by Talis Jones
Allowing the sharp tug on her arm to guide her, Cassandra followed the seer, midwife, matchmaker, and general nuisance. No curiosity tingled beneath her skin as she knew precisely why the woman had sought her out so desperately. She would listen, but she would not heed.
Israfil led her to a small green tent lined in velvet, ushering her inside and drawing the curtains closed around them. “Tea?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer she prepared two cups and settled on a matching stool across from the seat Cassandra had claimed. The cosy tea room was precariously packed with cups and saucers making it unclear if it was a tea room or simply a space for storage.
Cassandra took a careful, deceiving sip from her cup. Nothing could truly harm her and yet she felt it best to develop a habit of caution around this woman. “Is the setting suitable to your speech?” she teased flatly.
Narrowed eyes and a frown answered. “I did not want to be overheard. The people around here are notoriously nosy.”
“Yes, so I've learned,” Cassandra smiled pointedly.
“I am not some busybody sticking her nose into private business,” Israfil glowered. “It is my duty to protect Oneiroi and its inhabitants. It is all of our duty as it is all of our home.” Her words tumbled too quickly and her hands shook. For a woman who was rarely prone to panic, she found her spine unexpectedly tense in Cassandra's presence. Clasping her palms together tightly she took in a steady breath...yet hesitation held her tongue. She had to choose her words carefully.
“Speak freely, Israfil,” Cassandra bid and it was that queenly tone that made Israfil's hackles rise.
“You are invoking the prophecy and you have chosen the darker path,” she accused. “You have everything here and more potential than most to make your dreams happen. You have been gifted a second life, gifted powerful magic, gifted a leadership position, gifted friends who could become a second family. You have everything, Cassandra, and yet you choose this?”
“The problem with dying is that it does not make one forget,” Cassandra murmured. “I have the same wants and desires now as I did then. The only difference is that in this life I have the tools to take them and brush aside any who might stand in my way. I was weak and now I am powerful. I was no one and now I am somebody. I was overlooked and now I will be remembered. It is not my fault if Oneiroi cares not to investigate just precisely who enters its borders.”
“Oneiroi is open to all who wish it,” Israfil defended angrily. “It is a sanctuary for souls to live in peace, in harmony. We are all equal here–”
Cassandra cut her off with a harsh laugh. “Equal? Don't be so foolish. This is a land of dreams and I cannot help it if you do not like mine.”
“Turn from this path, Cassandra,” the seer warned her. “Even now it may be too late for you. There are consequences for all actions. You will be punished.”
“Punished?” Cassandra asked in dubious glee. “Who can punish me when I've been made more powerful than any of you before me?”
Israfil slammed her cup onto the small table where it teetered then fell to the floor with a crash. “You are one person and powerful though you may be you cannot stand against the rest of us united!”
“But you are not united.” A slow smile slithered along her lips. “I am not alone.” Deciding it time to move on, Cassandra stood and made to leave the stuffy little tent.
“I will summon Titus!” Israfil threatened with fire in her eyes. “The moment he returns from the Outer World, I will summon him and he will wrest those precious powers of yours from your very soul before casting you out onto the streets of the land you so loathed. You will be made magic-less, pitiful, and alone just as you clearly deserve.”
Israfil only had the warning of empty coldness snuffing out any life from Cassandra's eyes before every dish in the cluttered tent shattered, each splinter and shard sent hurtling straight towards her.
Cassandra glanced down her nose at the woman bleeding on the floor from a thousand cuts that flowed around the embedded china. “You did this,” she whispered in a voice so soft and dark that Israfil would never be able to wash it from her nightmares.
The woman would not die, the noise they'd caused would bring aid quickly enough. In even strides that suggested she already bore a crown, Cassandra left the carnival in her wake with a hum of adrenaline in her veins for now was the time for action. Her cadre stood beneath the carnival arch where she'd sent a message ordering them to meet her packed and ready to leave. Above her the sky began to gray and clouds churned as Tiago summoned his power.
