Empyreal

by Helsel, Spencer

  Somehow, though the Gardens were in the open air, swaths had different atmospheres. One step and you went from a tropical paradise to a cool, wintry landscape. The air shimmered between them; some kind of magic border.

  Dani spotted a familiar face. She grinned and walked over. “Hey.”

  Roxelana, the girl from yesterday, looked surprised to see her. Or rather, that she was talking to her. “Hello.”

  “Is this where you and Korë spend your time?” she spotted the little girl as well and waved.

  “Yes.” Roxelana blushed. “We have abilities that suit us here. The Numen allow us to come and tend the Gardens. In exchange, we retrieve herbs for remedies.”

  “It’s good to see you. It’s been a bit lonely, being the only girl.”

  Roxelana was about to say something when Dani heard voices behind her. The tone and voice were familiar. Stuff like “kinda hot” and “man, gifted are even hotter than girls down on earth” filtered over; and that was the nicer things.

  When she glared over her shoulder, Andreas and his minions crowded together like the high school boys they were. Chosen or not, becoming a Numen didn’t cure you of being a jerk.

  “It’s nothing.” Roxelana looked away. “You learn to deal with it.”

  “Deal with it?” Dani snorted. “Who said you had to? Do you want me to say something to them?”

  “No.” Her purple eyes widened.

  “Why?”

  “They are Numen. I’m not.”

  “I’m Numen.” She reminded her. “That means I can say something.” She turned and walked over despite Roxelana’s protests, glaring at them defiantly. “Hey! You jerks got something to say?”

  Andreas smirked. “You mean other than what I said last night?”

  “You shut up pretty fast when Kleos put you in your place.” “That’s because you need someone to fight your battles for you.”

  Dani’s anger flared. But before she could retort, Asaph interrupted them. “Is there a problem?”

  “This,” she searched for the word Ethan used once, “sarding jerk won’t leave that girl Roxelana over there alone.”

  “Who?”

  Dani pointed. When she did, Roxelana looked away. Asaph’s jaw tensed. He turned his attention back to Dani.

  “Allow me to remind you of something.” He growled to her. “You are Numen. She is gifted. They are not the same.”

  “So?”

  He snorted in revulsion, “The men around you are your brethren,” and then he added with disgust, “whether they like it or not. Do you feel the need to gossip about them to their superiors?”

  She couldn’t believe it. “Gossip?”

  “I believe you call it ‘tattling’ on Earth.”

  Dani’s jaw almost dropped.

  “Your concern is the mission; nothing else.” Asaph reminded her. “Get in line or get out of the way.”

  He stalked off. Dani was almost able to walk away before Andreas, emboldened by the Elder, added, “You know, we’re gonna have to slow down for you keep up with us.”

  She paused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that yesterday,” he said, “I saw a friend of mine killed by a wraith. He died right in front of me. I picked up real quick on our mission. You haven’t, so let me remind you: we’re warriors. We’re supposed to fight. You can’t.”

  Both her hands balled into fists.

  “Guardians like Kleos protect you because they know you can’t stand on your own. Or maybe, there’s another reason a bunch of men always take your side.” Andreas’s voice wasn’t just full of scorn, but something much filthier. “Either way, you piss off everyone around you. You don’t belong on the battlefield.”

  Andreas took a step forward and instinctively, she took one back. She hated that, especially when his stupid grin widened.

  “Do me and everyone else a favor: leave. You like the gifted so much? Go be one of them; safe behind the walls real men protect.”

  She was about to hit him, but she spotted Asaph over his shoulder. He heard. He stood too close not to, but all he did was stand and watch.

  Andreas rolled his eyes and shoved past her. Lester and his lackeys followed. Dani stared at the ground, hands clenched so hard they hurt.

  Dink and Bouden both stood quiet. Neither of them looked at her. Only Nathaniel asked, “Are you okay? Do you—?”

  “Don’t.” She turned away, falling in with the crowd. “It’s fine.”

