Chosen (The Last Guardians Book 1)

by C. V. Gregorchuk

  “I’m not-” A sharp look, “that hungry.” Mia amended.

  “Hanna is bringing food,” Orden informed her and stepped away from the window. Mia hopped off the trunk at the same that moment he bent to retrieve a book from the floor. She had three piled in her arms when Orden, looking stern and more than a little annoyed, indicated for her to add her books to the stack in his broad hands. “Any of these could have answered your questions.”

  “I haven’t gotten to those yet.”

  “What have you ‘gotten to’?” Her own words sounded weird and childish when he said them back to her like that. Mia straightened, another two books in her hands. “This one,” she said scanning the aged leather, a hefty tome detailing the cultural practices of the Oluan. “Not this one.” The second was a smaller volume bound in deep blue leather, soft with age. She stacked them, one on top of the other on the growing pile in Orden’s hands.

  “Who are the seven Oluanvi?” Mia’s eyes snapped to his. A test designed to call her bluff. Too bad for him she actually knew the answer to this one. “They’re the first Oluan ever.” Like Adam and Eve plus five.

  “Their names.”

  “Ya just hold on a second,” Mia crossed her arms and jutted her hip out to the side, “tell me how that works first.” Orden’s face was like granite. She continued anyway, “I get that God-uh- sorry, Eldhor created the Oluanvi and then they married or mated or whatever it is that they do and had the Oluan.”

  “Yes.”

  Mia took a deep breath and plowed on, “And then some of them decided they didn’t want to live forever anymore and became human?”

  “They chose their mortal form over their True Form.”

  “True form meaning big fire-breathing lizards.”

  Orden’s eyes flashed silver.

  Mia ignored the look. “Okay-“ this was where it got confusing for her, “so the mortal and immortal Oluan then got together and had humans...”

  “That is correct.” His patience was wearing thin, she could see it in the tightening of the lines around his eyes and mouth.

  “How does that even work?”

  “How does what work Mia?”

  Now she was getting annoyed. Clearly, she had to rephrase the question. “How do you go from huge, things with wings and tails to- uh- you know- you? I guess.”

  Orden leveled his eyes at her. “You’re asking me about procreation?”

  “What?” Mia squeaked, cheeks going instantly hot. “No! I-” Actually, “Uh-ya, I guess I am.” She huffed, “Why are the babies of humans and Oluan always human?”

  “How does a black mare produce a painted foal?” Orden brushed past her and placed his stack of books on the empty trunk. “How does a barren woman conceive past her prime?” He crossed his arms and regarded her from beneath lowered brows. “I do not presume to pretend that I understand every intricacy of Eldhor’s Creation. It was his plan, that is all answer I can give.”

  Mia nodded, no stranger to the mysterious workings of a Creator. “I guess I don’t understand how it works.” She pressed on when Orden looked like he wanted badly to roll his eyes at her, “Why not just stay in one form?” And scratch all the confusing stuff that made her head hurt just thinking about it.

  Something changed in Orden’s bearing, a slight relaxing of the shoulders, maybe. “One form? ” He said, bending to pick up one last book from the floor.

  “Ya.”Why bother with a human form at all?

  Orden turned the volume over in his hands as he spoke, “Oluan have two forms for a reason.” He regarded her from beneath lowered brows. “If they do not shift, or if they spend too much time in one form then they will lose the ability to take the other.” Mia was about to ask why that was such a bad thing when Orden continued, “Too long spent in their True Form and an Oluan will become that form. An animal incapable of thought or reason.”

  “And if they stay human?”

  “They become mortal.” He raised a brow in her direction as if to ask, ‘must I go on?’

  Mia shook her head, still processing but slowly beginning to understand. She hoped. Orden nodded. He reached past her to place the book on top of the pile. “Now,” He said, standing not two feet in front of her, “the names of the seven Oluanvi.”

