Bursting through the door of my apartment, I slammed it shut with a kick and started to peel off all my clothes. I felt ashamed of the stench I had brought with me through customs, the border agent nodding me through with barely a glance, his pinched expression providing enough explanation. It wasn’t uncommon for those returning from the Isle to be in a poor state, suffering from injuries, whether from the Trials or a duel, but the smell was perhaps new to him.
Standing in the shower, I tore off the blood-soaked bandages, clenching my fist and gritting my teeth as the water cascaded over the freshly opened wounds. Glancing at my phone, I contemplated whether to call Mum. If she arrived, there would be a barrage of questions I wasn’t ready to answer, particularly why I had picked a fight with a talking statue. I could also contact a private doctor, but most of them relied on healing magic, which was off the table for me. Yet, there was one more option.
Finally clean, I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the doorway to the strange place, with Meadhbh stepping through immediately and looking around. I was surprised to see that her leg was now fully reattached; perhaps this was normal, but then why were there scars and scratches on the rest of her body?
“It’s small," she remarked, before glancing at me.
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “I need your help to apply bandages to my back after you seem to have ripped most of my stitches open. Do you know how to perform first aid?” I didn’t trust her, but she was my only hope to avoid opening a massive can of worms.
“Of course I know how to apply bandages; I’m not an idiot,” her reply matched my tone but appeared to soften as I sighed in relief. “I need to shower first, I’m covered in decades of dirt, and need to keep your wounds clean.”
"The shower's all yours,” I waved towards it and the extra towels on the shelf behind me. Stepping around her, I glanced back as she removed her armour, dumping it on the floor beside my filthy clothes, and I realised she was completely naked. Blushing, I turned and left her alone in the bathroom, listening to the sound of the water starting up. I hobbled over to my bed and sat down, using a towel to dry my hair as I watched the bathroom door.
Eventually, the door opened and she emerged, wrapped in a towel like I was, her presence filling the room. I felt my breath catch in my throat as an unconscious fear gripped me. I was completely vulnerable if she chose to attack me, but I also sensed that she had been genuinely sincere in her earlier apology when the Caretakers had defended me. That incident still didn’t sit well with me, as they seemed overly interested in me, and I couldn’t understand why.
“Let me see your back, Child,” Meadhbh said, her voice much softer than before, her earlier hostility vanished, as if washed away with the grime. Her form appeared much improved, her obsidian black body reflecting the light of my room. She resembled a work of art, worthy of rivaling the great sculptors of the Renaissance period in history.
“I’m not a child,” I said indignantly as I stood up and turned around, lowering my towel but regretting it, as some of the fibres seemed to have become attached to the drying blood. There was a sharp intake of breath from her, and I turned to see her looking at me in horror.
“I am much older than you might assume, and in my eyes, you remain but a child. What sort of creature inflicted such a wound on you?” Her voice brimmed with concern, and I shivered as I felt her cool hand touch my back.
Hanging my head, she inspected me. “A wolf, a talking wolf with venom in its claws.”
Feeling her hand on my shoulder, she spun me around and looked down into my eyes. “It’s too early for venom wolves to be appearing in the rifts. I want you to tell me everything, but where are your bandages?”
Gently pushed to sit on my bed once more, I gestured with my chin towards my bedroom door. “Out there, under the sink. It’s the metal…”
“I know what a sink is. Just because I’ve been on the Isle for a few years doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of everything.” She then disappeared, returning with my green first aid box.
“You mentioned it’s too early for venom wolves to appear in the rifts? How would you know that? Who are you really? What is a Guardian?” I had far too many questions, and as I lay there with gritted teeth, I felt her begin to tend to the wounds on my back.
“We have been here for tens of thousands of years, ever since my master, Lord Fær Rhea, came to try and save this world from an invasion by the Infernal Host,” Meadhbh began to explain.
Shocked, I attempted to roll over, but her immense strength kept me in place, forcing me to turn my head. “So, you’re aliens? Where is your spaceship? Are the monsters aliens too?” As I posed my questions, I felt her finger jab into my ribs while she glared at me.
