Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound
1.3      Making a Splash
1.3.3    An Unrequited Love
1.3.3.24 Dottore's story

Wow. He really could shapeshift into what looked like a completely natural bird, and a gorgeous one at that. The natural movements spoke of years of practice, but he had obviously retained his mind because he didn't behave like a beast. She'd read a warning in the introductory book for Tamers about how normal hawks react in closed spaces when suddenly surrounded by unfamiliar people. This hawk however, merely watched her and Bungo, confident it could deal with them if they tried to injure or capture it. Kafana was left with the impression of a wild beauty with an edge that swung without warning between majestic and perilous.

[Skill "A way with words" has reached level 11.]

Words. He'd listened to their conversations as a hawk, shadowing them through the streets of Torello, so he must be able to understand them while in that form. But how could she understand him? He sat contentedly preening his feathers, appearing in no rush to shift back.

[Skill "Blessing" has reached level 7.]

[Skill "Cure wounds" has reached level 24. Further increase blocked until the next tier in Profession "Guardian" has been reached.]

Hmm. She'd used her Guardian skills, but maybe there was something she could do as a Spellsinger? Taking a handful of magic gems from her stash, she started to consider them one by one. Dottore showed no interest when she touched the or the sapphire, but the moment she held up the amethyst filled with Lun's purple air mana, he gave a surprised squawk and summoned her forward with a firm nodded of his beak.

Bungo: {If you go into a mental trance with him, do you want me to guard your body and keep track of time passing in the city? Exchanging memories feels like it takes longer than it actually does, but I'm sure Alderney can straighten it out before the recording gets broadcast.}

As Pierrot helped her sit down on examination table next to the hawk, Kafana managed a quick reply: {Thanks. But I promised we'd guard his secrets – so no broadcasting this.}

Then Dottore's beak darted forwards to touch the stone in her hand and she found herself looking at a woman who, other than being a decade or two older, could have been Suor Isabella's twin sister.

=Just weeks before he'd been an eager new recruit in the great army that set out to renew the Dreaming Seals, but something had happened on the march that, to him, was more important even than saving the world. He knew he'd been born to one of the last packs that kept to the old ways but nobody realised just how much of his heritage was pure Zeradan or how great an effect on him that would have. You see, true Zeradan mated for life. Their bonds were formed in an instant of realisation that arrived without warning and could not be considered or rejected. Their first love was their only love, even after their beloved died; even if their feelings were never returned.

During the march he'd often seen the Archmage Camilla, the woman responsible for gathering and leading the army. She was everything he admired: wise, noble, skilled and brave. Renowned warriors and grand master mages had been sent by many cities, handpicked to form a protective circle around her during the battle for each seal. Refusing to stay back, she led each battle from the front through to the final most vicious struggle from which she dragged herself, utterly exhausted but victorious. And yet, upon meeting his gaze, she drew even deeper on her reserves to truly see him and offer a weary but encouraging smile.

It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and in that moment He Knew. Her. Only Her. Wonderfully, Totally, Only Her. Always and Forever Her. She was older and more powerful than him, but he'd heard of a potion that some great people used to live longer. So what if it would require patience and learning to become a worthy equal? Destiny had spoken, and if in doing so it had reshaped his heart, his mind, his everything — as easily and irrevocably as fired pottery - well, that's as things should be.=

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Kafana, lost in the memory, was flooded with the feelings of joy and wonder that Dottore had experience so long ago.

=He was lying amidst a pile of corpses on a battlefield, his belly a sea of pain. A spear thrust from behind had skewered his armour and body, pinning him to the ground as if a grim ornament amid the sprawl of bodies. He was paralysed, lying in a cooling pool of his own blood. Unable to turn his head or even close his eyes, a frosty numbness stalked his heart.

The march for home had started well and Dottore was confident of reaching safety. Seth had been defeated by the mages after years of struggle, but in that time the Lich Queen Niba had risen. Immortal and second only to Seth's wife in power, she sent her undead hordes in pursuit, their harrying attacks slowing the army's progress. Then disaster struck – their path was blocked by an avalanche. Rumours flew about mages, madness and betrayal, but the delay was enough. The enemy closed in, outnumbering and surrounding them, massacring them without pity or hesitation.

