by Terah Edun
Lord Crassius smiled. “A brilliant idea, prince heir. The news of the blutgott’s return will be tempered by the joyous announcement of your engagement.”
“We should only hope,” intoned Sebastian seriously.
Lady Merriweather asked, “And is there a wedding date we should spread to our fellows and spies?”
Sebastian smiled. “No, not yet. Just the announcement should be enough for now. More will be reveal when we return from Kifar.”
“Very well, my lord,” Lord Crassius said as he rose and bowed.
All around the table chairs scraped as the ruffled nobles and mages also bowed to their liege lord. Some came up for well wishes.
But Ciardis noted that none of the mages and two of the noblemen said nothing. At least Corporal SaBarnaren tried to school his expression. These men said nothing as distaste ran across their faces.
To Sebastian she said, I think we might have trouble with the crowd on this announcement.
Sebastian hesitated. Perhaps, but they will grow to understand.
What’s their problem?
Aside from the initial discussion that we had upon leaving the emperor’s audience chambers? Sebastian asked, Well, two of the men in this room petitioned my father for a marriage arrangement between myself and their daughters.
Oh, said Ciardis.
Yes, oh. Said Sebastian, Rough feelings will abound for some time but once they come to see that you will be the best princess heir for this empire they will come around.
Privately Ciardis doubted it and she was sure her face showed it.
Sebastian turned away from her and smiled as he said, “You’re all, of course, welcome to attend our wedding ceremony when the date is announced.”
The expressions on most of the nobles and mages in the room reminded Ciardis of someone who’d drunk cat piss. They’d be there when hell froze over.
Why isn’t Lady Merriweather so unhappy about this?
She has her own reasons, said Sebastian as he walked over to Lord Crassius.
Ciardis sighed and tried to walk over to Christian. A frumpy mage blocked her way.
What a rude little man, she thought in irritation as he obviously blocked her.
“You may have the prince heir wrapped around your finger, but you won’t for very long,” he hissed and tried hurried out the door.
Ciardis didn’t let him. She was damned tired of being disrespected and treated like dirt. She had thought it was because of the guild she joined, but her mother and Vana weren’t treated this way. Then she thought it was because of her humble beginnings, but she had learned long ago that while a good portion of nobles only cared about class and breeding, the mages were less likely to be so stuffy. So she had no idea what this mage’s problem was but she was about to find out.
Twisting the ear she had latched onto, she swung the man around by the tender flesh captured between her fingers and ask him point blank, “What’s your problem?”
Thanar landed behind him with a solid thump. Preventing him from escaping and acting as a very visible threat just by being there.
The man was quaking in his boots but his eyes spit fire.
Ciardis sighed and rubbed her face. “For the next twenty seconds you can say anything you will to me. I will not have Thanar strike you and I won’t reprimand you. Just tell me the truth.”
“Really?”
“Eighteen seconds.”
“You’re the hell-spawn that threatens this entire court,” spat out the man in a pale flash.
Ciardis looked at him stunned. “I’m the what?”
The man took that opportunity to twist out of her grasp and to escape.
Thanar didn’t try to stop him. Ciardis just looked after the fleeing little gremlin flummoxed.
Then she asked, “Do you have any idea what that meant?”
“No,” said Thanar in a bemused voice.
Ciardis sniffed. “Well, that was useless.”
“Yes, it was,” said an approaching Vana, “What did you hope to get out of that little man?”
“A coherent answer,” said Ciardis pointedly.
“Not always easy,” said Vana with a shrug.
Ciardis said, “They’ll have to get used to me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t think they’ll like that,” said Christian coming up from behind her.
“Too bad they wouldn’t have a choice,” Sebastian said with a supportive hand on her shoulder.
Across the room the two remaining nobles, Lady Merriweather had already left abuzz with her mission, looked over at her with dead, angry eyes.
Ciardis rolled her eyes. They could get in line. Hate didn’t phase her anymore. Unless you wanted to kill her, she didn’t consider them a priority.
Rolling her shoulders, she said gamely, “Shall we head to General Barnaren’s leaving ceremony?
“I think we shall,” said Lord Meres.
She smiled and walked forward—leaving the room they had convened their first war council in.