“Don’t be ridiculous. A journey through space is nearly impossible due to the vast distances between habitable worlds. There are bridges that connect these worlds, akin to rifts leading to dungeons, but on a much grander scale. The dungeon rifts you are familiar with are like boils; upon completion, they release a surge of mana into the world.” As she spoke, I could feel the numbed skin on my back pulling as she stitched my wounds closed.
“Then why are they only recent?” I asked, staring at my pillow as I tried to process her words.
“Such impatience,” I heard her laugh softly. “My master was unsuccessful in defending this world and fell to the Dark Sovereign leading the Host. He currently lies in stasis beneath the Spire, teetering on the edge of death. After his fall, we concealed the Spire and allowed only a minimal amount of mana to seep into the world, enticing the enemy to depart after scouring all existence of life and leaving nothing but a desolate wasteland. Following that, we rebuilt civilisation from the ground up; your fables and legends were our creation, attempting to jump-start a new society and bypass the slow path you would take at your own pace.”
“So, wait, is the Athena mentioned in the diary I read actually real? Like the genuine Athena from the Greek stories?” I felt her hands lift from my back, and the mattress shifted as she got up.
“Yes, Athena is like me, perhaps a bit too much for my taste. I am a faerie, just as she is.” Letting her towel fall, she displayed no embarrassment as she stood naked in my apartment, but I was awestruck by the four large butterfly-like wings that sprouted from her back, filling the space with their majesty. “We come from the same world, but rival tribes. A Guardian is an inorganic construct, imbued and given a semblance of life by the essence within us; you might call it a soul, but its true name is Essence. All mana stones and crystals contain the essence of the being from which they originated. The higher the grade, the greater the portion of essence it retained upon death.”
As I slowly sat up, wincing from the stretching of my sore back, I wondered, “Is that why I can feel a whisper of what is inside this?” Raising the necklace, I could hear soft growls emanating from it in the back of my mind.
“You can hear it?” she asked, dropping to one knee in front of me. “I was curious to learn why the Caretakers intervened so forcefully when I awoke, but I feel like an idiot for not realising it sooner.”
I blushed as she was so close to me while naked and did my best to look only at her face. I recounted to her the full story of what transpired in the dungeon that landed me in hospital, omitting none of the details as I had with Terence and Mum. Fortunately, after wrapping herself back up in a towel, she sat beside me, listening intently yet restraining her questions, her face displaying a myriad of emotions.
“So, it is you,” she mumbled to herself as she stood up and began pacing back and forth in my bedroom, lost in thought. “Each Spire has a champion, one who leads a world and governs it, the Ascendant, for their strength far surpasses what anyone could hope to achieve, and an Heir who will take their place when the time comes. The last Ascendant of Gaeia was killed alongside her Heir in battle, and Master assumed the position of Ascendant to continue the defence.”
“Heir? That message broadcast at the beginning, declaring that they sought the Heir. No, it can’t be me. Please don’t tell me you think it’s me.” I cried out, the crushing weight of expectations placed upon me suddenly becoming heavier.
“Fenrir is one of Master’s oldest Guardians; they have been together longer than I have served at his side. Master would not intervene in the life of anyone but the Heir chosen by the Spire. Not only are you possibly the Heir, but you have also inherited his ability to create your own Guardians. He is the only one to have had a domain like yours, and while inside, I was able to repair my form as it still retained a decent amount of his mana from his intervention.” She had taken my hands and looked as though she were pleading with me as she sat beside me.
“You just said possibly the Heir, but you also said it was me.”
As she stood me up, she tore the towel from me and moved around, inspecting my body and testing it. “I don’t wish to offend you, but while his involvement suggests you could be the Heir, you lack the expected strength for it. If you are the Heir, you should be leagues ahead of everyone else, yet you oddly appear unaffected by the resurgence of mana. Your growth seems stunted or blocked, and I cannot discern why.”
As I picked up the towel to cover myself, I recoiled defensively at her sudden intrusion into my personal space when I saw an opportunity. “You can’t just do that!”
