Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

Dyna hit the ground with a breathless cry. She spat blood on the ground, holding her aching stomach. She wasn’t sure if the spy was indeed teaching her, or if this was punishment for trying to escape. Len backed up so she could stand. Lights danced in Dyna’s vision as she rose to her feet, swaying. She was grateful for the old leathers they gave her to change into. For once, she felt a little like her old self.

“I think she’s had enough, Len.” Novo lay in the grass nearby with his arms crossed behind his head, cavalier hat tipped over his eyes.

“No, I haven’t,” Dyna panted as she wiped her bloodied nose. Her body ached with the new bruises she felt forming but her adrenaline was on a high. She wanted to hit and keep hitting. Needed to get out all the pent up pressure painfully building in her chest. “Again.”

Len threw a kick. Dyna dodged it and swung a fist for her kidney. But Len was too fast. She leaped in the air, catching Dyna around the neck with her legs, and flipped her. Her face smashed into the ground again. She lay there, gasping for the air that had been wrenched out of her. The dust stinging her eyes made them water.

“If you kill her, the Master will be angry,” Novo chuckled. “Learn to pull your punches, love.”

Len curled her lip, and spat a word that could only have been an insult.

Dyna forced herself on her knees. “What does that mean?”

“Pathetic. Slow like baby.”

“I’d learn how to move faster if you taught me how, instead of merely thrashing me.” Dyna pushed herself to stand, holding her glare. “Or is violence the only use you have to your master?”

Len bared her teeth in a hiss. Before Dyna could blink, the woman’s boot shot out. It snapped her head back and the taste of copper burst in her mouth. If she fell, she never felt it. The next thing Dyna knew, she was being carried away as her limp feet dragged behind her.

“You have a knack for provoking her, lass.” Novo had one of her arms hanging over his shoulder as he half carried and half lugged her across camp.

The buzz of muffled voices and movement swarmed around her as tents were being broken down.

“It wasn’t me,” he announced to whoever must have questioned their appearance. “A casualty of Len’s.”

A chorus of chortles followed in their wake, making her throbbing face burn.

Novo helped her stumble into Tarn’s tent. He sat in a chair by his bed with a book. His idle gaze flickered to her battered face, with no reaction, and returned to reading. The dim candlelight cast half of his face in shadow, hiding most of his scar. Novo carefully placed her at his feet and backed out of the tent with a bow.

After glancing at another page, Tarn closed his book. “Did you learn anything?”

“Only that you’re a sadist,” she growled weakly. Every part of her body ached.

The sharper pains throbbed in her jaw where the kick landed. She sucked in a sharp hiss through her teeth at what breathing did to her ribs. Nothing felt broken, but every agonizing movement sent tears to her eyes.

The smell of food coming from his table made the emptiness chew through her stomach, and her throat felt coated with sand. Heavy exhaustion was the most prevailing feeling. Every bit of strength was gone, like someone had pulled on the end of her thread and kept pulling until she was completely unraveled.

At least she was alive.

“The ability to endure pain is a warrior’s true weapon,” he said. “Master that and nothing will ever hurt you.”

“Is that what you call training? You knew she would beat me.” Dyna sniffed, getting a coopery whiff of the dry blood that coated her nostrils. “What happened to not allowing me to be touched?”

“Len only strikes with purpose.”

“Is that what you taught her? To strike and kill with purpose? You cannot answer everything with violence,” she hissed. “It’s senseless.”

“Violence is the way of humanity, and with time, you will come to understand it’s the only language it speaks.” Tarn set the book on the bedside table, his wintery eyes holding hers. “I don’t kill without a reason, Maiden. Each death serves a purpose, like removing their nauseating existence. The problem with some people is that they’re breathing.”

She let out a disgusted scoff. “Are people so worthless that you don’t care what lives you end?”

Tarn only looked amused by the question, as if her anger enticed him. The candlelight haloed his white-blond hair as he canted his head. “Only the strong rise above the weak, Maiden. And if they died, it’s because they lacked the strength to live.”

