by Laury Falter
A long pause told me that they had come to an impasse.
Claudius ventured one final suggestion. “Sir, allow me to become her guard-”
“No.”
“Please, Sir.”
“I can handle this.”
Silence from Claudius confirmed his doubts. As it droned on, the pain in my stomach grew worse. His friends, my friends, our greatest confidants were opposed to our feelings for each other.
It was rational. I grasped their reasoning. Having feelings for someone you are guarding distracts and potentially jeopardizes the person you are intending to protect and the person handling the protection. So why did my heart feel like it was sinking?
Taking control of the conversation, Eran’s tone turned commanding. “You will not address me on this subject again, Claudius.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said, but it was spoken reluctantly.
By the time Eran came through the tent flap, I was lying down and my eyes were closed. I didn’t open them, not even when I heard him stop beside me and kneel. Seconds passed and I imagined he was evaluating me. Then a lock of my hair was moved gently from where it had landed against my nose, sadly tickling me inside. I heard him shift and felt his lips press lightly against mine. It was fleeting, a good night gesture, and had they stayed any longer I would have given in to my desire to tilt into them. When they were gone, I heard him settle back against the bed next to me and I felt his stare.
I wanted to talk to him and let him know I heard the conversation, but to what end? What Claudius had said had been correct. Our feelings for each other were as much a threat to him as they were to me. Therefore, I didn’t acknowledge him, but I sensed his mind racing right up until I found myself in the afterlife, certain he would come to the very same conclusion as me…
There was no hope for us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: BOOK OF DOSSIERS
THE NEXT MORNING I AWOKE TO more sound than I expected. The camp should have been quiet with the messengers and guardians, save for a few sentries, still in their beds. What I heard sounded like the fluff of tent fabric falling and being folded.
I slipped on my boots and picked up my sword before leaving my bed. On exiting the tent, I found my assumption was correct. The camp suddenly looked barren. With the tents gone or flattened along the ground the hills beyond them to the west and the other camp to the east were exposed.
The messengers and guardians were departing.
Witnessing it brought out another round of sadness. I’d dealt with grief over Eran while in the afterlife all night, now I awoke to find my friends leaving too.
“You’re back,” Hermina commented appearing next to me and placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I didn’t see you in the hall,” I said, referring to where I’d just been. “Any of you…”
“We didn’t sleep.”
My head fell to the side in astonishment. “Any of you?”
“We thought we’d start on getting back to our lives,” she explained kindly.
“Yes, right, of course…,” I staggered.
“It’s been…interesting,” she said carefully before surveying the camp. “And I doubt it’ll end any time soon.”
I knew she was referring to the Fallen Ones and how the revelations would now haunt us until we left this earth.
“If you need me, I’ll be here,” I said.
“I know,” she replied casually, not needing to look my way in order to reinforce it. “We will be too.”
Another tent ballooned out as the spikes were pulled free of it, bulging like a mushroom before settling loosely onto the dirt.
“Have you seen Eran today?” she asked.
The sound of his name sent a buzz through my stomach.
“No, have you?”
She tipped her head to the side and stepped out from the way of his view.
He was just beginning to swivel his head in our direction as she did and our gazes met. In reaction, every muscle in me tightened.
While Hermina continued her stroll, Eran walked to me. His expression was inquisitive and lit with excitement after seeing me.
“Hello,” he said, discarding the traditional ‘good morning’.
“Hello,” I replied, unable to keep the passion from my voice.
As he reached me, he rotated around to watch the activity, as he had been doing from his previous position. “They’re almost finished,” he assessed.
“Yes, they are,” I said awkwardly, wondering if he was going to mention his conversation with Claudius. Bracing myself, I hinted, “They’ll be saying goodbye soon.”
“Yes, they will,” he agreed flatly. There was no insinuation as to him doing the same.
A throat clearing drew our attention to someone behind us and we found Enderl approaching.
“You’ve recovered,” I said.
He gave me a shaky smile.
“That’s quite a demonstration of your resilience in having done it so quickly,” Eran commented. “Is the rest of your camp in the process of searching for those who attacked us?”
He was keeping up the guise for the sake of the man’s innocence, which was an effort I respected.
“I hope not,” said Enderl, shifting the book he was clutching. “I don’t think they’d have a chance against Fallen Ones.”
Instantly, Eran and I bristled. Our backs went straight and our necks tensed at this reborn’s acknowledgement of that name.
“Your attackers weren’t nobles with contraptions or giant beasts trained to do their bidding,” he said hesitantly. “They were winged men and women.”
Neither Eran nor I spoke. My mind raced to determine ways to repair the damage done to this man’s awareness, while I imagined Eran doing the same.
“They are the reason I am here, in fact.”
He shifted the book in his hands and held it out to us. I took it and lifted the cover to the first page. On it was a sketch of me. Beneath it was a paragraph, which I promptly read.
