by Terah Edun
Switching mindsets, Ciardis went from pondering to action. She grabbed onto the combined rope of magic that represented her tether to Sebastian and Thanar. Dark blue for Sebastian. Gold for Ciardis herself. Black for Thanar. Using the melded gifts was something she was still getting used to, but this felt as easy as stretching out her senses and opening her eyes. With reach, she sought the position of the sun and moon high in the sky, unseen by her own physical gaze but completely accessible thanks to this magical link, and was able to check the time of day. At least that’s how she thought this particular aspect of her seeleverbindung shared abilities worked. Ciardis had the feeling Thanar didn’t really delve into the minutiae of how such a simple ability worked. He just knew what hour it was, day or night, no matter where he was.
Wincing at what she found out, Ciardis gave a small polite smile to the land merchant whose hand-dictated maps they were now going over and turned to look the prince heir directly in the eye.
At a slow nod from Sebastian, she could see that he agreed it was time to decamp.
And not a moment too soon. No one could stay much longer than the break of dawn.
After all, while they were in here, the city of Sandrin was getting ever closer to a new day. A day in which citizens and foreigners alike questioned what their leadership was doing to rectify the damage done from a stunning display of power on the imperial palace grounds less than a fortnight ago.
The citizens all wondered who would now rule when a prince heir stayed within palace walls instead of facing them head-on. Ciardis also knew that the nobles were restless as they plotted their own insurrections behind closed doors. They would be foolish not to. The perfect time to plot and scheme for mercenary purposes was when the imperial courts were in disarray. Besides, if someone could kill the Emperor with impunity, what was to stop them from coming after their precious lands and fortunes next? The city was quiet, too quiet, and Ciardis knew that the call for blood would ring out before long if they didn’t stop it in its tracks.
“Little do they know we’re fighting to save them all, not just ourselves,” Ciardis muttered to herself as she covered an escaping yawn by placing her palm over her mouth.
They had so much to do. So much to explain to the populace. And, even worse, so much to prepare for.
How did you get a city ready for a siege by a deity?
How did you brace an empire for death raining from the skies?
Death they couldn’t see. Let alone fight.
She shrugged as she gathered what notes she’d taken in shaky, weary handwriting and looked once more to Sebastian.
This time he read her thoughts without even entering her mind.
With a solemn nod, Sebastian Athanos Algardis concluded the second conclave of his reign.
Long may he live, Ciardis thought solemnly as she stood with the others. They all gave a short bow in the prince heir’s direction.
The history-making conclave broke up and everyone elected to exit the outer chamber quickly. Untouched by many of the same reservations that had accompanied them inside. To her eye, it was a blessing to see kith comfortable with humans, and no spies present to harm them or hinder their way. For the first time since the Emperor died, Ciardis Weathervane was actually glad. It was rare to see such a gathering of a cross section of individuals—one that saw nobles and merchants, enemies and allies, boy Emperors and warrior lords—all on equal footing.
Even she made it outside in relative peace.
Of course, that all went away when she stepped more than a few feet from the door. She was so startled by the appearance of a man with an eager, weasel-like expression and bug eyes that she stopped mid-walk.
He opened his mouth with a quick pleading look and said, “Perhaps, milady, we shall discuss the details of the coronation tomorrow?”
Ciardis actually had to take a moment to comprehend what the industrious noble was asking.
He repeated his request for an audience to no avail.
Ciardis, desperate for a bit of time to digest his query, asked, “And who, milord, do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”
He sketched out a quick and hasty bow. “Alorn,” he said in a wheezy voice. “Ninth earl of Sanrn.”
She blinked and repeated slowly, “Ninth earl of Sanrn.”
“On the sea border with the kingdom just north of the Ameles Forest,” he added. “But I represent the Weavers’ Guild.”
“Ah,” Ciardis said in understanding.
His presence made sense now. He represented the third largest guild by trade in the entire empire. A guild that could slip in and out of communities with ease. A guild with contacts in all the major cities, and a guild with the trade staff on hand to get supplies to and fro across the land within just a matter of days.
They needed someone like him.
But his request wasn’t one she could take seriously. Not right now.
Though she could easily imagine what Lillian would say to him.
Her mother would prioritize the coronation and the wedding as a symbol of unity in a tumultuous time. Two events that, in Lillian Weathervane’s eyes, were guaranteed to give the populace hope and enjoyment.
Ciardis Weathervane, however, couldn’t care less about hope and joy.
Now was a time of survival. Plain and simple.
She turned to the eager noble with a small smile on her lips and a deadly serious glint in her eyes.
“Live today to fight tomorrow, milord. I believe now is not the time for festivities, but that will come soon,” she said gaily.
The man pursed too-thin lips and lifted a wily finger. “Yes, of course,” he said. “But tradition is paramount, and the succession of power and family must be secure for the empire. Above all else.”
“Even our lives?” Ciardis asked rhetorically.
“Well…” the lord managed to stutter before a smooth hand with thin, bejeweled fingers clasped his shoulder firmly and thrust the rest of his angled body through the next set of doorways.
