Sworn To Defiance (9 page)

An unhappy look crossed Ciardis’s face. This morning just got better and better.

C
iardis bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she’d regret. She wanted a healing session, a bed, a bath, some breakfast, and a long, private conversation with the males standing to either side of her. In that order. The conversation was optional. The healer and the bath were not. The last time she had had a proper bath was almost a week ago. She’d managed to bum a shampoo session from the emperor’s attendants and had a bucket bath in the cavern two nights ago.

That just wouldn’t do.

She had standards. Appearing before the nobles’ court when she and her entire entourage smelled like cows wasn’t up to her code of appearance.

Ciardis Weathervane might be covered in blood and bone-tired but she would be damned if some pipsqueak soldier was going to escort her
anywhere
without acceding to her demands first.

She stepped forward.

Sebastian hastily reached out to grab her. She shook him off impatiently.

Thanar wasn’t stupid enough to lay a finger on her. Then again this probably just amused him. She confirmed her intuition as she opened her mind a bit to feel humor rolling off him like a delicious aura of satisfaction.

Putting both Sebastian and Thanar out of her mind with an impatient shake of her head, she looked down her nose at the man in front of her.

Which was hard to do seeing as she was barely five feet tall and he had at least three inches on her. It was all in the eyes and the stance though. Project confidence and you could be the smallest person in the room and
still
be taller than a six-foot-tall giant.

“Listen here, Corporal—” she started to say.

“Captain, miss.”

“Captain then,” she said calmly. “And it’s
Lady
Weathervane, or ma’am, if you’d prefer.”

She felt amusement rolling off a different source this time. Sebastian.

Find something funny
, she said haughtily.

I didn’t realize that the Companions’ Guild had graduated you...

A situation that needs to be rectified shortly.
she replied.

Yes, it will.
His voice held dark portents that she didn’t want to or couldn’t decipher at the moment.

Ciardis continued her statement to the captain without missing a beat. “You see, we are extremely put out. My group and I came back to the imperial court to warn the nobles of impending doom.”

“Then you won’t mind being arraigned before their gathering?”

“No, I would not,” she said in a voice that hinted at irritation at the interruption, “but I have some requirements first.”

“I don’t think you understand—” the captain said.

“No, I don’t think you understand,” she said coolly.

He opened his mouth.

“Don’t interrupt me again, Captain.”

His teeth closed with the sound of a snap. Still he was silent which made her happy.

“We are neither under arrest nor your prisoners. Instead, you have been charged with protecting us. What’s more, we are both members of the imperial court and the nobles’ gathering by the status of our birth. We demand the full rights of a contestant before the nobles’ courts. You’ve named one right. Protection. I demand the full roster—protection, shelter, medical attention, and provisions.”

Internally Ciardis shivered at the thought of spending one more night in the underground city. The place gave her the creeps. Externally, she projected confidence as if she was an eagle-eyed warrior unmoved by the thought of going back down there.

This time she felt respect radiating from a different source—Sebastian Athanos Algardis.

You’ve been studying court history
, he commented softly.

I had no choice. Being laid up in the lord chamberlain’s home gave me the perfect opportunity.

Outwardly, she waited patiently while the captain thought over her demands. He was studying her face waiting for her to break. He had the manpower to force them to do what he wanted. But not without some serious casualties on his side and probably losing his own life in process if not a half-dozen of his men.

She was dead serious about that bath.

He made the right choice. He relented.

“I’ll escort you to imperial chambers first,” he said.

She opened her mouth to protest. “Lady Weathervane,” he quickly added on.

For the first time a happy smile showed on Ciardis Weathervane’s face.

“Wise choice.”

He grunted.

“We’ll need a stretcher for the baby griffin of our group,” she said imperiously.

He slid eyes to a form behind her. Presumably his gaze caught on Skarar huddled underneath his father’s wing.

“You’ll have it.”

