THE SUN GUARDIAN
A Novel
T.S. Cleveland
Copyright © 2017 Victoria Skye Cleveland
Smashwords Edition
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The Sun Guardian
is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events,
organizations and incidents
are products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead
is entirely coincidental.
For my marauders
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part One: The Monk’s Path
1. The Apprentice
2. Flora
3. The Circle
4. Aren’t You Killing Me?
5. Vivid
6. Dream Moss
7. Serenity
8. Focus, Damn It
9. Forts
10.The High Priestess
Part Two: Assassins’ Hollow
11. How to Steal and Look Your Best
12. Assassins
13. Fires
14. A Study in Wind
15. Bruises and Honey
16. Heartburn
17. Stealthy
18. The Small Sound
19. Familiar Faces
20. Alive and Swell
21. Changes
22. New Boots
23. Wood and Woolgathering
24. Apex
25. A Conclusion
26. A Beginning
The Apprentice
1
Before it began, Scorch knew he would win.
His steps were light, measured, and easy. His heartbeat was steady. The staff in his hand was a natural extension of his arm; its weight was comforting, his grip around it sure and solid.
She came at him with bared teeth and an aggressive thrust of her staff, and he could have evaded the incoming blow, could have ducked and twisted and rolled and attacked from behind, but instead he met her straight on, lifting his staff, matching her ferocity. Wood cracked together like thunder and she stumbled back.
“Almost knocked it out of my hands that time,” he laughed.
The woman before him in the sparring ring blew an errant strand of sandy blonde hair from her eyes and steadied the staff defensively across her chest. “Liar,” she huffed, and it sounded like an invitation. It had certainly been an invitation the night before. Most words directed toward Scorch were an invitation for something other, for his reputation as an insatiable bedfellow was challenged only by his reputation for pyromania, and it was safe to assume, when he was being spoken to, the speaker was either sizing him up for a toss or wondering whether something nearby was about to start smoldering.
“Come at me again,” she demanded, and Scorch’s small smile became a mischievous grin; she had also spoken those words the night before. As if sensing his debauched line of thought, she rolled her eyes and slammed her staff on the packed dirt in a prompt for further violence. “Come on, Scorch.”
He sighed. “If you think you can handle it.”
“Shut up and fight me,” was her quick reply, followed by a jumping high kick to his chest.
He staggered back, spinning his staff in the air as she stalked forward, searching for another opening. She wouldn’t find one unless he wanted her to, and he wasn’t in the mood to lose. The sun was bright, the day was cool, but his fingers were hot where they wrapped around the smooth wood of the training staff, and his palms were already growing sticky with sweat. His sparring partner quirked her head at him and he threw her a wink, hoping his cheeks weren’t red from a heat that had nothing to do with the mild temperature of the morning.
She returned his wink with a grimace. “You can’t distract me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you find me distracting?” he asked, punctuating his question with a sweep of his staff that nearly knocked her off her feet.
She was fast, leaping before she could be toppled. Without pause, she began riddling him with formidable blows, which he blocked easily but enjoyed immensely. It seemed the time for banter had concluded and the remainder of the sparring session would be the sweaty onslaught of strength against strength that he craved, apprentice against apprentice. He was glad for it, treasured the release of tension a good round of sparring allowed. It was the best way he knew how to alleviate his occasional fevers. As he dodged the staff swinging at his face, he could already feel the heat in his fingers dissipating. She really was an excellent partner, and for the life of him, he couldn’t recall her name. He felt positive it probably started with an M. Or N?
The slip in memory was excusable, in Scorch’s opinion, as the Guild was rich with apprentices new and old, as well as graduated guardians returning for more training, assignments, or merely because, for them, the stone walls were home. Scorch had been an apprentice within the Guardians’ Guild for fifteen years, but he could hardly be expected to remember every single person’s name, regardless of whether he’d slept with them the night before or not. It was just too many names and too many faces. The strangest thing was that, whether they had just arrived or had lived there forever, succumbed to Scorch’s considerable charms or not, everyone within the Guild knew his name with an instantaneousness that set him ill at ease.
He did not strive for infamy, yet it was always finding him. But what was he to do? He would not smother his exceptional skills because it made the other apprentices envious gossips, nor would he deny himself the comfort of companionship because it earned him dirty looks. And the single facet of his reputation he would have made an effort to stop was the one he could never disprove. Scorch, they had dubbed him. A fire starter. His alleged proclivities had earned him the nickname, and he was powerless to correct the assumption that he, Scorch, enjoyed playing with fire in the literal sense. It wasn’t true. He didn’t enjoy it. But letting them think he did was better than the alternative.
The world narrowed down to Scorch and what’s-her-name, the clanking wood of their staffs, and the practiced in and out of controlled breaths, one after the other, as every kick was careened and every offensive strike was defended. She jumped at him with a grunt of frustration and Scorch ducked, twisted, and grabbed her from behind, holding his staff beneath her chin. She choked and he released her. When she swung at him, he blocked her with an upraised forearm and jabbed at the backs of her knees with his staff. She buckled and landed with a thud before rolling into a crouch, which she swiftly unfurled from with a sidekick.
