by Terah Edun
His head was bent over, so he completely missed the looks of pure fury pasted onto the faces of their two flying journeymen.
Ciardis cleared her throat and said pointedly, “Let's keep that for a last-minute option, Sebastian.”
Sebastian looked up and blinked at her. “What? Why?” Then he saw Raisa and Thanar's faces. “Oh.”
“Uh-huh,” said the shaman. “So that leaves us back at step one. Nowhere.”
Ciardis felt her stomach sink.
Then Terris spoke with an irritated tone. “If you all would give me time to explain without talking over me or dilly-dallying with your weird ideas, I would have told you that the Muareg's map isn't the overland trail.”
“It's not?” said Christian dumbly.
“It's not,” Terris said as she swept her hair to the side with a sniff.
“What, then?” asked a soldier testily as he eyed the route before them.
Terris smiled. “It's the underground one.”
There was silence all around them. Then everyone began talking at once.
“Underground?” scoffed the solider.
“What?” said Sebastian in amazement as he watched the model revolve with new eyes.
“Well, I'll be,” muttered Christian with a concentrated look.
The shaman said, “Well, that's interesting.” She sounded like she finally approved of Kithwalker's initiative.
Terris said hesitantly, “There's only one problem.”
“And that would be?” a soldier prompted as he moved around the model with a keen eye.
The shaman said with a snort, “There's no way in or out of the underground network she wants to use.”
Everyone looked from the shaman to Terris for confirmation.
Terris shrugged. “According to the Muareg's lore, the only way in or out is with the city's access key.”
Ciardis snorted and walked over to clasp a hand on Terris's shoulder. “When has a key or permission ever stopped us before?”
Terris's shoulders rose up in pride. “That is true,” she said slowly.
“Yes, it is,” said Ciardis confidently as she looked around the group. “Terris found us a way in. A way that lets us get around a horde of brigands and perhaps not even shed too much blood. It's up to us to figure out how to access it now.”
There were murmurs of assent all around.
Then Sebastian leaned forward and said earnestly, “I might have an idea about that.”
Ciardis smiled.
That was just want she wanted to hear.
7
Ciardis started over the hill after Terris. She didn't have much choice.
Neither did the others. It was do or die now, and, well…she preferred to not die.
Ciardis sighed as they began the descent to the base of the plateau the only way they knew how.
Straight down. It was a steep cliff made of crumbling rock face, hardy plants that were scrawnier than her forearm, and a lot of nooks and crannies that could be hiding anything.
Namely arachnids, snakes, bugs…did I mention snakes? she thought as she lowered one foot, found her balance, and then lowered the other.
It was like a game of climb the ladder, but in reverse…and worse.
Who played climbing games on the precarious side of a cliff, after all?
No one who doesn't have a death wish, she grumbled to herself as her right hand found a solid grip, only to lose every possibility of security when the rock edge she'd gripped turned out to be a large clod of dirt that promptly crumbled under her questing fingers.
She barely held back a scream as she scrambled to keep her remaining grip. It had thrown her off center, and her right foot was dangling as her right hand was scrambling for purchase.
She was sure she looked like a lame spider trying to spin a web right now, meaning foolishly inept, but she'd rather look foolish than dead, and if she didn't get a grip soon, dead she would be.
Lucky for her and everyone else trying to keep out of the way of the rocks falling below her, she felt a hand slam into the middle of her back—pushing her in direct alignment with the cliff face. Skin to rock had never felt so good, and she regained her lost grip.
When she peeked over her shoulder with a timid smile and the look of someone who had seen death and never wanted to again, she met the sneering grin of one daemoni prince.
Ciardis's arm twitched, and she wanted to haul off and smack the sneer off his face.
“Don't you have anything better to do?” she snapped. A snide reply would just have to do.
Thanar didn't bother replying, and he didn't even give her one of his trademark dark grins and sultry replies—he simply banked his wings forward and slipped away into the night with a glide.
Leaving Ciardis with a scratched-up set of hands, a regretful look on her face, and a handful of dust up her nose.
She twitched her nostrils and fought hard not to sneeze.
If she hadn't screamed as she felt herself nearly falling to her death, she wasn't going to give away their position by making a sound now.
Never mind the ignoramus daemoni prince, she said to herself in consolation, completely forgetting that said prince had just saved her life.
Or so she told herself as she put another foot down, and another foot after that, while her body clung to the cliff and she slowly made her way down after the solider below her, who, she was sure, was cursing her name in at least three languages.
“Four if he's from the Windswept Isles, like I suspect. You don't get that dark of skin by sunning yourself on Sandrin beaches. You're born with it,” she said to herself as she blew a curl out of her face…or tried to.
She kept thinking of that solider. Remembering what his face looked like, how the tight curl of the hair cropped close to his scalp reminded her of soft lamb's wool, and how his laugh, when he had seen her first look of horror at the cliff face, had been rich and baritone.
