A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4)

by Travis Simmons

  She had only ever seen the hecklin running on two legs, so riding it while it ran on all fours was strange.

  Caldamron did have some trouble mounting the hecklin, and Angelica amused herself with thoughts of a cat and dog fighting. The dark elves didn't seem inclined to help him as much as they had the humans in their company, but with a word the hecklin calmed down and Caldamron was able to mount, though he looked like he would much prefer to ride in his machines, judging by the way he kept glancing back at the metallic wagons of his people.

  As they started out that day, Angelica wondered how Caldamron would work with the group. She could see years of animosity between the dark elves and the frement, and she wasn't sure they would be nice to him. But as they continued the dark elves treated him fairly, if not warmly.

  The dark elves were as allegiant to the Realm Guardian as the humans were, and if Joya told them they had to accept the frement, they would, even if they didn't like it. That didn't mean they wouldn't wait for an opportune time to attack if the frement showed any signs of hostility, as the dark elves seemed to think the cat-people would do at any moment.

  Angelica was surprised by how much the hecklin worked like an actual horse, and when she nudged the beast toward Caldamron, it obeyed.

  “You worry about your sister,” Caldamron said as Angelica joined him in the procession. She could barely see his fur in the surrounding dark. If it wasn’t for the shining chainmail he wore, Angelic might not see him at all.

  She looked back at the numerous dark elves and the band of Spire Guards that had joined them before they left the Spire of Night.

  “Not at the present time,” she told him.

  “But you must worry about what will happen to her once she comes to rest at the spire permanently,” he continued. “You must wonder if she will go the way Beatrice Forester did.”

  He had a deep, soothing voice as well. Angelica was aware that everyone was giving them a wide berth, and she wasn't sure if that was because she was from the Holy Realm, or if it was because of the company she kept. She didn't think the ooslebed would avoid her just because of her lineage. They had seemed to pronounce her as one of the LaFaye before one from the Holy Realm.

  “The thought has crossed my mind,” Angelica told him. “But my sister is a very strong woman. I can't imagine anyone being able to pull that kind of treachery over on her.”

  “Beatrice was a strong woman too.”

  “So we are going to talk about the uprising?” Angelica wondered.

  “If you wish.”

  “You seem eager to turn conversation that way.”

  “Only to assure you that your sister isn't the only one looking out for herself now. The rebels were put down — we swear allegiance to the Realm Guardian,” Caldamron told her.

  “As long as your agreements are kept,” Angelica said.

  Caldamron nodded.

  “I find that words aren't as powerful as actions. You say she is safe, but only time will tell.”

  “She is half angel. Even if I couldn't smell it on her blood, the name gives it away.”

  “Which has meaning?” Angelica asked.

  “Which means she is more powerful and more righteous than the Guardian before her was.”

  Righteous wasn't a word Angelica had ever heard associated with Joya.

  “Besides, killing Delion wasn't enough to show we desire peace?” Caldamron asked.

  Angelica shrugged. “I don't believe there's anything to fear from you.”

  “Or you would be avoiding me like everyone else is?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” Angelica said.

  He laughed, a deep throaty laugh.

  The rest of the day passed with idle chatter, Angelica getting to know Caldamron and his race, and him getting to know about the Holy Realm.

  “Since I intend on protecting the Realm Guardian until she returns to her seat of power, I should know what to expect,” he had told her.

  Angelica in turn had learned about the machines, and the advancement of what they referred to as technology. All of their machines were powered by what he called steam engines. These engines worked by heating water with coal mined in the Shadow Realm.

  While they were a nomadic race, they did have sacred sites. Their sacred sites just happened to be the lands the humans had been trying to encroach on, and that’s what had caused the uprising. But now, with the treaty Joya signed into law, they were protected.

  They also had a central city called Taranis, and it was the seat of the council, a more permanent establishment for those who didn't wish to travel, and where all of their engineering was done. Angelica couldn't even imagine the size of the place, or the wonder of it. From what he said, it was filled with many trains, mechanical wagons that he called trekkers, and other marvels she couldn't even picture.

