Sworn to Defiance

by Terah Edun

  What do you mean?

  Look it up.

  Ciardis wanted to slap him. She wouldn’t. Because she didn’t believe in airing her dirty laundry in public, something she had learned the hard way in the gossip mill of the laundress facilities in Vaneis. Besides he was floating so high up that she couldn’t reach him. But that was all right. She believed in payback and Thanar would certainly pay for his transgressions, all of them, at a later date of her choosing.

  Just answer one question for me, she said, letting a pleading tone enter her voice.

  What is it? he said while looking down his patrician nose at the entire group.

  Is this a permanent bond linking mind and spirit?

  He didn’t hesitate. Absolutely.

  Ciardis felt like cursing up a storm. If she had known she’d be stuck with this before he conjured the sigils in order to save them from death, she would have chosen death.

  There were some types of people you bound yourself to for life.

  Sebastian was one of them.

  Thanar, daemoni prince, murderer, and spiteful hell-raiser, was not.

  She remembered when this bond between them had first come about. It hadn’t been that long ago. A day. Maybe two. Time seemed to be dragging on for her this week. She and Thanar had been racing through the skies on their way to a warehouse, when their race to see the princess heir’s secret became a race to save their lives in mid-flight. A big black dragon by the name of Balash had appeared behind them, intent on burning them to a crisp or eating them or both. She actually wasn’t sure if dragons ate food cooked, but she wouldn’t put it past them to char their kills or have their human servants do it for them. She wasn’t crazy enough to ask the Ambassador from Sahalia that question, though. It would happen when hell froze over.

  At the time of their frantic dash through the skies it had just been her and Thanar, with Thanar doing his best to outfly and outfight a beast forty times his size. The tables had turned when Thanar had conjured the net of Sauras, a bit of arcane magic that he had only been able to bring about because he had used a melding of her weathervane gifts and his own daemoni mage powers. The powerful arcane spell was one that he had said “could only be created between two individuals in perfect unity.”

  She still doubted that perfect unity part. But she didn’t doubt that Thanar wouldn’t have been able to conjure it without her assistance. That assistance had come with a price. A semi-permanent one if she had anything to say about it. His disturbing access to her mind would need to be cut off as soon as possible.

  “Well, two can play that game,” she muttered under her breath. It might be time to really test the daemoni prince’s worth...and loyalty to the god of destruction.

  She felt some relief that Sebastian didn’t yet know about this bond. Not because she didn’t want Sebastian to know on principle but because the moment he did she was certain he’d put his sword through the daemoni prince’s throat. Whether or not she still needed him in her quest to defeat the blutgott.

  Thanar sighed. A pity. I was hoping you’d give up that silly quest.

  Ciardis’s golden eyes opened wide and then she narrowed them as her hands balled into fists in frustration. Never.

  She wanted to hit him so badly.

  Careful, Golden Eyes, we wouldn’t want your prince heir knowing you were thinking amorous thoughts of me.

  I was not! she thought, scandalized. Flashes of his chest came back to her in that moment.

  No, he agreed, but it’s fun to push you to think about it.

  She couldn’t say anything to that. Now that he’d planted the thought in her mind just by mentioning it, she was thinking about him.

  Arghh. Get out of my head.

  Impossible, my little Weathervane. Now that I almost have you. I’m not giving up.

  You don’t almost have anything.

  You keep thinking that, Thanar said as he shut down the conversation by sending a delicious shiver of anticipation through her mind. His own anticipation.

  Ciardis didn’t deign to respond. Mostly because she couldn’t. She was battling for control over her own emotions...and losing. Damn him.

  The daemoni prince’s mouth slid into a satisfied smile as the two creatures caught up to their speedier winged brethren and landed on the rooftop.

  Then Ciardis’s breath caught in her chest. Griffins. Two proud and strong ones stood behind Thanar. A black one and a golden one. She hadn’t seen kith of that variety since her last adventure with Terris. With their wings outstretched, the griffins in front of her filled the rooftop with their massive forms. Ciardis had a moment to wonder where they had come from, the kits in the Ameles Forest were as of yet too young to bear riders.

