by Terah Edun
She was fed up.
“Because I am sick and tired of your childish antics, your cries for attention,” Ciardis hissed. “It’s over. It’s done. I choose him. I may be bound to you, but that is no more than a conceptual link. I am choosing my friends, I am choosing the man I love, I am choosing my family.”
Thanar’s eyes darkened in rage with every additional word.
But she didn’t back down.
Instead Ciardis shook her head with clear warning. “It’s not you, Thanar, it was never you.”
Sebastian dropped his hand from Ciardis’s shoulder. She watched as emotion flashed across Thanar’s face too quick to follow. Ciardis realized that she had blurted out the words, the condemnation, in passionate anger, but she couldn’t take it back now. She wouldn’t.
Ciardis felt a cold panic for a moment. It was like slipping from reality to a black darkness, but it passed just as soon as it came and she refocused on her anger, her passion. She doubled down on her pain at the thought of never seeing Vana again.
This had to stop.
So she raised her head up and said in a voice that brooked no argument, “Now where did you send Vana, Thanar? Because by the gods own truth, if you don’t tell me now, we’re not just done, I will end you where we stand.”
Thanar said in a chilly tone, “You think you can just cast me aside and still seek out my help? Like this is just an ordinary conversation?”
Ciardis said in an equally calm tone, “I want you to man up, Thanar, and help us.”
Thanar laughed. He actually laughed.
“Even if I cared for one second what you thought about me now,” the daemoni prince said, “I still believe in this plan and you should too. Vana wasn’t sent after your mother on a lark. She’s the best in this empire, and that’s saying something.”
“Good enough to defeat a maniac with untested powers?” Ciardis countered.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Thanar said in a chiding tone.
Ciardis turned to Sebastian. “We’ll search room by room.”
Sebastian said in disgust, “We don’t have time to search the entire palace, much less the city, for Vana. He needs to help us stop this.”
Thanar pierced him with a look. “What makes you think I’d do that? It’ll work.”
“You’re a fool to believe so,” spit out Sebastian. “And a vile being to throw Vana’s life, all of our lives, away on a whim.”
“Trust me,” murmured Thanar. “There was nothing whimsical about this decision.”
His gaze didn’t waver from its focus on the palace.
Not just the palace, Ciardis thought. The upper floors.
“It’s happening now, isn’t it?” Ciardis questioned. “How did you know we’d be here to witness it?”
Thanar turned to look back down at her. “I didn’t. This was supposed to be done before we got back. There was supposed to be a joint coalition waiting outside the city gates. Ready to organize for the real threat, against the bluttgott, not this petty bickering.”
Ciardis bit the inside of her cheek to hold in the blistering curses she wanted to unleash.
Finally she said, “Well, you can see that whatever it was that was supposed to happen is not happening. So tell us! Where is Vana? What was her plan?”
Thanar looked up at the palace again, his face impassive.
Any other person, Ciardis would have said it was time to change from questioning to torture, but this was Thanar. They didn’t have anything in their arsenal that could hurt him. Including words, apparently.
If Ciardis was any other person, she would have been pissed that he’d taken her brush-off with such nonchalance.
Instead, the wheels were turning in a corner of her mind. Wheels that said this wasn’t right.
That Thanar was acting different.
He’s just being his maniacal single-minded self, she finally decided. Focusing on his one goal to the exclusion of anything else. Which is what got us into this mess in the first place.
“She may need our help,” Ciardis pleaded. “Can’t you see that?”
Thanar shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“I do,” Ciardis shouted.
“Sometimes a little chaos is good for you, Ciardis Weathervane,” Thanar said with a look that pinned her to her soul.
Ciardis shook her head. “Not like this.”
Thanar cocked his head to the side. “Are we still talking about regicide?”
Ciardis’s lips twitched into a bitter smile. “Only you could segue so smoothly into something else entirely.”
Thanar laughed darkly. “Answer the question, Ciardis.”
“Let this go, Thanar,” Ciardis said desperately.
“Do you regret what you just said?” he asked suddenly with eyes that bored into hers.
She hesitated. That feeling. Those wheels turning.
But she pushed that from her mind. It was of no concern.
“No, never,” she said.
He smiled as if she had said the most desirable thing that could be said. “I thought not.”
Ciardis let out a wordless growl. “You’re a miserable human being.”
“I’m not human,” the daemoni prince said with a mildly mocking tone.
Ciardis turned away. “Fine, then we’ll do this the hard way.”
She took off.
Ciardis felt Sebastian look after her fleeting form but he hesitated. She heard him say before she’d taken a few steps, “This wasn’t the way, Thanar.”
Thanar said back, “It was always the way. Now protect her, because I no longer can.”
She didn’t hear any more, and before long she was joined by an out-of-breath prince heir.
“What did he say to you?” she huffed.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sebastian said while gesturing to the servants to throw open the doors. “Right now we have to stop his plan before it threatens all that we’ve put into motion.”
Ciardis and Sebastian raced into the palace building intent on stopping the assassination. Palace guards met them in the audience hall with pikes raised.