  “What I don't understand,” Jovian said, having joined them some time ago. “How did the frement come to be?”

  “What do you mean?” Caldamron asked.

  “Well, were you around before the Splitting of the World?” Jovian asked.

  “Of course we were. Back then we didn't wear this form,” Caldamron said. He looked into the distance, riding the hecklin now with ease. The beast no longer protested his rider. “It was a time before I was born, the Splitting of the World, but I’ve heard stories since I was just a kit. Much of this is legend passed down, I'm not sure how much of it is actually real, but I was told that our new shape came when the shadows came.

  “Legend says the cloak of shadows came with a boom that sounded as thunder. From the sky, in a dome over the northern half of the realm, a darkness bloomed, blotting out the sky, and when the night fell in true darkness, the Shadow Realm was born. Never again would we see the light of day.

  “A curse fell over the realm then, or people say. I tend to believe them, because before it happened, we were gypsies, nomadic people that traversed the land. Taranis is in the north of the realm, nearly in the Realm of Earth, and that was, and remains, our only home. But when the night fell, we were changed in more ways than the simple stigmata most people were branded with.”

  “But why your people?” Angelica wondered.

  “Before the shadow came, we were of two shapes. We could change into cats,” he told them.

  “Like, actually shape-change?” Jovian asked.

  “True shape-changing is rare. Some of us could master it, but more often than not it was our spirit we could cast out. It would take the form of a cat. We could travel through the astral plane like that. People attuned to seeing spirits were able to see us, but we were more a spiritual shape-shifter.

  “When the shadowed veil came upon us, it took away our humanity, cursed us with only one form. Forever after we would wear skin caught between the two shapes, the spirit of the cat we could take, and the form of the human we lived inside.”

  Angelica didn't know what to say.

  “Who knows, maybe we were always cats, and it is a fable made up by my ancestors.”

  “But there are no records of cat people,” Jovian said.

  “Are you so sure?” Caldamron asked. “Do you know all the lore of the lands?”

  “No,” Jovian admitted. “But from before, when people speak of the Realm of Spirit, they never mention cat-people.”

  “There are many legends of the Realm of Spirit in the Holy Realm? Have they kept records of the missing realm that the Shadow Realm and the Holy Realm used to make?” Caldamron asked, as if he would love to hear more of the Realm of Spirit.

  “No,” Angelica said, shaking her head. “We haven’t heard anything of the Realm of Spirit, only that Goddess forsook the land, splitting attributes of the Realm of Spirit between the two realms that took its place: the Holy Realm and the Shadow Realm.”

  Caldamron nodded, a forlorn look crossing his face. “Will we ever know how it was before?”

  Angelica couldn’t answer that.

  By the time they made camp that night her head was spinning.<
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  At night while the rest of the entourage was setting up camp and gathering food, Angelica and Jovian would make their way away from camp to converse and work on harnessing and commanding their wyrd.

  The first night they affected the wind, and then the campfire while no one was paying attention. When Joya caught on to what they were doing, she taught them the mechanics of shielding. She didn't understand how they were drawing their power, but she still helped them, telling them how she created the shields, and then letting them do it on their own.

  “Oh,” she said, delighted. “Look at the color of your wyrd!”

  Angelica looked but didn't see anything.

  “I don't know what you mean. How do we look?” Angelica asked.

  “Oh, I'm sorry.” Joya pursed her lips in thought. “Alright, I never notice that I see energy with anything else than my regular sight, but it’s more peripheral, out of the corner of my eye. I’m aware of it, and seek it out, but I never see it if I’m looking straight at it. Try seeing the orb around you. Look at me, but be aware of your peripheral vision.”

  Angelica looked at her sister, and around the top of Joya's head she could see the sorceress’s pink shielding. Angelica drew her attention back to her sister’s blue eyes, and then let her awareness drift to the left, toward where Jovian stood.

