Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1 (16 page)

Later that day Ciardis sat in the Guild gardens unsure of whether or not she should be bring up the earlier incident in the Imperial gardens with Serena. Presently, she sat with the other trainees, swathed in her full Hunt regalia. They had put up sun canopies of silk cloth and seated each of the trainees in portable boudoirs. With her lips painted, powder ghosting across her face, and a stiff corset laced to her waist, Ciardis felt like another person, perhaps even a fraud. But she sat still and fought not to fidget. The damn corset
hurt
.

She watched carefully as the Companion recruits paraded down the aisle. They were there to display composure in adverse conditions – in this case stifling heat and dripping makeup. She felt sympathy for them, as the sun was shining harshly down on them as they struggled to maintain composure under thick layers of satin and silk. Ciardis had tried to refuse the thick silk dress and the heavy corset, but Damias had made her wear both, and carry a parasol to boot.
It’s good practice for your Hunt
, Ciardis mimicked.

As she sat thinking, Lady Serena appeared by her side. She looked sharply at the other girls, and they quickly moved away from the duo, leaving Ciardis and Serena alone to talk. “It has been a full week since you gained your powers, Ciardis,” Serena said.

Ciardis nodded hesitantly, not quite sure where this conversation was going. She had felt like bringing the garden encounter up but Serena’s angry disposition quickly put those thoughts far from her mind.

“Seven days, fourteen hours, and two minutes, to be exact,” said Serena. “And yet, there’s not been one sign of what you can do.”

Ciardis hadn’t had a chance to do anything, and said as much. “With respect, Lady Serena, how am I supposed to demonstrate my powers? I’ve not had a chance to use them.”

“Precisely,” said Serena. “Which is why I’ve arranged for you to begin your Hunt in a different fashion than the other candidates.”

Ciardis turned to her, her curiosity piqued. “What do you mean?”

Serena reveled in the secret she held for a moment.
Oh, how she loves doing that
, Ciardis fumed silently. When Serena saw Ciardis begin to fidget in impatience, she sighed. “As you know, Ciardis, the first day of the Patron Hunt for each prospective companion is supposed to be unique. Everyone can decide to hold their own event but the usual practice is to choose to hold a Salon of the Arts to impress their patrons with their knowledge of music and culture. Which is why standing out from the pack by being unique is a much better idea. You, my dear, will be the talk of society for days to come! You have elected to hold a formal Blood Hunt!”

“Have I?” asked Ciardis, a bit dazed. “A true Blood Hunt?”

“Yes,” said Serena. “General Barnaren has graciously agreed to sponsor a hunt of the whitehart elk outside the city, and as such, he will be your primary focus. You will need to impress upon him your skills in riding, archery, and tracking. But most importantly, you must give him the mage strength to hold and slay the whitehart elk.”

“Well,” said Ciardis – exasperated that she hadn’t been consulted, “I don’t know what to say, Serena.”

“Oh, I just knew you’d be ecstatic about this!” Serena said. “You can thank me when you’ve landed a Patron to rival all others.”

“Of course,” Ciardis murmured. “And where are we to find these elk? If I’m not mistaken, we’re in Sandrin Bay, land of beaches, hot sun, and cool winds—hardly a deep forest with crags and valleys for these elusive creatures to live within.”

“Oh, dear, of course we won’t be hunting anywhere near the Sandrin city limits,” Serena said, her sugary tone just barely hiding the sharpness of her words. She’d never been a fan of Ciardis’s dry sarcasm, particularly because Serena was never quite sure when it was directed at her. “We’ll be taking the Genur portalway to Askavi Vale, near the Nardes border.”

“I’ll have the servants pack your things for a daytrip. You must bring riding dresses, as well as tunics,” Serena said. “You will need to impress upon the general your tenacity and flexibility—in other words, you must ride as fast as him, ride as hard as him, and you must never let anyone else get a clean shot at that elk.”

“Oh and Ciardis?” Serena said, “Before you go on the hunt – I have a small task for you. You’re to bring a bottle of rare perfume to the Princess Heir’s chambers…as a gift.”

“Of course, Serena.”

Ciardis sat back and turned her attention back to duties as the remaining group of trainees arranged themselves in front of the garden podium, pretending that the hot sun and humidity weren’t bothering them in the slightest. Ciardis sighed. She was up next – this time it was sidesaddle performances.

An hour later she headed off in a gilded carriage to the palace gates. Explaining her tasks to the servants was not easy but it helped to look haughty and sweep forward like she owned the entire kingdom. After speaking with two butlers and a chambermaid she was directed to the quarters of the Princess Heir.

As she stood outside waiting to be received Ciardis anxiously watched the sun set. She was ready to go home.

A servant dressed high quality clothes stepped out into the audience chamber. “The Princess Heir is indisposed but I will accept the gift in her stead,” he explained.

“Very well,” said Ciardis while handing over the perfume package with the signed note from Lady Serena. As she walked away she heard a voice drift out from cracked door of the Princess Heir’s sitting room.

Oddly enough it sounded like the woman from before.

The following morning, Ciardis awoke before the sun rose. She dressed and went down to the stables to oversee the packing of her mules and pick a sturdy but fast steed for her Hunt. As she bridled and saddled her chosen horse, a bright chestnut filly with a fast trot and a good jumping record, she couldn’t help but look forward to seeing the outside of the city.

Many of her fellow trainees would have turned up their noses at this opportunity, but for Ciardis, it was a chance to be different, a chance to show that growing up with capable hands wasn’t so bad. At least, she hoped the general would see it that way.

As she and Damias moved out, the first rays of the sun gilded the city gates. Damias rode beside her on a roan gelding. His hat sat jauntily on his head, and he held the reins with the confidence of a man born in the saddle. Ciardis gave him a surprised look as he rode up next to her. “Not many nobles bother to learn how to ride a non-winged horse,” she commented.

