Wardens of Eternity

by Courtney Allison Moulton

  The kriosphinx lurched forward, forelegs up and talons spread. I threw out my arm and cast a rush of my power. The monster deflected my strike with a swing of its head. It bowed and slammed its skull and horns into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs and me off my feet. I felt my body hit something solid and heard a terrible crash and shatter—then I fell. The window grew farther and farther away as I fell, and I could not fill my lungs with enough air to scream. My body flailed and as the sidewalk roared toward my face, I flung up my hands. My power smashed into the ground, breaking my fall, and I cried out with relief when I felt the firm, solid concrete beneath me.

  The ram-headed beast landed gracefully to my right, and a second one emerged from the shadows to my left, its long narrow tail lashing like a cat’s, ready to pounce. A third stepping into the street let loose a high, resonating, guttural bugle that sounded less animal and more like a ghost’s sorrowful wail, filling me with emptiness, and sending shivers through my bones.

  CHAPTER

  3

  My lungs stalled, my breath stolen with shock. I scrambled to my feet in terror and disbelief. People on the sidewalk and in the street screamed and darted in every direction.

  The first of the kriosphinxes bounded forward. My fingertips sparked, and my power rushed forth, cutting through the air like a scream. The beast sprang, claws outstretched, and was struck full force by my power and went sailing across the street. Its body hit the wall of a brick building and flopped to the ground. As it tried to lift itself, its badly shattered leg gave way. The second kriosphinx loped to its side with a low noise vibrating in its throat.

  I had done that. My power was greater than I’d realized. For the first time in my life, I was eager to test its limit, to unleash it, despite the frightening circumstances. I felt alive.

  The third kriosphinx dashed at me, talons scraping the pavement, head bowed and ready to bunt.

  I swung my arm and the magical wind rocketed toward the beast, catching it and smashing it into a passing motorcar. Tires squealing, the car fishtailed before spinning out and striking another. A gasp of horror ripped through my lungs. I’d been so eager to test my power and again—as always—I’d lost control.

  There came a strange, distant crack, then a flash and flames. Nausea welled up inside me and I shot forward to help the panic-stricken occupants escape. I grappled with the door handle. My clammy fingers slipped as though they’d been greased. The door popped open and the woman in the passenger seat seemed to pour out onto the sidewalk in a tangle of limbs, followed by the male driver as he clambered over the interior. I gaped at them, unable to form even a simple apology, my brain turned to mush. They scrambled away as the kriosphinx, to my horror, pushed itself to its feet, recovered, and shook its body like a dog. In a rage and paying no mind to the flames, it lowered its head and launched into the driver’s side fender, horns caving in metal with a crunch. The tire burst and hissed as it deflated.

  Through the blaze, a young woman appeared, and the kriosphinx backpedaled as fear slashed across its face. She flung out her arm and a short wooden staff unfolded like a bird’s wing with a crack. Its three segments locked into place creating a nearly four feet long weapon with glossy black blades fashioned at both ends.

  She spun the staff above her head, gaining momentum, and swept downward in an arc, the air screaming. The kriosphinx backpedaled again, but the blade opened its shoulder. Its ram’s mouth gaped and gave a high-pitched, haunting bugle that squeezed my bones and pierced my brain. It charged, and the woman whirled aside too quickly for the beast’s slashing claws to strike true. It bowed its head and shot forward, but she ducked and rolled away from its horns. The kriosphinx slid to a halt, reared, and pirouetted to follow her—and the woman thrust the staff, driving the blade into the beast’s chest.

  She stepped aside, tugged her weapon free, and watched the kriosphinx give a horrid lurch. Its chest cavity caved in around the mortal wound, bones snapping as they broke. The beast’s bugle of pain cascaded into a whistling scream as the body was sucked through, jerking violently, struggling as it was pulled, bone by bone, into itself, folding, crunching, and snarling. Light poured through the veil like a beacon, but it went out as the kriosphinx disappeared into a void.

