Custodian (Elemental Paladins Book 5)

by Montana Ash

  ***

  Beyden suddenly cried out as the most gut-wrenching agony flared through his leg. Looking down, he saw a chade with its claws buried all the way to the bone in his ankle. Blinded by pain, he did the worst thing a soldier could do in battle; he dropped his weapons. A large shadow fell over his shoulder from behind, and he fleetingly thought that it must be death peering over him and preparing to haul his useless butt to the underworld. But the shadow turned into Darius and the air paladin jumped in front of him, cutting off his attacker’s head and turning it into nothing more than foul-smelling air.

  The relief Beyden was hoping for when the claws were removed didn’t come, however, and he risked a glance down. He promptly fell on his arse, clutching his calf muscle. His foot and ankle were completely macerated.

  “Bey!” Darius cried out, swiftly removing his shirt and wrapping it around Beyden’s ankle.

  Beyden gritted his teeth against the pain, his eyes widening in horror as he saw a black-eyed paladin rise up behind Darius. Darius must have seen the warning on Beyden’s face because he quickly turned and lashed out with both scythes. Unfortunately, he was too late and Beyden screamed as Darius took a deep lash to the abdomen.

  ***

  Axel charged past Lark and Ivy, who were handling themselves just fine, if all that blood was anything to go by. He kicked over the headless body of the piece of shit Terran and kept right on going. Axel was on a mission to rid the world of an evil arsehole. Not a chade or an infected paladin, but a psychopathic arsehole. Axel had spotted Ignatius among the dozens of other evil souls and he wanted nothing more than to take a little vengeance on behalf of his liege and friends. His progress was slowed a little when he spotted a chade rising to sink deadly claws into the back of Nikolai’s skull. Launching one of his scythes with all his strength, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the offender disintegrate in a puff of smoke.

  Nikolai gave him a thankful salute as he flashed by and Axel returned it. Seeing his original target up ahead, he cried out when he saw twin ropes of fire lash out; one from Ignatius and one from his grandmother, Cinder. Axel pumped his legs faster, but he knew he was already too late – both fire wardens cried out simultaneously as their weapons hit their targets. Cinder collapsed to the ground, nothing but a smoking mess of charcoal, just as Ignatius went up in flames. His body burned long enough that Axel could hear his screams getting quieter as he drew nearer. By the time he reached the scene, all was silent.

  “No!”

  Axel turned, hearing the devastated cry from Blu. He was just about to go to him, when pain sliced through his leg. Looking down he saw a small throwing knife lodged deep in his thigh. Gritting his teeth, he yanked it out and looked around for its owner. Marco’s hate-filled eyes met his and Axel knew he would have a serious fight on his hands. With his brother and grandmother dead, the man was now beyond pissed.

  “Want this back?” Axel asked, holding up the knife.

  Marco screamed and ran at him, aiming a kick directly at Axel’s injured leg. Axel dodged the blow but still cringed when all his weight fell on the wounded limb. The knife had gone deep into the muscle and obviously done some damage. Marco punched him, causing Axel to drop one of his weapons. Axel didn’t mind. Although he loved fighting with the two blades, he was more than able to fight with just one. The two danced around each other a little, exchanging blows, until Axel got in a lucky shot, slicing Marco deeply behind the knee. His adversary cried out, falling down, and Axel raised his scythe, prepared to deliver the killing blow.

  But just before his blade could pierce Marco’s heart, Axel caught the man’s sob. Looking up, he was surprised to see that Marco’s eyes had returned to their normal brown-colour and were no longer black. Axel reviled the man in front of him but he couldn’t kill in cold blood. Shaking his head, he turned away, only to have his kindness repaid with a knife to the back. At least, it should have been had not Knox seen what was happening and commanded the air to block the killing wound. The chaden warrior, then flicked his wrist and Axel heard Marco’s neck snap.

  “Much appreciated,” Axel slapped Knox on the shoulder.

  Knox smiled at him and gave him a thumbs-up before he jumped back into the fray, his identical sons at his back.

