Raintree: Oracle

Her heart leaped. In the beginning, even just a few moments ago, that had been her plan. But as she lay on his bed, shaking, feeling as if she’d blink and be back in the burning building, she realized she wanted more than control. Much more.

“No. I want the visions gone. I want them wiped away, erased. I want...help. The kind of help only you can offer.”

There was an uncomfortably long pause before he responded. “You want a lot,” he said without emotion.

“Yes, I do.”

Anger flashed in his dark eyes. “Are you telling me there are no Raintrees who can help you?”

Again, she had to stick with the truth. If she lied to him and he found out, there would be hell to pay. One did not try to pull the wool over the eyes of a wizard. “They’ve tried, but...no luck.” Not knowing how much he knew, how much he saw, she had to tell all. “My cousins have attempted to teach me to control the visions. When I asked they said it was impossible to get rid of them entirely.” Gideon had refused to even discuss that possibility. “Maybe I’m too close to them, too connected. A st—” She caught herself. “Someone outside the clans seems like a better option, at this point.”

He didn’t respond for a few drawn-out seconds, and then he said in a lowered voice, “Poor Raintree princess can’t get her way at home so she flies across the pond to ask a stray for help.”

Her chin came up a bit. “I didn’t call you a stray.” Though she almost had. Caught. Echo swung her legs over the edge of the mattress, taking a deep breath in an attempt to regain her strength. If only her knees would stop knocking. It was impossible to be strong when her entire body was weak, shaking, drained. She didn’t want Duncan to see her as weak. Not that she should care what he thought of her. She’d never see him again, once she drove away from Cloughban.

Which would probably be very soon. It was looking as if her trip had been a complete waste of time, as if Ryder Duncan was not all he’d been rumored to be. Any decent teacher would see that she needed help and offer it!

“No, not out loud,” he said. “But isn’t that what you call those with magic who are unaffiliated with your clans?”

She stood. Anger helped her find her legs. “Okay, fine. I almost called you a stray. Sorry if that offends you. What would you prefer?”

“Independent.”

He remained angry; he’d called her a princess with disdain...yes, this trip had been a waste of time. She wanted to run, she wanted to hide from those dark, condemning eyes. “Stray seems more appropriate to me.” She walked toward the door he blocked, trying not to let him see how devastating his refusal was. She would not beg!

“Sorry to have bothered you.” She thought about the little girl—real or imagined—she’d been talking to before the vision began. Beneath her breath she mumbled, “I guess Cassidy was wrong.”

Duncan didn’t move away from the door. Echo had to stop a couple of feet short. It was that or physically move him, and given his size and very nice solidness, that wasn’t going to happen. After a few seconds, she waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. He still did not move. Dammit, did he want her to go or not?

“Cassidy?” he said in a lowered voice.

Echo sighed. “A little girl that was probably all in my head. I saw her, or imagined her, outside the pub right before this latest vision. She said I’d be here for a long time.” Wishful thinking, a real child with magic, a new precursor to the visions? She didn’t know. Cassidy had obviously been wrong when she’d said that Duncan would help her.

“What did she look like?” he asked.

She wanted out of here before she started to cry. She wanted to walk out with her head high and a smidgen of her dignity intact. A smidgen was all she could hope for at this point. If she stood here too long, neither would happen. “What difference does it make?”

“Indulge me.”

Echo backed away a little. Duncan could get under her skin much too easily. Just standing close to him made her shiver. Then again, maybe that was no more than lingering physical weakness thanks to her latest episode. Might as well give him what he wanted so she could boogie on out of here and have her nervous breakdown in private.

“Curly red hair, dark eyes, a few freckles. Maybe ten years old. She was on the sidewalk and then...she wasn’t.” She didn’t feel the need to explain anything more to him.

Instead of ushering her out of the room and down the stairs, Duncan stayed in place. He seemed to be contemplating her. Why? He’d already turned her down. Not once but two or three or four times.

“You give up far too easily, princess. Don’t you want to hear my answer?” he asked, and for the first time there was some humor in his voice. Dark humor, but at least a bit of his anger was gone.

