Guardian(Part II): Soulborne

Chapter 28: Eris

It was midnight, now, over Chardan. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, like Connor and Ruth were on the battlement that they were supposed to be on their watch. I would usually wake them up, but seeing them together, sitting against the railing of the battlement beside each other, in each other's arms, was something that warmed my heart. I knew what Connor and Ruth had together, because it was what I had with Hilles. I wouldn't wake them up, especially since I could watch from the wall myself. I extended my sword into a spear, then planted its pommel in the ground, facing the frozen wasteland of eastern Chardan. Artoreus hadn't attacked since this morning, and I had my doubts that he would again without building another army. I had an even bigger doubt that King Heinrich would allow the Archdemon of Wrath to throw away thousands and thousands more of his soldiers to take Eitheim, Bastion, then Valedon. From what Mikael told me about what happened in Bastion, and now, Eitheim, I began to doubt that Camnora had these two cities on their map. As formidable as the army of Camnora may have been, their failure to assume that Valedon would be an easy target was their undoing. Since every single soldier that attacked the two cities was killed, it could very well be months or years before they were ready to attack again. I wasn't about to let my guard down based on that hope, though. If Heinrich was being supported by the Dark One, then he wouldn't have need for mortal soldiers. Monsters and Turned could have been at his disposal. Monsters for sure, anyway. I hadn't seen a single Turned soldier anywhere since the end of the Third Great War, and since Hilles was killed.

"Is that Eris?" a familiar voice suddenly called. "That beautiful, firey, flower?"

I knew the voice anywhere, and the immense aura behind it. Only one Ilentia called me a "flower", as though I was weak and delicate. I was married to him ten thousand years before I met Hilles. It was Haemon's father. I looked down to the street below the wall, and saw Anzulminar staring up at me with his arms open all the way from either side of his body. Mortals worshipped him as the God of Trickery and Deception, which was fitting for someone such as him.

"It is!" he cheered. "I've been looking for you for three decades!"

"Shh!" I hushed, then I pointed to Connor and Ruth.

"Oh," he whispered. He at least had the decency to allow children in love a peaceful night of sleep with one another. Amazing. I jumped down from the wall to listen to what he had to say.

"I come bearing gifts," Anzulminar offered, extending his arm with a strange object in his hand. "Well, a gift, but enough, isn't it?"

I would be the judge of that. I took the object from his hand and examined it closely after forcibly tossing my spear for Anzulminar to hold. It resembled the hilt of some sort of double-sided sword, but didn't have any blades. Instead, it had emitters, with a crystal of radiant malakyte on each end.

"That weapon is Turmeon's dream child," Anzulminar blurted. "It can..."

I gave him a stare that he knew very well. Enough to tell him to shut his damn mouth for one second of his long, and impossible-to-end life. I noticed a button and a dial on one end. When I turned the dial, a small, golden hologram of a spear appeared hovering above it. I had little doubt of what the other button did. When I pressed it, a long, white shaft appeared with a pommel on the end extended from one side of the hilt, and another one, the same length, came from the other, but with a spearhead on the end. Anzulminar's "gift", if I could even call it that, was an aura emitter. Turmeon had always said that every kind of weapon should be available to warriors that fought against the Abyss, but he could never figure out how to make that possible. It seemed like he'd finally done it. He had outdone himself. I turned the dial of the emitter, and the pommel side of the spear faded, and the sharp end turn into the blade of a greatsword.