The Allseer Trilogy

by Kaitlyn Rouhier

  The first bite of the bread brought tears to her eyes, the buttery crust melting in her mouth. She savored the morsel, letting the flavors settle on her tongue before diving back in for another bite. As much as she wanted to devour it, she heeded Therin’s advice and slowly chewed each piece, letting it settle in her stomach before she went for more.

  After she’d finished her meager meal, she glanced around. They’d left the town behind and followed a wide road made uneven by cart tracks and patches of mud. The road was lined with trees and a few sporadic huts, and beyond them, Kirheen could see rolling hills swaying with tall grasses. There were fewer people on the road the further they got from the town, and some of the travelers they passed even offered up a small wave and a smile to Therin, something she hadn’t expected to see after her first glimpse of life outside of Sanctuary.

  Her mind began to wander, the warm food settling in her belly making her yearn for a soft spot to curl up and rest. She looked towards the strange four legged beast being led by Therin and reached out a hand to stroke the bristly looking fur covering its body. It was rougher than she’d been expecting, and she jumped back in fright as the beast twitched.

  Therin glanced over his shoulder again, his brow raised high. “Kirheen, was it? Have you never seen one of these before?” he asked, pointing at the beast.

  “No,” she admitted, giving the creature an uneasy glance. It was large but strangely graceful, a patchwork of creamy white and brown with a shock of white hair lining its neck and swaying in a cascading waterfall off its hind end. “We…didn’t have them where we came from.”

  She regretted her choice of words as Therin regarded her with a weary glance. She’d expected to see curiosity in his gaze, a hint of disbelief, but she was confused by the sadness she saw in his bright eyes. He looked away quickly and turned his attention back to the road ahead, not bothering to ask where they’d come from, and for that she was grateful. “It’s called a horse,” he muttered. “Useful creatures but spirited. You don’t respect them, they’ll knock you flat on your back, and those hooves will break bones whether you deserved it or not.”

  Kirheen didn’t find his words reassuring in the slightest, but she at least had a word to stick to the strange creature, and it was enough to make it at least a little likeable. When they came to a fork in the road, Therin veered them towards the right path and they continued on, the trees becoming sparser, slowly overtaken by the rolling hills and tall grasses she’d spotted earlier.

  Garild was strangely quiet as they walked. He’d eaten his bread slowly as he’d been instructed and hadn’t said a word since. She turned her full attention to him and frowned at what she saw. His skin had gone dreadfully pale and his forehead was beaded with droplets of sweat. When she reached out to touch his arm, she could feel his skin radiating heat through his robes. “Garild, are you okay?”

  He gave her a pained smirk. “I’ll be okay. I just need rest.”

  “What happened to you, boy?” Therin asked casually, not even bothering to look over his shoulder.

  “I was bit by something,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “A snake maybe? I didn’t get a good look…at it.”

  “We’ll take a look just as soon as we can. You’re still standing, so that’s a good sign.”

  As they broke through the last line of trees, they came upon another village, much smaller than the one they’d been in earlier in the day. A single road cut through the small village, and either side of the road was lined with store fronts and homes. The shops were closing up for the evening, wares being brought inside for safekeeping. A few of the villagers waved at Therin, their eyes drifting to the two ragged strangers following him. The warmth in their eyes faded and they stared with a fearful curiosity before turning back to Therin with questions they did not need to vocalize. He waved them off and continued through town at a steady pace.

  The surrounding hills were dotted with quaint houses, many edged with lush gardens teeming with vegetables and flowers. Therin led them up to one such house, set back away from the others. There was a large building just to the right of it and he led his horse towards the structure. They weren’t halfway between the house and the outbuilding when an older woman came rushing out the front door of the house. She was short and sturdy, her gray hair pulled back in a messy bun. She huffed down the steps and approached, looking both agitated and curious as she surveyed them with large brown eyes.

  “You were supposed to be back hours ago,” she said sharply to Therin. “I was starting to get worried. And just what did you bring back with you?” she asked, gesturing to Kirheen and Garild. “Told you to get bread, not children!”

