Chapter 8
A Glimpse into His Past
“Dulce! You wonderfully foolish woman. Do you have any idea how many years you took off my life with worry?” Ignacio placed her on the ground and started to reprimand her. “I won’t stand a chance of reaching half my potential age at this rate.” He picked her up and swung her around again, his face covered by her hair.
“I am so sorry, Ignacio. I had absolutely no idea that the powder was poisoned.”
“You would have done it even if you had known,” he said, putting her on the ground. “That’s just the kind of person you have become.”
The gorgeous woman placed a hand over her heart and stumbled backwards. “Oh, you have fatally wounded me. There is no recovery from such a cruel accusation.”
Ignacio laughed, “You seem almost back to normal. Dulce, this is Rosaline. Obviously by the startling hair and eyes, she’s a druid. Rosaline, this is Dulce. An old friend.”
Dulce placed her head on his arm, “I’m so glad to hear that you still think of me that way after everything.”
Another voice caused all three heads to turn again, “Ignacio, given your history with Dulce, I would be most appreciative if you would be a little less handsy with her.”
“Don’t be jealous, Draven.” Dulce wrapped her arms around Ignacio’s arm and squeezed. “He’s my first love, so he can be as handsy as he wants.”
Draven stepped into the dim light of the woods. “If you suggest that he help work the poison out of your system—”
Dulce laughed, “He wouldn’t know what he was doing. You are the expert in that area.” She skipped over to Draven, “It feels so good to be out in nature, traveling with friends, fighting evil again, after all of these years.”
Draven looked down at her, “That is not what you said yesterday. I believe that your exact words were ‘I can’t take another night sleeping in these dank, dark woods. If I ever make it back to civilization, I will never leave it again.’ Your words.” One of his eyebrows rose as he waited for her response.
Her laugh was melodic as she spun around, “That was yesterday. So much has changed since then.”
Finally a smile spread across Draven’s face, “And here I thought you were starting to be a little more stable. Looks like I still have my work cut out for me.”
“Damn straight.” She smiled up at him.
Rosaline watched the entire exchange, not quite sure what to think. One second she and Ignacio were having a serious conversation, the next that woman came bounding in, throwing herself at Ignacio and saying he could touch her if he wanted to. A part of Rosaline wanted nothing more than for the woman to disappear. She hurt Ignacio. He has forgiven her far too quickly. What if she is just trying to draw him in to hurt him again? Rosaline began to feel very uncomfortable as the three chatted.
“Anyway,” Ignacio cut into the banter, “Draven, this is Rosaline, whom I’m sure you have heard about.”
“Ah, yes.” He bowed deeply. “My mentor spoke very highly of you, though he did say—” He was interrupted by a swift elbow to his ribs, causing him to drop a few items he had been carrying.
Dulce acted as if she hadn’t done anything. “His mentor is Caspian, so surely you don’t want to hear anything that has been said about you.”
Draven was rubbing his ribs, “It was almost all honorable, I can assure you. What assassin in his right mind would hit on a priestess? That stuck-up lot of self-important hermits wouldn’t have the faintest idea of what a compliment was unless it came from one of their own.” Both Dulce and Ignacio were looking at him with shocked expressions, and Ignacio’s eyes drifted to Rosaline. Draven shrugged, “I’m sure she is fine because she has left, unlike most of her kind. But don’t expect me to sugarcoat anything if she turns out like her sisters. I can honestly say that up to this point, I have never met a priestess I liked.”
“Have you ever met a priestess?” Dulce asked meaningfully.
“Yes, several. They clearly did not like that Caspian took me under his wing.”
Rosaline spoke up, “It was a very strange move to have an assassin train a jaguar shifter who was part of a group of outcasts. It was a very dangerous move that could have blown up in our faces as much as it could have worked in our favor. I don’t even know how Caspian came up with the idea, but—”
“He didn’t.” Ignacio picked up the items from the forest floor. “It was someone else’s idea, he just doesn’t get credit for it. Nor would he ever complain about it.”
Rosaline was about to contradict him when Draven spoke up, “That’s what Caspian said, too. With more curses and less elegance, but yes, he definitely wanted me to understand that he was not my savior. He would never tell me who ventured the idea either, said that the person wouldn’t want anyone to know.”
Dulce nodded, “I bet it was Caspian, but he was just being humble.”
“No.” Ignacio smiled at her, “You obviously don’t know Caspian well if you think that he would allow anyone else to take credit for his work.”
“Oh, he will take credit when it is something bad,” Draven said, reaching out for the items Ignacio had picked up.
“How would either of you know? You weren’t there,” Rosaline said, feeling that she would know more, having been a priestess when the druids had finally agreed to take Draven and Maverick in. “Caspian made the case that we should adopt children instead of using adults. I saw him.”
