by Terah Edun
“All right, enough,” snapped Sebastian. “I get it. We’re all tired. We’re all frustrated. But we have all our cards on the table now and the deck is stacked against us.”
Thanar looked over at him quietly. “All right, card baron, are you going to ask us whether we fold or bluff now as well?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes at Thanar, and Ciardis couldn’t help it, she laughed.
Sebastian said in a wounded voice, “It’s not funny.”
Ciardis peeked at him through eyes that were tearing up in humor. “You have to admit, Sebastian, that was.”
The prince heir said stuffily, “So my analogy was a bit weird.”
“Oh no,” crowed Thanar while laughing himself. “It was perfect. If you were playing wild card stud and not rolling the dice on the fate of the empire.”
Ciardis’s and Thanar’s eyes met and then they both set off in belly-aching laughter.
Sebastian glared and then crouched on the ground. “Are you two done being silly?”
Ciardis joined them on the ground, but not voluntarily. She was laughing so hard that she couldn’t manage to stay upright.
“I’ll wait,” Sebastian said as he sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, staring straight ahead.
Eventually Ciardis managed to regain her composure while pushing her loose curls out of her face. Thanar sat cross-legged while doing his best to keep a straight face.
When Ciardis was relatively sure neither of them would crack up laughing again, she said, “We need to focus.”
Her voice hitched, almost laughing, but she battled it back.
Grateful, if still a little bit stung with wounded pride, Sebastian said, “Our most immediate problem is the emperor.”
Thanar frowned as he settled into seriousness as well. “Surely he can wait and a god can take precedence? Now that we have this pertinent information about the Kasten ship, we can figure out a way to undo Maradian’s connection before killing him.”
“How do you suppose we do that?” Ciardis asked dryly.
Sebastian shook his head. “I’ve never heard of that being done.”
Thanar replied, “Until now, you’ve never realized that an emperor’s bond to a massive residual object could threaten your entire empire either.”
Sebastian leveled an angry glare at the daemoni prince.
Before Ciardis could even think of intervening, though, Thanar quickly said, “That sounded like a criticism. It wasn’t. None of us knew except that comatose traitor over there, and even she didn’t have quite all the facts.”
“What are you saying?” Sebastian asked.
“I am saying,” Thanar said patiently, “what would have happened if we had succeeded in killing Maradian? Would the whole of the empire disappear with him in a flash of smoke?”
Ciardis shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Yes,” stressed Thanar. “But we don’t know any more than that. We don’t know how this connection works. Is it like Sebastian’s when he calls on the Land Wight? Is the emperor’s bond and prince heir’s bond to the land of a different sort?”
They all shifted around uneasily. None of them had an answer.
Sebastian spoke up slowly. “Growing up, I was seen as a hassle or a bother rather than a proper heir. After the courts discovered I had no land magic, they dismissed me. My father, bless his soul, decided to do the same.”
Ciardis stirred in sympathy but didn’t speak.
“So I was taught history, politics, weapons, religion, languages, geography,” Sebastian went on, “and every other proper tutorial subject a prince might be accustomed to. All except magic. After all, why bother when I had none?”
Thanar’s eyebrows raised. “You seem fairly competent now.”
“What I learned,” Sebastian said angrily, “I taught myself, or bought lessons off lesser nobles. I should have been sent to the imperial school for mages near Ameles. Instead, I blundered and learned as I went in the confines of my imperial palace wing.”
Ciardis said, “It sounds like you rose to the occasion and are a stronger prince for it.”
Sebastian said bitterly, “But what I understand is my father, Maradian, whoever it was that saw fit to steal my magic in the first place, knew that I was actually gifted. They knew that I would come into my powers eventually, and they knew that if I assumed the throne I would be knowledge-less. How could they, the emperor and ruler of this land, be so careless of their next generation’s tutoring?”
Ciardis didn’t know what to say.
Thanar spoke up. “For many it’s the problems in the short term that are most pressing. They thought to put off the issue of your emerging talents and rule for a day they thought far off into the future.”
Sebastian shook his head in reproach but didn’t speak.
Thanar continued, saying bluntly, “And if I was in their position I would have done the very same.”
That caused Sebastian to jerk his head up and look at the daemoni prince in reproach. Even Ciardis looked at him like he was a fool. And he was! Up until now Thanar had been doing so well. Carefully couching his words and actually winning Sebastian’s trust.
Now he had blown it.
But Thanar, being Thanar, just didn’t care.
“You have to admit,” Thanar said craftily, “it’s a brilliant strategy that they got away with for fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years of my life being an absolute misery,” Sebastian snarled.
Thanar turned carefully neutral eyes on the prince heir. “A painless sacrifice on their parts.”
Sebastian almost surged up to his feet, but then he seemed to restrain himself mightily.
Settling back, the prince heir stared at the daemoni prince in silence for a few tense moments.
Then it was Sebastian, not Thanar, who was laughing. It was dry, bitter laugh but a laugh nonetheless. And it lightened into a joyous melody with each passing second.
Ciardis released tension from muscles she wasn’t even aware she had tensed up and watched as a small smile graced Thanar’s face.
