Midnight Magic, page 73
“Are you okay? Hey, Thorne.” Tarek stepped into his path and put a hand on his shoulder. “Brother, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Thorne didn’t answer, just stepped forward and dragged his younger brother into his arms for a tight hug before shoving him back again. “I’m fine now.” He cleared his throat. “Everything’s fine now. Where’s Nako?”
“He’s in the locker room puking his insides out. I guess the Final Trial was epically bad, huh?”
“You could say that.”
*.*.*.*.*
* * *
Kalina found herself standing in a cottage with no memory of how she’d gotten there.
The sound of a baby crying got louder and a gorgeous male Fae stepped into the outer room where she stood. He had beautiful dark skin and brilliant green eyes.
In his arms was a baby, who had the same dark skin and green eyes. She stopped crying the moment she saw Kalina and stretched forward, arms out. “Mama!”
Kalina’s entire world shuddered.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Mama!”
“She’s been crying for you. Are you sure you really want to sacrifice yourself upon the Veils?” The Fae stared at her hard. His voice was so familiar. Where had she heard that voice? “Are you really going to leave her alone like your mother left you?”
Kalina wanted to scream that this could not be the life she had chosen for herself, not when she had spent her childhood vowing to adhere to the truth of what it meant to be a Guardian.
She had grown up hearing the stories of her terribly selfish mother, Sefina, who had wanted both the honor of being a Guardian and to leave something physical of herself behind.
It was expected of all Guardians that when they shed their physical forms in service to the Veils of Faerie, that all that would be left of them in this world was the memory of their strength and sacrifice.
Yet, Sefina had defied tradition to court and win a Fae who was not her mate. She had then gone so far as to create an infant with that male, something that should have been impossible, then left the child alone in his care as she went back to her destiny.
And so, Kalina had grown up without a mother. Without a father too, for despite not being mates, her father had Faded in the aftermath of her mother’s death.
Staring at the child, remembering her vow never to follow in her mother’s footsteps, the truth of who she was began to splinter the reality around her.
“Well, Kalina?” the Fae demanded, his voice somehow wrong, a note of anger that didn’t belong. “Will you abandon your mate and your child as your mother abandoned your father and you?”
“No,” Kalina said. “I will not because I will not have a mate or child to abandon.” She turned and walked out of the cottage.
The moment she stepped over the threshold, reality fractured again and she found herself standing in the arena.
She glanced at the clock projected high above the floor and saw she’d only been in the Trial for three minutes, twenty-seven seconds.
Whispers exploded throughout the stands.
*.*.*.*.*
* * *
Mitaru kept asking how she’d broken through the glamour so quickly, but Kalina wasn’t sure how to answer.
Mitaru had been completely accurate about his greatest fear and he’d come out of the Final Trial nauseous and vomiting because it had forced him to choose between saving his sisters and saving the Veils.
To his horror, in that dream realm, he had chosen the Veils.
“It wasn’t real, Mitaru!”
“But I didn’t know that, Kalina. It felt so real. I truly believed I was a Guardian and that the Veils were in danger of falling and that the only way to save them was to sacrifice Luna and Zara and I did it.”
“You’ll never have to make that choice, Mitaru, and if you do, I know you’ll find a different way to save Faerie and your sisters. Nothing could convince me that you would sacrifice them instead.”
“But I did.”
The worst part for Mitaru was that in failing his sisters, he also gained entrance to the Guardian Force. It left him weighted down with guilt and cast a shadow upon the inauguration ceremonies that followed.
A moment that should have been one of triumph had a solemnity and sorrow to it that Kalina had difficulty understanding.
She’d walked out of the Trials, feeling stronger in her belief that she was meant for this path. By contrast, most of her fellow Guardians looked slightly ill, as if they were even then, in the very moment of their inauguration, doubting they were on the right path.
When her name was called, immediately after Mitaru’s, she stepped forward and Commander Yarina pinned the symbol of the Guardians to her new uniform. “You broke a number of records in the Trials. I expect great things from you, Guardian Wyendeh.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rankings had been announced the day before and Kalina shared the top spot with a Guardian from the east named Thorne Evaria.
A name she’d whispered in her sleep the night before, waking her and making her wonder why that name sparked something deep inside.
As she pondered the mystery of that name, Commander Yarina continued down the line, pinning the symbol of the Guardian Fae to the uniforms of all those present.
Finally, it was time to repeat the vow of the Guardian Force, a moment Kalina had waited for her entire life.
The room echoed with the sound of one hundred twenty-five Fae pledging their lives to the Veils.
“We stand for the Fae and for all of Faerie. We pledge our life in service to the Veils and our life force as its last defense. We are Guardians of the Veil.”
Kalina repeated the vow with an overwhelming sense of finally becoming the Fae she was always meant to be.
