Mhaieiyu

  Arc 3, Chapter 17

  Breathe

  Emris’d drawn a sword exactly once in his life. There was just something about the grip, the stickiness of that used handle; its weightlessness; the silk of the edge as it passed the wind – or the resistance when the face of the steel struggled forward against the air. It all came off as wrong to the anatomy of that beautiful divination. It came across as an insult to imply the first Creation after the Saintess designed such a flawful device. Any other weapon seemed more logical, but the Celestials were only privy to offer him the one. They rapidly adjusted to his keenness for the tools he borned. It was wrong to disarm the poor boy so soon.

  Tygrith wasn’t. No, if Emris had the gall to show any kind of progress, the ruthless tutor would pull a triangular saber and reclaim his violent throne. This made the Guardian seem all the more helpless, and because the examiners were too lax, they only saw the obvious failure after the fact. Tygrith took a liking to this. The previous Guardian, the glorified Athena, had done him in in two years; an exemplary feat previously unknown. Forty-something years later, he could still take it out on the poor man.

  It was around this time Emris’ worth had been gauged as insufficient: proof of the Skyborn’s failed experiment. And now, a test was due, and could no longer be further postponed. The outcome should have been determined a mouth’s breath in thought. Few would bother to attend, of course. Few could endeavour to care.

  What a waste of time, was the opinion of all but a handful. The Skyborn didn’t think it mattered. Just look at what’s been learnt for the fact? Of course, the landfarers were uncommon to approve. They’d been getting slaughtered for a few decades now. It was a matter of time before they helped the Crimsons raid the Great Pillar of Sylvves, ripping the hive from within to usurp the untrained Guardian. Just how important was he, really?

  “Why aren’t I kept here, Borboris?” Emris, two tired rings under his eyes, raised an arm purpled by bruises to ask once, during a lecture.

  The shifty angel, a pair of little wings and a fairly luminous band idle atop his head, webbed his fingers together and struggled to answer. “Well, that’s, you see, you can’t… protect anyone, up here.”

  “Doesn’t this place need…” the young man stopped himself as his shoulder popped back into place, “... protecting too?”

  “Well, yes, but we have the… well, we have an army, you know? The landfarers do too, but… Well, they don’t have the most useful things against, well, Crimsoneers, you see.”

  Emris sharpened his eyes on the meek-seeming Swan. “Right, but they want me.”

  Borboris’ shoe slipped, the squeak of which displayed his clumsy response to the boy’s inquiry. “A-Ah, well, yes, but… If we kept you here, you see, your Guardianship would… sabotage this? Us?”

  “My…?”

  “See, your ancestor, well, yes, your first ancestor Kalazan, he was made with a uh… specific, yes, purpose in mind, right?” The awkward Swan snorted out a mix between a chuckle and a choke. “Aha, our dear, uh, Mother, she’s a bit of a silly maker, you see. Well, she didn’t foresee all this, clearly, or she’s… Well, Sir Kalazan won’t be too pleased with us if you, uhm, stick about, yes?”

  Emris brushed his neck, still sore from being thrown to the opposite end of the arena. “So I’m to understand that my ancestor’s going to intervene from me getting us all killed, for the purpose of keeping us safe? There are so many issues with… Isn’t that circular?”

  Borboris scratched his neck as well, his nails rubbing quite harshly. “Well, we try not to question our greats, but he died, ah, before any of us understood how this worked.” The chalk rolling between his fingers cracked. “The dead don’t learn.”

  Emris felt a headache come on, perhaps exacerbated from the time his brains saw the light. “And how, exactly, are the dead an issue?”

  Borboris returned to the blackboard and scribbled away in their Celestial alphabet: square symbols wrapped by ones, twos and threes of disks, per the letter. “Your, ah, titleship, like Sin… it lives. As Belphegor dwells in Sloth, yes, our dear First lives in the Guardian’s very essence. He’ll have a lot to say about what you do, well, I assume.”

  The lag in Borboris’ speech motivated the impatient taps of Emris’ ink pen against the tabletop. “What if I just don’t listen?”

  The writing on the board stopped. “Ah, what was that?”

  The young man stood up, his pen sliding off his desk. “Kalazan is compromising our survival. If the enemy captures me——”

  “Emris,” a swollen, weighty call suddenly betrayed Borboris’ custom. “You cannot undermine the First.”

