by Laury Falter
“He told Stanimir that a unit awaited him at the site of his return, which Eran had found and where they would stay for eternity beating him into submission. The only way to have them called off was to call off the bounty. So he did, and that is the only time a Fallen One has ever acquiesced to a guardian.”
Gradually, every person at the fire found themselves staring at Eran, the man behind the legend.
“And to think you were just an untried, untested young soul when I discovered you…,” Claudius said.
“You discovered him?” Bailey asked her guardian. “I never knew that…”
“I did,” assured Claudius. “I recruited him. Found him building his home on the other side and observed him for some time. When I grew tired of him defending himself against giant fabricated beasts he created for amusement, I introduced myself and told him there were greater adventures to be had. That he could battle true beasts if he desired. He enlisted. I trained beside him and taught him everything I knew.”
So, I thought, that was how Eran chose Bailey’s guardian. He had given her one of the most experienced guardians before coming to find me. I wondered if, after we discovered who was taking the lives of messengers, Eran would do the same for me before returning to the girl he loved.
“That makes me curious to know…,” said Hermina. “Do you have a favorite story?”
Claudius’s lips rose in a smirk, much like Eran’s. “You asked what his strengths are…I can tell you how I discovered one of them on my own.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
Eran was watching Claudius now, speculatively.
“We were sparring with swords during a particular training. It was much the same as all other sessions in which he wielded his weapon with skill. I defended myself as I always did, but this time my weapon slipped from my grip and fell to the ground. I bent to pick it up but it slid across the dirt by several paces. I stood, walked to it, bent and it moved another few paces. At that point I looked up, where Eran was standing, smiling at me. ‘Weren’t expecting that, were you?’ he asked me, to which I responded by tackling him.”
Laughter followed by both guardians and messengers alike. When it died off, Claudius addressed the group again more somberly.
“He never told me of his ability to control metal. He waited to reveal it when it was most needed because as every excellent warrior knows-”
“Surprise yields you an advantage,” the guardians said in unison.
It was easy to see from their enthusiasm and unanimity that that was a mantra drilled into them.
“So you can control metal?” Hermina asked Eran directly.
“That would be the reason why he carries that heavy sword,” Cilla said, eyeing Eran’s waist where it lay.
“Not the only reason,” Eran said, finally speaking up. “It does make a solid-sized cavity in our enemies.”
Snickers erupted around the fire, and as my gaze traveled from one to the next, I understood better why these guardians hailed to Eran. He had earned it. He had risked his own safety and pain-free existence to protect them and others, and he had done it to a level no one had ever witnessed before.
“What else can you do?” Hermina asked.
“Not much more,” he said, unassumingly.
Several of those around the fire grinned at him skeptically; others rejected that assertion with unintelligible muttering.
When it quieted, Bailey showed just how well she knew her original guardian and how much admiration she held for him.
“He recognizes their weaknesses before most others,” she said quietly. “And therefore he knows how to crush the threat before others. That is Eran’s greatest strength.”
As murmured agreements followed, I also found myself nodding.
It was innate in him. He analyzed, planned, and then acted. And what he was searching for in his analyses was an opening, a breach to enter where he would face as little resistance as possible in getting done what he needed to do. He did it when he fought, and he did it with me.
“And now that I’ve been completely exposed, I have no surprises left at my disposal,” Eran said. “Thank you, Bailey.”
It took only a few tense moments before we realized he was teasing and broke out in laughter. When it died down, Eran became serious again. “Bailey is correct. Every person, Fallen One or otherwise, has a limitation, a disadvantage. Seek it out and you will find your advantage.” Interestingly, from my peripheral vision, I caught Eran speaking directly to me.
“Splendid tip!” Alban shouted, raising his mug to Eran.
The rest around the fire did the same and before long we were on to another conversation. Understanding that the history lesson about Eran was over, we began to recount the most epic battles against Fallen Ones, beginning another long list of stories that led us into the night.
The moon began its rise over the horizon not long after and about that time I yawned. When I stood and headed for the tent, Eran did the same. I had every intention of going to bed without beginning another conversation. Unfortunately, as the tent flap fell closed and I heard Eran behind me, the words seemed to come out of nowhere. “I see you’re tired too, Eran.”
When he replied there was no humor in his tone. “You know why I’m here, Magdalene.”
To watch over me… as always, I thought, remaining conflicted by my desire to have him near and drive him away.
We reached my bed in silence, with only the crunch of our feet against the dirt floor and our tension to fill the air. But once there, I found myself unable to lie down.
The prickle started at the base of my skull and rapidly flared across the length of my neck. By that point, my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t curl them into fists and my lungs didn’t seem capable of drawing a breath.
With my back to him and in the dim light, Eran had no idea what was happening. So when I stopped before slipping into bed, he took the opportunity to speak.