  That’s what her mom always said, anyway. It’s fine.

  Chapter Thirteen She returned to her own little corner of the world alone and pissed off. She would have killed for some gel inserts. The whole walkingeverywhere-thing was getting old.

  She noticed it as soon as she arrived. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something was wrong. The air felt different; something tugging at the back of her mind, giving her the wiggens. What was it?

  When she turned her attention to the pavilion, she discovered she wasn’t alone.

  He sat facing her, sitting cross-legged with his forearms resting on his knees. He wore black raiments, which were only a few shades darker than his skin. His scalp and face were cleanly shaven, his eyes were closed, but as she approached they opened calmly. His irises were like coals. She stood on the stones, not daring to go near him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He said nothing. He just stared at her from his seated position. His black clothes suggested he was a Guardian, but she didn’t have a Guardian. At least, not yet. Was he the guy Ethan told her about?

  She stepped gingerly up onto the plank floor. “Did Ethan send you? Are you supposed to be my Guardian?”

  He frowned, but made no other sign that he heard her.

  “Can you hear me? Are you deaf or something?” she waved at his face. It would be just her luck that her Guardian was deaf. Were deaf people allowed to be a Numen? She didn’t have anything against it, but she wouldn’t put it past fate to give her a deaf trainer.

  “Um, look, if this is some kind of game or something,” she said, getting a little irked, “I really don’t want to play. Do you speak English? Hablas español? Entiendes?”

  Nothing. He just stared. It was annoying.

  She gave up, walking over. “Great, look, this has been real but I’m starving. So if you want to sit there, sit there. I don’t really care.”

  Then he moved. In one fluid motion, he leveraged up and one leg swept over. Dani walked right into his range all pissed off. His foot connected with her ankle and sent her sprawling onto her chest. Hard.

  She hit the floorplanks and a painful burst of air shot out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe! She doubled in pain. Then he was over her, pressing a long, adamantine knife to her neck. There wasn’t anything stopping him from slashing her throat open. She was a dead, dead girl.

  “My name is Mastema.” He said in a deep, rumbling voice. “And, aye, I am your Guardian.”

  She sucked in painful lungfuls of air. For a full minute she thought she’d choke to death on nothing. Her lungs didn’t work.

  She shuddered each breath as she tried to speak. “You…could have just…said so...”

  The man over her narrowed his eyes. He removed the knife from her throat and sheathed it into his belt, standing. “I wanted to see how you would react to my presence.”

  “Why?” she croaked, finally able to breathe.

  “You can tell a lot about someone in the first fifteen seconds.” He told her, returning to his seated position, forearms on the knees.

  Now that she could breathe like a normal human being, Dani was furious. He attacked her as some kind of test? She got to her feet slowly, this time staying as far away from him as possible. “You were, what, experimenting?”

  He nodded once, curtly.

  “You knocked me down, put a knife to my throat, and all to what? See what I would do?”

  “No. I stayed silent to see what you would do. I wanted to learn about the girl I am to
train by how you reacted to my silence. I knocked you down to see if you would get back up.”

  “I really hate being referred to as girl; you know, since you didn’t ask.” She grumbled. Standing up straight and brushing herself off, she huffed. “So, what did you learn?”

  “You stand naturally well, which will help you fight.” Mastema said matter-offactly. “You’re innately cautious, which will help you more. You’re lefthanded which most won’t expect and you are strong-willed.”

  She didn’t know how to take that. “Um, thanks?”

  “You are also impatient, reckless when you are angry and from what I observed today, you like to speak out of turn to embarrass your superiors. Most of those negate any good qualities you have.”

  “I—hey! I’m not reckless and I wasn’t trying to embarrass Asaph!” she said defensively. “He treated me like garbage. It was unfair.”

  “There is your first mistake.” Mastema closed his eyes. “You expect fairness. Fairness implies that life is just, which it is not.” He frowned. “And his title is Elder. Elder Asaph. He is your superior.”

