And yet, despite all of her growth, despite all of her new skills, she was still destined to die of the poison that coursed through her veins. Someday she was going to sleep too long, and the poison would settle in her blood and crystallize in her muscles. She would be unable to move. Soon she’d be unable to breathe. And then she would die.
As Arabelle lay in bed thinking of her fate, she suddenly began to sob. There were so many things she had yet to do, and she feared those things would now never come to pass. She’d never even have an opportunity to know a love as fleeting as the love that Maggie had had with Hassan.
When she died, it would be alone in her bed.
Arabelle dreamt, as she often had recently, of the First Protector rescuing their world from the demons five hundred years ago.
The smoke from burning siege engines floats over a battlefield where soldiers desperately fight off demons of all colors, shapes, and sizes, beasts with dagger-like claws and protruding fangs. Even the bony ridges along their joints are knifelike in their sharpness. The soldiers that battle against them are a combination of humans and dwarves, the humans fighting with blades, the bearded dwarves swinging giant sledgehammers.
The soldiers fall back under the demon onslaught, making a last stand on a single hill. From within their midst, a circle of lithe archers looses a never-ending stream of arrows into the demonic horde. And at the center of this last redoubt, at the very peak of the hill, stands a robed man concentrating on a globe in his hands. While those protecting the hill are bloodied and stooping from injury and fatigue, this man’s white robe is immaculate.
As the demons tear through the soldiers, the robed man lifts his sphere high into the air. It blazes with power. At the man’s command, that power expands, shooting out over the landscape in every direction. When it touches the creatures of the Abyss, they burst into flame and collapse into ashes. Soon the light fills every point on the terrain, from horizon to horizon.
What had been night has now turned to day.
What had been defeat has now turned to victory.
Arabelle knew what she was seeing in her dream: the First Protector’s victory. But what happened next was something different. The dream was replaced by a field of white, and she felt a familiar presence she couldn’t name. Within the field of white, a scene unfolded…
The night is dark, the only light coming from a guttering campfire. Four people lie on the ground around the fire; their black uniforms mark them as Azazel’s soldiers. Blood spurts from a wound in one man’s throat, yet he doesn’t move.
Arabelle looks down at her hand. She holds her mother’s dagger, dripping with blood.
The scene flashed white once more.
Arabelle walks between the tents in her caravan. A young man in a robe walks alongside her. He is speaking to her, but there are no sounds in this dream.
He turns to her, and it is the face that has haunted Arabelle’s thoughts.
It is the blue-eyed boy.
The scene flashed white.
Arabelle looks on, hovering above the scene, watching the blue-eyed boy once more. She does not recognize the location. He is pushing a cart of supplies when he is confronted by four other teens, who block his progress.
They attack.
The blue-eyed boy becomes a blur of motion. He ducks under a punch and kicks the knee of his first assailant, shattering it. He twists the next attacker’s arm and gives a swift strike against the elbow, bending the arm unnaturally.
Arabelle knew that such fighting skill could only come from tremendous amounts of training. The boy must be a soldier.
The remaining two assailants circle him, one wielding a dagger, the other a club. They attack at the same time.
The boy spins around and smashed the larger of the two in the face with a kick. Blood sprays from the attacker’s nose and he reels backwards. Yet the other catches the blue-eyed boy with a dagger, and blood flows from the wound…
The scene flashed white.
Arabelle is in her father’s tent, sitting next to him. The blue-eyed boy is there, too, seated next to a man who looks like an older version of the boy. His father?
The older man nods, and so does Arabelle’s father.
Father waves for the boy to rise. The boy looks uncertain, but does as he is instructed. Father guides him to kneel next to Arabelle.
The boy holds out one arm. Arabelle does the same. And her father loops a white silk ribbon around both of their arms in the ceremony of betrothal.
Arabelle woke with a sudden start, her heart rattling in her chest. She was barely able to catch her breath, and she was a sweaty mess.
She kicked off her covers.
Could these visions be true? Or even some of them? Am I a seer, like my mother?
Oh, please, let me have the opportunity to meet this boy. Could he really be the one I am destined to marry?
As she stretched her muscles and began her exercises, Arabelle used her inner sight on the older man from her vision, the one she thought was the blue-eyed boy’s father.
He, too, was directly above her.
She recalled the words of the old woman. “That bird you seek in the sky is bound to land on the ground. Protect the bird, or all you know will suffer.”
Spying on Evil
Arabelle’s visions had reinvigorated her—especially the vision of the betrothal ceremony. As the weeks passed, she felt certain it was a scene from the future.
And that changed everything for her.
Yes, she was destined to suffer. The poison would never leave her body. But she would also find someone to love—someone who might even give her a feeling of normalcy. And that was all she could hope for.
