by Nikolas Lee
The Iron-Jawed Boy
and the
Siege of Sol
Sky Guardian Chronicles
__________
Book Three
Nikolas Lee
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE IRON-JAWED BOY AND THE SIEGE OF SOL
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2014 by Nikolas Lee
Cover art by Damonza
To the ten-year-old me.
You were never as alone as you thought. Here’s that role model you were looking for...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
THE THUNDER LORD
The winds howled as they twisted tight around my waist, lashing at my tunic and whipping the skin of my legs as they fought to suspend me in the air.
I hovered high in the atmosphere, where innocent white clouds rolled in every direction, where one year ago, I could’ve never flown. To fly at such an elevation required control beyond what I’d ever possessed.
But I’ve been taught wisely.
The air was cold up here, freezing even. Though it felt less so to a god of the weather like me. I was less sensitive to the atmospheres I could meld and bend.
I looked past the rolling clouds and squinted at the Sun and the morning light it greeted me with. It bothered me. But in seconds, it will no longer be a problem. As I gathered the anger I’d been storing in my chest, a great cold rushed over my body. The skin of my arms and hands tightened until my muscles and bones were clearly visible. My skin grayed. My lips cracked. My veins blackened. I had not yet gotten used to such feelings and sights—the consequences of using the Dark moves of the Balance. Moves I had been taught over the past year.
I traced my brooding eyes over the clouds, watching as they shifted from an innocent white to an angry black, all in the wake of my glare. The strip of unpolished iron attached to my jaw grew red hot, searing against the flesh underneath. It was reacting to my anger, my emotion, just as it always had since it’d been magically sewn to my skin when I was twelve. Sewn there by the hand of my father, but for reasons he did not know.
I constricted the muscles in my arms, and stretched them out to my domain, my sky. I closed my right hand around a sliver of air, though it felt as though I was holding something as solid as stone. A weight grew heavy on my shoulders, but I swept my hand upward and the roiling clouds at my right surged upward with a clap of thunder. Again and again, I commanded the clouds to rise, until the Sun’s light was eclipsed by the towering castle walls of a storm.
My storm. A storm that will change everything.
I closed my eyes and focused, ignoring the uncomfortable tightness of my skin, the weight of the roiling clouds on my shoulders. It was one thing, to control the clouds in the upper atmosphere, but getting them to actually do something was another story. Another level a god must be on.
And then it came. Through the blackness behind my eyelids, I saw a few streaks of blue light fall in the distance, so tiny they were barely noticeable. But in seconds, they surged to a hundred, then a thousand, until a wave of them rushed toward me from the west. Their wet kisses splashed on my arms and shoulders and soaked my long, dark hair as though in worship, while the linen of my tunic stuck to my skin.
I smiled. Rain.
Even with my eyes shut, I saw it falling all around. Each drop was my child—bright and glowing like a shower of falling stars in the night sky. Slowly, I opened my eyes and wondered at what I’d created. Rain Induction—another ability that would’ve been intangible to me a year ago. Creating clouds was an easy business, but seeding them with rain was not so easily done, nor was turning it off. But my training had paid off.
It has led me to this moment.
My name was Ionikus Reaves, Sky Guardian to the gods of Illyria. Though I suppose that wasn’t my title anymore. To my pantheon, I was the Thunder Lord of the Endari. But to my enemies, I was the Traitor. They can call me whatever they wish, I thought. I didn’t expect them to understand. Not yet at least.
With a look to the floor of clouds at my feet, I descended through them, their cold embrace grasping at my limbs, so desperate to touch their master, their creator. But I passed through them, and beneath me waited a sprawling red desert, its thirsty sands now quenched by my rains.
This desert stretched for miles upon miles, seeming boundless even to the most rational minds. They called it the High Heat, the desert that had claimed the Southernlands—one of seven continents of Earth—for the past two hundred years. It was a deadly landscape made so by the will of the Illyrian gods, the last and only pantheon to rule the world. A treacherous, lying lot of gods, I thought, my hands balling into bony, old fists.
Strands of my long hair, drenched now, hung into my vision. I brushed them to the side and spied a single figure as it appeared at the top of a towering sand dune in the distance. He was tall, but, in fact, he was not a he at all—but an it.
Its movements were jerky, mechanical, and its knees rose high in the air with each step it took. I noted the cogs and gears of its shoulders, elbows, knees, and hips; the bars of sparkling silver that yielded its arms and legs, both of which were heavily armored with polished plates of quartz. In one hand, it gripped a spear made of the same metal as its limbs. In another, it held a quartz shield. It was followed by two more machines, and after that, a whole wall of them, until an entire troop trudged down the desert hill. They struggled over the soaked sand, so distracted by their footing they couldn’t see me hovering up above, just beneath the ceiling of black clouds.
These weren’t just any mechanical warriors, though. They were creations of an Illyrian god—Esereez, the Inventor. He was the smallest of the pantheon, but his mind knew no such limits. These were his warriors, though only a handful out of the hundreds of thousands he’d manufactured over the years.
