Tasi's Pov
When my parents died, Kai's mother took me in like her own.
Kai was like an older brother to me.
Kai had lost an older brother to a strange illness, the same time that I'd lost both of my parents.
I grew up under their care. I wanted to be like Kai, he was everything I ever wanted in an older brother.
I dedicated myself into martial arts, that when it was time I voiced my involvement into being part of the warriors.
The warriors were never known to take wife or birth children with the exception of the prince though.
It was also a volunteering process. No man was to be forced. The love for Siuan pushed many men into being warriors for Siuan.
Kai had to take me by the hand and led me to see the pleasures of life.
I've never been one being comfortable in a girl's presence, I love them all but I didn't let that deter me.
But I felt this inkling that having a woman to call mine was not for me.
I was 19.
The proud son of the soil of Siuan.
Kai wanted to cut off whatever love I felt for being part of the warriors but that didn't deter me. After our initial selection, I met and made two friends, Iywei and Ajai. They were older but they kept me close and guided me until our final test which would proclaim one as a warrior of Siuan.
Many failed the test which involved the process of going into the ghost wilderness over the valleys. It was a mind test, fighting in the spirit realm to proclaim one as a mighty warrior.
The Siuans believe that if you could fight in the spirit's realm, you could fight in the physical too.
That made us fight uniquely like ghosts, a trait that the Tar'kish lack.
I was younger when I met Sikeka, the mighty one.
She spoke about Kai as the powerful one who would save his people from impending doom. She was extremely powerful, she could read minds and read the weather.
But she couldn't read the fortunes of a person. She couldn't also tell the future yet she was so powerful to wedge peace amidst other tribes.
The Tarks were at peace with us a very long time ago. When Da'ghi took over as the king of the Tarks, everything changed.
Thus, Sikeka had to create a medium through which we must make our settlement, away from the Tarks. We avoided each other like plagues from the sea.
Sikeka had a young apprentice while I was little. Her name was Muna. I never got to see her again after her parents from the Iga tribe came and took her away.
The Iga tribe was 3 mountains away from the Ghost wilderness. They were little in number. They were strangely beginning to die out as a people.
Sikeka spoke of Muna again. She never stopped the riddles about her. They were puzzling at first. How would Muna who was taken from us by her parents fall from the sky and change our world?
Sometimes, it irked me.
Everyone was taken by what she continued to say. What about the protectors of Siuan? What about the king himself who never failed to please us? What about the blessed mother of Kai who took it upon herself to care for the orphans like me?
Were we not capable of fulfilling such tasks? Were we not capable of having such tasks? Why will a strange person from the Iga tribe seem to prophesy about our tribe, our country?
Why can't one of us be as powerful as Sikeka?
Surely, if I'd voiced these words, people would see me as a crazy one. I noticed as time went by that Kai started staying away when his father broke down into a coma. Occasionally, I would overhear him voicing to his mother that he wasn't ready to be a king.
Sikeka would with the help of our healers try to curb the gnawing temperature of King Gayatri. But, I kept wondering why it was at such times as this that King Gayatri should fall ill.
It started as a shock then jolted into a coma. It devasted the people of Siuan. But, the people of Siuan kept hope alive. That hope lay on the shoulders of young Prince Kai.
Then, Kai spoke of the capture of a woman who he believed was in the captivity of the Tar'kish people. We his best warriors never opposed him. Of course, the rest of us had no idea who this woman was till we had to rescue her.
She was beautiful, with rich black hair, and a round face, and spoke a strange language that only Kai understood. She also wore a strange dress which was quite baffling.
Kai had to make sure that we weren't being followed. What was more shocking was the fact that Sikeka recognized this woman, she and Kai spoke her language.
Was she the lady Sikeka referred to as the one? The one who would reveal the future prophesy of Siuan? She didn't even understand our language, how then was she a seer?
On Sikeka's order, we took her into Sikeka's home when she'd collapsed, and laid her in bed. On the morrow, we would know who she was. Kai will have to explain to us why he had brought in a stranger into our land.
But she was the least of my worries, she was a nobody, I had concluded.
"Where did you find her?" Sikeka had asked me when I'd turned to go.
"Kai found her," I answered her humbly.
"Do you have an idea where?"
I paused, having to conceal the knowledge of his previous whereabouts to Sikeka was useless, she could read my emotions and see through me.
"I had followed Prince Kai at one time to a cave. I believe he was meeting her there, he talked about it to us," I explained.
She studied me closely, "and where is Kai?"
"He would return soon," I assured her, then bowed and turned to go. Then the thought crept into me, I was curious about the woman in Sikeka's bed who had the warriors protecting her like their lives depended on it.
"Who is she?" I turned to face Sikeka.
"Huh?"
"I mean her, who is she? You seemed to have known her for you to say that you have waited endlessly for her."
"She is Muna," she answered me.
"Muna? The girl from the Iga tribe?" realization dawned on me.
She tried a smile, nodding her head, "The lady who fell from heaven."
(Sikeka means a woman shaman in the Siuan tribe. The Iga tribe are distinct people who were going into extinction, most of the Iga people had the supernatural gifts of visions and water healing.
The healers of Siuans do not have the gift of water healing (a special healing power that only the Iga people possess).