by Edun, Terah
She’s shielding, Ciardis realized.
If Vana was shielding, shouldn’t they do the same? She remembered the time Vana had defeated the Shadow Mage’s dark barrier in poor Barren’s mind. They had been caught off guard by the abrupt pushback and Ciardis had been thrown from her feet when the power snapped. Stepping back with unease, Ciardis froze as Inga’s eyes flicked from Vana’s face over to her.
Ciardis gulped deeply. Vana hissed. Thomas squeezed her arm in warning.
When she stopped moving Inga’s eyes turned back to Vana. No other part of Inga had moved. It was damn creepy.
The magic Vana built into the palm of her hands rose slowly to hover over her outstretched palms as large purple orbs. They flashed once, twice, and a third time with a brilliance that left spots in Ciardis’s eyes. She didn’t move, she didn’t blink, and she didn’t flinch. She’d learned her lesson the first time.
The orbs rose some more. Inga didn’t move.
And slowly, inch by inch, Vana’s purple orbs reached the height of Inga’s face. When they did, they flashed forward in a blink of an eye—so fast that Ciardis had a hard time registering the movement. The orbs merged into one at great speed and the giant purple orb hit the frost giant dead-on in the face. Inga lurched back as if she had been hit with a giant’s mace, her body arcing up into the air and slamming back into the ground ten feet behind her original position with an audible crack in the floor beneath her.
Heart hammering fast, Ciardis said, “Please tell me you didn’t kill her.”
As Vana sauntered over to her fallen foe she said, “You don’t know much about frost giant physiology. I just stunned her.”
Ciardis swallowed in relief and turned to Thanar.
She gave him a pointed look. “What are you waiting for? An invitation? Help Kane!”
Thanar smiled and stepped forward into her personal space. “Understand this, Weathervane: I am not your pet healer. I don’t bark on command. And you will pay for this.”
“Fine,” Ciardis huffed out in irritation, “Tell us how much you want and we’ll pay you.”
He turned away towards Kane and she hastily stepped back to avoid being knocked over by his wings. “I don’t accept coins.”
She blinked and muttered, “Then what? Damn, men.”
“He’s n-not a man.”
Ciardis leveled a glare at Thomas for good measure and he hastily dropped his grasp on her arm.
Looking over the alcove, she knew it was too small for her to hover by Thanar’s side as he worked his magic, so she did the only other reasonable thing possible. She ducked under Thanar’s left wing and arm to squirm her way into the alcove. Carefully she climbed over Kane’s legs, which lay sprawled over the edge of the alcove’s ledge, on her hands and knees, hiking up her skirt as best as she could. When she reached his head, she noted the bloodstains on her dress but paid them no mind. Kane was awake. He was pale with blood loss, but he was awake.
“Are you insane?” whispered Thanar harshly.
Ciardis ignored him in favor of resting a hand on Kane’s cheek. “How do you feel?”
He let out a pain-filled laugh. “Like a skewered pig.”
“How do you think he feels?” That comment had come from the prince, who was looming behind her.
She didn’t turn her head or bother to acknowledge Thanar. She did, however, lean over to take a closer look at Kane’s wound. The blade of the knife was buried deep. It had been stabbed down into Kane’s gut and lodged to the hilt. Kane’s hand was weakly twitching next to it. He was probably trying to restrain himself from doing something foolish, like grabbing the hilt and tearing it out.
“Looks bad,” Kane whispered with a wince.
“No, no,” she hurried to reassure him.
“Don’t lie to him,” snapped the daemoni.
Ciardis whirled her head around while still kneeling by Kane’s side. “I wasn’t going to lie. I was merely going to say that you could fix it. That is, if you ever get around to it.”
“Don’t make assumptions either.”
Ciardis clenched her fingers by Kane’s head, fighting the urge not to slap the stubborn, pig-headed daemoni prince behind her. Kane chuckled. She leveled a glare at him. For a man with a knife sticking out of his gut, he was way too cheerful.
