The Seer

by Rowan McAllister

  He was just about to snap at Daks to sit down when he heard footsteps approaching outside. He waved frantically at Daks as his heart thudded against his rib cage. Sparrow couldn’t have delivered her message and made it back this soon, even if she’d run flat out from the temple.

  “Ravi?” a familiar voice hissed.

  “In here,” he whispered, relieved.

  When Vic’s stringy blond hair popped through the opening, quickly followed by the rest of him, Ravi couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Only a few short hours ago, he’d thought he’d never see his friend again. He wanted to drag Vic into his arms and squeeze the breath out of him, but he had to content himself with putting as much feeling into his grin as he could manage.

  “What are you doing here?” Ravi asked.

  “I should ask you that. What happened last night? I thought—”

  Vic stopped and eyed Daks warily, and Ravi waved a hand. “It’s okay. He knows. He was there.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Ravi cast a sour look at Daks, his anger and embarrassment rising again. They were speaking in Rassan, but he had no way of knowing whether Daks understood. “I had a Vision. This guy showed up. Then a Rift-blighted brother, a Finder, came, and another Vision knocked me out. I don’t even remember the second one, but he says I spouted some prophecy before I passed out.”

  Vic whistled and shook his head. “You really are cursed.”

  A bitter chuckle escaped him. “I keep telling you that, but none of you believe me. Why do you think I wouldn’t let you come with me last night?”

  “They’re gonna be looking for you now, huh?”

  Ravi closed his eyes and nodded. Vic sidled closer. Heat radiated from his thin body, but Ravi didn’t dare lean toward it.

  “What can I do?” Vic asked, giving him the splash of cold water he needed.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m serious, Ravi,” Vic replied, leaning in earnestly.

  “So am I. I don’t want you or the others anywhere near this. The whole reason I left was to keep you safe. Sparrow’s gone to get this guy’s friend. I guess she’s the one who told you where to find me?”

  Vic nodded. “Yeah, she ran into Bett on her way, and Bett found me.”

  “Well, Daks here and his friend are going to get me out of the city. The best thing all of you can do is stay as far away from us as possible.”

  Vic’s lips set in a stubborn line, and his pale eyebrows dipped over his long, slender nose. Ravi knew that look. He’d seen it by lamplight only a few hours ago as they’d argued over Ravi going to the night market alone. He’d won that one, and he’d win again.

  “Be smart, Vic. Why the hells do you think I came all the way out to this gods-awful place? To stay as far away from the rest of you as I could. They’re already searching for me. If I have another Vision, they’ll be on us in no time.”

  Vic shifted uncomfortably, as he always did when the topic of magic came up, but he still jutted his dirt-smudged pointy chin out. “We take care of our own.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Ravi replied sadly.

  They held each other’s gazes in silence for a few heartbeats until the big lump in the room cleared his throat.

  “Hate to break up whatever you two got going here or ruin your big self-sacrifice, but we might need all the help we can getting out of the city.” Daks spoke in trade tongue, but obviously, he’d understood at least part of their conversation.

  When both Ravi and Vic turned to stare at him, Daks shrugged. “I kind of want to make it out of Rassa alive too, you know. And so does Shura.”

  Vic grinned. “What can I do?” he asked, switching to trade tongue as well.

  “Nothing,” Ravi growled.

  “Not sure,” Daks replied at the same time. “Shura’s usually better at this kind of sneaking around, planning things out ahead of time stuff. I’m more of a spur of the moment kind of guy.”

  Ravi stifled a snort and rolled his eyes, seriously reconsidering his decision to ally with this man. He sincerely hoped this Shura woman was everything Daks claimed, or they were all doomed.

  Vic turned to face Daks directly and worried his lower lip. “If you can get out of the city, you can make it the rest of the way out of Rassa on your own?”

  “Yeah. If need be. We’ve had to travel upriver to cross into Samebar before. We can do it again. My main worry is getting us out of the city itself without triggering another Vision that will bring the Finder or have them right behind us as we flee. The gate guards will be looking for us, and they’ll be searching the docks too. I saw what looked like mercenaries with the brother last night, or at least they weren’t in King’s Guard uniforms. Heard anything about that? Has the Brotherhood started its own army?”

  Ravi’s stomach clenched as he and Vic exchanged a wide-eyed look. “I’ve never heard of it, if they have,” Ravi said.

  Daks glanced between them, looking pensive. “I’d really love to know what that was about,” he murmured almost to himself before shaking his head. “But getting us out is more important. Do you know any ways out of the city other than the gates?”

  Rassat sat across the river from Samebar’s capital, Samet. Because of that, and because of its location at the mouth of the great Matna River, a stone wall had been erected around it to protect it from invading armies and pirate raids. No one got in or out without passing through one of the twelve gates magically constructed by the Brotherhood out of strong iron, and guard towers watched over the wall everywhere else. Ravi had heard of guards who could be bribed to look the other way—not that he or anyone he knew ever had enough coin for that kind of thing, but word trickled down even to them.

  “You got coin?” Vic asked, as if reading Ravi’s thoughts.

