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

Ravi clutched that damned precious bag of his against his chest and grimaced. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid. Sorry. I’ll stop.”

Now Daks felt like a jerk for saying anything, and he sighed.

“Please, don’t apologize,” Fara cut in, before Daks could come up with the right thing to say. “I’m sure it’s not stupid at all. If you have something you’d like to share, I think we’d all like to hear it.”

Some of that warmth he’d lost earlier returned to Daks’s chest as he threw an encouraging smile at her. She’d been a little standoffish with Ravi since they’d started this journey, and he was glad to see her making an effort, particularly when Ravi’s embarrassed grimace softened into something uncertain but hopeful.

“I’ve always wanted to see the boglands,” Ravi said hesitantly.

“Why?”

The question came out a bit more derisively than he’d intended. He started to take it back, but when Ravi’s expression turned from hesitant and embarrassed to irritated, Daks decided to hold his tongue. He liked it when Ravi got fired up. It made life more interesting. For good measure, he threw Ravi his cockiest grin and drank deeply from the bottle that had somehow made it back to him, while cocking an eyebrow at him challengingly.

To his delight, Ravi rolled his eyes and turned to Fara, haughtily dismissing him. “My family are all scholars, scribes, and teachers. I was raised surrounded by books and stories. Some of them, uh….” He bit his lip and cringed slightly. “Some of them proscribed by the Brotherhood.”

His hands tightened on his bag again, almost reflexively, confirming Daks’s suspicions about what it contained. That must be one important book.

“Anyway,” Ravi continued, “there’s a story about the boglands that I was always very fond of. I used to read it over and over as a child, and I wanted to see the place, to feel what they felt. It isn’t quite as romantic as I’d imagined.” His face flushed darker in the firelight.

“What story?” Shura asked, surprising Daks.

He really shouldn’t have been surprised. Cigani were famous all over Kita for their love of stories and storytelling. She must have surprised Ravi too, because his eyes widened before he glanced at Fara and grimaced. “Perhaps I shouldn’t.”

“No, please,” Fara urged. “That would be lovely. Too many stories have been lost since the coming of the Brotherhood, I think. Times are changing. They shouldn’t be lost altogether.”

Ravi licked his lips.

“If you’re sure,” he said hesitantly.

“Please.”

He nodded and took a pull from his waterskin before sitting straighter against the tree trunk and drawing in a long breath.

“In the reign of King Hatal the Mighty, before the coming of Blessed Harot, Rassa was a much more savage place than it is today,” he began, his voice taking on a melodic quality Daks hadn’t heard before. “Lesser nobles still fought constant battles over territory. Pirates, barbarians from the mountains, and other tribal peoples made annual raids on the border settlements. And Riftspawn and rogue magic users roamed freely throughout the land, leaving only destruction and despair in their wakes. Lawless and godless, the people suffered greatly.”

When Ravi paused for breath, Daks threw him a smirk and cocked an eyebrow, making Ravi grimace apologetically and clear his throat. “The book was obviously a copy of a much older manuscript, probably done after Harot’s ascension, but obviously before the Brotherhood started destroying such things,” he qualified, his cheeks pinking in the firelight as he shot a nervous glance toward Shura.

“Keep going,” Daks said.

With another nervous glance at Shura, Ravi cleared his throat again. “Well, okay, uh, King Hatal had three sons. Rolf, the eldest and heir, was much like his father: undefeated in battle, determined, and merciless. His second son, Ero, was the more poetic, fanciful type, with some small talent for magic. Women and men alike swooned over Ero’s handsome face, his intricate illusions, and his skills with the lute, rather than in battle. But despite their vast differences in personalities and skills, King Hatal was said to have loved his two elder sons equally, even more than the magic sword that had made him invincible in battle and given him the crown. Volumes are filled with praises for both princes, even before Rolf ascended to the throne and Ero wedded Princess Darutha, heir to Samebar, ensuring peace between the two kingdoms for decades… but this story isn’t about them. This is the story of Ael, Harat’s youngest and mostly forgotten son—the scarred prince of Rassa.”

Ravi cut the briefest of glances in his direction, so brief Daks might have missed it if he hadn’t been watching the man so raptly. Ravi’s amber eyes glowed in the firelight—not that otherworldly glow they’d had when he’d spoken his prophecy, but something warmer, happier, as if this was the real Ravi he hadn’t shown them before.

As he spun his tale into the night, Daks couldn’t tear his gaze away. If he were honest with himself, he was more entranced by the storyteller than the story itself, but he got the gist of it.

Scarred across much of the left side of his face by the fire that had killed his mother, Ael had withdrawn into the world of books and away from the rest of his overachieving family—perhaps a little like a certain Seer they all happened to know, though Daks was just guessing on that. At nineteen, Ael had fallen in love with a young, eager scholar of a lesser noble family and kept it hidden from his father for fear of the man’s disapproval. The lovers intended to run away together to avoid any political marriage the king might try to force Ael into, but they were discovered and betrayed.

Ael’s young scholar, Balin, was forced to leave Rassat in disgrace and return to his family’s hold in the boglands. But only a week after his dramatic departure, word reached the king’s court that the hold had been beset by a giant Riftspawn. Forbidden to leave