by Terah Edun
Ciardis’s eyes widened. The soldiers had abandoned their positions of restraining the young griffin but if possible Skarar was in even more trouble now. As she watched, an arrow pierced his wing and pinned it to his side. Lurching towards his father the griffin didn’t realize he was hit until too late. He fell down to the ground in a painful yell with his father rushing toward him.
Instead of seeing that the adult griffin was only trying to protect his son, the soldiers surrounding their captive only saw a threat. Bringing their swords up, they attacked Skar. He fought them bravely but in the meantime his son only grew more disoriented with arrows still falling, fear filling his screams for his father and the rope tangling his legs. With a curse, Ciardis dropped her glaive and sprinted forward. Pausing only to pick up a felled knife she came up to the young griffin’s side. She intended only to cut the rope that bound Skarar’s body but she should have known better to approach a young, frightened griffin.
Eyes wild Skarar turned and lunged at her. She dove back, falling to the ground with her heart racing. Pain raced up her arm as she brought a hand up to her shocked gaze. He had cut her with his beak from the edge of her palm, up around the curve of her wrist and along the back of her arm. Blood was everywhere. She hadn’t passed out yet so she hoped he’d missed an artery.
The griffin continued to scream in her face with clawed feet upraised and beak agape for another attack. She focused her wary attention on him as she tried to sit up. Difficult when you were unsteady from blood loss and trying to keep hold of a knife with your only ambulatory hand. Letting the knife stay close to the ground Ciardis took in the griffin’s defensive stance. He was young which meant that his beak reached the height of her throat instead of towering over her. That was even scarier. She might be able to maneuver faster if he was adult and his size encumbered him. Instead they were an about even match in height and weight. Which meant that he was big enough to kill and she was truly lucky all he’d done was cut her flesh with his razor-sharp beak.
“I’m sorry,” Ciardis said. “I was just trying to help.”
He screamed long and loud. Wings upraised in a half-motion as if he was going to take flight, but she knew he couldn’t. The rope binding him assured that. She wasn’t sure if he understood what she was saying though. He looked old enough to speak human words now but just because a toddler could mimic speech didn’t mean they understood what they were saying.
She raised a trembling, bloody hand. “Please calm down. Can you understand me?”
The knife was gripped in her left hand by her side. She had no intentions of using it. But she wasn’t a fool. If it was him or her, she would have to choose herself. Arrows continued to fall around them. Some had come too close for comfort. She wondered why none had pierced them yet though.
Seconds later Ciardis heard loud panting breaths coming closer. She turned on her knees so that she could keep one eye on Skarar and another on the approaching individual.
To her surprise, the young girl plopped by her side. Breathing hard with red hair even more askew from the windy ride, she said, “I’m Seraphina, what’s your name?”
Ciardis bit her lip and eyed her new companion. The middle of a skirmish wasn’t exactly the best time for introductions and an insane girl wasn’t exactly her idea of a rescue operation.
Where’s Vana when I need her? she wondered glumly.
Chapter 7
Seraphina repeated her questioned slowly, as if Ciardis was a dunce who hadn’t understood her the first time. “I’m Seraphina, what’s your name?”
The pause after was deliberate and pregnant with importance.
Puzzled at what the girl was doing, Ciardis finally answered just to see what her response would be. “Ciardis Weathervane.”
Seraphina beamed in praise.
“I’m twelve, how old are you?” the girl asked.
She was staring straight at Ciardis and ignoring the trembling baby griffin just two feet away. The focused exuberance was disconcerting. Appropriate in one so young but unsettling for the situation. Seraphina looked and acted as if they had just sat down for high tea and were getting to know each other. Never mind the fact that they both knelt on cold cobblestones and men all around them, including the prince heir of the realm, had brought up their weapons for battle. Even worse was the fact that Ciardis could see in a glance that the men weren’t making any attempt to combat the hail of arrows around them. Instead they faced off grimly with Sebastian, Thanar, and Vana, who had all moved forward to defend the embattled Skar, surrounded on all sides by stupid human men with swords. Ciardis didn’t see Seraphina’s father. She wondered where he had disappeared off to. She didn’t think he was the type to abandon his little girl. You would be hard-pressed to find a man enough of a coward that he would abandon his child in the middle of what was becoming a pitched battle. But she didn’t know much about Jason SaAlgardis either.
