by Edun, Terah
Over the next hour and a half, Ciardis’s eyes glazed over and she fought to stand stiff as she watched Sebastian listen to the head of the Weavers’ Guild make a case for the import of special cloth fabrics from the Ameles Forest at market rate. Curiously, Maree Amber did nothing and said nothing further the entire time.
Ten minutes after the hour and a half had passed, the butler opened a panel in the room and motioned for the two serving girls to follow him into the hallway outside. As he prepared to close the door, Prince Sebastian commanded, “Aaron.”
The butler startled and whispered for the girls to wait in the semi-dark corridor as he hurried to the Prince Heir’s side. When he came back after a brief moment, he told the other servant girl to wait in the kitchens. Before Ciardis could head off, he held her back and said, “You are coming with me.”
“I don’t think so. I really am not...”
“The prince has asked me to personally escort you to his chambers,” he said. “I don’t know what you said or did, but you’re lucky. I know women who’d give their left arm to be in your place.”
Ciardis paused, wondering what place he thought that was.
“Just remember. I got you there.”
Really? He’s going to take credit for my seduction or whatever he thinks this is?
“Remember that and I’ll get you more assignments near him.”
Right, like you have a choice.
Deciding that the conversation in the corridor had gone on long enough Ciardis said, “I think you’d better take me to those chambers now.”
The man curled up his mouth in a snooty look but didn’t reprimand her.
“Come with me.” He held an old-fashioned candelabra in his hands. The kind used to light dark passageways without the aid of magic. As they wound their way through the servant’s corridors with the occasional rat squeaking past Ciardis was glad to have the light. A mage orb would be better but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He stopped in front of an elaborate doorway with glossy hardwood, the Algardis crest embossed in the middle and an actual door knob.
Staring in disbelief Ciardis couldn’t keep quiet.
“Isn’t this conspicuous? To have the Prince Heir’s chambers marked so openly? ” she said.
He turned towards her, the candelabra in his left hand as he said, “The servants should always know which door they approach and whom they should expect on the other side. Protocol demands it.”
“I understand that,” she retorted, “But any one can tell this door is different from the surrounding corridor. That someone important must reside here.”
The butler’s mouth had stiffened into a thin line, “That would be the point.”
“You’re asking for trouble. Assasins, thieves and the like.”
He let out a suffering sigh, “The Prince Heir has the top guardians in the Empire at his side. Now perhaps it would be best for you to go inside...and keep your mouth shut unless the Prince Heir requests otherwise.”
Ciardis sniffed and swept past him as he opened the corridor door into the Prince Heir’s well-lit sitting room.
As the door closed behind her she sat for a minute. When ten minutes had past and Sebastian still hadn’t come in she wandered around the room picking up objects and studying paintings. After another ten minutes had passed, the door to the formal sitting area opened and in walked a tired prince heir. Giving Ciardis a tired smile, he uncapped a decanter sitting on a side table near the door. Pouring himself a drink, he smiled and said, “Isn’t this familiar?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be drinking?”
“I’m sixteen,” he said defensively, “and it’s just an iced herbal tea.”
She raised an eyebrow, not believing him. She’d heard that before. Not from a prince, though. Usually the village boys thought they were being smart by hiding their moonshine in water pouches. Stupid was a better description. After they put the alcohol in their water pouches they couldn’t use them during the hunt. Too many animals, mage and mundane alike, knew the scent of alcohol in the North.
And they remembered what it meant. Those creatures would do anything to kill the person who carried the scent because it meant an evil which hadn’t been seen in centuries was nearby. Focusing on Sebastian, Ciardis walked up into his personal space and took a direct and impolite sniff of his glass.
She didn’t care that it was rude. She couldn’t abide drunks, and she certainly wouldn’t serve one. Not directly, anyway.
Fortunately for him, it was clean.
“If you’re finished inspecting my nightly herbal mix,” Sebastian said with dry amusement, “we have much to discuss.”
She looked at him curiously and sat down on the couch, crossing her legs.
“You’re not upset?”
“About?”
“Me inspecting your drink for starters?”
He looked at her with seriousness on his face. “Even when I was an Imperial outcast, there were very few people who cared to cross me at court. They all wanted me dead. But—at least in this realm—they were as polite as could be when they saw me.”
He poured a second drink and motioned to an empty cup. She nodded.
“You, on the other hand,” said Prince Sebastian, handing her the second cup and sitting back, “say what you think, don’t guard your feelings, and are even...disdainful toward me.”
Ciardis snorted. Polite semantics.
“I can’t say I always enjoy any of those three things,” he said wistfully, “but for the most part I appreciate it.”
“Anything else you’re not upset about?”
He snorted. “Nope, the rest of the night’s going to be righteous indignation about your continual need to disrupt life in the Imperial courts and not observing the protocols before your betters.”
Ciardis looked at him pointedly. He looked back at her over his cup, eyes laughing. And then they burst into gales of laughter. Neither could help it. It was the exact speech given to them by the new grand vizier after another incident.
