Rogue Spotter Collection

by Kimberly A Rogers

  The idea of waiting galled me. However, I already knew I was treading perilously close to quicksand where some of the Jinn were concerned. I couldn’t rush into my request if I actually wanted them to agree to it. I needed to be patient and adhere to the rules of their game if I wanted a small chance at succeeding.

  Realizing they were still waiting, I took a steadying breath before I told them everything I could remember and had discovered about my parentage. I told them of my father, my mother, and of what my memories had revealed of our separation. There was silence during my story save for when I spoke of how my parents were killed in their quest to secure the Crown of Nimrod. That particular detail caused a hissing wind to blow through the chamber before the chief elder raised his hand in a gesture nearly identical to what I remembered and what I had just used. The wind dissipated and the chief elder commanded all to maintain their control. But, my attention was on the woman sitting to his left. She hadn’t been the source of the wind, I was certain, and yet she had closed her eyes when I spoke of my parents’ deaths as though she was pained by the words. Who was she to Elam Serkan that hearing of his demise seemed to pain her?

  When I ended my much abbreviated story of recovering hidden memories and then learning through the book of paranormal species that the best way to find the Jinn was to come to Petra, the chief elder looked almost amused. “You found us through a book?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “For the most part, yes. I’d hoped to at least find a representative who would carry my request to you by coming here.” I hesitated and then the urgent thought of Mathias’ time slipping away made me speak up once more. “Elders of the Jinn, you have heard my story of our shared kinship and why I have not attempted to approach you before now. May I share with you my request? As I said, it is a matter of great urgency and cannot be delayed for much longer.”

  My heart sank as the chief elder slowly shook his head. “Not in this moment, child. We must still discuss what we have heard so that all the elders are in agreement to hear out your request. Or it will do you no good to make one of us.” He nodded to the woman to his left. “I give you into the care of Hanna and her family until we are ready to make our decision. Now, let us all retire to our homes in contemplation of breaking our evening fast. Go now, all of you. Guardians, have Hasim attend me when he returns from inspecting the city borders.”

  I felt the sense of power swelling and then six of the seven elders vanished. There was a gust of wind as the watching crowd followed their examples, leaving only Layla and the woman called Hanna in the chamber with me. Layla gave no sign that she was going to vanish though as she called lightly, “Has the wind been stolen from you, Grandmother?”

  The elder harrumphed as she rose, her jewelry clinking together with her movements. “Insolent child,” she scolded without rancor, “and to think I had hoped your appointment to the guardians meant you had ceased to act as such.”

  Layla’s lips twisted into a smirk as she responded, “Hasim despairs that I shall ever be more than a passable guardian and less of a distraction to him. Though, if we were to ask the great Ali, he would merely say that I follow in the wake of your own wind, Grandmother.”

  There was the sense of power rising and then Hanna stood directly in front of us, her keen gaze focused on Layla. “You are a miserable sand mite among my grandchildren. I should replace you with Lauren. She seems to be the far more sensible of you, if a little quiet.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it as I had absolutely no idea what on earth I should say to that. These were my . . . relatives? The thought was enough to make me wish I were anywhere else or at least unnoticed by the two Jinn women.

  Layla suddenly laughed. “Sensible enough to be scared of you, Grandmother.” She turned toward me and added, “You cannot cloak yourself from another Jinn. Not with such a small whisper of power.”

  She stepped closer to me, and I realized I had taken an involuntary step back. All right, more than one. I forced myself to stand still as Layla approached and leaned in close, her gaze narrowing as she studied my face. “Strange. No wonder we couldn’t feel you were Jinn in the Siq, not until you threw us out of our whirlwinds. Something that shouldn’t be possible with such a weak sampling of power.”

  “Move, girl.”

  The command was more of a bark than spoken, and I barely kept myself from retreating further as Hanna brushed Layla aside. The older woman raised her hands and cupped my face between their firm grasp. “What is this, child? He sealed you. Of course, a precaution against your lack of a teacher. Yet, you have partially broken it.”

