Sworn to Restoration

by Sworn to Restoration (retail) (epub)

  When she walked out of the doorway indicated by the scholar, she wasn’t expecting to be where she was. On a naked cliff face, that stretched out toward the sea on one side and toward the city on the other.

  Startled, she halted.

  “What is this?” Ciardis asked, trying to get a handle on the abrupt change of venue.

  Sebastian came up behind and then walked around her. “One of the palace portals.”

  “You hesitated before you spoke,” said Thanar in a low voice before he joined them on Ciardis’s other side.

  “Me?” Ciardis asked.

  “No, he meant me,” Sebastian said as he too stared at the edge of the cliff—unwilling to approach yet, but not unable.

  The new emperor answered her question with a response she couldn’t have anticipated. “We have small gates, almost too unsophisticated to be called gates, that go to private catacombs, rooms, and natural vistas within the palace.”

  Why have I never encountered these gates before? Ciardis wondered silently.

  Maybe you have, the daemoni prince answered back. And you didn’t even know that it was there.

  “How is that possible?” Ciardis queried aloud.

  Sebastian smiled, unaware of the context of Thanar and Ciardis’s mental conversation, but answering nonetheless, “Because it’s built into the fabric of the palace itself. As old as the fraying protections that protect us against spies like the murdith that came through your bedroom mirror.”

  Ciardis pursed her mouth and muttered something uncomplimentary. But still she moved on, always forward, never backward.

  “That doesn’t seem nearly as complicated to me,” Ciardis said. “In fact, it reminds me of what took us into the emperor’s bedchambers not too long ago and before that —”

  “Not as complicated now because we do nothing to maintain them. In fact, we call them false gates precisely because of how unstable they are—they almost never go where you want them to or from where you want them to,” Sebastian said, interrupting her diatribe hastily.

  She had to admit, she didn’t mind the interruption so much. She’d been rambling. Sebastian had been stalling. And as far as Ciardis could tell, Thanar was just contemplating.

  Taking a deep, uncomfortable sigh, Ciardis Weathervane walked forward alongside her two seeleverbindung mates to see the shell of a man that waited before them.

  He was facing them with a servant by his side as he stood on the rocky outcropping. She couldn’t see the visage of his face or decipher any emotions, if there were any at all, because the glow that surrounded his body was almost as bright as daylight shining in their eyes.

  As they walked forward and he stood immobile, the attendant hurried forward away from Maradian’s side to explain.

  “I brought him outside to soak in the nature,” he said softly. “But he hasn’t awoken yet, not really. The scholar gave me instructions on how to awaken him, though.”

  “And how do you do that?” Sebastian said while not taking his gaze away from Maradian’s still form.

  “By linking your aura to his glow, Your Imperial Majesty,” the servant said.

  Then as an afterthought he added, “The scholar says that when I do this, the others, too, will be awoken.”

  Ciardis startled. “Without their guides present?”

  “Yes,” said the scholar from behind them. “But all of them have attendants just like this one by their side.”

  Sebastian’s lips thinned, but he didn’t voice his displeasure. He might have just been upset about the fact that it was quite clear now that he was Maradian’s minder. Ciardis, for her part, felt relieved. She couldn’t be sure that Thanar wouldn’t lose his temper and just vanquish the former emperor again in a fit of anger. Not that she could blame him.

  And she…she had to admit, if she was going to do this, if she was going to be a minder there were others far and above that she’d much rather be with in their last moments on this plane of existence.

  “Do it,” Sebastian said in a hardened tone. “Wake him up.”

  “Put your hand down and I’ll end you,” Thanar said in a voice just above a snarl.

  The servant froze. Ciardis and Sebastian turned to the daemoni prince with irritation and confusion writ on their faces.

  “What are you doing Thanar?” Sebastian asked finally.

  Thanar raised an ironic eyebrow. “For a sitting ruler, you have a rather shallow sense of self-worth. A mage adept should be doing this ritual, not some brown-nosed servant.”

