himself. Long muscular arms, inside a deep green tunic, were crossed over his chest, but his arrogant bearing suggested he hadn't built those arms by lifting crates himself. Close-cropped hair the color of blackened corn silk looked even darker around his pale features. Crystalline blue eyes, nearly transparent, watched everything at once.
"No, Jaqua," a voice said from behind. "I ordered twenty casks of wine and thirty-two of ale. You've confused the figures."
His gaze shifted to the back of the cavernous room. A brown-haired young woman, only two-thirds his height, scolded the head receiving clerk.
"Miss Teesha, I'm sure you—" Jaqua began.
"I know what I ordered," she said calmly. "We can't possibly sell all this wine right now. Send twelve casks back. And if the barge captain tries to charge us a shipping cost, tell him we can find someone else to do business with."
The tall overseer left his place by the door, moving toward the argument.
"Is there a problem?" he asked evenly.
"No, sir." The clerk, Jaqua, drew back. His face became flat without expression, but his fingernails whitened as he gripped his scribe's board tight with both hands.
Teesha smiled with tiny white teeth. She looked up without concern at her towering partner.
"No, Rashed. Just a mistake in the wine order. It'll be taken care of."
Rashed nodded, but didn't move, and Jaqua scuttled off to correct his error.
"He's confused several orders lately," Teesha said. "Perhaps he's been sampling the wine himself a little too often."
Rashed was incapable of returning her smile, but this did not seem to bother her. Few would call her beautiful, but she possessed a brightness in her doll-like face that caused men who met her to think of marriage one breath later. Rashed knew her exterior was only a sweet garment covering the truth, but still her appearance was as pleasing to him as it was to anyone—perhaps more so. Her company itself pleased him as well.
"If you don't like Jaqua," he said, "replace him."
"Oh, don't be so harsh. I don't want him replaced. I just want…" She stopped in mid-sentence, staring at him.
Rashed stared at the north wall of the warehouse, clutching his throat tightly with one hand. He felt a cold numbness rush downward through his body. Years had passed since he'd felt pain, and its return amazed him. His thoughts clouded, fading away before they could completely form in his mind.
He stepped closer to the wall, and turned around to lean back against one of its timbers for support. The cold line across his throat ran all the way through to the back of his neck.
Teesha grabbed his arm, first gently, then her slender fingers squeezed.
"Rashed… what's wrong?"
"Teesha," he managed to whisper.
Her childlike hands grabbed his tunic firmly, steadying him. When he began to slump, he felt her arms shove him back up to his feet again. She was as strong… stronger than any man in the warehouse, though no one else knew this. She put an arm around his waist, supporting him, and hurried him out a side door away from suspicious eyes. Outside, he struggled to help her by remaining on his feet. He felt her hands touch his face, and he looked down into her worry-filled eyes.
"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"
Sorrow washed over him in a wave, and then anger. A white face with sunken eyes and cheeks glowed in the dark of his mind's eye. Then it snuffed out and vanished. He found himself staring out over the tops of buildings to the forest and skyline in the northeast.
"Parko's dead," he said in a hissing whisper, too shocked to speak loudly, too angered to voice it clearly.
Teesha's smooth brow wrinkled in confusion. "But how do you know this?"
He shook his head slightly."Perhaps because he was once my brother."
"You've never felt such a strong connection to him, even before he left us for the Feral Path."
Rashed lowered his eyes to hers, anger taking hold above all other sensations.
"I felt it. Someone cut his head off and… something wet… running water."
She stared at him, frozen in the moment, and through her hands he could feel the shudder run through her small frame. She quickly pulled her hands from his face, as if repulsed by what he'd described, then leaned her forehead against his chest.
"No. Oh, Rashed, I'm sorry."
His eyes lifted again toward the northeastern skyline, and a chill like cold water over living flesh washed through him again. It was unsettling in a forgotten way, as it had been decades since