It took Abrial some time to descend the long, rickety staircase. The light here was so yellow and dim and the shadows were so thick and dark that it was hard to see her own feet.

When she reached the bottom, she found that her head almost brushed the low ceiling. What a tiny fortune-telling cellar! She blinked harshly a few times as her eyes adjusted to the light.

What a weird little room! It was small and round, most of it cloaked in long shadows. There seemed to be a faint smoky lavender haze filling the place, and the smell of something sweet burning. Incense, maybe?

“Well, hello there!” a voice cackled. “Are you going to just stand there looking around like a lost little duck, hm?”

The voice’s owner was an old woman lying on a pretty battered, worn embroidered couch that seemed to materialize out of the darkness when that voice spoke. The woman’s hands rested behind her head lazily, and a rolled stick of some sort was poking out of her mouth. It was smoldering with a faint purple smoke. Abrial made a sour face. So that’s what the haze was — someone was smoking. This woman’s ratty robes were worn and gray, and her hair was pretty crazy — frizzy and gray and sticking up in all directions. She was grinning, showing crooked yellow teeth.

Abrial frowned, looking this odd woman up and down suspiciously. “Is the fortune teller here?”

The woman cackled, sitting up. “Do you see anyone else here?”

Abrial looked around, frowning. Nope. There was no one. Which meant…that this ratty old woman was the fortune teller, right? But…were fortune tellers normally so desolate-looking? For some reason, Abrial had the impression that a fortune teller would be wearing a lot of gold and look really mysterious, not like a crazy old hag.

“Are you really the fortune teller?” she asked, blinking.

“Ha!” The woman yacked, slapping her knees. Her misty eyes glittered up at Abrial strangely. They seemed to have a hint of gold in them. “You’re a funny one! Yes, it’s me. I’m Gananjag’s one and only fortune teller, who performs face readings, salt scatterings, etc, etc! All for a price. One fourth of your gold pin should do the trick.”

Abrial had just set down her sack by a dilapidated pouf and sat. When she heard that, she froze. The back of her neck tingled. She eyed this weird old woman narrowly, muscles tensing.

“How d’you know I had a gold pin?”

The woman grinned widely. She removed the purple smoking roll from her mouth with two fingers and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. It was lavender-colored and glittered slightly, dissipating into the haze of the room.

“Didn’t you read the sign? It’s my job to know things about you.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense!” Abrial leaned forward, suddenly filled with curiosity. A thought had struck her. “Hey, fortune-telling lady — if magic isn’t allowed, how come you can keep out a fortune telling sign and not get killed? Did the laws change or something?”

The woman’s dark eyes glittered in the yellow light of the lamps sitting on the table between them. Her crooked teeth glinted, too, like many golden coins inside her wide smile.

“You wish. I don’t have a good answer to that question, but I can say for sure the laws haven’t changed. Do magic in the streets, and you’ll get a fate worse than death. As for me — honey, I’ve been doing this kind of thing forever, and I haven’t been caught and executed yet! I guess I’m just special, hehe!”

The woman’s eyes were intense and yet amused, glittering and yet dark as rain clouds. Abrial stared back into them, puzzled. This woman acted almost as weird as she looked. She could get a fate worse than death for fortune-telling, but she had a sign out there just telling the whole world she was a fortune teller? What kind of move was that? Was she trying to get caught, or what?

After a moment of trying to understand and then giving up, Abrial broke off half of her remaining piece of gold pin and held it out to the woman, who waved her hand.

“Eh, just put it in the jar. I’ll lose it if I handle it.”

Abrial looked down to see a totally empty, very dusty ceramic jar labeled, “MONEY JAR”. She blinked a couple times, perplexed, and then dropped the pin in with a clink.

“All right, then.” The woman flicked the smoke roll somewhere behind herself. Then she stood and stretched her hands up to the ceiling, as though waking from a long nap. There were many loud and concerning cracking noises as she stretched this way and that, rolling her neck and her rickety hips. Abrial frowned and stared, wondering just how old a person had to be to sound like a thousand acorns falling onto stone when they stretched. And also wondering whether it hurt a lot.