That night was the most somber gathering Ciardis Weathervane had attended in living memory. It was a tribute to a man who lived his life in service to the empire and gave his last breath to save it. As hundreds of courtiers, mages, and citizens stood on the banks of the Sandrin river that fed into the Sahalian sea on the coast, she watched small lanterns light up along the banks. Hundreds upon hundreds lit the night sky as lighters were passed from person to person. It was a fitting tribute to a man who had refused to let his empire go into the darkness. Now he would be lit by fire and guided by the light to his path towards the seven gods.
Ciardis lit her candle gently. Careful not to accidently light the thin paper that rose above the small candle holder.
She stood on a large balcony that arced up over the water. It was connected to the imperial palace and served as the personal observation deck of the imperial family. Now, Sebastian stood side-by-side with his father as he prepared to journey to a distant city the next morning. Father and son were solemn. Both honoring the fallen general in their own way. Ciardis had to wonder if Maradian had met Barnaren. Had the general any idea that the man he served was an imposter?
If he had, he would have said something, Ciardis told herself.
At least I hope he would have, she thought as she looked down at the lone flame cupped in her arm under an umbrella of fabric pushed up by thin sticks of wood. She knew that no one outside the imperial family could break the emperor’s illusion, but if Jason SaAlgardis had known and he wasn’t a true imperial blood relative, perhaps so did others.
Perhaps there’s hope, she thought.
There’s always hope, Sebastian answered as he drew back a bow and launched a flaming arrow high in the sky.
The arrow flew straight and true to land in the flower-bedecked bower of a small single-person skiff that was currently occupied by only one body. General SaBarnaren’s. Then three weather mages on one side of the bank and three weather mages on another side summoned winds to their call. Ciardis watched as they guided the winds forward to surround General Barnaren’s funeral pyre on the river. Slowly they guided the craft down the middle of the winding river for a few minutes. Then the emperor held up his hand.
Ciardis watched as the fire spread from the base of the skiff to the shroud that covered the general’s still form. The flames didn’t spread at the emperor’s command but rather by natural cause.
What did happen when the emperor raised his hand was that the deep, booming drumming around them stopped and the winds surrounding the skiff abated. As the winds died the very air around the skiff was seemingly sucked away to leave a void that let the fire live but not consume it’s victim. Either that or a very crafty fire master was carefully controlling the flames from the nearby riverbank.
Then the emperor spoke in s loud voice with the help of five sonorous mages aligned just below him, “My people we come here to honor a man, a man I was proud to call friend and even prouder to call a patriot. Barnaren serve
d his whole life in the name of the empire and up until the moment of his death, did his best to protect his fellow citizens in the empire he called home. Home a place of warmth, civility, comfort and light. Home is a place that the one called the blutgott knows nothing about. Home is what the blutgott calls the Primordial Realm. A place of darkness, death, pestilence and agony. He wishes to bring his home here, to the shores of our fair city and the homes throughout our empire.”
The emperor paused. Every breath was caught in their throats. No one spoke as they strained to hear.
The emperor continued, “I say that the blutgott will find no home here. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not any day. We vanquished him once. We shall do so again. With the strength of a leader, the foresight of a general who sacrificed all, and the tireless efforts of my son the prince heir in his quest to journey to Kifar, we shall defeat this blutgott.”
His speech ended in a roar. The roar of thousands of citizens in Sandrin voiced their approval. The roar of an empire rising up before the threat and screaming we will not go into the darkness.
Ciardis didn’t feel like roaring in the slightest. Because she might be a newer member of court but even she knew when she had just been shafted. If word didn’t spread across the western trails that a wealthy prince heir was traveling the roads to Kifar by morning, she’d kiss a toad. Not to mention the fact that if the prince heir didn’t come back with the salvation for their fight against the empire he would be seen as a failure to everyone who heard about his quest, which meant the entire empire.
Ciardis looked over at the emperor with hate in her eyes but no little respect at his ingenuity.
Maradian was smart. He knew what he had done and he had done it so stealthily that they had no choice but to go. If the prince heir died along the way fighting brigands, then so be it. It would be the gods’ will.
Ciardis bared her teeth in a smile that she and the emperor who watched her both knew was a glare.
He returned her smile with a satisfied nod.
Game. Set. Match. Ciardis thought. It’s my move now.
Then the emperor raised both hands in a signal and the mages responded. They pushed the winds back toward the skiff and the entire craft lit so fast that there was an audible whoosh and the fire exploded in a massive tower of flames skyward.
The entire crowd cheered in celebration of the sacrifice of the man known as General Barnaren.
Ciardis smiled as she stared into the fire and hoped it wasn’t a sign of the tribulations to come.
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