Sworn to Vengeance

by Terah Edun

  Ciardis knew that regardless of whether or not he took it as a flight of fancy to do his new daughter-in-law a favor, she had to be willing to do something herself. Because if she didn't, Lady Lillian Weathervane was as good as dead as she rotted for life in a gilded cage that might as well be called what it was…a jail.

  All for a crime that she didn't commit.

  A crime, I might add, that was committed by the emperor himself, Ciardis thought bitterly. Not that he cares.

  Unjust was the kindest word Ciardis could think of for the situation.

  No matter. She had a job to do now. And she was going to do it.

  So when Terris Kithwalker had said that they weren't going through the brigands but underneath them, Ciardis had sat up and taken notice.

  Terris had explained about the hidden network underneath the sands. The large cavern of long-forgotten mineral tunnels deftly carved out by the desert dwellers and used to harvest crystals sold east by adventurous traders.

  That trade had died along with the sheer abandonment of the western lands after the Aerdivus had taken root. No one wanted to trade with the westerners for services for fear of catching the deadly plague, and with that, the goods had been left to rot.

  But with the Muareg's help, they had a map of the old network of tunnels. And, with a little persuasion, an entrance not too far from the cliff face through which they could pass into them.

  Unfortunately, that entrance happened to be at least a mile deep into one of the brigand territories, which had necessitated a bit of modification to the plan.

  A sacrificial lamb, if you will.

  Except no one is going to die, Ciardis told herself. Please don't let Christian die.

  She had a second to wonder which of the gods she was praying to, but it hardly mattered. She'd take help from the fertility goddess herself if it meant getting the koreschie out of the trap they'd set for the brigands.

  Marauders weren't well known for being a forgiving lot…and, well, what they planned wasn't exactly the most polite of ideas.

  Ciardis stopped in her tracks, freezing mid-run and throwing herself to the ground at the prearranged signal from one of the soldiers.

  He threw up his arm like a street vendor, and they all went to ground so quickly that you wouldn't have known they were there unless you were among them.

  Which was just the plan.

  Ciardis tried to quiet her breathing as she pushed her arms over her face and huddled under the brown cloak that was the color of the sands surrounding them. She even wiggled a bit so that the ground more thoroughly covered her legs, burying herself as quietly as possible.

  She peeked through her braced arms and watched Thanar chant quietly under his breath.

  Next to him, the shaman was finally putting her arcane arts to work, and Ciardis was moderately glad they had brought her along. Moderately.

  Thanar's arms, unlike hers, were uncovered, his white skin glowing in the moonlight, and she watched his wings hunch over his back like black silk. They weren't exactly flat, but unless he spread them like a bear's pelt on the ground, they wouldn't be either.

  Never mind his wings, she told herself.

  They had bigger fish to fry. Ciardis watched with eyes wide as daemoni runes began to appear on Thanar's forearms. They were like squiggles of black ink that never stood still. They moved with the dexterity of a snake flowing through grass, taking their shape with his will.

  No matter how many times she saw him call upon them, she never lost her sense of wonder.

  Thanar, as backstabbing-evil as he was, was a wonder.

  Before too long, the sigils rose off his skin and dissolved into the air. Losing shape. Losing form. Becoming mist as black as a raven's wings.

  The shaman beside him raised a palm and gathered her own magic. Ciardis could see it rising within her like a tide surging.

  But she wouldn't know when it was ready until Rachael signaled her for sure.

  As if she had heard her name in Ciardis's mind, the shaman eased up on her elbow and turned to look back at Ciardis.

  Ciardis could see the strain in her eyes.

  Why does she look so tired? Whatever she was doing doesn't look that hard.

  A hand touched her own just before she completed that thought. It was just her luck that it was Sebastian, and doubly lucky that their mental connection was strongest when flesh to flesh, no matter how hard he was trying to ignore her and she him.

  Ever heard that the simplest things are often the most complex? he asked.

  Ciardis didn't take her eyes off the shaman in front of them. This had to be timed exactly.

  But she did turn her palm over in Sebastian's hand to ready herself for the next step.

  Perhaps that is so, she said to him.

  She didn't want to fight, and she bit her lip figuratively to keep from doing so.

  He was silent once more as they both waited for the signal.

  To their west, a sudden shout went up.

  Ciardis guessed that the marauders had finally found Christian.

  Wonder what took them so long?

  It wasn't like he would have been difficult to see. The man glowed in the dark in his native form, after all.

  Whatever it was, they had him now. Loud exclamations were turning into shouts for other guards to attend them.

  As the lookouts positioned around the brigand camp began to stir, and then marauders from within their camp began to stream around them toward the commotion, they abandoned their posts.

  Ciardis smiled. Lax standards.

  Lax standards, Sebastian agreed with a hint of dark amusement in his own thoughts.

  Those lackadaisical guards had just made their night that much easier.

  Not every tiny detail of every plan went off without a hitch, but so far this one was turning out perfectly.

  Because the guards and gawkers were now heading west toward the koreschie and his captive audience.

  As long as they don't kill him, we're right on track, Ciardis thought wryly.