The winds continued to howl around my waist and legs, the rain continuing to fall. I’d been watching Esereez’s troops march across the deserts of the Southernlands for a little less than a year now, ever since I’d left the ranks of my fellow Guardians on Illyria. The soldiers’ mission was to intercept envoys and traders travelling between the Last Citadels—the ten remaining cities that belonged to the humans.
But today, their mission will not see its completion.
It was an order.
They wouldn’t be expecting me, not at this hour, on this day.
As they continued across the swampy earth beneath them, I descended from the clouds unt
il I could see past their polished silver helmets, into the shimmering ball bearings that served as their eyes.
One saw me and screamed, “Halt!” its mechanical voice cutting through the air.
And instantly the soldiers stopped. They stood silently for a moment, calculating the turn of events.
“It’s the Traitor!” one of them shouted.
“Strike him down!” called another. “Kill him by order of Skylord Othum!”
Even Othum wants me struck down now?
I detected a sudden shift in the atmosphere—particles of electricity building in the insides of their spears. The buzzing of it filled my sensitive ears, clouding my thoughts.
As their spears fast approached their full charge, I threw my head back. I shifted my jaw and felt it pop out of its socket like a snake’s would before devouring its prey. A Dark move of the Balance taught to me by a Dark god, drawn from anger and sorrow and hate. I snapped my head forward, and when I opened my mouth, it stretched down past my chest. A torrent of hissing ice, snow, and hail flooded out of my mouth, materializing from the very breath I exhaled. It flooded over the Inventor’s soldiers, a blizzard in the middle of the High Heat that froze the soldiers in their place. A web of frost crept over my lips, snaking across my cheeks and up to my eyes, caking my eyebrows in ice.
The river of snow, wind, and sleet stopped as I retracted my unhinged jaw, and I popped it back into place with my hand. It hurt the first time I’d done it, but now it was as natural as any other Dark move I’d learned.
The winds lowered me to the soldiers, and once my feet reached the frozen earth, I marched through the ranks. Their spears and shields were held high. As though it would’ve done them any good. I stopped in the middle of them, and waited.
My sensitivities to the atmosphere weren’t limited to the building of electrical charges or the sight of rain through the darkness behind my eyelids. I could feel my frost creeping through every inch of these soldiers’ gears and limbs too, hear it infecting them like a virus.
Regret washed over me in place of the hate I’d summoned.
“What have you started, Ion?” Father would have said, his steely eyes piercing my soul.
I clenched my iron jaw, listening to the angry rumbles of thunder in the clouds above—the storm replying to my anger. But as regretful as I was, I was less so than I thought I’d be. You’ve been numbed, Ion, I told myself. I could sense it even in my own thoughts. But I had to be at this point. For this was what must be done. And what must be done required sacrifices.
I silenced my regret with a deep breath, one that ceased the thunder and negated the falling rain in only a second.
She must not know of the regret I have. It would’ve ruined everything I’d worked for. Unravel every stitch in the fabric of my plan.
A hand fell upon my shoulder, heavy but gentle all the same. Motherly. But deceiving.
“It is done,” she said, her voice sweet and caring. “You’re finally ready.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE HAND OF THE MOON
A horrific scream tore through the Hall of Thrones. It grated against the soaring walls of golden sandstone that surrounded me, so miserable, so full of pain.
It was a scream so high-pitched I would have never guessed it could have come from a god of Illyria, let alone one as stoic as the one before me. Were I not an elf, the whole ordeal would have been hard to watch. But I looked on, unbothered and unblinking, as Lady Helia—Illyrian of time and death—stood in a prison of enchanted ivory tusks. They had been plucked from the bodies of long-dead mammoths, and were as long as I was tall.
Helia was clad in only a black tunic, quite the departure from her usual long, smoky robes. They had let her keep her helmet of gold, however. Its weavings masked her face in metal lace, but her white eyes, absent any irises, told of great anguish.
Her prison was suspended beneath the upside-down oak tree growing out of the ceiling of the hall, each of its leaves alive with fire, but never withering. Beneath Helia’s prison sat a pit of blue flames, its hissing tongues licking at the bottom of the cage just beneath the goddess’s feet.
Her feet are another travesty, I thought. They were blackened and scorched, throbbing with disgusting sores and warts. Most of their deformities were formed previous to her exposure to the flames, however. They had come from her punishment.
After the pantheon of Illyria discovered her treachery, she had been imprisoned. They had questioned her in this very Hall, to uncover why she had betrayed her own family. She would not budge, however, and when they realized this, she was sentenced to walk the Black Plains of the Darklands. Where dark is truly dark, and the dead are all around. The walking had done horrors to her poor feet, and I shifted in my throne of carved quartz just imagining her walking on them.