  Mia pressed her tongue against her cheek. She listed them off on one hand. “Ithrielle the Pure, Galtrid the Hunter, Prethea the Wise, Valeuir the Seeker, Anna-Annamere the Shepherd, Kirstiel the Healer-” the sound of footsteps in the hall distracted her, “and Thoraine-” there was a bump against the door and Orden was moving toward it, “Thoraine, the Grower.” Mia finished as Orden opened the door to reveal Hanna holding a tray with two bowls of steaming something and a large loaf of fresh bread. Mia’s mouth watered instantly.

  Hanna’s blue eyes went directly to Mia even as she passed the tray off to her husband. “Are ye well dear?” Her grasp was warm and gentle as she took Mia’s hands in hers. Hanna looked up at Mia, her eyes wide and concerned. “Breahn told me ye were sick. How do ye feel now?” Concern, always concern for Mia’s well-being. From the moment Mia had arrived and despite her remaining closed off and distant, Hanna had always treated Mia with more kindness and patience than she deserved. She hugged her.

  “Oh!” Hanna went stiff with surprise as Mia wrapped her arms around her and then the older woman relaxed. Hanna’s arms went around her in a tight embrace, and Mia buried her face in her shoulder.

  As she breathed in the sun and earth smell of her Mia said, “Thank you.” Hanna held her tighter, no explanation needed for this sudden change.

  Orden cleared his throat.

  Mia lifted her face to peer at him over Hanna’s shoulders. He was standing near the door, completely forgotten, with the food tray in his hands, a frown etching deep lines into his face. There was still a lot for them to talk about. Mia dropped her arms and took a step back. She kept the older woman’s sun-scarred hands in hers, “Thank you for checking on me and for bringing us food.” She looked over Hanna’s grey streaked head to Orden, “I’m okay now.” She met Hanna’s gaze, “Really, I’m fine.”

  “Are ye sure dear?” Hanna asked, taking a step forward. In a lowered voice she continued, “Breahn told me what the two of ye spoke of. She said ye were rather shaken.”

  “I am.” She wasn’t going to lie, to them or herself. Mia was shaken and terrified and unsure. Her role in all this was still unclear, the odds stacking against her. And what odds they were. “I’m scared.” She told them both, “I don’t know what I can do against someone like Kairos and knowing it’s my responsibility is freaking me out a bit.”

  “It is not your responsibility alone, Mia,” Orden said, speaking for the first time since Hanna had arrived. “It never was.”

  “You’re talking about Vander,” the Dragon. Orden nodded. Vander- a guy she’d never meet beyond the time he’d knocked her out in the woods. Her partner and yet she’d never even seen him. Mia pulled her hands from Hanna’s grasp and tucked them into her armpits. “Where is he anyway?” She asked Orden, “Why isn’t he here training?”

  “He took the yearlings to Keswick to be sold,” Hanna answered, “so Orden could remain here to teach ye.”

  “That doesn’t explain why I’ve never seen him.” He’d watched her almost every day of those first three weeks of training and never once shown himself.

  “You’re right,” Orden crossed the room in a few long strides and deposited the tray of cooling food on the bed. When he turned toward her the lines in his face seemed etched there with a knife.He looked exhausted and old. “There is much you do not understand yet, about the Guardians, about Vander and yourself.”

  Only because he hadn’t told her yet. Mia didn’t say it, but Orden must have read it in her face. He dipped his head in a nod, “I have many things to show you yet. You will have your answers.”

  “Not before she’s eaten something,” Hanna protested effectively placing herself between the two of them as if Mia needed protecting.
Mia might even have smiled.

  Orden grunted, his eyes rolling in exasperation, “Yes alright woman. We will both eat.”

  Hanna’s hands dropped from her waist, and she seemed to deflate a bit, “Good.” Mia only saw the answering twitch of Orden’s mouth as he looked down at his wife with soft eyes. “Make sure ye do eat,” Hanna turned to Mia with a stern look, “don’t let him bully ye.”

  Mia’s eyes flicked to Orden’s face and back, suppressing her own smile as she assured Hanna that she wouldn’t.

  Chapter 43

  Snippets from that long night spent talking with Orden flitted in and out of Mia’s head for days after, accompanied by scenes from the memories he’d shared.

