Keepers of the Crown

by Lydia Redwine

Arria was nowhere to be found and neither was the entire

  nation of Nazeria. The halls were empty save for the few who hadn’t made it out of the castle and laid in distorted heaps on the ground. Riah shoved one off to the side as he shielded his nose from the stench. The battlefield had been suffocating in its smell. Horrid. Rank. But at least there had been a strong wind and then the rain to carry it away. Here...blood lingered in the air. Trickled down the halls. Was still splattered on the walls.

  Torches lined the walls, revealing the blood in dim, blue light.

  Riah paced the hall outside of the throne room of the castle where Leviathan, some of the head Shedim, and Lucius were convening. Leviathan had ordered Riah to await them in the hall until he was summoned inside.

  He halted his steps before the throne room door. Or where the doors would have been. The enormous double doors had been smashed inward, their wood particles scattered. Splintered wood littered the tiled floor. “Your purpose is not yet over,” Leviathan’s glimmering gaze had seemed to say when he had approached Riah and Owen at the seaside. “Go find her.”

  Arria. Where had she gone? What had happened to her? “What have the Fates read for her?” Riah murmured. “Are the Fates real?” They had been to the majority of the Gnosi people, though Riah doubted Leviathan believed in such a thing. The thoughts were mindless, stupid, but Riah had to keep them here to block out the flashes of an ashen face, a soldier stumbling in the storm.

  Saffira. The name echoed down the hall.

  “Arria,” Riah echoed back. He swallowed. “Where are you, friend?” His eyes burned, the tears pressing from them.

  Riah stepped into the dismantled throne room, one heavy footfall after another. He shook his head. “They wouldn't have hidden it here. Arria will not be here.” Riah left the throne room and took an offhand corridor. There were copious amounts of such passages, but he would take them all. He would search the entire castle until he found her.

  He turned a corner, and nearly wretched. His eyes widened as his stomach wrenched. Pools of blood were streaming down the corridor. Blue light flickered in the pools, dancing with ire. He peered down the dimly lit corridor. And found bodies. Heaps of them. White as ash, crooked bones, pupilless eyes. Scales. Riah’s gasp echoed in the chamber. “Shadow Bearers...but how?”

  “Lucius’ order. The Shedim came and punished those who could not fulfill the mission.” The voice was ice.

  Riah whirled, his muscles pulled taut like a bow in the string. Glista was paler than what was normal for even her. Her eyes were nearly blank, far off. She emerged from the shadows, her expression gaunt. No spark in her eyes. No energy that made Riah wish to flee.

  “L-luc…” he trailed off. Glista’s expression hardened as she nodded. Riah raked a hand through his hair as a sickening feeling of dread spread in his chest and lingered. “Arria?” he managed to choke out.

  Glista’s voice was low. “I don’t know.” She shook her head, her eyes pressed shut. “I just know that the Crown has not been found. And Lucius will burn us all if we do not leave.”

  “Leave? Now?”

  Glista nodded. “Leviathan will remain. To explain asbest he can.”

  Riah shook her head emphatically. “No, no, Glista. We have to find Arria!” He glanced at the pile of bodies. “Even if it means digging through them…” His hand, which had been grabbing at his own hair, fell limply at his side.

  “But there is one task left,” Glista said. Riah turned to meet her now somewhat alighted gaze. She shuddered before she continued. “An army bearing the Caranthian banner and colors is at the brink of the shores. Of course, they can’t make it past our ships, but once Leviathan allows them passage, allows them to believe they are safe…”

  “The wraiths,” Riah bit out. “They were to be a distraction, something to strike fear while we were made the true killers.”

  Glista nodded. “And now...you will lead them. Kill them all, Riah. Do not leave a single soldier alive. For if they do not die at the whims of wraiths, Lucius’ wrath will be far greater.”

  The wasteland was frosty and tainted both gray and brown like

  mud in the snow.

  Dead.

  Forgotten.

  Riah closed his eyes, remembering summer. Maybe

  summer never came this far north. Where he lived it could be warm at the will of magic. But here it was all snow. All the time. Still, warmer times must have come here and those of the nation must have wandered into the land. Smiling. Laughing. Living.

