by Jada Fisher
Well… She knew the full story now, and yet she was still defending them.
Why was she defending them?
She wanted to keep her parents around? Too bad! I hadn’t gotten to keep mine around.
“And now we will hear the words of the seers, the sole survivors of this coordinated attack.”
I blinked at them, mouth slack. I was supposed to speak? I mean, I had prepared for that, but once I had found out that it wasn’t actually a trial, I had figured I wouldn’t have to be a witness. After all, if everyone already knew they were guilty and we were just figuring out what their punishment should be, they shouldn’t need to hear from me.
Except…they’d heard from Mallory. They’d heard from the accused. They were going to hear from more of the accused. So it made sense that they needed to understand how I felt, what I thought, in order to come to an appropriate conclusion.
“You don’t have to—” Mickey started to say, but I just shook my head. I wasn’t going to let my big sister go through that all alone.
“No, it’s fine. This is what I need to do.” I stood, breathing deeply. “I need the closure.”
I strode forward into the circle, my skin prickling. All eyes were on me, sharp and alert. I realized that, for all my world-saving shenanigans, I wasn’t actually that used to the spotlight. I was either doing things in different dimensions or busy battlefields or the sky. I wasn’t ever really in the open with all gazes on me.
But I was now.
“Seer, we thank you for your presence. Declare yourself for your brothers and sisters and know that you are found.”
I nodded, still taking a few moments to find my words. “I’m, uh, I’m Davie— I mean, Daniella Masters. It was my parents who were killed in the fire that was meant to end my sister and my life.”
“Thank you. And should you receive justice on this day, what would that look like to you?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head. “Jacoby and Mavis were a part of my life for years. They were a shelter when I needed a night or two away from whatever foster parent we had that year. They were a bright spot that I looked forward to. A sort of ace in my pocket.
“You can imagine that finding out that they were a part of wiping out my entire race, that they were the reason that my sister and I had been burned, it’s been a lot. To say the least.”
“So, what do you want?”
I closed my eyes. “I realize that some people would expect me to say that I want them dead. And in some ways, I suppose I did. But death is also too easy. They won’t get to sit in misery if they’re dead. They wouldn’t be able to sit there and feel the condemnation of everyone, of knowing that everyone else know what they’ve done.”
“You want them to suffer then?”
“Yes.” I took a shaking breath. “But also…no? Because I know whatever they experience, it’s just going to feel hollow to me. My parents died in one of the most painful ways possible, and my sister and I almost were killed too. That’s not something that can be made up with an execution or imprisonment or anything. It’s just…done. And I’m never going to be the same.”
“We understand. Why do you think you and your sister were targeted first?”
“Hmm?” I asked, thrown off by the question. I hadn’t been expecting to speculate.
“I think we can agree that the attack on you was the most violent while also being the least hands-on of all of the missions. The leader of the accused received note to take care of you and your sister, and there would never be need for violence again. Obviously, that was not the truth considering the events that unfolded, but do you feel that you were specifically picked out, or was it chance?”
Chance… Chance…
We had been picked first. We were the oldest of any of the seers chosen. Estelle had said we were coming…
I felt like I had little fragments of a puzzle all floating around my head, trying to fit together to form a puzzle, but failing miserably. Someone was giving Estelle notes. Someone knew of us. Stopping us was supposed to stop everything.
You stopped the dragons from going outside fate.
I stiffened, my mind seeming to zero in and begin to line things up.
Someone knew about Mickey and I, knew that we were seers long before we ever did, and they wanted us dead. When we didn’t die, our very presence awakened other seers. One thing that I had learned was that seers begot seers, setting off each other in a sort of chain reaction until a whole population could come back from extinction. It only took one.
You stopped the dragons from going outside fate.
Unless…unless that one was held in isolation from everyone else. Not allowed to interact. A seer could probably be able to sense the arrival of another seer. A seer would allow someone to go outside fate.
And if someone had their hands on a seer, it would make sense that they wanted to make sure that they were the only ones who had their hands on a seer.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my hand going to my mouth. “They have a seer.” I looked to Bronn, Mickey, Krisjian, and Mal with wide eyes. “They have a seer!”
“What?”
I looked back to the speaker, my heart going a mile a minute. “I’m sorry. This has all been very lovely, but I’ve got to go.”
“You cannot go. The Fey Court—”
“The Fey Court can do whatever the hell it wants. This is obviously your community deciding whatever punishment will make your community feel better about itself. I need to make sure that all seers who managed to survive this are free and in the clear.”
I hurried to the door, different words and facts continuing to swirl around in my head as everything slid into place.
Finally, I understood what was going on. How the anti-humanists always seemed one step ahead, so unbeatable, unless I pulled out the deepest tricks of my seer handbook. Not that I was given a handbook, because that would have made everything so much simpler.
The anti-humanists had a seer. I was sure of it. And I was going to make sure that I did everything I could to free them.
