Shade of Destiny (The Foreseeing)

by Shannon M Yarnold

  Kestyn turned to Byron, “Come then.”

  “No, I can reach the ship from here,” Bryon argued, ignoring the pain that shot through him at the thought of leaving Kestyn behind. Kestyn grunted and then ran ahead before Byron could grab her. Cursing, Bryon ran after her, keeping to the shadows until they reached the ship. The Captain spotted them and walked down from the deck onto the dock and smiled at Byron.

  “You must be the lad I’m to take to Terra?” He asked, his accent thick. The face of the houses that lined the dock were still dark in the morning light and the long shadows seemed as though they would swallow Bryon up. The dock was empty save the Captain’s vessel. The water lapped at the boards of the deck and the smell of the crisp salty air evoked memories of his capture.

  Bryon nodded to the Captain’s question, anxious to board the vessel. The Captain seemed to sense Byron’s unease and motioned for him to board. Bryon breathed a sigh of relief that they had not encountered the army. He walked to the plank and turned to smile and wave at Kestyn when an arrow flew through the air, narrowly skimming his raised hand. Bryon gasped and instantly ducked as a torrent of arrows flew from the shadows. Byron ran down the gangplank and threw himself down on top of Kestyn, shielding her. The Captain yelled to his men who dropped their cargo and unsheathed their swords, shouting for their attackers to reveal themselves.

  From the shadows the army emerged, Byron looked for the General but he was not among them. He breathed an unwitting sigh of relief, and lifted Kestyn to her feet. Her eyes were wide but her mouth was set in a determined line. He smiled and hugged her and then pushed her away from him, keeping hold of her shoulders, “Go, the army will not notice you.”

  “No, I won’t go, not now, not ever.”

  “Do not be ridiculous,” Bryon snapped. Kestyn scowled and pushed Bryon away. She walked up to the Captain who was issuing orders to his men and conferred with him, he reached behind him and withdrew a bow and took a quiver full of arrows from his back and handed them to Kestyn. Bryon cried out in anger and ran to her, “What are you doing?”

  “Defending myself, defending you,” she replied and then walked up the gangplank, onto the deck and positioned herself by the rails, joining the scores of men already in that position, arrows nocked. The army before them stood in a line, swords swinging in the air, shouting abuse. The Captain glanced at Bryon who ignored him and withdrew the daggers from his pack, gripping them until his knuckles became white.

  A soldier stood forward from the line and shouted, “Captain, we do not wish for a fight, you are standing in the midst of a traitor, a criminal, he escaped our clutches whilst on the way to The Rune, give him up and there will be no bloodshed.”

  The Captain turned to Bryon, “Is this true lad?”

  Byron shook his head viciously, “I do not wish for violence but I was a prisoner under false claims, if you give me up they will take me to The Rune to die. If I was guilty I would hand myself over for I am an honest man.”

  The soldier scoffed at Byron, throwing his hands in the air exasperatedly, “He is lying to you old man! He has a snake for a tongue, look at the way his eyes shift and he cannot be still. An evil man I tell you.”

  The Captain looked from Byron to the soldier and closed his eyes. For a moment none moved, while he pondered. Behind him Bryon heard the stretch of the string on the archer’s bows as they prepared to strike. Bryon swallowed and began to resign himself to his fate, his heart thumped against his chest so hard he was sure he would die on the spot. Through his eyelashes he watched the soldiers. He spotted some he recognised and they grinned back at him, their eyes glinting malevolently. Around them the crew were ready for whatever their Captain decided. There was ten and twenty of them, not counting the scores of men on the deck, and still they were outnumbered by the army.

  The Captain, after what seemed like an unreasonable amount of time, glanced at Byron, his expression unreadable, then turned and addressed the soldiers, his voice ringing out across the silent morning, “I believe this lad, so if you want him you will need to take him by force for I will not hand him over to die. I am not ignorant of what you do to the people you bring through here.”