  THIRTY

  Max watched as he stalked out of the trees. She knew Emmanuel had been watching and waiting, biding his time until he thought he could strike – and win. He had not even shown himself when Mordecai and Diana had killed his parents. Instead, Max knew he had been enjoying the violent scenes in front of him. He looked good – fit and strong – and Max knew he had been feeding off all the death taking place.

  “Well, here we are my little Goddess,” Emmanuel offered, pleasantly.

  Max swallowed hard, forcing herself to ignore the carnage going on around her, and focus on the being in front of her. “Here we are. What now?”

  “Now?” Emmanuel raised perfectly shaped eyebrows, “Now I thought I would kill all those you love in front of you before I take you within myself and reduce the world to ashes.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me, sorry,” was Max’s dry response.

  “Still with the banter? Haven’t you seen enough yet? Haven’t you lost enough yet? Look around you, little Custodian, you’ve seen the ending to this just as I have. Accept it. Embrace it. Embrace me,” Emmanuel urged, stretching out a perfectly manicured hand.

  Max ignored the hand for the time-being and instead looked around, her eyesight so acute that it missed nothing of the ravaged land or the people who fought valiantly upon it.

  Diana was trying furiously to staunch the flow of blood from Beyden’s shredded leg with Darius’s shirt; Darius was standing behind her, protecting her from the onslaught of chades, who were like vultures trying to pick at the dead. They could smell the death on the beast paladin just as surely as Max could and were determined to finish off their prey. Darius took a nasty swipe to the stomach as a result of his refusal to move from his post. He didn’t go down but Max knew it was only a matter of time before the poison did its job and entered his bloodstream. There would be no help for Darius, let alone Diana or Beyden, once that happened.

  Max spun around, hearing Dex’s cry. He moved faster than the wind to reach his brother, just as Darius fell to his knees. Dex was, as yet, unscathed in a physical sense. But Max could see his soul getting thinner and thinner from the continuous use of his altered vitality. With no paladin available to recharge him, it wouldn’t be long until the insidious beast within his soul made a comeback. Max had healed the blemish on Dex’s soul – that predisposition was gone forever. But she couldn’t stop Dex from using up all of his energy, thus, rendering him vulnerable to long-forgotten urges.

  The singing of metal against metal had her focusing on Lark, who was in a feral battle against his father. Isaac was furiously attacking Lark with unrelenting force, but Max wasn’t worried. This at least, was a battle Lark would win. She continued watching long enough to see Lark slit his father’s throat. The spray from the ruptured artery hit Lark full-force, covering his entire front as his father fell awkwardly to the ground, his death gurgles echoing across the field despite the ferocity of the battle. Max saw the look of triumphant satisfaction on Ivy’s face as her lover dispatched of his nightmare for good.

  Ivy herself was in a deadly game of cat and mouse with Terran, who, when he saw his Captain go down, lost his concentration enough to allow Ivy’s sickle to slice cleanly through his head. Max saw Axel helpfully kick over the headless body, launching one of his scythes at the chade standing directly behind Nikolai. Nikolai was in a deadly battle with three chades himself, and Max knew Axel had just saved the man’s life. Axel flew past the Commander of the rangers, grabbed his scythe on the run, and pumped his legs clearly hoping to reach Cinder in time. But Max knew it was pointless. Her grandson had already killed her. Poetically, Cinder had also succeeded in killing him in return.

  More friends dropped to the ground, life
less eyes staring in accusation – or so it seemed; Fawn and her paladins, Cayson, Cinder, almost every single member of the local council … and Dave. It was all happening just as she had seen. Every day and every night, she had seen this exact same fight. Millions of times, she had seen this scene play out in horrific detail. The only difference each time? The ending.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, Max begged and prayed and pleaded not to see what she knew she would when she opened her eyes. She gave a second’s thought to just keeping her eyes closed. Perhaps if she didn’t open them, and she didn’t bear witness then it wouldn’t really happen? But she knew how foolhardy that thought was. There was no stopping fate. Swallowing down the bile in her throat, she opened her eyes just in time to see Ryker’s face almost get split in half by Emmanuel’s claw. Blood sprayed in an arc and a vicious curse left Ryker’s lips. He clutched at his ruined face, even as he brought his scythe down upon the offending hand, severing it at the wrist and turning it to dust.