Ignacio and Draven shared a look, then Ignacio held up a hand toward Draven. “Of course, Caspian sold the idea. Can you imagine anyone else being able to persuade the druids like him? With almost half of them being in love with him themselves?” There was something behind his words that Rosaline didn’t quite understand and she just looked at him. Ignacio pushed a little further, “I know you are aware that he doesn't exactly enjoy spending time with the druids, but there is… there are a few other assassins who know the druids best, know what they need, and how best to persuade them.”
Darius, the name sprang to her mind and her expression changed.
Ignacio nodded and smiled, “Caspian knows his place among the assassins, and he will always do whatever he can to ensure that we succeed. But he is certainly not the brains.”
Rosaline couldn’t help but laugh. She covered her mouth, trying to hide how amusing she found the assessment of the most famous assassin as Dulce spoke.
“He seemed so charming, so charismatic when I met him.”
“Which time?” Draven asked, trying to yank the items out of Ignacio’s grasp.
Rosaline spoke across them, “Why not just put that in the space?” The three heads turned, each with a different expression. She didn’t quite understand Ignacio’s as he realized what she was trying to suggest. “Like what you did with my bag, Ignacio. That way you don’t end up fighting over who carries it.”
Draven turned his head and looked at Ignacio, “What did you do?”
Ignacio rolled his eyes, stretched out a hand, and opened a small area. “If you would like, you can put your stuff here, but you won’t be able to retrieve it without my help.”
Dulce began to look into the space, then stuck her hand in. “It’s so cold! Oh gods, you couldn’t do this when we first met.”
“I hadn’t worked it out quite yet.”
Draven looked at the space, then shoved the items into it. “I don’t expect we will need any of that for a while. It will be nice to walk without having to tote so much around. Who else knows that you can do that?”
Ignacio rubbed the back of his neck and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened one eye a fraction, “You mean other than the three of you?”
Draven nodded.
“I think… no one else.”
Draven closed his eyes and looked away, “Then how did you learn to do it if no one else knows?”
“I spent a lot of time reading about the theory. Figure out how the theory works when applied to reality, and you can pretty much do anything.”
“You do realize that is not something that anyone is supposed to be able to do.”
“Says the jaguar shifter who is assassin-trained and unfettered to any one group.”
“There is a world of difference between the two.”
Ignacio frowned, “Perhaps you have noticed, but there are a lot of things that are going wrong in the world at the moment, it's a sign of something worse. Like you, I have grown up with a completely different understanding of the world because we were born into that broken version of it. You were gifted in physical prowess, and you have used that to be better.”
Draven nodded, “And you were gifted in everything, and have used that to better everything and everyone around you.”
Ignacio laughed and pointed toward Rosaline, “She can attest to that being untrue. Shall we? If you guys are already here, the others can’t be too far behind.”
The small group began walking and talking. Not quite feeling like she belonged, Rosaline kept a bit of distance between her and the rest. A few times, Dulce tried to engage her in conversation, but Rosaline was reluctant to get to know her better. The image of Ignacio lying helpless on the ground kept crossing her mind every time Dulce looked at her. Remaining polite, Rosaline kept her responses short and uninteresting.
After a while, Dulce started to seem a little tired, and she started to stagger a little. Ignacio caught her after she tripped over a root. “Draven, I think you had better help her.”
Draven nodded, “I think that I will need to get to work soon.”
Dulce giggled, and they began to chat.
As soon as they were preoccupied, Ignacio fell in step with Rosaline. “How are you doing?” His voice was as kind as always, but he kept his eyes on Dulce.
Rosaline bristled a little, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You are enjoying your friends, and I wouldn’t want to keep you from enjoying yourself.”
Ignacio frowned and looked over at her. “Clearly you are not alright. Are your feet hurting you?” Without waiting for a response, he shifted and began to walk beside her.
“I said I am fine, Ignacio.” As soon as she said it, Rosaline could hear that she was snapping at him. “I am sorry. You are just trying to be nice.”
His stunning green eyes moved into what looked like a smile, and he moved his head in a way that indicated his back.
“I shouldn’t.” Rosaline stepped away from him.
Ignacio growled, then swung his haunches, knocking her off her feet. Instead of hitting the ground, she found herself sitting sideways, the feel of strong muscles moving under her. Blushing at the idea of sitting on Ignacio, she wanted to hop down.
He quickened his pace so that she couldn’t. Looking around for Dulce and Draven, Rosaline realized that they were following Ignacio’s lead.
Not long after that, they found the rest of their party. Draven and Dulce slipped away to work out the poison. Rosaline watched them disappear, wondering what kind of treatment required them to slip away, but no one else seemed keen on asking.
