Cinn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 12

Cinn spread her reading cloth on the market stones, but no one stopped. She was a green-skinned girl with long green dreadlocks and black eyes, and her wrists jingled with charms. Every star-shaman she hoped to join wore beads and braided bones like hers. To win a seat among them, she needed seekers who would swear her fate-readings came true. This morning she had none. A seed merchant hurried past. Cinn caught her sleeve. "One reading. Free." The woman pulled away. "They say you cheat. The fortune-seller warned us." Cinn's stomach dropped. She had heard the rumor for three days now. A rival fortune-seller worked the far end of the market, and he told every passerby that Cinn's gift was a trick. His words spread faster than hers. Empty stones meant no proof. No proof meant no seat among the wandering shamans. She touched the eye-charm at her throat. The painted eye stared back, useless without a crowd to convince. "You look like a girl about to do something loud." Cinn turned. Starr stood behind her, short black locs tied back, glasses low on her nose. She wore a long neutral skirt and sandals, and she sipped tea like the market noise annoyed her. Starr rarely left her quiet corner. Cinn had read her fate once, months back, and told her a lost brother would return by the rains. He had. Starr had never forgotten it. "He's turning them all away," Cinn said. "I can't prove anything to an empty cloth." Starr studied her, then set down the tea. "Then don't prove it to the empty cloth. Prove it to him." Cinn walked the length of the market to the fortune-seller's booth. A small crowd watched him shuffle cards. She stopped in front and spoke loud enough to carry. "You call me a fraud. Read my future, then. In front of everyone." He smiled and dealt three cards. He spoke of coming ruin, a fall, a curse. The crowd murmured. Then Starr stepped beside Cinn. "My brother was gone two years," Starr said. Heads turned. Everyone here knew her, the quiet woman who kept to herself. "This girl told me the exact day he'd walk back through the gate. She was right. This man told my neighbor she'd have twin sons. She had a daughter." The crowd shifted. Someone laughed. Another remembered a failed prediction. The fortune-seller's smile cracked. He gathered his cards and would not meet their eyes. By midday, seekers came to Cinn's cloth. She read for six of them. The fortune-seller packed his booth and left the market before dark. That night Starr found Cinn counting new charms, gifts from grateful seekers. "Word travels," Starr said. "You beat him in public. People noticed." Cinn should have felt only joy. But a stranger had watched from the crowd, robed in beads and bone, a true star-shaman. He had seen everything. And now he wanted to test her himself.