Her father’s face didn’t betray anything he might have been thinking. “Yes. My father and Councilman Arnetti were the ones who initially came to me with the news about the Guardian who’s gone missing. They said they were unsure of the circumstances behind it, and they asked I keep you close until they could prove or disprove any rumours or allegations that something had happened to her—to secure your safety. You are the highest-ranking member of the Order and my daughter, Saedra. There is a reason we’ve kept you to the castle.”
“And have they said anything to you since? There haven’t been any new developments?”
“I speak with whichever Councilman arrives to check on you for the day. The news is always the same, though, I’m afraid. No word on the missing Guardian’s whereabouts. I do trust the Council to manage their own,” he said with just the slightest purse of his lips that belied his words, “but I’m invested in the proceedings insofar as they involve you. I apologize that it’s taken so long. If it continues at this pace, I’ll speak with the Council about lifting your restrictions.”
The warmth of the alcohol in Artysaedra’s stomach began to turn cold. She balled her fists. “Did they speak with you yesterday?”
“Yes. Councilman Montamilyarde came.”
“And that’s what he told you? Just the one Guardian hasn’t turned up?”
Her father shifted in his chair to face her. “What’s the matter? It isn’t like you to question the Council like this.”
“I question their orders all the time,” Artysaedra snapped defensively. She’d told her grandfather Drakoon to stuff it more than once when he’d treated her like a dog, just because she looked like one instead of looking like a drake demon. “Just because they’re ancient doesn’t mean they’re right. It only means they see things how they want to. Stagnation of power is the death of perception.”
“Is this about them protecting you?”
“They’re not protecting me, Father! They’re isolating me from my contacts in the Order!” Artysaedra spat, and slammed her glass down on the table. Whiskey splattered across the back of her hand. “Someone’s been lying to me, Father, and I’d like to believe it isn’t you or Naliah.”
“Naliah?” her father asked. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. What does your partner have to do with this?”
Artysaedra stood up and turned away from him, glaring instead at the enormous globe against the far wall. It was eclipsed by dull blue water. A single mass of land gashed across it, divided into twelve massive city-states by dark lines, Lutana the largest, in the upper west. Above the globe was an old oil painting of her mother and her twin Uncle Dven, so similar in appearance—from their dark olive skin to their wine-red eyes to their sleek black horns—that the only reason Artysaedra could tell them apart was because of the added sharpness to Uncle Dven’s jaw. She’d never met her uncle. From what she’d figured up, he’d been dead for over a hundred thousand years, poisoned in a foreign Realm alongside four other children of the Councilmen. Her father had only been chosen as the Saeinfinae two million years ago because Dven had been selected to become the first Guardian of Darkness and, back then, the two of them had been the only male children of the Council. That was all she knew about her uncle, though. Uncle Dven wasn’t mentioned very often in their family.
Her father was silent behind her, waiting. She could hear the drag of the velvet cushion against his trousers as he shifted impatiently. She took a deep breath.
“Naliah told me something earlier—something I don’t think he was supposed to. Maybe the Council didn’t think he’d come to me about it. Maybe they thought you’d have me confined to my quarters—I don’t know,” Artysaedra said. Her jaw was tight, and her stomach was a roiling sea of emotions. “He told me that the Council’s already found that missing Guardian, Father. And two of the other ones that have been missing.”
“Two?” her father echoed. “Saedra, I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
“There were three missing Guardians, Father. Three. Four if you count the one that’s still out there. The Council called a meeting of the entire Order this morning to tell them about it, but they didn’t invite me.” She clenched her fists. “In fact, Naliah said the Council told them to keep it a secret. A secret that they’d found those Guardians dead. Murdered. A secret even from us apparently.”
When Artysaedra whirled around, her father was staring at the ornate rug in deep thought. His nails—rounded into points like a warrior’s, like hers—dug into the armrest of his chair. “I don’t understand,” he said after a moment. “Are you certain about this?”
“Do you really think Naliah’s the type of person to lie, Father? And about something the entire Order could corroborate?”