“AH! Much better. Everyone needs to get up and move around once in a while. Important to get the blood pumping again, heh!” The woman plopped herself back down onto the couch with a hop. A cloud of dust rose around her, which she waved away, grinning unbotheredly. “You, young woman…Hm. I’d say you’re unnaturally fearless and have a tendency to rebel against authority. You despise doing what others tell you to, to the point that you do things harmful to yourself in order to defy them. You have little regard for your own wellbeing, especially bodily health. Watch out for that, hm? You don’t want to break all your bones or cut out your own heart by accident!”

Abrial’s face had flushed a deep red as she realized these descriptions were quite accurate. “Lady, where are you getting this from?”

The woman leaned forward and poked Abrial in the nose. Abrial flinched in shock and rubbed her nose automatically.

“Your face! You have quite an expressive face, if I do say so myself!”

Abrial continued to rub her nose fiercely, frowning a sour frown. “If you say so — but no poking my nose! Lady, I have an important question, and I don’t have a lot of time. Can you tell me if my friend Finley’s doing all right? I’m not interested in other things right now.”

The woman cackled gleefully, leaning back into the couch cushions. “You’re a funny one. Listen, honey — I can’t just tell you what you want.”

“Oh. Wait, what?” Abrial’s face went even more sour. She frowned in irritation, grabbing her sack in preparation to leave. “Hey! You should’ve told me that beforehand! Then, I wouldn’t have given you my gold! I could have used it for something else, like — like something better!”

As Abrial stood, the old woman moved like lightning. Her wrinkled, bony hand clamped around Abrial’s wrist, holding her in place. Abrial spluttered and glared at the woman, pulling away, but the old hag’s grip was surprisingly strong — like a band of iron! Just what kind of human was this lady? She looked like a sack of bones, but she was strong as a bear!

The old fortune teller grinned widely, eyes glittering.

“Now, now, come and sit back down, dearie. I’ve just started, hm? I promise to make it worth your while. I won’t waste more than a teaspoon of your time!”

Abrial glared at the woman a little longer before the fortune teller succeeded in pulling her grumpily back into her seat.

“Now, now — I don’t know what you’ve heard,” the woman continued cheerfully, re-seating herself, “But fortune telling doesn’t work that way, just answering whatever questions you want answered. Let me examine you, and if something comes up about your friend, it will. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But it might. I have a feeling it really might. Why don’t we try and see?”

Abrial gritted her teeth, seething. “Okay, just — be quick about it! Because I need to get back to my friend ASAP, got it?”

“All right, all right. Calm your horses.” The woman stood, bones crackling again like falling acorns.

Before Abrial knew what was happening, the woman had reached out and grabbed her by the jawbones with two hands and pulled her face into the lamplight to better inspect it, like some rare specimen.

“Hmm…” the woman muttered with great concentration, her face very close to Abrial’s. Abrial could smell her sweet, smoky breath. She grimaced up at the woman dourly.

“What’re you smoking? It reeks.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Shh, shh. Hold still a moment.”

After a minute, the woman finally released Abrial’s face and flopped back onto the couch, her gleeful grin returning. Abrial furiously rubbed her jaw and wrinkled her nose, extremely irritated.

“Hey, old lady, I said no touching!”

“Heh! You said no poking.”

“Same thing! You — ”

“Now, listen close, dearie: I know you don’t want to hear about love or marriage or your future right now, so I’ll skim that part for you. But here are the basics, since it’s customary to give a run-down, eh?” She cleared her throat. Then she grabbed the lamp and held it under her wrinkled face, which seemed somehow much younger and smoother in the lamp light, and dramatically and gravely gave the beginnings of Abrial’s fortune.

“You, dearie, have lived a lonely life. The faded scar on your neck shows that you survived the Scarlet Plague at birth. Lucky you. You are reckless and rambunctious. You are untamed, and take joy in things that make your heart race. You are not very conscious of yourself and the workings of your own mind, and you are utterly inconsiderate of your physical safety. That is probably very annoying to your dear friend.”

