Guardian of Death

"Are you listening to me, Steele? I swear, sometimes you're the worst for-" I continue to tune my mother out. Yet another lecture on the proper way the prince should act was not high on my list of priorities. My mother puts her hand on my shoulder, finally drawing my attention. 

"I know you have other things to worry about, son. But these guests are important. When the next Guardian is chosen, it'll signify an era of peace for Kalioss. You know that." I sigh as my mother sears into my soul with her cobalt blue eyes. Eyes she passed down to me. 

"I just don't think we should rely on all this mysticism to fix our problems. The invasion isn't the gods' problem, Mother. It's ours." She smiles and smooths my hair, even though I'm far too old for such gestures. I let her anyway. With the kingdom my father built so close to collapse, I think we both need the reassurance.

"The Dark Priests just want a word before they choose the Vessel for the Guardian's power. I know you don't think this will work, but if they really can give someone the power to stand against the Calceri army, I think it's worth it to try," My mother's voice is soft as she tries to explain her reasoning for siding with the Dark Priests. Again.

"We don't know what this Vessel will be subjected to. You know most of the Priests' rites are soaked in blood and violence. This person will be a citizen of our kingdom, and you've already promised them to the Priests like a sum of gold." I argue. Kalioss is a faithful kingdom, and I've always been a faithful man, just like my parents raised me to be. But the Priests? They make me uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than facing down an entire battalion of the Calceri. 

"Whomever is chosen will be honored to serve not just the kingdom, but also the gods. I've already made this deal with the Priests. I won't go back on it now. And while they're here, you will behave in a manner consistent with your station as the Prince of Kalioss, and as a Faithful of Kal-en." As if I knew how a prince was supposed to act. I'd been born into this role, but only because my father, a farmer's son, had taken control of the reconstruction of Kalioss and schemed his way into the crown. Besides, I spent more time with a sword in my hand, protecting the people, than I ever had in the throne room or council chambers. 

I was more a general than a prince, had been since my sixteenth birthday, six years ago. The day the Calceri assassinated my father and my mother ascended the throne. 

"Of course, my queen." I bow my head, my jaw tight. A muscle flexes in my mother's temple as she swallows down whatever she'd been about to say. 

"The Dark Priests arrive, Your Majesty." A guard says, his tawny brown skin ashen as he visibly supresses a shudder. My mother turns from me and takes her seat on my father's throne. She looks absolutely regal in her crimson gown, long flowing chocolate brown curls, and cobalt blue eyes. I stand slightly to her right, in plain brown trousers, a slightly stained shirt, and hair still partially soaked with sweat from my training session before this meeting. I incline my chin to the guard. He opens the door, admitting the Dark Priests.

The air goes still as death, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle in warning. I swear I can smell blood as the four Priests enter the room, their long black cloaks making any unique features indistinguishable. Despite being in front of the queen of Kalioss, they do not bow. They don't even incline their heads. Not that I expected them to. They claimed to only bow before the gods themselves. My mother actually inclines her head in respect. I do no such thing. My chin lifts and I stand even straighter. I'm terrified of these things. They'll never know it.

"Welcome, Blessed, to Castle Kalioss. I thank you for your concern in keeping our kingdom safe from the continued threat to the north. If you require any assistance in fining this...Vessel that you seek, please do not hesitate to ask either myself or my son to assist you." I nearly snort. Blessed. That's what these people call themselves. 

The one standing in front, also the tallest of the Priests, tilts his head, and the angle looks unnatural. It's too far forward, too steep to be a casual gesture. At least to be a casual gesture a human would make. Perhaps it's a figment of my overactive imagination. The Priests were many things, but inhuman wasn't one of them. Right?

"Why, my lady, would you think either of you could assist us in finding the Vessel? Have you been Blessed? Are you secretly a sister in our sect?" My mother shakes her head while I choke on a comment about their disrespect. "You wouldn't be capable of assisting us. There is only one in the kingdom destined to become a  Guardian. Only a Blessed will be capable of discerning that destiny."

"And how will you go about that? Besides insulting your Queen?" I snap.

