Seer's Hope

By Maree Anderson

Chapter Eight

Cayl entered the room in a rush. "What have I missed?"

Hope bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting a sarcastic comment that might escalate the situation. The tension she sensed centered around Maya. Did Maya expect Dayamar to take some action, perhaps reprimand her for being contentious? Was he truly that strict and unforgiving?

But Dayamar only murmured, "Nothing important," and asked after Willem.

It transpired Willem had suffered nothing more serious than an aching head and contusions. When Cayl had pressed him for the truth of the encounter, Willem readily confessed. "He pleaded for permission to make whatever restitution Hope deemed fit," Cayl told them.

"I do not care about restitution," Hope said. "I only care that he will recover." Please, God, she hadn't caused him any lasting damage.

"His injuries were minor. He's fine. Which is far more than he deserves."

"Can Dorian be relied on to keep his mouth shut?" Blayne asked. "The last thing we need is rumors that Hope's not in control of her powers."

"Dorian's never been the brightest star in the sky," Cayl said. "And right now he's a gibbering mess. I've, ah, convinced him no one will believe his tale and it's in his best interests to stay quiet."

"Good."

The two men seemed to share a moment. Hope figured it must be a male thing.

"So, Hope," Cayl ventured, "shall we have the elders turf Willem out, or have you thought of something infinitely more fitting to torture him with?"

She did her best to quell him with a frown. "I need to speak with him."

"Willem and I also have things to... discuss." That slight pause combined with Blayne's darkly dangerous tone were ominous. Hope shivered. She didn't need to be a Sehan to sense retribution was uppermost in his mind.

"Blayne, I know you are angry but this is for me to solve. Willem hurt me, not you."

"You must let Hope deal with this in her own way," Dayamar said. "I'm sure her next encounter with Willem will bring surprising results."

A telling silence ensued. Another "moment" was obviously being shared. Hope pictured this one resulting in Blayne reluctantly subsiding beneath the weight of the old Sehan's considerable will.

"We should leave Maya and Cayl in peace," Dayamar finally said. "They have a lot to arrange before Janus is buried tomorrow."

"I'm not very skilled but I'd like to help you with preparations, Maya," Varaya said.

Hope guessed the offer was uncharacteristic when Maya's response came a few beats too late for politeness. "Thanks, Varaya, I'd appreciate that. Gods know, with a gathering this size the more the merrier." She bustled off somewhere with Varaya in tow.

Hope mentally crossed her fingers Blayne would react as she expected. "I want to talk with Willem. Will you take me to him, Dayamar?"

"I'll take you," Blayne said, just as she'd hoped. Willem might quail at the sight of Blayne, but she suspected he'd die of fright if Dayamar showed his face. And then she wouldn't have a chance to act upon what she'd Seen and make this right.

~*~

Willem glanced up as the healer on duty jumped to attention. "Greetings, Sehan Hope," the healer said. "I trust you're recovered?"

Willem's guts knotted. It was her, the woman he'd assaulted.

He strangled his blanket with anxious fingers. He'd heard enough talk to know not everyone believed she was truly Sehani. But by Shikari's furry wolf-hide he believed. He'd felt her power grab him by the throat and toss him aside as though he were feather-light. He'd been pinned to the ground, unable to move, incapable of doing anything other than struggle to breathe. And he'd willingly embraced oblivion when she'd cut him loose from the tethers binding him to her. In the split second before he blacked out, he had prayed this would be an end—that he would not regain consciousness. But, as with all his hopes and dreams, that fervent prayer had come to nothing.

A glance at Blayne's set, angry features, and Willem believed one more thing. Very shortly his life was going to be even less worth living than usual. Even if the pretty little Sehan by some miracle did find it in her heart to forgive him, the Panakeya never would.

"Hello, Johan," the little Sehan said to the healer. "Yes, I feel good. Thank you."

She sounded absentminded as she scanned the room, searching for something with those unearthly golden eyes. When they slid past him, Willem released the breath he'd been holding. Then her gaze stilled, and jerked back, fixing on him, penetrating the walls he'd built around his heart and his soul. He choked on bile and shrank back against the sleeping platform. But there was nowhere to hide.

"May I talk to Willem?" she asked.

"Of course," the healer said. And, damn the man, led her straight to where Willem lay helpless.

