by Terah Edun
“It’s Thanar,” said Vana dryly. “You expect him to actually divulge his secrets? Even the innocuous ones are worth more to him than his life.”
Terris snorted. “Too true.”
Ciardis sighed. “Where is he and this newest member of our party?”
Vana smiled. “Why don’t you turn around and see for yourself?”
Ciardis turned and did just that, expecting to see a swarthy male member of Companion Hibblebottom’s Varnes tribe.
Instead, coming around the corner, side by side with Thanar, was a woman.
A willowy woman with long raven-black hair and flowing veils fluttering around her body.
Ciardis sucked in a surprised breath, as she couldn’t take her eyes off the woman walking toward her. She wore a form-fitting half-tunic and pants set of cerulean blue that showed off her golden skin and flowed around her body like a cloud. Gold chains circled her neck, and her face was painted with makeup that made her look like a dark hothouse flower in the middle of winter.
“Gorgeous, isn’t she?” said Vana cheerfully as she and Terris came to stand to either side of Ciardis. “Almost goddess-like.”
Ciardis felt her jaw slowly start to close as she dragged her eyes away from the approaching vision of loveliness and gave Vana a spiteful look.
“You knew,” Ciardis said in an accusing tone.
Vana looked over at her cheerfully. “Knew what?”
“That that was that!” Ciardis managed to splutter out while pointing toward the woman, who was quickly approaching. She couldn’t make herself any clearer. She was so infuriated.
Rationally, Ciardis knew that she was overreacting. But the heightened emotions of the broken soul bonds made it so she didn’t care. She reveled in the upset temperament.
Besides, Vana had understood every word she had uttered.
“Of course I did,” Vana said with a smug smile as Ciardis glared at her and Terris backed away from both of them slowly.
Once she stood behind Ciardis and Vana and just out of reach, Terris said nervously, “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing,” said Vana.
“Everything,” said Ciardis at the same time.
“Ciardis, you haven’t even met the woman,” chided Terris.
Fist clenched, Ciardis looked back at Thanar and the shaman.
“Maybe I was overreacting,” Ciardis said slowly ... though the muscles in her back were still screaming at the tension in her shoulders.
Then all three of them watched as the woman’s foot caught on a loose flagstone. Those flowing trousers did nothing to stop her from stumbling, as her second foot caught in the billowing fabric and she went tumbling head over heels to the ground.
Fortunately, she didn’t hit the ground.
Without breaking stride, Thanar caught her and scooped her up in his arms before setting her down in front of Ciardis. He made sure to let his hands linger as long as possible around the shaman’s waist to steady her.
“Or maybe not,” Terris breathed gently behind them.
Ciardis snapped dark eyes up to Thanar’s brooding gaze.
“Finished?” Ciardis asked icily.
“Hardly,” responded Thanar with a smirk as he rested a broad hand on the shaman’s back. “May I have the pleasure of introducing Shaman Rachael?”
Ciardis turned to look at the woman called Rachael and gave her a pained smile. “How do you do?”
It wasn’t just Rachael’s rich clothes and silky hair. The woman was just too beautiful by half, and Ciardis hated her on sight. She had never experienced such a wealth of hatred for one human being before so quickly, but she knew without a doubt that this one was trouble. And so was Ciardis Weathervane, because she could feel her mage core reacting in unpleasant ways. Just like it had before she fried the emperor’s guards to a crisp.
Get a grip, she told herself. She pushed her magic down so far that she couldn’t feel it anymore, and the itching in her fingertips that signaled lightning was ready to burst forward died down with barely a glimmer.
Swallowing harshly, Ciardis tried not to draw conclusions just based on appearance, and held out her hand in a friendly gesture. They shook each others hands quickly.
Weakly, she said, “I’m Ciardis Weathervane.”
The shaman smiled. “Rachael Atwas of the Varnes tribe, and so pleased to be here now that I’m not falling into a stone floor.”
