by Terah Edun
“A war I don’t want,” Sebastian said carefully. “But I am done, we are done, with being seen as a second-rate empire. We are the equals to dragonkind, and you can relay those words verbatim to your Queen.”
To Ciardis’s surprise, and perhaps to everyone else’s, Raisa didn’t get angrier. Instead, a proud smile lit on her face a moment before she ducked into a deep bow.
35
“As you request, so it will be done,” the dragon said from her lowered presence near the floor.
Ciardis wasn’t sure who was more surprised at Raisa’s ultimate reaction—herself or Sebastian.
She broke Sebastian’s unwritten protocol on mind-to-mind contact because of it. She was too excited not to.
Did you hear that! Ciardis fairly shouted into his mind.
I did, he replied softly.
His face was a mask of composure with no hint of his emotions except for the slightest crease of his eyes. She knew him well enough to know she could have guessed what he was thinking based on just the simple movement of his eyes, but she didn’t have to. Guess, that is.
Ciardis already knew he was happy, relieved, and flummoxed all at once. She could tell because for that brief moment, mentally he had let his guard down and let her in.
She was feeling the same emotions, and for once their eyes met in complete accordance.
Of course, Ciardis was careful to keep her visible composure with her arms folded in front of her and a serious, if delighted, expression on her face. She even stood at a polite distance until the negotiations, such as they were, concluded. Even though all she wanted to do was just come over and hug someone. Dragon or human, it didn’t really matter. Serious protocol dictated that she couldn’t, and she’d already broken one rule moments before, after all. So she didn’t do what she most wanted to do, but she couldn’t help the large grin that briefly flashed across her face.
This decision even makes up for Raisa’s barbecuing of Cedric in my chamber entrance, Ciardis thought in delight. May the gods have mercy on his soul.
Ciardis felt bad about that incident, but not bad enough not to take joy in a clearly desirous political outcome. Sometimes you just had to separate the personal from the professional, and in this situation—the death of her serving man, no matter how delightful he was—definitely was a personal loss in her life. Besides, if she could survive all of her true friends’ deaths, she could survive his.
So Ciardis Weathervane stood proud and beamed over at the young man who had just made and properly instituted his first cross-border court edict. She had been living at court for two years, but it’d take a lot longer than that to learn to control her facial features perfectly and mask her emotions entirely.
In the back of her mind, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be so calculating, to be like the Duchess of Carne who could flick her expressions on and off at will.
Speaking of her, Ciardis mused, glad for once that her thoughts had taken her to a formerly unsavory topic, I wonder how our dear duchess is enjoying the underhell?
Ciardis didn’t feel the least bit of guilt about her turn of thoughts, either. The woman had killed her husband and tried to kill Ciardis—or at least kidnap her—multiple times with varying levels of success. She was a former stressor that Ciardis Weathervane did not need boomeranging back into her life.
Sebastian’s voice whipped her out of her reverie.
“Your willingness to negotiate is a boon to your Queens, madam,” he said.
Raisa rose and said diplomatically, “Kind of you to say, but we shall see just how receptive my Queens are to this proposal when I bring them the news.”
Sebastian nodded. “Understandable. I’m grateful you at least have given your seal of approval and that your rulers are equally…”
He paused, apparently to think of an appropriate descriptor for the reaction of Raisa’s Queens.
Ciardis couldn’t help it. She said with hopeful eagerness, “Joyous, perhaps?”
Raisa deigned to slide a glance over to her in amusement. “Let’s just say, I hope they don’t bite through my neck.”
Ciardis paled and immediately protested, “If you’ll be in danger, you mustn’t go back!”
“And how will that serve your cause, sarin?” Raisa said with a sigh of disappointment.
Too late, Ciardis noticed that Sebastian was shaking his head furiously at her suggestion and Thanar was practically doubled over in laughter.
