Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1)

by T. L. Branson

  31,400 FAME – EXALTED

  8,920 RIFKELS

  “He didn’t erase you?” I asked.

  “You can see my stats?” she asked in shock.

  I indicated the neural link.

  “Chet,” she said.

  “Why didn’t he wipe your accounts?” I asked again, this time more forcefully.

  “I don’t know, okay?” Bella asked. “Leave me alone.”

  “Gods, are you still working for him?” I asked.

  “No!” she shouted. “Why would I—”

  “Guys,” Izaiah said.

  “You are, aren’t you? You’re supposed to make friends with me and report everything we do back to him.”

  “I can’t believe you would think I would do that after everything we’ve been through,” Bella said.

  “Guys,” Izaiah said again.

  “After everything you put me through,” I shot back.

  “Shut up for one minute!” Izaiah yelled.

  By then, Claire and Leon had joined us again on the bridge.

  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe Lucian left her alone so this would happen?” Izaiah offered.

  “Huh?” I asked, confused.

  Izaiah answered, “The first thing I did when I got on board was disable the locator. Without it, Lucian has no idea where we are or what we’re doing. Could it be that he left Bella alone so that we’d distrust her and argue about this instead of planning our next move.”

  I stood there blinking as the thought processed. “That’s… really devious. And rude. And all kinds of evil.”

  “Sounds like the Lucian I know,” Claire mumbled.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Nothing has changed,” Claire said. “Don’t let this distract you from the real mission. Once we get to Valeria, we head for the mountains, all the while keeping our eyes out for Elsie. Got it?”

  I clenched my teeth and nodded grimly.

  Bella sat with her arms crossed and refused to look at either of us.

  “Bella?” Claire asked.

  She snorted. “Fine, but I’m getting tired of having my loyalty questioned.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  Bella glanced at me. “Whatever.”

  “This thing’s on auto-pilot,” Izaiah said. “I’d recommend we all try to get some rest before we land. Who knows when we’ll have a chance to after that.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  Claire and Leon took their seats on the bridge, but without anywhere else to sit, I went back into the cargo hold by myself.

  I lay down, stretched out across the row of seats on the left-hand wall, and closed my eyes.

  Twenty-Two

  There was a loud explosion, and something slammed into the side of the cruiser, sending me tumbling to the ground.

  A red light flashed inside the cargo hold, and an alarm blared.

  “Ow,” I said, placing my hand on my head.

  I started to stand, but a second jolt knocked me to the ground once more.

  “Chet, chet, chet,” Izaiah said.

  “What’s going on?” I shouted up to the bridge.

  “We’re under attack,” he yelled back.

  “Not good,” I muttered to myself as I heard another explosion.

  As quick as I could, I threw open the doors to the storage lockers and took out the battle armor. I was halfway through pulling on the grieves when the Arrow banked sharply to the right, sending me careening into the wall.

  “A little warning next time, please!”

  “I’m doing the best I can here!” Izaiah shouted back.

  Everyone, save Izaiah, spilled into the cargo hold a moment later and began collecting their gear and weapons.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We’re about thirty minutes from Valeria,” Bella said. “Izaiah’s going to buy us as much time as possible, but they already blew out one of our four engines.”

  “So, what now?”

  “We don’t have much choice, we’re going to have to set down early. Even if we could dodge our pursuers, we won’t make it the rest of the way,” she answered. “We’ll have to continue on foot.”

  “Hang on to something!” Izaiah shouted a second before the Arrow tilted back.

  I grabbed hold of a strap on the nearby seats as the cruiser flipped completely upside down. Bella started to fall past me, but I reached out and grabbed her, pulling her in. Claire braced herself between the storage locker and the wall, but Leon went flying, slamming into the floor, then the wall, then the ceiling, and back around again as the cruiser leveled out.

  “What in the name of the gods was that?” I asked.

  Izaiah didn’t respond, but the Arrow gave a shudder as two blasts of magika lanced out from underneath the cruiser.

  “Is everyone all right?”

  Bella blushed, and I released her in a hurry as I felt a rush of heat reach my own cheeks.

  “I’m fine,” Claire said.

  Leon groaned. “This is going to hurt in the morning, but I’m okay.”

  I finished donning my gear, then grabbed a dagger from the storage locker and slid it into the scabbard at my waist. Pulling open one of the lower drawers, I removed a bow and quiver and slung them over my shoulder.

  Another jolt sent us all tumbling.

  Another alarm started blaring louder and faster than the first.

  “Chet!” Izaiah shouted. “You guys better get up here now!”

  When we joined him on the bridge, Claire asked, “What happened?”

  “I managed to take one of them out, but there’s just too many of them,” he said. “We’ve lost all but one engine, and we’re down to twenty-five percent shields. If we take another direct hit, the cruiser will explode.”

  “Do we know who they are?” I asked. “Is it the Balgyrans?”

  Izaiah was shaking his head. “They’re AGIS vessels. It’s got to be Lucian.”

  “I thought you said he couldn’t track us!” I shouted a little too loudly.

