The Assassin's Tale (Isle of Dreams)

by Kirsten Jones

  Leo quickly caught him up. ‘Do you love her?’ he asked bluntly.

  Fabian did not reply immediately but continued walking in silence, his body rigid with tension. After a few moments he paused and took a deep breath, turning his face to look up at the snow-laded sky. When he turned to Leo again the anger had gone from his face leaving it calm and composed.

  ‘Utterly. She is my absolution.’

  Leo nodded but did not speak. They carried on walking in silence until Leo turned his head towards Fabian once more.

  ‘Brother, I must warn you that you cannot love her the way you want to.’

  Fabian spun around to face his brother for a second time, his black eyes blazing with undisguised fury. Words exploded from him in an angry torrent.

  ‘I let you persuade me to send that girl on a suicide mission! I watched her nearly get ripped apart by wolverines because of me! Then I had to face her across a battlefield! And when I finally realised it was her that I loved, I had to ride across half a continent to get back to her! And you, brother,’ he spat the word, ‘presume to stand in my way?’

  Leo waited calmly for Fabian to finish, ‘There is no need to get heated Fabian, but please consider Mistral’s future –’

  ‘If it pleases you brother, I will marry her first!’ Fabian snarled.

  ‘This is not a morality issue.’

  Fabian glared angrily at his brother, his fists clenched. He forced himself to take a deep breath and suddenly felt completely exhausted. The intensity of the evening’s emotions had drained him and he had no energy left for Leo’s games.

  ‘Get to the point brother. It’s been a long time since I slept in a bed,’ he muttered wearily.

  ‘I know,’ Leo almost smiled. ‘Let’s walk on.’

  They moved off together along the path. The heavy snow muffled their footsteps and deadened the sound of their quiet conversation.

  ‘The Divinus believes that Mistral has the Sight,’ Leo said quietly.

  ‘She can see auras,’ Fabian retorted curtly, not breaking his stride. ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘Yes, you are correct,’ Leo’s tone was mild. ‘However, the Divinus is sure that her power is latent and will reveal itself with further training.’

  Fabian said nothing for a few moments. Leo could sense the anger building inside his brother and sighed inwardly. Fabian was always too hot-headed.

  ‘Tell that abhorrent creature to set his blind sights on another!’ Fabian hissed furiously.

  ‘Fabian, please be reasonable. You know how rare Seers are. Think about this! If Mistral has the Sight she will be able to command fantastic amounts for her services and the Contracts will be far less dangerous. If you love her as you claim to do then do you really want Mistral to spend her life being a hunter and assassin? Being able to read thoughts will bring her Council work; highly paid and easy.’

  ‘Don’t you mean it will be highly paid and easy for you?’ snarled Fabian, his eyes glinting dangerously.

  Leo’s expression was bland, his reply had the sound of something learned and often repeated, ‘Costs are incurred for training, you know that. Mistral will have the same fair arrangement that the Ri have with all apprentices. We train them and they work for us until the debt is paid back.’

  Fabian waved a hand angrily, ‘I am not interested in Ri politics. What does this have to do with my being with Mistral?’

  ‘Emotional changes affect a Seer’s ability,’ replied Leo carefully. ‘She must remain unchanged.’

  Fabian stared icily at him, ‘I will not give her up.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Leo lightly. ‘That would be disastrous. She’s been next to useless since she came back from The Desert Lands because of you.’

  A shadow crossed Fabian’s face and the angry light faded from his eyes, leaving him looking exhausted again, ‘I will never hurt her again. Tell me what it is you need me to do.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Leo replied simply.

  Fabian paused and turned to stare at him, incomprehension mixing with the pain still lingering on his face. Then his eyes narrowed as understanding dawned. He drew in a ragged breath and let it out in a long slow breath.

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘She will be invited to train with us for a second year,’ Leo responded smoothly.

  ‘A year then –’

  ‘Or until Sight is established,’ Leo qualified.