She limply shook her head at all the countless deaths he must be responsible for. “Killing must come easy to you. Saving people, that is more difficult. The day you come across someone you wish to save and cannot is the day you will truly feel powerless.”

His gaze became glacial, his expression turning sharp. She couldn’t hold its intensity and dropped her gaze.

“Look at me.” Tarn leaned forward, and his cold fingers took her chin, forcing her to meet those ice-blue orbs he had for eyes. She couldn’t look at him without holding her breath or feeling goosebumps prickle her skin. And when he spoke, his voice sent a cascade of shudders down her spine. “You’re so far out of your depth you fail to see what this world does to the weak. One day, it will crush you, and I wonder what that will do to your sweet, innocent heart.”

Dyna’s knees trembled where she knelt, her bruised hands curling into fists on the hard ground. He must enjoy this position, of having her kneeling and prostrated at his feet. “I question if you even have a heart when your soul must be black with all the people you’ve killed,” she said.

“When someone attempts to take my life, I won’t hesitate to take theirs. Survival demands more than blood. It demands souls.” His thumb grazed the small split on her bottom lip she hadn’t known was there. It stung, making her wince. “If you want to live, you must pay the price. And most do.”

She yanked her chin away. “That’s evil.”

“No one is ever purely evil, as no one is ever purely good. We all have darkness in our hearts, Maiden. Even you.” He lifted a goblet from the bedside table.

“I will never be like you.”

“Because you think you would never take a life?” Tarn smirked, swishing the contents in his goblet before taking a drink. She swallowed back her thirst. “You pretend to be standing on some moral high ground from which you judge me, but the truth is when danger is put between yourself or another you care for, you will act. It’s an instinct we all have, or did you forget our first meeting outside the grove when you lifted a sword and aimed at me?”

The memory made her heart jolt. She could only glare at him even as it sprouted a chill through her chest.

“To protect your Guardians, your only thought was to stop me—permanently.” He leaned forward until all she could do was stare into his pale eyes. “And the only way to do that was to kill me.”

Dyna couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t pretend her only goal had been to run him through. Now the very thought of murdering anyone churned her stomach. She wasn’t a killer, but he was right. In that moment, she wanted to end him out of sheer desperation.

To know she was capable of that frightened her.

Tarn crossed one leg over the other and propped his elbow on the armrest, leaning his chin against a fist. “You assess what I have done and paint me the villain. But when everything you treasure is stolen from you, your pure little Maiden heart will become cold and full of hatred. Revenge will be all you want and the only thing that will ever bring you joy is watching your enemies corrode at your feet.”

Behind him hung the flag with the Ice Phoenix crest. She knew nothing else about Tarn other than what he’d revealed and what she’d learned. He was a descendant of Jökull—and the Azure King’s son. Now that she met the man everyone feared, studied the long scar across his face that was clearly intended to end his life, she suspected the King wanted him dead for more than what he had done.

“Is that your plan?” she asked. “To have Azure corrode at your feet?”

The candlelight illuminated half of Tarn’s face as he looked up at the flag. “The phoenix is a curious sort of creature. They are immortal only in the sense that when they die, it obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. Years ago, my predecessor unintentionally brought about my existence. Unfortunately, he also saw that I was born simply to annihilate him and his reign. And from its ashes, I will bring forth mine.”

A cold premonition settled on her skin. She wondered what King Lenneus had done to incur Tarn’s wrath.

“Is it true what they say?” she dared to ask next. “Did you kill the Duke of Zircon?”

It was the reason for his bounty.

A chill seemed to move through the air around him, making the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Do you want the truth?”

She nodded, though her insides twisted.

Tarn sat back in his seat, his eyes like chips of ice. “The duke’s life was cut tragically short when I put my sword through his mouth, so the last thing he experienced was drowning in his own blood.”

Dyna dropped back on her heels at the gruesome reply. “Why?”

“For the lies his mouth had spoken.”

She recalled the rumor against Tarn’s mother. The one of her being bedded by the Duke and it led to strife with his father, Lord Morken, Earl of Old Tanzanite Keep. The only way the king could appease the slight was to give him the land of the Troll Bridge. And it led to the death of his whole town.

