by Terah Edun
“You don’t know that for certain,” said Ciardis nervously.
“Let’s call it an educated guess, then,” Sebastian said dryly.
Ciardis swallowed harshly. Yes, it was time to bury the shovel…or the rivalry. Whatever these two idiotic males wanted to call it.
When Thanar didn’t move an inch to take Sebastian’s hand, Ciardis couldn’t help it, she poked him in the side and gave him a pointed look.
This was an olive branch of peace. He had to take it.
Before she could let her arm fall to her side, Thanar gripped her hand tightly and squeezed it between their bodies.
When he let go, the daemoni prince said with a deep sigh, “My people do not have rivals. We have people we have slain in the name of gaining the affections of others. If we should have a…mate shall we say, we do not do so lightly.”
Ciardis blushed bright red and squeaked out, “What did you say?”
They both ignored her and focused solely on the other.
Sebastian asked with witty bite, “Should I be watching my back, then?”
Thanar rustled his wings lightly. “Unfortunately, your back and its vulnerability are now my own, so no. We are at peace. As much as I would have it otherwise, I am willing to— ”
“Share?” said Sebastian in a mocking tone.
“Let’s not go that far,” said Thanar with a bit of rancor. “Equitably dividing her time between us would work. Just be glad you are a worthy partner, otherwise—”
“Whoa,” snapped Ciardis. “I’m not a side of meat.”
Thanar leveled a frown at her. “I wish you two would stop interrupting me.”
“I wish you both would grow a pair and actually listen to what I have to say,” Ciardis said in an outraged voice.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “We are, which is why we will share—”
“Divide,” Thanar was quick to clarify.
“—divide,” Sebastian in an amended note, “our time with you.”
Meanwhile, Ciardis had stopped listening to him. She was so angry she could swear she was seeing stars in her eyes from blinded vision.
She spoke carefully through clenched teeth. “I don’t care even if you two have come to some sort of détente. I am not a woman to be bought, bartered, or divided.”
Neither of them seemed to be understanding the source of her upset emotions. More’s the pity for them, because she couldn’t turn off the rage and the no small amount of hurt building up inside of her.
Sebastian turned amused eyes on her. “Trust you to object to your two bonded partners coming to an accord.”
Ciardis huffed. “I didn’t object, I just protested, and rightly so.” She turned to look up at the bat-winged idiot, hoping that her words were getting through his skull, even if she couldn’t penetrate Sebastian’s cluelessness.
“Right, Thanar?” she said as she stared up at him huffily with arms crossed.
He held up his hands in mock surrender and laughed. “All right, all right. Divide was the wrong term.”
Ciardis nodded happily. “And?”
“And what?” Thanar asked, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
She dropped her jaw and waved at Sebastian, wanting Thanar to at least say he understood that they were going about this all wrong.
Apparently that message didn’t come through, because the daemoni prince turned to the prince heir and said magnanimously, “I accept your offer.”
Ciardis couldn’t believe her ears a moment later when Sebastian did the same.
Sebastian Athanos Algardis looked over at her seriously as he said, “And you, Ciardis Weathervane? Do you accept our offer?”
Ciardis shifted uneasily on her feet as she looked back and forth between them. She was starting to wonder if she was crazy or in another realm, or if she was speaking one language and they another.
Maybe I’m dreaming, she thought, mystified, as she licked her lips nervously and pinched herself in order to wake up.
It didn’t work. They were both staring back down at her with assured male pride.
Ciardis couldn’t take it anymore. She scoffed.
Just because they had come to some sort of agreement to share their affections with her, didn’t mean she had.
Ciardis stiffened her shoulders and shook her head. “I don’t…I don’t know. I need to think on it.”
Shock immediately crossed Thanar’s face. Sebastian…Sebastian looked angry.
“What do you mean?” he asked in outrage.
Before she could form a response a sound interrupted all of them. The sound of hands clapping.
