Guardian: The EMBG

The cacophonous noise — metal on metal, with a deep bass thrum beneath — pummelled my ears, and the field shifted beneath my feet. I staggered back — one step, then another — and stared at Erebus before sweeping my eyes over Lila's back and the tent beyond her. The shadow from the tent, back-lit by the setting sun, lapped at my boots as if tasting them.

'Have we met?' Erebus's question echoed in my ears, and my stomach lurched. Without warning, the noise died, leaving my words stark in the sudden calm.

"What? It's me, Cairn. You have to remember — this morning, at my perch—"

"This morning?" Scorn filled Erebus's tone. "This morning, I was at a memorial service. There were three Flits including me."

The unspoken implication sat heavy in the air — those Flits hadn't included me. My skin flushed hot and cold in waves, and I tried again, speaking to Lila's retreating back.

"Lila, don't you remember? If not this morning, then before. Bones! I was just a year behind you!" 'A year behind, but trailing further day by day as her lessons accelerated.' I brushed the thought aside and waited for her response with clammy palms.

"There were lots of would-be Flits at the Training Post. I can't be expected to remember them all." She faced ahead, not even glancing at me, as she slowly stepped across the rough ground.

Breath puffed from my gaping mouth; it felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. 'Sure, she earned her gauntlets in record time, but how can she not recognize me?'

"I don't know what you hope to gain with your lies…"

Erebus's voice drowned in the renewed clamor as the metal-on-metal racket began again. I hardly cared. With trembling fingers, I wrenched my smokey quartz from beneath my shirt, dragging the lace over my head, and cupped it in my palms.

"Wait!" I shouted at Lila's back. She paused, still not turning back, but hope surged within me just the same. 'If she'll just listen!' "I can prove I'm telling the truth!"

Recklessly, I poured my energy into the quartz, rattling the power off the facets and bouncing it back out in a faded reflection. Poised about the crystal in crisp, washed-out detail, the images of our meeting played out, a near-tangible challenge to the twins' denial. Dragging my eyes away, I searched Lila's half-turned face for a hint of recognition.

"How are you making your crystal lie?" Erebus asked, taking a single step closer. "That's not possible — not for a trainee."

"I'm not lying!" Blackness rimmed my vision, and the image wavered, then shattered as this morning's Lila flew away.

"I don't know you," Erebus said, his voice barely audible. "You, though." His eyes narrowed. "You think you know me."

He half-turned, glancing past his sister and then back to me, and waved, a one-handed signal that brought a slip of a girl running toward him. Her short-cropped hair was pale in the shadow, and her silver, slim-cut clothes clung to her thin torso, then loosened over her legs into a pseudo-skirt revealed as pants by her long strides.

At the girl's approach, Lila stiffened, her head snapping to face the girl, and then spun away. In the heartbeat before she shifted to a tiny, speckled butterfly, her face was a mask of grief and anger that the shadows did nothing to disguise.

'Not anger.' I shivered. 'Rage.'

"Lila!" Erebus took a step after her, then stopped, glancing between the girl and me. "Bones!"

"Apologies, Milord Butterfly Guardian! Apologies!" the silver-clad girl gasped as she drew near enough to be heard. Her dialect was stilted, formal, and I was tempted to check the tent's ridgeline for the stylized pennant that announced an Ambassador's presence.

"Why are you here? Everyone knew Lila and I were coming back!"

"This one was assigned gate duty, Milord." The girl bowed, folding in half, and didn't rise.

"Feathers." Erebus shook his head. "I didn't mean — It's not your fault." His eyes tracked Lila's flight well past the point where she disappeared into the dusk. "Just." His hands flexed into claws, then he pointed at me with a firm finger and a harsh glare. "Watch him. He doesn't leave your sight."

I met that glare with my own, looking past the denim gauntlet that emphasized his authority.

"Yes, Milord Butterfly Guardian."

"You, stay here. Don't give her any trouble." His walk was almost a run when he started toward the tent; his boots skimmed the weed-choked soil with none of the fatigue that pulled at my bones.