  “I disabled the tracker, I swear!” he yelled back. “They must have found us by chance, I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Okay, calm down,” Claire said. “What can we do?”

  “There’s an open field here,” Izaiah said, pointing to a digital map on the dash in front of him. “I’m going to set us down there.”

  My eyes drifted to the instrument panel and settled on the giant red button.

  “Lucian won’t stop till we’re dead,” I said. “We need to—”

  “Alert. Alert,” an electronic voice said in a deadpan tone.

  Izaiah jerked the controls to the left, and the cruiser banked to the side just as a bright red ball of magic flew past, barely missing us.

  “Screw the landing strip. I’m putting it down now,” Izaiah said.

  “No, wait!” I shouted. “Let them hit us.”

  “Are you insane?” Bella asked. “You heard him. If they hit us, we’re dead.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Or at least they’ll think we are.” I pointed to the eject button.

  “Oh no, you can’t possibly be thinking what I think you’re—”

  “Alert. Alert.”

  Izaiah yanked the controls to the right this time. Thankfully, everyone was expecting it and managed to brace themselves properly.

  “We need to do something. Now!” Bella yelled.

  Izaiah looked between me and the eject button. “All right. Fine. Everyone take a seat!”

  Claire and Bella jumped into their seats. Leon and I went for the last open seat.

  “There’s only four seats!” I shouted.

  “Everyone needs a seat!” Izaiah said. “You’ll have to double up.”

  I looked at Leon, “You take this one. I’ll ride with Claire.”

  “No,” Claire said shaking her head. “We need to stay separate. If both of us die, the chance for the future is gone. Ride with Bella.”

  “I think I’d rather go
with Leon.”

  “You can’t,” Izaiah said. “The chute won’t hold your weight.”

  “Alert. Alert.”

  “Get in a seat, now!” he shouted.

  I gritted my teeth in resignation, then sat down and pulled Bella back onto me.

  The magic blast slammed into the air cruiser. The cargo hold erupted and then tore off. A deafening roar and a continual gust of wind flooded the bridge.

  Over the noise, I could hear the vessel blaring, “Breach. Breach.”

  Bella locked the restraining belt in place a second before Izaiah’s hand smashed the eject button.

  Then we were falling.

  Bella reached for the cord on the seat to engage the parachute.

  “Not yet!” I yelled.

  She tried to pull it anyway, but I grabbed onto her wrist and refused to let go.

  “Do y—die?” she shouted, but I could barely hear her.

  Beneath us, the flaming hull of the Arrow plummeted to the forest floor. The ground below drew closer and closer with each passing breath.

  “Now!” I shouted, releasing her hand.

  She pulled the cord and a minute later, our chute deployed, catching us and arresting our momentum just as we slammed into the treetops below.

  Something hit my head, and my vision went black.

  The smell of smoke and the sound of burning wood crackling caused me to stir. My head ached, and something wet ran down my forehead.

  I brought my hand to my head and pulled it away to find it coated with blood.

  Bella was gone.

  “Bella!” I shouted.

  Looking around, I found that I was still in the seat from the Arrow—the parachute tangled up in the branches of a tree. I was hanging several feet above the forest floor.

  I glanced down at the ground and saw Bella laying there prone, but she wasn’t alone. Creeping up to her on its haunches was a giant cat.

  A razorclaw? No, it wasn’t that large—a standard mountain lion perhaps.

  “Bella! Wake up!” I yelled, but she didn’t budge.

  The lion crept closer.

  “Get away from her!”

  It glanced up at me and hissed, baring its fangs.

  I held out my right palm towards it. “Lightning!”

  A blue bolt lanced out from my hand and slammed into the body of the mountain lion, sending it flying to the ground. It lay there for a moment, then struggled to its feet and bounded off into the night.

  I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes, and sighed.

  A branch above me started to crack, and the chair dropped an inch.

  Chet!

  I couldn’t let the seat drop on Bella. It would crush her.

  Unsheathing my dagger, I rocked the chair backward then cut the ropes leading to the chute. The seat fell free and slammed into the ground a few feet away, dumping me on the forest floor.

  I groaned and struggled to stand.

  “Heal!” I yelled.

  A wave of soothing energy coursed through my body, and a blue light covered my vision for a brief second. When it finished, all my pain had vanished.

  I had no idea that would work—I still hadn’t had a chance to see what magika stones Alton had given me. I would have to do that as soon as we had a moment to relax.

  I laughed. When I tried to stop, I couldn’t.

  It was absurd.

  All of this was absurd.

  What had happened to my normal life?

  Why couldn’t I be in a home somewhere miles away from danger, conspiracy plots, and doomsday predictions?

  My laughter turned into sobbing.

  I lay on the ground heaving until I started to feel really warm.

  I flipped onto my back and saw that my leg had caught fire. An inferno blazed all around me—the forest set aflame by the falling debris from the Arrow.

  I scrambled away from the fire, pointed my hand at my leg, and shouted, “Ice!”

  A blast of energy slammed into me, extinguishing the flames, but turning my leg into an icicle.

  “Ahh!”

  The Ice was worse. Way worse.