  The young Guardian was stunned for a moment, but the tone didn’t stop him. “If the enemy captures me, they’ll bring back the King. It defies everything he fought for.”

  Borboris turned back to face the Guardian; eyes pinkening, wide, like tiny blood moons with that faint shine that Celestials exuded. His small lips were smaller still. His paleness, common to his race, looked ill. “Emris.”

  This unpleasant display put a twitch in Emris’ eye. “What is wrong with you, Borboris…?”

  “There exist powers that we cannot comprehend. Ours, us… We are a chicanerous facsimile, meant to portray that same pinnacle. That pinnacle, which roamed long before us…”

  The comprehensible paranoia that overwhelmed the Swan before him left a disturbance in Emris’ mind. He understood, roughly, of what he spoke. With a softer voice, the Guardian said, “The Seraphs…?”

  Borboris, a hand draped on his face as if to cool a burn, brought the chalk back to the board and began to write again. Slowly, shakily. “Yes,” he said, “and we know so little about them.”

  The temptation to ask more seeped out of Emris’ spirit. He slumped back in his chair, not motivated to write down any more notes, and simply stared. Such unprovoked fear had to have a cause. His tutor’s warning crept into his mind. Perhaps it’s best not to upset the sleep of old.

  “Em, Em?” a spunky, fatherly voice called in, muffled by the door.

  Emris roused from his sleepless sleep, rings now cracked with wrinkles tarnishing his splendorous emerald eyes. That memory of a lesson years before had dragged back into his awareness. The exact reason why escaped him. Pulling his body back into motion, already ill with age as his legs hung heavy off the bed, Emris scratched his neck.

  “Yes,” the Guardian called back.

  “It’s test day, little dude.”

  “Yes.”

  “C’mon, liven up! You’ve worked your bones to bits just for this day! You’ll be right happy to kick some ass, I’d bet.” The energy in those words didn’t match the sheer pessimism he must’ve had for the Guardian. Surely, a hint of sarcasm poisoned those words. This was the same man who tossed him to the wolf the first day he met pain.

  His feet touched the ground and took his weight, the stress of death devouring his age. A human of his antiquity would start to feel stiff, and he felt no different. Of course, for a Celestial, this was unthinkable. But he wasn’t really a Celestial, was he? His fingers outstretched from his palms, turning them over to have a good look at his rugged textures.

  When he began his training, his skin was white, unmarred and soft; cotton. On that day, he felt the resistance of his callouses, scraping together like rough hide. He checked his ankle and confirmed it had fully recovered from its breakage. Emris’ nails pierced and slid down his arm, confirming how numb his nerves were. They hadn’t been damaged, of course. They too, like the rest of his flesh, restored briefly without his awareness — a testament to his Guardianship. It was his brain, long overwhelmed, that ignored the aches.

  Emris proceeded through the door, surprised by his willingness. This day was long overdue. His body walked for him, and he tried his best to forget his thoughts. There was no chance he’d endure Tygrith’s strength, less so overcome him. He shushed his mind before he remembered too clearly what awaited him. The underperformer knew his wit wouldn’t stabilise to what was about to happen. He’d draw from his weariness to try and stay numb, but the threat against his life would blow him up with adrenaline. He’d know the exact moment he was put to death, and the year-long seconds before it.

  Two platinum-gold doors snored open, meeting their limit with a powerful thump. The air within was cold. Emris knew his nerves were beginning to wake. Of course, the sun was just overhead, beaming in through a dome of glass at the top of the thirty foot ceiling, turning and rounding into it like the radius of a black hole. The glass was not a perfect dome; it veined with lines of gold that separated panels, focusing the sunlight and spreading it out beautifully in rays that coveted the sands of the arena.

  The chatter among the bleachers abounded tenfold of what his usual sessions bore, with a few dozen Swans and the odd Hawk attending. On the adjacent lateral wall, higher from the rest and past a pane of clear crystal, a special assortment of thrones overlooked the scene. Atop them sat a number of Celestial aristocrats: three Swans, a Hawk whose embrace he knew and the tribunal, consisting of the Skyborn Major and his subject Archangels—Principalities—ready to cast their votes.

