The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  “Scorch, quick,” Kio pleaded, and he didn’t need her to explain. He flew to the bed, where she still had her medicinal supplies spread out, and gathered them hastily into her pack. Next, he picked up his sword and buckled it onto his belt. His new satchel was already packed and he swung it over his shoulder, along with Kio’s and Julian’s.

  There was shouting on the other side of the door, and then a booted foot kicked clear through, making Kio and Julian scatter. Scorch ran for the window and knocked its flimsy shutters open with an elbow. In the next moment, the door was kicked again and the men bottlenecked into the room. Their faces weren’t roughed up, but they were furious. They must have been the guards outside the Circle that ran when Scorch and Vivid started scaling the wall.

  “Go!” Scorch yelled, shoving Julian and Kio out of the way. He unsheathed his sword and steadied it at the intruders. Behind him, he could hear Julian and Kio scrambling out the window. When the masked men rushed him, Scorch was ready. He kicked the first man, making him stumble back into the others, and since that was the only chance Scorch might have had, he took it, sheathing his sword and jumping out the window.

  He landed hard. Kio and Julian were right there, scooping him up by the arms, and then they were all running. Seconds later, they heard the inn door slam open.

  “They’re chasing us!” Scorch warned, but they were already running as fast as they could. The road ahead was dark and the masked men’s voices were loud, their footsteps louder as they gained more ground.

  They ran down the road, the trees obscuring even the tiny bit of light from the moon. Scorch could hardly see a few feet in front of him, and he definitely didn’t see the rock that tripped him and sent him falling face-first into the dirt.

  He groaned and pushed himself to his feet, but before he could run, a hand grabbed him by the neck.

  “I got one,” the masked man cackled. “I’m gonna bleed you dry,” he hissed in Scorch’s ear, pressing a knife to his throat.

  Scorch tried to reach for his sword, but before he could manage a grip, the man at his back moaned and spasmed against him. A moment later, he fell. A dagger was sticking out of his head. Vivid, who had appeared out of nowhere, pulled the dagger free and leapt past Scorch, double blades whirring as he cut through the second man’s offensive sword strikes and shoved one of the blades deep between his ribs.

  Suddenly, Kio and Julian were at his side and Scorch regained the sense to draw his sword, but Vivid didn’t need his help, and he didn’t allow it. Scorch’s stunned eyes followed his slim body as he danced violent circles around the remaining masked men, jabbing, slicing, ruining with his twin daggers until all five men were irrefutably dead. When he was done, he stood in the middle of the corpses and wiped a splatter of blood from his cheek.

  “I thought I told you to go away,” Vivid said flatly.

  “Where did you learn to fight like that?” Kio asked. Her voice was smooth but her eyes were narrowed at Vivid, like she was figuring out a puzzle.

  Vivid ignored her and sheathed his blades—one in each long sleeve of his arm—and the look he gave Scorch was murderous. Scorch would have feared a look like that if Vivid hadn’t just saved his life. Again.

  “That’s twice in one day, you know,” Scorch said, and Vivid’s black eyebrows furrowed. “If you’re so against my existence, you might want to try not prolonging it.”

  Julian made a tiny noise of confusion, but Kio was still studying Vivid. She took a step closer, ignoring his scowl. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked again. She was taller by several inches, but Vivid’s presence was a looming, perilous thing, unbound by trivialities such as height.

  “Just be thankful I did or else you’d be soaking your shoes in your useless friend’s blood.” Vivid shoved past her and came to stand directly in front of Scorch. “This is the last time I tell you to stop following me,” he growled, and then he turned and started down the road.

  Scorch exchanged glances with Kio and Julian before calling after him. “Can I walk in front of you, then? Because it seems we’re headed in the same direction.”

  Scorch counted to ten before Vivid stopped walking. He ran to catch up and Vivid cast him a frustrated glance.

  “I need to take this road east,” Scorch explained.

  “Take another road,” Vivid snapped.

