by Terah Edun
“Running away? Who’s running away?” Ciardis hissed back.
“You!” Vana said, not so softly, before she noticed more servants coming and lowered her voice. “It shouldn’t be that farfetched of a concept for you to grasp, seeing as it runs in the family and is something your mother is very good at.”
Ciardis stiffened and abruptly pushed at Vana’s chest to force her back and give herself some breathing room.
“How dare you?” hissed Ciardis, practically shaking in fury.
“How dare I?” Vana hissed back, “You would abandon everyone and everything to save yourself.”
“Save myself?” Ciardis said. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Vana snatched up an edge of her cloak. “This says differently.”
Ciardis pushed the cloak out of her grasp. “Then you’ve highly misread the situation, Lady Cloudbreaker.”
Vana’s eyes flashed in the darkness with magic. She was still upset. “Then why don’t you correct my assumptions, Lady Companion Weathervane?”
Ciardis folded her arms in irritation. “I don’t owe you a damned explanation.”
Vana stepped forward until they were nose to nose. “You do when you’re under my charge and represent some of the hope of this empire. Misguided though that may be.”
Ciardis narrowed her eyes. She almost lashed out in anger. Again. But she took a closer look in Vana’s eyes, inches from her own. And she realized that under the anger and the fear, she saw the glimmer of something else. Worry. Whether Vana was worried about her or the empire or losing the daughter of the woman she had been hired to kill, it didn’t matter. Ciardis knew that she at least deserved her honesty.
Not that being honest was ever the easiest thing to do.
Ciardis let her head fall back against the column with a thud.
Then she sighed as she gripped her cloak in indecision.
Staring off into the sky, Ciardis muttered, “I was going out.”
“Out?” said Vana incredulously. “It’s a bit early for a drink, wouldn’t you say?”
Ciardis lowered her chin in order to meet Vana’s eyes as she glared at her. “When have you ever known me to drink?”
Vana stared at her and admitted slowly, “Never. So then where?”
Ciardis studied her face carefully. “Is this about where I’m going or why?”
“It’s about both,” Vana said sharply, “and it’s about the fact that you didn’t take any guards with you.”
Ciardis snorted. “As if I had any?”
“Don’t get smart with me, girl,” Vana said while sheathing the knife that she had held in her grip tightly. “You could ask any one of us and we’d go, no questions asked.”
Ciardis raised an eyebrow.
“All right, some questions asked,” Vana admitted, “but with good reason.”
Ciardis shrugged as she heard the sounds of more early-morning servants rising.
It’s now or never, she thought ruefully.
“All right, Vana,” Ciardis said softly as she watched Vana’s face for emotions. Unfortunately, just as Vana was great at breaking through obfuscations, she was excellent at hiding her own emotions.
“I was going to look for clues before I had to leave on the road,” Ciardis said with a tic showing on the edge of her mouth.
Vana didn’t beat around the bush. “Clues? Clues to what?”
Ciardis said with a gulp, “Clues to a secret that’s been overshadowing us the entire time we’ve been at court.”
“I’m listening,” Vana said slowly.
Ciardis shook her head. “It’s better that I show you. I need to take you somewhere so you’ll at least know there’s proof.”
“Now?” Vana said with suspicion. “We’re an hour out, maybe two, from waving you and your merry band off on a caravan to the west.”
Ciardis snorted. “That’s why I need to show you this. I ... I was going myself to get whatever information I could in the hopes of forming a plan on the way back from Kifar. But if the feeling I’ve had all night is correct, I think someone else needs to have access to this information. In case we don’t come back.”
Vana stepped back from her and said frankly, “The road is dangerous and the tasks are particularly challenging, but you’ll get through this journey to the western lands, Ciardis. If anyone can, you can.”
Ciardis smiled at her. “Thank you, but in this case it’s not the wyvern or the city that worries me. It’s what we’ll return to along the way that does. If we fail to return, there’s nothing to stop him.”
Vana rubbed her brow in irritation. “Him who?”
