by Terah Edun
“So ... we’re lost in the Aether Realm?” said a finally-free Rachael as she stretched her arms.
The only reason Ciardis noticed the shaman’s movement was because the woman happened to be in her line of sight. But Ciardis wasn’t focused on her at moment. Because as she’d turned away from the strong winds and looked up at the dune, hoping for some kind of answer, like a dragon lazing about waiting for them to notice, she’d noticed something else.
Mouth dry, Ciardis said, “I don’t think we’re in the Aether Realm anymore.”
Ciardis felt the focus of Thanar and Sebastian retrain on her. The bond was as open as it ever was, because neither felt like shutting her out at the moment. So when she spoke, she felt their curiosity pique.
It was Sebastian that voiced his interest first, though. “Why do you say that?”
She didn’t bother turning around. In fact, she preferred not to.
Instead, Ciardis kept her gaze pinned to the very top of the sand dune they had so unceremoniously tumbled down.
“Because we’re not alone,” Ciardis said quietly as she watched nine figures clothed in desert attire stare down at them.
Her stomach dipped. She knew the tenth.
With her hands behind her back and restrained by one of the figures, Ambassador Raisa of Sahalia stared down at all of them, a prisoner on the sands.
Chapter 24
Ciardis heard the group behind her turn to view what she was seeing.
Well, she heard their reactions when they finally realized what had happened to the dragon ambassador.
The dune ridge was a broad one, so the captors and their captive had plenty of space to stand and stare down at the foreign party.
Thanar cursed, and Sebastian strode forward, ready to take command.
As he reached Ciardis, he threw back his head and said, “Who are you and—”
But before the prince heir could finish his question, he suddenly stopped speaking and reached up a hand to his mouth. Ciardis began to hear mumbled words from him.
She furrowed her brow as Sebastian began to grow confused then fearful. He stopped talking, and she felt his emotions swell into full-blown panic. Not caution. Not wonder. Fear and panic like she’d never seen.
Forgetting her irritation with him and her doubts, Ciardis raced to his side as he dropped to his knees.
“Sebastian, what is it?” she frantically asked as she grabbed his shoulders and forcibly turned him around.
His head turned in slow motion, and Ciardis screamed like she never had before.
She felt Thanar racing over, but even he couldn’t fix this.
Sebastian’s mouth was gone. It wasn’t sewn shut like a cadaver’s or pursed with sourness. It was gone.
His cherry lips had disappeared. The line between his upper and lower jaws were but a memory from a mirage.
Ciardis reeled back without thinking. It was like looking at something out of her nightmares.
The flesh where his mouth had been was nothing but taut skin stretched over what should have been a hole with teeth and tongue. Underneath the skin, frantic sounds came from within, with no way to loose the noise.
Ciardis raised a trembling hand, but she couldn’t touch his face. She wrenched her eyes from the sight of the closed orifice and up to his frantic green eyes. She had never seen such panic in his face before. Such despair.
“What’s happening?” she said in a pained and breathless whisper.
But she didn’t have time to ponder more, as Thanar rushed up and knelt between the two of them.
“He needs to calm down,” Thanar exclaimed.
“You try calming down when your mouth disappears,” Ciardis snapped.
“He’s right,” said Christian as he knelt on Sebastian’s other side. “Panicked breathing is only going to make his situation worst. Hold his hand, Ciardis, help him breathe.”
“How?” Ciardis gasped out as she looked between Sebastian and their enemies.
“Don’t look at them,” snapped Christian, “Look at your dying bondmate.”
Ciardis felt her heart sink at those words. She looked over at Christian with a stricken look in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. Just focus,” pleaded Christian.
From behind her, Ciardis heard the soldiers move forward and watched them place themselves between Sebastian and the line of foreigners atop the dune.
One of the soldiers turned a grizzled chin aside and said to her, “Don’t worry, milady, we’ll handle them.”
Ciardis gulped. “I’m sure you will.”
