by Ali Winters
“There is.” Silas nodded. “Several Dark Guardians have gone missing. Not many, but enough to effect the imbalance in a significant way, whoever is destroying my Dark Guardians is making sure of that.” Silas talked as if this was nothing more than an everyday problem, an everyday assignment. Then he gave Caspian a pointed look as he added, “You would have felt it.”
“Nivian wouldn’t destroy Guardians.”
“No, but she needs to be reaped to keep the constant imbalance from getting worse, and to offset the Dark Guardians we have already lost.”
“How many?” Caspian collapsed back into his chair.
“Seven, to be exact.” A shiver ran over the ancient that did not escape Caspian’s notice. “And I have felt each one,” he said quietly. So much so that Caspian couldn’t be sure he’d actually heard the words spoken aloud.
“I promised to protect her. I… I care for her,” Caspian said.
He knew this was no easy issue for his friend, no matter how casual Silas kept his tone, or relaxed his posture. At least in this, they could understand what this would mean for each other. Yeva would never forgive Silas, and Nivian would never forgive him.
Only that morning, he had sworn to Nivian, had given her his word, and, in the matter of several hours, his world had been turned upside-down. The entire balance now depended on the reaping of a single Watcher. And it fell upon his shoulders to betray her.
Guardians and Watchers worked toward the same goal, though even through the centuries he’d existed, he had never seen the two work together. It was never expressly forbidden to have a connection. Still he wondered… “Is this a punishment?”
Silas’s face softened. “No, of course not. Believe me when I say that I did seek out an alternative solution to this, but there is only one way this can end.”
Caspian hung his head and stared, unseeing, at the thick carpet at his feet. “I love her.”
He had never said the words before, never so much as thought them, though he had felt them with his entire being. At saying them, his feelings became real, nearly tangible. His heart leaped, pounding in excitement. He wanted to go to her and tell her, to kiss her with more passion than he had that morning, to revel in it, and spend eternity in it. With her.
But then, with that knowledge came the sharp edge of truth. He would never have that. She would never have that. Not with him, and not with anyone else.
“I know,” Silas answered, with equal quiet. He leaned forward in his chair and rested his arms across the table and breathed deeply. “I do not want this any more than you.” He spoke truth.
Caspian gripped the arms of the chair, the leather groaning under his grip. It was selfish. He knew it was but he couldn’t help himself. His heart beat too loudly, drowning out all other thoughts. All except one. Nivian.
With every beat her name pounded through his mind.
Nivian. Nivian.
Her name alone echoed through the slow shattering of his heart like so much glass.
Nivian. Nivian.
“Why her?” Caspian asked again. “Why not another? There must be a reason beyond ‘she was never meant to be a Watcher’?” As soon as the words slipped from between his lips, he regretted them. He hated himself for putting his pain above his friend’s, and above the balance.
Silas regarded him for a long moment, understanding what he was to lose, what they would both lose. He said, his voice hollowed with pain, “She was marked by the Tome of Fate, by the Moirai themselves. I—” He cleared his voice as it grew thick, trying to steal his words. “I am allowing you this honor of deciding the manner of her death. The way she deserves. It will be far kinder by your hand than any other. And,” he added, “if there is any chance to avoid bringing a war upon us all, I believe you reaping her will be the only way.”
“How likely is it that we can avoid the war?”
“Not very, but I believe it is worth trying for.”
“She doesn’t deserve this.”
Silas gave him a sad smile. “Does anyone?” He shook his head. “Nevertheless, it is what the balance demands. It is why we were created.”
“I understand,” Caspian said honestly.
He closed his eyes and locked his feelings away. There was no room for them now. He could break later. If he survived. After all, Watchers could not destroy a Guardian without destroying themselves in the process, and he could only surmise that it was the same in reverse. Nivian was powerful, though not as powerful as he. No other Guardian, save for Silas, would be able to survive if what held true for the Watchers held true in this situation.
Caspian straightened, ready to push up from the leather chair and leave, but Silas’s voice stilled him.
“There is more. When you reap her—” Silas pulled a slip of parchment from his cloak. “—make sure you leave her life force intact.”
Caspian’s onyx eyes grew wide as he choked out, “In-intact?”
Silas nodded once in confirmation. “Bring her body back to G.R.I.M., transport directly into the lower chamber.”
Caspian stared at him in horror. They never touched or moved their mark’s bodies. They only created the circumstances that would get their physical forms to cease functioning. Then, and only then, they took the life force. Nothing more.
“I don’t understand, why would you need her body?”
“You will find out when it is time,” Silas spoke in a clipped tone.
Caspian wanted to push, wanted to demand answers, but he knew from centuries of reading the man before him that pushing would only mean Silas would push back harder. And so he gave in.
They stood together, their expressions no doubt a mirror of regret and pain.
Silas reached out, offering the mark to Caspian. He looked down at it, hating that it even existed, but after a moment’s hesitation, he took it. He crumpled it up in his fist, the power pushed against his grip as it transformed into a pocket watch.
