Ok, I think I've just about written every other chapter in the fic but this one in the last few days. o.O* Talk about needing to focus. But I still managed to get it out of my system in the end, so hopefully it was worth the wait. =)

The Words Between - part 3

Kyn flexed his hand carefully, watching the play of tendons across the back, the only indication that anything had happened a lingering stiffness and the spectacular bruising. The young woman in healers' greens had informed him brusquely that the bruising would fade on its own in a week or so, and that he should use the hand sparingly as the bones were still fragile along the newly-mended breaks. With stray wisps of frizzy hair curling about her face and neck, she had fought a constant battle with the veritable mane during the examination despite the thick braid she had tried to confine it to.

His head had been looked to as well, and now the only thing wrong with it was a false giddiness from hunger and Sianni's persistent voice. A few hours of practice, though, gave him a passable solution to Sianni's constant presence, one that would tie him over the next few days without requiring his constant attention, such as it had while he was in the gaol. There had been the slightest tickle of desperate worry from the Companion just before he cut her off completely. He refused to acknowledge it, to either her or himself.

After settling that it was better to have everyone get a good night's sleep rather than deal with him now, the Heralds had marched him to one of several large buildings scattered across the grounds. The straw-haired Herald had taken his leave at the entrance, and was called "Dheeran" by the woman in the exchange of farewells. Alberich had said nothing at all, merely inclined his head shortly and pushed on, impatient.

Kyn was eventually led to a suite on the third floor, a single door leading into a sitting room of sorts which connected three other rooms on each side. Decorated in neutral grays and blues, the outer room contained the overly comfortable furniture and stiff, dusty atmosphere of a setting not oft used, and then only for formal occasions. Striding ahead, Alberich opened the door directly opposite the one they had entered, and a room bearing just as much personality as the foyer was revealed.

They had not passed a single soul in the corridors or on the stairs, and though Kyn supposed the late hour would account for that, the building was of a modern and consistent enough design that he didn't think there were many add-ons after the original construction. Which meant that most of the room layouts were the same as this. And unless Valdemarans claimed the habit of renting out rooms like a hostel from buildings adjacent to the palace, he couldn't imagine even half of the suites being occupied on a permanent basis.

Whatever the reason behind the arrangement, it currently served a purpose that Kyn could well understand when the woman Herald paused at the outside door and noted, "If you need anything, just ask."

Alberich drove the point home with a calm and almost indulgent smile that showed too many teeth. "Outside, someone will always be." Meaning, an unofficial guard will be posted in the sitting room on rotating shifts, made into something pleasanter only by the grace of rosy-hued words. Kyn had docilely entered the room, automatically took in the pieces of furniture, their placement, the sparse efforts at decoration, and walked as nonchalantly to the window as possible.

As high as three stories was, especially with this particular building's propensity for non-standard floor plans calling for unusually elevated ceilings, he hadn't thought the Heralds foolish enough to consider height a major obstacle for him. He wasn't disappointed when he pushed the gray-lined, powder blue curtains aside to look down, and spied no less than three ghostly Companions on the portion of the fields surrounding this side of the building, in various states of repose. One, idly nibbling at a tuft of weeds, looked up to meet his eyes, and he drew the curtains back over the window at that point. The Companions would be his watchers from the outside, as Alberich and the woman - and whoever else they enlisted in the effort - would watch from the inside. Somehow, the deserted feel of the place seemed much less coincidental.

The healer had come and gone, churlish from being roused out of bed. Or, one assumed she was out of sorts from the hour. Kyn had the feeling that she made more of an effort to be less abrasive in daylight times - but not by much much. He didn't make the mistake of thinking that her vocation automatically granted her the patience and bedside manner of a saint.

A washbasin and cloth had been provided, and fresh clothes laid out - much like the Heralds', but a gray just a shade lighter than Alberich's. His lips curled as he wondered if the trainee uniform was a hint that his punishment might be mitigated with good behavior now that he had been Chosen, dangling the prize of acceptance before his nose, or if they simply didn't have any other spare clothes in the collegia that wasn't a uniform.

A plate of cheeses and dried fruit had also been unearthed from somewhere, though a mere glance at it was enough to make him swallow thickly and turn away again, feeling vaguely ill. Releasing a deep breath, he paced to the full-length mirror suspended against a clear section of the wall, soaked and wrung out the washcloth, and began to wipe off the flakes of dried blood that clung stubbornly to hands and jaw. The clothes themselves were shed without an attempt at salvaging, exchanged for the dove gray uniform that had been brought for him. The pants were an inch too short, and the shirt too loose.

