“And yet he called on humans to protect him?”
“No,” Isaiah shook his head. “Not to protect him. To protect his people.”
“If he was so powerful, why did he need to create the Guardians? Why couldn’t he just use his magic to eradicate the vampires?”
“It is not so simple. Eldon believed that with his death, Aleksei’s thirst for vengeance would be satiated – that he would cease his attack on the innocents and the war would end. That’s why he didn’t use his magic to save himself. He sacrificed himself for the rest of them.”
“It doesn’t seem to have worked out quite as he planned,” Camille remarked wryly.
“No,” Isaiah agreed. “Eldon underestimated Aleksei’s hatred. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that Eldon’s final act was one of selflessness.”
“You speak of him as a king who should be revered, but all I see is a man who forced my fifteen year old daughter into a life of servitude.”
“You don’t understand the honour of the Guardianship, Camille.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t. Eldon was your king, not mine. I don’t have the same faith in him that you do.”
“Have faith in me, then,” Isaiah’s amber eyes held hers, and Camille saw the true power within shimmering just below the surface. “I will protect Monique.”
“Mom!” Monique’s voice broke the mounting tension of the moment. “I said come and touch them!”
Isaiah had even taken Monique over Highgate Bridge, the home of Zol – Summerfeld’s only troll. Monique had laughed uproariously when she heard and had proceeded to intone “Zol the troll” at the top of her lungs. Zol was hideous – over a thousand years old and he grew more cantankerous with each passing year. He would not harm the Guardians, but he preferred his isolation and they generally let him be. Zol had no mate to breed with so the line would end with him. Trolls were very strong, but unfortunately very slow and dim-witted, making them easy prey for the vampires who slaughtered them only too easily. Zol had survived his parents' vampiric slaughter and had been found as a young troll by King Eldon, in the final days before Summerfeld was sealed. King Eldon had personally escorted Zol into the City and created Highgate Bridge – an exact replica of the bridge under which he had found him.
Despite her mother’s trepidation, Monique would not be dissuaded and she trotted happily along the bridge with Isaiah, leaning over the rotting wooden railing trying to catch a glimpse of Zol. She waved happily as the gnarled, wart-encrusted troll peered up at her with bloodshot eyes. He stood about five feet high and was almost as broad as he was tall. The whites of his eyes were yellowed, and, despite his grotesque appearance, there was something pitiful about him. Camille, standing on the bank beside Tristan, gave a whimper, her hand flying to her mouth.
“He won’t hurt her,” Tristan smiled. Camille looked horrified.
“Is that moss?” Monique asked, excitedly and Isaiah nodded. There was moss growing across Zol’s shoulders and down the broad, bare expanse of his back. “Cool!” she waved again and Zol shuffled back under the bridge and out of sight.
Her curiosity would not be sated as she was guided around Summerfeld. The only creatures she had not encountered or had been allowed close to, were the dragons. Isaiah finally put his foot down. He had catered to her every whim, delighted by the natural kinship she displayed with every creature that she was now bound to protect, but he would not allow her near the dragons – they were far too dangerous.
“Come on!” Tristan called again, ignoring Monique’s pout as she stroked Etana’s mane. Isaiah hadn’t come out with them today. Piper had manned the Cathedral during his absence the previous morning when he had taken Monique to see Zol, but she had her own work to do and Isaiah didn’t like to burden anyone for too long. With one last tug on the mare’s ears, Monique obediently followed Tristan back to the fountain. “Are you coming, mom?” she held out her hand, but Camille quickly stepped back, waving her hands in front of her.
“I think I’ll stay,” she mumbled. The nausea of passing through the Gateway was not something she would ever get used to.
“How are you doing today, Monique?” Isaiah asked when the girl appeared magically before him at the altar.
“Good,” she gushed, “Tristan took me for a ride through the the Silver Oaks forest. Kellan thinks that one of the mares may be with foal.”
“Wonderful,” Isaiah smiled. “Now, are you ready to begin?”
“Aren’t we going through to the training room?”
