The morning would have found Syr aching and restless, curled over the small lump of coin hidden on the left side of the cloak. But Syr had hidden herself too well to be found my the morning, renting the tiniest windowless room in the finest traveler’s inn she could find, a hightown establishment owned and operating by some sort of merchant collective.
The bed had been worth every coin (and she’d had to pay extra to convince the hostess that she wasn’t trouble despite her ragged appearance), but pain shot through her left side with almost every movement of her arm. As she hauled herself up in bed she realized with a sullen worry that it would be at least a week or two before she’d be doing much climbing, thanks to that stunt from last night. Maybe it would be mackerel for lunch for a while.
Syr sat up in bed and massaged her skin where it was red and irritated, mostly at her sides and hips where the chestwrap rubbed the most. The room was dark, lit only by pale mid-morning sunlight that was pooling in the hallway and creeping in under the door to her room.
Where to now?
She had most of a day to… do whatever. It was like she had told Glover: she didn’t have much to do other than get money and spend the money to stay alive. Left foot forward, right foot forward. Thieving (any thieving that was challenging enough to be worth doing, anyway) would be on hold until her shoulder healed. Which left living.
Syr scratched her head. What was living?
She lay back in bed for a while, sinking in to the pleasant cool of the fresh sheets.
This was living, right? It would do. At least for a little bit.
Syr knocked on the door with the string of beads on the handle, and at the welcome from inside she pushed her way into the darkness and out of the sunlight.
The soothsayer regarded her with intensity, as much as could be conveyed through the veiled hood that perfectly obscured their face. As before, the two of them sat and had tea, soaking in a few minutes of intent silence before Syr gathered the will to break it.
“I do… I would like… you mentioned help, earlier.”
“Hmm,” hummed the soothsayer. “You said you would think about it.”
“I’m…”
“… Skeptical.”
“Yeah. But also…”
“Worried?”
“I was going to say ‘bored’.”
“Perhaps. But also worried.”
“No…? No, I don’t think I’m worried,” Syr mused.
“I can see the worry plain, even if you cannot. Or would rather not.”
The implied chuckle annoyed Syr, but she reminded herself that the soothsayer wasn’t being rude so much as being… a soothsayer.
“Yeah, yeah. The point is, I would be grateful for the help. And I don’t have much better to be doing right now…”
“Mmm. You have many things you could be doing right now; you simply have not seriously considered any of them, because you rightly or wrongly do not believe them to be worth much consideration.”
Syr rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. If that’s true, isn’t that besides the point?”
“Ah, forgive me. A poor habit. When I speak with those who have much to ask and much to hear it is easy to simply say all that I see. You are here for my help?”
“I am. And there’s really no price?”
“None. You are heir to a talent both grave and auspicious. It is only right that I provide what guidance I can.”
“Huh. I’ll try to return the favor, if I can,” Syr tested, trying to determine how she felt about that even as she said it. “Let’s get started, then.”
The soothsayer nodded and cleared the table except for one burning candle. They grabbed a long-armed candle snuffer and craned about the little den, extinguishing every other source of light until only the little flickering point remained, illuminating Syr’s watchful face and the enigmatic purple veil.
“There are many ways to, from, and about the being—from magic. Some—like you—have a talent, born or given. Your being burns like flame. It may consume yourself and then the world around you, or it may peacefully cast warmth and light.
“Mine does not. The vital world is as reactive to my will as a granite mountain is to a child’s tiny, clumsy hands. I have little to teach you about the exercise of your will.”
Syr arched an eyebrow. “So…”
“I am a seer, young one. My craft is to see what is true, even if what is true is not obvious to the eyes.”
The tip of the candle snuffer reappeared in the little sphere of candlelight, and then the little sphere of candlelight was no more. Syr and the soothsayer sat opposite each other in perfect darkness, accompanied by the familiar waxy smell of the extinguished candles and the occasional creak of lumber.
Syr said nothing, so the soothsayer continued.
“Some of such seeing is possible for anyone, even the dimmest and most uninterested. Some is only possible to me because I have a knack. I have little doubt that with your obvious talent and your curiosity, you will come to what is important quickly.”
“Am I looking? Now?”
“Yes.”
“For…?”
“Your self, for starters.”