Saleigha’s village was known for its crimes against those that were gifted in power or communion with nature’s spirits. For generations not a single family escaped the inspections of the Magistrate and there was not a breath that came easily. For generations, her family had been chosen as agents of nature, powerful healers cursed by the superstitions of others to die before they could reach their full potential.
Josivn would have been the first Full Shaman in her family in 12 years were it not for one fateful night when he reached out to his companion spirit to save his beloved Isisdora, the magistrate’s daughter from certain death, but he failed. She watched as Josivn was dragged to the center of the village and the sentence was passed, death come dawn. It was unnatural, a crime, ruin would come to the village if allowed to live. Harvest crops had been destroyed that year due to pestilence, wells had run dry in drought..The blame of such were placed on Josivn head.
The Magistrate declared, they would rid the evil in the villages no matter the cost and take the lives of those that had stolen their own. Her brother and his beloved Isidora would not be the only ones to die that day. Death was to be the fate of any village, home, or bloodline believed to harbor or condone magic. When the fires were set, Saleigha tried to free her brother from the fire and in the process her right hand withered in the flames. In his final momentsm Josivn called on his spirit companion creating chaos among the people. In that chaos, she fled with what few possessions she could carry to another village many leagues away where years would eventually separate her from the declaration of the Magistrate.
It was there Saleigha was chosen by the spirit of a white wolf to be the next Shaman. Secretly, she practiced the art of healing, the communion with the spirits, and the gifts nature granted. One evening as she say communing with the spirits, a vision came, a scourge was coming. It’s purpose was to rid the villages one by one of evil doers, witches, magicians, Shaman, and the like with the Magistrate leading the united villagers in the cause. Saleigha knew her time to move on had come, yet the spirits spoke against her leaving innocent people behind to face the coming slaughter.
She tried to warn them. They laughed at the foolishness of a girl who had heard too many bed time stories and had to many superstitions. When the scourge did not come that season, she thought perhaps the spirits were wrong, until the loud voice of the man she hated and feared burst into the village with his men dragging people from their homes into the streets of judgment. She did the only thing she could think of, She called on the spirits for aide and mercy to defend. Many died that day but she..was not one of them.
Of that time, Saleigha can only recall looking into the distance at the fiery remains of destruction; all for the sake of revenge for a daughter that could not be saved. She travels alone, in hopes she will not leave traces for the Scourge to follow and lead innocent people to their deaths for her sake. The Magistrate would not stop looking for her, the last of her bloodline…He would not forget her face, nor she his, as she took off into the darkness of a mourning rain.