And then maybe, just maybe, we could move on with the whole saving the world thing.
Preferably before the rotted dragon ended up doing whatever he hoped to do.
5
Needle in a Haystack
“You want to tell me what all of that was about?” Mickey asked as we walked into the very mansion we had come from, the tone tense and silent. “Because, you know, I might have liked speaking about the death of our parents and being halfway burned to death.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, guilt flashing through me. I had been so caught up in catching the loose thread that had been eluding me that I had forgotten how my sister might feel. “It’s just I had a realization and knew we needed to get out of there to deal with it immediately.”
“What’s this revelation?” Mal asked, perching on one of the tables and pulling her legs up. “Some sort of fantastical seer vision?”
“Not really. Maybe seer-vision-adjacent. But basically, I figured out that the anti-humanists have a seer.”
“Wait, what?” Bronn asked, straightening up from where he was leaning against the wall. “Baelfyre has a seer?”
I nodded. “I don’t know how. I just know that they have to have one. That’s how they’ve been able to plan all this elaborate stuff. Able to get a bomb in here and almost take over the city. If it weren’t for us, they would have definitely beaten you three times over.”
“But wouldn’t a seer be able to sense and account for the presence of another?” Mickey asked, sounding like she was getting caught up in it too.
“I’m thinking mostly no. I couldn’t tell that you were a seer. I only knew about Krisjian because I was dead. As far as I can tell, there’s just a big, large ‘it depends’ on that.”
“Okay, so let’s say they do have a seer. What now? Surely they have to have whoever they’re using gunning for all sort
s of information about us. They have to know we know… Right?”
“I… I don’t think so,” Krisjian said quietly.
“What was that?”
“Your shield. I’ve noticed that it…muffles a lot of the outside world. Things that a shield shouldn’t be able to muffle.”
I tried very hard to remain cool and casual, even though I wanted to stride right up to him and ask a million and one questions. “Like what?”
“Uh, I’m not exactly sure how to say it. Energy, maybe? The air? Life? So, I have this feeling that your shield blocks us as well. Even if they did have a seer, I don’t think they’re able to sense much of anything in this bubble.”
“Is there any way that we can know that for sure?” Mickey asked, chewing at her thumb.
“Uh, no. I don’t think so. It’s just a feeling.”
“Feelings are what will get you killed,” Mal noted absently, having pulled a dagger from somewhere to clean under her nails.
“Not like we have much else to go on,” Mickey countered. “How are we going to find out who this seer is, or where they are? Or anything?”
I found myself swallowing yet again, but my mouth was as dry as ever. “I… I think I know a way.” They looked to me and I was pretty sure everyone could sense that something unpleasant was about to come out of my mouth.
“Your face tells me I’m not going to like it,” Mickey said quietly.
I gave her the most contrite look I could. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t think any of us will.”
“I’m really, really not sure about this,” Mickey muttered as I poured more Epsom salts into the deep bathtub that we were filling with cold water. I was pleased as punch to find that they had lavender ones around in one of the five bathrooms and was looking forward to having at least one bright part to hold onto.
Ah, who was I kidding. They actually had a huge selection of bath salts and bubbles and everything else under the sun. In the end, it had come down to the lavender and the eucalyptus spearmint, but I had chosen the former for its strong association with sleep.
“I agree,” Bronn said, looking dubiously at the rising water. “Are you absolutely sure this is necessary? Certainly, there has to be another way.”
“None of us have sensed this seer so far, and as far as I can tell, they haven’t been able to figure out what we’re doing either. So, if I want to get in touch with her, I’m going to need to tap into the energy stream.”
“The what?” Mickey asked sharply.
I waved her concern away as I poured in more salt. “It’s this thing that I found when I was dead. It connects all seers, past and present, and is basically how I found Krisjian and planned my whole resurrection.”
“Oh, is that all. And you didn’t mention this before because…”
“Because I’m pretty sure it’s not for mortal people to know about. The only reason I did is because I died in a world that wasn’t mine and everything got all screwed up. It wasn’t like I thought I would ever be going back.”
“And yet that’s exactly what you’re trying to do now.”
“Well, yeah. I don’t think any of you would know how to find it.”
“Davie…” Bronn murmured again, his voice pained. I could hear the slightest groan from the porcelain as his fingers gripped the edge of the bathtub. “You can’t ask us to sit here and let you kill yourself.”
“Relax. I’m not killing myself. I’m just…slowing down my heart a bit. No harm done.”
“What a funny way to try to explain away the fact that you’re making lover-boy drown you,” Mal said with a chuckle. “You know I would be happy to do it for you.”
The edge of her grin was a bit worrisome, but I’d known Mal long enough to identify her nihilistic humor. “Generous, but no. You’re not from this realm and I don’t want your touch inadvertently sending me back to that place. And I can’t have a seer do it either, because you might get pulled in too. So that leaves Bronn and only Bronn.”