  Daks grimaced, the move making the scars along his jaw flash white. “Not enough, if you’re talking bribes. The guard might be on high alert for us. It would take a lot more than I’m carrying to make them risk it.”

  “What about the slavers?” Vic asked. “Surely they know a way to get in and out without being seen.”

  “No,” Daks replied. “They rely on bribes at the docks if they have to, but mostly the guards don’t care who’s leaving the city as long as they stay gone. They won’t risk getting caught with fugitives the Brotherhood is actively searching for. And again, it would cost a lot more than I have to even try.”

  “So, what then?” Ravi asked, his panic struggling to free itself from the stranglehold he had on it.

  “The docks will be the most heavily patrolled,” Daks replied. “They’ll expect us to try there. It’ll be safer to head out into the country. They can’t patrol everywhere.”

  “What if you just wait until things die down?” Vic asked hopefully, and Ravi’s heart broke a little more.

  “It was a Finder, V,” Ravi replied gently. “The longer we wait, the more likely I’ll have another Vision that’ll bring him right to me. They’re getting worse. You know that.”

  Everything always came back to his gods-damned curse. He’d had to leave his parents and little sister years ago because of it, and now it was forcing him to leave his second family. His nostrils flared as his eyes prickled.

  He caught Daks watching him with a cocked eyebrow, and he scowled at the man. It was Daks’s fault Ravi had to rehash this painful conversation with Vic all over again. It was Daks’s fault he wasn’t on a boat somewhere already. He really wanted to punch the guy again, or at least punch something, but his hand still hurt from the last time.

  “Look, we have an hour at least before Shura gets here, and we can make a plan,” Daks said, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen. “Why don’t we all try to rest a little. I’ll keep watch, if you want to sleep.”

  “You’re the one who was up all night. I apparently had plenty of sleep,” Ravi replied bitterly.

  “Only after you expended a great deal of magical energy tapping into whatever it is Seers tap,” Daks shot back eve
nly.

  His tone and the words he used drew Ravi up short. Daks talked of magic as if it were the weather or the price of wool at the market. Like it wasn’t an evil thing to be hidden and shunned. Part of Ravi desperately wanted to ask what Daks knew about it, but a lifetime of hiding and avoiding the subject was hard to break, especially with a stranger… and in front of Vic.

  “Really,” Daks continued, “you should try to rest.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Dreams,” Ravi gritted out through clenched teeth, wishing the man would just leave it alone.

  “He has Visions in his dreams sometimes,” Vic explained so Ravi didn’t have to.

  “Are they Visions? Or are they Dreams? They aren’t the same thing. The former is definitely an issue, the latter, not so much.”

  Ravi looked at Vic, who shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s unlikely a Dream will put out enough magic anyone outside this room will sense it. But if you don’t want to risk it, you don’t have to sleep. Just rest for a while. I’ll keep watch.”

  With that imperious pronouncement, Daks turned his back on the two of them and settled by the opening, leaving Ravi wondering if he could trust that Daks really knew what he was talking about.

  Just like me.

  Ravi scowled at the man’s back for a moment, but with little heat. He was tired. Sleep sounded wonderful, if only he could risk it. He glanced at Vic’s worried face and sighed.

  “You should go,” Ravi murmured.

  “No,” Vic replied stubbornly. “I should have gone with you last night. Maybe none of this would have happened if I had.”

  Ravi shook his head. “They’d just be after you too. The whole point of my leaving was to keep you and the others safe, remember?”

  Vic was small and lean, like most of the Unnamed, but he lifted himself to his full height, squared his shoulders, and jutted out his chin. “We keep each other safe. All of us, including you. I helped you find the night market, didn’t I? I should have stayed with you.”

  “Having you there would have made it even harder to leave,” Ravi admitted tiredly. He slumped on the dirt floor and leaned his back against the rough plank wall, clutching his bag in his lap. “It was hard enough sneaking out on everyone else.”

  He shot another sour look at Daks’s broad back, resentful he and Vic weren’t alone for this conversation, even though it was only a repeat of ones they’d already had. He wasn’t being reasonable, but he didn’t want to be reasonable. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all, but he’d been doing that inside for so long he was bone tired of it.

  Instead of letting it loose, he swallowed it, like always, and gave Vic a wan smile. “I can take care of myself. You have the little ones to think of. They need you, V. Staying here with me isn’t safe. You know that as well as I do.”

  Despite the logic in his words, Ravi could admit to a surge relief and gratitude when Vic slid silently to the floor and scooted as close as he could to Ravi’s side without touching him. They sat that way in silence for a while. Eventually, Vic sighed, drawing Ravi’s attention back to him, and when Vic’s head tilted down, Ravi followed his gaze to the stylized owl inked into his own wrist, barely visibly beyond the frayed edges of his tunic.

  His heart squeezed a little more for his friend. Vic’s life hadn’t exactly been blessed by the gods either. He may not have been cursed with magic, but he was Unnamed. He had no family to claim him, so Ravi’s family mark had always fascinated him. At one time, Ravi might’ve insisted that having a family mark hadn’t done him any favors, but that wasn’t exactly true. He’d had a loving childhood, before it all fell apart. He’d had a roof over his head, and he’d always known where his next meal was coming from. He’d had a life filled with laughter and books and love. That was a far sight more than many of the others in their ragtag little group could claim. He had no right to complain.