“No,” he pulled the Sacred Book from behind his back and an astonished gasp escaped her. The gold cover gleamed, belying the time-stained pages within and was embossed with the outline of each of the supernatural species.
“May I?” Monique asked and Isaiah handed the book to her. It was heavier than she had expected, and she traced the outline of the images embossed into the precious metal – each of the supernatural species – a symbol of what they were fighting for. Monique’s finger rested on the Pegasus, their wings differentiating them from the unicorns on the opposite side of the cover.
“Are they really gone?” she murmured, her heart weighing heavily in her chest.
“We will never stop searching for survivors,” Isaiah replied, “but sadly our hope has thus far been unfounded. The Pegasus has not been seen in a thousand years. The same goes for the Phoenix,” he pointed to the bird etched at the bottom right.
Monique opened the book to a random page, the ink clearly visible on the ancient yellowed paper. The tome would stand the test of time, the words never fading, written as they were in enchanted ink.
“What is the Hawkstone?” she asked, the word jumping out at her.
“I guess that’s lesson number one,” Isaiah smiled.
“So, we’re not training today?”
“No. Today we’re studying.”
Chapter 23
“We’ve been searching for days,” Melchior’s voice sounded weary. “Perhaps it’s time to move on.”
“Not yet,” Balthazar shook his head, his black hair forming a dark halo around his head and shoulders. “It’s around here somewhere, I’m certain of it.” Balthazar had a strong feeling that their search for the City was nearing an end. He had searched all of his life, as had his parents before him, and their parents before that; centuries of following a myth. And yet, Balthazar believed that he would succeed where his ancestors had failed – that he would lead their people to the promised land to claim Summerfeld as their home. And he would finally prove to Jonas that their nomadic lifestyle had not been in vain, that the City did exist. Anything to shake his son from the dark mood he had fallen into. Jonas would start school in just a few days and Balthazar knew, all too well, how cruel children could be. It pained him that his son would no doubt endure hours of ridicule and shame, and he could not, for the life of him, figure out why Jonas would put himself through it.
“The City is concealed from the human eye,” Melchior reminded, snapping Balthazar from his reverie. “How do you suppose we are to find it if it’s invisible? We could be standing right beside it and still not see it?”
“We cannot see the City, but there are those who can. A Guardian will lead us in.”
“How do we find a Guardian?”
“We wait,” Balthazar replied enigmatically. He couldn’t say why or how, but he knew that they were close. The cornflower had been a sign, of that he was certain. Now there was nothing to do but wait. He watched Melchior make his way back to his tent, disappearing inside it and heaved a sigh. It appeared that Jonas was not the only gypsy losing faith.
“Balthazar!” Rowena’s voice called as she raced towards him, her skintight brown leather pants leaving little to the imagination, and Balthazar felt the familiar heat in his loins at the very sight of her. Breathlessly she skidded to a halt before him, her cheeks flushed, her dark curls damp with sweat.
“What is it?” he asked. She had just returned from fetching gas for the cooker an
d he could not imagine what might have happened that had her so wound up.
“The gas station,” she gasped, her chest heaving, “I saw... there were three of them. One man, two women.” Balthazar didn’t need to hear anymore. Checking to make sure they hadn’t been overheard, he grabbed her arm and together they hurtled back towards his truck. Guardians. They had finally found Guardians.
Oblivious to the two gypsies who watched them through the trees, Quinn, Blair and Liam pulled out of the gas station and headed west. The red Chevy followed the two cars – a black sedan and a smaller, grey hatchback - a few miles, as they ventured further and further into No-Man’s land.
“Keep a safe distance,” Rowena cautioned for what felt like the tenth time, “we can’t afford for them to see us.” Balthazar peered at the tiny specks in the distance that were the Guardians’ cars.
“We can’t afford to lose them, either,” he said, but eased his foot slightly off the gas. His excitement was overwhelming and he kept accelerating without realising it.
As the miles passed the landscape slowly transformed. At first there were only a few shrubs, and then the occasional tree, but with every minute the vegetation thickened, until they were passing heavy woodlands.