The metal was dark and the lid adorned with a delicate lace pattern. Leaves and whorls formed within. He had never seen anything so terrible and so beautiful in his life.
He turned and headed for the door, forcing his legs to move at an even pace to avoid transporting to her now, to avoid telling her to run, or destroy him if she must.
When he had left her that morning, he had been excited to see her again, to wrap her in his arms and talk about nothing and everything for hours. Now, he dreaded seeing her smile, knowing that it would be her last, and that he would be responsible for stealing it away.
Caspian was halfway across the room when Silas said, “And Caspian?”
He stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder from the corner of his eye, but remained silent.
“You have one week to complete your mark.”
Caspian’s hand tightened around the watch. He wanted to crush it into stardust and sprinkle it across the world. But it wouldn’t matter how much force he used, it would remain whole and unblemished.
Seven days. It felt like a lifetime and not enough time.
Caspian took the steps one by one, gripping the railing to keep steady. He had sought Silas out to ask for his help in protecting Nivian, and now he came away with the knowledge that he would be the one to end her life.
Convincing her to understand would be a near impossibility. Who among the Guardians or Watchers would lie down and let the other end their existence without a fight? There was no telling what end she would meet if someone else reaped her. And while Silas would never intentionally make it a horrible death, he would do whatever was necessary depending on the time and location.
At least, Caspian thought, he could find the perfect place, the perfect time… perhaps a week from now, in her sleep, peaceful and dreaming.
He could give her that.
NIVIAN
NIVIAN STARED OUT the window of her small dwelling. She missed her tree, the song of the river, the way the water made the air crisp this time of year. She missed being outside. And she missed Caspian�
�s presence. The sun had gone down, but the final rays of twilight still lit up the horizon, setting the sky blazing.
Yeva hadn’t called her for duty once in the last several days. She hadn’t even seen her. After Silas’s message, she holed herself up in her home, refusing to leave. If Yeva and Silas both wanted her dead, then they could come to her. On her terms.
She wasn’t so much afraid as she was hurt and lonely, longing for a friend to confide in and to seek comfort from. Her fingers gripped the hot ceramic mug of tea between her palms. Nivian didn’t know how, or when, death would come for her, but she could feel the icy shadow of it growing ever closer.
The door slammed opened, banging hard against the wall.
“Ah!” Finn’s voice boomed through the stone dwelling. “There you are!”
Nivian jumped, and the mug slipped from her hands, shattering on the floor. She frowned down, then up at Finn as he dropped a large bag next to the door, kicking the door shut with a resounding slam.
She cringed. After days of silence, of only her own breathing and voice for company, his presence was an explosion of sound.
“Finn?” She frowned in his direction.
She didn’t move to pick up the shards of her mug, and he didn’t seem to notice she’d dropped it as he trod across the room, stopping in front of her. Only the broken cup between them. Finn reached out and mussed her hair.
“What have you been doing?” he asked. “You’re pale, and no one has seen you in days.”
Nivian shrugged and couldn’t help the smile that formed. His concern for her was touching. A second brother. He’d started coming around shortly after Eli’s death, nearly a year ago. An accident—though many thought otherwise, convinced it was some trick of a Reaper. Including her. She watched as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop in the mortal city, then as his foot slipped and he fell between buildings…. And had heard the soft thud of his body as it hit the ground.
A fall like that would never kill a Watcher. And yet. When she and Kain reached his side, his neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Later that day, Finn had found her crying. The first to ever see such weakness in her. Even now, thinking back upon it burned her face with the embarrassment.
Of course, he had understood, had even mourned Eli alongside her. That day, he had found her at the river and sat next to her, letting her cry until she was done.
Finn never tried to replace Eli, but he was a brother just the same.
Something had broken in her that day. It was then she realized how she was truly different from the others—seeing for the first time how Yeva treated her with a more distant attitude. Not cruelly, more as if Yeva merely tolerated her presence. A red flower in a sea of gold. With every tear, whatever had kept that knowledge hidden, melted away.
Even seeing her cry, Finn treated her as he treated everyone else. The first few days he came by, he’d spent hours with her family. Helping. Doing whatever Eli had done. Her sisters and mother didn’t cry, but it gave them a reprieve to think. To mourn.
Every day for months, he came by until they gave him a room. Though he never came to live with them, he would occasionally stay when work kept him late.
“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?” Finn asked playfully.
Nivian opened her mouth, then closed it tight. What could she say? Nothing. Telling him why she was staying hidden would only welcome Silas’s threat to kill everyone she loved.
And if her death was inevitable, telling Finn wouldn’t change anything, it wouldn’t save her. Though, she knew he would try. She couldn’t allow him to suffer the same fate as Eli, so she gave him another truth. One that wouldn’t risk his existence.
“I’ve been missing Eli lately.”
It wasn’t a lie. She did miss him. She missed him every day. Nivian tugged on the hem of her sleeve, twisting it around a finger, and when she looked up again, Finn’s arms wrapped around her in a tight hug.
It lasted only a few seconds before he let go, as if nothing had happened. He hesitated, then said, “Don’t let it be in vain.”
