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

THE SEER - RANKARUS

"Why?"

"I told you. It's not safe."

Rankarus looked out the window from beyond the edge of the wooden frame, resisting the urge to close the shutters. Closed shutters in the afternoon would stand apart from the other windows and call attention to them. Only people who needed to hide something closed their shutters before sundown.

"Yes. You said. But you did not tell me why." Kellatra folded her arms across her chest. "Who was that man?"

"Someone I knew." Rankarus turned back to face his wife, staring at her over the bed of their small room in the inn. Abananthus, Jadaloo, and the children sat in the adjoining room. He stepped around the bed, closing the distance from Kellatra.

"Do you always knock old friends unconscious?" Kellatra scowled at Rankarus as he pulled her away from the chamber door.

"When they want to mention that I'm in town, yes." Rankarus lowered his voice, blinking his eyes as he tried to think. He had not expected Kellatra to see him in the alley. The children were hungry. She had been out buying food and found him by chance. How much could he tell her? How much did he want to tell her?

Kellatra stared at him, waiting in silence for the further explanation she clearly expected.

"I have not told you all of my past." Rankarus glanced toward the door to the other room.

"We have that trait in common, it seems." Kellatra smiled and took his hands.

"I owe someone in the city money. Or that is the way he will see it." Rankarus found he breathed a little easier with her hands in his.

"How much money?" Kellatra asked.

"Enough to want to kill me for it." Rankarus frowned as Kellatra gasped.

"You borrowed it?" Kellatra clenched his hands.

"No. He stole it from me, and I stole it back." Rankarus winced at the look in her eyes.

"That is why you did not wish to come to the City of Leaves." Kellatra looked away, obviously thinking through their conversations over the last weeks. "That is why you wanted to sell the book?"

"No." Rankarus's voice deepened in anger at the thought. "I'll never give that man anything more than a knife blade. No, I wanted to sell the book so we would have the money to go and begin somewhere anew. Someplace where no one might recognize us. Someplace we would be safe."

"This adds rubble to the ruins." Kellatra released his hands and clasped hers together in concentration. "I made an arrangement with my father."

"And the terms of that arrangement?" Rankarus's stomach soured.

"If I give him the codex, my father will convince the Academy High Council to suspend my banishment while I uncover the meaning of the text." Kellatra's eyes darted around the room, seeking something unseen.

"We cannot stay in this city." Rankarus pointed out the window in emphasis. "I cannot hide forever, and he will kill me."

"The codex and the dreams and the star are all connected." Kellatra stepped closer to Rankarus, looking up to him, her face a mixture of confusion and anger and passion.

"If the man who seeks me finds me, he will kill all of us as surely as those men and that soul catcher would have back in the inn," Rankarus said. "Give your father the book and let us leave."

"I am to take him the codex tonight," Kellatra said.

"Good." A wave of relief spread through Rankarus's limbs — cool water on sun-tender skin. They could be clear of the city before dawn. It made the errands he ran that day useless, but better to be free of the book than see his family suffer for his plans. "When do we go?"

"I will go alone." Kellatra sounded sad, the loss of the book and the chance to study it nearly bringing tears to her eyes.

"It is not safe." Rankarus followed Kellatra's gaze to the box hidden under the bed.

"That is why I must go alone." Kellatra's face hardened. He recognized the look when she would brook no argument to her mind's direction. "If something happens to me, you must protect the children. I will meet you by the north gate at middle-night."

Rankarus stared at her, uncertain what to say. All his past decisions had led to this moment, yet he could not discern which of them he would have needed to change to avoid the resulting danger surrounding his wife and children and friends. It did not matter. He could not alter the past. He could only act in the present and hope for better results in the future. A future where Kellatra and the children were safe.

"Middle-night at the north gate."

Rankarus walked to Kellatra and took her in his arms, kissing her deeply, filling the kiss with all the words he could not manage to speak — words of fear and love and hope and anger and shame. As he pulled away from the kiss, he added a few words aloud.

"If anything happens to you..." He found he did not have more words than that.

Kellatra looked up at him, a near fanaticism in her eyes.

"If anything happens to me, you will take the children and run."