  So much weight would fall on Vic’s thin shoulders once Ravi was gone. Even in the bitterest of winters, when work was scarce, Ravi’s ability to read and write had brought in enough coin or food in trade to keep the rest of them alive. He didn’t know what they’d do without that extra bit he was able to provide. But they were strong. They had to be, growing up in Arcadia. He needed to believe they’d manage without him. And maybe someday he’d find a way to send help back to them, or send for them to join him.

  Chapter Three

  DAKS TRIED very hard to ignore the pitiful duo curled up behind him as he stood watch at the opening. He had to wonder a little at their relationship, but it really wasn’t his business. Getting emotional had landed him in this mess to start with.

  Do the job. Get out. That’s it.

  He wouldn’t bother with self-recriminations. What was the point? Shura would take care of that the first chance she got, and probably from now until the end of his life. The “I told you so’s” would be legion. They would be written into the songs of her people and sung around campfires for centuries to come.

  He couldn’t wait.

  He rolled his shoulders and stifled a groan. Nothing beat waiting for a tongue-lashing when you knew you deserved it.

  Another waft of fetid air from the tannery behind them made him force down a cough.

  Shura, where are you? Hurry, please.

  After what seemed an interminable wait, footsteps alerted him that someone approached. His heart kicked up, as another, heavier set joined the first. Without turning his head, he waved a hand behind him to catch his companions’ attention.

  “Ravi?” someone hissed.

  The voice belonged to the little girl, Sparrow, and Daks relaxed. He stood up and moved away from the opening as Shura squeezed inside behind Sparrow, dragging their packs. The little hovel was becoming crowded, but he’d never been so happy to see Shura’s scowling face. Though after only a single hard stare from her, his smile of relief and greeting fell, and he wisely kept his mouth clamped shut while she shoved the packs into a corner.

  She glanced around at Sparrow, Ravi, and Vic before returning her gaze to Daks. “Your message was vague, to say the least, but I’m going to have to assume we’re meeting in this little part of Biton’s Hellcave because something terrible has happened,” she said in a deceptively even tone.

  Might as well get it over with.

  Daks cleared his throat. “I kind of stumbled on a gifted while I was just taking a midnight stroll to get some fresh air. And maybe that gifted was being tracked by a brother… and, uh, in the ensuing disagreement about which of us should be allowed to leave with the young man, I might have punched said brother in the face a couple of times.”

  Shura blinked at him for a few seconds before she closed her eyes and her entire body slumped in resignation. She dragged a hand down her face and took a long breath. When she opened her eyes, she shot another brief glance at their companions before pinning him again. “We will have words about this later,” she promised as a muscle ticked next to her eye.

  “I know,” he replied contritely.

  “I’ve been looking for you since I returned to the room to find you gone. I’d only just returned to the inn when your messenger arrived.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sniffed. “Later. First, we must get out of the city, obviously.” She looked at the ragged trio again. “I assume we’re not leaving without at least one of these; otherwise you would have come to me at the weaver’s hall instead of forcing me to come to this horrid place.”

  He winced. “Yes. The gifted is coming with us.” Daks took a deep breath before continuing, since he knew she was only going to get angrier with each word he said. “He’s a Seer.”

  “So, no control over it whatsoever,” Shura finished for him, her voice getting quieter by the second.

  “Yeah.” Daks swallowed. “And the brother was a Finder, so he’ll be out looking for any magical signature.” He waited a few beats, but when she only stared at him, Daks gath
ered his courage to throw the rest out there. “The brother had mercs out looking for us last night, so in addition to the King’s Guard and the Brotherhood, we might have some paid swords to deal with.”

  “And there’s no chance of leaving the gifted?”

  Daks winced but shook his head stubbornly. He couldn’t do it.

  Her nostrils flared. “Is that all?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think that about covers it.”

  “And, I take it, this Finder saw your face?”

  “It was night, but the moon was full.”

  She glanced at the others again, and Daks was grateful for the reprieve. If they’d been alone, she’d have probably punched him in the groin by now and unleashed a string of Cigani curses on him and most of his lineage. As it was, she remained quite businesslike but for the tick by her eye and the muscle popping in her jaw.

  “How long can we stay here without being discovered?” she asked, directing her question to Vic and Ravi.

  “I picked it because no one ever comes here unless they have to,” Ravi answered, eyeing Shura with justifiable trepidation. “None of the workers stick around a second after dark, if they can possibly avoid it. But if I have another Vision….”

  Shura waved a dismissive hand. “I think we’ll have to risk waiting at least until dark. Too many people out now, too easy to be spotted, especially if there are mercs out looking who aren’t in any kind of uniform we can avoid.” She paused a second to give Daks a glare. “If it was just the gifted, the Brotherhood might have tried to keep the search quiet, given all the troubles we’ve heard whispers of. But assault on one of their number isn’t something they need to keep under wraps. They can use such a blasphemous offense to stir the public. Everyone could be looking for you two, for all we know. I’ll check out the docks and see what I hear on the streets.”