by Terah Edun
“Ha! You want proof?” he said. “There’s your proof!” He was pointing at the locket in Ciardis’s hand.
“What?” said both Stephanie and Ciardis in confusion.
“It holds records of conversations between the duchess and the first-born son of Emperor Cymus. The one who also disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Leah told me he had been scheming to take the throne from his father. He disappeared one night but there was no proof that the duchess had been involved. After he was gone she turned her attention and friendship to the Princess Heir.”
“And my mother?” asked Ciardis softly. “How would the duchess have gotten this locket from her?”
He sighed heavily. “The night before your mother disappeared, she was supposed to bring the locket to a mage of wind magic and me. The key to opening it takes a mundane and a mage working together in concert. But she never showed.”
“If this is what you say it is, the duchess wouldn’t have just given the locket to Ciardis,” Stephanie pointed out.
“She would if she thought she couldn’t open it by any other means,” he said. “After your mother was accused of crimes against the throne that same night, she disappeared...”
He never got to finish his sentence. A resounding boom echoed in the room. The walls of the room shattered and they were all thrown off of their feet.
Chapter 11
Minutes later Ciardis was struggling to remember where she was. Her ears were ringing, her head pounding, and her whole body felt like it had been run over by a horse at full gallop. Pushing herself up on her hands and knees, she felt wooden shards and glass under her hands. The minstrel, who’d been closest to the outer wall, was unconscious on the floor. She was shocked to see a piece of glass the size of her arm sticking out of his shoulder with blood quickly pooling beneath.
Before she could go to him, a voice stopped her. “If you want him to live, you’ll leave him there.” The duchess of Carne stood in the wreckage of the outer wall which had been blown apart. Her silver hair glinting in the moonlight as she smiled and said gently, “And you’ll come with me, Ciardis Weathervane.”
Her head still fuzzy, Ciardis tried to reason out in her head where the woman had come from. The wall was gone, shattered, and in its place stood the duchess. Frowning, Ciardis took in the two guards behind her. One with his hand on the duchess of Carne’s shoulders; an impropriety that usually would not be tolerated. Usually. Ciardis wondered if he had his hand on the duchess to pull her back to safety if necessary. But that couldn’t be the case. There was nothing but open air behind them, where the hole in the wall was.
Blinking Ciardis opened her mage sight and saw that man was glowing. He had some kind of power. It wasn’t the huge glow of a full mage, but it was sizeable enough to get what he needed done.
“I do not have all night,” the duchess snapped. “Take my hand and we’ll be transported back to the palace grounds by my guard. You have my word.”
Ciardis eyed the duchess but couldn’t see a hint of magic on her body. She wasn’t planning on anything nefarious with magic anyway. At this point it didn’t look like Ciardis had much of a choice.
Ciardis didn’t see Stephanie. Where was she? Abruptly she noticed that half of the wall had come down where the girl had been standing. Was she alive or was she dead?
“Be a good girl and come along,” the duchess said with impatience. “I don’t know how long that minstrel will survive bleeding like that. The sooner we leave, the sooner the healers can arrive.”
Ciardis had the knife up her sleeve. She was contemplating using it, stabbing the duchess and making a run for it. And then the lighter in her pocket lit up with heat against her thigh. Not enough to burn her, but enough to give her caution and hope. Perhaps Stephanie was alive.
Relying on Stephanie wasn’t Ciardis’s preferred option, but then again the duchess might know more about her mother’s last night at court. Then again, she might just try to kill her.
Reluctantly, Ciardis took the duchess’s offered hand. “Good girl.”
And then they were gone.
*****
Kicking off the portion of fallen wall that covered her, Stephanie picked herself up off the floor. Quickly she went over to the minstrel and felt for a pulse. The duchess had been right: He was alive, but barely. The blood was beginning to pool beneath his body and the only thing stopping it from becoming a torrent was the very thing that caused the wound. The glass was preventing more than a trickle from escaping. Which meant Stephanie couldn’t remove it and tend to the wound herself. She had medical training, but not enough to stop the blood flow and heal the wound at the same time.
Her hearing tuned for any movement, she heard what she assumed were tavern patrons beginning to clear the fallen debris from behind the door. When she looked up she saw structural damage to the roof, which would have caused the beams and walls to fall all around them. It would take the rescuers some time to get inside the room, but hopefully they were fast enough to save this man’s life. There was nothing more she could do here. She had to go after that idiot girl.
Stopping quickly for a resupply of weapons in her apartment she left a note for Christian telling him were she’d gone and why. She hoped she’d be on time. Otherwise she feared Ciardis would disappear just like her mother did so many years ago, only this time she would be dead.
Ciardis, the duchess, and her guards reappeared in the court gardens not far from Swan Lake. She snatched the locket from Ciardis’s hands immediately.
“Now,” said the duchess leisurely while holding up the locket, “why don’t we see about destroying this locket, shall we?”
Ciardis stared at her mouth agape.
“Why keep it all these years? Why didn’t you destroy it before?”
The duchess almost snorted. Magic was a fickle thing and objects imbued with residual magic in particular were hard to handle. Walking around Ciardis in circle, she wondered not for the first time if the girl truly was as smart as her mother. And who was her father?
