Chapter 3 of

Eyes of Fire

by Lauren Stinton

The king told Cale to bring anyone he wanted. So Cale did.

Lord Rhyan was a flamemaker—a bored flamemaker, according to Cale, though why that was important for this venture Hamal didn’t know. They were going to arrest a bad man who could kill flamemakers with fire. But even after the situation was thoroughly explained to him, Lord Rhyan eagerly accepted the chance to be a member of Cale’s team.

Chestirad and Ermond were flamemakers too, but they were also something Rhyan was not: seasoned soldiers. Every night around their campfire, Chestirad polished his sword and what seemed to be a dozen knives he carried somewhere on his person.

Ermond, meanwhile, was a brooding sort of fellow who liked poetry and smoked a long, thin pipe called a ballister. Apparently, it was something rich people liked to do in Dasken. Just a few days into their journey, Hamal knew more than he wished about Ermond and a woman named Nallia who, by all accounts, seemed to like men who read poetry and smoked skinny pipes.

Will Chiodo was a charter. This meant he could read the earth the way Hamal could read a person’s bones. Will had brought his dog with him—a surprisingly large, sandy-colored wolf pup whose fangs were visible even when her mouth was closed. Hamal, who liked dogs, thought it was funny how most of the men in their party pretended the wolf wasn’t there and became very quiet whenever she got up and moved around.

“It’s a sand wolf,” Cale explained to Lord Rhyan one night beneath the stars.

“By the gods, how did a charter acquire a sand wolf?” Rhyan exclaimed.

“He gave her to him,” Hamal replied. “Cale did. When we were in the East Territory a few weeks ago. Cale found the puppy in the ravine and gave her to Will as a present.”

Rhyan’s brows lifted, and he made a strange noise in the back of his throat. Staring at Cale, he said, “You found a wolf on a piece of land commonly believed to be haunted, and you took the wolf and gave it to someone? As a gift.”

“She’s not an ‘it.’ The wolf is a girl,” Hamal said. “Her name is Mercy.” A feeler name.

“Yes,” Cale answered. “I did give the wolf as a gift.”

“Ah,” Rhyan said a few long moments later.

Gregory Almes was a reader and official recorder for the king. The king required a reader to document their journey; this was standard practice when the king’s business took place outside the city. Gregory spent most of his days with a pencil and a notebook in his hands. Even in the saddle, he was constantly writing. The king would receive Gregory’s report when they returned to the city.

Hainn and Vincent were weathermakers. Hainn was quiet, barely saying a word unless he was blatantly asked a question, and Vincent loved water. Something about him seemed a little different than the other members of his clan, and after a while Hamal noticed that Vincent constantly had a waterskin in his hand. All the time. He drank more water than anyone else in their party. As the days passed, Hamal began to wonder if Vincent needed someone to heal him of something. It was a lot of water.

Gild, a healer, had four sons and three daughters with his weathermaker wife.

Kolling was an archer. She journeyed by herself during the day and, every night, appeared at sunset with dinner hanging off her saddle.

And the last member of their party was Masly Hawl. The seer who had kidnapped the king’s brother.

For three weeks following his trial, he’d stayed in a dark cell in the king’s prison, but more recently the king had allowed him to move back to his house under careful guard. Masly now lived there with a handful of the king’s soldiers and a court-assigned servant named Reckoning, a feeler who didn’t smile very much.

When Cale told the king he wanted Masly to accompany them, the king had stared down his long nose at Cale and eventually said, “Very well. I don’t make a habit of arguing with seers.”

Which Hamal didn’t understand at all, because Cedrick argued with Cale all the time. Sometimes they even bickered back and forth like brothers who had very good manners.

So Masly went with them.

It was an interesting mix of people, to be sure.

Toward the end of their eighth day on the road, they came to a small town called Redsprin.

Even before they passed through the gate, Hamal began to suspect this was a town without any feelers. Even he, just a healer, could sense that something wasn’t right about this place. Everything was dirty and chaotic. There weren’t any streets—just muddy tracks that tried to swallow wagon wheels and people’s boots. Residents waded through the muck as if they didn’t see it anymore, and no one was wearing clean clothes. Most people ignored Cale’s party, and those who stopped to stare at them—at Cale and Masly, more than the rest—had strange eyes. There was an emptiness in them that Hamal didn’t like.

He leaned sideways in the saddle and, in as quiet a voice as possible, whispered to Cale, “Why are we staying here again?”

“Thieves,” Cale replied, also quiet. “This area of the country is notorious for theft. Highwaymen, mostly. Or armed men hiding in the trees. I would not typically direct anyone through this land, but unfortunately, it is the most direct route to our destination. The town, at least, offers a small amount of protection against external forces.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. “A small amount of protection.”

Hamal knew what he was feeling. A town without feelers felt different than other places, and the situation was never good. If feelers couldn’t live there, something inside the town needed to be healed—as soon as possible.

The town had two inns situated around the muddy center square, and after a quick conversation between Cale and Masly, they chose the inn on the right. It was called Mourning Dove, a name that Hamal thought to be sadly fitting. The inside of the inn was cleaner than the outside, but the windows were small and there weren’t many lamps to keep out the night. At least the main room was warm. A fire spit and crackled on the hearth built like a large triangle in the corner.

