The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  Scorch shifted so he was facing the window. “I won’t look,” he promised.

  “I don’t care what you do,” he heard Vivid snarl. Scorch remembered the silver scars peppered across the skin of his shoulder, and how stiff he’d been when Scorch had applied the ointment to his wound. The memory nearly made him choke on his meal, but he managed to swallow. He listened to the sounds of Vivid unbuckling his cuirass, the rustle of leather dropping to the floor, and then there was a splash of water as he slipped into the tub.

  “How is your shoulder?” Scorch asked around a mouthful of food.

  “It feels better when you’re not talking.”

  So Scorch stopped talking and concentrated on eating. It was difficult, however, to completely shut out the subtle sounds of bathing happening only a few feet away. But it turned out, and Scorch should not have been surprised, that Vivid’s bath regimen was as promptly executed as any of his other regimens, and after a few minutes of submersion, he heard the disturbance of water as Vivid stepped from the tub. Scorch squeezed his eyes shut, fearing that if he did not, the urge to dart his eyes toward a sopping wet, naked assassin would be too great, and he would have survived all his recent hardships only to be murdered in a dusty inn room.

  When Vivid strutted into his line of sight in nothing but his tight leather trousers, Scorch shoved the last of the bread into his mouth to avoid saying something he shouldn’t, though the possibilities abounded in his mind, insufferably knocking against one another. For example, “Wow!”, “Gods, help me!”, and “Please put your clothes back on before I die” were a few exclamations fighting to get out. He must have made a distressed sound around his bread, because Vivid shot him a contemptuous look as he searched through the herbalist sack.

  Scorch looked down at his empty plate, but the image of a fair, lean chest was seared into his eyes, and he could still see it amongst the crumbs. Vivid’s left shoulder was bruised purple around the wound, and the wound itself, a blackish circle, was in the middle of scabbing over. Without the coverings of his leather gear, the expanse of his scarring was evident: a constellation of silver markings across the hard planes of his body. But it was hardly the wounds, new or old, that jarred Scorch’s senses. It was the oddity of seeing so much bare skin at one time.

  He dared another glance as Vivid pulled an ointment box from the sack and sat down on the bed, thus allowing Scorch to examine his back freely. At such a close distance, Scorch could have reached out and traced the scars. Vivid’s back was not as silvered as his front, but the scars were still there, and they were still excessive in their number. Also excessive were the muscles beneath the scarred skin, flexing as Vivid lifted his hand to rub the ointment into his shoulder.

  “Still hot,” Vivid said.

  “What?”

  “The water.”

  Scorch had to stand from the bed and physically turn away to remove his eyes from Vivid’s back. The tub was steaming slightly, and it appeared clean, as if it had never been used. At the Guild, Scorch had always enjoyed fresh baths, and only rarely had he rinsed in water someone else had used, but for some reason the idea of sharing bathwater with Vivid didn’t bother him. He checked to see whether Vivid was watching—he wasn’t—and then stripped the road-weary robe from his shoulders. He had to bend over to unlace his boots before tugging them off, and then he eased himself into the tub, wincing as the hot water touched the cuts on his body. Strangely enough, though his chest and torso had been sliced up by the High Priestess’ dagger, it was the minor cut on his foot that ailed him the most. Once he was fully seated, however, Scorch was able to push the pain away and relax into the warmth of the water. He leaned his head against the rim and stole another glance at Vivid. He was wrapping his shoulder, a less than easy task for one person. Scorch was debating whether or not to leap from the tub and offer his assistance when a flash of yellow caught his eye.

  Propped on the stand beside the tub was a small looking glass. It had been weeks since he’d seen himself, and he scooted forward in the water, drawing nearer to his reflection. His beard had filled in and his hair was a scruffy tangle on his head, not entirely different from its usual state, but his face—his face was someone else’s. Amber eyes glinted amidst a map of hardships. Scorch turned his cheek and touched the side of his face, from temple to jaw, where the boy in the Circle had marked him. His lip was split and swollen from the High Priestess’ knife. His neck was bruised. A smudge of soot streaked across his brow. He would scar and look hard forever, and for a moment, he missed the untested image that used to look back at him from the Guild looking glass. Either you scar, he told himself, or you die. At least he finally looked like a proper guardian, even if he didn’t feel like one.

