Fallen Ashes: The Guardians Series, #1

Prologue

Kingdom of Vaie

Balc’s hands ground the malleable kaolin as sharp licks of magic prickled down his arms. His stomach coiled so tight he wasn’t sure he could keep his dinner down much longer. On a curved shoulder, Balc wiped the perspiration along his jawline, then dragged filthy palms across his linen tunic, powerless to stop their shaking. Powerless to ignore the treason he was committing. Powerless to forget the Queen of Vaie would demand his head.

The drae lord watching Balc cleared his throat from within the shadows of the crypt. In the middle of the night, he’d stolen Balc from his home to create an abomination. And, as if a threat by the all-powerful drae, who ought to follow the queen’s rules, wasn’t enough, his guards remained with Balc’s wife and their three great-grandchildren.

Balc’s pulse hammered in his ears.

Hurry up, Spell Forger. The lord’s callous undertone reaffirmed the promise of death. If they didn’t return to Balc’s home within three hours, Balc’s family would never see the morning.

Balc sprinted to the rear of the room, his toes sinking in the mud of his underground room. Beech tree roots wove through the walls like brown snakes. Long ago, Balc had carved them into shelves. Today, he wished they’d morph into real vipers.

With a bucket of purified water in hand, he curled a finger around the neck of a tiny bottle filled with sap from the last remaining weeping tree. Then he threaded a thumb through the handle of a wooden jar and returned to the table.

Nerves consumed him, but he needed to overcome them. Working in the crypt for most of his life, he’d never once felt threatened. Until tonight. He gestured to the lord in the shadows, indicating his compliance with the rules as he placed the bucket and vial at one end of the table.

Balc uncorked the jar. At once, the powdery scent of drae bones… a pungent sulfur… pinched his nostrils. He coughed, and his gut churned. Which of his people had the lord sacrificed for this sample? Descended from an extinct race of dragon shifters, the drae had lived in harmony for centuries. Their numbers halved after the Blood War with the Kingdom of Aripi. So, now even the loss of one of Balc’s fellow draes from the realm of Vaie was unforgivable.

His fingers squeezed the lid; his lungs refused to work for a few moments.

With hesitation, Balc sprinkled the ashes along the length of the clay and followed it with splashes of water. Not too much, or the form wouldn’t hold. His wife’s smiling face whirred through his mind, hushing his thoughts, driving the doubts aside, and focusing on the universe’s stillness. But he couldn’t quiet his quivering as he folded the ash into the clay and repeated a blessing in his mind.

Creatori. Dă-o viață. Dă-o minte. Dă-o limbă. Dați-i un suflet.

A flame engulfed his core, flaring and swirling in size with each recitation. Sweat dripped along his nose and over his chin, splashing across the clay. Every formation included a part of him. That was the way. Energy skated down Balc’s arms, into his fingers, his pale flesh darkening to a reddish hue, and energy blending into the clay.

His limbs weakened beneath him, and the room spun. Stumbling backward, his hand flayed outward, knocking the bucket over the edge of the table. Water splashed across his legs, its icy fingers clawing at his flesh. He caught himself, and the walls of the workshop seemed to close in around him. His work had always drained him, but never this fast.

The lord tsked, the sound rippling across the room.

Balc rushed to the far corner, gasping for breath, his feet making sucking sounds with each step. With the second bucket of water in hand, he returned to the table. Focus. No more mistakes.

From his pocket, he retrieved a folded piece of paper, his muddy prints marring the parchment. The note contained the lord’s secret instructions for the task desired of the clay creation.

If you read it, the lord’s jarring tone filled the room, I’ll kill your wife bit by bit so she suffers.

Balc’s dinner rose from his stomach, hitting the back of his throat. He gagged but pushed the acid back down. If he tainted the paper now, he’d have to start again. Desperation burned behind his eyes. His family depended on him.

After blessing the note in pure water, Balc shredded it in the bucket. He kneaded every tiny piece of paper into the clay, again and again. His mind focused on the craftsmanship, the energy sizzling beneath his skin.