Ciardis paused. Not flummoxed; she just hadn’t thought about how it would reflect on herself. Her only concern at that moment had been for the dragon she tentatively called a friend and most certainly considered an ally.
Raisa continued, “Let me help you. It won’t. At all. You need me to return to my own courts to plead your case. Besides which, Sahalia is my home. Even if I had a moment’s dread upon the thought of returning, my overwhelming need to be in the land of my birth, to breathe its air, to hear the calls of its wildlife, and be amongst my own kind would keep me going forward toward my destination.”
“Of, of course,” Ciardis managed to stammer. “I meant no offense.”
Raisa studied her calmly and then shrugged in clear amusement. “I thank you for the offer of haven in exile, Empress-to-be, but I must decline.”
An audible thank the gods issued from Sebastian’s direction and Ciardis twitched in guilt. She’d only meant to extend the invitation in solidarity. Not make it an official extension of welcome from one court to another court’s ambassador. If you wanted war, well, that was one of the easiest ways to get it!
To Sebastian, Raisa said, “I’d be careful to school your future wife on diplomatic protocols, especially extensions of safe havens, before she gets you involved in something even the three of you can’t worm your way out of it.”
“Of course,” said Sebastian in a weak voice.
“Good,” Raisa said and gave a perfunctory nod. “Then, Sebastian Athanos Algardis, I wish you fare tidings, because I do believe we may have found a worthy heir in your line yet.”
Sebastian straightened from the slightly hunched posture to his tallest height with his head held high. With stiff movements, he shook the ambassador’s hand while extending his other that clutched the signed treaty gleaming with fresh ink.
The ambassador bared her pointy teeth in a smile and took the document from his hand—or at least Raisa tried to.
Sebastian’s face seemed frozen in a rictus of surprise, of relief, and of trepidation.
But that wasn’t what stopped Raisa. Just as his face was stiff, so were his hands. The left fingers seemed almost incapable of releasing their grip on the fragile piece of vellum that marked the first treaty of his very short reign.
Maybe he needs a little help, Ciardis thought nervously. Or a firm push.
Whichever the case, Ciardis was here to deliver him, so she gingerly walked over and took Sebastian’s outstretched hand.
Squeezing gently, she urged him to release the decree he had worked so hard to get the Ambassador of Sahalia to agree to.
As Ciardis stepped back, he did so as well with an embarrassed blink.
Dragon and man stared at each other silently for a moment.
Raisa’s face was contemplative.
Sebastian’s face wasn’t sick with worry as Ciardis had first expected.
Instead, she saw calculations upon calculations flickering through his eyes. Too fast for her to guess at what he was thinking.
She was tempted to delve into his thoughts to find out. But then Raisa tucked the document into her vest and the spell, or whatever it was, was broken.
Sebastian blinked and the ambassador spoke.
“If that’s all,” Raisa said carefully, “Thanar and I can review the palace defenses and then I’ll take my leave.”
“Now wait just a minute!” shouted Ciardis Weathervane.
They all turned to look at her, some clearly surprised at the vehemence in her words.
She didn’t care.
Ciardis launched
into a tirade that only another fed-up woman could understand.
“I’ve listened to you lot scheme, negotiate, and threaten this entire morning long,” Ciardis said as she cried. “But you all barged in here this morning for a singular reason. A reason you all seem to have forgotten.”
She ended her tirade with hands on her hips, eyes wide, staring at them with fury.
Helpfully, Thanar said, “Did we forget to remake the bed?”
The hint of amused scorn in his voice almost undid her. Her eye twitched and she struggled not to ball her hands into fists.
“Don’t tempt me, Thanar,” she said flatly. “I’m not in the mood to strangle you today—one dead person is enough.”
Thanar snorted. “You’re not tall enough to reach my throat.”
Sebastian stepped between Thanar and Ciardis before she could follow through with the rapidly devolving thoughts in her head, which started with slamming Thanar with a gust of wind and ended with frying him with lightning in midair.
