The Time Eater

Chapter 11: Held fast to their position

"Why are you following me?" Tavia asked as she stood before the gated entrance to her family's mansion, staring at the sheepish Evos who had up till now unabashedly followed her home.

A high stone wall surrounded the property the mansion sat on, and like the nearby homes of other noble families it was cold and quiet. Few conveis navigated the streets here, and those that did, floated along the road at a sedate pace. In this area of the city, trees lined the streets, and greenery could be seen over the walls of the mansions, decorating the gardens. It was one of the few places in Edelheiss where the skytowers couldn't be seen breaking the horizon.

Instead, the royal palace, sitting on a hill above the noble district, dominated the skyline with its white towers and arches.

The nearby street lights illuminated the sidewalk they stood on, casting a warm light on the gate before them. The wrought iron masterpiece was flanked on either side by a stone wall topped with lions rampant. On the Lyon houses, a group of seven noble families recognized by the royal family their contributions to Marquest, could have the mythical lion as a symbol, and the Renegardes were proud to be one of the few.

"Is it a problem?" Evos asked.

After their escape from the building, the Shields had arrived and surrounded the facility. There had been some fighting between the Wardens and the assault team from the Shields, but for the most part, the Wardens had retreated as soon as they found themselves under attack.

Tavia had called Izak as soon as she was safe and her vox would work, but in the confusion, she wasn't able to meet up with him. He had been worried that she'd been caught in the lobby explosion, just as she had worried the same. According to Izak the entire lobby had collapsed; they still didn't know who had been trapped in the debris.

After a short, tense conversation with the Shields, Tavia had refused to give an official statement, and Evos had followed her lead. She didn't mind cooperating, but she wasn't sure how to explain anything that had happened. Despite that, or maybe because of that, it had taken hours before Tavia had been allowed to leave. By the time she'd caught a convei—one of the self-steering ones that cost a small amount of money to use—and headed home, it was already well into the evening, and the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. Evos had followed her the entire time, and though she'd wanted to tell him not to join her in the convei, the natural attitude he adopted while climbing into the vehicle with her had stunned her into silence.

"You can't come with me into the house," Tavia said. "I don't even know how I would explain you to my mother."

"If that's the issue," Evos said, "then I have a simple enough solution."

"No, that's not—" Tavia began, but Evos just smiled and cut her off.

"I'll talk to you later."

His body dissolved into a shimmer of cyan light, but as if that wasn't strange enough, instead of dissipating into the air like natural Althier should, it coalesced once more into the Ageless Sword. The sword hung in the air for a moment as the edges of the blade became defined and the last of the light disappeared, and then it fell to the ground, clattering against the stone sidewalk.

Tavia stared at the sword, at a loss for words or even thoughts. Yes, he had told her he was actually the Ageless Sword. She hadn't believed him, who would believe something like that? But seeing the sword lying on the pale sidewalk, she simply didn't know what to do or what to think.

She bent over, picking up the sword with no small amount of unease, but there was no explosion this time. The sword was quiet, no more than a lump of dark alther in her hand. For the first time she was able to feel the comfortable weight in her hand. The sword blade was similar to the old claymores that had fallen out of favor in preference of lighter weapons, but the blade was wider than even those old swords. In the past, people had thought a bigger blade meant it could hold more Althier, meaning it was stronger, but as Althieology advanced, that was found to be mostly irrelevant, since most people couldn't even channel enough Althier to make use of the extra capacity.