by Laury Falter
“Are you suggesting I avoid a confrontation with them?”
“If the opportunity allows.”
I scoffed. “I thought you had gotten to know me, Eran.”
“That’s why I’m bringing it up in conversation,” he said frowning. “I doubt you’ve ever considered it before.”
“I haven’t.”
Nodding his head with resigned frustration, he looked away.
“I can fight,” I declared.
“I know you can. I’ve seen it.”
“And Horace didn’t seem so challenging, despite being one of their most violent.”
“That’s because he was waiting for the Kohlers to take the first strike.”
Knowing he was correct, I fell silent.
The water sloshed, drawing my attention, and I noted him moving closer to me. My excitement flared and I tensed at the prospect of what he had in mind but he stopped directly in front of me, at the same river depth.
“I’m breaching this subject with you, Magdalene, because if you are capable of sending all of your enemies to eternal death, then you will be in greater danger than you’ve ever imagined.”
He waited patiently for me to respond, unmoving in his will to impress upon me the risks I would face. “I understand.”
“Good.”
Only then did he begin his walk out of the water.
I wrenched my head to the side as he did and braced myself as I heard his feet slap against the compressed sand on his way up the bank. From there, he did what he always had, stretching himself along the rocks to dry in the sun.
I hoped he didn’t detect my reaction, but his next question made me realize he had.
“So, in the seventeen years you lived on this earth…” he began but thought better of it.”No, never mind.”
“What?” I asked, still refusing to look.
“It’s…It’s not something I should ask.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your…”
“What? My guardian?” I said, unwilling to continue to ignore his belief.
He groaned in frustration. “I never lack this much focus around others,” he muttered to himself.
“Does that mean you can’t recall the question you were going to ask?” I prodded, only half teasing. “Or are you declining to repeat it because you think of yourself as my guardian?”
Averse to answering those questions, he reverted to his previous one. This time he did it unashamed and without hesitating. “In your seventeen years here, did you find anyone who you were interested in as more than a friend?”
Suddenly regretting that I pushed the subject, I asked, “Why do you want to know?”
“And that,” he mumbled, “is the reason I shouldn’t be asking.”
I felt like there was a hidden meaning to his answer. I also had the distinct feeling that we were once more infringing on the responsibilities of a guardian-ward relationship and had to remind myself that we weren’t designated for each other.
“No.” No one like you, I thought. “Have you found anyone you were interested in as more than a friend?”
His reply was unwavering, unashamed, and unremorseful, and it would have brought me to my knees if I hadn’t already been sitting. “Yes, I have.”
It was as if he wanted me to have no doubt in my mind about it, that he wanted me to be as certain about it as he was. And that stung because it meant his heart was indisputably taken.
“You said once that emotions make a person sloppy.”
“They do.”
“And yet you opened your heart to someone.”
“I did.” By the sound of his voice I was almost certain he was watching me.
“I see…,” I said, wondering why my heart was sinking. “She must be special.”
He laughed under his breath. “You have no idea…”
I wondered if she knew how lucky she was to have Eran’s attention.
“I didn’t expect to be interested in someone,” he continued, “not after spending seventeen years looking for you on earth-”
Interrupting out of shock, I blurted, “You spent seventeen years looking for me?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, “crossing several large territories in my search from one rumored messenger to the next.”
“Is that how you picked up your accent?” I asked, although my mind was still partly on the girl who had captured his heart.
“It is.”
“What’s she like?” I asked suddenly and noticed the long pause before he answered.
“The girl? Feisty, hard to get along with, sensitive but she would never admit it, has more courage than I’ve ever seen in any man, and beautiful, strikingly beautiful.”
It was then and there I finally acknowledged that, as hard as I’d tried, as much denial as I’d put into it, I had feelings for Eran. It was the fact I had to swallow back unfathomable grief while listening to him talk about the girl who had captivated him, who made his voice soften at the thought of her, and who he so clearly longed for.
“I’m-I’m sorry you can’t be with her.”
Another lengthy pause followed as he contemplated what I’d said. What came after it was a profound sadness in his reply. “Me too, Magdalene.”
And the pain struck again.
How did this happen? I had been diligent in protecting my emotions. I was acutely aware of his charm and how others were drawn to it, and I thought I had protected myself. I had denied it every opportunity to find any way in, and yet there I sat cold despite the sun realizing that it had.
“You should have told me who you were in the Hall of Records,” he said, rattling my thoughts.
“That I was a messenger? On what grounds? You had already chosen a ward.” My answer sounded harsher than I would have liked and I tried to remind myself to compose my voice.
“That didn’t make you any less guilty, and you knew it.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Your face,” he said flatly. “I saw it in your face, Magdalene.”
I closed my eyes against the humiliation.
The rustle of his clothes told me that he was dressing now.
“Magdalene,” he said, this time with kindness added to the firmness of his tone.
