by Terah Edun
That’s what she liked about him. That and the fact that he understood her.
But love was more than understanding someone and enjoying their presence. It was a commitment and Ciardis knew that she had been thrusting herself from situation to situation while relying on his good intentions. Trusting him, even when she suspected him of unsavory actions. Trusting that he would do the right thing. Now it was time to go beyond trust. Go beyond promises. Instead she wanted commitment. Because by the seven nights of darkness, if she was going to fight a god side-by-side with someone, she wanted to know that she could do more than rely on them.
As if sensing the dark turn of her thoughts, Sebastian looked over at her with a disturbed look in his eyes.
“Something wrong?” he asked quickly. “Is it the girl, Seraphina? Or the griffin, Skarar?”
Ciardis shook her head, bronze curls bouncing softly against her cheeks as she looked him in the eye, uncertain as to how she should go about saying what she would say. She knew where this needed to end. With him one hundred percent by her side. But it wasn’t every day you took concrete steps in a new life plan, and, well, it was daunting.
Finally she was forthright. “I think we need to approach the gathering of the nobles from a position of strength.”
He shifted the reins in his hands and leaned over. His voice came out in a whisper. “I agree.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. Not a coy movement, but a sign of the flash of nervousness deep in her belly.
“What else is there?” he demanded, worry lacing his tone. Sebastian could read her like an open book, the same way she could him. Except it was probably much easier for him, seeing as she was horrible at hiding her emotions. She worked hard at it, but when she was around the people she knew and trusted, her feelings arrayed themselves on her face like a broadsheet declaring the daily news. So Sebastian could tell something was wrong. But unlike Thanar he couldn’t or wouldn’t break into her thoughts to discern what is.
She knew he had the ability as she remembered the time he had seen through her eyes on her first and—so far—only solo audience with the emperor. When their minds and visions linked, Sebastian had announced with horrifying certainty that the man who stood before her as his father was in fact his uncle masquerading as the true emperor.
Ciardis swallowed and concentrated on the present. If she had been announcing that she wanted all of them to ride into the nobles’ council with swords swinging and magical powers flashing, she would have been less nervous. That was action. That was a plan of attack. This, this was more than just a plan. It was her life in motion. Her life taking a new path and one she wouldn’t know if it was the right choice until she took the first steps. Perhaps not even then.
Exhaling, Ciardis said, “We need to enter into their arena with a show of force. We cannot have them thinking they can strong-arm us into an alliance or an agreement. Yes, we need them. But we already have allies.”
She went on to list them. “The Ameles Forest, the soldiers of the north, the damn Land Wight, and even the Companions’ Guild.”
Although she really wasn’t too sure about that last part. Whether they would support her or their usefulness, but if half the women were like Serena or Vana, she’d take her chances with the companions.
Sebastian frowned.
“It’s true we have a great need for the might of the nobles, but we can’t let them see that. They must think they need us to survive this oncoming onslaught. I know that nothing will convince them more than seeing us as a united front,” Ciardis said.
“Just as when we strode through the halls of power for your mother’s trial?” Sebastian said in a questioning tone.
“Yes,” she said nodding grimly, “And we need all of the strength we can get. Because we’re not asking them to take our sides on a minor squabble in the city of Sandrin or give up land in a valley for a mercantile project. We need them, those with power, those militias, to give their support, their troops and if necessary their lives, to unsure the entire empire isn’t swallowed whole. This isn’t some game.”
Sebastian looked at her with uncommonly hollow eyes, “Thousands of lives are at stake.”
She nodded. “Our entire empire. Our friends, our family, our home.”
“What are you suggesting, Ciardis Weathervane?”
She smiled and looked him full in the face. Then she felt the litter come to a halt. Sebastian pulled back on his reins to stop his horse and peered ahead to see the problem. She looked over at the soldier in front.
The captain called back, “Standard procedure to exit the noble quarters. I’ll deal with this.”
She watched him walk forward, presumably to talk to the guards at the gates that marked the formal entrance to the noble quarters. Of course, with the way Sandrin was built, this wasn’t the only entrance into this quarter. There were side entrances upon side entrances. Winding, dark streets that exited in unbecoming alleys and over the river. But this, this was the gate through which legitimate residents and activities flowed to and fro.
Sebastian turned to look back at her. She felt nervous sweat bead on her forehead. She wasn’t sure of this action. She wasn’t even sure if she could call this a plan. But she was damned tired of being one step behind of Sebastian Athanos Algardis’s motivations. Even Thanar was more forthright. He told her what he wanted. He had unscrupulous means of achieving what he wanted but he didn’t bullshit about it either. It was time to pull one over on the prince heir of the realm. If he accepted her proposition, she would have his resources at her disposal. If he dismissed her proposition, then she would know where they finally stood.
In her heart of hearts, she hoped he accepted because no one wanted to learn that they had just been a means to an end for more than a year. A tiny part of her really, truly believed he loved her. Sure, she could read his mind and discern his emotions. But love was a complicated entity. One could love a dog, because it was your possession. A pet. But that didn’t mean it was the same all-encompassing love that would overcome everything. That’s what she wanted when she thought of his love.
