The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Episodes 1-3 of 7)

THE SEER - KELLATRA

"Thank you, Jadaloo."

Kellatra closed the ledger book in which she had been writing and stood behind the desk in the small storeroom she used for her bookkeeping.

"You can turn in for the night." Kellatra smoothed the wrinkles of her dress. "Look in on the little ones quickly if you don't mind."

"Of course, ma'am." Jadaloo nodded and headed for the back stairs to the upper level where she slept in a converted attic. Kellatra frowned. Nine years and she still could not convince the girl to call her by her given name. Jadaloo had come to them looking for work when her parents died in her eleventh year, and she had been living with them ever since. Most days, she seemed more like an elder daughter than a serving girl. Kellatra wished her real children were half as well behaved as Jadaloo even half the time.

Kellatra walked down the hall, past the private dining cubbies, and into the common room. A man stood at the ale counter, his back to her. She saw Abananthus standing at the rear of the room before his favorite table. He looked concerned as he started around the table toward the ale counter. The man at the counter turned to face her, and she froze. The man who stared at her could not be the man he appeared to be.

"I have come for it." Menanthus, or the man who looked like him, nodded toward her.

Kellatra swallowed, trying to still her suddenly pounding heart and calm her panicked mind. The man's presence meant one thing.

"If you've come for my forgiveness, you have wasted your journey." Kellatra wiped her sweating palms on the folds of her dress as she forced herself to step closer to the man who could not be Menanthus. She noticed Abananthus slowly approaching from behind the stranger.

"I have come for my package." The man who was not Menanthus stepped around the corner of the ale counter.

"I don't know how you found me again, but I have nothing for you, and I want nothing to do with you." Kellatra knew she could only feign ignorance of the man's intentions for so long. Eventually, she would need to do something. Likely something she had sworn to herself never to do again. She focused her thoughts and silently repeated the words she had once said so often so many years ago.

A clear mind sees the truth.

"Don't tuss me about, girl." The man came closer. "Give me the package I gave you."

"You didn't give me any package." Kellatra found it easy to speak this lie, as it happened to be true. The man who had given her the package stood dead, turned to stone in an alley across town.

"I think you have made a mistake." Abananthus stepped up beside the man who was not Menanthus. "She does not know what you speak of. I think it best you leave." Abananthus placed his large palm on the man's shoulder. Kellatra noticed his other hand concealed a table knife.

The man who was not Menanthus curled his lips in a snarl as he turned to Abananthus, thrusting his fist to the large man's chest. Abananthus flew through the air and crashed against the wall, dangling with his feet above the ground, suspended by an invisible hand. He clutched at his neck, choked by unseen fingers.

A clear mind sees the truth.

Kellatra's senses expanded as her focus narrowed. In a single moment, she felt her heart beating in her chest, heard Abananthus gasping for breath, sensed the cool air from an open window, smelled the scent of stale ale and chicken grease from the rag sitting on the counter, tasted the sourness of fear on her tongue, and saw past the appearance of the man who was not Menanthus to glimpse the truth. She perceived the eternal energy at the heart of all things, throbbing through all existence, manifesting as her body and mind, the men before her, the inn around her, the town beyond its walls, the whole of the world, and all the cosmos. Then she aligned her will and her desires with the energy of all things, making it unfold into a reality of her design.

Kellatra raised her hands and rotated them as though spinning the wheel of a butter churn. The man who was not Menanthus turned to look at her even as his body continued to face the opposite direction, the loud crack of bone and sinew filling the still air. Abananthus dropped to his feet, still holding his neck as he gasped for breath, his legs unsteady as he leaned against a nearby table. The man who was not Menanthus blinked at Kellatra in surprise, and then the life faded from his eyes and he collapsed to the floor, dead.

"Are you injured?" Kellatra stepped to Abananthus, helping him stay steady on his feet.

"What is that?" Abananthus pointed to the dead man in horror.

Kellatra turned to the body, watching as the open eyes faded from green to black, the brown skin turned pale white, and the features of the face softened into a nondescript mass that might have resembled anyone. Only the absent ear remained missing.

"A soul catcher." Kellatra pulled Abananthus away from the strange corpse. "They don't usually possess The Sight."

"What you did..." Abananthus left the rest of his thought unspoken as he stared at her.

"You must never speak of what I did." Kellatra held Abananthus's hand and looked into his frightened eyes. "Especially not to Rankarus."

Abananthus nodded in confused silence.

A piercing scream from the upper level of the inn raised Kellatra's gaze. A second cry followed the first, louder and more terrifying. A man burst from the far hall above, flames consuming his flesh and clothes, a human torch racing around the balcony, wailing in pain, the fire spreading to everything he touched, leaving a blazing trail behind him.

"The children!" Kellatra turned from Abananthus and raced for the stairwell even as the burning man fell over the balcony railing and crashed to the corner of the common room.

"Put that fire out!" Kellatra shouted to Abananthus as she raised the hem of her skirt and dashed up the stairs. Abananthus stared at the man in flames writhing on the floor, seeming uncertain what to do. She ignored him. She thought only of Lantili and Luntadus, her daughter and son. If someone had harmed her children, she would do more than break necks.