  Layla was no longer smiling as her gaze flicked from me to her grandmother. “A sealing? The rest of the council must be told of it, especially if she is strong enough to break it even a little ways.”

  “No. This sealing was not meant to be left in place forever. That is why it has weakened over time.” Hanna slowly released her grip on my face only to switch to grasping my right arm. “Come, we shall discuss the rest over a meal.”

  My tongue finally loosened enough for me to speak. “Wait, we are . . . related?”

  Hanna laughed softly. “Yes. Elam Serkan was my nephew twice over, born to my sister and to my husband’s brother. I am your great aunt and this insolent sand mite of a child is one of your cousins. Do not look so worried. You are among family.”

  My family was Mathias. The treacherous little thought whispered that I didn’t truly belong to the Jinn any more than I belonged with Mathias. I forced it away. Layla grasped my other arm before I could figure out how to respond. She murmured, “Take a breath.”

  I obeyed even though I wasn’t the least bit certain about what they intended to do. No sooner had I done so than I felt the sensation of warm fine sand brushing against my skin and wind tugging at my head shawl. Then, I was squeezed. I saw the golden, no, reddish tinged with white blur of sand rushing toward me, and I instinctively closed my eyes.

  I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were being squeezed together, forcing all of the air out of them. Sand slid across my skin, smooth and fine but peppered with coarser bits. The wind pulled at me. Then . . . It stopped.

  Opening my eyes, I took a shuddering breath only to falter as I met the staring gazes of no less than thirty Jinn. All adults and all 9s. One of the men frowned at me. “She is not of Serkan blood.”

  Hanna waved a hand, but didn’t release her grip on my arm. “She is Elam’s daughter.”

  “You believe this stranger, Mother?”

  Tightening her grip on my arm even as Layla released my other arm, Hanna pulled me to the head of a low lying table. “Do not pretend, my son, that you and the rest of our clan do not remember Elam or his marriage to Natalia of the Sibylline Seers. Nor should you pretend that there was no news of a daughter being born to them.”

  She shoved at my shoulders until I sank down onto one of the pillows and then claimed the one to my right. Layla wasn’t with us, which left me fully exposed to the questioning, and in a lot of cases glaring, eyes watching my every move.

  Hanna’s son scowled as he gestured to me. “Elam should have been banished for marrying outside of the Jinn, especially to one of the Sibylline Seers, worse a member of the Sibylline Protectorate. Had our grandfather not been chief elder, such would have been his fate, as we all know. He brought shame to our clan.”

  “No, Hasan,” Hanna intoned as a wind ruffled her robes and head shawl, “it is you who threaten to bring shame to our clan. It is not our way to speak ill of the dead. Most especially when they died fighting to fulfill the duty of the Jinn by protecting an artifact of great power from those who would abuse it. I have brought Lauren here. She is welcome as Elam’s daughter, the one we thought lost when he and Natalia were killed, and now she is restored.”

  Silence held for a long moment. My skin crawled beneath the weight of the tension between the high numbers. I wanted to be anywhere, but here. Finally, the wind ceased and Hasan bowed his head. Hanna nodded once in a sharp movement b
efore she looked over the rest of the room. “Let us enjoy our meal, knowing that our table has seen the return of a clan member long thought to be lost to us. A great blessing.”

  The tension in the room lasted another long moment before the majority of the Jinn broke into their own quiet conversations and resumed eating. Hanna, however, remained locked in a furious whispered conversation with her son that I couldn’t make out. Based on the occasional ruffle of her head shawl and stirring of his beard and red and white checkered keffiyeh, I guessed one or even both of them were using a little wind to ensure their words were lost to anyone aside from themselves.

  To be honest, I was grateful that no one attempted to speak with me. It allowed me to actually eat. I tried not to think about what sort of teasing or mildly provoking comments Mathias would be making if he were here with me. Knowing he would exasperate me even as he managed to make me laugh, I told myself that I should be grateful he wasn’t present at the moment because allowing a 10 among a clan of 9s would be unlikely to lessen the tension. Based on the way he acted toward the royal dragons, he would be far more likely to purposefully aggravate the Jinn.