  The scholar immediately objected, “I have instructed all of the attendants on what they are to do and the ritual has already begun. This requires no magical abilities or mental capabilities really, just an ability to put hand to flesh.”

  If the attendant present was irritated at essentially being called dumb, he didn’t show it.

  Which was just as well, Ciardis thought with a sigh. There are enough egos out here.

  Sebastian practically rolled his eyes, but he acquiesced to the daemoni prince’s demands after a sharp look from Thanar and a knife appearing out of thin air that casually rested in his right hand.

  “Fine, you do it then,” the new emperor said.

  Thanar smiled. “With pleasure.”

  He moved forward to Maradian, knife in hand.

  Ciardis caught his forearm before he could do whatever it was that she was afraid he intended to.

  Gripping with all of her strength on his tense arm, she said gently, “Without harming him.”

  Thanar gave her an insolent sidelong look, but he vanished the knife and said, “Very well.”

  Stepping forward, the daemoni prince told the attendant, “Make him kneel.”

  “How?” the attendant stuttered.

  It was Sebastian who gave him an irate look and said, “Well, how did you get him out here?”

  “By guiding him,” the attendant responded.

  With an irritated sigh, the daemoni prince reached into the glow that bound Maradian and grabbed what Ciardis guessed was his shoulder. With no fuss or requests, he pushed down and Maradian, or at least his body, compliantly responded by kneeling.

  “Better,” Thanar said with a purr.

  Ciardis asked hesitantly, “Why?”

  Thanar looked back at her with a smile as he said, “Because if I need to kill him, I have the advantage of higher ground.”

  She blinked and said nothing more. She had asked, after all.

  With no more theatrics he placed one hand through the aura on Maradian’s hand and the other on Sebastian’s throat. She expected to wait while he muttered words to some arcane spell, but that wasn’t the case. Just as the scholar said, no magic was needed. Instead there was a flash and the glow about the dead emperor’s body disappeared as if it had never been there.

  Instead there stood a man as whole and as fresh as the day they had last seen him.

  Thanar dropped his hand and stepped back. His knife was conspicuously back in his hand.

  This time Ciardis didn’t blame him. Because what was standing there was not what had been promised.

  “Well, well,” Maradian said in a soft, pleased voice. “This is certainly not a group I expected to see again.”

  Bitterly, Ciardis asked, “I thought he was supposed to be dumb, mute, and asleep?”

  If the last word was uttered in a shout she could be forgiven for her ire.

  This was not how this was planned.

  Staring at a defiant, if kneeling, Maradian, Ciardis felt their plans coming apart. Oh, not right away. But soon. Maradian had a way of defying even the best-laid plans. Somehow, someway he would foul everything they had worked so hard to achieve. He would strip them of their victory just as they achieved it and there was nothing they could do to stop it. He was both essential to this plan and a quintessential wrench in their machinations.

  Anger and dread filled her head.

  All she could see as she stared at him was failure.

  To Ciardis’s surprise, thoug
h, Sebastian wasn’t reflecting the same emotional state.

  Instead she felt hope and she had to wonder, what in the world could he possibly be hopeful about?

  Nothing about this situation was hopeful.

  11

  Turning to Sebastian, Ciardis questioned him defiantly, “Why are you practically grinning? Do you see something I don’t?”

  Maradian turned his head to watch them with an almost birdlike curiosity but didn’t speak again.

  Sebastian for his part, said, “I think I do.”

  “Care to enlighten us?” Thanar said dryly while twirling the knife in his hand.

  “Yes,” said Sebastian, “I do,” as his gaze took in the kneeling emperor. “But I need to show Ciardis something first.”

  Thanar looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Sebastian pleaded, “I’ll tell you later. Just watch him for a moment?”

