Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4

by Edun, Terah

  “As I told you, the Shadow Council—”

  “The council could be anyone or anything,” snapped Lillian. “Even they don’t know the full rank and file of their membership. I want the person responsible for this to be exposed so I can rip them in two. The whole city will know my wrath when this is through.”

  Thanar laughed with caustic humor at that. Lillian didn’t bother acknowledging him.

  Everyone was on edge. But Thomas had tumbled over into outright fear. He sat huddled in his chair while emitting whimpers. Caemon was rubbing his arm and murmuring soothing nonsense, but it didn’t seem to be working.

  “And whose fault is that? I assume you’ve done everything in your power to get on the bad side of at least one member of the Shadow Council at court during your lost years,” said the ambassador coolly.

  Ciardis felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “Lost years?” she murmured.

  “She means during the time our mother was in hiding,” Caemon whispered back.

  “Now isn’t necessarily the best time to bring up old grievances,” said Lillian stiffly.

  “I disagree,” said Thanar softly. “These assassins came here for you. The emperor has arranged a trial for you. Vana was sent to the north for you. A lot of our problems seem to revolve around you. Everyone either wants you dead or dying. None of which can be a coincidence.”

  Lillian narrowed her eyes. “Nevertheless, we are in this moment and this time. If we are to defeat the coming dragon—”

  “If it’s coming at all,” ventured Caemon from where he knelt by the whimpering Thomas’s side.

  “You doubt me, child?” hissed the ambassador.

  “Dragons aren’t necessarily the most forthright of creatures,” ventured Vana. That was an understatement. Dragons were known liars because they enjoyed it like a cat took to cream. You couldn’t trade, barter, or even speak with them without verifying the facts of the conversation first. Not if you valued your life. Because once you entered into a contract with a dragon, your life was theirs.

  Thomas whimpered louder.

  Lillian and the ambassador both snapped, “Will you shut up?”

  Caemon glared at them from where he crouched on the floor. Vana sighed and rubbed her forehead, and then she pulled open a pouch on the belt at her waist. Without comment she unstopped a vial, forced open Thomas’s mouth, ignored Caemon’s feeble protests, and poured the contents straight down Thomas’s throat. Closing Thomas’s mouth forcibly, she gave him a level glare. He swallowed loudly. As they watched, drowsiness began to overtake him. He fell asleep within seconds.

  “Much better,” said the ambassador in satisfaction.

  “Why would a dragon come here?” Ciardis wondered aloud. “We have no quarrels with them. Besides, I thought you were the only dragon in Algardis.”

  “No,” said the ambassador. “I am merely the representative of my people and the only one at court. The others come and go as they please.”

  “Nevertheless, my daughter is right,” said Lillian decisively. “Aside from you, none have been seen inside the city of Sandrin for decades. And this family has no quarrels with your kind. No dragon would enter an internecine quarrel for the sake of a human.”

  “Not always, but sometimes we do, as you well know,” said the ambassador. “Besides you may have no quarrel with us, but we have many issues with you.”

  Thanar said. “Such as?”

  “None of your business, daemoni,” snapped Lillian.

  A small, cold smile appeared on the ambassador’s face at the sign of irritation in Lillian’s voice. Female dragons loved blood, sport, and malice. This ambassador was no different. She had learned to restrain her love for discord while acting as liaison between her people and the humans as representative in their courts, but a little mischief went a long way when boredom set in.

  Ciardis realized they needed to balance this out. Get the ambassador to trust them, or they might never get any information out of her.

  “We can’t keep calling you Ambassador,” said Ciardis.

  Lord Steadfast blanched at her breach of protocol and swiftly filled his teacup with another shot of whiskey. Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say.

  “You may call me Lady Raisa. It is my given name,” purred the ambassador.

  Or the right thing.

  “Very well,” Ciardis said with a wan smile. It was better to appease the ambassador’s snarly temper than to anger her any further. She’d seen what Lady Raisa could do when angered. She flashed back to the angry dragon’s descent from the sky in the dark of midnight. She had come to protect Ciardis when she had confronted the duchess of Carne over the locket her mother had given the minstrel from the Blue Duck Inn and the true facts as to why her mother had fled from court so abruptly.

