by Terah Edun
With a quick intake of breath—a gulp, really—Ciardis turned carefully from Seraphina to eye the griffin. Skarar hadn’t flinched when Seraphina’s father was detained by the guards behind him. Which was odd because even if a scuffle hadn’t ensued, the griffin’s acute hearing should have picked up on the presence of at least two more men approaching him. But he hadn’t. As she eyed Jason SaAlgardis in the grip of the two men, Ciardis had the funny feeling that the invisible shield in front of them had something to do with it. She couldn’t see it with her naked eye but she could feel it with her mage sight. Perhaps Skarar wasn’t aware of it. Or if he was aware, he didn’t care enough to turn to see what his ears couldn’t tell him.
He’s smart, Ciardis thought to herself. Better to take on the threat in front of you than the possibility of one behind you.
Unless you could see the future and knew the person behind you would kill you faster than the one in front of you, it was her philosophy to take the one in front first as well.
As she watched Jason SaAlgardis’s mouth move angrily she had to admit that an outside threat didn’t seem so imminent now. The soldiers weren’t harassing or hurting him. It would seem they were true to their leader’s words earlier, she thought as she flashed back on what the captain had said: “We don’t want to hurt anyone.” She couldn’t say the same about a young griffin. Then again, if she had been overcome by fear, bound by ropes, and surrounded by strange beings she might have lashed out too.
Ciardis watched to see if Jason SaAlgardis would be able to negotiate something, anything, before she needed to get within striking distance again but his expression didn’t look too promising.
The soldiers surrounding him looked furious and determined not to let him loose.
The shield stayed in place.
He stayed in custody.
An uneasy truce reigned.
Ciardis turned her focus on the creature Seraphina was still staring at with slumped shoulders. The girl looked back at her semi-hopefully. Ciardis grimaced and decided to do her part in this mad plan.
With a soft voice, Ciardis coaxed the griffin. “Skarar? Skarar, we’re here to help you.”
The young griffin lowered himself as close as he could against the ground. He shivered like a ball of feathers and looked so pitiful that Ciardis wanted to gather him up in her arms. The fact that he was almost bigger than her, had sharp claws, and an even sharper beak kept her back. One life-threatening injury was enough.
Seraphina began to edge forward. With careful, cautious movements she managed to get closer.
Skarar eyed the young human female with piercing eyes. Waiting for something.
For her to attack him? Ciardis wondered.
It didn’t seem very likely. But a lot about this day didn’t.
He didn’t move though. Seraphina kept creeping forward until her hand hovered just over the crown of his head and she lowered her palm to softly pet the feathers on top. To Ciardis’s astonishment, a croon rather than a cry echoed from Skarar’s beak. The sound he made was very strange.
It sounds like an owl with the purr of a kitten, thought Ciardis.
When Skarar tilted his head into Seraphina’s head until her fingers were forced to slide down into the dense ruffle of his neck and his head bumped against Seraphina’s flat chest, Ciardis breathed a sigh of relief. If he was taking comfort in Seraphina, the crisis was almost over.
Seraphina lowered her chin to rest it on Skarar’s head and spoke to him. “It’s all right, Skarar. You’re all right. The bad men are gone. This woman’s going to help us get these ropes off and then we’re going to take you somewhere safe.”
The owl purr intensified until Ciardis could feel the sound like a vibration in her heart.
Seraphina raised her voice. “It’s all right now, Lady Weathervane. You can come closer.”
Ciardis hesitated for a full five seconds. She’d been slashed once. She really wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
Seraphina tilted her head, her cheek still on Skarar’s head. Patiently, she said, “He’s calm.”
Ciardis almost rolled her eyes at the youthful impatience in the tone. It was filled with the confidence only a youth who thought they knew everything could bestow in two words.
She reminds me of me, she thought ruefully.
Then a second later her thoughts turned. Her poor father. Ciardis wouldn’t wish herself on the most well-meaning of parents, let alone a good father like Jason looked to be. He must worry himself sick.
