by Terah Edun
It chilled her to think about it. The far-reaching and unintended consequences. She knew that more than anything would haunt her for the rest of her days. If she lived through this.
Licking her lips, Ciardis watched as Jason and his men began to walk back down the steep slope into the city. Before he disappeared from view, he looked back at Ciardis’s group standing on the ridge and nodded somberly.
She wasn’t the only one worried about consequences, which was good, because they all needed to be.
Ciardis nodded back, then she grimaced while wondering, How am I supposed to explain to the courts that the Duchess of Carne is dead and we weren’t the ones that killed her? “We just happened to be standing there when it happened” will go over just swell.
Terris called out, “Heads up!”
Ciardis stiffened automatically and then looked up to see Thanar descending. He folded his wings and roughly landed on the steeper cliff side a few feet away from Jason. They conferred for a minute and then Thanar walked back up the cliff face where the rest waited patiently.
“So,” Thanar said in a pointed voice.
“So,” Ciardis said in a tone she was beginning to tire of. It was a tone of weariness.
“What happened in there?” Thanar asked with a jerk of his head. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t go in. These wings are too big. I did see the resulting carnage on the slopes, though.”
“Really?” said Sebastian in an interested tone.
“Those traitorous Shadow Council idiots put up a good fight,” Thanar said in a grudgingly respectful tone. “But SaAlgardis’s men had them outnumbered three to one. After one went down, another dashed into the tunnels and a third got burned to a crisp by a power hungry dragon who barely stopped to aim.”
Ciardis hummed. “I’m guessing the Duchess of Carne was Raisa’s priority at the moment, and since she was still in the city…”
“Said dragon decided a hit-and-run was optimal,” Thanar said with a sarcastic look as he scratched his ear. “Got it. Anything else?”
Terris and Ciardis exchanged interested glances.
Slowly Terris said, “You tell us?”
Thanar was still looking back at the city when he casually said, “Nothing to report from the skies, or their version of it anyway. I searched the pockets for a dragon and found nothing but dirt clods and falling rocks for my trouble. She’s not up there, as far as I can tell. Not that I thought she’d fit in the first place.”
Ciardis snorted. It made sense.
Terris, however, crossed her arms and said in a cross voice, “So now what?”
Ciardis felt her shoulders fall. She didn’t know.
Oh, she knew what she had to do. Namely, journey with Sebastian to the city colosseum and confront who knows how many individuals in a bid to ask rich and poor, landed and homeless, individual and families to give up their safety, to follow behind their banners, and to risk house and home to fight a god when they all knew they were far too mortal to withstand his wrath.
Ciardis wanted to answer Terris and say run. She wanted to say “We go to the countryside and don’t come back until the bluttgott is gone,” but she couldn’t.
Because it wasn’t just the god.
It was the corrupt emperor.
It was the dragon empire poised to invade.
It was the constant discontent from hordes of people as far east as the Ameles Forest, as far north as the Northern Mountains and as far west as the city of Kifar.
It was the knowledge that they could do better. That they should do better.
It was knowing that if she had even a small part to play in that, she had no choice. That she couldn’t turn away.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t, Ciardis thought in desperation.
She turned to her friends with passionate hope on her face. The expressions that greeted her ranged from eyes narrowed in suspicion to mouths downturned in worry.
Ciardis heard Terris’s question in her mind again, and it was like a death bell ringing that she couldn’t shake. It fed her desire to get them away, away before that bell rang for one more soul, one more friend that she couldn’t protect.
She focused on Terris first. “You run. You get away from here as fast as you can.”
Terris was shaking her head in disbelief, but Ciardis didn’t give her time to interrupt.
Ciardis pivoted to Sebastian. “Go, go and set up a far-off throne. Maybe near Kifar. The plains people have made it clear that they will follow you. Use that. Become the ruler they’ve desired all along, a ruler who listens to its people.”
“And what will you be doing?” Thanar said in a tone that cut her off at her knees.
Ciardis turned to him with chin raised high. “I’ll do what I can here, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Thanar roared as his wings spread wide. “You’ll die alone here, you idiotic fool.”
Ciardis didn’t rise to his bait. She didn’t anger.
“I have to try,” she said calmly. “I know it’s hard to understand that, but I can’t ask you to keep going, to keep doing this, Thanar. I’m releasing you. All of you.”
Thanar’s mouth curled into a cruel smirk and his eyes hardened to onyx.
Ciardis turned to Sebastian in desperation, hoping he would see that she was right. She looked at him and said, “Don’t you see? You’re the future, Sebastian. Without you, the empire will fall. No matter what Maradian thinks, he is not its heart. You are. You must go.”
Sebastian’s arms were folded across his chest and he was staring at her with an unreadable expression, his face composed but unforgiving.
Ciardis shook her head and exploded, “Did you hear me?”
Sebastian looked over at Thanar.
Thanar stepped forward and said with a dark seriousness in his voice, “We heard you, all right.”
Ciardis almost snarled. “Then why are you standing here?”
When she whirled around to confront Thanar, she almost wished she hadn’t.
Thanar didn’t look angry any more. If anything, his stance said he was beyond angry.
