The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  Merric stepped forward, and the guards clanged their spears together in warning. “I am Merric, the Guild Master’s son, and this is Scorch, the Sun Guardian. I demand you let us in to see the Queen. Her life depends on it! If you do not let us in, she will die!”

  Scorch groaned. “Oh no. Don’t listen to him,” he said, but it was too late. The guards slammed down their spears and bellowed out orders as soon as Merric’s mention of the Queen’s life had been made, and now they were both being seized by a surplus of guards.

  “Scorch, what’s happening?” Merric yelled in a panic as a huge guard began hauling them toward the barracks.

  Scorch sighed, letting the guard manhandle him down a gloomy set of stairs. “You, Merric, have gotten us arrested.”

  Apex

  24

  The palace dungeon was pretty nice, as far as dungeons went, and Scorch would know, since he’d frequented plenty of them. He wasn’t thrown rudely into a cage either. He and Merric were escorted to a roomy cell, complete with a mattress and chamber pot.

  With commendable calm, Scorch placed his hands on the bars and pled a final case to the guards. “Please, tell the Queen we have news of Axum.” It was all he could think to say that might pique her interest in two arrested gutter rats. “Tell her he’s coming, and he will have no compromise. Please.”

  One of the guards muttered something under his breath and stomped up the stairs, plunging Merric and Scorch into the dim dungeon light. The other guard remained, leaning against the far wall, looking bored.

  Merric shuffled close to Scorch and whispered, “I suppose you can’t elemental us out of here, can you?”

  Scorch rubbed at his neck, thinking about it. “I might could,” he admitted. “But let’s consider that a last resort.”

  Merric banged his head against the bars with an aggravated sigh. “Do you think they’ll tell her what you said?”

  “I don’t know. But if they do, even if she refuses to see us, at least she will have gotten a warning.” He looked askance at Merric. “We really should have gone over a list of things that shouldn’t be said to royal guards.”

  Merric rattled the bars pathetically. “Did I just play the ‘do you know who my father is’ card?”

  “You absolutely did,” Scorch confirmed.

  “Oh, Gods, that’s humiliating.”

  “Not as humiliating as it’s going to be when we have to share that chamber pot.” They glanced uneasily at the ceramic bucket in the corner.

  “Is this how your other guardianship went?” Merric asked.

  Scorch threw his head back and laughed. “Close enough,” he decided. “Usually there’s more blood, but it’s early yet.”

  “How long do you think the others will wait for us before they realize something’s wrong?”

  “They would have seen us getting arrested,” Scorch said. He could picture the look on Vivid’s face when their flimsy plan fell through, and it made him tighten his fingers around the cell bars. They grew hot beneath his hands and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. “Merric, we shouldn’t count on them to get us out of this.”

  The door from the top of the stairs creaked open and several sets of clunky boots began their descent down the steps.

  “What are you talking about?” Merric whispered. “Vivid would never leave you locked up in a palace dungeon.”

  “What are you talking about?” Scorch whispered back. “Vivid has been trying to shake me off since the moment we met and now is the perfect opportunity.” Three guards were clanging noisily down the steps and Scorch eyed them warily.

  “Look, I don’t know Vivid very well, but I know I can believe what I see with my own two eyes, and when I look at him, I see someone who would never leave you locked up in a palace dungeon, just like you wouldn’t leave him.”

  “Well, he’s not in love with me, is he?” Scorch spat. One of the guards dropped their keys while Scorch proceeded to have an inner meltdown, because he had just—in a roundabout way—admitted to Merric that he was in love with Vivid. Admitted, because it was something to admit, because it was something true. Sometime between being fake-strangled by him in the Circle and kissing him in the forest, that ill-tempered assassin had made Scorch fall in love with him, the stealthy bastard. “Gods,” he gasped, stricken by epiphany. “I’m in love with him.” He said it aloud, testing the way it sounded. It sounded really nice, if not heartbreakingly inconvenient.

  “Obviously,” Merric sighed just as the guard who’d dropped his keys moved toward their cell door. “Scorch,” he whispered, nodding toward the approaching, armored figure.