Mitaru, on the other hand, later told her he’d felt cold upon repeating that vow, as if he’d just severed his link to both Luna and Zara, leaving them to make their way in the world without their older brother at their side.
They had lost their parents long before, the two ancients succumbing to the lure of a final rest, leaving the three of them as the last of an ancient line of Fae.
Despite this, Mitaru had felt compelled to pledge his service to the Veils. It was something he’d longed for as Kalina had, from a very young age, and like Kalina, believed the mark of the Guardian that appeared on his face centuries before was proof that he was on the right path.
He took comfort in knowing Luna and Zara would have each other, but it wasn’t enough to alleviate his guilt, especially after his experiences in the Final Trial.
Mitaru had come out of that Trial broken in a way that Kalina had not. Somehow, though, he took all those jagged pieces of his soul and he used them to become a better Guardian.
He obsessed over those moments, revisiting them, analyzing them, questioning what he should have done differently.
He was continually inventing scenarios for them to solve, where the task was both to save the Veils and to protect innocents like his sisters.
In a way, the Final Trial gave him the determination to never simply accept what was presumed to be true, but to instead explore beyond what was already known to see the endless possibilities at hand.
It also made him question everything. Why were Guardians destined to burn? Why did the Veils fail every five hundred years? What might they do differently to change the destiny of future Guardians and of Faerie itself?
Kalina indulged him and ran through scenarios with him, explored the possibilities, researched what was known about the Veils and what was unknown, but not once in any of those years did she question her purpose.
Instead, she accepted.
She accepted what she had lost in stepping forward into the role of Guardian.
She often dreamed of the Fae and the child in his arms, both of them reaching out, the male demanding that she face what she was giving up and the child simply crying, “Mama.”
Kalina had never wanted children and thus, didn’t really mourn the child for she was never going to exist, not even if Kalina had chosen another path in life. Therefore, she could look at the child and feel nothing but a sense of relief that this child would never, could never be hers.
When she looked at the man, though, that was when she understood what she had lost.
This was what she had given up to become a Guardian.
The possibility of one day finding her fated mate.
CHAPTER 9
Four hundred years ago
Thorne loved being a Guardian.
It was even better now that Tarek had joined the ranks a hundred years before. Now he and his brother served together, though in different generations.
As Nako had jokingly promised all those years before, when it came time for them to mentor and partner with one of the incoming Guardians, he chose Tarek.
Though Tarek had rolled his eyes and acted as if it was a huge sacrifice to accept Nako as his mentor, Thorne could tell he was pleased.
At the same time Tarek and his generation were accepted into the ranks as Guardians, the generation before Nako and Thorne walked into their destinies, infusing their life force into the Veils of the East, for the good of all the Fae.
It was a difficult time for both Nako and Thorne, saying goodbye to their mentors, stepping up as mentors themselves and looking ahead, knowing they were on the downward slope toward their own destinies.
For this reason, Thorne was incredibly grateful to Nako. Though he would have been honored to accept Tarek as his mentee, by not doing so, he was able to enjoy his time with Tarek as simply brothers, a gift he cherished more and more as their time grew shorter.
Thorne had always believed his destiny was at the Eastern gates, serving as a Guardian of the Veil for the good of all the Fae. He’d been so at peace with that decision that before the Trials, he’d never spent a single sleepless night worrying about the future.
That changed from almost the very moment he began his tenure as a Guardian. His dreams were now haunted by a song he could never quite remember that filled him with sorrow and a terrible sense of loss.
Added to the weight of those dreams was the knowledge he would soon be leaving Tarek behind.
It would have been different if they had been able to serve in the same generation, but knowing that Tarek would be facing his fate without his brother at his side left scars on Thorne’s soul.
He questioned whether he had made the right decision, not for himself, not even for the Fae, but for the brother he loved more than life itself.
Then, as if things were not difficult enough, Fate brought yet another challenge his way.
He traveled to the capital city of Eonara to attend a fifteen-day training along with Guardians from all over Faerie.
They were housed with the Guardians of the North and trained with them, pitting their skills against other units in intense training sessions.
Though Thorne knew there were Guardians from the West and South training in the facilities as well, he didn’t meet any of them until the end of the first week, when they had two days off to rest and to explore Eonara before the second week of training began.
It was then, on their eighth day in Eonara that Thorne met Kalina for the first time.
*.*.*.*.*
* * *
Kalina loved being a Guardian. She had found her family at last and it wasn’t the one she’d been born to.
Her aunt Madora had never forgiven her for choosing the Guardians.
“Your mother was selfish and your father weak,” Madora had snarled when Kalina returned from submitting her name to the Courts, “but I took you in despite all their failures. And this is how you repay me, by making the same choices your mother did?”
Madora had done nothing to hide her anger at her sister for the decisions she had made or her contempt for Kalina’s father and his weak nature.