In the mirror, a slim youth watched him with an emotionless, flat gaze. All sharp angles and bones, he was pale to the point of pallor, the freckles that appeared as suddenly and mysteriously in the sun as mushrooms after a spring shower, now all but invisible. Unruly off-black hair seemed in constant threat of obstructing gray-green eyes, though it never managed to stray past the downward-drawn line of thin, pinched brows. His lips were little more than a bloodless, compressed line as his jaw tightened. Grunting in exasperation, Kyn rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to loosen them and whirled away from the mirror in the same motion. One should always avoid thinking too much.

Finished with his ablution, though, he found little else to occupy himself with in his enforced stay other than to unlock that place in his mind where the voice named 'Sianni' resided - and he would sooner let Master's work claim him than let her in voluntarily. Pacing from one end of the room to the other, he stared blankly at the wall, nostrils flaring with a sharply exhaled breath.

He could end it all now. Just throw himself out the window, head-first, and make sure he leaped far enough away from the ivy-trailed walls that he wouldn't be able to do anything even if he change his mind halfway down. That's what he should do. Did he really think there was any possibility of him escaping within the next two days? He would need at least a day and a half on foot to reach one of the designated taverns. He could break the mirror...use the shards as makeshift knives on whoever decided to step in the next day...how many more would there be waiting outside, should he dispatch that one? The plans tumbled through his mind like wayward puppies, without direction and falling over each other, making no progress. The hoped for hunches didn't arise either, as they often did in a rich mix of possibilities. If only he could think of more actions; perhaps he would accidentally hit on the correct combination, and his Sight would point it out to him...if it pointed to anything at all but his death in less than a handful of days...

Growling softly to himself, he closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids, until he saw phantom starbursts behind them. The point of why Master had told him that time to think in is the bane of his existence was never so well taken as this moment. The only times his body and mind had both been left idle for longer than half a candlemark had been when he was ill or asleep. With no other recourse, though, he moved to the bed and sprawled inelegantly across it, feet hanging over its lower-left edge, head pillowed face-down on his arms, perilously close to the right edge just below the line of pillows. The vague thought that he should blow out the lamps flitted through his head, but for all his nervous energy before, he suddenly couldn't have bestirred himself if he'd wanted to.

"Were you successful?"

For a moment, the question puzzled him. There was never any doubt of whether he had been successful or not. If he returned, that meant he had been. He would not be standing here if he had not finished his assignment.

"Answer me, boy! Were you successful?!"

Jaw tightening, he set aside his own questions as reflex had him snapping to attention, reporting swiftly, "Yes, Master."

"Better," came the grudging response, a muffled shuffle and wooden thunk bringing a shadowy figure out farther into the light. "But not good enough. You were...sidetracked."

There was no surprise at that pronouncement. Master always knew, always found out. Kyn had long ago given up trying to hide anything from the man. "It was..." He hesitated, trying to find some way to phrase the words to cast himself in the best light, and finally gave up. "It was unavoidable."

"Excuses," Master drew out with derisive scorn. Drag-thunk. The tip of a well-worn and crudely carved cane was revealed, along with the edge of one rough-sewn boot. "Did you not See it?"

Kyn swallowed, focused exclusively on the cane's tip, and responded hoarsely, "Ye - no. No, Master, I did not See it, but...but I felt it! There was a warning, but it came too late...there was no way I could have avoided the - "

"Excuses!" This time, the word lashed out like a whip-crack, arcing through the air to nearly strike physically upon the ears. Kyn actually shrank back a step before he could stop himself, hands clenching into fists at his own impotence. "Have I taught you nothing? Your Sight isn't just a conveniently accurate daydream, it is your most valuable tool. One that should have prevented this fiasco." Except it hadn't. Kyn took a deep breath, bracing himself.

Master was right. The tool might be flawed, but it was a tool that none of his opponents - or victims - wielded. And in the hands of a master, even the most untrustworthy of tools could be made deadly. If he had been good enough - he should have pulled it off without a hitch. "I'm...sorry, Master." The words burned in his throat. To admit that he had erred was an invitation for punishment. But to not admit it when he was obviously in the wrong was to invite corrective measures for his disobedience that were even worse. "Next time, I'll be more careful. There won't be any witnesses..." No unnecessary killings that, committed in haste and without forethought, compounded his chances of being caught or the mission to be otherwise compromised.

"It is not mere witnesses I am concerned with this time," Master said lazily, almost familiarly as he continued forward at a slow, inexorable pace. Drag-thunk. Drag-thunk.

