by Jeff Wilcox
Princess Thelia’s eyes narrowed, and she looked up from where she had been glaring at Vinto. “I know who you are. You’re my uncle’s men, come to take me out. Tell him he can have the throne, but he’ll never have me!”
Her words faded into silence as Wild, Kaiyr, Caineye, and even Vinto each raised an eyebrow. “What?” Wild half-laughed, carefully so as not to let Thelia’s weapon dig into his neck. “That is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard! Ha! Can you believe it, guys? Seriously.” He paused, waiting for a reaction from somebody. “Wait, don’t tell me. You believe her?”
“Whether or not I believe what Princess Thelia says is true is not important right now,” Kaiyr said through gritted teeth. “But I firmly believe in the weapons pointed at us.”
“Oh, come on. Caineye wouldn’t hit us, silly.”
“This is no laughing matter.” Kaiyr glanced down at the short woman. Thelia. No, he knew he had heard the name before, and he even remembered some of the history of the family. An idea hit him suddenly. “How is your brother doing?”
Thelia gave him a confused look. “Wha? Er, oh, um. He’s not weathering so—wait, why ask about my brother?”
“Because Princess Thelia has no brother.” The blademaster looked up at “Deluth.” “You should have filled these people in better on your history, Princess Thelia Arai’elith of Zaerieth.”
Thelia—the real Thelia—started, her eyes flying wide. “Wait! What? How in the Nine Hells did you know?”
Kaiyr glanced at the silent human behind him. “I would be more comfortable telling you if you would tell your men—and woman—to stand down. I give you my word as a blademaster that neither I nor my friends will bring you harm.”
Thelia glanced down at the soulblade still resting against her neck. “I… suppose we have little choice. Doann, Deluth, stand down. You, too,” she added to the human, who scowled but replaced his sword in its sheath. Kaiyr’s soulblade vanished, and Wild, Caineye, and Vinto all lowered their weapons as the ones Thelia named did the same. Only now did Kaiyr realize that the real princess had produced a hidden blade from her sleeve after he had knocked the first one from her hands. She gave the party an appraising glance, then nodded, apparently having made a decision. “All right. Not here, though. I have a conference room rented on the ship. We’ll talk there.”
The “conference room” was really little more than a large cabin furnished with a table and chairs rather than a bed. The two parties sat down and ordered room service, waiting in silence until it arrived. Then, the two leaders of the parties, officially Thelia and unofficially Kaiyr, led a lengthy discussion over the meal, with the others listening on, chewing thoughtfully and occasionally offering a few words. By the end of it, however, Kaiyr, Caineye, and Wild managed to convince Thelia and her entourage that their encounter had merely been a case of sour serendipity.
“I am sorry to hear of your father’s passing, Princess Thelia,” Kaiyr said as the parties on both sides of the table pushed their plates away, some of them loosening their belts. “More aggrieved will be my father, when he hears this news. King Arai’elith was one of the few whom Sorosomir Stellarovim counted as a friend.”
Thelia looked down at the table. “Thank you, Kaiyr. And don’t call me ‘Princess’ anymore. It…. Not only does it hurt, but I no longer hold the title.”
Kaiyr bowed his head. “My apologies, Lady Thelia. I should have realized it myself.” He paused and took a sip of his wine. “You must understand that it is the duty of a blademaster to aid those in distress, Lady Thelia. However, I am already questing to relieve the burdens of another, and I can only offer you my blade as long as our paths remain the same. I promise you my protection as long as we are together on this airship and as long afterward as our travels take us together.”
Thelia shook her head. “Stop calling me ‘Lady,’ too, Kaiyr. And thanks, but no thanks. A blademaster bodyguard would just draw more attention to me than I really need.”
Again, Kaiyr bowed in his seat. “I understand, Lady Thelia.” She sighed in exasperation and looked to Caineye and Wild, who both shrugged.
“There’s no stopping it,” Wild told her.
“Regardless,” Kaiyr continued, with no note in his voice to indicate annoyance at having been interrupted, “my offer shall remain open. You have merely to call on me, Lady Thelia.” He looked at his companions, then out the window. “I believe it is time for us to consider this dinner over. I am relieved that we could resolve our concerns without bloodshed.”