  Fabian shot him a look of open hostility, ‘And if it is established before the year?’ he challenged.

  ‘Then you have our blessing,’ smiled Leo. ‘Once Sight is established it is irreversible.’

  They walked the rest of the way to The Cloak and Dagger in silence. Fabian reached out to unlatch the heavy wooden door and paused, keeping his back to Leo.

  ‘Of course I shall respect your request,’ his voice was icily polite. ‘However, I think we both know how I feel about freedom of choice. Ultimately the decision rests with Mistral.’

  Fabian delivered his parting shot as he stepped through the door, leaving it to swing shut in Leo’s startled face.

  Leo remained on the doorstep, staring frozenly at the closed door. The dull clunk of a bolt being slid into place snapped him out of his furious thoughts. He abruptly turned on his heel and began to tramp back through the falling snow, his brow furrowed in frustration. He had not calculated on Fabian laying the decision at Mistral’s feet. He scowled, reflecting on his mistake. He had held too much store by his brother’s high morals and his enduring need to suffer for love. Mistral was impetuous and unpredictable. There was no way of knowing what decision she would make.

  She needed to be made to understand just how important her gift was, not only to the Ri and to the Isle as a whole, but to the ambitions of Leo Sphinx.

  Interrogation

  Mistral found herself dumped onto a narrow bed and scowled angrily at her captors. They gazed back from the opposite bed, their angelic faces alive with curiosity.

  ‘So,’ began Phantasm with a sinister lift of one eyebrow.

  ‘Time to spill the beans, sister,’ finished Phantom, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

  ‘That’s good, have you been practising it?’ she asked sarcastically.

  ‘Tell us or we will make you,’ they chorused impatiently.

  Mistral sighed. The very last thing she wanted to do was try to explain the firework display going on inside her head. She had hoped to reach the sanctuary of her room and spend at least the next two weeks trying to work it out for herself. But, she knew without a doubt that she owed the twins. They alone had uncomplainingly tolerated her long silences and bleak moods over the last few months. Their unswerving friendship was all that had kept her going during that desolate time. So she took a deep breath and steeled herself for a torturous session of relentless questioning.

  ‘You ask, I’ll answer,’ she acquiesced wearily.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t get off that lightly,’ chided Phantom. ‘Start at the beginning and don’t spare the juicy bits.’ he settled in a more comfortable position on his bed, his flawless face expectant.

  Mistral felt her spirits flag. She would rather have undergone an extra hour of close combat training with Grendel on a hot day than try to relive the evening’s events. She resolved to keep it brief and launched into a watered-down version of events.

  She was suitably gratified at their response to the revelation of Leo’s on-going affair with Golden and paused with a smile to allow them time to gasp theatrically and exchange scandalised looks. Part of her was amazed at how easy it felt to smile now and her mind wandered while the twins dissected every look they had seen Leo and Golden share. Was Fabian asleep now? That thought led her imagination off down a completely different path.

  A polite cough interrupted her ruminations of Fabian De Winter and beds. She looked up to see the twins gazing at her in wordless anticipation of more sordid disclosures.

  At the news of Leo’s parentage their eyes narrowed speculatively while they absorbed the full
implications of having a full-blooded Mage in the Magnate. They muttered amongst themselves for a few minutes.

  ‘A Mage!’

  ‘No wonder he’s been so successful so young!’

  ‘Do you think he’s learned how to use the Craft?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t know ... dangerous though –’

  ‘Very!’

  While their muttered conversation went on Mistral took the opportunity to reflect more on her life changing evening, dwelling longer than was strictly necessary on certain points. She looked up, the inane grin sliding from her face when she realised the twins were staring at her again.

  ‘And?’ they prompted in unison.

  She shrugged evasively, quickly rearranging her face into a more neutral expression, ‘Then nothing,’ she lied unconvincingly.

  The twins raised their eyebrows and threatened simultaneously, ‘Tell us everything, or we will make you.’

  ‘No you won’t!’ she scoffed. ‘You know I’m immune.’

