Ignoring the comment, Shura lifted a hand in the other woman’s direction. “Dakso Kavalyan, may I present Mistress Fara Sabin, Maran’s right hand and our new traveling companion.”
“Mistress Sabin.” He gave her a brief nod as he heaved an internal sigh. “You can call me Daks.”
She didn’t look particularly useful in a fight—or anything else for that matter—but it was clear Shura was already fond of her, which could be a problem if they had to cut and run. He’d been proven wrong before, so he’d hold judgment for now, but the quality of her wool traveling garb and the delicate gloved hands holding the reins didn’t make her seem like the kind of woman who was used to sleeping rough.
“A pleasure to meet you, Daks. And you may call me Fara.”
One of Daks’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. Rassans were normally quite fond of their titles and honorifics. Maybe she wasn’t as prim as she appeared.
“Uh, Daks, what’s that?” Shura asked as Daks felt the presence of a large body at his back.
He gave her a bland look and smiled. “A horse?”
Shura narrowed her eyes at him, and Daks smirked and held up his hands. “He just showed up. Maybe he’ll be useful. Maybe not. But we don’t have time for pleasantries right now. Ravi had another Vision… or something. The pulse of energy was brief, before it thankfully stopped, but that doesn’t mean no one else felt it too. We need to get moving.”
“Where is he?” Shura asked sharply, nudging her mount closer.
For some reason, when Shura’s mare got close to the white stallion, it suddenly reared away, and Shura had to wrestle with it to get it under control again.
“Not so popular with the ladies, I guess,” Daks quipped, even as he frowned in puzzlement at the stallion.
Shura dismounted, handed her reins off to Vahal with a nod of thanks, and approached the wagon with Daks on her heels. Ravi lay in the bed unmoving but for the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
“Still out?” she asked unnecessarily.
“Yeah. He only stirred briefly with the whatever that was.”
“If he has Visions even when he’s drugged, that could be problematic. I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
Daks shrugged. “Well, we weren’t exactly planning to keep him knocked out all the way to Samebar, so that’s pretty much moot, right?”
She glanced in his direction and cocked an eyebrow, and he narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not carrying him all the way to Samebar, Shur. It’s not happening. Besides, you could kill him, keeping him drugged up the whole time.”
She only shrugged, grabbed a pack from the wagon, and carried it to her horse. When he continued to stare after her as she strapped the pack to her saddle, she huffed. “You were the one who said we needed to move, so move. If we need to get away from here fast, we’ll have to ride double for a while. It’ll be hard on the horses, but it’ll put a greater distance between us and any followers to start, and we can walk them later.”
“What about this guy?” Daks said, crooking a thumb at the white stallion that seemed to want to follow him like a puppy.
“You think you can trust it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then you ride it. We don’t have a saddle or much extra rope. We can strap Ravi to my horse with the packs, and I’ll ride double with Mistress Sabin while you take the other.”
“Your great sacrifice is duly noted,” Daks quipped under his breath as he fought a grin, and she shot him a glare.
“Perhaps I should remind you, yet again, of why we’re in this situation,” Shura replied icily, and Daks winced.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yup. I’m sure.”
“Okay, then. Bring him here.”
Though Vahal took a step forward, Daks beat the man to it and obediently dragged Ravi to the edge of the wagon bed as gently as he could. Shura’s mare still seemed a little skittish because of the stallion, so Daks waved his arms at the big white brute until it snorted at him and took a few steps away. When Shura led her mare close enough, Daks took a deep breath, gritted his teeth against the coming pain, and hefted Ravi over the saddle with a grunt. Ravi stirred slightly at the treatment but didn’t wake, and Daks frowned.
“How much of that stuff did you give him?”
“Enough,” Shura replied curtly. “Don’t fret. Maran’s potion-maker promised no harm would come to him from taking it. He’ll wake eventually, hopefully when we are a better distance from the city.”
With help from Haruk and Vahal, Daks got Ravi and the remaining packs strapped to Shura’s horse before warily approaching the stallion. If this didn’t work, he’d be jogging behind the others for the next several hours or overburdening Shura’s mount with his own weight on top of Ravi and the packs. Neither of those options particularly appealed.
“Well, horse, let’s see how far your trust and admiration goes.”
He’d rigged a quick rope halter, which the horse allowed him to tie on without so much as a twitch of complaint or unease.
“I bet someone is really missing you right now,” he murmured in a soothing tone as he petted the stallion’s neck.
Now for the big test.
He led the horse to the wagon and used the bed to lever himself onto its back. He tensed for the thing to rear or bolt, but nothing happened. He waited another few beats, but when the horse only turned its head to give him a placid, expectant look, Daks grinned. Maybe his luck was improving.
“Okay, let’s go,” he called.
Shura eyed him skeptically from behind Fara. “You sure?”
His grin widened. “Of course I am. No problem.”
Shura shook her head and nudged their horse into a walk.
After giving Haruk and Vahal his thanks and saying his goodbyes, Daks collected the other mare’s reins in his free hand and nudged the stallion after them. The two men both looked a bit jealous as he turned and waved, but they waved back until Daks’s little party traveled around a bend in the road and they disappeared from view.
