The chamber echoed with voices like waves crashing together, tossed wildly against unseen rocks. The great hall of El'Elmora was never kind to grief. Its stone floors were too cold. Its shadows too sharp. Its memories too loud.
I sat still in the center, trying to breathe. Shelynn had helped me to the chamber before the meeting. My knee was injured but healing. I watched the Council members arrive, noting this time there were special guests: my aunt, Queen Quinevere, and my cousin, Valaris Eliezer of Kinoran Keep.
I knew I should be paying attention. But all I could hear was my heartbeat, pounding like a war drum in my ears. Bandages still covered parts of my side, and my head throbbed with a dull ache. Without the Guardian Bond, my wounds healed far more slowly than I was accustomed to.
I kept reaching through the shadows, trying to sense the light of Elena.
I cannot hear her.
I couldn't feel her either.
Not the way I had felt Deanna. Was it because I had received the bond mark without the Rojan Ritual?
Father had told me once, "When you reach two hundred, Somenaco, it will be time. The ritual will bind you. It will open your soul and thread it to hers or whoever the next Guardian is."
But I was only one hundred and eighty-six. Still young. Still learning. Still unworthy in the eyes of many.
Now, with Deanna's passing, many believed it was because of the broken bond. I heard their whispers in the halls, saw their sideways glances whenever I entered a room.
I had been chosen anyway. The mark had appeared moments after my father died, without the Rojan Ritual. No one in House Nyxfyr had ever seen such a thing.
Even the priests did not know what to make of it. They insisted the ritual had always transferred the bond from one Guardian to the next. Without it, they believed my connection to Deanna was incomplete.
Yet I could still sense her.
I could feel the echo of her thoughts like drifting smoke.
I simply could never answer.
Still... she could reach me.
I closed my eyes. For one foolish heartbeat, I almost expected to hear her voice again. "Give it time, Somenaco. We can try again later."
I thought with practice, it would come. I thought I'd learn to earn it.
A sharp voice cracked through my thoughts, dragging me back to the room like lightning splitting the sky.
Yolanna, tall and severe looking white dragon High Priestess and Elder of the Monnana Spire, her silver-purple hair woven into a crown, slammed her hand on the marble table. Her ivory skin glowed faintly beneath the chamber's filtered light.
"How can we not be worried?" She raised her voice. I'd heard that tone before on the day my mark first appeared. The sleeves of her violet robes flared like wings as she spun toward Cedrick.
"We don't even know if Deanna Sligic held one of the Sacred Swords!"
My aunt rose smoothly. "It was decreed to be that way," Queen Quinevere said calmly. "So no one would ever enslave humanity again." She added, "Two of my personal guards are already watching Elena and Noella Sligic."
Mickel, the blue dragon, sat nearby watching this latest scene, heated discussion, whatever you really want to call it, his expression was unreadable. He was unusually serious for one of his kind, though perhaps that came with age. At seven hundred ninety-three years old, he was considered elderly among Blue Dragons. His dark-blue eyes matched the streaks of turquoise in his long hair, which was pulled back in a simple circlet. He had once told me the blue streaks were like humans' gray hair, "Wisdom marks," he called them. They were earned with age.
Across from him, Breece, a copper-skinned purple dragon with short tyrian hair, rubbed a hand over his face. A known telepath. I wondered if he and Mickel were silently conversing with Digone's aid.
"Now we have a young, untrained dragon Guardian…" Yolanna gestured sharply toward me, "… and Elena Sligic, the only surviving grandchild of Deanna, and there is no mark!"
"That we know of," Dolyel countered.
My uncle had long since abandoned court life. Left alone, he'd happily disappear into a library for the next century. My aunt had other ideas, placing him on the Council and convincing my brother to appoint him Counselor of El'Elmora Keep.
He was a fierce-looking man with almond skin and jet-black hair broken only by a silver whisper at his right temple. Most people mistook his quiet nature for passivity. They rarely realized he was usually the first to notice what everyone else had overlooked.
Yolanna scoffed. "What if the line is broken? What if the prophecy fails because we didn't act fast enough?"
Shelynn spoke next the youngest Councilor. A fierce gray dragon whose ice-blue eyes seemed to cut right through her dark skin.
"We wait," she said. "The mark may yet form."
The others fell into murmurs. The air seemed ready to crack.
Cedrick remained silent at first. He leaned back, fingers resting against his chin, gaze calm but unreadable.
Beside him, Mickel leaned forward.
"We must consider the prophecy. We wait to see if the mark forms on Elena Sligic. If she is meant to inherit the mark and powers then it will reveal itself in time."
"And if she's not?" Yolanna snapped. "Do we allow a Sligic to walk in ignorance of the bond? Of her bloodline?"
"Yulanna, please," Mickel interjected smoothly. "Is there some hidden wisdom in the marks? Should we send scouts to search distant family lines?" Making a mocking hand gesture.
Yulanna crossed her arms, thinking.
My hands tightened into fists.
"Deanna said Elena would be next. She had an inkling about this she trained her in the sword dance ways it will be her will." I stood, voice rising. I felt Digone's hand on my shoulder. We exchanged a quick look. He knew me well enough to recognize the storm building behind my eyes. His raised eyebrow was all the warning I needed.
"All I'm saying is that I should be allowed to speak to her." I lowered my voice. "I should be allowed to try."
The room fell still.
All eyes turned to me.
"The bond is weak..." I lied.
"But it's there. I can feel something... flickering. Like a thread stretched too thin. But if I could speak with her… if I could even be near her… I might be able to awaken it fully."
The lie tightened around my chest like iron bands. My hands curled into fists, my ribs ached, and my breath caught low in my lungs.
In truth, I had felt nothing since Deanna died.
I felt nothing!
But I couldn't get to her, and she died. There had been rumors that a red dragoness came looking for her.
If that was true, I couldn't let them find Elena.
Cedrick's mouth pressed into a tight line.
"And violate Queen Akassa's Decree? The bond must awaken naturally. You know the laws, Somenaco."
"Then give me a new title," I said. "Let me be her shadow. Let me guard her in silence."
The wind beyond the stained glass stilled and the memorial candles flickered. Even the Council seemed to hold its breath.
Valaris Eliezer furrowed his brow, shifting slightly. "He shouldn't even be standing," he said softly. "Let alone swearing oaths."
Breece scoffed. "He can barely walk. And we're going to send him to guard a girl with a broken bond and no mark?" His gaze flicked toward Valaris Eliezer as if hoping for Approval.
Mickel spoke before anyone else.
"You would take the Vow of Silence?" He rose so abruptly his chair scraped across the stone floor. "You would guard her without a mark?" He took a step towards me walking behind Nikacole the blue dragon Guardian, "and accept that she may never know you?"
I met his eyes.
"She is my charge." I said boldly.
Cedrick closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he nodded.
"Then let it be known that Somenaco Lygino Marone of House Nyxfyr shall serve as Guardian in Silence for Elena Rose Sligic, now recognized as a Guardian in Waiting." He stood and continued, "He will watch from the shadows until the mark awakens… or until the Balance tips again."
Yolanna bowed her head in agreement then looked straight at me. She said nothing but there was still concern in her eyes.
The flame in the ceremonial bowl for Deanna flickered again and dimmed.
There was a long moment of silence.
I bowed first to my Queen...
...then to the fading flame that still burned for Deanna.
It was smaller now.
By the time I reached the chamber doors, it had nearly gone out.