Soul Seeking by R. Michael Card

Author:R. Michael Card [Card, R. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gryphon's Gate Publishing

14

Caerwyn swam to shore and climbed out onto the muddy banks of the Eresvan River. She removed a drying cloth from her pack and patted herself dry before dressing.

The splash of water on her face when she’d first come to the river side had felt good, but not enough. She’d been sweaty and dirty and just wanted a bath. So she’d found a spot a little farther upstream behind a clump of bushes and stripped down for a swim.

As she emerged, dressed and ready, from behind those same bushes, she found Barami rushing toward her.

“Everything’s gone black as Holn. We need to leave this village now!” The immediacy in his voice startled her.

“What? Why? What happened?”

“They know!” It was his look, the intensity of those dark eyes boring into her that told her everything she needed to know. The village had found out she was drahksani.

“Jais?” she asked.

“On the run.”

“Seven Shades of Holn!”

“I know. We need to go. Now.”

She sighed. She was tired of running. She’d run from her parents as a child, run from her adopted family a year ago. She wouldn’t run anymore. She was fairly certain the wrath of this little village would not be as bad as the entire Afgenni Empire after her.

“No.”

“No?”

“Jais and his aunt will need our help.” She found herself quite calm in saying so. Perhaps it was her calm that halted Barami from responding right away.

He took a moment, perhaps to see if she was joking.

“You’re serious.”

“I am.” She drew forth Davlas and her short sword.

“What are you going to do, slay this village? These are innocent people.”

“Not if they’re trying to kill me they aren’t.”

“Oh, by all the gods, you’re serious. This is crazy!”

“Let’s go.”

A certainty filled her entire being, but deep down she surged with rage. All her life she’d been cast out of whatever existence she’d had because of what she was. As a child she’d had no power to change it. When exiled from the Afgenni Empire she’d had little choice. To fight would be to die. There were thousands of warriors, even some she herself had trained, who would hunt her down. To have this little village in the north up in arms over what she was — what Jais was — was the last straw for her. She wasn’t going to run, and that certainty of direction made it that much easier to act.

Barami caught up to her and readied his shield and bastard sword as they headed through the city.

Oddly the first man they encountered seemed happy to see them. Caerwyn didn’t know him, but he was poking through what remained of the mill, so she guessed he was the miller. He waved to them as they passed and thanked them for helping his family.

Her emotions were too confused by this to respond kindly so she simply nodded to the man. It seem so peculiar that perfectly normal and polite men like that could turn into hate filled monstrous shadows of humanity when they thought someone was different.

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