Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (14 page)

A figure approached, a man he recognized from Labor, but this one was in flesh color. Like the other temptations. It smelled of citric spice like those tomb-wood obstacles, but so did the statue that concealed the exit in the sandpit. If she had summoned it, he trusted it. He did not raise his bow nor reach for the last of his arrows.

As the construct closed the distance between them, it extended both hands to her. Her own lifted to receive his touch. But Shalott made a soft sound, turning her head toward him. The figure slowed down, a yard away, hands dropping to its sides.

“You have another sleeve, Shalott. Ample makings for a gag.”

Shalott stilled next him.

Taking advantage of that respite, Guard shouldered his bow, swooped his ward up, and carried her toward the figure. She fretted with her ringed hand. When they were close, she whispered, “Ravenscar. Roland. I choose—I choose Roland.” She flung her arm toward him, ready for an embrace. “Oh, my Roland!”

The minute they touched, the figure twisted, growing quickly up and out into a massive tomb-wood tree rooted to the ground. Within the bronze-colored bole, a door opened. Guard, looking back, found Shalott not close for once. Guard snapped, “Come. Now.”

A look of stubbornness then a look of loss crossed the male’s young face, both emotions easy to recognize now; but when Shalott looked at Lydia in Guard’s arms, he set his jaw and marched forward through the door.

Guard followed with his charge.

CHAPTER 15

The first thing Lydia said as soon as they were through the door was “That was horrible.” And her head fell against Guard’s shoulder.

Success sometimes was. Killing those monsters that had killed Father had proven that. But he didn’t say this. Instead he looked about himself, at the small chamber resembling a round, white cave divided in two by a shimmering rainbow barrier. Their side was barren except for the wall lights. The other half of the room, which Shalott advanced toward, held a hoard of treasure, abandoned temptations, piled and strewn.

Most heartening, not a hint of tomb-wood reached his nose.

The place of their victory was pure and clean and starkly beautiful.

“Lydia,” Guard said, “we are nearly finished. Are you ready to claim your shade?”

Of course, Shalott had to turn around and shoot him a dark look. “Have you no heart? She needs rest. She is but human, after all. But what am I thinking? Of course, you have no heart, Cambion. You’re almost a full spirit now, right? Isn’t that how the Trials work, for you? You get stronger at the end? So what do you know of humans now?” Shalott shook his head and then advanced on them. “Hand her over. I can guide her from here. You can go off and do”—He fluttered his hand dismissively—“spirit things.”

“I remain with my ward until her mission is completed.” He did not hand Lydia over. That would be a mistake. Shalott was still a temptation for her. A strong one at that.

“It’s all right, Guard.” Lydia patted his arm weakly. “You may let me down.”

Guard didn’t obey that command either; it, too, would have been a mistake. Though she was strong, as these Trials had proven, strength gave out eventually.

Four strides, and he had carried her to the barrier. He had called it rainbow, but in truth, it possessed only five colors, the colors of the spirit world: yellow, red, gray, white, and black. Appropriate. And beautiful.

Guard knelt and carefully set her on the ground facing it, staying behind her to support her.

Lydia twisted in place and gave him another weary pat, a weary smile, and a weary “thank you,” none of which Shalott appreciated. Then she asked for the journal and summoning materials.

Still crouched behind her, Guard removed the jar, her little knit bag, and the journal from his pouch and handed them over.

She thumbed through the pages till she came to the right one, and then she began extracting materials from her bag, laying them out in a half circle around her. A packet of herbs. A slip of paper, rolled up and bound with a string. A pencil. And a book of matches.

Shalott grumbled and paced the entire time—some humans, it seemed, had emerged energized from the last Trial.

“Quiet, please, Perce. I need to think and get this right. I need to make some changes to my heartfelt plea.” Lydia untied the slip and picked up the pencil and chewed on back end of it. The rest of her words fell to mutters to herself.