She turned her eyes back to Seraphina. Her face was pinched with pain but she felt calm. In a precipitous turn of events, she’d gotten used to blood and battle enough that she could project that calm through her eyes. So when she turned her gaze to Seraphina, it wasn’t with a crazed look but rather a calm expression of a seasoned professional warmonger. Whether she wanted to be a seasoned professional of war was another thought to be debated on an entirely different day.
Meanwhile Seraphina’s wide eyes told Ciardis to play along. Ciardis tightened a hand on her knife while she felt her other hand go numb from blood loss. She continued to hold it high above her head in the hopes that it was slow down the blood loss and keep her wound from becoming fatal. Then she played along. Maybe the girl had a plan. Maybe the idiot men would stop glaring at Sebastian, Thanar, and Vana long enough to realize that they would have a disastrous situation on their hands if they didn’t return the kit to his father soon.
“Eighteen. And before you ask, I’m from a small vale in the north called Vaneis,” Ciardis said quietly.
The girl shook her head and her red hair flew every which way. Most raised in odd tufts like a halo around her face when she stilled her gesture.
“Not true,” Seraphina said in a singsong voice.
Ciardis felt irritation flow through her. Being accused of lying by a twelve year old who looked eight at best was grating at any time. Here, with people fighting around her and arrows threatening to hit them at any moment, it put a knot of nervous anger in her belly that she didn’t need.
Then Ciardis truly stilled. She looked around and realized that last assessment of activity around them wasn’t necessarily true. Flicking her gaze up, Ciardis saw that none of the arrows were falling within a five-foot radius of the three of them. Every single one that came in their vicinity bounced away as if deflected by a shield.
Turning back to the girl, she said, impressed, “Are you doing this?”
“No, but I know who is,” the girl said in a calmer tone. She sounded less hyped up.
Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
The girl shrugged and her eyes glanced over past the griffin. Ciardis flicked her gaze to follow Seraphina’s eyes and she worked hard to keep surprise from her face. Partially because she didn’t want to alert the young griffin of another person creeping up on them. The other half of that desire to keep surprise from her face surfaced because she wasn’t sure if the surprise would show as delighted or horrified in Seraphina’s eyes. After all, Ciardis had yet to decide whose side Jason SaAlgardis was on—the emperor’s, Sebastian’s, his own, or that of another entity that had yet to be named. Whatever that side represented, the man creeping up on the young griffin had guts. He slunk low to the ground. A short gladiator’s sword held out in front of him as he snuck closer and closer. Ciardis had no idea what he was about but from a glimpse at his other hand she got the feeling that Seraphina had been telling the truth—he was the cause of the invisible shield above him. In the hand opposite of the sword-wielding one was a net made entirely of magic. It glimmered alive with his gift, wha
tever that was, as he dragged it across the ground.
Before she could say anything, he shook his head grimly. Silently telling her and his daughter to act normal. Ciardis’s shoulders tensed but she was careful to keep the sweep of her gaze going so that it came back around, took in the griffin and refocused on Seraphina.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ciardis noticed that the young griffin was calming down. He looked less like a pincushion of angry feathers and more like a scared and weary child. Intelligence was returning to his eyes where only a maddened fury had been present before.
“We need to keep talking,” Seraphina prodded. “It calms Skarar. Then you can get the ropes off of him.”
“To put another in its place?” Ciardis said tightly.
“A dream net,” Seraphina was quick to say. “Skarar is frightened and tired right now. You get the coarse rope binding off him and then he can sleep in my father’s arms.”