“He has a nice voice,” she mused to herself as she tried to forget where she was and what she was doing. Thinking of him kept her mind off her body and allowed her to operate remotely—the physical separated from the mental. Because if she didn't think of something else, she would freeze on this cliff as sure as the day was long.
Ciardis Weathervane was many things, but a climber she was not. Especially not of cliffs or mountains or sand dunes or whatever it was that she had to do at that time that involved going up something she had no business going up.
Not if she was sane, and she was sane. No matter what people in the imperial courts thought.
Ciardis took a deep breath and raised her arm up a bit to peek down. She could see the curly-haired soldier waiting at the base of the cliff below.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Almost there.”
She felt almost giddy. Like she had accomplished something. But that was silly. The mission wasn't over; they hadn't even reached the city of Kifar yet, let alone taken on the princess heir's pet project, or gotten anywhere near what it would take bring the wyvern’s head back to the impatiently-waiting emperor.
Ciardis heard the soldier below call up to her in a stage whisper, “Just a few more feet, princess.”
To be, she thought to herself automatically.
It was loud enough to carry his voice to her but not loud enough to extend much beyond the two of them. She doubted the person climbing down the cliff above her, Christian, heard it either.
“Won’t be long now,” he continued.
He meant the words to be reassuring.
“Hah!” Ciardis scoffed, a bit too loudly. She heard her voice echo across the sand dunes that were currently hiding them from the two very large, very well-armed bands of brigands on the other side.
She cringed in regret immediately and ducked her head.
To her surprise, she heard the solider chuckle softly below.
“It really isn't that far,” he said.
Ciardis unclenched her hands and continued her way down the cliff. Ten feet, s
he counted in her head. Nine feet.
Each step brought her closer to the ground. Closer to safety.
She had a moment to think how ridiculous it was for her to be so fearful of the climb down the cliff, when she'd flown dozens of feet higher in the arms of a certain daemoni prince not too long ago.
Ciardis shook her head and said, “But that was different.”
In her head she continued, Even so high up, I never felt fearful…well, not because of the height itself, anyway.
“What was?” the soldier called up as he raised his long arms to catch her as she descended the last few feet.
Ciardis startled. She hadn't really been talking to him, but she supposed she'd have to answer his query.
“The height,” she said hesitantly. “It felt different after I'd almost fell.”
“I'm sure it did,” the soldier said stoically, with a hint of condescension.
Ciardis stiffened her spine and looked straight down at him.
Without missing a beat, she said, “Catch me!”
She flung herself off the cliff face for the five remaining feet and landed safely in his arms.
To his credit, he stumbled only a bit under the surprise addition of her weight, and he didn't complain except for a mild oof sound.
With a smile, Ciardis felt the sand once more beneath her feet, and she restrained herself from throwing herself onto the ground in adulation.
Instead she spotted Terris and the second soldier out of the corner of her eye. They and Thanar had gathered at the base of the large sand dune that was forming a wind barrier for a small valley that ran parallel to the cliff face.
She trotted over and crouched down behind her friend.
Terris whispered to Ciardis without turning her head from the soldier beside her, “That wasn't so bad, was it?”
“Speak for yourself,” Ciardis muttered as she too looked to the lanky soldier. He was standing with a slight bend of his knees and had a spyglass to his eye to look over the edge of the sand dune as he cautiously held lookout for their small group.
The soldier snapped his eyepiece closed and turned around as several forms skirted over the sand to the concealment provided by the dune.
Ciardis's eyes flickered over them as Christian, then the Muareg, then the shaman, and finally the dragon ambassador joined them in their small huddle.
She had the brief thought that everyone had gotten down to the base far quicker than she'd thought possible, but then…without her stopping every five seconds they would, anyway.
Ciardis let a slight frown mar her face and thought, No more climbing for me. Not this trip. No climbing. No falling. Rule number one.
Then she really and truly frowned as she said, “Where's Sebastian?”
“Here,” he said.
She didn't bother turning around.
Her back stiffened and she blushed, but she hoped in the darkness no one else could see that.
He was close enough to rest his head in her hair.
“Oh, good then,” she said, stumbling over her words.
Turning slightly to Terris and, without meaning to, bumping into the prince's chest behind her, she said, “Shall we get on with it?”
Whether irritability showed in her face or her best friend just knew her voice well enough to hear the pain, Terris immediately reached out under the cover of darkness and squeezed her hand.
“Sure, let's go.”
“A more enthusiastic push onwards I've yet heard,” Christian said dryly.
“Oh, hush you,” said Ciardis.
A snort from Sebastian was his only comment.
Thanar said, “Well, koreschie, I'm sure if you're willing to risk this insane plan, none of us have the right to complain about it.”
“Right,” said the soldier with the curly hair and deep baritone. “We cannot do any less than one who would risk his hide for a possibility.”
“I'd appreciate it if you all seemed a bit more confident in this plan,” Terris said.
