The Guardian’s Echo

The Silent Miles: Soren

I had retired twenty-five years ago, but I had spent my career on battlefields and protecting kings. This task was different though. There was no war. This was no battle. There was no threat to the kingdom that required an end to my retirement or that I was being asked to consult for. I was simply an escort, guiding the queen’s mother on her journey to the Highlands.

I stayed close to her, watching the way she rode her horse. She wasn’t an experienced rider by any means. However, she had a patience with Moonstride that I had never seen out of any of the soldiers I’d led. She almost seemed to mother the mare, leaning forward and whispering to her as we crossed the plains. She patted the horse lovingly, and the horse seemed to love her.

With the exception of the thudding of the horses’ hooves, and Penny’s quiet murmurs, it was a silent ride. As the sun reached its full height, we crossed the line out of the plain, and into the valley forest. There was a distant bubbling of a brook, and the horses moved towards it. “We should stop up ahead. Let the horses rest before we continue.”

“You’re the expert,” she smiled, nodding her head as she accepted the suggestion. I caught a glimpse of her eyes. At first I thought they were reflecting the silvery green and brown of the forest’s trees, but then I realized that the colors were her actual eyes, mixed with the lavender that all the High Elves had.

I led the way through the underbrush to the brook, keeping my eyes peeled for any potential threat. As the crystal clear water came into sight, I dismounted Emberleaf, and turned to Penny. I offered a hand and a small, quiet smile to help her down from her mare.

Her hand felt smaller than I expected against my palm, but her grip was firm. She didn’t have the callouses of a sword-hand, but there was a strength there. It was the kind of strength that came from decades of work. Of being the one holding everything together. She leaned into me as she found her footing on the mossy bank, and the scent of lavender and almonds drifted up from her hair. It was a sharp contrast to the oil and iron that usually defined my world.

“Thank you, Soren,” she said, smoothing a hand over the front of her tunic. She looked around the clearing, her breath catching slightly. “It’s like a painting. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the colors here. In Chicago, everything is so grey. Concrete, steel, asphalt. Even the sky feels tired there.”

I led the horses to the water’s edge, letting them drink. “Grey,” I mused, trying to picture a world that didn’t have the vibrant pulse of Aethelgard’s flora. “It sounds like a world made of stone. How do the plants know when to bloom if even the sky looks like rock?”

Penny laughed, and it was a warm, melodic sound that seemed to make the brook’s babbling lilt in response. “They find the cracks. There’s plenty of rain. They’re stubborn there.”

I watched as she moved toward a patch of star-bells — tiny white flowers that had a perpetual glow, even in daylight. She didn’t pick them. She simply knelt and watched them, her dark blonde hair falling over her shoulder. I found myself rooted to the spot.

I had spent three centuries guarding walls and borders. Standing here with Penny Ashford, I felt a strange, nagging sensation that I had spent too much time looking at the horizon instead of what was in front of me.

“Torian says you’re a legend,” she said without looking up from the flowers. “The General of the Royal Shield. He made it sound like you were born in a suit of armor.”

I snorted, a sound that surprised even me, as I adjusted Emberleaf’s saddle. “I was born in a village not far from where we’re headed,” I explained. “My father was a cobbler. I joined the Shield because I was better at breaking boots than I was at fixing them.”

She turned then, her lavender-rimmed eyes bright with a sudden, sharp intelligence. “So, you’re going home, too. In a way.”

The realization hit me harder than it should’ve. I hadn’t been back to the Highlands since the Great Time War ended. I hadn’t wanted to see what the years and the rifts had done to the land of my youth. “In a way,” I conceded, my voice dropping an octave. “Though, I suspect the Highlands I remember are as much a fairytale now as the ones in your world.”

“Well,” Penny said, standing up dusting the moss of her knees with a defiant sort of grace. “I’ve spent the last year learning that fairytales can come true. I’m willing to bet on a second one.”