Four days passed with the group traveling through all kinds of terrain. Whenever it got too difficult, the shifters would carry the magic users. She had no idea how far they had gone because the shifters seemed to be racing each other when they got bored, which meant they had traveled much further than planned in those two days. Word arrived that a champion named Maverick was supposed to join them in a day or two, which meant that Ignacio and Rosaline would be able to return home. They were getting close to Dulce and Draven’s destination, and Rosaline was beginning to get a few pricks in her mind from priestesses wanting to know how much longer she would be gone.
On the fourth night, the calm was broken. The air around them was bothering Rosaline and she was sitting off to the side, trying to ignore what was happening in the forest nearby. As hard as she tried, events were unfolding too close for her to ignore, and after she heard a prophecy, she knew that she couldn’t ignore it any longer. That kind of seer was supposed to be dead a long time ago. Her mind walked out into the woods and watched a bizarre series of events unfolding. To her surprise, Caspian appeared and began fighting alongside a strange man who didn’t fit any shifter description that she had heard of. Things were not going well—one of the women was captured, and the ancient seer was stolen by a champion named Maverick.
He was supposed to join us, wasn’t he? Where is he going? Her mind was about to follow when a familiar voice caught her attention. Turning to look at Caspian who had just finished muttering to himself, Orion emerged from the shadows. She didn’t hear what they said. Too afraid that they would see her, she fled back to the camp.
Once she was back in her body, she held her knees to her chest, her eyes constantly scanning the forest. Where they coming to drag her back? Did they realize what she had done?
Ignacio watched her from his place by the fire. As much as he wanted to go help her, he was afraid that his help would not be welcome. The rest of the group were sitting around a fire and talking like they had done the previous nights.
Rosaline was pulled from her worry as she noticed something heading towards them much faster than humanly possible.
“There’s a shifter approaching.” She stood up seconds before a golden-colored jaguar without spots stopped at the edge of the fire’s light.
He shifted and took a few steps toward the fire. In human form it was much easier to see that he was seriously injured, possibly fatally injured if he wasn’t treated soon.
Rosaline hurried to him, but his eyes didn’t seem able to focus on anyone. “They have her. They managed…” She couldn’t understand what he meant, but the gasps from behind her told her that the rest of the group did. He continued, “I failed.” Unable to remain on his feet, he dropped to his knees.
Rosaline knelt beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “No. You haven’t failed yet. It’s just time for you to sleep.” He fell into her arms. Seconds later, she placed him on the ground and began to work magic while almost everyone else seemed frozen behind her.
A soft voice beside her cut into her work, “What can I do to help?”
“I need warm water. He’s lost a lot of blood, and there is something in his wounds that is keeping them from properly closing.” Before she finished speaking, a small bowl of water was held out to her with a clean cloth.
She worked feverishly, keeping him from waking so that he would not feel the pain. “Can you draw the poison from him?” Her request was nearly a whisper because she knew that it was dangerous.
“Of course.” A familiar hand appeared in her vision, but Rosaline focused on her work. If Ignacio was going to draw the poison into himself, then she wasn’t going to waste the time he was giving her. As soon as one wound was clear, Rosaline worked to heal it. A minute later, she fell back, feeling exhausted. Healing was not one of her best skills, but she had reacted on instinct.
Dulce put something behind Rosaline’s back and sat down beside her. “That was quite exceptional. You have a lot more healing talent than me. I have pretty much none.”
Feeling tired, Rosaline shook her head, “I know that seers are the best healers. I probably should have let one of you do it. He’s a champion. Right?” She looked at the patient. “Where are his spots? His hair is just blond.”
Dulce laughed, “Yes, most seers are gifted healers. Unfortunately, you aren’t traveling with any of them.”
The other seer sat down on her other side, “Quite unfortunate for you, yes. Dulce and I are very good at reading the future for others.”
“Plagued might be a better word,” Dulce said.
“Yes, I agree. Some nights I can’t sleep for the images.”
“No kidding,” Dulce muttered. “It got so bad for me that I was going out looking for humans just to get rid of the strongest ones.”
Faith laughed beside her, “I never had it that bad.” She patted Rosaline’s back, “I don’t know what we would have done if you weren’t here. We absolutely cannot afford to lose him.”
All eyes were on the figure being carried to the sleeping area by Draven and Benettio. Ignacio was watching the jaguars with a grim smile on his face. He gave a quick bow to the women, “If you will excuse me.”
“Is nature calling?” Dulce said as he turned to leave.
He gave a wide grin, “Something like that.”
Rosaline stood up, “Oh gods.”
Dulce stood up beside her, “It’s alright. He’s an assassin so he will be perfectly fine out there on his own.”
Rosaline looked at the seers, who were now heading back to the fire, chatting. Dulce grabbed her arm and pulled her with them. Rosaline turned back but could no longer see Ignacio. Swallowing, she had a hard time not running after him.