“Yeah, not happening, kith speaker,” Thanar said in a wry tone, “but it would be nice, wouldn't it?”
The dragon ambassador interjected, “If I may…I believe it's time to move?”
Ciardis looked up at the female perched just on the edge of the sand dune sheltering them. “Why is that?”
The dragon turned to her, and her eyes were thin slits with the jeweled irises of her reptilian race. “Because the soldiers look to be coming over here. For a piss or for a conversation I cannot say. But in either case, we need to be gone and the koreschie needs to be in place if any of this is to work.”
Ciardis felt a shiver go down her spine, but they had no time to lose. Everyone scrambled up and moved off to the left, except Christian and Ciardis.
She pushed forward a bit and laid a hand on his. Ciardis squeezed his arm…that was already growing translucent in the moonlight and starting to glow with the natural purple lines that ran underneath his skin like veins. She said, “Don't take any unnecessary risks.”
Christian smiled briefly. “I believe the very nature of this task calls for it.”
Ciardis felt her words gather at the back of her throat, and she almost choked on them as she said, “Just come back alive. I need you. We need you.”
Christian nodded briefly as a double lid like a reptile's began to slide into place on top of his irises.
“I will,” he said in a strong voice. “You do the same, Weathervane.”
With a hard squeeze of her arm, he left without another word and scrambled to the top of the sand dune and straight into the line of sight of the oncoming brigands.
Ciardis didn't have a choice; she turned to follow the rest of the group as they slipped into the night along the edge of the dune and tried to flank the smaller brigade of cutthroat thieves and marauders that spelled their doom.
As they each scaled the dune around a quick corner, Ciardis tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder, hoping to hear Christian or see him right behind her…even though that was impossible and she knew that.
It didn't stop her from wanting it with all of her heart.
When she turned back around, it was quickly enough to see the daemoni prince boost Rachael up so she could scramble to the top with ease.
But that wasn't all.
Something passed between them. Something magical.
Ciardis felt it like a flare of heat on her face, but neither acknowledged it beyond a touch.
Thanar leaned forward a moment later and whispered something into Rachael's ear.
Ciardis watched with narrowed eyes, not bothering to be discreet, telling herself it was just to make sure that the two most daring members of their cohort didn't do something rash…or unforgivable.
Whatever he said caused the shaman to flash a quick smile and wink as she turned around and said, “Flatter me, why don't you?”
There was nothing more to be heard before the woman with curves for miles, even under the shaman robes she'd brought along with her, scuttled over the dune and out of sight.
Ciardis tried to quell the flash of emotion in her stomach before it rose up and overwhelmed her. It wasn't like she had any claim on Thanar. It wasn't like she wanted any claim on Thanar.
Besides, he was trouble. Rachael was trouble. They were made for each other.
She didn't even bother trying to keep telling herself that.
It hadn't helped before, and it wouldn't help now.
With a sigh, Ciardis put a strong hand on the shoulder of the soldier with the baritone voice and braced herself as he lifted her up and over.
She followed the shaman without a word and hoped Christian came out of this alive. She hoped they all did.
8
This time Ciardis didn't have time to wait for her breath to catch up with her racing mind or her trembling hands.
This was it. They were going in. The time had come and there was no more waiting.
She raced to keep up with her companions as they darted across t
he sands in an uneven line. A few, those with longer legs, were ahead of the rest.
A few trailed a few steps behind. The two remaining soldiers fanned to the west and east of the group, to keep an eye out for marauders coming in from either direction.
She felt her heart in her throat as she squinted to keep the brisk wind from blowing sand grains in her face. At the same time she wanted to strain her eyes wide to see, for heaven's sake.
It was about three hours before dawn, which meant they were lucky if they could see their hands in front of their faces now. And they couldn’t summon mage lights at the moment either.
But they didn't really need to physically see anything to know where they were going.
The plan Terris had outlined was simple. So simple that it might even be foolhardy.
But no one had come up with anything better.
And frankly…staying in the ruins of a long-forgotten way station while they watched the brick walls be consumed by the sand around them held no particular attraction for any of them.
They hadn't come to the farthest reaches of the empire to sit and glower at each other, or long for a past they couldn't change.
They'd come because in less than a week a city filled with people, the empire's people, would be under attack because of the callous actions of the imperial family.
And Ciardis Weathervane may not have been a member of the imperial family just yet, but she was damned if she was going to let those citizens, her citizens, be murdered without batting an eyelash.
Not to mention her mother. Ciardis had seen the look in the emperor's eyes.
She had no idea if he intended to keep his word. The man hadn't promised to release her mother. But he had promised to not have their heads on pikes lining the city gates upon their successful return, and what was more, he had even given his blessing for the wedding.
Admittedly for his own reasons.
But keeping the mother of the bride in prison would just be in such bad taste that Ciardis had to wonder if he would somehow finagle her release into his myriad plans as well.
He was the emperor, after all, and the emperor's word was law.