Ignoring me, she returned to pacing back and forth around my room while I watched her until she suddenly stopped. Holding out a finger, I yelped as she tore it clean off, the sound resembling stone cracking, as she admired the injury she had inflicted upon herself and regarded my dumbfounded face with a sly grin. “We do not hunger, nor do we tire, and we do not feel pain like those made of flesh and blood. While I can see, hear, and taste, I do not feel pain, but I can sense the pressure of touch. To me, this is akin to you cutting your hair or trimming your nails.”
“What did you do that for?” I asked loudly, still staring at the finger in her hand.
“I want you to fix it. Firstly, it will confirm whether you possess the same ability as Master, the ability to command Guardians; secondly, it will bind me to your service. I need to understand more about you to help uncover why, as the potential Heir, your body is rejecting it. Becoming your Guardian means we will be connected, but your mana will nourish and sustain me.”
Approaching cautiously, I picked up the finger, feeling a twinge of disgust at how effortlessly she had torn it off without a moment’s thought. “Will it work?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“I hope so,” she said with a casual shrug, as I stared at her in horror.
“You did this just on a whim?” I asked, raising my voice. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“I fixed my leg, didn’t I? There were traces of my Master’s power lingering in your core, residue from when he last interfered, sufficient that I can fix my finger if needed, but I don’t believe it will be an issue. You are not creating a Guardian, which requires tremendous effort on your part; instead, you are supplanting my tether to him with your own.” Holding out the hand with the missing finger expectantly, I brought the finger to it, wondering what I was doing. “Push a little mana into it; after that, it should come naturally.”
As I raised the meagre amount of mana within me, I felt it stir in my frail body and gasped when the finger, having lost its blue lines, suddenly illuminated with golden ones instead. Looking up, I saw Meadhbh smiling, and she winked at me, encouraging me to complete the task. I pushed the finger forward, and as it connected with the stump, the golden lines began to extend across the rest of her hand. Yet, I gasped, feeling as though I was choking. Unable to release my grip, my body went rigid as the mana within me was drawn up by Meadhbh, whose blue lines had turned to gold, including her eyes, and she looked astonished. Darkness crept into my vision as she seemed to melt before me, and I collapsed forward, slipping into unconsciousness once more.
----------------------------------------
Athena cut an imposing figure as she stood there, arms crossed, towering over the woman kneeling before her. Dressed in the white robes of the Caretakers, she had removed her mask, displaying Freya’s symbol on the front. It was rare for them to visit the control room, their duties involving the Isle and sometimes extending further afield, and even rarer for them to approach without an invitation.
“Lady Athena, we believe the Heir was here. She has returned to London with Lady Tamarix under orders.” The kneeling Caretaker rose and looked Athena in the eye.
“Why were we not informed immediately? Why didn’t you bring her to us so that we could begin guiding and training her?" Her voice was harsh in its questioning as she glared at the Caretaker, who did not flinch at the hostility.
“Master forbade it. We were ordered to give her the tome to help guide her to the answers she sought, but not to interfere. Lady Tamarix assaulted her without realising, and we were compelled to intervene so that she could truly see. Master instructed her to go with the child but did not explain to us why; she received her own orders from him.”
“Damn war dog of a woman, always thinking with her fists instead of her brain.” Athena snorted in anger, slamming her fist on the console beside her. “Freya, send a squad to guard this child.”
“My Lady, we do not know her identity,” the Caretaker said quietly, stepping beyond the reach of her arms and bowing her head to the floor.
Even though she had long since lost the organic tissue she had been born with, Athena rubbed her head out of habit in an attempt to calm herself. “Find her!” Bowing respectfully, the Caretaker left the room, descending the Spire to the rift station several floors below, which was linked to one of the hidden entrances scattered across the Isle.
“Athena, I have a list of potential identities for this child,” Horus called out, causing her gaze to snap up at the glimmer of hope he was casting. “We know that the Guardian who appeared was in the London area, and I have compiled a list of all the rifts that were closed that day. There were five rifts that day that suffered grievous losses, and I have been analysing those identified as involved.”
“Get to the point, Horus,” Athena growled, her demeanour souring by the second again.