Birth Name: Friedricha Schaffhausen. Messenger Name: Magdalene. Partner to Eran (Guardian). Average of five feet with petite body structure. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Appears to be in late teens but projects greater maturity. Speaks articulately. Leadership skills, though defers to others until issue is significant. Has a “bounty” on head? Excels with swords, carries rapier with gold and silver handle. Frequently argues with Partner. Prefers rolls for breakfast. Unable to cook.
“What is this?” I asked, hearing my voice come out as an order.
“A book of dossiers on you and everyone here,” Enderl replied earnestly. “Not to worry, your secrets are safe with me.”
“Why?”
“Recitation is my profession. I record…things. This time, however, my records have far more significance, of the earth-shattering kind. I don’t want them to fall into the wrong hands, so to speak.”
“You mean our enemies’ hands?” Eran asked.
Enderl nodded. “I’ve come to realize your enemies are my enemies.”
“Thank you, Enderl,” Eran said extending his hand to the man. They shook and Eran added, “What will you do now?”
Enderl appraised the camp where only two nights ago every one of us had nearly lost our lives. “I think,” he said pondering out loud, “that it would behoove me to begin dossiers on the Fallen Ones.”
Even though the evidence of our fight was almost completely gone, the memory lingered, and I immediately saw the genius in Enderl’s endeavor.
He shrugged. “One never knows. It might be of benefit some day.”
He then dug his hands deep into his pocket, rotated on his heel, and ambled back in the direction of his camp.
We watched him until he disappeared behind a tent.
“I should have known,” Eran chuckled. “He was curious about us from the start.”
A breeze drifted through the small valley then, rustling the book’s pages. Drawing my attention, I looked down in time to see them flip to the next dossier. It was Eran’s. The
sketch was a remarkable likeness. Swiftly, I read through the paragraph analyzing him before he could subtly take the book from me.
Birth Name: Thomas Jurgen. Guardian Name: Eran. Partner to Magdalene (Messenger). Average of six, possibly six and a half feet, with strapping build. Brown hair. Aqua eyes. Appears to be in his late teens but presents himself as older, more experienced. Patient, sound judgment, capable with strategy, organization. Foresees challenges. Has the respect of his peers. Best swordsman I’ve come across. Doesn’t sleep often. Has strong feelings for “ward” (Magdalene).
“Has strong feelings…,” I mumbled while continuing to stare at the book.
Eran already had it in his hands and was slowly closing the cover.
I had a feeling he was grateful when Jeremiah and Hermina approached us to say farewell. She would be seeing me later in the hall, but she embraced Eran while Jeremiah gave us a formal nod of respect. They then plodded up the hill, under the dead trees and out of sight.
From that point, the exodus began.
As the messengers and guardians left, they sought us out and we said our goodbyes under the pressure of their curious stares. All but Hermina seemed to find Eran’s decision to stand beside me as inappropriate. Yet when we were the last ones left in camp with only the hushed noise coming from the camp beside us, Eran turned to me.
“I have something to say.” He didn’t seem overly pleased by it and my mind immediately returned to his conversation with Claudius the night before.
“All right,” I said before bracing myself.
“I’m well aware of others’ perspectives on the subject of my commitment to remain at your side, but I am not in the habit of kowtowing to others, Magdalene. You of all people know that.”
He expected me to agree with him and when I didn’t, it threw him off guard. “So Claudius failed to convince you?”
He blinked. “You overheard our conversation?”
“Enough of it,” I admitted.
He seemed unsettled by that fact but recovered quickly.
“I am not about to let someone else step in as your guardian. If they failed, they would have to deal with me and they would not survive that encounter.”
“I see. You do realize-”
“That I’m not your guardian?” he finished for me. “Magdalene,” he said stiffly, “we just witnessed the most volatile attack by Fallen Ones in the history of existence. They know that you are a threat to them and that makes them a threat to you. Regardless of our emotions, my responsibility is you, in the care of your safety and continued existence.”
Gone now were his inhibitions over declaring me as his ward or his concern over my refusal. He had seen what the Fallen Ones could do and he wasn’t going to concede to them…or to me. Whether I liked it or not, whether I appreciated it or not, he was my guardian now.
He drew in a heavy breath, which made me even more nervous. “With that having been said, I do take my position seriously, which means…” He closed his eyes as if what came next would be unavoidably painful. “My position will come before my feelings.”
He settled back and waited for me to digest this statement.
My initial reaction involved fighting back the sick pain in my stomach that had hit me last night. It returned full force but for a different reason. It was no longer our friends arguing against our feelings for each other, it was Eran. And I unequivocally understood why.
“Because you’ve never seen the point of emotions. They act contrary to the purpose of your actions. In fact, they make a person act sloppy.”
The recollection of our brief conversation so many months ago flashed across his face. He had said those very same words to me, and realizing it made me sicker.
He had warned me this would happen months earlier.
Reverting back to his stoic demeanor, he straightened his shoulders. “That’s correct. I cannot…you cannot…afford me to be sloppy.”
I felt like I was being stabbed, yet I couldn’t show it.
Doing my best to project some form of poise, I tipped my head farther back to look him squarely in the eyes.
“Friends,” I said, my voice cracking as I restated his decision.
