Sworn to Quell

by Terah Edun

  This time it was Sebastian who spoke up. “There’s a simple reason that I’ve convened you all here. The North will not hold for much longer.”

  Mutters went around the room until a brave soul spoke up. “How do we know this isn’t another fabrication? Like the tales told and the countless lives lost in a ‘war’ that never was.”

  “Yes, I lost two of my own to the lies of the North,” a woman said in a challenging voice. “Good men. How is this any different?”

  The majordomo spoke up, “Because it’s confirmed. We’ve seen the hordes behind the wall. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.”

  “Go on,” demanded a man with hard eyes and a stiff upper lip. His expression said he wasn’t convinced but his words were a clear indication that he respected the majordomo — he hadn’t dismissed him out of hand after all.

  Which was both amazing and infuriating considering the way those same individuals were treating Sebastian at this very moment.

  The majordomo continued as a bit of nervous sweat beaded on his brow. “My mage has tested the magical bonds of the gates of Ban. We’ve even had a mage of Sicario confirm his finding.”

  The pudgy noble with the barest hint of a mustache over his lip gave a self-important and proud nod of acknowledgment at the other noble’s words.

  Both nobles looked around the room with their noses in the air. An audible growl sounded from the corner of the kith contingent. That was enough to take the wind out of the sails of their self-importance.

  Ciardis was beginning to have quite the fondness for the strangest members of their conclave.

  Another man spoke up almost in a rush as he said, “I, too, have tested the gates. I was the secondary mage in fact. We know that the magical holds on the gates are weakening. Soon they’ll fail entirely.”

  “How soon?” questioned Sebastian.

  The mage turned to look at the prince heir with a fearful quiver in his eyes. “No more than fourteen nights from hence.”

  “Two weeks,” said Ciardis flatly.

  The man managed a barest genuflection. “Yes.”

  “By the gods,” Ciardis heard someone say.

  She didn’t know why this revelation felt so devastating. So much more important than the fact that the god of destruction itself was intent on descending on them.

  Then a woman spoke up in a clear voice, rough and heavy but commanding as she said, “This changes things.”

  Everyone’s attention pivoted to her. Even Ciardis Weathervane’s. She wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “The god we knew even less about, and because of that it didn’t feel real. I suspect it wouldn’t have felt real until it was standing in front of us and tearing our throats out. But if it’s true that these creatures will be loosed on our realm then we must fight them,” the woman said in a deep voice.

  Voices erupted, people shouting to be heard over the others to predict their priority needs, until even Ciardis couldn’t tell one voice from the others.

  “This bickering has to stop,” Ciardis heard one lone voice shout out.

  To her surprise, it was her own.

  She regretted it seconds later as faces with snarls and scowls embedded into every frown line turned to her—their new target.

  Oh bollocks, Ciardis thought…just before the world turned upside down.

  Her vision blurred and she thought that for once in her life, she was going to faint and be happy about it. Anything to escape this censorious crowd.

  But that wasn’t what happened. Not at all.

  Everyone cried out as the entire room was filled with light as if they’d stepped outside.

  It was bright like the sun, encompassing, overwhelming.

  When the glare lifted and they were able to see again, someone else stood in their midst.

  A woman.

  A woman with an open blade in one hand and hard, shell-like armor enclosing her entire body all the way up from the daintiest of ankles to the top of her neck, where her closely cropped hair flirted with the rim of the high-collar armor.

  Power radiated from her in waves. Waves that softly lapped outward until they touched the next mage in the room and passed on, through, that person’s body. Going from one to the other, questing, searching, visiting.

  It made Ciardis feel inebriated. Drunk with power, even.

  But looking around at the other faces she didn’t see anything close to the ecstasy that she was near to feeling. Instead their faces were crunched up like children who had smelled a particularly revolting stench.

  An interesting reaction, but she couldn’t focus on them now. She felt heavy with magic and the potential to hold more. The woman who stood atop the table as if she were the ruler and they her peons was everything in Ciardis’s eyes.

  No one else existed, at least no one significant.

  And that was their mistake, because the longer she stood there, the more Ciardis could see that even those who had started out uncomfortable were looking up with glistening adoration at this person standing above their midst.

  But Ciardis Weathervane couldn’t bring herself to speak up. To warn against being sucked in. Because she was already lost like so many others.

  They didn’t know who or what she was, but everyone in the room was entranced.

  For a moment they just took in her beauty and grace. Even standing still she seemed to be in motion. Her form had a vibrancy about it that said she was beyond normal human perceptions. And that didn’t surprise Ciardis Weathervane, because the longer she stared at her, the more she was certain this woman was no human.

  Her power, her core, was transcendent.

  Different than anything Ciardis had ever experienced.

  Beyond the power of mages and inhumans. Beyond even that of a dragon.

  It was terrible and wonderful.

  But like a bucket of water thrown over the room, the glamour that had bespelled them was gone as if it had never been.

  Heads immediately began to shake back and forth as the conclave members dispelled all remnants of the fog that had resided in their brains. Ciardis’s included.

  Then the woman spoke as she casually walked forward.