Face twitching as she fought to get her response under control, she said, “I suppose I semi-deserved that.”
“Right. So I hear you nearly killed a duchess? That’s a step up from implicating a duke in a torrid affair.”
Ciardis paused. “You do know the duke wasn’t trying to kill me just because of that affair nonsense, right?”
“Yeah, but it certainly didn’t help your case when you added a power struggle for my attention on top of it.”
Ciardis put her glass down, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet under her comfortably. It was going to be a long night.
“I didn’t almost kill her. She almost killed me,” she confided. “And then the dragon almost killed her.”
At that, Prince Sebastian sat up.
“Wait—dragon? The ambassador tried to kill the Duchess of Carne?”
Ciardis nodded. “Something about me being her sarin.”
There was incredulity plastered on Sebastian’s face.
“Don’t ask me how she knew where I was,” said Ciardis truthfully, “because I have no idea. And then that minstrel said the same thing happened to my mother.”
A flicker of coldness flitted over Sebastian’s face before he smoothed his expression over and shook his head in confusion. “Why don’t you start over? From the beginning.”
She did and she told him everything she’d learned up to meeting the minstrel at the inn. Explaining the duchess’s attack on her in the garden was more difficult – not only because it was so brutal that her body was still recovering.
Prince Sebastian bit his lip. He immediately released his bottom lip from the hold with a frustrated look, “I knew about the duchess and the locket from the reports I received this morning from the Magistrate’s Court. But the dragon—that I didn’t know.”
Ciardis shrugged. “The enforcers didn’t seem inclined to question her. I guess they didn’t include much in their reports about it.”
“Besides are
n’t you supposed to have spies to tell you all of these things?” she continued with a wicked smile.
“Spies,” he said laughing. “I just got back into my father’s good graces and it’s only been two months since I was almost disinherited. Let’s take it slowly here.”
“All I’m saying is you might know more about the going-ons at court if you had people listening in.”
“Or knew where to put my ears to the ground,” he pointed out.
This time it was her turn to sit back in contemplation.
“Those other two that you mentioned—Stephanie and Christian,” he said. “Who are they to you?”
“Friends,” said Ciardis while hesitating. She’d already told Sebastian about everything they’d done for her, minus the dead body. But she wasn’t sure yet if she should tell him about the Shadow Council. She didn’t even know what it was. Or who was behind it.
“Do you think they’d be good listeners?”
“Maybe. Let’s think on it. Stephanie, at least, has good connections among the nobility.”
“Now, about that dragon. You know what sarin means?”
“Yes,” Ciardis said, “and right now I don’t want to discuss it.”
“But—”
“Sebastian, we’ve got a lot more problems to be thinking about than an issue that may or may not turn into a problem.”
She paused, “This isn’t about the fact that a sarin is supposed to be a bond mate to a dragon is it?”
He spluttered, looking uncharacteristically flushed as he said, “No! Why would it be?”
She narrowed her eyes, “Just...asking.”
“This has nothing to do with that. It’s my job to think ahead, Ciardis. For my Empire and for my people.” Uncomfortably he continued, “And this could be a major problem diplomatically for my people.”
She raised an eyebrow, “Okay, but there’s a problem staring us in the face right now that we need to fix.”
He ran a hand through his hair messily and refilled his tea, “Then we can come back to this. So what did Maree Amber want?”
Ciardis mouth dipped downward and she grimaced involuntarily.
“To punish me for court issues and to say that I wasn’t allowed at court functions for a month while she trains me.”
Sebastian raised a curious eyebrow. “And yet you’re here?”
“Functions, not meetings.”
“This woman isn’t someone you want to play with, Ciardis,” he said – his shoulders stiff and his eyes firmly on hers.
“Besides, how do you know she isn’t tracking you?” he continued.
“If she was, wouldn’t she have recognized me?”
Point taken.
“All right, it’s your turn,” she said.
“My turn?”
“What’s the deal with the kith? Is the treaty still going to happen between Algardis and Sahalia?”
For a moment Prince Sebastian was silent. Just watching her. Then he stood and he paced. Back and forth.
Ciardis watched quietly for a few minutes while reaching out to catch his feelings. He was wary, distressed and conflicted. She had a hunch that it was because this was new territory for them. They were friends, they discussed assassination plots, but they never discussed politics. Ever.
“I know you think that these political maneuvers are best kept secret but I’m in the middle of them. I have been since we met three months ago and since I’ve thwarted not two, but three attempts on your life.”
“You could at least tell me what’s happening on your side,” she said with a hint of hurt in her voice. She tried to hide it, but he could feel it and that pushed him forward.
Quietly, he said, “The treaty is at an impasse. The ambassador is adamant that we end the killings in the forest.”
“Have there been more killings of kith in the Ameles Forest since we last spoke?”