  But even as they watched, Emmanuel threw his head back laughed – his hand regenerated in the blink of an eye. “You fools! I am Life and I am Death. I carry a Creator within my body. Your pathetic blades are useless.”

  Max knew what he said was true. As a life warden he could heal; as a chade he was a death dealer; and as a host to a custodian, he could create. But there was one thing he was forgetting; Max was all of those things too and more, because she held power over all seven elements.

  Ryker staggered, Emmanuel’s special kind of poison taking fast effect and no doubt causing him excruciating pain. But what does her man do? He looks for her. The very first thought in his head is about her. It’s not about his torn face, or the pain he’s in. Hell, it’s like he can’t even feel it. All he cares about, all he feels, is her. Just her.

  Clutching the knowledge fiercely to her heart, Max smiled at him. She wasn’t sure what he saw in that smile but instead of seeing relief on his face, she saw terror as he started moving toward her. But he wouldn’t make it to her in time. She would make sure of it.

  She felt the rest of her paladins begin to panic as if they knew something was about to happen. Max sent as much love through the link as she could, trying to convey everything they meant to her with a single jolt of emotion. It was pointless, she knew. How could one possibly express so much love and gratitude? But she tried nonetheless. Unfortunately, it only made her Order panic even more, and they all began to converge on her – even Beyden – who dragged himself along the ground, a bloody trail following in his wake.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. And she was. So very sorry. “There’s no other way.”

  “Max?!” Ryker’s frantic voice rose above all the others and she only had eyes for him in those final moments.

  “I’ll find a way to come back – I promise.”

  “What? Max, no!”

  She ignored the pain knifing through her heart and instead, stepped forward to embrace Emmanuel. She placed her lips over his own and tightened her arms, creating a cage she knew he couldn’t break. She then focused on lighting a fuse within herself. It was ridiculously easy – finding and tapping into her buried potential. She felt it swell and swell and gasped into her enemy’s mouth as light and colours started streaking from her pores. It was going to work; she knew it was. She was going to save them all – including those poor trapped souls inside of Emmanuel. Unfortunately, it also meant literally blowing herself up. Looking at Ryker one last time, she held onto his chocolate eyes – and detonated.

  Supernova sure had one hell of a kick.

  ***

  Ryker was forced to shield his eyes as a brilliant starburst of colour exploded all around them. Chades were incinerated in the blink of an eye, unable to withstand the purity of the energy in their presence. Many wardens and paladins on the opposing side who carried black eyes suffered the same fate. But Ryker didn’t care about any of that. Because as he dropped to his knees and the final light melted into the horizon, he felt his link to Max snap. A series of cries around him alerted him to his fellow knights. He knew they must have been experiencing the same gut-wrenching loss as he was, but he couldn’t feel them. Not now and not ever again. Because the Order link was no more.

  It was gone.

  Broken.

  Completely severed.

  He had lived through such a loss in the past and knew what it meant. His liege, his life, his Max … was dead.

  THIRTY-ONE

  He sat alone in the dark. His whole world had stopped spinning on its axis the moment Max had disappeared from it. Ryker wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He only knew it felt like an eternity. Although the others were equally in pain, they were faring a little better. More because there was so much to be done and someone had to step up to calm the chaos that was now their society. If he still retained the ability to feel anything he would have been so very proud of the lot of them. But as it was, all he could feel was grief. The kind of grief that sucks at your soul and buries you alive under a mantle of razor-tipped pain. And under the grief? There was numbness.

  The first few days after Max had disappeared, he had done nothing but rage until his voice was gone and his throat was raw. Then had come the wretched despair – his sorrow too intense even for tears. But now? All he had was this sense of nothingness. He idly wondered if this was how the chades must spend their days; alive on the outside but dead on the inside with no hope in sight.

