Roar (Stormheart #1)(104)
They turned down the far row of the market, and took a hidden set of stairs down into an abandoned tunnel that used to be part of an aqueduct system and now was home to Taraanar’s storm market. They walked for a while in the dark, their footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. Then eventually, they began to pass stalls. The tunnel was not wide enough to have more than one lane of stalls and the walkway, so they wound their way through the market tunnel for nearly a bell. They passed old acquaintances and familiar bits of magic, but they did not stop to visit. They kept walking until they finally came upon an enclosed market stall curtained by beads and silk fabrics with a sign that read DIVINER.
Jinx said the woman inside was one of the oldest and wisest witches in existence, but it looked more like they had stumbled upon a cheap soothsayer scam. The woman had lived for a time in the Sahrain mountains near where Jinx grew up, and Jinx’s mother had brought her to the witch when she was young and her magic was out of control. Jinx would not say what the woman had divined, only that she could, and her ability was most definitely real.
His body tensed as Jinx rang a bell outside the curtained stall. No one answered. His heart began to sink, stinging as if it sank into acid. Jinx went to ring the bell again and the curtain parted. He could see nothing inside, but when Jinx ducked past the curtain, he did not hesitate to follow. The curtain dropped back into place, settling them all into darkness. A cold sensation ran over the back of his neck, and he shivered.
A candle lit out of nowhere in front of them, a small golden glow in the still, dark space. Then dozens more followed, blazing to life all at once. The witch sat at a table, watching them.
He had expected her to be old and decrepit. She was the former, but far from the latter. Her silvery hair hung long and straight like her posture. Her dark face was smooth, and the only wrinkles he spied were a few at her neck and across the backs of her hands. Her eyes were an eerie, washed-out blue.
“Jezamine,” the woman said. “It has been some time.”
Her voice crawled over his skin, and it felt as if it clung to him, learned him. He fought off a shiver. Jezamine. It had been a long time since he’d heard someone call Jinx that.
“Hello, Avira. It’s good to see you.”
The old woman laughed. “Is it? This one doesn’t look particularly happy about it,” she said, jerking a thumb in Locke’s direction. He straightened his posture and cleared his expression as best he could in his unsettled state.
“My name is Locke,” he said. “And I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Her lips quirked, revealing a few more wrinkles. “Oh, I know. The spirits have been quite keen to tell me about you. You look as distraught as they said.” He stiffened. “Jinx did not tell you I was a spirit witch?”
“I told him,” Jinx said. “You’ve spooked him is all.”
Avira surveyed him, her eyes frighteningly intense. When they weren’t piercing through him, they flicked around his head, as if glancing at something he couldn’t see. He had the sensation of something crawling along the back of his neck, and he had to fight not to swat at the imagined things around him.
“You must learn to find your feet even among things that unsettle you, young hunter. For far more unsettling things await you.”
Cold swept through his chest. If that was prediction, he did not like it. But Avira said nothing else. She only turned toward Jinx and said, “Sit. Tell me your purpose.”
Jinx sat at the table before the spirit witch, and Locke stood behind her. On the table was a sample of each of the elements—the flame from the candle, bowls of water and sand, and what he recognized as the magic of a windstorm. The latter was in a bottle that had been uncorked, but somehow the magic remained inside instead of spilling out.
He crossed his hands over his chest and listened as Jinx told Avira about Roar’s peculiarities and the way she had taken down the skyfire storm. Locke watched the witch’s face, searching for any sign of recognition or emotion, but the woman was unreadable. Except for the moments when her eyes flicked away from Jinx to stare at the open air, as if someone else were there, filling in gaps of the story.
When Jinx finished recounting the story in its entirety, she said, “It would take us several weeks to reach Locke to confirm the minister’s story. Instead, we thought you could see for us. And if you’re willing, we hoped you could take a look at Roar. She still has not woken and—”
“I do not need to see the girl. She will wake when she’s ready.”
Locke lurched forward. “She will wake, though?” There was desperation in his voice that he knew he should hide. He knew better than to show his emotions to someone he wasn’t sure he could trust, someone who could easily manipulate him.
“My abilities do not work that way, hunter. I see actions, cause and effect. My ability to see and understand spirit does not extend to the living. She will wake. That’s all I can say. And when she does, it will be to a different life than all the ones she led before.”
Jinx asked, “Have you heard any news of Locke? Or seen anything in your visions?”
“Aye, the minister spoke the truth. The city by the sea is no more.”
Locke waited to feel something. Remorse or nostalgia or anything. He knew there had likely been tremendous loss of life. But he could not make himself feel sorrow for that place. The city had been beautiful, of that there was no doubt. But like too many beautiful things, it had rotted on the inside.