“As far as we can tell, no. Just a few isolated incidents and some dead patches in the forests. Nothing that warrants huge concern. Kinsight will be leaving within a week to take care of that.”
“His journey has been pushed back?”
“Protocol in the way again,” he murmured. “Plus, the courtiers don’t want a big fuss.”
“And yet the ambassador is concerned.”
“And yet.” A grim air hung between them.
Ciardis sat back with her arms folded across her chest. She wasn’t convinced. Not at all.
Prince Sebastian didn’t look so sure himself.
A few minutes later, he stirred. “It’s getting late.”
“I should be getting back.”
He escorted her back to the Imperial nursery under the cover of darkness, and Ciardis slipped back up into her room without a further word.
Chapter 18
A week later, Ciardis and Maree Amber were continuing their one-on-one lessons in the head of the Companions’ Guild’s office. This time they were working on magical interference. Maree Amber wanted Ciardis to interrupt another mage’s magic. After two hours of non-stop tutoring, Ciardis was ready to tear her hair out.
She was rubbish at it. Every time she tried to stop Maree Amber from reaching out with her magic, she only succeeded in enhancing her powers. And the lady didn’t let up with her magical onslaught. So far, Ciardis’s chair had been pushed over, books had been thrown in her face, her cloak had been ripped, and she swore her hair had turned green at one point.
She was tired, frustrated, and it was chaotic.
“We’re not through Miss Weathervane.”
Ciardis turned miserable eyes on her. Her eyes felt bloodshot and she was pale with exertion. Ciardis gripped the seat cushion on either side of her body to keep from doing something she’d regret. Like lurching up and stomping out of Maree Amber’s office.
Maree Amber sighed and stared at the girl in front of her. Ciardis’s bottom lip stuck out like a petulant child’s while she sat staring at her knees with her hands gripping the couch beneath with her a ferocity that said there might be half-moon shaped puncture holes when she got up.
“Normally I would not keep pushing a trainee like this Ciardis,” she said with kindness in her voice, “But you must learn this as a basic defense technique. If you can interrupt my flow of power you can interrupt another’s. It’s useful in many scenarios...”
“And stopping mages if they’re in the act of doing something bad,” said Ciardis repeating the lesson extoled at her for the past two hours, “Yes, I know. But knowing it is a useful tactic doesn’t make it any easier for me to produce what you’re asking for.”
“Very well,” said Maree Amber while narrowing her eyes and standing up.
“Perhaps we’re going about this the wrong way,” she said while walking around her desk with a pursed mouth.
Ciardis cocked her head and stared at her with a wary look in her eyes, “And what other way would there be?”
“Using your talents in the ways that you know best Miss Weathervane. Stand up please.”
Ciardis stood and faced the petite head of the Companions’ Guild.
“Now here is what I wish from you. I want you to enhance my powers. Keep pushing them until I say for you to stop.”
Ciardis nodded. She was tired but this would be easy. She’d learned that pushing another’s power wasn’t difficult. It was the holding back part that was hard.
Standing in front of her teacher she felt for Maree Amber’s power. She saw the solid mage core sitting in her mind sedately.
“I’m not going to do anything Ciardis. I won’t use my power. The point is that I want you to push me even though I am not doing anything.” Ciardis listened to her with half her mind as she watched the woman’s core in her mind’s eye. She began to poke and prod it with her power. When she touched the core, flare-ups would occur. Maree Amber’s magic would react to her own and draw out from the core a little bit and snap back when Ciardis pulled her magic too far away from its orbit.
After a few minutes Ciardis was con
fident she knew how to accomplish this task. She grabbed at Maree Amber’s core and then pushed a chain of her magic in the center. With a direct link she began to enhance Maree Amber’s power.
As she enhanced she waited for something to happen. For Maree Amber’s magic to react and her powers to manifest. Wasn’t that the way it worked? The other mages she had enhanced had certainly done so. When she had tapped that mind mage at court in order to expose the assassin sent by the Duke of Cinnis, his telepathic powers had extended far beyond his usual limits. Ciardis’s push had allowed him to read the minds of many of the courtiers present and relay the information about the assassination plans, as well as the affair between the Duke and the woman, to the correct authorities.
She grimaced remembering that. All mind mages had telepathic partners who received any of the messages they sent. Regardless of the content. And all messages were written down in court records. She hadn’t know about the Duke of Cinnis’s liaison until it was too late. But she was glad she had caught onto his assassination plans.
As she kept enhancing Maree Amber’s powers, Maree Amber seemed to be growing uncomfortable. She was still standing tall but her face was strained with lips tightened and her eyes wide in pain until finally Maree Amber slapped her palm on her desk to their right and shouted, “Enough.”
Ciardis stopped. Stumbling back Maree Amber put her back to the desk with both hands holding her up. She closed her eyes briefly and licked her lips, “Do you know what just happened Miss Weathervane?”
Ciardis shook her head. “No.”
“You almost killed me.”
