by Terah Edun
Ciardis paused as she remembered in a flashback, which was weird when she thought about the fact that she was already inside of a memory. “Does this have anything to do with that vial you were so eager to fill on the ship? Or the imperial nesting grounds?”
Vana grimaced. “Hardly, though those two things are also bound in the importance of this ship.”
“Then what?” Ciardis exclaimed, frustrated. “What could be so important that you won’t set it afire this second?”
Vana looked at her bleakly.
Ciardis glared at her.
Finally Vana said, “This is a state secret. Not even Sebastian is aware.”
Ciardis stirred. “But Maradian is,” she guessed.
“Oh, very much so,” Vana replied. “Because the ship is tied to Maradian and Maradian is tied to Algardis. Kill the emperor, kill the land. Got it?”
Ciardis gaped. “No, I don’t get it. Yes, I know the Algardis family is tied to the well-being of the empire by their bloodline, but that sounds far-fetched.”
Vana threw up her hands. “That’s because it is far-fetched. This was never supposed to happen. A sitting emperor is never supposed to be bound to a Kasten ship. The ships are used for cross-oceanic voyages from here to Sahalia. Having a mage onboard that was bound to the ship and its health meant that the ship could survive more perilous circumstances than usual. Even then it was a rare occurrence outside of the special families that came from the Western Isles.”
Ciardis shook her head. “Then why was Maradian bound to The Marde? Why did it take his name?”
Vana sighed. “Because the damned man was never supposed to take the throne.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ciardis interjected. “He was the first-born son of Emperor Cymus. Destined to take the throne.”
Vana said dryly, “From what I hear, Cymus didn’t see it that way, and Maradian didn’t necessarily object to the playboy lifestyle of being a prince without a future throne. He used his money and his wiles to cavort around the empire for most of his life. Just before his death, he planned to set sail on the high seas. Or so I was told.”
Ciardis breathed deeply. “But he never left?”
Vana grimaced. “That’s right. And just a few years later, his father and sister-in-law died, one in mysterious circumstances and one of old age. You can guess why Maradian decided not to reveal himself then.”
Ciardis crossed her arms in frustration. Nothing was making sense.
Nothing in my life ever seems to make sense, she thought with a resigned sigh.
Ciardis had a fair idea why. Ruling an empire was a mouth-watering prize, for everyone it seemed but Prince Heir Sebastian Athanos Algardis.
“Maradian will kill to keep this ship from being discovered,” Ciardis said suddenly. “It’s not just his weakness. It’s the entire empire’s. And revile him as I do, he’s never been anything but a man and a mage who loves his land.”
Vana smiled. “It’s his most prized possession, even if the citizens who reside within its borders are not.”
Ciardis nodded, and then her eyes went wide. “But what about…”
“The dragon ambassador who knows of the empire’s greatest secret?” Vana said solemnly. “That is a problem that could start a civil war that wouldn’t end for another six centuries.”
Ciardis groaned. “Why hasn’t Raisa said anything, then?”
Vana blinked. “It’s only been a few days since she discovered it. It would take far longer for her to get word to her people now.”
Ciardis blinked. “Right, of course.” She had forgotten for a moment when they were.
As she turned with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she had the thought that, Maybe it was better to forget this little memory entirely.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have much choice, and as she felt herself yanked back into her own natural time, Ciardis wondered what was in store next.
19
When Ciardis emerged from her returned memories this time, it wasn’t with the ill but still caustic face of Vana staring into her eyes.
Instead she found that she was standing, or rather that someone had picked her up and was shaking her like a rag doll while yelling, “Snap out of it!”
It was Thanar.
Teeth rattling, Ciardis resisted the urge to kick him in the crotch again and instead yelled, “I’m back, stop it!”
When he gave her one more shake for good measure, she snapped, “Get your hands off me, Thanar.”