  Riah opened his eyes and shuddered. Not from the chilly air biting at the exposed skin of his face and neck but at the shallow, low breath of the mass of warriors behind him. They were transparent enough to seem like ghosts, but Riah could imagine the sounds that could come wrenching out of them. Loud, lucid screams that would pierce the air.

  In Gnosi, there had been musicians with shrilling pipes. The wraith woodwinds they had been called for their highpitched shrieking sounds which were made at parties on the darkest day of the year when the Day of Spirits was celebrated.

  The Caranthian army stood before him as the desert wraiths were behind him. The colors of Caranthia fluttered in the form of a banner bearing a rich blue bordered in glittering gold. Blue for the sea they honored, and gold for the riches they brought across such waters.

  Though well-armored Riah could glimpse the paleness of the skin that nearly every soldier in his sight wore. They were a country of white. Like snow. So unlike Mirabelle which bore shades from snow to the richest brown.

  And they were too late.

  The general stood some paces from the front line, dead center, bearing the color. And he was approaching Riah. The latter did not move. This man would come to him. “Let him near the wraiths of his own will.” Riah smirked as he eyed the man. The man’s reddish hair threaded with gray hung tohis shoulders where armor plates were fastened. The general’s hand was braced on his sword which swung from his hip, but he would not draw it.

  “You are rather young to be a general,” the man said as he neared Riah. The voice was firm, but the general’s eyes were glittering. Kindness. But with steel too. “Ofcourse, I was General around the age you seem to appear.” The man held out a hand. “General Rolf, at your service.”

  Riah lifted his eyes to the man before him without shaking the scarred and calloused hand extended. “Service? Tell me, how are you going to serve me?”

  “An alliance between our people and yours to find the Crown together.”

  Riah scoffed and then lifted his curled hand to cough into it. “And after?” he questioned his voice light and cold. He folded his hands across his chest and pushed his shoulder up so his posture was rigid. The general was just as tall as him, but with Riah’s eyes lined in black, his gaze was penetrating.

  The general issued a small sigh, still looking away from the younger man. “From one general to another-”

  “Dragon Lord,” Riah cut in as he idly examined his fingernails. Rolf laughed as if the idea of dragons even existing was preposterous. Riah remained grim. When General Rolf saw that Riah was serious, his smile faded. Riah nodded towards the east where the castle was situated and where Glista was standing before it, watching. “She is general.”

  Rolf followed Riah’s motion. “Her?” Rolf turned slowly, his face fighting to maintain a neutral expression which would not betray his fear. “And...those are…?” He seemed to just now be truly noticing the presence of the wraiths.

  “My army,” Riah finished coolly. Riah moved so quickly that even he did not really register that his blade was flashing. And then slicing. Not even a groan, as the blood dribbled from the general’s neck. As it burbled in his mouth and he slumped to the ground.

  The battlefield erupted. The soldiers under Rolf’s lead cried out, angry shouts filling the air. But this commotion was nothing compared to what came next. Riah had yet to hear a wraith’s wail let alone a thousand wails at once.

  It was no surprise when half of the Cara
nthian army fell before the wraiths had even charged and that Riah’s left ear had lost all hearing. The mark on his neck pulsed as he bent slowly to the paling form of Rolf. His lips brushed the man’s ears as he sneeringly whispered, “If you live...we will talk about an alliance.” His lips formed into a sneer. “Just be grateful that I finished you off instead of my lady, the general.”

  Riah had no need to battle himself when he stood up. The wraiths were charging, filling the air, their screams penetrating every particle of space. Riah could not hear. He was numb as they swept past. Cold was set in his bones.

  And thus, Riah stood in a river of blood. The liquid stained the gray and brown ground. His eyes flicked up to see Glista gliding towards him. How she had come towards him so quickly, he could not determine.

  “Bathe with me in their blood, Glista,” he said in a low voice as she drew next to him.

  A wicked smile formed on her lips. She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and said, “Just this once, Prince.”

  “Lord,” Riah corrected.

