A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 49

MARIA

Father's forge clanged out in her childhood days. A young girl who sat on the steps to his workspace as his hammer struck against the anvil. He treated blades with care, carving the runes with a deft, artistic hand. Sparks bounced onto the cobbled ground and bloomed with fiery flowers. Mother told her the story of their meeting — her, an out of place Avaerilian surrounded by boisterous, loud Hanekans, trying to find her way through the waves of change; until she met an auburn-haired runesmith apprentice working behind the stall of his master, focused and gentle with his work. Measured and precise. Mother ran away from control, and made the first, hardest choice and found the truth.

Then Father took a large commission from the mystical Warden Orders, nothing more than a distant band of golden-cloaked heroes from stories and given a temporary home on the confines of the mountain, and the mysticism fell away to another, no less inspirational truth. Her curiosity brought her into the Warden gardens, making art as Father did with metal, memorizing the facets of life, using a children's cauldron to test little mixtures in the relative safety and supervision of Yuo. It set her alight with a newfound goal, and she took the oath with a bloodied crescent blade in hand, following the light.

In the throes of Mother's misery, she stood out in the middle of the snow-caked streets, underneath a flickering lamp as she waited for Neven to return. Up the walkway, the Lord's estate glowed with newfound power, the first signal of his well-being, but uncertainty gripped her throat of his sense of duty and resolve clashing against nostalgic agony. There is nothing wrong with caring, Neven... Her own words slipped through her teeth the longer she watched the Avaerilians dance, sing, and bounce around with hope. Children slipped out of their houses and swung their bells. It is like Neven's arrival brought them back to life... Maybe it would be easier to move all these people into Irimount once we've cleared the place out and fixed most of the debris... if they'd even move, which I doubt. Back against the metal post, she tapped her boot and mist rose from her lips. I'd have to ask Neven if that's an option, at least temporarily...

Her train of thought faltered at the sight of the same two masked individuals in the tavern at the entrance they took, hovering around the Snowshear. Off the post, she went to investigate, but slammed to a stop at the crinkled song of black ice. Magick whispered across the flow, and Maria let out a gasp when the largest window at the Lord's estate exploded with glittered golden shards and studded sapphires. Glass splattered across the walkways and caused any nearby Avaerilians to rush out of the way as a shape flew down the slope, caught by a glyph of ice when they hopped to their feet, dark gold hair flyaway as they held their seax's up to bring the glyph as a shield.

Through the sapphire mist, Neven leaped on billowed mist, golden glaive in hand. It struck the center of the dark-haired Avaerilian's glyph. It sparked. Leashes of magick crinkled and electrified the snow. Maria opened her mouth, a slew of questions on the edge of her mind, but she froze when the masked figures by the Snowshear slammed ice into the ropes and sails. Shit. Fists clenched, she snapped, "Nev! They're destroying the Snowshear!"

Their only way to cross the Frozen Wastelands.

Neven flicked his beaded sapphire pupils to her, full of ice-cold rage as he drove his glaive deeper, until he pushed his feet into their glyph and bounced off it. The force of his jump pushed them further back down the street. A deep hiss left Neven's nose when he swung upwards and sent snow across the walkways to block the entrances into the houses as the townsfolk screamed and bolted for shelter. His gaze tightened into draconic fury at a child's screech.

Maria brought up her flames, though the constant wind from the blizzard stifled them as Neven snarled with another unsettling hiss. His knuckles turned white from the pressure he put on his glaive as he stepped forward. From the icy mist, glaives came to life and slammed towards the dark-haired enemy. Glyphs caught some, but others forced him to leap out of the way as the other two masked assailants approached from around the fight, towards her. Blade in her hands when she found her flames wanting, she jumped when a glaive of magick rolled across the snow and smashed into one, pinning them to the wall of snow Neven created to protect the townsfolk. "Nev!" she screamed at him. "We can't fight here! People will get hurt!"