  “Oh, my sweet Leann,” he chuckled. He approached her, ignoring the danger lurking in her gaze and the haughty way she rested her hands on her hips. He pulled her into his embrace and rested his cheek against her hair. “I’m sorry I took so long. There was trouble in town and luckily, I found these two before they could get dragged into it. These are no ordinary children. If my suspicions are correct, they’ve come from the west.”

  Leann gasped and tore herself from his embrace. “Just how far west?”

  “That far,” he said solemnly.

  “Don’t joke with me about that,” she warned him, her hand rising to cover her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t. Not about that. Never.”

  Leann looked upon them with renewed interest and she shuffled towards Kirheen. Her hand darted forward, wrapping tightly around Kirheen’s left wrist before she could protest. The woman pushed back her sleeve, revealing the beautiful tattoo that had been inked into her skin. A small choking sound escaped her, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, dear girl!” she exclaimed and then wrapped her arms around Kirheen and embraced her tightly.

  Kirheen laughed nervously and patted the woman on the back, overwhelmed by her reaction. She pulled out of her embrace and met her gaze. “Do you know about Sanctuary? You seem to know what my symbol is and what it means.” The idea that someone on the outside might have known all those years made her surprisingly angry.

  Leann seemed to sense her anger and gave a quick shake of the head. “We’ll talk about it soon,” she said softly. “Let’s get you both inside. You look awful.” She spun on her heels and bustled back into the house.

  Kirheen looked to Therin and he gave her a sad smile. “You’ll have answers soon, I promise. Let’s get some more food in you and get your friend looked at first, all right? Head on in. I’m just going to unload these packs.”

  She wanted answers more than anything, but he was right. Answers would have to wait. They needed food and rest, and Garild needed help as soon as possible. She gripped him by the elbow and turned him towards the house. Heat was still radiating through his robes, and he looked drained of all energy, swaying as she led him up the steps.

  They’d taken just a few steps into the cozy house when his knees buckled and he went limp, pulling her down to the floor with him. Hearing the commotion, Leann came rushing out of the other room, looking alarmed as she gaped at them sprawled on the floor. “What happened?”

  Kirheen untangled herself from Garild and rolled him over. He wore a pained grimace, his skin dewy with sweat. He had started to tremble, and each shudder made him groan. “Garild? Hey, come on. Let’s get you up. We’re going to get you help.”

  Leann knelt down next to him. “Is he ill?” she asked, brows scrunched with concern. “What happened to him?”

  Kirheen nodded to his bandaged hand. “He fell and startled a snake. He was bit and I did what I could, but we didn’t have the supplies we needed. I don’t know what it looked like. I thought he was getting better. I thought he was through the worst of it, but…but…”

  “Just take a deep breath. We’ll get this seen to right away.” She bent forward and gripped his bandaged hand, the movement causing Garild to gasp. With a careful tug, she peeled back the edge of his bandages and frowned. “Right away. Dear, we’re going to need to lift him and get him t
o the back room. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Kirheen replied, fighting back her panic. She needed to focus on Garild or he wasn’t going to make it through the night.

  “We’re going down that hallway there and to the left. There is a cot against the back wall. Let’s get him there,” she said calmly. “Ready. One, two, three!”

  Together they were able to pull Garild to his feet and navigate him down the tight corridor without incident. They settled him on a bare cot in a room that looked like it was used for storage. Leann got a lantern going and fetched a blanket from a nearby dresser, draping it over his shivering body.

  She bent down next to him and began unraveling the bandages from his hand. “How long has he been like this?”

  “Days? I don’t know. I lost track of time. There was a cave and-”

  “- I know, girl. I know. Take a seat before you work yourself into a frenzy.” As she unraveled the bandages, a smell like rotting meat began to fill the small space and Kirheen fought down a wave of nausea. The last of the bandage fell away and Leann sucked in air between her teeth, poking at the discolored flesh surrounding the scabbed over puncture marks. “This…this is not good.”

