Shield and Crocus

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Authors: Michael R. Underwood
Tags: Fantasy
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reign had held for fifty years in Audec-Hal, and Wonlar longed to see the spring.

CHAPTER FIVE
First Sentinel
Twenty Years Ago
    Crocuses.
    It smelled of crocuses the day Aria died. My raiment was soaked through, gore layered over grime.
    Around me, three armies and a rebellion raged through the streets. We thought the tyrant’s in-fighting would be the spark that lit the fire of revolution, the time when we could wake the city from its nightmare.
    We were wrong, and Aria paid the price. Huddled in an alley, she was bleeding out in my arms and I was helpless to save her.
    I’d pulled her into an alley and hid behind an overturned food cart. A sense-mask cube gave us privacy, but nothing in my belt of tricks could close that many wounds, replace that much blood. Wide gashes made orange cross-hatchings of her chest.
    I cupped her face and watched as her threads frayed and snapped one by one, her ties to the world fading.
    Emerald and jade were the last to go—the first line trailing up and away to the safehouse and her infant son—the other, a jade band that crossed the hand’s span between us. It had taken years for that thread to re-grow.
    Aria’s faltering fingers found my face, slipped underneath my mask. Her hands were so cold. I willed her to live. We were supposed to find each other again so she could to forgive me. We could be together again, the way we were supposed to.
    “Don’t leave me, love,” I said.
    “Watch my little Selweh. Guard him.”
    I should have been his father, not some dissident journalist. “Nothing will hurt him, I swear.”
    She coughed blood onto my jerkin, shaking her head. “Make a promise you can keep.”
    I held her close, the emerald thread hidden by the press of our bodies. “I’ll guard him with my life.”
    Aria’s last thread frayed and snapped as she nodded to my promise. I held her still form for a long moment.
    The cube gave the telltale pop at the end of its charge. Not a moment later, a Freithin berserker saw me from the street. It turned to charge. I jumped to my knees and drew my staves as training took over. My bond to Selweh shifted, jade brightening to glittering emerald.
    I promise, Aria.
    I dodged the berserker’s charge and turned to fight. I channeled my own rage until the Freithin was a mass of bruises and broken bones on the alley floor. But it did nothing for Aria.
    The next day it frosted, and the crocuses died.

CHAPTER SIX
First Sentinel
    Now that he was an old man, only a few things made Wonlar truly happy anymore: savoring a cup of strong tea, scoring a victory against the tyrants, and seeing the smile of a child.
    Taking a break from storms and meetings, Wonlar held court in Rova’s living room (at her insistence).
    Nearly a dozen children sat, stood, and knelt around the room. They snuggled into couches, piled atop cushions, and splayed out on the brilliantly-colored carpets that Rova’s brother wove for a living. The house was far from lush, but it was large, with high ceilings and wide doors to accommodate the larger residents. The walls were painted a bright orange, the trim on the doors purple. The Freithin embraced bright colors, so long denied anything of beauty in Omez’s cages. Coming here made Wonlar feel small, like he was a child again, living in a world full of things built for giants.
    It had been Rova’s idea for him to begin with visiting Freithin children in Bluetown, to tell them stories of the city’s history.
    In truth, it was propaganda—proselytizing—but it was necessary. Years down the road, he might have to call on these children to lay down their lives for the city. It was essential that they know the truth of the tyrants’ crimes. The guilt of what he was doing tore at him, but the Shields had been fighting for fifty years, and the tyrants still held power.
    I’ve made worse sacrifices. The weight of each life lost to the tyrants hung about his neck and shoulders, a long chain wrought of friends, allies, and

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