This. This would just be the first step to test that will.
“Ciardis?” queried Sebastian.
Ciardis reached out a hand—the one not covered in blood—and gripped his right hand. “Sebastian Athanos Algardis, will you marry me?”
Astonishment flowed over Sebastian’s face like a wave of shock. His jaw dropped and true surprise flowed into his eyes.
He coughed and spluttered before taking his hand back to cover his mouth.
She sat back with a glare. Somewhat affronted.
“No!” he hastily said, holding out the hand again.
She felt her spine stiffen at the rejection.
“No, I mean yes!” he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I meant...” he said, his voice trailing off. “Forgive me, words allude me. But Ciardis Weathervane, did you just propose to me?”
“I did,” she said. Her voice made it both a question and a confirmation.
He looked down at her with a silly grin on his face.
“What are you smiling at like a loon?” she finally snapped.
“You actually—” he said with a pause. “You’ve been unconventional since the moment we’ve met. I don’t know why I thought our courtship and engagement would be anything but abnormal.”
She shifted uncomfortably, well aware that he had yet to answer the question and there were at least three pairs of ears attuned to this conversation.
“Well?” she demanded.
“It was quite romantic of you,” he said. The mocking tone in his voice made her draw back. She had her answer.
Before she could turn away, his voice caught her attention, “I, Sebastian Athanos Algardis, accept your proposal of marriage, Ciardis Weathervane of the Weathervane family and the Companions’ Guild. In return, I submit to you my proposal to be your husband as well as your patron before the Companions’ Guild.”
/> Ciardis looked over at him puzzled. “Doesn’t one cancel out the other?”
“No,” said Vana behind her. Ciardis was pretty sure Vana was answering her question.
“No,” said Sebastian with an unreadable look in his eyes, “but for now we’ll let them both stand. What’s your plan, wife-to-be?”
Ciardis raised an eyebrow.
He amended the statement. “Well, I assume there was something else to go along with this proposal.”
“Yes,” Ciardis said. “Let’s get everyone cleaned up. Someone will need to summon Lord Meres and Terris, then we can figure out where we go from here.”
Sebastian looked up at the sky and back down at her. “I know just the place. But I suggest Terris and Meres stay where they are. We’ll send word to them to keep our home away from home fortified in case we need to beat a hasty retreat and send them supplies for the space.”
She nodded, reluctant to leave Terris there but seeing the wisdom in his counsel. Besides, she’d pushed enough in these last few minutes. She had other actions in store, including the confrontation over her powers that they had yet to have. Storing goodwill for that would be better. Because come hell or high water, Sebastian and Thanar would learn that she was their equal. Treating her like baggage stopped now.
“Where are we going then?” Ciardis asked.
A solemn expression appeared on Sebastian’s face as he answered, “To my mother’s palace.”
Without a further word to her, he rode off to inform the captain of their decision.
Ciardis sat back in the confines of the moving palanquin, her mind abuzz with thoughts.
Seraphina looked over at her. With the impetuous nature of youth, she informed Ciardis, “You don’t look too happy for a lady that’s getting married.”
Ciardis looked over at Seraphina. “I’m not sure I should be.”
“Why not?” Seraphina blurted out.
Ciardis gave a weary smile. “Because to be honest, I had a lot less to worry about when I was planning to be engaged to a baker’s nephew.”
Seraphina blinked and sat back. There wasn’t really anything you could say to that.
Vana announced from her perch across from Ciardis, “I’d be more worried about the verbal agreement he just trapped you in.”
Ciardis looked over at the assassin with a frown.
Vana leaned forward and said with deadly seriousness, “Exactly how much of the Companions’ Guild handbook did you read?”
“All of it,” Ciardis quickly said.
“Most of it,” she amended when Vana raised an eyebrow.
Vana snorted. “There’s your problem. It’s designed to be read from the first page to the last. We haven’t been the empire’s preeminent guild for over a hundred years by welcoming slackers into our fold.”
Ciardis sighed and said, “What did I do wrong this time?”
“I can’t tell you here. But you’re going to need to know this.”
Ciardis sat back with a groan and hugged a pillow to her chest. Whatever it was it didn’t sound fun. Life had been so much easier trapped in the north and battling demonic hordes.
Chapter 11
It wasn’t long before Ciardis heard the gates of the imperial palace open to her traveling group of soldiers and friends. It would have been hard to miss as the sound of the massive iron doors swinging open was like a trumpet piercing the quiet morning air. Curiosity overcame her for a moment. She had seen the imperial palace many times. But never from this entrance. It was the entrance to the quarters of the second-most powerful person in the land.
The husband or wife of the current ruler.
The last person to call these quarters home was Sebastian’s mother. Empress Ryana, long may she rest in peace, had died in childbirth while bearing Sebastian into the world. His father, Bastien, after losing two wives successively in less than a decade, had declared he didn’t wish to lose another. So he refused a third marriage. It had been over fifteen years and he had kept that promise. As they passed through the gates, Ciardis wondered if the emperor’s choice to not marry again had more to do with the fact that Maradian had taken his place than personal problems about having a third wife.
