“If waiting was a wise course then, why is it not now?” asked Waldrin.
“Because,” said Garen. “Mistress Heldi was right that we were weak when I proposed to attack the Clans. We lacked the proper knowledge of what motivated them, of their power, and our own. We know they are here for an invasion, we know they are being aided by Master Jorga, we know they will probably strike at Tia Vashil next. None of their agents made it back alive. We have also managed to contain the news of the attacks—outside of this room and the scions of the Five Noble Families, few know if Ked vai Ullan will even live, or whether Princess Fione was harmed, or the extend of Waldrin’s wounds. Olene and Jorga will have no idea if their attempts to kill our leadership failed or succeeded for at least a few weeks. Coulain is much closer to Tia Vashil than Tia Vashil is to Tia Joi. We can catch them off guard by marching as soon as possible.”
“I would look very favorably on any attempt by the Guild to liberate my home,” said Princess Fione.
“As would I,” said Tudron. He looked at Heldi. “No matter how late it comes.”
“We should call it to a vote,” said Margase.
“There is no need,” said Waldrin. “I will invoke the Chair’s veto if such a measure is passed. The danger is too great. The Dragon Clans have shown they are able to penetrate the Guild itself and strike at our very heart. We must wait for them to make a mistake.”
“There,” said Margase. She gave Heldi a satisfied smile. “How now, Mistress Heldi? Will you invoke the Favor of the Council’s Body? I doubt you will find me very receptive.”
Heldi stared at Margase for a long moment, and Kiera shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Their eyes were not friendly, and she’d heard stories about what happened when Sorcerers fought.
Heldi was the first to look away, her gaze falling to Garen’s face. The black-haired Sorcerer nodded at her, then reached out and took her hand in his. She patted his hand and then let him go, composing herself at the table.
“I am no longer of the mind that Master Waldrin is fit to hold his position. He is hasty when he should be cautious, he is cautious when he should be hasty. He was a fine leader for peace, but his is ill-suited for war. Therefore, I call for a vote of no confidence.”
“Second,” said Garen, immediately.
“I’ll tear your treacherous little limbs off and feed them to Kili myself,” shouted Margase. “How dare you?! Waldrin has been wounded fighting the enemies of this Guild. He has served as Guild Chair for over a decade with an unimpeachable record!”
“We have two votes of no confidence,” said Waldrin. His voice was distant, sad, and Kiera’s heart went out to him, even if she didn’t agree with his obstinance. Given how easily Pol had undone the Clans in Tia Joi, it seemed like the combined might of the Guild would throw the Clans back just as they had every time before. Could Waldrin not see that?
“Well, I vote in opposition! I would not reward a lifetime of loyalty with scorn!” Margase announced.
“As much as it pains me to agree with Mistress Heldi,” said Tudron, “I must do so now. We need to strike now, not just to defeat the Clans, not just to free Tia Joi, but to show we are without equal, that all citizens can rely on our aid. I vote no confidence as well.”
Waldrin’s furry eyebrows raised and his mustaches sank as he grimaced, in more pain than just his wounds.
“Bollu, Carista, what are your votes?” asked Waldrin.
There was silence. The two masters looked across the table at each other, each willing the other to talk first. Finally, Carista sighed.
“I am sorry, Waldrin. If the Master of War and the Master of Spies are agreed in this, I have a hard time developing a reason to oppose them.”
Waldrin nodded.
“Bollu?” he asked.
“The votes are there already, Waldrin. Better for us all if I don’t say.”
“Please, Bollu. I must know.”
Bollu didn’t look at Waldrin, staring instead at his hands resting on the table in front of him.
“I vote no confidence.”
Silence filled the room, Waldrin’s shoulders slumped in his chair, like a puppet with cut strings.
“Master Garen,” he said. “Recall all our members to the Guild Rock.”
“What happens now?” whispered Fione to Kiera.
“Everyone has to come back,” said Kiera. “They have to hold an election. Every member of the Guild will have a week to return, then everyone in the Rock must vote.”