In absolute authority, Cassandra strode past them and they fell into order behind her. Only Kenshin's eyes did not gleam with excitement. Marching through the winding streets Jourdies soon joined them until their numbers swelled into that of a dangerous mob.
As they drew level with the Whisper citadel Cassandra smiled at the Whispers standing there as if they had any hope of standing in her way. Mind focused and arms raised, rain was pulled from the clouds Tiago had formed but as the drops plummeted towards the earth they drew out screams. Blades of ice pelted any not under her protection sending the Whispers scrambling for shelter and leaving their path clear. Blood mixed with the grime on the streets and Cassandra reveled in using it to lacquer her boots.
Northward they marched and northward Abel waited.
Once outside of the city, Cassandra bade them to wait. She spun pretty words like delicate threads in the hands of a master weaver. Promising them a home that would thrive with invention, that would be the strongest in all of Oneiroi, that would set precedent for the future, that would keep Whispers in their place, she won their greedy hearts and sealed their fate.
A blood oath. That was what she required in exchange for the future she had painted for them. An oath that would be passed down through blood ensuring generations of support lest she or they all suddenly perish. A binding contract of souls and the price seemed so small when so close lay a future to satiate their arrogant dreams. Not one refused her.
With Weepys at their disposal, Cassandra knew the Whispers at Circ de Apa would have sent word to Mordréda and therefore it had been no surprise when they stood armed and angry at the citadel walls. They met her on the killing fields and there they fought tooth and nail, magic and sword, until only the Council and Medusa remained, the rest having fled. They had enough magic together to spill some of Cassandra's blood, but she'd come with numbers that had grown as her army travelled steadily north, moving from town to town.
Besides those tending the wounded or dead, her soldiers surrounded the captive Whispers and parted at her approach. Medusa's beautiful hair was matted with blood and yet she looked torn between spitting venom and wilting in tears. Abel, however, was the one whom caught Cassandra's attention.
“I'm surprised you did not flee with your other weak brothers and sisters,” she sneered.
Abel's chin remained raised. “I am no coward.”
Cassandra's brows raised. “Calling your family cowards now are you? Not very kind is it.”
A blush stained his blood-smeared cheeks. “You are the coward! You come here hiding behind an army of Jourdies to protect you? Pathetic!”
She shook her head slowly. “And now you are insinuating that Jourdies are weak, a pathetic defense. I advise you silence that angry mouth of yours. No wisdom from it leaks.”
“You should have faced us one-on-one! Fought like a man of honor!”
Cassandra laughed. “Unfortunately for you I fought like a woman: prepared.”
Seeming to give up on her, Abel cast his gaze at those around them. “Can you not see that she has manipulated you all into this madness? Oneiroi was at peace! Why would you be so foolish as to bring war?”
“If you thought Oneiroi was at peace then you are blind indeed, Abel,” Cassandra snapped. “Look around us. If Oneiroi had been at peace then I would have rallied no one to my side. No one would join a quest to destroy what was already perfect.” Several grunts and cheers of agreement rippled t
hrough her soldiers. “If life seemed idyllic then that illusion was restricted to your own ass that you so proudly wear as a hat, dear Abel. I would have been happy to join the Council and pursue policy changes the slow and steady old-fashioned way, but instead you vilified me. Obsessed with this prophecy you turned the Whispers against me, no one would have listened to my ideas. So I took your people, I have taken your throne, and I will take the future to sculpt for my own. I was content to live within your rules, but you betrayed me.” Her eyes strayed towards Medusa's at these last words.
Abel scoffed. “You would have never been content to live within anyone's rules but your own. I cannot help it if you are the prophesied villain in the story. This would have always been the outcome lest we had cast you from the Island the moment you had arrived.”
Cassandra smiled. “Well, now we shall never know. But make no mistake, Abel. You did this.”
