“And the Guardians...they were the revenge?”
Othum nodded. “We made the Guardians with the elements: water, soil, fire, so on and so forth. But it was the Nether that gave breath to your lungs and a beat to your heart. Netherblood, we called it.” Othum looked down at his hands, which were riddled in cavernous wrinkles and scars. “Only one drop of Netherblood and our creations were alive. But alas, I was arrogant.
“You were the last to be made, Ionikus,” Othum said. “A dash of the first snow...two bottles of thunderclouds...a spark from the first bolt of lightning. Then...then I tapped the flask three times...for three drops,”—he looked darkly into Ion’s eyes—“and the Sky Guardian was born.”
“But you said only one drop was needed.”
“I thought you could handle the extra power,” said Othum. His obvious disappointment with himself welled to the surface, his head bobbing about as he tried holding back tears. “You were a god of the skies, the only Guardian to control the heavens. I thought you could handle the extra dose. I thought I could make the perfect weapon. But...I was wrong.”
A hole carved its way through Ion with each new word Othum whimpered.
“My Consumption, you called it, it was because of the Netherblood?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Othum replied. “The extra dose has made your control less firm than that of the other Guardians’. As a result, a surge in some particular emotions like anger can push you over the edge more easily. Your first life certainly revealed that much.”
“The first Sky Guardian—the one before Atticus Clearwater?”
“Yes, a god by the name of Thornikus White.” Othum’s voice became grave as death. “His birth marked the end of the War of 2100. He led the Guardians into battle against the Outerworld humans, wind and lightning as his weapons. He ravaged their cities, their armies, whoever foolishly stood in his way. But the situation quickly became messy, when a week of Consumption turned into a month, and then three, and then a year. Thornikus had to be subdued.”
“Well, doesn’t that just sound lovely.”
“The Outerworld humans had only seven cities left,” said Othum. “Thornikus had nearly pushed them into extinction, and with their endangerment, so went the need for a destructive Guardian like him. He was imprisoned until the day he passed, seventy years after.”
“Imprisoned?” Ion recalled the godly meeting he’d spied on and the nasty, horrible god the Illyrians had talked about—the one they’d imprisoned just like they’d done to Ion’s past life. But...he sounded like a monster.
“Everyone had become his enemy,” said Othum. “It was either chains, or see the Illyrians fall with the humans.”
“Have there...have there ever been”—Ion swallowed hard—“any mess-ups since then? You know, with my other past life?”
“Oh, of course,” Othum said. “You name it: flash floods, tornadoes ripping whole cities apart, lightning bolts hurled at—”
“Okay, I get it.”
“I was just going to say sheep,” said Othum, giving a sniff. “But it’s distasteful nonetheless; sheep are actually quite nice.”
“Do the other Guardians know about this?” Ion was hopeful for a “no.”
“I’ve told them today was an unfortunate result of stress,” Othum said with a nod. “And I’ve sent Spike a batch of Blister Bites with a three page letter of apology—all from you.”
“Thanks,” said Ion, his voice low as he wallowed in shame. His body felt like it had gained fifty pounds over the course of this conversation. He had never been this afraid—and of himself, no less.
“I do apologize for all of this,” Othum spoke softly, patting Ion on the back, which hurt. “My youth is full of days I wish I could take back, but even an Illyrian cannot reverse time. For now,”—Othum opened up Ion’s hand and placed something light within it—“this will have to do.” He rose from Ion’s bed and the springs recoiled gleefully. “I’m sad to say, I must be off. The hour is late, and I should have been in bed hours ago. Get some rest, Ionikus Reaves. And keep those thoughts clear—anger is no match for a centered mind.”
He winked, and with a few thunderous footsteps and the slam of a door, Othum was gone. Ion opened his hands. Inside, a macaroon glowed a brilliant blue. He welled with feelings he had never hated so much in his life: guilt over hurting Spike, resentment over Othum and the Netherblood in his veins, and embarrassment over accusing the gods of being monsters...when he was no better.