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” Ciardis said with a deep breath. “I’ll show you the key to unmasking a false emperor.”
As Ciardis eased around the column and back into the proper hallway, Vana caught her arm tightly. “What do you mean false emperor?”
Ciardis smiled. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
Vana narrowed her gaze. “Would it have anything to do with the death of Empress Ryana and your mother’s flight from court?”
“A bit,” Ciardis squeaked. She couldn’t help herself. Being nervous around a trained assassin who happened to be glaring at her was second nature.
Vana released her and nodded. “I thought there was more to that story.”
Ciardis snorted. “Now you’ll hear the whole of it.”
Vana looked at her expectantly. “But not here,” Ciardis concluded. “Elsewhere.”
Vana lifted her hand and pointed toward the hallway. “Lead on.”
Ciardis turned away. “That is the plan.” Then she turned back with a gulp. “And Vana?”
Vana raised a curious eyebrow.
“Don’t ever talk about my mother in that fashion again,” Ciardis said flatly. “She did what she had to do. As would I.”
Vana’s eyes cooled, but she didn’t contradict the girl who had turned away and led her down the marble hallways of the empress’s palace.
Ciardis slipped out into the streets with an assassin at her back at dawn’s rise. She was desperately trying not to think any thoughts loudly enough to wake up Sebastian or alert Thanar. She still didn’t know the strengths or limitations of the soul bonds she had forged with them, but she did know that sometimes they could hear her thoughts as clearly as if she had spoken them aloud. As of yet the bond seemed to allow them only to share their magical gifts and telepathic thoughts.
Not to mention the enhanced emotions, Ciardis thought with a grumble as she gave up skulking in shadows and grabbed Vana’s hand to direct her into the crowd. It was better that they moved with the flow of foot traffic rather than trying to move around it in corners. It was less suspicious and easier to accomplish, Ciardis knew—at least for her it was.
Ciardis turned to Vana as she slanted her body to ease around groups of people who stopped to conduct commerce in the middle of the thoroughfare, or worse, have conversations.
She could see Vana out of the corner of her eye as she said, “We’re going southeast.”
Ciardis felt Vana sharply tug on her wrist, hard enough that Ciardis stumbled back into the crowd and the crook of Vana’s right arm. Before Ciardis could blink, Vana had switched places with her, using Ciardis’s faltering step to smoothly move forward and take point.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ciardis cried out as she waved an irritated hand in front of her to ward off the feathery debris of a plucked chicken overhead.
It wasn’t a very successful effort, as the dander quickly got in her nose and she was coughing before she knew it. When Vana grabbed her hand with a firm grip and determinedly tugged her along, Ciardis didn’t resist. They were going the right away, after all.
After they had cleared the worst of the crowds on the street, Vana paused momentarily, turned to her, and said, “There are only three things in the southwest of the city. The weaver district. The drug dens. And bums.”
Ciardis said, “Was there a question in th
ere?”
Vana laughed. “No, just an explanation. You follow. I lead. When we get there, I still lead. You still instruct. Got it?”
Ciardis narrowed her eyes but didn’t protest. “I got it.”
Chapter 4
Vana nodded and looked around before jutting her chin toward a large and open side street. “That goes west for a bit but curves around. It’ll be easier than going through the largest street market on this side of Sandrin again.”
The disapproval in her tone was unmistakable.
Ciardis gritted her teeth. “It’s the only way I know how to get there.”
Aside from flying, she thought. Get me in the air and we could skip all of this.
Vana shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. But this way is faster, safer from pickpockets and easier to navigate.”
Ciardis decided it wasn’t worth arguing over. Particularly since Vana was right.
So she simply nodded and said, “Lead the way, madam.”
As Vana moved off, Ciardis shelved her worries from the morning and focused on the new day inching forward into dawn. At least, she did until she felt Vana latch on to her with one determined hand and proceed to guide her through the crowds like a child.
