by Terah Edun
Sworn To Vengeance: Courtlight #7
Terah Edun
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Sworn To Vengeance Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
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About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by Terah Edun
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Sworn To Vengeance Summary
Ciardis Weathervane is nothing if not resourceful but she and her friends are running out of time and options. They stand at the westernmost edge of the Algardis Empire with a mission from their emperor – bring home the collar that will stop a god in its tracks or die trying.
But nothing is ever that simple. In their way stands thousands of people trapped inside a walled city for half a century. With the bodies of the living and the souls of the damned, the denizens of Kifar have become the living undead.
What’s worse than confronting the undead? Learning that those poor souls blame the imperial family for their predicament. Now the city and its people want retribution and the only thing they will accept is the sacrifice of the empire’s most famous son – Sebastian Athanos Algardis.
He will stand trial for the crimes of his bloodline and it will take more than diplomacy for Ciardis to win his freedom, before a reign of fire comes down from the wyvern and the dragon to burn them all.
1
Ciardis Weathervane stared at the dying embers of the campfire in front of her. Her body was still. If you looked at her face you would think that she was calm. Serene, even. She wanted it to seem that way. Only two people in this encampment could read her mind at any point in time, and at this moment they both were consciously doing their utmost best to not slip into her thoughts. Ciardis didn't think it was out of respect that Thanar and Sebastian were keeping their mind-to-mind magic to a limit. But she had to admit, it didn't seem to be out of petty vindictiveness either. Instead, she and they were at an odd impasse. One that required more effort that any of them were willing to put in at the moment to solve. After all, that effort would actually require them to voice their thoughts on the bond and, even worse, do something about it. What that something was, Ciardis had the feeling that none of them yet knew. But the push for change had been growing like a slowly rising tide ever since they had left Sandrin.
It wasn't yet to the point where it had to be addressed, or they'd drown as sure as a fisherman with an ever-widening crack in his boat would. Which suited her just fine. They all had enough things to worry about, and despite Christian's tirade and Vana's admonishments, they weren't in danger of dying from the strained bond. Not yet, anyway. They were however about to be surrounded by the enemy, literally, so Ciardis could be forgiven if her mind was rather preoccupied with more pressing matters of life and death. She pursed her mouth into a thin line as she thought about the tension—no, not tension, the sense of nervous energy in the air. They were getting ready for another adventure. A new one. For some that meant they finally had a plan and a purpose. Terris, the shaman, and the soldiers fell into that camp. Eager to move forward. For others, it meant that they were walking into a danger that they couldn't quite assess. Ciardis, Sebastian, and Christian fell into that one. The worried camp. She didn't like walking into anything blind, even if the person who happened to be leading her into it was a friend.
Especially so, Ciardis thought dryly.
Sometimes the worst mistakes were made by friends following friends into the darkness. A darkness from which one, or both, never returned.
Ciardis turned her mind away from the foreboding thoughts. Terris knew what she was doing. As much as any of them did, anyway. They all had their special talents. Special gifts, even. Beyond their magical gifts. Terris's was her ability to find a path through even the darkest of circumstances. Ciardis would trust that she could do so here.
Their companions, on the other hand, Ciardis thought, might not be so generous.
She eyed two in particular. The dragon ambassador with the judgmental demeanor. The imperial prince with the dark past.
Ciardis grimaced. She'd been thinking of Sebastian just now. But that could just as well have been a description of the other prince who stood just across the way. Ciardis eyed the one individual whose thoughts she had yet to discern. Not from lack of trying. But with a face like stone and a mind that was locked away from her, it was an almost impossible task to read the daemoni's mind. Thanar had barely strung two words together since they'd gathered at the edge of the ruins two hours ago. She couldn't hear his thoughts either, and so she wasn't sure if he was angry at the plan, at her, or at the world. For now, she'd assume a little bit of each and keep her distance. He didn't look very approachable anyway. He sat close enough to the small fire pit to see his work in the light of the fire. She could see that he was dragging a whetstone over a sharp, curved blade. It was a scimitar he'd managed to purloin from one of the soldiers with a whispered promise…or threat, she wasn't sure which. It could have easily been both, since the man had turned as pale as a ghost as Thanar walked away with one of the soldier's secondary weapons.
At least the soldier didn't necessarily need the weapon, Ciardis thought with no little guilt. She had no idea why she felt so guilty, though; it wasn't like she was in charge of Thanar. That was her mother's job.