Clapping that wasn’t coming from her friend, Ciardis was sure.
Sebastian, Ciardis, and Thanar looked over to Terris who was watching them all with the fascinated look of a person attending the most spectacular palace play. She sat on the ground with her face cupped in her hands. When she shrugged with a puzzled expression, clearly not the person they were looking for, Ciardis felt a bit of fear. She looked around the deserted cliff face until they all spotted one lone man staring at them with a deranged expression on his face.
Terris stood up and immediately hurried over to their group. Safety was better in numbers because this was a face that they all recognized.
Seven stood before the four of them. He was one of the last surviving council members from Kifar and the only one who had been among the living when they left. If the people they had found ruling in Kifar could be termed alive.
“My, what a touching scene,” said Seven with cruel smile. “Young love is so poetic. Yet so vile.”
Thanar snarled. “Seven, what an unpleasant surprise. We thought you were dead.”
The tone implied they clearly hoped he had been.
“What are you doing here?” Ciardis asked in a wary tone.
Seven crouched down on all fours like a child beginning to play a game. But he was no child. He had eyes as red as blood with no pupil and skin that was a pure alabaster white. In fact, he reminded her absurdly of Vana Cloudbreaker’s new appearance. Except where her skin was covered in horrific scarring and the texture was rough like the leathery skin of a beast, Ciardis knew that Seven’s touch was as smooth as a baby’s. He was still wearing an absurd amount of jewelry as well. His ruby earring like a drop of blood the size of her fingertip caught a glint of the light and reflected, drawing her eye’s attention at least.
“We’ll ask you one more time,” Sebastian growled while unsheathing his sword. “What are you doing here, Seven?”
The council member from Kifar smiled. It was as a smile as vile as she remembered.
As he crouched lower to the ground, Ciardis’s skin began to crawl. He said in a coo, “Why, I’ve been sent by your father, the true emperor of these lands, Sebastian. He wants you home.”
Before Ciardis could process that proclamation, Thanar leapt forward with a warning cry, “Watch out!”
He was already throwing lightning at the slippery man, but it was to no avail.
Seven sprung whatever magical trap he’d been working on. A shock wave hit all four of them before they could do more than react in horror.
Ciardis felt herself being thrown backward like a rag doll.
She groaned internally, Not again, as she did. Anticipating the fall into the hard rock behind her and the bruises and broken bones she would endure.
Seconds passed, she didn’t feel anything.
Ciardis thought she was unconscious for a moment, but no, there was just nothing to see.
Just endless darkness as she kept falling backwards.
She couldn’t feel anything here. She couldn’t hear Sebastian or Thanar either.
All she was able to sense was the pulse of Seven’s magic.
He’s not done, Ciardis had the presence of mind to think in horror just before a final pulse pushed her into the beyond.
27
When she woke again she felt like she’d been asleep for days. Her body ached like she’d been running a half marathon up
and down a mountain while carrying a goat strapped to her back.
“Where am I?” she hacked out in a semi-intelligible cough.
Soreness radiated from her upper shoulders and down along her spine as she turned frantically in the darkness looking for light and her friends. Looking for Sebastian and Thanar.
There was a single pool of light in the darkness. It looked like it was coming down from a grate in the ceiling overhead.
“Seven, if you’ve hurt them,” Ciardis Weathervane shouted, “I will kill you!”
A person said in a tired voice, “No need for threats, Lady Companion. He’s not here, whoever he is.”
Ciardis froze. Then she said in disbelief, “Meres? Lord Meres Kinsight?”
“One and the same,” Meres said in slight relief as he walked forward from the darkness into the light.
Ciardis coughed as she managed to stand up with no shortage of aches and pains.
Meres said, “I was beginning to think no one would ever find out where we were. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t have wished these circumstances on anyone, let alone you.”
She smiled at him in relief and he gave her a weak grin in return.
