The Assassin's Destiny (Isle of Dreams) Read online

  The Assassin’s Destiny

  K L Jones

  Copyright ©2013 K L Jones

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Rob Francis of ink-corporated.co.uk

  Other titles in this series:

  The Assassin’s Tale

  The Seer

  Malachi Nox

  It was a cold Friday morning, Mistral and the twins were having breakfast in the Refectory listening to the first years talking excitedly about the knucker hunt they were being sent out on for the day. Phantasm smiled as he glanced out the window at the snow falling thickly. The sky outside was so heavy and grey it barely looked like daylight.

  ‘Bless them! Am I glad not to be a first year anymore,’ he sighed happily.

  ‘Can you actually imagine getting excited about hunting a knucker?’ Mistral asked with an incredulous shake of her head.

  ‘There was a time when you would get excited about hunting for a lost sock,’ Phantasm reproved her with a frown.

  ‘You’re right,’ Mistral admitted and laughed ruefully. ‘I was all about the hunting and eating it part! Still am, come to think of it,’ she added thoughtfully.

  ‘Well I wish you had hunted my breakfast! Where on earth does Bernadette get her ideas of what constitutes an appropriate breakfast from?’ Phantom muttered as he pushed his half-eaten bowl of fish stew away with a shudder. He looked around with a bored expression on his face. ‘What’s on the agenda for today brother?’ he demanded, drumming his fingers moodily on the table-top.

  ‘Master Nox,’ replied Phantasm, pushing his own empty bowl away with a satisfied sigh. ‘You know, that’s beginning to grow on me.’

  Phantom suddenly perked up, ‘Master Nox? I wonder what he’ll be teaching us,’ he leaned his elbows onto the table and clasped his hands together thoughtfully. ‘Poisons, obviously, but what else?’

  ‘What else does he specialise in?’ Mistral asked, taking a sip of water from her cup. She hadn’t even bothered to fill a bowl from the large iron tureen on the counter; Bernadette’s breakfasts were notoriously inedible.

  ‘Master Nox? I’m not sure,’ said Phantasm narrowing his eyes broodingly.

  Mistral raised her eyebrows in surprise. It wasn’t like the twins not to know every detail of one of the Magnate, down to their inside leg measurement.

  ‘There are no records of his achievements in the Ri’s library, only the standard entries of the dates of his apprenticeship and the date he completed working back his debt to the Ri … then there’s a huge gap until he became a member of the Magnate.’

  ‘Fabian says he was an excellent assassin in his day,’ Mistral said distractedly, her attention drawn to one of the first years enthusiastically demonstrating the best method of restraining a knucker. She watched him for a moment then turned her attention back to see two sets of bright green eyes staring impatiently at her.

  ‘Honestly Mistral, you could share these things! And what else did Mage De Winter say?’ Phantom demanded in a heated whisper.

  Mistral shrugged, ‘He said Malachi was an expert at non-contact assassinations, you know, using poisons. Fabian met him a few times when Malachi was working for the Council as a special foreign envoy, or some other fancy title. Basically the Council would send him off abroad to tidy up when sorcerers had got carried away and exposed their true identities.’

  Phantasm frowned, ‘How exactly did he do that?’

  ‘Assassinated them and anyone who knew the truth,’ she replied evenly.

  Phantasm and Phantom shared a bleak look.

  ‘Sounds like yet another delightful person we have the pleasure of getting to know,’ sighed Phantom darkly.

  ‘I suggest that we don’t keep him waiting then,’ said Phantasm briskly and made to rise to his feet.

  ‘I agree, or we might not make it to lunchtime … which, I might add, is another high-point in my day,’ grumbled Phantom.

  ‘Another fun day,’ Mistral muttered dispiritedly and reluctantly followed the twins across the Refectory. ‘You know, I almost envy them,’ she said, casting a wistful glance at the first years pulling on heavy cloaks ready for the day’s hunt in the snow.

