CHAPTER 3 — THE GUARDIAN
675 Words
He was not born to protect. He was sent.
The room was dark, lit only by a single candle and the trembling breath of a storm outside. It was not home. It never had been. Just stone, dust, and silence.
She had been six when he handed her the first blade.
It was dull, wooden, wrapped in leather. Small enough for her tiny hands, heavy enough to feel like responsibility.
“Again,” he said, his voice calm, smooth, and cold as winter.
She raised her arm. Swung. Missed.
He said nothing.
Just picked up the blade, placed it back into her hand, and stepped back again.
“Again.”
She bled before she ever cried.
Not because he struck her—he never did. But because she kept falling. Splinters. Bruises. A cracked lip. A broken nail.
She did not cry. Not once.
By the time she turned eight, she could disarm a grown man.
By nine, she could kill him.
And still, he remained a ghost in her world. Present. Watchful. Untouchable.
He never told her his name.
She called him Virein.
Not because he gave it—but because she needed something to say when her body broke and her soul screamed in silence.
⸻
He lived in shadows.
Trained like fire.
Moved like wind.
She never saw him sleep.
She never saw him eat.
But she always saw his eyes.
Cold. Gray. Ageless.
Like marble. Like the sky before judgment.
He never shouted.
He never praised.
But when she got it right—when she landed the perfect strike, the perfect throw, the perfect kill—he looked at her in a way that silenced the world.
Pride.
Not soft. Not loud.
Just there. Like a breath in winter.
⸻
He never told her why she had to train.
He only said: “One day they’ll come again. And next time, you will not run.”
She nodded.
She trained.
She broke bone.
She healed.
And she never asked who they were—because she already knew.
⸻
By twelve, she could shoot with both hands.
By thirteen, she could break ribs with her elbows, crush tracheas with her knees.
By fourteen, she was reading the language of empires—Italian, French, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin.
By fifteen, she could walk into a room and know who would die first.
And all the while, Virein watched. Silent. Sharp. Patient.
The world thought she was dead.
But he was preparing her to resurrect.
⸻
One night, when she was sixteen, after hours of training in the rain, barefoot and breathless, she collapsed into the stone floor of their compound.
Mud on her knees. Blood on her hands. Rain soaking through her clothes.
And for the first time in eleven years, she looked at him and asked,
“What are you?”
He said nothing.
Just knelt beside her.
His gloved hand reached forward—not to strike. Not to correct.
To touch her cheek.
It was the first time he had ever touched her with warmth.
And then… the whisper:
“I was not born. I was sent. To protect you. To train you. Until the time came.”
“What time?”
He didn’t answer.
But she saw it in his eyes.
The truth.
He wasn’t just a man.
He was something else.
Something that didn’t bleed the way she did.
Something that didn’t age.
Something that had watched cities burn and dynasties fall, and still kept walking.
She didn’t ask again.
Because she didn’t need to.
She knew.
⸻
That night, she dreamt of wings made of light. Of swords made of fire. Of a war older than her blood.
And when she woke, the silver cross on her neck was warm.
⸻
He never told her what he was guarding her from.
But she could feel it now, every time she looked in the mirror.
It wasn’t just revenge.
It wasn’t just legacy.
It was destiny.
And he was preparing her not to survive it—but to rule it.
- Writer