  Scorch resolved to continue his heart’s revelation later, preferably when there was alcohol on hand. “Did you tell the Queen what I said?” Scorch asked the nearest of the guards, but the guard kept his head down and fiddled with the set of keys, deaf to Scorch’s question. “Keeping us locked up is a mistake. We must speak with the Queen.”

  The guard finally settled on a key and inserted it into the cell lock. It clicked and the bars slid open with a loud, grating thrum. A moment later, bronze-gloved hands were grabbing Scorch’s arm and leading him up the barrack stairs. The two remaining guards grabbed Merric and pulled him along.

  “Scorch, where are they taking us?” Scorch heard Merric’s voice echoing as they left the dungeon.

  “Either to the Queen or to the stocks,” Scorch called to him. “Hope it’s the former.”

  The guards dragged them through the palace courtyard and up the steps. They entered an impressive foyer filled with paintings of plant life, and from there, they ascended a spiraling staircase. It was a beautiful palace, but not so grand it made Scorch feel out of place. There was a hominess to it, warmth that the High Priestess’ temple had irrefutably lacked.

  They stopped outside a golden door with a rose-crystal knob. One of the guards disappeared through the door, and was gone for—Scorch counted—fifty seconds. At the guard’s reappearance, Scorch and Merric were hustled into the room and the golden door was shut. The guards released them, but remained close, their hands on their weapons, ready to draw at any sign of malicious intent. Standing on the far side of the room, staring out a window, was the Queen.

  She was glamorous, with dark skin and eyes like honey. Her hair was swept in intricate coils atop her head, a circlet crown resting across her brow and bejeweling her forehead with garnet and amber. Her skin was smooth and belied hardly any signs of aging. Scorch decided she could be no older than thirty-five. Her posture, when she turned to look at the two men brought before her, was perfectly straight, her elegance exaggerated by the slimming cut of her trousers and button-up blouse. Her collar was stiff and embroidered with golden-threaded swirls. Not even the frown on her face could keep Scorch from gaping momentarily at her presence, and she seemed similarly moved by theirs. They stared at one another for a moment before she finally spoke, and, when she did, her voice was strong.

  “My guard tells me you bring word of Axum,” she said. “Is this true?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” answered Scorch.

  Her elbow rested on the windowsill, the late afternoon sun causing her circlet to glow as if on fire. “Do you work for him?”

  “No, Your Majesty.” It was Merric who spoke now. “We are from the Guardians’ Guild.”

  “Are you?” asked the Queen. “Because the last time I was visited with news of Axum, it was an assassin under the guise of a guardian.” Her eyes were sharp. “I did not care for that.”

  “We are not assassins, Your Majesty,” Scorch assured her. “And we don’t work for Axum.”

  “You look rough enough for an assassin,” she said.

  “I would make a terrible assassin, trust me.”

  She did not look like she believed him. “You do not have a missive from the Guild Master.”

  “No,” Merric said. “But for the sake of Viridor, you should listen to what we have to say, regardless.”

  The Queen looked out the window,
closing her eyes to the sunshine, and when she opened them again, Scorch could see her resolve. “Axum sent an assassin to me weeks ago,” she said, leaving the window and striding across the room to a decanter sitting on a silver tray. She poured a generous amount of amber liquid into a glass, and Scorch instantly recognized it as Guild-brewed whiskey. He jealously watched her take a sip and wondered how she’d gotten it. A gift from Master McClintock? “I had just received word of the High Priestess’ death. Not many know this, but the High Priestess had a rather large hand in the last twenty years’ ordinances concerning elementals.” Scorch fought to keep his face blank. “Axum believes her death was a sign from the Gods that the time for elementals to rule has come. He sent his assassin to gauge my reaction to this proposal.”

  Merric and Scorch remained silent for a moment, and then, too curious for his own good, Scorch asked, “And what was your reaction, Your Majesty?”

  “An assassin was standing in front of me,” the Queen responded plainly. “My reaction had to be the one that would let me keep my head. For the time being.”

