Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

Von shielded his eyes from the sunlight streaming into Sorren’s tent. Elon stood at the entrance, the bright sun gleaming behind his silhouette. He was always well informed of the activity in the camp. No doubt Bouvier had reported to him what occurred. Elon’s amber eyes fell on Dyna, communicating with nothing but a look.

She rose and walked outside.

“Commander.” Elon glanced at him next, indicating he was to come as well.

Beneath the table, Yavi squeezed his hand. Von curled his fingers around hers in reassurance. This wasn’t to penalize him for the attack on the lieutenant. Tarn was most likely annoyed that he hadn’t returned promptly.

They had been in the middle of discussing the mission to Beryl Coast before they were interrupted with the trouble regarding Dyna and Yavi. To find his wife beaten, he had thought of nothing else but unleashing his rage on Haran. But Von hadn’t expected Tarn to follow. It was so unusual of him to leave his tent for any occurrence that held no importance to him.

Von followed Elon outside and Dyna trailed behind.

“How are you fairing?” he asked as they walked through camp.

“Well enough.” Elon’s complexion hadn’t fully regained its color, but he didn’t show any sign of pain. He may be pushing through it because he worked for pay.

“Rest while you can,” Von said. “We will be leaving soon.”

Elon nodded. He led them past Tarn’s tent to the wooded area behind it before slipping away. There, the master sat on a boulder beneath the shadow of a tree with Len at his side. Haran knelt in front of him, his head hanging low. The position drudged up an old memory Von quickly shoved aside.

Well, he wasn’t looking forward to this. He hoped Dyna had a strong stomach.

“Pardon the delay, Master.” Von bowed. “I was seeing to the Maiden.”

“Get rid of it,” Tarn ordered, his attention fixed on Dyna.

She sucked in a sharp breath and Von noticed then, Haran was already dead.

His face was blue from the lack of air, his wide eyes bloodshot from ruptured vessels. A dark purple indentation marked his throat. Dyna’s punch wasn’t severe enough to break his windpipe. There was only one person Von knew who was capable of this attack.

He hooked his arms beneath Haran’s armpits and dragged him away. Two Raiders walking by stopped short at the sight of their dead lieutenant. He beckoned them over.

“Bury him in the woods,” Von said as he laid the body down. “Do it properly with the last rites of his beliefs. Then remind every Raider: touch the Maiden and consider your life forfeit.”

When he returned, Tarn said, “Find another to fill the post. Be it a subservient one this time.”

But there may not be another Raider willing to be lieutenant. Abenon had been mauled a month ago, and Haran held the position for less than a day.

“Why did you kill him?” Dyna asked, looking sick.

“For disobeying my command,” Tarn said.

“He hit me, and I defended myself. He didn’t need to die for it.”

Von noticed she withheld the fact that he saved her life. Not that he would mention it either, or she would end up a slave, too.

“Well, then. How did she fare?” Tarn asked him, noting her battered knuckles. “She was injured earlier.”

“I believe Dalton tended to it,” Von said, not expecting the question. “Otherwise, she held up her own during the confrontation.”

“Well enough to be of any merit?”

Dyna rolled her eyes.

“I would say so, Master. She bears some instruction, it would seem.”

Tarn tilted his head. “If he had been anticipating that, things may have ended differently.”

She frowned. “Are you saying it was luck?”

“I’m saying let’s see how well you do against an opponent who is ready for you.” Tarn glanced at Len, and she bowed in compliance at his silent order. “Go and see if you can learn something.”

Von couldn’t help staring at Tarn this time. This was the last thing he expected.

“You’re going to have her train me?” Dyna asked incredulously. “Why?”

Tarn came to stand before her. She planted her feet, though she couldn’t help leaning back to look up at him. Their height difference was substantial. “Consider it a privilege, Maiden. Inadequacy is unacceptable here. Strengthen your body as you have your knowledge, and perhaps the next Raider will think twice before touching what belongs to me.”

A shocked scowl crossed her face and she hissed. “I’m not property, Tarn. Least of all yours.”

Len yanked her away before she could say more.

Von normally knew Tarn so well, he could see through his subtle expressions and statements to his true intentions. But even this left him confused. What was the purpose of teaching her how to fight when it could be a hindrance later?