“Of course, yes,” the prince heir soothed while eyeing the dragon ambassador cautiously.
Because after all, Sebastian could agree all he wanted, but Raisa had been the one who had professed knowledge of the initial problem in the first place.
The dragon grumbled, “I’ve been trying to do so for the last half hour.”
Thanar rolled his neck and it cricked as he snapped it.
“Then please, Madam Ambassador,” Thanar said in a congenial tone with a hint of hard darkness, “get on with it.”
Raisa pointedly ignored him and walked back to the object that had started this whole mess.
She placed a clawed hand on the still-whole mirror and carefully splayed her fingertips across it, then slammed her palm flat so fast that Ciardis saw the glass shatter over her hand before her ears could register the sound of the same crushed glass.
They watched as the dragon called up her magic swiftly, and the room felt as if the air had been sucked from it.
Then it was over. So quickly that Ciardis didn’t have the time or the know-how to call upon her own magic and spy for herself to see what Raisa had done.
As she eyed Thanar nervously, wondering if he at least had understood the dragon’s machinations, she saw satisfaction gleam in his eyes and an approving smile.
Which for now would have to be enough for her.
Ciardis knew that Thanar didn’t want her dead by enemy hands any more than he wanted someone to have the ability to spy on her. Other than himself, that was.
So he would make sure Raisa’s magic had sealed this hole into the palace interior. At least for now.
As Raisa turned, she loudly proclaimed, “It’s done. I’m done with free services for you lot. Now get out of my way.”
As Prince Heir Sebastian hastily stepped aside, diplomatic courtesies aside, Raisa left the same way she’d entered.
Ciardis had to grin. That was what she loved about the ambassador. She knew when to throw away protocols when it served her. In this case, when she was tired of acting as a de facto mage protector of an empire she didn’t even serve.
Aloud, Prince Heir Sebastian said as Raisa left the room, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that was almost too easy.”
Thanar chuckled and clasped Sebastian’s shoulder almost companionably as he, too, walked past.
Sebastian winced slightly as Thanar did so, which made her think the friendly back pat was more of a shove than anything else. But neither said anything else about it, so she didn’t broach the subject.
Meanwhile, Thanar said, “You’ve been getting more and more indoctrinated to your court life, Prince Heir. You see suspicious activity around every corner.”
Sebastian half turned and shouted over his shoulder in a congenial manner, “Shouldn’t I?”
“Oh, you’ll need to, without a doubt,” Thanar opined. “That is, if you want to survive your first ten years as Emperor of these courts.”
Sebastian snorted. “I’m hoping to survive just the first year, thanks.”
Then Thanar turned around fully and so did Sebastian. They exchanged nods. Nods of familiarity. Nods of acceptance. Acceptance of what, she had not a blighted clue. But she’d gladly take camraderie over death matches any day of the week.
It made her life much easier. At least for now, so Ciardis just watched them with amused eyes.
My, they’re both in good moods, she thought.
Which surprised her, and probably anyone else if they could have seen the two of them practically try to kill each other less than an hour before.
“Males,” she muttered in minor disgust. They were either fighting or completely enamored of each other. Sometimes both at once.
She just couldn’t figure out why.
Without so much as a by your leave, Thanar walked to the door and exited.
Ciardis looked at Sebastian.
Sebastian looked around the room and then back at her with an almost sheepish grin. “Looks like the threat is over.”
“Looks like,” Ciardis said calmly as she, too, looked at the room that was seemingly undisturbed.
The murdith were gone as if they had never existed.
The cracks in the mirror, too, had disappeared, almost as if they were all mirages and now they had returned to real life.
When she looked back to Sebastian, he gave a short and perfunctory bow. “I’ll take my leave, then, madam.”
As he stood and turned swiftly on his heel, Ciardis raised a forlorn hand.
In a small voice, she said, “Sebastian?”
He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow, a face clearly half a world away as he probably thought about court problems and his impending rule.