“There is a reason why I let them tell their stories about me tonight, Magdalene. Praise is of little value to me so can you think of another motive for my allowing it?” I didn’t respond because I couldn’t, so he answered his own question. “It was for you. Shun me if you wish. Avoid me. Deny me. Do what you will. But as you do it, learn about them, those who are coming for you. Learn what makes them weak, strong, their habits and idiosyncrasies. Because if you are intent on protecting yourself, you will need to do it to the fullest measure.”
This time when I didn’t respond, it seemed I was conceding, and he seemed taken aback by it. It was understandable. I very rarely did.
The truth was I couldn’t formulate a response. I was too focused on breathing, and on controlling my hand on its way to the rapier at my waist.
“What I don’t think you’ve grasped yet, Magdalene, is that you’ve changed the entire cycle. Until you, we would kill them and they would return. Until you, they were safe. You, Magdalene, are their weakness. So what I need is for you to listen to me, to trust my judgment so that when I say you are in danger you believe that you are, in fact-”
“In danger.”
The voice came out of the dark as a guttural whisper, covering Eran’s words like a sinister blanket.
But Eran didn’t hesitate. He didn’t step back in shock. He didn’t scramble for his weapon. It was already in his hand.
The length of Eran’s sword flew by my left hip suddenly, stabbing into the darkness that ran the entire distance of the tent.
A grunt followed it.
“Thank you,” Eran exhaled, his arm remaining poised outward, refusing to withdraw. “I was waiting for you to speak so I could get an angle on you.”
If I could have caught my breath, I would have laughed.
Eran had known we weren’t alone.
“Are you planning on making a solid-sized cavity in me now?” the voice asked, mockingly.
It didn’t sound like its owner was in pain. This alarmed me, and I went back to calming myself through slow intakes
of air. I had a momentary lapse when I saw Eran’s sword rise and I knew the Fallen One wasn’t dying. It was hovering.
“Your control over metal is useless,” the voice hissed. “You’ll have to work at finding my weakness…”
While I was jostled by the fact the Fallen One had been lurking in the tent long enough to have listened to our conversation outside, Eran seemed undisturbed.
“Show yourself,” he commanded, waiting to sheath his sword before it did.
The Fallen One came forward, emerging from the shadows leisurely. He was squat with a beard trimmed to the contours of his round face. Long, lean grey appendages effortlessly kept him aloft as darkly tanned, meaty limbs dangled from his body. His grin was mocking, challenging, because the cut where Eran’s sword had made contact was already healing.
“Seti,” Eran said, his tone thick with sarcasm.
“Eran.”
“Still dealing human skulls on the black market?” Eran asked.
“I’ve moved on. A few of your men made it…impossible…to continue.”
“Which explains why your trail went cold in Venice. And what do you deal in now?”
“The full human head,” he replied flatly. “The heads of Messengers are becoming highly valued these days, in fact.”
Eran’s hands tightened into fists. However, Seti’s threat didn’t affect me. I was concentrating on what he had just admitted to.
It’s not over? I questioned. Eran was correct? Horace wasn’t the only one taking the lives of Messengers?
Dazed and considering whether I’d misheard Seti, I asked, “You’ve taken another messenger’s life?”
“I did,” he confirmed, free of remorse. “Made a decent sized coin off of it. Would have had the one Horace took too, but he beat me to it. Not to worry…I’ve found another…”
A wicked grin spread across his face. When he turned that grin on me, the prize he sought, Eran didn’t wait to react. One second he was beside me, the next he was in the air, becoming a blurred shadow as he went after Seti.
The two of them collided, hurdling Seti backwards, through the tent wall. A tearing sound and the emergence of light from the outside told me that they were no longer inside with me.
I jerked my shoulders forward, expanding my back, and activating my appendages for release. They sprang outward just as I took my first lunging step toward the hole. Luckily the rip was wide enough to permit the length of my wings because they were fully extended as I flew through it and into the night.
Already they were hundreds of yards away, dancing a sick game of dodging fists, twisting and writhing for the upper hand in the glare of the full moon.
I pumped my appendages harder and cleared the tent roof just as the whoosh of wind against others’ appendages met my ears. Peering over my shoulder, I found Heath, Alban, Claudius, and Caius directly behind me.
We aren’t alone so this should be easy, I thought.
But as Eran took hold of Seti and dove toward the earth, we lost them in the trees. My heart lurched into my throat at the sight of it.
We plummeted in the direction they had gone, flying so hard through the limbs that I felt the tug and scrape of branches down my face and arms.
But when my feet hit the compacted dirt, there was no struggle within our surrounding area.
All of us glanced around, searching for any sign of Eran or Seti, but there was nothing. They were moving too fast for us.
Without a word, we came to a consensus and launched ourselves into the air. Racing into the sky, we sought height this time, almost reaching the clouds in an attempt to broaden our search area.
“Go back, Magdalene,” Claudius instructed.
“No.”
“We have this under control.”
“No, you don’t.”
“He’ll be all right,” Heath assured, and I was briefly jarred. They knew how I felt about him? For a fleeting second, I felt transparent.
“He better be,” I muttered and dropped toward the earth.
When I tipped my head up, they were moving east, assuming I was following their orders to return to safety. I could see the fires of our camp. It would take less than ten seconds if I were fast about it. But I wasn’t going in that direction.
