The message drew to a close, and the guard on the right, supposedly Randolph, nodded once, though he didn't look happy about the orders.
Randolph led them into the city and around the sharp bend Cianna had seen earlier. It wasn't until they were around the corner that an impossibly large city opened up before them. The front half of the city was so tall that Cianna got dizzy just looking up at some of the buildings. In the middle, nearest the Mountains, was the Guardian's Palace, a towering building with many domed roofs, blazing green in the hot sun.
Behind the palace, cut deep into the face of the mountain, lay the rest of the city. Trails and paths led back into the mountain at ground level, creating a hidden city of sorts. Up the face of the mountain traced roads and openings where there were more homes, open on the face of the mountain with nothing but curtains keeping those that walked the paths from the houses.
Everywhere Cianna looked the buildings were open, with nothing but vibrantly colored cloths shifting in a slight breeze.
“Don't they ever worry about rain or thieves getting in?” Cianna asked.
“It's not something that happens. People here help one another. The desert is an unforgiving creature; they work more like a family than like separate households,” Flora told her.
Nearly an hour later, traversing the winding, downhill roads toward the city center, the guard led them to a small yard surrounding the palace. It was the first bit of green grass that Cianna had seen yet, and it encircled the entire palace. Beyond the gate, inside the yard, there was a large white fountain where people could come and gather water as they needed it.
Randolph stopped before a palace guard, and charge of Cianna's group changed hands. The guard pushed aside the golden curtain that served as a front door and led them inside.
They went up so many halls and stairs that Cianna nearly got lost, before they stopped at one room that held a set of the only doors Cianna had seen since entering the city.
The doors opened, and there was a small sitting room beyond with a table that took up nearly the entire length of it. Standing, framed in the red glow of a curtained window, was Azra Akeed, the Guardian of the Realm of Fire.
Her clothing was light, her upper half barely covered in a bright orange fabric, while voluminous skirts of gauzy material hung from her waist. Her feet were bare, and her curly brown hair was swept back and twisted down her back with yellow and orange scarves intertwined with the locks of her hair.
She turned when they entered, her full red lips parting in a smile as she saw her niece. She stepped down from the window frame and came to them, setting a stone goblet on the table as she passed.
“Flora!” she said, embracing her niece. “It is so nice to see you!”
“Aunt, I have missed you,” Flora said, returning the embrace.
“It has been too long,” Azra agreed. “Come, you must all be famished.”
It was only when the Realm Guardian mentioned it that Cianna noticed the table was set with stone plates, goblets, a decanter of crystal clear water, cold meats and fresh fruits.
Devenstar made sure to place Clara in a chair at the table, even though she wouldn't be eating. It was difficult for Cianna to think of Clara as a living person in her catatonic state, and it made eating with her that much stranger because Cianna couldn't help feel like she was dining with the dead.
Cianna tried hard to school herself as she sat down at her spot. She didn't overload her plate with food as Devenstar and Pi did. Though she went back several times, Cianna ate slowly so she wouldn't embarrass herself or make herself sick.
“There is a restlessness,” Azra said, setting down her goblet of water. “Do you feel it, Flo?”
“I suspected it was the Well of Wyrding,” Flora answered her aunt.
“That's how it started, but the well is cleansed now. Meditate on the restlessness tonight and tell me what you feel. To the west gathers a great power. A dark power. And many people have been spotted traveling there, past the Barrier Mountains.”
“But past the Barrier Mountains is nothing but mist and ocean!” Flora argued.
Azra nodded. “Yet there is something more. Something not of the realm of man. I feel it like a dark annoyance on my conscious, though the power itself isn't chaotic. It is unknowable, enigmatic.”
“What do you think it is?” Cianna asked.
“Something I've never felt before, energy of a sort much alien to mankind,” Azra told her. “And there is more.”
“More?” Flora asked.
“The other Realm Guardians have reported uprisings concerning sorcerers much like I find here. Sorcerers aren't welcome in cities, even now that the well is mending. Something is coming. Something dark.”
Flora closed her eyes. “We have seen nothing of this hostility toward sorcerers.”
“Of course you wouldn't, you are but travelers without a web of intelligence at your fingertips. Us Guardians sense something is out there, a gathering force. The well brought back the caustic sorcerers, but there are alarist too, and they are coming into the light, laying waste to small towns and villages.”
“How could we not have known?” Flora asked.
“How could you have?” Azra asked. “It is for this reason I will not allow you to stay here. I fear you aren't safe even within my walls.”
“So tomorrow we head to the Desert of the Trostly'n,” Flora said, resigned to staying somewhere away from her aunt. “Maybe after a short rest we can make our way back to the school.”
“But the school was destroyed,” Pi said. “What if we go back and it’s a trap, full of those hunters?”
“Then we take it back,” Flora said. “I'm sure it didn't fall completely; we will need to help rebuild. There will be plenty of things we can do.” Flora sighed deeply. “We should never have left.”
“There is word from the north that even a Guardian there is under some kind of attack,” Azra said.
“What?” Cianna asked, nearly coming to her feet. “I stay with them, they are my mothers.”
