Messenger (Guardian Trilogy Prequel 1) (24 page)

It had been a long, strenuous day for our camp, which left everyone without shame as they rushed to fill a bowl. Excited and content, they took their spots at the fire and lifted spoonfuls into their mouths. And slowly the crowd grew silent. Not long after, the excitement left their faces and their spoons were raised at a slower pace. That was when I noticed the eyes darting back and forth, assessing the expressions on others’ faces, and I began to wonder what they were thinking too.

It was Eran who reacted first. A light chuckle rumbled up from him as he watched the group. He hadn’t taken a bowl, I noticed, electing hunger over my dish. That didn’t seem to matter though because he was enjoying himself.

I gave him a suspicious look, as did a few others.

Then Heath asked the question on everyone’s minds. “What kind of stew did you say this was?”

“Fowl.”

“It certainly is,” Jerod muttered disdainfully, apparently summing up everyone else’s opinion of my dinner.

At that, the entire collection of those eating around the fire burst into laughter. I sat in confusion as they set their bowls down.

Hoffstedler cleared his throat and pronounced, “Bailey will be cooking meals from this point on.”

Despite my offended jaw drop, it was met with a resounding round of appreciation.

“Don’t worry,” Heath said from across the fire, where he kept his distance since Eran’s steely stare earlier in the day. “We all have our strong and weak points.”

Considering it was one of the best dishes I’d made, I gave him a thankful grin and kept eating.

“And what are yours?” Claudius challenged, as the laughter quieted.

There seemed to be a challenge in it.

“I’m loud,” he said proudly.

Not one person disagreed with him.

“And do you consider that a strong or a weak point?” Claudius tested.

Heath jerked his head in shock. “It’s both!” he shouted smugly.

While Claudius didn’t get the chance to harp on Heath’s volume, it did start a conversation on each person’s strengths and weaknesses. When coming to earth as Alterum’s, guardians and messengers alike arrived with certain abilities, so that besides Cilla’s talent for handling daggers she could also light things on fire with her breath, Heath could communicate with dogs, and Jerod could permeate the air with any scent he chose. He had been employing this ability since he’d arrived, making me feel as if we were walking around in a rose garden, in order to cover the stench of the combined camps.

It was the weaknesses that drew the most interest though. Confessions ran through the group punctuated with shouts for agreements and moans for disagreements.

I listened and waited, hoping Eran would volunteer each of his own, but he and I were the only ones who didn’t. In the end, the group settled into silence and studied the flames licking the night sky. Just as I was wondering if anyone would start a new conversation, a hushed, hesitant question was posed.

“And what of you?” Hermina asked, her gaze locked on Eran.

“Him?” Caius chuckled under his breath. “He has no weaknesses.”

His teasing was met with light laughter, but it ended when Ariela spoke up.

“He has one,” she said solemnly and looked directly at me.

An awkwardness fell over us as it was silently acknowledged that Eran shouldn’t be as concerned about me as he so clearly was, and that it most certainly was a weak point.

Willingly leaving that weakness unaccounted, Hermina asked, “And what of strengths?”

Heath flapped his lips through an exhale. “Too many of those to count…”

“Try,” she insisted.

“You know, a few of them can be found in my personal favorite story about Eran. It was when twenty Fallen Ones trailed him.”

“That’s a favorite?” she asked, appalled.

“Now just a moment,” he said. “Fallen Ones don’t usually band together, as you know, so when he identified that
someone
was tracking him, he didn’t know
how many
. He told Selphi, who was with him, to scatter in an effort to confuse their trail. She did and Eran was left alone. When he found himself trapped in a cave, he turned to meet the Fallen One, who came through the trees and entered the opening of the cave. Then another came through the trees, and another, and another… And he fought them, all of them, alone. By the time Selphi doubled back, all she saw was Eran…standing over the bodies of nineteen Fallen Ones.”

“But you said there were twenty of them?” Hermina countered.

“I did and this is where it gets interesting. Eran set one free.”

“He did?” she asked, deeply enamored with the story now.

“He did.”

“Why?”

“To spread the word about what would happen if they tried to track him again.”

“That is interesting…,” she mused.

“No, what’s interesting is that the Fallen One actually fled. No one had ever heard of a Fallen One fleeing.”

Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Never?”

“Never,” he replied unequivocally.

Speechless and astounded, she turned to stare at Eran. He didn’t notice though. His eyes were downcast, ignoring the conversation as best he could.

“My favorite story about him,” Cilla said chuckling to herself at the memory, “was when he went in search of Stanimir.”

In a show of respect, the guardians nodded in consensus.

“Stanimir?” Hermina asked, curiously.

“The fiercest of the Fallen Ones. When he fights, he does it for entertainment. What he wasn’t counting on when Eran found him was that Eran expected it of him.”

“Both were fighting for amusement?” This didn’t make sense to Hermina. It didn’t to me, either. Eran wasn’t one to pick a fight.

“No, Eran sought out Stanimir after learning that he had placed a bounty on the heads of one of his men. Jeremiah’s head, wasn’t it?”

Eran, whose own head was still down, gave a slight nod.

“What I mean by he wasn’t expecting Eran to enjoy the fight as much as him was that he figured Eran would take a few hits and give up. Not so. Eran played with him, teased him with distractions, with evasion, with any technique that would destabilize Stanimir. It was a joy to watch.”

That lit up the eyes of their fellow guardians.

