The Assassin's Destiny (Isle of Dreams)

by Jones, Kirsten

  ‘Not here.’ Cain frowned. ‘This will be a battlefield soon. The Council are going to come down and finish up.’

  ‘Take all the glory you mean.’ Phantom muttered, examining the blood-soaking gauze in his hand and pressing it against his neck again.

  ‘Where then?’ Mistral’s voice cracked, high with growing hysteria.

  ‘We’ll ride. Get back to a safe position and treat him there. We need fresh water to boil up though. Where’s the nearest stream?’

  Phantasm shook his head, ‘Miles away.’

  ‘If we ride hard we can make it to our house by sunset!’ Mistral hissed, her eyes darting frantically between Fabian and Cain. ‘Will that be soon enough?’

  ‘He’s a Mage. He should make it that far.’

  ‘Let’s go!’

  Mistral kicked Cirrus on, pulling Spirit with her and forcing the tired horses into a heavy gallop back along the cliffside path. The roar of the Ri riding back into battle faded to be replaced by the monotonous thud of hooves and the sobbing breathing of horses. Mistral was suddenly aware of a second, lighter set of feet running beside her and glanced down with a burst of relief to see Prospero running alongside, his thick coat splattered with blood.

  Fabian began to drift in and out of consciousness and had to be supported on either side by Mistral and Cain. At Cain’s insistence they stopped frequently to force water into his mouth and check the wound. During the brief stops Mistral was next to useless, staring frozenly at the long shaft protruding from Fabian’s shoulder, eventually causing Cain to snap at her.

  ‘Get it together Mistral! I’ve seen you pull an arrow out of yourself without even flinching!’

  She shook her head fearfully, still staring at the arrow, ‘I don’t care about me. But I – I care about him.’

  ‘If you care about him then toughen up! This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, believe me.’

  The twins rode alongside her, uncomplaining of their own injuries but Mistral hardly registered their presence. She was aware only of Fabian’s weakening state and the pressing need to keep pushing the horses on. Barely a word was spoken as they rode. The bright spring day took on a nightmarish quality. Time either rushed by in a haze of adrenalin or seemed to stand completely still. Fear numbed all of her senses leaving only a gnawing desperation to get Fabian home … get Fabian home… the words revolved ceaselessly in her head, as though the simple act of carrying his unconscious body through the door of their home would somehow heal him.

  Night had fallen by the time they pulled their exhausted horses to a staggering halt in the paved courtyard of the mountain house.

  ‘We’ll take the horses.’

  Phantom spoke but Mistral barely heard him. She threw herself from Cirrus and ran to help Cain lift Fabian from Spirit’s back, carrying him between them into the house and up to the bedroom.

  Mistral was almost sobbing by the time she and Cain laid Fabian across their bed. Denied sleep for two nights and exhausted by the battle, her mind had gone beyond the limits of reason. She was wretched with fear, trembling and disorientated.

  ‘Get that arrow out.’ Cain instructed her sharply while he unfastened his saddlebag. ‘But make sure you don’t break it. We don’t want to be digging around for the arrow head.’

  Mistral reached out with a shaking hand to touch the shaft of the arrow and saw a tremor of pain run across Fabian’s face.

  ‘No! It’ll hurt him!’

  ‘It’s already hurting him! Just get it out! I need to mix an antidote while you do it!’

  Mistral gritted her teeth and tightened a hand around the arrow. Fabian’s pain-filled eyes flickered open and stared unseeingly into hers.

  ‘I can’t do it!’ she cried hysterically, watching Fabian’s eyes slowly close once more.

  ‘Well I will then! Move!’

  Cain shoved her out of the way. Wrapping a clean linen cloth around the shaft of the arrow he began to pull. Fabian’s eyes abruptly flew wide open. Cain tugged sharply at the arrow, wrenching it out with one clean pull. Fabian cried out then his eyes rolled back, his face slack.

  Mistral stared in horror at his waxen face, ‘You’ve killed him!’

  ‘No I haven’t Mistral!’ Cain snapped. ‘He’s blacked out. Now if you can’t calm down you’re of no use to me. Get it together or get downstairs!’