  Sitting beside the glass was a razor, and whether it was complimentary or left behind by a previous patron, Scorch picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. He dunked his head beneath the water and resurfaced with a splash. Then he got to work.

  When he finally stepped from the tub, he was clean and fresh shaven. He ran a hand over his smooth cheek and sighed contentedly, wrapping a towel around his waist.

  “What happened to your face?”

  Scorch had walked to the bed, toward the medicinals, and Vivid was still sitting there bare chested, only now, instead of staring daggers at his own shoulder wound, he was staring daggers at Scorch.

  “You said you couldn’t bring a—what did you call me?—a haggard brute back to the Assassins,” Scorch answered with a smug smile. “So I shaved.” He felt along the clean jut of his chin, watching Vivid watch him. The man looked personally affronted. “What is it?”

  As if slapped, Vivid recoiled, standing abruptly from the bed and stalking past Scorch to reach the second half of his leather ensemble, which still lay on the floor. He picked up the cuirass with a curious hostility, his lips thinning as he pulled it over his hurt shoulder.

  “Flummoxed by my good looks?” Scorch asked with a grin, keeping his eyes on the ointments and bandages instead of the other man agilely buckling his shirt.

  Vivid picked up his daggers from the table and knocked them back into their sheaths with a threatening ring of steel. “Hardly,” he said, his voice like stone, quite the contrast to his face, which was tension personified.

  Scorch let it drop, because he didn’t care for the stiffness of Vivid’s shoulders when he was the cause. Assuming he was the cause. Wasn’t he usually? He couldn’t even shave without perturbing the man, and that grated on his carefully construed confidence, but he couldn’t allow it to distract him overly much.

  He toyed with the ointment box and contemplated where to start first. A shift of his weight reminded him of the cut on the sole of his foot, and that seemed as good a place as any to begin. He sat on the bed and folded up his leg to assess the damage. It was a smallish cut, but it stung. He swiped a glob of ointment onto it and wrapped it up, then moved on to his stomach. His time strapped to the High Priestess’ chair had been brief, but not brief enough. He wondered how many more cuts he would have if Vivid had not appeared when he did. His body would have been covered in scars.

  Scorch looked at Vivid, who was crossing back toward the bed for his plate of food. His hands and face were the only pieces of skin exposed to Scorch’s scrutiny, and he studied the long fingers carefully. He saw no scars there, nor on the deceptively soft curves of his face.

  Vivid sat with his legs crossed on the bed, the plate balanced pristinely on one knee. He must have been hungry, because he was eating quickly, with tidy, neat bites. Scorch rubbed ointment on the cuts across his chest as his mind quested. He wanted to ask Vivid how he got those scars. It would be so simple if he could simply ask, and Vivid could simply answer, and then he would know. But nothing felt simple, and he knew Vivid’s reaction to questioning would be met with disapproval. Clearly, the man had secrets, and that, at least, was something Scorch understood well. If they were to have nothing else in common, it could be that single thing. And Scorch would respect it. He
would try, anyway.

  When he finished tending himself—the stab wounds at his thigh and shoulder were well on their way to being healed and no longer required bandaging—he lingered in his towel a while longer, but after several minutes of Vivid pointedly looking everywhere but at Scorch, he decided to don his clothes.

  The tailor had been leisurely in the way he’d taken Scorch’s measurements, especially his inseam, but it paid off in the end as Scorch tugged on the richly brown trousers. The soft leather was snug against his backside, and he moved about, trying to get a look. Next, he slid on a cream-colored undershirt that was kind to the array of injuries on his skin. Finally, his jerkin. Blood red to match his boots. It was a bit flashier than he was used to, but the feather-hatted tailor had been adamant. Besides, Scorch was never one to disappoint, and the way the man had swooned when he saw Scorch in his new gear led Scorch to believe he definitely did not disappoint.