When she saw him wince and pale further, she put aside her anger and addressed Thanar, staring down at her guard’s pinched face. “Please.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, work faster.” Her patience was limited and blood was continuing to flow from Kane’s open wound. Thanar didn’t respond, but she felt the surge of dark magic coming from him.
“Is there a price?” whispered Kane from where he lay on the alcove floor.
“No,” responded Thanar shortly.
“There’s always a price,” whispered Kane weakly. His eyes began to close.
“Not for you,” responded Thanar.
Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “But you said—”
Kane had drifted into unconsciousness.
“And I meant it,” Thanar said. “The price is for you.”
Ciardis sucked in an anxious breath while staring down at her unconscious friend. What if Kane was dying?
“I rendered him unconscious intentionally,” Thanar said as he reached over to securely grip the knife hilt sticking out of Kane’s abdomen. “I didn’t want him screaming when I pulled this out. Press down hard on the wound.”
“When?” Ciardis said weakly. She’d thought that she would be used to blood and gore after being attacked on several different battlefields. But it still got to her, especially when her friends were wounded.
“Now,” said Thanar shortly as he smoothly yanked the knife out.
She lunged forward to press her hands down on the wound where bright red blood was gushing forth. “Thanar, do something!”
He said nothing and she watched as, miraculously, the blood stopped gurgling out. Tentatively she lifted her blood-covered hands to see a sealed wound with only a thin scar to show where he had been stabbed.
She leaned back, ready to cry in relief. “He’ll live?”
“He’ll live,” Thanar confirmed as he stepped back from the alcove, allowing the ballroom light to pour in. Ciardis hadn’t realized how dark the small alcove really was with Thanar blocking the majority of the light with his spread wings. She looked over her friend carefully noting the blood-soaked attire.
“Well?” said Caemon, peering around Thanar.
“He’s okay,” said Ciardis with a shaky smile.
“Good,” Caemon replied, helping her out of the alcove.
Ciardis took in the scene. Thomas stood off to the side, looking out of place. Thanar and Caemon were muttering to themselves over Kane’s condition. Vana stood over Inga’s unconscious body with a scowl on her face. She quickly beckoned to Ciardis when she spotted her inside the alcove.
With a muttered prayer, Ciardis walked over to the woman.
“It was as I thought—her mind was darkened with a poison,” Vana said without preamble.
““How can you tell? And why?” said Ciardis.
“Magically. Look at her aura.”
Ciardis knelt down next to Inga’s head and looked up at Vana in confusion. “Non-mages have auras?”
Vana’s eyebrows twitched.
“What?” asked Ciardis. “She’s not a mage.”
“Yes, they have auras. Their auras are usually weak and tied to their emotions. But in the case of an individual from a kith race like the frost giants, even their natural predilections like exhibiting dark blue skin when upset is a form of their evolving magic.”
“Right,” Ciardis. “So how do I find the aura?”
“Pretend you’re looking for her mage core and go from there,” snapped Vana.
She did as she was told.
Ciardis quickly saw that Inga’s aura was a misty dark blue. It swirled in and out of her vision, surrounding Inga’s body like a haze rather
than the clear aura of a natural mage.
“Is it supposed to be misty like that?”
“Good girl,” Vana said with a small smile. “Look closer.”
Ciardis licked her lips, pulled a bit more power from her own mage core, and peered at Inga’s aura with more intensity. “It’s like a haze.”
“That kind of mapping on a person’s aura is indicative of a mind-altering substance. Like a poison or a hallucinogen,” Vana said softly, leaning down to rest on her haunches. “Usually one that’s ingested.”
Vana reached out with her hand and waved it through the haze of Inga’s aura just above her clammy skin. “This reminds me of a poison I’m very familiar with.”
Ciardis knelt next to her. “Dare I ask?”
Vana ignored the comment and continued, “A poison like root of widow’s peak is potent enough to do this and easily accessible.”
