Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (21 page)

“Nothing’s happening,” she said in frustration.

“Perhaps it activates by a specific touch,” said Thanar.

“If it did, it would most likely be the princess heir’s touch,” said Sebastian as he took it from Ciardis.

“Or a blood heir,” said Lillian, sipping a cup of hot lemon water. Ciardis grimaced; she couldn’t stand it hot, even in the dead of winter.

But as they passed it from hand to hand, the mirror didn’t activate.

“Maybe Vana could do something with it,” Ciardis said in frustration.

Turning to her mother, she said, “Shouldn’t Vana be back by now?”

“Patience. The courts are a tedious process,” murmured Lillian.

Ciardis set the mirror and key down with a
thump
. “Then let’s talk about something else. Where did you find for us to stay?”

“Somewhere inside the city,” Lillian said vaguely.

“Wouldn’t it be better to have the Imperial guards loyal to Sebastian to watch over us directly at court? Surely no one would attack us there,” Ciardis said thoughtfully.

“No,” said all three voices surrounding her with varying levels of intensity.

Sebastian said, “There is nothing safe about court. I take it you’ve forgotten the direct attempt of my uncle, the Duke of Cinnis, to have you killed in your own quarters the last time you were in residence?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

Lillian paused. “Greater numbers don’t always mean greater security, Ciardis. Especially in Sandrin.”

Sebastian added, rubbing his eyes tiredly, “The courts have changed much since I left two seasons ago. Allies have become enemies and enemies become rivals. I fear that without strong swords at my back I can trust, we will never set out to accomplish what needs to be done.”

“Which is why it’s better to move to a location we can secure ourselves,” finished Thanar.

Reluctantly, she understood.

“I’ll go get a map of the city,” Lillian declared, smoothing her hands over her skirt—a quirk Ciardis had noticed that her mother did when she was nervous, much like her own predilection to grip her skirt uneasily in her hands. Of course, her quirk tended to leave creases in the carefully ironed and placed fabric.

“Why?” said Sebastian with some confusion.

“Because we’re going to need it where we’re going,” said Lillian.

Ciardis blinked but didn’t ask more. They were sure to find out everything as soon as Lillian returned anyway. With care she picked up the satyr’s silver mirror from where she had set it down on the table. It didn’t look like much. Just a tarnished oval with perfect mirrored glass on one side. No carvings. No luster. No instructions whatsoever. Gingerly, she called on her magic one last time. If this didn’t work, they were out of luck.

First she pushed in a spark of magic, then a handful. She slowly released the magic until the flow of her power ebbed in a downward spiral and sunk into nothingness. Just as the ebb ended, the mirror responded. The flat reflective side rippled and she felt the strangest sensation, a sensation like the feel of a mind brushing hers while a sense of gratitude enveloped her. It was as if the mirror appreciated the magic of her touch. So she increased her magic to a stronger stream of power flow, expecting a larger connection. Instead the mirror’s reflective surface disappeared, and another person appeared in its oval surface.

C
iardis stared at a face she hadn’t seen in a quarter of a year. One that brought memories of laughter and pillow fights back to her mind. All of which felt like they had seemingly happened a lifetime ago.  Her best friend was robed in a bright summer green mage’s gown with her braided hair falling down her back in locks that had thin pieces of metal coiled around each individual plait. She was whole, she was healthy, and she was well. Not that Ciardis had expected any less, but it was nice to get confirmation once in a while.

“Ciardis?” Terris repeated her name for the second time. Ciardis distantly recalled her saying it for the first time, but she’d been too entranced in taking in the vision of seeing her for the first time in months to respond. She now sat grinning like a fool.

“You dolt, aren’t you going to say something?” Terris said.

She didn’t shout it but the sound blast through the mirror at a high pitch. Ciardis reeled back involuntarily and clapped her hands over her ears in pain.

Terris winced in sympathy. “Whoops, sorry, have to get the hang of this.” Ciardis could tell she was turning the mirror in her hand because her vision would shift to Terris’s shoulder and back to her familiar head with odd angles.

“Still too loud,” Ciardis said.

“Better?” Terris said, her voice pitched low.