  The creak of the front door echoed down the hall and Leann called for Therin. His footsteps were hurried as he rushed down the hall and he poked his head into the room, cursing under his breath as he caught sight of Garild’s hand. “What do you need me to do, Leann?”

  “Fetch Carra and be sure to let her know what she’s dealing with,” she said gravely.

  Therin rushed off and Kirheen collapsed on the floor next to the cot. “How bad is it? Please just tell me he is going to be okay. I can’t lose him. I can’t.”

  Leann gripped her shoulder, her voice soothing and calm. “Carra is an excellent healer and she will do everything she can to see him through this. Hope is not lost yet, but I don’t know what price he’ll have to pay to make it through this. Be prepared for anything.”

  Kirheen nodded and wiped away the tears welling in her eyes. They sat in silence, waiting for Therin and the healer to come back. She stroked Garild’s arm softly, keeping her eyes away from his exposed hand, not wanting to conjure anymore images in her head of what might be in store for him.

  The front door opened and closed, and a woman poked her head into the room, surveying them all with a critical crystalline stare. She was tall and lean, with curly brown hair that she’d pinned back away from her face. “Leann, what have we got?” She motioned for Kirheen to move and she slipped out of the way, pinning herself against the back wall so the healer could get to work. Carra set a large case down on the floor and bent down next to Garild.

  “A snake bite. He’s made it a few days, but that hand isn’t looking good.”

  “No,” Carra agreed. “No, it’s not. See these veins here. It’s infected.”

  Kirheen couldn’t hold back her question. “Is there anything you can do? Is he going to be okay?”

  Carra took a deep breath before turning her head slowly to look at Kirheen. She glanced up at her, eyes filled with pity. “I can save him, but this hand… there isn’t anything I can do about it. If we don’t remove it, the infection will continue to spread, and it will kill him. I’m sorry.”

  Kirheen felt something inside her crack, the wall holding back her guilt and shame crumbling to pieces as her feelings came crashing into her heart. She sank to the floor and cried while a stranger she’d just met wrapped her in her arms and whispered comforts into her ear.

  CHAPTER 31

  Kirheen sat on the porch, holding a steaming mug of tea she couldn’t bring herself to drink. She’d been ushered out of the house so Carra and an assistant could do what was necessary to save Garild. He’ll lose his hand, but he’ll live, she tried to reassure herself, but it didn’t dampen the guilt she felt, no matter how many times she said it.

  Therin and Leann sat to her right, quietly sipping their drinks, looking out over the moonlit fields and to the road beyond. The silence was drowning her, her mind slipping deeper and deeper into thoughts she didn’t want to be having. Unable to take it a moment longer, she spoke. “How long will it take?” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer. She just needed sound and words and something to focus on.

  Leann rested a warmed hand on her knee. “I don’t know, dear. What she’s having to do…it’s complicated. I am sorry you are having to deal with this. It sounds like your journey here was already tough enough on you both.”

  “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been such a fool,” Kirheen said bitterly. “I made so many mistakes and now Garild is paying the price.”

  “It is the price of change, Kirheen. It is a steep price to pay, but it is often necessary,” Therin said, his eyes bright in the light of the moon. “It is a price we both paid. It’s been years since anyone has come through that cave in the mountain, and yet here you are. I didn’t think I’d ever see another soul from that place.”

  Kirheen eyed them suspiciously, frowning despite her efforts to keep her expression neutral. “You speak as if you know about Sanctuary. You recognized my mark and you know about the cave. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Leann regarded her with sad eyes, a lifetime of regret brimming just beneath the surface. “We do, dear one. We do. Before we found ourselves living in this field, we were bonded. Sanctuary was our home.” She pulled back her sleeve, flipped over her left hand so her palm faced the sky. Kirheen’s eyes were drawn to her wrist, a patchwork of puckered skin hiding the remnants of a symbol.