  Atop the back of the black one sat Vana, her hands gripping the reins confidently. Atop the other sat a child. Ciardis took the girl in with surprise. She was small and scruffy. Couldn’t have been more than twelve. Her red hair was cut in a messy bob.

  “Seraphina,” said Jason SaAlgardis in a growl, “you were ordered to stay at the base.”

  The child raised a stubborn chin. “The guards were coming for the woman and the daemoni. We had to go get them.”

  Seraphina hurried to quickly add, “Skar said we could trust them.”

  Jason shifted a sharp glance to the black griffin.

  Ciardis guessed that was Skar.

  Her theory was confirmed when the black griffin opened his beak and spoke. “They are on the side of the prince heir. They are needed. I would not endanger Seraphina.”

  Jason nodded. “We will speak of this later.”

  His tone said they might do more than just speak. Seraphina’s shoulders hunched in a sulk, but she didn’t say anything back.

  Another explosion happened in a distant part of the villa. The golden griffin said, “That is our cue to leave.”

  Vana spoke. “Ciardis, with me. Sebastian with Jason and the girl.”

  Ciardis frowned. “I don’t think that is wise.”

  Jason turned to her with a frown of his own. “I would not harm the prince heir. Particularly not while the same griffin carries my daughter.”

  “Still,” Ciardis said, “I could ride with Jason and Sebastian with Vana.”

  She didn’t bother putting up the idea of her riding with Thanar. Sebastian wouldn’t have heard of it...and besides she wanted to stay far away from Thanar and his mind-controlling abilities as humanly possible. She didn’t need further complications right now.

  This time Sebastian objected. “No.”

  Thanar repeated the same word within half a second. She didn’t take orders from either one of them, but as a second blast rocked their perch, this one much closer, she didn’t see the point in arguing.

  Ciardis rolled her eyes. “Then you ride with Thanar, Sebastian. While I ride with Vana.”

  Both males looked at her in flat-out disappointment.

  Vana swore and dismounted. “Sebastian and Ciardis on Skar. I’ll go with the bat-winged idiot.”

  A smile cracked Sebastian’s face as he fought not to chuckle.

  Embarrassed at the argument, Ciardis hurried to take Vana’s place astride Skar. She saw leather straps tied to a loose collar hanging from his neck.

  “Good day,” Ciardis said quickly.

  Skar looked to her. “Good day to you. Mount up. We must fly fast and quickly to our destination. The straps are to help you.”

  She nodded. Before she mounted him, she quickly gave a neat bow and said, “Thank you for carrying me up from this place, winged brother.”

  Skar gave a nod. “Wind beneath my wings is wind beneath yours.”

  Chapter 6

  Humming with satisfaction, Ciardis did her best to climb up on the stiff muscles of Skar’s shoulder carefully and quickly. The feathers felt stiff while the muscles underneath were sinewy. She knew he had powerful muscles in his shoulders and forearms. More than enough to carry her form easily. But no creature liked someone climbing all over them—human or kith.
That was just instinctive knowledge. But her awareness of his body and its strength was from her time with Terris and her rescued orphans. She had learned something in her time with the griffins of the Ameles Forest after all. Although this would be her first time riding one.

  Settling between his wings with her legs dangling to either side of his neck, Ciardis held out a hand to Sebastian. He gripped it without hesitation and swung up on to the griffin’s back behind her. Ciardis barely had time to grip the straps over Skar’s neck as she saw Vana approach Thanar before Skar leapt forward into the skies with a powerful push-off with his hind legs.

  She let a delighted whoop escape her mouth as they cleared the tower wall, flew over the garden, and exited the villa’s stone perimeter. Ciardis felt Sebastian’s grip around her waist tighten reflexively.

  A tremor of fear went from his mind to hers. Was the imperial heir actually scared of flying? It never occurred to her that she had anything to fear. Flying felt like freedom. As long as one wasn’t being chased down by fire-breathing dragons, that is.