  Emris’ eyes finally dropped to meet the icon of his reckoning. A begrudging, slovenly old beast whose grace had fallen unfathomably. The young Guardian vacillated between fight or flight, his rationale urging him to make a runner. Nearby Celestials must’ve noticed his hesitation and crept toward him, urging him down the stairs, and earning him an uproar of excitement from the audience. His every step was voluntary. The Guardian’s legs only moved from being forced to. Nothing compelled him to make this fight happen. He already knew what his fate would be, and now, amid the hollers of the angels, he felt like a gladiator on his final spar before retirement – his history a long chronicle of failures.

  Emris’ toes met the fine powdery sand, enjoying its rough textures for perhaps the final time. Arbitrary and mundane things suddenly felt a distant luxury. The flatness and cold of his room floor, would he feel that again? The taste of wine and peppers, of ovine meat? Would his lips touch water ever more?

  His steps came to an end as he reached his designated spot on the field. The slumped frame of Tygrith creaked some as he came to stand, a twisted expression of relief plastered on his jaw. Emris had no doubt Tygrith would enjoy this.

  “I’ve had enough o’ yer pathetic arse. Are yer ears on straight, lad?” Tygrith snarled under a strained breath, feeling his back crack behind him.

  Emris gave him a wistful nod, putting his hands up in a practiced defensive pose; one he learned after years of conceptualising alone in his bedroom; of trial and gruesome error.

  “Och, alrighty. Put on a good show, eh?” Tygrith half mocked, half advised. His usual disinterested snarl withdrew into a perverse grin, his exposed teeth ushering the bloodshed that was to happen.

  A voice to shake the room overwhelmed all, quietening the onlookers. “Welcome, featherspawn, to the trial of the Fifty-Seventh Guardian, coordinated on behalf of our Supreme Grace and Skyborn Major, ______, and supervised by your very tribunal. We are to witness battle between our shield and his mentor to determine his worth as our and allkind’s protector from the forces of the King and wrongdoing as a whole. This trial has been authorised and may be interrupted only by our Lord, Victus blessed and willed.”

  This was the mouth of Thaumiel, Emris knew it.

  “Regardless of outcome, let us not forsake our dear Guardian. Praise he, who stands bravely to face the world. Praise he, who should become our warrior timeless: Victus’ favourite son, reincarnated.”

  The audience stood at once and cheered firmly, “Shield of old.”

  “Be forthcoming and honour your legacy.”

  “Guardian of us, Guardian of the Seraphim, Guardian against the King.”

  “Find, in your grace, the strength to ward us.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Kalazan be proud.”

  “Fight.”

  The first few seconds were nothing short of brutal.

  Tygrith donned his wings and charged at once, diving at Emris with a ready fist. Emris skimmed his knuckles only to be delivered by a swivelling leg. The force broke his hip bone in an instant, tarnishing Emris’ posture. A heavy hand strangled his bicep and dug blunt nails in, drawing blood, and whipped him away with a strike behind the palm. Emris rolled against the sand, kicking up dust and clogging his lungs. Disoriented, he didn’t realise how far he’d gone just from a slap.

  The crowds that surrounded were quiet, their fire snuffed a heartbeat from the fight’s start. Emris looked up at them, these Celestials that cringed and looked away as he bled on display. His vision doubled when Tygrith plucked him from the ground and cast his futile body up in the air. The glow of the Skyborn’s lips rivalled that of the sun, Emris noticed, before Tygrith caught him with his knuckles, splitting his face apart before crashing back on the floor.

  Emris tried breathing, but felt sand batter his throat. He pushed himself up on struggling arms and sniffed, but his nose was clogged with blood. Blood that was red and smelled of iron. Celestial blood wasn’t red. The crowd, already silent, were somehow more silent.

  Tygrith said something, but Emris didn’t catch on. A small hope was had in him, that the wolf might ruin his mind to spare him the feeling of his execution. Emris dug his hands in the sand. Mild coarseness, and the slightest damp beneath. That cool feeling rubbed off his fingertips. His hands massaged the ground placidly, understanding he was nobody to live this on. And so, with death looming, he set his cheek on the sand, and closed his eyes.

  Well, he spared Aquila of her own stubbornness.

  If he was to be judged, surely they’d understand.

  He saved one person, at least. The Fifty-Seventh Guardian saved one person, at least.

  One person.

  One person that he wished had taught him how to live.