Azra nodded. “Sara Bardoe is ailing; there is talk that she might not make it.”
“But she is a sorceress — how can she die?” Deven asked.
“The only way I know of is by beheading, but her health fails more and more every day.”
“I need to get back to her,” Cianna said. “I need to leave now!”
“But you can't!” Pi said. “The Necromancers’ Mosque is so close! You have to finish!”
“Necromancer?” Azra asked, looking sidelong at Cianna. “That is about a day’s travel from here, into the mountains.”
Cianna sat speechless.
“I can send an escort with you,” Azra said.
“No, I need to go the last way alone.” Cianna wasn't sure how she knew that, but she did. The last leg of her journey into the mountains had to be alone.
“In other news,” Azra said, trying to change the conversation for the better. “It appears the Shadow Realm has a new Guardian also. She has actually sent word to us!”
“What?” Flora asked. “Shadow Realm Guardians have never communicated with the outside realms.”
“It's because she isn't from the Shadow Realm. She is from the Holy Realm, and she has made her intentions clear that communication, travel, and maybe even trade should be in the talks between the rest of the Realms and hers.” Azra looked bewildered.
“And that's something you don't want?” Pi asked.
“On the contrary, I think it would be good to work with them. I can't say how the other Guardians will respond, but it should be interesting. She has even asked for a meeting of all of us, and wondered if such a thing happened regularly.”
“Does it?” Cianna asked.
“Once every year or so we all meet in the Ivory City to discuss realm politics. It will be nice for Joya to join us.”
“Wait, what is her name?” Cianna asked.
“Joya LaFaye,” Azra said, and when everyone gasped, she smiled. “Yes, it
seems as though the LaFayes didn't die out as we expected, though I don't know everything about it. She has been chosen by the realm, though.”
The name struck Cianna harder than all the others. Joya was her cousin. Granted, not someone she had ever met, but her cousin all the same. Her shock wasn't at the name, however, because she was LaFaye herself.
Flora was studying her from across the table. The name hadn't affected the teacher either, because she knew Cianna's true heritage.
Cianna hadn't given much thought to the Shadow Realm before, but now that her cousin was taking the reins of that place, she couldn't help but wonder what it was like. She had avoided it when she came this way, though it would have made her journey much shorter. She just couldn't imagine staying in the land of perpetual night.
But now that Joya was the Guardian, and working on opening communication across her borders, maybe travel to the Shadow Realm wasn't out of the question any longer.
As conversation continued around the table, Cianna's thoughts turned inward. She wanted desperately to get back to the Realm of Earth and check on Sara. But Pi was right — before she did that, she had to finish her pilgrimage.
Could the world outside be getting darker, as Azra had said? The well had created a lot of hostilities — they had heard rumors, and even been attacked themselves — but she’d thought it would stop when it was cleansed. But then there was the burned-out caravan. She was certain that had happened ages ago, but what about the one town they traveled past with the slain people? It could have been bandits, but there had been a sense of wyrd about the place, they had all felt it, and the souls whispered of a darker dread.
Alarists. Was it true? Cianna didn't want to believe it, because if alarists were starting to come out of hiding, that could only mean one thing.
They felt the power of Arael growing.
She closed her eyes and tried to feel for her father. At times she could feel the power of her mother, Pharoh, close to her. Cianna remembered being a baby and placing the soul of her mother in the medallion. Her cousins had that medallion now, and Pharoh's work lived on. What she wouldn't give to hold the medallion though, feel the new body of her mother in her embrace, especially when there was talk of Arael.
Like a shimmering presence, she could feel the hint of her mother in her mind. She knew this was real, she could feel the hint of Pharoh stretched thin, as if she were reassuring her daughter from miles away. If she tried, Cianna could even picture where her mother was. Right now the medallion was safe, and in the Holy Realm. Who it was with she couldn't tell, she could only get feelings of where it was and if it was in danger.
Then she tried to reach out to her father. She didn't want to do it, because Cianna didn't want to draw his attention. She could only imagine what he would do if he knew where she was. Cianna didn't want to picture the destruction of Bahagresh like that other city had been destroyed: dead bodies hung from the wagons, children burning in campfires, animals disemboweled.
Cianna shuddered, but just before she stopped her efforts in reaching Arael, she felt the suggestion of darkness far to the west, just as Azra had said.
In her mind she could almost see the sea of black-winged people before a large turquoise monument.
Everset stood before the waterfall of Nanta city, listening to the voice of her Master slip through the folds of her mind, like silk through winding fingers.
"Yes, Master," she whispered reverently. What he willed, she would do, always. Without question. She felt the spray of water on her face, and took pleasure in the feeling. She would be one of the last people to ever feel the spray of Nanta Falls on her skin.
She opened her eyes and peered through the veil of the waterfall to the city beyond. It was a busy time of day, people going here and there on their business. The structural issue of Nanta was that it rested beneath Nanta Lake, with nothing more than a crystal roof separating the city below from the gigantic lake above.