“Yes,” Ciardis said, somewhat in a daze. Sebastian and Thanar moved into a position so they could see the person in the mirror.

“How are you?
Where
are you?” she finally had the sense enough to ask.

But she had already lost her friend’s attention. Terris’s gaze was fixed beyond Ciardis at the two people who stood over the Weathervane’s shoulders. Her mouth had dropped open and a familiar voice asked from out of sight on Terris’s side of the mirror, “What? What is it?”

Ciardis would recognize that authoritative and grouchy voice anywhere. It was Meres. Terris barely twitched as she raised her hand to bat away Meres’s presence. He was still not in sight of the mirror but very nearby, as they heard the rustle of his movement when Terris pushed him back.

Dropping her voice to a whisper, Terris said, “Ciardis, is that who I think it is? Is that the prince heir standing next to you? And who’s the hot hunk of burning love next to
him
?”

She was talking as if they stood together and were peeking around a corner at the object of their affections.

Ciardis nearly laughed out loud.

“You never change,” she said.

Terris raised an eyebrow. “Would you want me to?”

“I don’t think
I
would,” interrupted the prince heir dryly.

Terris’s face jerked back and her mouth dropped open. “By the gods’ own voice! Oh shit. I mean...I thought he was a projection or something. Ciardis, couldn’t you warn a girl?”

“You thought I had a
projection
of the Prince Heir of Algardis standing over my shoulder?” said Ciardis.

“Sounds less crazy than you think,” Terris said with narrowed eyes.

“Well, the hot hunk of burning love was not offended,” said Thanar dryly.

Ciardis snorted, and then the mirror’s visual depiction began to waver. Terris blurred and faded out for a second.

“What’s going on? Ciardis! Can you hear me?”

“Yes, but the vision is fading! Do you know how to work this?”

“No,” said Terris with some inventive curses. “We bought it at the market last week from an old mage who swore that the princess heir was using it along with a bunch of other stuff. Apparently she left it with a few clothes in a hurry a few months back with instructions for the old bat to keep an eye on some sort of beast for her as well as the mirror.”

Sebastian and Ciardis looked at each other. Ciardis turned back to Terris and quickly said, “Did she tell him where the beast was? Or what it was?”

Terris frowned. “Not that I’m aware of. Though I’m sure he saw it, since he was reporting regularly. He swore he did what she asked up until the moment she died. But when she did, the person on the other end with his mirror’s twin stopped answering. So he figured he’d sell it.”

“Interesting,” said Thanar. “Any chance you can ask him more details about the mirror and beast?”

“I would if I could,” said Terris, “but he died last week. When he sold it to us, he said that the other mirror had to start working before this one would. So I’ve been using it on my vanity until it started buzzing like a hive of hornets a few seconds ago.”

“Sounds like that’s what happened when I triggered it from my side,” Ciardis said thoughtfully. “It was a gift from an employer...of sorts. I can’t really explain right now, but I need your help.”

“With what?” Lord Meres Kinsight quickly asked as he dropped down next to Terris in the mirror’s line of sight.

Meres respectfully bowed his head in obeisance as he said, “Your Imperial Highness.”

“Lord Kinsight,” replied Sebastian.

“Are you two alone?” questioned Ciardis.

“We are,” confirmed Terris.

“Good, because we have big news,” said Ciardis.

“Hopefully starting with who the gentleman to your left is, Lady Weathervane?” said Meres. He never changed—always taciturn and assessing.

Ciardis flushed. “Right. Um, Lord Meres Kinsight and Lady Terris Kithwalker, may I present Prince Thanar of the Daemoni.”

Meres’s eyes were uncomfortably perceptive. He didn’t question her judgment. He didn’t question Sebastian’s. But his eyes reserved judgment for a
kith
whose ascendants had wreaked havoc upon the Algardis Empire.

“Where are you?” Terris said as she took in the broken staircase behind them and the chandelier that seemed to be hanging on by a thread in the distance.

“Our home for now,” Ciardis said, deadpan.

Sebastian was more direct. “It’s not important. Just know we’ll be relocating soon. We’ve discovered it’s not safe to be in residence in a place so publicly known.”

“Not under the protection of the guards at the imperial court, sire?” Meres said. “Wouldn’t it safer for you there?”