She ended that statement with a bright smile up at Thanar as she trailed her finger up his forearm.
Oh yes, definitely trouble, Ciardis decided.
Ciardis felt her attempt at a smile freeze on her face as she watched the woman lean into Thanar’s hand at her back.
“Well, I’m glad he could be of service,” Vana drawled in the silence.
Rachael nodded and looked behind Ciardis. “You must be Terris. I hear you have a map of Kifar I can look at.”
“An old one,” stammered Terris. “Hardly of use.”
“But the best we have,” Ciardis interjected without taking her eyes off Thanar. “Why don’t you show her the layout?”
Terris looked over at Ciardis, and Ciardis turned back to look at her with impatience.
Terris’s brown gaze sparked in understanding as she said slowly, “Yes, why don’t I do that?” Terris turned and pointed toward a stone bench. “Why don’t we sit over there? This could take a while.”
Shaman Rachael nodded and started to walk forward ... directly between Ciardis and Vana. Ciardis felt her hand clench into a claw as she fought the urge to snatch the woman by her hair and drag her to the ground where they stood. The hair was too pretty by half—long enough that it reached the top of her butt and glimmered with the sheen of a black opal in the morning sun.
Rachael turned periwinkle eyes to Ciardis before looking back at Thanar with a seductive half-smile. “Won’t you join us?”
Thanar took a step forward, his wings slightly raised, but before he could accept the invitation, Ciardis put a hand flat on his chest and said over her shoulder, “He’ll be just a few minutes. We need to speak first.”
Her tone was as hard as a rock.
Thanar looked down at her through dark eyelashes. “Do we?”
“We do,” confirmed Ciardis.
He looked back up over her head. “I suppose we do, then. Rachael, I’ll be over in just a moment.”
Ciardis snorted and walked around him to the opposite side of the courtyard, where abundant trees threw off lots of shade. Thanar followed silently behind her.
When she got to the shade, she didn’t bother to hold back her harsh tone.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Thanar!” she snapped.
“I have been accused of many things, Lady Weathervane,” he said with a lazy drawl, “but being deliberately obtuse has never been one of them.”
Ciardis frowned and crossed her arms. “Who’s she?”
“You know who she is,” he said softly. “She’s the key to your salvation.”
Ciardis didn’t focus on the “your” part, but rather asked a more pertinent question: “Who is she to you?”
“A guide?” he said with a dismissive shrug.
“That’s all?” she asked suspiciously.
“A rather pretty one,” he admitted, “and that, my dear, I think is your problem.”
“My problem?” Ciardis said in shock. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Now who’s being deliberately obtuse?” he said dryly.
Ciardis sniffed. “I just wondered ... why you seemed so close.”
She felt mild surprise go through her body at that comment, like a pleasant warmth. And it wasn’t her surprise but Thanar’s. He’d temporarily dropped his shields.
“Well, well, well, golden eyes,” he said thoughtfully, “if I didn’t know better I’d think you were jealous.”
“I am not,” she snapped.
He laughed. Joy
ously.
“If I had known this is what I had to do to get your attention, I would have done it ages ago,” he said.
“No, don’t. That’s not what I meant,” she wailed.
He turned and left the privacy of their shaded abode. “Weathervane?”
“Yes?” she asked warily.
“I do believe this little trip through the desert will be quite fun.”
Ciardis miserably watched Thanar walk away into the sunlight while tossing an orange up into the air over and over again.
It wasn’t long before he was by Rachael’s side again, and more obvious than ever with his affectionate touches.
Ciardis whirled away with tears burning in her eyes.
Straight into the chest of a certain koreschie healer.
Ciardis stumbled back and screeched, “Come to see me fall apart again?”
“Ciardis—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said resentfully. “I just acted like a vapid fool, when it’s me that doesn’t want him. What is happening to me?”
Christian shook his head helplessly.
Grumbling, Ciardis said, “Don’t answer that.”