Her father shook his head. “I wouldn’t accuse him of such, no. But the entire Council, Saedra? All of them lying to us? My father—your mother’s parents? I don’t understand why they would withhold information like this from us. What their motivations for it could possibly be.”
“I don’t, either,” she said, “but I don’t trust them. I can’t even trust their reasons for keeping me here. Because to me, it just looks like they want to keep me in the dark.”
“What would they want to hide from us?” her father asked. “Why hide this from us, Saedra?”
Without a good answer, she kept silent.
She worked her tongue over the backs of her teeth and flattened her ears against her skull, glowering at the fire. Flames sprung up from between the blackened logs and flitted back and forth. Watching them, she remembered the acrid taste of dragonfire in her own mouth, the burn of it down her throat. She remembered the practiced crunch of her bones, scales forcing their way through her skin, and the pressure of air against her leathery wings. Her blood may have chosen the wolf, but fire still ran through her veins.
And fire doesn’t sit idle, waiting for permission to burn.
“I’m going to find out what they’re hiding,” Artysaedra said. She kicked aside the belt drape on the floor and met her father’s eyes with a glare. “Are you going to stop me from leaving?”
“Have I ever been able to?” her father said. With a stern set to his mouth, he stood up and placed a wide, warm hand on the back of her neck. As a little girl, the gesture had made her feel safe, as though nothing in the world could ever hurt her. She knew now that that wasn’t the truth, though not because she was acquainted with the true dangers of the world. No, it was because she knew that the way she fought for her family, the way she fought for those she protected as a Guardian—with breath and blood and bone, steel gored and body broken—she knew that her father would never fight that same way for her.
It was the sad truth of her existence: that her father loved her, but he loved her purpose in the world far more. Without it, she was nothing to him.
“When you leave,” her father said, “I’ll manage your mother and the Council. They’ll never know you’re gone, and I’ll cover up what happened with the crystal, which I suggest you speak to your brother about. He knows the most. But I need you to promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“Be safe,” he said, and a worried look bloomed in his grey eyes she almost believed. He kissed her forehead. Even after he’d pulled away, she could feel the pressure from his mustache and lips between her eyebrows. “Pei, M’ide’lupen. Be careful, and trust only what you see yourself. Take Naliah with you if you can.”
“Aneqin comas enena, So’so,” she whispered stiffly, just as she’d done at fifty-five years old when she’d headed off on her first mission. Then, fear and excitement had vibrated through her small, bruised body. She’d always been sore in those early years, having pushed herself in training every morning and every evening to bleed and sweat and pull herself up from the floor on her own raw hands after passing out. Now, her body was rested, tense only with determination.
I promise to come home, Papa.
She grabbed her scythe from where it was propped against the wall a
nd flung open the sitting room’s door, leaving her father behind for the thousandth time as she rushed away to do what she had been born for.
FEAR LOSS
_______________________________
It is not good that smites evil. Good pardons. Only an evil act halts the proliferation of evil acts, for evil is inherently self-destructive; yet it is because of this that evil will also never leave us, always rising from its own ashes.
an unpublished manuscript hidden in a drawer in the Realm of Eternal Night, translated from Eikese
THE GRAND REALM OF THE INFINITE
MAENASGOROTH’S CRYSTAL BOWER, BENEATH MOUNT DRAKIS,
THE ASAIRABINE RANGE, LUTANA
Draven stood at the mouth of the dying crystal’s cavern, seething at what he could see transpiring in front of him, plain as day.
When he’d stormed out his chambers and into the gilded hall of the North Wing, he hadn’t had a plan in mind. He hadn’t packed a bag for his trip. He hadn’t arranged transportation. He hadn’t eaten lunch or mapped out where he was going to lodge. He’d only known two things: that he was determined to escape the castle, and that he needed to find his brother before he could go.
His snow-wet, scuffed shoes had squeaked across the marble floors and Beaker’s nails had skittered close behind as he’d followed the smell of lightning through the halls, his body a clockwork gadget, single-mindedly ticking forward in its search. It had towed him through the castle and down into its damp, craggy depths on a line—had birthed him into the torch-lit underground cave.
