The Last Scion (The Guardians of Light Book 1) Read online

  Now the sword did drop, easily cutting a trough in the dirt of the road, as her shoulders slumped.

  Her voice was small, soft, “I didn’t want this.”

  “From what I’ve heard, once you and the sword were close enough, it wouldn’t matter what you had wanted before. It is destiny. This is who you are.”

  “I’m Senia, a smith’s daughter. I’m…” the words fled, caught by a lost wind.

  “A Scion.”

  “A Scion? I don’t even know…”

  “I can help you.” He wanted to. Wanted to be close to this wondrous woman, to sink into the oceans of her eyes. He wanted to know the scent of her hair, the feel of her embrace. He wanted…

  He snapped himself from the thought, roughly. Such were not the thoughts of a monk of Embreth, devoted to knowledge, to secrets, not such longings of the flesh. He told himself it was only the fascination of her being a Scion. The lie soothed him.

  She swept the loose hair away from her face, tucking it behind a perfectly formed ear. Her eyes, lost lakes of blue rimmed with tears, turned to him. Then, like lightning, blinding and wondrous, and swifter than the eye could follow, she threw herself on him, arms around him, hot tears on his shoulder. Somehow, all this managed so swiftly and with perfect grace, despite the six-foot sword still held firmly in her left hand.

  His arms were around her before he knew what he was doing… and when he did know… he didn’t stop.

  “Help me.” Hot breath warmed his neck. A shiver ran through him, his entire body responding to the call.

  He held her closer.

  “I will.”

  A thought struck him then, a foretelling perhaps. Certain that hers would not be the only life forever altered this night.

  CHAPTER 3

  Senia sat cross-legged on the lumpy mattress in Ahrn’s small room, facing where he sat on his bed. She wasn’t looking at him though. Her head down, she watched her fingers trace the intricate whorls and images carved over Emberthorn’s hilt and blade. She felt the minute ridges of each rune in the cold metal, her touch so receptive, sending chills down her spine.

  Emberthorn was purring again. He hadn’t said much since the fight. He seemed to have mixed feelings about Ahrn. On the one hand, Ahrn was the one who had brought him to her, and had taken good care of him in the meantime, but on the other hand, Ahrn and his monk friends had kept Emberthorn locked away in a chest deep beneath their abbey for years, no place for such a regal and amazing weapon to be.

  Senia agreed. Emberthorn was the most marvelous thing she had ever seen.

  “Are you ready?” Ahrn asked, settled. No candle had been lit. Now, even more than before, darkness was no hindrance to her sight, and Ahrn didn’t need light to talk.

  “I don’t know.” She dragged each word out. She needed to know more about Emberthorn and what meeting him meant for her, but so much other uncertainty floated around her. Did she really want it to land?

  “When you are, let me know.”

  A long silence. Even the crickets were hushed this night.

  Her thoughts whirled and warred within her. She had to know, but what would that mean? He had said her life was changed. She knew it was true, but by how much, and how far would it go? Where would it take her? What of her family? Her emotions stormed, combining or flashing apart with each heartbeat. She wanted to be a simple girl and a great warrior. She knew both were not possible together. One life would win. One element of her lost.

  Finally she sighed. “Tell me.” She looked up at him then, her hair had fallen over her face. She let it hang, loose and faintly floating in the breeze from the window. Even though she no longer watched, her fingers kept tracing patterns on the blade, she knew each engraving now, as she knew her own body.

  “Long ago, in the time of beginning, the world was simple. There was no magic. It is said the people worshiped nature, finding spirits in all things. They didn’t know the gods then.”

  “What has this to do with me? I know the tale of the coming of the Gods, the rise and fall of Magic, the Death of Aehryn. I have heard the Priests speak on holy days.” Her emotions strung tight, she drew back her sharp tongue, halting further words.

  He seemed lost for a moment. It was amazing how clearly she could see the confusion, the lines on his face, his light brown eyes searching. He was trying to help her, and she wasn’t being very civil about it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “Please go on.”

