Fallen Ashes: Fated & Forbidden

by T. F. Walsh

  Shadows darkened beneath Fallen’s eyes. The twist of her mouth, the tightness with which she held herself as if he’d strike the moment he moved closer.

  Ash.

  Blackness overcame him. He was a monster, a shadow assassin, an abomination. Maybe everyone was right because he had been busted trying to assassinate the queen. It didn’t matter that he had no recollection of his actions. What counted was the task locked inside his chest.

  If he was just an instrument, why had he spent twenty-five years training amongst other Guardians? Why, until recently, had his stepfather led him to believe he was a normal drae? Why had he headed up the charge to protect the queen his entire life? Every molecule in his body frosted. Yet the desperation of survival swept silently within him, reminding him to keep going. Was it because he’d failed at his task and the magic compelled him to continue?

  He met Fallen’s gaze. “Now you know why your Creators’ dream is false. I have no soul. They didn’t create me.”

  When she didn’t respond or change in her locked position, he said, “I won’t hurt you.”

  His stepfather had treated him as a son and told Saber his real parents had died in a house fire, but that had been a lie. His entire existence was fabricated. Saber would rescue his stepfather from Noah’s prison and uncover the truth. After all, the drae was the most powerful Spell Forger and the only one with experience in creating a life for the queen. He must have produced Saber in his underground workshop. Saber had to discover why he’d been given the mission to kill the queen. The drae Saber had known was too kind-hearted to ever want anyone dead. And if someone else had forced his hand, the queen was still in danger and had to be told.

  A gust of air brought him out of his thoughts.

  Fallen jammed a thumbnail between her teeth and chewed on it.

  If Saber could, he’d rip their link with his bare hands and walk away to put her at ease.

  Fallen coughed. “How?” she paused. “Who are you supposed to kill?”

  The undertone enveloping her question left Saber hollow. A shell. Unable to move, he stared at her golden strands fluttering in the breeze. He couldn’t bring himself to embrace the stabbing behind his rib cage, and that scared him. Ashes had one purpose. They were created for murder.

  He rolled sideways onto his hip, riding the soreness spreading across his thighs. “As far as I know, only the queen.”

  “From the Kingdom of Vaie?” She clasped her hands to her chest, and her mouth hung open.

  He nodded, well aware most draes adored Queen Kesra. Fallen might hate Her Majesty, but the shock on her face screamed the opposite. After the neighboring realm, Aripi, attacked the kingdom, the queen had rebuilt her army. She’d implemented so many layers of protection that no enemy would ever surprise her again. And for that, the draes loved her.

  “She’s still alive, right?” Curiosity showed as the bridge of her nose pinched.

  “Hence, why I’m out here.” He cringed as another wave of pain struck his legs. His body convulsed when the flesh hardened mid-thighs where his knees became unbendable. When the stiff sensation radiated to his waist, a silent terror squeezed his lungs, and he found it difficult breathing. The pain was spreading, clawing across his body. Lying on the ground should slow the hardening… it wasn’t. His brain raced in circles of conflicting instructions—screaming, throwing up, blaming Fallen. Panic spun in the pit of his gut, snowballing.

  He had to heal. Saber ripped the grass by fistfuls. His fingers dug into the Earth, scraping the soil.

  “What are you doing?” Fallen’s voice sounded a mile way.

  Saber’s vocal cords strained. Nothing came out. The hardening swept over his lower back. No, too fast. It had never been this quick, ever. What fire spell had Fallen used?

  He had been too preoccupied with the pain and never noticed her move until a shadow hovered above him. “Are you okay?”

  His hands never stopped digging, every cell swelling with terror.

  Grass torn and tossed aside. Handfuls of soil thrown away. If he didn’t heal, he’d morph into a mud statue for eternity. Mind entombed.

  His shoulders shook.

  Fallen knelt in front of him, joining him in the task. “Tell me what’s going on. Please. I want to help.”

  The prickling sensation slithering up his chest grew and spread along his arms. Fear twisted in his stomach. His arm buckled, and he crashed onto his side but never stopped ripping grass, scratching at the soil. For those few seconds, he glanced at Fallen who hunched over, digging too.

