by Lexi Ostrow
Adrenaline pumped through his veins with every pounding footstep. He wasn’t holding the water hose and when he reached the trees that were burning he realized his stupidity and went backwards to help carry the line.
The flames danced and danced in the sunny afternoon sky, bright and vivid despite the sunshine of the day. With every second that ticked past and as each tree slowly began to fizzle and have the fire consuming it die, his confidence in himself came back. He was a damn good firefighter and he’d make a damn good Word Speaker, no matter how long it took.
Chapter Two
The pool cue scratched across the table and he winced at the noise. He watched his brother's red-stripped eleven ball sink nicely into the right corner pocket. The worn leather jacket's zipper clanked into the wooden railing and his brother grinned. His straight white teeth were striking, but the smile never reached his eyes. It never did anymore. He hated these dates with his brother. Hated all the pretense and make believe. They didn't even share their names with each other anymore.
Names had power. Huracan, one of the three Mayan creation Gods had warned them of that. Every so often they changed their names. A protection to keep them safe from each other; even if he knew neither of them ever spoke their names. He supposed one day, one of them would slip, maybe in a fit of passion or anger. However, no one needed that kind of ammunition since who knew who would take it back to his brother. The process was a painful, soul splitting experience, but they did what they must to survive long enough to fight in the war. They weren’t truly immortal, only a God or Goddess was. They were simply long lived brothers who were hard to kill, despite how many times they tried.
Yet, names aside they were brothers and he was tired of remembering that. The man he'd shared a womb with was not the same. Darkness leaked off him in thick waves. All because of what they'd been granted over a millennium ago. Darkness or light, win or lose. A war that would one day come, but for now hadn't even made any hint at foreplay.
Twice a year they got together on purpose. Not to talk about the Word Speakers, not to try and kill the other and not to reflect on how both of them were tired of the waiting game they had been playing at since before the fall of the great Mayan empire. No, these dates were all his idea to try and keep his brother from slipping completely off the ledge into the darkness he represented.
Apparently, today was going to be one of those dates where his brother once more bent the rules. He'd forced them to meet in an actual pool hall rather than at one of their homes. Humans stood around them in various positions of play, frozen because his brother enjoyed that power of theirs far too much. It sickened him to control fate that much, but he had broken the rules a few weeks before and his brother had not let him forget it.
“So, brother,” his brother paused to sink his striped purple twelve ball neatly into a pocket, “just how does it feel to know your soul is tainted now? Dark enough to tangle with my demons even?” He flicked his wrist and a tall creature appeared next to his brother. A true demon, with no ability to take human form. The creature’s horns curled in a spiral and actually dug into its head. The arms were long and scrawny with three fingers on each. The mouth was twisted into what had to be a grin, exposing rows of razor sharp black teeth.
With a sigh he waved his hand and returned the pawn back to hell. “Must you be so dramatic, brother? I will not discuss this with you this day. These play dates of ours are unpleasant enough. I have no desire to tangle with you on my choice to help Ciara. I have no desire to continue these meetings,” he muttered the last part under his breath.
His brother's grin only widened as he set the pool cue down and jumped up to sit on the pool table. “I can of course understand. I wouldn't want to talk about losing my power player. Not to mention the fact that you still don't know for certain if the weakling she gave her powers to is fully out of my grasp, now do you?”
The taunt did what it was supposed to. His blood ran hot and his eyes narrowed into slits. Without flinching, he threw his arms out and shoved his brother off the table, slamming him into the ground before dropping his weight on top of him and punching him.
His fists pounded into his brother's face, left and then right and then left again. The blood roared in his ears. His brother had known all the right buttons to push when they were mortal. Over the millennium they'd spent as semi immortals he'd honed it to perfection.
“ENOUGH!” The strong voice was all he heard before a gale force wind lifted him off his brother and flung him into a wall. He cursed as his head connected with a thunk and stars clouded his vision for a second.
The reverence in his brother’s voice shocked him as he whispered the deity’s name. “Huracan.”
The creation God of their people was nowhere in the room in a physical sense, but he was very much there. He was a presence on the wind that had blown open the doors to the pool hall and whipped around them in an angry flurry, throwing paper towels and cups at them. Aside from the day they met, the God Huracan never took human form with them.
“You displease me once again.” The rumbled voice shook both brothers as the ground trembled under their feet. “It should not be as hard as you two make it to simply watch over these gifted humans. And yet, every time I think you are ready to fulfill the prophecy, you behave as nothing more than the children you were when I came to you.”
His anger did not rescind completely at the God’s rant, but it settled him down enough. Shame heated his cheeks as he pulled himself up from the floor. Huracan spoke with a clarity that he himself already had. But to hear the deity condemn them for their childish actions was humiliating.
“Forgive us, Huracan. We are still only human. Immortality and powers will not change what we are at our core.” He had hoped his words were humbling, but the breeze that kicked up in the room told him otherwise. A ball lifted from a table and collided with his head just as a chair smashed into his back. If they did not make amends they may find themselves testing the boundaries of their given immortality this evening.
