“I’ve heard rumors,” Brynn answered softly. “But I would rather you tell me.”
“I dream of the future.” Cenric quirked one brow at Brynn, studying her reaction.
Upon hearing of his gift the first time, most people asked Cenric if he could look into their futures. As a boy, he’d gotten so tired of being asked that he’d stopped telling people he had a gift at all.
Brynn, to her credit, did not ask about her own future. She blinked at him for several moments as if she wasn’t sure whether she believed him.
“Parts of the future,” Cenric conceded in the face of her skepticism. “Misfortunes, calamities. And only if they will happen in places I have already been, involving people I have already met.”
Some gods were said to grant oracles visions of the futures of kings and nations, but dreams from Morgi always concerned the dreamer. Morgi could be unpredictable, but she looked after her own first and foremost.
“Did you foresee any misfortunes last night?” Brynn asked.
She was asking if he’d foreseen any misfortunes involving her. It was akin to the questions he usually got, but she wasn’t directly asking about herself, which earned her some credit in his eyes.
Cenric shook his head. “I had no foretellings last night, no. But it’s not unusual during times of peace. Sometimes I gomonths without them.” During Ovrek’s campaign to conquer Valdar, Cenric had foretellings almost nightly, but that had been wartime.
“I see.” Brynn was silent for a moment. The furrow between her brows deepened as if she was thinking. “Is every dream you have a foretelling?”
“No, I have regular nightmares, too.”
“Nightmares?” Brynn caught onto his wording. “You have no good dreams?”
“It’s not so bad,” Cenric assured her. “I don’t remember most of the regular nightmares and I’m used to it by now.”
Brynn was quiet for a time. “That seems a dubious gift.”
“It really isn’t bad,” Cenric promised. “Besides, Morgi also lets me speak to my dyrehunds.”
Brynn shot a glance to Snapper. “You can speak to him?”
“Images, smells, and simple sentences.” Cenric looked down to his dyrehund. “About what you’d expect from a dog’s mind.”
“You can speak in your minds?” For some reason, Brynn seemed to accept him hearing his dog’s thoughts more readily than his foretellings.
“Two or three words at a time,” Cenric explained. “It’s like talking to a young child.”
Brynn’s face fell and Cenric realized a moment later he should have chosen a different description. He felt the impulse to apologize, but that might push her to discuss her loss, and she might not be ready for that. After a moment, Brynn broke the silence herself.
“Do you have family in Ombra?” She was likely trying to change the subject.
“No,” Cenric answered.
“Oh. Do they live elsewhere?”
“Dead.” Cenric looked toward the sky. The gulls had mostly left them alone, but one or two of the birds still appeared to beholding out on hope. “I have an aunt who lives on a remote farm, but everyone else is gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t remember them,” Cenric replied. “Not really. I was sent to Valdar as a child, then my father was killed fighting for Aelgar before I returned. My older brothers with him. I don’t remember my mother or my sister at all.”
“I see.” Brynn’s hands slowed as she worked.
He feared she might burst into tears again at the mention of dead relatives, but her face remained impassive. She must be doing better today.
“And you? Any family?”
“My sister is dead,” Brynn replied. “Just my mother.”
