“So they’ve found them?” Ciardis said relieved.
“Oh yes,” Terris said in a satisfied tone.
Ciardis was beginning to feel like a parent with a hundred questions, but still she asked because she needed to know, “And Maradian — has he initiated his end?”
“Soon,” said Terris. “Very soon.”
Then Terris knelt in front of the altar and leaned forward toward it, not touching but hovering, almost as if she wanted to lay on it but was too afraid to. Ciardis watched as Terris kept that placement with a look of ecstasy on her face for a minute, maybe two.
“What are you doing?” the living Lady Companion asked as she finally ventured close to the altar with a wary glance, not close enough to touch it but near enough to pull Terris back if she needed to.
Dreamily Terris asked with her eyes half-closed, “Do you remember what it’s like to be alive?”
Ciardis stared at her askance, finally answering, “Well, I still am alive.”
“Of course you are!” Terris cooed when her eyes snapped open.
Ciardis didn’t feel offended. Terris wasn’t sniping at her, she genuinely looked as if she was caught between two worlds — a reverie of who she was and what the lodestone was allowing her to become.
Nevertheless Ciardis gently asked, “Do you think you should pull back a little? From the stone?”
Terris smiled and said blissfully, “It’ll all be over in a minute anyways, it’s not important.”
“Why do you say that?” Ciardis asked.
“The dark emperor has done his part,” Terris answered in her dreamy state. “He has unlocked the ley lines.”
That wasn’t what Ciardis had been referring to, but at the moment Terris’s duty was more important than the almost hypnotic state the lodestone had her in so Ciardis said nothing in response.
She just watched as Terris eagerly sat up on her knees with her back straight and placed her hands palms down just above the altar. As Ciardis watched, energy began to snap back-and-forth from Terris’s fingers to the lodestone’s surface. It looked very similar to Ciardis’s lightning but far more intense.
Uncomfortable and not knowing what her role was Ciardis waited.
Then Terris said in a dreamy fugue state, “Join me Ciardis Weathervane.”
Ciardis knew deep down that this was how it was supposed to be, so she knelt down on her knees side-by-side with her best friend. She was worried, oh yes, but she saw no other potential way to go about this. So she let what was natural come to her, she followed Terris’s instructions.
“Raise your hands like mine,” Companion Kithwalker said gently.
Ciardis did as she asked, only flinching once as foreign lightning arced up to connect with her flesh. Her magic merged a bit with the lodestones and the blue vibrancy joined the golden aura of the magical veins running through the altar beneath Ciardis’s hands.
As Ciardis felt her breath slow and she watched the brilliance of the light around them grow, she heard Terris say, “Don’t worry Ciardis — it won’t hurt. We’re going with them.”
“With who?” Ciardis asked disturbed.
“With the guardians of this land. We will unleash the forces together,” Terris said.
And that’s all Ciardis got out of her before the light flashed once, then twice, so bright that it blinded the Companions, and Ciardis felt herself drifting on a cloud.
When she left, her body limp as her magic surged up to flow out with the bright blast of energy that was the lodestone unleashed, Ciardis saw everything from a bird’s eye view. It was like she was flowing like air over the battlefields and the countryside, over the people and the villages, until she found what she was looking for.
No, not what I was looking for, she thought in a dream-like state. What the energy was directed to.
She watched unable to affect anything or even to direct the attack, merely a bystander, as the ley line’s lodestone’s energy built-up and up in the atmosphere into an immense white cloud.
Invisible to the naked eye, but clearly all too visible to the mages on the ground below.
Ciardis could see that even children with just a spark of magic could sense the build-up and they were terrified. But even the terrified didn’t leave behind the non-magical. Mage bloods across the empire she noticed scooped up their unmagical friends and family, forcing acquaintances off the streets, and shouting warnings every which way.
It wouldn’t do them much good, Ciardis knew that.
Not if the build-up had been targeted toward the citizens of Algardis. Everyone in its path would have been overwhelmed with the fierce fire of the energy. Energy she could feel pulsing, beating, throbbing, hungering with every thought in her head. She was just grateful that the energy had only one target-and-one-target alone. The goddess’ foreign forces. The invaders in the land.
It would push them back as nothing else could, she thought in satisfaction — grateful she could witness this, even more grateful to be a part of such ritual. Which, until now, she honestly never would have said. But as she watched the power build and swirl into a funnel that started to aim itself toward the ground below, Ciardis felt powerful. Even invincible. She also felt vindicated. Many of the people at the courts hadn’t believe Sebastian and herself when she had told them of the threat that was to come. Now that they were seeing it firsthand and it was Ciardis herself who was able to save them, it felt good. It felt right.
Well myself and a good dozen others, she thought a bit abashed.
Then she watched as the funnel which she had created with Terris began to be joined on all sides by four other identical funnels. But she could tell that each of those funnels came from a different minder and loyalist team.
Happy pride wove through Ciardis’s thoughts as the funnels reached for others like parts of a whole separated and now rejoined. She watched as one giant central funnel formed, bigger even than the city of Sandrin from west to east, and then like a lance aimed at a wound it struck true.