She hoped her faith was well-founded.
“He’s starting to hyperventilate,” Thanar said in mild disgust. Her focus snapped back to Sebastian as he frantically squeezed her hand and she squeezed back with all her might as she said internally, It’s going to be all right. You’ll be fine. You’ll see.
She didn’t hear anything back from Sebastian. Just a surge of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her and drag her into the darkness of his frantic thoughts with her. She shruggled to breathe and keep her mind clear.
To focus on something else, anything else Ciardis thought of Thanar and his disgust. She had the feeling that the dark emotion disguised something far deeper.
Perhaps even worry, she thought to herself.
It would have been funny at any other time to think of Thanar worried over Sebastian, even if it was just his desire for self-preservation. After all, if Sebastian died there was no telling how that would affect the soulbond.
The difference being that Ciardis didn’t much care if she died. If Sebastian passed from this world, she wasn’t too sure what would be keeping her in it.
Thanar said, I need you to stay calm and focused, love. That’s the emotional manipulation of the seeleverbindung talking.
And how would you know that? Ciardis scoffed. Wait. Did you just call me “love”?
Focus, Ciardis! Thanar snapped.
Ciardis shook her head to get his voice out of her mind.
She turned to Christian, who was tentatively examining the quaking prince heir. “What should we do?”
“I’m not sure there’s much we can do,” the koreschie healer said. “This isn’t the work of anything natural.”
He reached out and trailed glowing fingers on the area where Sebastian’s mouth should be.
“Calm down, my prince,” Christian instructed.
Ciardis watched as the hyperventilating from Sebastian’s end grew worse. His eyes were round and frantic. His nostrils flaring.
“Why can’t he breathe? His nose is clear. He should be able to breathe!” she asked, desperate.
Thanar reached forward and cupped Sebastian’s head. Forcing him to turn his gaze on the daemoni prince.
“Look at me,” Thanar commanded.
Sebastian didn’t have many options right now, but he was still the prince heir at the core. He resisted Thanar’s touch and tried to stand, quickly falling back to his knees as a result.
Ciardis reached out to brace him and ended up holding up his torso with her strength. When her hands touched Sebastian’s shoulders and Thanar kept his grip on the prince heir’s face, the frantic breaths eased.
But not for long. Ciardis could feel Sebastian’s mind rioting in her head. He wasn’t thinking coherent thoughts, just panicked screams as his mind began to dim.
“His mind’s shutting down!” Ciardis said frantically.
“He’s losing oxygen to his brain, that’s why,” Thanar said grimly.
“But he should be fine,” Ciardis said while feeling for Sebastian’s pulse at his throat. “He can breathe through his nose.”
“No,” said Christian. “Something is restricting his airway as well.”
Thanar and Ciardis looked up.
“It’s them,” the daemoni prince said flatly as he stood and spread his wings.
Ciardis clutched Sebastian closer in her arms. His eyes were already closed as he drifted off into uncon
sciousness. Tears forming at the corner of her eyes, she balled her fists and shifted Sebastian into the arms of one of the soldiers.
Ciardis said frantically, “Thanar we need to do something.”
Thanar’s lips thinned and then he grabbed her hand. “Focus on unblocking his airway with me.”
“How?” she said her voice trembling.
“Just follow my lead, golden eyes,” Thanar said softly. “It’s worked loads of times before.”
Ciardis tentatively squeezed Sebastian’s hand and gripped Thanar’s left hand more solidly with her right. Thanar reached down and took Sebastian’s left hand with his right and before Ciardis could say anything else she was spiraling into Sebastian’s body. Thanar by her side.
They didn’t waste any time. Following the strange magic that seemed to be flowing into Sebastian from far off. With brute force she and Thanar forced the magic up and away from Sebastian’s throat and his mouth. It wasn’t sophisticated. It wasn’t pretty. But it did the trick. As Ciardis opened her physical eyes she smiled as she saw Sebastian’s mouth restored. He was still unconscious, but that was alright. He would live.