In the meantime, she worked harder than ever. As the princess—a princess granted a life of privilege—she owed it to her people to be as strong as she could, as skilled as she could, and as knowledgeable as she could. She not only absorbed everything Tabor taught her, and continued to practice Castien’s moves, she advanced her studies of various plants and their uses.
Maggie had agreed to be a test subject for her powdered weapons, the poor girl. When she volunteered, she probably didn’t realize just how often Arabelle was going to be practicing on her. Of course Arabelle didn’t dose her with any of the medicinal mixtures themselves, but she did use her handmaiden to test whether her delivery process was working. She would fill her straws with finely ground crystals of sugar—which she knew were harmless—and then would seize any opportunity she could to sneak up on Maggie with her beeswax-plugged straws. If Maggie tasted the sugar, then Arabelle knew her delivery method had worked.
It did, much to Maggie’s chagrin.
Arabelle had also spent plenty of time in Madam Mizner’s supply tent, and she’d mostly completed her arsenal of powdered weaponry. The old cook had by now given up on trying to figure out what the princess was doing amongst her supplies, and simply gave her free rein.
But there was one last item Arabelle needed to prepare, and to do so, she needed one elusive ingredient: the powdered ash of damantite slag. It wasn’t a food ingredient, but was used by some herbalists to treat exotic illnesses. Madam Mizner said she possessed some of the rare substance, but as she almost never used it, it could be buried anywhere within her supplies. The woman was organized when it came to her primary vegetables and spices, but the back of her supply tent was a jumble of random ingredients.
Arabelle had already searched the tent for the damantite several times, and was beginning to worry that she wouldn’t find it. Naturally, it was the last place she looked—the very last dust-covered box on Madam Mizner’s shelves. She let out a squeal of excitement when she found the yellowed packet with “damantite” scrawled on the outside. Inside was a finely ground black powder. She put it in her bag, then restored Madam Mizmer’s storeroom to a semblance of order before returning to her tent.
She now had all the ingredients to create the recipe that the old crone had given her: Tincture of the New Moon.
My most complicated recipe yet.
One by one, Arabelle put the dried ingredients into her stone mortar, grinding them as instructed with one hand as she dripped in the pure oil of quizoa leaves with her other. When all the ingredients but one had been added, her concoction was a fine, emulsified liquid.
She set aside the oil, took a pinch of the powdered damantite between her fingertips, and sprinkled it into the mixture. As the powder contacted the tincture, it flashed with tiny red sparks. She stirred everything thoroughly for exactly one more minute—and she almost shrieked with glee when the gray stone mortar and pestle suddenly turned a black so deep that it almost sucked the light out of her tent.
This was proof of her success, for the recipe had clearly stated:
If properly mixed with utensils of non-porous stone, the final tincture of the new moon will signify its completion by permanently discoloring the implements used in its creation.
She poured her creation into a glass vial and stoppered it. Then she turned to her bed, where she had laid out the darkest outfit Maggie had made her.
Time to test this out.
Arabelle tied off the end of her headwrap and tucked her mother’s daggers into their sheaths. Her belt was loaded with color-coded straws containing all of the different powders she’d created. Some were weapons, such as the powdered leaf Castien said would cause short-term memory loss, whereas others were mere medicines—simple pain relievers and stimulants. All of these accouterments—daggers and concoctions—were disguised beneath her outfit.
The last item on her table was the tincture. She dipped an empty straw into her unstoppered bottle, put her finger on the end of the straw, and lifted a wobbling drop of the potion. Taking a deep breath, she tilted her head back, raised the straw above her right eye, and removed her finger from the end of the straw. The tincture hit her eye with a cool sensation, but no discomfort. She repeated the process with her left eye.
She kept her eyes closed for a minute, to make sure the tincture would not dribble out. She felt nothing out of the ordinary. But when she opened her eyes again, she felt an instant wave of dizziness. Her depth perception was completely thrown askew. Everything seemed to be closer than it really was. And the brightness of her lamp overwhelmed her.
She retrieved her hand mirror and looked at herself. The face that looked back at her was… frightening. Her eyes had turned completely black. There was no pupil, no brown, no white. Just solid black from eyelid to eyelid.
It was just about the creepiest thing she’d ever seen.
I just hope it wears off—or I’ll have a lot of explaining to do.
Now came the real test. The herb-woman had said her already enhanced night vision would be further improved. She peeked through the slit at the entrance to her tent, looking into the darkness outside.
The effect was amazing. Arabelle focused in on a guard who stood at least fifty feet away, and she could see every detail of the man, right down to the beads of sweat on his forehead. Excitement coursed through her as she realized how useful this would be.
She’d already discovered that with her dark outfits and new stealth abilities, she was able to sneak out without her guards seeing her—if she waited for the right moment. Now that would be even easier.
She watched and waited. Soon the distraction she was hoping for came: another guard stopped to talk with the men watching her tent. She seized the momentary distraction and slipped away into the shadows of the caravan.