When I didn’t respond, he pressed, “Magdalene, will you look at me?”
I sighed, unwilling but doing it anyways.
He sat bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his head dipped to be level with mine. He still hadn’t put on his shirt.
There was tenderness in his expression and patience in his approach. “Why do you think I evaluated you when you began your training sessions? Did you consider I might have had more critical responsibilities? Did you take into account I might have a reason for delegating them?”
I remembered back to Daniel explaining that Eran never acted recklessly, every move he made was with reason. And that point had certainly been proven since I’d met him.
“Yes,” I said, “I did consider it.”
“And what are your theories on why I stayed?”
I wanted to tell him that I wanted it to have been because of me, that I yearned for it. But what was the point in that? He was already taken. Instead, my reply was to a different argument. “We don’t need your help.”
He didn’t speak for a drawn out moment. “What do you think I said to my ward the moment I learned you were a messenger? What do you think we talked about?”
He stared at me, and I knew his mind was churning. “You,” he finally said. “I told her that another messenger needed me. That the messenger was in grave danger and that I would be assigning another guardian to take my position.”
I knew that I had been the one being discussed and the confirmation of it sent a tension into my limbs.
“You need me, Magdalene, more than you know.”
I had a fairly clear idea how much I needed him except that it was for exactly opposing reasons.
“But I understand you don’t want to adm
it it. You want to deny it. You want to fight it. You want to be on equal ground with me. You want to prove your worth. But the fact remains we are not equal. We each have our strengths. And we each have weaknesses. Yours is most definitely pride and while it is an incredibly appealing trait it also makes you vulnerable without me, especially if the fight that’s coming does in fact arrive.”
When he was finished, I gave myself time to process all he’d said. But above everything that stood out to me was his overwhelming need to protect me.
“Thank you for your concern.”
“I’m serious, Magdalene.”
“I know you are.” There must have been something in my voice that convinced him because his shoulders dropped several inches and he exhaled.
I attempted several times to voice the question on my mind, not being sure how he would take it, but finally I asked, “Is that the lecture you gave Bailey?”
“No, she would listen to me,” he said.
For some reason, that struck me as funny and even though I was crushed inside, I smiled. “Do you honestly think the Kohlers will come back?”
At that point “If Horace doesn’t return, they will be back and this time they won’t bring just one more. They’ll bring everyone they can gather and…” He heaved a sigh.
“And what?”
“And they’ll all be coming for you.”
I sat there, allowing that realization to sink in. My mind didn’t seem to want to accept it. The prospect was just too daunting. Yet deep down I knew Eran was right.
“We need to get you back to camp,” he said, noting that the sun was beginning its descent. “You’ll have messages to take.”
When we arrived at the camp, a stream of people had collected from the head of a tent and ran down the length of another. Several groups from our camp had gone on raids two nights ago and I knew by the sheer number of those waiting that it hadn’t been a successful one.
Eran had done his best to convince those in command – of which there were many in a very loose structure – that the Kohlers had ignited this war, but years of abuse by the nobles had taken its toll. The people were bent on blood. More arrived every day looking for it. Unfortunately, they seemed to be losing more of it than the nobles. To quell the amount of it being spilled, Eran met with those who called themselves the leaders to offer suggested military tactics. But because of his youthful appearance and the fact that they were unfamiliar with him, they politely sent him on his way. Therefore, he did his best to help where he could, which was to oversee my protection as I delivered messages to the dead.
The last hours of the night were spent taking notes from friends and family of the newly departed and it was well into the evening when the last guest stood from the single chair placed before mine and exited the tent.
As she left, I slumped against the back of my chair, exhausted and ready to give this body a rest. Absentmindedly, I lifted my fingers to my shoulders and began to rub away the stiffness.
Another pair of hands came over my shoulders and my mind quickly presumed them to be Eran’s. He had been the only one behind me and was now the only one in the tent which usually housed official meetings on the rebels’ strategies but was otherwise unoccupied at night.
Without thinking about it, I rolled my shoulders backwards into his palms. The heat from him was soaking into my tight muscles and it was an unavoidable relief.
“Was that a moan?” he asked.
“Did I make a sound?”
“I think you did.”
I released a half-laugh, too tired to offer anything more.
“It was a good sound,” Eran whispered and I felt his fingers stiffen at his candid acknowledgement. It was the first time he moved them since he laid them on me, but I got the distinct feeling he didn’t want to stop there and yearned to curl his fingers around my shoulders and feel me more fully.
A constrained sigh escaped him, followed by a deep, forced inhale.
His thumbs moved, sliding down the dip between my shoulder and neck. They were tender, barely a whisper against my skin. And I knew he was exploring me, just that small and subtle part but taking his time not to miss an inch. When his hands reached the base of my neck, they paused and I thought he was done, would now pull back and step away. But his thumbs moved up over the top of my palms, embracing my hands.