“Do not pretend you have not embraced your destiny on these paths. Do not think me a fool in not knowing the rules you have both now broken. My choice rested in the hopes that your bond as brothers would keep things of this nature from happening.” The howl of the wind filled his ears and he winced at the pain the cold air caused.
“It's not my fucking fault he can't play by the rules.” His brother’s words were almost swallowed in the maelstrom.
His own growl was audible, his anger returning as he turned to face his brother. “As if I am the only one who breaks the rules. Do I need to point out all the people you have coerced to your side? All the female Word Speakers you have locked with you in bed to sway their choices? My direct interference was to prevent the most powerful Word Speaker in centuries from choosing to forsake her powers entirely.” His eyes were glowing, a faint white color that began to sear the ground it touched. “My interference is not yours to throw around in an accusation, brother.” He stopped walking only steps from his brother and barely had the control to stop from burning his feet.
A sigh could be heard in the breeze and the wind tunnel stopped. “I am running out of patience for this. It is I who controls when the prophecy begins and I am growing weary of holding such a catastrophe back. Leave this human world, it is not for you anymore. Do not force my hand in removing you. There are others who could see to this task as well. Not now with your powers or your wisdom in life though because childish as you are, you both hold more knowledge than you think.”
The breeze itself died down and a man stood before them. The same man who ages ago, gifted and cursed them. A loincloth covered his lower half, tattoos marked his chest and arms, tales of his creation attempts and the power within the Mayan Pantheon. He glared at his brother and a swirling doorway opened behind him. With a nod, Huracan pushed his brother backwards to his home and quickly closed the doorway.
“Your actions displease me. Do not think for a moment I would hesit
ate to stop you if I thought it was dangerous. It was not. But you have not won the young man, Dale. His journey is not decided and I have no desire to know who wins his allegiance.”
He swallowed hard. Dale had seemed the perfect choice when he had offered Ciara a choice, but both his brother and Huracan had warned him and a stone sat in his stomach like lead at the thought that he may have damned his chances for winning.
He opened his mouth to justify himself and Huracan raised a tattooed hand. “You have a Word Speaker on your path on the verge of discovering his first and only Guardian. Leave this place, open your own doorways and watch as Julian Michelson does what he has been dreaming of doing. Perhaps you will gain a strong female warrior to fight by the brave firefighter's side.”
Nothing more was said, the man-god vanished, as he and his brother often did to their charges. Sighing, he opened a doorway to his home between the worlds and searched the wall all his Word Speakers could be watched on for the human male and frowned at what was about to happen. His hands were tied after his last stunt and his side was about to suffer a tragedy.
Chapter Three
Serena's hand stroked gently down the muzzle of the horse. It wasn't often she was able to sneak away from the dealings of court to ride. She placed a kiss on her horse's muzzle as the stable boy set the saddle. She had hoped to be in and out before anyone had taken time to notice her presence was missing, but that had been destroyed when the stable hand insisted he saddle her horse.
She smiled politely as he handed her the reins once she had mounted her beautiful brown horse. Stroking a hand down Marcado’s neck she gently tugged the reins to the left and he walked out of the stables. Her walk through the village was blissful. No one ever seemed to recognize her horse. Which was a miracle.
Despite the appearance of a royal horse, none had truly noticed whom the rider was. She had fastened a boys cap over her blond hair and had thrown on a worn blue coat she had found in the dungeons one night to disguise the blue silken dress with corseted top she wore. Had she not, it wouldn't have been long before the palace guard escorted her back.
It was not as if she was a prisoner. It was simply that as a princess, and the last to be married off, it had become her father's hope that she would marry someone who would run the estate here in Britain, he had no sons to secure his title and her two older sisters had been carted off to Spain and France respectively. So for now, her days were filled with court hearings and lessons on defense strategy with her father around the war table. She didn’t mind, but every so often she longed for the freedom to make her own choices. To not have the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders. She was far past the marrying age at twenty and six, but her father had been in no rush. Her sisters and she had been born when he was young and had plenty of time to rule his kingdom should fate not intervene. She’d almost hoped he had forgotten her, but then the search began last winter and she knew it would culminate in a union soon.
Walking unencumbered through the castle gate, she nodded to the guard on duty. She had struck a bargain with the young man many moon cycles before or she would never be granted exit as security ran tight with the raids and wars turning Britain into a place of fear more often than not.
But this day everything was peaceful. The weather had seen fit to dry up and not grace the grasslands with a misty rain as it so often did. The sound of springtime filled her ears as Marcado placed gentle steps on the dusty path. Her eyes traveled to the east, to the grassy areas that she longed to sit in and simply stare at the sky.
With a squeeze of her legs Marcado began a steady canter. His hooves thumped into the ground and quickly replaced the sounds of midmorning as his speed increased. The sound lessened as they reached the grass and a few paces from the road she stopped him. “Whoa there, Marcado. This is fine, boy.”
