Sworn to Restoration

by Sworn to Restoration (retail) (epub)

  Ciardis's breath hitched in her throat as she, alongside not a few too many people, took an instinctive step back.

  In an uncertain voice, the youngest Weathervane in the land asked, "Mother?"

  It wasn’t that she didn’t know it was the body of her mother staring straight into her the soul. The woman that she had dreamed and longed for while abandoned in a village vale so long ago. The princess who would take her away from the horrible life that had been forced upon her and the woman who had done so. But Ciardis was no fool. This was also the woman who she despised, the woman who slithered like a snake onto her belly and collaborated with the dead emperor.

  At the expense of her daughter’s wishes.

  At the loss of Ciardis’s trust.

  Not that Lillian cared much about either; it was clear from her actions days before. This…this revival would just be par for the course. Ciardis wanted to think it would be different, could be different. But she was no fool. Neither was her mother. That was the trouble with them both being women with brains and some curiosity: nothing could be pulled over their eyes for very long.

  Now Ciardis Weathervane watched as the door closed behind her lithe female form and she strode down the long entranceway that made up the path to the throne with a surety on her face that no one else could match. Ciardis knew whom it was, it could be no one else.

  For a brief moment, Ciardis had hoped it was a mirage that she wouldn’t have to face.

  A twist of magic that was meant to entertain. Anything really but what it was.

  But no, her mother was back.

  Lillian, for her part, wasted no time in climbing the short steps to where Ciardis stood beside Sebastian and the magistrate atop an empty dais. The sovereign’s throne noticeably absent behind them.

  Ciardis didn't know if it had been damaged in the destruction of the palace, secured by palace guards, or looted while no one was looking, but she knew her mother certainly noticed the empty place with indentations in the luxurious-if-soot-covered carpet that remained behind.

  And as Lillian noticed, she sent Ciardis a look that—if she had been anywhere else—would have sent Ciardis running for cover. Ciardis felt the icy pang of fear race up her spine at the thought of what that look meant. Displeasure. Impatience. Punishment, even.

  Lillian had never hit her, of course. And Ciardis Weathervane was no child to take a beating at someone’s hand…but displeasure could be voiced in many ways. With a look, a cutting remark, even by undermining the position Ciardis held at court, the one that Lillian had worked so hard to secure for her daughter.

  Ciardis didn’t know what Lillian was up to, what she would do when she drew close enough. If she was angry enough to lash out and stripe her daughter of everything she held dear, regardless of the fact that days earlier she had been fighting tooth-and-nail to secure this very future that had come to pass.

  Power.

  Acknowledgement.

  Ascendancy.

  All for a girl who no one had thought would be a good companion at best, never mind the future wife of the emperor. Now Ciardis waited as sweat dripped down the back of her gown and she rapidly blinked drying-out eyes…so focused on Lillian that she could barely even breathe.

  She was not the only one. Ciardis didn’t miss the fact that the attentions of most of the court was riveted on her mother. Most of the people here were old denizens of Sandrin and court life here. They would remember Lillian as she had been…a staple of the noble circles and one of the most powerful contemporaries at court as the highest confidante of the then-empress—Sebastian’s dead mother—and they saw her return. Not as she once was but as a hybrid. A woman who was both a known and an unknown. A lady of the courts with a history among their peoples. But also a stranger—a companion who would and had done anything in the name of her guild and now…her daughter.

  It was the latter that caused them consternation, Ciardis realized.

  As she too looked beyond the perfect lines of her mother’s face to the history of the woman who she was presently, Ciardis too had to wonder who it was that strode so confidently toward them. Serena? Or Lillian?

  Because if it was Serena, they had more problems than a returned goddess at the moment. For the lady companion of the Companions’ Guild—Ciardis’s savior, mentor, and tormenter—would have no compunctions about laying into her how inappropriate it was for a sovereign to be crowned without a physical showing of a throne as a seat of power. How a proper companion and future sovereign’s wife never would have let this happen.

