Harbinger

was who he was.

Timeon cleared his throat and bowed his head slightly. “Captain, it is good to see you again. Are you ready for another lesson?”

“Yes, indeed,” Raed replied with a crooked smile.

It was good to spend the rest of the late morning in the simple tasks of cutting and pounding herbs. Madame Vashill learned at his side and seemed glad to do it too. She talked wistfully about her shop back in Vermillion and the work she had been unable to bring with her. What she never discussed was her son and his treachery. Raed knew all about the faithlessness of family and how that hurt, so he did not pry.

However, the same could not be said of Madame Vashill; she wanted all the details of his life, which he felt rather uncomfortable yelling at her in the crowded infirmary.

“I suppose you have heard about the woman in the west claiming to be your sister,” the old lady said, shooting him a look out from under her eyebrows. “They say she is causing quite a lot of problems for the Emperor.”

The problematic question of the person claiming to be his sister, Fraine Rossin, was one he had not yet dealt with. Raed pounded the tansy under his pestle mercilessly. “The truth of it is, there is not much I can do about her. It’s not as if I can stand up publically and denounce her for impersonating my dead kin.”

The old woman flinched at that, and he knew she had to be thinking of her son. “Still,” she said, grasping his hand briefly, “you did hear that your father had come out in support of her?”

It felt as though his stomach had dropped away and been replaced by a fiery pit. His father was not one for proclamations—but perhaps he thought now was a good time to slice himself off a piece of the Empire while it was in turmoil.

“No,” he replied through gritted teeth, “I had not heard that. I am surprised though; my father has spent most of his life doing nothing at all. And he knows very well that woman is not his daughter. I sent word that Fraine had died in Vermillion.” Even saying those words hurt. In the end, Raed had not been able to save his sister. In the end, she had still despised him for the Rossin killing their mother.

He smashed the pestle into the mortar so hard the hard stone rocked off its base, spilling the herbs onto the bench. Several lay Brothers started from their tasks at the sudden clatter, and Raed nearly swore at them too.

Madame Vashill’s hand came down over one of his; wrinkled, warm and not very strong. It nevertheless stopped him for a moment. “You did not choose to come from your family,” she said, her voice low, as if she were speaking to herself. “You cannot be held responsible for their actions, but you can walk your own path that might make up for what evil they have done.” Their eyes locked and understanding filled Raed.

“Sorcha always said you were an old bat.” The words popped out before he could stop them.

Madame Vashill laughed and filled her mortar with more herbs. “I was when I was in Vermillion. Stuck in a trade my father had taught me, and when he died, a husband I despised made me continue it. I find I like this life better. When you get to my age, you learn to appreciate these little moments.” She gestured over her shoulder.

Raed turned and saw what she meant; around Raed and the old woman was a community of people, all thrown together by conflict, but still getting on, doing things, looking after one another. Lay Brothers caring for the sick and the injured while others came in bringing them food and supplies. It was—when examined closely—a well-oiled machine.

A machine. The Rossin’s voice bubbled to the surface. The Beast was nearer today than any day before, a consequence of breaking loose and not having fed, Raed assumed. A sharp tang caught his attention, and it was not a natural substance that burned his nostrils.

Dropping his pestle back to the bench, Raed turned as if he were being pulled on a string. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Madame Vashill, and he began to circle the room like a dog seeking a bone.

Lay Brothers shot looks at him—mostly annoyed that he was in their domain—but they kept out of his way. The Young Pretender ignored them all. Instead, he began to listen to the Beast inside him. The geistlord was, after all, more powerful than he and had sharper instincts. It stung him to admit that—but there it was.

A strange place to bring her leftovers. The Rossin growled, shifting deep inside Raed, who knew at once he was speaking of Sorcha. He felt the Beast was uncomfortable too. A bastion of her greatest enemy.

It was hard for Raed to talk to the creature without seeming like he had run mad. The lay Brothers were eagle-eyed for such things and might whip him off into a bed if he wasn’t careful.

“The Circle had all these outposts originally,” he hissed as he made a great show of peering at the shelf of ointments and lotions. “She hardly had a choice.”

Then she shouldn’t be surprised with what happened two nights ago. The Rossin sounded very self-satisfied.

Ignoring the Rossin’s barbed observation, Raed nonetheless proceeded with a little more caution. The sense of unease he and the Rossin shared led him over to a rack of shelves on the far wall. At present they were stocked with the lay Brothers’ meager supply of liniments and ointments. They barely took up a corner of this vast shelf.

Raed ran his eyes over the rack suspiciously up close and then stepped back to examine how it stood against the wall. His father’s rickety palace had been full of hidden rooms and corridors, and he wondered if it was the same in the citadel.

He was certain that the smell and the sense of unease were coming from here. Raed shot a glance over his shoulder, to ascertain that no one was watching him, and then ran his hands over the wood.

The shelves were beautifully carved with all manner of forms that were obviously meant to be various geists; there was the pair of staring malevolent eyes that had to be a darkling, the spinning whirlwind of a vortex, and one he knew very well, the beautiful, deadly form of a Murashev in all her painful glory.

And everywhere on the bookshelf were the stars that were the symbol of the Ancient Native Order. Raed frowned. The fact that the lay Brothers were moving around, ignoring him and this bookcase meant that they had complete confidence in it. Sorcha and her Sensitives had carefully examined every surface of the citadel before they’d moved into it and made it their base.

They would not have missed any kind of cantrips or runes.

That is because they refuse to acknowledge the rest, the Rossin purred into his brain.

“Rest?” Raed whispered under his breath.

You saw the pitiful Sensitive become not so pitiful. You saw it and decided to ignore it. You never questioned what it meant. The Rossin dug up the memory that he had brushed aside; how Merrick had brought a whole street of people to their knees outside the Emperor’s prison.

He rubbed the space between his eyebrows and muttered into his shoulder, “What does that have to do with this?”

You will see. Look a little deeper. Remember who you are. Even these Deacons do not come from a lineage as great as yours.

It was the first time he’d ever heard the Rossin call his family great—mostly the Beast just belittled them as traitors and weak. Raed let out a faint snort as he realized that most likely the Beast was talking about his own involvement with his ancestors. Literally, his blood was in the Rossin line.

Putting that aside, Raed leaned forward and examined the shelf. He recognized most of the geists, but one that stood out to him was his own sigil. It was the one that the Dominion had sailed under—the rampant Rossin. Without thinking overly on it, Raed reached out and traced the shape of it. Under his fingers it felt sharp. It was a curious thing to see here in the remains of an old citadel of the Order—and what’s more, it looked freshly carved.

Raed was about to turn around and inquire if anyone else had noticed this, when the world went cloudy and gray. The hustle and bustle of the lay Brothers and their patients faded to incomplete shadows, while the sounds reached him as muted whispers.

Move! The Rossin was like a sharp burr under his skin, but one he could not shake or rip off. Hesitantly, Raed took a step forward. He knew about the rune Voishem, but the fact that he was experiencing it firsthand—without an Active Deacon—was terrifying.