He stared down at the sweet, disgusted by something so delicious. He threw it across the room and it exploded against the wall. He dug his fingernails into his palms, fighting tears.
The freak with the iron jaw is now the monster with the iron jaw.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A SISTER SCORNED
For three hours Ion tossed and turned in his bed. He gazed up at the distant ceiling, a wall of shadow above him—the only surface that managed to escape the light of the moon—when a bit of dust and rock fell from the blackness and showered his bed. He was so exhausted he wasn’t sure if he cared. He wasn’t even certain he hadn’t imagined it in his exhaustion. But then came the noise.
It was light—as though trying not to be heard—
Sssssssss!
Ion squinted at the ceiling, but saw only darkness.
Sssssssssssss!
He squinted harder. Nothing still.
Ssssssssssssssssss!
And then he saw it...something...multiple somethings...long and leathery arms creeping out a hole in the middle of the ceiling. They slithered down the walls, into the reach of the moonlight, and Ion gasped. They weren’t arms. They were vines—fat, green vines veiled in bulbous, throbbing zits.
Ion took to the middle of his bed, somewhere in between panic and utter confusion.
More vines spilled down the walls, until the walls could no longer be seen.
Ion focused and as the hairs on his arms rose, out from their tips whipped thin bolts of electricity. The vines washed down onto the floor, and Ion tightened his fists, the electricity growing thicker.
The hissing came from all around, and then, pop, pop, pop like the violent death of a balloon bouquet. Ion could only watch now as the throbbing zits on the vines exploded with green juices...and hairy, black spiders.
He screamed as spiders sprayed through the air, landing on his bed, his tunic, and a few on his face. Ion fired lightning in every which direction, but with each bolt and crack of thunder that came, so followed more pops and more spiders. When the vines coiled around the legs of his bed, the spiders gathered at the end of Ion’s mattress, right there on the sheets, climbing on top of one another, until a great tower of black, hairy legs and fangs stood before him. He fell back in horror, and the spiders fell away to the floor, leaving in their wake a teenage girl with blazingly red hair, and green eyes that burned with a vengeance.
If Spike wasn’t going to be his death, this girl certainly was.
Solara bared her teeth like a rabid dog. “How dare you!” she screamed, and Ion’s heart nearly bounded out of his chest.
Solara turned her back to Ion and stepped off the end of his bed. The vines heaved upward, and hoisted the bed into the air.
“P-put me down, Solara!” Ion demanded, struggling to stay upright on the wobbling mattress. “You have no right to be in my room!”
“You scarred my brother!” said Solara. “And for your treachery, I’m going to break every bone in your body.”
“We were training!” Ion said, the bed rising higher. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!”
With a heave, the vines chucked Ion and his bed right through the window. He yelped as the glass flew all around him, before the wooden bed frame exploded across the courtyard floor. Had the mattress not been there to break his fall, he probably would have broken every bone in his body.
Solara appeared beside the mattress, her vines spilling out the shattered window, leaking down the walls of the fortress.
“Stand up
and fight, you freak!” Solara shouted. “Battle me like you did my brother!”
Ion rose to his feet. Hurting someone else might get him kicked out of the academy, and getting kicked out meant Father never being freed.
“I’m not going to fight you, Solara,” he said.
“You’re so weak!” she screamed, her face as red as her hair. “Come on! Conjure a storm! Throw some wind at me! Try to strike me down with your stupid lightning!”
“I’m not going to fight you,” Ion repeated, even as the vines surrounded him. “I didn’t mean to hurt Spike, and I don’t intend to hurt you.”
Solara screamed in frustration and lunged onto the mattress, hoisting Ion into the air by his neck. She was even stronger than he remembered.
“You don’t deserve to be a Guardian,” she said, her voice low but full of malice. “And one day, you’ll show everyone the reason why.”