With a resolute glare he dropped her so fast that she fell, giving her flashbacks to when he’d healed and ditched her just as abruptly on the plains days before. She wasn’t able to do much more than stand up on unsteady feet, still dizzy from his shaking. When she stood, she turned around to see a pissed-off Thanar hovering over Vana and muttering a dark spell.
She wondered what was going on, but from one moment to the next Vana was standing then falling to the ground in a heap.
Then Thanar whirled on Ciardis. She gulped and stumbled back across the courtyard.
He looked pissed. Which was quite disconcerting, since it was she who should be taking her ire out on him for burying her memories.
But it was hard to tell her mind, and most importantly, her legs that as she kept backing away from the angry daemoni and he kept advancing like an avenging angel.
Finally Ciardis planted her feet and took a stand. She place a hand on his looming chest while saying in a hopeful tone, “I don’t suppose this is another one of those visions.”
“Not a chance,” Thanar said flatly.
“Right,” Ciardis said while nodding wildly. “Well, it should be me that’s mad at you, so why don’t you calm down and we can switch roles.”
“You ignorant fool,” Thanar said in a deadly calm voice.
Ciardis stiffened and dropped her hand. “Now, there’s no need for name-calling here, but if there was I would be calling you a maniac, self-obsessed lout who deserves a good beating.”
A vein throbbed in Thanar’s forehead as he leaned over to stare directly in her face.
She winced and almost whimpered but held her noise back. She’d be damned if she’d cry facing him down, though to be honest, she had never seen him this angry before.
“What did you think you were doing with that?” he said while pointing back at Vana’s collapsed form.
Ciardis looked around his shoulder just to verify that she and he were thinking of the same soul.
Yep, he’s definitely pointing at Vana, she thought bleakly.
Ciardis looked back up into Thanar’s eyes and said firmly, “I was getting answers.”
“You left Sebastian,” he roared in her face. “You left the only protective source within a one-mile radius and walked off with her.”
Ciardis winced and slowly edged to the left, trying to back away. She said helplessly, “I was coming back.”
“You left,” Thanar said in dangerously soft tone.
Ciardis felt like yelling that she hadn’t had a choice, that Vana had yanked her out of the door with magic but she was tired of being bullied.
“I’m not exactly helpless,” Ciardis yelled back while balling her fists. “In case you didn’t notice, I can hold my own, and since when do you trust Sebastian?”
Thanar looked back at her with raised eyebrows, clearly surprised. “I’ve always trusted him, Ciardis. With your life if not your heart.”
Ciardis froze. “You did?”
Thanar rolled his eyes. “He’s a prince who spells more trouble for you than I approve of, but he would clearly lay down his life for you.”
Ciardis choked but managed to stutter anyway, “He’s trouble? You’re from a kith race that is the stuff of nightmares for humans and have pledged your loyalties to an ancient evil, yet he’s trouble?”
The incredulous look on her face must have gone through Thanar’s thick skull because he retorted, “It’s not like I come packaged alongside an imperial court trying to kill me and everything I love, though, is
it?”
Ciardis blinked. This was the weirdest conversation she’d ever had with Thanar, bar none. She shook her head. “We’re getting off topic.”
Thanar said snidely, “Fine, then let’s return. You left your protection team, which includes a bloody dragon. Please explain to me in what world that makes sense.”
Ciardis flinched but threw out a defiant hand. “It’s Vana! I didn’t go off with just anyone.”
Thanar threw up his hands and said, “She looks like death incarnate, Ciardis. In what world would you go with her?”
“She’s sick,” Ciardis retorted. “Not plagued. The emperor’s ministrations took a toll on her.”
Thanar winced and slammed a hand to his forehead. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?”
Ciardis folded her arms and said in a snarky manner, “I don’t know, do I? Here’s a better question: do I have any idea how much you’ve messed up my brain really?”
Thanar flinched.
Ciardis saw it and thought, Good, he should feel bad.