“Look!” Rowena breathed, drawing Balthazar’s attention to the clumps of cornflowers growing in and amongst the tall boughs. Sycamore leaves fluttered down around their car, drifting inncocently onto the windshield before being plucked away by the breeze. Balthazar couldn’t speak - he was too afraid that his life’s ambition, finally within his grasp, would be wrenched away if he got his hopes up. Gritting his teeth, he squinted ahead, his eyes straining as he tried to keep the vehicles in his sights.
“I think you can get closer now,” Rowena spoke softly, and Balthazar turned to find her smiling at him encouragingly. “The trees will give us cover,” she added, placing her hand on his shoulder. The foliage had certainly thickened enough that they would not be spotted instantly by their quarry, and Balthazar was grateful for the years of financial hardship and the fact that he had never been able to afford to repaint the Chevy. The red was dull and faded, making it harder to spot against the muted tones of nature’s panaroma. Pressing the gas pedal, he winced as the old engine groaned in protest. The down-side of the truck’s ill-maintenance was that it might break down at any moment. Balthazar prayed that it didn’t do so any time soon.
“What is that?’ Rowena peered through the dusty windscreen, brushing a stray lock of dark hair from her face. Ahead, the trailing sedan banked suddenly left, at a point where the tree line ended abruptly. Frantic without the vehicle in his sights, Balthazar sped up, screeching to a halt just before the shelter of the trees gave way completely. Rushing from the truck, he sprinted forward, bursting from the woods onto a dry, cracked plateau, stretching as far as the eye could see. He looked to his left, searching for the sedan, and his heart plummeted.
There was no vehicle in sight – both the black sedan and the grey hatchback were gone and before him, a canyon, as wide as three double-decker buses split the arid earth. His eyes travelled east and west but there was no bridge, no point at which the opposite ends met, and absolutely no place to cross.
“Oh my God,” Rowena had finally caught up to him. Unlike Balthazar, who had gone completely still, she whipped her head left and right, eventually turning a full circle on the spot.
“Where did they go?”
Balthazar didn’t answer. He had not come this far to have the life’s work of generations of Blackmans wrested from his grasp. And he had a pretty good idea where the Sedan had disappeared to. There was nowhere else it could have gone.
Slowly, deliberately, he walked forward, placing one foot in front of the other until he stood at the very edge of the precipice. It was so deep and dark that he couldn’t see the bottom.
“What are you doing?” Rowena’s voice quavered. “Balthazar, what are you doing?”
“I’m taking a leap of faith,” he murmured, his own legs shaking as he willed them to do the unthinkable. He closed his eyes. Too late Rowena understood what he intended to do and she reached for him, but he had already taken a step over the edge of the cliff.
A heady floral scent assailed Balthazar’s senses and he could hear the faint sounds of birds singing – so many songs sung all at once. His eyes were still closed, but he could sense the coolness in the air, so different to the baking heat of the desert he had stood in only a second ago. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing on the crest of a hill and below him, nestled in a valley more beautiful than anything he had ever seen, stood a magnificent Cathedral. It seemed to sparkle, a riotous rainbow of colour, reflected by the light of the sun. In the distance, weaving along the pebbled road he was standing on, he saw the sedan, and only a few hundred yards ahead of it, the smaller grey hatchback. Enchanted by the towering stone structure, it took a few moments before he was able to tear his gaze away, to take in the woods surrounding three sides of it and the fields of flowers that spread before it. It was the single most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
Balthazar had a sudden longing for someone to share this moment, and in that instant he remembered Rowena. Twisting violently around he saw her, slumped to the ground, her body wracked with sobs. She was so close that if he reached out he could touch her, but it was obvious that she couldn’t see him. This is the safeguard, Balthazar thought wondrously. Mankind would never find the City because it required an act of suicide to do so.
“Rowena,” he spoke her name out loud, but she did not lift her head. Stepping forward, he felt only the faintest tremor run over him, as if his whole body had been affected by pins and needles for just an instant, and then he was back in the cloying heat, the sound of Rowena’s sobs clearly audible.
