73rd of Frost, Year 124 Age of Steel
Kala was good at keeping secrets.
Her family were stewards for quite a few things hidden in their mountain. She had been at court since she became a woman, which was an education in secrecy on its own. Some of her secrets had become state secrets, though, and others had been doing everything in their power to keep them under wraps. Her wings were certainly that, as almost everyone who saw her wings almost immediately came to the conclusion that the Imperium would kill to have her, if only to make her a breeder for a larger Kathar army.
She also kept her divinity a secret. Newer to that divine spark and not so powerful as those who were reborn, like Arcas as Talon, like Ugrimal and Streleon as Varvara and Aværys.
Naori had named her Unity even as Garel gave her wings. Later, she had claimed the Stars. She wondered if her third domain would be Agency or Sovereignty. That freedom of spirit, being whole and intact within oneself, was as important to her as the stars.
But word had come from an old familiar person: Pahoran Rayunia. He was busy being a Dawnmartyr now, and she had her post in the Ministry of Finance and all her extracurricular activities and travels, but after a flurry of messages back and forth, they had arranged an outing: they would ride on one of his family's wagons to Dawnhold so she could see it, and she would tell him about Atoria.
It startled her, but she supposed Talon telling one of his faithful, another Synnekar about her trip was not breaking the rules his mother had imposed during her regency. In any case, Kala herself broke them when the situation called for it. Her sense of Pahoran had always been that he was the trustworthy sort, but she was a creature of secrets and so it still felt strange. In any case, she would tell him the story about how she got her wings. She would leave out what else she had been given for the most part.
Kala told him about the clues that had driven her to the libraries where they had met for days and nights of exhaustive research, about the dive into the Warrens to find the Rift Gate, about the strange airship that had carried them through the Aetherial Sea to the floating islands that were Atoria. Winged women, a complex bond between all there present, and libraries of mnemosyte holding the stories of their people.
Her wings were hidden under a cloak whose glamours hid her wings from all but grandmasters of semblance, though she would show him when they were no longer out in the open air. She wore furs as they rode through the snow toward Dawnhold. Now inured to the cold as he was, she still had to make a show of being merely human.
Then, she told him of Garel and how, while he gave her wings, she fell into an ecstatic trance and spoke to the Crystal Lady who bade her free the Kathar and unite their people.
When her tale was done, she unstoppered her waterskin and wet her throat.
She laughed quietly. "I'm not used to speaking at length like that. Do you have any questions?"
