Daezin rushed out of the temple like all the wolves of Korria were after her. Sweat dripped into her eyes. Breath seized in her lungs. No. No. No. This can't happen again.
Daezin dashed into the street and realized that more than sweat dripped into her eyes. Rain fell from the darkened skies and lightning flickered on the horizon. A storm was coming, and she had to get out of Corethe before everyone knew about the mark on her wrist.
At that thought, Daezin finally stopped her headlong flight away from the archivist that had seen too much... knew too much... to rewrap the leather band around her wrist. If she wrapped it tighter than usual, rougher than usual, she didn't care. That mark had only brought her trouble. Her people believed that the mark brought about ruin to everyone around the bearer, but in Daezin's opinion, the mark just brought about ruin. If she could cut it out of her skin, she would.
Since she couldn't cut the mark out of her skin, Daezin would just have to leave. Again. The last time someone else found out about her mark, her whole village went down in smoke, flame, and blood. This time would be different. This time she would get out because she could not be responsible for that level of destruction again.
And Hefler would have to stay behind. If he remained with her, he could be caught in the crossfire if her doom caught up to her again.
Decision made, Daezin trudged through the storm-emptied streets of Corethe towards the docks, uncaring of the rain that poured down. Never flinching from the thunder or lightning that rioted ever closer to the shore. She only needed to think, to escape, to plan how to get away before she destroyed her new life as she had destroyed her old one.
The sea-worn timbers of the expansive docks were wet dark and nearly empty. It seems as if even the sailors and stevedores had more sense to stay out of the storm than Daezin did. Lightning crackled through darkening skies in blink-and-you-miss-it flashes of light. Thunder rumbled like an angry neighbor shouting through thin walls. And Daezin stared off into the distance, trying to figure out where she would go next.
She'd already crossed an ocean to get away from her past. Where else could she go?
At the end of the docks, movement caught her eye. A ship rocked in the last berth and men unloaded several crates from the ship onto large carts. Hey, Daezin was miserable, but she wasn't working-during-the-middle-of-a-storm miserable like these guys were. Silver lining and all that.
Daezin turned to go but heard a voice. "Look again."
"Mind your own--" There wasn't anyone around. Daezin shook her head. Hearing voices in her head on top of seeing things... she was definitely spiraling. Maybe this time the ruin would come from the inside. Taking a deep breath, Daezin straightened her shoulders, she had things to do and turned towards the inn.
"Look again." The voice repeated. The warm but cold voice. The soft as a dragonfly's flight but louder than the storm raging overhead voice. The voice of her mother and father all rolled into one and of nothing and no one she had ever heard before.
Daezin looked again.
The ship originated in a foreign port. Daezin didn't know one style of ship from another, but she did know that this didn't resemble most any ship she had seen before. Maybe half a dozen men were working between the ship and wagons bringing up bolted wood crates that took two men to carry. The wind and rain whipped around them as they worked. One man nearly slipped on the rain-soaked gangplank when a particularly loud peal of thunder made him flinch. Nothing that unusual to see here.
Daezin started to turn away again when she saw it. Or rather her. A lookout. A lookout in the storm who lurked, very armed and very tense. As soon as she saw her, she saw two more scattered around the docks. Their visibility had to be crap but three lookouts, at least three that she could see, seemed a bit excessive. Speaking of lookouts, one stared in Daezin's direction. Daezin waved awkwardly and scooted around the corner of a warehouse.
Her intuition must be working overtime to drop this into her lap. In order to leave Corethe and start a new life, she needed coin, and her purse was dangerously flat. For reasons that Daezin hoped subsided, she couldn't earn coin with her usual cons. This, whatever this is, had the potential to earn her a nice tidy sum if she could figure out what this is and sell that information to the right person. And she wouldn't worry about the rest of it until then. She'd learned long ago that a bit of coin provided choices and Daezin needed them. She also needed to leave Hefler set up for a while. The guilt would kill her if something happened to him.
One more job here in Corethe and then Daezin would leave Hefler set up, for a while at least, and Daezin would have enough coin to move on to wherever the next leaf fell.