With a sigh, she edged forward and brought the knife up. It was unfortunate that she couldn’t really keep it out of Skarar’s line of sight. But it would have been improbable unless she was coming at him from a different angle. But she resolved to do her best, to keep it semi-hidden. Wrenching her shoulder so that the blade rested close to the middle of her back. It rested flat against the back of her tunic like a cold shiver. Her other hand was raised high overhead. Whether by design or luck, the blood only flowed down her arm in a trickle, which meant the cut had been shallower than it looked.
Let’s hope my luck holds, she thought grimly.
The beady eyes of the young griffin watched her while she knelt down and swiftly cut the ropes that bound Skarar. Standing up and moving away quickly, she watched as he stood on strong legs with chirps coming from his beak. Chirps of gratitude, she guessed, but the arrow in his wing still needed to come out and she wasn’t the one to do it. Ropes were one thing. Flesh-piercing weapons that might make a muscle lame forever if she yanked it out wrong were quite another.
Still she and Seraphina exchanged nods as the young woman stood up as well. Her hand still rested on Skarar’s head protectively.
Ciardis pursed her mouth into a thin line. “Now what?”
Seraphina gave her an irritated glance. “Now we talk to the soldiers holding my father.”
Ciardis was already eyeing the gathering of soldiers around them. There were many more than the ones who had Seraphina’s father in their grasp. Now that they were close, she could see badges of the imperial court on their breast. Six men had arrayed themselves around the shield in a circle.
Like a protective detail...or prison guards.
Ciardis turned a sharp eye to Jason SaAlgardis. He eyed her back. The soldiers couldn’t get to the three of them inside the shield. But they couldn’t escape from it, either. It wasn’t a mobile dome that would move and rise with them. It was stable and bound to the area of casting. So they were at an impasse.
Farther off, Ciardis noted Vana, Sebastian, Thanar, and the griffin’s father standing in a tight group. They were facing their own group of soldiers. But none of them looked dead or injured. If these soldiers had wanted any of Ciardis’s group dead, they would have killed them already. That made up her mind. Well, that and the fact that when she turned to look back at Jason SaAlgardis, the man who had originally approached their party came up and kicked Jason straight in the back of the knee. Once on each leg. Then again. Forcing him to fall to his knees. Then he took out a knife and held it to the man’s throat. Strain showed on Jason’s face.
It can’t be easy to hold this shield under torture, Ciardis thought.
From the gleam of intelligence in the knife-wielding leader’s eyes, he knew it too. Straightening her shoulders and dropping her arm to hold it across her chest like a makeshift sling, Ciardis walked forward. She went to the very edge of the interior of the shield. Then she dropped to her knees.
Eye level with Jason SaAlgardis’s face, her golden eyes met his dark brown ones. Strength flowed from one person to the other. Ciardis couldn’t say that it wasn’t a give-and-take. The man was clearly risking his life her own and that his daughter’s. He was resilient. But she knew and he knew that he would break. Not necessarily to torture. But definitely in death. Either case would be an unpleasant experience to watch. Not just for her, although she had seen death and torture in many forms. This would just be another one of those.
But for his daughter, who would see every
last moment of her father’s demise.
Ciardis slowly shook her head and mouthed, “Think of Seraphina.”
Jason SaAlgardis smiled. “I am.”
She opened and closed her mouth. Then she swallowed as she sat back on her heels, uncertain.
Unless Jason SaAlgardis knew something they didn’t, she, Seraphina, and Skarar would never be able to escape the group of soldiers even if he didn’t submit.
Weary calm flowed into Jason’s eyes. He knew it too. As she watched, the shield’s wall slowly fell down. Dissipating inch-by-inch from the top, the wall was visible to the naked eye in the shining daylight. As it slowly came down, Ciardis knew he was giving her every opportunity to shout and scream to bring the shield back up before it fell low enough for the soldiers to reach in and grab them. He wanted to fight for his daughter’s safety, and this was the only way he knew how. Unfortunately, it was only delaying the inevitable.