  “There is no other road to the Heartlands,” Scorch argued.

  “Why are you going to the Heartlands?”

  Scorch was surprised by the spark of interest in the other man’s voice. He straightened his shoulders. “I have a guardianship to attend in the mountain temple.”

  The night became silent except for the wind; it howled and whistled and pushed the hair back from Scorch’s forehead. He patted it down and raised a questioning eyebrow at Vivid, who looked like he’d been slapped across the face. “What?”

  “You’re a guardian,” Vivid said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” Scorch answered, tugging at his jerkin, as if his clothing made his duty obvious. “I’ve a task of the utmost importance concerning the High Priestess and I cannot be stalled because you refuse to share the road with me. Travel behind me, if you want, and you’ll be rid of my backside soon enough. How far will this road take you?”

  “As far as the Heartlands,” Vivid answered sharply. “I am also headed to the temple, to train with the Priestess’ Monks.”

  They stared at one another.

  “This is good news,” Kio said, her voice a melody fighting against the wind. “The Monk’s Path is said to be the most dangerous land in Viridor. Our chances of survival should be improved if we travel together.”

  Scorch processed her words slowly, but when they finally sank in, he looked at her curiously. “Kio,” he started, but she took his hand and squeezed it gently.

  “If you’re going down the Monk’s Path, I want to go with you,” she said.

  “Like you said, it’s dangerous.”

  “Which is why I should go with you,” she countered. “Your wounds need looking after or they’ll fester.”

  “Guardians don’t usually walk around with personal helpers.”

  “Are you a trained herbalist?”

  Scorch looked at Julian for help, but he was looking at the ground. “No,” he answered.

  “Do you know what a Peggotty Lush-fern looks like?”

  A long pause. “No.”

  “Then I’m coming with you. Unless you want to accidentally touch one and die of boiling fever blisters before you reach the mountainside.” She still held Scorch’s hand. “Please,” she said. “You need someone protecting you.”

  Scorch thought of her cool hands and soothing voice, the care she’d taken wrapping his wounds, and the sincerity in her request. He glanced at Vivid, but he was staring straight ahead, ignoring all of them.

  “I won’t send you away,” Scorch said at last. He didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his decision.

  Kio gave his hand a final squeeze before dropping it, a pleased smile on her face. “Julian?” She walked to him and placed her fingers beneath his chin, raising his eyes to hers.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” he said softly, and Scorch saw another glimpse of that broken, caged person. “When the slavers took me, they killed my . . .” he paused, choking on his words. “I have nowhere else to go.”

  “Okay,” Scorch said, and his voice sounded too loud for the quiet forest road. He knew well enough what it was like to have nothing and no one. “Okay.” There was nothing left to do but turn to Vivid, who retuned Scorch’s gaze reluctantly. “I would offer to stay behind and let you gain ground ahead of us, but I can’t delay.”

  The hair had fallen back over Vivid’s eye, but he didn’t bother to push it behind his ear, not in the gusting wind that would rustle it right back. “Neither can I.”

  “Well, then,” said Scorch, not entirely sure what had just been agreed upon, or if anything had been agreed upon. He handed Kio and Julian their pac
ks, which were slung around his shoulder from their close escape, and then he adjusted the strap of his own satchel, busying his anxious hands. When everything was tightened and tidied and he could think of no more diversions, Scorch gave an awkward sort of nod and began walking down the road. Kio and Julian fell in step at his side.

  Scorch held his breath until he heard a fourth set of footsteps taking off after them.

  Dream Moss

  6

  That first night, they did not travel far before stopping, for they were all exhausted. Veering a safe distance from the main road, Scorch resisted checking over his shoulder too often to see if the fourth person sharing the road with them intended on sharing a camp, as well. Miraculously, when Scorch finally set down his pack in a fit clearing and looked up, he saw that Vivid had not only followed, but was currently making quick work of collecting kindling for a fire.