Chapter Four
FOR THE second day in a row, Ravi woke with every inch of his body aching and no idea where he was. The headache this time wasn’t quite the same. It throbbed more than stabbed, but the fuzzy fog over his thoughts and the churning nausea made it almost as bad.
“Wha—?” he croaked, but his mouth and throat were so dry he couldn’t get anything else out.
He licked cracked lips and blinked in what seemed to be early morning sunlight streaming through a canopy of trees as what sounded like a stream burbled happily somewhere nearby. If it weren’t for the pain and the queasiness, the whole scene would have been rather idyllic, actually.
A cup brimming with clear water appeared in front of him, but he fumbled it, spilling half its icy contents onto his hands and over the ground. The water was so cold it made his teeth ache. Still, he sucked down as much as he could without a second thought, desperately thirsty for some reason.
When he blinked up at the kind soul who’d provided the life-giving draught, an all-too-familiar scarred, scruffy, disreputable face filled his vision, and Ravi’s dreamy idyll vanished as a red haze descended. “You asshole! You drugged me? You drugged me?” he screeched, chucking the cup at Daks’s head even as he winced at his own volume.
Daks’s expression had been searching and concerned, but at Ravi’s outburst, he ducked the missile and threw his hands out in front of him as he backed away. “Whoa there. That wasn’t me.” He crooked his thumb behind him at Shura and another woman standing near some horses. “Blame her. She’s the one who did it.”
Ravi gave Daks one last glare before shooting daggers at Shura, but when the Cigani woman lifted her eyebrows and took a step in his direction, Ravi yelped and scrambled to his feet.
“Keep her away from me!” he cried as he threw out a hand to brace himself on the tree they’d propped him against.
He didn’t think he imagined
the slight quirk to her lips, but her expression was bland and unreadable the next time he looked, so he couldn’t be sure. Daks continued to make appeasing motions with his outstretched hands.
“Okay, let’s all calm down a little. Shura’s not going to do anything else to you. Are you, Shur?”
She was silent for far too long before she said, “Only when necessary.”
“Oh, that’s great. Just great. And who gets to decide what’s necessary?” Ravi fumed past the throbbing in his skull.
Maybe this had been a terrible mistake. What had he been thinking, trusting these people?
He wished to the gods that he wasn’t so unsteady on his feet and that he wasn’t so ignorant of the world outside of the city. He had no idea how long he’d been out or where the hells they were or anything.
Cursed. I’m cursed. Why does no one ever believe me when I tell them that?
Daks took a cautious step forward, eyeing him warily. “Don’t listen to her. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’re halfway to Urmat already. Another half-day’s ride and we should be there. We’ll find our friend, and he’ll take us across the river to Samebar tomorrow morning. Easy as pie. No need for any more drugs or violence. Okay?”
Daks cast a meaningful look toward Shura, and Ravi relaxed marginally. He braced a second hand against the tree trunk and blew out a breath. He felt like he’d been run over by a wagon… and then dragged behind it.
“We’re out of the city,” he said unnecessarily.
“We are.”
“Did anything happen?”
Daks paused a beat before shaking his head. “Nope.”
Ravi narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you’re very untrusting?”
Ravi scowled, and the big oaf just blinked at him innocently.
“You had another Vision last night, even while you were drugged,” Shura cut in harshly. “But luckily it didn’t last long enough to bring the entirety of the Brotherhood down on us, probably because you were drugged. This is why what I did was necessary.”
Hells. Ravi closed his eyes, turned, and slumped against the base of the tree again in defeat. He didn’t remember any Vision. He didn’t remember anything.
Was he going mad, or was it just the drug?
Casting a glance at each of his three new traveling companions in turn, he struggled to calm his temper and think. If the big dumb brute was telling the truth, he only had another day before he’d be safely in Samebar. He didn’t have to travel with these lunatics all the way to the school of mages. Maybe he could ditch them at the first town they came to on the other side of the river. Surely someone might want a Seer in their house or hold, even an untrained one. If all the stories were true, he wouldn’t have to hide what he was in Samebar. Plus, he had other skills to offer. He could read and write, and he’d learned a bit of Sambaran before he’d been forced to leave his childhood home. He could put up with Shura and Daks for one more day, surely. He’d just have to watch his back.
“What now?” he asked in a slightly calmer tone.
“We’re giving the horses and ourselves a little rest,” Daks replied, seeming relieved. “I suggest you eat something, whether you’re hungry or not.”
After moving to one of the horses, Daks tossed him another wizened apple, and Ravi caught it and bit into it mechanically, not at all hungry. He suspected the lingering nausea was from the drug he’d been given, and he shot another ugly look at Shura, though the woman’s attention was riveted on the petite blond standing beside her.
“Who’s that?” he asked, jerking his chin in the woman’s direction.
Daks glanced up from the pack he was fiddling with. “Mistress Fara Sabin. She’s part of the bargain we struck to get us out of the city. She’ll be traveling with us to Scholoveld.”