Ciardis gulped and said helplessly, “I just want you all to be safe.”
A different expression crossed Thanar’s face as he chuckled.
“You know, Ciardis Weathervane,” Thanar said in a light tone, “if you had made that offer months ago, I would have taken you up on it. I would have left, court turmoil be damned. Because I did not sign up to try to defeat a god.”
Ciardis nodded. “I understand.”
Thanar’s expression chilled. “But today is not that day. Today I am here.”
Before Ciardis could formulate a response, Terris stepped forward and said, “And girl, I’m here.”
Ciardis felt her teeth snap together and her lips too as she looked to her best friend with a feeling she couldn’t describe in her heart. It wasn’t surprise. She wasn’t really surprised by any of their refusals to leave. More like amazed.
Terris, however, had words for her beyond what she’d already said.
With a sardonic look in her eyes, Terris continued, “What’s more: you seemed to have forgotten that my husband is here. I wouldn’t leave him just like I won’t leave you.”
Ciardis shook her head. “I didn’t mean that, Terris. Of course we would have gone for Meres and gotten him away with you before…”
“No,” Terris shouted. “Where, Ciardis Weathervane? Where would we go? To my people’s islands—where the dragons are sure to invade first? To the north, where the gate of the gods lie? Or how about to the west where a deadly disease still rages?”
Ciardis said weakly, “There are still enclaves. Small villages that will be overlooked. You could take shelter there.”
“No,” said Terris. “I’m done running. I’ll make my stand here, and I think I can speak for my husband as well. This empire is our home, and we’ll not stand by while it’s consumed. You are not its only savior, you are not the only person who cares, and you are not the only pers
on who loves her friends like family, her lovers like her own soul, and the land like her home no matter where she is. I’m staying.”
Ciardis lifted a hand and let it fall back to her side as Terris walked off to the cliff’s edge and stared over at the city in silence below, clutching herself tightly.
Ciardis took a step forward, but Sebastian stopped her.
“Let Terris go. She needs a minute in peace.” He put a hand on her arm and turned her around with a bit of pressure.
Ciardis felt tears glisten on her eyelids. “I just wanted you all to be safe.”
Sebastian wrapped his arms around her. “We know.”
Ciardis let out a gasp of a sob. “Then why refuse?”
Sebastian wiped a lone tear from her cheek. “Because what you don’t seem to understand, Ciardis Weathervane, is that you are not the only savior of this empire.”
Ciardis looked at him, confused.
“I don’t think—” she started to protest.
“You do,” said Thanar as he walked up to them with his arms crossed and his eyes disturbed. “But that’s because for too long have we walked in step behind you.”
“You haven’t,” she sobbed. “You may be a malicious jerk, Thanar, and Sebastian may be an uptight stiff, but you’ve been there for me.”
“Then why are you crying?” Sebastian fairly shouted.
“Because I want you safe, darn it,” she said while slamming an ineffectual fist in his chest.
Sebastian looked perplexed. Ciardis could barely see through the tears in her eyes, but she heard him speak to Thanar in a mental thread. They were all standing much too closely together for it to go unnoticed.
What? Ciardis heard Sebastian cried out in a flummoxed tone to Thanar.
She’s an idiot, Thanar grumbled back. Just go with it.
Sebastian took her shoulders firmly and forced her to step back. Thanar wiped her eyes with a cloth he had magically summoned from somewhere. Then Sebastian called her name. “Ciardis?”
“What?” she said, snatching the cloth from Thanar’s hand and blowing her nose in a messy manner.
Sebastian put his hand on her cheek and leaned down to kiss her forehead in between both eyes. “You want us to be safe. We want you to be safe. So how about we make the world safer so that we can all live in peace?”
Ciardis paused sniffling and looked up. “No more bluttgott?”
“No more bluttgott,” they promised.
“No more threats from an insane emperor?” Ciardis said.
“No more threats,” they promised.
She paused. “The dragons?”
Thanar and Sebastian exchanged nervous glances. “We’ll cross that road when we come to it.”
Ciardis couldn’t help it. She laughed.
“So how, my princes?” she asked dryly. “How do we get to this utopia?”
“By standing together,” Sebastian said firmly. “Really standing together. No more doing what we want when we want it.”
“No more deferring to protocol and others’ needs,” Thanar grumbled sarcastically.
“No more sacrificing the good for the sake of the better,” Ciardis said firmly.
They all nodded.
“And,” Sebastian said in a strong voice, “for too long we have stood in your shadow—”
“—or raced to catch up,” said Thanar dryly.
Sebastian nodded to Thanar as he stepped back from his tight embrace of Ciardis Weathervane.
“Now, my lady Companion,” Sebastian said formally, “we’ll step forward as equals to fight for this empire against all comers.”
Ciardis laughed up at Sebastian while trying to control her emotions. “Is that what you two call wiping my mind of memories?” she asked with a gaiety that she didn’t feel. “Equals? Because I don’t.”
She hadn’t wanted to ruin the moment, but it had to be said. The issue couldn’t be swept under the rug like dirt.
Thanar’s expression darkened. “I did that because I thought I was helping you.”