She nodded. Then the captain stepped back. “Let me go arrange it.”

“Of course,” she said.

An uncertain expression appeared on the captain’s face. Then his shoulders slumped. She had won. It was clear now who would lead and who would follow orders.

Thanar turned toward her with his arms crossed. “Not bad, Golden Eyes.”

“For once, no complaints from me,” agreed Sebastian.

She snorted and turned away from both of them. “Oh, you
both
will be getting a litany of complaints from me. But this is neither the time nor the place.”

She felt them exchange confused glances in her mind rather than saw them. Good, let them stew.

To Jason SaAlgardis, she said directly. “You were going to take us somewhere. Where? Obviously we’re not going there now, but it’s important for us to know.”

He rubbed a hand over a grizzled jaw while he rested the other on his young daughter’s shoulders.

“East of the city,” he said finally.

“Why?” she prompted.

He hesitated.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Ciardis said, “I fear that once we enter the imperial court it will be much more difficult for us to leave again.”

Much like my mother
, she thought but didn’t say out loud.

“Then why are you going?” said Jason SaAlgardis shrewdly. “We can fight our way out of here, but if the emperor finds out what you know, you’ll either die in those hallowed halls or rot in a dungeon—take your pick.”

Ciardis lifted her chin. It was a reasonable question.

“Because, as I told the captain, we returned to court for a much more important reason than questioning the emperor’s legitimacy.”

Jason raised a skeptical eyebrow. “More important than regicide?”

Ciardis gave him a brittle smile. “Try a god of death and destruction that is prepared to cross the barrier between the land of the gods and the land of the living.”

“Say that’s going to happen,” Jason said as if he was more than a little skeptical. “What makes you think you can stop this god’s crossing?”

“I don’t know that I can. But I’ll make damn sure this empire is ready to try.”

“Which is why we need the nobles on our side,” Sebastian said tightly as he stepped forward with arms crossed. “After all, we cannot afford to antagonize them.”

“I would think we’ve already accomplished that,” Vana said.

“The death of one isn’t enough,” said Sebastian, “but if we start court warfare, that would be enough.”

Ciardis stamped a foot impatiently and then winced when it jostled her arm. “We’re not starting another war with anyone. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

She turning to Jason then. “Which is why we need to be careful how we approach each segment. Right now we’ve got the emperor, my mother’s imprisonment, and the god on one plate. I want to get at least two of those out of the way this week.”

“Which two?” said Thanar coolly.

Ciardis grimaced. “Whichever two cost us the least for right now. Securing my mother’s freedom would be great, and actually starting a preparation council to move against the
blutgott
would be better.”

She felt some mixture of amusement and pity rolling through Thanar. He didn’t think her human allies could do anything to stop his god. He underestimated her.

Jason turned to look at Sebastian. “And you, sire? You would let this imperial farce continue?”

“I have no intentions of doing so,” Sebastian said. “But if a god is coming and we’re not ready, it won’t matter
who’s
on the throne. Nevertheless we have agreed to hear you out. It’s just been...delayed. And believe me, I wish it was otherwise. We will journey back to my father’s court. You are welcome to attend with us.”

“As if those jackass soldiers would let us go,” murmured Seraphina resentfully.

Smart girl
, thought Ciardis.

“Language,” reprimanded her father just as quickly.

The girl sunk into her father’s side with glaring eyes and said nothing.

A throat cleared behind them.

They turn to see that the captain had commandeered a traveling litter from who knows where. It was upheld by four soldiers—one on each of the four corners.

Thanar cleared his throat. Ciardis turned to him with a question in her eyes. He held out a hand. If she didn’t know any better she would have said the daemoni prince was uncertain. Ciardis brushed the thought out of her mind with a sniff. There was no way Thanar was anything but calculating and cold. If the ghost of nervousness had appeared in his eyes, it was because that was what he
wanted
her to think.

“Yes?” she asked.