Now, here he was in the dying crystal’s cavern, watching his brother manipulated into helping the very bastard that had betrayed Draven two years ago. Was Staatvelter really so evil? Had destroying one Veiyel sibling not been enough for him? He was working on Artysaedra now, leading her on like he was. Was Kinrae next on his list? Did he need the full set?
His brother and Staatvelter were standing close together, Draven observed with no small amount of ire—only scant inches between the two. They could have kissed had they wanted to. Draven crossed his arms and clenched his jaw. Overlapping shadows starred out from Staatvelter’s and Kinrae’s feet on the stone floor, darkest where they intersected. When Staatvelter passed over a piece of paper to Kinrae, his dark eyes didn’t leave Kinrae’s face for a single second. It wasn’t long before the bastard started badgering for the information the paper held, and irate, Draven decided he couldn’t keep quiet anymore.
“Well, well, well,” he interrupted smoothly, “aren’t you going to share with everyone?”
To Draven’s deepened fury, it was his brother who jumped and hid the piece of paper behind his back. His kind-hearted brother who gave trust out like handshakes—shamelessly manipulated into keeping secrets for that bastard. It was treason to keep secrets from the crown, and that was what Staatvelter was asking Kinrae to do. How long would it be before Staatvelter ruined everything?
From somewhere behind Draven, Beaker materialized, barking and rushing over to sniff at Kinrae’s grey trousers before wandering off to nose at the quartz points and paw at stone. She was the only moving point in the room, Staatvelter and Kinrae frozen in a united force against him.
“How much of what I said did you hear?” Staatvelter asked. In a subtle movement, he shifted his footing. It was the beginnings of a fighting stance, Draven recognized on sight. Staatvelter’s whole body turned into a series of sharp, angular points. The tendons in his balled fists twitched. It made Draven want to punch him in the teeth.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Draven said glibly. He barely concealed the rage in his voice. “Just that my grandmother gave you some message you’ve somehow convinced my brother to hide from his own family. Or did I get that wrong? You know, it’s really hard to catch finer details when you aren’t invited to the conversa—”
Kinrae pulled the piece of paper out from behind his back and held it in Draven’s direction. It stopped Draven dead in his tracks. “I apologize, Brother. It is only that there are a great many people who could be hurt if this information fell into the wrong hands.”
As Staatvelter stuttered out a protest, Kinrae silenced him with a quiet look. “He has a right to know. You must trust me.”
Draven crossed the room to take the paper from his brother’s hand, glowering at Staatvelter the entire way. “Don’t you worry. I’m just fabulous with secrets.”
The paper Kinrae had offered was just a slip of curled parchment about the length and width of Draven’s hand, filled with a dozen cramped lines in a uniform but rushed hand, ink smudged in places as though there hadn’t been time to let it dry.
Draven read.
While this message was given solely to you, Naliah Staatvelter, you may share it at your own discretion; however, know that any you may choose to involve in this investigation will become an enemy of the Council. I cannot explain beyond this: war is coming for us, and the Council will destroy anyone that stands in the way of its victory. They do not know that victory cannot be won through ignorance. A massive number of unaddressed prayers arrived from the Realm of Black Waters yesterday. The Council has sworn us to secrecy on the matter, but I tell you of it now. Meisha and I can corroborate that it is related to the murders, but that is all we can do. Make sure the residents of the Realm are safe, and discover the truth for yourselves. Avoid the Council at all costs. This is a Class I assignment.
Fate be with you – XXVI
Draven stared down at the message, confused. “What war?” he asked. He and Kinrae both looked over at Staatvelter. “What murders? What’s Grandmother talking about—and why does she know about the Realm in the dying crystal?”
“If someone could actually read the scroll to me at some point,” Staatvelter said deadpan, “that’d be great.”
