Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4

by Edun, Terah

  When they dropped in the courtyard, everyone, including Stephanie carrying a large sack, was on their way out. When Sebastian saw her being set down from within Thanar’s arms, she felt his anger spark from across the cobblestoned yard. Grimacing, she rushed over to him.

  “What’s going?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” sniped Sebastian.

  “Children,” chided Lillian as she walked down the manor steps.

  “Ciardis, I thought you agreed not to leave the manor?” Caemon said as he walked down the steps behind their mother.

  She flinched in guilt. “Um, yeah, about that...”

  The others gathered in a semi-circle around her and Sebastian with expectant looks on their faces. She turned back to see Thanar standing at distance near the fountain. His smirk said he was in no way going to help her dig herself out of this situation.

  She nearly stuck her tongue out at him but restrained herself in time.

  Turning back to the group, she reluctantly said, “There’s good news, bad news, and worse news.”

  “Is this new news?” Vana said, sharpening a knife on a wet stone. “Because if it’s just adding on to the pile of horse manure we’ve already got, I don’t want to know.”

  Ciardis stared at the whetstone Vana was using to sharpen the sharp blade uneasily. There was something wrong about a person sharpening a blade in the middle of the courtyard where the sound echoed like the grate of a chain against metal.

  With a sigh she said, “It’s all new.”

  “Fantastic,” said an already tired Christian.

  “Do you want to go inside and sit?” murmured Ciardis sympathetically.

  “No.”

  She looked at Caemon.

  “We were preparing to leave the manor as soon as you arrived,” Caemon said, “Everything’s packed. Including that weird, clanking contraption of yours.”

  “The what?”

  Christian explained, “The mechanical thing that arrived this morning.”

  “Oh!” Understanding dawned in Ciardis’s eyes.

  “I felt it would be best if you explained to everyone else about it,” Christian said.

  “Right,” said Ciardis. With everything else that had happened she had forgotten about it.

  “So if you could get on with telling us your news, daughter,” Lillian said, “we can move to a more secure location.”

  “Well,” said Ciardis, easing in slowly, “which news do you want first?”

  To save them time, Stephanie said, “Good news first, worse news second, and bad news last.”

  “Right,” Caemon said.

  Ciardis spat it out in a rush of words. “The Ambassador of Sahalia’s on our side, we killed a dragon, and Princess Heir Marissa hid a kasten ship called The Marde.”

  “Another dragon,” said Christian flatly.

  Ciardis nodded.

  Christian looked up at the sky. “Just checking.”

  “Dragon? What dragon?” said Vana.

  “A big black male named Balash.”

  She didn’t even bother being insulted when every head turned to Thanar for confirmation and swiveled back to her upon receiving it.

  “Did you say The Marde?” demanded Lillian.

  “Yes,” Ciardis said. “Why?”

  Sebastian gripped her hand tightly. “That was my Uncle Maradian’s nickname, or so I was told. I never met him.”

  “Neither did I,” said Lillian. “He tended to be away from court for long periods when I was a young woman.”

  “A kasten ship named The Marde? Where did you find it? How?” asked the lord chamberlain.

  “Through the emperor’s package that arrived while you all were out,” said Ciardis, “It more or less had directions to a warehouse of the princess heir’s in the Weavers’ District. The ship was docked inside.”

  “Kasten ships haven’t been seen on the high seas in decades,” muttered the lord chamberlain, “and they’re only useful for one thing.”

  “Which is?” Caemon quickly asked.

  “Traversing the magical perils of the ocean from Algardis to Sahalia,” Lillian said darkly.

  Ciardis nodded in agreement.

  “So that begs the question: Why would the princess heir be hiding a ship of great proportions and immense magical potential that’s named after her dead brother?” said Thanar.

  The group was silent as they pondered.

  “We need to inform my father,” said Sebastian resolutely.

  “I agree,” said Ciardis, squeezing his hand. She felt hurt when he pulled away.

