Jessum uncorked the second jug before leaning out the window. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but he knew rain was coming. He’d had the ability to read weather since a child. It was from his great-great grandfather, Euli had said, on his father’s side, the one who’d been a King. Under his rule the people had had bountiful harvests because he could foretell the elements and little had been lost to storm or hail. 

            The thought of a royal grandfather now seemed ludicrous. He was from peasant stock and the fact that he could feel frost days before it settled, even rain before a thundercloud appeared were heightened senses he’d inherited from ordinary people. 

He’d always been thankful for the gift.  He knew the coming rain wasn’t going to patter but be a driving force, bringing danger. The sky would be black, the ditches flooded with run-off and the roads impassable. The shacks at the Bottom would flood. He should leave within the hour.

            Yet the purple streaks of lightening forking above an area of the city called Old Town, rivetted him. A large part of him wanted to wait for the danger and watch its coming show. When night fell, the lightening would be spectacular.

 And he’d still be alone. 

            He turned to survey the room, taking in the sloping ceiling and the twelve narrow beds. Apprentices from divers’ regions sprawled nightly in these cots, but there wasn’t one among them he could count as friend. Elymas had created a barrier between him and those who should have been his companions.

            The Earth Skyll had hated him on sight, and not him alone.