“Ciardis?” he asked with some impatience.
She shook her head swiftly and dropped her hand back to her side. “Never mind, I guess…I guess we have work to get to.”
A thoughtful expression crossed his face, but all he said was, “I guess so.”
An uncomfortable silence descended until Sebastian finally began to walk back out of the room again.
As he shut her bedroom door behind him and stepped into the antechamber she followed to hear him say, “Don’t forget we need to meet with Raisa within two days. Before we enact the ley lines. She has to take possession of the Kasten ship and clear out before—”
“A god drops down on our heads and kills us all?” Ciardis asked dryly.
Sebastian said, “I was going to say before her courts get too anxious, but that works just as well.”
“Right,” Ciardis said with a heavy sigh. “Right, diplomacy, another facet of being a ruler that I know nothing about.”
“It takes time to learn to juggle all the responsibilities,” Sebastian said in commiseration.
“Time we don’t have,” Ciardis said directly. Her eyes focused on him, but her thoughts were far away.
“Right,” Sebastian said as his voice, too, took on a darker tone.
He left the room, and Ciardis was alone once more with her somber thoughts. Turning back she walked into the bedroom to grab a few things that had fallen off the nightstand. As she did so she called out for someone, anyone to help her with the mess.
Remembering the only servant who had given her his name in the last week, she shouted, “Cedric, please, I’m in need of your help!”
And then she remembered, and it was just the perfect bit of irony to top off the start to her day.
So Ciardis groaned and flopped back on her bed. It wasn’t just that she’d forgotten about why he was absent. She had completely blanked on the fact he was also currently a dead, charred body in her foyer.
Now she couldn’t get it and the smell of roasted flesh out of her head.
“What a morning,” she muttered as she flopped an arm over her eyes and desperately tried to rest.
A cause long lost to the events of the morning, and she well knew it.
But no one ever claimed Ciardis Weathervane wasn’t as stubborn as a mule,
and she wanted some sleep, darn it.
Preferably with dreams that erased the entire morning.
And kisses. Lots of them.
So she rolled over and dreamed of just that. Morning be damned.
Dead body rotting in her foyer be damned.
36
Ciardis Weathervane woke from a restless and tumultuous sleep less than an hour later. She’d bet her life on the length of her naptime, because she was still grumpy as a devil’s hog when she sat up, hair wild and nose sniffing the air like said hog looking for truffles in the underbrush.
But instead of the sweet smell of ripened fungi ready to rip from the earth and devour, she had charred flesh with a hint of smoke in the air.
Ciardis gave a high-pitched moan as she flopped back into her bed, wishing she was anywhere but where she was at the moment. Which was inside her imperial palace chambers, lying on silken sheets, with a still-dead body apparently still in her foyer.
Deciding there was nothing to be done but face the day head-on, she swung her feet out of bed and went to see what she could do about getting a corpse removed. Preferably out of her smelling range.
Once she’d assured the servants that the dragon creature was gone and it was moderately safe to enter her chamber— and of course they could avail themselves of some of her forgotten breakfast while they were there—she went in search of the prince heir she had decided needed to be crowned Emperor.
Today.
Because Ciardis may not have gotten much rest, but the little she did receive made her quite certain several things needed to be accomplished in a short amount of time. And a rather startling amount of those needed accomplishments actually were dependent on access to a certain imperial bloodline’s powers.
That left one person in the entire empire with the background they needed to access the Landwight, awaken the dormant land, and possibly rearm certain long-forgotten defenses to give Amani the fight of her life.
“Sebastian Athanos Algardis,” Ciardis said with a frustrated sigh. It wasn’t a tone one wanted to use when speaking of one’s future husband, but there were only so many tasks Ciardis could get done in the day. If someone had told her a year or more ago that one of them would be convincing a stubborn young man that he needed to take the throne immediately—forget the coronation and proper protocols—she would have laughed in their faces.