Christian was still as a stone as she stared up at him and then turned back to look at the raven-haired beauty that had Thanar hanging off her arm like a suitor. She never thought she’d see the day when she’d be resentful of someone else gaining Thanar’s attention, but here it was. Jealousy rose in her throat, and she almost coughed at the bitter substance that tasted like bile at the back of her throat. Just what she needed ... another physical reaction to her emotions.
What’s next? Ciardis wondered tiredly. I’m starting to wonder if a sneak attack by the emperor might be preferable to this journey that’s already turning out to be Hell.
Chapter 18
There was no fanfare to their departure from the city. Which was just as well. After last night’s ceremony, Ciardis wasn’t sure who would hit whom first, but if she stood within five feet of the emperor again, witnesses or no, one of them would die.
She shivered in the early-morning air as a breeze wrapped around their departing caravan and pushed past them as they clattered along the silent thoroughfare they had chosen to take out of the city.
As her curls blew past her face, Ciardis took one last look at the empty city corridors and empress’s palace looming in the distance. A harsh wind made her turn around with a grimace as she muttered, “Goodbye to you too.”
They left through the giant city gate as the dawn rose in the sky, and under the proud grins of three gate attendants and the sleepy salutes of the guards at the helm, who promptly went back to their half-leaning positions at their post.
Ciardis resisted the urge to mutter “amateurs” as she rode past them, but she didn’t stop a disdainful sniff from passing her lips. The decorum of those men was an insult to the men she had served with and died beside in the north.
Focusing her gaze on the horizon as they descended the gently sloping terrain to the imperial path that lead to the grasslands to the immediate west of the capital city and then the desert beyond that, Ciardis remembered the goodbyes that had been said and not said as they left the empress’s palace and the second half of their larger group behind. There had been sweet, tearful goodbyes between the newlyweds Terris and Meres ... just heartfelt enough that she felt like a voyeur peeping into a private scene as she watched them embrace and kiss with wetness shining in their eyes. Then the look of unspoken hope in Caemon’s eyes as Ciardis turned away and doubtful resignation in Lillian’s as she watched her daughter leave.
All of those people she viewed from a distance as they stood on the steps and embraced or waved gently from the balcony. As they left, Ciardis had been given the choice of either climbing into the saddle or huddling in the stagecoach. She had taken one look inside the roomy but crowded stagecoach and decided to save her sanity and ride alone. So her back had been turned as she checked the gear on her horse and swung up into the saddle. To feel a person’s hand reach from behind and help boost her with a swift push up startled her so much that she almost flew over the saddle onto the other side. Fortunately, she’d done enough riding in the past year that she knew to grip the pommel for dear life before that happened. Settling herself, she turned to view whoever it was who had tried to help her. She had kept repeating the mantra “they were only trying to help” as she did so. She’d expected to see an eager stable groom.
Instead, Vana had stood there, a somber look plastered on her face.
Ciardis had closed her eyes and tilted back her head with a snarl as she tried not to snap at the woman.
“What was that?” Ciardis finally said as she looked down at her.
“A warning,” Vana said lazily.
“A warning for?”
“Against.”
Ciardis raised an eyebrow but refused to ask the question lingering in her mind: “Against what?” She was not going to play Vana’s guessing game. Not at the crack of dawn, she wasn’t.
Vana apparently saw the irate resolution in her eyes, because she softened her tone and reached up to pat Ciardis’s leg as she said, “Don’t be cross with me. You have too far to travel and too few allies to be angry at one of your friends who remain behind.”
Ciardis felt the tension in her shoulder ease. Vana had never been what Ciardis would call kind to her, but it was true. They were friends. As friendly as you could be with an Unknown mage with more secrets than Ciardis’s mother, and that was saying something.
Vana cocked her head. “I merely meant to give you this warning ... never trust your allies.”
“Isn’t that the opposite of what you just said?” Ciardis asked in a resentful whisper as she rubbed her temple in irritation.
She didn’t want to be cross with the woman, she really didn’t. But Vana was giving her a headache that she didn’t need.
