But still, all she asked was, “Where?”
Sebastian and Thanar exchanged an intense look.
“Here,” Sebastian said finally in a rough voice. “It’s here.”
“How many?” Ciardis asked faintly.
“No more than a couple hundred,” Thanar responded grimly. “But these are members of her personal guard. Talented foes one and all.”
Ciardis nodded in understanding. Honestly she felt relieved, both because the numbers were relatively small but also because it meant there wasn’t an enemy in sight. The fact that this calmed her rather than terrified her, well she knew at least that there were upsides to having the enemy pinned down. It meant that they wouldn’t have to traipse all over the countryside looking at the empress’ minions — they were all right here. And it also meant that perhaps the creatures she had encountered were some of the worst of what they needed to face. There was nothing she hated more than surprise, and quite frankly — at least with them she knew that she could kill the creatures. One fireball at a time.
Thanar stepped forward and said, “You should get some rest. Some of the goddess’ creatures have already tried to overrun us. Soon we’ll be knee-deep in an offensive line once more.”
Ciardis rubbed a sore shoulder as she thought about it.
“Not yet,” she said finally. “First I need to see someone.”
Sebastian looked at her with a knowing smile. “I thought you might.”
“So where is she?” Ciardis asked with a raised eyebrow.
Sebastian indicated a central tent with a raised chin. “She’s tired, even a bit dazed, but she’s as alive as Caemon is, which is more than any of us asked for.”
Ciardis hummed as she thought about it.
“True,” was all she said finally.
But they all heard the explosive sigh of relief that accompanied that statement as she walked away.
As Ciardis walked over to the tent indicated, she looked back at Sebastian queerly with worry rising in her head. She was going to have to blame the energy fatigue for whatever had kept her from putting together the thought beforehand. If should have been one of her first concerns, if not the first.
Slight fear and a god-awful amount of trepidation entered her voice as she looked from one bondmate to the other for reassurance and Ciardis asked, “If…if the awoken are alive, what happened with Maradian?”
Dark coldness entered Thanar’s eyes as he replied with a chill that left even her stepping back, “Oh don’t worry about him. He’s all taken care of.”
Ciardis decided not to ask. She wouldn’t have put it past Thanar to blast out Maradian’s mind and make him as simple as a newborn babe…just to be sure.
Deciding that they could handle that issue, Ciardis went and spoke with her loyalist — to get reassurance in only the way Terris could that she too had felt the force and power of the massive wave of energy that swept across the land. That she too had rode its wave. And that she too had no regrets about the outcome even though neither of them intended to tell the loves of their lives what they had experienced.
Because instinctively Ciardis and Terris knew that only they had been able to participate in the lodestone activation in that way. Only they had seen what they had seen. And only they felt no guilt about the minds snuffed out like candlewicks in the wind as the ritual did what it had set out to do.
Ciardis only wished she could do it again.
31
When Ciardis heard the warning sirens rage, she ran outside looking for her bondmates and she found them quickly.
“What’s going on?” Ciardis said in a pant. “Are we under attack?”
Sebastian walked away from a battlefield meeting set up atop a spindly table as he said, “No, just preparations from the rest of our troops that have just arrived.”
Ciardis felt herself relax a bit, feeling silly for what could have been a massive overreaction but when she felt Thanar come up behind her silently she knew the tests of the day were just about to come.
Eyeing each of them warily out of the corner of her eye, she said, “What is it?”
“What do you mean?” Sebastian asked innocently.
She wasn’t fooled for one second.
“There’s something going on, isn’t there?” Ciardis insisted. “Alright, out with it then.”
It was Thanar who spoke this time, smoothly and efficiently. It didn’t matter how calm he sounded. His words were downright insane, at least according to Ciardis Weathervane.
“You need to leave,” Ciardis heard him say as if through a distant tunnel.
Snapping back into the present, she said, “Excuse me?”
Thanar took a step around her and looked her dead in the eye. “Look Ciardis the goddess is going to target you and anyone who’s near you. If we can get you far enough away, maybe she’ll divert her attention and some substantial forces to tracking you down.”
“Oh, maybe?” Ciardis asked playing dumb although the urge to smack him was so overpowering that her hands were twitching by her side.
“Yes!” Thanar explained looking a bit excited as he thought he had her partially convinced. “And the further along on, perhaps, the imperial road you get, the more traps we can set for her people.”
“You’ll save a lot of lives,” Sebastian hurried to reassure her as he held her hand in his tightly.
Ciardis laughed at their absurd antics. “So you want to send me away as a decoy in order to give our militias a better chance?”
Both bondmates responded at once earnestly, “Yes!”
Ciardis rolled her eyes and snatched her hand back from the emperor’s own. “You do know I’m not a fool don’t you?”
Anger crossed Thanar’s face. “Look Ciardis, this isn’t like the time you faced down those minions at court or even the emperor itself.”