  She was beautiful, the moonlight casting an aura around her.

  He was an Ash. A magically animated construct.

  Despite her earlier trepidation, Fallen didn’t hold back.

  The corners of his eyes darkened as a serenity of silence surrounded him.

  “Tell me,” Fallen crooned. “How do I help?”

  “Dig me a shallow grave.”

  9

  Ash.

  The word scratched through Fallen’s mind like iron nails dragged over stone.

  From the moment she’d met Saber, she found him odd in a way that screamed caution. Beneath his voice lay danger. He had attempted to fight everyone who stared wrong at him. Still, never in a billion galaxies would she have guessed Saber was a shadow assassin.

  So why did he have a Guardian’s tattoo? Was he in the queen’s service or did he get the ink to sneak into the realm? From what she’d read about Ashes, they didn’t know their mission existed. Then one day their mind snapped, and they became murderers. Saber said he’d woken up while attempting to assassinate the queen. So what prevented him from finishing the job?

  Sweat rolled along her spine. She wiped the back of her hand along her brow, hoping it would push away the thoughts of Saber. Just focus on digging a hole. Not the fact he was an assassin.

  “Keep breathing.” She repeated to herself. “Don’t think about it.”

  Except his image wouldn’t dislodge from her mind. If she let him die, then she’d be stuck with Saber as a stone figure, dragging him around until she found Noah. If she saved him, she’d unleash his temper back into the world. Was this her chance to stop him? His mission was to destroy the queen, and while Fallen loathed Her Majesty, she didn’t wish her dead.

  Fallen kept digging into the ground and pulling out handfuls of turf. Ashes were made of clay so it made sense he’d need soil to heal. But for how long? How deep?

  Saber lay on the lawn, limbs stiff… his head cradled on the grass. The first signs of cracked skin showed from under the T-shirt. From there, the breaks appeared as small fissures until they reached his collarbone.

  History books insisted that to terminate an Ash’s rampage, to turn them back into clay form, one had to burn the figure with a dazmeu’s fire. That was why his skin fractured so fast. She had done this to him.

  Her thoughts accelerated. Breaths came in gasps. No matter how much she wanted them to slow, they refused. She continued to shovel as fast as possible without the use of real tools. If Saber went on a slaying rampage, would she be able to stop him when it counted?

  Fallen studied the curve of his chin, his strong nose, thick eyebrows. He drove her to madness, but his actions and urgency made sense now.

  Shaking her head, she focused on the mutilation stretching halfway up his neck. It had barely taken fifteen minutes for the damage to spread over most of his body. Crap. Once the cracked skin covered him completely, he’d die. The grave was only inches deep, and she’d need more time to make it deeper. Saber had said shallow, so this would have to do.

  His ragged breaths labored while his eyes remained shut.

  If she’d controlled her fiery anger, then they’d have been long gone from this place. But if he hadn’t towed her with their bond, she wouldn’t have gotten so furious. She wasn’t his dog.

  She ignored the rawness grating across her fingertips with each scraping of the grave. What if one day she discovered her entire life was a lie, just like he
must have? Would she ignore the world and hide, or try to prove her innocence?

  Crawling over near Saber’s body, she pressed her hands against his side. Solid and icy to the touch, she rolled him a few times until he fell into the shallow grave onto his back. An elongated exhale spilled from his lips.

  “Okay, what now?”

  His eyes remained shut, his breaths shallow. Fallen studied the way his dried flesh split around his neck. Tiny fissures filled with darkness.

  Well, he was made of clay, so maybe he had to be completely covered to heal. With that thought in mind, Fallen scooped handfuls of loose dirt and pressed them over his exposed arms, throat, and face, staying clear of his mouth, nose, and eyes. Alongside him, she dug deeper, her fingers aching. More soil. She needed to cover him.

  Ten minutes later, Saber resembled a fresh burial mound. If anyone stumbled across them now, they’d freak. Thankfully, everyone from the Wart Market had vanished. The field was empty, only her and Saber.