  The soldier who had spoken scowled; behind him his archers nocked their bows and aimed for the crew. The crew did not so much as flinch and Byron wished he could face the army with such iron resolve. He could not help but bounce on the balls of his feet.

  “I will not repeat myself old man,” the soldier cried at the Captain, “hand him over and none will die. We do not wish for a fight, we just want the boy and then we will leave. Our quarrel is not with you.”

  The Captain shook his head and signalled behind him, the arrows that Kestyn and the twenty men beside her had been holding in position flew from their bows and into the leg of the soldier who had spoken. He fell to the ground, clutching his calf, twenty one thick, brown arrows protruding from his leg. The soldiers behind him yelled in shock and anger and ran forward swinging their swords; those of the army with bows began to fire even though the man on the floor had issued no orders. The crew were ready, they ducked and dodged the arrows with such skill Bryon was sure they had been in many a situation like this before.

  The two factions met in a flurry of sparks and screams. He fought for his life, swinging the sword as he had been taught as a child and although the crew were outnumbered it was soon evident the soldiers were losing. The crew fought unfairly, with tricks the soldiers had never learnt, never before had they come across an enemy they could not defeat. It was clear the crew had experience in difficult situations such as this, for the cries that echoed around the dock were not theirs.

  Caught up in fighting Bryon ignored everything save the swing of his blade. The scent of blood was the first thing Bryon smelt when he stepped back to take a breath, the metallic tang caught in his throat and he saw that most of the army were on the ground, arrows protruding from their bodies, wounds weeping blood. He gagged and saw what he had done. The Captain ran over to him, when all the army were dead, Byron was too lost in denial to realise, and dragged him aboard. They were both covered in blood and gore and Bryon felt sick rise in his throat. Kestyn dropped her bow and ran over to Byron, “Are you hurt?” She refrained from hugging him, “I tried to shoot as many as the soldiers as I could but it was a mess of bodies.”

  “I am fine, but now leave, the army will need time to regroup, and none are alive to talk of your involvement.”

  Kestyn looked at him, her eyes wide; “You won’t ever understand will you?” She walked stiffly away from him, down the steps and into the bowels of the ship. Bryon looked after her, puzzled. Sighing he sought out the Captain, who was ordering his men to clean up the mess of bodies below them, the crew pushed the bodies into the ocean, picked up the dropped cargo and then raised the gangplank. The Captain stood beside him and watched as they pulled away from the island.

  “I will forever be in your debt,” Bryon whispered.

  The Captain turned to him and smiled, “If there is one thing I have learnt in all my years it is how to spot an honest man.”

  Byron almost sagged with relief; he thanked the Captain graciously for a few more moments then too walked down into the bowels of the ship.

  ***

  Wynn stared at her attacker through the sweat that ran in funnels down her forehead. She had been in this position before back in Wolf’s camp when she had finally mastered the calm state before a fight. How things had changed. She remembered the first time clearly and saw how this was an identical moment, except that now everything was different. If she had free reign of her mind she would have wondered at the irony, how that first time she had become completely one with nature, herself and found an inner peace. Now she was trapped, terrified and in such a stolid frame of mind that she could not make the connection or understand the contrast between the memory and reality.

  To anyone close to Wynn, the change in her was remarkable and unbelievable. She had gone from quiet, frightened and humbl
e to arrogant and angry. Since Taien had read from the book of Necromancy, three days previously, the entity that had lived inside Wynn, and controlled her that afternoon, had not left. She was not as completely trapped as she had been, but she had no free will. It spoke for her, and moved for her and alienated her from her peers, who had had no great love for her to begin with. She had always been the dark haired stranger, who had defeated scores of evil Hybrid singlehandedly and who now was arrogant with it. It would have occurred to none that the Wynn they saw was not the true Wynn, but a darkness using her body.