Ciardis frowned and shook her head as she took a step back from him…from both of them. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“I know,” Thanar said as he stepped forward hesitantly. “But I am sorry. I was in the wrong. And honestly…if it had been a year before, I would have just locked you away somewhere and come back for you later.”
Fire broke out in Ciardis’s vision.
“Not helping, Thanar,” Sebastian yelped with a firm shake of his head.
Thanar dropped his head and then said, “I’m sorry, Ciardis Weathervane.”
Ciardis froze. He may have been still looming over her, but the pain in his voice said he felt smaller than a mouse. What’s more, Ciardis had never seen Thanar apologize before…ever.
“You really mean that, don’t you?” Ciardis said as she reached out and tilted his downturned head up to meet her eyes.
“Yes,” said Thanar fiercely. His lips trembled and Ciardis was startled to see a single tear on the corner of his eye. “I really do. I realize I was wrong…not just because of what came about because of the lies, but because the action itself was wrong.”
Ciardis bit her lip and tried to make a decision. She took a slow breath as a final tear ran down her cheek. She really questioned if this was the right call, but she felt her heart opening up and she wondered if there was still room for a daemoni prince with a world of regret in his eyes.
26
Ciardis gave a startled laugh. She gently traced Thanar’s chin with her hand and said, “This is becoming a bit of a play, isn’t it?”
Sebastian looked at her in confusion.
Ciardis caught his expression out of the side of her eye. She dropped her hand guiltily and then shook her head in annoyance. At herself, at Sebastian, at Thanar, at all of it.
“I’m beginning to feel like a starry-eyed actress on a stage with my entire life as the acts. One scene closes and another opens, all for a rapt audience to view,” Ciardis admitted a bit self-consciously as she folded the cloth that Thanar had given her in search of a dry spot.
“There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that,” Sebastian said. “Comes with the territory of being princess heir, actually.”
“I know,” Ciardis said softly.
Having found a dry spot, she dabbed at the corners of her eyes and tried to sniff the dangling snot back up into her nostrils. That didn’t work, so she blew like a child with a three-day cold on the horizon.
It wasn’t the most elegant measure by any means, but these weren’t the most elegant times either.
Finished with her ministrations, she looked up to see a slightly affronted expression on Sebastian’s face and a mildly amused one on Thanar’s.
Ciardis said defensively, “Well just because I’m on a stage doesn’t mean I stop being me. And if you two can stand there while I blow my nose like a wildebeest and still want to be with me as both seeleverbindung companions and true partners, then I guess I can forgive you. Both of you.”
Sebastian scoffed. He clearly didn’t think he needed to be forgiven for any indiscretions but that was all right, because Ciardis wasn’t really paying attention to him anyway.
Her last words had been said while looking directly in Thanar’s eyes.
And Thanar smiled. A truly grateful smile. She saw it in his face and his soul.
Ciardis felt hope blossom inside of her for him for the first time. She hoped that the tiny sliver of compassion never died. In either of them.
Sebastian cleared his throat. “Not that I don’t think this is a highly disturbing scene, but—”
Thanar and Ciardis both turned glares over to him, but he continued undaunted.
“—we all know that the issues before us loom large,” Sebastian went on. “If we can’t face them together, we’ll have no chance apart.”
Thanar relaxed his wings a bit. “This is getting rather tiresome to say, Prince Heir, but I actually agree with you on this matter.”
“I’m so glad,” Sebastian said dryly as he continued on with a small sigh. “As a boy at court, I was told to never let a rival win. That it was both a personal failure and a mark against the nobility of my family. A travesty.”
“What’s that got to do with this?” asked Ciardis in a doubtful tone.
Thanar patted her shoulder. “Let him finish. I think I see where this is going.”
Ciardis rolled her eyes and waved a magnanimous hand. “Then by all means, Prince Heir, please do continue.”
Sebastian gave them both a dry glare but all he said was, “Don’t mind if I do. As I was saying, not winning against a rival was just not done. However, I’ve never really held much water in the views of the court. After all they did try to kill me…several times.”
“So what are you saying, Prince Heir?” Thanar asked with a dark purr in his voice.
Ciardis shifted in impatience but waited for Sebastian to get to the point. She owed him that, at least. However she was feeling a bit like the third wheel in their little moment of comradery. It slightly weirded her out that Thanar seemed to be understanding where Sebastian was going with this quicker than she did, but she’d take all the friendship between those two she could get. Because at the moment, their seeleverbindung was as fragile as a web spun from spidersilk. Strong if they all held firm, broken if they let even a moment’s weakness overcome them.
Oblivious of her thoughts, Sebastian let a small smile grace his face as he held out his hand. “How about a truce? For now?”
Thanar raised a perfect eyebrow as he stared at Sebastian’s outstretched hand. Ciardis’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth.
“Peace?” she squeaked. “Peace between the warring camps? Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I didn’t realize those two squaring off constituted a civil war,” said Terris as she wandered back over eyeing their little confrontation with interest. There were dried tear tracks on her face but the expression in her eyes said not to mention it.
So they didn’t.
“It does when both parties are part of a soul bond that means the death of one equals the death of all,” Sebastian said seriously.