  Ire flashed in Thanar’s eyes, but he acceded to that demand while Ciardis looked on in shock and surprise. A decision made, Sebastian walked forward.

  “Come with me,” the emperor said and swiftly grabbed her hand to walk out into the mausoleum.

  Just before they walked inside, Sebastian tossed hard words over his shoulder. “And Thanar? If he so much as twitches, separate his head from his shoulders.”

  “Gladly,” grunted the daemoni prince with a satisfied twinkle in his eye.

  Ciardis could hear the bloodlust in his mind and she knew very well that he would do as he promised. Apparently the attendant did as well because he carefully sidestepped closer to the cliff’s edge—as far from the kneeling emperor as he could politely get.

  They left everyone behind and kept walking until they were in his imperial office chambers. This was a room she hadn’t seen before and at any other time her attention might have alighted on the damask curtains or the massively ornate desk and the opulent chairs seated in front of it. Instead she couldn’t take her gaze off of Sebastian Athanos Algardis. She was sure her eyes were intent, uncomfortably so, but the situation called for that and no less. She was afraid of what they had just left behind on the cliffs. Not dead. Not alive. And certainly a bigger threat than what was promised. She was no fool and neither was Sebastian, so she couldn’t see how he wasn’t at least quaking in his boots at the thought of Maradian rising from his knees and once more sitting on the throne. The man hadn’t been dead a fortnight after all and they had just invested Sebastian as ruler in name and deed for the whole of the empire this morning.

  He hasn’t even had time to wait for the official proclamations to take effect throughout the land, she thought in a horrified tone. It would take at least a day or two for the announcements to get to the furthest reaches of the land with the greatest bouts of magic that they could sacrifice at the moment from other causes.

  She didn’t expect Vaneis, the village where she had grown up, to hear for even two weeks—maybe more.

  So as Sebastian gathered his thoughts, she gathered doubts and fears as she felt herself so overwhelmed that she thought she might just burst at the seams. But she wasn’t going to interrupt him in front of an entire palace full of staff. That just wouldn’t do. In private, yes. But in public, she would do her best to play a dutiful wife. Even if it had her practically vibrating with the need to start shouting at him. She watched as, for a few minutes, he paced and internally deliberated before apparently finally deciding he needed to tell her what he had promised to from the beginning.

  He looked at the aides busying themselves at small side desks and quietly said, “Everyone leave us.”

  The servants did as they were bid, closing the door to the emperor’s office, also referred to as his salon, with alacrity.

  Once they had all exited and they were alone, Sebastian walked over to her and took her face in his hands.

  He searched her eyes for something. Whatever it was, he found it, because he gave her a fond grin. The same grin she could imagine the young prince heir giving her, except it was coming from the man who made her heart swoon.

  “Come here,” he said quietly.

  She thought he meant closer to him, but instead he dropped his hands from her face and tugged her insistently toward the desk.

  Ciardis Weathervane followed amiably, curious to see where this would lead. Especially if it was toward an answer that she sought. It was weird; she almost felt like she was in a daze and her mind was being controlled. Because her worries fell away instantly as well as the constant tension in her mind—the struggle to form a workable battle plan, while worrying about her friend’s sacrifice, on top of the need to officially install Sebastian upon the imperial throne, not to mention a half-dozen other demands on her time, her attention, and her psyche.

  But right now, in this moment, that all fell away. Just by holding his hand and focusing her eyes on his. She kept walking forward as he walked backward until they reached the large ornate desk, and the back of his legs bumped against the carved wood. It was wider than two people lying side by side and longer than a human body, so there was more than enough room for her to lean beside him, but she didn’t want to. Ciardis Weathervane wanted to stare into Sebastian Athanos Algardis’s eyes as he told her the secret to his serenity. She also wondered what in the world he was getting her into, because there was something. Something he hadn’t told her yet. Something she needed to learn.

  With patience, he whispered in her mind. His gaze was calm, even teasing.