  With one hand gripping the long feathers on the scruff of Skar’s neck with determination, she reached down to her waist and affectionately clasped Sebastian’s hand in her own.

  “Scared?” she asked.

  “Not a chance,” he shouted back. She wouldn’t have expected a young male to declare anything less. It seemed that bravado ran in their veins. Whereas a woman would be smart enough to assess the situation, admit her fears, and get as close to the ground as quickly as possible.

  A slight over-exaggeration, said Sebastian in her head as he leaned forward with his lips next to her ear. He didn’t kiss her. In fact he didn’t say a word aloud. But she felt his presence surrounding her like a warm glove on a cool evening’s night.

  Perhaps, she admitted with a stifled giggle. She turned her face away from his and directly into the wind to calm her mind. With his arms around her, she felt as giddy as a young woman with her first crush. Half of her wanted to relax and just ride the wave of first love. The other half was scolding herself for feeling remotely happy in the circumstances that surrounded them. Besides, Ciardis grumbled to herself, he still has a lot of explaining to do. As content as she was to ride this wave of love, she knew their personal tribulations weren’t over. Far from it.

  But still when she felt the movement of his arm and he grabbed her hand she couldn’t evade the slight touch. The truth of the matter was she didn’t want to. So with his arm locked around her waist like a bracer, Ciardis Weathervane intertwined her fingers with Sebastian Athanos Algardis. For a moment, they were at peace high in the sky.

  They flew four blocks into the western part of the city before Ciardis noticed something odd on the ground. She couldn’t make out exactly what it was. It looked like one large sheet of metal. The glare of the sun bouncing off it was unmistakable as the metal stretched to fill the width of a street that could easily accommodate a full horse-drawn carriage.

  Speaking mind-to-mind, as they had no time for banter, Ciardis asked, Sebastian, do you see that? To our left on the ground.

  Then the metal shifted like...a living creature. It moved and suddenly the single sheet was dozens of square rectangles. The rectangles had spread apart so space showed between them and as one they lowered to the ground in a vertical movement that exposed the men beneath the metal. They were shields.

  Shock rocketed through Ciardis. Soldiers, soldiers in the streets of Sandrin. She felt Sebastian move his head to peer down over her shoulder.

  Yeah, I see it.

  What are we looking at? she queried.

  The emperor’s personal guard, he answered with dread.

  Before they could speak further, the griffin underneath gave a rage-filled cry. The guards had moved to the side so that they all stood in a diamond-shaped ring. In the center of that ring, an irritated ball of fur strained against ropes that bound it from two different angles.

  Ciardis whistled sharply to get Skar’s attention. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her over the loud wind in his tufted ears, but she would try.

  “What’s going on?” she shouted to the griffin bearing them.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he plummeted from the sky.

  As Skar dove down lower and lower, Ciardis realized without asking that the ball of fur was important to him. Even from high in the sky, she could tell as they drew closer that it was another griffin. A smaller one. Perhaps a baby.

  Side-by-side, the black and golden griffins plummeted to the street were the group of armed soldiers awaited. The wind tore into Ciardis’s face and tears leaked from her eyes as she bowed as close as she could to Skar’s neck and grasped the leather handholds that were part of an elaborate collar system as if her life dependent on it. She could barely keep her lips pressed together from the swift air pressure. Her hair was everywhere and she was certain Sebastian was getting a mouth full of it as closely aligned to her back as he was.

  She needed to do something but there wasn’t much to be done but hang on for dear life on the back of the angry griffin.

  “Skar, don’t attack!” she managed to shout seconds before they landed. “They must want something from us. If they didn’t, he wouldn’t just be bound. A trade probably. I don’t think they’ll harm it.”

  The rapidly descending griffin didn’t say a word. Soon they were back on the ground and he screamed in rage. The little griffin screamed back in fear.

  When Skar found his voice, he shouted, “Let my son go.”

  “Gladly,” said a soldier that stepped forward.