Tarn turned to him. “Prepare whatever you need for the excursion to Beryl Coast.”

Bouvier had arrived last night with new information regarding the ancient temple ruins there. A Relic Hunter was leading an excavation in search of a Sacred Scroll, so they were pressed for time.

“Yes, Master. However, I suggest giving the excavation two more days to dig. It will save us the effort of doing it ourselves. Then we will arrive to relieve them of the scroll.”

Von said it for his team’s sake. Elon was hardly back on his feet and it took Bouvier nearly two weeks to ride back. They needed time to recover.

“Very well.” Tarn headed back into his tent, and sat at his table. “Meanwhile, send someone to investigate the grove for any signs of her Guardians. When he returns, take all the spies with you to the ruins. I don’t want to risk losing this scroll.”

“Yes, Master.” But Von didn’t understand why they were still searching for the Scroll of the Unending. Tarn now had the map that would lead him straight to Mount Ida where the Unending Tree grew. He also seemed to have lost interest in the Moonstone.

“What of the journal?”

“Benton insists Dyna’s Essence is needed to open it.” Which meant removing her bangles.

Tarn’s jaw worked as his fingers drummed on the table. “Have her join me for dinner at the end of the day.”

Von bowed. Once outside in the sunlight, he took a deep breath. The chilly breeze cooled the sweat on his forehead, but it didn’t carry away the cloud of confusion now circling his head.

What belongs to me.

A shudder passed through Von’s chest. Was Tarn claiming ownership over Dyna as simple property, or was this part of the prediction of the Seer’s divination? No. Tarn knew the warning.

Since they left Azurite, he had no interest in women and didn’t seek any out. But Von sensed Tarn’s attention on the Maiden was different. He was constantly making plans, and Von wasn’t privy to all of them. Which only made his apprehension grow because he knew in the end, it would be Dyna who would suffer.

The poor girl had been through enough.

The Raiders passing by lowered their heads when they saw him and kept on their way. By now, news of what happened to Haran had spread through the camp. He reached Sorren’s tent in time to see Yavi limp out. The sight of her beaten appearance made him wish Haran was alive simply so he could kill him again.

When no one was looking, Von lifted Yavi in his arms and carried her into the woods.

“What are you doing?” she asked. It was a tired question more than a protesting one. Her arms wrapped around his neck. “Do you plan to carry me all the way to my tent? A convenient excuse, no doubt.”

“Any excuse to spend time with my wife is a good excuse,” Von said as he trekked along the perimeter of the veil.

Yavi rested her on his shoulder. She said nothing, but heard her crying softly.

“I should have been there,” he said. “This shouldn’t have happened to you.”

She shouldn’t have been taken from her family in the first place. This wasn’t the life Yavi was meant to live, even if it brought her to him. All he wanted was for her to be happy, and she would never have that here.

But he was a stone stuck in Tarn’s foundation. Buried so far deep, there was no digging him out. Alhaya, she had said to him in a moment of anger. But Yavi was right. He was eternally chained to the Master in ways far more dire than she knew. But he wouldn’t let that be her fate, too.

Von’s chest tightened. He knew he had to send Yavi away soon. She cried every time they fought about it. He wished he could go with her, but walking away from his Master would incur the wrath of the fates.

“What was your life like before me?” she asked softly. “Before Tarn. You’ve never truly spoken about it.”

Von sighed at the thought of Troll Bridge. All he knew, who he once was, the life he had lived, it all ended in that place the day the Horde overran their town.

“Tarn has always been there,” Von confessed. He ducked under a branch, careful to avoid Yavi getting swiped. “My father served his father, and I was expected to do the same.”

“But you weren’t a slave.”

“No.” Von looked out at the rows of tents past the trees. He hadn’t been a life-servant then, but he had felt chained nonetheless. “We were both squires training to be knights. It was a hard regiment, for our lives truly depended on how well we could swing a sword.”

“Because of the trolls.”

He nodded. The Bridge was harsh, and the winters were brutally cold, but it was also when the trolls would hibernate. As soon as the temperatures rose, so did their fear because they knew the beasts would wake. “No matter how hard they trained us, many would die every year fighting back those beasts.”

