Sworn to Quell

by Terah Edun

  Thanar gave her a brooding stare, one that had a maelstrom of clouds gathering in the darkness of his mind behind it.

  “Everything,” he said in a foreboding voice.

  Sebastian waved a hand. “Drop the god-of-darkness act and tell us.”

  Ciardis didn’t even see Thanar move.

  She was fairly sure Sebastian didn’t either.

  The daemoni prince was standing in front of them, and then he was across the room with the Emperor-to-be pinned against the wall with a hand wrapped around his neck.

  Ciardis moved before she even thought to, but as she hurried toward them, she could see that Sebastian was struggling to breathe.

  Thanar’s viselike grip was so tight that sound couldn’t escape from Sebastian’s throat. He couldn’t speak. She seriously felt like she was losing her ability to do anything else but scream, just watching the display of aggression between two individuals she cared far too much about.

  When she finally reached Thanar, jumping up and clasping her arms around his neck from behind in her haste to stop him, she could barely keep a grip on his shoulders.

  Then he turned so quickly that her right leg flew back and she was sent lurching to the floor. She fell to her hands and knees on the marble and flipped over onto her side, trying to get a perspective on the room as she scuttled back on the floor like a crab. She saw nothing but the black flash of wings in her field of vision as Thanar spread the appendages in a foreboding manner.

  For a brief moment Ciardis wondered if Thanar was coming after her now.

  Instead, he reached down a hand to her with a recalcitrant look on his face.

  She took it with an uncertain expression of her own and stood with a wince as she felt a new bruise forming on the leg she had landed badly on.

  Trying to disarm the tense situation with a smile, Ciardis shakily joked, “If I keep getting bumps and bruises like this, people might talk.”

  When Thanar didn’t say anything, just began to leisurely turn back toward Sebastian, Ciardis hastily tightened her grip on the daemoni prince’s hand and said, “Or at the very least keep a healer on standby. I never really appreciated all Christian did for us with his koreische powers, but I certainly do now.”

  Thanar raised a cool eyebrow and politely tugged back on her harsh grip.

  Ciardis didn’t even give the pretense of relenting or releasing her grip. She was holding his right hand in a vise. It was the only thing that kept him from turning the way he wanted.

  Back toward the prince heir.

  If he did that, Ciardis wasn’t sure if the beating that had begun with one prince pinned against a wall wouldn’t end with both of them dead.

  As Thanar stared down at her with faint irritation and she stared back up at him with a set jawline and a hard look in her own eyes, he knew and she knew that he had the core strength to jerk from her grip as easily as an adult broke a child’s grasp.

  He didn’t seem inclined to do so yet.

  She wasn’t grateful.

  She was scared.

  The daemoni prince still hadn’t said a word. A chatterbox he was not, but neither was he a brooding malcontent.

  Okay, scratch that thought, Ciardis decided mentally. He is a brooding malcontent, but usually he keeps his fists to himself against allies.

  “What is going on?” Ciardis asked again—as forcefully as she could.

  Sebastian, she was grateful to see, had gotten back on his feet with a harsh, winded gasp and was rubbing his neck with a look of death in his eyes.

  But for some reason he hadn’t grabbed his sword. Not yet.

  Something was very different about both of her men. One who wasn’t known for restraint was holding back after he could have justifiably killed the other, while that other, who was more of a “kill first, ask questions later” kind of person, had almost strangled him to death.

  Sebastian said in a rough voice, “If you weren’t who you were and if I didn’t have access to your damned memories a few moments earlier, my sword would be slicing clean through your neck. Bondmate or no bondmate.”

  Thanar’s wings flexed in a slight snap outward. A clear sign he had heard the threat in Sebastian’s voice but chose not to acknowledge the prince heir’s words.

  Ciardis was a bit relieved that Sebastian wasn’t going to immediately start swinging his sword. As she carefully assessed the situation, she slowly released her grip on Thanar’s hand and hobbled between the two.