  Then she pursed her mouth tightly. There was no time to think of Christian. He was doing his part.

  Now it was time for them to do theirs, while an opening presented itself in the southern front of the brigands' encampment.

  There were more than a thousand men in this spot alone, but with a big enough hole, a mouse could thread its way through a lair of cats, and that was just what they planned to do.

  Ciardis watched as Rachael suddenly twitched her palm and rearranged her gently glowing fingers until the middle three were pointing skyward.

  With a grunt, her magic shot out of her hand into the waiting cloud of Thanar's own dark presence.

  Ciardis exhaled quickly and gripped Sebastian's hand so tightly that she might have been worried she had broken it if the situation wasn't so serious.

  He didn't say a word, though, because his entire concentration was now focused on his birthright gifts.

  The gifts that made him a crown prince of Algardis. The gifts that tied him to the land.

  Sebastian had learned a year and more ago that he wasn't a weakling prince of bad stock, like he'd thought his whole childhood.

  Instead his powers were fully primed and had been siphoned off by his father's nefarious deeds since childhood.

  Or his uncle, Ciardis thought as she glanced over at Sebastian's straining face.

  She had already been gathering her gift in her mage core.

  Preparing to bolster his magic with her own. To push their gifts together in partnership, a partnership that had already earned them a reputation for hell-raisers in the emperor's court.

  Ciardis smiled. That was one reputation she most assuredly did not regret.

  That court needed a little push now and then. It was so staid, so formal, so deceptive, Ciardis thought when she'd first come.

  The court she had found was really a pit of vipers resting underneath a hidden door. She had fallen into the vipers as they had unveiled themselves fo
r what they were and for what they were not—nobles.

  It was a far cry from the tales she had grown up with. The whispered rumors of a golden court of elegant, virtuous ladies and honorable men.

  No, the court and its castles were as evil as she had come across in her travels across the empire.

  But she was trying to do good in order to counteract its miserable existence.

  And so was he, Ciardis acknowledged as she watched Sebastian turn and meet her eyes head on.

  He gave her hand a light squeeze, as if to say, You ready?

  She smiled, and without a word opened up the floodgates to her bolster.

  She pushed the gift through their link and she found his path.

  The bridge he had built from his mind to the land around them. The bridge that directed his thoughts and his desires to the earth and asked it to provide a certain action.

  The earth was receptive.

  It wanted to help.

  But it needed more than just Sebastian's will.

  More than just Sebastian's power.

  It needed a mage with the strength of ten to do what he asked.

  Luckily for Sebastian Athanos Algardis, he had a Weathervane by his side.

  Ciardis cupped his gift in her mind like she would a pool of water in her hands. Her golden gift began to meld with his own, like a porous reunion of oil and water.

  Not quite united, and different enough that both could easily be differentiated.

  Time to change that, Ciardis thought in mild satisfaction.

  She was looking forward to this part. It felt good to use her gift in a judicious manner.

  She pushed her magic out with a thrust. Her golden gift drilled through his own like the spokes of a wheel.

  Royal blue and Weathervane gold.

  The gifts together then spread out across the land underneath them. Through the caverns and across the sands.

  Her gift doing more than enhancing his own; in effect, her gift became his gift.

  They were distinguishable in performance if not color.

  Ciardis felt a spike of joy run through her as the land slurped up her magic alongside his.

  They had been abandoned so long, the tunnels of power below them, the tunnels from which traders harvested crystals for mages, that to feel a new gift, to feed on said gift, was like bringing water to a thirsty man.

  Ciardis reined herself and her gift in, though.

  The whole land was thirsty and would drain her dry if she was not careful.

  She kept her powers to a specific perimeter, and with a squeeze of her hand, Sebastian followed her lead.

  The land underneath her was ready.

  Ciardis looked up with a ghost of a smile. “Now!”

  She didn't bother being quiet about it, either.

  Rachael and Thanar wasted no moments chastising her; they were still straining under the efforts of holding their bound incantations for so long.

  With her word, they released the dark cloud with shamanist lightning into the sky.

  The whole atmosphere above them roared with thunder and lightning. But no rain.

  No, this was worse than rain.

  Thanar called down dark acid.

  Ciardis and Sebastian asked the land to provide its boon, and in thanks for their renewed gift of power, it did.

  It searched for the kith with the glowing gift to their west and it sucked him into the land.

  Without much more fanfare, it did the same to them.

  Before she could even brace herself against the acid rain falling from above or the dark sands reaching up to take them below, she was once more falling.

  This time not down to the dunes of sand, but through the sand itself.

  They were on their way.

  9

  Before Ciardis Weathervane could process where exactly she was, she heard the first scream. The wails of the brigands above them as the acid hit their necks, their hands, and any exposed skin it could eat through. Even unexposed skin would soon feel the anguish, as the black rain of Thanar and Rachael's fury didn't discriminate between flesh and cloth when consuming all that stood in its way.

  That wasn't to say she didn't feel it when she passed through the sand. But it was almost smooth.