Before Draven could snap back with a retort, Kinrae eased the note from his hand and read it out loud for all three of them. The words sounded eerie bouncing around the insides of the cavern, but even hearing the words spoken aloud didn’t change the fact that Draven didn’t understand most of what was going on. All he could gather was that the Council was deeply entrenched in business it shouldn’t have been—business that it was hiding from everyone; he just didn’t know what business it was. He also didn’t know what a coming war might refer to, or what these murders his grandmother was talking about were. But more than anything, he couldn’t figure out why Staatvelter—new Guardian and low wrung on the ladder that he was—had been given this information above anyone else.
“A Class I assignment?” Staatvelter repeated after Kinrae, wide-eyed. He shook his head a few times. “That’s— That— I don’t understand. A transdimensional war is a Class II. I’ve never even heard of a Class I.”
Kinrae offered, “Might the gravity of the assignment be because it concerns the safety of the citizens in the dying crystal’s Realm? Or perhaps because of its further connection to the murders our grandmother mentions?”
“See, that doesn’t make any sense, either,” Staatvelter said. He rubbed at his mouth and paced a circle. “Whatever’s happened to that Realm—I don’t know how it could have anything to do with what happened to my comrades.”
“Your comrades?” Draven parroted, dumbstruck. Then something clicked for him. It was a niggling feeling that took hold of him and didn’t let go. “Are you saying that Guardians were murdered, Staatvelter?”
When Staatvelter immediately began backpedalling, Draven had all the confirmation he needed, and he reeled with it. That couldn’t be possible. It couldn’t.
He’d researched a few cases of Guardian murder before, after his pregnant mother had announced to the country that she was giving her then-unborn daughter Artysaedra to the Order to become the new Guardian of Darkness. Through his research, Draven had discovered one thing: that the death of a Guardian outside direct combat was rare, and in those rare, well-documented cases, Guardian murders were always separated by hundreds of years and vastly differing circumstances.
Guardian m
urders were always isolated incidents: jealous family members plying their Guardian relatives with alcohol and bashing their heads in, spouses waiting until their Guardian lovers went to sleep and slitting their throats, villages turning on Guardians and burning them at the stake, foreigners slipping poisons into a Guardian’s food, and even gangs attempting to kidnap Guardians to sell into the black markets. No matter what, it was always a single murder. Guardians weren’t easy to catch off-guard or to overpower. They were gods amongst men. But the way Staatvelter was making it sound…
“Guardians, as in plural, as in recent?” Draven pressed.
“I— You can’t tell anyone,” Staatvelter said, panicked. “Please, Draven. The Council told us to keep this information strictly within the Order. I could be stripped for telling you about it.”
“Are you really still worried about playing by their rules?” Draven asked. “Guardians are dying. The Council’s hiding things from you. From us. I don’t care what they want at this point, so if you don’t start telling us what’s going on right now—”
Kinrae laid his hand on Draven’s upper arm, which shut him up immediately. His brother’s hand was warm, even through Draven’s sleeve. Draven steadied himself against it and closed his eyes. He focused on the drip of water somewhere in a distant cavern.
“It is the Council, Brother, of all things,” Kinrae said. “They are our grandparents as well. I would not challenge their will any more than Guardian Staatvelter would. Let him explain what he knows, but only if he is willing.”
Reluctantly, Draven gave a nod. When he opened his eyes, Staatvelter looked less hysterical. All of his angles had smoothed out. He was silent, shifting from foot to foot, but then visibly, he seemed to come to a decision.
“I’ll tell you,” he said at length, “but you have to keep all of this to yourselves, at least for now. Only the Order knows.” When Draven and his brother nodded their consent, Staatvelter continued, “Four Guardians have gone missing in the last three weeks. All but one’s turned up dead. That one’s still out there, somewhere. As far as the Council can tell, the Guardians were led away from their shrines and murdered. The Council said it seemed like they’d ripped out their own hearts. No signs of magic. No signs of force. Just enough coincidence to point to murder. I found out when I got here that they’d been hiding all of this from Sae. I didn’t even know they had her locked up here until she told me, but I’ve made sure to—”
A Shard of Sea and Bone (Death of the Multiverse Book 1) Page 17