She blinked. It took her a few seconds longer than it should have to realize he didn’t mean her impending death, but Eli’s. He meant to comfort her. But those six words sparked something in her chest. Like a fuse, they traveled through her veins, sending a fire through her until it reached her heart.
No. She would not let her death be in vain either. She would fight, and whatever Reaper they sent after her, she would make sure she destroyed it as she died. She would go out showing Yeva, and all the others, that she was loyal. That she believed in their duty to protect life and the balance at all costs.
It was then he looked around for the first time. “Where… are the others?”
“Gone,” she said, crouching to pick up the broken shards of the mug. “They’ve been sent on a distant assignment. They didn’t say when they’d be back.” Nivian stood and piled the broken ceramic pieces on the counter, then dusted her hands off on her hips.
Finn looked at her with a narrowed gaze. “How long have you been alone?”
She shrugged. “For almost a week now.”
His gaze traveled to the fireplace. Cold. No fire had burned for the better part of a full day. She had let it extinguish itself sometime in the night and never bothered to restart it. She hadn’t felt like doing much the last several days. And it seemed that after a week, Finn was the first to notice.
“Gaia, Nivian!” Finn strode over and immediately started placing tinder and scraping a flint with the small blade attached to his thigh. “This fire has been dead all day—” He turned to give her a disapproving look. “When was the last time you’ve eaten?”
She shrugged with one shoulder.
As soon as he had a small flame going, he piled logs and tinder into it, then waited for them to catch. Then he stood and faced her, arms crossed. “Wait here. I’ll go fetch some stew from Holter’s. I’m sure he has extra.” He rolled his eyes then said, “I’m going to stay the night to make sure you don’t freeze. There’s a storm blowing in from the south. Reports were that it might bring an unseasonably early snow.”
And then he was off.
When he returned, they ate lukewarm stew with a chunk of bread and chatted about his most recent assignment. He’d traveled to distant lands she had never heard of. He described food that sounded both strange and absurdly delicious. He’d even brought pouches of herbs and seasonings back.
The Watchers were stretching out more and more in the recent decades. Nivian wondered how far they could go before they made their way back. Wondered if some families would keep going and take up permanent residence where they ended up. She wondered so many things that she would never live to learn the answers to.
That night, Nivian lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling. She had tried counting, reached one thousand and started over. It was sometime in the middle of the third—or was it the fourth round?—she gave up. It was pointless. She could count all the stars in the night sky a million times over and still be wide awake.
She’d spent the last week of her life hiding in her home as if that would somehow keep her safe. There was nothing stopping Silas from transporting to her doorstep and coming inside to cut her life thread in her sleep. Hell, he could do it from standing right outside her window. He was certainly powerful enough.
No, hiding away from the world would not save her.
Nivian peeled the blankets off her and slid out of bed. Her gaze traveled to the other side of the mattress. Empty. Her hand grazed Eloise’s pillow.
The idea of leaving a note was tempting, but if she did, then they would know she’d kept her death from them. It would only make the tensions worse between Guardians and Watchers.
She didn’t know when the Reaper would come for her… but she wished she’d had this last week to spend with her family. A tightening pressed in on her chest for the lost time with them.
Time passed to swiftly, each second ticking louder than the last. It felt a
s if she stood on the edge of a great precipice, barely balancing on the crumbling edge as an avalanche tumbled toward her at a blinding speed.
It was coming for her. Stealing her peace, stealing her sleep, and consuming her every thought.
Nivian scrubbed her face with her hands, then leaned forward to rest her arms on her knees. Her hands trembled. Not from fear but from anger, at her own inability to do anything to change her fate.
Silas had shown her the mark. One that could only be assigned by the Moirai through the Tome of Fate.
Now all she could do was wait.
NIVIAN
THE STEADY BUBBLE of the Mezzanine river’s current lilted through the night, calling to her. Nivian breathed deeply. She needed fresh air because even though it was all in her head, the dwelling felt stuffy and stale. Nivian wanted the feel of wide open space, wanted to be surrounded by the crisp air at the water’s edge, wanted to be in nature, surrounded by the fragrant flowers.
She pulled on her boots and laced them up, deciding to forgo leaving through the door downstairs.
Out the window again, she thought. It was her least favorite way to leave, but it was better than waking Finn. His quiet snores made their way up through the space in the floorboards. He had traveled a long way over the past several days, and he needed his rest.
The night was chilly, so Nivian tiptoed across the room and grabbed her cloak, fastening it around her shoulders, and secured it in place with the howling wolf broach.
Not allowing too much thought to go into the uncomfortable landing, Nivian climbed out of the window and dangled from the ledge. She planted her feet against the stone then pushed off, twisting in midair to land in a crouch.
Nivian grimaced at the impact vibrating up her bones. She straightened, her body already repairing, then took off at a steady jog.
Minutes later, Nivian sat, leaning against her tree. The familiar roughness against her back, the song of the river, and the cool air, eased her mind for the first time since she’d seen that golden haired Reaper. She’d let his presence taint her sanctuary. She’d let him drive her away.
