Remembering Kindness
least, when all aspiration of self-sovereignty was lost, that his prayers had been answered. His own hand had brought him to Diras, but it was the Grace of the Gods and of those who promoted their virtues that had saved him. They had brought him to Dorrin when they might have brought him elsewhere, and the king, the Agent of the Gods, had extended his hand and raised Vyrdin’s eyes from the ground. His eyes were raised still further by Draeden and Bryeison, and though they were not he first lights of morning were ebbing servants of the Gods themselves, they had given over the horizon, the lasting revelry was him the gift of self-liberation. They had forced him passing away, and after a night most out of his discretion, had taught him to suspend his agreeably spent, Vyrdin went from the courtyard sorrows, and allowed him to acquit himself the back to his room. It had been a wondrous evening: misery of the past. It was a most untoward from Dorrin’s visit to the feast in the Great Hall, exultation, one that permitted him to smile down from the dancing in the servants’ quarter to his the hall and into his room in a private regale. He was stargazing, every moment of his holiday had been blessed, he was safe, the door was shut, and he was home. splendidly commemorated. He had endured his due Only once during his time in Farriage had he vexations, and no doubt his general anxiety and ever felt it right to acknowledge his blessings, and as cautiousness must return ere long, but for now, he resigned himself to the pleasant somnolence of Vyrdin was all wistful tranquility and encouraging sobriety, sacredness, and the sounds early morning, ambition. His new prospect was granted him by the his mind began to drift into the gloaming of sleep, Gods, their gleaming effigies raining down upon the place between oblivion and wakefulness where him all the benediction that their the blithesome and grateful He was blessed, he was safe, the appearance could warrant. His young child who dared to hope door was shut, and he was home. wish, the one he had made in the for acceptance and family still furtive corners of his mind while dwelt. It was a secret part of Reis had been racing overhead, of quelling every Vyrdin, one which he himself tried not to recognize; qualm and of discovering the serenity which it was too painful to remember how he had been Bryeison so cherished had evinced: he was smiling, deserted, and though he could no longer recall his was walking with a light step, was considering parents’ faces, their actions could never be absolved. everything as good and great, and only his own selfTo be left at an orphanage at five years old, to be consciousness could effect to diminish his given the false desire of family, to endure the agony happiness. It was all sanguine reverie, and as Balane of seeing other children accepted and reclaimed and kissed Fuinnog and the sun began her heavy ascent, loved bore no sanguine effect on Vyrdin’s heart. It Vyrdin said his quiet thanks to the Gods for their was here, in the space where he kept his secret visit and asked them to accompany him as he left agonies, where his greatest joys also resided. Here, the courtyard. in the first moments of sleep, it was safe for him to Forever had he been used to harbour admit that he had discovered kindness: in the Sisters suspicions as to whether the Gods existed, as to at the shelter, in the children at the orphanage who whether they visited their children and took them shared his room, but there was a very particular away from unbearable suffering, and though the place in this realm which he kept for one who had answer had always been there, and his admission of granted him the greatest kindness and had given it always reluctant: Vyrdin knew that they, in some him the greatest happiness in the midst of his most form or other, must exist. His troubled heart told unbearable sorrow. In his grief, he had found his him so. He had begged them every day to end his joys and owned himself blessed where many might sorrows and bring him to a place where he might be have considered themselves so heinously wronged, loved, and he had wondered at what he could have and it was here, in this uncommon gratitude, where done to merit being abandoned and given away and he felt he had merited all his current fortune. beaten and forlorn, and it was when his faith was
By Michelle Franklin
T