Sworn To Ascension: Courtlight #6

by Terah Edun

  “Because to erect this type of field requires sacrifice.”

  “Personal sacrifice?”

  “Ritual.”

  Ciardis closed her eyes briefly in horror. She’d been living with Thanar for far too long to not realize what that meant. Something or someone had died to erect this.

  “How long ago?” Ciardis said.

  Vana shrugged as Ciardis opened her eyes. “I suspect when this kasten ship was built.”

  Ciardis nodded with lips pursed in horror. She eyed the pristine corridor with renewed distaste.

  She began to walk forward. “Can we get this over with?”

  “Of course,” Vana said, “but there’s one more thing.”

  Ciardis stopped beside Vana and eyed the dark staircase that led into the hold below.

  “What’s that?”

  “The person who erected the containment field would have known the minute we crossed it,” Vana said.

  “And who might that be?” Ciardis said. “A long-dead mage?”

  “No, a kasten ship is built for one person and holds one master,” Vana said as she walked down the second step and disappeared in darkness. “The mage is Emperor Maradian himself.”

  Ciardis felt her jaw drop as she hurried to follow after Vana.

  As soon as she hit the darkness, the unpleasant feeling of stickiness disappeared, only to reappear when they emerged on the last step in the ship’s hold.

  Ciardis couldn’t help the girly squeal as she shook her arms to dispel the ever-present feeling of being covered in a sticky substance.

  “Why do we have to go through that at every staircase?” she complained.

  “The ship’s hold and corridor are spelled,” Vana murmured as her eyes stayed glued on something further away, “not the staircases. Waste of magic if it was. And despite Maradian’s power, he would be a fool to waste the enormous amount of energy it would take to cast and maintain that spell on what amounts to short walkways.”

  Ciardis grimaced and shook her head. “Speaking of the imposter emperor....” She paused. That was the first time she had ever referred to the man in a non-deferential manner.

  “Yes?” said Vana.

  “Shouldn’t we be worried that he’ll come after us?” Ciardis said, unsettled. “That he’ll know we breached the containment fields on his ship?”

  “If he knew where the ship was,” Vana said, “he would have reclaimed it a long time ago, so no. He also didn’t have the field spelled to identify people who breach his field, just the fact that it was in fact breached.”

  “So we’re fine?” Ciardis said with a relieved breath.

  “I didn’t say that,” the assassin muttered as she held up her outstretched hand with a mage light hovering over her palm. “Follow me and don’t touch anything. I’m not sure what’s spelled and what’s mundane.”

  She took off quickly, and Ciardis followed right after.

  “Great,” Ciardis muttered as she hopped over loose coils of rope, dodged sealed crates, and avoided low-hanging bags of indeterminate substances. They kept moving closer and closer to the stern of the ship and the sickly green light they’d seen from the outside.

  When they stepped around one last giant crate, Ciardis stepped beside Vana into a cleared area in the back corner. It was surrounded on three sides by stacks of crates, with just enough room for two or so people to congregate in front of a porthole window.

  So that’s how we saw the light, Ciardis thought.

  She looked over at a round orb about the size of her head. It was shoulder high and reminded her of a mage light ... except bigger and bright green, with sparks shooting out of it.

  Vana unsnapped her waist pouch and pulled out a vial. Ciardis eyed her as she unstoppered the vial and poured the contents on the floor.

  “What was that?” Ciardis asked. “A protection spell for us? Some kind of serum to contain this thing? A—”

  “Stop guessing,” Vana said sharply. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “Well, then?” snapped Ciardis. Just being here gave her the shivers. The glowing green orb wasn’t doing much more than hovering and shooting out green lightning, but she had a bad feeling about it. Not the grimy feeling the containment field had given her, but the feeling that she was staring at something evil.

  Which was silly. Magic couldn’t be inherently evil. It just couldn’t.

  “The sustenance I poured out was adrenaline serum,” Vana said absentmindedly as she grabbed a piece of cloth and wiped out the vial.