  She still trembled at knowing Saber was an Ash. His kind hadn’t been seen in the kingdom since the days when dazmeuns filled the skies. Now she was glued to one and had almost killed him.

  She sat, crossed-legged, a few feet away and picked the dirt from under her fingernails. So much confusion spun in her mind. She was frozen in a revolving door of emotions. Never in her existence had she imagined herself spending a night in a field watching over an Ash.

  The breeze increased and ruffled her hair and the leaves in the trees nearby. Overhead, stars pinpricked the sky. She lay on her back, almost hidden in the long grass, the sway tickling her arms and cheeks.

  At the age of eight, she had gone camping with her mom. The trip had taken four hours of hiking through the Transylvanian woods but was worth every minute when they arrived in a field with glittering grass, trees pregnant with fruits of every color, and the fullest moon hanging on the breast of the sky.

  They’d spent the night in the enchanted field that had vibrated through Fallen’s bones. It was the first night she’d flown on her own. No jumping off a cliff or tree and falling to a crashing disaster. That magical night was bewitching, the winds swooping under her wings, lifting her.

  Now she choked on a hitched breath and wiped the tear rolling down the side of her face. A week after that special camping trip, Noah had killed her mom. He’d stolen Fallen’s last living family member, her belief in goodness and her promise to never hurt a living being… other than Noah. She wanted him dead even though it went against everything she believed in.

  Fallen pushed herself to a sitting position. Several feet away, Saber lay partially buried within the soil. Maybe they had more in common than she’d first thought or wanted to believe. Their pasts had been stolen. Both were outcasts and hated Noah.

  She flicked the dirt off her pants as moonlight glinted off the dragon’s mark on her inner wrist. The Creators insisted that non-human beings were their children. Yet, because of unending war and countless deaths, the Creators intended to destroy them by turning everyone back to humans. If they loved their children so much, why would the Makers be so cruel?

  Thoughts of that presence floated deep inside her. As much as she relied on her lungs to breathe in, the dream was a true vision from the Creators. If they were the ones who had given Saber the same dragon mark, that only meant one thing.

  He had a soul, and his existence wasn’t a mistake.

  10

  Sunlight warmed Saber’s eyelids. He opened them to a sky streaked with wispy clouds that drifted lazily across the heavens. Last night’s events swirled around through his mind, shuddering him to the core. The markets, his legs on fire, and outing himself as an Ash. That part still stung.

  Saber pushed himself to his feet, loose soil cascading from his clothes, dotted with burn marks. He lifted his hand and inspected the healed flesh, wriggling his fingers encased in normal skin. The excruciating burning in his legs no longer existed either. Though the brush with death still clung to his bones like a cold caress, it had spread fast in a gruesome countdown. Saber had waited for the hardening to claim him, to cleave his life from this world. And the whole time, his attention had been fixed on Fallen. Her company was a silent companion that helped him more than she realized. It eased his jagged edges and the rawness that reminded him he was an Ash… and alone. Fallen had shown him how wrong he’d been.

  His gaze swept around the vast areas of thick grass and weeds. The vegetation was so tall a tribe of trolls could lurk close by without detection. Beech trees lined the edge in the distance, their overhanging boughs swinging.

  Where was Fallen?

  A golden glint of something caught his attention. Fifteen feet away, curled tightly in a ball, Fallen slept. Her blonde hair draped over her body. Peaceful. Calm. She’d pushed her fear aside and helped him last night, though, in reality, she had been the source of the burns. But no way were her flames a spell. He hadn’t sensed a spark of magic.

  Could she harness fire?

  If it were true, such abilities could unlock the key for draes to tap into their lost ancestry skills. A dazmeu’s blood held the answer. Together with magic, a Spell Forger was bound to uncover the secret, or so the queen declared to the realm. But dazmeu were extinct.

  A breeze stroked the back of Saber’s thighs, the cold pinching his flesh. He bent down and touched the gaping holes in his jeans behind his knees. Great. But at least his clothes hadn’t completely burned away.