  It was true, the twins had been working hard on their Gemini powers to subtly bend people’s thoughts to their will, but with sporadic success and only on people who least expected it. There had been particularly amusing moment when they’d managed to will Columbine to volunteer Golden for a week’s stable duty, but they’d never managed to affect Mistral’s notoriously stubborn mind in any way at all.

  The twins glanced at each other and nodded briefly. They faced her and fixed her with an intense look that instantly reminded her of Fabian. The second of distraction was all they required. She felt a gently but distinct pressure in her mind, a sudden all-consuming desire to talk about Fabian and everything, down to the very last detail, that had occurred between them that evening.

  Her eyes grew huge as the realisation of what the twins were doing hit her.

  ‘That’s amazing!’ she gasped.

  The twins couldn’t help but look smug.

  ‘We’ve been practising,’ smirked Phantom.

  ‘Grendel now showers every Friday,’ grinned Phantasm looking extremely pleased with himself.

  ‘Shame it took you a year to get him to do it,’ laughed Mistral.

  The twins grinned back at her and relaxed, she felt the pressure in her mind instantly ease.

  ‘So, Mage De Winter,’ began Phantasm conversationally. ‘He did some soul searching on a rather long ride and –’

  ‘Came to the inevitable conclusion that he can’t possibly live without your unpredictable mood swings and worryingly violent career choice –’ Phantom interjected.

  ‘And has declared his undying love for you, to which you have reciprocated willingly.’ Phantasm concluded.

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ agreed Mistral with a yawn. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’m off to bed … alone!’ she scowled, catching their suggestive looks.

  She heard their rapid whispering begin before she had even closed the door and knew that they would be up for hours dissecting everything she’d told them. She wandered the last few steps to her room in a daze, falling gratefully onto her bed fully clothed. She expected to be kept awake for hours by the myriad of thoughts swirling round in her mind but she was asleep in seconds.

  A New Day

  Mistral awoke in the faint light of breaking dawn and lay staring at her window, watching the shadows in the room gradually shift from black to grey. She lay curled up and warm in her blankets, clinging to the blissful state of happiness that she always felt for the first few waking seconds, when her dreams of Fabian were still more real to her than the world outside the lightening window. She rolled over and groaned, waiting for the cutting pain of the daily realisation that it had only been, and only ever would be, a dream. A full minute passed by before Mistral opened her eyes wide and the events of the previous night came flooding back to her in a euphoric rush.

  With a whoop of sheer joy, Mistral leapt out of her bed and quickly grabbed a handful of clean clothes before flinging open her bedroom door and running barefoot down the corridor to the bathrooms. If she was really, truly meeting Fabian for breakfast then she was determined to look in the very least clean, if not presentable. After a brief but blissfully hot shower Mistral hastily dried herself off and threw on her clean clothes before forcing herself to walk, not sprint madly, back to her room.

  She was about to push open the door to her room when Mistral heard footsteps and looked up to see a sleep dishevelled Golden undulating towards her along the corridor.

  ‘I’d be off out early too if I had Fabian De Winter chasing me, he’s a bit old for you isn’t he?’ Golden sneered and made to push past Mistral on her way to the bathroom.

  Mistral stepped in front of her, blocking her way and smiled, her eyes glinting dangerously. Golden had got away with so much recently. It was time for a little payback.

  ‘Is that the best you can do Golden? Or did you bump your head when you fell out of Leo’s bed this morning?’

  Grinning widely Mistral pushed open her door and let it slam loudly in Golden’s shocked face. Admittedly, it had been a bit childish, but it was definitely a step on the road to returning to her old self.

  Mistral was off out the door fully clothed, boots on with her clean hair combed and left to dry loose before the sun had fully risen over the eastern ridge of mountains. She didn’t care if Fabian wasn’t up yet, she would sit on the doorstep of The Cloak and Dagger and wait for him. Running lightly down the path to the village Mistral felt a sudden burst of jittery nerves explode in her stomach. Overwhelmed by a feeling of unreality when she thought of the night before, she slowed to a walk, battling fears that she had finally been fooled by one of her vivid dreams and really had lost her mind.

