The Assassin's Destiny (Isle of Dreams) (75 page)

‘I cannot stay.’

She stared up at him, abruptly
bereft, ‘Why!’

‘Eximius is here –’

‘Mage Grapple’s in the Valley?’

Fabian nodded, ‘The Divinus has
been channelling Etienne’s thoughts since he became head of the Rochforte
tribe.  Etienne has called a meeting tonight to discuss their plans with
regard to the Isle.  The Divinus will be relaying the events to us as they
happen and I need to be there Mistral, it is our future they will be discussing. 
You know how they covet your gift.’

Mistral closed her eyes to hide
her pain.  Her wretched gift was keeping them apart again. 

‘Wait!  I’ll come with you!’

‘No.  You must rest
Mistral.  I don’t think you have actually slept since we left the festival.’

She felt her heart turn to lead
at the prospect of an endless, lonely night.

‘But, where will you sleep?’ she
whispered desperately.

‘I should not think I will. 
Our meeting may well go on until dawn.’

‘Will … will I see you in the
morning?’ her voice was faint, barely audible above the noise in the
room.  She was almost ashamed of how much she needed him.

‘I will be here,’ he
promised. 

She closed her eyes and drew in a
deep breath, ‘When does this meeting start?’

‘It already has, I must go –’

His lips touched hers for the
briefest of moments and then he was gone, slipping quickly through the crowded
tavern, vanishing out of the door before she released the breath frozen in her
lungs.

‘Come and drink with your
brothers Mistral.’  Brutus pulled her roughly back towards her seat. 
‘You can stand there looking all aloof and play the Lady De Winter part all you
like, but we all know you like to drink pints!’

He thrust a tankard full of red
wine at her and raised his own in a toast.  She forced a smile and smashed
her tankard into his, slopping red wine across the table, causing Xerxes to
shout and dive to protect his tatty pack of cards from being soaked.  

‘Deal brother!’  Brutus
cried and tipped a bag of bronze coins out onto the table.

Mistral played cards for a while
but before long the combination of sleep deprivation and red wine soon made it
too hard for her to concentrate.  Giving up on the game, she rested her
head onto her folded arms and let the babble of conversations flow over her,
the pleasant sound drowning out the miserable thoughts in her head until she
felt sleep tugging at her consciousness.  Sighing with relief at the
promise of oblivion, she submitted willingly and was soon fast asleep.

‘Come on sleeping beauty, we’ll
take you back to your room.’

The sound of Brutus and Xerxes
laughing pierced her sleep fogged brain.  She stumbled wearily to her feet
and let them half-carry her to the dorms and her barren room. 

Alone, Mistral curled up on her
bed with her arms buried in Prospero’s deep fur and tried to sleep, but a voice
was whispering in her ear, persistent and invasive, preventing the peace she
craved.

Giving up on sleep, she rolled
onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling, watching the shadows flicker
in the candlelight.  Forcing herself to stay awake to avoid the voice in
her mind she began to think about the angry words Phantasm had thrown at her in
the meadows.  Just how much love would it make to make her whole? 
Fabian loved her unreservedly, but his love was only part of her destiny. 
It could not complete her.  Only Sight could, and that final missing
detail was hers alone to find.

Details.

She finally realised why she
hated details so much.  Details outlined responsibilities, something she
had been running from her whole life.  Thoughts tumbled through her
overwrought mind; the festival, the long ride back in virtual silence,
Phantasm’s face in the meadows, full of anger, Cain’s face in The Cloak and
Dagger, Saul’s face, white and bloodless.  Miserable with guilt, Mistral
finally succumbed to the tears that had threatened to fall all evening. 
Saul had died for nothing; she wasn’t capable of mastering her gift.  It
was a mistake, like the half-breed that she was, an abandoned mistake –

‘Mistral?  Are you
alright?’ 

Phantasm’s muffled called through
the closed door.  Mistral didn’t reply and tried to silence her sobs but
only succeeded in making a choking sound.  The door quickly opened and
Phantasm’s pale face appeared in the gap.

‘Can I come in?’

Her first instinct was to refuse,
tell him she was fine and order him to leave her alone – then she met his green
eyes and couldn’t lie.  She nodded wordlessly and rubbed a sleeve across
her eyes.

