Free Shield and Crocus by Michael R. Underwood Page B

tell next when the alarm bracelet vibrated on his wrist. When he was in public, he set it to shake rather than blare. Wonlar stood, gave a polite smile to the children, and then crossed the room. He looked to Rova, trying to catch her attention.
    “Did yours go off?” he asked. She nodded. Pulling back his sleeve, Wonlar saw the emerald gem on his bracelet flash twice more, and then go dim. No direction indicated. What would interfere with the locator but not the base alarm?
    Without the locator, all he knew was that Aegis was in fact in trouble. City Mother protect him. Wonlar gritted his teeth and looked to Sapphire. She shrugged, a tense look on her lips.
    Sapphire turned to the crowd and said, “Mister Wonlar has to go. Everyone say thank you.”
    There were several groans, but after a few seconds, the children said in half-unison, “Thank you, Mister Wonlar,” prompted by siblings and parents. The younger ones waddled over for a round of hugs. Wonlar took a couple of precious moments to accept kisses on the cheek and give hugs to several of the older children, the ones who had been coming the whole time.
    The farewells done, Wonlar leaned in to Rova, “I don’t have my raiment here. Meet me at the safehouse as soon as you can.” Rova nodded again and returned to the crowd, all smiles as Wonlar ducked out the back.
    City Mother, let me find him in time. Please. I’d rather die than lose him.

CHAPTER SEVEN
First Sentinel
    The night air was still and cool as Wonlar stood on the balcony, trying to figure out how to find his son.
    I remember changing his diapers, and now he’s working to rattle the cage wrought by men and women who could be his grandparents. when Wonlar had adopted him, Selweh was a mass of crying and cooing, a challenge more harrying than any tyrant. Wonlar raised the boy as his own, taught him everything he could. He had his mother’s sharp mind and curiosity.
    Wonlar never intended to raise a hero, but neither did he shelter the boy from the reality of his and the Shields’ lives, even as he tried to show the boy the city and its people at their best. Wonlar gave him all the training and preparation he could to keep his love’s only son safe.
    Selweh had been a Shield in earnest since he was fifteen, when he made his own crude raiment and followed Wonlar on a mission. He’d claimed the moniker Second Sentinel, using Wonlar’s old artifacts and weapons. If I’d forbade him from doing it again, it would have only make him try harder and might have gotten him killed. Instead, he’d accepted it and started to train the boy formally as his apprentice.
    Four years later, the Aegis found him. If he had been any other Shield, Wonlar would have expected it, welcomed its return. But he was Wonlar’s son and he had promised to protect the boy. And now Selweh was hurt, captured, or worse.
    Wonlar heard Rova step onto the balcony, felt her hand on his shoulder.
    “He told me he’d start in the corner, but he was going around the city for leads. And that was nearly a day ago. The most troubling thing is that the alarm bracelet never went off, which means the magic’s been cut off, or someone took it before he could activate it.”
    The skyline outside the window started low, building taller towards the sides of the crater and towards the crown. Poorly-maintained buildings crumbled day by day, slatestone grey the dominant color of the city, offset with red clay, black soot, and the delightfully gaudy colors that covered the poverty of neighborhoods like Bluetown. The rich painted their homes in austere tones, showing their wealth in subtle golds and silvers. But the poor painted boldly, refusing to let their city be an aesthetic void.
    From Viscera city, Wonlar could see down to hook’s hole and his abandoned apartment, over to Audec’s Bowels, and north all the way to Headtown and The Crown, towering spires that climbed above the lip of the crater towards the sky above. Above it all, Wonlar saw