She propped her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “You mean like the dragon we defeated together?”
Thanar rolled his eyes. “This opponent is not to be underestimated. Her potential for devastation is unparalleled.”
Ciardis stared at him askance. She had to wonder if the lodestones had affected their mental capacities or even their memories.
They need to be checked out, she thought internally.
Aloud Ciardis snarled, “I was there you numbskull. When she slaughtered an entire room of conclave members one-by-one. I was there.”
The fury in her voice at that made even her shake. Thanar and Sebastian for once fell silent.
“Do you think we won’t win? Is that it?” Ciardis said while trying to take calming breathes.
“I didn’t say that,” the daemoni prince snarled. “We’ve already garnered a major defeat over her after all. But still, this is a properly thought out scenario about how best to divide the goddess’ attentions. She can’t be in two places at once after all.”
Ciardis couldn’t believe she was hearing correctly what they were saying.
“You’d just be a target that would get in the way. Interference even,” Sebastian said stumbling over his words.
“Oh smooth,” Thanar snapped instantly knowing the mistake the new Emperor had made.
“Oh, interference am I?” Ciardis said aghast.
Then she put her hand on her hips and lashed out at them for the next half-hour.
“Listen here you twits, you’re not getting rid of me,” she snapped. “You stay. I stay. End of story.”
When they didn’t respond she added in an irritable tone, “Well? I need to hear you confirm that.”
They mumbled their agreements quickly then.
“Good,” Ciardis purred. “I’m glad you think so. So why don’t we focus on that instead of foolish evacuation plans, hmm?”
Thanar rocked back on his heels studying her face but he could clearly see she wouldn’t change her mind.
“Alright,” the daemoni prince said in a sulk.
Disgruntled Sebastian said, “It was a good plan though, somewhat.”
<
br /> She smacked him across the nose so fast Sebastian didn’t even see it coming. Like a puppy chastised he looked at her askance.
Thanar for his part danced a few prudent steps backward out of her reach.
“That is for trying to make me leave,” Ciardis said in satisfaction.
And then she turned and hurled a baby fireball at Thanar, one that was small and with less than an eighth of the power she usually created one with. He was easily able to shield and absorb it. But judging by his wince, she knew very well that it stung him even if he had been able to capture and hold most of the fire enclosed.
After Thanar gave her a miffed look, Ciardis said to him, “And that is for trying to trick me.”
“Fair enough,” Sebastian muttered while rubbing his nose.
“I should think so,” Ciardis said primly while the daemoni prince wisely kept his mouth shut.
“Well, it couldn’t hurt for us to try,” said Sebastian weakly as he tried to give her a soft grin.
Ciardis wasn’t having it.
Thanar however poked at the bear instead of trying to placate it. “Oh good, keep that anger burning. We’re going to need it in the fight.”
Ciardis fixed him with a death stare which only sent him and Sebastian into gales of laughter.
“Lovely,” Ciardis grumbled. “I’m the butt of jokes now.”
“Not at all,” they both said — sounding eerily like the other.
“Can it,” Ciardis snapped back. “I already have a twin. I don’t need two more.”
As they settled back into their normal banter and Thanar began to share their real plans, the earth began to shake and she felt herself trembling. Guards all around unsheathed swords and Ciardis looked up into the sky to see an array of clouds unfurling in the dawn, like a jester’s smoke the cloud roiling with colors — grays, blues, purples, and reds. To her mind’s eye it was beautiful. But in her heart she knew it was deadly.
Someone called out, “Ready the shields!”
And Ciardis Weathervane knew instinctively that they didn’t mean their physical shields. As Ciardis watched, portal after portal opened on the fields laid out below them. They had the high ground, the advantage but as she saw the goddess’ creatures pouring out of the woods and several special minions falling from the tears in the sky, Ciardis felt a chill down her spine.
“What now?” Ciardis asked.
“Now,” Sebastian said. “Now we fight.”
His gaze wasn’t on her though. It was on the thousands upon thousands of soldiers who stretched before them in ranked militia format. Ciardis felt a swell of pride as she looked at those numbers but she knew that they had a separate mission from the one that she and the rest of the triumvirate were going to play. These soldiers were here not to fight the goddess, but to slaughter her minions. Knowing what she had faced in the forest, she’d estimate that for every wave of ten human soldiers and one mage, they could take on one of the creatures on the field because not every mage had the powers to battle offensively on their feet. So, as she stared at the second wave of the goddess’ horde coming for them, Ciardis Weathervane thought the field looked like an even match. Even with those descending from the heavens above.
“Well,” she said softly to herself. “Let the games begin.”
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Terah Edun is the New York Times bestselling author of the Courtlight, Crown Service, and Algardis series, set in the eponymous Algardis Universe. Her books boast exhilarating adventures, breathless romance, and incredible fantasy for readers of all ages. You can visit her online at www.terahedun.com.
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