  Why she was fighting this girl she could not comprehend. Large patches of memory were constantly blurry to her, and she assumed that at these times it was when the darkness took hold completely. It frightened her when she could not remember. She had felt nothing like it, save the moment she had passed out due to blood loss, hours after the Master had branded her. She had woken, dazed and nauseous, frightened and most importantly with no recollection of what had happened. It was worse than the pain, especially when she had been at the Manor because anything could have happened. Now the memory loss took on a terrifying and serious edge, before she had been weak and the fear she felt was in relation to what people could do to her, but now the tables had turned, this time when she forgot she worried what she could do to others. Now she had magic and could potentially be lethal to the entire Seminary.

  The days passed in the blink of an eye for Wynn. She had no idea what time it was or how long it had had control. She likened the feeling of powerlessness to when the Master had strangled her and her life had ebbed. Her body was limp and heartbeat weak, in the brief moments she was allowed to be conscious Wynn was too weak to appreciate it. Instead she spent her time locked away in the darkness of her mind, in a small corner where sound, light and feeling were forgotten. It was akin to death in Wynn’s opinion, when the darkness took hold she did not really exist.

  So it was that now, in a brief moment of clarity, she viewed the scene. They were in the courtyard, the same courtyard Wynn had viewed from the windows the first week she had arrived at the Seminary. It was cobbled; the stone walls of the castle surrounding it and providing a home to the thick ivy that crawled up its face. Windows and doors littered the wall and she could see people leaning out of the windows on the higher floors, watching her. The courtyard itself was over three hundred yards wide and long and provided a large enough space for the crowd of students to completely surround them and view the fight, not to mention those who leant out of the windows.

  Her opponent, a girl about her age, dressed like all the other students, trousers, shirt and jerkin, was completely oblivious to the strangeness that wove its way through Wynn. The girl did not feel the battle inside of Wynn. The darkness was winding its way through Wynn again like smog, overpowering her control, forcing her conscious back into the corner of her mind. It took a matter of seconds, but in those frantic and agonising moments Wynn screamed for all she was worth, willing someone to hear her, to save her, to free her from the disgusting pain of not living. But nothing happened and this moment would become another blur.

  They had been battling for a long while it seemed, long enough to raise a sweat upon both their faces, not that Wynn remembered the start of the fight or how she had come to be here, or even when they had stepped back for a breather. She was gone now, inside herself and would only return if she had the strength to overpower the darkness, which did not happen often, or if the darkness wished to punish her for rebelling by showing her what she had unwittingly done. Wynn – the Wynn that the being inside her was forcing her to be – sneered at her attacker, arrogantly winking at her and blowing her a taunting kiss. The girl opposite could not suppress her rage; it was written on her face and screamed out in her emotions. Not that Wynn sensed it. The darkness inside her did not care for such triviality. It forced her back into a defensive position and the girl knew it was once again time to attack.

  She rushed forward, hands raised – weapons were prohibited in this fight – and Wynn easily parried the blow. She smacked the girl hard in the side of the head, causing her to wobble sideways, disorientated. In normal rules this move was illegal; it could seriously injure her opponent, but Wynn was not done. She kicked her leg up sharply, catching the girl in the face, she stumbled backwards, her nose streaming with blood. Quickly Wynn swung her legs along the floor, catching the girls feet and tripping her up so she fell backward and smacked her head on the cobbles. Wynn laughed and stepped back, dusting her hands. The crowd watched her, mouths agape, stunned at her vicious attack. Wynn was oblivious to them, she smirked at the students then turned on her heel and pushed through them and made her way back into the castle. When she reached her room she entered it and sat on her bed.

  Wynn grasped the small mirror from her drawer and looked into it intently. Her ebony hair was just above her shoulder and rebelliously curly. Her clothes, black leggings, a white shirt and green tunic looked odd against her pale skin. Her eyes, as bright and deep as emeralds viewed the image ambivalently. Inside her body, on the very fringes of sanity, was the old Wynn, the free Wynn. She was trapped behind her skin, a prisoner in her own body, she had escaped her old prison of the Manor, to be encased in her own flesh, the irony angered her when she was coherent enough to think it.