Little Deluth snorted quietly. “Mostly because you wouldn’t have survived it.”
“I am, too,” Thelia replied to Kaiyr quickly, shooting her underling a glare. She stood, and only then did Kaiyr make a move to rise. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you, Kaiyr. And you, Caineye and Wild. It’s been an unexpected pleasure, I think.” She and her guardians left the room first without another word.
“She thinks? She thinks?” Wild repeated incredulously after Doann Ga’bar closed the door behind Thelia and her entourage. “Come on, we are totally the next best thing since mithril chain shirts. Ooh, I’d love to get my hands around that short one’s neck, too.” He scowled and made a choking motion with his hands.
Caineye watched Kaiyr depart in silence, then dropped a hand onto Wild’s head. “I think you should probably be careful whom you call short, Wild.” He led the way out the door, and the halfling followed.
“What? No, I’m tall for my kind. Seriously, I’m almost three feet! There’s no way…” The door closed on the empty and silent room.
XXIII.
Kaiyr awoke with a start when an explosion rang out on the deck above, causing the whole ship to list and rumble ominously before the pilot righted the enormous craft. He rose swiftly from his meditation and to his feet, his senses sharp despite having been so roughly roused from his rest.
Peering into the hall, he saw Caineye, Vinto, Wild, and a whole host of frightened, confused, sleepy, or some combination of all three, passengers poking their heads out into the hall. “Master Kaiyr?” Caineye said, half-yawning. “What’s going on?”
“I do not know,” the blademaster replied, his voice scratchy from several hours of disuse.
“Let’s go find out,” Wild said with a giggle. “It might be fun!” He skipped eagerly down the hall and toward the stairs leading to the top deck, dancing around the other, sleepy passengers.
“Master Wild!” Kaiyr called, but his words fell on deaf ears. He looked to Caineye.
The druid shrugged. “Let’s go,” was all he could offer, and the two of them padded down the hall and up the stairs, Vinto loping behind.
Some small part in Kaiyr recognized the pattern of the explosion: the group together on an airship, one or more female figures from the group away on errands, and then an impact as of a meteor crashing to the deck. He should have trusted his senses, he decided upon arriving topside. There, in the center of a now-familiar ring of airship security officers, surrounded by a giant scorch mark in the wood of the deck, lay Astra. A nighttime wind whipped her black hair about her, what little of it wasn’t already caked to the blood on her skin.
Caineye stopped in his tracks, as had Wild upon seeing Astra curled into a ball, covered in her own blood and the bare remains of her armor and clothing, which seemed to have been torn apart by the claws of some terrible beast. Wild reached up and tugged on Caineye’s little finger. Vinto whimpered slightly and hung his head at the sight.
“What’s with Astra and her… incarnations and suddenly dropping in on us like fireballs?” the halfling asked a distracted Caineye, who did not respond.
Ignoring Wild’s ill-timed humor, Kaiyr strode forward and pushed his way through the ring of soldiers with polite but stern pardons that brooked no argument. He knelt before Astra, appraising her wounds. “She will not last,” he muttered to himself, pulling out the curative wand he kept in one sleeve.
“Hold,” said a man, moving to stand over the blademaster. “You… kn
ow this woman?” He wore the trappings of the airship’s captain.
“I do. However, she will not last long unless my friends and I are allowed to tend her wounds,” Kaiyr said over the howling wind. The captain gnawed on his lip for a moment until the blademaster pulled out five pieces of platinum from his sleeve. “We will cover her fare and board and see that she causes you no further trouble, captain. Now I ask you to give me leave to do what I must to preserve her life.”
The man stared at the valuable coins—many times the standard fare for his ship. “All right,” he shouted over the wind, pointing to the stairs. “Go.”
Kaiyr touched Astra’s shoulder with the rune-inscribed wand once and whispered a brief triggering word. The blood still seeping from her wounds stopped flowing, but the wand’s power was not nearly enough to keep her alive for very long. Carefully lifting her, he returned to Caineye, Wild, and Vinto, the first of whom flanked Kaiyr on his windward side to help the blademaster keep his balance—and thus keep Astra safe.
