The Last Guardian
Table of Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Books by Isabo Kelly
About the Author
THE LAST GUARDIAN
Copyright © 2015 by Katrina Tipton
Published by T&D Publishing
Cover by SelfPubBookCovers.com/LadyDeath
The Last Guardian first appeared in:
Sum3: The 2006 Zircon Anthology of Speculative Romance, edited by Jody Wallace
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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THE LAST GUARDIAN
Isabo Kelly
Chapter One
Run! The thought screamed through her head. Neeka picked herself off the ground one more time, stumbled a few steps in the darkness then ran as fast as her rubbery limbs would allow. Her chest burned, her throat ached. Her body stung with scrapes and cuts. Through the pain, she could feel blood trickling down her shin from the gash on her knee.
But she didn’t stop running.
The Soul Eater had finally come.
Inside, she shrieked in protest. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be real. The Soul Eater was a myth told around campfires to scare children, to remind them all what they guarded and why. But no one believed in the nightmarish creature any more. It had become an allegory, a teaching tool.
It wasn’t supposed to be real, damn it!
She was the last of the guardians. She couldn’t think about her lost comrades, she couldn’t allow the grief in yet. But the horror of it lurked beneath her terror.
The Soul Eater had grown stronger, more powerful, while they had forgotten some of the old magics. Generations ago, they could have fought the monster. But now…
Now it was too much for the guardians. Especially one lone guardian.
She needed help.
She had one hope. Her only hope now.
She pushed through the low-hanging tree limbs, cursing silently at the stings because she had no breath to waste cursing aloud. She wasn’t used to forests. Her people were a plains people. They lived in the grasslands, the open vistas beyond these woods. She used to think forests were beautiful. But at that moment, the trees were like a plague of demons slapping at her and slowing her progress.
She could barely see now. The sun had set, plunging the woods into darkness. She’d only been here once before, three years earlier. She prayed with the last of her will that she’d be able to find her way in the gloom. She didn’t want to be caught out alone in the dark.
The Soul Eater was more powerful in the dark.
*****
Gehan had been dreaming about her for three years. A longing so deep filled him, it made the years of isolation before meeting her pale in comparison. He remembered everything about her—her golden skin, her slanted green eyes, her luxurious red hair. Though to call that mass of fire red was like calling the sky at sunset orange. The sound of her voice, husky and richly accented, haunted his sleep. He’d stolen a single touch, brushing his hand over her cheek in farewell. The feel of her silky skin had kept him awake for nights afterward.
He’d never thought to fall in love. Being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if what he felt now was love or simply obsession. She hadn’t been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, or the most elegant, or the most charming. Why this woman? He couldn’t explain what exactly had caught his attention. Maybe it was the color of her hair. Maybe it was the quiet way she’d greeted him, a known exile, as if he were just another man. She possessed a strength and compassion that stole his breath.
And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
He thought about her so often, and in such detail, that at first he assumed the figure stumbling toward him through the trees was another fantasy. He only realized she wasn’t a dream when she got close enough for him to see her hair. A breath later, the sight of her torn clothes and the sharp scent of blood hit him.
She staggered to a stop, her eyes rounding in a moment of surprise. Then she slumped to her knees, looked up at him, said, “Please. I need your help.” And she collapsed to the ground.
Chapter Two
For a heartbeat, Gehan couldn’t move as terror filled him. Then he dropped to his knees beside her, felt for a pulse. She was still alive, if barely. He scooped her into his arms, surprised at how light she felt, and walked up the hill to his cabin. The last time they’d met, her figure had been full and round. Now she looked gaunt, thin. The thought that something or someone had driven her to this state enraged him.
He pushed through the cabin door and carried her to his bed. He collected fresh water from the well and pulled one of his less-noxious ointments out of the cupboard. He bathed her face, wetted her dry lips. Then he did a cursory exam and sighed in relief when he discovered the worst of her injuries was the gash on her knee.
He debated with himself for several minutes before he decided against removing her clothing to get a better look at the wounds he could see through her torn shirt and trousers. He could treat the wounds well enough for now. Later, if she wanted, he’d make her a warm bath and give her the privacy she needed to further tend the cuts herself.
He couldn’t imagine what had driven her here in such desperation, but the thought that she’d come to him when she needed help made his heart clench.
She came awake suddenly, sitting up in bed while he was mixing a vegetable broth over the hearth. She gasped, looked frantically around the room, and her gaze fell on him. For a breathless moment, he wondered if she’d run, if she’d fear him the way so many others did.
