Page 74 of A Simple Truth (the Freckled Fate #2)

73

FINNLEAH

M y daggers clicked as I slid them with a swift motion into their sheaths on my leather belt.

“Do you insist on carrying all your weapons all the time?” Xentar folded his arms, his onyx eyes questioning.

“ All my weapons? I only have two daggers on me,” I gave him an exasperated look. Living with the mages, I quickly learned that my usual leathers and weapons, that were so typical in the Destroyer camp, were somewhat a novelty for them. Even now, people stared at my blades as we strolled through the village down to the sandy shore. Mages are not violent people, nor do they enjoy a reminder of violence, Xentar explained as I asked him about it.

“I think it is rather eccentric of you to carry weapons at all, like almost tricking people into believing they’d have a chance to fight you before you’d incinerate them into dust.” He tied his braids into a half knot, and I shrugged finishing my apple.

I liked Xentar.

Though I was sure he concealed his own scars under that perfect, ebony skin, he carried himself very casually, relaxed, living his life to the fullest. The typically uptight, rule following, determined, and brute like Destroyers were a complete contrast to the Creators. Creators were imaginative, bright, and lively. They found a way to turn a gloomy day into a cheerful one with their enticing stories and wild dances, accompanied by their one-of-a-kind music, played on instruments I had never seen before. They were everything and more that I had heard of as a child. Magical, whimsical, positive, kind, and so damn beautiful, like creatures straight from a fairytale. Compared to them, it felt like I was seeing the world in gray, and they saw it in color, noticing all the beauty around us.

Even the boring, white shirt I was wearing today looked better because of them; the wide sleeves now had small, red carnation flowers embroidered on them, courtesy of a couple Creators who took pity on my plain, colorless clothing.

Xentar leaned against a large boulder as we stood on the beach.

“A ring?!” I grimaced, tilting my head at him in disbelief. “You want me to find a ring you buried in the sand?” My voice was muffled by the gusts of summer wind and the roaring ocean near us.

“Yes, a gold ring of the utmost importance to me has been lost. Your job as a Seer is to find the lost item and then retrieve it,” Xentar repeated, as he summoned a small group of clouds above him, giving him instant shade—shade that I was now very jealous of, as the merciless sun burned bright above us.

“You want me to find you a gold ring in the golden sand?” I stared at the sprawling strip of seaside around us, the tiny specks of sand glistening under the rays of sunlight.

“Yep.” Xentar nodded confidently like what he was asking wasn’t ridiculous. “An easy task for a Seer, such as yourself,” he added, smiling.

I let out a sigh, plummeting down to the ground, crossing my legs as I sat down.

If I thought summoning fire required focus, I was wrong.

Fire was easy: just dip into the power. You found your source and took it, and there it was, right at your fingertips. All you had to do was shape it and wield it.

But a Seer’s gift was so much more complex. There was not a power to dip into, just never-ending silver strings of Fate that I could see, connecting matter and time.

I closed my eyes, tuning in to the sound of waves crashing into the cliffs nearby. My chest fell into a slow rhythm of exhales and inhales.

Breathe. In and out.

Minute after minute, breath after breath, my mind slipped away from reality, emptying of all thoughts. Though my eyes were still closed, others had opened, letting specks of light into the calm darkness of my being.

My Seer’s sight was still blurred, like I was watching everything through fogged-up glass, but there, amidst the muted colors were the silver strings of Fate.

“I’m here,” I said to Xentar without opening my eyes.

“Good. Now focus and look for a ring.” His voice echoed as if he was far, though I knew he stood only a few feet away.

There were two major pathways for Seers and their approaches: patterns and rhymes.

Patterns were lengthy; breaking down matter slowly between your fingers, layer by layer, until you recognize the repeating pattern and you find what you are looking for. But they were precise.

Rhymes, on the other hand, worked a lot faster, but you had to make sure it made sense and your words accurately portrayed what you were looking for, otherwise you wouldn’t find it.

“A golden ring that has been lost, wanted by most, needs to appear pretty near?” I said out loud, unable to come up with anything better.

“Your poetry is such a gift…” Xentar commented, his voice full of amusement.

“You can laugh all you want, but if I start patterns, we will be here all night,” I shouted back to him, aware that even my voice was muffled in the trance.

“Focus,” Xentar reminded me and I leveled my breaths again.

I let out a long sigh. My rhymes didn’t seem to work, and I scanned the beach for the lost ring once again. Though my body was immovable, I stood up in a daze. My steps felt so much lighter, gravity having less of a pull in here.

I trod cautiously, to avoid touching or pulling on the millions of shimmering threads in-between, lest I got tangled up in them and my mind became forever stuck here. A very minor inconvenience.