So Shalott plunked himself down perpendicular to her, back against the wall, shoulder to the barrier, facing her. Subtly, Guard shifted as if to give his ward more room, but mostly he moved to shield Shalott from her sight. She needed no distractions, and he’d allow none. When Shalott started to protest, Guard rose, stood next to him, and squeezed his shoulder. Tightly. Preventing him from rising and also hopefully warning him against speaking. Shalott clamped his jaw shut and fumed. Quietly for once.

Lydia scratched out something, wrote several new things in, and lipped a few words. Then, closing her eyes, she spoke her summoning ritual. “I, Lydia Aude Lancer, have persevered through the Trials of Time, Labor, and Temptation to find my love, my fiancé, Roland Russell Ravenscar. By the power of my triumph, I beseech the goddess and spirits of this City of the Dead to relinquish to me the shade I seek. Let me restore him to life. Please.”

She opened her eyes, opened her jar, retied her plea, and dropped it inside. It stuck an inch above the rim. The contents of the herbal bag soon followed, Guard recognizing several dried purple flowers as ironweed. She stirred it about with the paper. Then she repeated her plea and stirring twice more. Satisfied, she struck her match.

It snapped.

Pressing her lips tight, she tried again. This time her match blazed to life, and she held it to the paper, shielding the jar’s mouth with her other hand. The paper caught, and everything flared up at once. But smoke only came after there was nothing left to burn. Its swirl was black—shade-black. It hovered a few inches above the jar, not dissipating.

She cupped the smoke in her hands. Breathed it in, once, twice, thrice. The last time she coughed, but it did not seem to bother her, for she was rising with her still smoking jar in hand.

Gripping it tightly in both hands, head held high, spine straight as can be, she marched forth, and—

Ran into the barrier with an audible thunk. She almost dropped the jar as she clutched her nose and mouth, and a loud “Oh!” leaked out between her fingers. Guard restrained Shalott—who fought like a wild cat—with one hand. Where did the male get the energy?

Lydia soon recovered, moving from palming her nose to palming the barrier. It never softened. Rainbows spiraled and spun against her fingertips.

“Oh, I don’t understand. I—” She sank to her knees beside the journal. Setting aside her jar, she leafed through the pages hurriedly. “I was so certain.”

“You were not wrong,” Guard said. “Lydia—look.”

Even Shalott stilled as something took shape in a bare space among the objects. A black wisp, like her smoke, but this grew to human height. It flickered, once, twice, limbs forming, a head. Then color burst through, giving the shade a lifelike appearance.

Impressive.

Most ghosts took a while to settle their forms, and shades rarely had the opportunity to learn how, being only temporary, transitional spirits.

His ward’s fiancé’s inexperience showed through, though, when he stepped toward her. There his concentration faltered. Sometimes his trousers lost their color and just became black shapes, like a three-dimensional outline. Sometimes a spot, here and there, went see-through entirely. But never for very long. He paused for a moment, and a thin stream of inky blackness shot forth from his right hand, remaining attached, becoming a . . . decorative cane. At that, her fiancé smirked.

“Oh, Roland!” Lydia clutched her hands together. “It worked! You came!” She rose, snagging the jar, and pressed her free hand against the barrier. Rainbows patterns bloomed beneath her touch.

Ravenscar looked up, dipped his head in a nod, and said softly, “Firefly.”

Her smile blossomed, too. “Oh, you remembered. You are you, really you! I’m coming to retrieve you, dearest—just, I need you to close your eyes while I do so, please.” She waggled one finger. “Promise me you won’t peek.”

“In a moment, dear. In a moment.” He was no longer moving forward but casting about, inspecting the piles of treasure. He thrust his cane in one. Shook his head. Tried another, wiggling it about, head cocked. He knelt down and started shoveling objects aside.

One of which was a rosebud locket, petals made of pink stone, leaves pastel green, and all set against white.

Victoria’s.

That was her temptation. She had passed through.

