Shattered Souls (Guardians of the Maiden Book 3)

Tarn had told her to stay out of his head, but Dyna woke to the sounds of another nightmare within the hour. After knowing what happened to him, she couldn’t listen to him suffer through it again. So Dyna sleepily moved to lie beside him and placed a hand on his clammy shoulder. All it took was a trickle of her Essence to easily slip back into his unguarded mind. The smell of death and roars bombarded her again. She quickly pulled him out.

There was another side of dream walking that drew out memories of the past. She tried to guide him to a happy one, but it wasn’t easy. They became drifting wisps of smoke as she was whisked past images and voices, too fast to see.

Eventually everything cleared, and she found herself in a stone corridor. Dyna searched for Tarn’s tall form, but found a thin, pale child instead. No more than four or five. His distinct white-blond hair fell in soft waves around his face. He wore a fine black dress coat and a satin cravat. A little lord in fine clothing.

This time, she wasn’t standing in Tarn’s place, but standing outside of the dream as she watched it happen. He lingered outside a door. A stripe of light landed on his cheek as he peered through the crack. The wailing of a baby and faint voices trickled into the hall. Dyna inched closer and peeked in, too.

A very beautiful woman laid in a large four-poster bed with her back resting against pillows. Rivers of golden, silk hair spilled down her shoulders. She hummed to the bundle in her arms, rocking it gently, her face already so full of love. The cries quieted to gentle gurgles. Several women hovered around the bed to get a closer look at the newborn. Their faces were blurred as though someone erased them. Everyone was out of clarity and faded except for the mother.

“He is perfect, Gwenyth,” said a faceless woman in a chair beside her. “What a handsome boy.”

The other on her left agreed. “Lord Morken will be pleased to at last have a proper heir.”

Lord Morken? They must be in Old Tanzanite Keep.

The women shushed whoever had spoken. The mother pretended she didn’t hear, but her cheeks flushed as she rocked her baby. She looked up at the door, and Dyna gasped at the pale blue color of her eyes.

Gwenyth spotted the boy and her lips formed a gentle smile. “Come here, little one.”

Everyone turned to stare at him and he hesitated.

“Come, Tarn.”

His small hand pushed on the heavy, wooden door, and he dutifully entered with a bowed head. She motioned for him to come closer, but his presence seemed to invite strain in the room. The women excused themselves and proceeded to leave as he approached the bed.

“I feared she would die during childbirth,” the same insolent woman whispered as she passed by Dyna to enter the hall. “Giving birth to that other tarnished child nearly killed her.”

Gwenyth’s smile stayed in place, though Dyna knew both she and Tarn had heard. He looked up at his mother with his matching eyes that already understood so much. At her prompting, he climbed onto the plush bed and peered down at what she held. The newborn had fine downy hair and a rosy face.

“Say hello,” Gwenyth said. “What shall we name him?”

He paused, then mumbled a suggestion.

“That’s a mighty name for someone so small,” she teased. “That’s your choice?”

Tarn nodded.

“Then we’ll call him Dale for short. Would you like to hold him?”

He blinked at her a moment then looked down at his pale hands.

“It’s all right. You won’t hurt him.” Gwenyth’s tone was tender, but there was something on her face. Sadness and worry hidden behind the smile. “Here.”

She brought Tarn to sit beside her, and she gently laid the bundle in his arms. She kept a hand beneath the baby’s head for support. The boy stared at him in quiet fascination.

“He’s your wee brother, no matter what anyone says,” she murmured. “You share blood and that binds you for life. So you must always protect him, Tarn. He will need you.”

The boy didn’t answer, and Dyna thought his hands might be shaking.

His mother brushed the hair from his forehead, making him look at her. “This changes nothing. Old Tanzanite Keep is yours. It will always be yours by birthright, my little phoenix.”

Dyna stiffened. She knew?

The door barreled open and a lord in dark blue armor entered. He was also clearly visible. The man was of average height but broad shouldered, with blond hair and a bearded face that was once handsome in his youth. On his chest plate was the gold sigil of Azure. It had to be Lord Morken, Dyna guessed. A knight of the King and the Earl of this castle.

