The Goblets Immortal by Beth Overmyer (highly recommended books txt) 📗

gave her a wry smile, but did not respond to that. “Don’t eat or drink what you’ve been served until I’ve had time to inspect it.”

She snorted. “For what? Poison?” When he didn’t laugh at her joke and his smile vanished, the girl’s brow creased. “You think she’d kill us?”

He gave the seer a quick look; she was walking ahead of them, reserving sleeping quarters and irritating the innkeeper. “She betrayed me once. I don’t think she’d hesitate to do so again, even with her supposed newfound freedom.”

Slaíne’s frown deepened into a scowl. “You don’t believe her?”

“Two cursed people just chance to meet in a small, obscure village? She’s a seer. Of course she knew of your affliction. Why not use it to gain your trust, thus gain mine in return?”

That did not seem to sit well with Slaíne, whose jawline set. “I still say—”

“Well, it’s all settled,” the strange woman said, returning just in time to keep Slaíne from offering more objections to Aidan’s concerns.

The girl wiped her nose on her right sleeve and followed the middle-aged woman into a small yet cozy room in the back of the inn. Once the door had been shut by a servant, Slaíne dropped down in a chair with her back to the door like she had never sat in a chair and relished the idea. As absurd as it seemed to Aidan at first, it might very well be that she’d never actually sat in a chair.

“Now, then, you’re going to ask me what Lord Dewhurst is about.”

“You read my mind.” Aidan’s tone was dry, but he kept his face void of emotion. No need to tell this woman any more than she might’ve guessed. He took a seat only after she sat, and the one he took faced the door. He may have Pulls to warn him, but he would not risk another ambush at her hand. “So, why the change of heart? You seemed rather gleeful to hand me over to my death.”

The gap-toothed woman sighed and drew her reed pipe from inside her inner riding jacket. “I was eager, milord, because I was offered freedom in exchange for your life. But you take for granted what I am.”

“What are you?” Slaíne asked. Unable to sit still, she got up and started poking at the sad fire in the fireplace.

Aidan sighed. “Slaíne, you’re not—”

“Leave her be.” The woman lit her pipe, puffed out some blue smoke, and put her muddy boots up on the table in front of her.

Slaíne repeated herself, obviously feigning disinterest as she brought the embers to a healthy blaze with some straw and twigs. “What are you?”

“I heard you the first time, m’dear.” The woman grunted, put out her pipe, removed her boots from the table, and looked good and hard at the girl tending the fire. “I saw you for a while now. I’m not sure how this all is going to play out, but you have a part. Yes, I see that very clearly.”

The girl turned, her brow now wrinkled and soot-covered. “You see things? Like, things that aren’t there?”

She gave Slaíne a gentle smile. “More like things that aren’t there yet. But not all things. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it. But it comes with a price….” She let her words trail off, a thoughtful look on her face. “You see what I’m saying, dear girl?”

“You’re a fortune-teller?”

“No, Slaíne. No more than you are a bird.”

That caused Slaíne to drop the log she’d been carrying. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, and Aidan wondered what the older woman had said that would have such an effect on the girl. He was about to ask something, but the seer raised her hand to cut his questions off.

“Never mind now, milord. Slaíne, I have something in common with your quest.” She was quiet and hesitated before saying more. “You might want to check that Pull at the door, Mr. Powell.”

Aidan was on his feet before she spoke. He threw the door open, behind which he felt only one Pull, and found a servant with an ear pressed against the wood.

The strange wire-thin man jumped at the sight of Aidan and straightened up at once. “Ah, er…dinner will be another twenty minutes.” He flinched as Aidan gave him a warning glance before slamming the door in his face.

After a moment, when he was certain the way was clear, Aidan sat back down in his chair. “You were saying?”

The woman held up a finger. “Slaíne, you’re going to kill that fire with too much compassion. Why don’t you sit down as well?”

The girl shrugged and flopped back in her seat. She was fidgety, spooked.

“She’s fine,” the seer said before Aidan could ask her what the matter was. “So, you’re both wanting to know where to find old Cedric’s grave.”

“Myth,” Slaíne said.

The seer shook her head. “History. You’d think people would learn not to argue facts with a seer, of all people. Now, catch me up: How many of the Goblets Immortal have you ever seen?”

“One,” Slaíne and Aidan answered together.

“Ah, yes. I wondered if you’d come across one. Those are – harder to see. Iron of the Six. You would’ve been somewhat repulsed and compelled by it, would you have not, Mr. Aidan?”

Aidan gave a noncommittal shrug. He would tell the seer what he wanted to and no more, and only then when he felt like it.

“Very well. I see you’re not going to make this easy for me. There are at least four Goblets, all of their makers slaughtered shortly after their creation, their blood drained dry. As you will of course know, wizard’s blood is molten iron…of the most magical sort.”

“But don’t iron and magic not mix?” Slaíne surprised Aidan by asking.

The seer gave her a knowing look, the meaning of which Aidan still did not comprehend. Again the seer drew out her pipe, filled it with tobacco leaves, and was prepared to light it, before changing