Sworn To Defiance (15 page)

Lovely.

Ciardis and Sebastian stopped at the head of the crowd. Nobles stood three deep to either side. They stared straight ahead at the large and ornate golden doors that marked the entrance to the emperor’s audience chamber. Neither blinked. Neither twitched. Their faces were like marble masks. None around them had an inkling they were having the most furious and private conversation of their lives as they stood side-by-side.

Is this a requirement just for the wives who enter the Algardis line?
Ciardis asked, flummoxed.

It’s an equal opportunity rule. I’m aware of three empresses who were forced to remarry after their children were born without that connection. Their husbands, mages and mundanes, weren’t able to sire a child with that special ability so the female rulers had to choose someone who could. Quite a few emperors had to remarry, as well. At least two. Although in both cases, some chose to keep their chosen spouses and hire a surrogate birth parent for the heir.

Ciardis wasn’t sure what she found most offensive about the entire situation—the idea that she would be considered an imperial broodmare or that the nobles had any say in it.

Then a thought occurred to her.
You didn’t have any powers and your father didn’t replace you with a new heir.

Sebastian smiled internally.
I was born with the gift to connect with the land. The nobles couldn’t dispute that, but oh, how they wanted to. My father had proof that I was a legitimate heir with ties to the land until I was five. What happened after that was the speculation of the court for the next decade. But they couldn’t call a re-marriage vote because of that technicality.

And now?
she questioned.

They will do everything in their power to see that their connection to the land isn’t jeopardized, Ciardis. The nobles don’t care about my happiness, they don’t care about yours. What they want to be sure of is
their
happiness.

Great,
she grouched.
So that’s a no on the support?

On the contrary, it might be a yes. They know how powerful you are. They know you brought my magic back. They also know they can’t get rid of me even though they’ve been trying to for years. If you will bear the heirs that will give them more power, they’re all for that.

Ciardis snarled,
Let’s get something straight—I’m not a broodmare and I don’t intend to bear any heirs. Not yet anyway.

He didn’t answer. So she pinched him. Sharply.

Of course!
he hastily said.
Just don’t tell them that.

Her lips twitched outwardly into a grimace. Just for a second, and in the next moment it was gone. Luckily the doors to the emperor’s inner sanctum opened, because Ciardis felt like whirling around and snarling at the next misogynistic bastard who so much as looked at her.

A
s the giant doors swung inward on silent but solid metal hinges, Ciardis stared straight ahead. Unlike the packed antechamber of hushed nobles this formal audience chamber was brimming with moving and talking people. Although they were careful to stay on the boundaries of the red-carpeted path up to the throne. A bald servant with kohl-lined eyes that carried a thick staff swiftly banged his instrument against the marble floors as he announced, “His Imperial Highness Prince Heir Sebastian Athanos Algardis and Lady Ciardis Weathervane, first of her name.”

Ciardis nearly jumped as she heard him say “first of her name” in his deep, booming voice. In her mind the phrase warped into ‘daughter of the traitor.’ Sebastian squeezed her arm affectionately. He wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

As she stared into the sea of individuals on all sides, she was surprised at the diversity of classes and statuses that met her eyes. Nobles mingled with commoners, mages with mundanes, even
kith
with humans. Ciardis felt an odd buzz over her skin the moment she and Sebastian started walking down the bare path to the throne that she had last visited when she was alone with the emperor.

Ciardis tried to speak to Sebastian mind-to-mind and found out that she couldn’t. She almost stumbled when she felt nothing but a disturbing blank buzz in her head. Sensing her distress, Sebastian whispered, “Look up.”

She did. She glanced out of the corners of her eyes that had enough mascara on their lashes to make her vision bisected by sweeping black lines. What she saw intrigued her. To her right, three robed mages stood fifteen feet in the air. They hovered on what looked like platforms of air, very similar to Thanar’s tricks. The mages’ arms were outstretched and she felt a similar aura from all three.

“The mirror image of those three on our right also stand to our left,” Sebastian whispered as they continued to walk forward.

“What are they?” she asked. Not who—
what
. She knew they were doing something to her magic and she wanted to know what she was up against.