  She trailed after the twins while they chatted away, climbing up the stairs to the second floor. Her second year’s apprenticeship was proving to be a lot less exacting than her first. To add to her flat mood Fabian being her Training Lieutenant had so far not turned out to be quite as pleasurable as she had imagined it would be. For starters, her training schedule for the year involved much less physical work and was more orientated around mastering her gift, requiring her to spend lots of time with Serenity Lightwater and occasionally the Divinus, and less in the Training Arena where Fabian was every day. True, she did get to see him most lunchtimes and every night … and morning, but she had envisaged spending her whole days with him too and felt cheated. She was also finding mastering the illusive power of Sight more difficult than she had imagined.

  Despite all of the work she was putting in, Mistral had still not been able to develop her ability beyond being able to read auras. By contrast the twins were progressing rapidly with their Gemini gift and had already been offered a classified Council Contract, which they had returned from with unbearably superior attitudes until Mistral had pasted them in a sword training session and brought them down to size again.

  Mistral had been offered suspiciously few Contracts so far and was swiftly coming to the conclusion that there was some kind of “keep Mistral safe until she masters Sight” campaign going on behind the scenes. She was willing to bet that it had been agreed between Fabian and Leo but also suspected that the twins had been coerced into preventing her from doing anything vaguely interesting. They always seemed to be conveniently busy whenever she asked them to go out hunting with her, forcing her instead to accompany them on long, pointless sessions with Mycroft Casterton. Mistral had fallen asleep during the last one and had not been invited back again, for which she was grateful. Mycroft Casterton’s knowledge on Council politics and history was both vast and vastly dull. The combination of his fondness for the sound of his own voice and his sumptuous, overheated tower room made Mistral feel sleepy just by thinking about it.

  Lost in brooding thoughts on how boring the second year was turning out to be, Mistral didn’t realise that they had reached the door to Malachi Nox’s tower room until she walked into the back of Phantasm.

  ‘It’s polite to knock before opening the door.’ Phantasm chided when she bounced off him with a surprised look on her face.

  ‘Sorry,’ she sighed. ‘Just eager to get in there and learn, learn, learn.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ he murmured and rapped smartly on the black wooden door.

  With a sinking feeling of impending boredom, Mistral followed the twins through the door when it was opened by an unsmiling Malachi Nox.

  ‘Enter and be seated,’ he said crisply, waving a thin hand towards a long workbench and a number of tall stools.

  Mistral stole a surreptitious glance at the room as she walked over to sit on one of the stools. She had been inside all of the Magnate’s tower rooms now and had quickly realised that their living quarters provided useful insights to their personalities. Mycroft’s was furnished in plush velvet armchairs arranged around a fire that blazed winter and summer. He rarely moved from his armchair kingdom unless it was to refill the dish of sweetmeats set by his side. By direct contract the Divinus’ tower room was utterly devoid of any furnishings other than a stark throne-like wooden chair. Leo Sphinx’s room was scattered with weapons and bits of armour in need of repair. It also held possibly the largest four poster bed that Mistral had ever seen. She grimaced wh
enever she thought of it, knowing that Golden had been in it for most of the previous year. Serenity Lightwater, the only female member of the Magnate, did not use her tower room but had a small bedroom adjoining the Infirmary where she worked. In effect, the Infirmary was her tower room and reflected her ordered and annoyingly caring personality.

  Malachi Nox’s tower room was crammed full of books, tainting the air with their peppery, musty smell. Shelves covered the stone walls from the floor right up to the high vaulted ceiling; all packed with leatherbound volumes. The overall effect was slightly claustrophobic but not chaotic. Mistral could see the books were all neatly ordered with a framed reference to the contents hanging at the end of every row.

  Malachi had a narrow single bed pushed up beneath the room’s only window which looked as though it had been cut-out of the bookshelf surrounding it. There was no fire in the room to protect the books and as a result it was icily cold. The only source of light apart from the boxed-in window came from a huge iron candelabra hanging down from the centre of the vaulted ceiling.