  “Adrenaline serum?” Ciardis said slowly.

  She had to wonder what in the world Vana was thinking that would help them with.

  “It’s for me when I need the extra energy after a long and hard two days in pursuit of my prey,” Vana said, “but this time I need the vial more than the substance.”

  Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “You’re not thinking of—”

  “Oh, I absolutely am,” Vana said cheerfully.

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” Ciardis cautioned. “You don’t even know what it is.”

  “I have an idea,” Vana said, “and if I don’t take a portion we won’t ever find out what it is and what it’s doing on this ship. But if it is what I suspect, then I know the reason why Princess Heir Marissa went to great lengths to both procure this ship from under Maradian’s nose and hide it away so that no one can find it.”

  “And do you feel like sharing that mysterious reasoning?” Ciardis demanded.

  “Not as of yet,” Vana said as she stretched her arm forward as far as she could and swiftly pulled her vial through the misty green orb, which was like a ball of liquid in the air. She came away with a smidgen of green substance in the vial as she said, “There.”

  “That’s all you need?”

  “That’s all I need.”

  Ciardis sighed. “So let me get this straight. We boarded this ship for nothing?”

  “No, Ciardis Weathervane,” Vana murmured as she held the vial up to her eyes. “We boarded it for this ... which could amount to everything.”

  Ciardis frowned. She wanted to know more. She needed to know more. But prying information out of Vana was like trying to poke an adder with a stick. Do it enough times and you’d get bit.

  Vana pocketed the vial. “Shall we go back upstairs and see what we can find in the officers’ quarters?”

  Ciardis blinked. “You mean that block of rooms in the corridor between the hull and the top deck?”

  “The very same,” Vana said with a whistle.

  “Are you insane?” Ciardis demanded. “One of those rooms is Maradian’s own. Who knows what spells he’s used to keep his possession safe? You saw what he did to the empress with just a wave of his hand.”

  “I’ll take care of any entrapments,” Vana said quietly.

  “That didn’t seem to work when we walked straight into a containment field,” Ciardis pointed out ardently. She winced even as the accusation flew from her lips, but she knew she was right.

  Vana turned to her with a quick smile. “And how do you know I wasn’t aware of it from the start?”

  Ciardis put her hands on her hips. “Because you weren’t! You couldn’t have been. I didn’t feel a darn thing.”

  Vana chuckled and began to walk back toward the staircase. “You’ve still got a lot to learn, Weathervane, believe me.”

  Disgruntled, Ciardis followed behind like a recalcitrant child. “Even if I do, do you really think breaking into the cabin of an imperial family member with a penchant for murder is wise?”

  Vana shrugged. “We’re already here. Why not take a peek?”

  Ciardis began to mutter disparaging comments about idiots and daredevils. Comments she usually reserved for Sebastian and Thanar.

  Chapter 8

  They got back up to the second landing without incident.

  Vana tried to open the door to one cabin, and they soon found out that several were locked. Vana stood back with a frown for a few minutes before
she turned away.

  “Let’s go,” she said curtly.

  Ciardis startled. She had leaned over to stare at one of the doorknobs. Above the normal-looking handle was a faint etching of the Algardis family symbol—a rampant lion.

  “No, wait,” Ciardis murmured.

  “Now,” snapped Vana.

  Ciardis looked up in confusion. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you wanted entrance to Maradian’s private cabin. I think I’ve found it.”

  “Not this badly,” Vana said with a huff.

  Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “Badly? All it takes is a little lock-picking.”

  Vana raised an eyebrow. “And I assume that you now possess such skills in your repertoire?”

  “I might, but I happen to know that you do,” Ciardis said while standing up and crossing her arms in irritation. “So what’s the problem?”

  Vana grimaced. “My problem? My problem is that this entire corridor has a second layer of magic on the doors. Just like the layer that prevented us from gaining entrance to the warehouse, it will respond to only select individuals.”

  “Thanar again?” Ciardis asked with faint disgust.

