by B. T. Narro
“Perhaps not many are involved in the ambush,” Cedri said, her voice quiet with cautious hope. The poor woman had every right to be nervous.
Shara squeezed Cedri tightly and kissed her cheek. “You’re very brave.”
The petite psychic moved one hand around Shara’s back before stepping away. Neeko had come to realize that Cedri showed she cared in her own way. He had yet to see what it was, exactly, but he knew she thought of them as good friends. Well, he presumed so.
It was more of a hunch, actually.
She never explained why she’d chosen to go with them, to risk her life. Neeko dared not ask, too worried the conversation might change her mind.
“Is there anything we can do?” Shara asked to disrupt the silence.
“Just do your part, and I’ll do mine.”
Cedri seemed to be lingering, looking out to the southeast with a glower. Neeko tried to think of something encouraging, perhaps telling her that her sister would be proud. He shook his head at the thought. She would take it as patronizing even though it was the truth.
“If you see those men who beat you,” he said for lack of something better, “get out of there as quickly and quietly as you can.”
“Obviously.”
“If we don’t see you before we reach Sastien Village, we’ll wait there until you arrive.” Shara had told her the same thing ten times in the last few days.
“I know, Shara.” Cedri wouldn’t take her gaze off the eastern horizon, specifically the bluffs hiding Sastien Lake.
Shara shrugged at Neeko, silently saying they would wait with Cedri until she was ready.
“Sometimes I wonder what Steffen’s secret was,” she murmured, “and why he refused to tell me. Now I’ll never find out.”
“Won’t you come to Ovira with us when this is over?” Shara asked. “Then you can ask him.”
“When this is over…I don’t know what I’ll want.”
Shara showed Neeko a sympathetic frown. He didn’t see the harm, so he nodded and let her say it.
“Steffen was trying to fight off an attraction. That’s what he was keeping to himself.”
Cedri turned, glaring at Shara. “An attraction? To whom?”
“You!” Shara replied excitedly.
“How do you know?”
“He told us before he left. He didn’t want you to find out.”
Cedri’s gaze drifted around the grass, her expression blank. Then a smile broke her hard features and a laugh erupted from deep within her stomach. “He’s a fool and a strange, strange man.”
Shara and Neeko laughed with her.
It took some time for Cedri to stop laughing, the smile remaining on her face. She gave a sigh. “But I could see that working.”
What? Too dumbfounded to speak, neither he nor Shara got a chance to say anything else before Cedri hopped on her steed and rode off toward the setting sun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CEDRI
It was an upward ride all the way to Sastien Lake—three days with little food. Cedri had to keep enough for the trip back once she finished gathering information. She’d never learned to hunt and wouldn’t know how to prepare the carcass even if she caught something.
She’d lived at the castle, where every meal was provided, since she was fourteen. She figured most women by age seventeen knew less than she did about casting fireballs and battle formations, but they probably knew everything there was to know about cooking.
Her mother had wished to teach her, especially in the years after Callyn left for the army. But Cedri knew she would follow her sister, so why bother learning the role of a wife? She wasn’t against marriage, she just couldn’t imagine any man who would be worth leaving the army and her sister.
She wanted to learn magic, travel the world, and fight anyone who told her she couldn’t. She and Callyn had inherited that from their father—an adventurer’s blood coursing through his veins.
Of course, it got him and Callyn killed.
Cedri spent most of her three days trying to avoid this thought. But thoughts of Steffen, on the other hand, were a welcome distraction to her worries and hunger.
Like her mother and sister, Cedri knew herself to be a woman who didn’t forgive often or quickly. And like them, Cedri thought most people were too fickle. Shara, for example, could go from laughing to sulking like a child as the wind changed. But Steffen had a steady mentality that was easy to be around. It was his damn stubbornness at refusing to admit his secret that had bothered her.
As soon as she discovered his secret, she forgave him. Now she wished she could speak with him once more. He deserved an apology. While she’d treated him like an unwanted pet, he’d never grown angry or impatient. He even seemed to understand that his secret had caused her anger and distrust.
She didn’t quite grasp his desire to sleep in the nude, but she could tell he was genuine when he claimed it was purely out of comfort. Even in that regard, he was thoughtful, twisting the bottom blanket around himself so she wouldn’t accidentally see something.
She shook her head to chase thoughts of a naked Steffen from her overactive mind.
There was only one way to the lake without going around the shell of hills protecting it, and it was a narrow path through a few miles of forest. The grass was the color of sand, dry and crunching beneath her horse’s hooves. She placed her hand on the animal’s neck and sensed he was tired. But she was nearing her destination, and the sun would be lost soon behind the eastern hills.
A short time later, the trees fell away and the enormous lake appeared. It was as golden as a dalion. As Cedri glanced at the narrow pathway surrounding the lake, keeping the water from reaching what she was more inclined to call mountains than hills, it appeared there was no one else there.
Am I too late? She dismounted, climbed on some rocks, and looked out in each direction. Smoke wafted into the air a mile northeast. She swung back up into her saddle, swallowed a gulp of fear clawing at her throat, and rode toward it.
