Awareness returned in fragmented waves of disorientation. My eyelids felt weighted by lead, every nerve alight with a lingering ache. Something soft cradled my body - a rustic mattress piled with scratchy wool blankets.
Gradually, my surroundings coalesced. The musty scents of wood smoke and drying herbs. The flickering amber glow of a banked fire. Roughly hewn timber walls and thatched ceiling barely an arm's length overhead.
I was inside some sort of small hut or cabin. Raising my head with monumental effort, I saw Graham seated on a stool nearby, his features thrown into stark reliefs by the dancing illumination as he studied me intently.
-You're awake, he said, something like wonder bleeding through his gruff tone. I'll admit, I had my doubts there for a while.
Fragmented memories came trickling back - the crimson forest, the serpentine horror, that blazing force that had erupted from me in those final moments. I shuddered involuntarily.
-What...what happened? My voice was little more than a rasped croak.
Graham rose and crossed to my pallet, offering a skin flask.
-Here, drink this slowly. You've been hovering near death's door for three days now.
I took the proffered flask gratefully, the tepid water like a balm for my raw throat. Graham watched me drain it in measured sips before settling onto the stool once more, bracing his forearms on his knees.
-To answer your question - you happened. One moment we were staring death in the fangs, the next... He shook his head slowly, trailing off as he met my gaze with palpable intensity. Those beams of light, obliterating that monstrosity like it was made of twigs...
I could only stare back numbly, utterly at a loss. Graham's next words dropped like led weights.
-Amara...I think you may be one of the fabled Mage-born.
Silence hung thick in the cramped cabin. Outside, the dreaded forest seemed to hold its collective breath. Finally, I found my voice again.
-Mage...born? I struggled to sit upright, grimacing at the lingering tenderness in my side. What does that mean, exactly?
Graham expelled a slow breath, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair - a telltale nervous tic.
-The Mage-born or the powered...they're what the old stories call those rare few gifted with abilities the rest of us can scarcely fathom. Mastery over the elemental forces, the power to shape reality on a whim. They were hunted to the point of near extinction centuries ago out of fear.
He met my widened eyes evenly, his expression inscrutable.
-As I was saying before, some of them committed atrocious murders, the murder that resulted in the creation of Ronque forest is one of them.