That anger and contempt had spilled over onto Kalina more times than she could count. The final blow had come when she submitted her name to be a Guardian in the same way her mother had. That act had broken something between aunt and niece that had never grown strong in the first place.
That broken bond grew increasingly frail and the day Kalina became a Guardian in truth, it withered to nothing.
Kalina had entered the Guardians alone, no family behind her giving her strength, and yet after six hundred years of serving with her fellow Guardians, she felt more empowered, more supported than ever before.
She had an entire generation of Guardians at her back and her best friend, Mitaru, to walk with her into their destiny.
She regretted nothing, not even the loss of that green-eyed mate she would never meet and who probably didn’t even exist in this world, and she felt no sense of sorrow as their destiny approached, even though it meant leaving many behind, including Mitaru’s sisters.
She knew he struggled more, and had since they’d reached the halfway mark a hundred years before.
As they began their descent into the last half of their service, it was clear the impending loss was beginning to weigh heavily upon Luna and Zara, which weighed heavily on Mitaru.
Kalina, however, had no regrets.
She would walk into her destiny knowing she did so to protect Luna and Zara and countless other Fae.
Mitaru had been right when he predicted she would lead a unit of her own one day. She had twenty-four Guardians in her unit and Mitaru was one of them.
As part of her job as their leader, Kalina was always looking for new training opportunities for her unit. This was how they ended up in Eonara, training with Guardians from the South one week and Guardians from the North the next.
The first week was intense and brutal and by the end of it, they were all ready for some relaxation time.
Most of the unit scattered, heading into different directions, some of them to meet up with friends or family and others to explore the city.
As was usual for their downtime, Kalina and Mitaru ended up spending much of it together.
“Your sisters couldn’t join us for the weekend this time?” Kalina asked as she opened the door to the tavern they’d chosen for dinner.
“They’re traveling again. You know how they love to visit the animals and gardens of the mortal realms.”
“One of these days, they’re going to get in trouble, you know.” Kalina led the way toward a corner table at the back where they would both be able to sit with their backs to the wall.
She waited until they were both seated at the table before continuing. “Eventually some enterprising human will record them healing a feral cat or snuggling up to a giant bear and the Fae will be unveiled to billions of mortals all at once. There’s no way we could manage that much magic and glamour to make an entire world forget our existence.”
Mitaru snorted. “Wouldn’t that be something? I’d be blessed with the opportunity to say to my sisters until the end of our days, ‘I told you so.’ Now you’ve got me almost wishing it would happen.”
Kalina laughed.
“It’s true. I’ve been saying for years that Lunastaria will be the downfall of us all.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t happen because—” Kalina’s words died in her throat.
Three male Fae had just entered the Tavern. They were beautiful men, as were all the Fae, but Kalina only had eyes for the one in the middle.
Tall, dark skin, piercing green eyes.
“Kalina?”
“Sorry, I—” She looked away, but couldn’t resist and glanced back again. The men headed to the bar, where they ordered drinks then walked to a table not too far from where she and Mitaru sat.
“What’s wrong?” Mitaru straightened in his seat and followed Kalina’s gaze. “Do you know them?”
“The one with the green eyes. I mean, I don’t know him, but—”
Mitaru swung his head back toward Kalina. “Don’t tell me that’s your Dream Fae.”
Kalina rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, but we should go.”
“We haven’t even ordered.”
“Mitaru, I can’t—if that’s him, I—”
“If that’s him, you need to know.”
Kalina shook her head. “What am I thinking? Of course, it’s not him. I mean, maybe it is him, but it’s not like we’re Fated Mates. Guardians don’t get mates, everybody knows that.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean why not?”
“I mean why does everyone claim we don’t get mates? How do they even know that?”
“Because it’s never happened before?”
“What about your mother?”
Kalina scowled. “What about her?”
“How did she have you if your father wasn’t her fated mate?”
“I don’t know. Everyone says they weren’t mates though. My aunt told me it was an aberration, that my mother must have used dark magic to quicken her womb for a man who wasn’t her mate.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. If that were the case, then he would never have Faded in response to her death. You know it’s true, Kalina. You may avoid thinking about it, but we all know it’s true. There’s no other explanation. They had to be mates.”
“But that would mean it isn’t true, about Guardians not having fated mates.”
“Exactly.”
“Why would they lie to us?”
“Leaving aside your own feelings about mates and being a Guardian, what do you think most Guardians would do if they met their mate and he or she wasn’t a Guardian too?”
Kalina shook her head.
“Most Guardians would never make the choice your mother did. They would never leave their mate behind, to Fade from this world, to become Sorenalaya like your father.”
Kalina blanched. She hated to think of her father wandering the lands, untethered from life. She especially hated to consider that she might one day encounter the final remnants of who he’d been in battle at the Veils.