The door opened and a Sorcerer entered. The gathering stared at him curiously as he made his way to Waldrin, whispering in the old man’s ear. Waldrin patted him on the arm, then pointed to Garen. The Sorcerer crossed around the table and whispered in Garen’s ear. The Master of Spies’s face inscrutable.
“Mistress Heldi, Lady Kiera, please accompany me to the front courtyard,” said Garen, rising from his chair. “We have a visitor.”
* * * * *
“Any moment now,” Pol said to Rouran. The small band of villagers that had followed him to Tia Vashil milled around in the courtyard. It was mostly women and children, the rest refusing to budge, despite a master class from both Rouran and Pol in pleading, begging, cajoling, and finally ordering them about.
“Your lady knight will arrive and shower you with kisses?” asked Rouran.
“My lady knight’s not the type to shower anyone with kisses,” said Pol. He looked up at the Sorcerer blocking the door to the Guild Rock.
“I don’t know why you won’t just let us go up to the Council’s chambers,” he said.
“Council’s in session,” said the Sorcerer, his voice gruff.
“So?”
“So we’ve had a bit of trouble recently with folks claiming to be friendly when they aren't, and we won’t risk the Council’s safety.”
“The Guard let us through,” said Pol.
The Sorcerer appeared to weigh this for a moment, only to find it lacking.
“Aye, but the Guard is the Exarch’s domain. Exarch’s got an open door for those fleeing the war. Nearly cost him his life,” said the Sorcerer. “And his daughter’s at that.”
“What?” asked Pol. “What happened to Kiera?”
The Sorcerer raised his eyebrows.
“Lady Kiera vai Ullan was wounded by a Dragon Clan assassin, as was her father, and Chair Waldrin.”
“Where is she?” asked Pol. “Is she okay?”
“In the Rock. It’s none of your concern, Acolyte.”
“Let me inside this instant!” said Pol.
“No. I’ve got my orders.”
“Stuff your orders, you Kili-fathered imbecile!” shouted Pol.
“Pol, maybe we should just wait...” said Rouran, pulling on his sleeve. Pol ripped his arm away.
“Listen to the woman, Acolyte,” said the Sorcerer.
“If you don’t let me inside right now, I’ll have you face down, eating mud,” said Pol.
“I’d like to see you try, you jumped-up little shit,” said the Sorcerer. “When I joined the Guild, thieves like you used to hang from lampposts in the streets. Can’t rightly figure why folks stopped doing that.”
“Kili take your eyes!” shouted Pol, spitting on the Sorcerer’s boots. The other man raised his fists.
“I won’t even need a spell to knock you over,” he taunted Pol.
“What in the world is going on here?” asked Garen. In the heat of their arguing, neither of Pol nor his antagonist had noticed the door to the keep open.
“Acolyte Pol here started it. He was trying to gain unauthorized access!” the Sorcerer tattled, pointing at Pol.
“So you thought you’d fight him?” asked Garen. “Rather than just raising a shielding spell?”
“I...um...he was very insistent. Called me an imbecile.”
“A Kili-fathered imbecile,” corrected Pol.
“Pol, learn to keep your mouth shut,” said Garen. “Yurian, do tell why you thought name calling ought to be followed by fists.”<
br />
“I lost my head, Master Garen.”
“Inside with you. We’ll deal with these people ourselves,” said Garen.
“Indeed,” said Heldi, the diminutive Sorcerer appearing out of the doorway, her wrath plain on her face as she approached Pol.
“You defied my orders, Acolyte Pol!”
“I’m sorry, Mistress Heldi,” he said, hanging his head. “I couldn’t let Kiera go to Tia Joi without me.”
Heldi smiled, her face softening. She reached up a hand to stroke his cheek, then raised onto her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips.
“I know,” she said. “I’m very glad you made it back alive. And with friends.”
“They fled their village when the Clans came.”
There was a cough, and Pol looked up to see Kiera standing behind Heldi. He didn’t know why he’d been expecting her to come flying into his arms, but he did know he was vastly mistaken.