The daemoni prince ruffled his wings and looked over at Vana in a sulk.
Ciardis shook as she asked him, “How much did you take from me? How many memories? How many experiences?”
“Only the one,” Thanar growled. “Only the one that I thought you didn’t need to know.”
“Because it weakened you,” she said in an accusatory tone.
“Because it weakened us,” he yelled. “I was trying to protect you, Ciardis Weathervane!”
“By erasing my memories and flying off into the sunset,” she cried, shocked. “You’ve gotten very good at that, by the way.”
Thanar snarled, “I had to then. The seeleverbindung is not a toy, Ciardis. And the god that’s inside me. The bluttgott that’s linked to me, neither is he. He will destroy us and then destroy everything else he sees.”
“Why?” Ciardis asked while she held out her hands.
“Why what?” he replied.
“Why do it like this?” she asked, confused. “Why hide the connection?”
Thanar looked at her in bleak weariness. “Because that connection is one I’m fighting every day, and I can’t do that with the bond between us tearing down my barriers every single day.”
Ciardis looked at him. “How?”
Thanar shook his head and said, “Never mind.” He turned away. “Go back to Sebastian. Send Raisa for Vana. She’s the only one who should be handling her, let alone touching her skin-to-skin. You got lucky this time. It won’t happen again.”
He spread his wings and took off. And Ciardis broke. Her mental reservations came undone. She was done being polite. Before she could think about what she was going to do or even talk herself out of it, to go back to being a doormat who accepted secrets and lived lies, she acted.
She gathered her magic inside her when Thanar was no more than three feet in the air and calling in lightning to her palm.
The surge was so large that it engulfed her hand.
Good, she thought. With his back turned, she threw it as hard as she could.
The lightning missed Thanar’s outstretched wing by centimeters and was so hot that it scorched his skin. But that’s not all it did. The ball landed in the building directly in front of them, and the four walls exploded outward as if battle fire had landed in its midst.
When Thanar whirled around shocked, Ciardis smiled at him and called up another lightning grenade in her hand.
“I’m through being lied to,” she said casually. “So you’re going to come back down here and tell me what I want to know.”
Thanar hovered mid-air, not moving.
As she hefted the second ball of lightning in her hand, he landed on the ground.
She walked closer to him, searching the expression on his face. To her ire, it wasn’t fright she saw but wonder.
Pouting, she said, “Aren’t you the least bit scared?”
He raised an eyebrow and replied, “Are you ready to kill me with that thing?”
She halted and then admitted slowly, “No.”
He smiled. “The moment you are, is when I’ll be scared.”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Thanar sighed and ruffled fingers through his hair.
“Put the lightning orb away, Ciardis Weathervane,” he said softly. “It seems we have a lot to discuss.”
Seeing the truth in his eyes and the candor in his voice, she let her magic fall and lowered her hand.
Carefully Ciardis said in a calm tone, “So let’s talk.”
A voice from the entrance to the courtyard said mildly, “I think it’s time I joined this conversation, since it involves me as well.”
Thanar and Ciardis turned to see Sebastian walking towards them.
“How long have you been standing in the shadows?” demanded Thanar in a pissed-off tone.
“Long enough,” said the prince heir in a strong voice. He looked over Vana and passed her by without touching her.
Ciardis eyed them both and then nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’re going to get any sleep tonight. At all.”
Sebastian smiled over at her and said, “It’s already dawn aboveground, so it hardly matters.”
She lifted an eyebrow and said, “Speak for yourself.”
“Well, we could always do this after you’ve had your six hours of rest,” Thanar said sarcastically.
“Don’t be petulant, Thanar,” Ciardis said.
Both men turned to her, pinning her with incredulous looks.
“All right, don’t say it,” she snapped. “I do indeed get the irony of me voicing that opinion.”
“I’m glad,” said Sebastian dryly. “Now, shall we proceed?”
Thanar nodded.
