The Guardian's Code

By T. S. Valmond

She’s no little mermaid, she’s a shapeshifter, who dreams of being a musketeer.

Zehra wants to be a member of that Royal Imperial Guard more than anything in the world. Only one thing stands in her way: the gauntlet challenge. 

If she’s to succeed in joining her family’s legacy she must defeat a challenger blindfolded in the gauntlet's final test in front of her family, her crush, and the Emperor himself. What’s so hard about that?

Zehra just happens to be the first Majiwa to be born deaf. But, something inside of her has changed. She’s able to do something no one else has ever done before. 

When a mysterious group of aliens arrives in the name of peace Zehra has more than just a bad feeling about them. She’ll be forced to put everything on the line to save the royal family before it’s too late.

If you like hero-origin tales with diverse characters you'll enjoy Zehra's story on Bolaji.

Buy The Guardian’s Code and learn just what a deaf mermaid can do!

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.S. Valmond
• Release date: Dec 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781775361022

Book preview

PROLOGUE

THE GUARDIAN’S KEEP

No one dreams of having a disabled child. My parents were no exception. Like many of my kind, I remember nothing of the day of my birth. However, I’ve got the screening my oldest brother took on that day. It's painful to watch but every year, my parents insist on viewing all of our birthing days. Mine is the only one that makes my mother cry.

It rained that day. As the rain poured down against the surface of the ocean above our heads, it darkened everything. My eldest brother used the light on his vid recorder to take in everything around him.

The vid jostled in his unsteady hands as he tried to focus on my mother’s straining face. The waves lapped against her stiffened form. The last baby is supposed to be the easiest, at least that’s what my mother believed. If my youngest older brother had been the last, it would have been true. This entire pregnancy had been more difficult than all the others combined.

My father held onto her waist from behind to keep her steady. The two younger of my older brothers were busy wrestling in the water, changing themselves at will from their aquatic forms to walkers, wrapping their respective fins and legs around each other. My father barked out a warning for the third time.

If you two don’t stop with that right now, you’re going to the surface and I'll ground you for a week.

My father's stern expression and warning tone was enough to keep both boys in check most days. Today, however, both boys could be heard groaning just out of view.

When my mother’s contractions doubled her over again, my father lost focus on the two boys and returned his attention to my mother.

I need more light. I can hardly see anything through the lens, Iskender said.

My father ordered the two younger boys to stand on opposite sides of him, holding lights for my eldest brother’s recorder.

Everything came into focus, including my mother’s discomfort. She groaned against the pains.

This isn’t right, she said between her teeth. You need to get someone, we need help. Something’s wrong.

It took my father less than a minute to process her words before he swam off toward help, my brother’s lens picking up his turquoise tail fin disappearing into the dark of the water. Iskender, duty-bound to care for his mother in his father’s absence, passed off the vid recorder to the next in line, Garen. He held onto his light and the recorder now.

The recorder focused again on my mother and Iskender. Garen wasn’t as good with the vid as our older brother. He hadn't learned yet to look through the lens to make sure it was in focus or capturing enough of the picture. During this time, the vid was in and out of focus on my mother’s belly, the shape of it contorting and changing with the movement on the inside.

When my father returned, he had brought someone with him. The older Majiwa had graying hair at his temples and the colorful blue ombre at the top. The younger with him had pale pink skin and green ombre colors flowing through her waist-length hair she kept half tied back at the nape of her neck. My father took the place of Iskender, holding my mother while the other two held a consultation about what to do for her. She was crying out in pain now.

My brothers were dumbstruck at the idea that things weren’t going according to plan and had ceased fighting. They gathered at the sides of my eldest brother who still held the recorder.

The child is facing the wrong way. Her birth cannot proceed without help. The doctor gave a nod to the assistant.

Shall I prepare your tools? the assistant asked, her face the picture of calm regardless of the difficult birth.

Yes. Are you sure you want your sons to be here for this? he asked my father.

Iskender panned the recorder to his face and waited for his response.

I think so, yes. We all need to be here for her, he said, looking each boy in the eye.

The recorder moved up and down when Iskender gave his agreement.

With a nod from the doctor, he and his assistant continued. The assistant pulled out the tools necessary to extract the baby from inside. My father helped turn my mother over to give the doctor clear access to where the baby was due to emerge. A small slit in her fin contracted every minute, but it wouldn't be large enough for a baby to fit through. He used the tools that the assistant passed him to widen the opening, then reached inside up to his wrists

He pulled a small, jelly-covered figure out and handed it to the assistant. The doctor used his tools to repair the damage to my mother's fin. The seawater around them clouded with birthing fluid. It cleared as the others used their fins to push the birth water away from them. The assistant used her hands to clear the jelly from the baby’s face, body, and mouth. My face came into view for the first time. Iskender swung the recorder around toward the family's faces, documenting their reactions. The younger boys held looks of horror and disgust and had retreated from the scene. My father’s relief was clear as he held on to my weak and tired mother, who floated with her eyes closed for the moment.