As the shadows reluctantly released the man from their shielding embrace, the shuffling sound was revealed as the drag of a damaged limb across the floor, the right leg stiff and unresponsive. Once fine clothes, in faded peacock trimmed by stained carmine over a decade out of fashion, hung loosely on a twisted and withered frame. The hood of a cloak hid most of the face, revealing only the lips and chin and the shadowy outline of a nose. What could be seen of the right cheek was a horrid mass of scar tissue, melted and pitted, pulling the near corner of the mouth into a ghastly sneer. In macabrely contrast, the opposite cheek was as smooth and clear as a maiden's, sometimes with a hint of dark stubble.

"Then...what, Master?" Kyn belatedly asked, quickly reviewing all the details of his last assignment, trying to remember what else he might have done wrong. Only...only...he couldn't seem to quite grasp the doings of the latest mission in its entirety. There had been an old maidservant who had wandered in at an inopportune time, looking for her favorite thimble with blue-painted figures cavorting across its ceramic side...no, that had come before the retrieval of the deeds from Castella Manor...but he could remember the arc of bright blood, the scene fresher than any other memory, and there had been no terminations - accidental or otherwise - in the stealing of the papers...

Master dragged himself two steps closer, almost relying on the cane more than his one good leg, and leaned close enough that Kyn could smell the herbs and decay wafting from the hood's opening like a demon's breath. "No, I am far more concerned with your capture, this time."

"My...My what?" For a moment, Kyn openly gaped at Master, before he paled as realization slowly stole in. Capture...he had been captured by the guard - no, the Heralds...but then, what was he doing here? How could Master be here? This shouldn't be happening, this scene was impossible...

"Such a waste," Master tsked, rebalancing himself to raise the cane, tilting Kyn's head up with the gnarled knob beneath his chin. "All that effort, all that time spent on you...and now you have not only been neutralized, but you are now a liability."

"I...you know I can resist," Kyn whispered, staring wide-eyed into the hood's shadowy interior and unable to look away. Impossible, impossible...his capture, the voice in his head, Master standing here...all impossible...

"You can. I've made sure of that." The undamaged side of the mouth lifted, one half of a roguish smile that was made all the more horrifying by its fractured mirror coexisting beside it on the same face. "But why take the risk?"

A whiff of brimstone...a presence beside him...

...and as the heavy weight of an impossibly large hand fell on him, knife-sharp claws pricking the tender skin of shoulder and arm, he gasped, choked, and just saved himself from rolling right off the bed and cracking his skull against the low bedstand.

:Are you al - :

He cut off Sianni's voice with a ruthless thought, wiping a hand over his face with a shudder. Almost, almost he pulled down the collar of his shirt to check his shoulder, to see if there were pinpricks on the skin, but he wasn't sure he would be able to stand seeing actual evidence of it if there were. Seated on the floor, back against the bed's edge, he leaned his forehead against a propped leg and desperately tried to recoup his wits and his breath.

A dream. Just a dream. Or...or a foretelling? He could almost never tell - he had both so often, that they often ran together into one seamless blur. Small things. Things that were near, or already upon him. If this was a true Seeing...had Master lied to him? Did he not have a full fortnight? Did Master somehow know, as he knew so many other things, that this would happen and was already moving to take care of the mistake called Kyn?

He nearly jumped out of his skin a second time as there was a knock on the door, and an unknown male voice asked solicitously if he needed anything. Kyn's mouth twisted at this evidence of Sianni's willing hand - or hoof - in his incarceration, no doubt having alerted the unofficial guards that something was wrong. "No, I don't need anything." In afterthought, he added - though no less stiffly - in an attempt to allay suspicions, "Just more sleep."

There was an affirming grunt from the other side, and then nothing more.

Leaning his head back, Kyn closed his eyes and exhaled noisily. Just the barest hint of pre-dawn light was detectable through the cracks in the curtains. He had a few hours yet, unless the Heralds in charge of him were fanatically early risers by habit, and while he would have laid bets that Alberich - perhaps even the woman - might be able to waken themselves at a moment's notice at any time of the day, even the un-Herald had looked ready for bed by the time Kyn was left alone. It was reasonable to assume that they were in no hurry to interrupt their sleep when the killer was tucked away safe and sound, waiting for his interrogation at their leisure.

Sleep. He should listen to his own lie and attempt some more, despite the only-now slowing beat of his heart and the clammy feel of the sweat on his skin. Pushing himself laboriously to his feet, he looked distastefully at the bed, as if the furniture was itself responsible for his nightmare, and rubbed his palms down the sides of his trousers in an attempt to dry them.