  Facing Sebastian, she raised a tentative hand and with questioning eyes reached for his neck.

  Ciardis made sure to wait until he nodded, tacit permission to touch him, before she put her fingers to his flesh. Even with that slight movement of his head, he winced.

  She grimaced in sympathy pain. She could imagine how physically terrifying it must have been to be lifted dead off your feet by another’s hands around your throat. The feel of their fingers tightening against your flesh. The beat of your pulse under their grip. The pain of the vise about your airway as the grip got tighter and tighter.

  Even now she could see the imprint of Thanar’s large fingers like a perfect set of thin, tapered outlines about Sebastian’s neck.

  It wasn’t a pretty sight, and as she put the lightest touch of her fingertips over one bruise, her stomach lurched. She wasn’t even close to losing the contacts of her stomach, though, because she had seen far, far worse, after all.

  But it was enough to upset her. To turn the fear and nervousness in her belly into the fire of outrage.

  Turning around as fast as she could with a limp, she pointed backward at Sebastian’s bruises with outrage. “Explain.”

  Venom practically dripped from her lips. She was ready to tear Thanar apart limb from limb. The only reason she hadn’t—the only reason she couldn’t—was because she wanted to know why. What explanation could he possibly have for an unprovoked attack like this? It was the same reason she had held back from accosting Inga. It was the same reason she gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. Only once, and once was enough, because they either proved her right or proved her wrong. Thanar had been given chances many times, and each time he’d proven himself a better person than he had been the previous day.

  Well, better in the sense that he’s no longer evil incarnate, Ciardis thought. He doesn’t just kill with volition now. He has reasons.

  She knew she was justifying his actions in her head without even wondering if he could not have any reason for what he had just done. She had to wonder if that was because of the feelings the bond enforced. The feelings it magnified. The feeling, which she could not say aloud but feared was looming over all their heads like a presence that would not go away.

  She refused to vocalize its name mentally.

  Instead aloud, she repeated, “Explain.”

  This time frustration and pain, not just anger, came through. This might just be the last straw. Thanar had done a lot for her. But he had also done a lot to her—to her and others. Killed for her. Enslaved her. Pained her. Loved her.

  The last action was the only one that seemed to matter right now; it was the only reason she hadn’t whipped her pain into a weapon. A weapon that would lance the boil that was the daemoni prince and rid her of him forever.

  She couldn’t, not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  33

  Thanar seemed to be both a million miles away and right there as he stared over her head. She noticed that his eyes were focused above Sebastian’s face. So she too turned to look up and to the side. She saw another wiggling snakelike creature floating in midair.

  The animosity in Thanar’s gaze as he stared at the thing was unmistakable.

  Voice on edge, Ciardis said, “Can you explain at least what fascinates you so about this creature? What about it forced you to challenge and attack Sebastian unprovoked?”

  Thanar turned his gaze back to her. She didn’t like what she saw. She didn’t think anyone would like staring in those deep, dark pools.

&n
bsp; “He doesn’t have to,” Sebastian croaked through his bruised trachea. “I saw it all in his mind.”

  Ciardis threw a startled glance over her shoulder at the prince heir.

  “Benefits of the bond,” Sebastian said in a voice that sounded even worse off. “You’re not the only one who gets side powers from this.”

  He stopped speaking, clearly tired of sounding like a croaking frog.

  “So you can get past his mental barriers,” Ciardis surmised.

  Sebastian nodded.

  Thanar said snidely, “As long as his flesh touches mine, which is a never-happening-again scenario.”

  Ciardis muttered darkly, “I’d be careful what you wish for.”

  She didn’t have to be touching either of them to feel the hatred fairly radiating off Sebastian. He may have been keeping it contained because on some level he understood Thanar’s outrage, but that didn’t mean he would forgive or forget the brutality of Thanar’s attack.

  “So for those of who didn’t bother to read the halfwit’s mind,” Raisa asked, “what exactly is the latest problem?”

