by A. L. Tyler
Secrets of the Guardian
Waldgrave Part 3
A.L. Tyler
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Cover art by A.L. Tyler, using the public domain image "Wild purple Iris on the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska 2009 200" by Nancy Heise found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wild_purple_Iris_on_the_Kodiak_Archipelago,_Alaska_2009_200.jpg.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination and used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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For my family, my husband, and my friends.
And for Ashley, who has saved more than one character's life.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Preview: The Spider Catcher, Redemption Book 1
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Lena spent most of the rest of that day collecting books and diaries written by Edward Daray; they were numerous and varied. Edward seemed to be quite the politician, and she found manifesto after manifesto, books containing detailed analyses of political events and movements of the past and his present; he wasn’t an optimist, either. Over and over again, he predicted that the Silenti world would tear itself apart as a culture because the political climate was becoming so polarized; he feared for his life and those of his family. He feared the revolution that Lena had recently been living.
His diaries were few and far between, and the ones that Lena perused were not much different from the books he had written on political perspective. She collected the diaries she could find amongst the masses of unorganized literature, and then walked back up the spiral staircase; it looked as though Griffin had closed the skeleton back over the opening, but when Lena tried to slide it with her hand, it easily gave way. She climbed out and into the office, and then replaced the skeleton over the secret staircase.
When she turned to leave the office, she found Daray’s cat sitting square in front of the door, watching her, as though he were waiting for her.
Have you always known about this? She asked, clutching the books to her chest and walking slowly toward him. He had no name; he wasn’t a pet, after all.
The cat’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned toward her, sniffing the air uncertainly. His face contracted into a pointed grin that was almost a snarl. He walked across the room and past her without another glance, but as he passed her, she heard a belittling whisper, hardly louder than her imagination, Yes.
She took the diaries back to her room and threw them on her bed. She stretched, her back aching after so much time searching through books, and walked over to the window. Summer was just coming into focus; the grass was a deep green, and the waxy new leaves of spring were growing and filling out the branches on the trees. Only the early blooming flowers were open, and the sky was just beginning to turn to dusk.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about Griffin; maybe he was right. Pyrallis had been a master of lies, and it was possible—and even probable—that the woman she had known as Ava wasn’t the child referenced in Edward’s diary. The whole family could have burned in the fire, and then Pyrallis could have claimed that any child was Avalon Daray.
But then, how had Pyrallis come to power? Surely people would have known him, and who he was. Someone had to know about the family and Olesia. Lena went to the diaries spread out on her bed and started flipping through them, trying to find the diagram of the family tree that had caught her interest earlier that day. She thought she had found it, but then did a double take when she looked closer.
It wasn’t the family tree from earlier. In contrast, this one listed the only child of Edward and Melinda as Pyrallis Daray—and his wife’s name was Olesia. Confused, Lena continued to look through the remaining diaries until she found the earlier diagram and then compared the two. One of them claimed that Olesia was a Daray. The other claimed it was Pyrallis. She read the pages immediately before and after the diagrams, and was surprised to see that they contained roughly the same material, and in the same handwriting.
In one, Edward spoke of his daughter Olesia, and someone named Jack Durand, who he had apparently known for some years as he spoke fervently about his talents. In the other, Edward spoke about his son Pyrallis, his wife Olesia, and their daughter, Ava. Lena stared back and forth between the two accounts; they couldn’t both be true. And annoyingly, though Lena had never noticed before, there wasn’t a word in Latito to describe an in-law; in both accounts, the spouse of the child was referred simply as being either ‘daughter’ or ‘son.’
Lena tried to find some sort of thread that she could follow back to an answer, but the harder she pulled the more tangled the situation became. Ava and Lena could read the manuscripts, which Silas Cassius had clearly stated was an attribute of the royal line, but Pyrallis couldn’t. Griffin could be right that Pyrallis had somehow found a child with a special gift, someone that could read the manuscripts for him, but it made no sense with the story about the fire—unless Pyrallis had lit the fire to begin with. But then, how had he managed to fall in as Daray’s heir?
But that in itself made no sense, because Pyrallis had been obsessed with the religion, and he wouldn’t have killed the entire family only to make it his life’s mission to find the portal. If Pyrallis wasn’t Edward’s son, then why had so many people so readily accepted him as the Daray heir? And if he was Daray’s heir, then why couldn’t he read all the manuscripts? And where, for God’s sake, was Olesia? Who was Olesia?
Olesia and Jack were the only people she could cling to, because they weren’t in urns in the basement. If they were dead, with the extensive collection that Pyrallis had been stashing away, she was sure he would have had them. So where were they? And more importantly, what was she going to tell the Council to let her go looking for them?
Rubbing her head, Lena got up and went back to the window. What to do about Griffin…
Something had changed on the lawn. Lena squinted to see across the grounds. There was a group of people standing off in the distance.