Feeling like we would have seen them if Eran or Seti had left the area, I circled back to the wooded hillside where they had disappeared. Stopping there, I hovered just over the treetops, listening, waiting.
Below me was the river where Eran and I bathed, sparkling in the moonlight like a strand of diamonds. And then the strand was broken, a strip of black formed where there shouldn’t have been one.
I tucked my appendages back and plunged toward that break. The wind whistled in my ears and snapped my clothes back to the point of nearly tearing. Neither mattered to me after I saw two bodies in the midst of a fight.
I landed with a splash directly beside them, my rapier in hand, poised to thrust. But it was Eran on top, holding Seti beneath the water.
“You’re too close, Magdalene,” he shouted, water streaming down his face and spraying beads from his lips.
He was correct. Seti took a swipe at me but the water slowed him down. As his hand passed by, I stabbed my rapier through it, pinning it to the river’s bottom.
Seti stopped his thrashing then. The water settled and the faint moonlight shone on the man’s face, revealing a wretched smile.
“It’s not suffocation,” Eran muttered to himself, as if he were checking off a list, and hauled Seti out of the water.
I pulled my sword free and followed Eran, who dragged Seti into the air toward camp.
This seemed like an odd choice at first. There would be people, reborns, nearby. But I realized as I followed that Eran was strategic. Everything he did had a reason. And what he was doing now was searching for Seti’s weakness.
When we reached the outskirts, Seti began his fight again, and it grew more impassioned as the distance between him and camp contracted.
Why? I wondered, searching for whatever it was that sent Seti into fury. Why?
There was nothing but canvas tents, a dirt ground, a few bushes and a fire.
I gasped when I saw it.
The fire…I realized. Seti’s weakness was fire.
As Eran fought to hold onto Seti’s writhing body, I flew ahead, skirting the ground to avoid being seen by those in the larger camp. I elevated myself just once, inclining my appendages as I soared over the flames and scooped up a flaming branch. Turning back, I found Eran had just dragged Seti into the camp. They were grunting and writhing with such ferocity they didn’t see me.
It didn’t matter that Seti still glistened from the water or that his clothes were wet enough to drip a trail across the ground. As the flaming branch touched his skin, landing directly on his writhing arm, he was instantly consumed by the flames. Eran released him and Seti fell to his knees where he opened his mouth to scream.
But he was too late.
The fire took him, roaring into a blazing mound.
He had just fallen forward when Hoffstedler appeared with the rest of the messengers behind him.
“Are you hurt?” Bailey asked, rushing to Eran’s side.
Eran and I were bent at the waist, bracing ourselves against our knees, catching our breath. Both of us shook our heads but I had a feeling she was singling out one of us, and it wasn’t me. One look at her told me that she was loyal to Eran and cared more than she should for her original guardian.
“They’re safe,” Hoffstedler announced to those at his back. “She’s safe.”
I evaluated Eran nonetheless, just as he did with me.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, leaving Bailey to urgently cross the few paces between us and lift my face delicately to the firelight.
“You’re not. How is that possible?”
Bailey watched with intensity as he touched me, yet again, in her presence.
He was still cupping my jaw, tilting it from side to side, when he answered.
“Guardians heal rapidly. It’s one of the criteria for acceptance. We need to get these cleaned up.”
“Not yet,” I said.
Something needed to be said to the messengers and guardians who were beginning to gather around Seti’s singed body, something that would change the way they thought about Fallen Ones forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY: REVELATIONS
I REALIZED AS OUR CAMP GATHERED that there were more of us now. The familiar faces of messengers and the unknown faces of their guardians drifted in from the darkness. Having just arrived, they seemed inquisitive about what had happened only moments earlier. When I turned to face the growing group, I could hear their murmurs and caught sight of their gestures toward Eran and me.
We had just ended the life of a Fallen One and that was most certainly cause for chatter. It was common enough for a guardian to send a Fallen One back to the point of renewal, but never before had a messenger assisted and never before had she sent that Fallen One to a place where he would not return.
Their questioning gazes trailed from me to Eran and back to him as we strode toward them.
“You two did this?” Stoyan asked, pointing to the smoldering lump that had been Seti’s body. He wore the same befuddled expression he’d had in the afterlife when I successfully completed Daniel and Jacob’s treacherous course through the jungle.
“Yes,” Eran said.
“Unaided by other guardians?” he pressed.
“Yes.”
Stoyan’s eyes shifted to me where they lingered with perplexity.
“Without the help of any other guardians?” Darya asked, just as baffled.
Before Eran could interject and defend his men and women, I answered. “Seti attacked quietly, standing in wait until we were alone. The guardians didn’t know we were in trouble until it was too late. They tried to catch up to Eran, but he had a good head start and became lost in the night.”
Jerod’s forehead puckered as he asked, “Then how did you find him?”
My answer was simple and completely honest. “Luck.”
Eran’s head was turned my way and I could almost feel the gratitude coming from him.