Rathma
It hurt every single time.
Rathma could already feel the headache that always followed his jumps through reality, but he couldn’t afford to give it a second thought; he knew he wasn’t in the clear just yet.
Rathma could hear growled obscenities coming from inside the courtyard; Kuu wasn’t born with the gift of farstepping like Rathma was.
“I’m sorry, Kuu!” he managed to shout through the pain. “You know where I’ll be!”
He had to keep going.
“Just stick to the plan,” he said to himself through gritted teeth.
The jagged slabs of rock that made up the outside of the compound were mostly obscured by the darkness, but the flicker of torches waving around them cast shiftless and wandering shadows, and one of those shadows—Rathma—was moving quickly away.
But even as he moved away from the compound, he knew that his friend was more than capable of taking care of himself. Kuu had a few skills that even Rathma envied. But, for now, he was on the run.
***
Djozen Yelto’s men, while certainly fast and determined, were not born with the gift of farstepping, and therefore were simply no match for Rathma. In fact, as long as he could see to where he was farstepping, Rathma could blink in and out of the landscape with nothing more than a thought—a thought which was always followed by violent nausea. But he simply had to put enough space between himself and Yelto’s men until he was sure that he would be safe. He had no choice: he would have to do it again.
Each time Rathma farstepped, it took a toll on him physically, but in this situation it didn’t matter how much.
Taking a breath, Rathma tried to calm himself. He had no idea how his older brother was able to farstep so easily; it had always been a struggle for him. With a grimace, he looked at a point far off in the distance and braced himself again. He closed his eyes and focused.
Now! he thought, doing what only a Farstepper could do: moving through the air like lightning. He reappeared once again, a great distance away . . . and collapsed.
***
Rathma had no idea how long he had been out for, but the throbbing in his head told him that it was a while.
Never again, he swore to himself.
The “gift” that everyone called farstepping was a cruel joke wrapped in a hex dipped in a curse. It was no wonder that most chose not to pursue it at all. But others, only a handful that Rathma knew of, embraced it. His grandfather had told him about a Farstepper who was even able to travel to the Otherworld itself, staying there for days at a time. When he emerged (so the stories went) no time had passed at all. But that was neither here nor there: it was most likely Grandfather exaggerating—or the end result of someone trying to impress a girl. Rathma had always brushed it off as nonsense.
But one thing was for sure: his own brother was one of the most gifted Farsteppers that Rathma had ever heard of. Which was why, when he left their desert at the age of eighteen, everyone in the tribe had been devastated.
Lying on his side, Rathma pulled tight the cloak that his brother had given him. He shivered in the air of the cold desert night and fought off the headache that threatened to overpower him. “Dammit, why did you have to leave me here?” He coughed. In the far distance he could see the torch lights of the servants of the Holder, searching the area in vain for some sign of the Farstepper.
“Perhaps he knew that you would never amount to anything,” scoffed a deep voice from behind.
Rathma didn’t have to see its owner to know he was in trouble.
It was a voice he’d heard boom orders to the followers of the Holder, once at the beginning of the day, and once again at the end. A voice that belonged to a man who sought to rule the Wastes at any cost.
A voice that conjured such hatred that Rathma would do anything to overthrow it.
Rathma rolled over to see, grinning down at him, the last man he expected outside of Djozen Yelto’s stronghold. The same man who had somehow managed to follow him across the impossible expanse of desert between him and the fortress.
“Yelto,” Rathma croaked.
“In the flesh.”
Dressed from head to toe in the finest silks that money could buy, Djozen Yelto looked like a man who always got what he wanted. He was heavy and bald, with skin the color of the dark desert sand, and was known to truly care for only two things in this world: himself and the prize that hung from his neck.
Years ago, Yelto had traveled south to Do’baradai and had returned clutching a strange dagger, followed fiercely by the Priests of the Holder. What happened in that old, crumbling ruin of a city was a secret only Yelto knew, but his rapid rise to power soon after was seen as no coincidence by the tribes. He wore the dagger around his neck as a reminder of this rise—among other things.
But everything Yelto did was just a grab for power, and Rathma knew it. Even the appointing of his own successor to the position of chief of the eastern tribes had been done out of ambition. And now that he had subjugated and proclaimed himself chief of the central tribes as well, he was frighteningly close to making truth out of rumors and whispers—uniting the tribes under one banner: his.
Rathma retched again, the taste of fear now mingling with the nausea of farstepping. “Well, you found me. Now what?” he asked.
“Now you stand trial,” Yelto answered. “You and that Wolfwalker friend of yours. For treason.” He grabbed Rathma by the rough material that made up his cloak’s collar and pulled him up, whirling him around to look him in the eye. With a grin wider than the slice of moon above, he added, “And I doubt the sentencing will be light.”
Rathma frowned. They’d caught him and Kuu. That definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
No matter, he thought. He was caught now, and there was no getting away. Yelto had his hands firmly on him, and the pure iron shackles that were wrapped around Rathma’s wrists meant that he wouldn’t be farstepping his way out of it.
No, Rathma thought. This is the end. Might as well face it like a man. That’s the way Jinda would have done it.
If he couldn’t master farstepping like his big brother could, he could at least try to live—and die—in a way that would make him proud.
Rathma Yhun frowned as he clenched his jaw, looking defiantly at the lights ahead, and began the long walk back as a prisoner of Djozen Yelto.