Howard! She screamed. Howard, they’re here!
She watched as someone, a figure wearing a dark hood, was pushed to the front, a tall, blond young man walked up behind him. It was Rollin.
The back of the house! They’re on the property!
Lena watched as Rollin pushed the hooded figure to his knees, and with a sickening realization in the pit of her stomach, she watched as he pulled a gun out of his waistband, aimed it, and shot the hostage twice, sending twin jets of blood spraying out of his back before the figure fell face first and onto the grass. Rollin raised his gun and fired several shots at the house, shooting with such indifference that Lena dove onto the carpet, though none of his shots found her window. She listened to the bullets embedding themselves into Waldgrave’s exterior like so many pieces of hail on a cloudless eve. When the firing stopped, she looked up and out the window again; the group turned and started to walk away. Frozen in place, Lena watched as the hooded figure laid there, a lump on the ground. She could feel her heart pounding as Rollin and his small entourage disappeared over the hill. A
nd then the hooded figure moved.
Panic rushing through her veins, she shot out of her room and down the hall and the stairs, out through the greenhouse—there was a group of armed men, standing at guard, just in front of her as she sprinted toward the fallen hostage; emboldened Council Representatives and their sons who had come to stay at Waldgrave “until the situation resolved itself.”
She was brushing past them. People everywhere were yelling, and she thought there might have even been some gunfire, but she didn’t hear any of it. Someone tried to grab her arm, to stop her from running toward the danger.
Lena!
He’s still alive! I saw him move!
It didn’t occur to her that it could have been a trap. She didn’t think about the fact that once she was passed the line of Waldgrave’s armed militia, she would easily be caught in the crossfire that could ensue. As she neared the body, she felt her whole being suddenly sink; she didn’t need to see his face to recognize him. He was wearing the same shirt he had the night that he had helped her escape.
It was Devin.
Someone get the doctor! She screamed.
Lena crouched down next to the body, afraid to move him. He was still breathing, just ever so slightly. His chest expanded and contracted every few seconds as blood oozed out of two wounds on his back, soaking his clothing and running into the grass. Rollin had done it deliberately; he wanted him to suffer before he died.
Oh God, oh God, Devin…Devin, I’m here, just hold on, you’re going to be okay.
He didn’t respond, and Lena reached down and pulled the hood off of his head and turned his face to the side so that he could breathe. He was pale and clammy, and his eyes were only slightly open, staring off into space—but there was nothing else in them. There was no shallow, stagnant sign of death. Lena tried to breathe a sigh of relief as her pulse continued to race. He was losing a lot of blood.
Breathe, Devin, just keep breathing…
She looked over her shoulder. The Council Representative had continued on past her, still in search of Rollin; she watched as Lyle Evans and a handful of others rushed across the lawn toward her. She turned back to Devin. His eyes were closed.
Devin! Devin, open your eyes!
But he didn’t respond. He didn’t give so much as a twitch to say that he’d heard her. She looked back in Doctor Evans’ direction. He was only fifteen feet away, but he wasn’t running anymore. He had slowed to a walk, and his assistants were slowing behind him. Lena looked up at him, confused, but he was staring at Devin. When he regarded her, there was a pained look in his eyes.
I’m sorry, Miss, I don’t think there’s anything—
“No!” She screamed. “No! He’s still alive! You can save him!”
She turned back to Devin, frantic because his eyes were still closed, and reached a hand forward. She peeled his eyelid back, and then looked back up at Doctor Evans.
“It’s not his time! It’s not his time…” She tried to steady her voice. “You have to try.”
Doctor Evans met her gaze. For Lena, the world had stopped.
He turned his head to the side and gave a slight nod; the doctor and his assistants walked over to Devin’s unmoving form as Lena shuffled back to give them room. She brought a hand to her mouth as they started treating Devin’s wounds and then flipped him over. There weren’t any bullet holes coming out through his stomach, which meant the bullets had lodged inside; she wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. The entire front of his shirt was soaked with blood, including a piece of paper that had been pinned to chest, and the mess of blood soaked clothes, hands, grass, and the unstoppable oozing from Devin’s back, forced her to close her eyes and turn away.
He couldn’t be dead. The eyes never lied…and there hadn’t been any trace of death in them, unless he had died in the split second that she had looked away. She opened her eyes and stared out across the lawn. Could he have died that fast? Did fate turn on a second’s notice?
In the last light of the setting sun, the armed Council Representatives were coming back over the hill, treading lightly through the untrimmed grass of Waldgrave’s lawn. Some of them looked determined and angry, and some of them just looked worried. Rollin must have gotten away. But as their eyes settled on Lena and the scene unfolding behind her, she was finding it hard to face them. The intention had been to stay at the house, guarding the fortress, and they had followed her out into the unknown. Once again, her impulsive behavior had risked lives. Rollin had run away after delivering his message, but if he had chosen to stay, things would have been much bloodier.