  “Fine, Lord. A finelordImust say.Youwillberewarded.”

  “Our King will cry tears of blood

  His tongue will taste our lies

  They will bind and break Him

  And He shall die

  So that we may live

  And when He will arise

  So shall all the broken

  And thus it will be forevermore”

  -Song of the Watchers Verse the Third written during

  the Second Age

  Fifty-Seven

  Cam’s eyes were closed as the soft wind rustled her hair and

  brushed her face. Her hands were at her sides. The wind here was so soft, so still. She hadn’t expected that. She had been looking for a storm. And found a barren land instead.

  And perhaps it was barren because of a storm that had long since passed, but as she stood in the center of that shattered terrain, Cam had the sense that this place was so forgotten, even a storm would pass over it.

  Her eyes opened. The mist was black but drifting enough that she could see beyond it. She could not count the piles of stone, the rubble. But it looked like Enboria. A broken sword, its pieces shattered like glass.

  The sparse forests surrounding the valley just before the mountains rose were wavering. Cam stepped forward once more. Crack. She peered down and winced. Yellowed bone. They were everywhere. Skulls shaped irregularly. Not like those of humans, too round and too big. Cheeks sunken too deep to be human.

  She went to step again. A hand flashed out and grabbed her arm. “Watch out,” Joel said, his eyes wide. Cam glanced at him, at his bronze hair rustling in the soft wind, before she looked to the ground. To one of the countless black holes.

  Cam stepped back, her heart clenching in her chest. The hole was small but big enough for someone to slip into should they take a wrong step. “I don’t want you to fall in without warning,” Joel said, a small chuckle falling from his lips.

  “But we do have to go down, right?” Cam murmured back. “It is the only way in.”

  Joel nodded just as something emerged from the hole. Long nails from fingers covered with scales scratched at the soil before it unfolded. Extended…

  “Take it.”

  One question remained. They could go in, but could they come out?

  Cam was bathed in sweat.

  She had been awake for what seemed only a second but had probably been hours. The nightmares she had expected, but the getting to sleep part had been something short of a miracle. A hand was at her shoulder. Warm, comforting. Cam looked up and found Fiera’s dark eyes glazed in tears. Cam grasped her sister’s hand. “What is it?” Fiera slipped onto the slab of stone- lined in furs and blankets which served as their bed.

  A shaky laugh escaped Fiera’s lips. “We’re alive, Cam. We’re alive. And it’s all just now hitting me. We should be dead.”

  Cam nodded, her own body shaking beside her sister’s. “Two nations...destroyed. But here we are.”

  “Elyon,” Fiera breathed. “He’s kept us alive because He still has a purpose in mind for us.”

  Cam tilted her head, her eyes narrowing in the darkness aroundthem. “Do youthink Terrawas finishedwith her purpose when she left? And Mista...and Grandfather and...Amelia?” Cam did not choke even as the ache of a sob rose to grip her throat.

  Fiera shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I do not know if that is for us to know. We are to decide our own side, I think. Where we want to belong. And then Elyon directs our steps. Like you, Cam. You chose us, your sisters, your family. And Mirabelle. You chose your people. You chose to do the right thing, even while it was hard. And it cost you. But Elyon directed your steps. He directed you away from Mirabelle to keep you safe…”

  “Led me to face the fear that haunted me most…”

  “Led you to smash all the barrels of wine that Elizabeth owned.”

  Cam smiled even while the words felt like salt to a wound.

  “And the others...all those that we love and have lost,” Fiera continued. “I think He has led them home.”

  Cam did choke now as the burning tears pressed into her eyes. “Even Peter?”

  Fiera shook her head. “No, Peter is still alive.”

  “How do you know?” Cam’s clutch tightened on Fiera’s arm.

  “Because when I look at you and when I look at Saffira, I see two people who deep inside of them know the truth. That he is not dead. Because if he was dead, something in both of you would be dead too. But it’s not. It’s just abandoned until he comes back.”

  Warmth and hope and happiness surged in Cam’s chest, sending a cascade of tears from her eyes. She embraced her sister tightly. “Thank you, Fiera,” she choked out. “I love you.”