  He grinned, his wide mouth spreading to crease his cheeks. She smiled with him, her heart eased.

  “Well, perhaps there are some parts of the Tale of Aehryn your priest has not mentioned. Perhaps he told you of the First Coming of Aehryn of All Things, and how she brought magic with her, then encouraged the other gods to follow suit and gift men with their own individual blessing of power. How men over the following centuries came to abuse those powers. How Aehryn returned as a mortal woman and gathered followers to strike down the oppressors and tyrants who used magic for their own gain. But did he ever mention how those followers, mostly simple men and women with no magic, had the power to strike down Wizards of great power?”

  Senia tilted her head, looking away. The priest in her village was well-studied and learned. He had mentioned something once, though it refused to return to her memory.

  She shook her head.

  Ahrn pointed at Emberthorn. “That is how.”

  It was a most glorious battle, the blade sighed wistfully.

  “Oh.”

  “It was in that battle when the Arch-Wizard Nacryssan arrived with his legions of undead and all seemed lost, that Aehryn sacrificed herself, taking with her all the magic of the Gods.”

  Senia nodded. Everyone knew of Aehryn’s Sacrifice, giving up her immortal Godhood and vanishing into the Void, taking the power of the great Magics. She wasn’t able to take all the magic, for men had lived with the power for so long that some magic had soaked into bones and sinews. The Wizards of today were spare and weak compared to those of ancient times.

  Ahrn Continued. “Those whom Aehryn had gifted with weapons such as Emberthorn were all that remained. They were the Guardians of her will, ensuring that those with magic or any other significant power over other men did not abuse it.”

  “Why would Cleric Donolan not mention these people?” Yet that wasn’t the only question whirling in her mind. “And where are these Guardians now? What happened to them?”

  “There is only so much we know today. These battles took place long ago, and your Priest, through divine connection with his God, may know much of that time, but what came after was of little concern to the remaining Gods. They distanced themselves from men, who had abused the powers the Gods had given. The Guardians lived in a time we call The Lost Age, where few records are kept and even the Gods keep their knowledge from their Priests.”

  Why would a God keep secrets from their followers? She asked Ahrn as much.

  In the gloom, Ahrn grimaced, which sunk into a frown. “They are afraid.”

  “They are Gods. What could they fear?”

  “In that Age of Power, some of the Arch-Wizards were so great in their ability that they came close to rivaling the Gods themselves. Add to this the knowledge that a God can die, as Aehryn showed us all, and imagine how they must have felt. Once all powerful, now vulnerable. They feared too much knowledge given to man might be like too much magic.”

  Senia nodded. Then a final question came to her. Her gaze, so clear in the darkness, sought Ahrn’s full dark eyes. “How do you know all this?”

  “I’m a monk of Embreth, the Keeper of knowledge and Secrets. She among all the Gods chooses her followers carefully, searching their souls for purity so that she might share her secrets with them. She fears us not, for as we know her secrets, she knows ours.”

  A slow shiver trembled down Senia’s spine. What would it be like to have someone know you that intimately?

  Like I do?

  Her heart froze.

 
You need not fear my oneness with you. This is how it should be. Plus, you are the only one who can hear me, so who would I tell?

  Senia was little relieved.

  Don’t you trust me?

  Of course she did. How could she not? Emberthorn was family… more than family… twin, a part of her as she was of him. Yet where had that familiarity come from?

  As if speaking to both of them, Ahrn returned to his story, “You are a descendant of one of those Guardians. One of your ancestors once wielded Emberthorn, fighting at the side of Aehryn The Mortal and tending to the world after Her Vanishing.”

  Senia tilted her head, looking away, questions bubbling up within her. “But, if that is so, wouldn’t I know? It’s true, I never knew much of my true parents. They died when I was still very young, but wouldn’t they have possessed the sword? Shouldn’t it have been passed down to them?”