The power dove down with the pure energy of a lightning rod and straight for the goddess’ forces….and hopefully for the goddess herself. Ciardis watched in glee as humans dove down toward the ground in futile attempts to shield themselves as they screamed for their dear lives, but she ignored them.
She, it, had only one target and in the seconds it took to form and then strike, which felt like an eternity, it had grown into a massive size. Humming along happily as she was pulled along from the ride, she felt the strike hit and she felt the power surge like a tidal wave unleashed across the land. Mind after mind was wiped clean as she surged on the waves of power that rode the mountains, the streams, the lakes, and the roads.
She tried to hold on and feel each attack as it happened but eventually even she was overcome with the intensity of it all and a bit grateful — Ciardis slipped her conscious back into her limp body over time — wondering all the while where she would end up this time.
30
When she woke up Ciardis was in a different place as expected. She was heartily sick of that. She could barely remember watching the power of the lodestones unleash from high above, which made her a bit ill. But slowly by slowly, every feeling, every action was coming back to her.
But what made her even more worried?
Terris was nowhere to be seen.
Ciardis looked around and all she saw were trees.
That is until something came barreling out of the forage that would forever give her nightmares, it looked to be a creature that was half-spider and half-snake. Whatever it was called, it was spitting venom from several feet away from the moment it spied her.
Evil intent glowing in its eyes, it charged toward her and Ciardis did the only thing she could. She grabbed onto the lightning that she had been pooling from her mage core just out of reach near her aura, formed it into a thick fistful of concentrated energy, and threw it straight at the creature.
She was hoping against hope that it would be affected adversely s
omehow because she was too surprised to do much else and her offensive range was pretty limited anyway.
Fortunately for her the minor attack did more than affect it or even wound it, the creature burst into a crimson fire that left nothing but ash. It was quite satisfying to watch. But no sooner than that one was gone and another one was rushing out of the bushes. Ciardis threw lightning balls left-and-right and when she finally saw a semblance of a break after defeating five of the creatures, she raced up the nearest sturdy tree trunk that she could.
Gathering her energy to prepare to throw more of the lightning balls from her perch up high, Ciardis watched as one, two, and then three creatures came out of the bushes. But they didn’t notice her. She was tempted to aim at them anyway but she didn’t know if the creatures could climb and if so…how well. Deciding she was safe where she was for the moment, Ciardis tried to calm her racing heart, pumped up on adrenaline, and desperately reached out mind-to-mind for contact with anyone nearby — preferably Sebastian or Thanar or Terris.
But no one answered and she was soon fighting exhaustion while stuck in a tree, terrified to leave because every twenty minutes at least one of the creatures would show up.
She pinched herself to stay awake while thinking, Gosh that ritual must have taken more energy out of me than I could have guessed.
She knew that she’d been lucky so far, having taken down so many of the creatures, but Ciardis doubted her prowess against a forest of them. So while she waited, she planned. But even exhaustion got the best of her at some point because she dozed off and the next thing she knew, she heard a voice hissing at her.
“Hey!” cried a voice with low intensity. “Hey!”
Ciardis startled awake. She knew that the stranger was doing whatever they could to get her attention but at a loud whisper, because apparently the creatures weren’t just her problem.
As she scrambled away from the tree trunk she’d found herself resting along, Ciardis got a firm grip on a branch and peered down at the tree’s base.
Staring down she saw one of the people she least expected to see…her brother Caemon. He looked frazzled and disoriented as he stared up at her in just as much confusion.
“What are you doing here?” Ciardis said from her perch in the tree.
“Forget that,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing up a tree?”
Ciardis rolled her eyes and quickly explained the situation with the creatures.
He cursed and said, “Well get down here. We’ll take them together before they come back.”
Ciardis asked him, “Are you sure?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “Do you have a better idea? The guards aren’t far off but we need to move if we’re going to get to them before those creatures get to us.”
That was all she really needed to hear. Heart beating fast she climbed down with haste, trusting that her awoken brother knew more about the situation than he was letting on and hoping against hope that the ritual they’d already sacrificed so much for had come to pass.
The first thing Ciardis asked when she got to the foot of the tree was, “Have you seen Terris?”
Caemon shook his head grimly as he said, “No, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t at the camp.”
Then Ciardis forgot all about the rest of her questioning because her attention was caught by something intensely strange, even as Caemon anxiously pulled her away from the tree which represented safety and deeper into forest where anything could be lurking behind a tree. It was easy enough to be distracted though, the strangeness had to do with Caemon.
However she knew her eyes weren’t deceiving her as she got a closer look. His skin…it had changed. She didn’t want to ask though, that would be cruel if it was just a trick of her imagination. So she settled for studying his features as much as she could as they hurtled through the forest. Then she studied his aura and his magic. Even his body felt different the one time he’d harshly pushed her away and fought a creature with just his glaive.
Fortunately Ciardis quickly recovered her footing and shot a lightning ball down the creature’s throat in record time.