  Mistral slid onto a stool next to Phantasm and switched her gaze to the workbench in front of her. Rows of glass bottles of all sizes were stacked three-deep along the length of the wooden surface. Each bottle was made of a different coloured glass and sealed with a distinctive bright green wax stopper.

  The twins were sat as though carved from stone but Mistral wasn’t fooled; she knew their green eyes would have taken in every detail of the room. She hid a smile, knowing they would spend their evening talking about what they had deduced from their observations.

  ‘I will begin by attempting to introduce you to the subtle art of poisons,’ Malachi Nox’s clipped tones broke into her musings and drew her attention to the dark-robed figure stood before them. He was tall and angular with unnaturally pale features accentuated by closely cropped black hair that grew into a widow’s peak at the front.

  ‘However, I do not expect you to excel at, or even appreciate the art; few do.’

  Mistral kept her face expressionless while she wondered privately how hard it could be to brew up poison. Cain was a dab hand already with no real instruction and Fabian concocted his own blend that was particularly potent.

  ‘Try to comprehend that poison is not just limited to its ability to kill quickly and silently,’ Malachi continued in a curt tone. ‘There are poisons that will induce a coma so deep that it is virtually indistinguishable from death, others that force the taker to reveal the innermost secrets of their soul and some that are capable of causing indescribable agony to the victim yet leave them resiliently healthy in every other aspect.’

  As he spoke Malachi reached out to caress a bright red bottle with one long finger. Mistral suppressed a shudder of repulsion. She was willing to bet that bottle contained the agony-inducing potion he was describing.

  The morning dragged by slowly with them reading through and making notes on basic recipes for different types of poisons. The lack of natural light in the room gave it a strangely timeless feel and it was only when Mistral’s stomach rumbled hungrily that she realised it must be midday.

  ‘I will see you back here in one hour,’ Malachi dismissed them shortly, holding the heavy door open for them. They filed past him silently and ran lightly down the stairs from his room.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ said Mistral heavily. ‘Let’s go to The Cloak. I can’t stand the thought of eating another of Bernadette’s vile concoctions.’

  ‘Why don’t you say what you really mean?’ Phantom huffed. ‘You want to have lunch with your Mage, not us!’

  ‘Please forgive me for trying to have some enjoyment in my sorry excuse for a life!’ Mistral snapped and abruptly stalked off ahead of them.

  ‘That was rather tactless brother,’ murmured Phantasm, watching Mistral vanish down the second flight of stairs to the ground floor. ‘You know how hard she’s finding the idea of a second year.’

  Phantom sighed, ‘But she used to be such fun and now she’s either brooding over her Mage or drooling over him and I don’t know which is worse.’

  ‘The brooding,’ said Phantasm firmly.

  By the time the twins had walked through the heavy snow down to The Cloak and Dagger Mistral was already talking to Fabian at the bar, gazing deeply into his eyes with an expression of such utter happiness on her face that even Phantom began to feel guilty for his harsh words.

  They wandered over and greeted Fabian before ordering drinks and meals from the red-cheeked bartender.

  ‘How was your morning?’ Fabian enquired, passing Mistral a tankard of ale.

  ‘Duller than dull.’ Mistral replied, taking a long drink from her tankard before setting down it on the bar again. ‘How was yours?’

  Fabian shrugged lightly and smiled, ‘Quite entertaining. I oversaw the first years out on their first knucker hunt. Considering that they are all tribe born they have rather lamentable hunting skills.’

  ‘Where are they now?’ Mistral asked, gazing around at the empty bar.

  ‘Two are in the Infirmary with concussions from falling off their horses and the rest are still hunting.’

  Mistral laughed, ‘Let’s hope none of them die, I don’t think it would look too good on your record as a Training Lieutenant.’

  ‘Ours didn’t do too well last year did they?’ Phantom interjected with a wry grin. ‘Two died and you practically lived in the Infirmary.’

  ‘Good times,’ Mistral sighed and took another long drink from her tankard. ‘At least I was doing something to get injured.’

  ‘You will if you keep drinking at that rate – don’t forget we’re going to be handling dangerous substances this afternoon,’ said Phantasm, looking pointedly at her nearly empty tankard.