  Scorch was practically itching with interest, but he refrained from indulging in the deluge of questions whirring about in his head. It was clear from the stern lines on Vivid’s face that he would not take kindly to questions, nor any conversation at all, and so Scorch steered clear of him, trying his damnedest to avoid eye contact when he knelt beside the kindling to set it ablaze. The act brought to mind the image of his mother, her elegant hand arching over smoking wood. Scorch, instead, used a flint, and his heart beat a mournful rhythm in his chest.

  Since they’d already dined at the inn, there was little for four strangers to do but go to sleep, and now that Scorch was finally readying for rest, he could feel the trauma of the past few days settling heavily in his body. He vowed to ignore it, and when everyone else claimed their respective spots around the fire, so did he. The ground was hard, but it wasn’t a cage, and so sleep came quickly.

  For a time, he was peaceful. But in a mind like Scorch’s, it was never long before the peace sizzled and smoldered and was replaced with the thick, suffocating nature of nightmares.

  ****

  Flames licked his skin. He was choking on acrid, black smoke. But it was the tangy smell of blood that twisted his insides.

  He grabbed her as her skin finally began to burn. A sob tore from his throat.

  Behind him, his father lay in pieces.

  ****

  Scorch jolted awake and his eyes opened to the glow of fire. Gagging at the phantom stink of crackling skin, he pressed a hand over his mouth and shuffled clumsily to his feet, stumbling from their little camp until the fire was only a flicker in the darkness. He grabbed at the nearest tree, his fingers scraping against the bark as he doubled over with dry heaves.

  He was no stranger to nightmares, but it had been a long time since he’d woken so violently. Tears leaked from his bloodshot eyes and he remained hunched and heaving for several torturous minutes while a slew of unbidden thoughts haunted the backs of his eyelids: the boy in the rain, the girl in the bed, his parents on the forest floor. Scorch shook, clammy-skinned, gasping great bouts of breath, until finally, blessedly, his tremors ceased, and the bile in his throat subsided. He wiped the tears from his face and walked back to the camp.

  Kio and Julian had not stirred, but Vivid was awake and leaning against a tree. Had Scorch woken him with his nightmare? Had he witnessed his graceless retreat from the camp? Embarrassed, he worried for a moment that Vivid would inquire after his whereabouts, maybe ask what he had dreamed, but when Scorch walked past him and resettled on the ground, Vivid said nothing.

  Scorch lay on his back, listening to the calm sounds of the night: Kio and Julian breathing steadily, the leaves whispering in the soft breeze, the fire hissing and cracking. But he didn’t sleep again. He kept his eyes shut, feigning rest in case Vivid was watching, and when the sun finally began to rise and he could stop pretending, he was thankful.

  ****

  The next day was warm and the sunshine fell in brilliant stripes through the treetops. Scorch set a hastened pace down the road with the intent of reaching the Heartlands in a week’s time. Eventually, the main road would split in two, to the north and to the south. They would keep going east, off the road and into the inhospitable lands of Viridor’s center. But until then, Scorch could do nothing but walk one step at a time. Kio and Julian walked next to him and Vivid remained several paces behind, ghostlike. But for someone who was barely there, Scorch was hyper-aware of his presence, constantly finding reasons to turn around, even if it meant falling victim to Vivid’s glower.

  Scorch’s body was sore from his days cramped in the cage, and his multiple wounds ached with every step, but he was young and strong, and the exercise was soothing, the air refreshing. In the sunlight, his black dreams felt far away, and he wished he could sleep in the glimmers of sun, like the fat grey cat from the Guild. A yawn escaped him and he gave his head a shake. Kio was speaking softly about a wild flower that grew on the temple mountain when the first scream came.

  Scorch stopped in his tracks and looked around anxiously. “Did you hear that?” he asked the others. Kio and Julian nodded, looking around with wide eyes. Vivid had unsheathed his daggers.