But there was nothing she could do to help him. Ignacio was going to purge the poison from his system, and if she got too close there was no telling what would happen. She began to pull at her lip as her mind followed him through the darkness.
She felt hands pushing her back in front of the fire and a warm voice said, “Go ahead and lean a little closer. I’m sure that using that much magic must have drained you. That was some quick work on what could have been fatal injuries.” Dulce patted her back.
“Haiden is going to owe you when he wakes up. You are one lucky bitch.” Faith nudge Rosaline. “Not that anyone ever keeps track with him. Sweetest man in the world, Haiden.”
“If anyone’s a bitch it would be Harmony,” Dulce said from Rosaline’s other side. “I cannot believe that she finally won him over.”
“They are complete opposites.” Faith laughed. “But she deserves it after everything she has been through. And he always liked her, even when no one else liked her.”
Dulce laughed, “Don’t be so mean. I love Harmony. There is no pretense, no lies and fake niceties. She’s just so brutally honest and open.”
“Yeah, isn’t that why she can be a problem?”
“If Harmony is giving you trouble, that is because you deserve it.”
Faith placed a hand over her heart, “You wound me, Dulce. Such harsh words from you, I think I’m just going to curl up and die.”
Dulce laughed, “Ever the martyr for yourself.”
Rosaline stopped listening to them after a while and stared off into the darkness. I’m so sorry, Ignacio. They don’t even know, and I can’t tell them if you won’t. Why are you keeping it a secret? Please come back and be alright.
A warm hand on her head pulled her from her thoughts. Rosaline looked up into Draven’s eyes, and at first thought that he was somehow reflecting the colors of the fire until she properly focused. No, he has fire-colored eyes. Strange.
She felt her body sway a bit. “Ah, someone has overexerted herself.” A pair of warm arms picked her up. “Ladies, if you will help me get her to bed until the ambling assassin returns.”
Rosaline decided not to fight, and as soon as she was settled into her bedding, she sent her mind out looking for Ignacio.
Rosaline’s mind searched for Ignacio and found the assassin more than a mile away from the camp. He was on his hands and knees, and it sounded like he was having trouble breathing. She pulled part of herself away and sat near him, pulling her knees to her chest and rocking.
“I shouldn’t have asked you do to that,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Ignacio looked up, his green eyes watery and pained. “Who’s there?”
“I’m sorry, Ignacio. I’m so sorry.”
Finally his eyes found the source. Rosaline sat a few feet away, barely visible. He crawled over to her and fell to the ground. His body made noise that it definitely shouldn’t have, like his bones were breaking, but he was smiling up at her. Stretching out a hand, he tried to pat her back. “There, there. It wasn’t your fault.” He let his hand fall to the ground. “Wow, that poison is stronger than I thought, and this time it wasn’t full in the face. Maybe I am losing my touch.”
He struggled to sit up, finally moving a little distance away to lean on a rock nearby. “I hope she doesn’t actually feel bad for asking me to help.”
Rosaline scooted closer to him. “I do feel bad. I feel incredibly guilty. You didn’t even think about it first, you just did it. It isn’t what I expected from an assassin at all, but you are… so much more noble than I had been led to believe you should be. I thought you should have judged him to determine if he should be saved.”
Ignacio frowned and tried to scratch his head. Unable to bring his hand up far enough, he let his head fall back against the tree. “You’re too young to know what you are talking about. You are too gifted to understand regular problems. You are too much a part of death to value life.” He let out a derisive laugh, “Well, that last one was expected. All of the assassins warned me that was the stigma to persuade me not to do it.” Ignacio ran his tongue along his very dry lips. “I hear all of it so often now, it is starting to play in my own mind.”
Rosaline felt a pain in her chest as she looked into his face. “Why don’t you let them know what you did? Let them know that you pulled the poison out? As it stands, they think that I did everything.” There was a bit of pleading in her voice.
Ignacio shook his head, “Ah, self-doubt and a desire for praise, the constant companion of all assassins. Of course, you strike when I am at my weakest.” He moved his head to look at her, “And you take such a pretty, pretty form.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the tree, “I won’t give in, though. Like my brethren, I did not become an assassin because it would gain me glory or fame. No assassin has ever been happy for the notoriety. I do it because it is right, and I want to see things as they should be. If Rosaline gets all of the credit, it will make me happy because she has seemed so sad this whole time. She won’t tell me what is wrong, though, and…” He let out a sigh and didn’t say anything else.
“Ignacio?” Rosaline stretched out a spectral hand, wanting to touch him, and to let him know that she would try to be happier if he would stop hurting. The gentle sound of breathing stopped her from materializing further. Slipping back to herself, Rosaline slept the rest of the night.