Eda has never seen life outside of Asterism, a haven to most but a prison to her. Closely watched by her mother and her assigned Guardian, Alstroe, she lives a perfect, protected life, until all she knows is destroyed by Aries, a man who will stop a...
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There was no time to warn my mother and people of Asterism, yet my body refused to stop buzzing with frantic movement.
I wrapped my hands around Alstroe's wrists and yanked him forward, out of the cover of prickly underbrush. The momentum sent us both slipping into the mud, every inch of our soaked clothes soaked in a thick layer of brown sludge. Even with the rain acting as a barrier to noise, my surprise scream from the impact echoed through the empty, revealed courtyard and straight into the ears of the man responsible for destroying the shield.
He moved quickly, but Alstroe advanced with an unmatched swiftness.
Alstroe spent every minute away from me sparring with fellow Guardians, and between each training session, he learned how to fight in hypothetical moments just like this. Moments where I was the target, where only a well-placed swipe of a sword stood between my life and my death.
Alstroe rolled onto his back and drew his sword just as a blade soared toward his face. The man was no longer on his pale steed, instead, he stood above us, his golden gaze piercing into me as he lifted up his broadsword and dove it back down, this time toward Alstroe's throat.
"Run, Eda!" My Guardian screamed as he just barely countered the strike.
The man dug his feet into the ground and kicked up, sending a splatter of mud directly into Alstroe's eyes. I watched, prone in a useless heap, as the stranger raised his weapon up and over Alstroe's sternum. This time, his aim would be true.
"Stop!" I screamed as the man's fingers tightened over the handle of the broadsword; the blood in his knuckles disappeared from his cruel strength. My hand flew forward, like that could stop him.
With my fingers outstretched, white Dust strummed from my palms, abruptly flowing into the center of the man's chest plate with a brilliant light. He flew away from my Guardian and into the trunk of a nearby tree with a painful clunk. The surrounding soldiers, with their hands ready to pull their weapons out of their sheaths, took several steps backward in horror.
Suddenly, a familiar hand wrapped around my wrist, which buzzed strangely, as if zaps of lightning were stuck beneath my skin.
Alstroe pulled me off the ground and deeper into Asterism, where the empty acres of the courtyard turned into a collection of manicured hedges, marble statues, and private greenhouses.
He pulled me into the first building we crossed, my mother's botanical garden. She led classes to Guardians – teaching them how to grow herbs that could numb the most painful injuries or create untraceable poisons with no known antidotes. He dived into a freshly bloomed bed of mums, bringing me with him until all my senses filled with wet soil.
"What was that?" Alstroe whispered, but by the ticking of his jaw, I knew he ached to shout. "More importantly, who taught you how to do that?"
"Taught me to do what?" I whispered-screamed back.