“Gods,” Caineye swore under his breath upon seeing the nymph’s wounds clearly. “What manner of creature could do this to her?”
Kaiyr glanced down at the gashes in her flesh and gear. “Herself,” he replied. “Her weapon would make such lines, were she to wield it in a slashing manner. I suspect this may be the work of Lady Luna.”
Caineye raised his eye when Kaiyr affixed a title to the Nemesis’s self-given name. “Let’s just get her cleaned up and cared for.”
Kaiyr’s room was small, not large enough for all of them to fit while he and Caineye tended to Astra’s grievous injuries. Particularly after the battle in Andorra and after having to see to the wounds of many of the townsfolk in addition to their own friends, both Kaiyr and Caineye had gained much field experience in a short amount of time. Where last time Astra’s injuries had made Kaiyr hesitate, he now worked diligently and confidently alongside Caineye, whose experience, knowledge, and ability at surgery and healing far outpaced his own. Supplementing their calm expertise with newfound magical abilities and items, the two had Astra stabilized and well on her way to recovery after less than an hour of work.
Caineye fell back onto his rump after washing his hands in a bowl of clean water. “Whew. I’m beat. Good work, Master Kaiyr.”
Kaiyr, still crouched on the balls of his feet, nodded back. “Likewise, Master Caineye. Is our work here done, or will she need more attention later?”
*
Xavier snorted. “You know how she is with attention.”
“Always craving more,” I agreed.
“Hey, I’ll give her a little attention,” Matt offered, swinging his arms in a lewd motion. “I’ll give her all the attention she wants!”
The room resounded with our laughter.
“I think she’ll want something a little more fun than two and a half inches, halfling,” I shot back cordially.
“Ooh, it’s on now!” Dingo decreed, watching both me and Matt.
Matt just shrugged. “It’s not about how much you have. It’s about what you do with it, and you, Mr. Blademaster, don’t seem to be doing a whole lot with yours.”
I chewed on my lip, then nodded. “Touché.”
*
With a sigh he used to blow some of his lengthening hair out of his eyes, Caineye responded, “I think we’re through. I’ll come by to check on her tomorrow, after I get up. For now,” he grunted, pushing himself up, “I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night of rudely interrupted sleep.”
“I understand. I shall keep watch over her,” Kaiyr told the druid, settling into a lotus position on the floor.
Caineye nodded. “Good. I’ll see you in the morning, Blademaster.” He opened Kaiyr’s door, exited, and closed it silently behind him. The elf was left with his thoughts and the nymph on his bed and a barely-suppressed, nagging urge to glance back at her every few minutes that did not abate even when he let his consciousness rise to the level of meditation.
XXIV.
“Kaiyr?”
Swiftly but gently ending his train of deep thoughts and dreams, the young blademaster rocked forward onto his knees and pivoted to face Astra in one smooth motion. “Lady Astra. Good morning,” he greeted her quietly.
“Hey,” she croaked, her voice dry. Kaiyr jumped to his feet and brought over a waterskin when she was wracked with hacking coughs. After he helped her sit up, she eagerly accepted the drink, even though it tasted like leather. “Thanks.” She passed him the skin as he looked on, concerned. But she ignored his gaze, instead inspecting herself and her bandages. “Did you patch me up?”
Kaiyr nodded, setting the waterskin back on the dresser. “Caineye deserves most of the credit; it was his expertise that let us heal you.”
Astra paused, then looked up at the elf. “Knowing you, you’re probably understating your contributions, K—Master Kaiyr,” she told him with a smile.
Bowing, the blademaster replied, “Thank you, Lady Astra.” He straightened but did not say anything; a silence stretched out between them for several heartbeats as he searched her eyes for something and she searched his for something else. But then they both realized their mutual stare and looked away, unable to keep it for much longer.
Astra giggled nervously but then sobered. “I… sense you have something you want to say.” Kaiyr looked back at her. “Yes, it was that obvious.”