“It’s good to see you,” he said into the silence.
“You too. I thought you were dead,” she said.
“I thought I was too for a bit. What happened to your hand?”
“A Dragon Clan assassin tried to kill my father.”
“They said. Is he okay?”
“As much as a man with multiple stab wounds can be.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, let’s just say that things didn’t exactly get better after I left you on the River Gate.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Only up from here.”
Kiera smiled at him, a wan grin at first, but when Pol looked into her eyes, there was a spark there, a spark of the Kiera he’d ridden on the trail with, a suggestion of her joy at seeing him, hidden among the green jungle of her irises.
“We should make arrangements for these people to be housed somewhere in the city,” said Heldi to Garen. “And Acolyte Pol should come with us. We have much to talk with him about.”
Kiera clucked at her.
“These people are refugees. That means they’re under authority of the city government, not the Guild. They will be guests of the Exarch at the vai Ullan estate until we can find them permanent housing and employment as citizens of Tia Vashil. Acolyte Pol will assist me in getting them settled and fed, and he will return to the Rock in the morning.”
“But, the election—” tried Heldi.
“Guild politics can wait while we deal with people displaced by war, don’t you think?” asked Kiera, her eyebrow arched.
Heldi considered for a moment, then glanced at Pol and back to Kiera. She smiled.
“As you wish, Lady Kiera,” she said, nodding her head in deference. “The Guild will always respect the Exarch’s authority. I leave you to it.”
“Wow, I’ve never seen someone browbeat Heldi,” said Pol, as Kiera watched the Sorcerer march back into the Rock.
“Who says she did?” asked Garen. “Lady Kiera, should I assign staff from the Guild to help these people with their belongings to your home?”
“We’d be grateful for it, Master Garen.”
* * * * *
Kiera padded down the hall in bare feet, keys jangling in the pocket of her gown, careful to shield the flame of her candle with the unbandaged hand, lest she incinerate herself. Or, worse, give herself away. The wing for guests was located on the opposite side of the vai Ullan estate from the family’s living quarters, so she had a long way to go to Pol’s room.
And the nightgown she was in was very sheer.
And she wasn’t wearing any other clothing.
She turned a corner, went down one flight of stairs, up another, and into a new corridor. There were too many rooms here, she thought. It had been built to entertain visiting heads of state and their retinues, back when some earlier vai Ullan Exarch had had fantasies of displacing the Guild as the supreme authority in Tia Vashil. It had never materialized, although for a while the size of the family itself had nearly expanded to fill the space. Now it was just Kiera’s family of four.
And the Sorcerer sleeping in one of the guest rooms.
And also half a very small village. Her father had only sort of approved. He’d been more receptive after meeting with Pol’s friend Rouran, a rather comely widow, Kiera had thought. Rouran had also managed to sit through her father’s constant deviations into history with something that, if it wasn’t pure fascination itself, was so remarkably similar as to be indistinguishable. She’d proved an excellent spokesperson for the refugees.
Kiera pushed a door and entered into the antechamber of Pol’s room. The bedroom was off to the side, and when Kiera tested the door, it was locked. She took the heavy iron keys out of her pocket, then placed the master in the lock and turned, watching as the door yielded as the mechanism did.
She stepped into Pol’s room, turning and locking the door behind her, then lifting the candle above her head.
Pol was sprawled out on the bed, most of the bedclothes pushed down to the foot of the bed, save for a single sheet that ran halfway up his torso. His hair still short and uneven from the improvised haircut she’d given him before they’d gone into Tia Joi. She admired his sharp jaw, the crooked nose, and the eyelids that fluttered and resolved themselves into pools of grey as his eyes opened.
“Kiera?” he asked, rolling onto his back. Except for the sheet, he was nude, she noticed, watching as the fabric descended, revealing the top of his hips.
“Did I wake you?” she asked.
“Well... yeah,” he said, as though this were obvious. He propped himself up on an elbow and shielded his eyes with one hand from the candlelight.