  Something that Ciardis still didn’t have an answer to.

  She wondered aloud, “Will I ever know?”

  Her mother turned around impatience written on her face. “Know what, dear?”

  Ciardis looked her dead in the eye. “Who you really are. What you've really done. The rumors and innuendos abound, but no one, including our dear Lady Raisa here, will give a straight answer. Why does everyone hate you so?”

  It reminded her of the animosity directed to Lady Serena, only on a more lethal level.

  Lillian gave her a short smile while an uneasy laugh escaped from her lips. “Ciardis, dear, now really isn’t the time.”

  “Is it ever?” Ciardis was surprised to hear the question spring from her brother’s mouth. He adored their mother. Always defended her or at least kept the peace when Ciardis questioned her.

  Lillian turned to face her twins fully. “Please.”

  One word, but desperation laced her voice. Lillian had always been charming; she just turned it up a notch when faced with difficulties. Ciardis and Caemon turned to look at each other. Almost identical visions stared back. One with long, curly hair and ruddy, bronzed skin. The other was slightly fairer with short, cropped curls and a weary look on his face. Their golden Weathervane eyes met and acknowledged that whatever their differences, they were still mother and children. And right now they had an enemy at their heels. An enemy that it would be almost impossible to defeat. As tired as Ciardis was of hiding, of deception, and, most of all, of being targeted for who she was and the family she had been born into, she wouldn’t change her situation for a second. Because now she had a family. A true one.

  And yet she needed more.

  “You’re right, Mother, but you must think of the current situation. We can’t protect you if we don’t know what to protect you from. Perhaps it is necessary for us to know. Did you ever think they wanted you killed for a reason? For a purpose? To keep something hidden, even?” Ciardis saw guilt flash across Lillian’s face. But she held firm with her mouth shut. For the life of her Ciardis couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t speak, why she wouldn’t open up about the history of her past. As she looked at the weary group of people around her, she saw friends who had stepped from the very battlefields of the northern campaign to the ballrooms of the courts of Sandrin only to be attacked in the worst way upon arrival. They didn't complain, they didn't leave the Weathervane family's side; they persevered, and Ciardis thought it was high time someone acknowledged that. That, if nothing else, it was time that they found out what they were fighting for, whom they were fighting for.

  Straightening her shoulders and looking at the matriarch of the Weathervane family firmly, she said, “Why are you on trial, Mother? Did you truly kill the Empress of Algardis?”

  Pain crossed Lillian's face. She opened her mouth and closed it. For once speechless in the face of adversity.

  Then Lillian sighed heavily, closed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and began to speak. But they couldn’t hear her words over the sudden roar that split the night sky and shook Ciardis to her core. Ciardis flinched instinctively at the large bass sound that made her skin crawl and her heart speed up in fear. The roar
ing did not stop. Instead it grew louder and louder, the very walls around them began to shake under the pressure of the deep voice. The windows of the parlor began to rattle—first with just a small tremor, and then shaking in their frames. One-by-one, from left to right, the beautiful floor-length glass panels, held together by strips of wood, exploded inward.

  Ciardis watched the glass come toward her in horrifying slow motion as she brought her arms up to shield her face and ducked down. She was surprised to feel a person grab her from the side, arms wrapping around her shoulders as her head was tucked into that person's neck. Soft, familiar, and slight just like she was. The glass continued to shatter around them as the smell of lilacs wafted into Ciardis's nose. Her mother's scent. As her face was pressed into Lillian's skin, Lillian turned them both so that her own back took most of the onslaught, and Ciardis was shielded.

  It was strange. They were still in incredible danger. But it was comforting being in her mother's arms. Even in the midst of an attack that heralded an angry dragon. It felt like being home. A vague sense of recognition overcame her as she remembered the same scent of lilacs in the morning air and laughter as the sun shown bright down on an upturned face. A memory that would come to her from time to time – of a woman who held above her in a field.

