The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  “I was fifteen when they were passed. I was young and afraid.”

  “I’m young and afraid,” Scorch stated. “But as you can see, it’s not driven me to complicity in genocide.” She looked shocked. “My friends and I will help you deal with Axum, but when this is over, so are your ordinances concerning elementals, or else Viridor’s citizens will discover their Queen is one.”

  “Cheers,” said Audrey.

  Scorch tapped the decanter against the Queen’s glass. “Cheers,” he agreed, taking a sip.

  The Queen downed her whiskey in two gulps.

  “We’re wasting time,” came Vivid’s voice. Scorch turned around to find him at his back, stormy-faced.

  “When can we expect Axum to arrive?” asked the Queen, looking past Scorch to his assassin shadow.

  The ground trembled again, and Scorch looked from Vivid to the Queen with alarm. “It’s alright. He’s not actually going to hurt you. He’s just grumpy. You need to control yourself.”

  But the Queen was shaking her head. “That’s not me.”

  The floor beneath them quaked and Scorch stumbled, the decanter slipping from his grip and shattering. Vivid steadied him, his arm winding around Scorch’s waist as the shaking worsened. “Axum is here.”

  “Already?” cried Scorch.

  “He’ll bring the whole palace down,” Audrey cursed, crossing the room and grabbing the Queen. “We need to get her to safety.”

  “I think we all need to get to safety,” piped Merric, who had brandished his sword with one hand and was holding on to Felix with the other.

  A loud cracking noise sounded in the room and Vivid yanked Scorch close as a ceiling tile crashed where he’d just been standing. “Go!” Vivid ordered, taking Scorch’s hand and running for the door.

  The quake intensified as they raced down the staircase. Scorch chanced a glance over his shoulder to make sure the others were following and nearly tripped over a fallen guard. Vivid chided him with an angry “Scorch!” as they reached the foyer.

  The pretty paintings of plants were falling from the walls and a crack shot through the hardwood. Bits of ceiling and wall were crumbling. The dust was as prevalent as the screaming.

  Vivid pushed Scorch through the palace doors, the others tumbling out behind them as the building rumbled and the roof collapsed. As soon as they were clear, catching their breath in the courtyard while guards and servants streamed around them in a panic, the quake stopped.

  “What an unexpected turn, finding you all here,” Axum’s voice reached out to them through the mayhem.

  Vivid reacted first, holding up a palm out of instinct to summon his power. When it didn’t come, devastation cut deep across his face, a flash of the same horror Scorch had witnessed when the desert took hold of his mind, and he suddenly realized what Vivid had been afraid of. It wasn’t the High Priestess’ torture. It was the helplessness of it.

  Now, even without his powers, Vivid moved in front of Scorch and the others, blocking them from Axum and wielding his twin daggers. But Axum hadn’t come alone, and other assassins from the Hollow already had them surrounded.

  “Scorch,” Vivid whispered, “don’t die.”

  Scorch had no time to answer, or hold him back, or even think, because, like the wind, Vivid flew at Axum with his blades raised high above his head.

  Pandemonium unleashed in the courtyard. A tremor knocked Scorch off his feet and he fell to his knees. A black leather boot caught him beneath the chin and sent him to his back, and then an assassin was leaning over him with lips curled into a snarl and a knife twirling in his fingers. Scorch rolled as the blade came down, grabbing the assassin’s arm. Heat surged from his core, into his hands. The black leather burned, and the air was perfumed with smoldering skin before the assassin yelped and smashed the heel of his hand toward Scorch’s nose. He dodged and jumped to his feet, flames sparking from his fingertips. He unsheathed his sword, waited for the assassin to stand and lift his blade, and then he struck, a wicked plunge that spattered blood on the Queen’s courtyard daisies.

  Scorch heard a yell and spun, stained sword at the ready. Audrey and the Queen were fending off three more assassins. He held out his arm and shot a jolt of fire toward one of their attackers. The ground shook violently, unsteadying his balance, and he could hear Merric’s voice calling from a distance, but a fierce wind skewed his sense of direction. Squinting against the gale, he searched for Vivid. Thunder roared in the sky, and then rain began dropping in sheets so thick he could hardly see. When the rock soared through the air and hit him right above the eye, he never saw it coming.