She paused. “Well, more easily accessible than most. It is harvested in the Ameles Forest and is strong enough to change the personality of a person for several hours. But usually...”
“Usually what?” Ciardis said quickly.
Vana eyed Inga as Ciardis watched her suck in the inside of her left cheek in thought.
“It’s usually not strong enough to change the mental composition of something like a frost giant—not without extremely negative side effects.”
“Effects such as?”
“Death.”
Ciardis, who had been looking down at Inga, immediately looked back up at Vana in horror.
“She’s not dying,” Vana said hastily.
“Oh, good,” said Ciardis.
“Which is very much the problem.”
“Wait, what? I’m not following your logic,” Ciardis said, furrows lining her brow. “Can we take a step back? Was Inga poisoned with a dose of widow’s peak?”
Vana looked down at Inga. Thoughtfully, she said, “Do you know what race is best known for using widow’s peak as a war tactic?”
Ciardis paused. Vana hadn’t answered the question.
“No, of course you don’t. Your daemoni friend over there does, though.”
“You honestly think Thanar poisoned Vana in order to attack Kane and heal him ten minutes later?”
“No,” said Vana.
“Why not?”
“Whoever did this wanted us to think that the daemoni prince was the cause. But they made one fatal error: A dosage this high of widow’s peak in such a young frost giant should have killed Inga before her personality changed.”
“They overdosed Inga?”
Caemon and Thanar stopped conferring to look over at them.
“No. You don’t listen very well,” Vana said. “If they had done what they were supposed to do, she would have went into apoplectic shock five minutes ago and be stone dead now, regardless of her unconscious state. What they did do was magically dose her enough to make the symptoms look like those of widow’s peak, but they didn’t realize that they hadn’t calculated her capability to handle such a dose correctly. Thereby exposing the flaw in their plan.”
“Because the only way they could have impacted Inga’s mental capacity this much was to have given her enough doses of widow’s peak that the medicine would have killed her in minutes,” Ciardis said softly.
“Exactly.”
“That, and Kane isn’t dead because the person who was supposed to have wanted him dead actually saved him,” said Ciardis.
“That, too.”
Chapter 5
Ciardis sighed. Of course this wouldn’t just be a normal ball with just a threat or two between friends. No, there had to be mind control and a friend almost dying just to liven it up. The question was who wanted Thanar accused of murder and presumably dead himself? And who would sacrifice Inga to do it?
She hesitantly placed a hand on Inga’s still arm and looked at Vana. “So what now? Can you fix it?”
Vana stood abruptly as she said, “Fix what?”
Vana’s sole focus seemed to be on something behind Ciardis and Inga’s fallen form. Ciardis stood and turned around, as well. “Inga. Can you fix her?”
“No, I can’t. But I know someone who can. The person who did this is the only one who can reverse it,” said Vana.
Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “You mean they have the cure with them?”
“Not exactly—rather that the cure is within their powers. If they created this malady, they can undo it,” Vana said. “The change in her mental state could have only been accomplished by a mage. A mage who has to be nearby.”
Thanar had come over at this point while Caemon stood guard over Kane’s immobile form. Vana cocked her head at Thanar and he nodded briefly to tell her he understood. No words were spoken. No thoughts exchanged. But Ciardis suddenly realized what Vana meant.
She stood in between them with her hands on her hips as she asked, “As in, in this ballroom?”
Her eyes widened she stilled herself before she could give in to the urge to peek around the two of them.
“Perhaps,” said Thanar as he looked down at her, his wings slightly spread to shield her and Vana from the view of the others in the area.
“Or perhaps even closer,” concluded Vana as she gripped the knife in her wrist sheath and drew it out slowly to mask the sound of the escaping steel.
Thanar’s eyes were cold as he said, “The mage had to be very close by to affect Inga so quickly. And I suspect that they got caught within their own trap.”
A cold shiver went down Ciardis’s back as she remembered that there was one other mage inside the sight and sound shield with them. One mage that she had invited in. One mage that she didn’t know well.