  She couldn’t help the small smile that edged on her face as she replied out loud, “Cut the crap. Tell me what’s on your mind. Tell me what you couldn’t tell me with Maradian staring us down.”

  Sensing her irritation, Sebastian didn’t take much longer to relieve her of her curiosity.

  He leaned back against the carved desk and twined her hands behind his neck until she leaned forward against him, her head resting on his chin.

  After a moment’s silence, the emperor said, “Your care for my life is touching, Ciardis, but you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Not just your life,” she couldn’t help but point out as she leaned back with her hands on his shoulders. “Our lives. Our people’s lives. You can’t afford to be vulnerable, Sebastian.”

  “And I’m not,” he said with an expressive shake of his head. “I promise you.”

  “You can’t afford to be naïve and trusting either,” she said, taking a step back and glaring with her arms crossed. She wasn’t in the mood to be placated. She wanted answers. They needed answers, and he wasn’t giving her any.

  A small smile appeared onto Sebastian’s lips. He ducked his head to look down at the floor while trying to hide a grin.

  She threw her hands up and exclaimed at him, “What’s wrong with you? Did the transference of power scramble your brains while flowing through your head? This is serious.”

  Sebastian looked back at her and said, “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

  Ciardis pinned him with a dispassionate glare. “I’ll show you mad. So help me, by the gods, Sebastian Athanos Algardis, I—”

  She tried to say more, but at that point Sebastian let his guard down.

  Not his physical guard, his personal shields. The ones he’d been using to keep at least some of his thoughts private in the face of the intrusive nature of the bond. Ciardis had noticed that the shields had barely worked, if at all, while they were traipsing through Kifar, but after Maradian’s death it was like Sebastian became a ghost in her head.

  It was why it had been easier to fall into a back-and-forth conversation with Thanar over Sebastian. Well, that and the fact that he’d been chairing so many important meetings that she’d done her best to stand back and not interfere both personally and mentally. He needed to concentrate. He needed to lead.

  Now that he was back in her head, it was like a door that had been softly shut was now blasted open.

  It was both disconcerting and liberating.

  To have him come back all at once was nothing short of ov
erwhelming.

  But hearing his thoughts and emotions crash into hers like a wave wasn’t why she gasped aloud. No, it was what lay over all of those jumbled portions of his mind.

  It was the living connection with the Algardis Empire.

  A hundred times stronger. A hundred times brighter than anything she’d ever seen him profess to be capable of before. It had been a long time ago, but Ciardis had been present when Sebastian forged his connection with the land through the Landwight and this…this was something far greater.

  He’s gone from riding a pony to galloping headlong on the fiercest stallion, Ciardis thought in awe.

  But this stallion wasn’t sentient in the same sense as the Landwight was. The Landwight had been able to form simple thoughts into even simpler sentences. It had spoken with Sebastian as equals. Here there were no partners, no equals. Sebastian controlled the empire. It heeded its command. Granted, she had never been formally trained in magic, but even to her the power was dizzying.

  It also felt different. Whereas her gifts were innate, his came from outside—knowing what she knew now, Ciardis had to wonder if that strength of magical presence would be there no matter where Sebastian went or what oceans he crossed. She had to think it was entirely possible it could be cut off at the knees if he left these lands.

  Shaking her head, she focused on the here and now though. She focused on the onslaught of power that felt like a living being. She had to wonder if it was living, capable of actions on its on. But she didn’t get that sense. The sense that this…this thing…was anything but a part of Sebastian Athanos Algardis. It was exhilarating and terrifying. Like touching a mortal god. But until he had let her in, Ciardis had had no idea. She had to wonder if any of his people knew just how much power their imperial rulers harnessed on their behalf.

  She had to admit—this type of power was necessary. Necessary to rule. Necessary to protect. From without and from within. But knowing that and feeling it were two very different things.

  Astonished, she said aloud, “All that power. All that energy. It’s—”