by Terah Edun
To Ciardis’s approval but not surprise—not now, anyway—Sebastian didn’t cower. Instead he stood firm.
Two years ago. Even one, she thought silently, he would have turned tail and ran.
Responsibility, Golden Eyes, Thanar replied just as quietly. It changes us all.
Ciardis looked at Thanar out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t speak her thoughts, but it was on her mind. Sebastian wasn’t the only one who had changed over time. Not by a long shot.
Sebastian nodded thoughtfully. “Do you plan to tell us how to counteract this, or just lecture on?”
The dragon gave a sharp-toothed smile, then told them of a palace built on the ruins of what had been the original bay of Sandrin, before it had been filled in by the first Emperor’s children.
She spoke of a magical net. Unseen by most. Untraceable unless taught. But built not to target human mages. Instead, its sole purpose was to keep dragonkind from spying into the internal politics of the Algardis Empire.
Then she spoke of how it had been set up. Reinforced. Strengthened.
And now it was broken.
“But why?” Ciardis asked as they all absorbed the weight of Raisa’s words in the early-morning silence.
“Why what?” Sebastian asked.
“Why has the net failed so suddenly now?” Ciardis asked, keeping her gaze firmly focused on the ambassador.
“Because of the key,” Raisa said in a deceptively gentle voice.
“Because of me,” Thanar finally said.
Ciardis sent him a quizzical look. Then understanding hit her like a brick. Thanar had killed Maradian and apparently the repercussions from the action were reverberating throughout the land. Repercussions that hadn’t even occurred to them before now. Repercussions that were cutting the security of the empire of Algardis off at its knees before they’d even had a chance to secure Sebastian’s rule.
Not to mention right when we’re going head-to-head with a goddess who is ready to leave Algardis bloody and broken in her wake, Ciardis thought quietly.
But she also knew that the dragons wouldn’t care who else they were facing. They had to be able to take on the goddess’s army, the goddess herself, and shore up their defenses against dragons while they were at it. Just thinking about it was draining, and she wasn’t the only one who thought so, Ciardis noted as she watched and waited for the Emperor-to-be’s reaction to this new development.
Sebastian rubbed a weary hand over his face…and, Ciardis was startled to notice, over the beginnings of a stubbly beard.
“Okay,” Ciardis said slowly. “Now that we know what happened…how do we fix it?”
No one answered her. She wasn’t even sure they were paying attention; everyone looked shell-shocked. She wasn’t quite sure why, though. It was just one more thing that had gone wrong in a list of wrong things.
They would face this new peril as they had before—together.
“Yes,” Sebastian said slowly to the ambassador. “You’ve told us what has gone wrong. You’ve even explained the history behind it. But I’ve heard no solutions on what to do to patch this hole before it widens even more—if rebuilding the walls and wards within them won’t do it.”
Raisa looked at him. “There is only one solution I am aware of. You must ascend the throne. As soon as possible. Because I can see the holes in the wards’ fabric, but neither I nor any of your best mages can touch it without the ruler’s consent.”
“It’s a protection key,” Sebastian said flatly.
Raisa shrugged. “I’d call it more of a failsafe method. The ward is built to a key, and the key is you, or more specifically, the blood ruler of your line. But only that person can touch it.”
“And that person is me,” said Sebastian.
Raisa nodded. “Without those wards, it’s not just your secrets that flow from your palace as if it were a sieve for anyone with knowledge to tap. Particularly those of my kind—”
“Which poses the question,” said Thanar. “Why are you helping us?”
“Us?” muttered Sebastian disdainfully, throwing Thanar an annoyed look that the daemoni prince chose to ignore.
Classic Thanar. Ciardis had to wonder why Sebastian was bringing all this touchiness up now, though. He’d accepted the daemoni prince’s help just fine during multiple incidents in the past week alone.
You humans are an emotional lot who can’t tell your heads from your bums. One minute he’s come around, the next he’s seething with jealousy, Thanar grumbled to her.
Good on you for rising above, Ciardis said softly.
This time cold, empty silence was all she received in response from Thanar, and she had to wonder if he was rising above or merely lying in wait.
“I am helping,” said Raisa while nimbly avoiding the faux pas of addressing the subtext of the conversation between Sebastian and Thanar, “because my ruler has deemed it wise that your empire not disappear into the ocean too quickly.”
Thanar said, “I thought it took quite a few days for you to get information across the ocean. The waves disrupting magic and all that.”
Raisa gave the daemoni prince a grudging nod of acceptance. “That is true. But my orders stand from my original deployment from the dragon courts. I have a fair amount of leeway in those orders, and I do believe this is an extenuating circumstance. My Queen may not like me blocking what is effectively a perfect spy hole for our mages. But she would be extremely displeased if I let what I think will come through this gate just wander into your realm.”
Sebastian spoke. “Worse than your spy?”
“Far worse,” Raisa agreed. “The spy gate is what drew me here. It is a powerful one that we refer to as a Reis gate. I felt it near the sarin, and as much as I dislike her secrets possibly going public, it was more what this gate represented and what it plus others throughout your palace walls could be used to do.”