Solara’s fingernails hinged upward, and from out of her nail beds scurried more spiders, crawling up Ion’s neck, over his metal jaw, and crowding around his eyes. He kept his mouth shut tight though he desperately wanted to scream—the feeling of so many legs against his skin was enough to make him want to cry.
Then a scream ripped through the air, and Solara went flying backward, pinned against the courtyard wall. Ion swept the spiders from his skin, took in a deep breath and looked over at Solara. At first, it seemed she had been glued there, but with squinted eyes, Ion could see the fifty tiny, golden arrows that had pierced the fabric of her tunic into the wall of stone behind her.
“This...is a new...tunic!” Solara thundered, careful not to thrash about.
Vinya rushed up on Ion’s side, her Moon Bow held tightly in-hand, the antlers polished and white under the moonlight.
“Withdraw your shrubbery, Solara,” Vinya said through her teeth.
Silence fell, where Vinya and Solara wrestled with the meanest of glares. The vines slithered their way back into Ion’s room, disappearing through the hole they had made in his ceiling.
Vinya dropped her bow to her side and clenched her jaw. After a deep breath, her dark expression lightened. “Thank you, Solara.” Vinya snapped her fingers and fifty pops of light later, the arrows were gone and Solara was seething on the floor of the courtyard. “Now, what is going on here?” She threw her Moon Bow over her shoulder.
“Studying abroad did wonders for my powers,” Solara said slyly, “and I wanted Ion to be the first to experience them. It’s the least I could do after he tried to kill my brother.”
“I heard what happened today,” Vinya said. “And it’s my understanding there was no such attempt on Spike’s life. While I also understand your emotions, Solara, I assure you trying to seek revenge on Ion is not going to help your brother. What occurred in that coliseum was an accident, and you know it.”
A great wind exploded in the courtyard, and Othum came hovering down to the stone floor. His hair was tied back into a ponytail, with a slice of cucumber pasted beneath each eye.
“Father,” Vinya said with a respectful nod. “You’re…doing facials again, I see.”
“Of course!” Othum said. “I’m thousands of years old, child—how do you think I maintain such a natural glow? Now what, might I ask, is happening down here? Is there a party going on and no one invited me?” He rested the backs of his hands on his hips. “That better not be the case.”
“It’s not a party, Father,” said Vinya. “Just a small misunderstanding, is all.”
“Vinya tried to kill me!” Solara shouted, and Ion rethought not fighting her.
Vinya’s face went long in shock. “I did no such thing!”
“Solara tried to kill me!” said Ion.
Othum’s eyebrows folded toward one another in confusion, and one of the cucumber slices fell from his cheek. “Vinya, may I speak with you in the Creator’s Sanctum, please?”
“But, Father I—”
Othum eyed Ion, and then Solara. “I will not discuss this out here. In the Sanctum. Now.”
And Vinya followed her father. When the doors slammed shut behind them, and the Illyrians were out of sight, Solara approached Ion with a nasty grin.
“Well, you sure do know how to spice up life on the Acropolis, don’t you?” she said. “First, you attack Spike, a boy so stupid he might as well be an infant, and then you get one of the Constructs in trouble.”
“Even if she was in trouble—which she’s not,” said Ion, “it certainly isn’t because of me.”
Solara threw her head back and cackled. “I knew I should have disposed of you back at that pitiful mansion Dread called a home. Your presence here will only further irritate the Balance.”
“And you’re someone who fights for it?”
“I sure am,” she said, wearing a sly smile. “I’m always looking out for little weaklings like you. They undermine the Balance the most, but in the dark, so by the time anyone catches them it’s too late. From this point forward, I’ll be watching you, Caller. The next time you slip up, the moment you make a mistake…I’ll be there to see the consequences are properly enforced.”
Solara walked away and vanished into the blackness of the hall leading to the Dorms. Ion breathed deep, suddenly aware of his anger.
Thunder boomed inside the Creator’s Sanctum, and Vinya burst out of the massive doors, small strips of lightning zipping over her head before she shut the doors behind her.
