The First Shard Keeper

Azriyan Veyr sat perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe, straining to hear anything that might betray the approach of his pursuers.

The cave he was in was small, cold, and altogether miserable. Damp stone pressed in around him, its uneven walls glistening faintly in the darkness. Somewhere deeper within, water dripped at slow, irregular intervals, each tiny splash seeming impossibly loud in the silence. When he had first stumbled upon the entrance, he had dared to hope it might lead to a network of tunnels, some hidden passage through which he could escape. Perhaps, if the watchers had finally decided to show him a little kindness, there might even be another way out.

He knew better now.

There would be no hidden passage. No secret exit. No miracles from the watchers, just darkness.

Azriyan drew his knees toward his chest and stared into the blackness beyond the cave’s narrow entrance.

What a worthless cave, he thought bitterly. Perhaps I ought to call it what it is.

His mouth twisted into a humorless smile.

My tomb.

He remained there for several minutes, listening for the sounds of his pursuers, the sounds of his inevitable discovery. Yet as the silence stretched on, his thoughts began to wander, drifting away from the darkness before him and toward the life he had left behind.

It seemed a cruel thing that a person’s life should end just as it was finally beginning.

Only a week ago, Azriyan had earned his second name.

Veyr.

He could still remember the moment with startling clarity: the village elders gathered beneath the old hall’s timbered rafters, the familiar murmur of neighbors and friends, and the unmistakable look of pride upon his mother’s face when the announcement was made. His grandmother had wept openly, though she insisted afterward that it had been nothing more than the smoke from the ceremonial fires. His mother, less convincing in her attempts at composure, had embraced him so fiercely that he had nearly lost his breath.

He had never seen them so happy.

And if he were honest, he had never been happier himself. He had wanted to be a Veyr ever since he was a young boy.

The name Veyr had not been given to anyone in seven generations. Seven generations! The very thought of it had seemed almost too good to be true. He had known, of course, that the possibility existed. There were old stories, half-forgotten legends, and the occasional passage in the family histories that spoke briefly about some long-lost relative being named a Veyr. And of course his grandmother had told him so many fantastic stories about their ancestors, especially those who had been named Veyrs and the wonders they had accomplished. But he wasn’t a boy any longer, and he knew such tales were the sort many elders spoke of around the night fires, stories easily dismissed as exaggerations when the morning light came.

There was nothing shameful about the other second names in his family. Quite the opposite. He admired the gifts and trades they represented, and he had always imagined himself content to follow any of those paths. Still, Veyr had occupied a special place in his imagination for as long as he could remember.

He had dreamed about it.

Sometimes, as a boy, he had imagined himself returning from the fields with a touch that could mend a broken bone or close a wound that would otherwise leave a man crippled for life. At other times, his imagination had taken him farther. He pictured himself walking through the village at harvest, watching the farmers’ astonishment as their fields yielded twice what anyone had thought possible. He imagined sick children laughing again, exhausted laborers returning to their families in good health, and his neighbors speaking his name with the sort of gratitude usually reserved for heroes in old stories.

It was a ridiculous thing to imagine, perhaps. He knew that.

But there had to be at least some small truths to legends.

Everyone in the village liked Azriyan. He had never wanted for friends, and he had always believed that, given time, he might find some way to repay the kindness he had received throughout his life. Becoming a Veyr had seemed like an answer to a question he had not even realized he was asking.

A chance to do something that mattered.

And now—

Now he was going to die in a hole in the ground.

He would never discover what his second name truly meant. Never learn the limits of whatever strange gift had been entrusted to him. Never fulfill the promises he had made to himself, much less the hopes his mother and grandmother had placed in him.

He would vanish from the world as carelessly as a coin tossed into a thicket, swallowed by brambles and forgotten beneath the leaves. Perhaps someone would find his remains one day. Perhaps not. Either way, the young man who had been so proud to become Azriyan Veyr would be nothing more than a sad story told in hushed voices around the village fires.

The thought sent a shudder through him.

It was a miserable thought, and a melodramatic one, and entirely unlike him. Azriyan had never considered himself particularly prone to despair. Even when things went wrong, he had generally been able to find something to laugh about, and some hope to be found. There was almost always a solution to be found, a way around, or at the very least some small comfort to be salvaged from the wreckage, a lesson well earned.

But there was very little comfort to be found in a freezing cave with blood in his boots and strange otherworldly creatures somewhere outside hunting him.

Azriyan closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.

“Well,” he whispered, addressing the darkness with as much dignity as he could muster, “regardless of everything else, I suppose I ought to be grateful you were here, little cave.”

He glanced toward the entrance.

“Not that you have been particularly helpful since then, though, so I’m counting on you to put forth a little more effort, if you could, please.”

His attempt at humor fell a little flat in his own ears. Still, it was something. He had always found that a little sarcasm could make almost any situation more bearable, and he was reluctant to abandon that ritual now.

And he had to admit, had he not stumbled upon it when he did, the creatures would have caught him. Of that, he had no doubt. “OK, fine, effort enough then.”

Azriyan took another deep breath, recalling as he did the last several days, and the nightmare he had found himself trapped in. Day and night, running, hiding, and running again. There had been stretches of darkness when he had stumbled through the wilderness beneath a moonless sky, and stretches of daylight when the sun seemed determined to expose him to every pair of watching eyes. He had slept in fits and starts, never deeply enough to escape the sounds of the forest, and never long enough to feel rested.

His legs burned with every movement. His feet, visible through the ragged holes in his boots, were a patchwork of blisters, cuts, and deep, angry wounds. Blood had soaked through the leather and dried in dark stains along the seams. One ankle had swollen so badly that he could scarcely put his weight upon it. His hands were scratched, his arms bruised, and his clothes torn in a dozen places by thorns and jagged branches.

He had lost track of how long he had been running.

Four days, maybe? He had seen three sunrises at least; he knew that. But this was not the first cave he had found, and in one he had fallen off a ledge and gone unconscious, though he was not sure for how long.

His body had begun to feel like something he was borrowing from a stranger, a battered and unreliable thing that would soon refuse to carry him any farther. If only there had been a Veyr in the village today. He would have trained with them these last few years, and maybe he would know enough to have healed his own wounds, if those old stories were true.

He had pushed himself well beyond exhaustion. Every instinct told him to lie down, to curl up in the darkest corner of the cave, and to surrender to the sleep that had been beckoning for him.

But sleep was dangerous. He knew that. Somehow, sleep seemed to be when they found him the easiest, like they were watching him from inside his own dreams, waiting for his mind to betray where he was hiding.

Azriyan opened his eyes.

He listened.

For a moment, there was nothing but the slow dripping of water and the faint, ragged sound of his own breathing.

Then, from somewhere beyond the cave, came a noise. Like a note sung briefly by a choir. It was so odd, like he had known that note his whole life. And then Azriyan’s heart skipped a beat. A twig snapping beneath a heavy foot. They must have found him.

Azriyan went rigid.

The sound came again.

Closer this time.