The Seer by Rowan McAllister (reading comprehension books .TXT) 📕

wasn’t sure if the man had stopped or just gotten too far ahead of him. His hands shook and his temples pounded with the effort, but he finally caught the merest ghost of residual energy a few streets away.

Praying the brother had gone in the opposite direction, Daks took off, clinging to that tingle of energy like a lifeline.

Are you really racing a brother toward a gifted? Are you insane?

These questions rang through his head in Shura’s voice, but he didn’t slow his pace. Sometimes he just had to lead with his gut, and his gut told him to run toward the problem, not away from it. In that moment, he felt more alive and less defeated than he had in weeks.

He fixed things when they were broken. He freed people when they were chained. He bashed heads when they needed bashing. That was his nature. That was the only thing keeping him going on dark nights when pain and regret closed in. All that other crap he’d had to deal with at the Scholomagi and back on his family’s holding was complicated bullshit he couldn’t change anyway. Here he could make a difference.

He ducked through alleys and skirted darkened buildings in as straight a line toward the source of the magic as he could manage. At last he skidded to a halt, his eyes riveted on a shadowy figure in an alley across another open square. Whoever it was, they weren’t using any magic now, but the last tendrils of it clung to them like smoke; otherwise he never would have spotted them. Breathing heavily, he propped a hand against the rough wood of the building next to him and took a moment to get some air and decide how to approach. The brother could still be out there. Daks didn’t have much time for social niceties, even if that had been his forte.

He could just sneak up and give the stranger a little tap on the temple or the back of the head and apologize later. That would probably be more effective than relying on his charm in the limited time he had… but that might make establishing a rapport later a bit challenging.

A sudden sliver of light where there shouldn’t be any caught his eye, and he froze. A door had opened across the square, spilling enough light to illuminate Tarek’s ugly face as he and his companion stepped hurriedly inside a warehouse. He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t heard them approach. The door closed, and all became dark and quiet again as Daks ground his teeth in frustration.

He’d apparently found the market he wasn’t supposed to be looking for. Now that he wasn’t straining to follow the last wisps of magical energy, he could sense the press of bodies in the building. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gifted take a few paces out of the shadows toward that door, then stop. From that distance and with the layers of clothing and bulky bag swung across his or her chest, Daks couldn’t discern any features, but whoever it was hugged themselves before they took another, more determined stride forward, forcing Daks into action. He couldn’t let them go through that door. Nothing good would happen to them there.

“Hey!” he hissed as loudly as he dared, rushing out of his hiding place. “Don’t do it. Come with me and I’ll find you a safer way out.”

The figure’s hood fell back as he whirled in Daks’s direction, and Daks caught a glimpse of a fine-featured young man, probably only a couple inches shorter than his own six feet, in the moonlight. But instead of Daks’s urgently hissed offer stalling him long enough for Daks to get close, the man’s eyes widened in apparent horror and he threw a hand out in front of him.

“Stay away!” he shouted before turning and bolting.

Shit!

Daks took off after him. “Wait! I’m trying to help. I can help you.”

“No!” the man yelled in seeming panic over his shoulder. “Stay back! Get away from me!”

His voice had gone up a couple of octaves from the first “Stay away,” but why? Daks could be a little scary-looking sometimes, he guessed, but this seemed like a bit of an overreaction. After all, he was only offering to help.

He’d chased the man all the way across the square before the tingling along his skin registered and Daks realized what that meant. Unfortunately for both of them, Daks’s brain kicked in too late as the man made a strangled noise and crumpled to the ground. Magic radiated from him in waves, unmistakable to any Sensitives in the area. Daks spit out another curse and rushed to the prone form.

“Hey, push it back,” he ordered, as if he was one of the professors at the Scholomagi.

The young man flailed at him, groaning. “Get away. Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.”

Daks hesitated. How was he supposed to get both of them to safety without touching him? They needed to leave. Now.

Whatever the man’s gift was, he just had to take the chance it wouldn’t lash out at him once he made contact. He grabbed the man’s wrist and ducked under his arm to drag him to his feet as the magic rolled over him, tingling along every nerve. “We have to get out of here!”

“No,” the man groaned weakly a second before another, stronger surge of energy erupted through him.

This close, the magic was almost overwhelming, but Daks wasn’t blinded so much that he missed the brother stepping into the road ahead of them.

Seven Hells! If not for Rift-blighted luck, I’d have none at all.

Daks tried to spin them in the opposite direction, but the brother shouted, and the man in his arms suddenly stiffened and collapsed again, his weight dragging Daks down with him. Daks slowed his descent, but only marginally, because the next wave of energy blasted him to his knees. He wasn’t the only one to feel it either. The brother, who’d