Turning from Vana, her fists clenched against her sides, she looked at Thomas. But instead of seeing Thomas, she whirled around into a face full of taut, leathery wing. She put up her hands futilely to push Thanar’s outstretched appendage back and finally snapped, “Thanar, move.”
He grinned down at her attempts to push back at his huge wing, which was far stronger than it looked despite its thin, leathery appearance. She opened her mouth to object again and he disappeared in a whirl of smoke. His body vaporized and became a gray cloak of swirling dark winds that rose up in a funnel and descended upon a hapless boy trapped inside with four very angry friends.
The winds reformed until Thanar stood behind Thomas with his left hand clenched around the young mage’s throat. Thomas began to frantically claw at Thanar’s tight grip as Thanar lifted him, inch-by-inch, and he tried to speak. His airway was restricted and he couldn’t get the words out. Not that it mattered. He was the source of Inga’s illness. Ciardis could see it in his eyes. Fear and guilt.
Thanar was so tall that he had Thomas dangling in the air in front of him as he kicked his legs futilely. Swallowing deeply Ciardis walked up to the pair, dread in her throat and heartsick. She didn’t even know Thomas, but she still felt anguish—anguish and anger. Why would he do something so despicable to someone he didn’t even know? Thomas was desperately looking from one person to another as she and Vana approached. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his robes were tangled in his legs as he kicked out in desperation.
“Put him down,” Ciardis firmly commanded when she stood a few feet in front of Thomas.
Thanar raised an eyebrow and looked over her head at Vana.
Vana nodded slowly in response and unsheathed a second knife, which she twirled leisurely between her fingertips. “Do anything that I don’t like and I’ll gut you.”
Thanar dropped Thomas without a word. Thomas’s breathes came in harsh gasps as his hands slapped down in front of him to halt his fall. His now rumpled mage robes pooled around him on the floor as he slumped forward, his stringy hair hiding his face. For a minute nothing but the sound of harsh coughing filled the air.
When Thomas looked up he was trembling.
“Why?” said Ciardis, looking down at him imperiously. If he had truly known her, he would have seen the anguish in her eyes.
Vana hissed in irritation, “Drop the pitiful act. And act like a mage. How are you hiding your true presence? A concealment spell?”
Ciardis had time to wonder why Vana simply didn’t reveal his true form herself. Her mage title was Cloudbreaker, after all. Anything concealed she could unveil.
“N-n-not a-a-an act,” Thomas said as his stutter became worse. Vana smiled coldly and reached forward to trace the edge of her blade on the pockmarked skin of Thomas’s cheek. The blade was so sharp that it left a shallow cut with blood dripping down leisurely in its wake.
Looking from Vana’s unforgiving face to Ciardis’s more appealing face, he tentatively reached forward as if to touch the bottom of Ciardis’s dress. “P-p-please believe me. I d-d-didn’t w-w-want to.”
Vana stepped forward with her right foot and pressed the heel sharply down on his hand. He squealed.
“I told you not to do anything that I didn’t like,” she said in a tone as sharp and dangerous as the edge of her blade.
He shook his head back and forth. “I-I j-j-just...”
Thanar growled, “The boy is useless like this. We need him to talk.”
“Any suggestions?” Vana said in a dangerous purr as she ground her spiked heel into the back of Thomas’s hand.
“One,” said Thanar in disgust.
Ciardis grimaced. “Am I going to like where this going?”
Thanar flicked his smoke-filled eyes to her while he unfolded his arms from across his broad chest. “Probably not.”
Thanar reached forward, and in a lightning-fast move grabbed a hold of the hair on the back of Thomas’s head.
“Thanar,” protested Ciardis just as Thomas yelled in fear.
Thanar sighed in irritation at Ciardis and said, “Relax.” When the whimpers from Thomas didn’t abate, he shook the boy’s head roughly and said, “Shut up.”