  She saw Jovian's shield first, a vibrant, almost angry red, and then, more subdued, she saw her own purple shield.

  “It's red!” Jovian said. “And yours is purple! I saw those colors before, when we were fighting the alarist, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Yes,” Joya nodded, and giggled. “You never thought it strange that lightning cast by different people had a different color?”

  “I never thought of it before,” Jovian said, inspecting his hands where the wyrd he was gathering glowed red, waiting for release.

  Angelica laughed. “What else can we do?” She asked Joya.

  “Are you sure you have the shielding down?” Joya asked them, and they both nodded. “Keep them up at all times. It will take very little power; once they’re in place they have a way of just staying there.”

  Joya started pacing in the small clearing, Uthia leaning against a tree, looking bored. It was the only way the dark elves would let them get away, if the dryad went to stand guard, though Angelica wasn't sure what would want to cause Joya harm in her own realm. Besides alarists.

  “How about your wyrd light?” Joya asked.

  “Like the little sun you float above your head?” Jovian asked.

  With little thought Joya lifted her hand, and as her hand went above her head a pink orb of light formed, twisting and expanding, casting its light around the clearing in hues of pink.

  “You make it look so easy,” Angelica said.

  “It really is once you’re used to it, but you’ll have to practice with it. Actually, Aunt Pharoh says this is a great starter spell, because it’s harmless and you’re creating something from nothing. It’s kind of basic. You’ll use the same principles when you do other wyrdings, like battle wyrd.”

  Joya turned her head a little, and listened. “Aunt Pharoh thinks it might be easier if she helps show you guys how to do it, but first I want to see if you can do it on your own.

  “You see my light floating above my head? Hold out your hands, and imagine one of your own, the color of your wyrd, floating above your hand. Hold the image in your mind, and let your wyrd flow.”

  Angelica yelped when an explosion of red light came from Jovian's area. Jovian stumbled about for a moment, blinking his eyes.

  “That hurt,” he said after several moments.

  Joya laughed. “Did it burn you?”

  “Just blinded me,” he said, sitting down on a rock. “I’ll watch Angie for a second.”

  Angelica giggled and held her hand out. She closed her eyes and imagined a ball of purple light, like Joya's. When she had it perfectly formed in her head, swirling and lighting up her hand, she released a little bit of wyrd into it.

  Angelica opened her eyes and watched it take form. At first it was nothing but the suggestion of a glow in the air, but then it grew to a spark, and then a single flame. Faster and faster it gained strength, and Angelica tightened the flow of wyrd to it.

  Instantly it went out.

  “No, you had it, but don't stop the flow of wyrd. You have to keep a tendril of wyrd open to it, but at the right strength so that it only feeds the flame, without growing it.” Joya sat down next to Jovian. “Try again.”

  This time the orb grew faster. When it neared the size she wanted, Angelica tightened the flow of wyrd enough to slow the growth but not to stop it. When it stopped growing in size, she lifted her hand and set the orb into the space above her head.

  “I did it!” Angelica cheered, and the light whizzed about her head.

  “Why is it doing that? Circling around her head so fast?” Jovian asked.

  “It's natural that the wyrd light will show the inner emotions of the wyrder controlling it. If Angelica is happy, which clearly she is, the light will react in a happy way.”

  Jovian took a deep breath, and stood.

  Angelica sat where he had been sitting, watching her purple light mingle with Joya's pink light around the trees and surrounding ground.

  It took several tries before Jovian was able to even produce a spark.

  “Don't be afraid of putting wyrd into it, just don't open a flood gate like you did before,” Joya told him.

  With that guidance he was able to produce a small red flame in his hand.

  He opened his eyes and smiled. Instantly the orb flared to life, twice the size of Angelica's. He covered his eyes and the light went out.

  “Don't be afraid of it, just watch your excitement; sometimes that can strengthen your casting.”

  Again he tried it, and again he managed a flame, and then an orb, and then, finally, a tiny red sun. Jovian looked at it in disbelief, and tentatively placed it above his head, where it flickered back and forth, as if it were shy.

