The ranger glared at him. “Are you ever gonna say anythin’? Act like yer happy to see me at least, for fuck’s sake!”
“Got a plan?” asked Cyhan.
After giving the warrior a look that could tan leather at ten paces, Chad began to explain what he had in mind. It didn’t take him long, since they were both well versed in the craft, and by the time he finished, the barmaid had brought his first mug.
Picking it up, he finished it in one long, gulping draught, holding up one hand to hold the server’s attention before she could wander away. Setting the empty mug down, he told her, “I ain’t done yet, darlin’. Keep ‘em comin’.”
Since he was a new customer and she hadn’t yet seen the heft of his purse, she looked askance at Cyhan, presumably because she thought he was paying. The big man nodded and she left.
Chad gave Cyhan a sidelong look and flashed a wicked smile. “Thanks, partner. I’m startin’ to like you better already.”
The grandmaster knight grunted and then said, “I’ll need a bow.”
The ranger looked at him quizzically. “Can ya shoot?”
Cyhan raised one brow, answering the question with a hard stare.
“I’m not askin’ if ya can hit a target at fifty paces,” clarified the hunter. “This ain’t target practice. I need ta know if ya can…” He stopped. “Ya know what, never mind. We’ll walk by the location tomorrow an’ then we’ll get you a bow. After that I need to make a quick trip outside the city to collect my tools. Before we come back, we’ll warm up our limbs with a little practice.”
Crossing his arms, Cyhan stared at the ceiling.
The serving girl returned with his mug and paused for a second to see if he would finish it as quickly as the first. Chad took a long pull, then said, “Find another mug. I’ll be done with this one by the time you get back.” She left.
Turning back to Cyhan he continued, “It ain’t for you, ya thickheaded monster. I need the warmup. All I expect from you is one or two well-aimed shots. But fer the kind of shootin’ I do, I need to be at the top of my game, familiar with both my bow and the shafts I’m usin’.”
Cyhan nodded. “I knew what you meant.”
“Did ya bring yer blades?” asked Chad.
The knight smiled. “The world is my weapon.”
The hunter sighed in exasperation. “I can never tell when yer bein’ serious or just full of shit.” In point of fact, he already knew how deadly Sir Cyhan was. Even unarmed, the man could probably have killed every man in the bar, if he had desired to do so. And that was without his dragon-bond strength.
The knight grinned. “That was a joke. Of course I have my blades. Have you ever known me to be without them?”
Chad finished his third mug. “Gods save me from this lethal lunatic!” he swore.
Cyhan’s face was deadly serious. “The gods are dead. The man we’re here to save slew them, remember?”
The hunter spit out some of his beer. “It’s a turn of phrase! Did yer momma drop you on yer head?”
The warrior across from him began to laugh deeply, with his belly behind it. After a minute he paused and winked at the ranger. “Another joke. You’re making this too easy for me.”
Disgusted, Chad gave the big man a look of fury that was almost entirely an act. “I fuckin’ hate yer guts sometimes. Ya know that?”
Cyhan spread his arms wide, then leaned back and laced his fingers together behind his head. “Really, Chad? I was just thinking how much I’ve missed you.”
Chad flashed a smile for a second before hiding it. “Shoulda said that at the start. I swear, one o’ these days I’m gonna put an arrow in yer ass.”
***
Irene and Lynaralla stood in the place they had last seen Matthew and the others, their attention focused on the area in front of them. “Can you see it?” asked Irene.
Lynaralla nodded. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
“Do you know what to do?”
The She’Har woman shook her head, causing her silver hair to wave around her head. “No. None of this was included in the knowledge I was born with.”
“Well, my brother figured it out, so it can’t be that hard,” opined Irene. “Want to take turns?”
“No,” said Lynaralla. “It will be more efficient if you to move over there a short distance. We can both try in different places until one of us figures it out.”
Irene’s face lit up. “That does make sense.” She followed Lynaralla’s advice and moved ten feet to the left, and then both girls began attempting to do something.
For the better part of half an hour they succeeded at doing something, just not what they wanted. Lynaralla’s experiments were methodical, trying first one thing and another, slightly modifying her approach with each attempt, while Irene was more slapdash in her attempts. They finally called a break and Irene sat down on the ground, heedless of getting dirt on her skirts.
“Why am I so tired?” she complained.
“It looked like you were using a lot of power,” said Lynaralla, who was still feeling fine. “I would have collapsed by now if I had tried the things you did.”
Irene nodded. “We don’t have a lot of time.” Thinking hard, she pursed her lips. “It didn’t look very difficult when Matt did it.”
“I don’t think brute force will work.”
“There must be a trick to it,” agreed Irene.
Lynaralla returned to her attempts, and after a few seconds Irene stood up and dusted herself off. Finding her spot once more, she took a moment to focus her thoughts and relax her breathing. She closed her eyes, for they were only distracting her from the important information being provided by her magesight.
Then she held up her hands and reached outward, pushing her aythar through her fingers. I want to touch that, she thought, referencing the faint shimmer. She felt the power rushing out of her, most of it missing the mark, but at long last she felt some of it touch something.