  Mia would be running, feet pounding into the track she’d made in the short grass bordering the alfalfa field and find herself sifting through the details of Kairos’ fall from grace. Another time she’d be sitting at the table eating dinner with Orden, Hanna, and Breahn and be swept away by the image of a terrifyingly huge dragon with gold scales. Ithrielle, passing over the tops of the buildings of Perilea with a roar that shook the cobblestone streets. Flying to meet Kairos and the band of Oluan attacking her city. Soaring to her death.

  Mia couldn’t count the number of times Orden had caught her enmeshed in a web of details or picking through one of his memories. It happened when she should have been concentrating on hitting the target standing twenty yards away with her arrow, or when he needed her to hold a mare’s head while he delivered a stuck foal. He never scolded her for it, not even the time one of the horses had gotten away from her and landed a kick to his thigh. Orden only asked Mia what she was thinking about and listened as she worked her way through the complicated mess in her head, answering her questions.

  This newfound grace they had for one another was a relief, a nice change from their usual bitter exchange. Not that the fighting had stopped, not by a long shot but Mia found it less hurtful and more constructive. Maybe even a little fun, if she was honest. It helped soften the feeling of inadequacy Mia felt each time she looked at Orden’s face and knew she was not improving at the rate he hoped for. Even if she was training harder and longer than she had before.

  Seinfeld had been moved to the small round pen behind the barn in anticipation of potentially difficult births. Mia was working on opening up to the others more, but she still found the not so little horse easier to talk to, especially about Orden. It didn’t sit well with her, talking to either Breahn or Hanna about the memories Orden had shared with her.

  So while Seinfeld ate his mix of grain and porridge from the bucket she held for him Mia told the little horse about the little boy who had gone by his mother’s name because he never knew who his father was. The young man forced to work with and learn from a mentor who’d hated him. The man who was gravely injured trying to keep Kairos from skipping out on the trial they both faced after a peace negotiation went wrong. The Olu who fought against his own race, in the same war Breahn and Hanna had lived through. The old man who was brought before all four remaining Oluanvi and informed that he had been chosen to be the Keeper.

  Another conversation that had lasted deep into the night. The memory Mia revisited most often while she sat with Breahn and Hanna in the small sitting room after dinner, sewing patches over the holes in her leggings. In the silence of the woods while she and Orden waited for some sign of their quarry.

  Orden, looking much as he did now, rough around the edges and balding, his head lowered in respect to the four figures seated in shadow before him. The temple of the Pure, cool and familiar even in the dim glow of flames burning atop stands positioned before the towering pillars. Ithrielle’s voice, as cold and emotionless as the stone she surrounded herself with as she introduced Orden to the Shepherd, the Wise and the Hunter. The shocked look on Orden’s face as the diminutive black-eyed woman dressed in earth-toned robes seated to Ithrielle’s right addressed him as Orden Metrosson instead of using his mother’s name as the Pure had done.

  The Olu had stumbled, actually stumbled, when the woman with skin dark as coal and eyes like diamonds told him how they planned to defeat Kairos and his Oluan. His voice had shaken as he asked them if there was any other way and then raised in desperation when they told him there wasn’t. As he demanded to know how they meant to keep the humans from going to war with each other when there were no Dragons to keep the peace. The man sitting next to Prethea had placed a calming, red-skinned hand on his mate’s arm, and turned eyes the color of raw amethyst on Orden. In a voice like the whispering of wind through the leaves of an ancient forest, Galtrid the Hunter told Orden of their plan, the Guardians, and Orden’s role as Keeper, if he chose to accept the responsibility.

  With Ithrielle acting as their go-between, the Oluanvi had begged Eldhor to help them find a solution to the fighting. To put an end to the bloodshed. Like Orden, they were not pleased with the answer they were given, and they too asked for another way, a solution without such a steep price. Eldhor refused them. Kairos and the Oluan who followed him could not be permitted to see their vision to fruition nor could the fighting between Oluan and Dragons continue. It would mean the death of their world. The time had come for the Oluan race to leave Nethea and for the humans to inherit the earth.

  The Oluanvi agreed.