Abrial perked up hopefully at that word, “friend”, but the woman moved on without a blink.

“You, dearie, desire freedom and discovery and adventure. You like to be constantly stimulated. You are physically gifted and can run many miles. You have a peculiar, dark, and muted spiritual energy. You are gifted with blades. You are deeply attached to either fighting with blades, or to the one who taught you to fight with blades. Or both, ha!”

Abrial’s face softened. Instructor Wei’s smile flickered in her mind. That was true. Instructor Wei was someone she deeply respected. Thinking about it now…would she ever get to see him again, with everything that had happened over the last two days? The thought of never seeing him again made her feel…empty.

Meanwhile, the old hag had continued without missing a beat:

“Now, everyone’s favorite part: LOVE! The person you will fall in love with is someone stern and powerful. They are responsible, and have a gentle smile to contrast your bright grin. They are a rare beauty, and they are especially adept at —”

“Can you skip this part?” Abrial frowned grumpily, waving her hand. “I’m not getting married, and I’m not interested in love. Next.”

The woman cackled, her eyes glittering with amusement. “As I said, you’re not very self-aware. All right. Next it is, then! I also see that you care about your friend deeply and are very worried about her. You have undergone chronic stress for many years. And you have just experienced some traumatic event, which I suppose landed you here in Gananjag. That is all, from your face.”

“That’s all just from my face?” Abrial blinked, surprised. Even though there hadn’t been much at all about Finley, that still seemed like a lot to tell from a person’s face! “But, is there anything else about my friend?”

“Nope. Ha! Now, clear the lamps off the table for me, feisty. I need space.”

Reluctantly, Abrial moved the few rather heavy lamps from the table to the carpeted floor. When she was done, the woman flourished a large jar she had retrieved without Abrial noticing. It was made of opalescent blue glass.

The woman stuffed one hand into the jar and withdrew it full of some sort of tiny white crystals — that must be salt, for those salt-scatterings, or whatever had been on the sign. She scattered them over the table with a swishing motion, and they landed on the wood like snow.

Then she set the jar down and kneeled intently over the table, tracing the paths of salt with her eyes. Abrial watched her, rubbing her knuckles together restlessly. Should she leave? Was this a waste of time? The fortune so far, besides that love part, of course, had seemed pretty accurate, though…if something came up about Finley, even something small, it could be useful…right?

The woman looked up suddenly. A knowing grin crept across her face. When she spoke, her voice was somehow more gleeful than it had been before.

“You…were born in the Year of the Lotus.”

“No, I was born in the Year of the Magnolia,” Abrial scoffed. This woman really didn’t know what she was doing. Then, she froze. Her obsidian eyes widened. “W-wait — I was! I was born in the Year of the Lotus, not the Year of the Magnolia! Holy shit!”

Hearing someone else say it felt strange — especially when she’d been told she was born in the Year of the Magnolia all her life. It was like a confirmation of something she’d pushed to the back of her mind for the past day, and all of her curiosity and confusion came suddenly bubbling up like hot water in her chest. She sat straighter, very intrigued now. This old woman had to be at least pretty legit if she could dig up something Abrial hadn’t even known about herself for eighteen years, right?

“Lady, does that mean something? Me being born in the Year of the Lotus?”

The fortune teller had been watching her reaction. Now, she smiled crookedly and looked back mysteriously to the salt, tracing over a shape with one knobbly finger.

“Mm…You see, some people’s paths of life are solitary and unique, running mostly apart from others’. Yours, however…is intertwined closely with another’s. It has its own direction, but it closely resembles another person’s path…You two live along very similar paths of fate, indeed…”

Abrial peered at the salt curiously, trying to see what this stuff about destinies in the salt was. She frowned. All she could see was random piles of salt.

“Okay…Then, what’s the path? And who’s the other person that has a path like mine?”

The woman grinned with her yellow teeth.

“I’m afraid the salt isn’t telling me the answers to that.”

Abrial scowled sourly, huffing in irritation.