Balc labored until he could no longer feel his hands. The slab on his table resembled a drae being, a soldier with legs and arms, shoulders, muscles, and a soft face. Performing this heinous act gnawed on his conscience. The knowledge of what he would release into the Tapestry world would haunt him for eternity. Through silent prayers, he injected the intent to love and care without the lord’s knowledge, hoping the Creators listened.

He’d read about these monsters being unleashed when drae ash was used in crafting. And here he was, bringing one to life.

For years, he’d created protectors for the realm under the queen’s command, made with clay and animal bones so they were easily controlled. Furywings were the eagles of the skies, while crawlers shared ash from moles and lived in the ground. But drae ash was something else. It mocked the Creators.

What he’d crafted in his crypt would kill anything in its path to complete the task on the note. An atrocity against the queen’s kingdom. After tonight, Balc swore to himself he’d retire from this work and move into the country with his wife. As far from the kingdom as possible. The change was overdue.

His unsteady hand lit a black candle, running the flame across the body. With a quick glance at the lord, he lowered his voice and returned attention to the clay form. "Bless this pure form with the power of the all mighty Creators. May he always follow the right path."

On the soldier’s chest, Balc used his index finger, drawing a circle.

A silver energy streamed from his touch, seeping smoothly into the indent. Within the circle, he etched a moon and sun, assuring this being would remain part of day and night. Balc painted several runes to add life to the inanimate object. He placed his palm above the pattern, and his flesh tingled. Shards of light speared from his hand, bathing the soldier in a golden cloud.

Creators, I call you. Bless this being. Give it life.

At Balc’s next inhale, his body shuddered with exhaustion. His knees folded under him, and he collapsed in a heap on the muddy floor.

Each breath rattled on its way down his throat. He gasped for air. What had he done? His arms refused to move, every fiber screamed for him to stop. But he had to finish the assignment.

The horrendous possibility of losing his family filled him with the determination to continue. He gripped the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet. Taking the glass vial in hand, Balc trickled the gluey sap across the carving in the chest. The clay absorbed the elixir like parched soil in a rainstorm. He lowered the flame from the candle once more to the pattern, and a blue blaze spread across the inscription, then it snuffed out as if an invisible breath extinguished the fire.

Life through magic.

After he grabbed a long length of cheesecloth from under the table and soaked it in the water in the bucket, he covered the soldier to prevent the clay from cracking because the next stage took a full night and day. Now it was up to the Creators to play their part.

One last glance at the face beneath the cloth and Balc hesitated to leave. He stood motionless for what seemed an eternity, still unable to accept what he’d crafted.

An Ash.

A guardian of clay made from drae bones. Unpredictable. Deadly. A soulless automaton warrior. Uneasiness spread through him.

But what had the note instructed the soldier to do?

1

Outside the Kingdom of Vaie

25 Years Later

Fallen Leneth’s stomach growled with enough intensity to awaken a sleeping troll. Magic always smelled like caramelized sugar, but with fatigue dampening her senses, getting up was out of the question. Plus, weekends were for sleeping. She curled in on herself when the pitter-patter of tiny paws scurried up the side of her thigh.

Wait, she didn’t have a cat.

Her heart slammed into her breastbone, and she jumped up so fast when something wriggled underneath her body. Streaks of light from a window revealed a mouse scurrying across the floor and diving into a crack.

Fallen’s back pressed against a wall. W… where am I? She winced from a jolt of pain pummeling through her skull. The tilting room settled, and she rubbed the sore spot on the top of her head.

At first glance, Fallen could have sworn she was still dreaming. But when the cold from the concrete wall leeched into her skin, she fought the urge to scream. How the hell had she gotten here?

This room wasn’t her apartment or any place she’d ever seen before. A heavy door stood to her left, and across from that, an open window the size of a shoebox was located high on the wall.

By the appearance of the dilapidated room, she guessed she had somehow been transported to Tapestry—a parallel world to Earth. Both connected by magic; humans on Earth and draes on Tapestry.