Kiera put the candle on a table to her side, then faced Pol. Her gown dropped, pooling around her feet.
“Should I go?”
Pol’s gaze roamed her body, traveling from her breasts down to the meeting of her thighs, a spray of hair covering the top of her pubic mound, clipped down from the heartier bush it had been, which had been quite tricky with one hand. She smiled as his eyes made their way back up her body to find hers.
“No,” he said, smiling back at her.
He flung his sheets from him, and Kiera drank in his nude form, his already stiff cock lying on his stomach, almost up to his navel. She kneeled onto the bed, then crawled slowly up his body, letting her breasts drift across his skin, her nipples hardening from the touch. His cock was a warm rod pressing between them, making her want to stop and play with him further, but she continued on until her face was level with his.
“I missed you,” she said.
Pol reached up and kissed her, wrapping his arms around her body, hugging her tight as their lips tussled, his cock pressing into her belly, her breasts pushing against his chest. Her tongue explored his mouth, her uninjured hand stroked his jaw. Their lips parted, but only after Kiera had grudgingly tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth.
“I thought you had, but I couldn’t be sure this afternoon.”
“I’m the Exarch’s daughter, Pol. I can’t be throwing myself at every backwater thief-turned-Sorcerer that comes along. What would people say?”
“Meet a lot of them, do you?”
“So many. Aren’t you going to say it?”
“Say what?”
Kiera didn’t say anything, but she caught his nipple in her fingers and pinched.
“Ow! Okay, I missed you too,” he said. “But I thought you’d be in bed with Tau.”
“I made you a promise on the bridge in Tia Joi.”
“Is that all this is? Fulfilling a promise?” asked Pol. He kissed her neck, his tongue tracing the muscles at the cleft of her collarbone.
“No,” she gasped. “You know it’s not.”
“I do,” he said. One of his hands was in her hair, stroking down the back of her head and neck, the other on her back, pushing down her spine towards her buttocks.
“I love you, Kiera.”
“I love you, too, Pol.”
He kissed her again, long and deep, and she twined her legs along his, just enjoying
the warm sensation of his skin against hers, their hands pressing along each others’ bodies.
When their kiss ended, she rose up onto her knees, staring down at him.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about it,” she said. Her hips started to rock, sliding her pussy down the length of his cock. “I’ve still got to marry Tau. And you’re still a Sorcerer of the Guild.”
“Live forever, never marry,” said Pol, frowning. He groaned, enjoying the sensation as the lips of Kiera’s pussy, wet and getting wetter, kissed his shaft, coating him in her juices.
“Time for worries later,” he managed.
“Mhm,” agreed Kiera. She was grinding her clit against his cock now, small, quiet gasps escaping from her mouth every time she changed direction. Pol sat up a little in the bed, his cock angling to press firmer against her clit as she slid up his lap. He cupped the back of her head, kissing her neck again, running his tongue down it to explore the notch at the center of her collarbone, then kissing across her chest. Kiera thrust it out for him, rocking harder in his lap. Her dark brown nipples stood out, hard and long, as Pol nipped gently at her right breast before capturing the nub between his teeth. He sucked hard on it, his tongue lashing it back and forth in his mouth.
Kiera moaned, loud, all the care and concern she’d taken about getting to Pol’s room undiscovered forgotten. His other hand roved her back, cupping her ass before moving lower, so that when she slid all the way back down his cock, his fingers pressed against the moist folds between her legs, the tip of his middle finger pressing inside.
Pol released her right nipple and turned his attention to her left one, treating it in much the same way he had the first. She had her arms wrapped around his head, her elbows on his shoulders, her cheek resting against the top of his head. She rode back up his body, his finger slipping out of her, his cock slick, her pussy even wetter.
At the apex of her motion, she took her good hand and reached behind her, lifting his cock up slightly, so that when she sank back down, the big head pushed inside. She and Pol both moaned in unison, his brow knitting, her nipple, covered in his saliva, falling from his gaping mouth. She pushed back further, impaling her cunt with his thick cock, shaking as she did.
Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior Page 34