Then she shivered. Because if that was true they had all been paying obedience to a man masquerading as the true emperor for almost as long as she had been alive.
As the palanquin was set down on the ground, she climbed out and thanked the soldiers for bearing them.
She may have been a noble woman and the future wife of the emperor, but Ciardis still showed respect and gratitude when someone did a task for her. She couldn’t imagine it had been easy bearing the palanquin. She knew from experience what a heavy load could do to the upper body. She remembered with an uncomfortable twitch of her shoulder blades, the aches and pains that would settle in the muscles of her shoulders after a long morning bearing a heavy load of wet laundry over to the drying lines in the village of her youth. This was no different.
The soldiers murmured their gratitude with surprise in their deep voices.
She smiled, curtseyed, and went to speak with their captain.
Staring into his hard eyes, she said, “Well, we’re here.”
He crossed belligerent arms and she swore a tic appeared in his right eye. “So we are.”
“So you can leave,” she said sweetly.
He raised an eyebrow, looked her hard in the eyes and slowly signal with a loop of finger to his men that they were to pack-up and leave. She noticed that all of his wounded were gone, so the rest were quick to trot back into formation and head out of the palace gates. Their leader following shortly behind on a stallion with one last lingering look at Ciardis Weathervane.
Then Ciardis thought to take care of her own wounded.
She heard Skarar crying from inside the palanquin. His father had poked a ruffled head in between the curtains to soothe him but she knew he needed medical attention first. A woman came out of the palace wearing a linen maid’s uniform. She looked to be on her way home rather than toward Ciardis’s group for service.
“Please,” Ciardis shouted out frantically, “we need help.”
The woman looked at them, muddied, broken and obviously of ill repute, sniffed, and walked away toward the gate.
Then Sebastian stepped in her path. He was five feet away from the woman, but his face was like rolling thunder. Dangerous and deadly. He said something and whatever it was had the darker-skinned woman so frightened that she turned and ran back into the palace. Less than two minutes later she was back with a woman in healers’ robes, two guards holding a stretcher, their wary palace guards with swords held out, and a gaggle of servants that only seemed to grow.
The healer with skin like a summer mink’s coat did her job with little fuss and asked the soldiers to transfer Skarar to her infirmary. Before they could move him, Ciardis said, “He’ll be able to leave of his own free will, yes?”
The woman looked up at her shocked. As if by asking Ciardis had implied she would imprison the griffin herself. Ciardis was just being careful. She didn’t want the young griffin further harmed or imprisoned because of her. Skar or his father.
“Of course,” said the woman huffily.
“On your oath as a healer?” said Vana softly.
The woman looked back and forth between them, and then stroked the shivering young griffins head feathers. “On my oath as a member of the Healers’ Guild, no harm will come to this lad.”
Ciardis nodded and the woman with her two guards bore Skarar away followed closely by Skar and the golden griffin. Ciardis could see Seraphina straining to go with them, but her father held on to her little hand tightly.
He looked from the stretcher being borne away to Ciardis.
Then Jason said, “Skar has been my oldest friend since childhood. I must see to him and his young one.”
“We would expect no less,” said Sebastian solemnly. “We’ll speak about your...theories later.”
The man nodded
and with the firm yank of his daughter’s hand to prod him, they moved on.
Ciardis turned away to see palace servants hurrying towards them out of a cavernous hallway entrance. Nervously, they gathered in front of Ciardis. At least two dozen scurried to take their places until she lost count.
Then a large matronly woman came forward. She wasn’t meek and submissive like the giggling girls and whispering palace boys that arrayed themselves behind her. Her eyes were sharp, her hands were on her hips, and she looked downright belligerent. If Ciardis had imagined a welcoming party into the palace walls, it hadn’t been one of young, untrained servants and a woman who looked more ready to kick them out than allow them entrance inside the hallowed halls.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sebastian standing back in the shadows with Vana beside him. She sensed that he was faintly amused but couldn’t fathom why.
The woman in front of her didn’t give her a chance to discern why. “I am Mary Marlstone.”
Ciardis smiled and dipped into a curtsey. It was an honor that she didn’t have to bestow on the woman, clearly not a noble or a mage, but she did it anyway. Perhaps it would earn her some goodwill.
Straightening she caught an even deeper frown cross the woman’s face. Or maybe not.
In the shadow of her cloak, she heard a girl stifle a giggle at the woman’s expression.
Ciardis wiped the smile off of her face. This wasn’t going the way she wanted and she was done being pleasant while covered in blood and being whispered about.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The woman looked down a ruddy and splotched nose that looked like it had been broken in two places and had her hair tied back into a neat bun that didn’t hide the fact that if was freed her face would be framed in riotous curls.
Well, we have that in common. Ciardis thought to herself morosely.
“Head of the empress’s household,” the woman said flatly.
Ciardis shifted uncomfortably and raised her chin. “I wish to claim residence here alongside my companions and the prince heir.”
