The Dark Witch And Her Knights

40

The loud startling caw of a rook popped my eyes wide open. The window was left ajar and there on the sill sat the cursed blackbird, his dark eyes boring deep into my soul. His bone-colored bill cawed again conveying his message before taking flight out the window.

May his feathers carry the souls of those lost in the coming war.

My eyes remained locked on the place where the crow had sat until my mind started to work again. I was in my room at the inn but I couldn't remember how I got here in bed. Rolling over I could feel the stiffness of my body, the drool running down my chin, and the hard form my ballgown had misshapen into from sleeping in it.

A knock on the door nearly had me jumping from the mattress. My nerves were already ruffled from the black messenger of misfortune. I wiped any remaining slobber from my face and opened the door just a crack to peek through it. The smell of eggs and bacon instantly filled my nose coaxing back my tight grip on the door.

"Lady Sable?" My eyes moved from the silver food platter to the man holding it. Tovias had fetched me breakfast. The sight of him brought my memory flooding back but I couldn't remember how I got to bed still. I opened the door fully allowing him the liberty of entering. I stared at his broad back as he crossed the room moving toward the sitting table to place the food upon.

Either I was still exhausted or I had never looked at him properly before. My mind was surely playing a trick on me. It was not the fact that he was up and moving around completely healthy, it was something else entirely. Tovias appeared as if he had grown several inches taller overnight. His shoulders were wider and he had put on muscle weight I was positive this man did not have. It gave him new confidence in his gait.

He turned giving me a devilishly handsome smile, "Sleep has not done you justice, My Lady."

Everything seemed so different about him that I couldn't hold back, "Who are you?"

His laugh was deep and like a sweet harmony lulling me. "I suppose I do appear quite different don't I?"

I could only nod. He waved to the chair at the sitting table encouraging me to take it and eat. I pulled back the lid of the tray revealing the hot food. Plucking I piece of bacon from the platter I took my seat nibbling on it and sipping the hot black tea that accompanied it.

"Word just reached the city. A transport ship that departed our docks last week has crashed a day's ride down the shore. The Guard inspected the ship to find all passengers had succumbed to a mysteriously deadly plague. Any goods purchased from the sailors of The Damascus ship are to be tracked down and burned to prevent the spread of the disease. The vendor from the fish market and two of his customers have also died from the same illness. The ship and the bodies of anyone infected have been burned."

My jaw fell open, the half-chewed bacon on full display. Tovias gave me a look that said he knew too much. Shutting my mouth I sipped at my tea trying to swallow the food turning to ash on my tongue.

"Is anyone in town ill?"

He shook his head and said something I was not expecting, "I am the only survivor."

I couldn't swallow. I had intervened with fate in a way I had not intended. Tovias was meant to die. He should be dead. I wanted the skills of my healing to be whispered gossip amongst the people but now they would talk of something entirely different- they could call me witch- Bringer of the Plague.

Tovias saw the color leach from my skin. "When I first laid eyes on you in my fevered state I thought you were an angel sent to guide me to the gates of heaven." I shivered. "The moonlight made your dress give you an ethereally holy glow. You looked divine as I have never seen another woman look before. With your hands upon my brow and chest, I felt the life you forced into me, and I was certain you were here to save me for something greater. Your secret will die with me for I understand what danger awaits your kind in this city. You saved my life when I should be dead like the rest. I am eternally indebted to you-" he leaned over placing his hand over mine resting on the side of the teacup trying to leech warmth from the hot drink. "for it is not only the gift of life you have given. I am stronger and different in more ways than I can count or care to name to you."

All I could bring myself to say was, "No one can know what I have done for you. No one can know you were sick."

"I do not plan to stay here."

"Where will you go?" I asked knowing if I had created something, I must track him wherever he goes for the rest of his days.

"I will go wherever it is you plan to go."

I looked him straight in the eye trying to figure out this man before me. And just before his illness- before whatever I did changed him, he was just a teenager. In front of me now sat a completely different person- a grown man.

Feeling strange I sensed my hand had warmed and not from the teacup but his hand still resting over mine, I could hardly stop myself from asking, "Why?"

"I owe you and this is the only way I can repay you. Our court is full of snakes and deceivers. I hear you will be apprenticing the physician and have no doubt you will replace him. For someone with your... gifts, I suspect you will need a guard while surrounded by The Guard."

Gavrial may be lost to me forever if he was as stubborn as I knew he was. Yet his destiny was sown into the tapestry of fate alongside mine. He may restrain himself to stay away for some time but hopefully not forever. Tovias's words did have some merit. A royal physician did not need a guard but a secret princess and a witch hiding in a court full of witch hunters surely did.

My bargain with the god of shadows would soon come to light. And if Gavrial didn't already hate me, he surely would when he learned the truth. I knew one thing was certain when I agreed to stay with Gavrial and try to fulfill the prophecy. I knew I would have to do things that would make me hate myself after this was all over.

The vision of the rook on the sill earlier came to mind.

"Then let us not call you a guard like those corrupt monsters," I ruefully stated.

"What is it you wish of to name me, My Lady?"

"A knight."

If I was Queen of the Witches then certainly I should have a knight or a whole knighthood.