  Lillian gave a short laugh. “I doubt Bastien will know what to do with the ship, but it has solved the last of the puzzles of what the princess heir was up to. It’s up to him and his spies to figure out what she planned with all of these mysterious things now.”

  Reluctantly, Ciardis had to agree.

  “So shall we go to the emperor now?”

  “No,” Sebastian said. “We need to secure our new home first. Besides, my father is not in the best of moods.”

  “How can you tell?” Ciardis asked.

  Mutely he pointed to the dark sky. “Now that he is on good terms with the spirit of the land himself, despite his lack of power, the nature surrounding Sandrin is responding to his moods. In short, angry emperor, means angry weather.”

  A crack of lightning bigger than a nearby pole descended at that very moment. They all jumped.

  “Also,” said Lillian, “we’ve received word that the duke of Carne has decided to play his hand. He could be here within an hour, which is why it’s best we vacate the premises as soon as possible.”

  Ciardis felt more tired by the minute. She looked over at Sebastian, asking him without words to explain what was going on.

  He grimaced. “We can’t fight them if they catch us here. He has a battalion based just outside the city. Even fifty of the men would overwhelm us.”

  “I think we could take them,” said Caemon. “We’re certainly powerful enough.”

  “Power but no finesse will get us all arrested,” said Vana, “If we light up the city in another magical fight, mage against soldiers, the emperor will not tolerate that, no matter our excuse.”

  “It’s best to leave. Get to shelter and secure fortifications,” said Lillian with an impatient toss of her braid over her shoulder, “then we’ll take them on. Where we can easily kill them off one-by-one.”

  Ciardis gulped – their plan didn’t sound close to full-proof, let alone thought through.

  “Very well,” she said as the others moved away. She turned to see Sebastian sitting astride his stallion with the reins of another mare gripped in his hand.

  “She’s a good ride,” Sebastian said stiffly.

  “That’s good,” Ciardis said, “She’ll be perfect for mother.” She knew he wanted her to ride the mare for some reason. But he was an idiot if he thought they weren’t going to talk about the cold shoulder he was giving her.

  Taking the reins, she handed them over to Lillian and mounted up behind the prince heir with a strong grip about his waist. Looking behind her, she was startled to see the lord chamberlain come up to her mother’s horse. He put a hand on her booted foot and Lillian leaned down to hear his words. Ciardis couldn’t make out what was said, but whatever words they exchanged left Lillian smiling. She even leaned down over her horse to hug him.

  “He’s not coming?” asked Ciardis.

  “No,” said Sebastian. “The duke wouldn’t dare attack a peer of the realm directly. As long as Lord Steadfast is not harboring us, he’s safe. He’ll stay in his home with his servants to rebuild.”

  Ciardis had reservations about that, in particular the part where Sebastian had said they wouldn’t kill the lord chamberlain because he was a noble. If that was the case, why hadn’t her family been off limits? Or Sebastian, for that matter?

  Aloud, she said, “We really must report the presence of the blutgott and the threat it represents to the emperor and impe
rial court soon.”

  “I know,” he said grimly. “It’s been a crazy four days.”

  They rode off with a single wagonload of goods behind them. She turned back to look her shoulder one last time and saw the lord chamberlain standing back on the steps with his servants arranged around him in the rain.

  Chapter 21

  As they rode through the city in the dreary rain, horse following after horse, everything was eerily silent. No merchants on the street hawking their wares, no children running between their horses playing or begging for a coin. It was very unlike the Sandrin Ciardis had come to know. Involuntarily she tightened her hands about Sebastian’s waist and leaned closer to his back.

  “Don’t you think this is weird,” she asked, her voice muffled.

  “What?” he asked through the fog.

  “The empty streets, the silent corners, the dense fog,” she replied.

  He was silent for a moment.

  “It’s not normal, no,” he stated, “but it’s also late in the evening and my father instituted a curfew after a general panic today in the Weaver’s District.”

  “Oh?” she asked as her eyes caught a lantern in a window before the light was quickly snuffed out and the curtain drawn.