  Not that there were any chades anymore, he acknowledged, his dead eyes staring at the wall in front of him. Max’s little supernova routine had evaporated every chade simultaneously. And not just the chades on top of that cliff either. No, every single soulless chade in existence had been poofed out of it. Reports were coming in from all over the world. The scourge of their society was gone. And those chades still clinging to a piece of their soul? They were cured, wholly and completely, free to be men once more. Likewise, all over the world, chadens were revealing themselves. Many had made their way there, to Ryker’s log house by the sea, to give their thanks and offer their eternal loyalty to a deity that no longer existed.

  How did Ryker know all this? His damnable Order – ex-Order now, he corrected. They were a constant blight to his already dreary existence. No matter how much he yelled, or punched, or threw things, they just kept coming back. He couldn’t make them understand that seeing them only made things worse. Or perhaps they didn’t care. Perhaps they only wanted to join him in his misery.

  Mordecai had stayed and the man had been a true blessing. He had pulled everyone together and kept the house functioning. He never gave up on trying to get Ryker to leave his room, to eat, to drink, to sleep. The man was a real mother hen, nagging at him all the time. It didn’t even seem to faze him when Ryker punched him – something he did almost daily. Ryker knew the older warden had even tried to take his pain and his heartache. But even the most powerful Death Warden in the world, responsible for healing the sorrow, depression, and grief of millions, hadn’t been able to penetrate Ryker’s pain.

  “Ryker.”

  Speak of the devil, Ryker thought, his eyes automatically straying to the man.

  Mordecai squatted down in front of him, cool green eyes holding both compassion and pity as they raked over his face. Once upon a time, such a look would have pissed Ryker off. Now? He was too far gone to even muster annoyance over the pity. Ryker didn’t bother to answer. He knew his silence wouldn’t deter the man – it never did. But Ryker didn’t care. Mordecai could hover over him and mutter all day. Ryker didn’t care. I. Don’t. Care, he thought.

  “Ryker.” Mordecai called his name again. “Cali’s in labour.”

  Ryker felt himself blink. Now that did catch his attention and he looked at Mordecai once again.

  “She’s asking for you,” Mordecai said.

  Ryker tried to open his mouth. He tried to reply, he really did. But nothing came out. Maybe his voice-box had been hollowed out the same as his heart.

  “Ryker,” Mordecai’s voice w
as firm. “It’s a bit early but not so much that the doctor is worried. She’s sure it will be safe for Cali to have the baby here. But Cali’s scared. She’s asking for you.”

  Ryker shook his head. He barely saw Mordecai move, the man was so fast. He gripped Ryker’s head hard between his palms. He was expecting the warden to pump some of his element into him, or perhaps suck some of it out. But he didn’t. He simply forced Ryker’s gaze up to his;

  “It’s time. I know you don’t want to. I know it hurts. But it’s time to return to the land of the living,” Mordecai whispered.

  “I can’t.” The two words sounded garbled but Mordecai had no trouble understanding him.

  “You can. You have to,” came the firm response.

  “Won’t leave her.” He knew he wasn’t forming whole sentences but that didn’t seem to bother Mordecai. The man was apparently able to decipher broken-man speak.

  “That’s not what this is. You deciding to breathe again? To live again? It’s not the same as leaving Max behind. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s you trying to find her.”

  Ryker nodded his head, even though it felt incredibly heavy and hard to hold up.

  Mordecai smacked his palms together, “Now, what do you say you take a shower and wash the month of grime off your body? Maybe put on some pants, huh? Then get your butt into your sister’s room and hold her hand as she pushes out your nephew.”

  Ryker allowed the older man to yank him to his feet and push him to the shower. Mordecai then turned on the water hot enough to boil Ryker’s balls and shoved him inside. Ryker remained stiff and unmoving for a few minutes before the hot water and steam worked its magic. Then he simply slid bonelessly to the tiled floor. He stayed like that until the water began to cool and he was forced to move or risk becoming a shrivelled prune. He made a half-arsed attempt to mop some of the water from his body with a towel, only to be startled like hell when he looked in the mirror.