The silver-clad girl stepped toward me, and her lips moved. I shook my head, immediately regretting it as sparkles swirled across my vision.

'You may have pushed too hard.' A tickle of anxiety crawled up my spine, but I quashed it. 'A little rest will set you right.' Locking my knees against their threat of collapse, I pointed to my ear with the hand that didn't have a death-grip on my quartz.

The girl's lips twisted to the side, and she glanced toward the tent entrance where Erebus had just vanished. Then she fumbled something out of her skirt pocket and slapped it upside my head.

Instant, blessed quiet enveloped me — the relief so intense I gasped — and my butt smacked the ground before I realized I'd fallen. Like a lump, I sat, blinking at the girl through the shifting sparkles.

"Milord Butterfly Guardian Trainee?" The girl's eyes narrowed. "Are—are you alright?" She darted another glance at the tent.

"M'fine," I said. 'Why's my tongue gone fuzzy?' "Maybe — maybe you can stop dancing?"

The silver girl whirled and split, spinning around my head as I stared up at the swiftly darkening sky.

♫♪♫♪

Restlessness tugged me from the blackness, waging war against the lethargy that fought to keep me down. With a groan, I dragged a hand across my face, wincing as a hard point jabbed my skull.

"Ow." I pried open my eyes, the lids sticky and reluctant, and saw my quartz crystal clenched in my fist. 'That explains it.' Next, I assessed the other messages my body had marked 'less urgent'; I lay flat, on a taut, flexible surface, and the air was still. 'And the pull, of course.' I wriggled in an attempt to assuage the restlessness that arose from delaying a message delivery. It didn't help. 'It never does.' "Bones."

"Rest, Milord." The light voice presaged the cool fingers that wrapped around my wrist, landing firmly on my pulse point, but I jumped, startled, just the same. "A healer has been summoned."

Blinking, I focused beyond my fist. A pale, blurry image resolved itself into the silver girl. Her face was smooth, but her eyes darted from my wrist to a gap in the dark wall. Light, strong and unwavering, streamed through the gap, illuminating canvas walls, twin cots, and the girl, perched beside my cot with her back to the canvas.

"Wha?" I sat up, breathing evenly while the room spun around my head. "I don't need a healer."

"Does Milord not?" Her inflectionless tone had my head whipping around, and I searched her face for mockery. Her mask matched her voice; bland and impersonal.

It made me want to bite.

"No. I don't—"

The girl's eye twitched — an aborted flinch that froze my anger. Shame welling up, I took a deep breath and tried again.

"Look. Maybe we got off to a bad start. You've got a name, right?" 'Anything other than ~the girl~.'

"Yes." Her response was quiet, and she swallowed, her throat bobbing in the steady light.

I waited for her to continue. One beat. Two. With a tiny snort, I grinned.

"Should I guess it? Let's see. You could be a Charmayanne. Or maybe a Velvette?"

A tiny giggle escaped, and the girl bit her lips to seal them.

"No, that's not it. Maybe Sianna-Marie?" Pale green eyes twinkled, so I scrambled to my feet, poised on the cot with my crystal raised high. "A-hah! I've got it — you could only be a Starlette!."

The girl covered her mouth with both hands; it did nothing to halt her quiet chuckles.

I swooped into a bow, deliberately overbalancing and tumbling off the edge of the cot to sprawl on the floor. My legs smacked the canvas, rattling the walls, and the girl leapt to her feet, a mixture of concern and humor swirling across her face. Her height, as she rose, startled me. 'Not really a girl — she's got to be almost as old as you.'

"Precious Starlette! Please say you will forgive my boorish behavior." I thrust my empty hand toward her in supplication, ignoring the renewed throbbing in my head and the pulsing need to deliver the sodalite point that rested against my breastbone.

"You can call me Starlette if you want." With a heavy sigh, the girl sank back to her stool. Her lips twisted wryly. "But Jack won't appreciate it. He already gave me a name."

"Jack?" I withdrew my hand, letting it rest on my chest.