Reluctance clouded her mind, but Ciardis had to admit, she didn’t have a better plan.
Ciardis shifted the knife in her hands.
Seraphina said cautiously, “Keep it below your waist. Skarar can’t see it there as long as it stays on your left side.”
Ciardis caught on. “He reverted.”
“Mmhmm,” murmured Seraphina. Her head was half-turned to the griffin. With the quizzical tilt of her face, it looked like she had a question but Ciardis knew she was assessing his state. Assessing whether or not Skarar was likely to revert back to a primal state induced by fear. In Ciardis’s gaze he only seemed to be growing calmer by the minute. His feathers were now plastered against his back in fear. He was almost huddling now but the gaze in his eyes was still fierce.
She thought about what Seraphina had said. Conversation soothed him. Then conversation it would be. Not many people accused Ciardis of being stupid once they got to know her. She could be calculating when she put her mind to the purpose. She might be stuck playing tea with a young girl but she might as well get as much information out of her as possible.
“So Jason SaAlgardis is your father?” All the while, the man continued to creep forward. He was ten feet away now and moving no faster than a baby crawling on its hands and knees. But he didn’t have a choice. If he sped up the little creature would surely hear him. Ciardis had no idea what Skarar would do then, but she didn’t want to find out. Not because she was frightened of the trembling baby, but because even subtle movements could wrench the arrow in his wing enough that he could tear his flesh and be lame for life.
“Yep,” the girl replied cheerfully.
“And you’re the granddaughter of Emperor Cymus Athanos Algardis?”
If she was, that made Sebastian her cousin.
“Duh,” scoffed the girl.
“Do you know your father believes certain things about the emperor?”
The girl turned her full attention to Ciardis. Anger sparked in her gaze. But she kept her tone calm.
“True things! Everything my father told you was true.”
“And what were those things?”
The girl sat back with her legs crossed and her eyes shuddered. She scoffed, “Shouldn’t you already know? I’m not telling you anything.”
Ciardis leaned forward and gripped her hand tightly. “This is important.”
The flat of her blade rested against the girl’s skin, but Ciardis didn’t mean it as a threat. She just didn’t want to put the weapon down in case they needed it.
Seraphina turned a cold gaze on the Weathervane. “Let go of me.”
“I don’t think so,” Ciardis said in a calm whisper. “I need you to answer some questions. I’m not here to hurt you I just want you to tell me...”
But Seraphina wasn’t listening anymore. Her red hair began to lift from her head as if it was taking a life of its own. Instead of spiky clumps, every strand stood out from static. Lightning began to crackle in the air around them and Ciardis could have sworn she saw a streak of white energy materialize behind Seraphina.
The lightning must be coming from her father, Ciardis surmised. It made sense. She was sitting a foot away from the girl and no hint of a mage’s aura was coming from her.
When she turned to look for the threat, she felt power trickle up her arm. Then she turned a wary gaze back on the girl. Seraphina’s eyes had changed. White lightning grew in them until her entire orb blazed with enclosed thunder.
“Or not,” Ciardis whispered in a horrified tone.
Shaken, Ciardis released her arm. She watched as lightning trailed from Seraphina’s skin and arced up over her body like fingers reaching for her. Gulping, Ciardis shuffled back. It followed her.
“Don’t move,” Seraphina cautioned. Ciardis turned her eyes from the lightening to the girl’s face. It was eerily calm.
Then the lightning jumped to the blade of her knife. Once. Twice. Forcing Ciardis to drop it. Stubborn she picked up her weapon back up, and shielded this time so that she had some protection.
Looking into Seraphina’s ghostly eyes, she watched as the girl said, “I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m going to ask you just one time. Please let go of the knife.”
Ciardis breathed out hard. “If I don’t?”
A bigger streak of lightning hit the ground between their knees. It left a charred mark in the stone of the street. Ciardis had never seen a weather mage with that much control in her entire life.
