Keepers of the Crown

by Lydia Redwine

  Cam couldn’t hold back her own smile. “It is strange to think you a mother. It is easier to believe you have lived so long…”

  “It is strange for me too. Strange that some enormous part of me has been missing for as long as I can remember really. As long as the memories that count, anyway.”

  “Who else?” the question hung in the air.

  “Rakasi.”

  Cam had thought she had heard the name on the wind. Ilea whispered it in the same way Cam sometimes heard Terra and Mista’s names across desolate plains or sung in the deep of the night.

  The name rolled off of Ilea’s tongue like she had said it a hundred times before. Times joined with laughter. The name was strange, one Cam had never heard. From the south, she presumed.

  “My first true friend. Who fought for me against all odds. She would have battled the stars for me if she had needed to. And the strangest part of all...she never knew Elyon. Never loved the same creator. She bowed to the stars. I bowed to the designer of the stars. And yet I loved her more than any other woman.”

  Cam could see her now. The woman Ilea spoke of. Fierce and fiery. Like Fiera. Both were smiling. “Where did you meet her?”

  “In the desert,” Ilea said simply, her gaze focusing on Cam for the first time in many moments. “She traveled with a caravan and could perform all of the arts that her people could. Thesmokeandthedancingandsingingandluteplaying…” Ilea’s eyes held fire, a fire of burning memory. Burning bright and true.

  “And when she faded…” she said, her gaze growing cold, “The desert grew dark. No more fires to light the night. No more crisp loaves of mana with honey joined with the Mikro.”

  Cam’s eyes narrowed. “Mikro?”

  “Small dragons are never grown to their proper size and thus outcasted by their kind. She kept them in the caravan. The spectators adored them,” Ilea explained, with a pleased expression upon her face.

  A comfortable silence passed between them for a moment, but Cam felt its shift. When Ilea was thinking of someone else. Cam only prodded her with a brush of her elbow against her arm. “Amaziah,” Ilea said, the name bittersweet on her tongue. “Prince of Perez, warrior, and so purely beautiful despite the fact that he was one of the most vulgar people I ever met.”

  Cam laughed, not because she found the statement amusing but because Ilea’s smile was brighter than it had been yet.

  The smile faded slowly as Cam did not pursue the subject of the prince. Perhaps Ilea had fallen in love, and he had died. “And Leviathan...I did love him. Still does, perhaps, for the part of him, that remains human. Remains innocent.”

  Ilea’s gaze was distant.

  Cam’s lips parted. “I know they have history but…” She did not finish the thought.

  Ilea was speaking again. “I saw his humanness so many times, but it was so long ago. And now, it is but a mere flicker in his eye at times. A brush of his fingers over something so ordinary, one cannot doubt he sometimes has a fascination for the smallest of things. The sort of fascination one has for their creator without really knowing it.”

  Ilea trailed off, her statement finished but the thought evaporating. “What about you? Youhave suffered grief too heavy for your age.”

  The question was a piercing right through her heart. The ache expanded in her chest, cascading through her arms and to her fingers. Cam’s tongue was heavy as she pushed out the words. “My mother...when I was three, though I never truly felt her absence. And my older sister. Terra. And my grandfather. And my youngest sister…” She could not finish.

  Ilea nodded. “That makes sense. I see it in Fiera’s eyes too. When she looks at earth or flame.”

  “She didn’t see Grandfather die. We’ve never even spoken about it. The pain was too great when she found out, I suppose. Or perhaps she never did. Perhaps she thinks he died the way Silva said he had.” Cam’s words were sharper than she had intended.

  She met Ilea’s gaze, and the gentle, glazed eyes of the woman made her own expression soften. “I am sorry. For your losses. All of it. And I am sorry that you did not know Elyon through it.” Ilea’s voice wasn’t like soothing silk but more like warm tea. Warmth Cam could curl into. A warmth and darkness she could not comprehend but wished to grasp anyway.

  “Elyon let it happen, though. Helet me lose all ofit.” And Cam found to her surprise that her tone held no bitterness, only somber resignation.

  “Yes, He let it happen. But that doesn’t mean He did it to punish you or because He doesn’t love you.”