  “You want to drop the snotty attitude?” she demanded. “I’m not going to treat someone with respect who acts like a child.”

  “Then you will fail. Failure comes to those who believe they are entitled.”

  “Are you saying I have an entitlement problem?”

  “Are you saying you do not?”

  This guy is pissing me off. “What business is it of yours what I do?”

  His eyes opened again, frown still in place. “It is my responsibility. I am your Guardian.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t act so happy about it.”

  Mastema evaporated into thin air. Dani jumped back. She knew he was there. He went behind the veil. Ethan did it on Earth, so she knew she shouldn’t freak out. Well, shouldn’t and wouldn’t weren’t the same thing.

  She tried to calm herself, looking for any sign of him. It was unnerving. “Where are you?”

  Silence. What’s with this guy?

  “Come out and face me!” she yelled. “I know you’re there!”

  She felt a breeze and swung blindly, but hit nothing but air. She took a few steps back, hands up defensively.

  “Coward!”

  “Coward,” a voice from nowhere said, “is a word for those who do not understand war.”

  Something knocked her foot out. She landed hard on her other knee, howling in pain. She tottered back to her feet, swinging again but he was gone.

  “You will learn.” Mastema said calmly.

  “Learn what? How to cheat?”

  “How to survive.”

  Something hit her across the face. It wasn’t hard, but it stung. She grabbed her jaw, staggering. Mastema materialized in front of her. His face was pitiless. He looked at her with the same compassion a kid with a magnifying glass did to ants. And she was the ant.

  Dani swung with a practiced punch. He blocked it easily and hit her again. He didn’t attack. He stood there waiting. Bored.

  “You have fire. That is good. You will need it.” He said. “But understand this, Novice: happiness, fairness, cowardice are for those with lives different from ours. I am your Guardian. I am your protector, but I am also your tutelary. It is my responsibility to train you, to teach you the ways of our society, and to help you understand what is needed to survive. The first lesson is to learn your place. And right now, you do not understand where that is.”

  She glared defiantly at him between her fists. “Tutelary? What does that mean?”

  “Teacher.” He turned away unconcerned she’d try to hit him again. “I will teach you, if you will listen. But you need to learn how to listen.”

  She kept her fighting stance, wary of any more of his lessons. “And what if I decide not to listen to you?”

  “You will die.”

  He said it so simply that Dani didn’t doubt it was true. “What’s your damage?”

  “Damage?”

  “What the hell knocked you off the sanity bus and left you in Crazytown?”

  “In some ways I am the most sane man you will ever meet.” He reached down and retrieved a long, hook-curved sword from the floor; not a scimitar like Asaph’s, but one with a flared, spear-like tip. He belted it to his side. “My ‘damage’ however, is none of your concern. I will return tomorrow. Evening training with your Guardian is always after Vespers. That’s the evening trumpets at eight.”

  “Eight? As in, eight o’clock at night?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  She shook her head. “Aren’t I training during the day, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s crazy. I’ll be exhausted.”

  “You would prefer a more lenient schedule?”

  “Yeah!” His face was a blank slate. It took her a moment to understand. “Which isn’t going to happen, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent. Eight it is. You report to the entrance to the Vale,” he pointed away from the gifted village, “at Morning Lauds.”

  He strode to the edge of the cliff and the pedestal that protruded from the cliffside. Without pausing, he fell over the side and as Dani watched, ascended into the sky.

  “I’m really not going to like that guy.” She said to herself. ______________________

  “I’m sorry about before.” Roxelana said. She and Shea came after dusk with some niceties Dani had gone without: more blankets, curtains to hang for privacy, a delicious soup and bread that tasted of honey.

  Roxelana also showed her a way to braid her long black hair that kept it close to her head. It was tight, but easier to manage than a ponytail.

  “What?” Dani asked, finishing her soup while she sat on the pavilion floor, watching Korë play near the fountain. “You mean at the Gardens? It’s fine. Asaph was the jerk.”