  Skar stood still with his wings outstretched and his feathers standing upright in anger, so high that they reached halfway to Ciardis’s throat.

  The soldier had impressive courage. He came out from inside the phalanx of his men and faced down the enraged griffin. Incidentally, he stopped halfway between the young griffin and the angry father.

  “By order of the imperial chamberlain, we’ve been told to bring in Prince Heir Sebastian and Lady Weathervane for their own protection,” said the man without a trace of fear.

  “Chamberlain,” whispered Ciardis. “They can’t mean Lord Richard Steadfast?”

  Sebastian cursed. “I doubt it. My uncle would say anything to get me to come to the imperial palace if he knew I was aware of his deception.”

  “If he did, do you think he’d send these few men?”

  “No,” said Sebastian grimly. “From what I heard of his exploits as a young man, he wasn’t the type to do things indirectly. He would have come himself.”

  “So I’ve learned,” said Ciardis as she watched the men in front of them. She flashed back to the time the emperor had recruited her for his private project and the time he had personally seen her before the trial of her mother, Lillian Weathervane. Either of those tasks he could have delegated to a lackey, a magistrate or a spymaster perhaps. But he hadn’t. He had thought them important enough to do himself. Either that or he was a control freak.

  Either way, Ciardis was sure this emperor had many fingers in many pies throughout the empire. He wouldn’t delegate anything. Especially something as crucial as this task.

  “So then...” she said.

  The soldier before them repeated his proclamation. “In the name of the emperor himself, by the order of the imperial chamberlain, I assure you that you are under our protection.”

  “From whom?” Ciardis called out to the man.

  Silence met her query.

  The griffin underneath them shuffled to the side. He was ready for them to dismount. Ciardis couldn’t blame him. Skar couldn’t take off as long as his son was held captive. He also couldn’t attack as long as they were astride him.

  Sebastian cursed. “Protection, my bum.”

  “Protection from what?” Ciardis wondered again. The soldier hadn’t answered. Sebastian couldn’t either.

  Thanar and Vana landed with silent thumps. Thumps plural, because Ciardis noticed that Vana dropped to the ground in a wary stance
independent of Thanar’s own descent.

  He must have let her go in the air, she thought to herself.

  The second griffin with the man and his daughter came in shortly after.

  As soon as the little girl saw the young griffin bound by ropes, she screamed, “Skarar! What are you doing to my Skarar? Let him go.”

  The sounds of youthful indignation were met by the equally loud and indignant screeches of the young griffin.

  The soldier in front turned cold eyes from the new arrivals back to the two humans who sat astride Skarar’s father.

  “We don’t want to hurt anyone. But we have our orders,” he said.

  Ciardis felt her stomach roil unpleasantly.

  Don’t do anything hasty, was Thanar’s comment in her head.

  Sebastian let go of her waist at the same time as he spoke aloud. “I am Sebastian Athanos Algardis, and I demand to know on whose authority you dare to presume to order me. Because I certainly don’t take orders from the lord chamberlain of my father’s court.”

  The man paled and quickly went to one knee in a bow. After a minute of silence he rose.

  “I apologize, milord,” he said quickly, “but the matter is one of urgency.”

  Ciardis watched as sweat began to bead on his brow.

  She opened her mouth to speak and the whistle of arrows through the air came back to her ears like a ghost of a memory from the night Stephanie died. Except this was no ghost.

  The arrows fell from all directions to take out the emperor’s men. Even though they wore armor they were falling like flies.

  Sebastian grabbed Ciardis abruptly and threw them both from Skar’s back. They rolled on the ground and came up in the shelter of the backside of a water fountain.

  “They’re using crossbows!” Sebastian cried.

  “I can see that,” Ciardis shouted back as she frantically took in the situation. What she couldn’t see was who was using the crossbows and who or what their primary target was. Were they after the griffins, Sebastian or the soldiers themselves? For now she and Sebastian were safe, but Skar, his child, and everyone else that couldn’t hide under an overhanging object were sitting ducks.