"We intend to perform a ritual within the palace walls. This ritual will mark the Vessel with a sigil that only they and the Blessed will see. The sigil of Ceriak." My mouth dries out. Ceriak. The god of death. I swallow before asking my next question. 

"What kind of ritual will you be performing?" I cross my arms, shifting my weight back to my dominant leg. The position probably looks like one of relaxation. It's not. Half the guards let their hands drift closer to their blades. 

"Steele." My mother warns softly.

"Don't worry, Prince. None shall be harmed. We only require a stone from the castle walls, and a few drops of blood, which we will provide ourselves." I nod, well aware of my mother staring daggers into my back. "We'll begin at once." 

One Priest pries a chunk off the nearest wall, while another pulls a long, wickedly sharp blade from their cloak and then slices into their palm, dying the stone red. All four Priests chant in what they claim to be the language of the gods. The stagnant air grows thicker, heavier, as the harsh, guttural grunts of the chant echo through the throne room. The cadence of their voices reminds me of a pounding heart. It escalates, faster and faster, until my pulse matches their rhythm, so quick I can only hear the blood rushing in my ears and their unnatural words.

I collapse to my knees, and my arm burns. It burns like a brand. Like my entire lower arm is on fire. I wrap around it, screaming, but I can't hear my voice. My mother rushes to my side, placing her hand on my back, on my face, on my arm, but I can't feel her touch. She asks me questions, but I can't hear her voice either. I can only hear the pounding of my pulse, the agony of my searing arm. Only see a haze of crimson. 

An eternity later, the chanting slows, and the burning fades into a dull throbbing. My sight returns first, and I stare down at an arm marred with a curling script in the vague shape of a dragon's skull. Ceriak's mark. 

"This is interesting. Interesting indeed." The head Priest says, inspecting my arm over my shoulder while my mother demands answers from him. Some part of me recoils that his was the first voice I heard once my hearing returned. 

"What's so interesting?" I ask, my voice raspy from screaming. My whole body is still trembling.

"It's interesting that we would find our Vessel so quickly." A sharp pain explodes along the back of my skull, and darkness sweeps in.

I wake up with shackles digging into my wrists, which aren't doing my still sore right arm any favors. I strain against the shackles before even opening my eyes, causing a spasm of pain to shoot up my arm. My eyes fly open, and I stare straight into the shadowed cowl of one of the Dark Priests.

"What is the meaning of this?" I ask. I don't sound nearly as commanding, as princely, as I'd intended. 

"You know exactly what's going on here, Vessel. You must've heard the Queen's plans." I stiffen. The throne room had been full of palace guards. The Priests couldn't have taken me unless...unless my mother allowed it. Not even if they'd held me hostage.

My breath leaves me in a whoosh. "You're going to infuse me with the power of Ceriak and then sic me on Calceri. There'll be nothing left."

"Our god will walk the earth once more, through you. You would be the foremost of the Guardians, the gods on earth." 

"I'd be a slave to the god of death. A prisoner in my own mind. None of the other Guardians have that sort of relationship with their gods." I pause. "And none of the others became Guardians for something as petty as a human war, either."

"Regardless, this is your destiny. The mark confirms it." 

"The mark you put on my arm."

"The mark we summoned from your blood. Honestly, Vessel, do you deny that your life has been shadowed by Death?"

"My destiny is to become king of Kalioss, like my father before me. That's always been my destiny."

"Your father rebuilt Kalioss through the blood of his enemies, boy. You've bathed in blood nearly every day for the past six years. Can you really claim the throne is your birthright?" I looked away from the Priest, disturbed. He was right...but he was wrong. He had to be. It's only then I notice the shadowy room I'm held in, lit only by a dull lantern between the Priest and I, is actually a carriage. I can feel the rocking, and if I strain my ear, I can hear the creaking of the wheels on the cobblestone road. 

I'm silent until the carriage shudders to a stop. Staring into the shadows of the Priest's hood once more, I wait for him to rise, to unhook my shackles from the bench. My body is a weapon I've honed to a deadly sharp edge. If he wants to claim I'm shadowed by death, I might as well prove it. To his detriment. If they didn't want me to fight back, they should've hit me harder.