  Furtive movement along the ridges of the homes above them also caught her eye. But she wasn’t sure if it was a cat or street urchins. In any case, Sebastian didn’t seem too concerned.

  “A dragon was sighted. A big one,” he said, his voice leading.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice depressed. “Well, I did tell you about Balash.”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said, “but the reports mentioned something else.”

  “And what was that?”

  “A winged individual and another person flying in the sky. The curious thing about it was what a Farsight watchman said he saw. You remember Farsight, right? Rather useful trick that gives the mage the ability to see an object in the distance as if he is standing right next them.”

  She stiffened. She didn’t like his tone. “I remember.”

  “Well, it’s all over the city that this Farsight watchman swore up and down before court and council that there was a dragon chasing a winged man carrying a woman in his arms. And that just before the dragon reached the man and woman, they kissed, long and hard, while floating in the sky, and all of a sudden the dragon was destroyed.”

  “Did you want to ask me something, prince heir?”

  In words as cold as ice, he retorted, “I believe I already did, companion trainee Weathervane. And from your response, its clear what the watchman said was true.”

  “You’ve obviously made up your mind,” she said.

  Then Sebastian shouted, so loud that stallion underneath him startled into half-rearing, “And you’ve obviously gone insane. What were you thinking?”

  Before she could answer the horse was rearing again, but this time a black arrow was the cause. It streaked through the night with one purpose, not to wound but to disarm and unsettle. When the arrow hit the cobblestone pavement in front of Sebastian and Ciardis’s horse it exploded with a flare and a bang. The spooked horse jumped so high that Ciardis tumbled off the stallion’s back and Sebastian had a hard time staying astride.

  When she fell to the cobblestoned pavement, she fell hard. She felt her head crack against the stones with a loud thunk. She felt strange, as if disconnected from the pain of her body, like a floating ghost. Still alive but falling unconscious. She knew that her body lay perilously close to the rearing hooves of several horses whose owners couldn’t get them under control. The continuous firing of flash arrows from the rooftops may have had something to do with that.

  She saw the prince heir pull his sword from its sheath as he struggled to control the stallion and get to her at the same time. Behind Ciardis, her mother’s horse reared over her head in a half-circle with Lillian’s face stuck in an almost comical expression of horror when she saw the roan mare’s flashing hooves come so close to hitting her daughter’s face.

  As the pain came back to her, Ciardis began to feel her other senses. The smell of urine and permeable scent of fear on the street. The feel of wet seeping into her clothes from the rain-soaked cobblestones and dirt she lay on. The shouts and screams as her friends and companions tried to see where the attack was coming from. The ominous sound of scrambling rang through the air. She looked up to see what was coming and wished she could warn them. Because over the rooftops scrambled not cats and child thieves, but assassins clothed in black with gleaming swords. She opened her mouth to tell Sebastian who had finally managed to unseat himself from the stallion. But when she spoke it was no more than a whisper, and the running feet on the rooftops caught his ears as well.

  He looked up sharply and Vana yelled, “They’re coming down the roofs!”

  And there was no more time for attention to be spared for Ciardis, because all around her the group was in the fight for their lives.

  Swords and knives flashed all around her while figures moved in and out of her vision. She saw Sebastian cleave a person in two and then turn around to catch the blades of an assassin on his sword. Unfortunately he didn’t see the other dark-clothed man behind him until it was too late. When Sebastian finished with the first and turned at the sound of another behind him, the assassin fell into the mud with two knives in his back. Vana’s knives. Sebastian gave her an awkward salute with his sword and jumped off to help Stephanie with her own combatants.

  Lillian hovered over Ciardis’s fallen form, blocking her vision of the battle behind her. It annoyed her for no reason. Perhaps one of the symptoms of the concussion she was sure to have. When Thanar landed in their midst with no warning, Lillian cut his throat. Or least she tried to. Her aim was true and the dagger that sailed from her hand went directly at his throat, but before steel met flesh he disappeared in smoke and reappeared crouched to Ciardis’s right.

