didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the distant shore, though he wasn’t looking at anything in particular; his mind was further away. The fitful breeze did little to disturb the surface of the lake. A flock of black-necked gulls hovered over the northern edge where ducks and geese squabbled.
Everything looked peaceful enough to Mihn. Isak’s pup was watching them sleepily from the small shelter outside the cottage Mihn had built for him. The hound, finally named Hulf by Isak, tired easily still, his exuberance outlasting his enthusiasm. Even if he had been chasing the geese grazing too close to the cottage, it shouldn’t have been enough to drag Isak outside.
‘I dreamed,’ Isak said at last, his voice distant.
Mihn’s heart sank. Despite Ehla’s best efforts, Isak still had more memories than were good for him, and his dreams were rarely pleasurable. ‘What of?’
‘An empty house by a lake. A cold house.’
‘That is all?’
‘I woke in the cold house. I couldn’t remember my name. It was all gone — who I was, where I came from. Only the lake was real. The lake and the smell of mud on the wind. I was a ghost, empty and . . .’
There was silence as the pair stood side by side on the shore — until an abrupt bark from Hulf brought Mihn back to the present and he turned to encourage the oversized puppy over to them. He crouched down and draped an arm over Hulf’s back.
‘I couldn’t move. As cold as the lake,’ Isak continued, oblivious to Hulf’s snuffles of pleasure as Mihn rubbed his ears. ‘I was dead, but still standing.’
‘He is gone from you, Isak,’ Mihn said, looking up. ‘You need not think about Aryn Bwr any more. You are free of him and his influence.’
‘Still I dream.’ Isak scratched the stubble on his cheek, then looked at his fingers, as though shocked at the state of them. The end joint was missing from both middle and little fingers, and the rest bore ragged scars from struggling against his chains. Quickly he lowered his hand, slipping it protectively under his armpit and shuddering as his body remembered the pain.
When he composed himself once more, he crouched also, reversing Eolis to keep it well clear of Hulf’s inquisitive nose. ‘I dreamed daemons came. To the cold house with chains in their hands. They came for me and I killed them. Their blood stained my hands and feet. It reminded me who I was. In the blood I remembered my name.’
Mihn looked at Eolis again, but the sword was spotlessly clean. ‘It was only a dream, Isak; it did not happen. There were no daemons, the cottage is warm and cosy, and you are not alone. You are safe now.’
Isak nodded, his face caught between a grimace and a smile. ‘Safe,’ he echoed with a hollow whisper, ‘but is it me I remember? Aryn Bwr’s name remains in one place — the prison in Ghenna made for his soul. They wanted him to feel that pain again and again. Is the pain I feel from my scars, or from forgetting a part of me?’
‘That I cannot answer, my Lord,’ Mihn said, bowing his head in grief. ‘But here I remain, to remind you of the man you were and the life you lived. We knew this would be the hard choice, the terrible choice, but it had to be made.
‘You have broken the prophecy; the threads of history that bound you are all parted. You are free of it now, free to choose a new path — free to stop those who would have used you to their own ends. And you will never be alone in this. I am with you to the end.’
‘But how can I trust you?’ Isak asked with a curious, twisted expression Mihn could not identify, ‘when you’ve not even noticed Hulf eating your pheasant?’
Tila trotted down the stone steps of the main wing and looked around. Vesna was not in sight and a flutter of alarm began in her heart. It had been an hour since she’d seen him head out to the forge to speak to Carel. She was under no illusions about Carel’s grief; she had broken the news herself, and held him while he sobbed. Still, he’d been a long time.
Just the memory of Carel’s fury and pain made Tila want to weep. The veteran understood death better than she. Even now Tila could barely accept Isak was dead; it seemed impossible,