  “Not this time,” Vana murmured as she glared at the offending doorways. “I can sense that their magical presences are attuned and they will open to many individuals, but only those tied to one bloodline ... the imperial family’s.”

  “Well,” said Ciardis thoughtfully, “that’s smart.”

  Vana snorted. “Let’s go, Weathervane.”

  “You’re forgetting, Vana,” said Ciardis, “I’m engaged to someone in that bloodline and bonded to them. If I can’t get in, fine, but there’s no reason not to try.”

  Vana glared at her. “All right then, let’s see.”

  Vana grabbed Ciardis’s left hand and placed it palm flat against the prince heir’s cabin door. It took the assassin seconds to do whatever it was that she did to determine the cabin’s pairing.

  Whatever that was, she has no intentions of sharing it with me, Ciardis thought.

  Vana reluctantly stepped back.

  “Well?” Ciardis demanded.

  “It should work,” Vana said with a shrug. “Try it.”

  Ciardis blinked and tried to turn the knob. It wouldn’t budge. “Nope,” she said.

  “It’s not going to magically unlock for you,” Vana said in a tone that conveyed her thoughts on Ciardis’s intelligence. “The point is that it did allow you to try without interfering.”

  Ciardis nodded. “And now?”

  “Try picking the lock.”

  Ciardis resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, but she did grit her teeth at the dry tone.

  Before Vana could insert enough sarcasm to kill her, Ciardis reached down to the door once more and twisted the handle while feeling with her magic. She wanted to be sure.

  Not to her surprise, the smaller door didn’t budge. But she didn’t sense any defensive magic connected to it, either. In fact ... the building almost felt welcoming.

  Perhaps it really will open for me, Ciardis thought. Well, there’s only one way to find out.

  She just hoped there was nothing nasty waiting for her on the inside. If Vana was right, this cabin hadn’t been opened since Maradian disappeared over a decade ago. The idea of it being sealed for such a long time could be good or bad. The protection spells might have dissipated with time, but considering the fact that Maradian’s containment field was still standing, Ciardis wasn’t very hopeful.

  Vana had moved up to stand behind her, so when her voice echoed in Ciardis’s ear she managed not to jump. Barely.

  “Need help?” Vana said.

  “No, I got it,” Ciardis muttered. “I think I have a hairpin.”

  Vana snorted and took some tools from her pocket without a further word and handed them over. With Vana’s occasional guidance and using two steel lock picks, Ciardis got to work.

  After a minute, Ciardis heard a click and the door swung open with a tug of her hands.

  In surprise, Ciardis said, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I think this is worth it?”

  Vana looked over at her in incomprehension. “What?”

  “Picking that lock? Possibly discovering even more about Maradian than we already do and incurring his wrath in the process? He may not know it’s us aboard his ship, but he’s not stupid either.”

  Vana raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes I forget just how naïve you can be. Any information to be had over the enemy is information well gained.”

  Ciardis had the grace to blush. When you thought of someone as your friend, and they didn’t wear the monstrous appearance of their nature on their sleeve, it was sometimes hard to remember their true nature. Assassin. Killer. Torturer.

  As she walked past Vana silently, Ciardis thought, Perhaps I should reconsider my apprehension around Christian, then. Monstrosity on the outside doesn’t mean evil on the inside. Just as beauty on the outside doesn’t mean good on the inside. And Christian has done nothing but prove that not all koreschie are the evil creatures they’re supposed to be.

  Blinking away thoughts of Christian, Ciardis breathed out and looked around in the gloomy darkness. It was a large room for a ship cabin, with a four-poster bed, a desk, and several large pieces of furniture.

  Vana headed straight for the desk.

  Ciardis perused the other side of the room, pulling out drawers, opening the closet, and even rifling through the bedsheets. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Anything that might give them a clue to the personality behind Maradian Athanos Algardis.

  As she prepared to withdraw from the closet, Ciardis heard the sound of something in a waistcoat hung inside as she moved her hand over the garment. She softly put her hand inside and withdrew a crinkled piece of paper.