  Kirheen shuddered as her eyes traced the broken lines, the faded curves of a symbol that marked them for what they were, for what they knew. Anger flooded her veins, memories of her years spent in a prison of glowing trees echoing through her mind. “All this time,” she spat. “All this time you knew that we were there, you knew what was happening, and you sat here and did nothing.”

  Leann lowered her gaze and Therin reached out to grasp his wife’s hand. “It’s been years since we left Sanctuary behind, well before you were a thought in this world,” Leann whispered. “But just as this world has changed drastically over the years, so has Sanctuary.” She raised her chin and looked Kirheen in the eyes. “We left our life behind, but we were never able to flee far. All these years we’ve wondered what we left behind, what had become of that place just over the mountain. You are angry, and perhaps rightfully so, but I’d like to understand where it is coming from. Please tell us what has happened there.”

  Kirheen told them everything. She told them about her childhood, raised communally and taught to fear the broken world outside of Sanctuary. She told them about the bonding ritual, her fear of her powers, of letting someone into her mind. She told them about Herzin’s rage, the mistake that had cost Ian his life, the desperate flight through the woods and the argument that had led to Garild being bitten. By the end of her tale she was shaking, her eyes burning with tears. “You left us to that. You knew and you never even tried to free us from it.”

  She looked up, surprised to find Leann crying. Therin was tightlipped, his hands trembling. He rested his elbows on his knees and ran a hand over his face, a disgruntled sigh slipping past his lips. “That is not what I expected to hear. Gods, I’m so sorry. If I had known my brother would fall to such madness, that he would go to such lengths, I would have never allowed him to continue.”

  Kirheen’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at Therin, at his familiar features. “What do you mean?”

  “Nyson is my brother. You probably have little concept of family, but it was our father that founded Sanctuary. He was gifted a vision of a darkness growing in the world and he gathered who he could convince and fled through the mountains to build Sanctuary. He was convinced that our kind were threatened, that we needed to gather our strength in secret so we could one day strike back against the threat.”

  Leann took over, her voice giving life to a story Kirheen had never heard. “Our powers were once accepted
in this world,” she explained. “We were considered gifted, blessed by the goddess Riel, the Lightbringer, or Allseer as you call her. All of that began to change when a new family took over in Val’shar, the capital city to the south. They began to preach that our powers were an abomination, that Zekar was the one true god, and people listened. It started slowly, a murder here and there, but once that blood lust started, it was hard to stop. It was at the beginning of the massacres that his father had a vision and fled to form Sanctuary, fled so that he could strike back against the royal family that had started it all.” She sighed deeply before continuing. “It was a hard life for them at first, but they settled the forest and their desire for revenge grew and grew. Many wanted to cultivate our powers to perfection, to systematically breed to bring out the strongest traits in the children they bore. That idea was just beginning to blossom as we were growing up.

  “We were fifteen when we were bonded. I was bonded to Nyson, a man I did not love, and forced into a life I did not desire. And Therin was bonded to Herzin, a woman he did not want to spend his life with. The truth was, we were in love with each other. We always had been. We desired the freedom to make our own choices, and we weren’t alone. So many of our fellow bonded felt the same, felt that the threat of what they were being taught to fight against wasn’t worth the sacrifice. We rebelled against his father, gathered those willing to follow us, and left Sanctuary behind. We found a freedom here that you have never known, but I fear in doing so you were forced to pay the price.”

  Kirheen was too stunned to speak, and she sat in silence while she processed what she’d heard. Everything she’d known had been shaped by events that had happened before she’d even existed in the world. A fear of the darkness gathering outside of Sanctuary and the pain of a broken bond had shaped Nyson into the ruthless, manipulative leader he’d become. The lies he’d told to keep them there, his desire for order and control, the cruelty Herzin had showed at the first spark of Kirheen’s rebellious nature – all of it was starting to make sense. But understanding did not begin to excuse the things that had happened, and while events beyond her control had formed Sanctuary, she intended to see it fall.