Seer's Blood

by Doranna Durgin

  “I know. Dumb ol’ Blue. He tried to save you from the Annekteh, you know. Too dumb to know he couldn’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes down again, but he gave her only the shrug of his shoulders under his worn shirt. Those shoulders held a strength beyond the muscles in them, and it showed in the ease of their carriage, in the quiet authority she had always admired in him. She said, “He was trying to help Mage — Rand was about to knock his head off.”

  “No,” Dacey said. “Blue may be dumb, but he can read another dog. The threat was to you, and it was you he was protecting.”

  Blaine looked back down at Blue, astonishment making way for affection. “I didn’t know he’d do that.”

  “You protect what you love,” Dacey said.

  Blaine gave her foot a slight stomp. “Damn!” she muttered.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “All right, I can’t go! I can’t leave her now. Or any of ’em. Not when they need me.” Her voice lowered until it was just loud enough to be heard. “But I want to go.”

  “I know.”

  A quick look told her he did know, that he really understood. She burst out, “I feel — I feel like a bird, one that’s just learned to fly and then broke a wing.”

  “You’ll fly when it’s right,” he said, and then looked away a moment. He was close to her all of a sudden; she wasn’t sure how that had happened. He reached out and touched her hair, running a light hand down to her long braid, picking it up and placing it down again like he’d found a better spot for it. “When it’s right,” he said again, and she wondered who he was trying to convince; as clear as his gaze met hers, she wasn’t sure it was her. He looked away. “I got to go. I’ve done what I came for, and I don’t belong here.”

  “What if they come back?”

  “You know where I am. By then, I’m thinking, you might have some of your own seers here.” He held out his other hand, opened it to reveal dozens of tiny flowers. Spring flowers, the like of which Blaine had searched so hard for — not any she’d seen before. The dark green-stemmed plants bore clusters of yellow blooms, thick as the seed in a milkweed and just as soft. She took them from him and smelled of them, inhaling a fresh odor — the hills after a cleansing rain, or the air on a crisp snowy day.

  “I ain’t never seen these before.”

  “Or me. But you’ll find ’em aplenty amongst the rhododendrons on the hill beyond the hall.”

  “The fight ground?”

  “The very same. There’s magic in these hills, and there always has been. It’s just been slumbering of late.”

  “But... flowers?”

  “The Annekteh worked their magic on me, and look what happened — I’m seer, now. And they slung it out all over that hill. To my way of thinking, these here flowers popped up to spit right back in the eye of Annekteh magic. Keep watch, Blaine, and you might could find more signs of change here. Might even be some more magic of your own.”

  “I don’t have no seers in my family line,” Blaine said, more than a touch of obstinance showing through. She knew better. Knew things were changing.

  “Not yet. But there ain’t no way to deny the kind of seeings you got.”

  Blaine snorted. “Magic weren’t meant for the likes of me.”

  “Nor for me,” Dacey rejoined quietly, looking at her with a touch of amusement, tucked in somewhere between his angular cheekbones and his eyes.

  “But you’re different,” Blaine protested instantly. “You — you’re...different!”

  He reached out to touch her braid again...didn’t quite do it. Looked away instead. “I brought the flowers for Willum. Seems only fitting that the first signs of the magic go to him, first killed in the battle that woke it. And I wanted to say goodbye. I’ll be leaving tonight, and I won’t be obvious about it. Just make a scene if I was, and I wouldn’t care for that.”

