by Lisa Morrow
“Perhaps,” I answered, drawing the attention of the blue-eyed beauty. “It’s smart you don’t allow parents to interfere.”
Her rosy lips twisted into a smile, and she moved towards me with her pleading hands.
My heart raced, my body reacted, and I took a step back.
She froze.
“But.” I emphasized the word. “What if we were to decide not to go?”
She jerked back, and again the foreign need to reassure her at any cost rose. “Do you truly wish not to join our order?” she asked, sorrow turning her lips down.
“No,” the automatic denial sprang free before I could stop it, “I mean, I’m not sure.”
The blonde opened her mouth as if to argue, but Blair interrupted. “If you don’t wish to join, this is your chance to say so.” Our eyes locked. “But, I’m surprised to learn you’d refuse to follow in your mother’s footsteps.”
My chest tightened. “You knew my mother.”
She raised her hands covered in blood. “I don’t have time for this, so make your choice.”
Something I’d never allowed to happen, happened all at once. Hopes and dreams reserved for slumber surfaced, no longer dreams, but goals. I didn’t have to marry a boy I didn’t like, or be burden by my father’s mistakes. Instead, I would have the life that only The Protectors could offer a poor girl like myself.
I could write my own future. Just like my mother had done. What was more, I could finally learn about the woman who had brought me into this world, and then forgot me.
“Let’s go,” I said, confident in my decision.
Blair turned to the shrine, a white arch covered in flowers so red only magic could’ve crafted them, and began to repeat the name of the Goddess of Travel. “Hermya, Hermya, Hermya…”
She chanted over and over, and I closed my eyes, listening to the way she spoke the goddess’ name. Each syllable was emphasized differently, given a different note. It was a song, a prayer, a whisper of a beloved’s name.
I’d never heard such a sound, and yet, I knew the secret of this magical word, because I had a word, a name, of my own.
A vision of another world exploded from the center of the shrine, bringing with it a chill. The girls stilled beside me, but I gathered my cloak more tightly around my body, and leaned forward to get a better view. Impossibly red flowers peeked between pale flakes across a snowy ground.
Blair moved forward and through the archway without hesitation. A collective gasp rose from the girls beside me as she turned back to stare at us.
Excitement bubbled inside of me. This was magic! A gateway between two worlds or places, I wasn’t sure which, but it was likely only the beginning of what The Protectors would show us.
“Come through the portal girls,” the blonde said, stepping after Blair. Her smile revealed the pearls of her white teeth. “It’s time for your real life to begin.”
“But where does it lead?” Sirena whispered.
A flash of irritation came and went across the blonde’s face, so fast I might’ve imagined it. “To another part of Tarak.” Her voice dripped with sweetness.
“But why can’t we just walk?” Sirena wrung her hands as she looked from me to the woman.
The blonde’s easy smile returned. “Because the home of The Protectors is almost impossible to reach by land or sea. It’s surrounded by mountains so tall, they’re frozen year round.”
Sirena turned to me, waiting.
I forced what I hoped was a cocky grin and stepped through the portal.
Relief rushed through me. I was still in one piece, and the only difference in how I felt was… colder.
The other girls followed after me, one at a time until we had all made it to through. Once we were in the snowy world, I stared back to the forest of my home, at the brown of the trees and the green of the grass. To my surprise, an uneasy feeling settled just below my excitement. I was worlds away from the town I’d always known, and in a place of magic.
The snowy, leafless trees of our new home whispered a reassurance of familiarity, but the scarlet flowers shattered this illusion. They grew with the freshness of a spring morning, stretching free of the snow, unaffected by the cold and dark of a night lit by a full moon.
I trembled beneath my cloak, looking away from the flowers, and back to my woods.
The scene was fading just as I saw my father break through the trees. His bow was still in hand, his face twisted in panic, and then he was gone.
The whisper of doubt grew louder.
I looked to the other girls, but none seemed to notice, instead they focused on The Protectors as they continued leading us to some unseen destination.
The women moved effortlessly through the snow. We trudged after them in awe. Small droplets of Blair’s blood marked our trail, churning my stomach. But, it wasn’t long before this new place became even less welcoming.
Fog came from nowhere, curling about our legs and continuing on as if we were no more significant than the winter-starved trees. The fog thickened until the world became a sheet of white. The Protectors didn’t hesitate as the fog swallowed them, but we did.
“It was hard enough following them without this fog,” Sirena murmured.
“Perhaps they made it in hopes of leaving us behind.”
Yara’s comment made me pause as I squinted, trying to identify the women hurrying ahead of us.
“Maybe this is just a test,” I answered, trying to reassure myself as much as them.
“Then we better not fail it,” Bethenny said, without moving.
I continued forward, hating the way the fog swallowed my feet. Sirena’s hand clutched at my cloak, lifting it just enough to give the chilly air more access to my flesh.
We came to two wooden posts. I studied them closely, wondering at their significance. A memory of something flittered just beyond my comprehension, and I inched between the posts with hesitation. The others followed closely behind, silent except for the sound of heavy breathing. The snow beneath my feet felt different in a way I couldn’t understand, and the wind picked up, battering us with its icy claws.
