Tell me where you are, croí,he says one more time, but I ignore him, close enough to the Seer to know that it’s a matter of hours until I can tell him where I am and where we should meet.
I roll my shoulders as I look around the mountainside, categorizing everything we pass in case I can find something useful to us once more. The handfuls of herbs shoved into my pocket won’t last.
“We’ve got at least another three hours before we reach the top,” Url calls over his shoulder to us both and Pemba sighs as he settles back into his seat, tucking me in closer to his side.
***
Url stops at the base of the steps that lead to the Seer’s chambers, rooms carved out of the stone of the mountaintop itself by magic for the holiest of beings in all the Southern Lands.
There are six mountaintops like this with chambers for a Seer to live in, but there are only three Seers alive today. Years ago, I asked my mother and father what happened to the others, but they didn't have an answer for me.
I wonder now if they knew and were trying to protect me from something.
All witches come to this Seer, the oldest and most sought-after. She's not the sort of woman you come to without being prepared to humble yourself, and I’ve been training myself for this moment for more than half of my life. The fae once favored her as well, but when she insulted the Savage Prince with his own fate, she fell out of their good graces. They travel to one of the others now instead.
No one knows what his fate held, only that it enraged him.
I can't imagine being so pompous and self-absorbed as to spurn a Seer, especially this one.
Pemba helps me out of the cart and pulls the pack onto his shoulders with a small grunt. He glances around the area, but there's no sign of the fae soldiers.
It makes me nervous.
The goblin chuckles and points towards the thick tree line on the far side of the clearing. “There's a fae door through there. They would’ve traveled up here to step through it.”
A fae door.
The mysterious structures of an open doorway in the middle of nowhere that allow the fae to travel large distances with a mere step. I’d never seen one in person, but again, my father told me about finding them on his travels.
The very idea of doing so fills my stomach with roiling dread. There's no way I would step through a magic door and be transported thousands of miles as though it were nothing.
I ruffle my jacket, trying to brush off any extra dirt that might be there, as the nerves over what I'm about to do finally hit me. I’m going to learn my fate, my one purpose on this earth that the Fates themselves decide. The Seer will divine it and then hand it to me, and I must follow the instructions without question.
The very thought of turning my back on my fate is inexcusable. I could never do such a thing. I was always an obedient daughter to my mother and father. A good daughter, a good sister. A good Ravenswyrd witch, ready to take up the mantle as a healer and a neutral party in the world, never to harm and only to help.
I might have strayed from that path already, but I am still the same girl I was in the forest. I'm still ready to do the right thing.
Every fiber of my being prays that my fate is the man who whispers in my mind, the one who can't bear the thought of me being hurt or feeling his pain, the one who told me his fate is me. One simple thing, after so much pain… it can’t possibly be too much to ask for.
“Thank you for the ride. We appreciate the help,” Pemba says to the goblin, his shoulders straight and a serious look on his face as he reaches out a hand to offer him a handshake.
I don't know if he’s trying to emulate our father or if it's just coming naturally to him, but I know my father will be looking down on us both from Elysium with pride.
I just hope he missed me using my mother's scepter to take three lives.
“No problem at all,” the goblin says as he clasps Pemba’s hand.
I feel the warning in my gut before he moves, a shout leaving my lips as the hand clasped around Pemba’s jerks, yanking my brother forward while the other hand clamps around his throat.
It's so fast and violent that neither of us has time to react until it's too late. Our time growing up in the forest has made us easy targets, wary but with no clue what to do when bad things happen to us, and dammit, they just keep happening.
I trip over my feet as I stumble forward, but the goblin pulls out a sharp knife, the same one the elf attempted to use on the horse just yesterday, and he presses the sharp blade against Pemba’s throat.
I stop where I am, fear creeping up my spine as I hold out my hands in the universal sign of surrender.
“Now now, girlie, stay right there,” he drawls with the confidence of a killer, and I nod my head obediently.
“I want the magic stick. That's the price for the trip.”
