The Last Guardian Read online

  Chapter Four

  Gehan stared at the pink and gold charm Neeka held in front of him. It glowed in the dim light from the fire. The charm itself was a tiny glass vial, capped with a stopper of twisted glass and gold. It looked delicate and fragile hanging from the thick silver chain.

  “And so,” he said after a quiet moment. “This is the soul of a goddess.”

  Neeka nodded, her gaze intent on his face. “Baudowa placed her essence in our care nearly 300 years ago. She was new, only a baby. Our legends say he wanted his daughter protected from the Soul Eater. He wanted her hidden in a place where the monster would never think to look. He couldn’t keep her with him any longer with the Soul Eater stalking him—even a god can only hold out against it for so long before it would weaken him. So in secret, she was entrusted to us. And we’ve kept her save for nearly three centuries.

  “But over the years, we’ve come to consider the Soul Eater a metaphor for all the dangers we protect this proto-goddess from.” She sighed, closed her eyes briefly. “We forgot too much.” When she looked at him again she said, “Until she’s of an age to protect herself, she’s vulnerable to the Soul Eater. Baudowa never told us when she’d be…ready, but until then I have to keep her safe. If the Soul Eater gets the essence of Baudowa’s own daughter, the monster will be invincible.”

  “A god to devour all other gods,” Gehan murmured. He couldn’t take his gaze from the vial. The essence of a future goddess waiting to come to full existence. Neeka and her people probably never realized the power they held. He imagined that’s why Baudowa had never told him about this thing the K’ali protected.

  He knew the power in that vial. Invincibility. Immortality. The power of a god for anyone willing to grab it. It wasn’t just the Soul Eater who could use the power of this essence. Anyone could use it—and become a god.

  He met her gaze over the swing of the glowing pink charm. Did she understand what she risked by telling him this? Maybe. Or maybe she was too desperate for his help to realize the temptation she placed in front of him.

  He sat back slowly from the hypnotic swing of the vial, and Neeka tucked it back under her shirt.

  “Can you fight the Soul Eater?” she asked. “Do you remember the spells to contain it and send it away? All our weapons, all our spells failed. It’s stronger now. But there was a way to send it back once.”

  “Yes. And yes. It was a long time ago. But part of the Trickster’s…gift—” he sneered the word, “—was a perfect memory.”

  “What was the other part? Besides the power.”

  “That I would live to serve his whims for as long as he saw fit.”

  “So, he could take that away at any time? You could die?”

  His grin held no humor. “At his whim. But he hasn’t seen fit to come near me in more than two hundred years. He must have owed Baudowa a favor to place me into the K’ali god’s service. Until that service ends, there’s no reason for the Trickster to deal with me.” He refused to say the god’s name for fear it might attract his malevolent attentions.

  “But…” She swallowed visibly and stood to pace away from him. “But once you’ve defeated the Soul Eater….”

  She let the sentence trail off, but he heard the unspoken question. Will your service to Baudowa be complete?

  He crossed the room, pulled her into his arms. He couldn’t lie to her, not her. But he could try to comfort.

  “Until your goddess comes to full power, I’ll still be of value to Baudowa. It could be centuries before my usefulness to him and your tribe is finished, even if the Soul Eater is banished.”

  He ran a hand through her fire red hair, luxuriating in the freedom to do so. It was even softer than he’d imagined. “Unfortunately,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, “I may well live for another three hundred years.”

  He tried not to imagine what it would be like to watch her grow old and die, tried not to think about how he’d manage to go on another day after she was gone.

  He watched her green eyes widen as she realized the implications of his immortality. But before she could speak, her expression changed and she stiffened in his arms. He felt the break in his protection spells in the same moment and the air around his cabin shifted uneasily.

  Neeka spun to face the door. “It’s coming,” she breathed.

  It was the middle of the night now, and the Soul Eater’s powers were at their strongest. It had broken through the wards lower on the mountain and was nearing the outer wards on his home. His cabin was well protected by spells and shields, but they wouldn’t hold out against the monster for long at this time of night.

  He felt Neeka pulling in the last of her power and strength, preparing to fight with whatever she had left. A guardian to the last.

  His heart swelled with pride. And fear. He couldn’t let the monster have her. Not even if it cost him his own soul.

  But he couldn’t stand against the Soul Eater here. He needed space. He needed the power of the stones.

  He grabbed Neeka’s hand and pulled her toward the back of the cabin. “It’ll take time for it to work its way through the spells guarding this house. That gives us time to get to protected ground.” He swiped his palm over an area of the back wall of the cabin and an oval hole opened. His secret escape route.

  Chapter Five

  He led her through the darkened woods, supporting her when she stumbled.

  “I think I might hate trees,” she muttered under her breath, and he felt an incongruous desire to laugh, despite their perilous situation.

  “We’ll move closer to the plains if you like,” he offered, helping her around a fallen tree trunk. “You’ll need space. And your own herd of horses, I imagine.”

  He glanced at her. With his heightened eyesight, another side effect of the Trickster’s “gifts”, he could see her clearly even in the darkness under the trees. The smile of pure pleasure that lit her face nearly brought him to his knees.