Ciardis had the insane urge to lean back and lock her feet, just to see what Vana would do. But she wasn’t that crazy. Not yet.
So instead she asked, “You’re not going to drag me the whole way there, are you?”
“You bet your butt I am,” Vana confirmed.
“Do you honestly think I’m trying to flee somewhere?” Ciardis said in surprise.
“No,” Vana said as she turned a corner and took them down a flight of street stairs. “I think there are half a dozen individuals that want you dead and another three that want you dead and your head on a stake. So this seems the best way to keep an eye on you.”
“That’s a bit of an overexaggeration,” Ciardis said in an accusing tone.
Vana said, “Not really. By my count, the emperor, the princess heir, General Barnaren’s bastard sons, the Duchess of Carne, the blutgott’s minions, a noble who called you a whore, the four louts you met in the Aether Realm before you freed Sebastian from the locket, the....”
“All right, all right!” Ciardis said. “Your point is made.”
Gloomily she thought, I should have killed some of them when I had the chance. Vana’s right. I’ve got a veritable army of enemies waiting to cut off my head at the smallest chance.
Ciardis knew her math was bad, but she’d been hoping that at least by killing the Duke of Carne, eliminating the devious satyr, and maybe by gaining the goodwill of the companions, she could have evened out her bad luck with most of society. Turned out it didn’t work that way.
Vana chuckled as if she could read Ciardis’s very thoughts. “I know it’s hard to believe, coming from a life in a tiny village to the very heart of the empire, but....”
Vana paused as a very large wagon came down the street toward them. It was pulled by a team of oxen. Ciardis quickly saw the problem. There was no space for them to walk except pressed flat against the wall. Even then, Ciardis saw some fruit vendors with baskets of wares having trouble.
Ciardis said, “Let’s go to the right. If we get stuck, we can duck into the side paths. There are none on the left.”
“Very good, little mage,” Vana said in an approving tone as she did as Ciardis suggested and they put their backs to the wall and inched forward in a line behind a fishmonger and a man with a monkey on his shoulder.
The cart was so close to their faces that she couldn’t turn her head to the side, so Ciardis watched the back of Vana’s head and thought about what she hadn’t said.
“But?” Ciardis prompted helpfully after it was clear that Vana had no intentions of finishing her sentences.
Vana cursed suddenly as she tilted to her head to the left. “There’s a damned wagon train of these oxen and their loads. At least two more. We need to go around them if we hope to make it anywhere near the weaver district and back to the empress’s palace by the break of dawn.”
Vana began peering around, and gave Ciardis’s hand a sharp tug to indicate she needed to pay attention.
“Two paces up ahead,” Vana said. “We’re going into that alley. Be ready.”
Ciardis started to nod before she remembered that Vana couldn’t see that and instead squeezed her hand and said, “Got it.”
They ducked into an alley that had seen better days. Ciardis wrinkled her nose as she came abreast with Vana and passed the small and worn doors that lined the alley, lumps of dark litter that she’d rather not think about, and hissing cats that seemed to think that the two humans had disturbed their peace.
“Where to from here?” Ciardis asked while struggling not to hold her nose.
She promptly gave in to her urge to pinch her nostrils shut when a cat knocked over a canister, which splashed into the corner of the alley and let out a foul stench. Rotten meat. The kind that had been stewing in its own blood for days and let out an odor so fetid that she could taste the stench on her tongue.
Ciardis couldn’t hold her breath and keep her nostrils pinned shut at the same time. She’d pass out in less than a minute. She knew that from the one time she’d tried to dive deeper than seven feet and quickly realized she couldn’t keep enough breath pent up to survive kicking back to the surface. It had felt like life and death.
This time it just felt like the world’s most perfect day to retch into an alley. Of course, she wouldn’t do that. The only thing worse than breathing the stench in through her mouth was doing it through her nose and mouth.
“Can we please go?” Ciardis complained as she looked over from the mesmerizing sight of at least three tomcats fighting over a very large carcass of an opossum.