She looked over at a soldier, “Come and take him.”
The man broke formation and lifted the prince heir in his arms.
“Hold him steady,” she commanded as she herself stood.
Side by side with Thanar, she glared up at her opponents and their captive on the cliff.
“Do you always attack innocent strangers with no warning?” she shouted up the sand dune.
Her words echoed out over the desert sands like music ball’s continuous playback.
She grimaced and waited for an answer from the silent captives.
Thanar, Ciardis thought, I think it’s time we show them what we’re made of. Sebastian doesn’t have much longer.
You and I are on the same page, golden eyes, Thanar said, with the need for vengeance leaking into his voice.
That didn’t surprise Ciardis. Thanar might like the outside world to think he was tough and didn’t care about anyone, and for the most part that was true, but she could read his mind. He may torture and abuse Sebastian’s pride, but he wouldn’t let anyone do to him what he hadn’t already done.
Which was a stupid way to think about things, but boys would be boys.
Thanar lowered into a crouch as he prepared to spring into an offensive onslaught against the perpetrators.
Just before he took to the skies, Terris said, “That may not be necessary. They’re coming to us.”
With wide eyes, Ciardis watched as the sand atop the dune began to swirl and coalesce with swifter and swifter winds that seemed to have come out of nowhere. As she watched the winds flatten into a platform of whirling dust and air, the figures atop the dune stepped forward.
It reminded her quite a bit of Raisa’s trick atop the sea on her first day of arrival in the empire. But this time, the individuals used the elemental platform not to hover above but to descend below.
Ciardis watched as they slowly drifted down and settled on the sand east of where her group stood. They landed at an advantage on a smaller dune, which gave them better visuals and a more protected point to address the others. Ciardis shook her head. This didn’t look good.
Not good at all, she thought grimly.
When they landed, two things happened. She suddenly heard a commotion behind her as Sebastian’s mind woke up with joyous ease. She turned to see him stand with an unsteady grip on the soldier’s arm.
Ciardis blinked in amazement, but had no time to inspect the prince heir more, because the dragon ambassador’s captors spoke.
“We are the guardians of the Kifar desert, and we demand to know the purpose of your foreign intrusion,” said a figure who stepped forward from the group.
Ciardis stepped forward herself, not sure if she was speaking to a man or a woman, and not really caring. They’d hurt one of her own and they would pay.
“Is anyone else thinking we should get out of here while we have a chance?” Terris exclaimed.
Ciardis turned her head. “Not without Raisa.”
She didn’t like the dragon, but she wouldn’t abandon her to imprisonment. Now that the party was closer, Ciardis could see that her hands were bound behind her back with some sort of silky rope. The same material that covered her mouth. Why they hadn’t done the same thing they’d done to Sebastian to the dragon ambassador, Ciardis didn’t know. She also didn’t know if they knew what or who Raisa was, but she wasn’t going to take that chance that they did.
Ciardis called out to Raisa, “Are you all right?”
Raisa slowly nodded but didn’t try to speak.
Ciardis felt uneasy. Perhaps there was another way to talk to her. She opened her mind and said, Raisa? Raisa, can you hear me?
But no feminine voice responded. For once Ciardis was saddened that she couldn’t hear the dragon’s bellow in her mind.
Thanar spoke to Ciardis. Anything?
Nothing.
Then she may not be able to hear us or transform.
Why do you think her abilities are comprised? Ciardis asked.
Because a dragon’s aura is present no matter what form they take. Their entire being is living magic ... and yet for the first time since I’ve known her, I can’t sense Raisa’s. If I can’t sense it and you can’t hear it, it stands to reason that there’s something wrong with her powers.
But there’s nothing wrong with ours, Ciardis said with conviction.
No, there is not, Thanar responded with dark satisfaction. Perhaps it’s time these desert bandits were taught a lesson ... never underestimate the abilities of the whole.