  I wished he was here.

  That thought haunted me, turning my meal to ash in my mouth. When the family finally seemed to come to the end of the meal, Layla appeared at my elbow to escort me to a room to rest. With the weight of watching eyes on us as we left, I would have been shocked to learn that the family didn’t remain to further discuss their displeasure at my presence among them.

  Layla showed me to a room whose sandstone walls were bare save for a few candleholders. A low pallet positioned beneath a high window and covered in pillows and a blanket was the only furniture. Layla nodded to me and then glanced over her shoulder before whispering, “I find the roof to be an excellent place to contemplate anything that troubles my mind in the night. Perhaps, you feel the same . . . Cousin Lauren. May your dreams be peaceful.”

  I tried to ignore her hint. I didn’t want to deal with more Jinn or to risk angering the rest of the clan even further. All I wanted was to go to bed and, maybe, wake up to find this entire mess was one long terrible dream. It wasn’t, of course. I knew it wasn’t.

  And despite my reluctance, I couldn’t bring myself to rest for more than a fitful hour or two. After taking care to braid my hair back and to wrap my head shawl a little tighter than usual, I shrugged into my jacket and then stepped out of the room. I didn’t need to look long before I found the stairs that led up. I emerged onto a flat rooftop courtyard overlooking the moonlit valley and plain of Petra. Moving to the edge of the roof, I glanced down only to immediately step back when I realized the house had been carved into the sandstone cliff face much like the rest of Petra. And, it was a lot taller than I had originally imagined.

  A light laugh came from behind me. “What’s this? A Jinn who fears heights?”

  Shivering against the cold of the night wind, I turned to see Layla behind me. “I’m not afraid of heights. And, I’m not a . . .” I paused, not quite certain of what to say, before I shook my head. “I would not call myself a Jinn.”

  “If you are kin to the Serkan clan, you are a Jinn,” she replied lightly, almost as though she were mocking an oft quoted saying. She cut a searching glance at me before asking, “Unless you inherited your mother’s talent?”

  I shrugged. “What I inherited came from Natalia, but it wasn’t the Sight. Not precisely, at least.”

  “Then, what was it? Precisely, that is.”

  Layla came closer and . . . I didn’t feel threatened. Not even with the 9 above her head that a small voice in the back of my mind still shrieked I should fear. But, I was so tired of running away. And, I was tired of being afraid of the powerful.

  Before I could second guess what I was about to do, I deliberately looked at the golden number above her head. “My sight is filled with numbers.”

  She stared at me, almost puzzled before her dark eyes grew wide. She stepped closer and I felt wind stirring around us, not enough to be a nuisance though it was certainly noticeable to me. It added an odd sort of echo to her words as she spoke. “How does a daughter of a Jinn become a Spotter?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently, my Jinn heritage wasn’t enough to smother this other talent.”

  “It should have been,” she countered bluntly. Her gaze flicked over my face before she added softly, “If I didn’t see myself in your face, Cousin, I would wonder if Elam was your father in truth. Although . . . You did manage to toss us out of our whirlwinds, and I felt your Jinn talent at work then. Grandmother said you were partially sealed. What else have you done?”

  “I have cloaked myself, my husband, and a handful of others though it was with limited success.” I paused, considering the wisdom of revealing more before I plunged ahead. “Once I hid an airship from a hostile dragon. However, once I began the cloaking . . . I struggled to break it again and suffered in the aftermath.”

  “Exhaustion and probably a nosebleed, yes? Even the feeling of being drained of power and energy.” Layla barely waited for my nod of confirmation before she continued, “Then you do have Jinn talent, but your Spotter talent has been the stronger because of the sealing. Cloaking an entire airship from the senses of a dragon . . . That is no small feat, and I’m surprised the attempt didn’t kill you. It should have, if you had been truly sealed. Although, I would guess you had started to increasingly use your Jinn talent with small camouflage before you attempted this full scale mirage, which is why you merely suffered a mild burnout.” She looked me over slowly before a faint hint of curiosity entered her voice as she murmured, “I wonder what else you’ve been using of your baba’s inheritance . . . Tell me, Cousin, have you ever sensed things . . . power in people or even in objects?”