“There is one, a Sadie Whittaker, who barely survived. She is not in the Spire’s records; I thought there was an issue, and Osiris has been working to figure out why. We did not bring this to your attention as she is hardly a Gaeian worth mentioning, and not someone deemed worthy of being the Heir according to the information we could glean with a cursory glance.”
Looking at him with a confused expression as her anger cooled and faded, Athena had an idea. “I know why.” Her announcement shocked the others as she sat down at her station and accessed the Spire’s records. Listed here was every single being that had a connection to the Spire, a rudimentary tool they had managed to piece together to assist in their search. Slowly typing in what she was looking for, she located what she wanted, but felt tremendously disappointed.
Getting up, she marched to the elevator as the others crowded around her console, speaking in hushed whispers. Upon stepping inside, she punched in the code for the bottom floor, deep beneath the Spire, and paced the elevator as it descended past the other floors. Armouries, living quarters, training areas—the Spire was a self-sustaining fortress, completely sealed from the outside. She had spent millennia walking its corridors. As it slowed to a crawl, the newest room, an addition made when they sealed the Spire and sunk it beneath the sea, revealed itself, and she marched down the short corridor towards the casket humming with power.
“I know you're awake. Please tell me why you hinder us so much. We've done everything you've asked, yet we are blindly stumbling as we try to follow your orders.” There was anguish in her voice as she cried out to him.
‘This is why!’ A voice projected into her mind, and she endured a deluge of knowledge as he revealed the truth.
“I… understand,” she said feebly as she processed what she had been shown. “Then I shall adjust our understanding to your will. We cannot fulfil our duty if you do not share everything with us; please don’t force us to stumble in the darkness.” Hearing nothing further from him, she turned and left the mausoleum, the lights dimming as he remained with those tasked to guard his ruined form.
----------------------------------------
Coughing as I slowly woke up, I shivered from lying naked on the floor and slipped when trying to get to my knees, crashing back down as I realised I was in a pool of black liquid. Shocked into full alertness, I scrambled to my knees again, seeing myself covered in whatever this liquid was. Looking around, I couldn’t see Meadhbh, but there was a large, football-sized golden crystal sitting on the floor near where I had been lying.
‘I apologise,’ I heard her voice echo in my mind. ‘I miscalculated the amount of mana I would require to sustain myself in your presence. Curiously, I believed I would perish, my essence liberated, but instead, I reverted to my original crystal.’
“What’s happened? Is this you?” I asked, scraping some of the black liquid off myself, half disgusted and half intrigued by what it was.
‘It was,’ she replied calmly. ‘Fær could transform organic material into resin and then mould it into a body using a stone or crystal. So while that was what my construct was made of, it has reverted to its original form, unable to sustain itself.’
Picking up the crystal, it felt warm against my skin, and I looked around to find a place for it so that I wouldn’t have to look at the floor. Leaving it on my bed, I gathered all the towels from my bathroom and began to lay them out to soak up the black liquid. While it had no smell, the bathroom was reeking from our clothes, her armour still sitting on my pile of clothes. Throwing it into a plastic bag, I placed it in the space beyond the ripples to deal with later, hoping to help clear the odour with half a can of cheap perfume.
“Did it work? Was I able to bind you to me?” I asked curiously while I wiped the liquid off, ruining my towel, yet it didn’t leave any residue on me.
‘Sort of, for a moment we were linked, and I was released from Fær’s tether, becoming your Guardian. Now, I am independent, my own woman, in essence.’ I heard her chuckling at the irony of her words, and a grim smile crept onto my face as well. ‘You do possess the same abilities he has, but not yet the strength to wield them.’
Feeling my stomach rumble, I realised I hadn’t eaten since breakfast before heading to the Isle. Glancing at my phone, I saw it was the middle of the night, but thankfully some places would still be delivering food at this hour. “So, what now?” I asked, finally getting dressed and cleaning the black resin staining my towels.
‘Simple, I’ll make you stronger.’ Short and sweet, her statement didn’t inspire much confidence in me as I pursed my lips while looking at her. ‘Oh, don’t give me that sort of look. There are still several methods we can use to help you realise your potential.’
My face fell as she spoke, "Wait, you can see me? How? You don’t even have any eyes.” Stammering, I flushed when I realised I had been prancing about my apartment naked in front of her, oblivious to her gaze.