Thanar said, “Well, that’s all well and good. But perhaps we should get on with it, then?”“My coronation or the gate?” asked Sebastian with a finger against his lips and an amused glint in his eyes.
“Both,” said Thanar pointedly.
“Hold on a second,” said Ciardis with a hopeful look at the dragon. “Raisa?”
The ambassador raised an eyebrow and gave the Weathervane her full attention.
“What you said before,” Ciardis asked hesitantly. “About your Queen giving you leeway. Surely that extends beyond this single infraction?”
“Your point?” the dragon said with a hissing flick of her tongue.
“My point is perhaps you could help us battle the blutgott, then,” Ciardis said eagerly with a clap of her hands.
“No, like I told you before. Besides my ruler’s benevolence only goes so far,” Raisa said with a lizard-like blink. “We would never interfere in a war between a terrestrial and celestial body.”
Ciardis’s shoulders slumped. “Well, that’s not right.”
“I’d expect no less,” Sebastian said. “Convenient for your people to pick up the pieces of my lands, after we’ve been decimated fighting a goddess.”
Raisa tilted her head toward the bedroom door. “Aside from the fact you’re destroying your lands well enough on your own, Prince Heir, you would be quite surprised indeed at what we have in store for you.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Thanar muttered.
Raisa didn’t even blink as she continued, “Some might even say pleased.”
Sebastian scoffed as he said, “Milady, in the centuries our two empires have dealt with each other, when has the human side of the negotiators ever been happy about the outcome?”
Raisa smiled, her razor-sharp teeth on full display. “I believe you humans have a saying—‘there’s a first time for everything’?”
“We have another saying,” Ciardis said while eyeing the dragon skeptically.
All attention turned to the Weathervane.
“When pigs fly,” Ciardis continued. “Now can someone please explain what in
the world is a Reis gate?”
They all looked at her and then at each other with exasperation.
Too bad. They could get used to it.
29
The silence stretched for an almost uncomfortably long time. Then everyone spoke at once.
Thanar started in on “human mages,” and Sebastian began with “Well, it’s a—”
When Raisa overrode them all with, “You’d think—” Ciardis decided she’d had enough.
Before anyone else could say another word, she shouted them all down. “Enough!”
Looking around the room with a headache building into a throbbing pulse and her stomach getting around to demanding food, Ciardis Weathervane wasn’t in the mood to be scolded, chastised, or lectured.
She just wanted an answer, damn it. A simple one at that.
Ciardis held up a hand and took a deep breath before she said, “You all know we have less time than ever to get through this. We need to be heading to different corners of the empire, and our dear dragon guest needs to head across the seas to report to one of her Queens. So let’s stow the derision and get to the meat of the problem. What is this gate? And will a regular coronation do?”
Raisa looked at Ciardis with a hint of admiration in her lizard eyes.
At least, Ciardis thought it was admiration. It was really hard to read a face that had completely transformed into rigid, hardened lines overlaid by thick scales.
Sebastian spoke. “The Reis gate is like a mage gate. But…more ephemeral.”
“So it’s like a portal?” Ciardis asked slowly. “Like the kind that first took us into the Aether Realm when we met?”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. She could actually see him trying to recall the circumstances of their first encounter.
“Yes,” the prince heir finally agreed. “Like the residual object that acted as an anchor to the Aether Realm, this Reis gate has access to a realm beyond our own and beyond the Aether.”
“Which we don’t really need to discuss right now,” Thanar snottily interjected. “Or we will literally be here all day.”
“I don’t know,” said Sebastian in a doubtful tone. “It’s a pretty intense subject, and important for our courts. Knowledge of this realm isn’t well known to any but the highest-level mages, but an Emperor and his consort are two such magical practitioners, without necessarily the practical expertise, who should be conversant on the subject.”
Thanar didn’t say anything.
Sebastian finally looked away from Raisa with a frown and looked to the daemoni prince. “Don’t you think?”
Thanar gave a polite shrug of his winged shoulders to match the completely impolite words that came out of his mouth next. “Remember who you’re explaining it to? I repeat—we will be here all day.”
Ciardis’s shoulders stiffened as she demanded, “Are you calling me an imbecile, Thanar?”
The ambassador, for her part, wisely stayed out of the theatrics between Weathervane and bondmates.
“No,” said Thanar with a twitch of his lips. “I’m calling you obstinate, opinionated, and too damned curious for your own good. You wouldn’t want to know just the name of the damned layers. You’d want the mechanics.”
“And the reasoning behind its existence,” agreed Sebastian, crossing his arms and nodding along. “It would start with a subject on the metaphysical—”
“—and end in the territory of the theological,” finished Thanar.
“I’m not that bad!” Ciardis complained.
Both males turned to look at her with skeptical expressions.
Raisa interjected this time, “No, you’re worse.”
Ciardis opened her mouth, and Raisa waved a hand in haste. The clawed fingertips were still more a threat than they were placating, so Ciardis’s mouth shut. Her face jerked back instinctively before her mind could even follow through with the commands. It was her natural fight-or-flight instinct, and she would hate to see what type of being would stick around to fight a full-grown dragon mage. Even in her mid-transformation state, Raisa was formidable.