“Great! So they just give you hints, like little crumbs of candy or something, and then don’t give you anymore! What help is that?”

“Hmmm…Well, dearie, I do happen to see something about your close friend here.”

Abrial’s frown melted away. She leaned forward so that she was almost falling off the pouf, and her obsidian eyes glittered with hope.

“You see something about Finley? What is it? How is she? Is she okay?”

“Mm…I see…” The woman moved her hands over the mess of salt, squinting at it and tracing invisible shapes with her fingers. “Her path of life appears along with yours. How interesting…”

Abrial’s lifted herself off the pouf and stared at the salt, trying to make out Finley’s path. Maybe…it was that line of salt along the edge? Or that pile in the bottom right?

“Hey, lady — do you see anything about her right now? I mean, is she safe? Will she be safe? Am I going to — ” Abrial’s voice faltered as the thought she’d been suppressing and beating down for a day now bubbled to the surface. “...Am I going…to see her again? Soon, hopefully?”

The woman examined the salt crystals slowly, her dark, gold-glittering eyes narrowed. A tension seemed to build in the air, like the tightening of a rope. Abrial held her breath, watching the woman’s face in suspense.

The woman suddenly blew a raspberry, shocking Abrial so much that she jumped and knocked half the salt crystals off the table. Abrial swore and started picking crystals up and tossing them back onto the table frantically.

“What the heck? What was that for?! Why’d you make that noise?!”

The old hag shrugged, grinning with her crooked, yellowed teeth.

“Sorry, dearie. Leave the salt there, it’s healthy for the ground. I’m afraid there wasn’t anything else about your friend in the salts. See, salt scattering’s no good for examining specific things. Only the general course of events.”

Abrial puffed a furious breath from her nose and vaulted to her feet, shaking off salt crystals from her robes. She snatched up her sack and whirled around to leave with a huff.

“Hold on! Two more important things!” called out the woman. “Very important!”

Abrial stopped, her fist clenched around the neck of her sack. “What is it?! If it’s not really important, I swear I’m gonna — I’ll knock over your salt jar and eat all of it! Or something!”

“Trust me, these last things are important, dearie.” The old woman’s voice suddenly lowered, becoming serious for the first time since she’d started speaking. “First thing: you ought to listen to your good friend and meet her where she told you to. At that camp, wasn’t it? In the north, under the largest star.”

The faintly purple smoke shifted around Abrial. Her fist tightened on the sack.

“And the second thing. Make sure to keep that tattoo behind your ear safe as long as you can, or you might end up in a bad state.”

Abrial’s hand went to the back of her ear.

“Tattoo…? I — have a tattoo???”

“Yep! Sure do, feisty. Behind the other ear, the right one. Yep. Right there, you got it. It’s a nice tattoo; just remember to keep it safe, hm? All right, I won’t keep you any longer. I’ve had enough amusement for a long while. Go on. Don’t stomp too loudly on your way out, it shakes dust from the bottom of the stairs, eh?”

Abrial lowered her hand from the back of her ear, where she’d been incredulously feeling the smooth skin. Did she…really have a tattoo there? She’d never seen behind her own ear, obviously, and the spot that old hag spoke about was practically hidden in her hairline. Was this some kind of joke to mess with her?

Abrial turned her head back to the woman, who was reclining on the heavily shadowed couch, already smoking a purple roll in her yellow-toothed mouth again.

“...Thanks, old lady,” Abrial forced out.

That old hag only waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave and threw her feet on the table, scattering more salt onto the ground. Abrial made a sour face. Where had this woman been raised, a pig pen? Putting your feet on a table with your shoes on was one thing, but that woman wasn’t even wearing shoes, and her feet were wrinkled, with very long, yellowed nails…

Come to think of it, how could Abrial know whether that old hag practiced proper hygiene? Did she even wash her hands? She’d put her hands all over Abrial’s face not long ago…

Feeling slightly nauseous, Abrial turned and ran up the stairs, shaking a fair amount of dust into the utterly dark cellar. Like that, she left that underground room of purple glittering haze and dim yellow light behind.