Now the daemoni prince sat glaring at said weapon with an intensity hot enough to set fire to the steel, if he was so inclined. Fortunately, he wasn't. Instead of melted metal dripping down his fingers, the sharp scrape of the whetstone against the blade filled the air of their small enclave like the sound of nails on a brass wall. Far from soothing. By the set of his shoulders and the determination of his gaze, the person who tried to pry the weapon from Thanar's hands would lose a limb and perhaps their life in the process.
Just watching Thanar made Ciardis's shoulders ache in sympathy twinges. She reached up with her unburdened left arm to massage the right. It was sore. In fact, her entire upper body felt like a bruise. She wasn't sure if that was from falling down a sand dune, fighting a group of Muareg on arrival, or sleeping on a stone floor. All three, possibly.
But she wouldn't complain. Because everyone else was in the same situation. Besides, they weren't here for a vacation; they were here on a diplomatic mission that could save their empire. She could live with a few sore muscles.
What she couldn't live with was the thought of walking into a trap. But they didn't have much choice. They didn't have the time or the capability to travel around the encamped groups at the base of the valley. So they had to go through
them.
“Threading the eye of the needle, as Terris said,” Ciardis whispered.
If this tactic went wrong, and she still wasn't exactly sure how they planned on threading the needle without being seen, then they would be pitted against a couple thousand individuals that she'd much rather just avoid.
It wasn't just what they were walking immediately into that had Ciardis concerned.
It's what comes after, she thought as she wiped a finger across the edge of her brow. For a moment she expected to feel sweat on her skin. But just the touch of her parched flesh, dry from hours spent earlier in the noonday sun and little hydration, met her fingers. She wasn't surprised. The moment she touched her flesh, she remembered with bitterness that unlike the cool sea coast of Sandrin or the bitter cold of the north, in the western half of the empire humidity in the air was nonexistent and moisture was a wishful thought. Probably the reason that there were no flora or fauna for miles.
As the sun disappeared on the horizon and even their campfire smoldered into oblivion, her ability to see more than a few feet in front of her diminished to inches as she watched. They were slipping into the darkness that would cloak them in shadows as they raced across the sand. Hopefully undetected.
She pushed her fingers back into her hair impatiently, catching stray curls as she did so and threading them with stiff fingers into the nest of her hair. As she stopped fidgeting Ciardis closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and listened. Just for a moment. She heard the low whistle of wind as it flowed across sand dunes and around the broken ruin walls that housed their daylight camping spot.
She cocked her ear to the left at the final crackle of a dying fire. Then the low murmurs of a group of voices to her right caught her attention. They were discussing something. She couldn't quite hear what, and she was too grounded in this spot, with the wind in her hair and the sand beneath her booted feet, to move over toward them.
It was probably important. Probably.
She opened her eyes, exhaled, and looked up as another cool wind whipped around the columns with a burst of energy—throwing sand straight into her face. She grimaced as more sand whipped along her bare arms. Nothing about that felt particularly good. The little grains stung, but at least it wasn't in her eyes. Add that to the cool temperature in the air and this little sojourn was turning out to be a delight.
Ciardis had to crack a wry smile. Who would have imagined being cold in the desert. But as she certainly knew now, it was possible.
She thought about how she felt. Despite the trepidation and energy around her, inwardly she felt calm. Not as serene as she'd like to project, but calmer than she had been during prior incidents of similarly dire straits. And because she'd encountered plans like this before, she knew her mental state for what it was. She knew that it was the calm before the storm. She couldn't avoid it or temper it. She could only acknowledge what was to come and prepare. The entire group felt on edge. And why shouldn't they? They were about to invade enemy territory with little more than a few knives and swords between them and at least a thousand trained marauders in their way.
The tightness in her belly grew stronger. It just added to the wariness she already felt about their mission and the secret they had uncovered. Or, rather, the secret that they had been told. Their captive, the male known as “the Muareg,” hadn't minced words about what awaited them in the city of Kifar.
So even if by some miracle we get through these marauder camps unscathed, we still have a city that not only has been locked away for half a century to deal with, but now the possibility of something I hadn't even thought about since I was in the forests of Ameles has arisen. Death magic. She exhaled a tense breath.
To be fair, what she had been dealing with in Ameles was shadow magic, or the ability to control the shadows and the shades that inhabited bodies. But she had had one fatal encounter with a necromancer on that journey—fatal for him, that was. All of which had left her with an aversion to death magic of any kind, let alone the type that allowed the dead to live again.
As she looked out of the corner of her eye, Ciardis spotted Sebastian staring at her with an inquisitive look. He didn't say anything, but the gaze was enough to tell her he was wondering why she was staring off into space. Ciardis shook her head abruptly to clear her thoughts. It wouldn't do to look too distracted. It wasn't what she needed right now. It wasn't what any of them needed.