The concern shining in those golden eyes surprised him. He wondered what she'd been told of his injuries. They were nothing—a pounding headache, scrapes and bruises. He wouldn't even be here if Cayl hadn't threatened to tie him to the bed.

Willem watched the sway of her hips as she came closer. Through sober eyes she was more than merely pretty. She was beautiful... and so very young. Somehow that made what he'd done to her even worse. And in the gloomy room her eyes seemed to glow and her femininity became tainted by what she truly was. Sehani. He shuddered. Best he remember that.

"Sehan Hope, I—" He choked on shame. He was pathetic, worthless. He deserved whatever punishment she deemed fit.

"Give me your hand, Willem," she said.

It didn't occur to him to disobey. He pushed himself to a seated position, wincing at the soreness of his muscles. The hand he held out to her shook and his gaze flicked to Blayne, expecting a sneer. But the man gave him shuttered eyes and a blank face.

Willem scrunched his eyelids tightly shut, waiting for fate in the guise of a beautiful woman to deal him a final blow. Ironic. He'd always been a sucker for beauty.

Her small, soft hand clasped his and—

Nothing happened.

"Do you have something to tell me?" she murmured.

He pried open his eyelids and was surprised to find her kneeling beside his bed. "Eh?"

"What do you need to tell me?"

He choked down the lump in his throat and struggled for the right words. "Uh, I want— I want to apologize for my behavior. I was wrong to force my attentions on you." Over her head, Willem darted another glance at Blayne, and this time glimpsed the sneer he'd expected. Blayne didn't believe a word. But it didn't matter what Blayne thought. Only the little Sehan mattered.

Willem sat up straighter and dared look her right in the eye. "I'd been drinking, but that does not excuse my behavior. I promise to never bother a woman again without her permission. I will do whatever you want. I will never touch liquor again, only please, Sehan Hope—" His voice broke, compounding his shame. "Please, don't let the elders send me away."

Blayne snorted. "He's promised to change his ways many times. But get a few drinks inside him and he always forgets his promises. There's no place for in the settlement for a man like him."

The healer on duty nodded, agreeing. And Willem's heart sank to his toes. Both men were well-respected members of the settlement. They would petition for his banishment. And, gods knew, the little Sehan had every reason to support them.

"You do not know him," she announced, and it took Willem a moment to realize she referred to him. "I joined with his mind. I saw his past. I know him now."

He was again the sole focus of that unrelenting golden gaze. "I did not mean to hurt you," she said. "I am only scared and want you to go away. I do not know what I did, or how. I am very sorry."

She was apologizing? To him?

Blayne's clenched fists and narrowed gaze proclaimed his outrage. "You have nothing to apologize for, Hope. Willem attacked you. He deserved what he got."

Willem recovered enough to say, "Panakeya Blayne is right, Sehan Hope. It's me who needs to apologize."

Those unearthly eyes bored into him, winnowing through his darkest secrets and making them hers. "I know about when you are a boy," she said. "I understand your pain and your fears. Your mother—she is ill, I think—not right in her head. It is not your fault she is like that."

She spoke with such compassion, Willem couldn't help but believe she understood the terrible self-loathing he harbored. Hope flared anew, warming the cold emptiness that had lain curled around his heart for so long.

"But that is in the past," she said. "Now you can choose a new path—if you have courage enough to take the first step. I know you want to change. I will forget what happened and no one will speak of it again. We will start anew." She shook the hand she still held. "Hello, I am Hope. I am pleased to meet you."

How could she know about his mother? Willem sat there, open-mouthed, overawed and more afraid than he'd ever been in his life. He scrubbed his face with his spare hand to hide the tears burning his eyes. "Hello, my name is Willem," he finally managed to whisper. "I'm pleased to meet you, Sehan Hope."

She squeezed his hand. "One thing more."

"Yes, yes of course. Anything."

"You will not drink alcohol again."

Her eyes gleamed so brightly it was like gazing into a midday sun. The dazzling golden nimbus wreathing her body expanded to encompass Willem, too. A blaze of heat seared through his bones and his internal organs. He screamed but the sound was swallowed by the light. His muscles jerked and twitched, and then stiffened. The light dissipated, and he flopped back onto the sleeping platform, gasping like a landed fish, his gaze still fixed on her serene face.

She released his hand and clumsily rose to make her way back to Blayne's side.

"What did you do to him?"