  She had not managed to break free of the darkness and in her corner she wondered why she had bothered to try, again. The darkness felt Wynn’s effort like a soft breeze, not enough to interrupt it from its task. It forced her, still unidentifiable and silently, to put the mirror down and go to her pack. Inside was the book of Necromancy. She picked it up and carried it to the bed before opening and looking at it. She could not read it, but that did not bother the being, it eyed the pages and turned them as though reading them. Wynn was forced to sit and view the book, absorbing the information and remembering the pictures. While the darkness read she was trapped in a silent and numb world, she had given up trying in these moments to call her magic because she was not connected to her body.

  So it was a surprise to both the darkness in her body, and Wynn’s conscious, when they were interrupted by a knock at the door. The darkness had intently been reading the book and Wynn was trapped. They both froze and her eyes shot up at the noise. The darkness made Wynn throw the book behind the bed and brush the hair from her face.

  “Who is it?”

  “Let me in please,” the person replied, it was hard to guess who it was from behind the door, there were no emotions to go by, but the voice was insistent and it was clear they would not leave until they had entered. She stood up, walked over to the door and opened it before casually making her way back to the bed and sitting on it. Standing in the doorway was Taien, his face was carefully blank. He stared at her for a moment before venturing into the room and crossing the floor until he was standing close to her. She did not bother to stand up, but looked up at him from the bed.

  “How can I help you?” She said formally.

  “Wynn, I heard what happened in your fight with Graina.”

  Graina, what a stupid name, Wynn thought darkly. She rolled her eyes in Taien’s direction; he had no business here in her rooms, what she did was up to her. Taien caught the thought and his face noticeably dropped. Inside Wynn was shrieking to be heard, fighting against the darkness that held her more fiercely than ever; oblivious to what it was making her say or do. She repeated only one thing over and over again, why can no one save me?

  Instead what came from her mouth was, “If that is all you may go.”

  Taien opened his mouth as though to argue, but it was as though all fight left him and his shoulders slumped and he trudged from the room. Wynn picked up the mirror once more. How weak she was that she could not free herself. How helpless she had become. The darkness allowed Wynn some sense of herself and shot these words into her so that she was weeping and screaming. It pushed her again when it got bored of her crying and Wynn felt like a cloud, thin and translucent and about to float off never to return
.

  ***

  Taien, Irik and Arabella sat at the table, four candles the only light in the room. It was the same room in which Irik had spoken with Wynn only a week ago, yet everything was different. Before that meeting Irik had only suspected what was happening to Wynn, with no definitive proof. Sharing Wynn’s soul had confirmed his fears that she was infected. The only problem they had was finding the source and identity of the thing; it was not helped by the fact that Wynn herself had no idea what was happening to her. It made determining the best course of action hard, what to do when none knew exactly what was happening?

  “Is it Aerona?” Arabella said, she leant forward, leaning her elbows on the table. In the candle light her beautiful face was tense and her brown eyes full of fear. Her concern was obvious, if it was Aerona how could they hope to save Wynn?

  Irik rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “No, it is too subtle and all together unnecessary, why would Aerona keep Wynn alive when it is well documented that Wynn is the only one with enough power to see her fall? I doubt it is even her spies, I did not sense the metallic tang of Aerona... but I may be wrong, I cannot know for sure without fully inspecting Wynn, something which would alert the entity in her and we must avoid that at all costs.”

  Taien took a deep breath, “You did not see her Irik, her expression. I – well it was not a moment I am likely to forget quickly. We need to do something.”

  Irik looked at Taien intensely, “What do you suggest?”

  “I do not know, but I cannot, I will not, let her suffer any longer. We can only glean her surface thoughts and emotions and all can vouch how different they are to the Wynn we saw only a few days ago. What is she feeling beneath the facade? She may be in pain.”