by Terah Edun
“I got tired of that deal,” Maradian said simply. “And I knew the dragons would come for what they perceived as theirs.”
“You killed an untold number of people and assumed a throne that was not yours,” said Sebastian slowly, “in order to steal something from the dragons?”
Ciardis blinked. Then she blinked again, wondering if she was dreaming. If the conversation was really a figment of her imagination.
“How would they know?” Sebastian asked angrily, then waved a hand in denial. “Never mind, just tell me what it was that you risked an entire empire for.”
Maradian shrugged. “That is something only an emperor can know, and in answer to your first question, they always know.”
Ciardis rubbed her fingers over tired eyes. “So Sahalia is going to invade Algardis?”
“Perhaps not yet,” Maradian admitted. “Perhaps in a decade’s time. But I will be ready.”
Thanar said in a contemptuous tone, “I hope whatever it was is worth it.”
“It will be,” Maradian said in smug satisfaction.
“You don’t have it yet, do you?” Sebastian asked in shock.
“I soon will,” the Emperor said with gleaming eyes, mad with power.
Ciardis shook her head. “No, you never will. Not while we stand between you and whatever it was that you sought.”
Maradian said simply, “You have no idea what plans I have in store.”
“And all of this leading up to this grand theft?” Sebastian asked in disgust. “The murders? The sheer tumultuousness of a court always at its own throat?”
“Merely a way to consolidate power,” Maradian said, “and keep the nobles as well as the dragons off my back. As long as Sahalia thinks that old promises are being kept, they will stay away. Having the ambassador at court and letting her see how my nobles were bickering, my empire weakening, and potential threats looming, allowed me to send a message to the people she reported to: that we were weak and subservient still. All this while I slowly consolidated power and got ready to strike out on my own.”
“But you’re not on your own,” Ciardis fairly shouted. “You rule an entire empire. An empire and its people that you have slowly positioned like chess pieces in a game that no one knew we were playing. If the dragons get wind of your plans, they won’t just annex Algardis, they will annihilate us. Just as they did the fabled city and its people buried underground.”
Maradian shrugged. “Not my problem. By the time the dragons get wind that their rules have been broken, I will have what I sought for so long and I will be the most powerful entity in the world. None will stand against me. Not even your fabled gods.”
Ciardis shook her head sadly. She could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“You’re killing us all,” Ciardis said.
“Perhaps I am,” Maradian said with frank honesty. It was clear he couldn’t care less.
“Just like you did your brother?” Sebastian asked with quiet fortitude. Ciardis could tell that he was just barely holding back. “Tell me now, tell me true. Did my father fight your deceit? Did he try to warn others of your deceptions? Is that why you killed him and took his place?”
Maradian eyed his nephew with distaste. “That, among other reasons.”
Sebastian fairly recoiled. “So he is dead?”
“I put him where no one would ever find him,” Maradian said coldly. “Where even he would wish he was dead. If he so wished it, by now it most certainly would be so.”
Ciardis’s jaw dropped. That was about as tacit an admission as they had ever received. Or will ever gain, she thought with a shudder.
Sebastian, however, shook his head sadly. “It’s not enough. I need to see him. I need to bury his bones. Even you can understand that.”
Maradian shrugged again. “It matters not to me, but I will make you a promise. You will have his body before I make my final move.”
She said, unthinking, “And what if the dragons come to destroy you before you get what you seek?”
“Why would they do that?” Maradian asked in bemusement. “They think I’m a fool tyrant focused only on petty court feuds. Nothing more.”
Ciardis looked him dead in the eye. “They know about your damned Kasten ship. They know because I’ve sent a messenger to them across the seas. They are flying to the dragon queens at this very moment to inform them that you’ve played them like a fiddle all these years. Your palace is crumbling and very soon, so will you.”
If she couldn’t be the one to lop off his head, Ciardis Weathervane was quite content to stab the noxious Emperor to the heart instead. It wasn’t quite as a satisfying, but knowing her part in his end was at least some consolation.
Maradian stared at her, mouth agape. She watched as first shock and then apoplexy spread so quickly on his face that she thought he would choke at the revelation.
“What?” Maradian gasped, breathless.
The air fairly snapped with his anger.
“Perhaps we should have led with that,” Thanar said dryly. “It’s the first thing I’ve actually seen get a human reaction from him.”
Ciardis sneered. “Yes, so much for your plans. The dragons are coming and so are the gods.”
“So what will you do now, Uncle?” asked Sebastian calmly. “That is, if we hadn’t come here to kill you anyway?”
Maradian gathered himself in a cloak of power. “This is worse than you have ever dreamed.”
“Which part?” Thanar asked.
“The annexation cannot happen now,” hissed Maradian. “I’m not ready.”
“I have to hand it you, Uncle,” Sebastian said. “Even I didn’t think your self-absorption went this far. You’re not worried if Algardis will be annexed and enslaved by another empire, just that it inconveniences your own timeline.”
Maradian puffed up. “I’ve put in far too much effort to be outmaneuvered by flying lizards! This cannot stand.”
“Don’t let them hear you say that,” Thanar said an uncharacteristic shudder. “Ever.”
