Sword of the Godslayer

XII - Wizard's Resolve

Cassana dreamt that her mother was alive again. She was in her kitchen, helping prepare a meal for the waiting patrons outside. She stirred a pot and sprinkled down some basil leaves before moving aside and letting her mother take a sip of what she just made.

     "So, how is it?" She asked her mother.

     Canae took a sip of the ladle's contents and studied its taste in her mouth. She started coughing, and Cassana stepped away to take a glass of water. When she returned, she found her mother collapsed on the floor, suffering from seizure. She reached for her head to find her eyes white and her mouth bubbling with froth.

     "Ma! Ma! Help us, please!" she shouted and she screamed, but no one seemed to be listening. "Ma!" She felt a hand over her shoulder and found Otheric standing behind her.

     "Cassana, wake up!"

     She opened her eyes and she was no longer in her mother's kitchen. She felt the cushions of a soft bed underneath her, and the restraints of iron cuffs on her wrists and ankles. She looked around to find the source of the voice but found Otheric at the other end of the room.

     "Ric!" she called for him. She tried to go towards him but the short chain running from his ankle cuff to the bedpost prevented her from doing so. "Are you okay?"

     Otheric looked up at her giving her a clear look at the bruises on his face. "Are you?" he replied. They exchanged looks and it would be hard to point out who was faring better than who. "What happened out there?"

     Cassana collected her thoughts trying to figure out a real memory from a dream. She tried to remember the last time she was awake. "They killed Bonnie." She looked down on her belly and found the crude stitches done to close up her wounds. She pressed one and it oozed blood. They really wanted me alive. She thought.

     "Did they really? What happened?"

     She sat down at the edge of the bed. "They poisoned her. That bangs chick, she was crazy and she has poisoned daggers. She did this to me too," she said, pointing at her belly.

     "They said it was just for paralysis, I heard them." Otheric explained. "When they were trying to fix you, they said the effect should wear off, eventually, and it was not, in any kind, fatal."

     "Are you sure that's what you heard?"

     "Was that all they did to Bonnie?"

     "Yes, I think."

     "Then she should be fine, as you are now."

     "Ashvell. I'm scared for Ashvell."

     "He was there too?"

     "Yes, he was trying to help me gather my father's notes."

     "He is a big enough man who can take care of himself. Do not fret."

     Cassana looked back up at Otheric with a blank expression, but nodded in agreement.

     Otheric gazed back, trying to close the fifteen feet of gap between them. "I am very sorry, Cassana. I have made a grievous error. The blame should fall to no one but me, and I apologize for how they have hurt you and your friends."

     Cassana closed her eyes. She felt Otheric's sincerity, and she was willing to accept his apology but she was too tired to think of anything else. "We will talk about this later. Right now, let's focus on how to escape."

     "I know you would want to fight back, but maybe consider the alternative. How about you give them what they want, and they will leave us be?"

     "Do you really think they would do that? That they'll just leave us alone? I don't know what they want me to find in that bow, but I'm sure that they're up to no good. They will be putting so many lives in danger, and I don't want that to be on me. And then us, we'll be the loose ends to their nefarious plans. Once I translate those runes, they will have no use for us, and we're gonna end up dead."