“The many will be one again, one and gone.
One will fall. The ring broken. The doors opened.
Keep free.
Repent, oh Tanagers, a new song is made, an old song renewed.”
The voice coming out of the man on the ground was very different from the one that had been yelling at Daks only a few seconds before. It almost sounded like two voices overlapping. If all the hairs on Daks’s body hadn’t already been standing on end from the magic, they would have been now.
Prophecy. Gods, he hated prophecies.
He struggled to retain consciousness, and his ears were left ringing in the sudden silence after the words stopped. All three of them remained frozen until the man on the ground’s eyes rolled up and his head lolled to the side. That seemed to break whatever spell they were in because the brother surged forward, flapping his hands, his face flushed and glistening with sweat in the moonlight.
“By order of the Brotherhood of Harot, I demand you back away and identify yourself,” he croaked at Daks, sounding just as shaken as Daks felt.
Daks slowly rose from the crouched position he’d held since the gifted had gone down and lifted his hands in a placating gesture as his head cleared. He took a single step back and sucked in a breath.
“Evening, Brother. I am Tarek Vastan. This young man appears to be in need of a healer. Do you know of one nearby?” Daks asked in his best Rassan, thinking quickly.
“I said step back,” the brother replied with growing confidence.
“I did,” Daks replied innocently.
“Well… step back again,” he hissed, appearing nonplussed.
Daks took another single step backward.
The brother narrowed his beady little eyes as he squared his shoulders. “Are you defying me, citizen—?”
“Tarek,” Daks enunciated clearly. “Tarek Vastan.”
“Well, Tarek, if you do not wish to be collected by the King’s Guard for your insolence, you should do as you are told.”
“Of course, Brother.”
“Well?” the brother asked, glaring.
“Well, what?” Daks replied, blinking innocently.
The brother’s lips tightened, and his round cheeks darkened further. “Be gone with you, before I change my mind and have you detained!” he blustered, flapping his right hand at Daks again while he drew something out of his robes with his left.
Daks took another wary step back at the move and braced himself for an attack, since he couldn’t quite see what the brother held. A moment later, his gift told him exactly what it was, but the knowledge only made him marginally less uneasy—especially since Rassans were, by their own laws, not supposed to use enchanted objects beyond the thirty-six stones of Harot.
Daks’s heartbeat sped as he tried to decide his next move. From the feel of it, the brother had used some sort of message or summoning stone. It would key an answering response in another stone somewhere else, and Daks was pretty sure he didn’t want to meet whoever was on the other end. When the brother cast an impatient glance in his direction, Daks bowed and made to look as if he was leaving, and the brother turned his attention back to the man on the ground.
“Get up. By order of the Brotherhood, I demand you get up,” the brother said peevishly. But when he received no response, he kicked the prone body in the side. “Get up. Identify yourself.”
Daks was still trying to convince himself to do the smart thing when the brother apparently grew impatient and landed another hard kick. The defenseless man moaned, and Daks sighed inwardly.
Shura’s going to kill me.
“Hey, uh, Brother? How about I help you get this poor guy to a healer. He looks pretty heavy. Uh, let me be of service to you, or whatever,” he offered stiltedly as he began to edge closer again.
Daks knew the correct words he was supposed to use, the formal ritual phrasing all Rassans had beaten into them for addressing members of the Brotherhood, but some perverse part of him just couldn’t bring himself to say them. He was still too pissed off and keyed up.
The brother gaped at him like he couldn’t quite believe Daks hadn’t just evaporated because he waved his limp little hand. “Are you a simpleton? By the power of the Holy Order of Harot, and Quanna, Moc, and Chytel themselves, I order you to leave. What happens here does not concern you. You have heard my command. Obey or face the consequences of your insolence.”
“I’m only trying to help,” Daks stalled while he struggled to come up with some sort of plan.
The brother inflated himself to his full height—which was still several inches shorter than Daks—and declared, “Not another word or you shall be remanded to the guard.”
Daks glanced down at the still unmoving man on the ground. He looked so vulnerable, so helpless. He’d obviously been desperate enough to escape the brothers that he was willing to chance the night market… and Daks had chased him right into one.
“Did you hear me? Or are you too simple to understand?” the brother hissed snidely.
A muscle in Daks’s jaw ticked a second before he closed his eyes, took two steps forward, and sent his fist into brother’s round face. Before the man could do more than yelp in shock and pain, Daks hit him again with all the frustration and anger he’d built up over the last several months—Hells, years—laying him out.
He did say “not another word.”
The impact on his knuckles felt way too good as he grinned at his own joke, but reality crashed closely behind his little act of rebellion.
Cursing himself for the fool the brother had called him, Daks quickly bent and hefted the Seer onto his shoulders. The tromp of many booted feet in the distance goaded him into motion quicker than anything else could have, and he lumbered away as fast as his overburdened body would carry him, the man’s lumpy bag thumping him in the ass with each labored step. Whatever was