She reached into her knapsack and pulled out an apple she’d brought from the palace. She offered half to me, and our fingers brushed. For a fleeting second, the quiet of the forest suddenly felt heavy.

I was supposed to be her shield and her guide. As I looked at her though, this woman who had crossed worlds to find her truth, I wondered what I might find.

Here in the valley’s forest, under the dense canopy, darkness came faster. With it, the temperature dropped with a suddenness that would’ve startled most. I noticed Penny shiver as she pulled her cloak around her shoulders.

I had already picked out a spot for our camp though. By the brook, there was a natural alcove beneath a weeping willow. Its long, glowing branches offered a canopy of soft, amber light.

“We can make camp here,” I told her, taking the horses twins to secure them near the alcove.

I expected her to sit and rest as most nobles would. Instead, she was immediately busy. She didn’t ask for permission or for help, she just started gathering fallen branches.

“I’ll handle the fire, Penny,” I told her softly as I reached for her collected branches.

“I’ve been camping in the woods since Anya was five, General,” she countered, her voice dry but playful. “I think I can manage a few sticks.” She paused, looking at a piece of wood that pulsed with a faint, blue light. “Assuming these don’t explode when they get hot.”

“Only if they’re siren wood,” I replied, unable to keep the ghost of a smirk off my face. “Those are glow-drift. They’ll burn steady and smell like cedar.”

I set to work on the heavy lifting. I unsaddled our mounts and brushed them down. My gaze kept drifting back to her though. She moved with a practical efficiency that I admired. She wasn’t trying to be a warrior, she was just being herself.

Within minutes, she had a fire crackling. The blue-tinged flames cast long shadows against the trees, and turned her hair into a crown of flickering gold.

I sat across from her, the familiar weight of my armor suddenly feeling cumbersome. I began the ritual of unstrapping my greaves and gauntlets while the silence was filled with the clack clack of the rods she held in her hands.

“What is that?” I asked, nodding toward the pile of soft cream wool in her lap. She used the rods to weave it together into a slowly growing rectangle.

“A blanket,” she answered, never stopping. “For the baby. Anya’s baby. I know the palace has a hundred weavers, but there’s something different about a grandmother’s stitches.” She looked up, her eyes softening. “Does your father still make boots?”

“He passed during the war,” I answered. I didn’t mean for it to sound blunt, but the grief of two centuries still had an edge to it. “Most of my village was lost to the rifts.”

Penny stopped. She didn’t offer the hollow sympathies I usually received from the rest of the court. She just watched me, her expression full of a heavy, shared understanding of loss.”

“My Grandma Rose — Rosariel — she lost everyone too, didn’t she?” Penny asked softly. “When she went to Chicago, she was alone. Completely alone in a world that didn’t know hers existed.”

“She was the Guardian,” I answered, though my voice lacked any steel. “She had a mission.”

“She was still a person, Soren,” she countered gently. She reached into her bag and pulled out a leather bound journal, holding it like it was a sacred relic. “In here, she writes about the Highlands. She mentions a bridge over Silver Run Creek where she used to meet a friend. Do you know it?”

I felt a jolt of recognition. Silver Run flowed through the heart of my old province. “I know it. Or I did. The bridge was made from stone, and carved with images of leaping stags.”

“That’s the one,” Penny whispered, her face illuminated by firelight as she leaned toward me. “She said the stags’ eyes were made of sapphires that caught the morning light.”

For the first time in centuries, the memory didn’t feel like a wound. “They were,” I nodded, my voice barely a whisper. “I used to touch them for luck every time I passed them.”

I watched her tuck the journal away as she yawned. This mission suddenly didn’t feel like just a task — a favor for the king— anymore. “Get some sleep, ‘Just Penny,’” I said, my voice unusually soft. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Goodnight, General,” she murmured as she settled into her bed roll.

I stayed awake long after her breathing turned deep and even. I sat with my sword across my knees, suddenly feeling more excited about this journey than I had previously.