The darker her surroundings, the more her vision improved. It turned out that she could spy on someone from nearly a hundred yards away and still see their face well enough to read what they were saying.
As she snuck about the caravan, she heard a conversation that interested her.
“Any information from the captives?” said a voice.
“None. The boy remains stubbornly silent, but we’ll get something from him. I know he’s hiding something.”
Captives? Boy?
The voices came from a nearby tent. Arabelle watched and waited to see who emerged.
The tent flap opened, and a black-armored soldier stepped out. He marched off in the direction of the marketplace.
Arabelle’s heart beat faster. That was one of Azazel’s enforcers.
She’d also caught a glimpse inside the tent, and had seen the other speaker. This, too, was one of Azazel’s men, and he had been writing something on an easel.
She knew what she should do. She should leave this alone. Tabor had always taught her to avoid Azazel’s soldiers, and everyone she knew was afraid of them. But her curiosity was piqued. Against her better judgment, she approached the tent and listened carefully through the wall.
All she could hear was the scratching of a writing instrument. If only she could see what he was writing…
She looked around. This section of the caravan was empty. Perhaps if she was quiet enough…
She tiptoed silently to tent’s entrance and used one of her straws to pull aside the tent flap ever so slightly. Then she put her eye up against the sliver of an opening.
The black-armored soldier had his back to her. His body blocked her view of what he was writing on the easel. But off to his right, another parchment was attached to the wall. The writing was small, but she was able to make it out.
Seeking Strangers to Trimoria.
Send a Quad to patrol the border of the cursed swamp.
Maintain three Duos scouting the path of the caravan.
Await Kirag’s orders regarding the forest.
Extract from captives—
Before she could make out the rest of the last line of text, the flap of the tent was ripped aside, sending Arabelle falling backward in shock. The soldier stood over her, his face a thunderstorm of anger.
Arabelle backpedaled quickly, but to no avail. The brute grabbed her tunic in one mighty hand and lifted her in the air. With his other hand he reached to his belt and brought his dagger to bear.
Without thinking, Arabelle brought the straw to her lips and blew the powder into the soldier’s face. She didn’t even know which powder that was.
The soldier cursed and dropped her.
Arabelle pulled out the entire wad of red-colored straws she’d tucked into her belt, blew them all at once into the man’s face, and ran.
Slavers
Grisham never would have predicted it, but he’d grown to like riding a mountain pony. He was also proud that this same pony had refused to take a saddle from Oda, yet had allowed Grisham to ride him—after much care and attention, of course. As Oda had advised, Grisham had gained the animal’s trust.
Oda was not so sanguine about the pony making its preferences known. He’d taken to calling Grisham’s pony a sway-backed nag in retaliation. Fortunately the other mountain pony was less particular and would let anyone ride—even a boisterous dwarf. Today he had even set out on the pony with a group of other soldiers on an all-day scouting trip, leaving Grisham behind.
Grisham didn’t mind. He enjoyed his quiet work—polishing weapons, grooming horses. In fact, Oda had suggested that perhaps Grisham’s true calling was groomsman rather than soldier. Apparently even the grizzled dwarf was beginning to realize that Grisham would never be a warrior.
Grisham was rubbing down some of the horses when another group of soldiers entered the corral, with Nicholas among them.
“Grisham! It’s good to see you’ve moved on to more suitable duties.” He chuckled amiably. “As long as you’re here, would you like to go with us on a short trip?”
“Where are you going?”
Nicholas cinched up the saddle on his favorite bay. “Some sheep have broken through their pens and wandered away. The shepherd needs help retrieving them. They can’t have gone too far.”
Grisham decided he wouldn’t mind going for a ride. “Sure. I’ll help out.
”
He laid a horse blanket on his pony and grabbed some tack, and soon he was trotting with Nicholas and two other soldiers toward the broken pens.
Nicholas pointed east. “I see their tracks heading down to the valley.”
He spurred his horse into a gallop, and Grisham followed his example, holding on to his mount for all that he was worth.
Since joining the caravan, Grisham had learned that fog was frequently found in low-lying areas, especially in the mornings. Today was no exception. The fog was so thick in the valley that Grisham could barely see the rump of the soldier’s horse in front of him.
“How can we possibly find the sheep in this weather?” he asked.
Beside him, Nicholas put his fingers to his lips and reined his horse to a stop.
Grisham did the same, listening for anything that might be out there. He heard the whuff of a horse on the other side of Nicholas. And then, after almost a minute of total silence, he heard what sounded like the bleat of a sheep in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Nicholas.
His friend shook his head. “I didn’t, but if you heard a sheep, then lead on.”
Grisham strained his ears again. When he heard another bleat, he nudged his pony in that direction. The others followed him. But he couldn’t see a thing in the gray mists, and he hadn’t gone far before he pulled on his reins so he could listen once more.
Agent of Prophecy Page 15