For a moment he looked happy. His flushed face was lit with a broad smile, his hair windblown from probably having ridden home at the news of the birth. But his blue eyes landed on Tarn, and they hardened. All traces of his smile vanished into a scowl.

Gwenyth wrapped an arm protectively around the boy. “Dear—”

“I don’t want him anywhere near my son.”

“Don’t say that, Thorne. He’s yours, too.”

“He is no son of mine. Get him out of my sight!”

Dark smoke swept the scene away and Dyna was taken through brief flashes in Tarn’s past. There were fleeting good moments, each one ending badly. He was quiet and kept to himself, so he was chastised for being an odd, lazy child. Times he was with his younger brother ended with servants snatching Dale away out of fear he would hurt the heir. Then another baby was born a few years later. Gwenyth nearly died from the birth, and from then on, she was bedridden.

Lord Morken took out his anger on his sons as they grew. He cut them with his mouth and whipped them with the rod if they failed in their swordsmanship or schooling. Tarn tried to always push Dale out of the way or cover him with his body to take the brunt of the beatings.

He endured it all in silence.

Each time the smoke swept Dyna into another memory, its color darkened further and further.

Tarn was made to go to the finest schools, and wear the finest clothes. He went through hard combat training since his childhood to one day be a knight. His peers were the children of knights who paid homage to the Lord of Old Tanzanite Keep.

Among them was Von.

Dyna almost didn’t recognize the short chubby boy. His father, Lord Conaghan, was Lord Morken’s right hand man. Therefore, Von became Tarn’s companion out of decorum. He was a lively boy that made friends easily. He was always laughing and being rowdy during lessons. At prayer, he would whisper naughty jests to the other children and mocked the vows of chivalry they were made to recite. No one beat him. No bruises marked him. At social gatherings, Dyna stood with Tarn as they watched young Von be doted on by his mother and father.

Perhaps because he’d seen him do these things, Tarn grew a little bold. At ten years old, he made the mistake of insulting his instructor during a lesson on Everfrost history. Which brought him to the frozen courtyard of the castle. Tarn stood barefoot, dressed in thin breeches and tunic. Snow caught on his lashes as he stared blankly at a fixed point ahead.

“When you step out that door, you’re a representation of me and our House,” Lord Morken said behind him. “We are knights. The pride of our king. Yet you have failed to uphold the conduct of a simple squire. I will make sure you never forget it again.”

There was no rod in his hand this time, but a gruesome whip. Horror sank through Dyna. Lord Morken released the thick coil, and she and Tarn flinched when the leather slapped the ground. Dale wailed from the courtyard doors, begging his father not to hurt his brother before a servant pulled him away.

“Kneel.”

Tarn unbuttoned his tunic and knelt. The fabric fell away and Dyna’s heart sank at the sight of bruises and scars from previous beatings. His back was so thin, his spine jutted through his skin.

“What are the ten rules of chivalry, Tarn?”

His mouth trembled but he held his head high and straightened his shoulders. “Honor.” The whip cracked, tearing a laceration through his flesh. Tarn fell forward on his hands and knees. He clenched his teeth, biting back a cry. “Honesty.”

It came for him again. The sound it made when it met his flesh was thunder in Dyna’s ears. She covered her mouth and recoiled with each strike as her vision welled.

“Valor.” Crack. “Loyalty.” Slash. “Respect.”

She covered her ears to dull the sound of his body tearing, but she couldn’t look away.

“Truth!” Lord Morken bellowed when Tarn fell silent. He continued lashing each word into him. “Discipline. Humility. Duty!”

Stop, Dyna wept. Stop it.

But her pleas went unheard.

“What is the last one, boy? Speak!”