He looked at the blood running down her arm that was beginning to solidify like a sticky red glove. “I can help you with that.”

She wondered what the catch was. “If?”

He grimaced. “Call it a favor owed.”

Silently she held out her bleeding arm. With a touch of hand he stemmed the blood loss and numbed the pain.

She took back her arm and stared at the flesh. A raw, open wound covered in blood still remained. But the cut had been overlaid with a dark, shadowy mist that prevented it from tearing or bleeding further.

“Thank you?” she said with a question in her voice.

A ghost of a smile hovered over his face. “I figured you’d want a
real
healer to take care of the actual wound. Seeing as you don’t trust me.”

With a rustle of his wings he was gone into the air.

Open-mouthed she stared at his rising form in surprise. If she didn’t know any better, she would say Thanar had just been...
bitchy
.

Closing her mouth and turning at the captain’s approach, Ciardis blinked and thought,
This cannot be my life. I have a brooding daemoni prince and a sulking human prince to take care of. I thought men were better than this.

Sarcastically the captain said with an outstretched hand, “Your carriage awaits, Lady Weathervane.”

She snapped out of her reverie, smiled, swept forward as if she didn’t hear the contempt in his voice. He could project all he wanted. She had won this round and there was no going back.

She inspected the carriage with more than a cursory glance. It looked like simple wooden poles attached to a platform base that upheld a canopied litter. The standard conveyance for a noblewoman going from one place to the other.

What she was looking for had more to do with spells that would trap anyone inside with sleeping powders or a fiery death. Anything really that an assassin or kidnapper would use.

When Thanar came up behind her, she acceded to his presence. He swept the litter with his magic and declared, “It’s fine. Get inside.”

In a lower tone of voice he said while his body shielded hers from the view of the others, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Golden Eyes.”

She straightened her shoulders, her back almost brushing his front in the close proximity. “If I don’t?”

“Then you’ll get yourself killed.”

She turned then and said in an emotional whisper, “I’m more worried about everyone else.”

“That’s where you and I differ. You are my primary concern.”

Her golden eyes met his carnelian ones that sparkled like brown amber with the power of his own magic.

“What are you offering, Thanar?”

He stepped back. “Everything that I offered before.”

“Loyalty?”

“Love.”

She stepped forward. “That there is the problem. Your love is dark. Your love is overwhelming. You don’t give. You only take. And leave devastation in your wake. I can’t love someone I don’t trust.”

Then why are you with Sebastian?
It was Thanar’s words in her head. But might as well as been her own doubts clouding her mind.

Vana’s appeared on Thanar’s other side. “Ready?”

Thanar once more took to the skies above them. His parting shot echoed in her mind.

Ciardis nodded and helped Skarar into the conveyance that would bear him from the streets of the capitol to the emperor’s own palace. She just hoped it wouldn’t bear him like a spit-hog to his death. Because no matter what she told Thanar, she couldn’t guarantee protection for any of her group, let alone herself.

A cold chill wind went down her spine. Maybe it was time she learned how to guarantee that protection. These people followed her. Ciardis knew with a certainty that she hadn’t felt since she declared her intentions to join the Companions’ Guild that she was sure. She was ready to protect her people.

As she sat in the litter with Skarar, Seraphina and Vana, Ciardis had to wonder what her life had come to. How had
she
, a simple laundress, gone from plotting to marry the baker’s nephew to becoming embroiled in activities that threatened to tear the empire asunder?

Her dark thoughts must have clouded her face because Vana’s lounging form across from her snapped her fingers in her face softly. Softly for Vana, that is; it still had the rude effect of snapping Ciardis out of her dark thoughts.

“Coin for your thoughts?”

Ciardis sat back. Wishing she could draw her knees up under her chin and grip her legs. A wounded arm prevented that.

Still, she looked over at Vana and said with the wisdom of ages in her voice, “When did I become responsible for half a dozen people and fomenting the preparations for war?”