The Panakeya didn't sound as if he really wanted to know the answer. For Willem, though, it was the opposite. He hoped she would announce that the light and the heat of her power had cleansed him, burned away everything he'd become, everything he despised about himself. He hoped he'd been reborn.

"I am not sure," she admitted, much to his surprise because he'd been raised believing Sehani knew everything.

"But I do know he does not need to drink now. The desire is gone." She turned back to Willem with a narrowed gaze that made him flinch. It blanked momentarily, as if she looked inward. A blink and she was back in the here and now, nibbling her lower lip and staring at him in that disconcerting way she had.

"D-do you have a question for me, Sehan?" Gods save him. What else did she have in store for him?

"Please, what do you look like?"

"Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon?"

"What do you look like? You know, hair, eyes and such. How tall—things like that."

"I have blond hair and brown eyes. Uh, I'm a little over six feet."

"Are you handsome?"

Willem shrugged helplessly, his face heating at her ingenuous question. "Uh, I've never really thought about it."

"Johan, tell me, please. Is he a good-looking man?"

The healer grimaced and rolled his eyes in a "Why me?" gesture. "I guess," he muttered.

"Why do you ask?" Blayne's scowl was so fierce Willem might have found the situation amusing if he hadn't been so damned intimidated.

"In a minute." She was still frowning at him like... like... like a healer viewing an interesting specimen. "Willem, what is wrong with your hand? The skin felt strange."

"What you felt is scarring from a burn I received as a child," he said. The muscles of his hand convulsed and he fisted it tightly, vividly recalling his mother's derision when he'd burned himself. She'd been too drunk to attend to him properly, and the scarring had been much worse without the proper treatment. Even now, years later, the skin of his wrist and palm was seamed and puckered. Even now, in his dreams he heard her jeers.

"Aha! I am right." She beamed at him and hugged her middle.

"About what?" Blayne asked.

She tilted her chin at the Panakeya and fingered her earrings. "Do you remember the Seeing I had?"

Blayne's jaw dropped. "You can't be serious," he muttered.

"It is true." Her voice brimmed with suppressed mirth. "But we will say no more of it. Willem must discover her for himself."

"You had a Seeing about me?" Wonders would never cease. "What did you See?"

"I see good things for you, Willem. You will be happy. That is all I say." She punctuated her declaration with a yawn. "I apologize for my rudeness. It has been a long day for me." She reached a hand toward Blayne. "Can we go home? And eat too, maybe?"

"Of course." The Panakeya's expression softened as he tucked her beneath his arm. "Let's get you home before you fall asleep and I have to carry you the entire way." He escorted her out, leaving behind a very curious healer and one bemused man whose life had just turned upside down.

The little Sehan's actions astonished Willem. He'd expected retribution, only to be gifted with redemption and the hope his most heartfelt wish would come true. He came back to reality with a jolt when he caught the healer eyeing him in a disturbingly speculative manner.

Johan gave him a wolfish grin that didn't ease Willem's mind one bit. "You've been given another chance, Willem. Don't muck it up or you'll upset her. And that would be bad."

"Agreed." Willem flung back the bedcovers. "Can I go?" Like, before the healer got any bright ideas about experimenting on him. Johan had a reputation for such things.

"Are you sure you haven't been affected by that... that... gold-light thingy she did to you?"

"I feel wonderful." No lie.

The healer's face fell and he gestured Willem from the bed. And Willem made the mistake of saying, "Gods I'm thirsty, though. I could drink a river."

"Dehydration. Excellent!" Johan planted a hand on his chest and shoved him back on the mattress.

Willem watched healer bustling about until, finally, he produced a cup of liquid. "Drink this," he commanded.

Willem thought seriously about refusing.

"You can go just as soon as you drink this," Johan said in a wheedling tone.

Willem eyed the contents of the cup and sniffed.

"Go on. It won't hurt you." Johan nudged the cup closer to his lips. "Be a man."

He shrugged. The healer was hardly going to poison him and risk Sehan Hope's wrath after everything she'd done. Where was the harm? He took a long draught and then pushed the mug away. "Gahhh! That's disgusting. What was— Argh. Gods!" He clutched his stomach, retched, and vomited up the liquid.

Afterward he wiped his mouth. "What was that stuff?"

The healer stared mournfully at his vomit-splattered boots. "Serve me right for doubting her," he said. "And to add insult to injury I've wasted a rather fine ale."

~*~

Copyright 2013 Maree Anderson

www.mareeanderson.com