He let it connect and grabbed her ankle in retaliation, giving it a brutal yank and sending her to her back. The air was knocked from her lungs in the time it took him to knock the staff from her hands and straddle her waist. He let his own weapon fall and clutched her wrists, pulling them roughly above her head in the dirt, sending a puff of dust floating around them. She strained against him and he sat triumphantly atop her for a few moments before relinquishing his hold and sitting back on his heels.
“I wish they would stop assigning you as my sparring partner,” she grumble
d. “It’d be nice to win every once in a while.”
Scorch offered her his hand and she took it without question, letting him lift them both to their feet. He didn’t miss the way her fingers brushed the underside of his wrist, or the way her lashes batted with intent. He responded with a leisurely step closer, until their hips were a hairsbreadth from knocking together.
“If you’d like, we could have a rematch,” he offered slyly.
“Only if I end up on top next time,” was her slightly breathless response.
He laughed, a hearty kind of laugh that lifted his face to the sun. His hair fell back from his forehead, scruffy and blond and boyish, and he knew she was admiring the chiseled line of his jaw and comely shadow of beard. When he lowered his eyes back down to her, he wondered whether he truly wished for that manner of rematch. A fight like they’d just had? Definitely. But a repeat of their less clothed sparring from the previous night? He wasn’t so sure. She was pretty in a way that left no room for debate, with an alluring hourglass figure beneath a layer of taut muscle. Her lips were full, her cheeks a healthy pink. With her blonde hair and tan skin, Scorch mused that she looked a bit like he would look, were he female. But was he interested in lying with her again?
“Hey!” hollered a third voice. Scorch and his sparring partner both responded, turning their heads toward the figure approaching the training grounds. “Scorch,” the newcomer specified, and now that he had walked nearer, Scorch could see it was Merric, the only apprentice he knew who had been living at the Guild longer than himself, and that was only because he was the Master’s son.
“Missing me already?” Scorch asked with a cocky flit of his eyebrow. They had seen one another an hour ago for archery practice.
Merric crooked a finger once he reached the wood-post fence that surrounded the melee ring. Tragically, the Guild Master’s son belonged to the slim lot of people stubbornly un-beguiled by Scorch’s flirtations. Generally, Scorch didn’t care much for Merric, but it was still tragic, because the young man was gorgeous. Deep auburn hair and green eyes and milky skin, made all the more irresistible by the fact that Merric seemed to loathe Scorch. He was the one to first spread rumors that Scorch was a fire-lusted fiend that set the forest ablaze. Still, Scorch could have overlooked their disagreements for what would undoubtedly be a glorious tumble, but Merric remained unshakable in his distaste for all things Scorch.
“The Master wants to see you right away,” grouched Merric.
Scorch scooped up the training staffs, tossing one into his partner’s hands, and they crossed the ring together. He leaned against the fence, lowering his head so his hair fell messily across his brow, and looked up at Merric beneath pale lashes. “If you’re trying to get me on my own, all you have to do is ask.”
Merric pointedly ignored him, averting his eyes as though it hurt to look at him, but when his cruelly exquisite gaze landed on the woman at Scorch’s side, his face softened at once.
“Mazzy,” Merric sighed by way of greeting.
Mazzy, thought Scorch with a rush of satisfaction. So it did start with an M. He’d have gotten it eventually.
“Hi, Merric,” Mazzy replied, but she was pressed closely against Scorch’s side when she said it.
Merric’s eyes darkened. He straightened his shoulders and turned his attention to something past the both of them; an incredibly fascinating fence post, Scorch presumed. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
“I’m on my way as we speak,” Scorch said, vaulting his long body over the fence and leaning the staff against a post for the next apprentice due for melee. He stole a quick glance at Mazzy, who looked decidedly disappointed that their conversation had been temporarily stalled. He delivered her a flash of a broad smile and a wink. After seeing Merric, he was in the mood for less feminine affections, but he didn’t want to be rude. She accepted his smile with a hand on her hip and a coy flip of her hair, and then he directed his amber gaze to Merric. “Care to walk with me?”
Merric’s lips curled into a snarl and he turned on a pissy heel, stomping in the direction opposite the Guild House. Taking his abrupt exit as a sign that Merric did not actually care to walk with him, Scorch headed off on his own, nodding once at Mazzy before he left.
Normally, he would have sparring for a full hour, but if the Guild Master requested one’s presence, one dropped everything one was doing to attend him. Scorch, in particular, felt an incessant need to please the leader of the guardians, and not solely because the man had saved his life as a child. It was more that the man demanded one’s full respect and adoration, and Scorch thought he adored Master McClintock the most out of all his acquaintances. They weren’t particularly close, they didn’t know one another particularly well, but he was the only semblance of a father Scorch could remember, outside a handful of blurry memories, and with no real family to speak of, he clung to the idea of the Master of the Guild and hastened to attend him.