Exultant, she latched onto that tiny bit and bent her will to grasping it fully. Grinding her teeth, she worked harder, giving it everything she had. The magic flowed out of her like a torrent, a river, filling the space in front of her, yet she only had the tiniest hold on the strange boundary. It felt similar to holding a heavy blade in the air, one almost too heavy to hold up, yet being able to use only your fingertips to grasp the tip.
And it was slipping away from her.
No! Irene refused to give up, and her aythar blazed like a heatless fire around her, causing her hair to fly outward as though she stood in a fierce gale.
Alarmed, Lynaralla stopped her own effort and stared at the girl who had only recently become her sister. “Irene, stop! You’ll kill yourself!” She considered tackling Irene to the ground, but then she saw something happen. The empty air shifted, and a small tear appeared in the hidden boundary, but it lasted only a second in that state before the veil was ripped wide. A massive opening appeared, reaching from the ground to the sky beyond the limit of Lynaralla’s senses. It was at least a hundred feet across, and the edges were shifting back and forth tens of feet every second or so.
Lynaralla stepped forward, crossing to the other side, but when she looked back Irene was still where she had started. The blonde girl took a step, then another, before stumbling. She fell, losing consciousness before she struck the ground, and the boundary began to collapse, rushing inward.
Lynaralla knew what would happen when it closed on her sister’s prone form. Lashing out with her power, she caught Irene’s body and dragged it roughly forward, pulling it to herself just before the tear in reality snapped shut with a crackling roar.
Dropping to her knees, she cradled Irene’s head, her magesight questing outward to examine her sister. “Please be alright.”
But Irene wasn’t breathing, and as Lynaralla watched, her fluttering heart shuddered to
a stop. Her sister’s aythar was faint, almost nonexistent. She had put far too much into her working.
“No, no, no,” said Lynaralla, horrified. “This can’t happen.” With desperate speed, she sent a tendril of power into the other girl, attempting to feed some of her own strength into her. Then she used another to squeeze the heart itself, trying to simulate its beat.
Most of the aythar that she pushed at Irene bled away, like water from a stone. Transferring power was always an inefficient act, and it required conscious effort on the part of both the giver and the receiver, but some of it seeped in.
Minutes passed, and Lynaralla learned a new emotion. Despair. Tears began to spill from her eyes and she considered giving up, until she felt a sudden movement of Irene’s heart. It fluttered in the grasp of her power, a sensation similar to a small bird in the hand. She released it and Irene’s heart began to beat once more, erratically at first, but then gradually with a strong, steady rhythm.
Irene coughed, and her eyes slowly eased open to stare up at the silver-haired girl above her. Crinkling her nose in confusion, she asked, “Are you crying?”
“I think so,” answered Lynaralla, and then a long line of snot dropped from her nose to land on Irene’s forehead.
“Ew,” exclaimed Irene. She drew her arm weakly up to defend her face from further debasement. “Wipe your nose.”
The She’Har girl leaned back, and then used her sleeve to do just that. “You nearly died.”
“Uh uh,” argued Irene.
“You did!”
“You’re mistaken,” insisted Irene.
Confused, Lynaralla asked, “Why?”
“Because you were there,” said Irene confidently. “I was safe the entire time.”
“Humans really are stupid,” replied the She’Har girl. Then she became aware of the figures approaching them, massive humanoids that were far too large to be men. Looking around, she saw that while she had been distracted a group of ten ogres had surrounded them.
Irene also noticed them. “They don’t look friendly. Tyrion taught you how to fight, right?”
“I wasn’t very good at it,” answered Lynaralla, resignation in her voice. Taking to her feet, she studied the drooling faces around them. “You destroyed those metal monsters a few months ago. How did you do it?”
Irene was struggling to reach a sitting position. “I hit them with a really big rock until they quit moving.”
“There are no big rocks here,” noted the She’Har girl.
“The ogres are pretty big. Use one of them,” advised her human counterpart.
Lynaralla had her doubts about that idea. Primarily because she didn’t have the same seemingly inexhaustible supply of power that Irene did. If she started throwing one of the massive creatures around to attack the others, she was pretty sure she’d run out of energy before she finished dispatching them.
On top of that, her sister was effectively helpless. Irene didn’t appear to have enough strength to stand, much less walk. So Lynaralla needed to budget enough of her reserves to ensure she could levitate her, as well as protect her from stray attacks.
I need to be clever, she told herself, but while Lynaralla knew she was intelligent, cleverness wasn’t something she counted among her virtues. For once, she wished she was truly human.
Using a spellweave to conserve her strength, she lifted Irene into the air and made a mental note of the direction the castle should be in. Then she began to run.
Chapter 24
Rose Thornbear rose late the next morning. She had gone to bed early, but the aftermath of her encounter with Tyrion had left her unable to sleep well. It had taken her forever to fall asleep, and once she did, she was tormented by dreams she preferred not to think upon.
