The Seer - eARC by Sonia Lyris Read Free Book Online Page A

to do with this.
    Well, neither did he.
    As two guards stepped to intercept Cahlen, Nalas stepped back, a hand on the hilt of his sword.
    Innel could see this playing out very badly indeed. He stepped into the middle, a hand out to stop Nalas from drawing his blade.
    Oblivious, Cahlen walked directly to Innel. To the other two guards, he held up a closed fist in an abrupt motion. Everyone stopped but his sister.
    “Cahlen,” he said sharply, to get her attention.
    Innel could imagine the stories that would follow this: not only had Innel slain his brother, but the very day the king let him walk away from that, he had tried to kill his own sister in the hallway outside his mother’s apartment.
    It wouldn’t matter that the king had ordered these guards, or that Innel had not drawn a blade; rumor had a way of following blood.
    Untrained, unarmed, and half his weight, Cahlen was scarcely more dangerous to him than one of her messenger birds. But the guards were plenty dangerous; if she were seized by another tantrum now and came at him, they would take her down and hurt her, regardless of what Innel said or did.
    He searched her face as she came close. Was she still angry?
    Close enough to hit. Close enough to kiss. She did neither, standing scant inches from him, looking up at him, blinking rapidly.
    “Cahlen?” he asked gently.
    “Brother.” She gulped for air. She seemed upset, almost about to weep. He had not seen her cry since she was a baby. But this was not a typical day.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “I need to fix the east tower dovecote,” she said, voice low. “The birds are too crowded. They don’t fly well. Will you ask for me? The king, the ministers, whoever it is that you must ask.”
    When Innel and Pohut, five and seven, had been taken into the Cohort, the group had numbered nearly forty children, ten of them girls. Cahlen had been brought in two years later, but in weeks was sent back to live with their mother. Between the strange moods, insensible responses, and a tendency to become overly violent when confused, she was deemed unsuited.
    Over the years Cahlen showed a strong talent with animals. Now she was an assistant bird-keeper, living in the tower-shaped dovecote, breeding doves, training them to carry messages back to the palace.
    In this moment, her fury at their brother’s death mysteriously dissipated, all she demanded from him was a favor.
    “I will,” he told her earnestly.
    With that she turned wordlessly away, walking down the hall, only a small limp in her step to indicate anything had transpired besides conversation. As she went, she brushed her hand through her thick, short mass of hair. A bit of birdseed dropped onto the wooden flooring.

    And now to Cern.
    He waited a few days to let her fury ease, then visited her suites. Sachare came into the hallway to meet him.
    Most of the girls of the Cohort had left early, somewhat less motivated by the often brutal competitions that so often comprised so much of Cohort life. Of those who had finished, Taba was now a navy ship’s captain and Larmna had been put in charge of House Nital’s amardide forests in the Kathorn province. Sachare had become Cern’s chamberlain.
    His Cohort sister was a tall woman, her hands tucked into the pockets of her red robes trimmed in dark pinks and gold, marking her as one of the princess’s staff. A magenta sapphire glinted in her right ear. Cern’s color.
    “No,” Sachare said, simply and clearly.
    He hadn’t expected Cern to let him in easily, and it was no surprise to have Sachare sent to stand in his way, but he had thought to get into the antechamber, at least. Not to have the conversation in the hallway, in front of a tencount of royal guards who had no reason to keep it to themselves.
    “Her words or yours?” he asked.
    “Mine are less polite.”
    “Oh?” He stepped toward her, too close, just short of what might have been considered threatening, a line his Cohort brothers and