  “Elder Asaph.” Roxelana corrected.

  “Yeah. That’s what people tell me.”

  “You have to understand,” she said, “there is a barrier between Numen and gifted. Numen are the immortal warriors of Heaven.”

  “Really? They seem like a’bunch of pendejos to me.”

  Shea snorted soup out of his nose.

  “Besides,” Dani put her bowl down and went to Korë, “there’s no excuse for that idioto Andreas and his friends.” She sat next to Korë on the rim of the fountain.

  “The Elders don’t let Numen fraternize with gifted girls.” Roxelana told her.

  “Fraternize? Is that what you call some guy being a pig to you? Besides, you can’t sell me on the idea Numen don’t find outlets for their wandering eyes.”

  Roxelana and Shea exchanged a look.

  “What?”

  “There is,” Shea began slowly, “an unspoken custom. Vespertide.”

  “Vespertide?” she recognized the word. “Airlea mentioned that the other night.”

  “She regularly attends.” Roxelana blushed. “That may be why she doesn’t like you.”

  “I never did anything to her.”

  “Airlea grew up in Empyrean.” Shea explained, as if apologizing. “She has always fancied Numen men. She’s especially taken with Ethan. In her mind, you are competition.”

  Dani pffted, ignoring that. “So what’s vespertide?”

  “It means ‘evening.’” Shea told her. “It’s code for—.”

  But Roxelana stopped him. “Dani we both like you. You’re nicer than most Numen, but you live in a different world than us. There are rules and breaking them means losing the protection the Numen provide.”

  “You mean they’d kick you out for being friends with me?”

  Shea sighed. “Maybe. Sometimes the Elders have looked the other way. But with you…?”

  He didn’t have to finish. “I’m not very well liked. I get the impression I’m going to deal with a lot of things other Numen aren’t.” He shrugged as if to say, that’s true.

  Roxelana put on a brave face, “It doesn’t mean we can’t talk. Just…not a
lot.”

  Great. Dani turned her attention back to the girl sitting next to her. Instead of a dry, empty fountain, there was now clear, fresh water filling the basin. From the center, water bubbled up like a spring.

  Korë beamed proudly.

  “That’s how she shows affection.” Roxelana stood, gathering up their things. “Apparently, she likes you.”

  “She never talks?”

  Roxelana shook her head. “Not to anyone.”

  “Why?”

  She came over and took the girl’s hand. “Some of the gifted didn’t grow up in Empyrean’s safety. Korë was one. Her family was gifted with powers over nature. It made them a target.”

  “For what?”

  “For the things you’re training to kill.” She gave the girl a sad smile. “She was the only one of her family to make it here.”

  Dani looked at the small blonde girl with sapphire eyes. She smiled playfully, brushing Dani’s cheek affectionately before Roxelana and Shea took her home.

  Ethan called the gifted magical refugees. Suddenly, Dani didn’t think her life was so bad. She may have lost her mother in a way, but Korë lost everyone.

  Chapter Fourteen Dani lay awake, unable to sleep; strange since there wasn’t a storm raging around her this time. The night air was cool and buzzed with insects. The sky overhead filled with thousands of stars, all of them gazing over the mountain paradise.

  Her bird companion stood vigilant, regarding her with an almostconcerned look. Eventually, she got up and padded across the pavilion to the edge. Leaning on one of the pillars, she looked out across the Vale. She could see torchlights in the Keep. A column of them marched from the mouth of the Keep into the streets, snaking and winding their way through an illuminated city. On a whim, she slid on her boots and quickly trotted out of the Arn.

  At this time of night, the Numen Citadel should have been asleep, but when she arrived across the Bridge, Numen filled the streets. They reverently watched a procession of Numen who silently marched down the street. She could see that those on the road had their hoods raised with black masks covering their lower faces. Everyone did.

  On the road, six Guardians carried a casket past her.

  “Funeral procession.”

  She jumped. Ethan appeared next to her.