord Tolen had no desire to go without her, fearing to leave her and their newborn daughter so soon. Rowena insisted, smiling.
"Go and bring our son home to us. He will worry if you come late." She reminded him. So, lord Tolen went.