"My brother. He's the best — don't listen to what Katchin Sharris says." Her brows drew down. "Or Diana. Or Mikhail." She swallowed again and her voice dropped to a whisper. "But especially don't ask Lila about him."

'Okay… Does anyone else like her brother?' I shrugged and rolled over, crawling to my knees, then my feet.

"So, what did Jack name you?"

"Kitten Nemora." Her smile was pure joy. "But most everyone calls me Kit."

"Kit. It suits you — better than Starlette, I must confess." I extended my hand again. "I'm Cairn." When her hand rested lightly in mine, I drew her up before bowing low and brushing my lips across her knuckles. Her skin was cool to the touch. Meeting her eyes as I rose, I kept my tone gentle. "I don't need a healer — I promise! But I could use some food." My stomach snarled its agreement.

"Well." Kit pulled her hand back, chafing her fingers. "I could take you to the secondary kitchen. Or. Maybe the main kitchen? If you really want."

'Something about the kitchens upsets her. Mostly the main kitchen.' I bit my lip, and the scab from its earlier abuse dragged against my teeth. Kit flinched back, not trying to hide it this time, and covered her nose.

"What?" I asked. I sniffed my collar but refrained from lifting my arm. 'If my pits are the problem, that would make it worse.'

"You've been on the deep paths," she said. "Well, not deep-deep, but middling deep." Kit's hand dropped to her side, drumming on her thigh. "Butterflies travel light. Too light."

"What?" I repeated, trying to follow her cryptic remarks. They proved elusive as a mouse in a wheat field. Instead, I bound them to my smokey quartz with a quick mental twist that left my head throbbing.

"Doesn't matter." Kit shook her head. "Healer says you're to eat, and I'm to stop bothering the healer. This way." She smoothed her pseudo-skirt and strode out of the room, leaving me to hurry after.

Once outside, blank canvas walls flowed smoothly in either direction, interspersed with random gaps and regular lanterns. I followed Kit to the left, taking the first opportunity to dart a glance into the first gap: it was a room, identical to the one we'd left. A few steps further down the passage, and a flap swayed, caught in the air dispersed by Kit's rapid strides.

'Ah! The rooms aren't irregular — some are closed off.' I half-ran to catch up with Kit, then let my attention drift to the lanterns. Each stood on a pole, and the poles vanished into grommets set in the floor. I frowned, testing my weight against the floor's surface. It looked like cloth — the same canvas as the walls, in fact. But it was firm beneath me, like the plank floor of my perch. And the lanterns themselves were flat glowing slabs, emitting light from edge to edge so that I couldn't judge their thickness.

"Hey," I started to ask, then chuckled and ran to catch up with Kit again. "These lights — they're electric, right?"

"Yeah. We spent half the day yesterday stringing electrical. Then Mikhail tried to help." She smiled over her shoulder, wide but close-lipped. "One touch to the master-board and every circuit popped. Sharris banned him from the control room. Again. We nearly didn't get everything reset in time for the band to set up."

"Band? Anyone I would know?"

Kit's stride broke, and she turned to look at me, head tilted.

"They were playing when you arrived — don't you remember?"

"Really?" I frowned, searching my memories. "I couldn't hear anything over that awful racket."

"That was 'Train Wreck', Merciful Destruction's number one single." Kit's eyes danced, and she reached toward my face. "If you adjust your dampener, you can hear 'Colony Ship Crashes into a Moon' now."

"No!" I flinched back, fingers rising to brush against the disk clinging to my left temple. "I'm good." 'Dampener. Well, you've heard about them, but never thought you'd use one.' I chuckled. 'Not much use for a Flit at the spaceport.'

Kit, still smiling, whirled and sprang back into motion, cloth swishing as she strode through an intersection. Half a pace behind her, I jerked to a halt before I cleared the junction. A visceral, gut-deep pull urged me to turn right. The sodalite point thrummed against my chest.

'Bones and feathers.' I dragged my fingers through my hair and stopped myself — barely — from gnawing my much-abused lip. 'You need to deliver the message before you can eat in peace.'