“Losing his divine marbles!” she said, tucking her black hair behind her ears.
“I-is everything all right?” Ion asked.
“Yes,” Vinya sighed. “He was a bit unhappy about the interruption of his facial. What about you? Did Solara cause any damage? Besides, of course, your bed…and your window…and your ceiling?”
“Not a scratch,” Ion replied. “I can’t blame her, though. If someone had hurt Oceanus the way I hurt Spike, I would have reacted the same way.”
“We all know today was an accident, Ionikus,” Vinya said. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Now, I want you to go back to the Dorms and think nothing of any of this.” She looked down at the mattress with thought, “And have a good night’s rest on the couch. Your classes tomorrow have been cancelled. You and the other Guardians are taking a field trip with me, so be in the courtyard by eight a.m. I’ll let the others know.”
Ion nodded, and made his way back to the Dorms, all the while, thinking, Gods go on field trips?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LOST AND FOUND
When morning arrived in all its sunny glory, there was no glass, torn mattress, or any hairy spiders to suggest anything but a normal night had occurred in the courtyard. All had been mysteriously fixed overnight: the window, the hole in Ion’s ceiling, even his bed had somehow been pieced back together.
As Ion stood in line in the courtyard beside Oceanus, with Vinya approaching, wearing one of her most generous smiles yet, Ion almost thought he’d dreamt up all the craziness of last night. But then Solara came walking into the courtyard, and took her place on the other side of Oceanus.
Yep, it definitely wasn’t a dream.
“Good morning, my dears,” said Vinya, bowing. She inhaled deep through her nose and went on, “The sun’s shining and the air’s fabulous—perfect weather for a field trip, don’t you think?”
Ion eyed Vinya’s black, ratty robes, and felt a bit worried. He’d never seen her wear anything but bright, vividly colored dresses, and now she looked like she’d just gotten back from a gloomy visit to the Darklands.
He leaned over to Oceanus and whispered out the side of his mouth, “What’d you think the robe’s for?”
Oceanus gave him a scornful look; so scornful in fact, Ion was certain he was the math test she’d failed in third grade.
And then he remembered what he’d stayed up all night trying to forget...he was a monster. He wasn’t even sure how he’d forgotten: the way he’d attacked Spike, how Oceanus had looked at him afterwards, the disappointment so heavy in her eyes. It was painful jus
t remembering.
Ion rubbed the cold metal of his jaw. It felt heavy and burdensome. More than ever now.
Vinya walked down the line of Guardians and handed each a long, black robe like hers. “These are to be worn during the entire duration of our trip,” she said, too cheery this early in the morning.
Solara held the cloth as far away from her as possible, looking at it like it had been woven with the skins of twenty warty toads. “And what exactly are they for?”
“Today, we’ll be exploring the streets of Protea,” said Vinya, “to study the followers of the Illyrians you protect. And since human-watching is best done in the darkness, keeping to the shadows is most important. Got it?”
“I don’t understand why any of that would be important,” Solara grumbled.
“And that’s just fine,” said Vinya. “The most important things in life tend to take longer to understand. Learning how to not attract attention to yourself might one day save your life, Solara—for others, it might just win them a wonderful grade in the CVE’s.” She gave Ion a wink.
After everyone had slipped on their black linen robes—Solara, not-so-happily—the field trip began.
The Protean streets were exactly as Ion had left them. Lizarous meandered through the streets with their giant lizard bodies pulling carts full of vegetables and fruits. Old cafes brewed with gossip and the scent of coffee. They passed an outdoor grill called Pan’s Pan and the smell of bacon and eggs plugged Ion’s nose. It was disgusting—so unsweetened—and Ion couldn’t remember why he had ever loved such a breakfast. Delicious, ice-cold Frostlings suddenly came to mind.
Ion looked over at Oceanus, wondering if she was thinking the same thing, but she swiftly looked in the other direction. Ion clenched his jaw, knowing the only thing that could stop this nonsense was something he dreaded more than the smell of human food.
An apology.