The Keeper's
Her head kept on detailing last night: the dark things, Kieran's sword of eldritch, his ghastly utterance: You're the Keeper.
Though she barely took a sip of it, Lyra stood at the window with a hot tea mug nestled in her arms.
Her chest tightened with a mix of disbelief and fear as her thoughts revolved.
How could she be the Keeper? She was just an herbalist, a woman living a simple life on the edge of the forest.
Still, very real were the Duskwraths she had faced. And Kieran.
She let her eyes roam across the man slumped in the chair beside the fireplace.
He'd been arguing to stay awake, and his sword was within reach, but he slept very early.
A look of serenity characterized his face now, a testament to a man freed from the furious battle determination that seemed to epitomize the man.
She watched how the firelight softened some of the hard lines of his sharp features.
She hardly glanced at him a second time. She didn't expect his vulnerability.
Still, it was short-lived. Kieran jerked and snapped open his eyes as he sensed her gaze.
They met in a blink of their eyes as neither of them said a word.
Then he sat up and winced a little as his bandaged wounds were dragged upon.
"Rest you ought," Lyra said, breaking the silence. She had intended to speak more softly.
His voice sharp, he said, "Rest won't keep back the Duskwraiths. 'We don't have time to lose.'".
"Lyra snapped back, banging her mug down. You're always saying that, but you haven't told me anything useful. "What is a keeper? Why do you think it's me? And exactly what are these things that attacked us? "
Kieran's jaw locked. The Keeper is a defender whom the Light selects to protect the kingdom from the darkness that approaches. Born of darkness and desolation, the Duskwraiths are its omens and servants.
They come to the Keeper for your strength.
Lyra shuddered her head. There wasn't enough reason within this to explain how I could be this Keeper.
This has never happened to me all my lifetime here.
Kieran was walking, his strides slow and steady.
With a hard look, he closed the gap between them. 'I did not choose you, Lyra. The prophecy did.'"
"Prophecy?" she echoed, her voice heavy with skepticism. You want me to think that my life is now generally spiritual?
He said, his voice fading, "Believe what you want." Still, the shadows believe in it.
And they will not quit until they have extinguished your light.
The weight of his words settled over her heavily and suffocatingly. Her hands were turned around the table's edge as she turned away.
That was too much to bear. Over the course of one evening, she had gone from a regular quiet life to complete chaos. Now she was supposed to preserve the empire?
"She muttered," I can't do this. "I am no hero." I am no specific thing.
Kieran's hand rested squarely but without cruelty on her shoulder.
"Nor was I," he murmured. We do sometimes, after all, run out of choices, of course.
Turning towards him, her eyes ran over his.
"What happened to you?" she asked flatly. "Why are you determined to fight this darkness?"
He paused, releasing the truth a little grudgingly, as if weighing it. Then he stepped back, his face hardening.
"Because I have seen what happens when nobody fights," he said. And I won't let it happen again either.
As the day wore on, their tension continued. Lyra worked on her herbs while her mind churned over ideas; meanwhile, Kieran sharpened his blade and prepared to make another attack on the castle.
She didn't want to believe his words, yet something inside her couldn't turn away from this weird attraction she sensed estimating itself to explain this might spur deep within her some half-awakened stirrings.
As nightfall approached, the forest was startlingly silent.
An oppressive quiet supplanted the usual rustling of foliage and cricket chirping.
With each passing moment, Lyra's unease increased, and she caught Kieran more frequently than she wanted to admit.
Although discomfited, he was curiously comforting.
Said he, abruptly, "They're on their way." He was standing with his sword hilt resting against his arm. Stay near me.
Lyra nodded, her heart thumping. Her trembling fingers took a pouch of wolfsbane powder and a little blade.
She did not know if she could confront those beasts again; the remembrance of the fight the previous night was still vivid.
The first wraith materialized in the shadows as a ripple, its shape coalescing into something almost but revoltingly anatomical.
It had shining ember-colored eyes and was clearly malevolent. Yet more poured in, their thousands running up, and instantly the trees back at the end of the garden, up and along by her house, were abuzz with a writhing, black cloudiness.
"Hide behind me," Kieran warned him quietly, even as against hope
Lyra didn't argue. Stabbing back at the specters, who miraculously had cutting precision with a blade, he stalked in with them.
With each creature he slew, however, two more seemed to step forward to replace them.
She wanted to, but she forced herself to move forward.
She hurled a couple of wolfsbane powders at the creature, and it shrieked and morphed into smoke.
The victory was short-lived as another wraith struck her from the side.
Kieran's blade cut the being down before it could reach her.
He turned to her, his face fierce. "Focus, Lyra! You can do this."
His words inflamed in her a violent change. Her fear hardened into determination, and she tightened her grip on her knife.
They battled together, their steps growing more coordinated with every moment.
Despite the chaos, Lyra felt a wordless bond between them, as if they were two sides of the same coin.
At last, the first rays of dawn filtering through the trees let the last wraith dissipate into nothing.
With all her might, Lyra buckled to her knees. Kieran knelt beside her, his breath heavy but regular.
"Let yourself," he continued in a hushed voice.
Her eyes sparkling with unshed tears, she glanced at him. "I'm not sure I can keep doing this."
He answered, his stare unflinching,
"You're more powerful than you realize."
"And you're not alone either."
The honesty in his voice was sending warmth down her chest, and for the first time ever, she was permitting herself to entertain the idea that maybe, just possibly, she could fight the darkness head-on.
She was not alone in a fight; she was not the Keeper.
Outside of the forest was beginning to disturb, with early sounds of day, but shadow reminders of fights yet to be fought stood there.