Ciardis wouldn’t say the word. She wouldn’t scream, “No!” and force him to die before her eyes. There was no reason to; therefore there was nothing to say.
Besides, Ciardis wasn’t the type to sit back and watch her comrades die just to give herself a few extra seconds of life. Not when the end result would be just the same. That would be cruel and cruel was one thing she wasn’t.
Kneeling face-to-face, one on either side of a dissipating wall, Ciardis and Jason watched each other as the shield fell.
When it finally came all the way down she stood up and looked at the soldier in charge. Smiling through her pain, Ciardis said, “Well, sir. I believe you have me at the disadvantage.”
The man with salt-and-pepper hair and narrow eyes said with deep satisfaction in his voice, “Surrounded on all sides?”
She stepped forward around Jason SaAlgardis and gave a girlish shake of her head, made garish by the blood dripping down her front. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
The soldier in charge raised a graying eyebrow. “Lady, that’s the least of your worries.”
Ciardis said, “Oh, I’m not worried. I just want the proper spelling of your name so that when I give it to the emperor for obstructing his son’s path and nearly getting us killed, he’ll know exactly whom to order to their deaths.”
Coldness grew in the man’s dark eyes while the thin line of his mouth bent his face into a frown. “You’ve got some balls on you. We endangered you? We saved you.”
She laughed. “Do you think we would have been pinned down in a hail of arrows if you hadn’t flagged us down with your cruel display?”
Uncertainty sparked in his eyes. She had him.
“That’s right, sir. You played right into their hands. Whoever they are. Now let’s hope there’s not more surprises in store.”
The way she said “they” conveyed her contempt at their prowess without saying a word further.
Ciardis stepped back. Tired of playing the game. Besides her arm hurt something dreadful.
“Now let’s try this one more time from the beginning. Who sent you and why?”
The soldier frowned. “As I told you, the imperial chamberlain—“
“In case it wasn’t clear, I don’t believe you,” she said with an ineffectual wave of her hand. “The imperial chamberlain wouldn’t send orders to have us pinned down right before a fire fight. Now try again.”
The man’s jaw tightened but this time he spoke more shrewdly. “The nobles’ court has called a meeting in the evening. Before the meeting they ordered your group brought to safe quarters for protection and then brought before them...in the imperial chamberlain’s name.”
Ciardis gave him a wicked smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Was that so hard?”
He glared at her.
“Do you know whom you’re supposed to be protecting us against?” she asked.
“No,” was the stiff reply.
She nodded. “Makes sense. I wouldn’t have expected a trained guardsmen to have his detail pinned down like we were if you had. Makes you angry at the nobles, doesn’t it? They threw away your men like trash just to delay us for a few moments.”
The captain carefully wiped his face of all expression.
Ciardis sighed. “Never mind. You can still escort to a safe destination, but it will be one of our choosing. Is that clear?”
The man said nothing. She tried a different tactic.
“I’m ready to see a medic now,” she said pointedly. “Unless you’re not concerned with keeping us alive anymore.”
The man squared his shoulders but he didn’t contradict her. She was right after all.
Ciardis turned to see Jason SaAlgardis still kneeling on the ground. He was staring up at her with an emotion that she didn’t recognize in his eyes.
As Jason stood on two unsteady feet with the help of the soldier to his right, Seraphina came forward and he enveloped his daughter in a hug. Ciardis turned away from the display. It had been over a day since she had hugged her own mother. It felt like a wrench in her heart.
As she turned she realized what the emotion was that shone in Jason SaAlgardis’s eyes.
Respect.
With a deep sigh, Ciardis went to stand on the far side of Skarar as she waited for the lead soldier to make his decision. To take them where he wanted or to listen to reason and go where she directed.