“Fine.” She crossed her arms, much as he had. “Give me your answer.” Maybe it would make him feel better to tell her off before he let her go. Jerk.

“I will not strip away your gifts.”

“You wouldn’t call this a gift if you had it,” she snapped.

He held up a stilling hand. “It’s possible—I won’t tell you it’s not—but it isn’t an easy process. There would be a high price to pay. Your cousins were right to dismiss that option if they care for you at all.”

Well, that was interesting. Apparently what she wanted most of all was possible. She hadn’t been entirely sure. “What kind of price?” No price was too high; she’d do anything.

He ignored her. “I can teach you to control your abilities.”

Echo sighed. “I’ve tried, I really have. That’s not...”

“Of course it’s not what you want,” he interrupted. “You’re spoiled and undisciplined, and I suspect you have been all your life, princess. The gift of prophesy is rare and difficult and precious, and you have squandered it. I will not strip your abilities away, but if you do precisely as I say I will help you learn to master them.”

That was what she’d planned to ask for when she’d walked into the pub, but now she realized it was not enough. Duncan would do no more than her cousins had done for her, and that wouldn’t do. She’d tried talismans, meditations, exercises. In this case she’d have to face him each and every day, and she didn’t think she could take it. Besides, she did take a perverse pleasure in being the one to walk away. She’d bet no woman had ever told Duncan no.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” This time when she shooed him aside, he moved. She opened the door, started down the long, narrow stairway. Her knees were still shaky, and she had no idea where she’d go from here. Ryder Duncan was not who she’d thought him to be, and she could not, would not, put herself in his hands. One good thing had come out of the encounter. He wouldn’t do it, her cousins wouldn’t do it, but someone could remove her abilities entirely.

She had almost reached the bottom of the stairs when his soft voice stopped her. “It will only get worse.”

She didn’t turn to face him, but she listened.

“The pain, the frequency and intensity of the events. Because you fight it, because you are spoiled and untrained, because you fear your gift rather than embracing it, what’s happening will eventually kill you.”

After a moment of complete silence, Echo turned and looked up. She didn’t know Duncan at all, she didn’t even like him much, but she didn’t doubt the truth of his words. “You can take it away. You said...”

“I said there was a price you and those who care for you would not wish to pay for such a miracle.”

It wasn’t what she wanted, but what choice did she have? She had nowhere else to turn. Besides, when he discovered that she could not master this curse no matter how hard she tried, maybe he’d agree to strip it away. No price would be too high.

“When do we start?”

* * *

Rye sat at a table with the woman on the other side. The old men had left, and so had Doyle. They were alone, though that would not last. In an hour or so the late-afternoon crowd would start to arrive.

He should’ve sent Echo Raintree on her way, should’ve let her go to another part of the world searching for another stray who might be willing to do as she asked. He could’ve and should’ve sat back and allowed her to implode. It wasn’t as if he had any love for the Raintree clan.

But apparently Cassidy had said Echo would be here for a while. Cassidy was never wrong.

Echo rambled. About her problems, about her struggles with her abilities. There was something about a band, and parents who liked to gad about more than care for their only child. She was tired of seeing horrible things and never being able to do anything to stop them or influence them. He listened, but he was also distracted. Beautiful face, feminine figure, bright eyes. Any man might be understandably distracted.

He knew a bit about control, more than he was willing to share with her or anyone else. It was the reason he clung to routine, one of the reasons he remained in this quiet, enchanted village. The question was, could he teach control again? It had been more than four years since he’d taken on a student, and the last time hadn’t ended so well. There had been successes in the past, but were even a hundred successes worth the risk of a catastrophic failure?

Finally he interrupted her. “You’re stalling.”

She looked guilty. Rye had spent so much of his life hiding who and what he was, her easy-to-read expressions were a puzzle to him. The Raintree woman was an open book. How had she survived to this point? He knew she was twenty-nine years old. At one point in her rambling she’d said something about starting a new life at the age of thirty. A life without visions, a life without nightmares.

She was a mere six years younger than he was, but listening to her...it was as if they were not even of the same generation. Their lives to this point had been so very different.