“Halt in the name of the emperor!” their leader shouted.
“We’re here to save him, you fools,” Ciardis shouted. “Sebastian, we’re going to need your magic.”
“I know,” he said grimly as they turned a sharp right and passed through a second set of ornate palace doors and into the one of the elaborate hallways leading to the interior. This time guardsmen didn’t bar their way.
The interior butlers and servants to paused to gape in confusion. When guards came barreling after the heir to the throne and his fiancée, they quickly got out of the way.
Not fast enough, however.
There was not enough time to get to Vana Cloudbreaker. Ciardis Weathervane knew that in her very bones.
Still, they had to try.
“We need a window,” Ciardis shouted to Sebastian.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Out of my way,” roared Sebastian as he called upon his magical connection to the land.
That’s what she liked about the prince heir. He got things done.
8
When she’d asked Sebastian for a window, Ciardis had only meant that they needed a way to get through the palace servants unfazed.
Sebastian, though, took her request literally. And all the windows in their hallway exploded.
At first Ciardis thought that would be when the screams would start. But no.
Just startled silence.
But then Sebastian reversed his magical onslaught and tapped into the magic of the land with a deep furor. The silence became a furor as the land responded.
The ground roared as an earthquake surged right underneath their feet. Then the screams started.
Shouts and curses erupted as priceless artwork fell off walls and dazed servants fell to their knees while riding the tremors.
“I’m going to get us through with a stabilized link to the Aether realm,” Sebastian
shouted.
“How will that help us?” Ciardis asked, looking around with wide eyes.
Her hands were thrown out and she could barely keep her balance as the ground tried to destabilize her.
Sebastian had no such problems. He stood as calmly as an unshakeable knoll battered by a storm.
She wished she could say the same for herself.
In a distracted voice he replied, “Everyone here will be fighting to stay upright with the ground rolling around.”
Ciardis sent him a frustrated look, but Sebastian wasn’t turned towards her to see it.
Then he looked at her with a smart grin. “While we have a straight path through the grounds using the Aether realm. A pathway straight to the emperor himself.”
Ciardis lifted an eyebrow at the surety in that last sentence.
“You can sense him?” she shouted over the noise.
Sebastian nodded and clutched a necklace at his throat. An empty reminder of the hold the emperor had once had on him as he drained him dry of magic.
“Not only that,” Sebastian said in a self-satisfied voice; “wherever the emperor is, Vana is bound to be.”
Ciardis nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
“Grab on,” Sebastian said as he threw out a hand to lock his grip on Ciardis’s left forearm. She did the same to his right.
Interlinked, they stabilized and the path straight ahead of them held steady.
It was like being in a timeless eddy while the world around them disintegrated into chaos.
Ciardis watched as they ran. More capable guardsmen poured into the room and literally threw themselves at the prince heir and princess-in-waiting. It didn’t stop them. Either of them.
The palace guards fell through both of their bodies like they were composed of nothing but light and air. Ciardis had a moment to wonder how that was happening, but unfortunately they had more pressing issues at the moment.
“I can’t keep this up for much longer,” Sebastian yelled as he strained to keep his link to the land and the realm strong.
“Where is the necklace taking us?” Ciardis yelled as they raced up a spiral staircase in haste. A valet threw himself off the side into a water fountain below to get out of their way.
The spiral staircase was heading away from the imperial palace quarters. At this time of night, that was exactly where Ciardis expected the emperor to be.
“I don’t know,” said Sebastian in frustration. “But it’s clear on one thing—the emperor is at the end of this path.”
Ciardis shook her head, but she didn’t deviate from the path or Sebastian’s grip. She wasn’t sure she could if she wanted to anyway. The walls themselves were cracking around them. As they passed a balcony to their left, it fell away to the ground as if smashed by an angry hand. Ciardis caught the terrified gaze of a musician who was plastered to the opposite, and whole, wall, clinging to a cello with all of his might.
He looked like he had seen a ghost as he stared at them passing him by.
They must have looked like a vengeful fury returning to earth, Ciardis decided. She caught glimpses of their appearance in the wall mirrors as they flung themselves down hallway after hallway.
They were both aglow like miniature gods. Wrapped in her lightning and with the earthly power of the Land Wight subsuming him.
It was quite a sight. Like white mist shaped like people floating through the palace.
She wondered if the emperor would be as scared as that valet who had thrown himself into a fountain. Somehow, Ciardis doubted it. Not much scared Maradian.
“We’re almost there!” Sebastian shouted.
“Where?” she had the presence of mind to question.
This drain on her power was dizzying in its intensity. He was both amplifying his own reach by using her Weathervane gifts, but also subtly enhancing the new gifts she’d been given from the bond. It was both disconcerting and wonderful to watch.