“The emperor’s pet silencers,” said Sebastian as they reached the halfway mark between the audience chamber entrance and the throne.

Sebastian stopped and put pressure on her hand to let her know that he wanted her to follow his lead. Now that they couldn’t speak to each other mind-to-mind, they needed to be attuned to each gesture and touch of the other to figure what they wanted without speaking aloud. They went to their knees and awaited the emperor’s signal to approach the throne further. Ciardis knew that she was required to give a deep bow to the emperor but Sebastian’s hand pressure warned her that he wanted her to stay as she was—upright and unbowed. So she did. Although her eye twitched, signaling what she thought of such bravado. She wasn’t married to him yet. She wasn’t even technically a ‘lady,’ although many extended that courtesy to her in introductions. She had yet to take the oath of the Companions’ Guild and gain the title. And no matter her mother’s family line, Ciardis had heard it whispered as they walked that quite a lot of the Weathervane fortune and titles had been stripped from them when her mother had been imprisoned. She hadn't spoken to Lillian in the day and a half since then, and the family inheritance wasn’t at the top of her list of priorities anyway.

What was high up on her things to get done was getting her mother’s freedom. Unfortunately, the man who had imprisoned Lillian sat before them on a golden throne, his face impassive, and from her experience with him she knew that he was quite unlikely to free the Weathervane matriarch. Even if Lillian
hadn’t
been accused of killing the first wife of the emperor that the current emperor was impersonating and Lillian hadn’t conveniently taken the fall for the regicidal murder Maradian had actually committed. It was a dizzying array of imperial politics. Suffice it to say, Maradian would be likely to free Ciardis Weathervane’s mother when he dropped dead and only then.

As she watched the emperor’s impassive face for any sign of regret or mercy, she was sad to say she found none.

Sociopaths generally don’t tend to regret their actions
, she thought to herself ruefully.

Then Emperor Maradian Athanos Algardis, posing as Bastien Athanos Algardis, raised a hand and beckoned for them to walk the final length of distance to the throne. They smoothly stood and continued forward.

As they did, Ciardis picked up their conversation where they had left off. “Silencers? I’ve never heard of a mage silencer. I know of amplifiers, though. In fact, the young woman I met at the patron’s ball long ago was one, or rather studying to be one. But even she didn’t mention this curious ability. What is it?”

Sebastian said, “A colloquial term for their gifts only. They are well known for their gifts to steal the ability of a person to speak, like a weather mage is said to be able to steal the very air from a person’s throat. But that have one very special ability that the emperor has found useful.”

“And that is?” she whispered as they closed the distance. Twenty feet. Eighteen feet.

“They can deadened a mage’s ability to do cross-coordinating magic.”

She stiffened. “What does that mean? What about our powers?”

“They’re not limiting our personal gifts,” he was quick to say. “Just the ability for us to work in unison. It’s a useful ability for the emperor’s guards to have when a lot of the families, noble and mercantile, are known for generational gifts that strengthen when they’re working together in unison.”

“The Forsyth family, for instance,” Sebastian said while nodding his head to the left to indicate a rather blue group of individuals.

Ciardis almost turned her head to peer around Sebastian to make sure her eyes hadn’t deceived her.

“Was their skin
blue
?” she choked out.

“Yes,” he said. “Did you notice how many there were?”

“Five. Maybe six?”

He nodded. “Enough for them to call a portalway across the continent if they could work together.”

“These silencers are blocking that ability?”

“Just as they are blocking our ability to connect our minds as long as we are in the emperor’s presence.”

“Fan-bloody-tastic.”

Ciardis saw a smile appear at the corner of Sebastian’s mouth. She felt warmth spread through her. She really had been interested in learning about the cause of their mental dilemma, but more than that, she needed Sebastian to relax. He had been tensing up the closer they came to his uncle. Now less than eight feet away and the emperor would be able to see their body’s projections from where if he sat. Even if the emperor put their nervousness down to wedding jitters, he might be tempted to read Sebastian’s face to see if the nervousness nature came from another source. And Ciardis would do whatever she could to protect the secrets they both harbored.