  Mistral fixed Fabian with a pleading look, ‘Please let me skive off with you this afternoon. I will honestly die of boredom if I have to spend the afternoon with Malachi Nox.’

  Fabian touched her cheek and murmured softly, ‘It’s not forever.’

  ‘Talking of Master Nox,’ Phantom interrupted loudly. ‘Do you know what blood he has? Only I can’t work it out … he’s not of elven descent that’s for sure.’

  ‘Blood is the right word to use when referring to Malachi.’ Fabian replied.

  The twins gazed at Fabian silently, waiting for him to explain. Mistral sighed disinterestedly and leaned against his side while he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They could talk all they wanted for all she cared, she was quite happy to drink and enjoy being close to Fabian for an all too brief hour.

  ‘Malachi Nox is of Mage descent on his mother’s side,’ Fabian continued in a low voice. ‘And his father is reputed to have been a vampire.’

  The twins’ eyes widened at this salacious piece of information and instantly began a murmured conversation between themselves about the reclusive tribe of vampires that lived in the Northern Range.

  ‘Good, that’ll keep them occupied for the rest of the hour,’ said Mistral with a satisfied look on her face. ‘Now you can tell me what we’re doing this weekend.’

  ‘Well, I know it’s not quite up to the chimera hunt –’

  ‘Oh, now that was fantastic,’ interrupted Mistral with a happy smile. ‘Did I ever thank you for that? It was the best holiday I’ve ever had … well the only one actually, but it’ll be a hard one to beat.’

  Fabian smiled and kissed her gently, ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. However, this weekend I thought we could go home and hunt. The cellar is looking a bit bare now that there are two of us eating there.’

  Mistral grinned up at him; she had been worried that he would have commitments in the Valley since he had promised Leo two full months of his time as a Training Lieutenant for the Ri.

  ‘That sounds perfect! Is it too early for bears?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fabian sternly. ‘We’ll be hunting for deer and boar only.’

  ‘Huh, nothing that could bite me back you mean,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Only me.’

&n
bsp; Mistral felt the breath catch in her throat and stared back into his deep black gaze.

  ‘Do you know which vampire it was rumoured to be?’ Phantom asked, abruptly dragging Mistral out of her private world.

  She spun round to glare at him furiously. Did he have some sixth sense prompting him to barge in on her and Fabian when it was blatantly obvious they shouldn’t be interrupted?

  ‘I think it was widely believed to be Bellicose La Monte but don’t quote me on that. He is still quite active and I would hate to be on his calling card,’ said Fabian smoothly, his face betraying none of the emotion his voice had held only seconds before.

  As the twins proceeded to assail Fabian with an endless barrage of questions regarding Malachi Nox Mistral sighed and sank quietly against his side, knowing that they would have no more opportunities for whispered conversations that lunchtime.

  When their hour’s break was over Fabian left The Cloak and Dagger with them. He kissed Mistral briefly then strode across the snow covered square towards the stableblock to saddle Spirit and go out to check on the first years progress with their knucker hunt.

  The twins were full of the information they had gleaned from Fabian about Malachi Nox and talked in low voices between themselves all the way back to the Main Building.

  ‘Mistral!’ Phantasm suddenly gasped; making her jump … she had been busy reliving a world where Phantom hadn’t interrupted her conversation with Fabian.

  ‘Do you think you could try and read Master Nox’s aura this afternoon?’ he asked with a wicked gleam in his eyes. ‘My brother and I will create a diversion so he won’t notice you going all blank.’

  ‘Sure, no problem,’ she sighed heavily, shoving all Fabian-based thoughts to the back of her mind as they walked into the Entrance Hall and began to climb the stairs up to the second floor.

  The twins’ whispered speculations abruptly halted when they reached the black wooden door to Malachi Nox’s tower room. Phantasm raised his fist and knocked on the door again. It opened promptly with the sharp features of Malachi Nox appearing to greet them. Saying nothing he stepped aside to admit them into his book-filled domain once more.