“What lies?” she whispered because he implied there was more than one.

A slight smirk turned up the corner of Tarn’s mouth. He went to his table to serve himself more wine. “If you wish for me to share, then I expect an exchange. Why do you fear the dark?”

Dyna glowered at the question. She tried and failed to stand on her aching legs. He merely watched as she used the armrest of his chair to push herself to her feet. But her legs felt like soggy bread, and she stumbled into his chair. Immediately, she wanted to get back up, yet the warm seat had her body sagging into it.

“You panicked the first night when the candles went out.” He sat in the chair at his table. “Then in the woods, you begged for the light.”

She raised a hand to her face. It shook from exhaustion and pain, but the old echo of fear stirred somewhere in her chest. He didn’t need to know about her past. The man would probably find a way to use it against her. “I was merely startled to wake in a place I didn’t recognize.”

Tarn looked at her with his eerie gaze that said he didn’t believe her.

She needed to evade his ire, and try to escape this camp unscathed. The only way she would survive him was to keep her usefulness. He wanted her map, and she felt the demand hovering over her head. But if he found out the journal never had it in the first place, he would probably do away with her nauseating existence, too.

“Why am I here?” Dyna asked, bracing for his response. Her stomach promptly chose to let out a loud rumble. She flushed at the twitch of his mouth.

“At the moment, to see you fed.”

She salivated at the mention of food, but the distance between her and the table felt like a mile. Any attempt to walk would end with her sprawled on the ground and probably unconscious. The need for sleep was already sinking into her bones.

“Then you can wash off the filth,” Tarn added as he frowned at her appearance.

It was then she noticed the edge of the wooden tub partially hidden by a privacy screen. Steam swirled on the surface. The very thought of taking a wonderfully hot bath had her aching body begging for it. But it also put her instantly on the defense.

“You drew me a bath?” she asked warily, not sure what he was planning now.

“After the day you’ve had, I think it was well earned, don’t you? Plus, you’re beginning to smell.” At her glare, he arched an eyebrow. “I don’t plan to be here while you bathe, if that’s your concern. Unless you require assistance.”

“No,” Dyna growled.

Tarn might have smirked, but he turned away before she could see it. Was he teasing her? All of this unusual consideration made her suspicious, but she was too tired to dissect what it meant.

Dyna took one heavy blink, and in the next, Tarn placed a cup with water on the bedside table for her. Then a plate with bread, cheese, and half a pear. Perhaps he wasn’t as menacing as she thought. Then again, he most likely drugged the food, but Dyna didn’t care. She downed the cool water, reveling as it slid down her throat. She hardly noted it didn’t taste odd this time before tearing into the food. It didn’t take more than two minutes to scarf it all down. By the end, her body sank into the backrest. She waited for him to demand the map, but Tarn wasn’t even paying attention.

He stared blankly at the journal on the table, his breathing a little uneven. The dim candlelight exposed the sweat on his forehead. She recognized the signs of dependence on remedies and the effects it created in the body. The bitter scent of herbs reached her nose before she heard the sound of more wine pouring.

She wobbled to her feet. “I’ll take that bath now, if you don’t mind.”

Tarn stepped out without further prompting. The food and desire to be clean provided enough strength to stagger for the tub. She confirmed he wasn’t coming back before undressing. It took a couple tries to get her shaky fingers to remove the straps of armor. Hissing through her teeth, Dyna carefully peeled it off, trying not to graze her wounds. She stepped in the water to find it perfectly hot and steaming. It wouldn’t surprise her if it was enchanted as well. With a groan, she sank into its delightful warmth and laid her head back on the rim. It was an unexpected luxury out in the wilderness, but it made her want to cry from the much needed relief it brought.

Her heavy eyes drooped and her mind drifted. But real rest wouldn’t come when the wards droned like a nest of hornets. Tarn had turned his tent into a fortress. For all his bravado, most of the spells were for his protection or used for that purpose, like Witch’s Brew.

Once he had the Unending, he wouldn’t need any of it.