Page 52 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Ooh, a fortune teller!” Samara said excitedly.

Faythe wanted to return to camp after her disappointment just now, but the High Farrow lady was already making her way over to the purple tent down the market, and Livia was quick to follow.

“I’ll wait outside,” Faythe said, not in any mood to have some vague false foretelling of how her future would go.

“I always loved when fortune tellers came to the city in High Farrow. Many don’t believe in them, of course, but I always feel a sense of…enlightenment,” Samara gushed.

For the joy it brought her, Faythe appreciated the novelty.

Samara went inside, and Livia insisted none of the group should be alone and went with her. When it was just Faythe and Nerida left outside, her wandering gaze settled on the healer, who was already studying her.

“Want to talk about what you really saw?” Nerida asked patiently.

Faythe shifted on her feet. “I’m just exhausted and overwhelmed. I thought it might have been Reylan.”

It sounded foolish to admit out loud. As if he would be wandering so freely in Fenher after being captured by Marvellas.

“How so?”

The fact she didn’t immediately hit her with sympathy and simply accepted the delusion surprised Faythe.

“I thought I felt the amulet I gave him.”

“The Eye of the Phoenix?”

Faythe nodded, and the healer’s brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“It would be quite hard to mistake that unique power.”

Hope skipped in her chest. Was Nerida suggesting she might have been right?

Nerida said, “Though it’s likely Marvellas found it on him and threw it away. Perhaps it was found and sold.”

Then her hope winked out completely. That explanation was a blow to her chest. It was logical.

Faythe gritted her teeth at the mockery. She wanted to hunt the person down anyway just to get that amulet back. It was her family’s heirloom.

Samara’s giggling drew their attention to where she and Livia had emerged, holding small pieces of parchment. The lady’s brightness turned to a faint scowl as she read hers again.

“Not very enlightening this time,” Samara mumbled. “What did she say to you?”

Livia was snapped out of her thoughts by Samara’s question, and she crumpled the paper she held. Samara pouted that she hadn’t gotten a peek, but Faythe observed the commander seemed…flustered. It was amusing to witness her like this when Livia carried herself so firmly most of the time. Now the commander was blushing, not meeting Samara’s eye.

“A load of false promises as usual,” Livia muttered.

Samara held hers out to Faythe, who took it curiously. “Maybe you could find a deeper meaning for me. I could use something hopeful,” Samara sighed.

“Why is that?” Livia asked, genuinely concerned.

Faythe tuned out of their conversation to lazily scan the fortune teller’s words, but past the first line, her body tensed.

Come the return of the lost first son.

Faythe’s head snapped up to the tent, and her feet marched for it in a drive of impulse. She’d heard this poem before, and her adrenaline beat faster as she didn’t bother with courtesy and pulled back the tent flap, heading straight through to the back, where she threw open those curtains too.

The aroma of citrus and vanilla hit her nostrils, the incense so potent she resisted the urge to recoil. A beautiful woman dressed in only a few strips of flowing fabric, barely held together as a dress that exposed most of her dark skin, reclined on cushions elegantly, smoking a long, ornate pipe. Her raven hair was voluminous in tight curls, and she smiled at Faythe—the kind that told her she expected her intrusion. A low string melody played, but there was no instrument she could find as the source.

“You’re the Dresair I freed.” Faythe didn’t waste time in spilling her conclusion.

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