So she did what she could to make the prince heir relax while her own stomach roiled with fire ants as they reached the base of the throne and knelt on the matching pillows a servant had thoughtfully placed out.

Then she re-thought her assessment. There was probably nothing thoughtful about it. Court protocol surely had a rigid system in place on who was deemed worthy of a pillow. Ciardis was just glad she wasn’t forced to kneel on the cold marble steps on her bare knees.

As they knelt she felt magic rise like a bubble around them. She didn’t question what it was as she waited in front of the most powerful man in the empire. She assumed it was just one more of his tricks.

“The sight and sound shield has been erected, Your Imperial Majesty,” said a voice in a dark corner toward the back of the throne.

She and Sebastian were silent and still as they both waited for the emperor to speak.

“My son,” said the emperor in a cold voice. “You approach me for an audience. You have my leave to speak.”

Sebastian looked up at the man who appeared to be his father with a respectful gaze. “It has been too long since we saw each other last, Father.”

“I feared you would be distraught over my proclamation regarding Lillian Weathervane, my son. I see I was furthest from the truth. In fact, you bring celebratory news to me?”

Sebastian squeezed Ciardis’s hand in his own. “Yes, Father. I do.”

“Before we come to the joyous news, I also hear that you have less hopeful news,” the emperor said, cutting him off coldly.

Sebastian hesitated. “Father?”

The emperor gave him no quarter. “I thought I was clear. You were not to engage with the nobles of the court, in battle or in conflict. When we spoke this was your solemn oath.”

Sebastian released her hand. “When I returned from the battlefields of the north I made this solemn promise to you. But this was before the Duke of Carne broke the laws of common decency.”

“Decency?” said the emperor with a startled laugh. His mages behind him, the ones enclosed in the shield, erupted in titters until the emperor waved them to silence.

With a cold look, he continued, “Decency has no place here.”

Ah, now you show your true colors
, thought Ciardis furiously.

“But my rule of law does,” the emperor finished coldly. “You countermanded a direct oath that you gave to me. What is not sacred if not the bond of loyalty between father and son?”

Sebastian stood up. Ciardis stayed were she was. She might have been afforded a comfortable pillow, but that was only because she stood by the prince heir’s side as his equal in this venture. She wasn’t about to shake up palace protocol. The servants arrayed behind the emperor’s throne didn’t look the least bit willing to take nonsense.

The emperor drummed his fingers in irritation. “My son? Is there something that would come between our bond?”

The emperor’s eyes drifted to Ciardis as he finished that question. She didn’t like the ice-cold look in his gaze. Like a snake before it prepared to strike.

Then Sebastian spoke. “
Nothing
.” Ciardis wasn’t sure if she was the only one who heard the shaking fury in Sebastian’s voice. But she was dead sure she was the only one present at court who knew the reason for the fury.

Ciardis knew if Maradian pushed Sebastian one step further, they might lose the meager advantage of surprise that they had.

So she did the only thing she could do. She stood, gripped Sebastian’s hand, and spoke.

“Your Imperial Majesty, we did not come here in sorrow to confess our actions or to petition you for retribution for another’s wayward attempts on our life.”

The emperor lifted an eyebrow but he did not speak. When a chamberlain came forward to attempt to have her fall back into her place, he raised a restraining hand.

Ciardis took a deep breath and took that as permission to continue. “We came to announce a joyous moment in our lives, to ask respectfully for your blessing and hope on this anniversary of your beloved wife’s death that you can forgive us in our fervent desire to mark our love as one of triumph rather than despair.”

Ciardis felt Sebastian flinch beside her when she mentioned the emperor’s first wife. It had been a calculated risk on her part. Maradian had killed her, after all, but it was well known that Bastien had been enamored with both of his wives. After losing one so soon after the other, he should be sympathetic to the plight of young lovers, if he was acting true to the real emperor’s persona. Or at least she hoped he would. Because she had no more cards up her sleeves and the emperor’s expression reminded of her of the steeliest visages of General Barnaren before he perished on the battlefield. They both would have made excellent poker players.