  Ciardis could care less personally.

  But she did care about Serena’s approval. Even more than Lillian’s at times. Especially this time.

  Because it was Serena who had saved her.

  Serena who thought she could be more than she had been before.

  And even though they were one and the same person, it almost felt like the mask that Lillian put over her features to become Serena was the person who Ciardis understood better than she did the real woman inside of it all.

  Lillian Weathervane was an enigma.

  A highborn lady of the courts who had spent years on the run in the wilds of the empire.

  A poised dancer and a composite magical fighter.

  A puzzle who called for her daughter to assume the highest office in the land available to her, but by the same breath a woman who had been put on trial for regicide…and convicted.

  Sometimes it amazed Ciardis, all the escapes her mother had managed to pull off.

  And sometimes it scared her. Because who was Lillian Weathervane? And what exactly was she capable of carrying off? There were no limits.

  So when Ciardis saw outright displeasure on Lillian’s face. Polite displeasure, of course—shown only in the smallest minutiae of her face. The tight lines of her brow, the tic at the corner of her mouth, the bright anger in her eyes—it was all directed at Ciardis, and as a proper companion she could feel each sign of displeasure like a whip across her back. A mental whip but a lash nonetheless. It was not a good feeling.

  Ciardis felt herself reverting back to that unassured little girl who had been brought to the Companions’ Guild just a few short years ago.

  She squared her hunched shoulders and straightened her stance. She wouldn't bow before anyone. Not anymore. Least of all her mother—the woman who had sided with the emperor against her own flesh and blood.

  Ciardis could forgive Lillian Weathervane many things, including the deception which had brought her into Ciardis's life in the first place. But not that, never that. They were family, the only family the other had now that Ciardis's twin, Caemon, was gone. Murdered by the man her mother had indulged. Family did not stand against their own. Family united in the face of an assault. Her mother had known that, should have known that.

  And now that she was back...well, she'd learn that her stance had forced Ciardis's hand.

  Lillian was Ciardis's blood.

  But Sebastian...and Thanar...were her heart. Her new family.

  And her mother would rue the day that she stood against them all.

  "Well, Ciardis," Lillian Weathervane said in a pleased voice. "This is certainly not the ceremony I expected to come home to. I am pleased."

  “Neither did we,” Thanar said snidely—Ciardis could tell that he could sense her distress and he didn’t like it.

  Sebastian murmured something polite to his mother-in-law to-be and said in a louder tone, “Come home to?"

  Ciardis murmured with an icy smile frozen on her face. "Does that mean you left Sandrin?"

  Lillian waved a dismissive hand. "Never mind that. Look what I've returned to."

  Ciardis snapped, "Mother, it’s only been three days. Where could you have possibly gone?"

  Lillian gave her a smile that put ice in her veins. "Oh, here and there. But that's not really the point."

  As Ciardis tried to interject, Lillian sharpened her voice. "The point is that you are finally where you've belonged all along. The clear
power behind the throne. The empress-to-be."

  Ciardis grimaced and jerked her arm out of her mother's tightened grip. "I'm not going to be anything if we don't finalize Sebastian's grip on the throne."

  "Meaning?" Lillian asked quietly while she fluttered her fan to effect.

  Ciardis resisted the strong urge to roll her eyes and answered her mother's inquiry, "Meaning there's more to taking the throne than saying the words. He has to be recognized magically."

  "Oh," Lillian said with her eyes lighting up. "You poor dear! You mean the formal transition ceremony, don't you?"

  Disgruntled, Ciardis replied, "Yes, if that is what the magistrate is referring to. He insists there's a secondary part of the ceremony. One that involves blood."

  Lillian flipped her fan closed with a decisive snap. "It involves more than that...usually."

  She paused before uttering the last word as she looked around the room they stood in with a disdainful sniff.