She jumped as he placed his hand on her shoulder, but the instant that she recognised him, she grabbed hold of him with both hands and clung to him as though he might be wrested away from her at any moment. Balthazar was infinitely touched by the depth of her despair – Rowena seldom allowed her emotions to show.
“You found it,” she gulped, when her sobbing was under control.
“I did,” he murmured, stroking her hair. The revelation that he had finally found the City was almost too much to process. “Come,” he took her hand and helped her to her feet.
Rowena gathered herself together, took a deep breath and walked to the edge of the precipice with Balthazar by her side. Smiling reassuringly at her, Balthazar gave her hand one last squeeze before they stepped together, into oblivion.
Chapter 24
Unaware of the outsiders who stood watching from the crest of the hill, Quinn pushed open the Cathedral doors.
The Cathedral was empty, and Quinn was relieved that she didn’t have to deal with Daniel or her father, let alone Tristan. She entered the City through the cathedral gateway and walked silently up the cobbled street. She was apprehensive about whether or not Drake had heeded her warning and left town, and even more so she was worried about Genevieve’s reaction to her near-staking. Genevieve did not strike her as the type who would let something like that go – in fact, Quinn was fairly sure she would seek vengeance the first chance she got.
Drake was an altogether different matter. Quinn could not consolidate her gratitude towards him with her lifetime of hatred for the vampire race. Drake had saved her life – twice. The irony of a vampire saving a Guardian was not lost on her. Her mixed feelings were an annoying distraction and Quinn did not want to get involved in vampire problems. With any luck, by the time she returned to Brookfield, Drake and Genevieve would be gone. She had to focus on finding Avery’s crystal. Over and over again she replayed Avery’s words in her head: You will find it in the heart of my own. Quinn was still certain it had something to do with Tristan. She would help Rafe and Channon with their full moon transformation and go straight back to resume the search.
“Back so soon, Quinn?” Isaiah’s voice penetrated her musings and Quinn looked up to see the Guar
dian standing right in front of her, the fountain gurgling innocently behind him. Tristan and his sister were there too, and between them, Monique, a dazzling grin on her petite, pretty face. The sun had given her cheeks a rosy warmth.
“I came back with Liam and Blair,” Quinn said pointedly, glaring at Tristan.
“Daniel only wants what is best for you.” Isaiah's response was predictably prudent, but Tristan’s response surprised Quinn.
“What? What do you mean? Did Daniel have Quinn followed?” he turned on Isaiah in disbelief and anger. “Quinn is one of us!” he continued, when Isaiah’s silence confirmed the worst. “Since when do we keep tabs on one another?”
“Calm down, Tristan.” Isaiah glanced pointedly at Monique, who was rubber-necking between them. Camille, on the other hand, looked excited for the first time since she had arrived. Dragons and trolls she had a problem with, but apparently family drama was something she could understand.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Isaiah. After everything we sacrifice, all the risks we take to keep the Gateway safe – how dare you treat any of us like common criminals? Surely we have earned your trust?”
Quinn’s eyes were as wide as Monique’s. Never would she have expected Tristan to defend her actions or come to her defence. She wholeheartedly agreed with everything he was saying, but she had always followed a slightly different path. Even as a dedicated Guardian, she had questioned their beliefs, the old ways. It was comforting to know that she wasn’t alone. And Tristan’s indignation on her behalf cheered her immensely.
“Of course you have earned the Guardians' trust,” Isaiah insisted. “I did not say that I agreed with Daniel’s course of action, only that I understood it.”
Much to Quinn’s chagrin, they followed her to Kellan and Freya’s, Monique still firing questions at Isaiah about everything, from the City itself to the latest section she had read of the Sacred Book. Isaiah answered her with the same infinite patience he had displayed when Quinn had joined the Guardianship, although her questions had only ever been about the book. Even now, Quinn racked her brain, trying to recall anything that might break the Guardian spell.
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