  Mistral stared with wild eyes at Cain for a moment then forced in a deep breath.

  ‘Tell me what to do.’

  ‘Take his shirt off and clean the wound.’ Cain ordered sharply. ‘I’m going to start mixing antidotes. We’ll start with something simple … bloodwort –’

  While Cain moved away from Fabian’s side and knelt to rummage through his saddlebag Mistral stared frozenly at the still body on the bed.

  ‘Mistral, get on with it!’ Cain hissed over his shoulder, his hands full of coloured bottles.

  Taking a shuddering breath, Mistral reached out and began to unbutton Fabian’s blood-soaked shirt. She gently teased the fabric back, wincing at what it revealed. The wound was deep. Dark gore seeped from the glistening hole. Purplish staining at the edges told her instantly that Cain was right. A strong poison had been on the arrowhead.

  Forcing herself to focus on the wound and not Fabian’s unmoving face, Mistral began to work. She cleaned the wound methodically, drying it carefully while she listened to the soothing clink of Cain’s glass bottles.

  ‘Right, let’s try this for a start.’

  Cain moved quietly over to the bed and passed Mistral a small bottle filled with a ruby coloured liquid.

  ‘I’ll lift him. You need to get as much of this into him as possible.’

  Cain was a lot smaller than Fabian and struggled to hold his unconscious body while Mistral prised his mouth open. Somehow they managed and Mistral poured the contents of the bottle into his mouth. When the last drop had been drained she looked at Cain.

  ‘That’s all of it.’

  ‘Good.’ Cain grunted and slowly lowered Fabian back against the bed.

  ‘How do we know if it’s worked or not?’ Mistral asked, her eyes lingering on Fabian’s deathly pale face.

  ‘When he either wakes up … or dies.’

  Mistral eyes jerked up to meet Cain’s.

  ‘In the meantime we need to do all we can. We should stitch the wound to stop any infection getting in –’ Cain noted her stricken expression and frowned. ‘Mistral? Can you stitch it or do you need me to?’

  Mistral stared at Cain, the task he was charging her with seeming insurmountable. She could do that for Fabian couldn’t she? Help heal the man she loved? She found her voice at last, a quiet whisper that seemed to come from someone else but said the words she wanted.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  By the time she had finished stitching the wound in Fabian’s shoulder the twins had returned from the stables and prepared a meal. She could smell a stew cooking and hear them talking quietly in the room downstairs.

  ‘Mistral? Cain?’ Phantom’s voice called softly. ‘There’s some food here if you want to eat.’

  ‘One of us should stay with him.’ Cain said quietly.

  ‘I’ll stay. I couldn’t eat anyway.’ Mistral muttered, not taking her eyes from Fabian’s face.

  Cain picked up his saddlebag and walked downstairs, leaving her alone with Fabian. Time seemed to slow again as Mistral sat and stared numbly at his unmoving body. She noticed everything but nothing meant anything to her. It was as though she were on the outside of a window looking in. She could hear Cain and the twins talking in low voices downstairs. Prospero twitched in his sleep at her feet and growled softly. Outside one of the horses neighed and further away she could hear the sound of bird song. Mistral realised dimly that the small window in the bedroom was filled with grey light. A new day had dawned.

  Fabian suddenly gave a long rattling gasp. Mistral’s eyes snapped back to him, a gasp of terror leaving her as he began to convulse violently.

  ‘Cain
! Something’s happening!’

  Prospero leapt to his feet and growled at the sound of urgency. Cain and the twins burst into the room, Phantasm immediately pulled her away as Cain bent over Fabian and felt his brow.

  ‘He’s running a fever. My antidote hasn’t worked. Damn it!’ Cain swore and shook his head. ‘He really needs Theriac to survive this.’

  ‘Which bottle is that in?’ Mistral demanded urgently and yanked herself free of Phantasm to run downstairs for Cain’s saddlebag.

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘We’ll make some! What do you need?’ Mistral cried, staring at him with panicked eyes.

  ‘We can’t.’ Cain said flatly. ‘It has over seventy ingredients and takes at least a day to prepare. We don’t have the ingredients or the time.’