As the massacre drew to its bloody climax, a bare handful of soldiers and Camilla made their final stand, driven by sheer force of will. They fought to protect her as she hurled magical attacks at the screaming spectres and carthorse-sized wolves, fading in their intensity as her power waned. One of the defenders screamed, snatched up in the jaws of a wolf and bitten in half. Dottore, pinned among the fallen, would have given anything to swap places with that warrior, to be beside Camilla once again, even if only to die alongside her. But he was helpless. Useless. There was nothing he could do but watch her last moments in horrified despair and remember.

Camilla, in her last moments, released a torrent of magic; a final blow fuelled by her own death. It raced across the battlefield, scattering the horde, the scant few of the army that still lived untouched. Dottore screamed in silent torment, feeling as if his heart were torn in half.

And so did Kafana.

More memories followed, each as vivid as the one before.

=travelling from city to city, telling tales of Camilla to every bard and poet he met=

=becoming a writer, then a scholar, in a quest to learn more about the process by which people became legends that could reincarnate=

=feeling the wind under his wings and exulting in the freedom of the skies=

=facing persecution as a Zeradan and gaining a measure of peace and knowledge about potions during a decade spent among the peaceful Ipotane=

=the delight he felt at entirely mastering the process of brewing a new type of potion=

=the satisfaction he felt in being given The Stone of the Mind Healer, in recognition of his achieving the status of High Master, by a wizened old coot (who'd been so irascible that he'd been hard to put up with despite being the greatest healer in Bergerac)=

=bringing comfort to the ill in mind, still wondering how Niba drove one of the army's mages into madness, and learning there was a type of Seer, known as a Chresmomancer, whose magic let them receive omens by listening to whispers on the wind, and to the patchwork of coded phrases in ravings of lunatics that multiply and merge in the echos of the asylum=

=the hope he felt on setting out for Torello, after three omens in a row all suggested he move there=

=establishing his pharmacy with help from the local guild, then slowly gathering allies, resource and favours so that this time he would not be helpless=

=wandering past a malnourished kid just sitting in the street who couldn't have been more than four years old, ignoring the sight, then feeling like he'd been gripped by a giant invisible hand as he spun around and stared at her without knowing why. And there was something about the smile she gave him, despite her problems and his arrogance, that caused recognition to ring in his head.=

=being asked by an eight year old Isabella about what he'd been thinking in the moment he'd chosen her to adopt; being too mortified to admit that what he'd actually spent that moment considering was the maximum volume that could be produced by a giant using a sledgehammer to hit the Great Bell at the top of the Crystal Cathedral in Mezelay, and wondering how large a giant the belfry floor would support; lying to her by saying that her cuteness had stunned him beyond the capacity for coherent cogitation, then having to explain what those words meant; lying to himself by insisting that it was only to benefit her that he was delaying telling her the truth=

=visiting a barge converted into a bookshop and discovering the younger son of the owners sitting cross-legged with a text that boys twice his age would find challenging; offering to be his mentor and let him stay in Dottore's own family home=

=chasing that same boy out of his home twelve years later, Isabella sobbing that she is suddenly certain the boy is her one true love. Seeing the stench of foul magic covering him revealing the truth of the matter - that Isabella has been betrayed again, and yet again Dottore was powerless to stop it=

=seeing again the purple amethyst he'd so valued, that he give to his One and Only for her protection and which had been stolen from her by that boy, now in the hands of Isabella's own journeyman and returned to his home, along with another of the foundlings he'd taken in, poor Pierrot=

=destiny speaking in his heart, with compassion as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, saying a single word: TRUST=

The memories grew briefer and came faster as they drew closer to the present. And finally, they caught up and she was looking out of his eyes at herself, feeling what he felt and thought as he thought it.

There was a pause then, heavy and expectant.