“Raithe!” Felaf called quietly from somewhere in the temple, pulling me from my torpor. I wasn’t in Pipirima, my hometown village. I was here, in the royal city’s temple that was now under attack.
“I’ve got the seer and the talisman,” I muttered back to her, shifting Gregorios in my arms. “Get who you can to safety. Meet back at the sky?—”
The sudden feeling of a blade sliced through the backs of my knees. I groaned, staggering from the flash of pain. To anyone else, the blow would have been debilitating.
I searched frantically through the hazy smoke, but there was no sword to be found in my vicinity. Not even a person to wield one.
“Raithe?” Gregorios questioned, coughing into his sleeve.
Someone was cleverly using the cover of the blast to try and attack me.Me, a guardian. I listened for the parrying footsteps or a nearby heartbeat, only I couldn’t detect anyone beyond the chaos of the crowd.
Recalling where we were in the temple from memory, I limped with Gregorios toward a wall. The slash at my legs hadn’t entirely rendered me immobile, but until it started healing, it was enough to slow me. Once I set the seer down, I unsheathed my shimmering Athenian blades. Their familiarzingtickled my ears as I gripped the pommels tightly, bracing for anyone stupid enough to attack me again.
Out of nowhere, another force, sharp and stinging, made contact with my shoulder. Vexed, I hissed out a curse. No harm would come to Gregorios. Not on my watch.
It was like fighting blind.
I slashed my jagged blades in a circle around me, but no contact was made. “Coward,” I barked into the fumes that smoldered us. Gregorios’s coughing intensified. I could hold my breath for nearly an hour, my lungs capable of expelling most of the smoke, but I had to get him out of herefast.
The person attempted another jab at my ankles, and I finally knew where to target. I crisscrossed my blades and pierced the air in front of me. Ifeltthem make contact with something—presumably flesh—but still, I didn’t hear or see anything. I swiped repeatedly, thrashing in frustration, until finally a body appeared before my eyes. As though the person I had beenfighting wasinvisiblethis whole time and not simply concealed by the smoke.
I waited, poised to strike in case there were others. No one else came for us. I momentarily studied the body of my attacker—or what remained of him. The blades—coupled with my strength—had cleaved through him like paper. Limbs and fragments of his body lay in a bloody mess at my boots. Crimson soaked the white fabric he’d been wearing.
How had I not seen or heard him through all that?
Questions for another time. I slid off his boots to check his feet for a mark. Sure enough, there it was. Once the chaos settled, I’d return with Alekko to bring this body back to the palace for further examination.
I lifted Gregorios and ushered us through a hidden corridor to safety, wherever we could find it.
Chapter 10
Raithe
“We don’t know much.Helene is unconscious in our dungeon, and our three Chosens are all safe,” Alekko shared later that night, thick arms braced along the table of the council room. On the opposite end sat Maryn, her two advisors, Gregorios, and Vesperah. “All four talismans are accounted for, with the royal topaz secured by our guardians in its secret location.”
“And there was an apostate who somehow evaded guardian senses entirely, managing to injure me,” I added with a bit of annoyance.
“We must stick to the facts,” Maryn stated. “Not entertain wild ideas when you were likely hallucinating half of it.”
Two of Maryn’s most trusted guards, Barto and Chessah, stood smugly behind her. They gloated whenever they were allowed in important meetings such as this, which was regrettably more often than Felaf and I were.
Barto was built thick, both outwardly and inwardly. I was convinced he purposefully chose to wear uniforms too small to show off his obnoxious bulk. His eyes blazed with resentment in my direction, for he had yet to beat me in the sparring ring. The only way Felaf and I could participate in training with the otherguards was by removing our talismanic ring. Without the topaz, we were powerless.
Even without access to my abilities, I wiped the floor with Barto’s face every time. It was no secret that both he and his sister, Chessah, desired to be guardians. Most guards hopelessly dreamed of being Chosen one day, but only two guardians could exist in a territory at a time. Chosens were selected for life—there were no demotions or retirement. There was only death by natural, lawful, or nefarious means.
For a court to order the execution of, or kill by any means, one of its own Chosens required a unanimous vote from its barons or baronesses and all other Chosens of Gaianos.
“I wasn’t hallucinating,” I said calmly. “My wounds may have already healed, but for a while I couldn’t see the person who attacked me.”
“Likely because it was, oh, I don’t know, dark and filled with smoke?” Chessah cocked her smooth, shaved head at me and snickered. She and her brother didn’t care how obvious their lust for becoming Chosen was, a trait shared with the queen regent. Perhaps that was what bonded the three of them.
“Unfortunately, Raithe, I cannot speak to this,” Gregorios said. His lungs still wheezed from the smoke inhalation. “I heard nothing.”
“Seems to be the theme these days.” Maryn scoffed at him. Such disrespect for a Chosen was unseen anywhere else in the realm. I didn’t know her advisors well, but I couldn’t understand what had made the barons select her over them to reign as regent.
“There were seven casualties from the blast—all acolytes, due to their proximity to it—but we did not find the man you described,” Alekko said. “No, uh, dismembered body parts were recovered.”
I forced my simmering frustration to cool. I was certain I hadn’t imagined the interaction.
