Wardsmith by M.S. Hund

Author:M.S. Hund [Hund, M.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jebesyl Press

11

You have to get out.

The voice breathed in Ezra’s ear, but he could not leave the memory. Daedalus was bouncing an infant Minerva on his knee, his wife knitting in a chair nearby, the faintest of smiles dancing across her lips. It wasn’t the wife’s soft amusement that held him. Nor was it the unadulterated joy of the burbling child.

It was the warmth in Daedalus. Contentment. The call of the workroom was faint. All the wardsmith wanted was to play with his daughter. This was the happiest memory Ezra had found in the frozen battleground of Daedalus MacGowan’s psyche.

Ezra, this is a trap.

He had no physical body, but still he imagined brushing at his ear, trying to dismiss the annoying voice. It spoke truth, but he could not bring himself to listen. The child stared up at Daedalus, and through Daedalus at Ezra, her eyes wide and dark.

“To think what you will become, little one,” he whispered.

Daedalus whispered.

Black clouds of ambition threatened his contentment.

He caught the frown on his wife’s face.

No. That was Daedalus’s wife.

Get out. You’re losing yourself.

He knew that, but so what? There was happiness here. He’d never known a family other than Brother Lorenzo and a dozen other orphans. He’d never known father and mother, never been cuddled and cooed at.

Ezra winced. Frowned.

There was a noise somewhere. A keening, rising and coming closer—

Keren crashed into the memory, shattering it into fragments that spun off into the frozen waste inside Daedalus. Ezra screamed for the loss. Had the demon girl destroyed the memory? If Daedalus ever awoke, would it be missing? Would he lose the joy of those moments with wife and child?

Ezra whirled in the nothingness, hunting for Keren.

She flashed past, weaving through the static antagonism of Daedalus and the demon, past draped threads of demon-scrawl.

“Defiler,” he growled. “Weapon of destruction.”

He flew after her, skirting memories that reached for him, offering themselves, wanting him to live them again. And always Keren raced ahead of him, rising from the cold depths of deep memory to more recent times.

Father and daughter grew more distant as walls of jealousy and ambition rose between them. Daedalus’s need became his own. He must leave a legacy, bequeath something to the world beyond the daughter he was so proud of but also feared would surpass him.

The project.

The temporary ward-ring, capable of being deployed by anyone regardless of training or knowledge of wards. Immortality beckoned if every traveler in the Avernine bore a Daedalus Ring. Nobody would forget his name, nobody would—

Ezra broke free of Daedalus without realizing what was happening. He’d lost himself in the chase and pursued Keren without thinking when she dragged herself out of the wardsmith and back into her gun. Ezra followed. His wandering spirit needed a home like Keren needed the gun. His physical body called to him, and he slammed back into it, eyes flying open to stare in the opposite direction he’d been moving, suddenly awkward and heavy in a body he’d forgotten how to wear.

“By the Protector, Keren,” he whispered, throat gritty and raw.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.