  Now she knew. It had been Lillian who had been the focus of one of her happiest memories as a child playing on a bright, spring day.

  But Ciardis had time to wonder: If her mother had been captured by soldiers and returned to court for execution on the day of the birth of her twins, how had she come to know this memory? The memory of a toddler laughing with her a mother. A mother who had been conspicuously absent her whole life.

  Slowly the rain of sharp glass ended. Haltingly they stood up, and Lillian released her from her tight grip. Ciardis shifted over to grab a fire poker resting on the table. Whatever it was outside, she was ready.

  As they turned to get their bearings, Ciardis saw Caemon emerge from underneath a table. As the smoke cleared, instead of a dragon she saw a man. A man with glowing red eyes and filthy attire. He grinned and displayed fiercely sharp teeth. Then he leapt forward through the broken window into the parlor.

  When he landed on all fours, he didn’t look human. His skin moved in unsettling ways with bumps and ridges moving independently just under his clothes. As if something resided under his skin. Waiting to get out. He looked up from his four-legged crouch with inhuman eyes.

  The beast focused on the two women who stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him.

  “An under-dragon,” Lillian whispered.

  “A what?”

  “Queen’s spawn,” her mother whispered back quickly. “Lesser than a beast in dragon society—unintelligent, filled with raw anger and always thirsting for food. They are usually killed in the queen dragons’ nests before they take true life.”

  Ciardis gripped her mother’s tightly. “Then he’s not much of a threat.”

  Lillian squeezed her hand in warning. “Unfortunately, once they gain true life they have one thing going for them. They can transform into true Sahalian form. They can take the dragon skin like their kin.”

  “Oh,” groaned Ciardis.

  “But unlike their kin,” Lillian muttered, horrified, “under-dragons that morph into dragon skin are still as stupid as wild beasts. There will be no reasoning with him.”

  Ciardis gripped the fire poker tightly. She stared at the man as he changed. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as his skin sloughed off like dead weight, his clothes burned away from his body and the muscles underneath become visible.

  He opened his mouth that was bigger by the second and roared.

  She felt the damp of sweat form between her fingers. And then her eyes narrowed as she thought about why. She wasn’t nervous. She’d seen too much and killed too many to be nervous. No, it was the heat radiating from the man that caused her to perspire. Even when the draft of a cold wind rattled through the room.

  Shifting uneasily she said to the Ambassador who came forward, “Why is it so hot in here? It didn’t feel like this when you came to us in the duke of Carne’s garden.”

  “It wouldn’t have,” said Raisa, “Since I didn’t change there. We affect the temperature of the air when we transform. The force of the change from human to dragon expels the mass out in waves of heat.”

  “How hot exactly are we going to get?” said Lillian.

  Raisa didn’t take her eyes off her foe, “As hot as standing in the kitchen. And now is the exact time to strike. Under-dragons are the slowest transformers of my race and also the weakest in mid-change.”

  As wings like whispers of smoke grew from his shoulders, Ciardis checked her magic levels. She had the fire poker in her right hand and she felt the magic of the Cold Ones throb in her palm as it was draining away. Flicking her eyes down, she noted with shock that her entire hand had changed from golden brown to the cold-blue of ice. The fire poker had become a diamond shaft with snow drifting from the edge. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Thanar look at her with dark portents in his eyes.

  Then there was no more time for talk. Raisa leapt forward in human form and grabbed the changing under-dragon by the shoulders. With a lift and a snarl she threw him against the far wall so hard that the wood cracked and Ciardis expected his neck to snap. No dice. He staggered up – half-human, half-beast.

  She ran forward across the room, passing Inga with a protective Kane standing over. As she flashed by, pain crossed his face. She knew Kane wanted to be by her side.

  “Stay there!” yelled Ciardis, “Inga needs you. I’ve got all the help I need.”

  And it was true. Thanar ran right behind her and Raisa was already growing out her claws as she and the under-dragon circled each other warily.