She forced herself to be confident, remembering the same face she’d put on the first time she’d arrived at the castle as a new recruit at just fourteen. Three years had passed since then, and she was infinitely stronger. She could handle whatever came her way.
Cedri jumped down and brought her horse around the last line of trees. She froze at the sight before her. Then her feet moved her backward as if she’d seen a bear. There were no thoughts to this decision, purely instinct. But she was spotted before she could fully retreat. The feeling of his surprised gaze locking to hers froze her once more.
The man was stark naked and carried a flask that glinted from the low sun. He’d just finished pissing onto the hillside when he turned to find Cedri staring at him.
She’d seen paintings of naked men, but seeing one in the flesh was incomparable. She wanted to look away, knowing full well what she was seeing, but some part of her compelled her to confirm that, yes, this was indeed a naked man. Unable to decide what to do about this, she could only gape in shock.
He wasn’t far from her, ten yards, perhaps fifteen. With a drunken smile, he staggered toward her, his disgusting manhood flopping back and forth with each swaying step. She forced her chin up.
“You must be one of us,” he said, slurring his words. “And from the North. Ask me how I know.” He showed her a smug grin as he folded his arms and leaned back.
“How do you know?” She put all of her focus into keeping her eyes from drifting down.
“Because you would’ve come from the other direction!” He laughed as if he’d made a clever joke and held out his flask in invitation.
“No thank you,” she said primly.
Concern seemed to deepen the lines in his brow. She quickly dove into his emotions with psyche. Searching for suspicion, she found it immediately, the feeling like visiting a friend’s estate to find it surrounded by a barbed fence.
“Inappropriate weather for a swim,” she blurted.
He bark
ed out a laugh. “I can tell you’re new. Ask me how I know.”
“How do you know?” She was too nervous to be annoyed just yet, though she could feel it coming.
“Because you’re terrible at working the passcode into conversation, and you won’t look lower than my nose.” He offered her his flask once more. “You should relax.”
She grabbed it and had a swig. It was sweet wine, a pleasant surprise.
He didn’t care to take it back, putting his arm around her instead. She wanted to flinch at his touch, but she held it in. He wasn’t an unattractive man, she supposed. But he was older than forty; and with his naked body so close…touching her, she felt a strange mix of fascination and revulsion.
Grinning like a loon, he made no attempt to cover himself despite her obvious discomfort.
“Welcome to the party,” he said. “You must have questions if this is your first one.”
One what? Was this truly a party and not an ambush? The idea should’ve relieved her, yet it did nothing to ease her terror. She wanted to turn and run. Instead, she let the naked man lead her toward what appeared to be a social gathering.
There was a long stretch of sand that wasn’t covered with small shrubs or lush grass like the rest of the walkway between the lake and the towering hills. An enormous fire burned in the center of the sand. People from her age to her mother’s mostly sat around the fire. Two people seemed responsible for turning a massive boar on a spit.
Relief came when the naked man took his arm off her. He was the only one without clothes, though she had an ominous feeling that was yet to change as men and women were getting drunker before her eyes.
What in the two hells is this? She had so many questions, but the wrong one could give away her identity.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, figuring it could get him talking. She wanted to use psyche to encourage the man to speak, but this was not a skill Charlotte had gone over in their training.
The naked man finished letting his gaze roam down her body before coming back to her face. “What?”
She held in a grumble. “How long have you been...at this spot?”
“The luminaries arrived two days ago. Most everyone else has arrived today, with some coming yesterday, like me.” He looked her over again, quicker this time, his gaze slowing around the juncture of her legs, then her chest. “You must be a bastial mage, because you don’t look like the kind of woman who could bring herself to strangle a man. Your killing is done from afar.”
Although he was right—she was a bastial mage—it had nothing to do with an inability to strangle those who deserved it. She thought of Darri and how easily she could’ve killed the bastard.
She took the wand from its holder on the back of her belt, showing it to the naked man while fighting the urge to sneak a peek below his waist.
“You’re right. How many others are there like me?”
“All of the women are either pyforial or bastial mages, most being pyforial.”
She took a long look at the PCQs spread around the fire, estimating between one and two thousand enemy soldiers. She should’ve felt fear to be standing among them, or possibly anger at their intention to kill her comrades, but she felt neither. None donned armor or weapons. A woman played a lute. Two other women sang beside her. Hundreds began to pair off.
The naked man continued speaking as Cedri watched her enemies laugh and dance. “Most of the men here are pyforial mages like the women. But there are also many archers and even some swordsmen like myself.”
“And where is your sword?” He leered at her, and she regretted her question. “Never mind that. Have the luminaries made any announcements?”
Confusion gave extra wrinkles to the leathery skin across his forehead. “Do you mean about our task?”
Task, she told herself, not ambush. “Yes.”
“They did after prayer last evening.” The naked man grabbed back his flask and had a swig.
Say more. Keep talking. But she didn’t know how to use psyche to compel more words out of him.