  Cam squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. She had not come here to tell Ilea these things. But then, she should since she had expected answers from her. “He...could have stopped it…” she whispered.

  “What would they say? Your sisters and grandfather? And mother?”

  Cam opened her eyes, her mind seeming to clear all at once. “They would tell me that He has a purpose. That whatever He is doing that it is out of love.”

  “And where did they go?”

  Cam’s lips parted. Caelae. The Infernal Cities. Drifting...somewhere. She could not answer.

  “Home, I believe. Elyon took them home. If they loved and served Elyon, then He took them home. Death was but a passage.”

  “Yes,” Cam breathed. “They are home.” But this only made her chest ache more, only set her heart thundering at a faster pace. She knew that Ilea herself in all those she had mentioned as loving...well, Ilea could not be sure if they had reached home.

  Caelae was but just a dream to them.

  “They gave me poison for food,

  and for my thirst, they gave me sour wine to drink.”

  -Immanuel

  Forty-Five

  Aweek after their arrival in Nazeria, the former citizens of Mirabelle, as well as Joel and Ilea, had grown rather restless in their cottages and had dispersed over the ten villages of the nation to explore and become more familiar with their surroundings. When Cam finally awoke after sleeping in hours past dawn, she found that Fiera was the only one still in the vicinity. “Why don’t you come with me while I hunt?” Fiera suggested.

  Cam agreed and found a vest, fur-lined trousers, and a cloak to wear. The morning was calm, gray and laden with fog from both the nearby sea and the river that ran up from it into the mountains north of the castle. “I’ll go with you for as long as you wish,” Cam said. “It’s been far too long since we simply went into the forest. Since we’ve tried to feel at home.”

  “Until evening,” Fiera added. Yes, evening, when Elizabeth held the night time meal with her court and those of Mirabelle once a week.

  “I like it, being with her court and watching them. It’s different here than it ever was in the Royalty Realm. They care.”

  Fiera agreed with a nod. “And the ball coming soon...I don’t believe it will be anything like what we’ve had in Mirabelle.”

  “Yes, the ball,” Cam breathed. “It has been far too long since I’ve danced properly.” She laughed, the prospect warming her even as the chilly air pressed around her as she and Fiera stepped out of their cottage and onto the cobblestone streets.

  After Cam and Fiera had emerged from their cottage, they hiked up into a short mountain pass among pine trees where they could be more alone. “I have been wondering about Joel,” Cam said. “I wonder if he’s thought about returning home.”

  “I have thought the same,” Fiera replied as she scanned the line of trees for any signs of wildlife. She found hoof prints soon thereafter and bent to examine them more closely. Cam did not ask where she was going. She only followed after her sister as Fiera tracked the deer.

  Fiera’s voice was low when she spoke again. “Perhaps he stays because we do not judge him for his...abilities. He feels safer...happier even among us.”

  “But not many of us know about his abilities,” Cam countered.

  Fiera nodded. “More than we may think, at first, though. I have no doubt that Ilea has guessed. AndAdria. Youknowshe’s smarter than the two of us put
together.”

  Cam smiled. “I know.”

  “And maybe we should tell Caleb since he utterly adores Joel,” Fiera said with a grin.

  “Perhaps more than he adores you,” Cam said. Fiera did not reply, but her grin did not fade.

  “I have been wondering about Caleb myself,” Fiera said, her amused expression fading. “Though we are friends, I hardly know anything about his past. I was hoping that we would get out to hunt alone again, but he doesn't like to. Not since…”

  “Not since losing a hand,” Cam finished. Silence passed between them as Fiera continued on the trail of the deer. “Are you still trying to decipher that message?” Cam inquired at last.

  Fiera lifted her bow, stringing an arrow through it and steadyingit beforeher. “I believe what Silva said. Itmakes sense, and it is the kind of game she would play before someone is supposed to die. But as far as trying to discover who this assassin is, I haven't worked on it anymore.”

  Cam nodded and came to a halt beside her sister who was now scanning the trees once more. The forest’s floor was frosty but not snowy. They were in a lower portion of the mountain, and the vegetation grew greener in this area. “Do you wish you could be in Cinis Lumen?”