But Tarn couldn’t form words anymore. Pain had stolen his voice.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

The last strike of the whip flattened him on the ground. Glistening blood seeped through the gashes, rolling down his back to paint the crevasses in the cobblestones red. Still, Tarn didn’t make a sound. He laid there with his cheek pressed against the stone. His expression was blank, the last spark of life leaving his eyes. He had withdrawn into himself. Sealed away his emotions because it was the only way to endure.

“Never have I been so disgusted with you.” Lord Morken tossed the bloodied whip aside. “Tarnished bastard.”

He stormed back to the keep, leaving the beaten boy behind. Flurries drifted from the gray sky falling over him like a soft blanket. Dyna cried because she knew this was the moment his soul broke. She knelt by him, wishing to put the pieces back together, but it was too late. He had already lived this.

Here was the sincere truth of Tarn Morken, shredded and exposed beneath the snow. The beginning of the real story behind his mysterious legend. Frozen forever in a heart forged by cruelty and ice.

His bruised eyelids fluttered closed over his eyes the color of winter. Frost sprouted from his fingertips and it crackled as it spread across the ground. Then his brittle voice whispered the last rule of chivalry into the air.

“Justice.”

Dyna jerked up from a dead sleep and gasped at the morning sun streaming into the hollowed tree. She was supposed to leave before dawn! She grabbed her satchel but her hurry stalled when she saw Tarn. He never deserved such abuse. The brutality crushed him, and after that day, he changed. It molded him to show no pain. To feel nothing. And care for nothing but becoming the perfect soldier.

Why did Lord Morken hate him so much? Was it all because of a rumor?

She couldn’t understand it.

Tarn was the son of the Azure King, but Dyna hadn’t seen that discovery in his past yet. But rumors spread through court that Lord Afton was his real father, and the defamation only made Lord Morken furious that he’d been cheated out of a proper wife. Tarn was thirteen when the strife started between their Houses, and men were called to arms.

It ended when the King gifted Lord Morken the land of Troll Bridge. He was tasked with the honor to take his peerage there to make a new settlement for Azure. But it was disguised exile and everyone knew it. Old Tanzanite Keep was left in the hands of a steward, to be inherited by Dale when he came of age. But she already knew what became of Azurite.

Tarn’s little brother never lived to see the day.

Dyna laid a hand over his forehead and smiled faintly. The fever was broken. His pulse had slowed almost to normal. She quickly cleaned his wound and applied more of the poultice before wrapping it in fresh dressings. But she looked up and jumped when she spotted Len and Elon standing at the entrance of the tree.

They hadn’t made a sound.

Though she was glad they survived, she was also devastated. It was too late to run now.

“Maiden,” came Elon’s soft greeting, his breath clouding in the air. They took in Tarn’s condition and Len’s livid eyes narrowed on her. Dyna quickly explained everything.

The elf studied her a moment before asking, “Will he live?”

She nodded.

“Wait here,” Elon said to Len, then he slipped away into the morning as quickly as he appeared.

The spy didn’t move from her spot as she stared at her for what seemed like hours. Len finally looked away when they heard Elon’s return, accompanied by the clomp of hooves and the rattle of wheels. Taking advantage of the opening, Dyna slipped the hindrance arrow from her satchel to her boot before going outside.

Her heart sank to find Elon wasn’t alone.

Von brought the horse-drawn wagon to a stop and climbed down from the driver’s seat. His stony expression was shadowed with exhaustion. His torn, black uniform was covered in dried blood, half the knives missing from his bandoliers. Von didn’t acknowledge her whatsoever. He and Elon went into the tree, and came out carrying Tarn between them.

His skin looked gray in the daylight. The signs of his strength and ferocity from last night had receded to the edges of his face. No one spoke as they carefully loaded him into the back of the wagon and Len covered him with the blanket. The men climbed back into the driver’s seat and looked at Dyna expectantly.

Tension clung to her like thick syrup. “I saved his life, Von. That should earn me my freedom.”

He said nothing.

“Get in,” Len hissed from behind her. “Before I cut out yer tongue.”

Dyna considered using her magic, but she wasn’t a match for them. She climbed into the wagon and Len hopped in behind her. Blinking back tears, she looked to the east as Cassiel fell out of her reach once more.