“Bring your horse there.” He pointed a ways down to an older woman, her sagging breasts uncovered. “And enjoy yourself!” The pitch of his voice rose as he lurched back toward his group. Looking over his shoulder, he flashed her a sloppy grin. “The time we spend together before we depart is always the best.”
At least the woman tending to the horses wore pants. Cedri could smell the roasting boar as she handed off her mount.
“Will you be swimming later?” the woman asked.
“I will not.”
The woman cleared her throat and asked more forcefully, “Will you be swimming?”
Oh, the code. “No, this is inappropriate weather for a swim.”
The woman gave an approving nod. “You must be new. When were you recruited?”
Panic pinched her heart. “Just a few months ago.”
“And you’ve been sent on this task?” Cedri’s gaze fell to the woman’s breasts as they swayed in a way reminiscent of a cow’s udders. “You must have impressed your recruiter.” A moment of silence passed as the woman regarded her with a judging look. “Are you not proud to be here?”
“I am proud.”
The woman looked down at her chest, then laughed as if she’d forgotten she was exposed. “You must be unused to the nudity. It’s usually the first surprise for new recruits.”
“It will take some getting used to.” The woman’s friendly tone made Cedri feel as if she could get away with a question. “Why remove your clothes?”
“Among each other, we’re free to do as we wish so long as we don’t go against the doctrines. Some of us like to take advantage of that freedom when the weather’s warm enough.” She reached out and plucked open the top button on Cedri’s shirt. “Enjoy yourself. I’m certain the men here wouldn’t mind.”
Cedri stepped away before the woman could remove the next button. “Perhaps later.”
Wearing a crooked grin, the woman looked at Cedri sideways. “So you must know about our ritual before a task.”
Cedri didn’t have a clue what she meant. “Yes.”
“And you’re…?”
Oh gods. What does she want to hear? Cedri couldn’t help but let her confusion show.
“Are you excited? Or is it worry I’m sensing?”
“A bit of both.”
The woman nodded in understanding. “So this is your first time partaking in the ritual. I should’ve known.” She gasped. “So you haven’t seen the gods yet?”
“I haven’t.”
The woman grabbed Cedri’s head and kissed her forehead, her clammy breasts pushing against Cedri’s neck. “Now I’m excited! Go and meet the others.”
Cedri’s forehead was uncomfortably wet where the woman’s lips had been, but she refrained from wiping it until she turned away and glanced back to make sure the woman wasn’t watching.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CEDRI
Cedri had never felt more welcomed in her life. It was eerie to be treated benevolently by her enemies, especially considering how infrequently she found herself enjoying the company of her actual allies within Quince’s castle.
The PCQs offered her wine and food, and left her to herself when she wanted. They didn’t pry.
Most were drunk, if not all. More started removing their clothes as time went on, but it was mostly men disrobing their shirts. This she didn’t mind in the least, notably so with the more wine she drank.
No one asked for her name. She began to notice that they didn’t seem to know each other’s, either, pointing and often addressing their comrades by “you” or “her” or “the pretty one, there,” as Cedri’s ears had caught about herself once.
As time passed, she found herself completely without fear. She was slightly inebriated, yes, but that wasn’t the whole reason.
It was as if everyone knew this moment would never come again, so they all just wanted to enjoy it. After their “task” was over, ea
ch person would return to his or her home city.
This seemed to be no one’s first task. She overheard conversations of those comparing this party to other parties before previous tasks. But all they spoke of were the parties, not what followed.
She had to remind herself several times these were murderous people.
When it came time to eat, they sat clustered in a circle around the fire. With more than a thousand of them, rows formed thirty deep. Cedri put herself on the outer rim. It was farthest from the boar, yet closest to the horses.
Bread and apples were served by men in lavish capes. She overheard others nearby thanking their “luminary” when accepting food. So the servers were what the naked man had referred to—their leaders. It seemed strange for them to be serving their underlings.
Chunks of pork were passed around on grease-stained cloths. Many refused the meat, handing it to someone beside them. At first she thought this was some sort of custom, showing good manners, but then she heard comments about the previous feast and realized that many of these people had eaten just before she arrived. Still, it had been hours so their stomachs couldn’t have been full anymore. In the castle, everyone would’ve taken a second helping.
Stop comparing your allies to your enemies, she told herself, growing sick of the confusion bubbling in her stomach.
As she bit into the warm pork, a burst of delicious flavor filled her mouth. She repressed a groan of delight. While eating, she noticed a group of people moving toward the fire, each pointing in an instructive manner.
Cedri nearly choked when she watched a man float up from the sand. Higher into the air he rose, until he was suspended ten feet over the flames of the enormous fire a short distance behind him. The pyforial mages around the fire had their arms extended, holding him with energy. He then began to revolve slowly.
“We have begun preparations for prayer.” His voice was as deep as a bass drum. He wore a cape like the luminaries, but his was adorned with golden thread. It billowed in the wind and shimmered almost magically. “Eat and listen, and ready your bodies and minds for the gods.”
