Free Kiss of Destiny by Deborah Cooke Page A

turned to the shadows, but the Slayers who survived had drunk the Dragon’s Blood Elixir. That extinguished them completely from Erik’s network of lights and made their doings mysterious. It wasn’t the first time he’d worried about Chen and his doings.
    The light was brighter on this night, and it seemed to Erik that a thousand points of light converged on him. He shook his head and sighed, frowning at Drake. He didn’t know whether to dread or celebrate the fact that one of these days, the source of this new light would become clear.
    There would be a partial eclipse in three days. Would there be a firestorm sparked by the eclipse? If so, whose? Sloane? Thorolf?
    And what did this sense of foreboding mean?
    Erik debated the merit of awakening Drake immediately, but the older warrior seemed worn thin. He sat back in his chair, impatient but determined to give Drake the time he needed.
    For the moment.
    * * *
    The pilgrim paused in his journey to cough.
    He didn’t have much choice, really. The urge came from deep inside him, and he feared that once he began to cough, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Each spasm was longer than the last, more exhausting, more painful, and seemed more likely to be his last.
    He coughed. He choked. He felt his chest clench and his body shake. He saw blood in his spittle, more than the last time, and was profoundly grateful when his coughing stopped.
    He was also exhausted. His knees were trembling and he felt too close to the end.
    Unfortunately, his journey wasn’t complete. He looked up the ascending road to the pass that he believed led to the fabled Garden of the Hesperides. He’d hoped to reach that place before he died. He’d hoped to throw himself at the mercy of Hera, and maybe, just maybe, to be given a bite from one of her golden apples. That fruit was said to have the power to heal anything, and he had pursued every other cure, without success.
    Now he feared he would die before he reached the garden at all.
    He sighed, more weary than should be possible, and noticed a tree at one side of the road. This path was mostly barren of vegetation. He’d thought it a feat of the goddess herself, in order to increase the impression of the garden’s lush greenery by contrast. If so, he doubted he’d ever see that contrast.
    He stumbled to the tree and almost collapsed beneath it, leaning back against its sturdy trunk. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the air beneath the tree was still cooler and fresher, almost rejuvenating in itself. He looked up and smiled at the way the leaves blew, stirred by a breeze he could not feel. He could see the stars through the tree’s boughs and he felt safe, as if sheltered from harm.
    He shook his head at his own whimsy and reached into his pack for his skin of water. There was nowhere safe in all the world, he’d learned that the hard way, and a tree’s branches were no refuge. He supposed his illness had progressed to the point that he was losing his wits.
    He tried to be accepting of that and failed.
    He opened the skin with a savage gesture, resenting that he should be the one to fall so ill, that his body should fail him when he was still comparatively young, and that was when he saw her.
    A woman was hunkered down and watching him, not ten steps away. She wore a dark cloak of roughly woven cloth, one that she’d pulled over her head so that he’d mistaken her for a rock in the shadows. Her eyes shone from within the darkness of her hood though, her gaze so bright that he shivered.
    On impulse, he offered the skin of water. “Thirsty?” he asked. “It is yours, if you want it.” He gestured to himself. “There are those who want nothing from a sick man like myself, and I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to die of thirst instead.”
    To his surprise, she scuttled forward, moving more like an insect than a woman. She paused an arm’s length from him, considering him warily, then snatched the skin away. She drank of it so gratefully that