Lena spun back around just as the assistants lifted Devin and started carrying him back towards Waldgrave; Doctor Evans was running ahead of them, and trying to get his overcoat off, which was a good sign that Devin was still alive. He was going into surgery.
As she watched them run towards the house, Devin’s body weaving uncertainly as the four men tried to carry him evenly, time seemed to stand still. A light breeze ruffled the sunset-tinted grass. A pair of hands landed on her shoulders, and she heard Howard’s voice, whispering, close to her ear.
“It’s okay. Just walk. It’s okay.”
He gently pushed her and she felt her knees bend beneath her. The walk back to the house was instantaneous, and then she was sitting in a room with Mrs. Ralston again. It was the kitchen. Rosaleen was holding a bloody kitchen rag and wiping Lena’s hands with it. She looked down and realized that her clothes and hands were splattered with red.
Her attention suddenly snapped back to Mrs. Ralston. “I need to see Devin.”
Mrs. Ralston didn’t look up. “Later. He’s in the doctor’s care now.”
And she continued to wipe the blood off of Lena. Then she walked her upstairs, forced her into taking a shower and then into pajamas. The two sat on the edge of the bed, Mrs. Ralston brushing out Lena’s wet hair as she gazed out the dark window. Rollin was still out there somewhere.
“I still need to see Devin.” Lena insisted. “And you don’t have to do this every time someone gets shot.”
Mrs. Ralston set down her brush, ignoring Lena’s snide remark. “I’d rather you didn’t see him yet. I’ll check in on him if you like, and let you know, but as I understand it, he’s going to be in surgery until tomorrow. You should get some sleep.”
Lena sighed. “I’m not going to sleep, and I don’t care what you say about it.”
She almost cringed when she heard the words come out of her mouth; they sounded so harsh. Here was Rosaleen, trying to make everything better for her in the only way she knew how, and all Lena could think about was Devin and whether or not he was okay. She might have been more comforted, or at least she might have acted it for Mrs. Ralston’s sake, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was Devin and the fact that somewhere close by he was suffering on her behalf. Possibly dying on her behalf. She heard Mrs. Ralston heave a sigh and felt her move; Lena thought she was going to get up and leave.
But Mrs. Ralston only turned her gently around to face her and smiled. She spoke very softly. “That makes me glad. It’s healthy for you to care. You scared me earlier. You didn’t even cry this time…it’s not natural to see what you saw and not feel anything.”
Lena looked at her bare feet, just beyond the hemmed bottoms of her plaid pajama pants. She had felt…and then she had shut off. Everything from reaching Devin’s body on was a blur, like she had resorted to auto-piloting. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but she didn’t envy any second of what she had missed. She looked back up at Mrs. Ralston. “He saved my life. He helped me get away, and this is where it got him. I really need to see him.”
“In the morning.” Mrs. Ralston nodded. Then, seeking to change the subject, she turned and looked over her shoulder at the books Lena had left scattered on the bed. “What’s all of this?”
Lena cast her eyes at Edward Daray’s journals. The problem of her heritage had ever so briefly managed to slip from her mind. She realized that she wasn’t even sure wher
e Griffin was, or what he had done with his day since leaving her in the basement. “It’s just some old stuff I found in a corner. It’s very interesting, actually…”
Rosaleen smiled, sending wrinkles running into the corners of her eyes. “Your grandfather was just like that. The two of you would have made quite the pair. He was always looking for an adventure.”
“Oh.” Lena frowned. She could still see the terror in Ben’s eyes as Pyrallis shot him down. “Yes, I suppose he was.”
Mrs. Ralston reached toward the nearest of the diaries and flipped it open. When the pages appeared blank before her eyes, she looked up at Lena. “What’s this one about?”
“Um…” Lena peered over her shoulder. On one page was the end of a manifesto, and the other was a brief entry concerning a Council meeting that Edward had attended; it recorded sections of the deposition of his son, Pyrallis Daray. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m not quite sure yet.”
Mrs. Ralston sighed as she smiled at Lena. “And let me guess—you need to go somewhere to find out what the rest of this is about?”
Lena sat back. She felt her jaw physically drop. “Well, I’m not sure yet, but yes, probably, yes. How did you…?”
“Hmm.” Mrs. Ralston stood up. “Exactly like your grandfather. Always on the go, always getting into trouble.”
She walked to the door and turned to face Lena one last time. “Now, I don’t want you leaving this room until tomorrow morning. If you need anything, give me a shout. I’ll watch Devin for you.”
And then Lena was alone, staring at the books on her bed.
Lena abided by Mrs. Ralston’s rules and stayed in her room until five the next morning, when she crept away and walked around until she found the door with one of Doctor Evan’s assistants stationed in front of it. He was a younger man, probably in his mid-twenties with dark hair, dressed in generic looking scrubs, drinking a cup of coffee, sitting in a chair just next to the bedroom door.