But her shoulders relaxed, and her body dropped back onto the bed.
“Gehan,” she breathed his name and ran a hand over her forehead. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Not long. An hour, maybe.”
Her eyes widened. “An hour?” She glanced at the door. “It wasn’t an hour behind me. Nothing’s happened?”
“Should something have?”
She rubbed a spot on her chest under her torn tunic. “It was so close when I started up….” She trailed off, shaking her head. She focused on the door, and her brow crinkled in concentration. “It’s still out there,” she murmured, more to herself than him. “So far away still. Not getting closer.” She looked back at him. “You have protection spells on the cabin?”
“I have wards over the entire mountainside. This place is one of the most heavily protected.”
She nodded as if something now made sense to her.
“Here.” He brought her a bowl of broth. “You need something to eat. Then you can explain what you’re running from.”
She took the bowl and slurped down the broth in greedy gulps.
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, watching her closely.
She shrugged. “Can’t remember. Had to keep moving.”
She swallowed the rest of the broth and handed the bowl back to him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. He almost smiled. If the gesture had been a sign o
f her comfort with him and not her agitation and hunger he would have. He got her a second bowl of soup and sat beside her to hear her story.
She started while she ate, sipping the broth slower now.
“You know something of our tribe, of the guardians,” she stated, not asking. But she looked up and met his gaze with an intense stare so he felt the need to nod in agreement. “You’ve trained them in many of the old magics. Me. You’ve taught us a lot, but…we’ve forgotten some important things.”
She glanced down at the bowl. When she looked up again, the pain and desperation in her eyes tore at him.
“I need your help. I can’t fight it alone. The other guardians, they’re all dead. I’m the only one left. And I’m not strong enough alone.”
“Dead? How?”
“The Soul Eater.”
He sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back from her. The Soul Eater. It hadn’t been seen or heard of in centuries. He was only newly exiled the last time the Soul Eater walked the earth.
When he didn’t say anything, she rushed to fill the silence.
“It’s stronger now. It was able to fight off the magics that should have worked. And it’s relentless. It won’t stop this time.” Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper. “I have to protect it.”
The last “it” was something neither the K’ali nor the god who’d enlisted Gehan’s services in the name of the K’ali had ever explained to him. Gehan knew the K’ali guardians protected something valuable. He knew their highest god had charged them with the protection of this thing and sent the guardians of it to Gehan for a period of education and training. They came in small groups, three or four, and were taught what he’d been told to teach them. But no one had revealed what it was or what threat they guarded it from.
He could guess now the Soul Eater was the threat.
He shook his head and stood to pace the room. If someone had told him the guardians might one day have to face the Soul Eater, he could have trained them differently, added to their education. He hissed under his breath in disgust, cursing the god so vain as to leave this vulnerability.
*****
Neeka watched him silently from the bed, the power in his movements, the force of his aura, filling the room. She didn’t dare interrupt him while he cursed and talked to himself. She needed his help—there was no one else who’d been alive the last time the Soul Eater was defeated. But in that quiet moment, with only the hearth fire to light the little cabin room, it was the man who fascinated her.
Stories of Gehan came down through the tribe. An exile from his own lands, a former leader who’d made a deal with a trickster god to save his people. The deal had given him great powers, powers that had, indeed, saved his people and destroyed their enemies, but it had also turned his people against him. They feared and loathed the very power that had rescued them. That fear drove them to cast Gehan out.
The greatest god of Neeka’s people, Baudowa, had commanded the guardians to make pilgrimages to Gehan so they might learn and protect their charge better. Every guardian came to Gehan once. Some more than once. They all talked of his isolation, how he must suffer, how he must be mad by now. If any of her fellow tribesmen had been there at that moment, watching him pace and talk to himself, they might have felt their prediction for his sanity had come to pass.
But she saw something else in him. She had from the first moment they met. No one had told her how handsome he was, how tall and strong. No one had mentioned how courteous he could be, how caring for the lands around his cabin. No one had told her of his honor. He’d made her heart thump faster just by walking toward her. And the brief touch of his hand on her cheek in parting was a sensation she still treasured. She knew, deep in her soul, he was a good man. A man she could trust with her life.
And that’s why she’d come to him, as much as for his power. She knew she could trust him with the ultimate secret, the secret she’d have to reveal to him before the night was out.
When he spun to face her again, his fists clenched and unclenched in agitation. With any other man, she might have flinched backward, prepared herself for a fight. With him, she sat patiently and waited. He had to help of his own free will. If he turned her away, she would have no choice but to keep running. But if he did turn her away, she knew she would eventually fail.