  “I had hoped for a challenge,” she said in a taunting voice as she reviewed each person she passed with an assessing gaze.

  Thanar, angry at being taken by surprise, surged forward to the head of the table.

  “Trust me—you want a challenge, you’ve found the perfect specimen,” he said.

  The woman paused and looked over him with a long, slow assessment from head to toe. She took him all in from the tight pants to the taunt muscles, and apparently she liked what she saw, because she let out a peal of laughter.

  “Well,” she said in amusement. “If I had known you were so attractive, Thanar, I would have come down to meet you in my physical form long before.”

  That, if nothing else, gave Thanar pause.

  He said cautiously, “You know my name.”

  “I know more than that,” she whispered as she stepped off the table and stood in front of the room confronting Thanar face-to-face.

  6

  Faced with her inches away, Thanar’s thoughts turned decidedly less warlike. Ciardis could read his desires and mind like a book and she didn’t like what she saw.

  Focus! Ciardis Weathervane snapped into his head. You can’t let every pretty head turn you around.

  The woman flicked Ciardis a curious glance but didn’t speak. Instead she turned to face the room head-on. What she saw, what Ciardis saw as well, were hard eyes from humans wondering if they’d been betrayed, now that her entrancing effect seemed to be wearing off unless she was standing head-to-head with the intended individual.

  Or perhaps it’s just a matter of the longer she’s in the room, the less overwhelming she is, Sebastian whispered to her mind.

  Ciardis didn’t respond but for some reason she didn’t think that was the reason at all. It was just a hunch, but she almost felt like the intruder was ho
lding herself back and reining in her powers as much as she could.

  Which was a terrifying thought process to go through, because if this was just the taste of what she could do, the excess drifting out of the hold she had on her own gifts, if you will—well, then they faced a formidable intruder indeed.

  Ciardis wondered if the humans in the room, even the mages among them, were aware of that possibility. It seemed they weren’t—most of them appeared to be barely holding themselves back from rushing at the woman. Simply because she didn’t seem inclined to give them the deference they felt were due.

  But the kith were an interesting group unto themselves. To Ciardis they neither looked outraged nor entranced. They looked terrified.

  As Ciardis flicked her eyes back and forth between the muted fear in the inhuman eyes of those in the far corner and the object of their terror, she had a bad feeling about this.

  A very bad feeling.

  But their newest presence wasn’t doing anything to warrant a murderous attack, not yet.

  Arrest? Yes.

  Killed? No.

  In fact, the sword disappeared out of the intruder’s grip right then and she leaned forward to place her hands flat on the broad table. A clear signal that she just wanted to talk.

  Then why does it feel like she’s more dangerous now than at any moment before? Ciardis wondered.

  “What do you want?” Sebastian said in a serenely cool voice, as if intruders invaded a magically-and-physically locked convening hall all the time in the imperial court.

  The woman glanced over to where soldiers bristling with weapons had moved the prince heir into a protective ring.

  They weren’t joking around. Which was good.

  Ciardis’s bad feeling hadn’t gone away. Intuition told her they needed to get out of this room any way they could. Instinct told her to hold fast. You didn’t startle a predator before you had to.

  The intruder spoke, “The better question would be, who am I?”

  Her demeanor was calm even if the levels of power she radiated hadn’t decreased.

  Sebastian acknowledged that as he said, “Well, your mage core is telling me you’re someone I should have known about well before today.”

  Several faces around the room flinched at those last words. The censure in Sebastian’s tone wasn’t directed at their intruder, and the prince heir’s advisors who stood around the table well knew that.

  “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t blame your advisors too much,” said the woman with a bit of levity in her tone.

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Then what?”

  His words were polite, curious. The underlying tension in the room, however, was still palpable.

  “Your human predilection for self-involvement, of course,” the woman said in a chiding tone. “After all, it’s only been centuries since I walked this earth, and yet you seem to have forgotten about poor little old me.”

  Thanar’s face went as pale as Ciardis had ever seen it, and he took an uncertain step back.

  At that moment Ciardis knew they were in more trouble than she could have ever imagined before. Thanar never backed down. Especially from a potential fight.

  The woman surveyed the room, looking at everyone’s face for a sign of recognition. What she found, aside from fear and contempt, obviously wasn’t enough for her as her features slid into disappointment and then rapidly into coolness.

  “Well, I guess I should just tell you lot since your ignorance is so appalling,” she said with a measure of bite in her voice. “Amazing to me you’ve survived this long in your realm with this sort of forgetfulness. The dragons are so much more fun.”

  If she had meant to insult the room even further, she had succeeded. Nothing brought together the disparate groups of the Algardis Empire like being compared to the denizens of the empire of Sahalia, after all.

  Placing her hands on her hips with a dangerous look and a cruel smile on her face, the intruder announced, “I’m the goddess of death and destruction.”

  Shocked silence filled the room while the self-named goddess looked around proudly…almost if waiting for adoration.

  Muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like stupid humans, the intruder raised her voice to a shout. “I’m your blutgott, you fools. The one you’ve been waiting for.”