  He combed fingers through his still-damp hair and resisted a return to the looking glass, opting instead to glance at Vivid to gauge his reaction, but Vivid had returned to pretending like Scorch didn’t exist, and the last thing Scorch would ever do was twirl in front of the assassin and ask him if he liked his new outfit.

  Scorch paced back and forth across the length of the room while Vivid finished his meal. After a few minutes, Vivid stood, plate in hand, and crossed in front of Scorch to set it on the table. Then he fixed him with a glare, one of his eyebrows quirking slightly.

  Scorch smiled. “Presentable?” he asked, feeling instantly idiotic.

  Vivid scowled, his eyes searching for something as they roamed from the top of Scorch’s sunny hair to the tip of his crimson boots. “They will wonder why a guardian has no sword.”

  Scorch’s hand flew instinctively to his belt, where the scabbard of his Guild sword should have been, but it was gone. It had been gone since the monks kidnapped them on the mountain.

  Before Scorch could speak—not that he knew what to say—Vivid tossed him another purse, jingling and heavy with coin. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced, turning toward the bed. “Go to the blacksmith and arm yourself, since you didn’t think to do it before.”

  “Where did you get all of this coin?” Scorch asked.

  “Unlike you, I’m good at the jobs I’m assigned,” was Vivid’s terse response.

  Scorch felt a flare of anger heat his face. “I’m a guardian,” he argued. “I’m not assigned jobs, I’m assigned missions.”

  Vivid remained perpetually unimpressed. “You’re not a guardian, Scorch,” he said. “No more than I am. Go and find a sword.” He tossed Scorch the key to their room and lay down on his back.

  Scorch was frozen, watching his lean body stretch across the bed, until frustrated eyes found his.

  “Go,” Vivid ordered.

  Scorch went.

  He found the blacksmith, and though her collection of swords was small, Scorch settled on one that would work well enough in the interim: a sleek, long blade with a sturdy grip and pleasing heft. After testing its balance with a few practice jousts that made the blacksmith take several disgruntled steps back, he purchased it, emptying half the purse Vivid had thrown at him. The man seemed to have purses hidden all over his person, maybe even in his thick hair. Scorch bid the blacksmith good evening and walked back toward the sleepy inn.

  Vivid was an assassin, which was surprising enough on its own, but he was also an elemental. Scorch couldn’t help but wonder how many “jobs” he had completed, how many people he had killed, either with his twin daggers or air manipulations. Vivid looked young, too young to have such a bloody history, and yet the scars on his body told a different story. Scorch wanted to know more. Perhaps he would be able to unearth a portion of Vivid’s past when they were with the assassins.

  Since he had coin left over, when he passed through the dining room, he stopped for a drink. The barmaid was small-village pretty, with strawberry blonde braids and a beauty mark on her dimpled cheek. She was quick with Scorch’s order and stared a little too long at the cut on his lip, and in another world, Scorch would have flirted with her and tried to coax her into his lap. But in this world, at this time, Scorch was unmoved. He smiled and thanked her politely and enjoyed his ale, but when she batted her lashes and asked if she could do anything else for him, he laid her tip on the table, said no thank you, and headed back up the stairs.

  He found himself carefully inserting the key to their room and quietly edging inside, locking the door as quietly as possible. Vivid’s eyes were shut and he was lying flat on his back, but Scorch didn’t believe he was asleep. He set his sword in its scabbard and leaned it against the wall, grabbing a pillow from the bed, which suddenly appeared incredibly narrow. It only took him a second’s debate before he decided the floor would suit him fine. He stole a brief look at Vivid before he curled up on the floor, between the door and the bed. Then he got up, fetched his sword, and cozied up again, this time with the weapon held firmly in his hand.

  A few moments later, he felt something hit him on the head. He pushed up on his elbow and looked over his shoulder. Vivid was still lying with his eyes closed.

  Scorch’s hand found what had been pelted at him. A small linen pouch with a drawstring. He opened it and took a grateful whiff of its contents: silvery leaves and ivory stems. He took out one of the stems and popped it into his mouth.