“Not at this moment, it wouldn’t,” said Sebastian, his voice dark.

Meres’s face turned pragmatic. “If you need my swords, my lord, I am no more than two days’ ride from your city.”

“We are in need,” Sebastian admitted reluctantly. “The courts have changed much since I left two seasons ago. Allies have become enemies and enemies become rivals. With our goal in peril, I cannot trust the imperial guardsmen.”

“And what goal is that?” asked Terris slowly.

Ciardis turned to look at Terris as she said with grave concern, “The survival of this very empire.”

“It’s never simple with you, is it?” Terris said, “Not that I’d ever expect ‘simple,’ but maybe less complicated.”

“You’re one to talk,” shot back Ciardis. “I seem to remember someone else chasing after Barren in the dead night because he ‘needed our help’ and having us run straight into the hands of the Shadow Mage.” The same Shadow Mage who had then set about interrogating Ciardis before he had tried to kill her.

“I never said we weren’t two of a kind,” Terris said with a wink and an impatient toss of her thick braids over her shoulder.

Meres lifted his left hand and put it on his charge’s right shoulder. And Ciardis noticed something strange. He was wearing a wedding band.

What in the world?
she had time to think.

Sebastian caught her thoughts and the direction of her confusion quickly.
Now is not the time
.

I was just curious
, she grumbled internally while eyeing the ring speculatively.

Ciardis gave Terris a grateful smile. “Well, twin of my heart, we have more trials to face. Which is why I want you by my side. But more than the desire for your presence, I need your help in the Ameles Forest.”

A sound echoed in the distance and Thanar stood up slowly and glared down the hall. It had sounded like footsteps, but no one else was supposed to be upstairs.

He began to walk off. “I’ll see what it is.”

Sebastian stood as well and unsheathed his sword, but he stayed at Ciardis’s back to guard her.

Terris and Meres still waited for more information.

Hurriedly, Ciardis said, “I’m on the trail of something. We all have known for a long time that the princess heir chained something deadly in that cage in the center of the forest. But it turns out it has a purpose—even after her death. She hired a satyr with mind bending skills to ensure that.”

Meres frowned darkly. “That doesn’t sound good. What manner of beast was it and what purpose was it set on?”

“All we know is that she ordered it to destroy the city of Kifar on the harvest moon,” Ciardis said.

“Kifar?” said Terris, startled. “That’s many kilometers to the west. A week’s ride at best. Why would she want to destroy a city so far away? Yes, it’s large, but it’s not so important on the imperial scale of things.”

“Terris is right,” conceded Sebastian from where he stood facing the doorway, “but there must be something about Kifar that caused my aunt to focus her attentions there. Something that she wants destroyed.”

“Sire, it could be a sign of political instability if it’s destroyed. A flash in the flames and a blow to your father’s rule, certainly,” Lord Kinsight said.

Sebastian said, “It certainly could.”

Terris demurred. “But you’d think she’d choose a more important city, is all that I’m saying. There are least five in the empire whose fall would have a greater effect on its economic stability and political security.”

Meres said as he rubbed his eyes tiredly, “First things first. What kind of threat is this beast to Ameles?”

“We don’t know,” said Sebastian gravely. “Consider it dangerous for now. Don’t engage, but if any of your warriors have seen this mysterious entity, we’d appreciate a sketch and description when you ride in with your men.”

“Of course,” said Meres firmly.

“Perhaps we should start calling it the Kifar beast until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with,” said Ciardis.

“Fine,” replied Terris.

Ciardis heard the sound of a commotion and some yelling. Quickly she turned her head and the mirror wavered in her hands. The connection was almost lost as the waves of magic jumbled in the mirror.

A worried frown appeared on Terris’s face. “Sounds like you have company?”

“Yes,” said Ciardis reluctantly.

“Then I’ll let you take care of that.”

Ciardis nodded. “Perhaps we’ll see each other again sometime.”

“Perhaps?” barked Terris, “What, do you think I’m staying in Ameles? There’s no way, girl—you need my help. I’m there.”

A small smile appeared on Ciardis’s face as she fought back tears. “I should be trying to dissuade you right now. But honestly, I can’t. I want you by my side.”