Dry them. He paused, then slowly looked down, hesitantly raising one hand before his eyes. He rarely, rarely ever had anything but dry hands, had been systematically trained out of anxiety attacks where a slippery grip might jeopardize an assignment, though it wasn't to say he was immune to them completely. But nothing could account for the sweat on him now, beyond the nightmare now over. He felt his breath catch as he watched the minute tremble that invaded his muscles, a very noticeable shiver that he couldn't seem to still no matter how he tried. Stifling a growl, he clenched the traitorous hand into a fist, hiding it behind him as his eyes darted around the room, looking for something, anything...

Damn him! Master had lied...it was already beginning. Three...four days ahead of schedule, technically. He tried to think back to all of his farther-flung assignments...but he couldn't recall with certainty a single time when it had taken him longer than eight days to finish and return. He had never tested the true limits of the time-delayed poison...had never needed to. Was this Master's last revenge, or just a particularly nasty reminder of who held his life, should he ever take it into his head to just leave and never return?

As if I have any other purpose but that which he gives me, he thought bitterly to himself, eyes finally resting on the window, and the three story drop beyond it. Could he do it? When faced by the Companion, with the shock of Recognition still numbing his senses...he had the courage to use the knife, then. He knew how to make it fast, and nearly painless; had given many another that same mercy. But to calmly open the window, to stare down that distance, and fling himself out, to feel the wind whistling by his ears and see the ground rushing up to meet him...

Gritting his teeth, he turned away, huddling down beside the bed, hands knotted together and pressed against his bowed forehead, elbows braced on bent knees. How long would it take? The first and last time he had progressed this far had been shortly after Master had taken him in; he couldn't remember much of it except for the frightening swiftness of his body's deterioration, the utter misery he had suffered through before the lesson was learned and ended. Sipping carefully at the air between his teeth, he braced himself as best he could and settled himself to wait for the rest of the symptoms to reveal themselves.

He was still in the same position when Alberich and the woman Herald from last night finally entered the room near mid-morning. By then, he had to grit his teeth until he thought they would shatter to keep them from chattering.

"Kyn, are you all right?"

He looked up sharply; too sharply. As the un-Herald's face lurched nauseatingly into view, Kyn swallowed and replied as steadily as he could, "I'm afraid we weren't introduced."

Though there was a soft, half-sheepish chuckle from the woman, Alberich's flat expression did not waver, sleet-gray eyes examining him intently and so predictably cataloguing each symptom that Kyn could practically list each clue that the man found: what might be an unnatural pallor, though Havens knew he was already pale enough to begin with from lack of sun; the glittering evidence of a fever's cold sweat, spiking the ends of rough-shorn hair; the occasional shiver that couldn't be quite hidden in muscles locked tight to the point of protesting; eyes with pupils too large, wandering and unfocused.

"I beg your pardon. I am Herald Melidee. This is Weaponsmaster Alberich," the woman introduced, gesturing to herself and the un-Herald, movements sharp, sudden, and graceful as a bird's. "What be yours?"

Games. Kyn was willing to play word games all day long, if that meant staving off the questions. Distracting Alberich's assessing gaze. Keeping his mind off Master's revenge. Leading the Heralds on a merry chase through useless answers that would tell them nothing. "Kyn. I am called Kyn," he said in too measured tones, finally unable to stand looking at the weaponsmaster any longer and turning his gaze to Melidee instead. There was no use at this point in trying to hide his name. "I would invite you to sit, if there were any chairs, and I don't think it would be proper if I invited a lady to rest upon my bed."

The woman's brows shot down in direct contrast to the sentiment of the courtly words, and Kyn cursed himself for adapting a little too well even as he twitched at the first cramp that crawled through his middle. Suspicions well and truly aroused, now, the woman began to make her own assessment, and while she was slower to arrive at the same conclusions as Alberich, she was no doubt suspecting something with the uncharacteristic response. "My, what manners the young one has..." she murmured.

"From his behavior last night, one would never know," Alberich concurred, a speculative gleam in his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest. "The healer perhaps should be called, to assess the health of his mind."

No need, no need, his mind clamored. Of course I'm not in my right mind. Havens, it was getting hard to think. "It was late," he began, knowing how ridiculous he sounded after being found with another man's blood on his hands and face, but unable to help himself as he surreptitiously pressed an elbow against another building cramp in his side. "I'm sure...m'lord and lady...that we were all a little out of sorts by then..."

