“What’s your name?” Byron asked the girl before she could flutter away once again.
“Kestyn,” she said reluctantly, “You?”
“Byron.” They stared at each other for some time, she was unlike any other girl he had ever met before, she was confident and satirical, with a foul mouth and temper. Her hair was short and fell over her face and as she stood in front of him Bryon knew she could defend herself if the situation arose.
“Why are you helping me?” Bryon questioned. Kestyn looked at him, her eyes narrowing as she searched his tanned skin and shocking blue eyes.
“Your eyes... something about them. Something about you, I trust you. You could kill me or worse but you ain’t, I want to help you.”
Byron smiled then.
“So you coming?”
“Where?” He asked.
“The tavern?”
He nodded perplexedly, but did not dare to argue, Kestyn seemed to know what she was doing, so he followed her. As they walked his mind wandered to Wynn. Was she alive somewhere, running from the Master? He wondered at the connection he felt with her, it was an unquestionable bond that went beyond understanding. Swallowing his fear that she might be dead he followed Kestyn through the busy streets. He saw the men of the army littered around, whispering but not one glanced at him and he relaxed, walking beside Kestyn.
Events had moved so quickly and smoothly that Byron half expected the General to jump from the shadows of an alley and stab him for escaping. Someone, somewhere, liked him and for the first time he began to believe in destiny. He unconsciously ducked every time a soldier looked his way but their eyes continued over him, past him, through him and he straightened his back and walked with confidence. Kestyn led him through dark allies and winding side roads until they stopped outside a quiet tavern. A noise sounded through the open windows. It was a pleasant well ordered noise of men who knew each other and were enjoying each other’s company.
Kestyn walked in the pub and few of the men shouted greetings to her, she nodded respectfully back and walked to the bar. The barman finished serving his customer and walked over to her.
“How can I help you darlin’?” He said, smiling pleasantly. Bryon guessed he knew Kestyn for her not to have belted him around the face for calling her such a derogatory name.
She smiled sweetly and leant towards him, “You heard of any ships leaving port today or tomorrow?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. He laughed and thought, his brow crinkling in the process.
“I recall hearing that there was a cargo ship setting sail for Terra... it was in a few weeks though.” He now leant forward to Kestyn and smiled audaciously, “Why Princess, you thinking of leaving me?”
Kestyn laughed hoarsely and slapped him amicably on the arm, “You’re too good looking for me Alick,” and turned on her heel and walked out of the tavern, Bryon following at her feet sheepishly. He marvelled at Kestyn, it seemed she had any man she spoke to was wrapped around her finger. She was confident and independent, so different from the controlled, oppressed, fearful women of Inlo.
11
“Wake up!”
Wynn heard the voice urging her to rise as though through a mist. She could feel someone shaking her urgently and she felt somehow that she should try to wake up, but she found her mind still too engrossed in her nightmare to follow coherent thought. Instead, trapped by the nightmare she watched as the dream regaining a new sense of clarity now that she was half awake. Aerona’s bony hand was reaching for her, her mother’s body was dead beside her... Wynn finally jolted awake and screamed, falling to the floor in a heap, the covers still on the bed. Her bleary eyes took a moment to focus and she pushed her hair from her face clumsily. Slowly the image of Taien standing over her, a bemused expression on his face, came into focus. Wynn smiled foolishly back at him, before realising she was in her undergarments. She quickly grabbed the covers and pulled them over her, her face scarlet with embarrassment.
“You were screaming,” Taien explained awkwardly as Wynn sat back on the bed, the covers wrapped tightly around her. Wynn nodded hurriedly, knowing her face was still crimson. Taien allowed himself a small smile before indicating to the tray he had left on the table, and then ducking out of the room. Wynn groaned, slapping her forehead. How humiliating, she thought, he must think I am mentally unsound. With another groan she wiped her eyes and found her clothes.
Once she was dressed she sat on the bed, unsure what to do, she glanced at the tray of food but decided she wasn’t hungry and so allowed her eyes to move to her pack. She decided to look at the book she had taken from Oprend Manor; she got up, took it from the pack and set it on the bed. She had carried it across plains, through vast forests, through mountains and still she could not read it. It sat before her almost mocking her. The black leather was still as fine and the gold lettering just as elegant despite Wynn’s long travels.
Frustrated she opened it at random and looked at the page it had fallen open on. It showed a diagram. Slowly Wynn copied it, palm out facing away from her, thumb pressed to her palm. It looked odd and of course nothing happened.