“How long have you been running?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to stop for long. At first, there were three of us.” She sucked in a shaky breath, trying not to think about what had become of the other two. “For the last few days, it’s been only me. I’ve barely kept ahead of it. My horse died of exhaustion not long after we entered the woods.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t die of exhaustion, too.”
“I didn’t have a choice but to keep going. And exhaustion taking my soul would have been preferable to the Soul Eater.” She shivered and set the rest of her cooling soup aside. When she glanced up, he stood next to her, so silent she hadn’t noticed him move.
“Will you help me?” she asked, staring up into his dark eyes, eyes that seemed to drink her in.
To her surprise, he reached out and touched her cheek, a gentle caress that made her breath hitch. The loneliness in him beat at her, made her heart ache until she wanted to cry. She couldn’t afford to cry yet. They weren’t safe. But in that moment, she wanted desperately to ease his loneliness. And her own.
“Will you stay with me if I help?” he asked.
Chapter Three
The words were out before Gehan could stop them. He hadn’t meant to bribe her, to set conditions on his help. Not for her. For her, he would do whatever it took, even if it meant his own death to make sure she was safe. He dropped his hand and took a step away from her.
Her eyes were wide, her silence stretched out for a long time. He wanted to take the words back but wasn’t sure how. I didn’t mean it. I’ll always help you.
Before he could force the apology out, she spoke.
“If you help me, I’ll do whatever you ask.”
He swallowed hard, his hands flexing and unflexing as he fought conflicting emotions. She would stay. But only because he helped her. He didn’t want that. He wanted—needed—her to stay because she wanted to, not because he’d coerced her.
He shook his head. “No.”
Her breath left her in a whoosh, and her eyes filled with tears. Panic trickled through him as the first few tears tracked down her cheeks. She sucked in a deep breath and rose from the bed. She wobbled a little. He reached out to steady her, but she backed away from his touch.
“I have to go,” she said. “It will probably pass you by if I’m still moving.” She stumbled toward the door.
Terror made his movements quick and too rough. He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him.
“Where the hell are you going? You can’t go out there now.”
“You don’t want to help me. And I don’t want to force your hand. If I’m not here, the Soul Eater won’t come here. He wants what I carry.”
When he couldn’t interrupt, he gave her a shake to stop her talking. Her eyes widened, and the shocked outrage in her expression helped calm his rising panic. He liked seeing that flash of spirit instead of the desolation he’d seen a moment before.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you,” he said.
“But—”
His grip tightened to cut off her interruption. When she winced, he cursed and let her go.
“I’m sorry. I forget sometimes.” What, he thought with derision. He forgot how to touch another human being without hurting them?
“What I meant was that I wouldn’t ask anything of you in exchange for my help,” he said instead. “There won’t be a price. I shouldn’t have even asked.”
He turned his back on her, bewildered by his emotions. The power he’d been given all those years ago required a great deal of self-control. And he’d had more than 300 years to perfect that control. W
hy he suddenly couldn’t seem to exercise any around this one woman—now when she needed his control and power—baffled him.
He stared into the hearth fire, waiting quietly for her to decide if she would stay or go.
*****
Neeka stared at his back for a long moment, watching the rise and fall of his shoulders, the tense lines of muscle, the bent angle of his head, as if dreading her next words. Her mouth fell open in awe. He thought she might leave.
Didn’t he realize? Didn’t he know? All he’d ever had to do was ask and she would have stayed.
She crossed the room to him. His head came up, but he kept his back to her. She eased her arms around his waist, pressed close to his strongly muscled back, shocked by her own bravado. But she needed him to know. She hugged him tight, settled her cheek against his shoulder. She could feel his breathing, harsh and fast under her palms. He kept his arms at his side, didn’t move to either encourage or discourage her touch.
She took a deep breath.
“If we survive,” she said quietly, “I would like very much to stay with you. Not because you helped me when I needed it most, but because…” Because? “Because I want to.” It was as simple as that. And always had been.
His big body shuddered against her. He turned in her arms and cradled her face between his palms.
“I don’t have the right words,” he said. “It’s been too long.” He opened his mouth to say more, but when nothing came out, he shook his head and captured her lips. His kiss said more than words ever could.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, she felt better than she’d felt in weeks, more content than she’d felt in years. She smiled up at him and realized it was her first smile in a long time.
The moment of peace slipped away as she realized the hope she saw in his eyes, the hope she felt in her heart, might never come to fruition if they couldn’t stop the Soul Eater. She had to tell him everything.