Of course, I was not alone in the Hall of Thrones this evening. As a Guardian of Illyria and newly appointed Illyrian of the Moon, I was in godly company all the time, and this instance was no different. Unfortunately. Encircling the prison and the fire that burned beneath it were the twelve other thrones of the Hall, each occupied by a deity. Besides the two noticeably vacant ones—two more signs of betrayal.
Most of the gods looked upon Lady Helia with malice, others in disappointment. She had done a foolish thing in betraying them, in inviting the Twins, Solara and Spike, on Illyria, and unleashing Illindria, the fallen goddess of the pantheon, upon the world once more. And she was going to pay for this bad thing. These gods and their glares are going to make sure of it.
“Answer us!” shouted Lord Vasheer, a tall but young-looking man. Five diamond prongs grew out of his scalp like the rays around a sun, through a nest of brown curls. He was the Illyrian of the Sun, if his golden eyes and golden armor did not already tell such a story. He also happened to be the most petulant god I had ever met.
“I...cannot...tell,” said Helia, her voice so tired.
He spat in the fire and its flames flared. Helia screamed in pain, hopping on her scarred feet to escape the heat for only a moment. I looked down at my lap and ran my skinny fingers over the smooth purple silk of my dress and the brown leather belt synching me in at the waist. It ties the whole outfit together, I tried thinking over Helia’s screams. She shrieked more and more, and I ran my fingers gingerly over the small diamond sewn to the middle of my forehead. It was the Eternity Diamond, the crystal that had marked me as the Illyrian of the Moon and given me immortality. I feel no different than before, though, I thought over her shrieks.
For a moment, I delved into my memories. I connected the dots of Ion’s freckled face and then did the same to his sister, Oceanus—those fellow Guardians of mine. I wondered what they were doing now: Oceanus, at the Achaean Academy with my dear dwarf friend, Theodore Price; Ion the Traitor, scheming with the ones who saw to the death of his own mother. What little plan do you have in your head, Ion? Or are you as dull as I half-expected and you are running on a blind need for revenge? Either way, I doubt any of them were hearing the horrible wails I was hearing.
The fire calmed, and I looked up to find the flames reflecting in Vasheer’s diamond prongs and casting beads of light in all directions.
“We’re giving you a chance, traitor,” said Lady Nepia, the Sea Queen. Her skin seethed a deep, angry blue, the webbed fin growing from her forehead down her back flaring like an opened sail. “Tell us what Illindria is planning, or continue to walk the Darklands. And by the looks of your feet, it does not appear you’ll be able to walk much longer.”
Helia looked down at her fellow gods, her iris-less eyes piercing. She looked so tired, so close to death. She grew up with these gods. And now they seek nothing but her destruction.
She gripped the ivory bars. “I...cannot...tell,” she growled.
“For the hundredth time, what does that even mean?” Vasheer snapped, before spitting into the fire again.
As Helia screamed once more, I turned my eyes on the gods around me. Screams had a purpose. They were meant to
be heard, to be answered, to incite empathy in others. But I witnessed no such reactions from the red, angry faces I looked upon. As a Blood Guardian, much of my powers were an extension of the human mind, and so my eyes were capable of things beyond what most were or should be capable of. And so, I zoomed in on the faces of the Illyrians, examining their twitching lips, bared teeth, and brooding eyes. They wore their emotions with such ease. A pantheon of elves would better serve the world, I could not help but think. We would not dare expose ourselves in such a way, to allow others to know what our minds think and feel.
I remembered then the one thing my elven father had taught me before I was Dismissed—as all elf children are—to live in the outside world. Opaque, he had said. You must remain opaque.
I hid my disgust, just as they should have hidden their anger. They did not have the instincts I had, and right now, mine were telling me to keep quiet on my throne of quartz.
For the information they sought...I was in possession of.
I recalled the thought that fell from the head of Ion, that squirrely Guardian of the Sky. It was a thought that exposed a plot to kill. A plot constructed not by Lady Helia above, but by Lady Borea below. She sat across from me, small but dazzling in a white dress of shimmering fish scales. Her white hair hung all the way down to the floor at the foot of her throne, as white as the snow and ice she could summon with only the flick of her wrist. Her bony hand was wrapped around her white staff. Her face was as brooding as all the others in the Hall, all those cavernous wrinkles stitched up into a menacing stare directed at Lady Helia.
This one is quite the actress.
But I could not tell the gods of this. I had not yet won their trust. Had I confessed to who planned all of this, I would have found myself above the same fire as Helia. The Illyrians do not want the truth. Though not many in this world truly do.
“Shall I turn the heat up, Father?” Vasheer asked Skylord Othum.
He sat beside Lady Borea, his massive, wrinkly hand running through the dreads of his long, white beard. The enormous diamond growing out of his chest sparkled as brilliantly as Vasheer’s diamond prongs—a Connection Seal they both beared to mark their shared blood. Othum found one of the many turquoise ringlets around his dreads and played with it in thought.