Free Guardian by Sam Cheever

that tense room as they agitated and roiled with anticipation of the coming battle and, without realizing it, I’d been pushed to the back of the room.
    I was too far away from him.
    I looked for a way to get to the front without being noticed but the room was packed and anywhere I went I’d be felt. With a sense of horror I watched Ian fall to one knee, apparently losing the battle with pain he’d been fighting for gods knew how long while I’d been caught up in the skirmishes being played out in that room.
    The crowd erupted as Ian’s knee hit the ground with an audible crack.
    Everyone assumed that Aubrie had taken him down somehow. Dawnia stood up with a smug smile and started pushing her way toward the front of the room. I leapt in behind her, using her none-too-gentle method of clearing a path for herself to my advantage.
    I even threw a few elbows myself, happily releasing some of my pent up fashion anger on the hapless monsters in that room.
    Unfortunately for Dawnia, by the time she arrived at the front of the room with me tightly in her wake, Ian was back on his feet and looking strong again. I went to stand behind him and whispered, “Sorry” in his ear.
    “Stay close.” He murmured back.
    Dawnia stood there for a moment, looking surprised and confused, and then her eyes darkened and she threw out her hands. Evidently deciding she was tired of being under Ian’s thumb.
    I tensed, knowing from personal experience how much it was gonna hurt when Dawnia’s faery power hit me.
    But Ian lifted his hands and held them, palms out, in front of his body. Dawnia’s power stopped, shimmering in front of Ian and me like a thin sheet of water in the air and then, amazingly, slid into Ian’s hands with a soft gasp.
    Dawnia hit the ground hard with both knees. She managed to catch herself with her hands and knelt there, head bowed under some kind of internal struggle.
    Ian’s hands remained outstretched and, if I squinted, I could see a string of shimmering power still running between the two of them.
    When Dawnia’s arms gave out and she crashed to the floor face first, Ian finally lowered his hands. He looked away from her, disgust visible in every line of his body and every nuance of his beautiful face. He addressed the now silent room. “Meeting adjourned.”
    The room erupted as its inhabitants scurried to remove themselves as quickly as possible. Two minutes later all that remained in that room were Ian, me, a still prostrate and unmoving Dawnia, and Aubrie.
    The elf stood where he’d been before the altercation, his golden face dark with anger and something else. My guess was frustrated ambition.
    He just stood there for a long moment, staring hard into Ian’s eyes. I felt the promise of violence between them like a living thing in that room.
    Then Aubrie turned slowly away and sauntered out of the room.
    Ian waited until the door slammed shut behind the elf before letting his rigid stance soften. He brushed a hand over his face wearily and turned to Dawnia, still unmoving on the floor. I thought he might have forgotten I was there as his eyes suddenly swam with emotion. Regret seemed predominant among the range of emotions swirling in their brown depths.
    But then he shook his head and turned, flinging dust over his head and stepping back into his travel layer. I joined him there.
    Jerking my head toward Dawnia I asked, “Will she be okay?”
    He didn’t look back. “She’ll be okay.”
    Then he took my hand and we moved out of that room, gratefully leaving behind the monster meeting from hell.
    ~ ~ * ~ ~
     
    We walked in silence for quite a while, Ian obviously dealing with the residual effects of the meeting. My head swam with questions but I forced myself to remain quiet, figuring I’d get more out of him after he’d had time to come to terms with nearly killing another faery.
    After a while it occurred to me that we weren’t heading in the right direction. “Where are we going?”
    Ian