Wynn growled in anger and hit the book in frustration. As her skin touched the fuzzy surface of the page she felt her conscious being flung into the book. It was infinitely different from when she had been thrown into the Dagger of Night’s world. What had been transported was not her physical body, because she found in this state she had no need to breathe or blink, she was away from her body but unmistakably ‘Wynn’. Her body was still sitting on the bed, hand on the book. If Wynn had ever wondered about her body or religion she might have thought that what was flung into the book was her spirit, but Wynn had never wondered and probably never would and so as she stood in this strange world she cautiously, so as not to ruin the connection, looked around.
Golden words were floating past her, against the strange blackness. They were shaped as though written by hand and Wynn could almost sense the person that had painstakingly inscribed them, patiently and placidly. It was almost like when she could sense if someone was near, their life and emotions cried out to her. Here it was like an echo of life, of the life that had been. She watched the words writhe and twist in the darkness, constantly changing. She had never learnt to read, but her years in Oprend Manor had meant she was constantly in contact with writing, whether it was Cook’s scrawls of what was needed from the town, or the books in the library when she was cleaning.
With a certainty she knew the words that floated past her were not the language spoken in Inlo. There were strange letters, some with lines through them, and flicks where she was sure there should not be, at least in her language. She watched the words float by for longer than she cared to think. There was something mesmerising about them, they seemed to contain a deep and secret knowledge. It was as though she was sensing a gift, but of course this was not like the Dagger of Night’s world. No dark creatures padded through the blackness. Here the darkness was broken with the golden words, the words that writhed as though they were made of magic. Magic. Wynn smiled with recognition. The words themselves were pure magic.
“If they are magic maybe I can control them and change them into my language,” Wynn wondered aloud. Slowly she went deep into herself and withdrew a trickle of magic and sent it out into the blackness, all the while thinking of her spoken language. It enveloped the strange words completely and they slowly began to morph. Satisfied she pushed her spirit or conscious back into her body and flexed her fingers to check everything was back in place. The words of the book were disappearing and being replaced with a language she could possibly eventually understand. She set the book aside, exhilarated at her discovery, and slightly fatigued as the language of the book continued to morph beside her, draining her of her magic slowly.
When the words of the book had stilled she ate the food Taien had left her, suddenly hungry. Once her belly was full she got up, picked up some spare clothes from the chair and made her way to the bottom floor bathhouse, one of many she was sure but one that she had already begun to think of as hers. She knocked and found it was empty so she entered and bolted the door shut.
Satisfied she undressed, dropping her clothes in the corner of the room. She then filled the bath with the pump and buckets as she had before; heating it with magic once it was full and sunk into the water. She let her mind wander, the water lapping up to her chin. She closed her eyes and relaxed.
“
Where is she? She is not in her room?
”
“
Probably in the bathhouse.”
Wynn straightened in the bath, water flowing over the edge and onto the floor at the movement. What had she just heard? It was a conversation, a mental conversation between two students... and they had been talking about her, they had not said her name but they had thought of her face in their mind as they spoke. She had never heard a mental conversation before from others, and wondered what it meant. These students were either so strong their magic projected out, or so weak they could not limit their conversation to just themselves. Whatever it was Wynn found herself checking the door, it was still locked but only with a simple bolt. She tried to relax but her heart was thumping, she began to clean herself hurriedly with the soap, sensing that time was of the essence.
Just as she had finished rinsing her hair the door shook in its hinges. Wynn jumped and caused more water to splash all over the floor. She stepped out of the bath carefully but a loud crash caused her to slip and she hit her head on the corner of the bath before falling to the floor. Her vision blurred as the door sprung open and seven figures entered the room. She knew she was naked but her eyes would not focus and her head was pounding.
“Look, just as I told you, her kind are always whores!” A boy called out maliciously. Wynn waved her hand and her clothes flew over to her. She held them up to her body to cover herself as the boys smiled at her cruelly. She involuntarily stepped back from their expressions. As her mind raced she was interrupted by a warm trickle down her back that was not water. She sent magic to her head and found it had cracked open when she had hit it against the bath and was dribbling blood rapidly. Unbeknownst by the boys she fixed the wound hurriedly and badly, slowly her eyes focused on who had entered the room. Seven boys, students, she recognised some from those who had been duelling in the courtyard and one as John, the boy that had tried to seduce Arabella yesterday. They sneered at her now. In a panic she waved her hand, willing her magic at them and the boys were flung from the room into the corridor as if a wall of air had hit them. Wynn took advantage and quickly dressed before running barefoot past the heap of boys. She was not quick enough. One grabbed her ankle and she fell face first onto the stone floor. Darkness grasped at her and she fainted.