She was glad to see him alive. Ciardis rushed forward to hug him. “I’m guessing that it’s a good thing I’m here, then. Wherever here is.”
Meres returned her hug with a bit of groan. “You won’t be so glad when you find out where that is.”
She stepped back with a wince. “Sorry. What’s going on? Where are we?”
“One question at a time,” said a voice Ciardis was certain she never wanted to hear again. Especially not when she was trapped in a hole of a dungeon with it.
She turned hesitantly around. Meres released her arms with a heavy sigh.
Out of the darkness walked Ciardis’s second ghostly nightmare.
Ciardis grimaced. Vana represented an even worse nightmare under the cover of darkness and while standing in a dank hole.
“Ciardis Weathervane, meet the new Vana Cloudbreaker,” Meres said with a grumble. “As far as I can tell, she’s five times as grumpy as the old one and has turned into a ghost to boot.”
“Oh, we’ve already met,” Vana said dryly.
Ciardis glared. “What are you doing here Vana?”
Vana said with a brittle cough, “What makes you think I don’t want to be here?”
Ciardis laughed. “Good one. Now really?”
Vana grimaced. “I left the underground city through the tunnels while minding my own business.”
“Aside from that unfortunate young man you turned to stone,” Ciardis said.
“Like I said,” Vana snapped, “minding my own business until I got to the exit. Suddenly I wasn’t a few steps from freedom but a few steps into a dungeon with a rock coming down on my back.”
“I’m not sorry,” said Meres. “I had people to protect, and you looked like just the sort of prisoner meant to kill other inmates in an ‘accident’.”
Vana grumbled. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. I could kill you with a touch but my favorite method is a garrote. But just for now I’m more interested in finding the individual who put me in here.”
Vana turned to Ciardis with an interested stare. “You seem to know something about that individual.”
Her tone was pointed.
Ciardis felt her skin crawl but she knew she just needed to be grateful for now that Vana wasn’t on a warpath. They had no idea what kind of powers she had stored in her, and what’s more…neither did Vana.
Ciardis was about to answer the assassin’s subtle-as-a-punch inquiry, but her mind suddenly realized that her body was in more pain that she first thought.
Ciardis hissed as the sharp, fiery pain radiated from her fingertips. It stung like angry wasps, and she saw with a grimace that blood was dripping from each finger like an unstopped red ink well.
A wave of dizziness forced her to sit back down.
Raising her fingers to her eyes for a closer look she saw a deliberate slice across the band of each front finger. When she moved her arms, scrapes on her elbows radiated in protest.
“Ciardis, are you all right?” she heard Meres whisper. He crouched down beside her and put a hand on her right shoulder.
She grimaced. “I’ll live. I just have some cuts. Not sure why they’re affecting me so harshly.”
“Yeah, we all had the same question,” Meres said, while showing her similar cuts on his fingertips that were already scabbing over. “I think that’s how they got us in here. Some kind of blood magic.”
Ciardis swallowed harshly. Blood magic wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear when you were trapped in a cell by its practitioners.
“Any way out of here?” she asked hoarsely.
Meres shook his head. “The emperor has some kind of magical field around this cell. He’s not just dampening our magic; he’s making us sick and our bodies weak.”
“All in an effort to control us,” Vana said in a tone that said she was mildly impressed.
“Well, it’s working,” said a voice weakly from the darkness. “Because I feel like I’m dying.”
Meres left Ciardis’s side in a hurry and crouched down a few feet away.
Ciardis jerked her head around so fast, she almost got whiplash. But that didn’t stop her from scrambling up and following Meres’s form.
“Caemon,” she cried as she stumbled over a big rock and stubbed her toe. Stumbling and falling to her hands and knees, she knew his body was not far away.
Gingerly crawling forward Ciardis moved until she felt fingers and then an arm.
“Caemon,” Ciardis said as she gripped him fiercely. “You’re alive.”
“I’m alive sister,” her twin confirmed as he lifted an arm and pulled her down gently.