“Friends,” he agreed, plainly.
The only hint that he hurt as much about this arrangement as I did was in his expression as he turned away from me.
It was filled with unmistakable agony.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: PASSING
MANY YEARS LATER ON JUNE, 5, 1525…
I lay with my eyes closed, listening to the staggered breathing entering and leaving my fragile body. Drawing air was getting more difficult now. I could feel the pressure in my chest and every so often I heard the gurgle of fluid in my lungs. My limbs felt weighted too, as if a hand was pressing against each of them to tell me not to worry about using them. They could do nothing for me now.
I opened my eyes to a blurred vision and blinked with vigor to clear my sight. It helped, a little. I could scarcely distinguish the grey lock of hair cascading across my right shoulder. It was as frail as I had become.
Something moved across the light, like a cloud drifting in front of the sun, and I turned my head toward it.
“How are you feeling, little felon?” a voice asked. It had been decades since I’d heard it and yet I knew it instantly.
“I’m ready, Lorencio, I’m ready…”
He laughed through his nose. “You look it.”
Then it was me laughing through my nose. “What are you doing here?”
“As you know, life on earth drags along at a snail’s pace.”
I smiled weakly, knowing the truth of that statement.
“Which means,” Lorencio continued, “that I won’t be seeing you for some time.”
“You came to see me off. That’s kind of you,” I said and had to draw a rattling breath to recover from my long-winded response.
A more boisterous voice entered the room then, bouncing off the walls as the man approached. “Nonsense. She can handle two men in battle, then she can handle two in conversation,” Alban shouted and then appeared at my side.
“You’ll need to excuse my ward,” Lorencio muttered, frowning. “He left his sense of propriety at the door, as usual.”
“My heaven,” Alban gasped, coming into view at the foot of my bed. “Your body here hasn’t kept up nearly as well as the one over there.”
“You look only slightly better,” I commented, noting his robust beard was now grey.
He grinned, which was buried in his mountain of hair. “I bet them we’d make it here before you passed.”
“We?”
“We,” he declared with a nod. “I’ll bring them in! They can better pay their debt that way!” Again, he flashed a grin, shifting his massive beard upward.
As Alban left to round up my visitors, I heard him demand payment from Caius.
“Is this her first passing, Sir?” Cilla’s asked faintly amidst the murmur of Caius and Alban’s arguing. She too had entered the room, judging by the nearness of her voice.
“It is,” Eran responded, his voice distinct, his alluring accent just as clear but grainy now with age. It stirred me now just as it had done all the times before.
Cilla stopped where Alban had been. She looked like she wanted to say something but time had changed me and it took a moment for her to recover. She had aged too, now being well into adulthood and with looser skin over her defined muscles. By then, Ganzorig appeared beside her. Only then did I recognize the scent of roses in the air.
I breathed it in and said, “Thank your ward for me.”
Ganzorig snorted. “Jerod’s changing the air for himself.”
“Good point,” I muttered and smiled anyways.
More bodies moved into the room, some coming close enough for me to recognize.
“Hello, Gorgeous,” Heath said, grinning. He stopped next to Cilla and knelt to eye-level before giving me a piercing look. “You still have those big beautiful brown eye-”
Eran cleared his throat from the door and Heath’s demeanor snapped to a more formal manner. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s nice to see you too, Heath.” I looked around the room. While I could no longer see as far as I would have liked, some faces were visible. Behind them were the fuzzy outlines of bodies, shifting to make room for others who were still entering. “How many of you have come?”
Cilla shrugged. “Everyone.”
“Which wouldn’t have been likely without you…,” another guest said, coming into view. “Hello Messenger.”
“Hello Jeremiah…”
“Passed a Fallen One on the way here,” he remarked and all heads turned in his direction. “He didn’t bother with me. Slipped out of sight before I could cause him any trouble.”
Cilla then complemented his story with one of her own. “Saw one just the other day,” she said. “We encountered each other on the road. He kept his head down until we’d passed.”
“One lives nearby me,” Caius said. “She catches me at the river every once in a while but leaves the moment I come into sight.”
More examples of our enemies fleeing came up and it reinforced in me that these people, my friends, would be safe. Their enemies had been tamed and they could live peacefully from this point forward.
The time came when the room grew quiet and Heath flattered me with a compliment.
“You’re to thank for it, Magdalene.”
“Eran, he’s the one to thank.”
“The Colonel too,” he agreed.
My gaze moved around the room, appreciating their presence. “I’m glad you all came.”
From there, they said their goodbyes. All of them were guardians, who would remain on earth after I had passed. Their messengers I would be seeing tonight in the hall.
None of them wished me a peaceful passing, already knowing it would be. Instead, they told me that they would stop in for a visit when they made it back themselves. For a recluse like me, that was extraordinary.
As they rotated through and the number of them dwindled, I wished in that moment to relive my life again and I knew the pull that drew others to multiple lives on earth. It was the people I met, the friends I made, and the love I’d experienced. Nothing else was greater, more profound, or life-altering.