  “You did it!” Joya cheered. “Now, again!”

  She showed them how to stop the light, which was as easily as severing the tendril of wyrd that connected their mind to the orb, and then they tried conjuring the light several more times.

  Hours later, proficient in conjuring the light, they all made their way to bed, and fell instantly asleep.

  By night the lessons on wyrding continued, conjuring small things. Despite their fight with the alarist, during which Angelica wasn’t sure if they had channeled their own wyrd or if the other presence in their body somehow helped them, Angelica and Jovian didn’t know how to fight with wyrd. But Joya didn’t think that was something they should learn yet, because they really could hurt themselves if they weren’t careful. Joya did teach them how to conjure flame that they could use like fireballs, or bouts of fire from their fingers. She also taught them how to gather sparks in their palms that they could use to call lightning.

  The lessons were hard and many, and Angelica and Jovian sported wounds from bursting flames and wayward electricity. At one point in the lightning lesson, Angelica put so much into her working that her entire arm went numb, and a loose bolt fired off into the night, bursting a tree into flames.

  Joya had conjured water then, dousing the flames.

  And then came the day they had been waiting to arrive for nearly a month. It was nearing midafternoon, they were told, when they reached the border of the Holy Realm, and while they didn't see any border, every other person or being from the Shadow Realm knew when they arrived at the border somehow.

  Angelica could feel it too. A nervousness buzzed in her stomach, an expectation almost, as if she could feel the wyrd of her home, the scent of the air of the Holy Realm, a feeling that after so long, where she longed to be was within reach.

  There was a lot of nervous chatter about the Realm Guardian entering the Holy Realm, despite reassurance that she was from the Holy Realm. They were, in the end, gran
ted an escort of Caldamron and a dark elf named Shelara. Out of everyone there Joya figured the cat-man and the dark elf would be able to best defend themselves against border patrol from the Holy Realm.

  And that was what made Angelica the most anxious. When they came through, would they be hunted as well? And if they were, what would happen? Jovian and Angelica could show their stigmata to prove they were from the Holy Realm, but Joya no longer had white stigmata. And then what about the other two races? They were obviously not from the Holy Realm. In fact, Angelica had never even heard of frement before seeing images of them in the hallway leading from the Guardian's Tomb to the Spire of Night.

  So it was they greeted the border to the Holy Realm with just as much worry as they had greeted the border into the Shadow Realm so many days ago.

  Vivianne sighed as the last customer left Begget's Botanicals that evening. It had been a long, exhausting day in a string of exhausting days that started when her absentminded friend, Rosalee, had asked her to watch over her apothecary so she could venture after her nephew and friend.

  Actually, Vivianne thought, picking up the jars of herbs on the counter and making her way over to the section dedicated to the Cs. What she said was 'watch the shop so I can go on an adventure.’

  Vivianne laughed at the memory of the redhead, her eyes glazed with past drug use. It was the first time since the death of her husband that Rosalee looked so alive and hungry for a journey. Vivianne wasn't a stranger to watching the shop when Rosalee left for extended periods. Most often it was just when Rosalee went to visit with new suppliers in distant cities, but this time Vivianne thought it was different.

  Rosalee hadn't been gone long when news of the corruption of the Well of Wyrding reached Meedesville. Of course, none of them in the small town had to worry about sorcerers or wyrd here, having lost Astanel months before that — he was the only sorcerer they had seen in nearly fifty years.

  She placed the cannabis on the shelf along with the clover, and made her way to the As. Aconite fit neatly in the open spot. She stepped back and surveyed her work, realizing that she would have to reorganize the jars before Rose came back. The alphabetical arrangement had gotten a little askew in the busy days, and the hurried clean-ups that followed. She wished she’d had more time to dedicate to cleaning up, but the truth was she had been closing late. She hated rushing people out when they were browsing, but she missed home, and she had been getting home so late she barely had time to eat before falling into her bed.