Vana smirked. Then Ciardis wanted to smack her. But she wasn’t foolish enough to even try. Slapping Vana would be the same as smacking a copperhead snake. Both actions could get you killed.
Then Ciardis blinked and realized something like that would have never occurred to her just a week before.
Turning her head to the sky, she whispered, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling like this? So irrational.”
“You need to get your head out of the clouds,” said Vana harshly from where she stood by her side, drawing Ciardis’s gaze back down to her. “For the past two days you’ve been uncommunicative, moody, weepy....”
Ciardis opened her mouth to object.
“Combative, and worst of all—distracted,” Vana continued while eyeing Ciardis with enough rancor that she shrank back in her saddle. “This isn’t you.”
“And you know this how?”
“I’ve been watching you,” the assassin said. “I’ve been watching all of us.”
Ciardis swallowed harshly and looked over to the steps, where the two halves of her whole problem stood casually.
When she turned to look back at Vana, the woman reached up and tightened a cinch on Ciardis’s saddle while grabbing the reins out of Ciardis’s hands in order to steady the horse. “Whatever this is, you need to finish it.”
“Finish it, not fix it?” Ciardis said, disturbed.
Vana smiled. “Finish it. You started something by accepting a bond with those two. Now you need to complete the process. Tie yourselves together or rip yourselves apart.”
“Does everyone know more about this bond than I do?” Ciardis whispered.
Vana ignored her harsh tone. “We have to if we want to keep this group healthy. Right now I don’t care which you choose. What I do care about is saving this empire, and it can’t be done with a weepy girl and a distracted prince heir.”
Ciardis blinked. “He’s not distracted and I’m not weepy.”
Vana raised a sarcastic eyebrow.
“Much,” Ciardis muttered as she blushed and looked away.
She’d never been that good of a liar.
Vana pushed the reins back in Ciardis’s hands and slowly cupped her own hands over the girl standing above her. Ciardis looked down on Vana as Vana squeezed her hands.
“‘Much’ is enough to get us all killed, Weathervane,” Vana said. “Finish this and keep a close watch on those you call your allies. The ones you most want to trust will be the ones who betray you deepest.”
She squeezed Ciardis’s hands tighter, and just before she pulled back, Ciardis clasped hers.
“And the secret?” she whispered, careful not even to speak a word of the map.
A smile froze on Vana’s face. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.”
Ciardis nodded nervously and let go. Without another word, Vana walked away. Ciardis watched her disappear into the shadows of the palace maze. Left behind with her stomach in knots, part derision, part guilt, and part anxiety getting equal shares of the tumult within her, Ciardis leaned back into her saddle, a little envious that Vana was so sure of herself.
She didn’t envy the task she had left Vana behind to.
But she realized with Vana’s admonition that she had a lot more to do than find an object that would prevent a god from crossing the barrier between realms and stop a wyvern from destroying a walled-in city.
She had to fix her soul bond.
In this, at least, Vana had gotten the easier of the job.
“Fair is fair,” Ciardis muttered to herself. “She certainly saved my bum a few times. Time to return the favor ... for her and the empire.”
Now it was just her on the open road with a hard saddle under her butt and a crick in her neck from staring up into the sky at the silhouetted form of Thanar high above them.
Ciardis had chosen to ride one of the spare horses over being stuffed inside the small interior of the wagon with Christian, Terris, and Rachael. She did it partly for her own sanity and partly for Rachael’s safety. They had only been in proximity for an hour or less, but that didn’t make Ciardis any less inclined to tear her eyes out ... or fry her to death.
She had learned over the course of the last few days that being a powerful mage wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Her new gifts, namely shooting lightning from her fingertips, seemed to show up whenever she was furious at someone. Nine times out of ten, that was a good thing. But she didn’t have any reason to kill this woman. She hadn’t threatened Ciardis or her friends. Ciardis just had a bad feeling about her. A feeling she refused to name as jealousy.