  The pain was searing, and while it did not topple him, blood poured from the gash and blinded his right eye. He wiped at the blood, blinking it from his vision. Through the blur, Axum appeared, rocks floating beside his head. Vivid hadn’t killed him, but he’d left marks of his effort: a bright red line across his throat and a steadily bleeding cut on his cheek.

  “Is that all you can do?” Scorch yelled through the curtain of rain. “Throw a few rocks?”

  Axum sneered and lifted his fists. The earth shifted beneath Scorch’s feet and the palace groaned as its walls began to crack. Scorch kept his footing, though a gust of wind pulled at his back and another hale of rocks assaulted his front. He covered his face with his hands and reached for his fire. It sparked and hissed right beneath his skin, but he couldn’t release it, not when he was soaking wet. Lightning struck a nearby tree and the sound was deafening. He watched the tree begin to burn, and when he turned back, Axum was gone.

  Scorch ran, his sword meeting another assassin’s blade after several strides. Swordwork was tricky on a surface quickly slickening with mud, and the assassin escaped a sweep of Scorch’s sword and kicked him in the stomach. He windmilled backwards, boots sliding, and the assassin ran at him, blade crimson and ready to slice through skin. It was sheer luck when the assassin caught a flying rock to the shin and his reach lessened just enough to save Scorch from a deathblow. The blade cut across his abdomen, shredding his new leather jerkin and a layer of skin, but sparing his internal organs.

  In the next instant, a tide of water surged around the assassin’s feet and swept him down the length of the courtyard.

  “Scorch!” Audrey ran to his side, her hair flying in the bluster of the storm. “I lost sight of Bellamy!”

  “Who’s Bellamy?”

  “The Queen!” Audrey yelled, fisting Scorch’s collar and dragging him to the side as a garden boulder sailed past.

  “I’ll find her,” Scorch promised. He squeezed her shoulder, she gave him a curt nod, and then they parted, Audrey running toward Merric’s voice while Scorch ran where the intense wind blew him. He slipped in the mud and slid a few feet, landing beside a royal guard whose helmet was twisted round the wrong way. Beyond him, more dead guards covered the ground. He was close enough to make out the palace now, or what was left of it, and he scrambled toward it, boots squishing in mud until he reached the steps.

  The palace was in shambles, half of it lying in complete decimation. Scorch crawled under a fallen beam and stood in the wreckage. A glimmer on the dusty hardwood caught his eye and he bent to pick up the golden circlet crown. The woman it belonged to was nearby, shaking beside a fallen painting of a willow tree.

  “Your Majesty,” Scorch said, kneeling at her side. She was unresponsive. “Bellamy?”

  Blood streaked across her face. She was soaked, half with rainwater, half with sweat.

  “Bellamy?” he said again, touching her hand. Her whole body was thrumming with energy and, at his touch, the building around them shook, displacing more dust and bits of ceiling. Scorch ducked and pulled the Queen toward him to cover her head from falling debris.

  “I can’t,” she quivered. “I can’t control it.” She couldn’t focus her eyes; they stared straight ahead, terrified by an invisible foe. Scorch knew that feeling, had felt his body fight until he was drenched with sweat and thought he might die from the wrongness o
f it. He didn’t know what an Earth elemental was like at their purest form of power, but he didn’t want to find out when a ton of palace still loomed over their heads.

  “Yes, you can,” Scorch told her, taking her face in his hands. “Look at me,” he demanded, borrowing the same tone that had calmed him, time and again. “Bellamy, look at me.” He gave her head a shake and she gasped, her wide eyes meeting his. Her pupils were small as needlepoints. “If you lose control right now, you will bring the palace down around us, and we will both die.”

  The Queen let out a panicked squeak and the beam over their heads began to crack. The ground beneath them was vibrating.

  “Calm down. Calm down.” He remembered the strength of Vivid’s hand when he’d talked Scorch down inside the Hollow, and he hoped his own grip was a comfort to the Queen and not a threat. He didn’t want to die because a palace fell on him. He didn’t want to die not knowing if Vivid was okay. “You are strong enough to fight it,” Scorch said, praying it was true.