  As the eldest of their race and the first beings to set foot on the fertile soil of the earth, it fell to them to see Eldhor’s will done. Even if it meant the death of their people. But there had to be some way to soften the blow. If they were going to ask the Dragons to sacrifice themselves, then they had to offer some guarantee that it would not be in vain. That there was something in place to ensure peace between the humans who had a penchant for war and waste. Eldhor’s answer came through Ithrielle: Guardians.

  There would be three. Only three.

  Three Dragons of the Oluanvi’s choosing and three humans Chosen by Eldhor from the different planes of His Creation. Power would bind them to one another, human and Dragon, a platonic partnership designed to keep the peace and protect the land and humans from any threat, including themselves. As the Keeper, it would be Orden’s responsibility to raise the three egglings chosen by the Oluanvi. To care for and train them as well as the Chosen humans in the use of Power and combat until they were ready to take on their duties as Guardians of Nethea.

  Keep the peace and protect. The Hunter’s words echoed in Mia’s head as she tracked a deer through the dim, overgrown forest surrounding the homestead. Her first solo hunt since Orden had started teaching her how almost two weeks ago. Keep the peace and protect. It was literally her job; the reason she was here instead of literally billions of other people. A job that had claimed the lives of the other Guardians in a few short years.

  Now Mia understood. Orden’s disappointment and the general disdain he’d shown toward her during their months together. In the memories he’d shared with her she’d had the chance to see for herself how much Orden had cared for the Dragons he’d raised. From the moment they’d hatched; through the awkward stages of long, scaled limbs, black, green and diamond, wings and tails too long for their skinny bodies; when they’d first shifted into their human forms. Aida, Nymal, and Vander were as much Orden’s children as the two young men who had found their way to him with Eldhor’s help. Through doorways like the mirror in Bella Abelson’s bathroom.

  They were children Orden had raised and loved and mourned. And then Mia had arrived, kicking and screaming, four years after Kairos had cleansed the Northern Reaches of humans and established his seat of power in the fortress where he’d murdered Nymal and Reiner. Shame made Mia’s skin prickle and crawl.

  She was still thinking about the other Guardians, young like her and dead before their time when she crouched down beside the rotting remains of a fallen tree. The tall grass, a mix of dry yellow and ripe green brushed her shoulders and tickled her ear as she scanned the damp earth for tracks. She found them, just not the kind she’d hoped to see so close to the homestead. Presse
d into the ground with bits of grass and overlapping the upside down heart shaped tracks of the deer she hunted was the unmistakable print of a wolf. Mia sucked in a breath, the sweat coating her upper lip going cold as she did a quick scan of her surroundings.

  The forest was quiet and alert to her presence but not silent. If Mia listened hard, she could still hear the scrambling of smaller animals in the underbrush and the scratch and flutter of birds hopping from branch to branch in the canopy above. Mia held on to her breath a little longer before letting it slip through her lips in a slow stream. She took a closer look at the wolf print.

  About the size of her closed fist, it was larger than the tracks Mia had found yesterday near the garden where she’d been helping Hanna pull weeds. The center pad was shaped like a wonky triangle, the outer edges curving inward. Four were evenly spread, the middle two nearly symmetrical and tipped with the clear impressions of the animal’s powerful claws.

  Orden had warned her to be on her guard. The morning after the first foal had dropped he’d told her the wolves would be drawn to the smell of blood. She’d asked if they ever attacked the horses and Orden had laughed, “Sometimes but the mares are more trouble than they’re worth, especially when they’ve foaled.” Still, Mia couldn’t quite help the slither of unease down her spine as she stood and turned for home. It was growing darker between the trees, and she had a bit of a walk ahead of her if she wanted to get back before the sun set. After finding the tracks in the garden, Mia had vowed that she wouldn’t be caught outside after dark, not until the last of the mares had delivered.

  Keep the peace and protect. Not two minutes into the trek home and already Galtrid’s words sounded within her head. Mia sighed. She looped her bow over her chest; the slender arm bumping against the doe skin quiver Orden had given her as she walked. Mia didn’t know how she was supposed to do any of it. Beyond teaching her how to open her mind to communicate through thought and memory, Orden had yet to broach the subject of her Power. And she was still shit with a sword; better than she’d been, but still shit.