  I gaped in disbelief, taking in the incredible sight of this warrior, certain she was the same woman I saw in Bryant Park. Her face, though her expression was fierce, was impossibly lovely up close. Her large, round eyes were deep brown and outlined with black kohl, giving her a catlike appearance. The knuckles of her fingerless gloves were embedded with the same starlight-sharp stone of her weapon.

  She noticed my presence for the first time and when she looked at me, I found no gentleness in her gaze. “You should run,” she instructed, her accent British.

  I started to step away as the third kriosphinx left its fallen ally’s side and bugled a battle cry. The woman marched toward the beast, whirling her staff with such force it whistled. One end swept low and the kriosphinx reared beyond its reach. The woman thrust the staff’s other end upward, and the blade opened the beast’s powerful shoulder.

  “Neit!” A lightning-quick blast of water was conjured from her hand and snaked through the air. The kriosphinx scrambled to evade her power, but it was hit in the ribs and crashed into the wall of a building. I stared, mesmerized by her incredible ability. She was like me. The word she said seemed to activate her power as though it were an incantation.

  Her head snapped up and she looked past me. “Sayer! Mind your six!”

  I spun to watch a young man, the woman’s companion from earlier, swing the spade-shaped, black blade of a battle ax into the chest of the kriosphinx behind him. The beast bellowed in agony and curled inward. The man’s now empty fist struck the kriosphinx in the snout, the stone knuckles of his glove tearing its face wide open. It crumpled to the ground. He removed a second ax from its sheath and kicked the dying kriosphinx onto its side before burying the blade into its heart. He yanked both axes from the body as the beast imploded and disappeared through its wounds.

  Pain ricocheted through my body and I was thrown to the ground with a great weight upon me. I screamed and thrashed, managing to flip myself onto my back. The last kriosphinx raked its claws across my collarbone, drawing streaks of burning pain and blood. My magic flared on instinct, blasting the beast off me. It righted itself and lunged, talons spread and spitting with rage.

  “Neit!” I cried with all my strength, the strange word instinctively tearing from my throat, and the electricity in my fingertips cooled like shaved ice. A sudden jet of water exploded from my hand so powerfully it knocked me to the ground. The spell rocketed toward the kriosphinx and it bugled again.

  The rush of magic pulled at my core like never before, a beast stirring from slumber, sweeping and tugging like an undertow, taking from me something I couldn’t name. I ached to cast again, to see how strong I could make my magic.

  “You,” came a breathy voice.

  I lifted my head and found the young woman staring at me, stupefied. Her bewilderment showed plain as blood on snow.

  “Who are you?” I asked her.

  She scoffed gruffly. “Who are you?”

  “Ziva?” the man called, and shock socked me in the gut. His dark gaze captured mine. “Catch!”

  He tossed a slender object. I snatched it from the air, a dagger made from cold, glossy stone as black as a new moon and starlight sharp.

  The kriosphinx reared above me, forelegs spread and ready to bring me to the ground. I slashed my dagger across its ram-face. The creature hissed and bellowed in pain as its skin opened and sparked. In the bloody rip of its wound, I caught a glimpse as though through a veil to another, darker world.

  Claws outstretched, it left its chest unprotected. It came down on me and I shoved the dagger deep beneath its ribcage. Hot, reeking blood spilled onto my white nightgown and I knew the black blade had plunged into the kriosphinx’s heart. Bright light erupted from the creature’s
wound and became a void through which its body was twisted and yanked, filling my ears with the sounds of crunching bones and strangled agony as it died. In moments, only empty air remained.

  When all had gone still and quiet, I lowered my arms and saw the young man holding out his hand. He wore the same fingerless, stone-knuckled gloves as the woman, and clasped on his wrist was a gold bracelet with blue, red, and green smaller stones and a large blue stone carved into the shape of a beetle—no, a scarab. He’d sheathed both battle axes into the belt around his hips where they were partially concealed by the long black coat buckled across his chest.