Perhaps I’ll find out tonight. Before she dies.
“If you can keep something close to you, it’s better than losing it forever, or having it fall into enemy hands; it might be useful one day ,” she replied.
“By that logic, you should be keeping snakes.”
The duchess was no longer amused. “You and I are going to destroy this locket together. You see, my dear, since you inherited it and your mother is dead, that means you can destroy it.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t want to die.”
“It sounds like you want to kill me anyway.”
The duchess gave her a cold smile. “Perhaps I could use someone with your...talents.”
*****
Uneasily Ciardis thought, Over my dead body.
Suddenly Ciardis felt a sharp slice in the palm of her hand. She held it up to see a deep cut in her palm with blood already welling up in the wound and flowing off of her hand into the grass. She looked around, but there was no one else near her. Just the duchess. Her guards stood five feet back, at attention. The duchess smiled cruelly, “Now you see.”
Ciardis stared in confusion. She could see a dark hint of mage power radiating from the duchess now. But she’d checked her at The Blue Duck Inn. She couldn’t suddenly just have magical talents.
The duchess laughed with mirth as she read the shocked look on Ciardis’s face. “No one has shown you how to hide a magical signature, I suppose? Ah well, now you know.”
Neither of the duchess’s hands moved but just as suddenly there was a long cut on her cheek. Ciardis brought trembling fingers up to her face as she backed away swiftly. The duchess didn’t move and the attacks kept coming. Along her back a long slice appeared, and then a shallow cut on her thigh, and another cut on her arms. And then they grew too numerous to count – cut after cut appearing without end. Ciardis fell to the ground, dizzy with blood loss. The duchess sauntered up and knelt down in front of th
e severely bleeding girl.
She traced a light finger over the wound on her cheek, smearing the blood. The delight on her face could have frozen Hell.
“I told you, Ciardis, you have to be wary at court,” she cooed.
As the duchess moved her finger back across the wound, Ciardis felt her flesh knit back together and the pain from that one scar ebb away.
“Just as I can give pain, Ciardis, I can take it away,” she said gently.
She sat on the ground beside the shuddering girl. “Now, why don’t we see about destroying that locket?”
Ciardis watched as the woman lowered the locket in front of her and picked up her hand, placing it above her own so that their two palms cupped the object.
“Blood of the line? Check!” the duchess said with a girlish grin. “You know, it’s nothing personal. But that locket could undo a lot of work. Work we’ve been doing to ensure this empire returns to its rightful place.”
Ciardis drew in a pain-filled breath. “The Princess Heir is dead. There is no one else to inherit.”
“This isn’t about the throne. It’s about filthy inhuman creatures with the same rights as humans; it’s about mundane people living above their station; it’s about righting wrongs done to the nobility decades ago.”
“Now I need you to will the locket open,” she said in a motherly tone. “Very simple, right?”
Teeth gritted in pain and almost unconscious from the blood loss, Ciardis prepared to do as the duchess asked. There was no alternative.
And then a roar split the skies. Out of the night air dropped a nightmarish form. The duchess lurched up and quickly looked to the sky. Shouting, she called for her guards.
The dragon kept coming.
Her vision going in and out, Ciardis couldn’t help but wonder what the dragon was doing here. It couldn’t be anyone else but Ambassador Sedaris. A rustle sounded off to the side. Stephanie and Christian crept out of the bushes to ease over to Ciardis’s fallen form. The duchess didn’t notice them; she was busy rushing towards her two guards. The dragon landed with swift wings, right between Leah of Carne and her two protectors. That didn’t stop the men from assaulting the dragon.
As Stephanie watched the battle she had to admit those guards had guts. Who stood up to a dragon and thought they would live? A minute later, her answer came. Those guards weren’t just ordinary men—they were mages. One was an Earthcaster and proved it when the ground underneath the dragon began to shake and rumble with a threatening earthquake. The dragon didn’t care too much for his tactics and targeted him.
Crouching next to Stephanie Christian used his healer’s abilities to patch up Ciardis.
Ambassador Sedaris could see magic like the entire Sahalian race. It was why she’d been attracted to the young Weathervane; not only did she have immense potential to enhance others’ magic, but she was also a powerful mage, or least she would be. Seeing the waves of power coming off the the guard who was clearly an earth mage and surmising his intent, she ate him first and followed up with his partner quickly.
When she felt a slice along her underbelly, she roared in fury. Deciding that the duchess deserved worse, far worse than being eaten alive, she transformed into her human form. By this time Ciardis was sitting up with the help of Christian. She watched in wonder as the transformed Sahalian strode across the garden like an avenging angel. When she reached the duchess, she hit her so hard that the woman flew ten feet to land in a crumpled heap before Ciardis, Christian, and Stephanie.
Reaching them, the dragon eyed the duchess with distaste. She put her heeled foot on the duchess’s midsection to keep her pinned and called up liquid fire into the palm of her hand. This wasn’t just any fire – it was everlasting. The fire would burn a person from the inside out over a slow period of time. A nasty remnant of the Initiate Wars and one not many mages could call upon. With a smile, she said, “I think being burned alive will suffice, don’t you?”