Maradian ignored Thanar and pinned his gaze on Ciardis Weathervane. “Who did you send?”
The silence for a moment was tense. But Ciardis smiled.
10
Then she proudly raised her head. “The only one with the authority to immediately gain an audience with the dragon court itself.”
Maradian’s eyes narrowed. “No, it can’t be!”
Ciardis heard bitter irony in his tone, that of a man finally coming to terms with his own actions coming crashing down on his head. Or so it seemed.
She said to him in a confident tone, “The ambassador from Sahalia will inform them all forthwith what you’ve done. You will not be able to maneuver your way out of this one.”
Ciardis didn’t bother to mention that she hadn’t really sent Raisa anywhere. That the dragon had left with haste for her own court out of a sense of obligation to her people instead. He didn’t need to know that. The result would be the same: Maradian’s head on a pike. Ciardis just hoped that the empire he ruled wouldn’t be roasted along with it.
“Your power is no match for that of the dragons,” Sebastian said darkly. “As I’m sure you well know.”
Maradian chuckled. “That is true, Nephew. That is true. This is almost worse than I had feared.”
In Ciardis’s eyes, he didn’t seem properly afraid at all. But she couldn’t read every bit of nonexistent horror in Maradian’s gaze as actual reality. That was what had made him a darned good manipulator and, dare she say it—Emperor—after all.
“Well, I must move along with my plans before this disrupts it,” Maradian said with a note of finality in his voice.
“I don’t suppose you could actually help ward off the dragons and the gods while you’re at it? We do have a bit of a problem to contend with,” said Ciardis dryly.
She was sure that they were all thinking of the threat of a god of destruction looming over them.
Maradian glared at her. “May I remind you that I had nothing
to do with that? You will fix that deity’s issue and return it from whence it came.”
“Wow,” said Thanar, sounding impressed. “Power-mad and egomaniacal? The Algardis family sure knows how to spit them out.”
“Don’t blame this on me,” Sebastian sniped. “I have it on good word that my uncle is the black sheep of the family.”
“I’m guessing your aunt, the princess heir, was just another aberration, then,” Ciardis muttered.
“Enough with your bantering,” the Emperor snapped. “I have plans in motion, and I didn’t spend years plotting to unify this empire only to see it wiped off the map by an angry god for your spiteful actions. You will fix this.”
“Our actions?” Sebastian cried out.
“Your actions,” said Maradian, doubling down with an imperial note in his voice.
“Please do continue,” Thanar said. He didn’t laugh, but Ciardis could tell he was close. She for one thought he was finding this entire situation far too amusing.
“If that daemoni hadn’t gotten away with soul-sucking all the power out of those poor individuals and opening a crack into the layers between this realm,” the Emperor said spitefully, “the Aether realm, and the realm of the gods, we wouldn’t be standing in the quagmire that we are today. I level all that at your doorsteps.”
“He’s not wrong,” Thanar said smugly.
“Shut your mouth,” said Sebastian a snarl. “I refuse to be blamed for your malevolent actions.”
Ciardis sighed in irritation. “And now?”
Her question was pointedly addressed to the Emperor of Algardis, who stood over them perfectly content to lecture their heads off while he mused about his plans for continued domination.
She would have liked to smack the superior look off the man’s face, but that would have started the battle between them, that wouldn’t end until he was dead. And they still needed some answers. Though she was beginning to realize that instead of answers, they were just going to get more riddles wrapped in suppositions, served on a platter of smug betrayal.
“The only reason that the dragons send ambassadors to my imperial court now,” said Maradian coldly, “is that they still consider us descendants of the favored son. Petulant descendants, but blood nonetheless. Now that you have alerted them to the presence of the Kasten ship, I am afraid we are favored no longer.”
Sebastian stiffened.
“It was your ship,” Ciardis snapped. “Don’t lay this on us.”
“Watch your tone, child,” Maradian said mildly, then slipped back into his Bastian glamour with a reproving look. “I may be being open with you now, but you are not so welcome that I will not cut your tongue out to halt insolent words.”
“More threats,” Thanar said lazily. “Threats which I’m not so sure you can back up.”
Maradian stiffened, and two things happened at once.
Sebastian met Thanar’s eyes. Thanar nodded at the prince heir over the Emperor’s shoulder.
Then all hell broke loose.
Just not the way in which Ciardis Weathervane had intended it to.
Thanar surged forward, wings spread wide. He flew through the air like an avenging angel of death. In his hands materialized a longsword made of pure black energy—as much a manifestation of who Thanar was as the crackling dark aura that surrounded him.
Thanar didn’t just aim his sword at Maradian’s head, though; he called in his power in a dark wave.
Ciardis had to wonder what the purpose was, but then she saw the Emperor’s shielding react to Thanar’s surge of power without a second’s delay.
Moments later, that shielding folded beneath the onslaught of power from the daemoni prince. Thanar’s power had crackled forth with a fury she hadn’t seen before. Maradian, though powerful, hadn’t been ready for the sheer power packed into Thanar’s push.