Ciardis smiled. She’d be more than happy to teach that ... and free Raisa in the process. She called on her power as Thanar slowly let this aura grow to deepest black.
Chapter 25
But something inside her said to try the peaceful route once more before they attacked. So she took a deep breath and spoke. “You tried to kill one of our own.”
The leader spoke. “That was a mere demonstration. It still lives.”
Ciardis smiled. “You have a lot of nerve.”
Terris stepped forward. “We didn’t come here to invade anyone’s territory.”
“Your intentions are irrelevant,” the leader said.
“I think not,” said a hoarse-voiced Sebastian as he stepped forward on the other side of Ciardis and walked around to the front. “We come in peace and you attack us without provocation. You tried to kill me.”
“Yet you still live,” the leader said. There was a threat in there; Ciardis could sense it.
Ciardis took a deep and calming breath. “Who are you?”
The leader looked at his cohort and back toward her. “We are the guardians of the desert of Kifar. We are the protectors of what was lost.”
Ciardis shivered as Thanar spoke. “Then you know where Kifar is? We’ve come to seek it out.”
“You are trespassing.”
“We’ve told you,” Ciardis spat out in frustration. “We have purpose, to seek out the city of Kifar. If you let us go, we’ll be on our way.”
“With our female companion,” Sebastian said in a harsh voice as the two soldiers stepped up to flank Thanar and Ciardis.
“We are afraid that is impossible,” the leader said.
“What precisely is impossible?” Sebastian asked.
“You will leave,” the leader said in a clipped voice, “in the exact way you came, immediately, but this one stays with us.”
Ciardis shook her head. “She’s a valued member of our party. We cannot just leave her here.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” the leader said with a droning voice.
“And how would you suggest we come to an agreement?” Sebastian asked.
“There will be no agreement,” the leader said. “You were given a choice. You have rejected it. We now have one remaining solution.”
“Which is?” Ciardis said as she sensed disq
uiet in the air.
“You must die. You bodies must bleed into the mother desert. Your bones will become brittle. Your whole being will disappear into the sand.”
“So,” Terris said in a conversational tone, “now should we run?”
“We’re not leaving Raisa,” Ciardis said with grit in her voice.
“Oh, I never meant run away,” Terris exclaimed as she unwrapped a cloth band at her waist and let a set of nunchucks fall into her hands. She began to whirl them in either hand. Then Terris flipped her head so that the long braids settled on her back.
With a grin, she winked at Ciardis. “We’re running toward them, of course.”
Ciardis felt Thanar roll his neck to stretch his muscles beside her. To either side of Thanar and Terris, the soldiers unsheathed short swords, while Ciardis tapped into her mage core and gathered lightning in her hands.
In front of them all, Sebastian unsheathed his own sword. “I’ll request one more time. Release our friend.”
“We cannot do that,” the leader said in an inhuman voice.
They had made their choice. Ciardis eyed the steep climb up the sand dune toward their opponent. It would have to be done fast.
Ciardis nodded slowly at Raisa. Raisa nodded back with fire in her eyes. She would support their move.
Ciardis felt a calm settle in her bones, then she heard Thanar shout, “Now!”
There was no more talking. Just a focus on the mission. Recover Raisa.
As Ciardis sprinted forward with Terris at her side, she prepared to climb the dune, but even as she did she could feel the soft sand at the base shifting at her feet. She couldn’t get traction. They’d never be able to get up there. Not the land-bound of their group, anyway.
Thanar had no such predicaments. He took off with a burst of air and blew sand every which way, aiming straight for their leader.
It didn’t take long for their opponents to realize the same thing. Instead of running or crouching to brace for the attack from the angry daemoni prince, all nine captors leaped high in the air and backflipped in perfect synchronicity. Heart in her throat, Ciardis stood up from where she had crouched on all fours with a knife between her teeth, prepared to scale the dune however she could, to watch the nine somersault and land behind her group like cats.