  He was as richly beautiful as the young woman, both so strange, so unearthly. He had golden-beige skin a shade darker than mine and his nearly black hair had pulled free from its tie. A few days’ worth of stubble spread evenly around his mouth and along his jaw. His dark, purposeful eyes shadowed by full lashes were outlined with bold metallic paint the color of dark graphite. I’d never seen a man wear makeup before and it only added to his beauty and to the thousand—possibly infinite—questions I had for him.

  I let him help me to my feet, but my limbs seemed to be growing cold with shock. “Where did it go? I think I killed it—the kriosphinx, correct?”

  “Yes,” he said, appearing so calm and gentle. “It is you, isn’t it? Your name is Ziva?”

  I nodded and noticed the tremors spreading through my body—an uncontrollable trembling—but I didn’t think it was entirely from the chilly night air.

  “Take this.” He shrugged off his jacket and offered it to me. I accepted it and slipped my arms into the too big sleeves. The wool fabric provided near instant relief.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He gave me an encouraging nod and a gentle smile. “Of course. You’ll be all right.”

  The realization I’d never killed anything before—save for roaches and mice—struck me like a slap. It took me a few moments to gather my senses. “How do you know my name?” I asked and couldn’t help but sound accusatory. “Who are you?”

  “Sayer Bahri,” he replied, his accent also British. “And this is my sister, Nasira. We are Medjai, the last of an ancient tribe. We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Ziva. You’re one of us.”

  While I processed that information, Nasira whipped her staff in the air, and it closed, folding its three segments into a smaller object. She returned the strange weapon to its holster around her thigh and marched toward me, her jaw tight with resolve. She roughly took hold of my arm and steered me along. “You’ll come with us.”

  “To where?” I demanded, bewildered and wishing I weren’t wearing a torn nightgown drenched in blood. The smell nauseated me, and the fabric stuck to my belly, quickly becoming colder than the night air. The streets had emptied of people, but in the distance, panicked shouts and voices could be heard growing closer.

  “For now,” she said coolly, “back to the car.”

  “From there, to headquarters,” Sayer finished.

  “I can’t just leave!” I thought of my food and the quilt I’d spent a year working on.

  We turned a corner and when we saw a mob of people shouting and crying over what they’d witnessed, we spun back the way we’d come.

  “The next street,” Sayer directed. “She’ll draw attention.”

  “Right,” Nasira agreed.

  “Let go of me!” I growled and yanked myself free of her grip. “You’re not taking me anywhere.”

  An impatient frown crinkled her features before she exchanged a look with her brother. “We’re trying to help you and I think you’re smart enough to know we’re the only ones that can. All that’s happened tonight isn’t a complete surprise to you, is it? You’ve had magic your whole life.”

  “And you’ve been missing since birth,” Sayer added, in a gentler tone than his sister’s. “We detected the kriosphinxes, but we didn’t really expect to find you too. We’ve come halfway across the world to bring you home.”

  “Home?” I asked, the word a dream upon my lips.

  Nasira nodded. “The kriosphinxes are after you because you’re one of us and we aren’t safe out here. We’ll take you to our high priestess. She’ll explain better than we can.”

  My heart pumped lightning through my veins. “But—I—”

  Sayer stepped closer to me, intensity and purpose burning in his eyes. “Either you continue to do whatever it is that you do every day for the rest of your life, or you can come with us and you’ll learn who you really are and what you can do. Your birthright.”

  I stared at them, overwhelmed by everything—my circumstances, the magic, the kriosphinxes. These two people, these Medjai, the same word the kriosphinx had called me in my room—they looked like me. Not as though we might be related, but they had my hair and my eyes, my skin tone, the long, gently curved nose . . . Not once in my life had I ever felt like I belonged somewhere. The only time I had ever seen anyone like Sayer and Nasira, I’d been staring at my own reflection. These were my people.

  I had people.

  If I stayed, I’d work at the factory until my death. One day I would wake too starved and weak to work, and without money to buy food, I would die.

  I had nothing to lose but the quilt that would probably never be long enough to cover my toes.