  Like a baby passing through a birth canal. Or so she assumed.

  She'd never given birth to a baby, but from the infant's point of view, the process didn't see overly complicated.

  The sand had swallowed and spat them out less than five feet underground.

  She could feel the land shivering in approval.

  Or was it delight? She couldn't really tell.

  But the quakes underneath her feet were beginning to unsteady her. That, plus the sounds of harsh screams and guttural sobs from above, were enough to make anyone's iron stomach a bit queasy.

  She reached out a hand as she tried to find her balance, and felt the jagged edges of mineral deposits left behind beneath her questing fingers.

  Beside her she felt rather than saw Sebastian do the same.

  His movements were like a memory echo of her own in her mind; even if they weren't consciously projecting to each other, they were still unconsciously doing it.

  It should have been disorienting to fumble along in two minds instead of one.

  Surprisingly, it wasn't. It was comforting. Knowing that he was just as blind as she was in this enclosing darkness.

  If not as helpless.

  “Is everyone all right?” Ciardis heard Terris call out with a cough.

  “Sound off,” the second soldier said farther down into the tunnels. “We need to know if everyone's here.”

  Ciardis pursed her lips and called out her name in a loud echo.

  One by one, everyone who was supposed to be here called out their own names, which was how she learned that a certain baritone soldier went by the name Tobias, and his companion guard was Samuel.

  A hand gripped her own in the darkness as Sebastian muttered, “I want to thank the land for this gift.”

  Ciardis swallowed harshly and nodded, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't see her.

  But before she could correct the gesture and speak an “all right” out loud, he sent a feeling of acceptance into her mind.

  He hadn't seen her gesture, but just like her ability before, he had felt the echo of her movement in his mind and interpreted what she meant from that.

  Ciardis rocked back on her heels as she hummed, and then she cleared her throat.

  “Sebastian and I are going to reconvene with the land,” she said. “Don't go anywhere.”

  A harsh laugh came from one of the soldiers, as if to say, And where would we go?

  She didn't think he meant anything by it, but she chose to ignore it. If it was who she thought it was, Samuel, the stress might be getting to him.

  The stress would be enough to get to anyone, Sebastian quietly thought at her.

  She didn't gainsay his remarks. She couldn't.

  But at the same time she did think, at least to herself, Then why is it that when the situation is most dire, we seem to come through in ways we would have deemed impossible minutes before?

  She didn't bother voicing the statement out loud.

  She wondered if Sebastian had heard her, but didn't ask. He didn't venture to answer her if he had.

  The weary voice of the daemoni prince broke her reverie before she could explore that vein of thought further. “Mind if we turn on a light?”

  Ciardis frowned as she turned to the side, her hand still in Sebastian's loose grip.

  Why is he asking? she wondered. Thanar usually took actions and asked questions later, if at all.

  He wasn't a person particularly given to apologizing even then.

  The situation with Thomas the satyr alone would have told her that. No one else wiped a poor boy's mind with less cause for concern than a daemoni prince with no regard to life beyond his own.

  Sebastian spoke before she could: “Mage lights are fine in thi
s sector.”

  The shaman spoke up from somewhere farther up north along the tunnel. “Are you sure, sire? The crystals in these tunnels are…legendary for their reactions to mage gifts.”

  Sebastian said through gritted teeth, “I'm sure. The crystals are powerful, true, but they are still…recharging, for lack of a better word. They need to be fed before they become fully cognizant and reactive again.”

  Ciardis thrummed in surprise. She wasn't sure if the prince heir's tone was so short because of his own weariness or in direct reaction to something he didn't like about the shaman herself.

  Ciardis would be lying to herself if she didn't acknowledge the small hope that it was the latter.

  The woman gave off an unsettling vibe, and Ciardis was quite sure it wasn't just jealousy that made her say so.

  “Fed, sir?” Tobias asked in a guttural voice.

  “Fed,” confirmed Sebastian.

  “Like a pet,” Thanar said in open but weary delight.

  Ciardis didn't bother restraining a heavy eye roll. Only Thanar would see that particular attribute as one for amusement.

  “I'd heard about these crystals,” Terris said in a wondering voice. Ciardis couldn't see her, but she heard the nervous anticipation in her best friend's voice. It was the same tone that almost always got them in trouble when the woman ventured upon a new kith in her sights.

  It was the same one she'd had when the gryphon kits were born.

  Ciardis nearly groaned aloud.

  Terris finished her thoughts without interruption, however. “The crystals are used in all manner of mage projection spells. They amplify gifts, and, if I'm not mistaken, were often used to hold residual magic as well.”

  “You are not mistaken,” the shaman confirmed. “The foreign mages—” She paused. “My apologies. The eastern mages of Algardis revere these crystals for those properties above all. But they were also well aware of the legends.”

  “What legends?” Ciardis finally asked, her interest piqued.

  “The legends that said the crystals themselves are alive,” wheezed the Muareg in their group.

  Ciardis jumped nearly a foot in the air. She had forgotten that he was there.

  “It's just as well,” Sebastian said in a subdued tone, “because that's no legend.”