  In the meeting at the Hollow Scorch had spied on, the assassin had reported to Axum that the Queen was swayable. “You would let a band of power-mad elementals take over Viridor?”

  “Do you fear elementals, Guardian?” the Queen asked.

  “Elementals are just people,” Scorch pointed out. “I don’t fear them. I fear small-mindedness.”

  “And Axum is small-minded?” She took another sip of her whiskey.

  “He’s taken hate shown to his kind and molded it into hate for others. Your Majesty, he’s coming to kill you and take your throne, and he’s coming soon.”

  The Queen downed the remainder of the whiskey and slammed the glass on the tray. “So you say. But why should I believe you? You come to me with no proof.”

  “My friend has not lied to you, Your Majesty,” Merric said. “He speaks only the truth.”

  “How would the Guild even know of such a plot? The Guild Master has never been so underhanded. Guardians don’t work in the shadows.”

  “Guardians and assassins can get along as well as humans and elementals,” spoke Scorch, losing as much patience as time. “They need only the opportunity to prove they’re not a threat to one another.”

  “For a guardian,” the Queen said, a thoughtfully tapping finger on her chin, “you sound rather supportive of elementals.”

  “All but the mad ones, Your Majesty,” Scorch allowed.

  Her face was doing something interesting. She had taken on the appearance of someone trying to mask the telltale signs of a mind working overtime. It was similar to looking upon Vivid’s face when Scorch pulled away from a kiss. He never minded it on Vivid, but from the Queen, it was wholly unsettling.

  “Let me make sure I understand you,” she said, taking a few languid steps in his direction. “You come here to warn me elementals are on their way to kill me, and in the next breath you defend elementals. Does this make sense to you?”

  Merric stirred uneasily beside him, but Scorch’s confidence was flaring in his chest, burning for the Queen to feel. “A group of murderous elementals plotting to assassinate the Queen will do nothing but worsen the relationship between elementals and humans,” he said. “It’s not what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want a lot of things,” he answered with a trace of bitterness. “But ranking high in my heart is the desire for elementals to live without being hunted and hated.”

  Perhaps the Queen had not been expecting such straightforwardness, because, for an instant, the cool facade slipped from her face and Scorch saw a flash of something he knew quite well. Guilt. “And the highest ranked desire in your heart?”

  Scorch flushed and Merric coughed beside him. “That is personal, Your Majesty.”

  “You will not tell me? Not even as a sign of trust?” She was baiting him, he knew, and it was almost playful. “Guardians do not support elementals. It is against the law. Who are you really? Why are you here?”

  “We are guardians, Your Majesty,” Merric insisted at the same time Scorch said, “I’m trying to make things better.”

  “You are keeping something from me,” the Queen said, sucking any air of levity from the room. “Tell me what it is, or I will have my guards throw you in the dungeon.”

  Scorch heard the guards moving behind him. He glanced at a lost-looking Merric, and an idea came to him, built by desperation and hope and utter idiocy, but they had to make the Queen believe them, they couldn’t afford to be locked up when Axum arrived. They may not have had proof the Guild sent them, but Scorch had unquantifiable proof that he not only knew what Axum was capable of, but also had the means to help stop him.

  He held out his palm and summoned a sphere of fire.

  The Queen staggered back, Merric groaned, and the three guards creaked and clanged as they shuffled, unsure of what action to take. A moment later, more guards burst through the door. Scorch closed his fist and snuffed out the fire before they could see.

  “Your Majesty,” one reported, out of breath. “Three of your sentinels have been found unconscious and stripped of their armor. Is everything alright in here?”

  Scorch held his breath. At his side, Merric was a din of nerves. He waited for the worst to happen, for the Queen to yell for the guards to execute them both. Vivid would be disappointed he’d missed the opportunity to do it himself.

  But the Queen did not yell, and the guards were not moving, and the only activity in the room was the absurd pounding of Scorch’s heart. He was on the precipice of dying from suspense when the Queen finally said, “Everything is alright. You should find the ruffians who have taken my sentinels’ armor and leave me to my business.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” The guards who had burst into the room bowed and made a swift exit.