Phantasm stole softly across the
room and swept Prospero from the bed to sit down beside her.

‘Do you want to talk?’

She shook her head and then
immediately nodded, staring down at Prospero now stretched out on the floor at
her feet.  He gazed back at her reproachfully.

‘What you said to me today –’

Phantasm frowned, ‘Is that why you’re
crying?  Because I shouted at you?  Come on Mistral!  You spent
most of last year listening to the Training Lieutenants shouting at you!’ 

‘Yes, but none of it was true,’
she muttered, picking miserably at her sleeve.  ‘What you said is
true.  I am selfish.’

Phantasm sighed and rested his
elbows on his knees.  Clasping his hands together he turned to look at her
with an enquiring expression.

‘So, what are you going to do
about it?’

She drew in a deep breath, ‘I
don’t know yet –’

‘Well let me know when you do.’
 Phantasm abruptly rose to his feet, ghosting silently towards the door.

‘Wait!’  Mistral cried out,
suddenly terrified at being left alone again.  ‘Please don’t go!  I –
I don’t want to be alone!’

Phantasm paused and turned to
regard her with a cold expression on his face.

‘What is it Mistral?’ his voice
was hard again.  ‘You spend half your life craving solitude.  Why do
you so need company right now?’  

‘I – I can hear him … talking to
me –’

‘Who?’  Phantasm frowned.

‘Saul.’

There was a brief silence while
Phantasm looked at her strangely, ‘What does he say?’

‘The same thing … over and over
again.’  Mistral muttered dully.  ‘Destiny.’

Phantasm walked across the room
and sat beside her again, ‘Do you ever recall him saying that to you?’ he asked
quickly.

Mistral’s brow creased as she
tried to remember ever having a conversation with Saul about destiny but all
she could ever recall was light-hearted banter, plans for hunts, Contracts and
arguments over preferred weapons and styles of sword fighting.

‘No,’ she finally whispered.

‘Then it’s not a memory you’re
hearing Mistral.  It’s Sight.’

‘Telling me what?  To get on
with my destiny?  Or that it was Saul’s destiny to die for me? 
Because that was a pretty poor one if you ask me!  Or even worse that it
was his destiny to love an ungrateful, selfish creature like me!  He
deserved so much more than that Phantasm!’

‘You loved him Mistral, he was
your brother.  He knew that.’

‘I – I don’t know … maybe if I’d
never met Fabian –’

‘You were always going to meet
Mage De Winter.’  Phantasm interrupted impatiently.  ‘Even if you’d
run away to live in The Desert Lands he would have found you, one day.’

Mistral sighed, ‘Yes, I think he
probably would have.’

Phantasm smiled gently, the
candlelight turning his flawless skin to marble and his eyes to emeralds.

‘You need to sleep Mistral. 
Move up, I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.’

He swung his legs onto the bed
and lay on his back.  Mistral was too exhausted to argue and curled
against his side, not even minding when he rested an arm lightly around
her.  The scent was wrong, and the heart she could hear beating was too
fast to be Fabian’s, but she was grateful not to be alone with her dark
thoughts anymore and finally allowed herself to drift into sleep.

She awoke to find the warm bulk
of Prospero squashing her against the wall.  Phantasm must have left after
she had fallen into a deeper sleep.  She pushed at her dog and he rolled
onto his back, opening one eye to regard her balefully.

‘Oh come on Prosp!’  Mistral
muttered, finally managing to shove him off the bed.  ‘Dogs are actually
supposed to sleep on the floor you know!’

Released from the weight of her
dog, Mistral stood up and walked over to the window to gaze meditatively at the
breaking dawn.  A new day.  She stared unseeingly at the delicate
pink sky, her thoughts turning inwards, forming the decision that had been
revolving in her mind all night. 

How long could she keep hiding
from what she had been born to do?  Probably forever, she realised with a
sigh.  Her capacity to hide from the truth and her cursed destiny seemed
to be endless.  It would be so easy to keep on living the half-life that
she had … in just another six months Fabian would have to hold true to his promise
and let her give up on attaining Sight, and then she would have everything she
ever wanted. 

And Saul would have died for
nothing. 