“I… I do not like this, Davie.”
“Duly noted.”
I shrugged off the overshirt I had on, a warm and soft flannel that probably cost way more than I’d ever spent on a single piece of clothing. I was in only a tank and some leggings, and I could feel the coldness of the water radiating upwards.
In truth, I was scared. I was terrified, even.
I had fought so hard to find life again. To make sure I never crossed over into the realm of the dead again, and yet that was exactly the line I was flirting with. If something went wrong, well then, the spirit of death was going to have a much easier job on her hands than she realized.
“This is making me quite nervous,” Krisjian said, his accent coming in thick.
“I know,” I answered, giving him a wan smile. “Me too. But let’s do this before I lose my nerve.”
I shut off the faucet and slid my feet into the water, hissing at how cold it was. Bronn was at my side instantly, his warm, broad hands holding onto my sides.
“It’s fine,” I said, wincing as I slid further in. Geez, it was cold. Already I could feel my teeth chattering, my muscles locking up under the sheer temperature drop.
I was in for a really, really unpleasant experience, but it was the only thing I could think of to find a seer that had been hidden from the rest of the world for goodness knew how long.
It seemed like an eternity before my butt was flat against the bottom of the tub, my body already shivering. I took a deep breath—or as deep as my lungs would allow, considering how much my chest was constricted—then let all of it out.
Bronn took that as his cue, his hands moving from my sides to my shoulders. I felt him put pressure on them, and then I was sliding into the cold water.
I knew it was a cruel thing to do, to make Bronn essentially drown me when he had torn himself apart over and over again about letting me die, but he was the only one who could do it. It wasn’t like we could ask a servant or one of his generals. It wasn’t like I would ever trust any of them.
And I could have asked Mallory except…well, except everything.
So, it was the prince who held me under water as I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could. I could feel my blood sloshing in my ears, picking up at first as my heartrate increased before eventually the cold water set in and it started to slow.
I wasn’t sure how long I lasted before the burning in my lungs was too much and I started to thrash, my body trying to get me up to air. But Bronn held me firm, pressing me down into the bottom of the tub, letting the darkness at the edge of my vision swirl in deeper and deeper until, finally, the world disappeared in a wink.
I found myself quickly hurtling through nothing and everything all at once, streaking past flashing lights and cosmos until I finally splashed right back into the kaleidoscope of intense color, time, and magic that was the strange place between realms.
I gasped raggedly, my entire body hurting terribly, but it started to level out as I let myself float along. While the surroundings were familiar, I could tell that I wasn’t seeing all that I was supposed to. That the massive expanse was cut off as if to protect my somewhat-alive brain.
It was tempting to just stay relaxed and float along, listless to all the responsibilities that kept me tied to the life that was so often painful and stressful. But after a few moments, my responsibilities came back to me, and I realized that the longer I took in the energy stream, the higher the chance I would end up dead again.
So I concentrated. Biting my tongue of my non-body, I concentrated on what I needed to know. I was looking for a seer. One that no one knew of and had no family. One isolated and scared. One older than me, maybe even older than Mickey, but had never known anything but servitude.
I slid along rapidly, time rushing around me in violent eddies. Visions, pictures, and worlds flashed through me, until finally, I was spat out onto solid ground.
But I’d been around the block enough to know that it wasn’t the real world but a vision. I
stood, watching carefully as I took in what looked like a neat, cozy office.
There were two people sitting on a couch, both middle-aged and put-together. I couldn’t place them at first before my mind told me exactly what they were.
Dragons.
And if I had to guess, not of the human-loving variety.
I watched, wondering exactly what I was seeing, when the door behind me opened. A moment later, a portly woman stepped through me, a child holding her hand.
Stepping back, I looked over the tiny thing. The kid was a girl, with short, dark hair and a plain set of what looked like pajamas. She was so slight that it was clear she had been underfed, and she was practically trembling just from the effort of standing there.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe, this is Sokhanya. She’s from Cambodia and has traveled an awful long way to see you.”
The woman slid off the couch onto her knees, her hands moving quickly in time to the words she spoke unevenly. “Hello, Sokhanya! I am your new mama. This is your papa.”
The girl didn’t say anything in response, simply tucked her face into the side of the plump woman’s skirt.
“I’m sorry, she doesn’t understand ASL yet. We have a few commands that the orphanage managed to establish between their workers and her, which we are happy to teach you, but it will be a long road toward acclimating her.”
“And she’s one hundred percent deaf, you said?”
The woman, who I guessed was a social worker of some kind, nodded. “Deaf and mute. There’s a chance that she might be a candidate for a cochlear implant when she’s older, but she needs a whole series of immunizations and to gain quite a bit of weight before any doctor will want to look into that avenue.
“Also, there’s the fact that some deaf folks do not agree with implants, as there’s a very strong deaf community in this part of the country. I want to make sure that you’re not assuming this is something that can be magically waved away with medical intervention.”