  Emris was confident, so sure, so absolutely sure that had he been trained under her wings, he wouldn’t have failed today. He was so entirely, wholly sure of this. If only. If only they had common sense. If only they had decency. This Celestial vanity, this grace. If only they were true to their word and stayed sacred. How could they justify this? How could they find permission of Victus to do these things? How could any good Saintess permit this barbarity?

  It was to be said. Celestials were evil. What angels are these, that have taken his life from his right? What angels are these, that make life only to squish it underfoot? What angels are these, that don’t respect the very life their beloved Mother brought on? Did he count, in fact?

  Did he count, in fact?

  Well, Victus was the spawner of all things, but Emris hadn’t been spawned of her will. What was Emris’ position in this world? A subject of curiosity, an abomination of birth? Was this pain, this injustice, this supposedly approved horror a consequence of his nature? Was he being punished by that Mother? That Mother of Allkind?

  The damp grew, and he knew it. Fat, loathsome tears were dribbling from his eyes; blood from his ears, saliva from his lips. Why wasn’t he born as the rest? Why was he forsaken for existing? He clenched his eyes and braced the sand, his forehead pushing into it, using the plateau as his weeping cloth.

  But he was quiet.

  He kept quiet.

  And time went on, still. Time carried forth. Seconds became minutes and minutes piled high. His body ceased to ache. His senses confused. Perhaps he was dead? The roughness of sand limped into a softer touch. It was loose still, but it was soft. Ashen. Ashen, and it was cold. Just as much as before. When his hand stripped from beneath and dropped on the surface, it was hard. Non Newtonian.

  Emris picked himself up quickly then. His injuries didn’t bother him, but his surroundings were wrong. The sky was gone. The ambiance was dark and the colours shifted. Purple hues abounded. The ground was almost pink. The young Guardian spun around and kept his hands close. His feet juggled beneath him, too disorientated to know what this was and where to go to. His body was in pristine condition.

  “Hello?” Emris murmured, less shouted. His voice carried far, echoing in the distance. It took a long few seconds for it to recede into nothingness. “Aquila?”

  No answer came.

  Emris turned in a random direction and ventured, slowly. His steps were hesitant, fearing that at any moment he might fall into an abyss. It was hard to see far. It was hard to see more than a few steps ahead. Emris’ eyes were fixed on the ground. “Hello?!” he exclaimed, wincing at the nagging sound in his ears as his voice grew louder.

  “Pipe down,” an unfamiliar voice grumbled back from beyond his view.

  Emris stiffened, pivoting to understand the direction of the sound. In this ungodly place, voices echoed endlessly. “Who are you? Where am I?!”

  A shuffle came from his left, scattering in several directions. “I said pipe down, Fifty-Seven.”

  Emris focused his ears on the sound. He walked in the voice’s direction, or so he hoped. He jogged for a while, then sprinted. A swell in his stomach troubled his nerves. “Where are you?!”

  Something grabbed the back of his head, tossing him hard onto the ground. His body splayed like a pancake on the magenta ash floors. Before he could process who or what did this, a large, hairy foot dropped on his sternum, threatening to flatten his lungs.

  “You don’t hear too well, do you?” a miserable old man said, his voice carrying disturbance with every word.

  Emris looked at the foot, up the broad legs and the sculpted body it connected to. This person, built from the bones out with the kind of muscle only hinted at by the word ‘large’, needn’t apply his whole weight to crush the young Guardian like paste. “Wh—Who…?”

  The man perked his head up in surprise. His chin waved a curly mess of a brown beard; though there wasn’t a hair on his sun-browned head. “I had no idea a Guardian could be made deaf. You’ve enlightened me.”

  This voice—old, cold, and lethargic—chipped away at Emris’ sanity. He lacked the finesse and the wherewithal to escape this place. This place—wherever it was—felt suffocating.

  “... Seeing as you’ve said your piece,” the old foothold tightened against Emris’ chest, creaking toward collapse. “You’ve had your fill.”

  “Remove yourself from him, The Second. Your hazing is undue.”

  The woman’s hand clamped The Second’s shoulder, urging his gargantuan weight off Emris’ chest. “How do you figure that, then? I don’t want another brat to keep tabs on.”

  “Look,” she cast, bringing his eyes down to the boy again.

  The Second hadn’t paid tribute so much as to look at the new Guardian’s features. There, of his skin, the giant noticed the tenderness of living flesh. It was brighter than the muted colours of the Dreamscape; the colours blanketed upon its fallen residents. The hue of purple engulfed all — except Emris.