  This time it was Ciardis who managed to speak up through the onslaught of emotion overtaking them all. “But that can’t be. The blutgott is—”

  “—is what? Male?” the goddess asked in amusement, turning to Ciardis.

  “Well, yes,” Ciardis stuttered.

  “Says who?” the goddess coolly asked while they all stood around.

  “Says every text out there,” said a scholar who was among the first to regain his voice in the shocked silence.

  The goddess gave him a dark look. “Well, clearly your texts are wrong, for here I stand. Do you doubt me?”

  The crowd muttered and even the prince heir said, “Well, it’s not every day a goddess drops downs into our midst.”

  She smiled. “Then count yourself blessed.”

  An irritated noble stood beside a second scholar wearing the robes of their guild. The crowd turned to him and said in a loud demanding voice, “Are you sure you translated those texts right? Because we’ve got more than her identity at stake here.”

  From the stress in his voice, Ciardis guessed he was talking about the ritual of the Empress who reigned during the time of the Initiate Wars. He was right. They had a lot riding on an accurate translation, but now was not the time to discuss that. Particularly with the woman who claimed to be their ultimate enemy standing in their midst.

  “Of course!” snapped the scholar who seemed to be taking umbrage at the doubts voiced about him. “I’ve spent my life studying these tomes. Can you even read the ancient language of the empire?”

  “Don’t get your trousers in a bunch,” the noble complained while glaring at the intruder with far more confidence than even Thanar would.

  Which was the problem.

  None of the occupants in the room were taking her seriously.

  Aside from Thanar, potentially.

  And the self-named goddess was quite aware of that.

  She slammed her hand down on the table with loud crack. “Enough! You mortals are not only fools, you are insolent.”

  “Insolent we may be, but it is you who has dropped down into our midst with a preposterous story and no way of backing up your claim. So tell us—why are you really here?” the prince heir called out.

  Ciardis actually groaned aloud.

  No, she said to Sebastian internally. That is not the way to talk to her.

  Then what is? he snapped back. We have no time for games.

  A shiver went down her spine as she realized that Sebastian was fooled by this woman’s appearance. She wasn’t sure why no one was taking the goddess seriously. Perhaps that was because all those present were used to being among the most powerful creatures in the entire empire, so to have someone come forward and just sweep that claim out from under them would be unthinkable.

  But this was bordering on the level of insane.

  Another person repeated the prince heir’s question…in a far more irreverent way. The insult surprised even Ciardis.

  The goddess looked around, a look of shock on her brown face. “Well, I’ve come to receive your adoration.”

  Someone in the back cackled, then a younger gentleman wearing a merchant’s golden medallion came forward through the crowd. “Adoration? Try somewhere else, lady. We’re no one’s minions.”

  Then the goddess’s mood turned dark.

  “If you refuse to serve me, I’ll just have to kill you all,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “You can try,” Sebastian said with bravado.

  Ciardis nearly rolled her eyes. The prince heir’s ego was going to his head, and this wasn’t the time for that. She hadn’t been the only person who had stood on the field of war in the northern
plains while the blutgott’s minions rained down on them from above. When they had fought wyverns and the very soldiers who had just moments ago been standing by their sides. If the deity of death and destruction could do all that while not even present in this realm, Ciardis was more than willing to give the goddess who claimed to be the originator of such violence the benefit of the doubt and believe her claim.

  But no one else seemed to be as cautious as she was.

  There were rallying cries all around. Thanar, alone in a sea of defiant faces, looked wan and silent.

  Quite unlike him, Ciardis thought.

  She too wanted to quake and quail, but that wasn’t an option. More than anything, she wanted to head off this confrontation before it started. And while she wouldn’t have chosen this time or this place to confront the goddess, sometimes you just had to rise to the occassion and strike while the iron was hot. Ciardis had the feeling that none of the conclave members wanted to back down in the face of the goddess’s demands. Which was a strange coincidence as they’d all been yellow-bellied cowards when it came to obstructing the Emperor’s maniacal schemes.

  Not cowards, Sebastian corrected. Practical. As long as his focus was elsewhere, they could do whatever they wanted to.

  And now? Ciardis asked.

  And now we finally have something to coalesce our vying hatreds around, the prince heir said solemnly. I’m no fool, Ciardis Weathervane, but before this woman came into the room, we were at each other’s throats.

  If there is even a chance that this woman is who she says she is, then we’re dealing with a goddess, Ciardis said in frustration. Don’t be foolish.

  Not foolish, just practical, Sebastian chided.

  Before she could ask what he meant, Sebastian charged forward with a challenge.

  “Goddess or mortal, you stand encircled by some of the most powerful mages in the empire,” the prince heir said with a flash of anger in his eyes. “We will defeat you.”

  The goddess smiled. “It’s cute that you think you could even try.”

  Ciardis’s jaw clenched. Not at the goddess’s words but at Sebastian’s own. She was astounded to think that he and the other conclave members seemed to think they had the upper hand, even if they believed the intruder’s claim. Why? Because she was a woman. A female. How much damage could a feminine goddess with the features of a perfect doll do? The pantheon of goddesses were known for their bountiful protection of the land, providing for safe harbor for the weak and the pitiful, not being warlike.