He answered with a whinny of his own and she laughed softly. Carefully, she slid off him and her feet squished into the grass, slightly wet with dew from the early morning’s rain. “I'm glad you agree, silly boy.” Serena pulled an apple from her coat’s breast pocket and held it out for her friend before she dropped the woolen coat to the ground and tugged off the cap.
The warmth of the breeze caressed her body where the small of amount of skin was exposed, her arms and ankles, aside from her face. She smiled as the combination of wind and warm sun rays hit her, she pulled her skirts to the side so that she might sit and look into the sky. Maracado's head dipped to eat the grass near her and she laughed. “Just do be careful. I can't possibly explain to mother how this dress will have grown torn if I am to have been in the rooms studying weaving this day.”
He whinnied again at her and she lay back in the grass. The slightly wet sensation crept around the back of her neck and she wondered if she ought to rise so as not to have green stains upon the blue silk, but decided against it. Today she simply wished to relax and contemplate all the wonders of the world around her, no battle plans or leadership seminars. Just her and her imagination outside the confining palace walls.
She had to squint as the unusual brightness from the sun made looking at the clouds difficult. As they drifted slowly by, big white clouds of nothing, she couldn't help but think about her future. She had always longed for a husband. Her two elder sisters had been fortunate in finding suitable matches. She knew they weren't matches of the heart, but the two men had treated them with care and affection. It was all she could hope for herself. Not that she didn't wish for a union of love, but she knew that it was not granted to royals and such. That in time she would most likely come to love her husband, but that it was not always from the start and not always so simple.
A strange voice filled her thoughts. A man's voice. It seemed as if he was narrating her every thought, her every action, for the next few moments that passed. She wrote it off as her brain simply musing due to her thoughts on a husband and she ignored the male voice, even as it began to speed up in her head.
She sighed just as a group of clouds passed over the sun and darkened the sky. Her eyes were growing weary of gazing and she thought to take a small ride with Marcado. It had been ages since he had run and she knew from listening to the knights that a horse without exercise could grow weak and hurt itself. She would never forgive herself if that happened to her only friend.
When she rose off the ground the sticky sensation of her dress clingy to her made her wrinkle her nose. She tugged at the bodice and skirt to remove it from her skin and felt a little guilty. Her mother would have her head if there were stains or a tear.
“Well, boy, what do you say to a quick ride?”
He flipped his head back and stamped his front feet into the ground and she laughed. But as she reached to grab his reigns to help lift herself he reared back and neighed, loudly enough to startle her. Abruptly she grabbed the side of his muzzle and stroked down his nose to try and calm him, but it did no good. He was bucking and pulling in all directions.
Even as she tried to calm him she felt her chest begin to tighten. Black smoke curled around her ankles and she choked on the stale air as it rose, engulfing her and Maracado. Her hand dropped the reigns as she brought it to cover her mouth as her coughing grew worse.
Serena dared not turn her head, she knew what blackened smoke meant and she could feel the warmth of flames licking at her back, singeing the beautiful dress and burning her skin. She cried out as a touch of fire did connect with her elbow as she tried to grab the reigns.
Her attempt failed and Marcado bucked once more before racing back toward the castle. “Marcado! Marcado come back!” Her lungs gasped for air as the smoke filled her mouth during her shout. Coughing in fits she lost her balance and tumbled to the ground. She saw the flicker of orange flames around her and tears streaked down her cheeks. She had not meant for this day to end like this. She was not ready to face death.
She opened her mouth to scream when suddenly the flames and smoke vanished around her. She was inside a room, but not a room. Whiteness met her from every ang
le, swirls of a shimmering color intersected the white at various locations. She sucked in a great deal of air and her lungs burned as the fresh air crashed over them. She gasped and her body heaved, but she was grateful.
A hand reached in front of her blurry vision, palm extended. “Take it. This will be much easier if you are standing upright, Serena.”
Fear trickled down the back of her neck making the hair there stand on end. The hand was decidedly masculine and the voice was velvety and confirmed the sex of the person behind the hand. She ignored his hand and looked up. Her eyes fell on a beautiful man, eyes a color she could not place and jet black hair. His fashion was nearly as strange as the location they were meeting in. It was a light tan color and hung to his knees. It was different than the coats she was used to and confusion mingled with the fear.
“How do you know my name?” Her voice was weak and scratchy from the inhalation of the flames. Every word she spoke felt as if she’d swallowed knives. The man sighed and shoved his hand at her again.
“Do not worry about the how and focus on the why. I promise I mean you no harm, but if you do not believe me, I promise I can place you back in the inferno in which I pulled you from.”
* * *
His irritation was in no way going to be masked during this conversation. After the ass kicking he'd been dealt by Huracan he certainly wasn't in the mood to find out that one of his Word Speakers finally made the transition to active powers and what happens? A useless female was pulled. He’d never really seen a Word Speaker’s world bleed into a Guardian’s before. When he saw the flames from the most recent fire Julian was fighting growing in her world he’d had to step in. No Word Speaker had ever lost a Guardian before they’d been pulled from a book and he had no intention of finding out what would happen if they did.