Standing on shaky legs, she stumbled to the door and grabbed the metal handle.

Electricity zapped through her bones, shaking her to the core. Crap. She reeled backward and cradled her aching arm against her chest. The same damn magic she’d smelled earlier.

All draes were born with varying abilities of magic. The majority were so tiny that the most they could muster was crossing the thin veil separating the two worlds. Yet, the kingdom contained Spell Forgers. Those folk were powerful and used enchantment to capture strays like her since living outside the kingdom was forbidden under Queen Kesra’s command. Sure, the Earthlings had no idea Tapestry existed, but Fallen had lived in their cities most of her life. Resembling a human helped a lot.

Except now, at the notion of being caught by the queen, fear was a knife, slowly dragging across her flesh. She’d heard rumors of the queen’s victims’ fingernails being plucked out, one by one, until the captives revealed where other strays hid. And if that didn’t work, the castle’s dungeon was an amusement park of torture devices.

The lump in her throat refused to dislodge as she paced back and forth in the room while she tried to ignore the crunching underfoot. Lifting a boot revealed tiny rat bones wedged into the crevices of her sole. Nice.

Get captured by the queen, and death awaited if you’re lucky. Her mom’s words repeated in her mind.

Yeah, yeah. That’s not helping. Fallen had no intention of following in the footsteps of the poor rodent squished under her boots.

The last memory she had was chasing a feaster into the woods. The goblin had a stolen dog in its arms. Fallen had saved the cute Chihuahua but hadn’t given up on the goblin. Two feet tall with a nasty set of fangs and an unabating thirst for blood, the creatures fed on unsuspecting children and animals. The bastards kept crossing the veil into the human world for midnight snacks. After entering the forest in her pursuit, Fallen’s mind had gone blank.

She twisted her hair into a ponytail over a shoulder and marched to the door, her fingers tightening around the golden strands. She raised up on tiptoes and peered through the viewing window without touching the barrier to avoid getting shocked again. Directly outside, the corridor was in worse condition than her cell. Cracked walls with gaping black holes. On either side, the corridor stretched out into darkness. And something else… no sign or sounds of other prisoners.

Fallen bit her lower lip, and the earlier burnt candy smell now churned in her gut.

The odor reminded her of the time she’d eaten a bowl of worm porridge… on a dare. That challenge had won her a dragon’s claw but also had her vomiting for days. Another escapade had involved two goblins who abducted and tied her to a tree outside their shack. Those warty tricksters had minuscule magical abilities so they couldn’t be the ones responsible for kidnapping her this time. And glancing down at her legs, she still wore her jeans and tank top, so it wasn’t that kind of hijacking. Trolls were walking meatsicles. Half-draes maybe, yet her thoughts kept returning to the kingdom. Spell Forgers spent years crafting spells… just like the one keeping her locked in this cell.

She stretched her arms forward, bones cracking. Time to escape because she had no intention of meeting her captors.

When a glint of sunlight hit her inner wrist, she froze.

Whoa, if I’d gotten a tattoo, I would have remembered. Except the coin-sized pattern indented in Fallen’s flesh had no ink and left no pain beneath her touch.

As if she’d awakened a memory, the previous night’s dream came shattering into her mind. With it, sadness flowed inside her, cold and unending.

Fallen recalled the vision of a dark room containing one male and one female Creator. She remembered thinking the Blood Moon would approach in four weeks—a time when it was said the Creators brought Tapestry beings to life. At those memories, the Creators’ emotions—love, light, and happiness filled Fallen with an aching hollowness. Furious and exhausted, they couldn’t keep watching magical beings continue to kill each other. The viciousness worsened with each passing year and the Creators believed that eliminating magic would solve the problem. Somehow, they decided to give all races a last chance.

One Creator had said, I chose each of you to be a representative and champion of your people. And I selected individuals for a simple reason: none of you has found a life mate yet.