  “You’d do that for me? Move away from your home? You’ve lived here for centuries, haven’t you?”

  He had to turn away from her to watch the path, but her smile still glowed in his mind’s eye.

  “It’s time I had a change of scenery,” he said and was rewarded with the sound of her quiet chuckle.

  He felt the spells around his cabin disintegrate just as they reached the stones. The circle was no more than forty feet in diameter. The stones of power glowed faintly green in the dim moonlight of the clearing. At one point the stones had stood twice the height of a man, but they’d been worn away by time so that the tallest only came up to his thigh now. It wasn’t the stones themselves that imbued the circle with power, though. They were merely markers for the power in this place. A power that had drawn him to this particular mountainside after his exile.

  A subtle shifting in the air currents warned him the creature was coming. No time to waste. Pulling Neeka into the center of the circle, he set up the first layer of spells, priming the circle to become a place between worlds where it would be safe to battle the creature. If the Soul Eater entered this circle, it would not get out again.

  He sensed the deep blackness approaching before he saw it, knew the creature was near. He added another layer of spells to the circle, these to bind and hold the magics used within. Another layer to keep out other forces that could disrupt the circle’s balance. As he finished these, the blackness oozed out from the trees, into the clearing around the circle.

  The shape of the Soul Eater was obscured in shadows so dense no light filtered through. It flowed forward, blotting out everything behind it. In its wake, the trees steamed and withered.

  Gehan laid down the last binding spell as Neeka pulled a dagger from her belt. It was a spelled dagger, a weapon the K’ali had designed to fight the Soul Eater. But she’d already admitted K’ali weapons had failed this time.

  *****

  Neeka watched in growing dread as the blackness oozed closer to the circle. The hair on her arms stood up,
her body trembled. She tried to block out the images of her friends, her fellow guardians falling to this thing, but some of the terror leaked through, making it hard for her to breathe.

  She took a step closer to Gehan and let his strength settle her. He was a powerful mage. The Soul Eater wouldn’t take him. She pulled in what she had left—not much after her weeks on the run—and prepared to face her biggest nightmare as it butted up against the edge of the stone circle.

  “Do you dare?” Gehan murmured, facing the monster without flinching. “You want her? You’ll have to enter my circle.”

  “I will cross,” a voice said from the blackness. The sound grated against Neeka’s ears, like the buzzing of a million insects, making her cringe.

  She swallowed hard as the blackness crossed between two of the glowing stones. She felt the circle close behind it and knew this was the final stand. Even if she and Gehan died here, the Soul Eater would not get out again.

  But she still had the vial on the chain around her neck. If she and Gehan were killed and the Soul Eater got the vial, would he be powerful enough to break the circle?

  “Yes,” the monster said, as if reading her mind.

  Her gaze narrowed. Well then. They had no choice but to win.

  The Soul Eater chuckled, a sound like an earthquake. “You cannot win. You have forgotten too much.”

  “I haven’t,” Gehan said.

  Chapter Six

  Neeka felt the surge of power from him just as the blackness moved toward him. The creature stopped and let loose a roar so deep it vibrated through her bones. The struggle between Gehan and the monster was eerily silent after that. No sound came to her from beyond the circle, either. The rasp of her own breathing sounded painfully loud in the quiet.

  When Gehan stumbled back a step, clutched at his chest, she nearly screamed.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist, bracing him. “What is it? How can I help?”

  “He’s trying for my soul, through the wards. He won’t get it.” Gehan’s eyes glowed with dark power, his face set in hard lines.

  But Neeka had seen too many people lose their souls to the monster in the last weeks. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if Gehan were killed that way.

  She gripped the dagger she still held and poured what was left of her power into it, recited the spells she’d learned from Gehan and the other guardians. It was all she had left, and not strong enough—as the previous confrontations with the Soul Eater had proved—but it might give Gehan an advantage.

  Once done, she’d be as helpless as a babe. It was a risk she was willing to take. For Gehan.

  She waited, watching as the silent struggle continued. She could no longer feel the push and pull of their powerful magics. She was too drained, what was left of her own powers now pulsing gently in the steel of the blade. She had only instinct and hope to guide her.

  As she watched, the blackness seemed to get smaller, sucking inward. The solid cloud of shadow didn’t disappear—the thing inside remained hidden—but it was an opening, maybe her only chance.

  Using Gehan’s body to hide her movements, she flipped the dagger in her hand so she held the pointed tip. With a flick of her wrist she hurled the knife into the center of the blackness.

  There was a moment of absolute stillness. The circle emptied of sound, motion, scent, feel, no sensation at all for a heartbeat of time. And then an ear-shattering screech filled the silence.

  Neeka screamed. She dropped to her knees, hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block the sound. Through eyes watering from pain, she looked up to see Gehan braced, his hands in front of him, the tips of his fingers glowing. He ignored the shrieks, never flinched, his entire being focused on the monster. The glow on his fingertips expanded to fill his hands. The light got brighter, blinding in the dark night.

  She dropped her gaze to the grass and could see the shadow of Gehan above her. She watched the shadow, still with her hands clamped over her ears. The shrieking grew louder. Black spots swam through her vision. The light in the circle increased until it was bright as daylight.