“Wait!” shouted Stephanie and Christian.
The dragon looked at all three of them with rage in her eyes.
“Please—we need her.”
“For what? You have the testimony. It’s enough to convict her in absentia.”
“But not the people that are threatening the throne and the empire itself. We need her in order to find and convict them,” said Stephanie.
“We want to use her to flush them out. To end the murders, the deaths and conflict,” Christian said.
“‘We?’” said the dragon coolly.
“The Shadow Council,” Ciardis said from where she stood in-between the two young people. She looked down at the duchess with anger in her eyes.
“They’re still around?” said the dragon with narrowed eyes.
“Fuck,” muttered Christian quietly.
From the woman curled up on the ground in pain came a startled laugh.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the duchess taunted. “With my death, more will take my place in the fight.”
The dragon simply ground her heel into the duchess’s bruised chest and waited for her screams to die down into whimpers.
“She tried to kill you, sarin,” the dragon said, ignoring the squirming woman on the ground. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes,” replied Ciardis, “and what’s more, so should you. I think she’s been working with the group behind the conflict in the Ameles Forest.”
The dragon looked at the three of them with unreadable eyes. And then she doused the flame.
“Very well,” she said. “Call your gardis.”
When Stephanie and Christian tried to renegotiate and get her to release the duchess to the Shadow Council, she looked at them and said, “No. This is your only chance. Call in your emperor’s men or she dies here and now.”
They spent the next two hours explaining the history of the locket, Ciardis’s mother, and the potential plot between the duchess and the emperor’s son. When the gardis left—saying they would be interviewing all of the duchess’s household, as well—they were exhausted. The dragon just looked irritated. The gardis hadn’t even bothered trying to question the ambassador. The look she leveled at them plus the fact that she had diplomatic immunity said that she would be more trouble than she was worth without a direct order from the emperor.
Citations for Christian, Ciardis, and Stephanie were issued, instructing them to appear in the court of magistrates tomorrow to recount their story before a magistrate, as well. And then they were bid goodnight.
Ciardis thanked Stephanie and Christian for coming to her aid. With barely a goodbye, they disappeared, muttering something about the Shadow Council coming down on their heads before the night was over. That left Ciardis alone with the dragon that had saved her life.
The ambassador looked over the girl covered in blood with measured eyes. She was contemplating her; Ciardis was far too tired to care what for. Unfortunately, that tiredness led to an increased inclination to be rude. She was fed up with running in circles and finding out that people knew far more about her and her heritage than she did.
“Why?” she asked bluntly.
“Why did I save you?”
“No, why did you call me your sarin?”
The dragon turned away from her and looked up at the full moon lighting the night sky.
After a few minutes in silence had passed, Ciardis began contemplating making the trek back up the palace with the dread reserved for a walk through the desert at high noon.
“Because,” said the dragon, turning back with a wicked smile, “you are the one I would choose to name my closest human companion—my sarin. And by surviving that attack tonight you have proved worthy of the name.”
“Right,” mumbled Ciardis. It made sense that the dragon would be as cryptic as everyone else tonight. Nothing else made sense; why would she?
“I’m just...going back to my room now,” she said as she stumbled away like the walking dead.
“Sarin,” said the dragon behind her w
ith amusement, “You have much to learn. Luckily I’m in a teaching mood.”
The last thing Ciardis wanted, needed, or desired was a lesson right now.
She was therefore surprised when the dragon came up behind her and with no further words swept her off of her tired feet. The sensation of being carried was disorientating for a minute, but she soon grew comfortable. The last thing she remembered as she rested her head on Sedaris’s shoulder was that the dragon smelled surprisingly like roses.
Chapter 12
The next morning Ciardis woke up in her bed when she heard a loud knock at her door. She sat up abruptly, remembering last night’s events and barely recalling how she had arrived home in her apartment. Pushing the covers back, she looked down and saw she’d been cleaned up and redressed in a nightgown. Deciding to put that thought out of her head for now, she put on her robe and answered the door. And there was Terris’s smiling face staring at her.
She took one look at Ciardis and pushed her way into the room. “What happened now?”
“What makes you think anything happened?” Ciardis asked guiltily.
Terris flashed her an amused grin. “Because it’s you.”
Sighing, Ciardis closed the door and hobbled her way back over to the bed. Christian had healed her last night but there were still residual twinges underneath her skin. He’d basically brought her back from death and her body was still in a little bit of shock.
“It’s...um...complicated.”
“We don’t have time for ‘complicated,’” was the exasperated response, “We have to report to Lady Vana this morning, remember?”
“Oh yeah...”
“And the last time I saw you, you were speaking with the duke of Carne, his wife, and the Sahalian ambassador. What was she like?”
“The duchess?”
“No,” said Terris with an irritated toss of her braids from in front of her shoulder to her back. “The ambassador.”
“Interesting.”
“That’s it?”
“And powerful?”
Terris gave her a disbelieving look, “I can feel you holding back from over here you know. Kind of feels like a too tight corset right?”
