Rowena Daniells - The uncrowned King

'Bad dream?' Fyn asked, lifting on one elbow.

Feldspar inhaled sharply and sat up. 'Don't you feel it? My Affinity is itching like a — ' His eyes widened and he glanced down to where his hand pressed to his heart. No, not to his heart. He pulled the Fate out from under his vest.

The seashell-shaped stone glowed fiercely, bright as a captured star. Fyn swallowed.

'It's beautiful,' Joff marvelled, as he, also, sat up. 'Perhaps the goddess herself has seen our plight and seeks to comfort us.'

Feldspar's hand closed over the stone, trapping the light so that only a deep orange seeped through the crevices between his fingers. Fyn wondered if it felt as hot as it appeared. As he watched, his friend's beatific expression faded and a sheen of sweat covered his skin. Feldspar's breath caught in a gasp and, when another breath failed to follow, Fyn grabbed the hand that held the Fate intending to prise it free, but…

…the instant he made contact with the Fate, a vision swamped him.

Cold leached into the very marrow of his bones. As good as dead, he lay wedged between bloodied corpses. Above him on the edge of a rocky ledge, torch-wielding men tossed another body over and it plummeted down, landing on top of him, burying him alive. His heart tried to climb out of his throat.

An imperative came to him.

Run. Leave the abbey. Flee for your lives. We are betrayed!

Fyn tried to run but his body wouldn't obey. His legs felt strangely stiff and disjointed. He recognised that terrifying dream sensation, where every movement takes incredible effort and happens too slowly. Yet he knew this wasn't a dream. It was a vision, and it was imperative he escape. It felt as if his heart would burst with the effort.

'Fyn!' Joff bellowed, as something snapped his head around, making one side of his face throb. Another blow sent him off his knees onto his back, knocking the air from his chest.

His sight cleared to discover Joff hovering over him, ready to deliver a third blow.

'Stop,' he croaked, lifting arms that ached from exertion, even though he had been sitting still.

Joff scrambled aside and turned to Feldspar. Fyn struggled to his knees to find his friend collapsed on the hearth stone, bleeding from his nose.

'You didn't have to hit him so hard, Joff,' Fyn protested, his voice a mere thread.

'I didn't hit him at all. His nose started to bleed when you touched the Fate.'

Fyn crawled over, touching Feldspar's forehead, feeling for the pulse in his throat, for signs of breathing. Good. He wasn't dead. 'Feldspar, can you hear me?'

His friend's eyes flickered open, fixing on Fyn.

'Have to escape!' Urgency warred with exhaustion.

'We've already escaped. We're safe. Remember?'

Feldspar frowned, then nodded and tried to sit up. Fyn went to help him but the Fate brushed his hand and he jerked back instinctively. Joff cast him a quick glance, then helped Feldspar, who hugged his knees, trembling.

'What did you two see?' Joff whispered. 'Was it the same thing?'

Fyn glanced to Feldspar who shivered, either unable or unwilling to speak.

'A mass grave filled with bodies,' Fyn whispered. 'Men with torches were throwing more bodies in on top of me… on top of Master Catillum, I mean.' He looked to Feldspar for confirmation.

'If you say so,' Feldspar muttered. 'All I felt was cold, a terrible cold. And the need to run.'

Joff turned to Fyn for an explanation.

'Sensation without sight,' Fyn guessed. That would have been even more terrifying. But he didn't say anything. Feldspar had always been the clever, nervy one, now his friend looked fragile.

Feldspar wiped blood from his lips and chin. 'If the Merofynians are throwing bodies into a mass grave, Master Catillum amongst them, the weapons master and all the warrior monks must be dead.'

Fyn nodded. 'So we know for certain that they were ambushed and the cream of Halcyon's warrior monks defeated. The Merofynians would have travelled with Power-workers just as we had our mystics. It's a wonder Master Catillum had any strength left to use the Fate.' Fyn imagined the mystics master injured, half-frozen with the use of only one arm. 'Poor Catillum, he wasn't dead when they threw him into the mass grave, but — '

'They couldn't have dug a trench,' Joff, the farmer's son, objected. 'The ground is still frozen. They must be throwing them into a ravine.'

'Whatever it was,' Fyn conceded, 'Master Catillum was being buried alive.'

'Probably the safest place for him,' Feldspar muttered. 'Lay low until they leave, then crawl out.'

Fyn nodded slowly. 'If he can get out with that withered arm.'

No one spoke for a while. A branch crumpled in the fire, revealing glowing coals. Fyn shivered, shaken by the vision, even if the experience had been secondhand.

'You must let him know we are safe,' Feldspar whispered and removed the Fate's chain, thrusting it towards Fyn.

Fyn shook his head, eyeing the seashell stone where a residual glow still lingered in its opalescent spirals. 'I'm not touching that thing.'

'You have to. You have an Affinity with the Fate. I don't. Take it.' Feldspar forced it into Fyn's hands. 'Since I joined the abbey, all I ever wanted was to train as a mystic. But I know my limits. When the Fate had me I felt like my head was going to burst. Any more and I think it would have.' He touched his nose, which was still bleeding sluggishly, then fixed on Fyn. 'You have to concentrate on Master Catillum to make contact, then send him a picture of us escaping from the caves and looking across to Sylion Abbey. He can guess from that where we'll be hiding. We need him.'

Fyn's stomach churned. He did not want to summon the Fate's powers again. But Master Catillum had risked exposing himself to the Merofynian army's Power-worker to contact them. He deserved to know the abbey's boys were safe. If the master could get to Sylion Abbey, Catillum could begin to rebuild Halcyon Abbey.

'What…' Joff began. 'What if you contact the wrong Power-worker? The nearest one must be with the Merofynians who took the abbey.'

Feldspar met Fyn's gaze, waiting for his response.

Fyn closed his eyes. Could he reach only Master Catillum? He shivered, remembering the cold, and the way the body plummeted towards him. It was so easy to imagine himself back in that moment. 'I think I can.'

Feldspar offered Fyn his hand. Another bead of blood seeped from his nostrils. 'Do you want my help?'

'No, I'll manage.'

Fyn closed his eyes, the better to concentrate. It was not hard to recall the body spiralling down towards him, the sense of entrapment…

All around him it was quiet, the quiet waiting of the dead. He was weighed down by the dead…

He was the mystics master.

Fyn recalled the fisher folk sheltering the boys. He visualised the distant cliffs with Sylion Abbey standing silhouetted against the sky.

A sense of relief washed over him and he realised it was Master Catillum's emotion. The sensation was so unnerving, he pulled back instinctively. The world dropped out from under his feet. He fell through nothing.

He was nothing… the gorge rose in his throat.

Suddenly he was in his body again, pitching forwards as he threw up all over his knees.

The horrible wracking spasms eventually passed and Fyn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, supporting himself with a trembling arm.

'Here.' Joff offered Fyn a beaker of water from the bucket by the fire.

'Thanks.' Fyn could only croak.

'Fish stew,' Feldspar muttered. 'Smells just as bad the second time around. Think I'm — '

As he gagged, Fyn felt another spasm take him and, together, they staggered outside to throw up in the snowdrift by the door. They both heaved until they had nothing left to bring up.