Chapter Fourteen #2
Naal found Kyra with her back against the port side railing on the afternoon of their third day at sea, frowning at a seabird that flew high above them.
Her colouring was a little sallow from two days of not being able to keep any food in her stomach, but even so, her golden-brown skin glowed in the afternoon sun.
A shade lighter than her grandmother’s, Naal noted.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ she asked as she approached.
Kyra grunted in response, her eyes still glued to the seabird.
‘I remember my first time at sea. I was a little older than you and arrogant beyond belief. I thought it would feel like flying. It was anything but. I spent the entire voyage with my head in a bucket. A humbling experience to say the least.’
‘Why would you need to sail if you could just fly?’
‘Flying is like sprinting. Long journeys are awfully tiresome, not only physically but magically too. Our wings are built for short bursts and heavy loads.’ Naal frowned up at the gliding bird above. ‘Quite unlike the seabird, who can fly for days straight without tiring.’
Kyra glanced up at her. ‘There are others like you?’
Naal smiled proudly, thinking of her winged family back home. ‘There are. We are not many anymore, but we are mighty.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Void Ages happened,’ Naal replied sadly. ‘Akee, we were once called, though the name is almost lost today. Nythanor was not always the peaceful realm it is now, and the akee have a rather bloody history. We were culled by the masses, but we were by no means innocent.’
‘Akee…’ Kyra repeated. ‘I’ve never heard the name. Why is it no longer used?’
‘Because my people were proud, and saw themselves as elite above all others. It pains me to say it… but they were the first to ally with Dohra and her miraqni in the Void Ages,’ Naal said with a slight grimace.
Kyra fidgeted, clasping her hands together.
‘After the Mothers ascended and Dohra was banished forevermore, the akee were tried for treachery against their own people. Very few had resisted the overwhelming pressure to support Dohra and the Old Gods, and were shown mercy. But the rest were found guilty, and were sentenced to die with Dohra’s legacy. ’
‘It sounds like they got what they deserved.’
‘Yes… I suppose they did. Those who did survive were desperate to begin anew, to show their fellow Nythanorians that they could live in peace and harmony. The first Air Warden oversaw the revolution of the Age of Mothers, and when I became the Air Warden after him, my people found their place as protectors.’ Naal couldn’t help but smile. ‘The Eternal Warriors.’
Kyra nodded with appreciation. ‘You’re a walking history book.’
Naal sighed. ‘I feel it sometimes.’
‘How old are you?’ asked Kyra boldly, her eyes narrowing.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You talk about it as if you were there. As if you saw it all happen.’
Naal almost laughed. ‘You think I am over a thousand years old?’
‘You look great if you are,’ Kyra said with a shrug.
She did laugh then. ‘I am not far off. But no, I was not born in the Void Ages, Kyra.’
‘But you must be the second Air Warden to have ever lived…?’
‘I am,’ Naal replied simpy with an incline of her head. She was proud of the life she had led thus far. Surpassing history’s oldest Warden a few centuries ago, she had succeeded in keeping peace in Nythanor, the only continent of Droria that was not torn by politics nor ruled by a governing body.
Her people were free, and had been for almost a millenia.
‘How do you know my grandmother?’ asked Kyra, though Naal could sense there was another question burning beneath.
‘We fought together in the Earthling War.’ It was the briefest yet most succinct answer Naal could find.
Staring straight ahead, Kyra instead jumped to the question Naal knew she truly wanted the answer to: ‘Why didn’t she ever tell me who I was?’
No anger tainted her voice now. Perhaps the consistent vomiting had stripped her of the energy to be bitter.
‘During the war, the Earth Warden of the time, a male by the name Cormus Yellar, was killed on the battlefield. His successor, a man called Edward Feit tried to regain a foothold when the war was over. But with the faith in the Four slowly dying in Vrethian, earthlings did not recognise the prestige of the Earth Warden title anymore.’
Kyra frowned. ‘Wait… humans can be Wardens?’
‘Of course. The current Water Warden is human, in fact. It’s not as likely as their lives are significantly shorter, but if the Goddess sees something extraordinary in a human, then they too can be chosen. Though even as a human, Edward was not granted the respect he deserved as Earth Warden.’
With a snort, Kyra said, ‘Humans turning on their own. What a surprise.’
‘Your contempt for them is not misplaced,’ Naal said.
‘But you have to remember why they abandoned their faith. They had been convinced by a foreign queen that their fae counterparts, with their stronger magic and deeper connection to Roheia, would one day seize the opportunity to conquer them all. Their call for civil war against the fae, against your kin, was contrived from nothing more than a well-placed fear by someone who knew exactly what she was doing.’
‘I’ve read the old tomes on the war. It was the Empress of Zarynth,’ Kyra said. Naal nodded. ‘But why? What did she have to gain from that?’
Naal shifted uncomfortably. ‘Even now, a century and a half later, that remains to be seen. I can only guess.’
Kyra nodded slowly. ‘Not that this isn’t a great history lesson, but it doesn’t answer my initial question.’
Along with learning her Warden powers, perhaps Kyraena could do with a few lessons in patience.
Naal pressed on, ‘Edward met his death quite suddenly.
He was barely older than you are now, and his death was proclaimed an ‘accident’.
Another Warden came after him and the same thing happened.
A tragic, unexplainable death. Then another.
Then another. Then another, and so it went on.
I do not know the exact number, but there are over twenty Earth Wardens between you and Cormus Yellar.
Some say the line was cursed after the war.
Others say it is the work of an extremely proficient assassin with a hatred for the Mothers. Neither theory has ever been proven.
‘It is why you were never told, Kyra,’ Naal said simply to conclude.
‘Your grandmother worried that if word got out that you were the next Earth Warden, you would be targeted. I… hadn’t known that Winvara had kept it from you.
But please know this… she only did so because she so desperately did not want to lose you. ’
There was more to it. Far more. But to delve deeper at this moment would be an overload of information Naal wasn’t sure Kyra was ready for.
‘What happens after?’ Kyra said quietly after a few moments of thoughtful silence.
‘I learn how to use my magic, how to be a Warden… and then what? I just… go back to Vrethian?’ She shook her head.
‘They hate me, Naal. The Daeiros name isn’t exactly revered in Avaldale.
Being the Earth Warden won’t change anything. ’
‘I think…’ Naal began slowly. Carefully.
‘That you could be the one to change things, Kyra. Though I cannot know for sure what goes on in Zarynth, I feel certain we have not seen the last of Empress Azar. As a Warden, it will be your duty, along with my own, to counteract the chaos that is about to unfold.’
Stretching her legs out in front of her, Kyra said casually, ‘That’s if I don’t mysteriously die before then.’
Naal’s lips twitched. ‘You made it this far. I feel certain you will live to fight on a battlefield, and not in an arena.’
Kyra looked at her then. ‘You really think there will be another war?’
Nodding solemnly, Naal said, ‘Gallena has been warning me of its coming for some time. And we must be ready for it when it arrives.’