  To be fair, the throne room had seen better days. The pennants and satin cloths that had hung on the walls and off the columns were ragged remains, the floors and walls were missing chunks, and the ragtag band which was currently witness to the sovereignty ceremony were best described as a pitiful oasis in a sea of a throne room built to hold hundreds.

  Ciardis sighed. Not out of despair at their investment ceremony's turnout. She could care less. But she was getting awfully put out at her mother's digression from what mattered.

  Securing the throne and taking the fight to the goddess before she returned.

  Turning resentfully on a courtier who spoke out of turn Ciardis lashed out.

  Fortunately for him, a figure descended from the open air above. Managing to cut off Ciardis’s pursuit of the man who had put his foot too far in his mouth and instead redirecting her ire to the bat-winged idiot—who generally could take what she dished out.

  At least so far.

  “Calm down,” Thanar said—his voice dripping with condescension and impatience.

  Ciardis’s head snapped up and she couldn’t help the hurt that filled her heart.

  His words had been polite, even characteristic. His tone was anything but.

  Thanar spoke to her mentally before she could say anything aloud to him, though. Relax, Golden Eyes. This ceremony might be less morbid than you’re thinking.

  She stalled.

  Then she said hesitantly in his head, How do you know?

  Because I’m tied to you and you’re tied to him, Thanar said swiftly. None of us are dying today.

  In a softer voice, aloud he continued, “I won’t let it happen.”

  For her part, Lillian spoke up again and the fog in Ciardis’s head cleared.

  Ciardis blinked, chewed her lip, but ultimately took a step back. Back toward the dais. With Thanar’s reassuring hand on her back, pushing her onward even as she tried to sneak one last glaring look at the upstart noble over her shoulder, she reached her original position again.

  Wasting no time, the magistrate said in syrupy tones, “My dear lord might have been a bit hasty in his rush to explain the ceremony. It is because the first ruler must die and the second must pass in a dreamless sleep for a very short time, that the ceremony is known as der Tod des Herrschers—the Ruler’s Death. An elegant name for an elegant ceremony.”

  Sebastian cracked a smile as he said with irony in his voice, “Sounds more fatalistic than elegant.”

  The magistrate cleared his throat nervously at the bite in his sovereign’s tone and the rushed to explain, “Well, yes, Your Imperial Majesty, but I assure you that while the title of the ceremony seems…morbid…appearances can be deceiving. You will go under what’s called a sleeping curse where you will only appear to have passed from this life, but you will be very much alive. It all is for a simple cause…to give you the ability to be with the spirits.”

  Ciardis said in a voice that brooked harsh punishments if she was lied to, “That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” the magistrate said quickly.

  She nodded.

  “So let’s do it,” Sebastian said blithely. “Before I change my mind.”

  There were shocked gasps all around the room.

  “He’s kidding!” Ciardis quickly exclaimed.

  Relieved sighs from all around covered her muttered, “I think,” as she side-eyed Sebastian cautiously.

  The magistrate waved his hand at a side door. “Then this should best be taken place quickly…and while the prince heir is lying down.”

  Ciardis opened her mouth to question why and immediately shut it as a firm hand from a daemoni prince wrapped around her shoulders pushing her forward, while the prince heir’s right arm dipped to her waist to urge her onward toward the door.

  “All right, all right, I’m going,” Ciardis complained. “You’d think you two would want to know what we’re facing in just a short amount of time.”

  “We already know,” said Thanar dryly. “An angry goddess.”

  “And we need every advantage we can get against her,” Sebastian added.

  “At the risk of your health?” Ciardis shot back, concerned.

  “At the risk of my life,” Sebastian corrected—his voice dead serious.

  Ciardis was bitterly silent at that. She followed behind Sebastian with a drag in her step, but step she did. Toward the next goal in their life, another obstacle for the triad to face. Though, to be honest…a sleeping curse didn’t sound so bad. Not after everything else they’d been through.