  Fiera smiled. “I love you too.”

  They pulled away, but the warmth still lingered between them. “One more thing, Cam. I think we should go south. And search for the Lumenbirds. We may still yet need allies, and I think it is finally time.” Cam nodded. It was time. They should have done it a long time ago. But they would kneel at Terra’s grave still, and remember.

  The soil shifted in her fingers. It seemed small and

  insignificant, but Terra’s name had meant earth. Cam’s fingers curled in the dirt. It was cool and broke easily between her fingers.

  The wind brushed her face. Cam breathed. The air smelled fragrant after the rain. The place was the same even as the rest of Mirabelle was not. The sun would not shine, and the valley was too close. But there were little pink flowers still sticking out of the ground where a single stone had been planted. The same flowers that they had put there when they had buried her.

  Cam had kept the memory behind a door every day and every night after they had left. But now she remembered. And somehow, it didn’t hurt quite as much. They had dug for hours. Sometimes in numb silence and other times clawing the ground as their screams curdled the air. Caleb had been the one to finally dig the hole deep enough. And he had also been the one to heap the dirt on top of their sister. Cam smiled. Caleb. A true friend. She glanced over at Fiera. “You should talk to him when we get back. We have to keep the ones we love close.”

  Fiera only nodded. They sat back, side by side, and watched. They watched the birds alighting on the few trees dotting the plain. They watched the wind rustle the tall grass and the small, pink flowers. They watched the world stir in its peaceful awakening. Maybe Mirabelle was waking up from its own nightmare. “We should bring Adria here sometime,” Fiera murmured.

  Cam nodded. “We should help her. She’s still dealing with it. I mean, we all are, but she’s having a hard time now, I think.”

  “Yes,” Fiera said. She then reached into the pocket of her baggy pants and withdrew a small handful of objects clanking together. Rocks. Colored rocks.

  Cam gasped and went to brush the stones with her fingers. A diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald all lay in the palm of her sister’s hand. The stones of Mirabelle’s realms. “H- how did
you get these?”

  Fiera shrugged. “I found the neglected necklace of a royal.” She then began to finger each stone in turn. “And I’ve found that there is one for each that we have lost. The emerald for Terra who only wanted to protect us. The ruby for Amelia because she was brave and loyal. The diamond of Gnosi for Mista, because in the end, she had more wisdom than most of us. And…”

  “The sapphire for Grandfather,” Cam finished, “Because he only wanted peace. And he died in hopes that he would aid the Prince of Peace in His quest.”

  “Prince of Peace,” Fiera repeated thoughtfully. “I like that.”

  Cam shrugged. “It was in one of the books Ilea wrote.” Silence passed between them. It was a comfortable silence until a thought sobered it for Cam. “Do you...ever...blame me? For their deaths?”

  It took her a long moment to look at Fiera. The latter was staring straight ahead, her arms dangling over her knees. She was silent. And finally, she spoke. “No. I did think about it at times. But, no. Terra did not die because of you, and neither did Mista. They died for something greater than both of us.”

  Cam nodded. “For Elyon. And I think I’m beginning to think that I could die for Him too.”

  The volcanoes of Cinis Lumen rose in their black masses. Fiera

  felt a tug in her chest And then a piercing pain. A tug because she was seeing home and then a pierce of pain because she was remembering that the word “home” was like ash floating in the breeze here.

  The Lumenbirds were nowhere to be found. The only symbol of life here was a red mark crookedly marring the side of one of the volcanos. It was blaringly red. A deep crimson. They had seen it from far away and had clutched each other's hands. The tail of a dragon, long and curling. The mark Riah now wore on his neck. And all she could think of as the tears on her face were brushed by the wind, were the words her mother had written. Words she told Fiera as they made their way back north.

  “I have found that I still love Tyron, despite everything. No, I do not regret choosing Cole, for I am as deeply in love with him as I love him. But Tyron still has a part of me, a very deepseated part of me that can never fade even with death. So I have come home to see him. He knows about Cole, of course, for Mia has spoken of our union in her own letters to him. But he does not know about Cam, and I believe he should.