“Okay,” she said as she put the knife down by her side, “but if you keep this up you’ll have a big problem on your hands.”
“And what’s that?” Seraphina said with her characteristic tilt of her head.
It was odd seeing such a childish attribute in a girl that was clearly more powerful than she looked.
Ciardis jerked her head at Skarar. The young griffin looked to be hyperventilating. He was crouched down low and his feathers had risen once more until he looked like a giant ball of poof. His eyes had stayed the same: angry, frightened, and confused.
Seraphina’s father had stopped moving as well. Unfortunately he wasn’t crouching behind the griffin, but rather had been detained by two soldiers with swords to his throat.
Abruptly Seraphina’s face changed. The confident face of a mage was gone. Instead a young girl with a worried look in her eyes and frown on her face overtook it. Slowly her hair stopped sparking. It didn’t lay down flat, but Ciardis wouldn’t expect it to after that display. The power in her eyes dimmed until a normal blue iris became evident.
“Father,” she cried out.
“It’s all right,” shouted Jason. “Take care of Skarar. Keep going.”
Shocked, Ciardis realized that even with a knife to his throat and clear pressure from the two men gripping his shoulders he had refused to drop the shield protecting them from outside interference. Ironic that. She was trapped inside a bubble with a weather mage that had more control over her gifts than a master mage she had known for too short a time. Not her ideal situation.
Gulping Seraphina refocused her attention on the young griffin as she said, “Oh, Skarar, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted her to let me go.”
Carefully, Ciardis said, “I’m sorry about that. He’s afraid of lightening?”
“Most magic, actually,” Seraphina said dolefully. Every trace of her gift had left her. She sat ordinary once more except for the occasional spark of energy above them.
“So tell me about that, then,” Ciardis said while easing her legs around so that she no longer knelt on her knees but sat cross-legged instead.
Seraphina gave her a doubtful look. She didn’t trust her. Fair enough, but Ciardis had to show her she hadn’t meant any harm. If the girl believed her original questions weren’t important in the process, even better.
“It might help us approach Skarar and let him see we’re having a conversation,” Ciardis prodded gently.
She still held her hand above her head. She was beginning to grow dizzy. But she’d had worse injuries in fights before. This one wouldn�
��t kill her.
Finally Seraphina nodded and sat back on her haunches from where she’d risen up upon feeling threatened.
“He and his da are the last of three griffins left. Their whole family was hunted down by mages on the western plains. Now it’s just them and the golden one over there.”
“Hmm,” said Ciardis. “Well, I happen to know a whole pack of griffins that live in the Ameles Forest. They might not be so alone after all.”
Seraphina’s eyes lit up with a little girl’s delight as she turned to the griffin in excitement. “Did you hear that, Skarar?”
The young griffin’s tufted ears swiveled to Seraphina’s voice, indicating that he had heard her. That was a good start.
Ciardis took in the area outside their shield in a glance. From her small vantage point it looked like the rain of arrows had stopped. The fighting had stopped. Skar and Sebastian looked no worse for wear and the soldier from before was actually standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the prince heir. He seemed to be arguing with one of his men.
She couldn’t make out any more before Seraphina caught her attention.
“So there are more? How many more?” the young girl demanded shyly.
“At least six,” Ciardis answered absentmindedly. “There are boys and girls. They’re young still, too, so Skarar could have some playmates. My friend Terris knows more.”
Seraphina nodded eagerly. “Could I talk to her?”
“Sure,” Ciardis admitted. “She’s here in the city. I’m sure she’d love to meet Skarar and Skar.”
“Well, that might be good.”
This time it was Ciardis who nodded. “But we need to ditch these soldiers first.”
Seraphina sat up. “I agree.”
“Then let’s see if Skarar is ready for us,” Ciardis ventured.
Seraphina nodded.
Their eyes met as the corners of their mouths raised in fierce grins.
Chapter 8