Cale’s party took every available room on the inn’s second floor, and once that was done, they returned to the dining room for supper. Five of them—Hamal, Cale, Gregory the reader, Masly, and Lord Rhyan—sat together in a large booth in the back of the room. Hamal had learned that his friend Cale liked to watch things from the back, and he assumed Masly was the same way.

The venison stew was good, better than Hamal expected it to be, given the state of the town. Some of the others seemed a bit hesitant, however. Lord Rhyan made a face and then ate only the bread, and Gregory pretended to eat but only poked around his stew bowl with his spoon.

Hamal was halfway done with his meal when one of the customers dropped a dish. The plate hit the floor and shattered, pieces splintering outward. The townsfolk roared with laughter, and people lifted their drinks.

Before the broken pieces stopped moving, a little dark form raced out of a corner and began to pick them up.

Hamal squinted, trying to see through the shadows clinging to the room. Was that a child?

The broken shards and pieces of fallen food went into a bucket, and then the small form fled back to the corner, where it sat in the darkness opposite the fireplace and picked through the bucket, choosing bits of things that it shoved into its mouth.

It was a child. A girl, Hamal thought, but he couldn’t quite tell from where he was sitting. Was this her job—to clean the floor when someone dropped a dish? Frowning, Hamal turned back to the table and discovered he was not the only one whose interest the child had captured. Cale and Masly both stared toward the corner where the little girl sat, nearly invisible in the shadows.

“I have no idea what that is,” Masly said, his soft, boyish voice barely audible above the noise of the dining room.

“Prophetic,” Cale said.

“Not a prophet,” Masly replied. “Her eyes would give her away, and not even the master of this inn would dare treat a prophet-child in this fashion.” He frowned toward the innkeeper, who was laughing uproariously at a nearby table.

“Granted,” Cale said, “but something to do with prophecy.”

Hamal watched them and the girl in the corner and Gregory, who was writing things down again, and Lord Rhyan, who was twisting around and trying to see what everyone was talking about. It could be this way with seers sometimes—half conversations, sentences not fully formed. Hamal tried to follow along. They were confused about the child’s gift? Was that it?

Masly slowly said, “Could be, could be. Whatever it is—it’s a bit like looking at Hamal for the first time.”

Cale chuckled as if Masly had told a joke.

“Looking at me? What’s looking at me?” Hamal asked, but neither seer seemed to hear him.

The innkeeper walked by, and Lord Rhyan reached out and snagged a corner of his sleeve. The man was as tall and wide as a dining table set on end, and Rhyan, not a small man, nearly missed his sleeve altogether.

“Your pardon,” Rhyan said politely. He nodded toward the child. “Who is that little boy in the corner?”

A boy, not a girl. I was mistaken, Hamal thought. Truly, this room was very dark. It was a wonder there weren’t more accidents with broken dishes. Then another thought occurred to him. Was this the only food the child had—whatever he cleaned up off the floor? He moved fast, as if he thought the things he had just cleaned off the floor might be taken from him at any moment.

“Oh, that?” the innkeeper said. “That’s Rose. That’s what we call her.”

So it is a little girl. Hamal glanced at the corner again.

“The little thing doesn’t speak,” the innkeeper continued. “A thiever dropped her off here last year and left some coin for her, but then he never come back, and coin run out, and she’s been sickly ever since.”

“Don’t you have healers in Redsprin?” Hamal asked.

The innkeeper leveled cool, dark eyes upon him. “The coin run out,” he repeated. “Healers don’t work for no coin.”

“Some of them do,” Hamal said.

“What is her gift?” Masly asked.

The innkeeper shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. The child is odd.” He tapped his forehead. “Up here. She hasn’t shown no signs of a gift since she came. Naturally, that were one of the first questions I asked that thiever, but he didn’t know either. Said he found her out on the road.” The innkeeper harrumphed. “Of course he did. Thievers is always honest, you know.” He laughed loudly.

“Didn’t you ask her what her gift was?” Hamal asked.

The large man growled, “She don’t talk. Not a word.”

After the innkeeper had walked away, Rhyan lowered his voice and said to the rest of them, “I daresay we might get a better night’s sleep out in the woods.”

“Might be true,” Masly muttered.

He and Cale looked back to the child in the corner.

“What do you see?” Hamal asked, his shoulder brushing Cale’s arm.

“She’s peculiar,” Cale replied.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure I could describe it to you. It is more of a sense than a sight. That, indeed, is another odd occurrence. I can see nothing about this child clearly.”

Masly agreed with a nod. “Yes, and that’s strange. I should be able to see something, but her gift is quiet. It hides her. Whatever it is.”

Gregory’s pencil scratched the page. He made notes as quickly as he could.

Blowing out his breath in a hot sigh, Rhyan rolled his eyes and straightened up on the bench. “Gentlemen, if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is indecision.”

Hamal believed it. Rhyan was a flamemaker.

As they all knew he was a flamemaker, perhaps they should have been expecting it, but they weren’t. They jumped as Rhyan took hold of Hamal’s bowl and threw it on the floor. The porcelain shattered, the pieces bouncing everywhere. Customers laughed, glasses raised.

“If we are all so curious,” Rhyan said, “let’s meet her, shall we?”

– H –

Comment below or click here to find us on Facebook. Copyright notice: © 2020 by Lauren Stinton. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.