It didn’t take long for her to figure out why Sebastian was laughing so hard.
“You did that on purpose,” Ciardis guessed. “Riled him up to ease the tension.”
Thanar glanced at her out of the corner of his eye while balancing his weight in a mostly reclining pose. “Caught me, golden eyes,” he said sneakily.
Ciardis snorted in amusement.
Sebastian slowly settled down and then asked, “Now what?”
“It’s like I said,” Thanar replied in a melodious voice. “It’s all about strategy. Action at the most appropriate point, and right now we have an emperor who knows we’re on to him and that most certainly wants to kill us.”
Heavy silence fell, and Ciardis frowned when Thanar looked at her in a pointed manner.
He finally said in a carefully nonjudgmental tone, “What else, golden eyes?”
Ciardis blinked and licked her suddenly dry lips.
But she answered the question, if tentatively. “There’s a rebellion that needs handling.”
Thanar smiled and looked over to Sebastian. “And how will we go about doing that, Prince Heir?”
Sebastian cocked his head, thinking about it. “An emperor that wants to kill us and a rebellion that wants him dead, or at the very least ousted. Seems simple, they cancel each other out.”
Ciardis’s lips thinned out as she groaned, “Except for Maradian’s little secret.”
“Kill the emperor, kill the land,” Thanar repeated softly.
Sebastian stirred. “Hold on. It’s kill the Kasten ship, kill the emperor, kill the land.”
“Does it matter which order it’s done in?” Ciardis asked, mirroring Thanar slightly and leaning back on her tired hands.
“It does,” said Sebastian slowly. “If we don’t want to kill the land. Think about it. My father is potentially dead, my grandfather died, all their predecessors died, and yet Algardis
remains as whole and healthy as ever.”
Thanar interrupted. “That’s debatable, considering what your civil wars did to the countryside centuries ago. The effect still remains, and until you, the powers of those very same rulers seemed to be waning.”
Sebastian nodded. “I know all that. But the fact remains the same. Kill the emperor, kill the land is too simplistic a concept. Not to mention erroneous.”
“Then how do you think it works?” Ciardis asked.
“I’m not sure,” Sebastian said while looking at her. “But there must be something, some ceremony to pass the final, formal hereditary connection of the land onto the heir before the emperor passes.”
They all looked at each other.
“We need to find out what that is,” Ciardis said finally.
“Why?” Thanar said in a biting tone.
“What do you mean why?” asked Sebastian in complete confusion.
Thanar looked at them both carefully. “Because you two have been dancing around this concept since the trial of Ciardis’s mother. No more innuendos.”
Ciardis sat up and looked at the daemoni prince. She said softly, “If you have something to say, then speak plainly, Prince.”
“Fine,” said Thanar without flinching. “If you want to kill the emperor, then say it.”
Sebastian winced.
Thanar raised up his hands and kept going. “Because if you can’t say it here when no one else is around, how will you execute a plan to bring about his death? How will you convince your Shadow Council and even the nobles that this has to be done?”
Ciardis stared at him ,stunned.
Sebastian said in a mutter while picking at a rock, “You forgot about the rebellion.”
Thanar snorted and said in a censorious tone, “No, I didn’t. Do you really think those happy-go-lucky farmers-turned-soldiers just want to despose your uncle?”
He looked at Sebastian with an eyebrow raised.
Thanar continued to the flummoxed prince heir of the realm without pausing. “No, they don’t. They want the emperor’s head on a stake. They want his blood running through the streets. They want you on the throne, and if you’re going to back them, you need to be well aware of that ahead of time.”
Thanar’s voice was strong and matter-of-fact.
Ciardis nodded and said shakily, “We know that. I think we’ve known for a long time. It’s just hard to think, let alone act on it.”
She looked over at Sebastian who nodded his head shakily.
Thanar let out a long, cruel chuckle. “I forget sometimes how young you both are. How kindly you see the world.”
“We’re not kind,” protested Sebastian.
Thanar gave him an incredulous look.
“We’re firm and just,” Sebastian continued without backing down.
“Right,” said Thanar softly. “Well, I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“We have a city to convince tomorrow,” Ciardis reminded them both.
Thanar smiled. “A city that needs to know that it’s time to come together to defeat a god, and quite frankly, that’s an easier subject than convincing them to kill their leader.”
Ciardis couldn’t help it, she asked why.
“Because your emperor is mortal. He is one of them. He is among them,” Thanar said bluntly. “The god, one of many, is faceless and shapeless. He is an enemy they can all coalesce their anger on. An outsider that everyone can agree belongs nowhere within the lands of the Algardis Empire.”
Sebastian paled and then spoke. “By the very same token, the emperor has enemies and allies, friends and foes, as well as history within every corner of this empire.”
“Mostly enemies,” Ciardis muttered spitefully.
Thanar nodded. “That is why you have an advantage. But that disappears the moment your allies learn that he cannot be killed without killing off their entire way of life.”
Sebastian sighed. “I think it’s time I do more research, and I know just who to talk to.”
Ciardis and Thanar exchanged curious glances. “Who?”
Sebastian smiled. “The land itself.”