Perhaps especially so, Ciardis mused.
She didn’t know much about dragon physiology, but she highly doubted any human could claim to be an expert on such matters. Not only were the dragons as a species highly reclusive, they also expressly forbade human intrusion into their territories unless summoned. Or sponsored. As a “human servant serving a dragon master” kind of sponsored.
Neither sounded very appealing to a girl who liked to walk about unchained.
Raisa, meanwhile, ignored Ciardis pulling away and said, “Dear sarin, I will talk your ears off on this matter at another time. Suffice it to say, the gate means spies. Spies means trouble. Not as much trouble as a returning avenging goddess, but enough trouble that you don’t want to handle it just at this moment.”
Ciardis bit her lip anxiously. “Too many balls being juggled in the air at once, you mean?”
“Precisely,” said Sebastian quickly—probably relieved she hadn’t rushed straight to her favorite emotion for interacting with the two males in her life: frustration. Because after frustration came anger, and no one wanted to deal with an angry Weathervane. Ciardis didn’t often push into the realm of truly pissed off, but when she did, she was much more like Lillian Weathervane than she cared to admit.
Although that was neither here nor there in light of their current struggles.
Ciardis shrugged. It wasn’t worth the fight. Besides, she could play nice when the situation called for it. And this situation certainly did.
“So what now?” she asked, thoughtfully crossing her arms and looking at each of them briefly.
Raisa gave a very thin smile. She couldn’t quite close her lips over her dagger-like teeth, so it gave her a far more sinister appearance than she probably intended.
“Now,” the dragon said smoothly, “I finish what I came to do here in the first place, and the three of you get to work on a fast-paced coronation and the fight of your lives against a goddess of death and destruction.”
Sebastian nodded, then said reluctantly, “You have my, our, sincere thanks for warning us of this threat.”
Raisa twitched her head to the side and focused narrowed eyes on him as she suspiciously said, “But?”
Sebastian straightened his shoulders as he said in a voice just this side of tense, “But…perhaps, you can find it in your will to do us one more favor?”
Raisa said dryly, “I think you’ve run out of favors, Prince Heir. I’ve not only saved your palace from spies within my own people, but also helped you defeat your own blood.”
“Yes, well,” Sebastian said before clearing his throat. “I do appreciate that.”
“Of course he does,” echoed Thanar with almost spiteful glee.
Ciardis shot him a look that said, shut up!
Thanar didn’t even bother responding aloud to her upturned and irritated face as he said with delight, And miss the prince heir of the Algardis empire humbling himself before a dragon? Not a chance. I’d have to be alive another quarter of a millennium to see this up close and personal.
Ciardis fought the temptation to roll her eyes. She didn’t respond to his mental jest. Though she had to wonder, again, just how old Thanar was.
As Sebastian mumbled his way through his request, Raisa finally lost her patience.
“Out with it, human princeling!” she snapped. “My people may be famed for our immortality, but I assure you, we can die of boredom just like anyone else.”
Sebastian gave the ambassador a pained look but he spoke plainly. “Since you woke under the Emperor’s hold, I’ve known that your first duty is to your people. To warn your Queens of the existence of a Kasten ship.”
“Yes,” said Raisa simply.
“We are also aware of the significance of such a ship and the implications it will have upon negotiations between our realms,” Sebastian continued somberly.
Raisa watched him, her features immobile and unreadable.
Thanar, however, spoke dryly. “You mean the fact you meddling humans were banned from crafting any mage vessels that can cross the Sahalia Sea and reach the dragons’ empire without permission…and you ignored that specification to the treaty?”
Sebastian’s left eye twitched as he muttered, “You’re not helping.” Voice louder now, he continued, “Thanar is correct. We recognize the errors of our ways but wish to ask for the Queen’s leniency in this matter.”
Raisa gave a slow and controlled blink. One that said she had heard his request and she was pondering her response. Which was better than just a straight no in Ciardis’s eyes.
“I cannot promise my Queen’s willingness to be lenient on a matter as serious as this infraction, but I will do my best,” the dragon ambassador finally said.
Sebastian’s jaw tightened a bit but he responded in kind. “I understand.”
“Of course I am but a messenger,” Raisa said slowly. “A messenger who will take a week…perhaps more to fly across the seas. My wings are small, after all, and the magic to close this gate will be taxing.”
Ha! Thanar chortled in Ciardis’s mind. For an adept that’s like saying she’s only a “little” god. But it seems your favorable position as sarin, Golden Eyes, extends to those in your circle as well.
Ciardis forgot her little promise to herself to ignore Thanar’s jests and responded quickly, This is good, then.
This is great, amended Thanar. More time for you to do what needs to be done. At least now you won’t be facing a battlefront against three forces.
No, just two, said Ciardis wryly.
Thanar shrugged. Picky, picky.
Sebastian’s face eased into an almost-smile. “I am saddened at the cost of your exertions, but as always, the empire is grateful for your services.”
This time the dragon laughed. “You certainly have grown into a smooth tongue, princeling. I believe your predecessor called my ‘services’ interference.”
Sebastian didn’t hold back the broadness of his smile this time. “There are many differences between myself and my predecessor.”