  ‘Wait!’ Phantom cried suddenly. ‘Theriac! I know that stuff! I read about it in Master Nox’s tower room! I bet he has a bottle on that table!’

  ‘Oh! You’re right! He does have a bottle! I remember nearly knocking it over and he practically had a heart-attack! It’s the dark green one with flat sides! If we leave now we could be back within three hours! We’ll get fresh horses from the Equus for the journey back –’

  Phantasm and his brother were already running down the stairs before he had finished speaking, his voice abruptly cut off by the slamming of the front door.

  The silence that followed was broken by the sound of Fabian’s laboured breathing as his body fought the poison that was killing him. Mistral stared blankly at Cain while he worked to try and lower Fabian’s fever, the unspeakable fear clawing at the edge of her mind rendering her completely useless.

  ‘Mistral … Mistral!’

  She blinked and switched her frozen stare to meet his.

  ‘Get me more cold water and clean cloths! We need to get this fever down or he won’t survive long enough for the Theriac to arrive!’

  Mistral nodded and forced herself to move and obey his requests, bringing a constant supply of fresh water and cloths up from the kitchen and hovering anxiously beside Cain to watch him apply them to Fabian’s skin. The light filtering in through the window grew stronger as the morning wore by, the bright rays throwing into sharp relief the sunken face on the pillow.

  ‘I’ve done all I can.’ Cain said softly and sat back, rubbing a hand over his exhausted face. ‘We should eat, keep our strength up.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Mistral whispered, barely noticing when Cain left to go downstairs.

  Mistral stared unblinkingly at her Mage, rigid with tension, waiting for the sound of hooves in the courtyard to tell her that the twins were back.

  ‘Cain!’

  Mistral’s gasp of joy bought Cain running to her side.

  ‘Look!’ she hissed excitedly, staring with wild hope at Fabian, watching his shivering gradually slowing and then stopping altogether.

  ‘That’s good isn’t it?’ she whispered elatedly to Cain, her eyes not leaving Fabian’s pale face.

  Cain didn’t reply and Mistral turned to stare at him, the hope fading from her eyes at the flatness of his expression.

  ‘Cain?’

  Cain sighed, ‘I’m sorry Mistral, but it’s not good. His body has given up fighting the poison. It’s just a matter of time now.’

  Denial escaped her lips in a desperate hiss. She sank onto the bed, watching the man she loved dying. Before her very eyes the life seemed to seep from his body until his chest was barely moving with each shallow breath.

  ‘But ... he can’t die!’ she turned to stare beseechingly at Cain.

  Cain looked at her steadily, ‘He can and one day he will. He may be a Mage but he chooses to be a warrior. We all die like this one day.’

  Mistral shook her head, frantic with agony, ‘No!’

  Cain’s voice was calm, ‘Yes Mistral. We each know our fate. We’ve known it since the first day of training.’

  Mistral gazed at Fabian, her eyes moving over the face she loved, so still, like he was already dead, ‘No. I can’t live without him.’

  ‘You can and you will.’

  ‘How?’ Mistral demanded in an agonised whisper.

  ‘Because he would want you to.’

  Mistral stared blankly at her dying Mage while Cain’s words rolled around in her head ... Because he would want you to … Like stones falling into water, the events of the last few weeks dropped into place, making sense in her numb mind. Fabian’s sudden inexplicable desire for her to be married to him. To have the De Winter name and inherit the estate if he were to die.

  To die.

  Abruptly, Malachi’s words of the Craft doing anything to protect its vessel sprang into her mind.

  ‘The Craft!’ she gasped. ‘It’s meant to protect the person it exists within! Why isn’t it healing him?’

  Cain sighed, ‘I think it’s probably the only thing keeping him alive right now. Any of us would have died within minutes of being shot with that poison. But it can’t heal him Mistral. Theriac is our only hope now.’

  Mistral stared at Fabian, desperately willing the mysterious force that existed inside him to keep him alive for just a little while longer. The Craft. That inexplicable power that lay within him. Had it somehow known its vessel’s time was drawing to a close? By the nature of Bonding, hers and Fabian’s souls were inextricably linked. Did the Craft then see her as an extension of Fabian? Like some satellite vessel that also needed to be protected? Had it prompted Fabian to ensure her continued existence without him by the only way he could? By giving her his name before he died?

