Bloodflower

The Rakir were still on their trail—tower soldiers with orders to arrest Captain Jon Ayers and his men. Trained to be an army of mercenaries and assassins, Rakir guarded the north under the rule of the high council.

Until six weeks ago, Jon had been one of them, something he wasn’t proud of. They’d executed his family—three sisters, his parents and his nephew burned alive over a jeweled hunk of metal.

Jon gripped the bloodflower and crouched at the edge of the plateau, surveying the valley below for any sign of Rakir. The pendant’s four metallic leaves dug into his skin, the central ruby warm against his palm. He needed to get south of the Forbidden Mountains where his men were waiting.

This was his life now, exile or death. Cursed to always be on the run.

“Guardians be damned.” He needed a cigarette. Already out of shadeleaf, it was still half a day’s ride to the next village, a small cluster of buildings nestled in the gap between the far mountains.

The heavy rainfall soured his mood further as he shoved the bloodflower back inside his shirt and moved away from the edge. Lichen slick with rain covered a labyrinth of crumbling stone walls across the muddy plateau.

“What do you think this place was?” Mather, his best friend and second in command, crouched on a broken wall, bow in hand. The dark green of his wool clothing camouflaged him against the lower tree branches. With his hair wet from the heavy rains, the tattoo on his forehead was a beacon for any Rakir hunting them. As if reading Jon’s mind, Mather mussed his hair until it covered the inked mark.

“Observatory maybe. Though with a spyglass that large”—Jon gestured at the rusted metal tube in the center of the ruins—“someone could probably see all the way to the land of the Guardians.”

Such a place was no more than legend, and Jon cursed himself for even speaking it. If any protector of their world existed, they sure as shit didn’t care about anyone in the north.

Patting his horse on the cheek as he passed by, Jon entered the labyrinth of stone and metal.

“We need to get moving.” Mather leapt down from the wall. “Those scouts have likely found our trail.”

“Not yet.” Jon traced his fingers along a wall made of metal with long, worm-like vines draping from a heavy crack. He and Mather had barely saddled their horses for the day’s ride when something had tugged at Jon’s instincts, calling him to this place.

Be it destiny or fate, he could never ignore that sixth sense. It had saved his life on more than one occasion, even if it did take them an hour out of their way.

Jon brushed dry dirt off a spidering crack, a few granules whispering away on the breeze while the remainder plopped to the ground. Long ago, a mudslide had covered the floors of this place, packing hard earth against stone. But as the rains of gensana·darak, the season of leaves, fell heavy on the mountain, everything turned to slick ground mat over the forest ruins.

“What are you hoping to find here?” Mather fingered his bow as if expecting an attack.

“I’m not certain.” But the instinct pushed at Jon’s senses. It must have something to do with the bloodflower. At least he hoped it did. Something was here. He just had to find it.

Cold wind sliced through his clothing, chilling him as he slipped partway around the next wall. The muddy ground glowed with a green reflection, and he froze, not daring to move another step. ­­­­

“Dalanath.”

The ghost-like apparitions were a terror every northerner grew up with. They were common around the north, many believing the sleepers to silently damn the misdeeds of this world. At least one must have been just out of his sight, its eerie green glow reflecting in the muddy puddles.

Jon clenched his fist—he didn’t need their judgment today.

He already bore the guilt of his family’s death. He’d arrived too late, forced to hand over the bloodflower, only to receive a box of his family’s ashes.

Jon would never let the high council have the pendant now. After stealing it back, he’d barely escaped to the mountains. Biting back the pain in his heart, he was tempted to reach for his weapons, but in the thirty-three years of his life, no dalanath had ever awoken. That he knew of, anyway.

Yet the hairs on his neck stood stiff. He was probably just on edge from the Rakir bearing down on them.

“Aren’t we done with this place yet?” Mather muttered.

Jon edged around the corner in plain view of the ghosts, the soft green glow of their sleeping faces floating against the stone wall. It was always the same, half-formed bodies that tapered to a smoky mist below the waist.

“Looks like someone tried to seal them in.” Mather patted a mud-brick wall covering several of the apparitions. “Long before our time.”

“Probably didn’t want to be judged.” Jon slid his hand over a pane of glass buried in smooth, metallic stone, the surface chilled in the morning storm.

A thin line of blue light slid across the glass.

Jon jumped back. “Shit, did you see that?”

Magic, it had to be.

Mather yanked an arrow from his quiver and slid it onto the bowstring. “Guardians be damned, Jon. What did you do?”

Blue light spread across the pane, illuminating ancient symbols nobody alive could read.