  “Watch who you’re stabbing, Weathervane,” he snarled as he quickly reached down to feel for Ciardis’s pulse.

  Lillian snapped, “Try not to sneak up on people in the middle of a battle, daemoni.” Seeing that Thanar was caring for her daughter, Lillian swiftly turned and stuck a very long hairpin in another assassin’s neck and she swiped at a third with her knife. That was her mother—multi-tasking to the end.

  Focusing her attention on Thanar for the moment, Ciardis watched him curiously as he put up a small shield around them and murmured to her. From the way he gently touched her, she knew he could already see that she couldn’t move anything but her eyes.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” murmured the concerned daemoni prince. “I’ve got you.”

  His face was pale with worry—something she’d never seen on the dark mage’s face. She wasn’t worried. Why should he be? She couldn’t move any part of her body, but that’s just because she didn’t want to right now. It hurt too much. But it would stop hurting soon.

  As her eyes drifted closed, Thanar quickly slapped her cheek. “Ciardis? Ciardis! You have to stay awake.”

  Blearily, she re-opened her eyes. She didn’t want to stay awake. It took too much of her attention. And the sounds of metal clashing on metal so close by hurt her ears.

  Thanar let a trembling smile loose. “That’s it, sweetheart. Stay awake.” He smoothed her hair back from her face.

  She didn’t like that nickname. Never had liked any nickname. But she did like the feel of him touching her hair. Or at least she thought she did. She really couldn’t tell if his hands were touching her. But he was going through the motions, so she assumed so.

  “Stay awake,” he coaxed.

  She tried to smile at him. To get the worried look away from his eyes. But she was so tired and everything hurt. She just wanted to sleep.

  As she drifted unconscious again, she heard him shout frantically, “Christian! Christian, she’s hurt.”

  She wondered for a moment who was hurt and why Thanar couldn’t heal them, but she didn’t have much time to think of much m
ore.

  And then there was darkness.

  Soon she was drifting in her own world, her mind closing off, and she felt herself purposely closing down and preparing to embrace the darkness. To have no worries, no pains, no pressures again—it sounded delightful.

  But then she heard a steady call like an irritating buzz. It was annoying. She wanted it to go away. But it wouldn’t. It was insistent that she come out. That she fight to emerge. That she fight to live.

  Live? she thought. I am alive.

  Yes, yes you are! said a voice in relief. Now fight to stay alive.

  As she tried to puzzle through its request, she recognized the voice—it was Thanar’s.

  Reach for me, he pleaded.

  Where? she asked.

  Here.

  Confused, she looked around. She saw nothing.

  “Open your eyes,” commanded another voice.

  But this voice wasn’t in her mind. It was out there. In the darkness and the harsh sounds and the cold air.

  Don’t give up, sweetheart, said Thanar. A flash of irritation sparked in Ciardis’s mind. She really hated that nickname. And that flash was enough to wake her up. It jolted her mind. And in a rush the sounds came back, the cold came back, and the pain throughout her body pushed her awake.

  She opened her eyes to see the winged daemoni hovering on one side and Christian’s transparent koreschie face on the other. It was the scariest thing she’d woken up to in a long time. Scary enough to force her mind to recalibrate. Scary enough for Christian to finally be able to get to work. She knew he had mentioned that he couldn’t heal an unconscious patient.

  As he reached for her head, she whispered, “Wait.” The clash of swords and death rang around them, but he halted.

  “What?” asked the healer.

  “You’ll die,” she said.

  “I’ll take that chance,” he said in a rough voice as he reached forward with determined hands despite another protest from her.

  Grimly, Thanar hovered over them both.

  As the rush of healing transferred from Christian to her, he collapsed across her chest. Thanar helped him up and she sat up unsteadily of her own accord. Around them the sounds of fighting had died down. As she looked around she felt some relief, it looked like those standing were her own people. They had survived. They had won.