Yes. Fight him. Kill him. A voice urges. The voice isn't mine. And it wasn't out loud. I shudder, praying to the gods that it wasn't what I thought it was. That whatever ritual they need to do to make me give my body to the god of death hasn't happened. 

The Priest leans forward, and something jangles within his too-long sleeve. Keys. 

My leg snaps up, and I kick him squarely in the jaw. He rocks back, his rear smacking the carriage floor with a satisfying thud. Despite myself, I'm grinning as he struggles upright, and my other foot sweeps out, throwing him to the floor once again. I stomp down, planning to crush his skull and then use my feet to fish the keys from his corpse, but he moves lightning fast, shifting to the side. My boot pounds the wood beneath me. His hood drops, revealing a smooth face only occupied by a wide gash where a mouth should be. There is no nose. No eyes. 

The adrenaline rush gives way to pure panic as the Priest grabs hold of my ankle. Then the panic gives way to pain as he twists, popping the joint out of place with precision that would've been impressive if it wasn't my ankle he'd dislocated. I tug on the shackles, and I can feel my skin shredding on the metal, my blood pouring down my fingers. But the pain in my wrists is nothing compared to the pain of my ankle, of the mark branded in my arm. 

Or the pain as the creature slams a fist into the side of my head, sending me to oblivion once more.

Awakening again, I find myself shackled to a slab of rock, lying on my back. The lit candles and exposed Priests' faces give me all the information I need. This is the ritual. The ritual to erase me. The ritual to put Ceriak in my place. I strain against my restraints, tearing the flimsy scabs on my wrists. Blood wells instantly. My ankle flares in pain that's nearly too much to bear. But I keep pulling.

"What do you intend to do if you break those bonds, Vessel? There are a dozen Blessed in this room, and a dozen more beyond it. You're shedding our god's blood for nothing. It's wasteful." Wasteful. I'm strapped bleeding to a table, and it's my blood they're worried about.

I scream.

It's a wordless cry made up of all my frustrations. Not just today, and the Vessel nonsense. It's a scream at my mother, for willing to give any of our citizens to these monsters. It's a scream to my father, for carving this kingdom out of the ashes of what was southern Calceri for much longer than it was Kalioss before that. At my father for dying and leaving me to both protect his kingdom and seek vengeance on his behalf. A scream for every one of my soldiers who died fighting the Calceri, for a Queen who never really cared about them. A scream for every Calceri I'd murdered when there were monsters like this hidden within our own borders.

The scream rips something deep inside me, and the mark on my arm burns like I'm being branded once more. I don't know if it's the Priest's magic, or if it's my rage causing that burn. Causing the tear in my soul.

The slab I'm on shudders, then cracks, the sound echoing like thunder in my ears over the sound of my scream. The crack spreads, shattering the stone floor, scaling up the walls. Priests slump to the ground, black blood oozing out of their mouth slits. They're dead. After every Priest falls, the shackles binding me snap open, releasing me.

Bile burns my throat as I look at the bodies of the creatures that masqueraded as men. Bile for what they were, what they'd planned to do to me. But also bile for what I'd somehow done to them.

Somehow? You used my power, boy. There is no somehow.

Get out of my head. I snarl internally. I will not be what those monsters tried to make me. Never.

That's a rude way to address a god, wouldn't you agree?

I don't give a-

You're a Guardian now, boy. You're my Guardian now. They did not make you my Vessel, as they wished, but we do have a connection. Many would expect you to follow your destiny. Crush the Calceri and ascend to your throne. With me at your side, you could make Kalioss an empire remembered for eons.

I shake my head. I don't want that. I've never wanted that. All I want is to protect people. To stop the war.

Stumbling away from the ruins of the Priests' temple, I silently make my way across the kingdom. 

Then I sign my name on the registration papers for the Calceri army. I can't do anything about the god of death in my head. But I can stop the people who put it there. The Priests are still out there. So is my mother. I don't know what becomes of a prince who betrays his people, or of a Guardian who doesn't fulfill their purpose. 

I guess I'll find out.