Wearily her eyes met the gazes of the two males in her life standing across the courtyard. Sebastian stared at her with pain and compassion in his own gaze. He felt her pain. He wanted to comfort her. Thanar looked at her with something akin to calculated rage in his own eyes. His eyes drifted down to her bloodied arm and back up to her gaze. Without speaking he told her he would take care of the soldiers for this. Ciardis thought about telling him Skarar had done it not them, but she decided at the last moment that she didn’t care.
Call it callousness. Call it pettiness. But if the soldiers hadn’t caught the young griffin and forced them to land, none of those soldiers would be dead now and none of her group injured.
She sighed as the soldier started walking back toward her.
With steel in her gaze, she turned to face him.
To her surprise, she noticed the rest of her group come forward to array themselves behind her. She wasn’t surprised that they came. Her surprise originated from the fact that the soldiers let them and the two griffins joined her as well. As she watched the man take his last few steps toward them, she wondered what he would say this time. She wondered if they were to journey back to the palace or to some place unknown. She wondered if she was finally going to get something to eat. It had been half a day since she’d eaten, and the sun’s morning rays were shining down on them.
As he took the last few steps, Sebastian stepped forward to stand on her left. Without bringing any attention to the gesture, he aligned his body with hers and helped brace her weight. She didn’t need his help, but she was grateful—his presence made her feel better. Or perhaps that feeling of gratitude was lightheadedness from the loss of blood pumping to her brain.
Perhaps I did need his help, she thought in grim amusement.
Thanar mirrored Sebastian’s position to her right. Although he stood a few feet away so that he could spread his wings a little and the soft appendage cupped around her. She noticed that the left wing managed to wrap around Sebastian, as well, since he was so close to her. She wasn’t sure if Thanar noticed. Either way neither man said anything, even though they both clearly detested each other.
Good to know they’re capable of working together in crisis. Now if I could only get them to behave all the time and stop springing nasty surprises for me to find in their wake.
Ciardis almost laughed at that. It was kind of amusing to think the chains around her mage core that bound her to each respective gentleman as a nasty surprise.
Yep, it’s the blood loss. Making me a bit insane.
She watched as Thanar’s eyes met the other man’s. Whatever the man saw in the daemoni prince’s gaze, whether retribution or e
vil intent, made him blanch in response. Nevertheless, to his credit he stood his ground, squared his shoulders, and announced his true intentions. Or at least he tried to. All that came out at first was an embarrassing croak.
“Come now,” Sebastian said irritably. “Whatever you’ve got to say, say it. Are you really here on my father’s orders?”
Ciardis’s lip twitched. He didn’t know she already spoken to the man. But it would be interesting to find out if the emperor had been aware of the nobles’ planned gathering. Besides, it looked like the wing around Sebastian’s shoulder was irritating him more than he let on.
“I did not lie about that,” the man confirmed.
“Then what was it that you did lie about?” Thanar said softly.
This time the man visibly gulped. “It is the nobles’ courts that have given orders to detain you for your own protection. The emperor did not give an order countermanding that directive, so I followed through his implicit command.”
“Why would the nobles’ court make this request?” Sebastian demanded.
“Your incursion into the Duke of Carne’s villa was only the last of many offenses which has set the nobles’ court to unease,” the captain replied.
Ciardis frowned. “We followed the rules for this ‘incursion.’ We only took four people. It was a personal mission and we didn’t mean for the duke to die. Besides we didn’t kill the duke of Carne.”
The man raised surprised eyebrows but waived his hand. “They don’t care if you killed anyone. They care that you’re taking on nobles with personal militias and winning. Besides, those blasts were mercenary-grade.”
Ciardis frowned. “Those weren’t ours.”
“Then whose were they?”
Sebastian squeezed her shoulder in warning. They needed Jason and they needed to know what he knew. They couldn’t betray him.
She shook her head. “I didn’t come over here to argue with you. Do what you came to do.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “It’s your funeral.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been ordered to take you back to the imperial court under the protection of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Bastien Athanos Algardis on charges of destructing the peace and you will be arraigned in front of the nobles’ court to hear their accusations.”