  The Queen shut her eyes, her body shaking, until finally, after a brutal spasm, she passed out in his arms. The floor stopped vibrating and Scorch heaved a sigh of relief. But one crisis averted was not a battle won, and so with his next breath, he stood, lifting her from the rubble and toting her back outside, where the rain was still pouring and the courtyard below was a squall of flying rocks, dirt, rain, and wind. He hurried down the steps and hid the Queen’s unconscious body in a thick juniper bush. Bushes, he knew from experience, made for excellent life-saving hiding spots. He placed her crown in her hands and ran back into the carnage of the courtyard.

  Again, he could barely see besides vague, grey forms moving around him. If only he could find the source of the rainstorm, he could snuff it out and summon his fire. It couldn’t be Audrey making it rain so hard; she would never have risked the loss of visibility. No, there was another Water around, making them fight blind. Scorch was just setting off to find them when the ground opened up beneath his feet and a tree root twisted around his ankles.

  He tried to kick free, but the roots squeezed him tighter and he lost his balance. His knees sank into the mud as he reached around with his sword to cut himself free, but another root curled from the soggy earth and strangled his wrists. He dropped the sword and blinked away the rain and blood.

  “Yours was a grave mistake,” Axum said, walking through the veil of rain and appearing before Scorch with a cruel smile. The family resemblance was suddenly all too clear.

  “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” Scorch said, “and a lot of them have been grave. You’ll need to be more specific.” The ground gave a threatening moan beneath him and the roots tightened painfully. Scorch had a suspicion Axum could make the earth swallow him whole if he wished it, and going by the vicious sparkle in Axum’s eyes, he wished for nothing more.

  “You should have disappeared,” Axum clarified. “Now that you have strayed into my path, I have no choice but to kill my son’s murderer.”

  “You would have hunted me down eventually, though, wouldn’t you?” Scorch asked, spitting blood and fifteen years’ hatred. “Like you did my parents.” Axum’s lack of response was verification enough. The memory he’d recovered of black-leathered attackers was real. “Only, you won’t be able to blame my death on the High Priestess,” Scorch fumed, “or her monks.”

  “I did hear of the fate of the fortress,” Axum said. His hand was spread at his side and a whirl of rocks spun around it like the sun. “You would have been a useful addition to our movement. I’d hoped you would prove more trustworthy than your parents, but the apple and the tree and so on.”

  “Is that why you killed them? They wanted no part in your madness?”

  “Nahla and Rosen Cole were unwilling to do what was needed to save our kind. I returned from my failed mission at the temple to find them gone from the Hollow. Was I to risk them rising up against me, as you do now?”

  Scorch struggled in the mud, pulling at his root constraints. “I’m not exactly in the position to be rising. But let me go and I would love to prove my untrustworthiness.”

  “You killed my son.” Axum bellowed through the rain and wind shear. His boots kicked up bouts of mud as he stomped closer.

  Scorch hadn’t killed Elias, of course, and he looked all around him for the man who had, an insane hope in his heart that Vivid would save him, one more time. It seemed unusually brutal—but also just his luck—that he would finally meet his end at the hand of the man who’d killed his parents.

  He tried not to cower as Axum loomed over him, rocks floating, waiting for an order to crush his skull. He would not die begging to live. There was only one name he wanted on his lips before his time was spent. With a petulant grin, Scorch looked up at Axum. “Vivid will kill you.”

  “Vivid couldn’t lift a breeze against me,” Axum said, touching the cut at his throat. “Couldn’t lift a knife either, after I buried him alive. I think I’ll do the same to you.”

  “What did you say? What have you done?!” Scorch yelled.

  “Did you think Vivid could beat me with blades? Your faith has been misplaced from the very beginning.”

  Dirt rose from the ground and encircled Scorch like a tomb. The roots around his ankles began to pull him down, down. He was up to his knees in mud and rocks, lifting his face to the sky, rain mixing with tears. He couldn’t die with Vivid buried beneath the ground. “Vivid!” he screamed. His fingers scratched at the earth piling around him. He tried to summon his fire, but it wouldn’t come, not with rain drenching his skin. “Vivid!”

  There was another clap of thunder, another scream.

  And then the rain stopped.