  “Thanks,” he whispered to the quiet room.

  Vivid said nothing.

  Assassins

  12

  The next morning, karma had miraculously spared Scorch and Vivid, and their stolen horse was waiting for their return in the inn’s stable.

  “Don’t you think I should ride in front?” Scorch asked as Vivid hoisted himself into the saddle. “Unless you like me behind you.” To anyone else, his words might have been smooth, but when delivered to Vivid they came out jumbled and cheesy and more lecherous than Scorch had intended. With flushed cheeks, he mounted the horse, his groin pressing traitorously against Vivid’s back.

  “Feels like you don’t mind all that much,” Vivid mumbled grumpily, and Scorch’s surprised huff was lost to the wind as Vivid commanded their horse forward. She whinnied agreeably as they trotted out of the village.

  When they returned to the main road, Vivid opened the horse to a gallop, and they made quick time. Scorch could admit that riding was much more pleasant than a weeklong walk, even if he had to keep his hands firmly clasped around Vivid’s hips to keep his seat.

  They stopped only to rest the horse and relieve themselves, and then they were off again, Vivid at the reins and Scorch pressed up against his back. During that time, he couldn’t help but take note of a few facts: Vivid’s hair smelled like the forest in wintertime; when seated, the top of Vivid’s head came up to just above Scorch’s chin; Vivid’s part zigzagged at the crown.

  Ultimately, a journey that lasted a week by foot, took only three days on horseback, and on the evening of the third day, Vivid slowed the horse to a lazy trot and led her off road, into the dark forest. The day before, they had turned off the western road and taken a route to the north. Scorch had never ventured into that part of the country before, and he took in their surroundings with hungry eyes. The air was colder and the trees had thicker trunks and greener leaves.

  “Is this where the assassins live?” Scorch asked softly.

  “We’re close now.”

  They clopped along, the horse’s steps subdued against the forest floor, until Scorch detected an odd sound, like a roar that never ended. Vivid slid from the saddle and began leading the horse by the reins.

  “Let me get off first,” Scorch insisted, feeling ridiculous still mounted while Vivid walked. Vivid stopped the horse and let Scorch ease off her back, a bit clumsily, and then they walked together toward the roar. It didn’t take long for Scorch to peg the sound, and when they turned the corner around a steep, mossy boulder, there it was. A waterfall.

  Vivid whispered something to the horse. He
r ears twitched, she snorted happily, and then she trotted off.

  “You like animals,” Scorch accused, amused.

  Vivid dusted off his leathers and mindlessly tucked the strand of hair behind his ear. “Of course.”

  Of course, Scorch thought with a roll of his eyes.

  They watched the horse disappear into the dense foliage of the forest, and then Vivid started leading them toward the waterfall. It was the first real waterfall Scorch had ever seen, though he’d glimpsed several drawings in books at the Guild. Books, he was learning, could never quite compare to real life. He craned his head up at the cascade of crystal blue water.

  “It’s beautiful,” he told Vivid.

  “It’s not as beautiful on the inside,” Vivid retorted, jumping nimbly onto the rocks at the base of the falls.

  “The inside?” Scorch scrambled after him, slipping on the slick rocks. His knee fell hard against the stone and he gritted his teeth. Vivid turned back to him, his eyes heavy with judgment. “Don’t help me up or anything,” Scorch spat with an unbidden gush of anger, or something like it.

  “If you insist,” was Vivid’s answer, and he turned away from Scorch to continue scaling the rocks.

  Scorch pulled himself up. Thankfully, he’d not ripped open the knee of his new trousers, though he could already tell he would have a nasty bruise to contend with for the next several days. He took a deep breath and swallowed his uncharacteristic bout of anger. Vivid liked animals, but he did not like Scorch. Scorch knew it, he just hadn’t known it thoroughly enough. He followed after Vivid on careful feet and avoided falling again. Vivid awaited him at the cleft of the rocks, and then they walked behind the waterfall.