  I lit a ball of fire in my hand and used it to thaw the ice.

  Tapping the neural link, I checked on my MP.

  50/110 MP

  Not good. Not bad either, but not good. I’d used half of my MP on pointless stuff. What if the mountain lion came back?

  I steadily climbed to my feet and ran over to Bella’s side.

  “Bella,” I said, shaking her. “Bella!”

  She groaned.

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Wh—what happened? Am I dead?” she asked.

  “You’re all right. We’re alive,” I said as I rolled her over.

  Bella screamed in pain.

  I looked down and saw my hands coated in blood, then my eyes settled on a piece of branch that had embedded itself in Bella’s abdomen.

  “Oh, gods,” she said. “I’m going to die.”

  “No one is going to die today. Do you hear me?”

  I went to remove the branch but hesitated. I didn’t know the first thing about medicine. Where was Leon when I needed him? Engineers were trained in medbays.

  I didn’t have a lot of options. As quickly as I could, I yanked the branch from her stomach. Bella cried out again, followed by a gush of blood that poured out through the open wound.

  Despite my low MP, I didn’t hesitate to place my hand on her and shout, “Heal!”

  The wound stitched itself together, but a pool of dark red continued to build beneath her skin.

  “Heal!” I shouted again, and another wave of energy flowed from my body, pouring into Bella.

  I didn’t see anything happen, but the red spot didn’t get any larger, so I had to assume the internal bleeding had stopped.

  Bella took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then started to stand. When she was about halfway up, she fell forward.

  Bolting to my feet, I reached out and steadied her.

  In my arms, she looked around at the devastation that lay all around us.

  “You idiot!” she said, spinning on me and slapping me in the face. “You could have gotten us killed!”

  I reeled back in shock. I guess I deserved that.

  Then her face softened. She placed her hands around my head, pulled me close, and kissed me.

  Twenty-Three

  I pushed Bella away. “Stop.”

  Bella frowned. “How many times do I have to save your life before you let me in?”

  “Who saved whose life now? Because I just used up nearly the last of my MP to heal you,” I snapped.

  “Something that would have been entirely unnecessary had you let me pull the chute sooner,” she retorted.

  “If you would have done that, Lucian’s ships would have shot us down, and then we’d both be dead,” I explained.

  “Yeah, well you’d already be dead if I didn’t let you use my seat,” she said.

  “Oh, so is that how you generously saved my life? By letting me sit with you?” I asked. My temper was rising, and I didn’t want to be mad at her—I didn’t feel like another argument—so I took a deep breath before I replied, “Look, I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m not ungrateful. I’m not. Thank you. But you have to realize I need you to take it slow.”

  “Because of the memory loss?” she asked.

  “Yes. And because we have more important things going on right now,” I answered.

  “There’ll always be something more important,” she said, crossing her arms. “Love isn’t something you brush aside or save for later because there will never be a later. It’s something you make time for today. Without it, what point is there to all of this? Why fight for our kingdom except to protect the ones we love? Without love, we have nothing worth fighting for.”

  A flaming branch crashed into the ground a foot away causing me to jump back.

  “I only meant that we literally have
more important problems right now,” I said as I looked all around me. The fire was everywhere. “That is unless you fancy being burned alive while kissing me.”

  Bella huffed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I started to nod, then I realized I was missing something. “Wait, where’s my bow?”

  “Here’s your quiver,” Bella said, running over to the base of the tree and picking it up.

  We looked everywhere and couldn’t find it, then Bella’s eyes went up, and I followed them. There, hanging from a branch, was my bow.

  “Chet,” I said.

  “Leave it,” Bella said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “I can’t,” I said, shaking my head.

  Before she could argue, I bolted forward, took two running steps up the trunk of the tree, and pushed off, catching the lowest branch with both hands. I swung my legs up and grabbed on, then climbed up onto the top.

  “You’re insane,” Bella said. “Absolutely crazy. Get down from there right now.”

  The whole top of the tree was in flames now, and burning leaves were raining down all around me. Standing, I balanced precariously on the branch as I reached for the bow above me.

  Unfortunately, it was just out of my reach. I stood on my tiptoes, and my finger just barely glanced across the bottom of the bow. “Almost got it,” I said.

  I jumped and grabbed hold of the bow. When I came back down, the force of my weight caused the branch to snap. Falling ten feet, I slammed my back into the ground.

  “Idiot! If you die from stupidity, I’m going to kill you!” Bella shouted.

  “I’m fine. Thanks,” I said through a pained cough.

  “Can you get up?” she asked, a hint of concern returning to her voice.

  “Yes. I think so,” I said as I started to climb to my feet.

  A tree branch cracked somewhere above me, and the next thing I knew, Bella slammed into me, and I was flying through the air. The flaming branch crashed into the ground where I had been standing not a moment earlier.

  “Now, I saved your life,” she said.

  “I guess that makes us even,” I groaned.

  Bella stood and helped me up. “Come on.”

  By now, the fire had grown, and the flames had risen up into the air, reaching our height. We turned in all directions, but there was no escape.