To Save the World...

Chapter 3

"What?!" an onlooker shouted.

"Why does she get the healing?!" another called.

Within moments, the stunned girl was surrounded by an angry, shouting mob.

"Why you?"

"Why not me?"

"What makes you so special?"

"Why you?"

"I'll bet you cheated!"

"I demand a do-over!"

"Why you?"

"I— I— I—" the girl stammered, one eye looking wildly from one enraged face to the next, flinching as they screamed at her. She brought up her hands over her face as she cowered, tears streaming from her eye once more.

"That is enough," Musara said. She pulled at the shoulders of the outermost horde, but the people ignored her. "Leave her alone." She pulled and pushed, but no one listened.

"Why you?"

"You think you're better than us, don't you?"

"Are you even sick?"

"Why you?"

"What makes you so special?"

"Why not my poor, innocent baby?"

"Why—"

"STOP!" Musara thundered, an edge of dangerous power in her voice. A wind swirled around the square.

The crowd froze. Everyone slowly turned to view the priestess.

Musara took a deep, shuttering breath. Thank you, Messor Vitavi, for lending your mighty voice to mine. She let her breath out slowly and cleared her throat before she said, "Enough." She swallowed again against the soreness growing in her throat. She addressed the crowd softly, "Messor Vitavi made his choice. He chose her. Though you may question, and you may disagree, you must respect his choice; he knows far more than any of us. Let the girl be."

The crowd grumbled, several people jostling each other as they began to disperse.

"Why, priestess?" the woman, still clutching her infant close, asked despairingly. "Why her," she jabbed a shaking finger at the cowering girl, "and not my baby?" The woman began to sob. "How can this be Messor Vitavi's will?! That babe's die before even being old enough to wean! That the people waste away... The parents burying their children... Why?"

Musara swallowed hard against the lump in her throat as she blinked back her own tears. "I do not know," she admitted quietly. "All I know so far is this: we've done something wrong. And until we atone for it, this sorrow won't stop."

"Who, priestess? Who did this wrong?" the woman asked. "My child is innocent! Why punish all of us for the sins of another?!"

Musara reached out and embraced the woman, letting the distraught woman sob into her shoulder. She whispered, "I don't know. Sometimes... bad things happen to good people... I don't know why. Messor Vitavi knows. He has a plan. I... just can't see it. One day... one day, we'll know. He'll make everything right..."

The woman clung to the priestess with one arm, sobbing loudly, while the baby in her other arm remained still.

"We just have to trust..."

"How can I trust the god who let my baby die?" the woman demanded as she finally straightened. "How... can this..." she sobbed as she cradled her motionless child, "be the work... of a just god?"

"Messor Vitavi's will must be done," the girl said quietly, stepping between the priestess and the woman. She handed the fate coin, wheat side up, to the priestess, then turned to the woman, and reached out her hands. "May I?"

The woman stared at the girl, unmoving.

The girl gently took the baby from the woman's hands and bowed her head, bringing the child up to her face until their foreheads touched. She breathed out slowly, whispered words distorted and unintelligible. She slowly lowered the child, tears once more coursing from her good eye and blood still seeping from her ruined eye. Drops of water and blood ran down her cheeks, gathered at her chin, then fell and sprinkled the baby's face.

The baby opened deep brown eyes briefly before scrunching them shut and lifting its tiny fists, crying.