If his heart was racing as he walked toward the stone building that fell somewhere between a fortress and a schoolhouse, it was only because he’d not been summoned to the Master’s presence for a long while, not since a few weeks prior, when there had been an incident involving his laundry duties and a few burnt underclothes. As he’d told the Master then, anything could have set those personables on fire.
He strove to keep his skin from heating up and stuck his default grin on his face as he crossed beneath the archway of the Guild House. Turning left and walking down the sunlit hall had him passing several guardians and apprentices and a fat grey cat, and Scorch nodded pleasantly to each of them. No one stopped to speak with him. No one said hello. The cat, however, yowled at him for a scratch behind the ear, which he was happy to deliver.
Minutes later, he stood at the door of the Master’s chamber, which he knew to be filled with stained glass and the smell of pipe smoke, but he hesitated to knock. There was always a whisper of fear living deep inside him, counting softly down to the time it would all end, and every time he was called to see the Master, he worried that the time had come.
He inhaled and it was sharp in his chest, but he didn’t think he was sweating too badly, so he shrugged the worry from his shoulders and opened the door with a confident sweep, entering like the room was his in which to saunter.
Master McClintock stood from his writing desk, looking for all the world like his son, albeit an older, less grumpy version. He had a thick beard and was stouter, more solidly built, but the resemblance was striking. His green eyes flashed at Scorch’s arrival, and he came around his desk to pat his shoulder.
“Ah. I half expected Merric to conveniently forget about relaying my message.”
Scorch was already smiling, but his cheeks dimpled at the Master’s words. It was no secret the Master’s son disliked him. He had, on multiple occasions, tried his damnedest to have Scorch kicked out of the Guild, and if not for the Master’s intrinsic sense of charity, it might have worked. Scorch liked to think the man cared at least a small fraction for the boy he had taken in, even if he’d proved more trouble than he was worth over the years.
“Merric was delighted to see me,” said Scorch, sitting down at the Master’s behest. The chair was sturdy and uncomfortable. The Master remained standing, not necessarily looming, but observing from a superior height. “And I must say, it’s a delight to see you, Master.”
“Hopefully not the same delight Merric feels for you,” Master McClintock laughed. The greatest difference between father and son was humor. The father had it. The son did not. “I am glad you came so quickly. The matter I’d like to discuss is unusual and possibly urgent.”
“Possibly urgent?” Scorch asked, shifting to the edge of his seat. He wasn’t ready. If it was all about to end, he wasn’t ready. Through years of practice, his expression showed none of the horror boiling beneath his skin. He tilted his head curiously at the Guild Master, politeness masking his panic. “What is it?”
Master McClintock lifted his pipe, and Scorch noticed for
the first time that it had been white-knuckled in his hand since he’d stepped through the door. Smoke hung like a dreamy canopy above them, and the Master was blinking more than usual, his eyes irritated. It appeared he had been worrying his pipe all morning and, judging by the dark circles beneath his eyes, probably all night. Such an observation tightened Scorch’s already tight chest. Something had kept the man up, and he didn’t want to know what it was.
“The Queen has written,” Master McClintock said.
That was not what Scorch had been expecting. “Oh?”
“She’s received troubling information and has honored the guardians by bringing that information to our attention.”
“That’s—nice of her.” What little Scorch knew of Viridor’s Queen was limited to her strict policy on elementals; it wasn’t as if he was subjected to much politicking within the walls of the Guild. The Queen and other royals would sometimes enlist the Guild for assistance, but their correspondence was strictly between the Guild Master and his chosen guardians, and as Scorch was an apprentice, any details relayed to him were inadequate. He itched to ask what the Queen writing had to do with him, if it had anything to do with him at all, but he didn’t. He waited patiently for the Master to take another thick drag of his pipe and blow a tendril toward the ceiling.
“What I’m about to tell you is confidential,” he said, streams of smoke escaping between his teeth.
Scorch sat up straighter. “Of course.”
Master McClintock looked frayed around the edges and worry for the Guild Master started creeping in around Scorch’s worry for himself. The man set his pipe aside in order to flex his hand, and then he leaned back on his desk, fixing Scorch with a frown.
“We have reason to believe an assassination attempt will be made on the High Priestess.”
Scorch felt his eyebrows knit together. More illustrious than even the Queen, he knew who the High Priestess of Viridor was. She was worshipped across the country for her saintliness, her connection to the Gods, and she lived in a temple atop Viridor’s highest mountain, surrounded by a team of deadly and devout warriors. The Priestess’ Monks, they were called. He found the idea of her being assassinated difficult to swallow, not just because everyone loved her, but because she was almost impossible to reach and protected by the best fighters in the country, possibly the world.
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