Focus, she chanted to herself. One thing at a time.
With her back to the edge of the steep embankment that led down into the valley, she noticed that everyone was finally prepared to leave. They'd been ready for hours. But they couldn't put Terris's plan into action and thread the needle until full darkness had fallen. With the night's cloak came the stealthy way forward they needed.
In front of her, the soldier smothered the orange glow from the remaining embers by kicking sand tersely over them. Ciardis watched the glow die and mage lights emerge all around her. Thanar held one light like a pet orb in the center of his palm. Rachael, the shaman, had another hovering just over her right shoulder.
Ciardis felt her brow furrow as she shivered. This time the reaction wasn't just from the cold.
She rubbed her sore shoulder awkwardly as she looked around, squinting in the darkness.
She couldn't figure out what it was.
Just an off feeling surrounding us, she thought glumly.
She searched hesitantly with her magic, having no choice but to lower the protective mage shields that she had put up in a mental effort to block out the two males that shared her subconscious…sometimes.
She couldn't quite see what it was, but it felt like a miasma. Like thin tendrils of darkness floating on the wind that she couldn't quite figure out. It wasn't the natural dark of the coming night. It was a darkness that made her think of Ameles and shadows that did a mage's bidding. It was there and yet it wasn't. She shook her shoulders to shrug off the idea, brushing it off as nerves. The only mages here were the ones she stood beside, and none of them had that type of magic. As far as they knew, anyway. As for the Muareg, he had to know that if he got up to no good, the first person they'd round on was him.
Biting the inside of her bottom lip, she accepted a bundle of brown cloth from Christian as he walked over to her and left the convened group behind.
Taking her gaze from the steep slope that led down into the valley and the two groups of marauders that stood between them and Kifar, Ciardis gave the koreschie a small smile.
“Last-minute preparations?” she asked.
“As always.”
She laughed. It was a bitter one that she couldn't help as the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach grew.
“Nervous?” he asked quietly as he handed over a small bronze clasp. Looking at it and shaking out the musty bundle of cloth he'd given her, she realized it was a cloak and the fastening pin that would rest at the base of her neck. She thought briefly about tugging the cloak on sideways so that her entire front would be covered against high winds, but it would put her at a big disadvantage while fighting against opponents, so she discarded the idea.
Christian cleared his throat beside her and she jumped slightly in guilt, then eyed him askance.
Her mind rushed to remember his inquiry. Ah, right. Am I nervous?
“About?” she asked.
She heard the chuckle in his voice, which she ignored in favor of tilting her head to see why everyone in their group had drifted away from the fire pit and over to stand by their side on the edge of the embankment so quickly. It only took her seconds to pinpoint what fascinated them. And seconds more to discard it from her gaze as she felt a shiver go down her spine like a ghost's fingers trailing along her flesh. She turned her back to put it even further from her mind, but she couldn't force her thoughts away from the sights as easily as her vision. The campfires of their enemies had become visible as soon as full darkness hit. And there were a lot of them. What had seemed improbable just hours before seemed downright impossibl
e now. How were they supposed to slip between two camps that seemed to have as many fires burning as there were visible stars in the night sky?
Beside her she felt the sand shift around her boots as Christian took firmer footing on the vista that everyone had gathered silently to stare from.
Finally he replied, “Are you more nervous about threading the eye of that needle…or what we'll find on the other side?”
“I'm not sure I can answer that.”
“Try.”
“What does it matter?” she asked harshly.
As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Not the words themselves. The tone. She sounded more anxious than a high-strung mare facing down a pack of wolves.
To his credit, Christian didn't comment on that.
He did, however, say, “Sometimes the greatest fear is admitting the fear itself.”
Ciardis replied, “Tell me that again when we're facing down a satyr with mind-wielding powers or a god of destruction. I'm sure it'll be helpful.”
She tightened her hand on the rough staff in her right palm almost involuntarily. Yes, she was scared. But she didn't have to admit it every second. She wouldn't.
I need to be brave, she chanted to herself silently.
“We all need to be brave,” Christian said.
“Did I say that aloud?” Ciardis murmured, startled. “What I meant was—”
“You were right,” Christian interjected.
Ciardis blinked and turned to eye him with no little surprise. “About what?”
Christian snorted. “That perhaps…admitting the fear serves no purpose at this time.”
“Will wonders never cease?” Ciardis said.
Christian shook his head. “For you? No.”
Ciardis punched him in the shoulder, and he broke the tense atmosphere with a hearty laugh.
She couldn't help it—she responded with a chuckle of her own.