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

Ravi pressed closer to his side, and when Daks glanced down at him in surprise, Ravi’s bright amber gaze held his, shadowed with concern.

“Will you be all right?” he asked quietly.

Daks frowned. He hadn’t thought he was that obvious. “I’m fine.”

It came out a little gruffer than he’d intended, but Ravi didn’t look away.

Ravi was silent for a few beats before he licked his lips and said, “Shura told me what happened to you, years ago. I just… I wanted to say thank you for what you did in the boglands and for all this, now. I haven’t said it yet, and I should have. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

Despite the pitch and sway of the chunk of wood barely separating them from watery death, Daks felt his lips curve. “Don’t get soft on me now. You’re going to make me think you might just like me a little.”

Ravi’s open, concerned expression closed off, and Daks was immediately sorry. He shouldn’t poke. He knew he shouldn’t, but he just couldn’t seem to help himself sometimes.

Ravi took a step back, putting distance between them, and Daks felt the loss like a punch to the chest. Without thinking, he released his death grip on the railing, snagged Ravi’s hand, and squeezed it.

“I’m sorry. I’m an ass. If Shura told you, then you know why, but that’s no excuse. I appreciate the gratitude, but it’s not necessary. I’m partly to blame for the mess in the first place, remember? Plus, that bit by the river yesterday wasn’t fair with everything else going on. I shouldn’t have teased you.” He was rambling. He knew he should stop but couldn’t seem to stem the nervous flow of words. “We’ll be safe on the other side in no time, and we’ll both get a good, hot meal and a long rest… and maybe start over? How’s that sound? Good? Eben has some of the best ale in Samebar, and believe me, I’ve sampled ales from north to south. It’s—”

Ravi’s cold hand suddenly squeezed his, shutting Daks up. Ravi wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was staring down at the water. Daks couldn’t read his face, but all the color had drained from his cheeks.

“What is it?” Daks asked when Ravi didn’t move or speak again. The rest of the people on the ferry were chatting and laughing, but the silence coming from his companion was deafening.

“Ravi?” he prodded again.

Ravi took in a long, shuddering breath and slowly lifted his gaze to meet Daks’s. The look in his amber eyes made Daks’s guts clench.

“I… I was wrong,” Ravi whispered hoarsely. “I thought that my Visions were blocked somehow. For a while, I even tried to convince myself those Visions could have been about what happened to us in the boglands, but I knew it wasn’t true. It didn’t feel true.”

“Okay. You’re starting to scare me here,” Daks replied breathlessly. “Are you having one of your feelings? I don’t sense a Vision.”

“Not exactly. It just clicked. The water… it’s the same color as in my Visions, the exact same color. It’s coming. I can feel it.”

“What’s coming?”

“The wall. The gray wall.”

Daks’s skin grew cold as he turned to look upriver again, past the treetops, to the mountains, and then up to the sky. The clouds had darkened, and the lightning was more pronounced now, as was the pitch and yaw of the ferry. He wasn’t imagining it.

“You’re sure?” Daks asked, hoping Ravi would say he wasn’t.

Ravi scowled at him and tried to pull away, but Daks tightened his grip on the hand he held. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”

“I don’t understand most of the time,” Ravi hissed, casting a nervous glance toward the other passengers. “I just know things sometimes. Like pieces of a puzzle, they make no sense until they click together. I don’t know how I know, but it’s happening and soon.”

His lips trembled, and he sounded just as frustrated and frightened as Daks felt, so Daks sucked in a breath and tried to calm himself. They could figure this out.

A tingling started where Daks held Ravi’s hand, and Daks groaned inwardly. He shot a glance to Ravi’s face, but he already knew what he’d see. Ravi’s eyes had paled from their usual golden hue to almost silver in the weak light filtering through the clouds. He gasped and clutched at Daks’s hand.

Daks quickly searched the faces of their fellow travelers, but thankfully none of them seemed to have noticed anything wrong.

“It’s okay,” Daks whispered as he pulled Ravi against his chest, supporting him and wrapping his cloak around them both. “I’ve got you, and we’re almost halfway across. No one will come after us now.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Ravi gasped as he leaned into Daks for support and shuddered. “It’s going to happen, Daks. Here and now.”

“The same as before or different?”

“The same.”

The fat rope that carried them across the river creaked as the boat strained against it from the water rushing toward them, and Daks gulped and eyed the clouds in the distance again as he held Ravi close. Rotating to shield him from the others, he let the magic of the Vision wash over him. When he finally spotted the sheets of what had to be rain falling from those far-off clouds as blue and orange slashes of lightning arced through them, he groaned, closed his eyes, and clutched Ravi almost convulsively.

Fuck me.

Before fear could paralyze him, Daks gripped Ravi’s shoulders and pushed him an arm’s length away. “Okay, Ravi, snap out of it,” he ordered harshly, giving the man a shake even as his own knees quaked. “Are you weak? Are you going to let this thing control you? No? Then push it away.”

Ravi swayed with the pitching of the raft and blinked at him, a bit dazed at first before his eyes finally cleared and then narrowed in hurt and anger.

Daks smiled grimly. That was