As they continued on their way, and she decided that she finally needed to ask, even if it was in a roundabout way, Ciardis questioned, “Are the others like you?”
Fortunately he knew exactly what she meant. She didn’t even have to spell it out.
“Alive and no longer awoken?” Caemon said wryly. “Yes.”
“How?” Ciardis asked astonished.
“You need to ask the mages that,” Caemon said. “Because I have no clue.”
Suspiciously Ciardis asked him as she yanked him around a tree to avoid a lone creature, “Why are you out here alone?”
“Because I heard your call,” Caemon said simply.
Crouching down the two twins hid and stared in each other’s eyes for a moment while catching their breath. Ciardis, seeing the way was clear, motioned that they should leave their hiding spot and so they did. Sprinting off again in their pursuit of safety.
“What about the…minders?” she asked as new concerns popped up in her mind.
“All accounted for,” Caemon said as he urged her to hurry up and run past a large rock outcropping with him. But they quickly backtracked upon seeing some of the creatures heading their way almost as soon as they turned the corner. They survived because the creatures hadn’t seen them.
Eyes shining, Ciardis’s breath caught in her throat. “That means….”
She didn’t finish her sentence, Caemon did it for her.
“Yes,” her twin said dryly. “Your precious bondmates are here too.”
“Well, Brother,” Ciardis said happily. “For once I am certainly glad to see you. You bring delightful news after delightful news. Guards nearby, loyalists alive, and Sebastian and Thanar are safe.”
They were waiting for a trail up ahead to clear and Caemon stared at her for a long moment.
Finally noticing the awkward intensity of his stare, Ciardis asked defensively, “What?”
Caemon bit the inside of cheek. “You’ve changed?”
That sounded like a criticism to her.
Ciardis put her hands on her hips. “So have you.”
Surprise arced through Caemon’s eyes as he crossed his arms. “How so?”
Ciardis shook her head and said, “Caemon we don’t have time for this. Let’s go. We need to find the others.”
Her twin grabbed her upper arm tightly as she tried to brush past him. “No, make time, I want to know.”
Ciardis ripped her arm out of his grip and turned back to him angrily.
She stopped just short of lashing out at him when she saw the vulnerable look in his eyes.
Ciardis hesitated then said, “This must be important to you.”
“It is,” he said shortly.
“Well,” Ciardis said shortly as she massaged her arm a bit, “you’re certainly more…altruistic now.”
“Altruistic?” he said dryly. “You make it sound like I was a thief when I met you.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t go out of your way to help anyone, including family, when we met,” Ciardis said hotly. “So yeah — I’d say that’s a pretty apt description.”
Caemon half-turned away and then turned back to her. “Did you ever think that maybe I didn’t know where I belonged? If I could fit in?”
Ciardis’s jaw nearly dropped.
“Whatever do you mean?” she said aghast.
“You think it’s easy to move to a palace and just drop in with the people and all their nice manners and finery?” he shot back.
She could see this was truly affecting him, but by that same measure Ciardis didn’t see herself as much different.
He turned back to her with fury in his eyes. “I grew up as chattel Ciardis. That is worlds away from a poor village girl who had to put a little work in.”
She puffed up outraged and then he sighed heavily while putting a hand over his eyes. “I didn’t mean any offense. I
just never got the opportunities you had. I wasn’t picked up by the Companions’ Guild or even properly trained on how to use my male Weathervane powers.”
“Neither was I,” Ciardis muttered under her breath but she managed to not say it loud enough for him to not hear.
Looking him directly in the eyes, Ciardis said, “Then let’s change that. When we get back to court I will see that you get the finest training in whatever you desire by the best experts on this side of the Sahalia Sea. Would that make you happy?”
A small smile appeared on Caemon’s face as he said, “Very much so.”
Ciardis let out an aggrieved sigh and said, “Good then, now can we please go kill a goddess?”
Caemon snorted and bowed at the waist. “With pleasure. After you milady.”
She waited until he stood and then put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s run together, Brother. As we should have all along.”
Caemon had nothing to say to that. But she felt the shy acceptance radiating from him at that and that’s all she could ask for.
When Ciardis reached the encampment she didn’t have to wait to greet her bondmates.
They ran to her, ecstatic to see her alive. She felt the same.
After she’d been enclosed in wings and arms and felt the comforting feeling of their bond falling back into place, Ciardis really only wanted to know one thing. Tamping down on her emotions firmly and stepping back she looked them anxiously in the faces. They looked tired and more battle-worn than even she did, but that didn’t tell her much.
Heart in her throat, Ciardis asked breathlessly, “Did it work? Did the ley line plan work?”
“Yes,” said Sebastian with a weary grin. “It worked. The hordes were eradicated at Dunmore.”
Ciardis felt joy burn bright and fierce at that victory.
“But,” Thanar said in a haggard voice. “We’ve learned that there are more. The goddess has a second regiment she’d been keeping away under a tight shielding that even we couldn’t penetrate.”
Ciardis felt anger surge, after all they had done it would come to this.
Sworn to Restoration Page 24