  I let out my breath and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  I sat in the rear of a sleek, black Delage, marveling at the smoothness of the leather seat and finely polished wood dashboard upon which Nasira had propped her boots. My back was stick-straight, my hands folded in my lap. I was petrified of dirtying the leather, and I knew the inside of Sayer’s jacket had to be filthy from the blood on my skin and nightgown.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “Long Island,” Sayer replied from the driver’s seat. “It’s temporary. Our main headquarters is in Egypt.”

  “So, you’re Egyptian?”

  “Yes, but we are also Medjai,” Nasira elaborated. “Our people belong to a tribe native to North Africa. We have protected Egypt and this world from evil for five thousand years.”

  I am North African. I am Egyptian. I am Medjai. In my head, the words seemed alien to say. I’d never known who I was or where I belonged. I am Ziva. I am a girl. Those things I could say, but they were all I could say with certainty before today. They were all I’d ever known about myself. I am Medjai. That statement gave me a profound emotion I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I suddenly felt like a whole person—someone with a story, an identity, and even a future.

  I am Medjai.

  The dagger Sayer had given me rested on the seat next to my thigh. I lifted it and drew my finger across the blade’s black, glossy surface, noticing how it was imperfect, as if it’d been chiseled by hand. The handle was wrapped in beige leather, mottled like plucked bird skin. “These weapons we used against the kriosphinxes. What are they?”

  “Obsidian,” Nasira explained. “Mined from volcanic islands in the southern Red Sea and quite lethal to immortals like the kriosphinxes. The hilts are ostrich leather.”

  “Stone blades,” I mused, turning the dagger over in my hands. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Volcanic glass, technically,” she said.

  I blinked with surprise. “Glass? But wouldn’t it break?”

  “Obsidian is naturally very brittle,” Sayer explained, “but the blades are buried in the hot ashes of a khet spell, and the magical fire tempers the material until it’s as strong as a diamond. A was blade won’t break and it’s sharper than any surgical needle.”

  “Have you never seen one before?” Nasira asked. “Your parents’ maybe?”

  “I never knew them,” I replied, my voice quiet. “I grew up in an orphanage.”

  Sayer and Nasira exchanged looks, their brows dark with concern.

  “You don’t know where they are?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “You’ve never had any schooling with your magic?” he a
sked, surprised. “How did you know the creatures you faced tonight were kriosphinxes?”

  “I read a lot of books,” I replied.

  Sayer nudged his sister with his elbow. “See, Nasi? Books are useful.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” was her unimpressed response.

  “Are you looking for my parents too?” I asked them.

  “Of course,” Sayer said calmly. “We’ll find them, Ziva. We take care of our own.”

  The farther from Manhattan we drove, past small towns and brightly lit houses on hills, the darker the world became until it was confined within the beams of the Delage’s headlights. I’d never been this way before—there had never been any reason for me to visit Long Island—and I couldn’t believe how the trees seemed to go on forever on either side of the road. The most wooded place I’d ever seen was Central Park. The moon and stars grew brighter, emerging through the glow of the city and illuminating darkened shapes alongside the road. I pressed my face against the window, straining to make out what I saw.

  It was as though the life of Long Island had died on this winding stretch of road. Sprawling estates were blanketed in shadows and silence like empty corpses dried out from the inside, some of them reduced to charred skeletons. Fountains stood as quiet sentinels and feral gardens were overgrown and tangled, seemingly ruins of a lost civilization.

  I’d heard of neighborhoods like this, incredible palatial homes once owned by families who’d lost everything on Black Tuesday and during the years of the depression after. Once some of the most beautiful places in the world, they’d been abandoned and left to fend for themselves, just like I’d been. Rumors swirled of people who’d leapt from towers or locked themselves in their houses and left on their gas stoves. I didn’t know how true the tales were. To be honest, I didn’t want to know.

  We pulled into a circular drive at the end of the lane and came to a stop before the most derelict home of them all. The shadowed estate utterly reclaimed by nature, more fit for the ghost of a prince than a living one. The stone walls rose like towers, and creeping webs of ivy had grown so wide they swallowed the boarded up or broken windows. Gables were disintegrating at their sharp peaks and perhaps little more than half of the shingles remained attached to the roof. All was dark. All was silent.