Redemption of Thieves (Book 4) Read Free Page A

of such dreams,” he told me. “Many magickers are prone to them, though I myself have never experienced one.”
    “It wasn’t a dream,” I said, unsure how I knew that. “It was real. Everything I heard and saw… at some point all of it really happened. I think I strayed into some sort of…” I hesitated, looking for a word to describe it.
    “A magical rift,” he supplied.
    “A what?”
    “A tear in the fabric of time and possibly of distance as well. There are rumors such things exist, but again, I’ve had no personal experience with them.”
    “I think I’ve experienced one of these rifts before,” I said and told him about the occasion after Brig’s death when I had seen a vision of my friend.
    “At the time I thought I was losing my mind or seeing a ghost,” I finished. “But now I realize it felt the same as what happened last night. Like I was truly seeing Brig in a real moment of his life. Maybe even from a time before I knew him.”
    “It’s possible,” Hadrian agreed. “I suppose we’ll never know the truth. Not unless you think you can stumble into one of these rifts again. Can you?”
    I thought about it. “I don’t think so. It’s not something I can control. Both times it’s happened, it just came over me suddenly. I didn’t seek it out.”
    “Not consciously anyway,” he suggested.
    I didn’t want to think about that. My conscious mind had enough to deal with right now without worrying about what mischief my subconscious was up to.
    I changed the subject and suggested we go out fishing with Seephinia’s young nephew, Eelus.
     
    * * *
     
    I didn’t have long to brood over my new discovery of magical rifts.
    The following day a distraction came in the form of a visitor showing up on our doorstep. The old peasant hag, dressed in a baggy skirt with a frayed shawl drawn over her head, was peddling tin pots. She was the tallest old woman I’d ever seen. Even with her shoulders hunched, she towered over Seephinia in the doorway.
    When the ruckus began, I was at the back of the hut, pouring with Hadrian over an old map of the Dark Forest I had procured from a traveling fur trader passing through Selbius the day before. I wasn’t sure why I had taken up the idea to study the lay of the Skeltai lands, but felt it couldn’t hurt my position to know my enemy’s home ground. The map was shriveled and worn, drawn out on a bit of cured hide, and I had only the word of the trader that any of it was an accurate portrayal of what lay on the other side of the provincial border. I suspected the villages and habitations marked on the map were outdated and so focused my attention on landmarks, committing them to memory. Hills, lakes, and forests didn’t change much over the course of years.
    I was dimly aware of Seephinia at the door arguing with someone, but paid scarce attention until their quarreling grew louder. Annoyed, I looked up from the map spread over a low table to find the source of my distraction.
    The ragged old woman in the doorway bore a long stick across her broad, crooked shoulders from which dangled a collection of rusted and dented pots and pans. Even as she disputed with the river woman in a reedy, high-pitched voice, she shoved her way into the hut.
    Seephinia’s face darkened dangerously as she protested in the tongue of the river folk, but the old peddler wasn’t to be dissuaded.
    “Look here, old mother,” Hadrian interrupted, hurrying to settle the argument, “we appreciate the quality of your excellent goods, but I’m afraid we have no need of pots or pans at present.”
    Ignoring him, the old woman slung closed the curtain over the doorway and let her collection of wares fall to the floor with a clatter.
    Seephinia sputtered in indignation but Hadrian held her back. “Perhaps you didn’t understand me,” he tried again.
    His words cut off abruptly as the old woman straightened to her full height and threw back the hood of her shawl to reveal a mane of