  “So,” the Queen continued, “an elemental has come to save the Queen while more elementals come to kill her.” She waved a hand at the remaining guards. “Take off that armor, please, and show yourselves, or try to kill me and be done with it. I am bored with secrets.”

  Scorch should not have been as shocked as he was to discover the Queen’s royal guard consisted of two assassins and a flautist. He watched, flabbergasted, as Vivid, Audrey, and Felix lifted the bronze helmets from their heads. Merric was at Felix’s side in a blink, helping him shrug out of the heavy pauldrons, but Scorch couldn’t keep his eyes off Vivid’s face. He looked pink in the cheeks, a rarity, and his lips were drawn in a thin line as he stared at Scorch. Scorch’s mouth fell open as he recalled what he’d admitted in the dungeon, and the guard who had subsequently dropped his keys.

  He was pondering the likelihood of successfully throwing himself out the nearby window when the Queen finally broke the silence. “Needless to say, you are not members of my royal guard.”

  “Felix, are you okay? What did they make you do?” Merric asked, his fingers grazing over a bruise on the young man’s cheek.

  Audrey let out a laugh. “Please. It was his idea we knock out the guards and take their uniforms.”

  Scorch raised his eyebrows at Vivid, who responded with no more than an eye twitch. He wanted to kiss him. Instead, he tore his eyes away in frustration. “Your Majesty,” he said, turning toward the Queen, “these are my friends and,” he swallowed hard, “we’re here to rescue you.”

  “Rescue me? You’re an elemental who has assaulted my guards and infiltrated my palace. I should have you killed.”

  Vivid was on her before her next breath, slamming her into the wall and holding a dagger to her throat. “Call for your guards and I’ll kill you.”

  “Vivid, that’s the opposite result we’re aiming for,” Scorch sighed.

  The Queen trembled beneath Vivid’s blade. Sweat broke out on her brow.

  “Vivid,” Scorch pleaded, walking slowly to him and touching his elbow.

  The Queen closed her eyes and her breathing grew unsteady. The crystal decanter began to shake,
followed by the tray, followed by the table.

  Vivid pulled the dagger away at once, grabbed Scorch’s wrist, and hauled him back. “She’s an Earth,” he growled, and Scorch’s eyes widened on the Queen.

  She opened her eyes, her hands clasping her throat. When she saw Vivid sheathe his weapon, her trembling ceased and the table stopped shaking.

  “No. You’re an elemental?” Scorch gawked in disbelief.

  “That’s impossible,” said Merric. “No elemental would pass ordinances allowing the murder of their own kind.”

  Scorch locked eyes with the Queen. “They might if it was a matter of losing their own head.” Vivid still had a hold on his wrist. Scorch yearned to grab his hand, so he took a preventative step away and gestured to the decanter. “Is that Guild-brewed whiskey?” he asked the Queen, and she nodded weakly. He walked to the table and hoisted himself up among a pile of official papers and a perilously sharp letter opener. He picked up the decanter by the neck, swished the whiskey around, and took a swig. It was golden sunshine on his tongue and a delicious burn down his throat. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and surveyed the room to find he’d won the attention of all its occupants. “The High Priestess had you under her thumb,” he stated.

  “She did not know what I was,” the Queen answered. “I’m good at hiding it.” She glanced at Vivid. “Most of the time.”

  Scorch looked at her more carefully than before and found familiarity there. There was a peculiar shine in her eyes he’d seen in the looking glass. Her posture, which had seemed regally straight before, now appeared stiff from a lifetime’s worth of worry. For so long, he’d lived half a life, petrified of people discovering who he really was. Such a life was hard enough in the Guild. Scorch couldn’t imagine surviving it under the close scrutiny of royalty. But it was no excuse.

  “I was good at hiding,” he said, pouring another shot of whiskey into the Queen’s glass. He jumped from the table and walked to her, handing her the glass. “Because I knew people would want me dead if they found out. Because of the ordinances you passed.”