  Fiera turned to gaze at her younger sister. “Of course. I wish we had our entire home right now. But that simply isn't reality.”

  “Of course,” Cam murmured. “I was just thinking how only months ago I was a royal envoy, and now...now I am in a foreign land protecting a Crown I didn’t believe to exist.”

  “And now believe in the fact that...there is something greater out there. Even if that belief is found in Terra’s secrets,” Fiera added as she once again presumed her hunting. Both began walking once more. Fiera continued in a low voice, “I find it solemnly interesting how it took bringing us to our lowest through battles and torture and seeing loved ones suffer and die in order to realize that we have a creator who loves us. It would have been far simpler to just look at the stars in the heavens or the waters in the ocean, and know that this was all made for us.”

  “Or to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel,” Cam added. “And now I have the feeling that if we do not protect Immanuel and the Crown, it will all be destroyed, and everything even Elyon has done will have been done in vain. Not because Elyon needs us, but because I believe we are the people through whom He is acting.”

  Fiera nodded gravely. “Or perhaps it would have been simpler if we had listened to Grandfather and Terra.” Both smiled at this, even when the thought of lost ones flickered across their minds. Cam could rest easy in the fact that both were in their homes.

  “I haven't an inkling as to how Adria is handling all of this,” Cam said. “She seems far more distant than she has before.”

  “Ithinkkeepingallthat toherselfis whathelpshercope,” Fierareplied. “For now, at least. Eventually, shemayneedto talk about it. That’s why we are here.” She paused to release a sigh. “Terra was always the person Adria went to.” Cam nodded as they came to a halt once more.

  Fiera lifted her bow and arrow, for they had heard a rustlingin theleaves. Theyoungbuck appeared. Fiera’s arms fell to her side. “Ido not want to kill today. Maybe fish but...not now. Not this buck at least.” Thebuck watched her with inky eyes. “I’d rather walk in sunlight and forget everything bad that has ever happened.”

  “If only we could do that for the rest of our lives,” Cam mused. “Do you think that is what Caelae will be like?”

  Fiera’s lips turned upward in a small smile. “Caleb says Caelae will be like our happiest moment amplified beyond our imaginations forever instilled within us. I cannot wrap my brain around that one.”

  “If I dwell on anything for too long, I cannot wrap my brain around it.”

  Fiera replaced her arrow into her quiver, and they began their tramping through the forest again. “What about Peter? He seems somewhat distant since the valley. Has he related to you what happened in the city?”

  Cam shook her head. “I only know that it involved Leviathan and some dispute the Shadow Bearer and Daniel had once.”

  Fiera snorted. “I doubt it was something so little as a dispute.”

  “I believe Peter thinks Leviathan had something to do with my mother’s and his father’s deaths,” Cam whispered. The topic seemed to require a lowering of voice.

  Fiera’s brows furrowed. “I am not saying it is impossible, but I am sure Leviathan was overseeing circumstances with Silva at thetime. Sheroseto power shortlyafter Daniel left thevalley.”

  “But Silva was there when they died. In Mirabelle,” Cam reminded her.

  Fiera seemed as though she were about to reply, but a dark, flickering figure caught both of their attention. The figure vanished between the maze of trees; a shadow of a whisper. Its dark cape made hardly any noise at it swept over the ground. “Owen,” was Cam’s first thought, but she disregarded it immediately. Owen, though he had made a stupid decision, knew better than to return to Nazeria and be slain. If he could even remember Nazeria.

  Fiera broke into a run, and Cam was compelled to follow. The uncomfortable, yet familiar ache began to build up in her leg muscles again, reminding her of what it had been like to run with her sisters in a forest so many months ago. Now that summer was nearing its close, the time in which they had found the message of the assassin sent after Terra, was nearly a year ago. Cam’s mind zapped from that time to the present as she and Fiera continued to pursue the figure in black. As they neared him, Cam realized that he was not wearing black but a dark green cape. Not the same shade of green that Silva wore, but one of a dull, faded green.