The past few days had left her exhausted, in body and mind, but she had more work yet to do. Foremost among them was to interview the servants from Leomund’s hunting lodge in the afternoon. If her suspicions were correct, her best hope for Mordecai’s acquittal lay with them, assuming she could discover a way to force the information she needed out of them.
She was afraid to return to her place in the palace, unsure whether Tyrion would still be there, so she planned to spend the morning resting with Carissa at her city house. Elise had already vanished somewhere, leaving a note that explained she was not to be sought after.
Rose was still on her first cup of tea when she heard Carissa utter those dreaded words, “I’m bored. With Nana gone, there’s nothing for me to do.”
With the trial looming in three days, Rose had been considering her daughter’s situation carefully. Ideally, she would have sent her to stay with Mordecai’s family until the stormy winds of upheaval had passed, but with Mort in prison, that was a poor option. It might even be the worst option. If things went badly the Royal Guard might soon be seeking to imprison anyone carrying the Thornbear or Illeniel name.
Carissa needed to be somewhere even the Queen couldn’t reach. Keeping her tone even, Rose broached her idea, “Would you like to take a trip somewhere?”
“Can I stay with Irene? I haven’t spent much time with her in ages,” asked Carissa hopefully.
Rose wasn’t sure where Irene was currently, whether she had managed to reach Lancaster or was still at home, but either way she was certain it wouldn’t be any place safe enough for Carissa. “I believe Irene is away,” stated Rose calmly. “In fact, her entire family is caught up in various enterprises related to their father’s current misfortune.”
“I wish I could help them.”
“You already have, dearest,” said Rose, soothingly. “According to your grandmother, she couldn’t have managed her task without your help.”
“That was nothing,” complained her daughter. “I want to do more.”
Rose looked at her tea sadly before setting it down to go to the writing desk. It would be cold before she could finish it. She carefully penned a letter before sealing it and handing it to her daughter. Then she opened a small drawer and took out a small leather purse. Unlocking the strongbox that stood near the desk, she filled the pouch with gold coins and a smattering of silver. Then she tied the top tightly.
“Take these,” she told her daughter. “I want you to give them to Angela when we get back to the palace.”
Carissa eyed her mother suspiciously. “What’s this for?”
“I’m sending you to Iverly, in Gododdin. There’s enough in the purse to buy a small house and keep you comfortably until I can send for you.”
“Iverly!” exclaimed Carissa. “That’s on the other side of the world!”
Rose smirked. “Hardly. These days, with the World Road, it’s only an hour’s trip. The important part is that you tell no one where you are headed. Angela will understand already.”
“Why would I want to go there?”
“It’s quite lovely this time of year. The breezes coming off the Gulf of Garulon make it almost idyllic. Every young lady should experience it sometime in her youth,” Rose told her.
“And what will you be doing?” asked Carissa.
Rose frowned at her. “You know very well what I’m doing.”
“Then I should wait until after the trial and we can go together,” suggested her daughter, secure in her logic.
Rose shook her head, then hugged her daughter. “No, dear. That would defeat the point. I’ll join you there after the trial is done, or perhaps a week after that.”
“Should I write to you? You won’t know the address.”
“No,” said Rose with a little too much emphasis. “Certainly not. I’ll find you, never fear. I have a number of friends there.”
“Sometimes I think you know everyone in the world,” observed Carissa.
Rose smiled. “I try, dear. The important ones, anyway.”
“And half of everyone else,” added Carissa. Then her t
one grew serious. “I know what you’re doing. You think this business you and Nana are into is dangerous and you want me out of the way.”
“I want you safe,” corrected Rose mildly.
Worried, Carissa hugged her mother again. “Can you really prove his innocence?”
“I will.”
“And if you don’t?” insisted her daughter.
“I’ll do whatever is necessary,” said Rose firmly.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” asked Carissa. “Is the Queen going to arrest you?”
“It won’t come to that,” said Rose. “Remember the family motto: Only a fool threatens those a Thornbear protects. Everything will be fine, I promise.”
Carissa was quiet for a minute, but then she asked another question, her voice muffled by her mother’s shoulder, “That’s fine for them, but who protects the Thornbear?”
Her mother didn’t answer. “Go pack your things.”
***
A message was waiting for Rose at the palace gate, a summons from the Queen. Rose thanked the messenger and turned to her daughter. “Go find Angela. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
Carissa darted forward, kissing her quickly on the cheek. “What if you don’t show up in a few weeks?”
“Wait a year, then seek an audience with King Nicholas. He owes me a few favors. Hopefully by then the furor will have died down.” She gave her daughter a push, urging her to leave, then turned away.
Rose moved briskly, but she still heard her daughter’s concerned farewell. “I love you, Momma. Don’t keep me waiting too long.”
Damn it, Rose swore to herself. Everything will be fine. She focused on her breathing—that was the key to keep from spoiling her face before she met with the Queen. Spine straight and shoulders square, she proceeded through the palace halls with stately grace, projecting the certainty that she owned every inch of the ground she strode across.
Rose wore her poise like a warrior wears armor, and not even the whispering of the courtiers could shake her reserve. Even when more than one of those whispers carried far enough to catch her sharp ears. “Highwhore.”
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