A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) Read online

  Vivianne was on her way back to the counter to retrieve the mugwort when the first shuddering bang illuminated the evening sky in a blaze of fire. Where she stood Vivianne could see the bright flash and smell the burning of wood, even if she couldn't see the flames.

  She stood for breathless moments before the distant sounds of screams urged her on. Her slippered feet beat across the tiled floor to the glass door. The bell jingled above her head as she pulled the door open and stepped out into the chill evening.

  All thoughts of the cold fled her mind when she saw the meeting hall at the center of town in a blaze. Proof of the blast lay in roof parts strewn across the streets, still flaring with angry orange fire.

  A shadow stepped out of the burning doorway of the hall and cast its gaze around. It lifted a hand, and the wyrded fire responded. The figure moved its hand to the right, and fire leapt from the burning debris in the street and caught thatched roofs on fire.

  Vivianne stepped toward the glass storefront of Begget's Botanicals. It was such a small movement in the chaotic street, but it still drew the attention of the one causing mayhem in Meedesville.

  The figure pushed its hand toward Vivianne, and she felt the reverberation in the air. A small cracking noise came to her ears, a noise that caused dread in her heart. She turned, and watched as spider-web cracks raced along the surface of the shop.

  She moved back, but it wasn't fast enough; the glass exploded outwards, peppering her with debris. She made to scream, but a large section of window thundered into her small body, driving all breath and life from her slight frame.

  Her body fell lifeless to the ground, and Meedesville burned around her.

  Jovian had elected to go first. The rest of the group gathered behind him, waiting for him to exit the shadows and breathe his first breath of home air in months. He stood before the border and tried to see what everyone else was able to see, but there wasn't anything discernible to him marking it as the border.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped through. He was expecting something horrible to happen, like what had happened when he entered the Shadow Realm, but nothing did.

  He felt the air around him, lighter, fresher: the sweetness of home and the hay of the fields close to his plantation. The sun was welcome, shining brightly through his closed eyes, bathing his skin in warmth he’d thought he might never feel again.

  Despite the dread he felt at coming home, he smiled, raised his arms to the sides and opened his eyes.

  The brightness of the sun made his eyes water, and he blinked several times, closing his eyes to slits until they could get used to the brightness of the Holy Realm in contrast to the Shadow Realm.

  When he was able to fully open his eyes, he took in his surroundings. Jovian was distantly aware of Angelica stepping through the fog-bank, followed by Joya, and then the dark elf and the frement. Uthia brought up the tail end.

  He looked around at the fields and tried to get a feel for where they were. If he was correct, the trail of smoke rising into the cold sky on the horizon to their left was Meedesville.

  “I think that's Meedesville,” he told the rest of them, pointing to the smoke on the horizon.

  “What…is that?” Caldamron asked. Jovian turned to see the frement on his knees, blinking in pain, looking at the sky.

  “Don't look directly at it,” Angelica told him. “That's the sun.”

  “And, it's always out here? Is this a land of perpetual light, as ours is dark?” he asked.

  Shelara smirked at him and unhooked her thin blade. She slipped her bow over her back and took a position some distance from them, scouting out the area. It was a smart move, Jovian figured, since the Holy Realm was so hostile to those from the Shadow Realm.

  “You've never heard of the sun?” Jovian asked Caldamron, helping him stand.

  “I've heard legends that the Shadow Realm once saw it, but I never thought it would be so angry.” He covered his eyes, and Jovian could only imagine the headache he must be feeling. Jovian was having a hard time acclimating to the sun again, and he had only been out of the light for a month. Caldamron had never seen the sun.

  “It's not angry,” Angelica told him.

  “It's bright,” he complained.

  “You will get used to it,” Jovian told him.

  “Why are you not affected by it?” Joya asked Shelara.

  “Human rules don't affect us; we come and go from the realms as we please,” she checked her sword in its scabbard.

  “What about the border patrol?” Angelica asked.

  Shelara only smirked.

  “Alright, if that's Meedesville, we are about a week from home,” Jovian told them. His face split into a smile at the thought of home. He would give anything to lay in his own bed once more, wake to the familiar water stain on the ceiling and the bustle of activity around the plantation.

  Finally he would be able to put down this horrible feeling that something was wrong. Once he was home and sure that everything was fine, then they could gather their wits and think of where Amber might have gone.

  And where do you think she's gone? Angelica asked into his mind.

  The problem was, he had no idea, and she knew that. He just looked at her, and then shook his head. The truth was he had hoped Amber would be waiting at home for them. They had gotten information from Baba Yaga that Amber was being taken to the Mirror of the Moon. So they had traveled there, hoping to find her, only to find that Amber had already left. Now the only thing Jovian could think of was that his sister was back at home, waiting for them.

  Only the dread inside of him told him that wasn't the case. This was far from over, and the magnitude of what was to come was far beyond anything he could ever grasp.

  In time Caldamron got used to the sun, or at least he wasn't as bothered by it. On occasion he would look up at it, and then stumble, blinded once more. No matter how many times he was told not to look at the sun, his eyes kept going that way.