Melidee looked in very real danger of laughing aloud at the surreal suggestion, and Kyn would have quite happily continued making a fool of himself if Alberich didn't look less and less entertained with each word. With a curt gesture of his hand, the man cut the other Herald off and knelt down beside Kyn. The latter blinked twice in an attempt to refocus on the abruptly much-closer man. "Call Nadia. And we Truth-Spell him now."

Truth-Spell? What did that entail? Kyn wasn't too keen on the implications of the name, especially when they involved the weaponsmaster, but he wasn't so far gone yet that he would let himself be taken in so easily. Starting back, away from the un-Herald and having his slide along the bed's side abruptly aborted by the man's fist clenched in the collar of the borrowed shirt, he hissed, "You'll get nothing from me - "

"Continue to delude yourself, please," Alberich said humorlessly, head cocked as he waited for Melidee's response though his eyes never left Kyn's face.

The other Herald never moved a step, much less left the room. But a breath later, she informed soberly, worry creasing her salt-and-pepper brows, "She's on her way. She had to grab her satchel."

"Just herself will be fine," Alberich said darkly, eyes narrowing. Giving Kyn a hard shake, he asked, "Who are you working for?"

The words seemed to slip into his mind with the same sort of 'mental tickle' that Sianni's voice engendered, yet...yet there was something else to it that made Kyn shiver, open his mouth...and to his horror, found himself blurting, "Master."

The weaponsmaster tilted his head, seemed almost impressed for some mad reason that Kyn couldn't fathom right then, and said, "Clever, answering without answering. But the truth you will tell. What name be your master's?"

Kyn's heart thudded loudly in his ears, nearly drowning out his next word as he found himself repeating, "Master." His hands, one braced against the rug-clothed floor and the other tangled in the sheets hanging over the bed's side, curled in the respective materials, digging into them. What was happening? He had been trained to resist interrogation for weeks, if necessary...and here he was spilling whatever answer the man was looking for! Alberich seemed discontent with what he had been told thus far, though, from which Kyn took little comfort as he covered a particularly sharp pang with a hiccupping gasp for air.

"Wise of the one who hired him," Melidee opined from behind. "He cannot reveal what he doesn't know. Though it seems to be an egotistical lordling that's hired this one, giving the alias of 'Master'."

No more, he can't reveal any more! Though reason said that there was nothing Master could do immediately, and when the poison was finally allowed to run its full course, Master wouldn't be able to do anything ever again - there was no reasoning with fear, and over a decade of indoctrination on top of that. Master would find a way somehow, just as he always knew what had gone wrong...would send one of his demons to fetch Kyn's soul back, to be punished forever...

"Why did you kill Merchant Sovnessan?"

He bit his tongue until he tasted blood, but couldn't help himself as he took a breath to reply, mouth opening...and was saved from saying anything more as a small whimper was wrung from him instead, twisting in Alberich's grasp as something reached inside him and tied his innards into a knot.

"She's on the stairs!" Melidee snapped as Alberich cursed in another language and immediately shifted his grip to hold Kyn still as he convulsed. A calmer, detached portion of Kyn's mind couldn't help admiring their cool professionalism, bypassing shock, surprise, and useless inquiries to deal directly with the situation.

I don't want to die...I have to die...I don't want to die...I have to... The conflicting desires tore at his mind just as the poison tore at his body. Training warred with a shamefully strong instinct for self-preservation, one that he never even suspected of existing, until a real cry was drawn from him at a particularly vicious spasm. Then, then he just wished that it would be over quickly, so that he would tell no more and Master would not be angry enough to retrieve him from the Havens, so that he wouldn't have to feel anymore...

:Chosen! Stay with us a little longer...Nadia's almost there...:

Cold comfort, that, and though Kyn tried to reseal the strange, intangible barrier that was usually so effective at blocking Sianni now, a small, traitorous part of him welcomed the touch of her concern.

The door was flung open and the same healer that had attended him before was framed in the opening, her hair and dress in an even wilder disarray than before.

She'll probably be in an even worse mood now, Kyn thought regretfully, shivering one last time before he slowly began to relax. Finally, the pain was ebbing, replaced by an almost warm lassitude that he was more than willing to give in to.

"You're staying with me if I have to drag you kicking and screaming from the Havens themselves," the healer - Nadia - growled as she dropped an herb satchel that clinked with bottles and reached out to frame Kyn's face in hands that felt too hot.

I was right. A pause, as she deliberately caught and held his eyes, and he wondered which was worse; being retrieved by a demon, or by the young healer.

:By me, of course,: she said brusquely. :Now, if you'll please allow me to do my work...: And she did something that turned his mind off like a blown-out candle.