  Well, there’s only one way to find out, Mistral thought with a shrug and began to walk more quickly again.

  Mistral paused outside the familiar wooden door to The Cloak and Dagger. She grasped the same heavy iron latch that she had lifted so many times over the last year with the strangest feeling that she was doing everything for the first time, like it was all brand new. Despite the earliness of the hour the door was unlocked and Mistral stepped into the dim interior of the tavern. She halted, uncertain as to what to do next. Should she ask Floris which room Fabian was in? Should she wait or go up?

  She looked across the room and met the smiling gaze of Fabian, sat at the same table they had occupied the night before. She returned his smile and a strong feeling of certainty instantly washed through her, quelling the butterflies that had filled her only seconds before. He stood up and walked around the table to pull out a chair for her, inviting her to join him. Mistral felt that she could have vaulted every obstacle between her and that chair but forced herself to walk calmly around the tables and chairs until she reached his table.

  ‘Good morning,’ he murmured in a voice of brushed silk.

  Mistral looked up at him and met his smouldering gaze, sinking wordlessly into the chair he held out for her. She watched him walk around to resume his seat opposite her, listening to him politely enquired about her night’s sleep and somehow managing to make the appropriate responses while all the time his eyes told a different story. They burned into hers, glowing as though lit by an inferno and it was all she could do not to climb across the table and launch herself into his arms.

  ‘What do you have planned for today?’ Fabian asked after Floris had set a platter of cold meats and a bowl of bread on the table.

  Mistral blinked and forced herself to concentrate, she had no idea what day it was. After a moment she realised that it was a Sunday; no training and no Contract.

  ‘Nothing,’ she replied.

  Fabian gave a satisfied smile and pushed the platter of meats towards her.

  ‘Good, because I was hoping you would spend the day with me. I would like to show you my house, that is, if you would care to ride out there with me?’

  Mistral felt herself grinning, ‘I would love to!’

  ‘But first, you need to eat something. I’m quite tak
en by your bone structure, but it’s a little too close to the surface of your skin at the moment.’

  Mistral sighed at the prospect of more force-feeding and picked at a slice of ham. Taking a small bite she suddenly found that she was absolutely starving.

  Fabian watched with an amused expression while she demolished most of the platter of meat and half the bowl of bread.

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  Mistral swallowed her mouthful and frowned as she concentrated on trying to remember, finally shaking her head, ‘No idea,’ she admitted with a shrug. ‘Whenever I’m in the Infirmary Serenity forces some horrible gruel down my throat, so it could have been then – ’ she stopped, catching the look on his face.

  ‘You’ve been spending a lot of time in the Infirmary?’

  ‘Some,’ Mistral shrugged again and took a drink of water. She set the cup of water down to see Fabian frowning at her. ‘What?’

  He leaned forward suddenly serious, catching her hands and pulling them to him, ‘Promise me you will take more care. I could not stand to lose you now that I’ve just found you.’

  Captivated by the intensity of his stare, Mistral could only nod wordlessly.

  ‘Say it,’ he insisted.

  ‘I promise,’ she finally whispered back.

  He smiled and the intensity in his expression vanished. ‘Are you finished?’ he asked with an ironic lift of his eyebrow.

  Mistral looked in surprise at the demolished platter of meat, ‘I think so … have we got lunch at your house?’

  Fabian laughed and stood up, ‘I’ll get something from Floris before we go. I haven’t been home in a while.’

  While Fabian spoke with the bartender Mistral stole a last piece of cold sausage before getting to her feet and joining him at the bar just as Floris vanished into the kitchen to prepare them some lunch. Taking advantage of the empty room, Fabian slid his arms around her and pulled her into a lingering embrace, only breaking off when Floris coughed from the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Your lunch,’ he said shortly, dropping a parcel of food onto the bar top.