  Little things would come up in their conversation, like where the sunflowers were, and why didn't they have machines of their own. Jovian thought it was a harder transition for Caldamron than it had been for them. Jovian guessed when you were accustomed to the kind of technology they had in the Shadow Realm, it was hard to get used to a life without it.

  That night they made camp. A week with a large troupe had spoiled them for having to make their own camp and meals. Once all of the camp chores had been done, Joya pulled out her telfetch and started answering letters that had arrived since that morning.

  Jovian and Angelica worked a little with their wyrd, but most of the night their thoughts were focused on home and not on their actions. That night Shelara and Uthia took up watch, since neither of them needed sleep. Caldamron curled up next to the fire and stared up at the sky. He shivered, and turned away from the vast expanse above him.

  “What's the matter?” Angelica asked him.

  “It's so large…too large.”

  “What is?” Jovian asked.

  “Everything, but mainly the sky. It goes up so far. Aren't you afraid you will fall out?” he asked.

  “Fall out of the land?” Angelica asked. “How?”

  “All of those lights up there—,”

  “—stars,” Jovian supplied.

  “I've never seen them, and they aren't part of this world, so how can you see them?” Caldamron looked at Angelica as she eased into bed.

  “Because the sky is clear,” she told him.

  “Is that true? In school we are taught that the outside world doesn't have anything that separates them from the space outside the world except layers of things that hold us to the ground. We are in space right now, just close enough to the ground that those invisible bonds hold us down.”

  Jovian couldn't make sense of a thing the cat-man said. “Well, we have never fallen into the sky, nor have we ever seen anyone fall into the sky, so I think you are safe.”

  “I hope,” Caldamron whispered.
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br />   In the morning Joya worked a bit of wyrd that allowed them to travel across the ground much faster than they had been before. It was a speed nearly as fast as riding a horse, but on their own feet, which was strange at first, and gave Jovian the constant feeling of falling.

  Then, on their third day of traveling, they could smell smoke heavy on the air.

  Cianna wasn't sure she would ever get used to the heat. During the blistering day she thought she would welcome the cold of the night. Then, during the frigid night, she thought she would welcome the heat of the day. She was wrong on both counts.

  She had lost count of the days spent in the Realm of Fire when they came across an image that would forever be burned in her mind. The pain of the wythes reached her before the caravan town came into sight. This one was muted colors, but bright, meaning the town was friendly. Cianna couldn't understand why there was a second town attacked, destroyed when they were friendly.

  She remembered from Ava's past that her father seemed to know who it was, the person, or people, who had destroyed their home.

  “Up ahead,” Cianna said at just the time the wind changed and carried a cloud of black smoke to them.

  “What in the realms?” Flora asked.

  “Another burned-out caravan,” Cianna said, listening to the mournful dead.

  “Why does this keep happening?” Pi asked. “Is this normal?”

  “No, it's not normal. I wonder if my aunt knows.”

  “I hope she is working to stop it,” Cianna said.

  “How long ago did Ava's happen?” Flora asked.

  “I assumed it had been years, but I'm not sure now. How quickly can a ruined village turn to dust here?” Cianna asked, but no one seemed to know.

  “Maybe it’s the same kind of attack we faced at the academy?” Devenstar wondered.

  “I just assumed that had to do with the chaos dwarves,” Flora mumbled. “Maybe something larger is happening.”

  The movement spell that Flora and Pi had placed on them carried them quickly to the site, though Cianna wished it hadn't when they finally reached it.

  The colorful wagons had previously been placed around the tents like a protective wall, but whatever had attacked had destroyed them. At the edges of the makeshift town, broken sled blades stood like pikes, sporting heads and bodies that scavengers had already been after, creating a fleshy ruin on the grounds beneath the corpses.

  The smell of burned flesh reached their noses before they saw the smoldering bodies. Cianna peered through an opening in the wreckage and saw more bodies had been burned to blackened hunks of flesh in the center of the small tent village. The tents were only recognizable because Cianna knew what they had been before they were burned. The colors were nearly indistinguishable.

  “I don't want to go in,” Pi said, turning her back away from the smoking ruin.

  “I don't think we need to,” Flora told them, “unless there is anyone living inside?”

  Cianna shook her head. There was no way anyone would ever have survived that.

  “There's something strange here,” Flora asked, turning her head to the air. “A feeling of wyrd.”

  “I can smell it too,” Devenstar said, sniffing the air. “Dark, chaotic.”

  “From the well?” Chy asked.

  “No, this was done within the last couple hours; the well has been cleansed for weeks now. It is possible a caustic was around, but there's a note of intention here.”

  “Why would someone do this intentionally?” Cianna asked. “What would they have to prove?”

  Flora could only shake her head.

  Endless days and nights they seemed to travel, wondering all the while if they would come upon another ruined caravan — which they didn't — but even when they saw friendly caravans of people welcoming them to stay the night, or merchant caravans hawking wares, they were leery of entering. Finally there came a day when they could see the spires and towers of the distant capital city on the horizon.