  “The Age of Power lasted many hundreds of years before the Lost Age came. The Guardians would have had many children, yet only one could have inherited the Aehryn-Gift. Somewhere in the mists of history, your family line broke off from the one that took the blade. You have the blood, but even your great-great-grandparents might never have known they were related to a Guardian.”

  This only left her with more questions, one foremost among them: “You never answered my question. What happened to the Guardians?”

  “The War of the Guardians. They had done such a good job rooting out evil and corruption that men started to fear them. With their artifacts, they were now the ones with great power over others. People demanded that the Guardians lay down their Aehryn-Gifts and use them no more. To a Guardian, this was nearly unthinkable. So men fought against the Guardians and Guardians against men.”

  Emberthorn’s mood shifted at the mention of the war. Did they not know we were there to protect them!

  “Eventually, most of the Guardians, though it was like losing a limb, gave up their items, for they could not fault these men, who were innocent and misguided. Other Guardians fought back, unable to give up a part of themselves. These were changed by the carnage they leveled on humanity. In the end, their artifacts abandoned them, for their souls were no longer pure. They died from the loss.”

  Ravedon gave me up willingly, Emberthorn commented, I could still feel him until the day he passed. He was a great man, a pure man, as you are pure Senia.

  A tear beaded in her eye, then released, tracing a stream down her cheek to the crook of her mouth, where she wiped it away. So much tragedy and death. So meaningless.

  I’m sorry, Emberthorn said, voice heavy, I think that was my tear.

  Indeed, now that she was becoming more aware of their connection she could feel that though Ahrn’s story had struck a chord within her, it was the sword’s sorrow which she felt above all else.

  “Over time,” Ahrn went on. “The Guardians died off. Many had children who would have inherited their artifacts, but the bonding, the physical touch of the magical item, never happened. Many forgot their heritage.”

  Ahrn paused, drawing a steadying breath. “Until The Blacklord came.”

  Senia knew of The Blacklord, but only as a fairy-tale, an empty warning parents used to garner obedience. He lived in some land far to the east, covered in black clouds, practicing dark magic, but he was no real threat here.

  “Though his true name is lost to us, this man, with a strain of wizard’s blood, discovered tomes of dark magic and with those built his power until few could defeat him. He feared only one thing. The rise of new Guardians. So he sent his men out into all the lands on a two-fold mission. First was to find the artifacts and bring them to him so no Guardian might use any against him. Second was to seek the Scions, the descendants of the guardians, and kill them all.

  “Those men tonight were The Blacklord’s assassins.” He paused, drawing a long breath before he went on. “The Monks of the Abbey of St. Panris, where I lived, had but the one artifact. Our Abbey is very old and in disrepair. We were taking Emberthorn to St. Antin Abbey, our great stronghold, when The Blacklord’s men found us. The other monks…” Ahrn’s voice faltered. She looked to see his lips purse as he swallowed some dark memory. “…They kept the assassins at bay while I escaped with the sword. I fled for two days before finding this village. I had thought I’d lost them, but…”

  Senia’s thoughts rushed and raged once again. She filled in what he wasn’t saying.

  “Now they know I’m a Scion.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry. I have endangered you and your family.”

  And within the span of her next heartbeat, everything crashed into place around her, a wall of thoughts and connections which led to only one place. A place she did not want to go, an unknown.

  Emberthorn’s strong voice called to her. You need not be afraid. A Guardian is a Force of Aehryn, of truth, justice, and righteousness. These men of The Blacklord are nothing. Can you not see what you are meant for? You, Senia, can fight… and with me… you can win.

  She listened, hollow. ‘Senia’ could that really be her name anymore? Was she still the girl she had been before she’d gone to bed that evening? She knew now she couldn’t stay. More than this, her family too would have to flee, all because of her actions… and she couldn’t go with them. Would they understand? Could they ever understand how her life had shattered?

  So many questions tore at her soul, a whirlwind of pain and loss.