  On the outside in blue script was a note in beautiful blue penmanship: To My Dear Nephew, Sebastian Athanos Algardis.

  She didn’t have any time to open it before Vana called out, “Ciardis, over here.”

  As Ciardis turned and prepared to show Vana what she’d found, she lifted the note only to feel it disappear from her fingers.

  She looked down in incomprehension and quickly turned in a circle, thinking she had dropped it on the floor, but it was nowhere to be seen. She frantically pawed at the waistcoat pocket, but it wasn’t there either.

  As she stared around, stumped, Ciardis heard Vana clear her throat in irritation.

  “Looking for something?”

  “I thought so. I mean, maybe,” Ciardis stammered.

  “Well, which is it?” Vana asked.

  Ciardis turned around. “I guess I’m not.”

  The letter was nowhere to be found, with no evidence it had been anything but a mirage in the first place. But she had seen it with her own eyes. Felt the crinkle of paper with her fingertips.

  Yet suddenly it was gone.

  Ciardis felt anxious about it, but there was nothing she could do now.

  She walked over to Vana. “What did you find?”

  Vana nodded to a map spread out before her. It took a moment for Ciardis’s eyes to adjust to the contours of the foreign lands, to realize that the mountains on the coast weren’t drawn there by mistake and the inland sea wasn’t a mirage.

  “This ... this is not Algardis,” Ciardis said quietly.

  “No, it’s not,” Vana said, just as heavily.

  “This can’t be good,” Ciardis said. “Whatever he was doing with this. I’m not that well versed in history, but even I know humans were banished from those lands.”

  Vana frowned. “It’s more than just a map. It’s a guide.”

  “A guide to what?” Ciardis asked in disbelief.

  “A guide to the imperial nesting grounds,” Vana said with fire in her eyes. “Whatever it is that Maradian was planning, it had to do with the imperial family of Sahalia and their dragon queens.”

  “We should go,” Ciardis said with a gulp. “We need to tell Sebastian and Raisa.”

 
Vana grabbed Ciardis’s shoulder with such urgency that Ciardis was sure it would leave bruises come morning. “Not for this we can’t.”

  Ciardis looked over at Vana and back down at the map. “How could we not? They might be in danger.”

  “Ciardis, the entire empire of Algardis will be wiped off the map if the ambassador or her empress have any inkling that we have a guide to their nesting grounds,” Vana said in a dark voice. “It doesn’t matter who produced the map. It doesn’t matter why. It cannot be in human possession.”

  “So you’re saying we do nothing?”

  “I’m saying we think about our options and be careful about who we even think about this around,” Vana said. “Don’t mention it to your bond mates. Don’t mention it to your mother. I’m going to figure this out. We need to know what we’re dealing with first.”

  “Vana, I don’t know.”

  Vana looked at her. “Please, Ciardis Weathervane. You don’t realize what this could mean. Empires will burn over this.”

  Ciardis stared down at the weathered map and traced a finger on the dark lines drawn on its surface.

  “How long do you need?”

  Vana’s grip relaxed on Ciardis’s shoulder. “Give me until your return from Kifar. At least that.”

  Ciardis nodded slowly. “Then we need to let the others know.”

  “Yes,” Vana said with a weary look on her face. She carefully folded the map and slipped it into her pouch.

  Ciardis said, “Unless there’s more, we should be going.”

  Vana looked around the cabin. “Oh, there’s more. There’s always more. But I think we’ve gotten into enough trouble for one morning.”

  A weak grin crossed Ciardis’s face, and she went to the cabin door. With one last look around, she exited, and together they went above decks and crossed the flimsy rope back to the anchor point.

  When they once more stood on the platform, Vana looked at Ciardis quietly and said, “What did we find?”

  Conscious of the heavy weight of the secret, Ciardis said, “Nothing.”

  Ciardis and Vana looked at each other and nodded. It was clear that this needed to be protected ... at all costs.