“Yes, I was lucky enough to have seen it myself. I stood among his lieutenants as each of us tried to convince Eran to let us assist. But he refused, strongly. When he subdued him and Stanimir lay bloodied and defeated, Eran convinced him to remove the bounty.”

“How did he convince him?” Jeremiah asked.

“He told Stanimir that a unit awaited him at the site of his return, which Eran had found and where they would stay for eternity beating him into submission. The only way to have them called off was to call off the bounty. So he did, and that is the only time a Fallen One has ever acquiesced to a guardian.”

Gradually, every person at the fire found themselves staring at Eran, the man behind the legend.

“And to think you were just an untried, untested young soul when I discovered you…,” Claudius said.

“You discovered him?” Bailey asked her guardian. “I never knew that…”

“I did,” assured Claudius. “I recruited him. Found him building his home on the other side and observed him for some time. When I grew tired of him defending himself against giant fabricated beasts he created for amusement, I introduced myself and told him there were greater adventures to be had. That he could battle true beasts if he desired. He enlisted. I trained beside him and taught him everything I knew.”

So, I thought, that was how Eran chose Bailey’s guardian. He had given her one of the most experienced guardians before coming to find me. I wondered if, after we discovered who was taking the lives of messengers, Eran would do the same for me before returning to the girl he loved.

“That makes me curious to know…,” said Hermina. “Do
you
have a favorite story?”

Claudius’s lips rose in a smirk, much like Eran’s. “You asked what his strengths are…I can tell you how I discovered one of them on my own.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

Eran was watching Claudius now, speculatively.

“We were sparring with swords during a particular training. It was much the same as all other sessions in which he wielded his weapon with skill. I defended myself as I always did, but this time my weapon slipped from my grip and fell to the ground. I bent to pick it up but it slid across the dirt by several paces. I stood, walked to it, bent and it moved another few paces. At that point I looked up, where Eran was standing, smiling at me. ‘Weren’t expecting that, were you?’ he asked me, to which I responded by tackling him.”

Laughter followed by both guardians and messengers alike. When it died off, Claudius addressed the group again more somberly.

“He never told me of his ability to control metal. He waited to reveal it when it was most needed because as every excellent warrior knows-”

“Surprise yields you an advantage,” the guardians said in unison.

It was easy to see from their enthusiasm and unanimity that that was a mantra drilled into them.

“So you can control metal?” Hermina asked Eran directly.

“That would be the reason why he carries that heavy sword,” Cilla said, eyeing Eran’s waist where it lay.

“Not the only reason,” Eran said, finally speaking up. “It does make a solid-sized cavity in our enemies.”

Snickers erupted around the fire, and as my gaze traveled from one to the next, I understood better why these guardians hailed to Eran. He had earned it. He had risked his own safety and pain-free existence to protect them and others, and he had done it to a level no one had ever witnessed before.

“What else can you do?” Hermina asked.

“Not much more,” he said, unassumingly.

Several of those around the fire grinned at him skeptically; others rejected that assertion with unintelligible muttering.

When it quieted, Bailey showed just how well she knew her original guardian and how much admiration she held for him.

“He recognizes their weaknesses before most others,” she said quietly. “And therefore he knows how to crush the threat before others. That is Eran’s greatest strength.”

As murmured agreements followed, I also found myself nodding.

It was innate in him. He analyzed, planned, and then acted. And what he was searching for in his analyses was an opening, a breach to enter where he would face as little resistance as possible in getting done what he needed to do. He did it when he fought, and he did it with me.

“And now that I’ve been completely exposed, I have no surprises left at my disposal,” Eran said. “Thank you, Bailey.”

It took only a few tense moments before we realized he was teasing and broke out in laughter. When it died down, Eran became serious again. “Bailey is correct. Every person, Fallen One or otherwise, has a limitation, a
disadvantage
. Seek it out and you will find
your
advantage.” Interestingly, from my peripheral vision, I caught Eran speaking directly to me.

“Splendid tip!” Alban shouted, raising his mug to Eran.

The rest around the fire did the same and before long we were on to another conversation. Understanding that the history lesson about Eran was over, we began to recount the most epic battles against Fallen Ones, beginning another long list of stories that led us into the night.

The moon began its rise over the horizon not long after and about that time I yawned. When I stood and headed for the tent, Eran did the same. I had every intention of going to bed without beginning another conversation. Unfortunately, as the tent flap fell closed and I heard Eran behind me, the words seemed to come out of nowhere. “I see you’re tired too, Eran.”

When he replied there was no humor in his tone. “You know why I’m here, Magdalene.”

To watch over me… as always, I thought, remaining conflicted by my desire to have him near and drive him away.

We reached my bed in silence, with only the crunch of our feet against the dirt floor and our tension to fill the air. But once there, I found myself unable to lie down.

The prickle started at the base of my skull and rapidly flared across the length of my neck. By that point, my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t curl them into fists and my lungs didn’t seem capable of drawing a breath.

With my back to him and in the dim light, Eran had no idea what was happening. So when I stopped before slipping into bed, he took the opportunity to speak.

“There is a reason why I let them tell their stories about me tonight, Magdalene. Praise is of little value to me so can you think of another motive for my allowing it?” I didn’t respond because I couldn’t, so he answered his own question. “It was for you. Shun me if you wish. Avoid me. Deny me. Do what you will. But as you do it, learn about them, those who are coming for you. Learn what makes them weak, strong, their habits and idiosyncrasies. Because if you are intent on protecting yourself, you will need to do it to the fullest measure.”