  They drew to a halt and passed around the water skin. Flora was taking the traveling hard, the sun a constant adversary for her, and the cold nights raising havoc with her joints.

  “Right there,” she said, gasping for breath. “That's Bahagresh, the sparkling city of light in the south.”

  After so long, finally there was an end in sight. Cianna couldn't believe it. They had seen mirages in their travels, but this time Flora sounded so sure of herself. Cianna figured she was right, because the Barrier Mountains could be seen rising red and cracked behind the hazy image of the city.

  “How is Clara doing?” Cianna asked, passing the water on to Flora.

  “Good,” Devenstar said.

  “Any idea where she is in her trials?” Cianna asked.

  “No one will know until she passes one,” Pi said, looking down at the blonde girl lying in the sand. They hadn't seen any more activity from Clara since her incident with the kelpies. Cianna thought at times that Clara might be dead, for as little movement as she made. She would sit for hours at night, waiting to see Clara's eyes dart around in dreams, but nothing ever happened. At times she had to scan her to make sure she was still alive.

  “Is it natural for it to take so long?” Cianna asked.

  “Some people go faster, others slower. It doesn't mark how good the sorcerer is. Actually, no one can really tell the reason some take longer than others,” Flora said. “She's fine, no need to scan her.”

  Cianna smiled at the old teacher and turned back to look at the skyline of the city. In the waves of heat rising from the sand, it was hard for Cianna to tell where the city ended and the peaks of the Barrier Mountains behind it started. As she watched, she thought she could see the shimmering domed tops and sharp points of buildings.

  “Is it really made of soapstone?” she wondered.

  Flora was nodding and squinting into the distance.

  “How can they build with that? Wouldn't it collapse?” Cianna asked.

  “No idea really, they haven't yet.”

  There was little conversation, because even talking seemed to take energy. At night they would rest around a fire, bundled up despite how hot they had been earlier, and sometimes fall fast asleep before they had even finished eating.

  The next day as the sun rose Flora made them all stop.

  “This is the best part.”

  As the sun rose in the east, the city before them came to life with a dazzling display of light that Cianna could almost hear singing through the air. The uppermost tower in the Guardian's Palace shimmered to wakefulness and refracted light across the ground, dancing its way over the dunes and toward them.

  Cianna stood for several moments, basking in the light of the tower. The sight was almost enough to make the weeks of traveling through the infernal sands worth it.

  With the aid of the movement spell Flora and Pi placed on them, they reached the Red Gates early in the afternoon. The guards there stopped them, seeing Clara on the litter.

  “What's wrong with that one?” the guard on the right asked. They were dressed in long white coverings over chain-mail armor. To their side hung swords, and in their hands they held pikes, barring the way for Cianna and her company.

  “A sorceress, in her trials,” Flora said, and Cianna wasn't really sure that meant anything to the guards, but when they shared a look she began to wonder.

  “We can't allow you to enter,” the left guard said. “The Realm Guardian isn't allowing sorcerers in the city.”

  “But the Realm Guardian is a sorcerer,” Cianna interjected.

  “Azra Akeed is my aunt,” Flora said.

  “I'm sorry,” the guard said.

  “I am too. If you’ll forgive me, I think my old bones need to rest here for a moment,” Flora said.

  “By all means,” the right-hand guard said, and they stepped back to their watch.

  Flora sat down, and Cianna looked around at the Red Gate and the surrounding wall keeping the city closed off. She’d always thought soapstone w
as supposed to be green, and some of the buildings inside appeared to be green, but most of the stone was orange. She couldn't see much inside except the hardened sand that made a road leading in and curved sharply to the right and out of sight.

  “What are you doing?” Pi asked, drawing Cianna's attention away from the inspection of the city beyond the wall.

  “I need to talk to my aunt, and they won't let me, so I’m sending her a message.” In her hands Flora conjured a red orb. As she spoke into it Cianna could see the words she uttered slipping over the surface of the orb. She was entranced that she could read parts of the message even as she heard Flora request an audience with her aunt.

  Once finished, Flora sealed the orb with a puff of breath, and tossed it in the air above her head. The orb whizzed away toward the uppermost tower of the green Guardian's Palace and vanished from sight through an open window.

  “Now we wait,” Flora said.

  It didn't take long for a response. A dazzling red orb came back out of the tower, floated down to Flora, and the old sorceress caught it. She popped it with a fingernail and a melodious, feminine voice came from within.

  “We have had much trouble with uprisings regarding sorcerers since the corruption of the well. I cannot grant you leave to stay within the city walls, but I will allow you to rest for a night here. Please understand, niece, it is for your own protection that I will not permit you to stay.”

  Flora sighed and rested her head in her hands.

  “Randolph will bring you to the palace,” the orb continued. “From here we have a rojo prepared to take sorcerers to the Desert of the Trostly’n, where all sorcerers from the capital have taken safe haven during these times.”