  She looked down at Emberthorn, but the sword was silent on the topic.

  “Senia?”

  Lost in her own turmoil, she looked up through her curtain of hair. “Yes.” Was that her voice, so soft and weak?

  “I’m here if you need anything.” He hesitated, more yet unsaid.

  “Where can they go?”

  He must have understood she spoke of her family. “To the West and South. The Blacklord’s spies are everywhere, and he watches us monks as keenly as we watch him. If they go on their own, keeping hidden and can get past the Silver Mountains to the lands of the Jhin Dynasty then they should be safe enough.” He paused again before asking, “You are adopted yes?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You said something earlier about your ‘true parents’, that and an artifact will always call to the first of a bloodline. If you have a family, and it did not call to one of your parents, then…”

  She nodded.

  He rose. “This is good.” He moved softly, swiftly across the floor to her as he spoke. “If they don’t share your blood, it will be that much harder for The Blacklord to track them. He will come for you, do not doubt that, but he will eventually lose interest in a family that has no Scion blood.” He knelt before her, eyes pleading, seeking, dark and warm.

  “Can you promise they will be safe?” She reached out to him.

  Both his hands enveloped hers, his palms hard and warm. “I can promise nothing, I’m sorry. This would be their best chance, of that I’m certain.”

  Senia looked away.

  He spoke softly as she considered. “I can guarantee you this. If you stay, or if you go with them, The Blacklord will come at you with all the power he possesses. With Emberthorn, you may be able to defend yourself, but you won’t be able to protect them all, not forever.”

  This she knew. “Then let us get them gone with all haste and be away from here ourselves.” The words were ash in her mouth, vile and choking.

  CHAPTER 4

  C ascading color, from deepest purple to flashing orange washed across the clouds of dawn. The sun was not yet up, but light was filtering in around them. It was a beautiful scene, though Ahrn could enjoy little of it, watching, from a distance the tearful final embraces between Senia and her family.

  They were in a loose grove of trees not far from her village near where the western road split. Her family would follow the Western road toward the Silver Mountains, Ahrn and Senia would follow the North road to the kingdom of Hallania, and the Abbey of St. Antin.

  It was later than Ahrn would have lik
ed when Senia finally came to him, the sun had risen fully above the horizon, but despite his impatience, he couldn’t fault her. He hadn’t known his family, raised as a boy in the Abbey, but he had imagined a family for himself many times and could imagine the pain of having to leave them, forever.

  Senia pulled Emberthorn from where she had struck it into the ground then walked passed Ahrn, stern, tall, and silent.

  Her stride was long, and he rushed to catch her, matching it.

  They walked all morning in silence.

  Ahrn had bought supplies for the trip as Senia had convinced her family to leave then helped them pack their life away. They ate a spare lunch of fresh bread, sharp cheese, and new berries, and still she didn’t speak.

  It was only as the afternoon wore on, many miles behind them that she turned to him as they walked.

  “Do you have a family?” she asked, her tone held the hint of an edge. She was still freshly stung by her emotions.

  He shook his head. “If I did, I never knew them. I was given to the Abbey as a young boy. I sometimes have flashes of a face, a young woman: kind, with light hair and brown eyes. Perhaps my mother or an aunt, or perhaps of no relation at all. I don’t know. The Monks were my family and all I knew for as long as I can remember. Now they are…” He swallowed hard. He didn’t know if any had survived the attack on their caravan. He hoped that some might be still alive, traveling onward to St. Antin. He could only hope.

  Senia looked away. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  Silence stretched, like the dusty road before them.

  After a long moment, she said, “it would seem we have both lost much.”

  He smiled, hoping to lift her spirits. “You have also gained something very special Senia.”

  She looked askance at him, disbelieving.

  “Emberthorn is a very special blade, an artifact of great power and magic.”

  She shrugged. “What do I know of magic? What do I need with magic? I’m just a girl!” Her voice grew sharper, each word laced with confusion and resentment.