The noble trade representative, an interesting juxtaposition if she’d ever heard one, stumbled forward and almost fell flat on his face.
When he regained his fumbling balance and managed to straighten his clothes, he whirled around with a thundercloud of passion outlined in his red cheeks. “How dare you!”
He only managed to get that one sentence out, however, before the fervor in his voice died and his stance shriveled like a dried-out mushroom as he faced the gently smiling face of the daemoni prince. The man who came from a long line of devilish individuals. Not to mention the man who had killed the last Emperor in full view of the public.
The earl’s mouth snapped hastily shut. The pushy nobleman with a penchant for weddings and vainglorious coronations quickly muttered his apologies and practically fled out the door.
Ciardis wasn’t even sure what he had apologized for, he’d been in such a hurry to leave, but she wasn’t one to question her luck either.
“Thank you,” she said with a bit of a tired laugh in her voice.
“He is the one who should be thanking me,” Thanar said ironically. “I wasn’t sure if you were just going to kill him or just smelt him a little with that lightning.”
“What?” Ciardis asked in a bemused tone. She had no idea what he was talking about.
Thanar dipped his head toward her hands.
She blinked and looked down. Then she blinked again.
“Oh, by the gods!” Ciardis said with a horrified gasp. The hands she had thought were demurely, if tightly, folded in front of her were actually covered in little pinpricks of lightning.
Lightning that jumped from fingertip to fingertip like blue waves of fire.
It was quite pretty to watch.
But those weren’t the words Ciardis Weathervane would have chosen to describe such a clear and utter breach of mage decorum. She had been taught better. She knew better. But then again, other than her bright-gold Weathervane eyes, none of her gifts had manifested physical
ly while in training with the Companions’ Guild.
Instead, she was patting her hands harshly against the front of her blouse, like she was intent on putting out the smoldering remains of a fire.
She heard the crack of laughter in Thanar’s voice as he said, “You didn’t know, did you?”
“Of course not,” Ciardis said, affronted. “I would never threaten a guest. Passive-aggressiveness is not my style. If I’m angry at them, they will know it.”
Thanar snorted as she finally managed to get the lightning under control with a bit of mental focus and a few lingering pats of her hands.
They were gone as if they’d never been there when she looked closely, and she gave a hasty sigh of relief that there were no singe marks on her pants.
“Why can’t I have normal problems?” she muttered.
“Because you’re anything but normal, Golden Eyes,” the daemoni prince said congenially as he walked away and caught up with the head of the kith delegation.
As he sauntered off, Ciardis stared at Thanar’s back with narrowed eyes.
“What’s got him in such a good mood?” she muttered.
“What else?” Sebastian asked as he appeared suddenly by her other side as if by magic. “Death, destruction, and mayhem—Thanar’s recreational passions of choice.”
She couldn’t help it this time. She laughed. Sebastian hooked a tired arm around her shoulders and leaned in with a hug.
As they walked together he said in an almost nervous tone, “You know…it’s been too long since I heard you laugh.”
She looked around at the last remnants of the dissipating crowd. People disappeared into corners and shadows, up staircases and outside into the gardens as quickly as well-trained spies.
Her lips twitched in mirth.
“What is it now?” Sebastian asked with a squeeze. “Don’t leave me in the cold.”
“I was just thinking,” Ciardis said with her voice rolling in mirth, “that all those court affairs have done these nobles well. They move as silently as romantic partners sneaking out of an assignation’s window just before the light of dawn.”
Solemnly, without a trace of irony, Sebastian said, “Well, they’d have to be good. Half of the husbands and most of the wives at court are deadly with small knives.”
They looked at each other, and then a particularly ample-chested noblewoman somersaulted over a fallen column with all the dexterity of an acrobat.
She couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Neither could he.
Once they had recovered from the last belly-aching amount of laughter, they were the only ones remaining in the area. Even the servants had discreetly faded into the shadows.
Ciardis was pretty sure that was due to good training, though. Giving the prince heir and his bride-to-be some privacy as they laughed into the early-morning hours. If the servants thought Ciardis and Sebastian were a bit lunatic for laughing amidst the destruction, well, by that point they all were a little mad.
Ciardis looked around for the daemoni prince and noticed he was several levels above them, with head leaning down to catch words from the scholar, it seemed.
Interesting choice, she mused, wondering as always what he was up to.
She continued looking around at the palace in ruins around them and tried to summon some good memories. Because if she couldn’t laugh, then she would cry…and Ciardis Weathervane was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to stop once she started. Everyone and everything around her seemed to be teetering on the edge of an abyss, and she had the feeling this next week would be the final showdown. They either ended the threat here and now, or they died…for good this time.
She had to wonder if she was looking forward to death.
It was quiet. At least that’s what all the priests said in their sermons haranguing their congregation to repent. Repentance for what, Ciardis didn’t know. But peace and quiet didn’t sound so bad right about now.
Still…she was reluctant to let go of her life so easily. She knew that Sebastian, at least, felt the same.