‘I don’t see how you would pick me up and hold me in your lap; I will show you.’ Sitting on the side of my bed, I held her as she spoke. ‘Close your eyes and breathe deeply. I am going to draw a portion of your subconscious into my core. It will feel strange, but it will become a valuable skill for you to have and will get easier with practice.’
Sitting there, I was curious about what she meant until I felt the pull she was talking about, and a wave of nausea swept over me as my sense of direction became scrambled. Stumbling forward, I found myself in a golden yellow room, and looking at my hands, I could feel myself holding the crystal, but the hands in front of me now were empty. The room was the same size as my bedroom, but there was a fireplace on one wall, with bookshelves stacked to the ceiling on either side and comfortable-looking armchairs in front of it.
“Meadhbh?” I called, glancing around and realising I was alone.
“Right here,” she replied, stepping through the wall as I jumped back slightly in fright. “This room isn’t real; it’s just something I conjured up to make you feel more comfortable. Come, sit.” She was wearing a very chic jacket and trousers that I envied as I sat opposite her in pyjama trousers and an oversized hoodie—ones I didn’t own but suddenly found myself wearing.
“So, how can you see if you do not have eyes?” I asked, glancing around the room with its four walls, floor, and ceiling. Suddenly, they vanished, granting me an unobstructed view, as if I were trapped inside a crystal, gazing up at myself; my face mirrored my own, reflecting my emotions. While everything appeared yellow, blue lines coursed through my body like veins, originating from my chest. Nearby, I could spot my phone like a beacon, the small mana crystal within it providing power, as well as the clock on my table.
“I can see physical matter, but I can also perceive the flow of mana. Look at your phone; notice how bright it appears in comparison to your body. Those lines represent your mana veins, the channels through which you can direct your power; the rest are twisted and blocked.” Observing myself from this perspective, I felt diminutive and insignificant, my face resembling that of someone asleep. “Being in this form isn’t all bad.”
“I should’ve been stronger. If I truly am the Heir you seek and have this potential, I ought to have realised it sooner. I should’ve been able to save them.” The revelations drove a knife into my heart as Josie’s lifeless eyes haunted me, and I crouched down, feeling the familiar lump in my throat return.
I felt a reassuring hand resting on my shoulder as I tried to process everything I had learned, and looking up, I saw the view of the outside world obstructed by the walls that had returned. Above the fireplace, a picture appeared, and I gazed at the man, a hammer raised above his head as he roared. Lifting me up, Meadhbh guided me towards it, a sombre expression on her face.
“That is Fær,” she said, and I looked at him. He was handsome and youthful-looking, but there was also a grizzled aspect to him with his short beard. Men and women stood at his side, gazing up at him as though they were celebrating a victory. There was a figure next to him, their features obscured, as if intentionally forgotten, and to his right, I recognised Meadhbh. “Half of those here are now dead. I can’t even remember what world this was; we fought on so many.”
“How tall was he?” I asked, looking up at her.
Waving her arm in a sweeping motion, a blob rose from the floor, transforming into a replica of the man in the image, striking the same pose. “He appeared extremely tall to the rest of us, but to his species, he was just about average.”
The top of my head barely came up past his belt, and I had to crane my neck to see his face. Touching his hand, I noticed his fingers were thick enough that I couldn’t touch my thumb to my middle finger, and if he clenched his fist, it would be the size of my head. If a man of such monstrous stature was laid low by another, just how formidable a warrior were they? Looking back at the image on the wall, I could see that the others didn’t reach the same height as him, but the figure beside him was close. The way they were looking at him made me wonder who they were, their arm wrapped around his back. That stance wasn’t one that a friend or ally would have, but perhaps a lover’s.
“Who are they?” I asked, pointing at them.
“She’s no longer with us,” Meadhbh said quickly, snapping her fingers and making the picture and statue vanish just as swiftly as they had appeared.
“Who is she?” I asked once more, wary of her evasiveness.
“Someone who no longer stands by our side.” There was profound sadness in her voice, and I ceased my questioning, realising that it was a delicate topic.