Her mind back to the present situation, Fallen knew failing in that part of her life wasn’t from a lack of trying, but finding a perfect partner took time. Yet, she, along with the rest of the chosen, had only been given four weeks to find their own true love before the Blood Moon. Otherwise, every race would become human. Magic would vanish. And the only clue to her soul mate was the imprint on her arm. Fallen traced the tattoo of the circular dragon, biting its own tail, wings fanned wide. Now more confused than afraid, Fallen had never received a dream from the Creators before, but she’d heard of draes who had.

The urge to cry came and went like a powerful tsunami, crashing into her heart. The Creators’ emotions still burned inside her, except the threat held a darker message. Tapestry and Earth were connected by magic; one couldn’t exist without the other. Removing magic meant the worlds would tear apart and extinguish. All life would end. The Creators were merciless, but could they deliberately cause the separation?

Focus. That was what she needed. Fix one problem at a time. Even though her nerves were as thin as paper… escaping this prison was a priority. Then she’d deal with the Creators.

Spinning around, she sized up the room to change her mind’s focus. About ten feet wide and deep.

A quick shake of her body and she embraced her innate power. Her ribs and spine shifted ever so slightly. The flesh across her shoulder blades ripped with a scraping sound. She bit back a scream, clutching her fists tight, fingernails digging into palms. Her plan wouldn’t work if the guards realized what she was doing. They’d sedate her, and she’d wake up in a chamber with no space to shift. Obviously, it meant they hadn’t yet worked out her ability… yet. Fantastic.

In a flurry, she altered form. The only change was the wings unfolding from her back. They lengthened to fill three-quarters of the room. Full transformations were unheard of, and even her partial-shift was more ability than any existing draes possessed.

Translucent material, the color of polished pearls, stretched out between wing cartilage, gleaming in the light. At the tips, sharp, claw-like projections curved into long fingernails.

A fresh sense of freedom overcame her.

With a quick succession of flaps, her feet lifted off the ground. The sensation raised the hairs on her arms the same as it did each time she took flight. With her ability under wraps, she rarely had the chance to release her wings, yet most of her dreams were filled with scenes of flying free.

Fallen beat the wings faster, the roaring sound an encroaching storm in her ears. She angled to funnel the force of the air toward the door. Thunderous pockets of wind battered the entrance, even in the small space. Paint peeled from the walls. Dust rained down from overhead. What if the place fell apart around her? No time to focus on the possibility.

Huh? The door hadn’t even rattled.

With a great inhale, she tapped into the storm lying dormant in her chest. Steam expelled from her nostrils in short puffs. She unleashed the floodgates. A plume of fire exploded out of her mouth, centered on the door. The corners of her lips tingled as if she’d sipped boiling hot tea too fast. That was the one spot she felt the smarting of fire. A vulnerability the Creators used to remind her she wasn’t untouchable.

Glowing embers leaped and skipped along the enchanted enclosure. They fizzled away just as quickly. Not much withstood dragon fire, and yet here it hadn’t helped.

Her insides constricted as if someone was strangling her with only the air around her. If she didn’t escape now, how could she fulfill the Creators’ mission? Then both worlds would be flattened, and everyone would die. Getting captured by the queen wasn’t going to help the situation. Rotting in her royal prison and being tortured until she gave up another drae living outside the realm certainly wasn’t the answer.

Fallen’s eyes prickled. For months, she’d told herself to move to another city. Damn. Another country. As far from the kingdom as possible, in case they caught her, but she never did. How could she when everything about the nearby forest reminded her of her mom? She remembered the oak trees they’d sleep in while hunting rogue trolls. And cliffs Fallen had jumped off when learning to fly. A vision appeared in her mind of the meadow where she’d scattered her mother’s ashes.

She spun on the spot again, rotating the airflow. Faster. The cone of air surrounding her sucked up dust and debris into a massive cyclone. Fallen flung herself backward and out of the cyclone she’d generated. Hair whipped around her face. The gale knocked her off balance. She lashed