Chosen (The Last Guardians Book 1)

by C. V. Gregorchuk

  The girl had fallen into the habit of recounting the so-called horrors of her day to the foal in her care. A pastime Vander found exceedingly irritating as he was forced to listen from the hayloft above. Sine-feld, that was the name she decided to give it, a ridiculous, otherworldly name. It was an hour before her ranting ceased and Vander was sure he might have some peace at long last but soon after the warm glow of the oil lamp had faded into darkness the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard approaching the barn.

  Orden moved like a ghost, silent and deadly.

  Vander was at the bottom of the ladder, his shoulder pressed against the smooth wood when the old man appeared, outlined in the wide doorway. When he saw him standing there, waiting, Orden grunted, “Good. Ye’re awake.”

  “What is it?”

  Orden moved further into the barn. “This fellow looks well, does he not?” He said, leaning against the stall door, his eyes trained on a spot somewhere in the darkness.

  “Why are you here?” Orden had not once bothered to seek him out since the girl began her training, did not consult with him, did not ask for his opinion. Why was he here now?

  Orden did not look at him. “I see I’ve left ye to yerself too long. I forget how quick ye begin to neglect simple courtesies.”

  Vander stood straight, his hands dropping to his sides where they balled into fists. His skin felt too tight. “I am not of a mind to be lectured. If that is what you’ve come here to do-”

  “I need ye to take the yearlings to Keswick.” For a moment there were only the sounds of the barn, the rustling of hay, the flutter of wings high in the rafters. Orden turned his head, his eyes flashing in the silvery light slanting in from the doorway. “I would go myself but-”

  “No,” Vander said and cleared his throat. The last thing he wanted was to seem over eager. “No,” He repeated, “I’ll go.”

  Orden’s face softened into a rare smile, and he nodded. “Thank you.” He said.

  Vander joined the old man by the stall. “When should I prepare to leave?” He picked out the foal lying on its knees, hay piled up all around him, like a chick in a nest.

  “Day after tomorrow,” Orden said and sighed, “it is early in the season, but I can’t see why ye would not be successful.”

  Vander shook his head, “Eldrin is always looking for stock.” The farmer was a good customer, buying a large number of their yearlings every season. “He’ll be pleased we’ve come early.” After the dull drudgery of the past cycle, Vander found himself filled with anticipation. The journey alone would take a fortnight, then there would be a few days of haggling with the townsfolk before he returned to the homestead. One full cycle of the moon would have passed by the time he returned. Vander itched to be away.

  “I’m sure ye’re right.” Orden covered Vander’s shoulder with a warm hand and squeezed. The old man turned his attention to the stall and the foal watching them with sleepy eyes from the dark.

  Vander stacked his arms on top of the half wall and leaned forward. “He does look well, doesn’t he?” He murmured. The foal had gained a considerable amount of weight in the last few weeks. Soon he would be strong enough to venture outside without fear of falling ill again.

  “Aye. She has done well with him.”

  “Pity it’s the only good thing that’s come of her being here.” The words were said before Vander could think to stop them. He did not regret them, even when faced with Orden’s displeasure. The old man did not deign to reply, but by the shake of his head, Vander knew he’d struck a chord. “Why do you waste your time with her?” Vander persisted, “She does not learn, she does not progress. She is weak.”

  “It is early days yet,” Orden growled a low warning. One Vander did not care to heed.

  “Early days?”

  “Aye.”

  “And how many days will it be before she stops behaving like a child?” Vander demanded, his good mood spoiled. He flung himself away from the wall and stalked toward the moonlit yard only to stop in the doorway. In that house, in a room that once belonged to him, the girl was most likely already asleep in his bed. It made his blood boil. He turned to face the darkness, his eyes locking with Orden’s. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “It will be years before that girl is strong enough to do the duties of a Guardian. We do not have years. Every day Kairos grows stronger, every day people die-”

  “Do ye think I do not know?” Orden did not raise his voice above a whisper, but Vander heard the dangerous edge in it. “I know better than anyone the horrors that creature is capable of. I have seen the destruction he leaves in his wake.” Orden dropped his gaze, his wide shoulders curved inward. “I know ye want revenge. Justice for Nymal and Aida but I ask ye to curb your impatience.”

  Vander took a step back. The anger that had burned so bright moments ago guttered and went out like a candle extinguished by a stray breeze. “But the girl-”

  “The girl,” Orden lifted his chin, “will be ready.”

  Vander shook his head. He could not see it. “How? She can barely wield a wooden blade.”

  “Let that be my concern. Turn your attention to Keswick and readying yerself and the yearlings for the journey. Hanna will have some requests, things she needs from town.”

  “I’ll find her tomorrow.” Vander knew when he was being dismissed.

  Orden nodded, “Good lad.”

  Perhaps he was being unfair, Vander thought as he hauled himself up the creaking ladder into the loft. He shuffled toward the bedroll lying upon the straw, bending at the waist to keep from knocking his head on the pitched ceiling. The girl had only just begun her training. Were his expectations too high? As he lay on his back, the wool blanket pulled up around his waist Vander was visited by unwelcome reminders of his own training.

