Page 52 of The Eye of the Fifth
Naal smiled proudly, thinking of her winged family back home. ‘There are. We are not many anymore, but we are mighty.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Void Ages happened,’ Naal replied sadly. ‘Akee, we were once called, though the name is almost lost today. Nythanor was not always the peaceful realm it is now, and the akee have a rather bloody history. We were culled by the masses, but we were by no means innocent.’
‘Akee…’ Kyra repeated. ‘I’ve never heard the name. Why is it no longer used?’
‘Because my people were proud, and saw themselves as elite above all others. It pains me to say it… but they were the first to ally with Dohra and her miraqni in the Void Ages,’ Naal said with a slight grimace. Kyra fidgeted, clasping her hands together. ‘After the Mothers ascended and Dohra was banished forevermore, the akee were tried for treachery against their own people. Very few had resisted the overwhelming pressure to support Dohra and the Old Gods, and were shown mercy. But the rest were found guilty, and were sentenced to die with Dohra’s legacy.’
‘It sounds like they got what they deserved.’
‘Yes… I suppose they did. Those who did survive were desperate to begin anew, to show their fellow Nythanorians that they could live in peace and harmony. The first Air Warden oversaw the revolution of the Age of Mothers, and when I became the Air Warden after him, my people found their place as protectors.’ Naal couldn’t help but smile. ‘The Eternal Warriors.’
Kyra nodded with appreciation. ‘You’re a walking history book.’
Naal sighed. ‘I feel it sometimes.’
‘How old are you?’ asked Kyra boldly, her eyes narrowing.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You talk about it as if you were there. As if you saw it all happen.’
Naal almost laughed. ‘You think I am over a thousand years old?’
‘You look great if you are,’ Kyra said with a shrug.
She did laugh then. ‘I am not far off. But no, I was not born in the Void Ages, Kyra.’
‘But you must be the second Air Warden to have ever lived…?’
‘I am,’ Naal replied simpy with an incline of her head. She was proud of the life she had led thus far. Surpassing history’s oldest Warden a few centuries ago, she had succeeded in keeping peace in Nythanor, the only continent of Droria that was not torn by politics nor ruled by a governing body.
Her people were free, and had been for almost a millenia.
‘How do you know my grandmother?’ asked Kyra, though Naal could sense there was another question burning beneath.
‘We fought together in the Earthling War.’ It was the briefest yet most succinct answer Naal could find.
Staring straight ahead, Kyra instead jumped to the question Naal knew she truly wanted the answer to: ‘Why didn’t she ever tell me who I was?’
No anger tainted her voice now. Perhaps the consistent vomiting had stripped her of the energy to be bitter. ‘During the war, the Earth Warden of the time, a male by the name Cormus Yellar, was killed on the battlefield. His successor, a man called Edward Feit tried to regain a foothold when the war was over. But with the faith in the Four slowly dying in Vrethian, earthlings did not recognise the prestige of the Earth Warden title anymore.’
Kyra frowned. ‘Wait… humans can be Wardens?’
‘Of course. The current Water Warden is human, in fact. It’s not as likely as their lives are significantly shorter, but if the Goddess sees something extraordinary in a human, then they too can be chosen. Though even as a human, Edward was not granted the respect he deserved as Earth Warden.’
With a snort, Kyra said, ‘Humans turning on their own. What a surprise.’
‘Your contempt for them is not misplaced,’ Naal said. ‘But you have to remember why they abandoned their faith. They had been convinced by a foreign queen that their fae counterparts, with their stronger magic and deeper connection to Roheia, would one day seize the opportunity to conquer them all. Their call for civil war against the fae, against your kin, was contrived from nothing more than a well-placed fear by someone who knew exactly what she was doing.’
‘I’ve read the old tomes on the war. It was the Empress of Zarynth,’ Kyra said. Naal nodded. ‘But why? What did she have to gain from that?’
Naal shifted uncomfortably. ‘Even now, a century and a half later, that remains to be seen. I can only guess.’
Kyra nodded slowly. ‘Not that this isn’t a great history lesson, but it doesn’t answer my initial question.’
Along with learning her Warden powers, perhaps Kyraena could do with a few lessons in patience. Naal pressed on, ‘Edward met his death quite suddenly. He was barely older than you are now, and his death was proclaimed an ‘accident’. Another Warden came after him and the same thing happened. A tragic, unexplainable death. Then another. Then another. Then another, and so it went on. I do not know the exact number, but there are over twenty Earth Wardens betweenyou and Cormus Yellar. Some say the line was cursed after the war. Others say it is the work of an extremely proficient assassin with a hatred for the Mothers. Neither theory has ever been proven.