With a triumphant shout, Thanar raised his sword overhead mid-flight and prepared to bring it down on the Emperor’s head, surely with enough force to cleave the man in two. With no shielding standing in his way, there was no way he would miss his target.
Ciardis felt her heart leap into her throat in the few seconds as she watched one imperial era come to an end and another begin.
She expected a lot of blood and brain matter to come first.
She didn’t turn away as she watched the man she so loathed die. She didn’t want to, either. The least she could do was honor his victims by watching his death, even as the life force drained from his eyes. She would stand stoic and unflinching.
At least, that was how she imagined the outcome going in her mind, in the infinite time-loop of seconds that passed by at lightning speed.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Because Maradian smiled.
And in that smile, Ciardis Weathervane saw that they had once more been manipulated, though she didn’t yet know how.
“Thanar, watch out!” she shouted.
But by then, it was too late.
Maradian raised his hands in a pale imitation of the winged warrior flying directly at his back. Just as Thanar was a hair’s breadth from sinking a pointed sword into the back of his head, his power surged.
The nexus surged.
They were all thrown back against what was left of the palace walls.
Ciardis felt bones break with the assault. It wasn’t the impact with the wall that had shattered her right arm and what felt like a lower left rib. It was the sheer power of the magic that Maradian had tapped into. As the wave surged up from the floor, through Maradian, and out into them all, she felt her entire body light up.
It was like being in her mother’s womb again. For one moment in time, she was aware of nothing else. Just her body, her mind, and the pain that was surging through her with no end in sight.
The power crackled through her and, like a vine finding a particularly soft ledge to twine around, it sought pressure points to weave through.
The bones that the power rested on faltered under the pressure.
Just like the palace walls disintegrating around us, Ciardis had the presence of mind to think.
A second later, she felt her fragile flesh slam into the wall behind them, and she was back in the land of the living.
A scream tore from her lungs. Thanar as well as Sebastian echoed her pain in their own ways.
She struggled to sit up, let alone stand, as Maradian clapped his hands in glee and threw his head back with laughter.
“Oh my,” the Emperor teased. “That was some battle. I wanted to see the extent of your triad powers in the face of my alignment with the nexus and, well…now I have.”
Thanar said some words that Ciardis was pretty sure no one should hear. Her vision faded in and out from the pain of the broken bones and the still-crackling power in her veins.
Ciardis barely understood the Emperor as he crowed, “You’re children. Children without the true abilities to harness what you’ve had. And that’s too bad, but that means my powers are the trump to your very poorly managed alliance.”
She wondered if she was about to pass out. She finally gave up trying to stand on her still-working but shaky legs, slumping back against the wall with a pitiful moan.
“What?” asked Maradian in a voice tinged with irony. “Don’t you want to dance anymore? I can see why. Even the strongest of you is no match for me.”
Ciardis could barely focus her attention on anything more than the pain, but she did glare at the Emperor and bared her teeth in challenge as much as she was able. She had the feeling that Inga would have been proud of her at that moment.
Too bad she isn’t here, Ciardis thought wearily. Then she realized she had muttered that aloud.
“Oh, but she is,” Maradian said as he crouched down in front of her with his delighted smile.
Ciardis couldn’t help it, she jerked back, although there was nowhere to go. Just firm stone and plaster behind her. Just her luck that she hadn’t ended up being thrown into a part of the wall that was already cr
umbling.
Seeing as how she had very few options and Maradian was closer than ever, Ciardis decided to humor him.
With a bitter smile, she said, “If Inga was here, she would have already done me the supreme favor of carving a line in your flesh from jowl to navel.”
Maradian cocked his head to the side. “Ahh, you mean your precious warrior woman, yes?”
Ciardis was silent as the pain caught up with her. She tried to take slow, shallow breaths. It didn’t really help that the rib wasn’t cooperating and healing itself, but she’d take what she could get.
“No,” said Maradian as if he was answering a question she had asked. “Inga isn’t here, but you know who is?”
She could feel herself drifting away.
11
Ciardis looked directly at him, trying to maintain consciousness. A frown crossed the Emperor’s face as he looked her up and down with irritation. As if he hadn’t done this to her. To them all, actually. Ciardis couldn’t see Thanar or Sebastian; she was afraid to even try turning her head for fear of more pain rocketing down her spine or, worse, Maradian deciding that now was the time to finish her off. But even though she couldn’t see them, she could feel them through the seeleverbindung. They were in pain, as much as she was; even more in the case of Thanar, who not only had broken bones but also shredded wings. She winced in sympathy at the sharp stings she could feel through their bond from him. Even as far apart as they were, it still stung as if they were her wings, not his own.
Ciardis felt her eyes well up with pain. She was about to slip into blessed unconsciousness. While she’d rather be awake when death knocked one final time on her doorstep, there was some small relief in slipping into the darkness, never to wake again. At least…or so she thought.
She let a small, pain-filled grin cross her face as she looked directly into the Emperor’s eyes and shut her own.
The Emperor clucked his tongue. “Well, this just won’t do at all. I need you awake for my reveal. Lucid would be even better.”
Ciardis blinked her eyes open at his imperious command, fighting hard not to laugh. It would have been more painful than she could take.