  “What are you doing here?” the giant growled, his foot crashing hard by Emris’ arm and its enviable brightness. The noise bounced off the walls of nothing and rang throughout and far.

  Emris, restless, shook and struggling to breathe, couldn’t budge his lips past their trembling. The giant had no desire to wait. He instead turned to the woman.

  “Fifty-seven,” the woman called, walking around and squatting beside the new Guardian, “your presence here is uncanny, but it’s a joy to meet my successor. You’re hurt, aren’t you?”

  Emris continued to tremble. The ease of her voice betrayed the power that couldn’t hide within. “What is this place…?”

  Fifty-six stood, taking in the undetailed view about her. “You lie among the dead, I’m afraid. But your place here isn’t right. Young Guardian, you are not one of us yet.”

  Emris’ shaking slowed to a halt. The embrace of these cold sands fatigued his existence — perhaps death was inviting him. “I’m neither dead nor Guardian.”

  “What did you say?” The Second’s voice was low, guttural, and like the rumble before a storm. His anger twisted into something more deep — hurt. A nerve had been stoked. He dug his fingers into Emris’ arm and yanked him up, much faster than the boy could respond well to. “Don’t ever deny what you are, you damned fool!”

  The warrioress flinched into action, grasping Emris’ other arm to better stabilise him. “He is right. You are a Guardian now, Fifty-Seven. Do not pretend otherwise.”

  “Spit on us again,” The Second snapped, his patience thin for his fury, “and I’ll toss you off into the void, mutt. Love it or hate it, you’re the Guardian now. Pick yourself up.”

  Fifty-six intervened, settling a subtle warning touch on The Second’s shoulder. “Despite your claim, you have saved a life, haven’t you?”

  Emris hadn’t the power to resist their uncounted strength, though his feet did not find their place. It’s as if his body had already given up. “I spared someone of their own senselessness,” he whispered.

  “A life saved still. How much could she have come to lose otherwise? We Guardians have many means of ward. Please, stand. It’s unfulfilling seeing my inheritance so defeated.”

  “Get your feet under you,” The Second commanded.

  His pull was fierce, impatient.

  Hers was gentle, firm.

  Emris was brought to stand, but his knees buckled beneath him. When will urged on, he felt the magnitude of his pains in the larger world, and thus he crumpled. Two Guardians—one ancient and the other his direct predecessor—looked between each other, struggling not to carry weight but the burden of Emris' faltering strength.

  The Second, raw of nerve as is, grumped off his load, not bearing the second-hand shame of the latest generation’s weakness. Fifty-six raised her eyes to him, now alone in uplifting the boy. “Bear on. The young must take from the old.”

  “Damn his soul. He’s a failure. Look at this man.” The Second prodded Emris’ chest, the force of which choked his breath. “Malleable. Susceptible. No wit or courage down to his essence. Let him be lost.”

  “Bear with us. We have not left a single Guardian unpolished ——”

  “I’m tired, Athena. Leave him. It looks like he’s about to be finished off anyhow.”

  The Second walked away into the amethyst mist, his silhouette the last of his essence to fade. Emris’ eyes that still endured pain lost vigour, his head falling in defeat. So this was his verdict? A pitiable Guardian indeed. He should welcome his fate and the taste of the ground, but Fifty-six, Athena, kept him hoisted.

  “Do not heed the words of the old all, Fifty-Seven. Some of us carry more weight than others. I’m sure The Second was and is dragged idle by countless peoples. He does not hate, he simply struggles. See under what he says,” Athena explained to the boy, acknowledging his self-judgement and challenging it. “Your worth is more, young Guardian. See to it that your strength is found.”

  “I have tried, Athena,” Emris whispered, his energy lost, defeat consuming him. “I have tried to be the Guardian I was asked to be. I cannot have Kalazan’s blood. I am no man. I am a thing. I am unworthy of your thoughts.”

  Athena watched the misery of the boy, filling her lungs with something-air and calculating how best to communicate her feelings. Instead, she heard the voice of a fourth approach.

  “Well, tired, are we? Isn’t that quaint. Would be nice to kick our feet back, wouldn’t it?”

  Emris lifted his head enough to catch the sight of the man who came. He was fairly young and rather frail-looking. His hair was frothy and curled, and all around he was reasonably handsome; an attire too common and silken to be deemed a soldier.

