Chapter 3

Lucia

'She always said I wasn't very smart, but I was smart enough to get back here when I wanted to,' Lucia thought and looked across the table at the aged Carla. Her instructor had been old when she, Lucia, best girl of the Divination School, had gone adventuring with Yuri and the others. But now she was much older still, her hair almost white, her face still full but sagging now, her once sharp eyes rheumy with age.

'Well, maybe I didn't quite get back at the right time, but that's okay.'

Lucia turned nut-brown eyes toward the Mediterranean; the water today was so bright and blue it was almost blinding in the afternoon sun. Across that great expanse of water was the man she was waiting for: Lawrence. She thought back to the lovely Bride's Dress he had given her before he left for Arabia. It was packed lovingly away in her bedroom, along with the assorted Tarot cards, aroma oils, and dance fans she had collected in her travels. She looked forward to showing them to Lawrence when he returned.

Lawrence. Now there was a handsome man; one worthy of her attentions. She wondered how much longer she'd have to wait for him to finish his 'secret mission'. With a sigh she turned back toward Carla and poured the elder teacher another cup of tea. But when she reached for the sugar bowl she misjudged her movements and knocked it over, spilling sugar over the tabletop. Carla tut-tutted and Lucia quickly began to clean it up but then hesitated when her long fingers left such delicate trails in the sugar. Fascinated, she moved her white-tipped nails through the sugar once more, her eyes focusing on the white powder. She could feel her power at the tip of her fingers, the slight 'seeing' ability she had spent years honing under Carla's attention. Relaxing, she let it loose to play amongst the grains of sugar.

Sand, as white as sugar, blazed across her vision; light blindingly bright – was that the sun? Where am I? Shadows moved; great hulking beasts crossed her vision, with men riding them. Movement, shadows, then the sparkle of the sea and smoke. Lucia blinked, clearing her vision before looking up at Carla and sweeping away the sugar.

"Carla?"

"Yes, what is it?" the old woman looked up at her student and squinted in the afternoon sun, her eyes not as clear as they had been, but her senses still sharp as a tack. "Did you see something?"

Lucia consided her answer. "Yes, I think so," she finally said continuing to scrape the sugar off the table and into the bowl. She paused, and looked up at her teacher before glancing out over the water, the glitter of the sun on the coast matching the sparkle in her mind and she lowered her eyes, her lashes shaded with more than mascara. "Have you ever heard of… Akaba?"

Carla nodded, wondering what her protégé was on about.

"I believe so. It's a coastal city in Arabia. Why?"

Lucia paused, waiting, listening one final time to some indecernable sound and a swirl of light that made her mind hurt. "I don't know. I think Lawrence is there."

Carla snorted. "Finish cleaning up that mess and get us some fresh tea, silly girl."

Historical Note: On September 6, 1917 T. E. Lawrence and his Arab forces took Akaba from the Turks. It becomes Feisal's new base of operations.