I curled into myself, trying not to let the hostile environment break down my defenses, and into my mind to muddle my thoughts. But trembles racked through my body. My breathing grew labored.
At last the fog thinned just a bit, revealing a bridge, no wider than five feet beneath us. I grasped for railing, but my fingers found none. Sirena crashed into my back as I froze, unable to continue.
Glancing out over the edge, the fog swallowed all views of the ground, creating the illusion we were walking over clouds. But I wasn’t fooled, land was somewhere beneath us, perhaps just a short distance, perhaps miles.
Sirena gasped. “They could have warned us.”
“Unless they hoped we’d fall to our deaths,” Yara mumbled.
My muscles tightened with nerves, but up ahead, dark shapes moved slowly, indicating The Protectors hadn’t completely abandoned us.
“They wouldn’t have Chosen us just to let us die,” I told the others, willing myself to believe my words.
The girls were silent. For a long time we crept forward, seeing little else but our feet and the bridge. And then just as suddenly as the fog came, it dissipated.
“Goddesses’ breath!” Sirena cried.
The others joined in her sounds of terror, but my mind filtered the noises out, too overcome by the sight before me. Far below us, a cavernous valley complete with trees and a swirling river came sharply into focus. I stepped forward on shaky legs.
And lost my balance.
Chapter Four
The stone at my neck warmed as I stumbled. I reached for it, taking comfort in the familiar. My dizziness faded, and I turned my attention from the deadly drop on either side of us, to what was ahead.
We stood on a bridge nearly as long our village. It stretched out to meet an island of land, rising from the valley as if called forth by The Protectors for their purposes alone. The island w
as formed from massive, flat slabs of stone, varying in color from deep red to soft brown.
My gaze followed the impossible height of the slabs of stone up from the valley to where they connected with our bridge, and it was upon this that I knew our destination stood. It was a castle made of glass.
“Rose. Did you look at the bridge?” Sirena’s voice wavered as she asked.
I frowned and almost answered her, but then looked down at my feet. Dreading what I was doing even as I did it, I kicked snow off the bridge, allowing it to fall into the abyss below.
My breath came in rapid bursts. The bridge, it seemed, was also made of glass. Glass so thin it looked as if we might fall through it at any moment. Thin and clear, it could’ve been the same glass used in our windows back home. I wanted to touch it, to see if it radiated any kind of magic, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Nausea washed over me.
“For goodness sakes!” Bethenny yelled. “Let’s keep moving.”
“Is the bridge really made of glass?” Sirena asked hesitantly.
“Perhaps,” I said, my voice coming out higher than I intended. “But the women don’t seem afraid, so we shouldn’t be either.”
“Still,” Sirena whispered. “I’m not going to let go of your cloak.”
I crept over the valley, picking up speed as I went. I’m not sure how much time passed, with the snow falling, and the freezing air clawing beneath my cloak, but it seemed a lifetime before I finally reached the other side.
No one was there when I stepped onto the earth, so I paused outside the open gate to take in the magnificence of the extraordinary place. More red roses surrounded the castle, looking impossibly beautiful as they peeked out of the snow. I was tempted to pick one, but something made me hesitate. Each one looked exactly the same, a single rose on a single stem, petals unfurled just enough to look full and healthy. There was no doubt they were magical, but what purpose could they possibly serve?
“Why would they make the whole thing out of glass?” Sirena’s voice was filled with awe.
I looked up, forgetting the roses as I stared at the castle once more. “It can’t be glass, or we could see inside.”
More than that, the castle simply reflected back the images of the outside world as if to say don’t look at me, I don’t really exist.
The building rose into the dark sky, light clinging to it, radiating all the way up the four identical towers to the top, but there was no sign of the light’s source. An uneasy feeling settled over me, were we being watched by people on the other side of the glass?
But I couldn’t let Sirena sense my nervousness.
I strode forward, and everyone followed. Their voices seemed to fade as I made my way beneath the grand entryway and into a large courtyard. Only this courtyard wasn’t open to the elements, instead plants, trees, and flowers grew beneath the protection of a stone roof nearly fifty feet high.
“What is this place?” Sirena asked, breathlessly.
Blair seemed to come from nowhere, stepping out from behind one of the many large trees. “It’s your new home.” She was wearing a different dress, the color and fluidity of liquid silver, and there were no signs of her injuries. “We must hurry. Too much time has already passed.”
She led us down a cobblestone path and into room after room of splendors. Rugs, tapestries, and paintings of brilliant colors gave the castle a sense of hominess. Crystal, silver, and even gold had been crafted into extraordinary sculptors, standing in places of honor. But the rooms themselves appeared to be simple brick, with large windows staring out into the world beyond.
“I thought the castle was made of glass.” Bethenny said, her words surprisingly reflecting my own thoughts.
Blair glanced back at us. “Each Protector has her own unique abilities. One of our oldest Protectors has the ability to create a special glass. One that can only be shattered with a couple of specific magical weapons, and by a certain type of magic. We’ve used this glass many times in the past, to shatter the bridge to protect ourselves from enemies.”