  Panic clawed at her, threatening to overwhelm her. She leapt from the bed and stared wildly at Cain.

  ‘I – I need some air –’

  ‘Go. I’ll stay with him.’ Cain murmured, not taking his eyes from Fabian’s waxen face.

  Mistral stumbled down the stairs, her mind wheeling frantically. Fabian dying now seemed inevitable. She began to hyperventilate as she faced the unthinkable prospect of a life without him.

  Cain was wrong. There was no way she could live without him. The very thought of the half-existence she’d led the year before proved that. She knew without a shadow of doubt that her stubborn nature was too strong to let her simply give up and die the way Elnora had. She would force herself to take endless Contracts until she accepted the final, fateful one that would be her last. Like Cain had said, we all die like this one day.

  Mistral could see her future stretching out before her, bleak and desolate to the day she welcomed her warrior’s fate. Leo’s words to them on their first day had made it clear to them all what their fates were.

  Leo …

  As Mistral thought his name she knew with absolute certainty that her ambitious Training Captain would never let her die, not if she had the Sight. Even if she was too wracked with grief to master her gift he would keep her imprisoned in the Valley in the hope that she might recover one day and become of use to him once more.

  Weak with despair, Mistral leaned her hands against the kitchen table and stared blindly at Cain’s worn leather saddlebag. Her hands suddenly tightened on the edge of the table, so hard that splinters dug into her skin but she wasn’t aware of the pain, only the idea forming in her mind.

  Cain’s potion kit.

  Her solution was sitting there on the table, right before her eyes. She wouldn’t have to go on without Fabian. She wouldn’t become a slave to Leo’s ambition. She could escape the emptiness of a life without Fabian.

  And be with Fabian.

  Blinking back the tears that threatened, Mistral suddenly knew what she had to do. With a trembling hand she slowly reached out and lifted the flap. Moving slowly, she slid her hand into the bag and felt around carefully for the distinctively square shaped bottle that held Cain’s own potent brand of poison. Her answer. Her escape.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Cain’s soft voice made her jump. She spun round to see him standing near, regarding her with suspicious eyes.

  ‘I – I was looki
ng for the bloodwort. I thought we could try that again until the twins got back,’ she lied quickly, keeping her gaze locked on his.

  ‘Liar.’ Cain stepped past her and reaching into the bag. ‘You were looking for this weren’t you?’ he pulled out a black bottle of poison and held it up, eyeing her accusingly.

  Her gaze flickered over the bottle in Cain’s hand then she suddenly lunged for it.

  ‘I never had you down as weak Mistral!’ Cain hissed furiously, snatching the bottle away.

  ‘Give it to me!’ she screamed, clawing desperately for the bottle in Cain’s fist.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Cain shoved her to the floor, anger making him rough.

  Mistral’s voice broke with tears of desperation, ‘I need it!’

  The door banged open and the twins burst into the room, wide-eyed and breathless.

  ‘Here!’ Phantom strode over to Cain brandishing a large glass flask. ‘Theriac!’

  Cain took it from him wordlessly. Giving Mistral a furious look he turned away and ran up the stairs.

  Phantasm watched Cain vanish up the stairs with a frown then walked over to gaze down at Mistral, stricken-faced and sprawled on the floor. He held his hand out to pull her upright, ‘Just what has been going on here?’ he demanded in a low voice.

  ‘I – I –’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  Fresh tears fell from her eyes when she realised that Cain had taken the bottle of poison with him.

  ‘Crying won’t help.’ Phantasm said sharply. ‘You’re stronger than this Mistral! He’s not dead yet!’

  ‘But he will be soon!’

  ‘Have I missed something? Or does Theriac not cure all known poisons?’

  Mistral wiped her eyes on her shirt sleeve, ‘I think it’s too late! He knew he was going to die! That’s why he wanted us to be married. He wanted to give me his name and make sure I would be provided for if he wasn’t around –’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Not even a Seer knows when they are going to die.’

  A heavy silence fell between them while Phantasm continued to regard her through narrowed eyes.