The First Warden
When I was very young, a sickness struck—the sort that spreads like fire, consuming everyone it touches. I remember terrible heat, terrible cold, a drifting sensation, and something I can only describe as bliss. It would not have been a bad death. It would have been an ordinary one, and I have never felt the disdain some feel for the ordinary.
I thought I was dreaming when I opened my eyes to see a blurry figure wreathed in light. He bent over me, long hair brushing my face, and asked me if I knew him. I nodded. I did know him, though only from afar. He was Shae, our magus, the vessel of the gods. He replied softly that he knew me too. Then he told me he was going to take me away.
“To the Afterworld?” I asked—or something to that effect. And he laughed the most delighted, silken laugh. I recall being unsure if he would be able to lift me; he was so slight. But he did so with ease, letting my soiled blankets slide to the floor and bearing me out into the cold daylight in only my nightshirt. My eyes watered in the sunlight, so my family’s tent blurred as I took my last look at it over his shoulder. And then, all at once, it burst into flames.
I cried out, only half sure the flames were real—they wavered and danced so phantasmically. Names spilled from my lips—those of the people we’d left inside—though now I cannot recall them. Shae murmured something meaningless and calming, holding me firmly as I struggled. And as we departed, I saw that all the tents around us were burning. The air shimmered, flakes of ash gathered in Shae’s long hair, and for the first time in ages, I felt warm.
Illustration by Alexander Gustafson
We did not go to the Afterworld. When I came to myself, I was buried in soft furs and the air was sweet with wood smoke. The canvas that arched overhead glowed softly in the afternoon sunlight. My body felt languid, boneless, and my mind was pleasantly muddled. I would have described the feeling as drunkenness had I been old enough to enjoy the pleasures of wine.
Voices reached me faintly from outside, rising and falling in a lulling manner. It took me some time to identify one of them as Shae’s and to realize that he was angry.
“I have done my duty. The north side of the camp is cinders.”
“Your duty was to eliminate the plague. Not to bring it into our midst.” This voice, I did not know.
“I knew when I saw him that the child would live.”
“And what is to be done with him now? No family will take a child of plague.”
“He will stay with me.” The words were cool and placid, but for the taut silence that followed, he might have shouted them.
When the man—I was sure it was a man—spoke again, his voice was thick and pent. “You think that is wise?”
“It is not your concern whom I share my home with, Councilor. Now I ask that you leave me be.”
There was another fraught pause, and then the man—who I now suspected was Councilor Glenn—uttered stiff departing words, which Shae politely returned. I lifted my head as the dim tent was briefly flooded with light and then darkened again as the door flap fell back into place. Shae’s slender figure approached me, and as he passed the fire pit in the center of the room, the flames within sprang brightly to life, illuminating rich carpets and polished wood furnishings the likes of which I’d never seen.
It frightened me to see the fire flare so suddenly. I buried my face in the luxuriant furs. But my fear flickered out as I felt him settle beside me, replaced by curiosity. He smiled as I peeped at him, and the effect was truly startling. He had a face like no other: smooth, sculpted, and ageless. Tawny skin and ink-black hair that fell in a rippling curtain to his waist. And when the light caught his eyes, they were jewel