Turning her back, showing how little a threat she believed them to be, Cassandra began to depart when Alexei appeared by her side.
“What shall we do with them?”
She spared a mere glance over her shoulder at the Whispers who once promised friendship. “Unfortunately we cannot kill them, so I suppose we might as well let them go.”
Alexei frowned in concern for her safety. “Would not the dungeons be a better place to contain them?”
“No,” she sighed. “I'd rather not waste all of my energy keeping a damper on their powers. Besides, Titus will return soon and I doubt he'd take kindly to my keeping prisoners.”
Cassandra wasted no time in taking the Whisper citadel for her own palace but she left the transition to the Jourdies with Tiago and Suyin in charge. Her first priority was ensuring her rule and for that she had to act swiftly. With Kenshin and Alexei by her side she magiked them from town to town, beginning with those nearest the palace and spiraling outwards. Introducing herself at taverns and fairs she could often soften the people towards her cause and claim their blood oath with little argument. But for many they remained wary, too comfortable in the life they'd known for so long, and for those she had to get a bit more blunt.
Holding a child hostage was a very effective method of wrangling oaths from its family. Declining her rule was not an option and she dealt with dissension swiftly. Certainly several had escaped her clutches, but she'd captured most. In a mere handful of weeks she'd conquered Quidel, a land in its own right with patrolled borders, no longer a mere province of a whole.
“Will you not claim the blood of us all,” Kenshin had asked softly one night. He had remained the only Whisper with reservations, always gently tugging at her to breathe, to slow, to think. But she was breathing, she was patient when patience was wise, and she was thinking. She had been thinking so much more than any realized she ever would. This blood oath was not only a maneuver to build a kingdom in a night, but an insurance policy.
“I need only this corner of land to create an example,” she explained. “Once the rest of Oneiroi see the strength of my ideas, they will follow suit on their own.”
Silence hung between them as he debated his next words. With a cautious breath he finally asked one of the many questions that weighed his mind. “How did you learn to create the blood oath? I rather doubt that is something Titus would teach or even know of.”
Cassandra studied his face. He had a good heart, but that night with Medusa he had chosen her above all else. She could not trust him completely, but she trusted him far more than most. “No, he didn't. He never mentioned it either so I cannot say if he knows of such magic. But there were many things he never taught me. When he left for the Outer World, he left behind a girl who was just beginning to truly master control over smaller tasks such as blooming flowers, tossing stones, and gathering dew drops. I pushed myself further on my own time, I yearned to master it all.
“I played a part for him to see. I couldn't risk him fearing my true potential, although I always got an odd feeling that he knew or at least suspected my deceit.” She cast her eyes to the horizon, losing herself in memory. “I've never been very good at making friends and even when I did they often left me for newer, better friends. Oneiroi was my second chance. I could be anyone here. I could make as many friends as Medusa wanted me to. But I could never shake the fear of them leaving. Anger would fill my veins at just the thought.
“I'd asked Titus how anyone figured out how to use their magic and he explained how knowledge was passed down, but there were always new discoveries to be made with perhaps no limit to the possibilities. I had my task and I determined to see it through.”
Kenshin smiled. “An answer and yet a non-answer. Your favorite kind to give.”
Cassandra laughed. “You're right. Sometimes you see me so clearly.”
“Only sometimes, mi suverenya?” he teased.
She shrugged. “Titus has a way of making animals do him favors. I witnessed it once when he thought I was not there. I simply performed a few experiments to figure out a way to turn it into command then into fealty. I admit I hadn't truly tested it on a person before the day we left Circ de Apa, but I was confident it would work and so far it has.”
Kenshin played with her fingers as he mused over her words and the time that had passed since that day and the horrible night before it. Cassandra let him be, choosing to mull over memories herself. It had not been a few experiments to figure out the blood oath, but many. If they ever chose to expand the gardens towards the woods, they would unearth many of the animals she'd coaxed and then sacrificed in her endeavors. Even once she'd managed to balance the magic and blood so that only a slice across the palm was needed, she hadn't wanted anyone to notice her sway over the creatures so they had to be silenced. It wasn't something she delighted in, in fact she hated it. It was simply something that had to be done.