I ironically scoffed remembering the list of warnings Xentar gave me during our first lesson: don't get tangled up, don’t get lost, don’t go crazy with the visions.

Just casual reminders, nothing special.

Although I joked and laughed about it since the first time I managed to slip into the trance, my hands still turned clammy the longer I stayed in the ‘in-between’, searching for that godsdamned ring.

The ring. Focus on the ring , I told myself.

But where the hell was it?

Perhaps my mind could conjure a shovel and just start digging for it. Nobody said I had to find the ring in one particular way, and it was still faster than patterns, I reasoned.

But before I could start digging, the glistening sky turned into a black abyss, and within a single blink I was no longer on the beach. Instead, I was in Xentar’s room, at his desk, pulling on his drawer.

There, a golden ring.

Jerk! I was about to dig through the whole beach looking for it and it wasn’t even here! I murmured.

My Seer eyes closed once more until soothing darkness encompassed my mind. Thoughts slowly coming back while my breaths sped up. A moment later, the bright sun appeared, and the muffled colors were gone as Xentar looked at me curiously.

“So, did you find it?” he inquired with a half smirk.

“ Yes.” I gave him a snarky look. “But it’s not on the beach. It’s in your drawer back at the house,” I replied, narrowing my eyes at him. Xentar returned the look, his face flashing with doubt.

“How did you find it? Did you follow a thread?”

“A vision. I was in a trance right here on the beach. I looked for the ring. Rhymes weren’t working so I just started walking around the beach, looking for the ring,” I stood up, shaking the sand off my pants. “And then, next thing I know, I was in your room opening your drawer, and the ring was right there.”

“What did the ring look like?”

“A simple, golden band with a carnation flower carved on the side,” I responded.

“How did you know it was the ring in question?” Xentar interrogated with an apprehensive look on his face.

I opened my mouth but closed it a second later. I actually wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know. I saw the ring and just knew. Was it not the right one?”

“No, it was, but you shouldn’t know that. You should’ve failed this task. I didn’t give you enough detail or circumstances or emotional value surrounding the item. In fact, I lied to you about its last location.” Xentar folded his arms, staring up and down at me. “You should’ve failed, finding a million golden rings or none at all, and then you’d come back, and I would teach you about details needed for the Seer to find things.”

“Well, next time, just teach me the lesson first and not wait until I fail?” I shook my head at him, shrugging to ease the sudden tension.

“No, there is something off,” Xentar insisted. “You just barely learned how to get into abstraction and yet, you are having precise visions without being given any context about the item. This is a very advanced skill and would require a very powerful Seer.”

“I feel like we are getting off track here.” I gave him a half-crooked smile, even as my stomach uncomfortably twisted under his scrutinizing look. “You asked me to find the ring, I found it. So what if I saw a vision like some powerful Seer, isn’t that a good thing?”

“No, you are a Destroyer. We had assumed up until this point you had somehow gotten a very minor ability for glimpses of visions, not the full-on Seer capability of controlling the matter. However, now your Seer’s gift is acting on par with your Destroyer powers, if not more so. And that is very, very odd.”

“If only Bella Petrovsky knew how right she was.” I pulled out a canteen, taking a sip of water, as his eyes examined me once more. His brow rose up in question and I explained, “It’s this girl, in one of the villages Tuluma and I spent a winter in. Every time she saw me, she’d call me Odafin, which stood for odd-Finn.” I snorted at the bizarre memory. “I guess she wasn’t that far off.”

But Xentar didn’t listen to my story as he grabbed a small, black pebble and threw it to me. I didn’t catch it in time, and it dropped embarrassingly to the ground.

“Make this rock white,” he said.

“I’m sorry, but who is being weird now?” Amusement lit up my face as I picked up the smooth, black rock by my feet.

“I want you to turn that rock white, or any color for that matter, though black and white are the easiest ones,” Xentar insisted.

“At best, I am a powerful Seer , not a Creator , in case anyone here is confused...” My brow rose up as I looked at him, a light smile on my lips, but he didn’t seem to share the sentiment. Xentar just grabbed a black rock himself, immediately turning it white, as if that was supposed to explain things to me.

I liked Xentar but gods, he was not meant to teach.

“I think you have it all, Finn.” His voice turned uncomfortably grave, wiping away the half smile off my face. “All of the magic; Destroyer, Creator, Healer, and Seer,” he repeated.