“True, but my mother was a wanderer. As a child, I learned that not every kingdom has pegasi so that we can fly in the heavens or plush carriages to travel within. Sometimes we even rode on mule-back. Once, in the mountains of the North, I was even carried across the pass between the White Mountains by a Yeti.”

Ciardis stared at him, shocked. “And your mother let you ride that beast – a Yeti? Their claws alone are the size of a small child!”

“Not only did my mother let that white-haired beast carry me, she insisted on it.” Damias responded dryly, “We were going up some steep cliffs and she said that its wide feet and sharp claws were the only thing that would allow us to get up the icy paths at anything approaching a normal speed.”

Ciardis chuckled. “Your mother sounds like a hard woman.”

“Yes, she was—and still is,” Damias said proudly.

They reached the Genur portalway around midmorning. Glancing at his traveling companion, Damias asked, “Have you ever been through a portalway?”

“No,” Ciardis responded softly, gazing at it in wonder. It was a very large, gray metal ring. To her, it looked wide enough to accommodate three men standing abreast, or one very small carriage. The circle stood on a raised platform with stone steps approaching the front. Off to either side of the portal two wide ramps arcing up from the west and east made up the wings. The metal ring was embedded in the stone platform below it so that the ring stood freestanding, proud and high above the sparse grass and the trees that encircled it.

Two gatekeepers stood beside the massive gate, one on either side. Ciardis squinted, but couldn’t make out the insignia on their jackets. Damias walked over to one of the men—to give him instructions, she supposed. After a few short words, he walked back, gave her a wide grin, and said, “Get ready.”

Ciardis managed a weak smile and clutched her cloak closer around her. The gateman turned to a small console; she realized that his body had been blocking it from her sight. Ciardis half turned to Damias to ask about the console, careful to keep an eye on the portalway itself.

Pointing it out, “What’s that small blocky thing?”

“That’s the gate keypad,” he explained. “Any person can work it, as long as they have been magically keyed to access the console.”

Interesting
. Ciardis strained her eyes to catch the gateman’s actions, but she was standing a little too far away. Damias noticed her intent stare and explained, “See those lights? The lights represent a key that has been touched on the console. Each key represents a location. There are six keys—one for each of the six major portalways of the Kingdom. If you press just one key, you’ll go to the portalway it’s programmed for, but if you press the keys in combination, you can access a lesser portalway or drop point.”

“Drop point?” she asked.

“Areas with strong enough Residual Magic that they could serve as portalways, but the emperor hasn’t chosen to order a portalway created there,” he responded. “But we’re going to a set portalway.”

Ciardis thought about a second, “So we’re going through this portalway to distant one and we need the console to tell
our
portalway which one that is?”

“Correct,” he said.

At that moment, the portal began to whirl. The stone ring began to spin clockwise, like a fast miller’s wheel, but in the horizontal plane. A moment later, lightning began to arc from one key to another. “Those are the keys for our destination,” Damias said. As he spoke, the lightning stopped arcing and froze in place. It was brilliant one streak connecting one key to another like the string on a spider web... Soon the streaks began expanding until the entire portalway was covered in a white glow.

It shimmered and pulsed. Damias gave her a grin. “Wait for it…”

Suddenly, the light arced out, like a fist had come through the other side and punched the light directly in the center. It rushed straight forward.

Ciardis felt an overwhelming sense of wonder…and horror. They were going to be enveloped by the light – coming straight for them. She swiftly crouched at the filly’s feet, her head down nd her heart stopped. When she looked up, she noticed that Damias was grinning. “That, my dear, is the portalway.”

She was a little gratified to see that she wasn’t the only rider who had dropped to the ground in shock at the startling sight. Standing up, she was careful to look as nonchalant as possible as she dusted off her clothes. “You might have warned me, you fool man,” she said, exasperated.

“Now what fun would that be?” he said as he dodged a playful swipe of her hand.

Looking back at the portalway, she saw that it had flattened into a pool of rippling light. The head guard called out, “Riders up!”

They went through in pairs. As they passed through the gate, the faint buzzing sensation left Ciardis feeling unsettled. They emerged on the other side to find a panoply of tents, horses in paddocks, and a group of people awaiting them on the hilltop. Out of the group strode a gentleman of early middle age with a strong face. He wore a leather jerkin over a tunic and breeches. The only ornaments to indicate his exalted status were the deep red general’s cloak that flared at his shoulders and the gold ring set with a red on his right hand. Pausing directly in front of Ciardis, he smiled and reached down to take her tanned hand in the firm grip of his light brown one.

She wasn’t surprised at his forwardness. A man like Barnaren wouldn’t be shy or indirect. She had studied Barnaren’s history and knew he’d led just as many battles from the front lines as he had from the strategy tent. His courtship of her wouldn’t be any less direct. The numerous scars on his face and the calluses she felt on his hand bespoke of a lifetime of battles and skirmishes fought on behalf of the Emperor.

Smiling shyly, she dismounted the filly and bowed with a slight bend of her knees. She’d been taught never to attempt a curtsy in pants; she’d just end up looking ridiculous. “General Barnaren,” she said, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He gave her a smile and bowed in return. “It is I, my dear, who is most pleased to meet such a beautiful and capable young woman. I have heard tales, but your beauty exceeds them all.”

Beside Barnaren stood a younger man who could have been his twin if he hadn’t been at least fifteen years younger. The man smiled at the general’s praise of Ciardis, but his smile didn’t quite reach his steel-gray eyes. She could see the disdain from his posture; if he could have wrinkled his nose in distaste, something not allowed in polite company, he would have.