I squirmed in the hands of the assistant and she hurried to pass me off to my parents. The natural love that all parents have the moment their children are born reflected on my parents’ faces. Although the boys had tried to leave, father demanded they return to proceed with the ceremony. After the first song was sung, I would be named.

They returned but with no little groaning and complaining. They gathered, one on each side of my parents, and joined fingers, holding me between them. Iskender held the recorder up to their happy faces. My father opened his mouth to sing joined by his sons and my mother. They jostled me between them to encourage me to sing my first song. When no song came from my lips, both my parents looked down to see if there was something wrong. Iskender also moved forward and focused the recorder on my small, innocent face, oblivious to the problem that concerned the others.

They tried a second time, then a third, to elicit a song from me. Nothing. The doctor and his assistant had been standing to one side, watching the event, but now he stepped forward. He took me from my mother’s arms and held me up, examining each part of me as I stared back, wide-eyed but silent.

The doctor held two fingers in front of my face and snapped them. When I blinked, he moved on to the next test. He held me up for the assistant. Once she had me in her hands, the doctor moved out of visual range and used his voice to send out a sonic scream. The camera jostled in Iskender’s hands as he caught the others grabbing their ears in pain while I continued to stare, unaffected.

Yes, there was definitely something wrong. No Majiwa child sustained their first sonic scream without cries of their own. I hadn’t flinched at the sound while it repelled the others backwards. Iskender pulled back from my motionless face to catch the expressions on everyone else’s. My parents wore identical shocked and horrified expressions and shook their heads in denial while the doctor said the four words that changed their lives forever.

This child cannot hear.

My name is Zehra Lu Morens. I'm the first Majiwa to be born deaf and this is my story.

1

THE GUARDIAN’S KEEP

When Zehra entered her first year of the Guardian’s Keep training, she had already endured the worst of her kind’s criticisms and torments. From primary education to now, she’d been teased, tricked, and underestimated by everyone around her. It taught her a valuable lesson early on: trust no one outside the family and work twice as hard for every achievement.

The training school for the Royal Imperial Guard only accepted the best because only the best would graduate and complete the final test. In the years after the Unification, the Empire chose only the best graduates for the job. They were the only ones trusted enough to care for the royal family. Anyone else with an inclination for being a guardian who failed the final exams were assigned to other security jobs in the private sector.

With an entire family who had served in the royal house, Zehra had a legacy to live up to. It was bad enough being the first and only deaf Majiwa. She wouldn't compound that by being the first to fail the guardianship exams. Zehra’s family had become a living legend at the Guardian’s Keep. Her father and mother had both been members of the royal Imperial guard when they met. Their oldest two sons had been admitted to the Guardian’s Keep and passed their exams in record time. They were already in service at the palace of Ishola where the Emperor and his family lived.

This year began like many of the others, with jostling students trying to gain favor with their instructors for any kind of gain in the final exams. Zehra’s year began with a clear disadvantage. Her teachers already hated her.

None of them had ever taught a deaf child before since she was the first deaf person of her kind. Being half Terojoro and half Majiwa should have been a great advantage—no other species on the planet could shape shift like the Majiwa and the Terojoro were a species with highly developed sight and hearing. The irony wasn't lost on her and Zehra had to endure the shame of only receiving half of her genetic inheritance.

Despite her disadvantages, Zehra exceeded her peers in academics. She viewed her first year at the Guardian's Keep as another school in which she would be able to make herself stand out. Her youngest older brother was in his second year and would take his final exam this year, hoping to join the rest of their brothers at the Ishola palace. Zehra assumed having her older brother at the Keep with her would be helpful.

It wasn’t.

Her older brother Alewar didn’t like being second to the youngest. He always had a problem with how much attention Zehra received compared to him. Things only got worse at The Guardian’s Keep. He'd made a new friend and Zehra gained a new enemy.

When Zehra arrived at the Guardian’s Keep, she was so excited to see her brother. She went straight to the upperclassmen dorms. He’d come home every day last year entertaining them with stories about new techniques he’d learned. Now, she would be just a year behind him and experiencing it with him.

Alewar chose to live in the dorms with the rest of the upperclassmen. It was disappointing to see there were no bodies of water nearby. Zehra noted the closest lake or river was two miles away. It was a long distance for a Majiwa to trek just to relax in her natural form. She wondered how Alewar did it. Determined to ask him that and a million other questions, she set off for his room.

The dorms were full of excited students bustling from one end to the other. Since they were divided into east and west wings, she had to ask for directions multiple times to find her brother’s room. She watched girls and boys rushing to get to the Keep before their classes started. Many of them smiled or openly stared at her, but none stopped to ask her questions. When at last she found the room with the correct