  Noah was a bastard, but he fed his prisoners, kept them showered, and in clean clothes. He didn’t want clients turning their noses up at potential purchases. Most of Noah’s black-hearted clientele were draes who’d escaped the kingdom, stole from humans, and set themselves up in a location protected by spells. The queen’s Guardians couldn’t track them down. Saber knew first-hand because he had tried dozens of times. Most of these draes had fetishes and carried out their own personal power fantasies with the poor suckers Noah sold them. Maybe one of these powerful draes had played a hand in helping Noah conceal himself so easily?

  Glancing down at Fallen, the iridescent silver scales on her eyelids gleamed. All draes had them, but most were clear. Anyway, as much as he didn’t want to poke a sleeping bear, they had to get moving. Kneeling next to Fallen, he shook her shoulder. “Wake up.”

  She groaned and tucked her chin into her chest, her breaths deepening. Despite her snarky attitude, she didn’t retreat from a fight, and he respected that. But there was also an air of innocence about her, and the girl was adept at concealing that part of herself. So who had hurt her to make her defensive and withdrawn?

  He curled his hands into balls. He’d snap their spine. Wait. Where did that come from? She could take care of herself. Still, he tensed with the desperation to keep her protected.

  What was wrong with him? Last night she tried to turn him into a shish kebab. Fuck. Too much time in the human world and he wasn’t making sense now.

  He gave Fallen’s shoulder another shake. “We have to go.”

  Her eyelids peeled open, and she stared at him, uncertainty reflected in her gaze.

  “Time to get moving.” He offered her a hand.

  She rolled away and climbed to her feet. “You’re alive. I must have fallen asleep.” With arms above her head, she stretched from side to side, and Saber’s eyes dipped to her exposed midriff. His hands tingled with the temptation to discover if her skin was as warm to touch as he suspected.

  “How are you?” Her gaze moved to his legs, the bridge of her nose creasing in a way that screamed concern. So, she cared but only from a distance?

  “Ready to run rings around Noah.”

  “You look like your normal self again.” She pushed a few wild strands off her face and patted her hair flat. “Anyway, Zana said that only the creator of the spell can remove our bond. That means we go after Noah. Get this done.”

  A sinking sensation settled in his gut. The one that reminded him Noah relocated his ark with magic like humans changed clothes. But
Saber would return to the location where he’d been held. There must be clues. Right now, they had no other leads.

  “Agreed. And I could do with some food too. Maybe a pastry or donut.” Without another word, he pushed into a rushed walk, and she maintained his pace through the field.

  “Didn’t realize the kingdom served donuts.” She cut him a glance.

  “All manner of crap has been sneaked into the barracks. You don’t even want to know.” X-rated human movies were a hot commodity amongst the Guardians.

  In the distance, the skyscrapers rose from the horizon, and the buzz of the city sped his pulse as they traipsed through the human world.

  “So, the ark’s back in the city of Cluj?” she asked.

  “It’s on the outskirts near the old castles. I recognized it when Noah had me transported from there to the holding cell in the woods where we were imprisoned. Noah uses human buildings all over the city to contain prisoners. His arks tend to be larger locations since he needs space to hold all his captives.”

  Fallen kept chewing on a fingernail, her gaze wandering to Saber. No one could be that silent after discovering they were linked to an Ash. He’d expected an interrogation, being forced to explain everything. She surprised him with her silence.

  “Ask your questions,” he commanded.

  “What?” She dropped her hand, feigning ignorance. It wasn’t her forte.

  “You keep staring at me as if I’m an alien.”

  “You’re an Ash.” Her voice whispered when she said the last word as if admitting out loud made it real. “You can switch any moment into a murderous assassin.”

  True on all counts. “If you were my target, you’d be dead, so you’re safe.”

  “For now.” She crossed her arms over her chest, then dropped them as if not sure where to put her hands. “I’ve heard stories of the smallest event activating the killing mode of your kind. And then you murder everyone in the way. We’re linked, meaning you might kill me, thinking I was blocking your way.” Her voice trembled, and her eyes stayed on the field in front of them, breathing faster than someone walking should.