  Her stomach churned as the pain in her head got worse. She had to clench her eyes closed when the light in the circle got too bright to bear. Her chest started to ache.

  And then she felt the tug.

  Oh gods, the monster was pulling at her soul. She had no defense against it any more. Not that her defenses had ever been strong enough. But now she was helpless. She didn’t want to die like this, not now when she had so much to live for.

  And the goddess. Who would protect her?

  The weight of the Soul Eater’s powers drove her to the ground. She crawled away from it, from Gehan, to the edge of the circle. Her eyes narrowed to slits against the glare of Gehan’s spell, her body screamed in pain. Then her fingers brushed against one of the circling power stones.

  With her hand pressed against the stone, the pain dimmed. It didn’t vanish, but the pull from the Soul Eater wasn’t so strong and the shrieking almost bearable. She braced her upper body against the stone, took a deep breath, steeling herself against the nausea rolling through her stomach. If she could get the charm outside the circle, beyond the reach of the Soul Eater, then she could die knowing she’d upheld her oaths as a guardian. She only hoped Baudowa would come for his daughter.

  She probed gently at the spells Gehan had set up around the circle. They were strong enough to shock her if she tried to reach through them. She swallowed, glanced back at Gehan. The light had grown so bright around him it blocked him and the Soul Eater from view. If she breeched the circle, would it distract him? Did she have a choice?

  She gripped the vial and jerked, breaking the chain around her neck. She stared at the glowing pink and gold charm for a moment, prayed to every god she could think of that it would be safe. Second thoughts tugged at her. What if the magic in the vial wouldn’t allow it to go through the wards? What if it was somehow damaged?

  She turned back to Gehan and the Soul Eater again, covering her eyes with her free hand to try to see into the glare. The pull of the monster was getting stronger, despite the power of the stone she leaned on. Did that mean Gehan was losing? A tear trickled down her cheek. Not Gehan, she thought. Please don’t let it have him.

  She had an instant to regret her mistakes, coming here now and bringing the monster to him, not coming here sooner and letting him know how she felt. Then she gripped the charm, said one final prayer, and tossed it beyond the stone circle.

  It landed with a soft thump in a clump of grass.

  Neeka smiled, relieved. Now she could let go.

  But a flickering of light from the vial caught her attention. It pulsed from pink, to purple, to blue, boiling and bubbling through colors, spreading like spilled water onto the grass.

  No!

  The vial had broken. The primordial essence of Baudowa’s daughter spilled out onto the ground.

  Chapter Seven

  Tears filled Neeka’s eyes. After all their work, their struggle, the lost lives…Gehan would die, she would die, and it would all have been for nothing. The goddess was dead.

  No, not nothing, she told herself, because at least the Soul Eater could never have the goddess now. She was beyond its reach.

  But as Neeka watched, the bubbling colors expanded instead of fading away into the soil. The iridescence flowed through more rainbow shades, now yellow, red, orange. Blue and green. Violet and black. Then white and gold and silver, like the sun sparkling on a stream. There was beauty and power there. But the colors contorted into shapes she couldn’t bear to look at, things that made her mind balk.

  She turned away and her gaze fell on Gehan. The light around him had dimmed so she could see him again. His shoulders were hunched, his head bowed. Beyond him, the dark shadow of the Soul Eater was smaller. But it wasn’t gone. And Gehan looked about to collapse.

  She crawled back to him, dragging herself to her knees beside him. He swayed and she gripped his thigh, trying to brace him. She didn�
��t have much strength left, but what she had was for him.

  She looked up at him, caught the sadness in his eyes as he looked down at her. Her throat ached.

  “I love you,” he said, his voice barely audible above the still screaming monster. He dropped to one knee beside her, unable to stand any longer.

  She leaned in close and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you, too,” she murmured in his ear. “I’m sorry I brought this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner.”

  He reached up and cupped her cheek. “No regrets,” he said, and turned back to face the monster.

  The blackness grew, even as Gehan’s light faded. She felt the monster tugging at her again. There was nothing she could do about it anymore—she barely had the strength to stay conscious, much less resist the Soul Eater’s pull.

  She felt a tingling along her spine and thought it must be the final battle of her soul against being dragged into the monster. But the feeling was strangely soothing. If this was how she would die, maybe it wasn’t so bad.

  The sensation spread through her tired limbs, coating her skin like warm water. She sighed, glad after all the pain the end was this peaceful.

  But the death of the other guardians hadn’t been peaceful. Their deaths had been horrible and terrifying.

  She lifted her head, saw Gehan’s eyes wide and startled. He looked over his shoulder and his expression froze. She followed his gaze.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting—some other horror to rival the Soul Eater maybe. What she saw stole her breath.

  Beauty so pure it made her want to weep; a light so serene her heart ached; power so intense the hair on the nape of her neck stood up.

  The circle stones exploded outward. Pearlescent light filled the clearing. And then blackness so deep, Neeka thought she’d gone blind. She groped in the darkness for Gehan’s hand. Found it strong and warm. His arm circled her shoulders, pulling her close. They clung to each other in the darkness, waiting.