  They all jumped in surprise.

  The attack had happened in mere moments, but Ciardis had actually forgotten Raisa was in her bedroom.

  “You mean you don’t know?” she blurted without thinking. “I thought you could read everyone’s mind!”

  The dragon gave her a pointed look. “I can. That doesn’t mean I choose to listen to human drivel every second of the day. I think I’d drive myself mad opening up my mental barriers for all of you lot.”

  Ciardis sniffed. “No need to get testy.”

  “Au contraire, my sarin,” Raisa said. “In fact, I would hazard a guess that you aren’t as upset as you should be. None of you are.”

  Ciardis gave a guilty glance to Sebastian.

  “And you just tried to murder him,” Raisa concluded in a speculating tone. “If I had to guess, this bond is becoming more encompassing the more time passes and the more you use it.”

  “What do you mean?” Sebastian asked.

  “She means,” Thanar ground out, “that the bond is dampening our emotions.”

  “It’s doing more than that,” Raisa crowed with a laugh.

  Ciardis gave her a dark look but didn’t interrupt. She wanted to hear this. She did notice that Raisa’s dagger-like teeth had receded into her mouth…for now. They were now more normal human chompers, which made it far easier for the dragon ambassador to talk—and apparently gloat.

  “The bond is amplifying the congenial feelings between you lot and dampening the animosity. I’d go so far as to say it’s the only thing forcing you not to kill each other,” Raisa continued.

  Ciardis threw her hands up in the air. “Then how exactly do you explain what just happened here?”

  “Backlash,” Sebastian croaked. “Right?”

  Raisa nodded. “Good, Prince Heir, very good. And a particularly brutal one. Your daemoni prince was already angry at the murdith’s encroachment on his territory. The anger built up enough that it broke through the bond’s ‘love’ haze, if you will, and allowed him to rise to his normal emotional levels.”

  Ciardis’s mouth went dry. “Are you saying that’s how Thanar really feels?”

  “Thanar can speak for himself,” the daemoni prince drawled.

  They all turned to look at him. To wait for him to respond. To deny. To agree.

  Thanar, for his part, shrugged. “I’ll admit the prince heir isn’t my favorite person, but my desire to kill him is low at this moment.”

  Ciardis raised an eyebrow. She, and probably all of them, wondered if that was the bond talking, or Thanar.

  Thanar continued, “But at that moment my anger at the murdith, my clarity in resistance, and your petty human ignorance pushed me beyond my limits.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how you were able to grab hold of the murdith,” Ciardis quietly pointed out.

  “Oh, but it does,” Raisa said with a delighted clap of her hands. “Like my people, the daemoni are known to be able to travel and converse between realms. We all know they can’t do it as easily, but it can be done.”

  “But this time was different,” Ciardis interjected in irritated haste. It didn’t matter so much that he could travel, it mattered that the traveling had changed him, and in changing him had displayed a side of Thanar she never wanted to see again.

  Raisa nodded and said with impatience, “Yes. Because of what he did while traversing between realms. When Thanar touched the creature, even for seconds—by the very nature of what it took to reach out to the murdith and assess it—he stepped beyond your bond’s boundaries. He came into his own.”

  “He because a furious maniac,” Sebastian commented in a dead-serious voice.

  Ciardis looked from prince to prince.

  She didn’t know what to believe at that moment. But Thanar wasn’t denying their words. Not that there was much to deny. The magical theory about the properties of the realms and its effects on their bond was either sound or not. Logical or not.

  Still, she waited, as did they all, for Thanar to speak.

  Finally, the daemoni prince opened his mouth and said, “It’s true that when I shifted between realms, I felt as if I broke free.”

  Ciardis blinked, waiting for more, but he either didn’t feel like being more forthcoming or, even more disturbing…just didn’t care.

  Slowly she asked, “Are you saying the realms will negate our bonds? All we have to do is gate to the Aether Realm?”