”But is it strong enough?” Sirena asked hesitantly. “It looked so thin…”
Blair’s voice held no reassurance. “It can only be broken in the ways I’ve described.”
She turned back around, ending the conversation without another word.
We were led into an elegant dining hall. The stone walls had been covered with rich wood, oiled until they shone. Arching beams of the same wood drew my eye to the marvelously high ceilings.
Sirena knocked into me from behind, urging me to keep moving toward the largest of the dozen or so long, mahogany tables filling the space. The table was decorated with huge, colorful feathers of blue and green, tied to branches, and nestled in a bed of white flowers.
Plates of food covered the rest of the table, only some of which I recognized. Plums stewed in rose water, meat pies, roasted pig, chicken, and a number of other piles of meat, as well as, ripened strawberries in white cream.
And those were just the foods I recognized.
Their sweet and spicy scents sang through the air, enticing me to keep moving toward them. Blair strode to the seat at the head of the table and indicated for us to sit. We spread out to stand behind the chairs.
A massive fireplace warmed the room, so we happily shed our cloaks. Yara and Bethenny exchanged grins as silent servants handed them goblets of red wine. I took one as well, and then we all settled into our seats as half a dozen servants came, placing golden plates overflowing with food in front of us.
The servants were all women of varying ages, with hair pulled back in simple braids, and dull brownish-gold dresses trimmed with crisp white. They moved with a surprising efficiency, as if they were different arms of a single creature.
Did all the wealthy live like this? Were their needs simply seen to before they could even imagine what they could be?
Wonder blossomed inside of me. This was my life now.
Taking a sip of my drink, my mouth sung with pleasure as the wine, a tantalizing sweet one, with a lingering taste of apricots and an unexpected herb, warmed my body. The shard of rock at my neck was tingling between my breasts, no doubt reminding me of the dangers of drinking too much. I wanted more, but I placed the goblet down and shifted in my finely carved chair.
“Is the wine not to your liking?” Blair asked, watching me closely.
“I think your wine would be to anyone’s liking,” I responded, meaning every word.
“And yet, you don’t drink it as your companions do.” She took a sip of her own wine, the movement drawing my gaze to the mark on her wrist.
Did she wear The Protectors’ symbol there? It could’ve been a knot with an eye in the center, but there was no way to be sure.
“You don’t need to worry about impressing us,” Blair continued, drawing my attention away from her wrist. “You‘re here, so you already have. This is now your home.”
Behind her, a door opened and the blonde from earlier entered in an outfit made of pink leather.
My jaw dropped. I’d never seen an animal with such a color. And what was more, this was not the fragile creature in the woods with eyes as wide as a baby’s, this woman was as a dangerous as an unsheathed blade. The change was shocking to the point I suspected magic was involved. An idea that made me stiffen in my chair, eyeing the woman with suspicion.
“It seems you’re all becoming settled,” she purred, sauntering in an inappropriately sexy way to the chair across from me. “May I sit?” she asked, her gaze trained on me.
I looked at Blair, who sat at the head of the table, and noticed she watched me. I felt it was her place to address such a question, but I nodded.
The blonde sat down across from me. “My name’s Clarissa.”
A servant brought her a plate overflowing with food.
She took a few small bites, before turning back to study me, her fork playing with the food on her plate. “Have you had any dinner yet?”
“No
.”
“You should,” Sirena pressed, around a mouthful of half-chewed food. “It’s amazing!”
Sirena always had a good appetite, but now she was shoving food in her mouth faster than she could chew, in an uncharacteristic display of poor manners.
I picked up my fork too, but in truth, I wasn’t entirely hungry, even for the assortments of food laid before me. Something in the prickling of my necklace made me feel as agitated as a cat on the hunt. But I didn’t want to stand out more than I already had, so I placed my fork into a small piece of tender meat.
I took one bite, but it was more than enough. I finally understood the moans of pleasure from my companions, as my own voice added to the sounds.
The meat tasted like food from the goddesses themselves. It was a burst of flavor so intense that if I added up every enjoyable meal I’d ever had in my life, they still wouldn’t have brought me as much pleasure as that one bite.
Forgetting all caution, I dug into my food, enjoying the immense tastes that flooded my sense. Candied yams, dumplings, chocolate cakes, and sweet fruits in honeyed sauce were just a few, and for a while there was no sound except the clatter of silverware. And then, the shard tingled again, and I abruptly stopped eating. My plate still overflowed with food, but if the women were right, we’d have plenty more meals like this one.
I touched the necklace beneath my dress, wanting to reassure it, again. I’m still fine.
It grew colder in a flash of annoyance.
Releasing it, I turned back to the meal, trying to recapture my enthusiasm.
But instead, I felt Clarissa’s gaze trained on me.
I looked up, not willing to back down.
“Are you afraid of me?” she asked, with barely concealed pleasure.
Raising a brow, I tried to sound confident. “No, should I be?”
She grinned. “If you’re smart.”