Vana, however, didn’t look the least bit ready to leave.
Her hands were on her waist and she was staring around thoughtfully.
“Vana,” snapped Ciardis, “what is so fascinating about this alley?”
Vana continued to ignore her until she snapped out of her blank gaze a moment later and gave Ciardis a sardonic look. “Not a thing. I was getting our bearings.”
Ciardis glared at her and pulled her sleeve over her nose as she pointed to the northeast. “I could have told you where to go. We just need to get out of here and go that way.”
“That way, huh?” Vana said.
“Does this amuse you?” Ciardis nearly howled. “This place stinks. My eyes are watering.”
Vana rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen and smelled worse.”
“Good for you,” Ciardis said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.”
She proceeded to do just that by going back the way they came. Ciardis only halted when Vana grabbed her arm.
“To what end?”
Ciardis gave her a look that wouldn’t have been out of place on Lillian Weathervane’s face. Cold. Domineering. Irate.
“If you’d look behind you, you’d see that this cesspit ends in a dead end,” Ciardis said.
Vana grinned. “That’s where you’re wrong. It may look like a dead end, but just three doors down on the right is a small archway that leads to an enclosed courtyard, which has stairs up to an abbey, which has a side entrance off the fabric street which is only three blocks from the weaver district.”
Ciardis blinked, astonished, forgetting for a moment about the stench.
Jaw dropped, she said, “How’d you know that?”
Vana tapped her head. “I’m an assassin. Remember? I can’t consult a map every time I need to flee authorities or cross the city in the dead of night without being seen. That’s why I said I was getting our bearings.”
Ciardis turned around fully and looked down the dark alleyway doubtfully. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as the promise that the leaves fall to the ground in autumn,” Vana said.
Still Ciardis hesitated.
“Afraid of a dark alley, Weathervane?” Vana said.
Ciardis said, “I’m afraid of a lot more than that.” Unspoken thoughts of daggers in the dark and cutthroats around corners were in Vana’s eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” Vana assured her darkly. “For this day, you’re under my protection.”
“Is that a promise to the death?” Ciardis said flatly. Not really seeking reassurances, just waiting one more moment before taking another step into the fetid darkness. Turned out she didn’t have time to wait for a reply anyway.
High above her she heard the shutters of a window slam into the side of the building with a loud whack.
Ciardis sucked in a breath, preparing to seek cover, but she knew in an instant there was nowhere to go. The alley was barely large enough to fit the two of them, with no nooks or crannies to duck into. They were stuck like rats in a maze waiting for archers from above to fire on them.
As she looked up to see who they faced, Ciardis caught the flash of determination in Vana’s eyes. Ciardis felt sorry for her. Pinned down in an alley as they were, there was nothing Vana could do to save herself.
But, to Ciardis’s surprise, it wasn’t herself that Vana tried to save.
Without a moment to lose, the assassin with the acerbic wit jumped toward Ciardis and pushed her up against the dank wall. Ciardis’s breath whooshed out of her body as her back hit the thick bricks behind her, and her eyes still strained toward the sky to see what was coming. But she couldn’t see. Not with Vana, who stood at an impressive height, in her way. Still Ciardis tried to peer around the side of Vana’s shoulder and discern what was coming for them. Maybe from above?
Apparently they were both thinking the same thing. An attack from the sky was imminent. If they’d been up against enemies in the alley with them, their fate would have been different. The size of the alley would have worked in their favor, keeping too many assailants from charging against them and perhaps allowing Vana to take them on one by one, Ciardis Weathervane by her side.
Now they waited silently as the seconds passed. Their ears straining to hear the sound of arrows streaking through the air. Ciardis was trying to differentiate that coming sound from the fast thudding of Vana’s heart in her ear. If she had been pressed up against anyone else, she would have said it was fear. But not Vana. It was probably anticipation. Vana was turned to the wall so she wouldn’t see death was coming, but she was ready for it. As more seconds passed and nothing hit Vana’s back, the frantic beating of her heart eased.