  Chapter 35

  Shifting had been more challenging to master than Vander could ever have anticipated. Having shared in the experience twice before, first with Aida and then again with Nymal, he’d known it would not be a simple thing. But he’d thought himself ready, prepared to shift on his own. He could not have been more wrong.

  Dragons, or rather, Oluan, enter this world in their True Form, covered from snout to tail in scales the color of damp earth. Before this, they live vicariously through those nearest them by means of impression and shared experiences. For Vander it had been almost painful to see the world, to feel it and taste it through the senses of his nest mates, all while waiting for the day he would hatch himself.

  Forever Vander would live with the memory of that moment when the confines of his egg had grown too close for him. When all the air had been sucked out of that unbearably tight space. The pure panic that had fuelled a need to get out. Vander had been no larger than the golden rooster that walked the yard today when he’d broken through the hard shell that had sheltered and protected him for nearly three hundred years. He still kept the emerald shards, hidden away among the few belongings he had, a reminder of the many egglings that were not so lucky to survive the war.

  He’d grown with the rapid speed of the Oluan, his body racing to catch up with his mind. At the end of the first week Vander grown to roughly the size of a dog, by six months he was as tall as a horse, all legs, long tail, and wings. Nymal had been there through it all. Like Vander, she’d been chosen to be a Hunter, and as would have been expected of her, she’d taken him under her wing. Nymal had taught him to fly and to hunt from the air. It was she who taught him how to shift.

  Oluan are considered physically mature two years after they hatch. This is when it becomes possible for them to shift into their human form for the first time.

  Vander was ready when his turn came. He had been waiting, counting down the months since the day Orden had returned from Longford with the unfathomable news: Aida and Euan were dead, slain by the scourge of their world, Kairos.

  After all the Oluan had sacrificed to protect Nethea, the one who would see it burn had somehow survived and was growing in power. Nymal had cried for their lost
nest mate, and Vander had sworn to her then that they would avenge their sister’s life together, the two of them and their Chosen. Kairos had escaped death once, but he would not escape them.

  Nymal had possessed all the patience of Prethea as Vander had failed, over and over again, to successfully shift from his True Form to his human form. It should not be so difficult, he remembered thinking. Both forms were, after all, his were they not? He should have been able to take whichever he desired without such pain. Because it was incredibly painful.

  Vander imagined the feeling as akin to that of someone scraping the scales from his body with a blunt dagger and then trying to shove him, in all his size back into the confined space of the egg he’d escaped years before. Nymal had made it look and feel so simple as she shed her ebony scales before him. He’d known how it felt when her vast wings shrank and combined into slender arms with five-fingered hands. He’d experienced the shortening of neck and tail, the retraction of fangs and talons as if he’d been doing it himself and marveled at the speed with which it all happened. And when she’d stood naked as a babe before him, he’d averted his eyes and felt the reverse as she’d shifted back.

  A cycle. One full cycle of attempting to shift every single day went by before it happened. “Do it again,” Nymal said to him, her words clipped and impatient.

  “No, I can’t.” Vander was on the ground, wings spread wide and trembling, as his entire body heaving with his labored breath, “No more today.”

  Nymal sat like a cat, her long, scaled tail coiled on the grass before her. She arched her slender neck and hissed, “Again. It has to be today.”

  Vander curled his lip back from shining white fangs and snarled, “I can’t do it. So leave me be.”

  “You are a coward.” Nymal flicked the tip of her barbed tail, “A spineless worm of the earth. You are not worthy of Galtrid.”

  Vander growled, “I am a Hunter, same as you.”

  “Prove it hatchling.” She was there to meet him as Vander launched himself at her throat. The clearing erupted with the sounds of two Dragons colliding. Teeth snapped shut on empty air. Claws grappled for purchase in scales as hard as the jewels they resembled and ferocious roars split the world.

  “Do not call me that!”

  As a male, Vander out-sized her. Where Nymal was fine limbed and elegant, he was thick-necked and powerful, built for battle. Her only advantage over him was her age. Nymal was conceived four years before him; she had also hatched before him. That gave her four years more to hone her Power and another two to learn how to fight with tooth, nail and barbed tail. He held her off for as long as he could. By the time she managed to pin him on his back, her jaws clamped tight around his throat Nymal was as bloody as he was.

  “I will call you by the name that suits you best, hatchling.” Nymal sank her teeth further into his neck when he attempted to buck her off.

  “I cannot do it,” He shuddered and went still beneath her. He could no longer keep the fear that plagued him at bay. What if he never shifted? What if he was one of those rare Oluan who were unable to take any form but the one they were born in? Those Oluan more often than not went mad as they gradually lost their Power and the ability to communicate. Until they were no more than animals. How could he be a Guardian? How would he fulfill his destiny or the promises he had made, to the Oluanvi and his parents, to Nymal, to himself?