  I stared at her. “Of course, but that is part of being a Spotter.”

  “Are you certain?”

  I opened my mouth to answer only to shut it once more. All my life I had seen the numbers and felt the power, the danger radiating from the high numbers. I had always assumed it was part of being a Spotter. Then again, I never had a teacher who was a Spotter and this sort of information wasn’t the type written down in books. Or, at least, not in the books I’d read.

  The memory of the pieces of the crown flickered through my mind. How I had been drawn to them in the labyrinth . . . I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the wrapped sapphire. Layla’s entire body tensed and the sense of whirling wind intensified around us. Her dark gaze flickered from me to the wrapped jewel and then back to me as she hissed, “What you carry is filled with old power. Dangerous power. Why do you have it?”

  “It’s part of the Crown of Nimrod.” The words slipped free in a bare whisper. Yet, I suddenly felt as though a weight had lifted from my shoulders. “Mathias and I went on a quest to find the pieces of the crown and keep it out of Weard’s hands. Fulfilling the last quest my parents went on, the one that killed them.”

  “Then, you have not succeeded as you do not have the rest of the crown.” She paused. “Unless, it is with this Mathias.”

  Tears stung my eyes before I blinked them away. Now was not the time to be emotional. “Unfortunately, they are together . . . and in the clutches of Weard. They’ve already used the crown against Mathias, changed his number to be unnaturally low. It’s going to kill him, if I can’t get to him before time runs out. And Weard won’t stop using the crown, incomplete or not.”

  Layla’s dark gaze searched mine before she motioned for me to put the gem away once more. “I cannot sense it when you have it out of sight. You have a natural knack for hiding.” She paused and then waved for me to accompany her to the low wall lining the edge of the rooftop courtyard. Once we were both seated and with a gentle wind still blowing around us, her gaze dropped to my jacket. “Mathias is more than a friend, isn’t he?”

  “He’s become my world,” I replied softly. It took everything in me not to tug on my jacket, not to try and smooth it even though I could feel the t
ightness around my middle. I was probably at the end of being able to hide the pregnancy. “Mathias is everything to me, and the only reason he’s fallen into Weard’s hands is because he listened to me when I chose to complete this quest and to . . . and to trust the wrong person.”

  “How do you know he’s still alive?”

  I shivered as ice crept down my spine yet my voice was remarkably steady as I stated, “Because Weard’s leader prefers to see others suffer, and Mathias is powerful enough that killing him outright would be a mercy compared to making him suffer beneath the crown’s manipulation of his number. Weard is not known for mercy.”

  “What was his number?”

  “Mathias is a Ten.”

  Layla leaned back, surprise flickering across her face. “What are the Jinn?”

  “Nines. Just like the royal dragons.” I hesitated only half a breath before I added, “There was a time when the sight of a single 8 was enough to send me running to the next city, preferably on the other side of the country. After meeting Mathias . . . High numbers have become a disturbingly common sight in my life.”

  “You no longer fear us?”

  A wry laugh surprised me as it escaped. “It’s not that. Believe me, it’s not that.” I looked out over the valley before I shook my head. “I can’t let my fear stop me. Because if I do, I’m condemning Mathias to death . . . and by extension the rest of our world. I’m the only one who could come here. And, I must convince the elders to hear me out or . . . I don’t know what will happen. I rather doubt it’ll be good.”

  “Grandmother has already been summoned back to the council,” Layla stated bluntly. “However, her kinship to you will mean she’s not allowed to speak much as to the council’s decisions. She will, of course, advocate for you so at the very least you probably won’t be executed.”

  It wasn’t funny, but I still laughed. “Forgive me, Layla, I didn’t mean to laugh at your words. It’s only . . .”

  “Far better to laugh than let anyone see you weep,” she intoned knowingly. “Come, we should go back inside before Hasim shows himself to find out why I’ve been hiding our conversation.”