  But the under-dragon wasn’t caught unawares. Turning with vicious speed, he aimed dagger-like claws at Ciardis coming up behind him.

  “No,” shouted Thanar as he roughly pushed her to the side and took the full force of the under-dragon’s fury. He didn’t have time to shield as those claws tore through his chest. Thanar fell to the ground – paralyzed by the black poison dripping from the creature’s claws.

  Ciardis didn’t waste time. Gripping the icy fire-poker in two hands, she said, “Hey, ugly!”

  The creature snapped around to face her and that was all she needed.

  With a mighty thrust Ciardis pushed the ice-cold weapon straight into its heart. He stumbled back with a harsh cry. She let go and watched as he died. The cold blue of the fire poker’s magic was spreading throughout his chest like a blue lines of death through his veins.

  Thanar’s harsh breathing caught Ciardis’s attention.

  She dropped to her knees beside him and eyed the poisonous wounds on his chest.

  Thanar tried to sit up and she pushed him back down with a firm hand, “Wait. We need a healer.”

  Grimacing Thanar pushed her hand away, “I didn’t need a healer on the battlefields of the north and I don’t need one now.”

  She got up, “Suit yourself then.”

  “Look out,” said Kane.

  Ciardis’s head snapped up to see that the under-dragon still standing on the ledge.

  With a grunt he pulled the fire poker out of his chest and threw it away with a clatter.

  Smiling the under-dragon taunted, “Is that all you’ve got Weathervane?”

  He crouched down like a bull ready to gorge his opponent and his true form burst forth. On the ledge stood a massive brown dragon. Brown of scale and wings, with breath of brimstone and fire, and eyes like hot coals, he roared.

  And his roar was returned with a fury.

  The ambassador from Sahalia didn’t bother with pleasantries. Raisa leapt from the floor into the air, transforming more swiftly and less gruesomely than the under-dragon had in mere seconds. A mighty green dragon with horns and a size three times that of the under-dragon came forth. Raisa leapt forward, claws extended to tackle the smaller black under-dra
gon. He met her head-on, her weight forcing him to fall backwards.

  Realizing that Kane and Inga stood closest to the far wall Ciardis ran to help them escape the furious battle of teeth, fire, and claws. Her hand was itching. Checking into her power from the Cold Ones as she leapt over a pile of rubble, she realized that she had enough juice left for another magical blast. Calling up the power that felt like frost and light all at once, she thrust it out through her hand, hoping it would do as commanded. When she’d done that accidently in the Sarvinian mines in an attempt to escape the blast triggered by Caemon, she had created a geist tor, a ghost gate, that had transported Inga and herself to a snowy landscape blessedly free of the blast.

  They had landed wounded. But alive.

  This time, the power of the Cold Ones acted in a decidedly different manner. Instead of a gate, the miniature mage core in her hand blasted a hole straight through the adjacent wall. With the power drawing them in like a whirlpool, both dragons were thrown through the hole into the library next door, which lay destroyed in their wake, and out into the surrounding gardens.

  Breathing harshly Ciardis stumbled over to Kane, “Inga’s too vulnerable. We need to get her out of the front – away from them.”

  “No time,” shouted Thanar from where he stood, whole and healthy, watching the battling dragons draw back towards them.

  “Put her in the fireplace,” said the lord chamberlain.

  “What?” said Ciardis with serious side-eye at the man crouched behind a marble table.

  “It’s the safest place in the house that’s near us,” he said impatiently. “The stone was created from the foundation of the house and made to withstand the harshest of attacks.”

  Thanar eyed the fireplace, which looked like it could hold a whole roasted cow. “It’s certainly big enough.”

  They all pitched in to carry the comatose frost giant over to the nearby pit and tuck her inside. Thomas was pushed in next.

  “Watch over them,” she snapped to Caemon and Kane.

  With Lillian and Thanar by her side, she ran through the parlor and to the edge of the now wall-free library. Swooping through the sky with blasts of fire and outstretched claws, the dragons continued their desperate bid for supremacy.