  “That will not be your fate.” Nymal released him then and backed away. Vander rolled onto his feet, talons digging into the earth as he righted himself. “You will shift,” Nymal said, her tone firm, words sure. “You are a Guardian. More than that, you are a Hunter.” She tilted her serpentine head to the side, the crown of delicate spikes around her crown flaring as she fixed him with one striking black eye. “Galtrid would not have chosen you to serve him. The Oluanvi would not have chosen an unworthy Dragon for this role.”

  Vander wanted to believe her. Nymal had faith in him when he’d begun to lose hope. She thought him worthy. She trusted him to find it in himself to do this. The dry rattle of scales rubbing against one another filled the silent clearing as Vander shook himself free of his doubts. “You’re right.” He said, hissing in anticipation. “I am a Hunter, chosen to be a Guardian. I will do this!”

  He closed his eyes, retreating deep within himself to a place where the sights and sounds of the world could not intrude. There in the silence, he found his Power, the only speck of light in the blinding dark. It flowed through the passages of his body like a ribbon of flame, as much a part of him as the blood feeding his heart. Vander focused on the thread, tried to imagine it growing, expanding to envelop his limbs. His heart pounded against the thick plated scales that protected his chest, his breath came in short bursts. Vander knew what to expect from this part of the shift, the anticipation of pain nearly derailed him.

  It felt as though the veins and arteries that mapped his body were on fire, torched by the Power coursing through them. His blood boiled and filled his ears with a deafening roar. A roar he echoed as every nerve ending in his body was incinerated. To shift he had to ‘see’ the form he was attempting to take. Burning from the inside out, Vander could barely remember what he was meant to look like in his True Form, let alone one he’d never seen before. He was going to fail. Vander could feel it. The pain was growing too much to bear, soon he would reach his threshold and cut off the flow of Power. Vander could already taste the bitterness of failure on his tongue.

  No! He snarled at his own weakness. He would not fail this time, he was so close! I. Will. Shift! A fresh wave of Power crashed through him, searing what was left of him. A challenge to undermine his determination. Vander roared, a sound more akin to a scream as every scale was flayed from his body. He could do nothing but feel. Feel as the bones of his massive frame shrank and filled with marrow. Feel the agony of teeth and talons shrinking back into skull and digits. He almost went mad as the spikes and barbs lining his spine retracted, like hundreds of knives, all different sizes, being stabbed into bone all at once.

  Vander spent the first few moments in his human form lying face down on the grass concentrating intensely on the act of breathing. He would never forget how it felt, that first breath, the dual stabs of pain as his lungs expanded against the bones of his small human chest. A chest covered in pale, fragile flesh in place of emerald scales.

  “Vander?” He heard her voice with mind and ear shortly before Nymal collapsed at his side in her human form. Small but powerful hands prodded and pulled, rolling him half onto his back. Vander groaned, every muscle, bone, and tendon in this body ached. He opened his eyes and closed them immediately. Weak human eyes, they didn’t filter the sun as effectively as the slit pupils of his True Form. “Vander. How do you feel?”

  His lips moved, but no words emerged. All Vander was capable of producing was a low rumble of sound.

  “Would you believe it’s meant to get worse the larger we get?”

  Vander peered up at Nymal through slitted eyes, the sunlight filtering through fair lashes. Hair like golden honey tumbled down from her head to hang between them in spirals. Vander inhaled her scent, coughing as it tickled the back of his throat. Eyes as black as coal stared at him from a dark face. He would not have been able to distinguish between pupil and iris if not for the tiny flecks of golden light shining like stars in the outer circle. She was worried for him. The very blood in his veins seemed to scream in protest as Vander propped himself up on his arms. The feel of grass beneath his palms distracted him. Vander lifted one oddly shaped appendage before his eyes for examination. Square palmed with five long fingers ending neatly in rounded nails instead of the curving talons well suited to piercing the flesh of his prey.

  How strange that he’d once looked at the hands he now relied on for every task with such disdain.

  “H-help-uh-help me st-stand.” The short, broad tongue was difficult to manipulate. It frustrated Vander, the clumsy thick thing. It fumbled his words and made him sound like a simpleton. Ny
mal, privy to the sour turn his mood had taken, wisely said nothing as she helped him to his feet.

  It rankled his pride, the knowing that he would not be able to stand without Nymal’s support. It surprised him, the realization of how small she was in her human form. The top of her golden head barely grazed his chin, and she was so slender Vander was sure he could have wrapped an arm around her twice.

  “What did you expect?” He could sense her exasperation warring with amusement, “You’re a great lout in your True Form. It only makes sense that you would be just as cumbersome as a human.”

  Vander had felt the truth of those words with every passing day as he began his training in earnest.

  Chapter 36

  Vander struggled to adapt to his human form. He possessed all the strength and speed of his True Form, but in this body, it did more to hinder than assist. In this form, Vander was vulnerable, fragile. He trained with Orden daily, learning from the Keeper how to fight with sword and ax in place of tooth and nail and received hundreds of injuries at the Olu’s hands. Cuts, broken bones, and countless bruises. Had he been fully human his body would be covered in scars of all shapes and sizes. His rapid rate of healing ensured that he never ran out of skin to serve up to Orden’s blades.