  The figure did not seem to notice that he was being trailed, for he slowed his steps presently before a high ascent of rock. The face of the mountain was laden with snow. The air grew colder around Cam. Fiera halted at a tree with Cam on her heels. Cam nearly crashed into her sister but stopped herself by bracing one hand on a pine tree and another on Fiera’s shoulder.

  Cam focused on catching her breath while her eyes remain fixated on the figure before the mountain. Both her and Fiera’s eyes narrowed as the mountain’s face began to open. A doorway swung open from its camouflaged position. Cam held in a gasp as she and Fiera threw themselves behind a larger tree, for the figure had turned to cast a glance over his shoulder.

  After assessing that he was not being followed, the hooded person crept into the mountain. The door closed behind him with a tremendous thud. Cam lurched forward, but Fiera caught her arm. “We can’t just waltz in there!” She said reproachfully.

  “You sound like Terra,” Cam said with a nervous laugh. She knew Fiera was right but the last time someone had followed someone else, they learned a good deal of important information. “When have youever cared about danger anyway?” Cam called as she neared the mountain herself.

  “After losing too many people,” Fiera replied gravely. Cam paused, the words settling inside her to make her stomach churn. Fiera was right, but she was also right beside her now with bow and arrow drawn. “How did he get in?” Fiera murmured.

  Instinctively, Cam braced her right hand against the stone. It was rough beneath her hand. Nothing happened. She moved her palm over the stone, searching for well...something. When her palm slid over a particularly smooth portion of stone, and the rock turned light purple beneath her hand, her chest lifted. She jerked back when the door came swinging towards her without warning. The door opened without a sound.

  Cam and Fiera peered inside to find that the interior was dark. Walls of stone rose on both sides of them. All this was to be expected. The inside was damp. Fiera stepped in cautiously. The sound echoed off the walls, and she stepped quieter.

  Cam placed one foot in front of the other, and presently, the door was thudding to its close behind her. She grew as still as she could be and would have grasped at Fiera’s arm had Fiera not been trying to hold her weapon up. This reminded Cam of her slingshot. Carefully, she removed it from her belt and selected a stone from her satchel. A wh
isper echoed down the stone passage.

  The whisper was not the kind that caressed an ear, but one that chilled Cam to her bones. The same kind of whispers she had heard in the Shadow Prisons. But there was no hissing. Nevertheless, something clenched around her heart, insides, and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. The whispers, the darkness, the stone tunnels, it brought too much back to her.

  Cam could see the effect it was having on Fiera as well. She was gripping her bow far tighter than necessary, and a sheen of sweat was drawn across her brow despite the damp air. “There must be a water source in here,” Cam surmised. She kept repeating such things to herself if only to think of something else. “Why thehell didI thinkthis was a decent idea? There is no way out. No way out. No way out...”

  “Calm down,” Fiera hissed. Cam found that she had been clenching Fieras cloak. At this point, Cam’s eyes distinguished pale light at the end of the tunnel. The light was a murky yellow. Not like sunlight at all.

  Fiera’s gait picked up a somewhat faster pace as they hastened towards the light. They halted just before an entryway in a large cavern which dipped down ten feet into the earth. A small crater, Cam noticed. She was glad that they had not kept walking, for if they had, they would have dropped onto more stone and been exposed to the-

  Hundreds.

  There were hundreds of them. They were weak, just as Cam had seen them in Apollyon’s army. Not at all like the ones found in Mirabelle or the ones who chased them out of Mirabelle. These Shadow Bearers were from the ruins east of where Gnosi had once been. They were scaled, crawling, the color of ash. And whispering instead of speaking.

  Cam’s brows furrowed. Elizabeth had never mentioned Shadow Bearers being in her kingdom. Perhaps she didn’t know that they were here. Cam did not think they lived here. “No, they came from their old realm,” she said internally. “Why are they here?”

  “I think they were summoned,” Fiera murmured as ifshe had read Cam’s thoughts. The cavern below them was lit with a roaring bonfire. The Shadow Bearers seemed as though they were settling in for the day. Perhaps the night as well. Cam had not thought of the figure in green since they had entered the mountain. But now, as he walked up to a jutting portion of rock to stand before the Shadow Bearers, Cam gasped. “He is addressing them! Leading them!”