"What is taking them so long?" Rowan said to no one in particular.
Deciding to stretch his legs a bit, he started down the path away from the village center. If he just so happened to stretch his legs all the way to the riverside, that would serve Alaric right for accusing him of dawdling earlier. He wove his way through a smattering of small houses, wondering what kind of families lived inside. Just past the last house, a faint cry caught his attention.
He followed the sound through a thicket, drawn in by a series of hiccupping sobs to find two small children hunched over something in the dirt beside one of the bushes. A boy no more than five held his face in his hands. His shoulders shook with each little sob. A girl who might have been two years older knelt next to him and patted him on the shoulder. Her own face was streaked with dirt and tears.
Rowan stopped an acceptable distance away so as not to raise alarm. "What's happened? Are you hurt?"
Both children turned their wet-saucer eyes to his face. "It's Whiskers." The girl's lip trembled as she answered. "I think he's dead."
The boy let out a wail in agreement.
"There, there. Let me see," Rowan said.
The boy obligingly scooted back on his rear in the dirt to show Rowan what they were looking at. The girl continued to kneel, lips pressed together as if she'd decided not to cry anymore in front of this stranger. Between the two of them was a small lump of calico fur. A tiny tail curled sadly from one end, four little paws practically lost under the fluff or orange, black, and white.
Rowan joined the children on his knees in front of the kitten. The boy and girl didn't seem to know to be afraid of him, and it felt good. He used his other vision and held a hand over the kitten. It only took him a fraction of a second to see that the kitten was indeed dead, killed by some animal or another. The spirit still seeped out of it, warm and silver-white, a thin mist rising up from the tiny corpse.
"What are you doing?" The boy sniffled, thoughts of the dead kitten momentarily replaced with curiosity.
"I'm looking at Whisker's soul." Rowan gave the boy a gentle smile that felt slightly more real than usual.
The boy's mouth fell open, and he squinted at the space under Rowan's hand.
"You can do that? Do you belong to the Order?" The girl narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, I can. And no, not really."
"Is he really dead?" The boy drew a shuddering breath.
Rowan nodded. "I'm sorry. But don't worry…don't cry. We can help him along if you like."
All living things, from this kitten to the untrustworthy borrowed horse to the flowers in his basket back at the compound had souls of a sort. If this was a human, Rowan could collect that silvery mist in his hand and transform it, using his magic to create a seed that could be transformed yet again into a different but same soul, ready to be reborn to this world.
But only humans. Unfortunately for these children, kittens and horses and flowers could only be released to the Aether.
Rowan began to sing, the words so familiar he could sing it in his sleep, the melody sweet and coaxing. He could choose any melody he liked to do his work, but a kitten—no, these children—called for the sweetest of songs.
The boy gasped and the girl leaned forward as they could suddenly see the mist which pulsed and glowed brighter and brighter in time with Rowan's breaths. It rose up to meet the palm of Rowan's hand. He kept singing until he'd collected it all, turning his fingers this way and that in the swirl of magic. The empty husk that was the kitten disintegrated in a shimmer of released energy. Rowan had absorbed the essence of death into his body, while the pure spirit he held in his palm. The warm, soft pulse of it always bewitched him, no matter the life form.
Rowan's freckles darkened, but only slightly. A kitten's death weighed almost nothing.
He stopped singing and whispered. "What's your favorite color?"
"Purple," said the boy.
"I like…rainbow." said the girl.
Rowan nodded. "Now watch closely."
He placed his palm to the ground between the boy and girl and began singing again. He let his own magical energy surge from his chest and down his arm, using his strength to push the kitten's spirit into the ground. Light filled his vision as he drew his hand upward and pulled the transformed energy from the ground. Green shoots burst upward from the dirt, unfurling their leaves and spreading across the ground until they surrounded the boy and girl. The shoots and leaves, rippling and vibrant, finally stabilized. With a snap of Rowan's fingers, countless blossoms in every hue imaginable erupted to form a bright carpet of flowers around the children.
The girl blinked at him, wonder in her eyes. "How did you do that?"
Rowan realized too late that she'd decided to hug him, launching herself on nimble legs over the carpet of flowers. He couldn't back away quickly enough, and she landed right in his lap. Panic flared in his chest. His lungs tightened. A scream cut through the air, rooting him in the reality of the situation. He looked up to see what could only be the children's mother standing in the path next to the thicket. Her face had drained of color. Her eyes were wide with terror.
"Get away from him. Both of you. Don't you know who that is?" The woman lunged forward, trampling the flowers under her feet. Her face was red and her hands shook as she reached out to haul the girl from Rowan's lap by the back of her dress.
"Mama, Whiskers was dead. Look what he did. Isn't it beautiful? And we helped him." The little boy looked between his mother and Rowan, little brows crinkled in confusion.
"Whiskers…" She took in the scene before her, realization creeping over her features. "It doesn't matter. If he can do that to a cat, imagine what he can do to you."
The mother grabbed him with her other hand and dragged them away, caring neither about the kitten nor the flowers. Caring only that her children had been defiled. Rowan stared blankly at the beautiful thing he'd done. The flowers, which had only been a temporary container for the kitten's spirit he'd created to comfort the children, dissolved around him. He knelt alone on the hard dirt, swallowing the tears that rose in his throat.