Everset Glade took the path to the side of the basin, and joined with people entering the city. The path leading up to the lake at the base of the falls split in two, the left side most often used for those entering the city, the right for those leaving the city. More people were entering today than were leaving, and she thought that was just fine indeed.
The left-hand path curved up around the small lake at the base of the waterfall and slipped around behind the curtain of water and into the large city. From outside the cavern city, it was hard to imagine something so large existing under the lake. But now that she was inside?
Everset stopped and gazed around herself in awe. Yurt homes stood all around in the open space, paths leading between them in a kind of natural street, though the homes looked like they had just been pitched like tents at a festival. Along the walls, stretching out of sight, were businesses; more permanent structures built of mortar, or hewn out of the side of the cave beneath Nanta Lake.
At the very back rose the huge jade dojo that housed the Child Guardian, Pyang Tseng. Everset had never seen him — being native to the Realm of Fire, she had little occasion to. Rumor said that the Realm of Water chose its Guardian at a young age, forcing them into their elemental trials before their tenth year of life; they would appear as nothing more than a child for all their days, though they would possess an intellect far beyond their years.
Over the din she heard the whistled signal. Amplified with wyrd, it thundered over the crowd. In her soul she felt the pleasure of her Master. Everset looked to the west, where she could feel the tether to her Master. She might never had the chance to meet him, but that was fine with her. What she had now pleased her to no end. Few people had the luxury of knowing what it felt like to die for a cause.
She was one of the lucky few.
The first tendril of alarist wyrd came from across the city, shuttling from the crowd of people to the diamond roof far overhead. Like a magenta firework, it burst against the diamond surface and showered back down. This one went largely unnoticed, though civilians nearby Everset stopped in their conversations or routines to look up. A few fingers pointed up, and a child started to clap, thinking it was fireworks.
Another magenta stream of wyrd rocketed toward the diamond dome, and people started to shift nervously. A child just getting out of hand?
Everset smiled as a royal blue stream of wyrd came from the opposite side of the city from the magenta one. People started to mill around nervously.
Everset saw the green wyrd join the mix of colors blasting the roof. This beam came from directly opposite her, near the dojo of the Child Guardian.
She looked up and saw a figure settling on the bottom of the lake, on the roof of the city. The royal blue cloak of the wearer settled on the surface, creating a stain like ink on the diamond.
That was her cue. Everset closed her eyes, drew in the chaotic power of her Master, and raised her dominant hand. A stream of yellow wyrd blasted painfully from her palm, showering the diamond roof with color that didn't stop. Everset knew the only way to accomplish what they wanted was to not send short bursts of wyrd, but long streams.
The other colors joined hers, sending up a constant blast of their own wyrd.
The figure in the water slammed its hand down on the diamond surface, and the thunder of the attack reverberated through the city.
The figure punched the diamond again, and people stumbled in the trembling that ensued.
Everset let out a yell, and poured more power into the wyrd until she thought she might burst apart.
With one last punch the diamond dome shattered and thousands of gallons of water rained down on Nanta city, cutting people to shreds in the debris of diamond. Citizens were dashed against walls, broken and beaten as tents came loose and swirled around the center of Nanta.
The shockwave of water rushed out of the city, overflowing the small lake that the waterfall showered into. As the small lake was filled with bodies of the dead and drowning, the waterfall went dry, and water sluiced out of the small basin to wash o
ut the land beyond the city.
Everset pushed her way out from under the dead bodies and swam to the edge of the basin.
A hand reached down for her, and she clasped it without knowing who it was helping her. One of her brethren, she figured.
It helped her stand, and she looked into the city, seeing the girl with the blue cloak floating in the center of all the carnage, like an angel trapped in gales of wind. Large black wings unfolded from her back, and she launched herself up through the shattered roof. With powerful beats of her wings, she drifted off, toward the west.
"Quite a display of power," her rescuer said, but it was strange, youthful. Everset turned, and the last image she saw before her head was taken from her body was the tousled black hair of a young boy in blue robes.
Pyang Tseng let the brunette's head tumble to the ground, the wash of blood from the stump of her neck tainting the water of the basin that had rested at the foot of the waterfall.
He looked deep into his city, the jade dojo standing in the back, unharmed, like a large headstone to the open grave that Nanta had become.
Three other figures pushed to the surface of the water, and the Child Guardian motioned for his sorcerers to seize them.
"I don't care if they aren't alarists; behead them all," he ordered. Pyang's justice was swift and merciless. The blood of the attackers washed over the dead bodies of his citizens, as if offering penance for the destruction they’d caused.
Pyang sat for some time, staring into the ruined city. How quickly things changed. He had been in the middle of drafting a letter to Azra Akeed when the first trembling came. He could sense the chaos on the air. He knew something was wrong, but before he had time to act, the entire roof had collapsed, washing his city away from him.
"Guardian," a female sorceress with silver hair bowed before him.
"Yes, Chyang?" he asked, wearily.
"What do we do now, Guardian?" she wondered. His other sorcerers knelt before him on the edges of the basin.
"So much death," he said. He closed his eyes against the wash of tears. How many kelpie would come from this attack? "We need to see to the clean-up," he told them.
A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) Page 16