  The rain stopped, but the wind still blew. The raindrops dried on Scorch’s skin as the dirt began to fall in heaps on top of his head. The fire under his skin rushed up and burnt the roots away from his wrists and ankles. With his freed limbs, Scorch kicked and clawed, dragging himself out of the dirt. He cast a fiery column from his fingertips, and a furious howl erupted from his lungs. Axum tried to weigh him down, tried to make more roots snare his limbs, but everything that touched Scorch’s skin sizzled and turned to ash. He pulled himself to a dizzying stand and directed his fire straight through Axum’s heart.

  The fire pierced him. Dirt and rocks fell heavily to the ground, and then, so did Axum. Scorch burned him, let a stream of fire engulf him. As the assassin screamed, Scorch’s parents screamed in his head, a macabre echo. Fifteen years ago, when the life had left them, they had burned, and now Axum would burn until his life was burned out.

  When it was over, Scorch didn’t linger by Axum’s scorched corpse. “Vivid!” he yelled. “Vivid!” He found his sword in the mud and turned in a circle, eyes widening at the courtyard now that the storm had stopped and he could see. He saw Merric first, standing beside the lightning-stricken tree, in a ring of fallen bodies, both in bronze armor and black leather. His face was covered in scratches, and when he stepped forward, it was with a limp.

  “Felix!” Merric was shouting.

  Scorch saw Audrey next, pushing her hair from her face and wiping her blades on the body of an assassin at her feet. Her eye locked on Scorch as he watched her, then she looked past him, frowning. He knew it was because she didn’t see Vivid, and neither did Scorch.

  “Vivid!” he yelled again.

  “Merric!” Scorch heard Felix a moment before he spotted him. He was lying beneath a pile of dead assassins. Merric stumbled over to him, throwing the bodies off and helping him stand.

  “You’re alive,” he said, hugging Felix tight. “I lost you in the storm. Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” Felix replied, mystified by his own resilience. “A Water elemental had me. I felt like I was drowning, and then Vivid,” he turned his head, searching. “Vivid killed him and saved me. He killed all of them. Where is he?”

  “Vivid!” Scorch screamed, running over to the pile of bodies beside Felix. He slipped in the mud, fell. “Vivid!” He turned the bodie
s over, checking every face. “Vivid!” Fear lodged in his throat and tears streamed from his eyes. He scanned the grimy earth, wondering which patch might contain Vivid buried beneath. He shoved his hands into the muck and began digging, digging—

  Fingers threaded through his hair and tugged his head back. “I’m right here.” Vivid gazed down at him, covered in mud and blood.

  “Vivid!” Scorch yelled again, and Vivid grimaced.

  “Stop screaming. You make me want to stab out my eardrums.” Vivid released his hair, and Scorch scrambled to his feet, slipping and sliding.

  “Axum said he buried you alive,” he breathed. He touched Vivid’s face reverently, but then he pulled away, afraid to touch him, afraid Vivid didn’t want it.

  “Only for a second,” Vivid conceded. Even covered in dirt he looked fearsome. He reached for Scorch’s hand and brought it back to his cheek, holding it there. “You killed him.”

  Scorch’s heart thudded in his chest, more adrenaline rushing through his veins now than when roots had been dragging him into an early grave. Vivid lowered their hands but kept their fingers intertwined. “I killed him,” Scorch rasped.

  “Good,” Vivid answered. He stared at Scorch until Scorch felt the compulsion to do something embarrassing, like faint or propose, but then Vivid finally released him, from his gaze and from his touch. Scorch watched silently as he moved among the others. He nodded at Felix and Merric and accepted Audrey’s hand when she reached for him. “Where is the Queen?” he asked her.

  “Oh!” yelped Scorch, having forgotten the sole purpose of their guardianship in the wake of Vivid’s existence. “I hid her in the bushes.”

  He ignored Audrey’s scoff and Merric’s cry of horror and hurried past them. Digging Queen Bellamy out of the shrubbery was a welcomed opportunity to catch his breath and try to mute the riptide of emotions coursing through his body. There was a brief moment when he shook her shoulder and she didn’t wake, and he thought Oh Gods, I let the Queen of Viridor die in a bush, but then her eyes fluttered open and she stared up at him with apprehension.