  As the palace doors were opened to allow them access to a new room, she saw that they were walking into a series of narrow corridors. Ones that didn’t seem very ruler-friendly to her eye. As the magistrate stepped into a thin opening with walls that were barely wide enough to accommodate one person walking between them she had an even worse feeling. As Sebastian prepared to step forward behind a palace guard holding a flaming torch as well, she gripped his shoulder fiercely.

  Protocol be damned.

  Nothing about this looked right. Eying the plain great stone that lined the corridor and the cobwebs hanging loosely from the ceiling with distaste, she tugged insistently on Sebastian’s shoulder to make sure she had his attention and whispered harshly into his ear, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  He didn’t turn around but he did chuckle over his shoulder, “Afraid of a little dirt?”

  She huffed as she ignored the confused murmurs of the individuals stuck behind her and spoke, “What kind of coronation ceremony requires the ruler to walk into a dark, dank, dusty corridor?”

  Her question was rhetorical, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he had some outlandish answer to give her. Even if he didn’t, he’d respond to the ire in her voice because he had to. He had to know that she just didn’t want him walking into a trap. If she didn’t voice her displeasure now, it’d be far too late when oil fire was raining down on their heads from murder holes in the ceiling. She much preferred to be alive breathing the fresh air of a destroyed palace, thank you very much.

  “I trust that the magistrate knows his protocol,” Sebastian announced.

  “Well I don’t trust him at all,” Ciardis snapped. “Or any of these courtiers, for that matter. We have one goal right now and that’s to get you on the throne. This right here—”

  She stopped and pointed with emphasis at the dark hole, which didn’t look like anyone’s idea of an official part of a coronation ceremony, then she continued, “—this seems more like an assassination plot.”

  “Yes, Golden Eyes,” Thanar said sarcastically. “They definitely prefer their coup d’états to be held after they install the ruler on the throne, not before.”

  She threw Thanar a nasty look but didn’t bother to respond.

  It was Sebastian who spoke to Thanar, “They’ve historically been known to do both.”

  When Ciardis made a sound that could be politely described as a frustrated growl, Sebastian finally turned around.

  As he did so, Ciardis c
omplained, “Neither of you are taking this seriously.”

  Thanar chuckled, “I believe you’re taking this seriously enough for both of us. Imagine…being more worried over a human threat than a deity.”

  “That’s not what I said,” Ciardis snapped.

  “No, it’s just what you whimpered,” the daemoni prince said in a lazily arrogant voice.

  Before she could whirl around and smack him, Sebastian deftly captured her hand on his shoulder in his own.

  Yanking away did her no help. She couldn’t free her hand; Sebastian was stronger than he looked. Had grown stronger over the years, much stronger than the young boy she’d met who’d asked her, “Milady, would you care to accompany me to the Afternoon Ball?" Using the power of her Aether realm bracelet they’d been swept out onto the beach and that had been the start of their endless romance, but as much as she had enjoyed her dance with him then, she was enjoying the person who’d become far more. At least when she was getting her way.

  With a squeeze he looked into her eyes and said, “My dear future wife, they don’t want to assassinate me with one blow. They want to kill me with a death of a thousand cuts. As soon as I’m done defeating a deity for them.”

  Ciardis felt a chill crawl down her spine as she shook her head.

  Not in doubt, but in concern.

  “And this you would wait for? You would put your life on the line knowing what is coming?” Ciardis asked in tone that said she already knew the answer…and she didn’t like it.

  Ciardis was willing to put her life on the line for a cause and for a people. But not these people. The people of the empire. The people who toiled and worked every day in their lands. Not the landed and the wealthy in their capital city that would turn on them as soon as an adder would turn on its prey.

  She voiced as much to Sebastian.

  Then the prince heir said with a smile, “That is where you and I are different. It is my duty to care about all of the people. Even if they could give a rat’s ass about me.”

  “And it is mine to care about your well-being when you could clearly care less about it yourself,” she sniffed while trying not to get overwhelmed with emotion.

  She couldn’t help it when her voice dipped into a tremor as she said, “A death of a thousand cuts is still a death.”