Kenshin's grip tightened, tugging her out of her thoughts. “You've never asked me to take the blood oath,” he wondered. “I know the others have. Alexei had tried to make his palm scar so as to wear the mark with pride.” He searched her gaze thoroughly, finding no answers she did not wish to yield. “Why not me?”
Cassandra leaned in and kissed him until his shoulders lost their tension. “Because you don't need a blood oath. And I can't resist knowing that just one person has chosen to love me of their own free will. That they would follow me, fight for me, support me, not because of an oath that bound their loyalty to me but because they wanted to.”
Kenshin's eyes were soft and he leaned in to kiss her once more when her spine suddenly went rigid. “What? Cassandra, tell me, what is it?”
Her eyes were wide but where he expected fear there was only a wildness that drew a chill across the back of his neck. “He's returned.”
Chapter 19
The hour night fell Cassandra felt the tug in her center and had had no choice but to obey, allowing the magic to take hold of her body and summon it to this barbaric hall where she now stood. Careful to keep her face cool, her stance utterly unruffled, she took in the crumbling walls around her. By torchlight her eyes scoured those gathered, standing so as to pen her in their circle and weigh her with the judgment in their stares.
Beside her stood Kenshin, Alexei, Suyin, and Tiago. She gave them the barest glance before fixing her icy gaze upon the man stood before her, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a furious shade of puce. A sudden flap of wings had her raven settling upon her shoulders, the comforting touch straightening her spine and lifting her chin higher. A blink later an albino falcon settled upon Titus' shoulder and she only just managed to hold back a sneer at its familiar sight.
Ignoring the seer whose claws itched to rake her face she addressed Titus. “Welcome back. Might you deign to inform me of where it is exactly that you've summoned me?”
Titus' lips pressed tightly as if holding back words he'd very much like to lash at her. After a steady breath he answered, “You are standing in the very center of Oneiroi in the ruins of the first home of the Whispers. A home risen in oath a
nd shattered in blood. A place forgotten and avoided by those who remember.” At this last his eyes flicked briefly to Abel and Cassandra's sharp eyes caught the movement and resented it.
“A bit dramatic, don't you think?” she quipped, gesturing to the torchlight, the cloaked circle of Whispers, and the large war drums waiting to pound a rhythm of sentence.
Titus remained a pillar of contained fury. “On the contrary. It seemed quite appropriate.”
At this Cassandra slowly grinned. “Indeed. I am glad to know that I am worthy of such a historical comparison.”
She was no fool. Cassandra knew precisely what Titus' summons had meant. Her reign would be stolen from her. A sentence of punishment decreed. Perhaps she had been foolish to think she could seize a kingdom and keep it without their blessing, but hadn't that been the problem to begin with? She had ambitions and with Abel determined to sabotage any sway she might have had when seated on Council she'd needed to carve out a different path. A greater path. She'd told Titus what she wanted at the very beginning and felt no guilt for seeing it through.
“You are bound here by my powers as Collector and protector of Oneiroi to receive judgment for your treasonous actions,” Titus boomed, his gaze brushed across each one of Cassandra's conspirators before settling back upon her cool anger. “For spilling the blood of Whispers and Jourdies, for betraying your oaths as Oneiroi's Guardian, for abusing your magic, your powers, for waging war, for binding the wills of Jourdies by force, for sowing discontent in the Island of Dreams...” Titus took a steadying breath. “You are all sentenced to banishment to the Outer World, never to return.”
Cassandra at last spared a true glance at her companions and felt unsurprised by the shock in their pale faces. Disbelief, agony, horror, they all began to twist in their expressions as their mouths hung agape. At one time she knew she'd be their mirror and yet a part of her had always known and so she'd prepared.