She hugged him with tears in her eyes. “How did you get here?”
Before he could answer, Ciardis turned to Meres with horror in her voice. “And where is everyone else? Sebastian, Thanar, and Terris?”
Meres hesitated, and fear flashed through Ciardis’s heart. “Meres!”
It was Caemon who answered. “In another level of the emperor’s dungeon. A level named hell.”
Ciardis rocked back on her heels. “How did we get here?”
“It was simple,” Vana answered. “The emperor anticipated your betrayal…and got there first.”
Ciardis felt her heart speed up like she was running a marathon. But she was still sitting in a dungeon cell, overcome with anxiety and wishing for a way out.
“Now, about that name,” Vana said impatiently.
Ciardis responded to her numbly. “The man you’re looking for. The one who put us in here. His name is Seven, and we first met him in Kifar.”
“What business does a man from Kifar have in the emperor’s employment?” Meres asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Ciardis said flatly. “I thought the only thing the people from Kifar hated more than the prince heir was the emperor himself but apparently I was wrong.”
Vana walked over closer to Ciardis. With every step she took, a pronounced rattle followed. Ciardis looked up when she got close enough and was startled to see a heavy iron ball clutched in Vana’s hands. She held onto it, and Ciardis could see that it in turn was attached to a chain and shackle anchored to her waist.
When Vana saw Ciardis looking, she said, “The emperor’s way of keeping me in this cell.”
Ciardis raised an eyebrow and asked politely, “But none of the rest of us have this ornamentation?”
Vana smiled. “You weren’t trained to break into and out of the empire’s worst dungeons either.”
“Fair enough,” Ciardis muttered.
Vana knelt and put her iron ball on the ground with a gentle thump.
Then she looked at Ciardis and smiled. “So tell me more about this Seven…and please don’t leave anything out.”
Ciardis, deciding she had nothing to lose, leaned back against the wall as she held her brother’s
hands and did just that. Maybe Vana would have a way to turn that information into useful targeting.
Or maybe not, Ciardis thought later as she wondered if she was ever going to get out of this dungeon.
* * *
It had been two days. Two days since she had been dropped in here with Meres, Vana, and Caemon.
Two days of watching her twin brother’s health fail from wounds that hadn’t fully healed in the first place.
Two days of not knowing the fate of her closest friends.
Two days of being held captive and not knowing what plans the emperor had. For traitors, for collaborators, for people he could have killed without a care.
Ciardis brushed the wall she was leaning against, almost forgetting where she was for a moment. Her hand came back covered in black slime that had her wrinkling a nose that she couldn’t see. But she refused to sit down for more than an hour’s rest before standing and, if necessary, pacing again. There were worse things on the floor…and in her mind.
As she reflected back on those dark thoughts, Ciardis flinched as she recalled the last moment she had heard Sebastian’s voice and Thanar’s laugh.
Not the most auspicious way to say goodbye, she thought. But she wouldn’t let herself wallow in self-pity. It wasn’t a permanent goodbye after all. She would get out of here, punch Seven in his sanctimonious nose, deal with the emperor, and then lash her seeleverbindung partners with her tongue until they squealed with mercy.
It was their fault after all. If they hadn’t been so focused on their slowly forming brotherhood of love, they all would have been aware of their surroundings and aware of that rat Seven before he managed to spring a magical trap on him.
Speaking of rats, Ciardis thought in disgust as her shifted her stance to give her resting leg a break, and felt her hand touch something small and furry.
She didn’t bother squealing or even looking at it in disgust. She shook it off and walked into the only light that they had. It was a small circular pool in the center of the room and Ciardis’s primary way of telling time as she watched the moon wane and the sun rise through the grill that rose some thirty feet in the air above them.
The grill was too far away to reach and the walls were too slick with slime to climb. She’d even tried yelling for help but none came. Not even a guard to deliver food and water.