Then Sebastian frowned. “What about Vana?”
Thanar glanced over at his victim. “What about her?”
“Do you want to include her in this conversation?” Ciardis asked, confused.
“No,” Sebastian said, “I was just fearful that her collapse was a result of her condition. Was it not?”
Thanar waved an impatient hand. “Don’t worry about her. She’s unconscious, not dead, and she won’t disturb us until I say so.”
Sebastian gave a smile. “Fine with me.”
Ciardis blinked.
Sebastian noted her astonishment. “I may not have heard everything or even understood what I heard, but I felt your emotions from the moment I left the house. Vana doesn’t deserve death. But we will get answers, and we can’t do that from a permanently comatose body.”
The daemoni prince eyed the prince heir and then said, “I like the way you think.”
Sebastian flashed a dark smile. “I’m beginning to think we’ll get on just fine, you and I, Thanar.”
Ciardis frowned. “Lovely, just lovely. Can we get on with it or do you two need a moment alone?”
“We’re ready,” said Sebastian in an agreeable tone.
Thanar’s eyes flashed in ire but he didn’t disagree.
Slowly the daemoni prince began to speak. “I have my own objections to Vana Cloudbreaker, but this is one that is of primary importance right now.”
Ciardis raised an eyebrow.
“What is it?” Ciardis demanded in irritation. “Was it because she refused to keep your bloody secrets any longer?”
“No,” Thanar said. “Because she has put my entire plan in jeopardy.”
Ciardis glared. “What plan?”
Thanar turned to look at her head on. “I was going to kill Maradian.”
Ciardis couldn’t help it, she laughed. Not in mockery but out of tiredness. Trouble was, Thanar didn’t know that.
He stiffened and lashed out. “You think I can’t do it?”
“I think it shouldn’t be done,” she shouted back.
Thanar shook his head. “Why? So your precious prince heir can claim his head?”
Sebastian protested, “Hey, watch it. We were just starting to get along, too.”
Thanar
ignored him and poked an irritated finger at Ciardis. “I was doing this for you, Ciardis, so you wouldn’t have your own family’s blood on your hands.”
Ciardis looked at him in confusion. She wanted this nightmare to end. Instead, she wondered if maybe she had dreamed it all…or Vana had made the memories up.
She looked at Sebastian, but he held up his hands palms out and said, “This is between you and him.”
Squaring her shoulders, Ciardis said, “I guess we’ll do this now. But don’t think I’ll forget about the seeleverbindung discussion.”
Thanar looked at her and said dryly, “I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ll get all this aired out right now.”
“Good,” Ciardis said in a snippy tone.
Faltering, not wanting to ask but having to know, she said to Thanar, “But what about Maradian and the ship? What Vana said, was it all a lie?”
Sebastian, who had started to look dangerously bored, suddenly looked alert. “What did she say about Maradian?”
“Yes,” Thanar said while repeating his triumvirate mate’s question, “what did Vana say?”
Ciardis looked between the two of them, flummoxed. “Neither of you know, do you?”
“Would I have asked if I had?” Thanar snapped.
Sebastian shook his head slowly, looking very worried.
Ciardis gave a dry laugh and blinked. “Oh, I think we’re going to need a lot more than a few minutes to get through this.”
Thanar narrowed suspicious eyes. “Then by all means, let’s get through it.”
So she recounted it all. Every second. Every minute. Every moment.
20
When she was done, Thanar clenched his jaw and sat straight down on the ground. “Great, just great,” he drawled.
Ciardis looked at him. “How so?”
He gave her a furious glare. “I was being facetious. This is a disaster. That damned assassin knew this all along, but she said nothing.”
Ciardis leveled a glare at him. “As far as I recall, you were keeping things secret as well.”
“Not pertaining to this matter,” snapped Thanar.
“No, just pertinent information on your connection to the god that’s threatening to destroy us all. That’s it.”