Kit's silver-clad back receded down the hallway, clearly intent on leading the way to the kitchen. 'Secondary kitchen, anyway.' I swallowed and edged into the other hall, straining my ears to hear any hint of pursuit. Then I scurried down the hall, following the sodalite's directions.

Past five lanterns lay another intersection. I hesitated before turning left. The door flaps in this section were all closed, but instead of one lantern between each set of doors, there were two or three lanterns.

"You know better than to leave someone in shift-shock alone."

The unfamiliar voice slowed my feet. The familiar one that followed stopped me in my tracks.

"But Lila—" Erebus began.

"Bones!" I breathed and pulled in a shaky breath. Our argument earlier replayed itself in a flash, and my stomach sank as I realized I was definitely out of Kit's sight. "Feathers!"

"Lila cannot be your only focus." The first, unfamiliar voice sighed. "It's been a year. She has to at least begin to let go. And so do you."

"No! If I do that, I'll lose her. Just like she lost Silver."

The last was a whisper — a bitter truth made more real by being spoken — and I knew this was the crux of Lila's odd behavior since her return. 'A mystery for another hour.' I eased backward, weight on the balls of my feet and arms extended in balance. 'If you catch up with Kit before Erebus realizes you're here…'

"You know I'll do everything in my power to prevent that," the first voice said. "But at this point, we've done all we can. It's time to seek outside help."

"She won't—"

"She will, or the Guild will strip her rank."

I sucked in a breath, shocked at this callousness, but it went wrong, somehow, leaving me choking on air and spit. Thumping on my chest, I fought to clear my airway. Throat raw and eyes watering, I almost missed the arrival of a grey-haired Guardian in the nearest door-flap. The sodalite wrenched my attention from my rebellious body, though, and focused like a raptor on the wrinkled visage. Erebus's glare scorched my skin, and my fingers shook as they dragged the stone from beneath my denim shirt.

"Mergen," I said, repeating the name the point offered. "Memory Guardian Mergen. I have a message for you." I held out the crystal, and Mergen glanced at Erebus before stepping into the hall to accept it.

"Trainee," she said, her voice steady. Her eyes pierced through me like I was one of the specimens mounted in the classroom. "You should be resting."

I opened and closed my mouth. The excuses I'd given Kit lofted no wings — not when I hadn't followed her to the kitchen. Then those eyes diverted, and Mergen's brow furrowed as she inspected the sodalite.

"This is sealed."

Erebus jerked and leaned forward.

"Sealed?" he asked. "A trainee shouldn't be sealing messages. Not for a simple test."

"He didn't." Mergen snatched a dagger from her belt, gripping the hilt and stone in one hand. She pricked a finger on her other hand, and a single drop of blood welled up, glinting in the artificial light. She brushed the crimson across the sodalite, which sucked it in as if it were sandstone.

"I don't understand. If he didn't," Erebus jerked his chin at me, and I rolled my eyes, "who did?"

"I did," Mergen said. "Or I will, in a week. And you two are bound by your Butterfly oaths — you will not speak of this without my explicit permission."

Heat seared through my chest as my quartz crystal flashed in response to the Guardian's command. 'In a week? But, how?' My head spun, though I couldn't say if it was from the relief of having delivered the message or from the confusion sown by Mergen's words.

"But…" Erebus rubbed his chest and glared at me.

"But?" Mergen turned, brow arched in inquiry.

"Lila saw him arrive. He said enough that she'll suspect something."

Mergen's other brow rose, and Erebus sighed.

"Alright, fine." He scrubbed a hand across his face. "She'd have questioned it a year ago."

"Leave Lila to me. You will escort our guest to the kitchen, and you'll both eat something."

Erebus's face went mulish.

"Ere." Mergen's voice was softer, gentler, and Erebus's eyes slipped shut. "Trust me in this."

"Okay." Erebus slipped past the older Guardian and started down the hall. "Get a move on, Cairn. I'm starving."