  When Scorch heard the second scream, he took off, not even checking to see if the others were following. He ran as fast as he could down the road, taking the turn so sharply, he nearly toppled himself, and then, straight ahead, was a village in discord. Scorch stopped to catch his breath and observe the tumultuous herd of villagers as they streamed from their homes and gathered around the obvious site of destruction. It was a collapsed house, a heap of ruined planks and split bricks, with a thick cloud of smoke hovering overhead. And standing in front of the house was the source of the screaming: a young boy, twelve or thirteen, covered in dust.

  The boy screamed again, and Scorch began weaving through the crowd for him, but the villagers were densely packed and had no interest in yielding to a newcomer. Peering over the heads of several, Scorch saw a large man sweep the boy up in his arms. The boy’s screams intensified and he began beating wildly at the man’s chest. The villagers were yelling something, but Scorch couldn’t understand. An older woman was standing in front of him and he tapped her on the shoulder. “What’s going on here?”

  The woman was startled by Scorch’s sudden appearance, her eyes darting down to the sword at his hip and then up to the scar on his face.

  “I’m a guardian,” Scorch said as confidently as he could. “I can help.”

  That calmed her and she nodded toward the pile of debris. “The miller’s house fell down,” she said.

  Scorch frowned. “How?”

  “The ground started shaking, just in that spot, mind you, and then it stopped standing upright. Made an awful sound. The dust is only now starting to clear.” She coughed, not bothering to cover her mouth.

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “There’s no one could’ve survived all that rubble crashing down.”

  Scorch moved toward the destroyed house but the woman caught his arm and said, “It’s for the best they’re dead.”

  He stared at her. “What do you mean by that?” The villagers’ yelling was growing louder, clearer, and he was beginning to understand what, exactly, was being chanted.

  The woman had to speak loudly for Scorch to hear. “We’ve never had a quake here before. They’re saying the child who lived there is an elemental, brought the whole house down on top of his parents. And if he’s one, chances are his parents were, so it’s best for us all, lucky even, that they’re dead. The High Priestess has smiled on us today.”

  Scorch’s face was white. He tore his eyes from the woman and cast a nervous glance around. “Where’s the boy?” He shouldn’t have let him out of his sight. Neither he nor the man who’d picked him up were visible in the crowd, but now Scorch knew perfectly well what the people around him were yelling: “Kill it, kill it, kill it!”

  “They took it away to deal with,” the woman answered. Her eyes shone greedily. “The money for its body will get the whole village through the winter.”

  A second later, Scorch heard
the scream again, and then it came to an abrupt end. He spun around, looking for the boy, but he still couldn’t see him, couldn’t see where that man had taken him. A surge of adrenaline turned him in a circle, eyes searching. He wanted to yell after the boy, wanted to shake the merciless woman and the other villagers, their eyes darkened by bloodlust, their voices loud and noxious. His hand fell to his sword hilt, his palms sweaty.

  A door slammed in the distance and Scorch veered around in time to see the man emerge from a house down the street, dragging a large sack behind him. The villagers clapped and cheered, making a path for him to walk through. When he passed Scorch, it was clear what he had inside the sack, and Scorch’s jaw clenched against a wave of nausea. The world was suddenly scarlet-edged.

  They had killed him. They had killed him yards from where Scorch stood. He cried out in frustrated pain, but his was only a drop in a sea of bellows. He wanted to brandish his sword. He wanted to cut the sack open and pull the boy out and see that he was breathing. He wanted to tear down the monstrous man who had thrown a boy over his shoulders and—

  A hand grabbed his wrist and Scorch was too fever-headed to resist. He let himself be pulled through the crowd and away from the village, keeping his eyes fastened on the man dragging the sack. When his feet hit the main road, the hand around his wrist yanked hard, forcing Scorch’s attention. He looked up, expecting to see Kio’s concerned face, but it was Vivid.

  “They killed that boy,” Scorch whispered. He knew what was done to elementals—it was considered common practice in Viridor—but it still made him sick to witness it firsthand.

  “You were reaching for your sword.”

  Scorch nodded, dazed and queasy. “They killed him.”