Thanar didn’t believe in repentance for anything above the earth or below it.
So if she was going to repent, well then, she’d just have to live long enough to do so for both of them.
We’ll live through this, Ciardis thought as she sobered up and finally caught her breath again.
We always do, Sebastian replied.
If she detected a hint of sadness in that statement, Ciardis herself was well trained enough not to speak of it…for all their sakes.
Being a revolutionary was nice in theory but hell on the person living through it, she decided.
23
Thanar landed on Sebastian’s other side and all three of them set off to their beds. Companionable silence surrounded them in an empty corridor. Occasionally they came across small broken-off groups that seemed to have come back together organically, exhaustion or not, to re-discuss details. These were people who she knew would be conversing well into the morning, judging by the animated looks on their faces and excited gestures.
“Ever weary, ever willing,” she murmured to herself, wondering how these conclave members could still be on their feet after so long.
“For them it’s been an exciting two days,” Sebastian remarked.
Ciardis said gingerly, “I suspect so. They didn’t kill an Emperor in the preceding days, after all.”
“No, they didn’t,” acknowledged Sebastian. “Though I think…”
“What?” Ciardis asked curiously as Thanar took to the air once again, this time as they reached the long hallways that marked the home of the imperial family.
Ciardis prodded Sebastian in the shoulder as they watched Thanar land up ahead by a servant, a man he had apparently been looking for, judging by the comradely clasp he gave the man’s shoulder.
What is Thanar up to? Does it have anything to do with the furtive conversation he had with the scholar? she wondered.
She could ask him, but she knew that beyond anyone else—currently alive, that is—Thanar knew how to keep his secrets close to his vest.
Instead she blinked and looked over at Sebastian with a questioning look.
Sebastian looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Yes?”
His tone was half-amused, half-exhausted. He could tell she’d drifted off into her thoughts by the fact she was no longer paying him a lick of attention.
Startled, Ciardis admitted sheepishly, “I’ve forgotten what I was asking.”
“I don’t think you were asking anything really,” Sebastian said with a light shrug. “I just never finished my thought.”
“Which was…?” Ciardis said in a leading tone.
“That the citizens of the city and perhaps the empire will feel the death of the Emperor as if they were the cause of it for a long time,” Sebastian said finally.
“Why would you say that?” she asked, shocked.
“Because,” Sebastian said as he looked down at his booted feet and then back up with a hint of irritation on his face, “the Emperor, irrespective of the vileness of the person, is an institution. One to be protected and cherished by his people.”
“Or her,” Ciardis pointed out a bit snootily. She wasn’t really upset at Sebastian’s oversight of the female line of rulers, if it could be called an oversight; her mind was just whirling at the implication of thoughts that she couldn’t quite voice.
Sebastian continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “My uncle was a dark ruler. One of the worst, from what I can tell, but he was still the man the empire had come to rely on to rule.”
“You mean the man they thought was your father,” Ciardis said in an accusing tone. She was beginning to wonder if she could even believe what was coming out of Sebastian’s mouth. He wasn’t defending Maradian, per se, but the regret in his tone was more than she could bear.
The Emperor had murdered their friends. Both of their families. He’d even plotted to get rid of Sebastian and Ciardis themselves
on more than one occasion.
Ciardis Weathervane was 80 percent sure the only reason Maradian had left them alive for this long, to his detriment, was because their very existence entertained him.
Sebastian must have read the ire on her face because he hurried to interject, “Not that I forgive him. I just acknowledge that to the people, my people, he was both father and ruler, confessor and protector. He was Algardis.”
Ciardis swallowed the harsh words threatening to spill from her throat. The wee hours of the morning were hardly an appropriate time or place for a fight, even if she had been inclined toward one.
Instead she said, “Now you are Algardis.”
Sebastian looked at her with no little fear in his bright green eyes. “Can you think of anything we should fear more?”
Ciardis grimaced. “Now is not the time for cold feet.”
“Says the woman the entire empire isn’t demanding sit on a throne,” he shot back.
She rolled her eyes. “We have a goddess to defeat. I can’t believe you’re letting a little power scare you.”
“A little,” Sebastian said in a choked-off tone. “Do you even know what being the Emperor of Algardis means?”
She stared at him warily. “It means sitting on a throne and making proclamations.”
“And?” Sebastian asked in disbelief.
She didn’t know what he wanted from her, but whatever it was, it was important. The prince heir was practically vibrating in agitation. The last time she’d seen him so disturbed had been when he’d found out about the Kasten ship.
Sebastian sighed explosively. “It’s more than a throne, Ciardis, or even an ideal.”
“Yes, I know,” she hurriedly interjected. “It’s the connection to the land.”
“It’s also his only defense against an invasion,” said Thanar coolly as he walked over to them.
Ciardis blinked, looking back and forth between the two. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what he said,” said Sebastian glumly.
“Then why haven’t you used it against the impeding presence of the blutgott? Why didn’t Maradian, for heaven’s sake?” she asked incredulously.