Wynn woke somewhere cold. The wind nipped at her through her clothes and wafted around her face like ghostly fingers. She opened her eyes and saw the Seminary sat a little in the distance, seeming more vast and frightening in the darkness of night, now she was vulnerable. She tried to stand but she was bound tightly to the trunk of a tree. Leaves and sticks poked at her legs from the ground and she shifted to find a more comfortable position to think. The night sky offered little light; the moon was faint through the canopy. Wynn sent her senses carefully out and found the same boys who had ambushed her waiting for her to react. Their emotions were easy to read and they washed over her like water.
She studied them for a moment. It seemed the technique all the professors had used of hiding their emotions was not passed to the students. They were all excited, most slightly confused at what exactly they were doing. Inexperienced was the general consensus, they had experience of magic but not the same experience Wynn had, born out of fighting for her life. These students would be easy to deal with.
Wynn focused on her binds; she sent her magic into the rope and began to unravel it. It fell apart easily and she stood up stiffly, stretching. The boys did not notice until she stepped away from the tree, her bare feet standing on twigs and stones. They stood up simultaneously a grin upon their faces, she was unsure what they hoped to achieve, their thoughts were focused only on her, and their emotions were excited. She willed them to come and they did all at once. They ran at her and Wynn did a silent prayer that Arabella and Wolf’s training would be enough.
She dodged the first boys lunge and jumped over the second’s kick. Wynn threw a punch and smirked as it connected. She grabbed the hand of the third boy and forced his thumb back, a torture trick that was simple but effective, and forced him to his knees just in time for him to absorb a kick. She felt blows connect with the boys, and felt her body twitch as she too took hits. She could not do it; she was not as fast as Arabella and still malnourished and weak. She tried to calm herself and think of Wolf’s technique but the blows were raining on her and she could not think.
Desperately she curled into a ball and went deep into her pool of magic, when she had called it she sent it out like a wall and forced all of the boys off her. They went flying in all directions, landing a few feet away. She stood quickly and held her arms out, palms facing outwards and with her magic stilled them. They glared at her, unable to move. Their thoughts came thick and fast now and she gritted her teeth against them.
“
Strong in magic but weak in technique and body
,” one thought.
“
She lasted longer than expected
,” another mused.
Wynn expected these kinds of thoughts, but she was drawn to one boy, who could be none other than John, he was furious with her for beating him. He was viewing her like an object, her limbs, her breasts and she felt her anger rise. She walked over to him and he smirked at her, thinking of taking her and violating her.
“It is men like you that make me sick,” she hissed. The other boys stared at her from their position; all was silent in the forest, “I am glad Arabella frightened you.”
“
She did not frighten me
,” John thought, he could talk no other way for Wynn had paralysed them all, and knew Wynn would hear him inside his head, “
she just made me more determined to have someone. I am not picky; you looked like someone that would not put up a fight
.”
Bile rose in Wynn’s throat, she had come across men like this so often that it had coloured her view of men in general. She had discovered not all men acted this way and treated women so badly, this however was the first time she had a man like this at her mercy.
“Would it surprise you that I have killed?” Wynn’s voice was soft. John’s eyebrows raised but he thought nothing. “I killed the man that tried to violate me,” Wynn continued.
Slowly Wynn knelt down so she was face to face with the boy; she lifted her palm to him, not touching him, but close to his chest and sent her magic into him. She found his windpipe and forced it slowly to close. Fear was wild in the boy’s eyes, but Wynn carried on until he was struggling to breathe. She knew what it was like to be strangled almost to death, the helplessness, the terror, everything this boy’s victims had felt. The boys around them were shocked and worried, would this girl kill him?
Wynn waited until she could feel his life ebbing before letting go of his windpipe. He gasped at the air, tears falling from his face, relief his only thought and feeling. Wynn stepped back and watched the boy struggle to regain his breath. It was not enough, he deserved so much more punishment, but she was tired and her head was beginning to throb, she had not healed it properly and the fighting seemed to have opened it again. This was confirmed when the flow of hot blood ran down the back of her neck. Wynn began walking back towards the Seminary when a sound to her left caught her attention. She spun around, spotting Nethali a few feet away from her, her palm raised.