Ciardis nodded thoughtfully. It made sense, if you considered the empire’s most knowledgeable historian to be the being that had been around since before its formation.
“Okay,” Thanar said in a tired voice as he stood. “That is truly enough. I am tired.”
They stood after he did. As Sebastian and Thanar filed out of the courtyard, Ciardis looked behind her at the assassin who still lay unconscious next to the fountain.
Ciardis asked in a tired voice, “Think we should wake up Vana?”
Sebastian blinked and then stretched his arms above his head. “In the morning.”
“It is the morning,” Thanar said in a snippy tone.
“In the late afternoon, then,” said Sebastian, unconcerned.
Ciardis asked, “Is that before or after we have a citywide meeting with the nobility, the poor, the Shadow Council and the Imperial Council?”
Sebastian blinked and groaned. “Fine, now it is, then.”
Thanar said, “I’ve lifted the spell. She’ll be awake soon. Don’t touch her with your hands.”
He walked off.
Ciardis glared after him and said, “Not so fast.”
Thanar halted and looked at her with an irritated expression.
“What now?” he asked.
Ciardis pointed at the woman who was just beginning to stir. “We’re a triumvirate. Power of three and all that. We share responsibilities. So you need to stay and help.”
Thanar looked back at her, completely unimpressed.
Ciardis groaned and pulled her own hair in irritation.
Sebastian coughed and said, “What she’s trying to politely say but I’m just going to state bluntly is, don’t try to wheedle your way out of helping, Thanar. You get the powers, you get the responsibilities.”
Thanar smirked. “Fine, if it’ll get you both to shut up. But in recompense, I get first crack at the Duchess of Carne’s head when it’s finally time to kill her off.”
Ciardis laughed. “Noted. Duly noted. Now let’s get Vana and go to bed. Please.”
21
Ciardis didn’t sleep that morning for more than a few hours. She wished she could have slumbered for far longer, but duty called.
When she awoke she plotted a beeline straight for Vana.
When she found her, the assassin was sitting outside, leaning against one of the city walls. Her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. She almost looked peaceful. Even serene.
Ciardis wasn’t very sorry that she had to interrupt her reverie; this was important. Vana had given her answers to problems she didn’t even know she had, but that didn’t excuse what she’d done. Any of it. She had used Ciardis and abused her trust.
Ciardis wondered if Thanar could have even manipulated her mind without Vana’s help and she came back with a troubling answer. Ciardis very much doubted that he could.
So now that Vana was once more in the land of the living, breathing and mobile, she would be the one talking.
When Terris saw Ciardis staring across the way at the completely oblivious assassin, she came up and squeezed Ciardi’s shoulder gently.
“So I heard what happened last night,” Terris said.
Ciardis almost apologized for not including her, but she stopped before the thought had crossed her mind more than a moment. They both knew that they were at a point in their friendship where rules were unspoken and plots that necessitated secrets were practically a daily occurrence. It was a comfort rather than a guilt, because Terris knew. She knew that if Ciardis could have shared the experience in the moment that it was happening, she would have. And it was precisely because she didn’t and Terris still sympathized that it was fine. The rules were complicated, but the friendship was not.
So instead of apologizing, Ciardis reached back over her shoulder and gently squeezed her friend’s hand.
“
I found out a lot about myself,” Ciardis said in a soft, pain-filled voice. “I also found out more than I wanted to about all of us, and about the consequences of what we’re seeking to accomplish.”
Terris paused and then said uncertainly, “What you found out…will it help you in the future?”
Ciardis smiled. “Undoubtedly. It’s already helping me now.”
Terris nodded. “Then that’s what matters.”
“And Vana?” Ciardis asked while truly wanting to know what her friend thought. The same friend who had trained and tutored under the woman who had so calmly violated her memories and her mind.
Terris hesitated again.
This time her voice was different, more thoughtful as she too studied the woman across the way who sat on the curb with her eyes closed and her back to the world.
“When I trained with Vana,” Terris said slowly, “she always emphasized the end goal. If I was learning to do a complicated dance or how to tell a wildflower from a poison root, her advice was the same. Look at the action or object and imagine your life after you’ve accomplished your goal.”
Ciardis listened carefully.
Terris continued, “The accomplishment had to be worth the work towards the goal. That, she said, was her motto.”
Then Terris smiled. “Though with her, the end goal was usually about who she would kill next and how she’d get it done, but you get the point.”
Ciardis coughed and laughed. That did sound like Vana.
Shaking her head in amusement, Ciardis looked back over at the object of her attention. Sighing deeply, she said, “I should go over and talk to her.”
Terris said in a joking manner, “Go easy on her, tiger.”
Ciardis snorted and replied as she walked away, “Not a freaking chance.”
Behind her, Terris shouted, “That’s my girl.”
When Ciardis had gotten almost halfway across the wide street, the woman opened her eyes and said, “Well, I see you survived.”
“Survived?” Ciardis said, stumped as she halted a considerable distance away.
It wasn’t that she was afraid of Vana. She wasn’t. She just didn’t particularly want to be near her right now. Ciardis knew that was unfair, particularly since she didn’t seem to have the same reservation with Thanar, but no one ever claimed that life was fair.