“I barely touched it.” Jon’s voice fell away as a figure walked onto the glass. Unlike the dalanath with their green glow, the full-grown man looked like he could step out of the wall into the real world.

“Vamahéa heriakór Jason Kale,” the figure said, strain lacing the desperation in his voice.

Jon gripped the hilts of his sheathed daggers and stepped closer, wishing he could understand the tiny man’s words. “Who are you?”

As if unable to see beyond the barrier, the figure kept speaking, rubbing a hand across his short, blond hair. Releasing the grip on his weapons, Jon touched the glass. Still the same smooth chill, and the man kept talking as if Jon wasn’t there.

“You think he’s a Guardian?” Mather traced a finger along his arrow’s fletchings and eased the tension.

Jon couldn’t imagine he was. Only seven Guardians remained, the others deserting Sandaris when they disappeared into the night sky.

Human-like beings from the old world, their language could still be seen etched into stone ruins, but it wasn’t enough to ease the cultural scar of their desertion. While those in the north shattered many of their statues long ago and turned their backs on the Guardians, the southern lands still worshipped them, hoping to one day call them back.

“Maybe he’s trapped.” Mather slid the arrow back into his quiver. “Maybe that’s where they all went, into some unknown land of metal and glass.”

Jon waved at the talking figure to get his attention, but the blond didn’t budge.

“If he’s trapped, we can try to get him out.” Maybe this man was exactly who he needed to find.

Jon gestured to the figure to stand back then slammed the hilt of his dagger against the pane, a jolt sizzling up his arm as the glass remained uncracked.

The figure kept talking, then disappeared into blackness.

“Dammit, what is this stuff made of?” Jon said. “I can’t crack it.”

Smoke poured out of the seams between glass and rock, fire-sparks erupting from the corners.

“Shit, Jon, I think you made it worse,” Mather said. The dalanath flickered, disappearing for an instant before they reappeared. “What the fuck?”

Jon stepped back to avoid the sparks. The closest dalan was an old man who looked meaner than a rabid wolf. His ghostly green body disappeared, nothing but smooth metal wall behind him. Where were these figures disappearing to?

“This has to be magic.” He touched the smooth surface scattered with raindrops, a pulse whispering beneath his fingertips. “You ever seen anything like this?”

“No.” Mather scanned the trees. “But we need to get out of here. Not even the wind speaks to these woods now.”

The breeze had died down, the woods too quiet. And there was an unmistakable edge to Mather’s voice. That could mean only one thing: Rakir were close. Mather was right. They needed to get the fuck out of here.

Except Jon couldn’t make his feet move.

Lights flickered on inside the metal wall, illuminating a hollow space filled with glowing green liquid.

A woman floated inside, colorless worms or vines growing out of the interior and digging into her body as if to trap her.

Long hair obscured some of her features as the strange pulse passed under Jon’s fingertips again, this time stronger.

Her body jerked as if she’d been struck from behind.

As her hair threaded away from her face, the woman opened her eyes wide, terror and anguish in their depths.

There was something familiar about her features. He couldn’t place it, but he’d seen her before. Or maybe his lack of cigarettes was muddling his thoughts.

“Jon. We have to move.” Mather smacked his shoulder. “Now.”

She pressed a hand against the glass and opened her mouth wide as if screaming, but no sound came out.

Guardians. That’s what struck him about her features. Even with her hollow cheeks, she bore a striking resemblance to Herana, the Guardian of Lost Souls.

Jon had seen her statue before, though always with part of her face shattered. Someone long ago named her after the cold emptiness of a derelict world, and that meaning had become something of an ache to his own lonely heart.

He laid his palm against hers on the barrier, discarding the idea of the woman as a Guardian. It was ridiculous.

She mouthed something as if trying to speak to him, but he couldn’t stay any longer. Not without putting himself in more danger.

“Captain!” The strain in Mather’s voice said time was up. Run or fight. There might be two scouts or a dozen, and he didn’t need another close call.

The woman seemed lost, desperate. Jon didn’t want to leave her stranded. He unsheathed his sword and slammed it against the transparent wall to shatter it so she could escape.

Tension rippled up his arm, and he didn’t even put a dent in it. “Fuck.”

He’d have to lead the Rakir away and hope they didn’t get blocked in.

“Get the horses!” he said to Mather then slapped the glass to get the woman’s attention. “I’ll lead them away.”

His instincts fought what his training told him to do. And the terror in her eyes was like a knife to his heart.

“I’ll come back, I promise,” he said.

Jon really hoped she wasn’t Herana as he bolted back to his horse. It was uncanny how similar the woman’s features were to the old statues. The last thing this world needed was mercenary soldiers with a Guardian’s power behind them.