Emotions welled upside him—

Distracting things he shunted harshly aside.
Of course, she had,
Guard thought.
Her Tower journey would be nothing so arduous as ours, the bulk of the work being done years ago.
And those thoughts joined all those that he’d think on later—though he knew not when he’d have time or why he should—and he chose to focus on safer grounds, on Lydia instead.

Only Lydia.

On her hand sliding off the barrier.

On her saying, “What are you doing, Roland? Can you not hear me?” She knocked on the barrier and raised her voice to an overenunciated shout, “I am here to retrieve you!”

“Of course, you have, dear. But first, I am getting what I came here for. Aha!” That exclamation, like his other words, were softly spoken and even in tone. “There she is!” He snatched something small from the disarrayed pile and rose.

Guard left Shalott and stepped closer and watched the man slip the stolen possession, a dark band, onto his right ring finger.

“A spirit ring.”

“Precisely . . . Guardian Spirit, I presume, from the gray color.” Lydia’s fiancé gestured with the tip of his half-imaginary, half-real cane. “Spirit rings are in rather short supply these days. I’m fortunate the rumors held true and one indeed resided in this hoard. But enough of this. I’m sure my Firefly can introduce us thoroughly after I am in the flesh once more. Go on, my dear, while your jar is still smoking strongly.”

“His Firefly” had backed up, face red, eyes wet. “You . . . you came here for this?” But the tears didn’t fall as she rushed forward, fatigue suddenly gone, and slammed her hand against the barrier. Her tone matched her movement: “You killed yourself for a blasted spirit ring!”

Shalott stepped forth, fists clenched, on the other side of Guard. “I told you, Lydia, Crawford didn’t murder—”

“Not now, Perce!” She pressed her fist against the barrier, the rainbow rippling wildly. “How could you, Roland! How could you! How could you put me through this!”

Shalott spat, “You risked our lives for a ring.”

“Risk? What risk? For the last three months, my fiancée has had access to my laboratory. I have shared what knowledge of the spirit world I could. I have seen to her training on that revolver I gifted her with. And my cousin had agreed with my assessment on her mental readiness before dosing me with the poison. And now all my fiancée needs to do is secure myself, bid the ferryman row her ashore, and step into the coach my cousin should have ready to convey us to my home and waiting body. I consider that well prepared, especially considering the quality of her spirit, so to say.” Ravenscar leant on his cane, now in his left hand, and buffed his ring against his waistcoat. “Quite the remarkable woman, my future wife. Do you not agree, Shalley? Was she not wonderful?” He turned to her, leaving Shalott to sputter inarticulately. In that same soft tone, Ravenscar said, “Dearest, I know I distressed you, and I am sorry. It was necessary, and I promise I will make it up to you once I am alive once more. The jar, please?”

“Oh, I’ll give you your jar.” Lydia’s hand reared back, and she seemed more than ready to dash it against the barrier. “Here’s your—”

Guard moved and caught her arm. “Remember your goal. Your success is linked to his retrieval.”

Lydia took a deep breath, though the red color did not fade from her cheeks. Then she nodded. “We
shall
talk after this.”

“I look forward to it,” Ravenscar said, eyes sliding to Guard. “Thank you for your level head, Guardian Spirit.”

“Oh!” Lydia stomped her foot, commanding his attention. “You will not—you will promise me you will not—take this spirit, he who worked so hard to get us here, who worked so hard to become a full spirit. Nor will you take another from his City. If you don’t promise me, I will . . . I will, oh, I don’t know what I will do, but it won’t be pleasant, mark my words!”

“I’m sure it won’t be, dear. But how fascinating! So that is how spirits are made? You must tell me more, Firefly, over . . . ” He pulled out a pocket watch, flipped open its lid with his thumb, and “hmmed” over it. “Breakfast, I suspect, by the time we cross the river and reach my estate.” The watch devolved to black smoke and then flickered away to nothingness.

Guard caught his ward’s arm again before she did something foolish. “It would be best if we hurry. The smoke is growing weak.”

“Yes, of course. Roland, did you hear that? Stop being your usual infuriating self, and do as I ask.”