They turned a corner in a corridor of mazes. Out of the corner of her eye Ciardis saw what she thought was one of the bestiary keepers, but she couldn’t be sure. The only time she’d met one was when an imperial tailor had offered to make her a gown with custom ostrich feathers, and the put-out keeper had stormed into her antechambers mid-conversation to protest the very idea. While hiding a smile behind a gloved hand, Ciardis had assured both the tailor and keeper that she was already attired for the upcoming event, and that had been that.
Even now, though, the very idea of wearing a dress that required enough feathers to denude a bird as big as an ostrich made her shudder in distaste. The entire court would have been laughing at her fashion faux pas for days on end.
Soon Sebastian slowed down.
They went from a flat-out run to a trot, then a cautious walk, which was when he elected to let go of her elbow and slide his hand down her wrist to twine their fingers together in a solid grasp.
She gulped silently as they walked up to the large midnight blue double doors. Painted with golden stars embedded in the very wood, it looked like all the constellations in the night sky were staring back at her in one painting.
“We’re here,” Sebastian said. She felt him slowly release his connection to the land. The feeling of being in a distant realm while still very much present in their own dissipated as well.
Ciardis looked over her shoulder, expecting to see all manner of palace guardsmen gathered behind them, but there was no one.
Shocked, she squeezed Sebastian’s hand as she turned around.
“They’re gone,” Ciardis said in a steady voice. She was proud that it didn’t quake. Out of fear or desperation, either reaction wouldn’t have been appropriate.
“They’re just busy,” Sebastian said solemnly. “I did a heck of a number on the east wing of the palace as we made our way here. There will be servants trapped in broken portions of the palace, even individuals hurt.”
“Too hurt to rescue their imperiled ruler?” Ciardis asked in disbelief.
“Too confused to see which way we ran,” Sebastian said in a shaky voice. “That pathway through the Aether realm did more than just make us untouchable. It made us invisible to the naked eye unless the person was directly in our path.”
Ciardis snorted. “I guess that guy on the circular staircase got a double whammy then. Apparitions out of nowhere are even worse than the ones you see coming.”
“Something like that,” Sebastian said as he looked down at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Shall we go find my father?”
“To save him?” Ciardis countered.
The look of amusement soured on Sebastian’s face.
Bitterly he said, “It seems as if we have no choice. Throwing the empire into chaos is not an option.”
Ciardis tightly squeezed Sebastian’s hand as they walked forward. “For right now it isn’t love. But someday soon.”
She left the thought unfinished, but she knew Sebastian understood.
Sighing, Sebastian said, “This is a vestigial door. It’ll only open upon imperial command.”
“So you recognize where we are?” Ciardis asked as she reached to trace a hand along the constellations that she could now see were carved directly into the door itself.
Sebastian’s lips thinned and he paused. “Yes, I know exactly where we are.”
Ciardis caught the hint of genuine pain in Sebastian’s tone as he said those words.
Before she could question him, he continued on gamely, “This is my father’s favorite room. Or at least, it was.”
“What is it?” Ciardis asked softly as she let her hands rest on a large sun with rays carved out with brilliant diamond points.
The entire heavens were carved here. And something else she didn’t recognize.
It caught her eyes in a way the stars hadn’t.
On top of the sun was a dragon. Wings spread. Proud.
But it wasn’t one of flesh and blood. Ciardis’s eyes narrowed.
It was as if the very veins and blood vessels of the dra
gon’s form had been carved into being.
“What is that?” Ciardis asked breathily.
Sebastian looked up at the carving that had caught her rapt attention.
“That is why this was my father’s room,” he said in a shaky voice. “It’s the legend of the solar dragon. A favorite discussion topic in the downtime between negotiating parties of Sahalia and Algardis.”
Ciardis was silent until finally she said, “A legend?”
“A myth,” Sebastian huffed. “I heard more about it during my childhood than I wager any young dragon in the clutches of Sahalia. But you should ask Ambassador Raisa about it. I’m sure the dragons have some wild legends of their own pertaining to it.”
“Is it relevant to our task tonight?” Ciardis asked. She was wondering if she was going to open that door and get a face full of flames for her trouble.
Sebastian squared his shoulders with a bright laugh. “No. Like I said, it’s a myth. An interesting one, but a myth nonetheless. The only thing of relevance is why my father brought us here. Because it was no coincidence. This was my torture chamber.”
Ciardis felt shock run through her. “Excuse me?” She thought she had misheard, although Sebastian rarely misspoke.
He smiled and put a hand on a large round brass handle. “Welcome to the Chamber of Imperial Astronomy, Ciardis Weathervane,” the prince heir said formally, and opened the door.
They walked into a room of darkness.
There was not a spark of light anywhere. Ciardis couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, let alone anything else. All she could rely on was sound.
The drip-drop of water somewhere off to her right.
The clip of Sebastian’s boots on the marble floor.
The sudden sharp sound of clapping directly in front of them.
They halted where they stood and suddenly the room was filled with light. It seemed to come from both everywhere and nowhere.
The light shone from all the panels along the walls. The round room was adorned with sheets of tile that she first thought was quartz or maybe marble.
But they glowed with a luminescence that told her that they were more than just bare rock from this earth. They were magical.