I was acutely aware of his scent, the quickened pulse in his thumbs, his restrained breathing.
I wanted to ask him what happened to the girl he’d fallen for, where she was now, why he was touching me so tenderly when he still had feelings for her. Or was I wrong? Had he not been drawn to my lips at the river? Was he simply trying to relieve me of sore muscles now?
No, I heard his excitement and I felt the softness of his strokes.
He opened his mouth to speak but the tent flap opened, bringing him to a sudden halt.
From the light of the lantern set beside the door, I recognized one of the two faces instantly. So did Eran, which was why his hands jerked away from my shoulders.
Our guests had seen the contact between Eran and me. They knew it was inappropriate and it left them in awkward silence. They blinked from him to me and back to him.
“Colonel,” said the large, swarthy skinned man with a rumbling voice, and tipped his head at Eran in respect.
“Claudius,” Eran replied stiffly.
The girl beside Claudius, who I knew to be Eran’s previous ward, tipped her head also, unsure of what else she should do. Her voice was sweet, coy, and melodic. “Eran,” she said, to which he didn’t hesitate to respond.
“Bailey, come in.”
She stepped forward where her delicate frame seemed to be swallowed by the tent and stood uncomfortably to the side. Her chiseled nose and slender, fragile fingers seemed even smaller than I remembered. This was likely because she was dwarfed by Claudius.
In the light, he was even more massive, bigger than any other guardian I’d seen. His neck was twice the size of an ordinary man’s, his hands large enough to squash a grapefruit in each palm. Eran couldn’t have found a more robust, able man to take care of his original ward.
Claudius walked in hunched, or his head would hit the tent’s ceiling, and met Eran midway. There was tension in the room now.
“I come with news,” Claudius announced.
“News from where you are stationed in France?” Eran asked, speculating.
“Yes, Sir. It involves your ward.” Claudius’ eyes flickered to me and back to Eran.
“I don’t have a ward,” Eran replied flatly, to which I smiled.
Claudius seemed confused. “But she’s a messenger,” he said, tipping his head at me.
“Magdalene is a messenger. I have not been assigned to her.”
Bailey’s forehead creased in puzzlement.
Claudius’ eyes lifted to Eran and the brows above them furrowed. “Do you know where I can locate her guardian, Sir?”
“She does not have one.”
If finding Eran and I in an intimate pose and if learning that Eran, a guardian, was not overseeing me, a ward, wasn’t enough to shock Claudius, this latest revelation was. Their mouths fell open. They forgot to breath. They seemed frozen in place.
To be fair, I didn’t blame them. It was unheard of for a messenger to exist on earth without a guardian. Not only did it oppose the judgment in which every messenger must have a guardian, it also subjected me to a far greater probability of risking eternal death. In short, I was breaking just about every decree that had been established between guardians and messengers.
“Yes, Sir.” Claudius didn’t seem to know where to go from that utterance.
Unencumbered by these disclosures, Eran redirected the conversation back to the more important part. “What news do you have regarding Magdalene?”
“I had intended to tell her guardian and give him or her the opportunity to decide whether to divulge it to her.”
In an understated way, Eran asserted, “You don’t have that
option.”
“Yes, Sir.” Claudius looked at me again.
“Claudius,” Eran said to regain his attention. “You’ve traveled from France. You’ve brought your ward with you. Certainly whatever knowledge you have must be worthy of those efforts. So I implore you to overcome your indecisiveness and reveal it…Because quite honestly my irritation is growing.”
“Yes, Sir.” Claudius, who remained ducked, finally addressed me. “You have a bounty on your head.”
Claudius and Bailey, who hadn’t moved from where she stood just inside the entrance, noticeably shifted with unease as they awaited my reaction.
“What’s a bounty?”
Claudius glanced at Eran, who conceded stiffly, “Go ahead.”
Claudius, who exhaled through his nose, didn’t seem to enjoy being the one to deliver disconcerting news. I wondered how he would fare in delivering some of the messages I had over the years.
“A bounty is a campaign against someone. The first person to claim the head on which the bounty is laid is rewarded with esteem for having succeeded. The campaign is rare and almost always used in retaliation, and at times for entertainment but…”
“This is not one of those times,” I concluded.
“No, it is not.”
“And why would they place a bounty on me?”
“It is being said that you stabbed a stake through Horace’s neck.”
“I did.”
He paused, taken aback by the brazenness of my confirmation as much as by the unquestionable veracity of it. Horace was one of the most treacherous Fallen Ones. For a small, big eyed girl to inflict such harm on him was remarkable.
“Eran helped,” I said.
Needing neither compliments nor inclusion, Eran forced back a grin.
Again, Claudius glanced between Eran and me in evaluation, and I could see that he thought there was something between us.
“When you did,” Claudius continued, “They were waiting at his point of return.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Eran asked, tensely.
“Everyone.”