“I was not trying to be subtle,” he admitted lightly. “But yes. I merely wished to express my concern for your well-being, my lady. Your encounters while away from us become more and more deadly, and it pains me to see you return to us in such a condition.”
Determined to be in denial, Astra scratched her head. “What condition?”
Kaiyr’s gaze drew her to her hand, which came away covered in dried bits of crusted blood. He gently disentangled her fingers from a few stray strands of her raven hair then smoothed the rest back as best he could. “This condition,” he told her gently.
Astra’s expression soured. “I’m not a damsel in distress, Kaiyr. I can take care of myself. For the most part,” she amended after a moment’s thought. Kaiyr’s raised eyebrow may have had something to do with her compulsion to rectify her statement.
Crouching down before her, Kaiyr locked gazes with the nymph again, beautiful despite the bandages and the dried blood and the purple bruise on her cheek. He wanted to tell her to stay with the friends she had here, to include them in her misadventures, to allow them—and in particular, him—to know her, to truly know her.
But he could not. He had not the heart to order her about, to take away the freedom that came with being a creature of the wild. And so, he merely closed his eyes and nodded. “Very well,” he said, his voice heavy.
*
“What’cha doing?”
Wild jumped at the sudden voice—decidedly female—right next to his ear. But even that did not last long as the halfling covered up his expression. “Oh, I was just curious,” he said, turning and facing Thelia, who hovered over his right shoulder.
“Curious?” she asked, following as he turned and led her away from the door where he’d just dropped more than a few eaves. “You looked like you were going to knock, but then stopped to listen.”
Wild smiled back at her. “Yes, well, you see, I wanted to see how Astra was doing, but when I got to Master Kaiyr’s door, I heard their voices, which means that she’s all right, but then I wanted to know how the two of them were doing, you know, if Master Kaiyr could convince her to stay with us, which apparently is a resounding, ‘no,’ and so I was curious to find out whether the two of them would get over this drama and just kiss already.” He took a deep breath to replenish the air in his lungs after his rambling run-on.
Thelia blinked, processing the long sentence. “Oh. I, uh, see.”
“So, Pr… ahem, Miss Thelia, what brings you to Master Kaiyr’s doorstep?”
A sly grin settled over the elven woman’s features. “Oh, I was just curious,” she told him.
/> “Really?” Wild asked ingenuously. “Then we’ll get along like two peas in a pod!” He extended his ring-laden right hand in a gesture of friendship, and Thelia took it. When his hand came away, however, Thelia sensed that something was amiss. Staring at her finger, she realized that her ring was missing.
“Wild,” she said crossly, “you wouldn’t happen to have just taken my… never mind.” She saw him admiring her ring in the open palm of his hand.
“Oh, this? Is this yours?” the halfling asked, turning the simple but elegant gold band over in his hand. “I’m terribly sorry. It just seemed so loose on your finger that I was concerned you might lose it, so I thought to keep it safe for you. I do hope you don’t mind.”
“Not as long as it doesn’t happen again,” she said, taking her possession back from the short fellow and slipping it on her finger. It struck her that the ring was not at all loose on her finger, but she made no mention of it. “Say,” she said in a conspiratorial tone, “you wouldn’t happen to be interested in a little game, would you?”
*
Xavier and I watched, amused and concerned at the same time, as Dingo and Matt both leaned forward in their seats. “What kind of game might you be talking about, Miss Thelia?” Matt asked, speaking for his character.
Dingo crossed his arms and then waved one hand dismissively. “Oh, the kind where you ‘acquire’ more things the longer the game goes on. She starts walking toward the stairs leading to the upper deck.”
“I follow her,” Matt replied. Then, roleplaying Wild’s emotions, he frowned. “I’m rather insulted, Miss Thelia. I’m no thief.”
“Thelia laughs as she leads you up to the open deck. I’m not calling you a thief, Wild. But wouldn’t you be just curious to find out exactly what’s in, say, that man’s pouch? He’s looked like a sourpuss the whole trip. Who knows? Maybe he’s hiding something.”