Flurries continued to flutter by as they rolled through the forest in silence. She prayed that it wouldn’t turn into snow. The sands of time were trickling by, and the chance to cross Troll Bridge was closing.

When they neared the camp, Len completely covered Tarn out of view with the blanket.

The veil still in place.

She thought for sure the mages would have escaped. But Novo was there keeping a sword at Clayton’s back. The young mage used his staff to hold a partial opening in the veil for them to enter. His irises flickered yellow, watching her coldly as they passed.

The camp was completely destroyed.

Half the tents were trampled, dying fires smoked on broken crates and wagons. There were bodies everywhere. Knights and Raider alike. Pieces of them. Her stomach churned and she looked away. Blood soaked the ground, squelching under the slow turn of the wheels. Olsson directed those still alive to line up fallen Raiders on one side of the camp.

So many dead.

Dyna searched for Geon, Sorren, Yavi, and Dalton, but they were nowhere in sight. And the cook’s tent was burned to ash. She pulled up her cloak, hiding from the survivors staring at them pass, their accusation digging into her back.

The wagon creaked to a stop in front of Tarn’s large black tent. It was the only one that hadn’t taken any damage, probably because of the magic it bore. Von and Elon carried Tarn down with as much discretion as possible, using the wagon as coverage. Dyna sensed they didn’t want anyone to see him in his current state.

Len jerked her chin, ordering her to follow. She entered behind them as they laid him onto his untouched bed and covered him with the sheets. Elon stepped out, leaving her alone with Von.

He turned to face her, but his gaze still didn’t meet hers.

“Von—”

He raised a hand. “Don’t speak. Only listen. I lost eighty-three men last night. Eighty-three. And I nearly lost—” He bunched his fists. “Your plan didn’t work. No one made it out.”

Dyna gasped, imagining the worst.

Von finally looked at her. “They’re alive. By the skin of their teeth. Yavi is so determined in believing that you’re her hope it almost took her from me.”

She stared at him in disbelief and let out a sickened scoff. “You have some nerve. You killed my cousin and stole me away from my family. I’ve been drugged and beaten, collared like cattle, yet you think I’m wrong for wanting a life that is mine?”

So many emotions crossed Von’s face: shock, shame, guilt, and a heavy sadness that startled her. He turned away and braced his arms against the back of a chair as though needing something to hold himself up.

“I never meant for anyone to get hurt,” Dyna said. “I only wanted my freedom back, and so does Yavi. She has endured captivity for years, but if you think she has accepted it, then you don’t know her at all.”

After a drag of silence, he asked. “How did you manage to save him? Fengu is fatal.”

“Fortunately, I had the exact flower needed to counteract the poison. Royalrods.”

He laughed airily, and rubbed his face. “Of course. Well, now that the King is using Xián Jīng venom, I will need the antidote to always have on hand.”

“Have the mages brew more of the tonic I made for Elon. That will stop the poison if you can get it to him fast enough.”

Von came to stand by the bed and he looked down at his Master with an unreadable expression. “You could have run and left him for dead, lass. Yet you didn’t. Why?”

Dyna thought on that moment, of her reason for compassion, to not be like Tarn by saving lives instead. But in the end, she was partially responsible for the loss of many. And she didn’t know what to do with herself because of it.

“Because I’m a stupid human,” she muttered.

Von exhaled heavily and it seemed to put his role back in place. “You are tasked with Tarn’s recovery. You won’t step out of this tent for anything. Whatever you need will be brought to you. No one will enter here while he sleeps, and you will speak to no one about this. When the Master wakes, he will decide your fate.”

Dyna crossed her arms. “Fine. Then as the Herb Master here, there are two things I require for his healing. It’s non-negotiable.”

Von waited for the answer.

“First, I keep my magic. I will need it to treat him. And since it will be used to help instead of harm, the wards shouldn’t attack me.”

His mouth pursed, confirming this. “And second?”

“No more Witch’s Brew.”