Mistral sighed and rested her
forehead against the glass.  She didn’t want the gift of Sight, that was
for sure.  The responsibility that came with it filled her with a clawing
panic and a desire to flee the Valley and all the unrealistic expectations
everyone seemed to hold for her.  It suddenly struck as ironic that most
warriors came to the Valley to find freedom whereas she had found
enslavement.  The thought of the shackles that Sight would place upon her
terrified her, plus she wasn’t really too keen on Seeing the contents of
peoples’ heads either.  With a bitter smile she remembered something that
Imperato had said to her.

Do not fear the light but the
shadows that it throws …

She hadn’t really understood him
at the time but now his words made sense.  She was not afraid of the gift
that lived within her.  It was a part of her and she could no more fear it
than she could her own heart, but she was afraid of how everything would change
when … if … she ever learned how to master it. 

Ah, but there was one thing that
would change for the better.  Her life with Fabian. 
   

Nodding once to herself, Mistral
had her answer; or two answers really.  Fabian … and Saul. 

The miserable hopelessness she
had felt was instantly replaced by a strong sense of determination.  There
was no thrill, no feeling of challenge; just a cold intent born of the
knowledge that she must master Sight.  She could no longer permit
anything, or anyone, to distract her from that one single purpose.

‘No more fun Prospero,’ she said
quietly to her dog and bent to grab some clean clothes.  ‘Just cold
showers and lots of work from now on in.’

Prospero yawned and padded
obediently out the room after her towards the bathroom. 

The cold needles of water struck
her skin, driving away the last vestiges of sleep and bringing into sharp focus
the task ahead.  She drew in a shuddering breath and turned her face up to
meet the icy jet of water, letting it blast away the hot tears that suddenly
flowed.  The pain of Saul’s death, of knowing that he had died for her,
was nothing compared to the torment she was about to willingly inflict upon
herself. 

Mistral stepped quietly out of
the bathroom to see Fabian already waiting outside her room.  Her heart
gave a painful wrench and her feet stalled.  She felt her resolve begin to
crumble as she stared at the tall, lithe figure leaning casually against the
wall, smiling idly down at Prospero while he rubbed the dog’s head.  Dust
motes sparkled in the air, caught in the same early morning sunlight that cast
a halo around his dark hair and made his pale skin glow.  Mistral
swallowed convulsively, the words she had to speak sticking in her
throat.  Stumbling slightly, she forced her feet to move towards him once
more.

‘Good morning,’ he murmured, his
velvet eyes meeting hers. 

‘Can we talk?’

‘Of course,’ he turned and pushed
open the door to her room.

‘No,’ she caught his hand and
pulled him back.  ‘Not in there – here is fine.’

Frowning, Fabian turned back to
face her. 

‘I – I don’t want you in my room
anymore Fabian.’

He stared at her, ‘You are
banishing me from your room?’

She nodded jerkily, willing herself
to find the strength to continue, forcing out words that cut deeper than any
knife ever could.

‘And I want you to ban me from
our house.’

Fabian’s eyes flickered, ‘I
cannot.  It is, as you say, our house.’

‘I need you to do this Fabian.’
 Mistral whispered, her eyes begging him to understand.  ‘Until I get
the Sight you have to banish me, because I don’t have the strength to stay
away.’

‘Why would you want to?’ he
snapped.

‘I have to!  I’ve got to
force myself to stay here, in the Valley, until I master my gift.’

Fabian’s eyes hardened, ‘Then get
Leo to forbid you.  I cannot.’

‘If Leo forbade me to do anything
you know I’d want to do it even more!’

He stared at her, his black gaze
cold.  A long silence fell.

‘Why you are doing this?’
 he finally hissed.

‘Because –’ Mistral cast around
wildly for words to describe why she was doing something that would hurt them
both, ‘because ... my life, you, my brothers ... it’s all so nearly complete
that I could probably live like this for ever.  I’ll never achieve Sight
like this!  Don’t you see?  You all make it so easy for me!  You
all give and give and give, and I take, but I’ve earned none of it.’

He stared at her wordlessly; his
eyes filled such with pain that Mistral felt her resolve slipping again. 
She drew in a deep breath and reached up to touch his face, tracing the hard
lines with her fingertips.