  “Thirty-eight,” Athena called, her tone narrowed on caution.

  He seemed a little indignant for sure, his lips made into a conceited smirk. “Yes, of course, we’re all numbers in here.” Thirty-eight swaggered by Emris and flicked at his forehead. “Get to walking, newbie. Kalazan isn’t too nice to slackers, and your track record is piss-poor. It’s nonexistent. You’ll have to earn your stay, and you can’t do that after you’re dead.”

  Emris exhaled a tired breath. “I did.”

  “Repeat that?”

  Emris dared raise his voice, which cracked under the weight of his predicament. “I said I did. I fought so hard. I fought so hard, and I worked tirelessly. I—I just wanted to survive. I was thrown in there, and I was made to fight over and over and over and over again! I couldn’t do it — I can’t do it! I can’t survive. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.”

  Emris became quiet after his outburst, feeling the pressure stacked upon him by both Guardians’ powerful gazes. The slick sound of close blinks irked his ears until, suddenly, a hand locked around his throat. Emris snapped onto Thirty-Eight’s fingers as he was brought up high, blurring his vision. Of all the terrible things done to him, Emris had never been suffocated. He felt his own blood pounding through his neck, and for a moment, he wondered whether Guardians did have the right to kill other Guardians.

  Athena was stunned for a moment, but she remembered who this man actually was. She withdrew from her waist a short sword. It couldn’t do much as a sudden eruption blew out from Thirty-Eight’s side, which Athena kicked back from, avoiding but the explosion’s dust. The sand fog did little to dull her senses. She could find her target, but her approach was threatened by an open palm, ready to blow her apart if she closed the distance.

  Forced to struggle alone, Emris stared back at Thirty-Eight’s venomous glare. “Yes, yes you certainly will,” Thirty-Eight rasped, a wrongful laugh spilling from his words, “but you’ve got over a hundred years left in you, kid. Don’t go wasting it, now.”

  “Thirty-Eight!” Fifty-six shouted a sharp command. A dozen beams of light bloomed by her ankles, dispelling the dust with a gush of air.

  “If Kalazan caught you dead like this, you’d wish he’d let you die again. No, I’m serious. I should know.” Nothing would stop Thirty-Eight’s sneer, “And my record’s a lot fuller than yours, boy!”

  In an instant, six shimmering spears flew through his flesh. The piercing heat left gaps in his forearms, legs and chest. Emris was set free, catching himself before hitting the earth. He looked up in horror, never once a witness to such violence not done to himself. All the more terrifying, as golden blood poured out from his wounds, Thirty-Eight managed to remain standing.

  “That was scary, wasn’t it?” Thirty-Eight still managed to speak, albeit slowly. Athena walked towards them. “You think you can give up because you have no idea what being close to death is actually like yet. You don’t know how scary your judgement will be. You don’t know how much hurt you can still be made to feel.” Athena’s sword’s edge shone with divine sharpness. “So fight for your life.”

  The shaking, destroyed body of Thirty-Eight stood patiently for his punishment, but as she brandished her sword, she heard from his words a confidence unprecedented from a man such as he. Instead, her sword slid back into its sheath. “You do empathise, Thirty-Eight.”

  “I can relate to this one, I suppose,” Thirty-Eight muttered in something of a joke, then collapsed into the sand, his ruined body finally succumbing to its wounds.

  Athena looked at the damage she had done and lowered her head. Despite the gruesomeness, she was pleased to have witnessed something close to mercy in that moment. She turned to face the boy, whose listlessness had been thwarted in adrenaline’s wake.

  “Understand this, young Guardian,” Athena began, her voice steady despite the chaos. “The hardship of the Guardian is part of our nature. We fight and we bleed, and we do this for them — they who have not the same choices as we do.”

  Emris looked at his hands. The sand he had dug into earlier had all but fallen off his palms, the last crumbs springing off one at a time.

  “Please, my successor,” Athena’s voice softened. “You must endure. You will.”

  Despite her warmth, doubt still overwhelmed him. “I can’t overcome Tygrith…”

  “You will. For this is a gift, Emris.”

  She placed a firm, steady hand under his chin, lifting his eyes to meet hers. When he looked up, he noticed the warrioress smiling at him.

  “You have us. Now breathe.”