  “I know,” Blaine said, carefully setting the flowers by Willum’s headstone. When she straightened, Blue was gone, following Dacey up the hill behind Mage. Blaine watched long enough to see Chase and Whimsy shoot in from the side, knock Dacey about with their tails, and bound off again.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered.

  ~~~~~

  The hall was set up for a celebration, with the refreshing yellow flowers in abundant display. They hung in bunches from the corners of the rafters, they came in sprigs tucked behind girls’ ears and in the men’s buttonholes. The room seemed lighter for them, certainly lighter than the candle and coal oil lamp-light Blaine remembered — even as bright as the south-made fancy lamp that Dacey owned.

  She leaned against the wall between two of the massive tables lining the dance area, her breath coming quick. Although it was well into the evening, the musicians still played the quick dances. Soon they’d switch to the slower, more precise figures, the ones meant for older dancers and courting youth. Blaine knew those well enough, but had no intention of being dragged into them, not yet.

  Soon enough, her parents would host her quilt-party, and all of the women and older girls would supply a storm of man-talk while they quilted, in one afternoon, the quilt that Blaine’s mother had been piecing for her since Lenie’s first engagement.

  Until then, she was undeclared and determined to make the best of the time.

  Which meant, as the music strings started up again, rushing back out onto the floor for another whirling dance. She and the other girls were passed from boy to boy, many of whom gave her a wink or smile of recognition — companionable recognition, the kind she was comfortable with. They still thought of her as the girl in the tree who’d pointed out the Taken.

  She danced with nearly all of them this evening, even Estus, whose damp and dirty looks had undergone a thorough washing for the celebration. She missed Burl, who would have been a fun if less than graceful partner, and there were plenty of others absent, if not remarked upon. Not tonight. In a day or two, they’d meet for a Remembrance of all the lost ones, Willum included; for now, they celebrated their freedom. Blaine was glad to see her parents, at the other end of the room, joining in on the fast steps of the dance. She had passed Lenie and her new beau some time before. She had even seen her cousins — whose remarks, for once, had been nothing but amiable. She could not help a glow of satisfaction at that.

  The music tumbled to a stop and Blaine found herself opposite Trey, who panted as hard as she. She flapped her skirts — regular, whole skirts — up and down to fan her sweaty legs and Trey laughed.

  “Let’s go outside,” he said. “It’s cooler.” The next dance started, slow and traditional. Blaine followed him out into the hall yard.

  “Looks like you’re even quicker’n me to shy away from the courting dances,” she teased as he led her to the well. Trey shrugged, pulling up the rope and dragging out the bucket. He unhooked the dipper from the well frame, scooping up cool water and offering it to Blaine.

  An out and out courtesy. At first taken aback, Blaine accepted water and drank her fill. She returned the dipper to Trey with a quizzical look, and watched while he got his own drink.

  “Where’s Dacey?” he said, wiping his dripping chin.

  “Gone,” Blaine said sadly. “He told me he’d dodge good-byes. One thing about him, he means what he says.”

  “Snuck out in the middle of a dance, I’ll bet.”

  “You’d win it,” she sighed. She had watched him go, deliberately looking away when he glanced at her.

  “I’ll miss him, too,” Trey said. She nodded, and they lapsed into silence that didn’t trouble Blaine, but that Trey seemed to find increasingly awkward. So she watched him, as the light from the hall played off his face — an unsettled, still growing into itself face — and occasionally sparked off his eyes. She knew it wasn’t kind, but she watched him until he broke into an actual fidget. “Blaine...”

  She only gave him a look.

  “Spirits,” he said, sounding almost desperate, “we always been straight enough with one another. Lenie’s committed to my
cousin Nathan, and we both know what that means to you.”

  Blaine made a noise her parents would have called her on.

  “Yeah, I know. I saw enough in the mountain to know you’re some wilder than the girls hereabouts — wilder than most the men’ll stand for, anyway. You done tickled Dacey that way.”

  “Did I?” Blaine said, then regretted it as Trey’s discomposure seemed to deepen. “Sorry,” she murmured, looking down at the well just for something other than him to rest her eyes on.

  “I...I just wanted to say...well, I’d stand for it. I seen the good it brought to these hills, and I’ll never forget it. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Why, Trey,” Blaine said, startled into looking straight at him again — and then could come up with nothing else. When had he...she’d had no idea... Although, thinking back, she could see that at some time he had quit fighting her and begun to work with her. Quit bossing her and begun to listen.

  She looked away from him again and up into the dark shape of the mountain that loomed behind the barn. The new waxing moon had not yet made an appearance, but the night was clear. The stars made enough light to show her the darkened undulations of the hills, the scoops and swags that led her eye to the site of the battle. For a moment she was back in that fight, reliving the fears, the uncertainties, and even the joys.

  At last she turned her eyes back to Trey, who still waited for a response — any response, just to stop the agony of the waiting. With a start of guilt, she smiled at him, a shy expression. “I ain’t reflected much about it, yet,” she told him. “But I like your words.”

  He let out his breath in a relieved sigh — she supposed he had worried she might laugh, or scorn him.

  But it was a good offer. Most likely the best she would get. Someone who already knew the quirks of her ways and who didn’t resent them. She would run circles around herself to keep a family tended right, but she would still have the woods and her wandering ways.

  If she ever found the time for them.

  “Yes,” she said, and nodded. “I’ll think on that.” She knew she should be pleased. He understood her. Respected her, even her strangeness. But...her contrary stomach had turned heavy and hard.

  “You want to go back in?” He nodded toward the doorway, where a lull in the music and the considerable laughter in its place indicated that someone spun a tale.

  “No,” Blaine said. “I guess I’ll just listen to it all for a while. I enjoy a good dancing, but somehow...tonight I feel on the outside looking in. I never was slaved, like they were.”

  “But you —”

  “I know. I done my part. But I warn’t here.”