The woman looked up at her name and nodded to Ravi, though her gaze seemed a bit uncomfortable. He gave her a nod in return, before biting another chunk off his mealy apple. His gaze wandered irritably over the rest of the sun-dappled clearing until it landed on the unsettlingly pale blue eyes of one of the horses. He shivered and looked away, pulling his patched, threadbare cloak tighter around his shoulders and drawing the hood forward. But when his efforts to rearrange his cloak met with no resistance, he realized something was missing.
“Where’s my bag?” he asked, not even caring that his voice broke.
“In here,” Daks replied, patting a bag strapped to the saddle.
“Give it to me.”
Daks lifted an eyebrow at the demand but shrugged and undid the ties to the pack. The tightness in Ravi’s chest eased a little after Daks handed him his bag. He clutched it to his chest like a lifeline.
Daks gazed curiously at him for a few moments before going back to whatever he was doing without comment, and while Ravi took a few breaths to calm down, he turned his attention to the white stallion with the blue eyes again.
“Why does that horse not have a saddle, and why does it keep staring at me? Is there something wrong with it?” he griped, needing something to complain about.
Daks cast a glance over his shoulder and shrugged. “No idea. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him other than he only seems partial to me. He doesn’t have a saddle because he wasn’t part of the original bargain. He just showed up last night on the road, but I’m glad he did. We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without him. I’ll be sad to leave him behind when we cross the river tomorrow. He’s a magnificent animal.”
The horse arched its neck and whickered as if it knew it was being paid a compliment, and Ravi found his gaze caught by one bright blue eye. Something shivered and stirred inside him as he held that gaze—or the gaze held him—and he was too late to stop the Vision as it rolled over him.
“Shit!” Daks cried, and a horse neighed in distress, but the sounds were far away, muffled.
Ravi barely noted the pain of the back of his head bouncing off the tree trunk. His entire world had filled with a wall of grayness, smothering him. Splashes of light flickered through the gray like lightning in the clouds, and nausea swamped him as the world spun like he was rolling downhill. Almost as suddenly as it came on, the Vision vanished, leaving him gasping and reeling like a landed fish.
When he opened his eyes, Daks hovered over him. “Are you okay?” he asked calmly, gripping Ravi’s upper arms in his big hands.
“I guess so,” he croaked past the nausea.
Out of habit, he shook off the man’s grip and dropped his gaze to his boots, huddling inside his cloak.
He wasn’t okay, not really, and Daks was far too close.
Movement to his left made him scramble unsteadily to his feet, despite the lingering weakness and dizziness. He put the tree trunk between him and the rest of the group, even as he used it to keep himself upright. He couldn’t let anyone else touch him and trigger another Vision. And no way would he let Shura anywhere near him right now. Who knew what she was thinking?
“What was in your Vision?” Daks asked in that same gruff, unruffled tone Ravi was coming to appreciate. For some strange reason, it soothed him more than any reassurances or tenderness would have.
He squirmed. He hated talking about his Visions, because most of the time they didn’t make any sense until it was too late. This one had been so much worse. How could he explain a wall of grayness that left him feeling terrified? Normally, he at least saw something useful: a face, a place, some detail he could recognize later.
“It was nothing,” he replied miserably.
“It can’t have been nothing. I felt the magic,” Daks continued, under his breath. “You definitely had a Vision. Tell me.”
Ravi just shook his head, his anger and that feeling of helplessness and frustration rising again.
Daks growled and closed the distance between them. “Look. I get that you don’t trust us. I get that you’re angry with me and our methods. But I need you to get that if anyone was scrying, or if there’s a Find
er nearby, the Brotherhood and the Guard will know what direction we went in now, so if you have any information that might help us, we need to know it.”
“And I’m telling you there was nothing!” Ravi shouted at him, all his frustration and fear spilling over. “Not a gods-damned thing! I saw a big swirling wall of gray. If there was anything on the other side of that, I couldn’t see it. Something was blocking me.”
They stood staring at each other for several beats, Ravi panting after his outburst and Daks seemingly trying to decide if he should believe him or not.
“We need to get going. Now.” Shura’s lips and eyes were hard when Ravi broke free and glanced in her direction. She’d already moved to one of the horses and was checking the straps on the saddle.
Daks let out a long sigh and dragged a hand through his already wild brown hair. “We don’t know for sure if they even have scrying abilities… but she’s right. It’s best to be on the safe side. The sooner we get out of this Rift-blighted kingdom, the better I’ll feel.”
“We’ve had no reports of any such forbidden magics within the Brotherhood,” the small blond woman, Mistress Sabin, said, frowning.
“I bet you haven’t had reports of summoning stones either, but two nights ago a brother used one in front of me,” Daks responded dryly.
Mistress Sabin’s pale eyebrows lifted. “You saw this?”
“Yes.”
“That is most worrying. Does Maran know?”
“I told her,” Shura replied, still busily tugging on saddle straps.
Part of Ravi wanted to apologize for forcing them to rush, but he held his tongue and moved to join the others by the horses. Realizing there were only three horses for four people, he eyed each in turn and shifted from foot to foot.
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