  “No,” speculated Raisa. “Otherwise the daemoni prince would have done so already, isn’t that right?”

  Thanar sent the dragon a dark look, one that promised retribution.

  Raisa didn’t seem to care one whit. She pressed on. “Isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen it work like this before,” Thanar reluctantly admitted. “I’ve gone and come back. Never to this reaction.”

  Finally Ciardis understood. Thanar wasn’t withholding information just to be contradictory— not that he wouldn’t if given half the chance. He was withholding his responses because he didn’t know, and for Thanar not to be able to answer something with clear certainty was…unusual.

  He must be feeling quite unsettled, Ciardis decided. And she realized she didn’t really care at the moment.

  Thanar, regardless of his vulnerabilities, was acting like a pouting child. But unlike a toddler that you could throw in the corner, he was far too dangerous to just overlook.

  Ciardis turned to Raisa. “So it’s not the realm, but it’s an effect of the realm?”

  Raisa nodded.

  Ciardis turned back to Thanar with wide eyes. “So what would make this particular voyage any different than the last?”

  Sebastian cleared his throat. Perhaps unwilling or unable to talk through his bruised trachea just yet. She turned to look, and the prince heir carefully turned his gaze toward the ceiling.

  Ciardis didn’t even have to follow it to fully understand what the prince heir was getting at.

  Ciardis paused and then said in one breath, “The murdith.”

  “The murdith,” Thanar confirmed.

  “The murdith is what allowed him to break free of his restrains,” Sebastian said softly. “But that isn’t what triggered you first, now is it, Thanar?”

  The daemoni prince’s mouth thinned into a line but he spoke, “Amani has been a very bad goddess.”

  Ciardis shook her head in confusion. “And water is wet. What does that have to do with this?”

  “She’s been exploiting the breaks in the empire’s protections to bring some unsavory characters through,” Sebastian said flatly. “Ones we’ll have to deal with even if she’s gone.”

  “Are you sure?” the dragon asked, bringing the topic back around to the original subject.

  “Definitely,” said Thanar. “About the characters and the murdith.”

  “Well, that’s new,” Raisa said with a thoughtful glance at the snakelike cre
atures. “My people have always used them as spies. But this ability as a…conduit? I don’t know what you’d call it, but it’d make a fascinating study.”

  The dragon looked over at Thanar with what Ciardis guessed was hope in her eyes.

  The daemoni prince snorted and conjured a knife, which he twirled casually in his hands and spit out a vehement, “Not a chance.”

  The subtext of his body language was loud and clear.

  Thankfully, Raisa dropped the subject.

  Ciardis sighed and rubbed her neck. “Perfect, just perfect.”

  They all looked at her, Thanar with a raised eyebrow.

  She shrugged hastily as she clarified, “I’m not complaining. At least I don’t think so. I am not happy about Thanar’s display of aggression—”

  “But?” said Sebastian in a highly disappointed tone, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of her once more plotting an excuse for Thanar’s actions.

  Ciardis flinched briefly. She knew she had had a bad habit of doing that, starting with when she’d first met the daemoni prince in the North…and he’d been standing atop the freshly killed bodies of his own blood family members.

  A ritualistic killing he had planned with precision, down to his reincarnation alive and well. She had known then what type of person he was, and if she were honest with herself, she knew she’d been trying to subtly change him since then.

  In Ciardis’s view, it had almost worked—the combination of stubborn demands, cutting remarks when necessary, and tentative trust.

  But then Thanar did something like this, and she was reminded that she had done nothing more than put a leash on a wild animal. One who would kill with pleasure because it was in his nature.

  Troubled, Ciardis stared at Thanar—deeply enough that she felt as if she could unlock all his secrets if she just focused long enough.

  Unfortunately, the daemoni prince was not willing to open his chest of secrets to her or to anyone. Thanar stared back with a defiant gaze—wounded pride glaring back at her.

  As if prompted by the question in her eyes, Thanar asked a question of his own: “But?”