Von still remembered how his mother would weep at his bedside every night, praying to the God of Urn for his protection. And instead of being a grateful son, he would resent her for thinking that words would have any power to protect him from an existence they forced him into.

It was a life of constant fear.

“Every summer the squadron would ride out on missions to try to find the source of the trolls. Where they lived, how to kill them. We tried and failed constantly to control their growing population. Every year our numbers dwindled.”

They would trudge back to town covered in troll guts and blood, carrying the rotting bodies of their comrades. The stench was so embedded in his memory that it was something he would never forget.

“I had been so aggrieved for being forced to leave Old Tanzanite Keep to live in that wretched place,” he said. “I hated how devoted my father and mother were to the Morken House. Hated their zealot beliefs of duty. Above all, I hated that I didn’t have control over my life that could end at any moment.”

Yet speaking about it now drudged up an odd nostalgia. A piece of him had remained in that place among the dead.

“One winter, Lord Morken finally had a thirty foot wall built from lumber around the town, and at last, we felt somewhat safe,” Von said. They reached the woods near their old tent and he carefully set her down.

A breeze rolled through the trees, making them rattle and hiss. They stretched toward the sky like brittle bones.

“But you weren’t,” Yavi whispered. The passing wind wove through her hair and lifted it against the sunlight where it turned a shade he hadn’t seen in a very long time. He was hit with the memory of a body on the ground, blood soaking through streams of golden brown curls. “Von?”

He flinched away from Yavi’s touch on his arm. “Pardon, love. It’s… hard to speak about.”

She looked up at him forlornly. Would she think differently of him if she learned Azurite could have been safe if he had honored his duty instead of running from it?

Yavi embraced him, burying her face in his chest. “It must have been awful to witness everyone you know die. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He closed his eyes. Yavi tightened her arms around him and at the moment, she was all that held him together. She suddenly jolted with a yelp. A shocked smile crossed her features and her eyes welled as if she had received the best news.

“What is it?” he asked.

Yavi dropped her head against his chest. “I merely felt … better. Thank the gods you’re still here with me.”

Von kissed her temple and held her to him as they swayed to some unheard song. He felt her joy and her relief. Whatever had made her happy, he wanted to share that with her.

“I must return,” he reluctantly said after a while.

She tightened her hold. “Stay.”

“I must see to the preparations for Beryl Coast.”

Yavi glowered up at him. “It will be another pointless mission, Von. You spend months chasing rumors that for the most part turn out to be false leads. Why does he want this scroll if he already has Dyna?”

Von couldn’t answer because not even he knew. He’d always sensed Tarn’s plan went beyond simply being immortal.

“The Sacred Scrolls weren’t meant for this.” She shook her head, her face creasing with sorrow and he knew she was thinking of the life she lived before working as a linguist in libraries. It had been a source of pride for her.

He tucked a lock of Yavi’s soft hair behind her ear. “Do you hate me for taking you from your home?”

Tarn had ordered him to steal her away and Von didn’t give her a chance to say goodbye to her family. She refused to eat, and cried for days, slowly withering away. It chiseled at his hardened heart as he tried to comfort her. When he’d earned her first smile Von had felt something warm lit up inside of his chest. It wasn’t long before she owned him.

“I used to wish my ancestors were never acolytes of the temples,” Yavi murmured against his palm. “So it wouldn’t have led to my slavery hundreds of years later, but then I wouldn’t have met you.” Her hazel eyes lifted to his. “You’re my home now.”

“And you’re mine.” Von lifted her face to him and kissed her. She tasted of honey and cinnamon, that ever present wildflower scent of her hair making him feel they were standing in a meadow instead of a barren forest. “I will never tire of kissing these lips,” he breathed against her mouth. Trailing his nose along her cheek to her ear, Von slid a hand to the small of her back and pulled her closer. “Or the rest of you, for that matter.”

Yavi gave him a sly smile. “I should hope not.”

She took his hand and led him to the tent that was once theirs. No one was around to see, but he tugged her to stop.

“We can’t. Dyna might return.”

“She knows.” Her words were a splash of freezing water.

“Yavi!” he hissed under his breath, surveying their surroundings in case anyone heard.

She pulled him inside. “Don’t worry. Dyna promised to keep our secret.”

Von was past worried. He took her cousin’s life. And Dyna now knew the one thing that could get them both killed.