  He didn’t understand, she could see, but he wasn’t fighting it. He leaned against the well alongside her and listened to the snatch of voices drifting out of the hall.

  She’d done her part, all right. Not that either parent quite believed her stories — especially not her father, who — though as proud as he’d ever been — had told her not to have fancy thoughts of herself, that she’d likely mostly been in Dacey’s way.

  Rand’s instant defense had gratified her. There was the bearskin, he’d argued, and even Cadell couldn’t deny that Blaine had been in the ash, directing the fighters below. Anyone else would’ve sent arrows that hit their mark — Rand had said that with a smile — and at last Cadell had to concede that the stories he was hearing could be true.

  Some of those stories referred to Dacey’s killing touch, but not one of them identified Rand as the last to be Taken. Rand had not mentioned it, and Blaine, with a chance to pay him back for kept secrets, did not see fit to bring it up.

  True stories or not, Cadell clearly didn’t want Blaine to put much stock in herself over it. Like he couldn’t stand for her to think about it, so he wouldn’t have to think about it himself.

  But now she was home. All she had left of those weeks were the stories, and no one would ever quite know or believe all of it. Blaine sighed into the darkness. It was a clear night, damp and warm — good for a hunt. Her ears perked for the sounds of familiar hound song, disregarding the fact that those voices were behind her and lost forever.

  Even now her ears imagined the start of a chorus, using memory in place of reality. Stupid.

  “What’s that?” Trey asked, startling upright.

  Suddenly too clear to be a memory, that was certain sure!

  Blaine straightened and took a step away from the well, toward the hill behind the barn where the song had started. Not just the dogs, no — that was Dacey’s voice alone, until Mage joined in and the two younger dogs warmed up. A farewell song.

  An unwanted tear shimmered her vision. It was her very own good-bye. No one else could separate those voices, nor know just who started the singing. She listened, entranced, while Trey stood behind her and respectfully kept his silence.

  A much closer moan hit her ears, starting as a rough, low growl and rising to a clear, wavering note. Its euphony with the chorus on the hill first stirred her, then startled her. She took her gaze away from the mountain and looked at the barn, certain the longing howl came not from the hills, but from that dark building.

  She ran to it.

  Tied just inside the barn was a mournful, confused ticked creature. Its ears hung low, and it subsided into a confused whine as Blaine entered. It strained at a braided rawhide leash, its front feet pattering up and down in excitement, its tail tip wagging uncertainly as it sought to understand why the pack sang from the top of the hill, so far from this place and growing farther.

  “Blue,” Blaine breathed. “Blue, how could he leave you?” She slid to her knees and hugged his forlorn face, slapped his solid chest in appreciation and buried her face against his sturdy hound body. She even pretended not to see when he slyly reached for her braid.

  Sudden realization ended her caresses; she stared at the mountain — blocked by the back of the barn as it was — the tears coming down her face fast and happy. He couldn’t leave Blue! He wouldn’t!

  Trey, too, understood the hound’s message, and he took a step back, giving her room for her dreams.

  “He’s coming back,” Blaine whispered into Blue’s jowly face.

  He gave her a lick upside the cheek and wiped away her tears.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  A Note from the Author

  There are so many good books to read...thank you for choosing Seer’s Blood! I appreciate your letters, emails, blog comments, and Facebook posts more than I can ever express. These days, readers hold more power than ever with their choices, and reviews and word of mouth are an author’s best friend — always very much appreciated!

  If you’d like to keep tabs on what I’m writing, here’s my newsletter sign-up. It goes out several times a year with notices about releases and giveaways, but I won’t fill your mailbox. Or feel free to come by and say hello at my Facebook page, where we have lots of other fun! If you just want to see what else I’ve written, try this list on my web site.

  And if you enjoy strong characters with heart like Blaine and Dacey — and love horses as well as dogs — you might enjoy the following fantasy novels:

  Dun Lady’s Jess

  All woman, all heart... all horse.

  When hikers Dayna and Eric find a naked and terrified young woman, they’re sure she’s the victim of foul play. But the truth is much more shocking: she isn’t human at all. She’s Dun Lady’s Jess, a horse transformed into this new shape by the spell that brought her and her rider, to whom she is utterly devoted, into this world.

  Possessed now of human intelligence but still a horse deep inside, Jess desperately searches this world for her master and rider, using her fiery equine spirit to take on human idiosyncrasies — and human threats.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  A Feral Darkness

  Suspense, romance, and a Celtic dog bundled into a contemporary fantasy setting.

  As a child, dog-loving Brenna Fallon naívely invokes an ancient Celtic deity to save her beloved hound
— and inadvertently anchors the new-found power at a spring on her family’s farm.

  She doesn’t know she’s also left an opening for a far more malevolent force.

  Years later, Brenna discovers the terrible potential of that gateway. With a devastating plague unfolding abruptly around her, she must depend on her wits, a stranger she doesn’t trust, and a mysterious stray dog who becomes more than just a faithful companion as she struggles to drive back the threat of a modern Black Death.

  Welded by a desperate sacrifice, woman, man, and dog face the feral darkness together.

  For another (more contemporary) adventure with heart—and also a not-cat, and a ghostbusting team and an otherworldly bounty hunter—you might enjoy The Reckoners:

  The Reckoners

  The Reckoners: A powerful ghostbuster raised by a spirit, her brilliantly eccentric backup team, a cat who isn’t a cat at all...and a fiercely driven bounty hunter from a different dimension who brings them together when worlds collide.

  Skilled ghosthunter Lisa "Garrie" McGarrity not only sees dead people, she wrangles them into submission. But her beloved ghostly mentor moved on years ago, and the Southwest has gone quiet under Garrie’s hand. Garrie and her team have grown restless and...well, face it. Maybe willing to take a risk or two.

  So when the relentlessly mysterious and fiercely driven Trevarr (and his not-cat!) shows up asking for help, Garrie is inclined to listen. And when he describes big trouble at the San Jose Winchester Mystery House, she’s inclined to go with him, even if it splits her team along the way.