“This is getting old,” I replied, folding my arms. “First, Destroyer? Fine, I clearly had some obvious indications for it that I ignored. So that one is on me. Seer? I’m still questioning that, but I’ve had dreams as far back as I can remember, and perhaps my maid was color blind and never noticed my blood turn blue while I was asleep, who knows...but I am telling you, Xentar, I have had absolutely no indication of being a Creator, nor a Healer. Plus, Healers’ magic is hereditary, so is the Destroyers’. Two plus two doesn’t equal five, so me being a Destroyer and a Healer is not feasible. It doesn’t make sense.” I motioned to my freckled face and boyish figure. “And I’m sorry a Creator ? I’m flattered, I really am. But let’s be realistic here for a moment…”

“Nothing about you makes sense, and that’s why we are here. Stop deflecting and turn the rock white, Finn.”

“Fine, I’ll humor you, but I hope you’re ready for some disappointment.” I closed my hand as he instructed, the smooth surface of the rock feeling silky against my skin. After a blink, I opened my palm, fully content to see the rock still just as black as before. “I am not going to say ‘told you so’, but here we are.” I looked at him from under my lashes, my mouth stretching with a satisfied smile.

“No, try again. Close your hand, close your eyes.” Xentar’s deep voice guided me through the darkness behind my shut eyes. “A Creator's powers are alive within them. Many feel as if a living creature resides inside of them…”

The black pebble in my palm was now coated with sweat as I held on to it tighter. Xentar calmly directed me through a search for the so-called creature. The fire within me awoke, prowling on high alert, even as my heart raced faster as I followed his instructions. Soon, I heard the familiar rustling of chains, this time loud and clunky. My brows furrowed as I took a step closer into the shadows following the sound.

Two yellow eyes as big as my head blinked from the obscurity and stared back, just as shocked to see me. I silently gasped, stumbling back until my eyes were opened.

“Fuck me, Lady Fate.” Xentar’s face paled as his eyes landed on my hand. A previously small, black rock rested in my palm, now turned a perfect light shade of gray .

I blinked once, then twice, questioning if maybe somehow my eyes were lying.

“No,” I mumbled to myself in denial. Xentar paced near me, speechless. I grabbed another black rock off the ground, closing my eyes, and searching for whatever was inside. Just as my heart was about to explode, a rustling of chains, another blink of illuminating yellow eyes in the darkness

I opened my eyes, staring at the rock.

Gray. Fucking gray...

“No, it can’t be,” I said as I grabbed another one, and then another one, turning them all a light shade of gray. “But I don’t understand,” I said, taking a step back from the small pile of gray pebbles at my feet. “Are we sure Seers can’t do that?” I ran my hand through my hair. “If you are messing with me right now, Xentar, I swear to gods, I will—”

“Believe me, I’d pick a better shade of gray if I was.” He finally found his words, his eyes darted to my dagger a second later and my eyes widened with objection.

“No,” I refused.

“Healers can’t heal themselves, Finn,” he said, as if that was supposed to convince me.

“No, I’m not stabbing you. Absolutely not.” I shook my head, holding onto my sheathed daggers.

“Finn…” Xentar stared, unyielding. “Just a little slice is all we need. And then you can heal me. No stabbing required.”

I gave Xentar a scrutinizing look. “A tiny cut, and that’s it?” My voice was still dubious of his intentions.

“A small cut, I promise,” Xentar nodded, extending his hand.

“If you decide to stab yourself so I have no choice but to use my hypothetical powers to heal you, I am leaving you for dead, just so we are clear,” I retorted, giving him one of my daggers, wincing as I watched the sharp blade slice his dark flesh.

“Now, heal me,” Xentar demanded as bright blood trickled down his arm. My body tensed, becoming a battlefield of prickling nerves; a million ants crawling under the surface. as anxiety twisted my stomach.

I spent half an hour, or perhaps it was longer, but no matter how deep I searched, or how hard I looked, I couldn’t find the golden thread of life-light within me.

“I can’t find it.” I threw in the towel. Seemingly, Xentar was too exhausted himself as he let out a long sigh, accepting my surrender.

“We will try again tomorrow, but it’s got to be there somewhere,” he replied as we started our short hike back to the lively streets of our village. I couldn’t find the energy to argue at the insanity of it all.

“I did not appreciate the simplicity of my life when all I had to worry about was making sure I didn't burn down the tents,” I gulped, fighting a growing migraine as my vision blurred. “What does any of this mean?” I questioned out loud. “And why? Why me?”

“Beats me. You are the Seer, so you are the one with all the possible explanations.” He clicked his tongue, just as unsure as I was.

We walked the rest of the way in silence until we had stopped at the doorstep of the small, cozy cottage where I stayed.

“What am I supposed to do with all of this now?” I asked, nervously picking on a small scab on my arm.

“We might not understand why, but I have an idea of what to do,” his eyes lingered at the Basalt Glass dagger at my hip. “Do you have any attachment to your blood?”

I didn’t bother asking what he meant by it before answering, “Not in particular.”