Page 58 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 58 – HESTAN

“Y ou encountered an acquaintance of mine last night. Is that correct?” the Healer asked.

I took one look at his cloak. The top half of his face was covered. “Yes.”

“What is your name?”

“Will you tell me yours?”

The man smiled, understanding I would not give it to him.

“I wish to know what you saw.”

My facial expression remained blank. “Why?”

Of course, I was willing to do anything to save Dyna, who lay unconscious and unaware beneath us. But the woman’s touch, its impact, had not escaped my mind, I doubted that it ever would. It also did not escape me that these people were dangerous and powerful. Handing information to them freely, would not be wise.

“You do not need to hide anything from me. I know about the note you worked so ardently to read.”

“The note and the vision are different,” I asserted.

“But they may be connected.” Although he had said ‘may’ he had spoken as if this was not a possibility but an irrefutable fact.

I looked over at Dyna and clenched my fists, unsure of what to do, or say.

The man watched me silently. His unnatural level of patience was probably meant to be calming, but I only found it deeply unnerving.

“Sir,” he finally broke the silence. “Do you not wish to assist us?”

Assist them? This sorcerer wanted, expected me to assist them?

“I would never work with someone like you.” My palms became clammy, the images from that day blazing through my mind.

“That is disappointing.” He lowered his head, “Since the person behind this plot to ruin your home, and to do more damage to our kind are one and the same, we could help each other a great deal.”

“There’s no way for me to trust your intentions, or the sincerity of your words.”

The man raised his head. His lips parted as he let out a small breath. “As things currently stand, you have little choice but to.”

“I would rather exhaust every possibility first.”

“You do not have the time. We do not have the time.”

He raised a long and lithe finger, pointing to Dyna. “She does not.”

“She is a child.” My voice was rough, “And you would use her in your bargains.”

The man was calm and collected. “Someone is using her already. Only they are using her death, and I am offering her life.”

“In return for my loyalty, which I do not offer so freely.”

I could not offer it. I could not risk the consequences. It was not because he was a sorcerer, although that did form part of my reluctance to make a deal with him. It was the fact that he, as many sorcerers were, was unpredictable.

But then again, so was the Prince.

The man, as if reading my exact thoughts, spoke, “Do you believe Audra’s Prince to be any less dangerous?”

I gave him a hostile look. “Of course not.”

The man tilted his head with a gesture that implied the question, So what is the problem?

“Audra’s heir is already in collusion with one of our own, if you are working with him, you are already by extension, working with us.”

“The Prince and I—"

“I personally removed the steel you plunged into a sorcerer’s back while defending him. Why go to such great lengths if not for the existence of an understanding between you?”

I could not think of a reply for that.

“What do you want?” The pain in my shin began to worsen. I had been standing for too long.

“I have already explained.”

“Not that, afterwards.” I placed more weight onto the other leg.

The Healer’s eyes moved down to my legs. “You are injured.”

“Answer my question.”

Clearly not concerned by my injury, the man did as he was asked. “Whatever will be necessary, to achieve our goals.”

“And what are… your goals ?”

“For now, at least, they align with yours, finding the author or authors of that note.”

“What will you do once you’ve found them?”

The twist of the man’s lips was accompanied by the words, “What do you suppose?”

Kill them, then.

“I agree on one condition.”

The man didn’t respond, anticipating my next words.

“Once those people are found, you will hand them to me and allow them to be tried and sentenced under law.”

The man had been holding his hands together in front of him. At these words he dropped them.

“No.”

I furrowed my brows.

“There is no justice for sorcerers under your law. If anything, the culprits will be rewarded.”

“So, you simply mean to find these people and kill them, without any evidence?”

“We will have evidence. We will find it, hopefully, with your help.”

“What if you kill someone who was forced into these actions, who was unaware of their purpose?”

These were the kind of questions that plagued me still, when I thought about lives, I myself had taken.

The sorcerer joined his hands together again. “You have an unshakeable morality, Sir. That is admirable. But such a trait is not something those who must fight to survive can uphold. Currently, the Kalnasans fall under such a category, without even being aware of that fact.”

He stepped forwards, closer to the bed, and to me. “We will deal with them ourselves. We would prefer if you assisted us, since you are Kalnasan, and have knowledge of the Kingdom’s inner workings we do not possess. However, even if you refuse, the Prince will not. We will be working to find this culprit. It is up to you whether you are involved in the process or abstain.”

“You hardly offer me much choice,” I said irately.

The man didn’t disagree, but said, resolutely, “Choice, the ability to choose, is what we are fighting for. To have it is freedom, to be without it is imprisonment.”

The man walked towards Dyna and outstretched his hand. I stepped forwards out of instinct to stop him, but he had removed his gloves, and his palms were glowing, warmly.

Golden orange threads emerged from his hands and travelled towards Dyna’s chest. A light entered her and shimmered, glowed underneath her skin, spreading out, down her limbs, and into her face.

I watched, mesmerised as her breathing became easier, and the colour in her face brighter.

After a brief time, the man closed his fingers over and stepped back. He began to put his glove back on silently.

I thought of the conversation that had just passed in the main hall, what Lord Elias had said about teleportation. How had we been able to have this conversation uninterrupted?

“How did you get in here?” The question I realised I probably should have asked immediately escaped my lips.

The man faced me. “Through the door.”

Through the door?

“I did not teleport here,” he added.

So, this man simply walked into the Palace freely?

I supposed, that as a class one Darean, he was highly powerful, and his ability to maintain translucency was probably heightened.

Dyna’s eyelashes fluttered. I rushed to her side, but she remained asleep.

“Do you know"— I glanced at the Healer hopefully— “what happened to her?”

The Healer apologetically replied, “No more than you do. Poison.”

“Can you tell the kind?”

“Not without time.”

Dyna groaned in her slumber.

What was her life over my pride and doubts? Why had I even thought to prioritise them?

“It was…”

But the Healer wasn’t listening. His hands were once again glowing with a deep light.

Only now, it was green, and it wasn’t coming from his palms. He was clutching something tightly within them.

His mouth straightened into a tense line and his breathing quickened. He didn’t move or speak.

“I must leave. Now.”

Even though he remained in place, waiting for my reply, his words betrayed an urgency and distress.

“It is up to you. Farewell.”

I was so startled by his immediate change that I didn’t speak as I watched him make for the door, the outlines of his person becoming faintly invisible as he moved.

“My past,” I spoke to his blurry silhouette.

He stopped walking.

“I saw my past.”

He regained his full form and turned. “Your… past?” Those two words sounded strained. “You recognised what you saw?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “It was different somewhat… but it was my past.”

His chin turned sharply to the right. He glared at a small, non-important point on the floor.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Before me, the door opened on its own, and closed behind it in kind.

Dyna stirred in her bed, her eyelashes beginning to flutter once again.

I knelt by her side. “My Lady?”

She opened her eyes unfocused. “Hestan?” she whispered.

“Yes, My Lady, I am here.”

“I…. I was….” She lifted her hand and gripped the bottom of my arm. Her eyes were wild and frightened.

“It’s alright…You are safe now. You are well.” I tried to reassure her.

“No.” Her voice was pleading. “You don’t understand.”

“My Lady?” I searched her face with a furrowed brow.

“He told me to drink it. He promised"—tears fell down her face — “he promised that he would let them go. But he told me if I lived…” She choked on her sobs.

“Told you…what?” I whispered.

“That he would kill them all.”