Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (5 page)

“Perfect, just perfect,” Ciardis said with a heavy sigh. She held out hope that this wasn’t the permanent kind of dark spell. Maybe Inga would snap out of it shortly. From what Vana and Thanar had said—and what their worried looks had implied—it wasn’t looking very likely.

“Can you put up a sight and sound shield?” Vana asked Thanar, though Ciardis had requested the same thing just moments before.

Ciardis looked over at the two; it looked like Vana would do things her way. For once.

He nodded. “Good,” Vana replied with an afterthought. “And be ready to heal that soldier when I get Inga down.”

“Kane, his name is Kane,” Ciardis said heatedly.

Thanar didn’t respond. Ciardis could already see his magic gathering in his aura and spreading to enclose them in a big bubble.

To Ciardis and Thomas, Vana said, “Step back.” It was a succinct order. They did as they were told—slowly. Thomas’s grip on her arm tightened as he urgently pulled on her sleeve to get her to move back even farther—to the edge of the bubble, if possible. She refused wordlessly, staring straight ahead and locking her arm at her side. She wouldn’t move away and abandon her friends. Even if she couldn’t help Inga and Kane, she wouldn’t abandon them, either.

Thomas finally stopped tugging when she elbowed him sharply in the ribs. She heard his quick intake of breath, telling her she had accurately targeted the most painful spot. She didn’t look, but a small smirk graced her face. That’s what he got for trying to prod her.

Vana raised her hands at her side, palms out, while looked directly into Inga’s eyes.

“Inga, can you hear me?” she asked calmly.

The frost giant didn’t flinch, didn’t move, and didn’t acknowledge the question. It was as if she was frozen in time. She still stood gripping her knife tightly in a ready stance. The red blood continued to pool at her feet, almost touching her heel. Her eyes were vacant orbs that stared into the distance.

Vana didn’t let Inga’s non-response deter her. Slowly, so slowly that Ciardis had to squint to catch it, she began to draw magic from her mage core. The light purple mist flowed up her arms and past her wrists to gather in the palms of her gloved hands.

Ciardis heard Thomas whisper from behind her, “She’ll never do it. She
can’t
.” But she wasn’t really paying attention to him. Vana’s process was something she had never seen the likes of before. Probably because it was so painstakingly slow to draw magic from the core like that. The magic lay so close to the mage’s body that it was like a second layer of skin. She continued to stare and watch the magic build into twin balls at the center of Vana’s palms as well as a thin veil that covered her entire body in a translucent, light purple mist.

She’s shielding
, Ciardis realized.

If Vana was shielding, shouldn’t they do the same? She remembered the time Vana had defeated the Shadow Mage’s dark barrier in poor Barren’s mind. They had been caught off guard by the abrupt pushback and Ciardis had been thrown from her feet when the power snapped. Stepping back with unease, Ciardis froze as Inga’s eyes flicked from Vana’s face over to her.

Ciardis gulped deeply. Vana hissed. Thomas squeezed her arm in warning.

When she stopped moving Inga’s eyes turned back to Vana. No other part of Inga had moved. It was damn creepy.

The magic Vana built into the palm of her hands rose slowly to hover over her outstretched palms as large purple orbs. They flashed once, twice, and a third time with a brilliance that left spots in Ciardis’s eyes. She didn’t move, she didn’t blink, and she didn’t flinch. She’d learned her lesson the first time.

The orbs rose some more. Inga didn’t move.

And slowly, inch by inch, Vana’s purple orbs reached the height of Inga’s face. When they did, they flashed forward in a blink of an eye—so fast that Ciardis had a hard time registering the movement. The orbs merged into one at great speed and the giant purple orb hit the frost giant dead-on in the face. Inga lurched back as if she had been hit with a giant’s mace, her body arcing up into the air and slamming back into the ground ten feet behind her original position with an audible
crack
in the floor beneath her.

Heart hammering fast, Ciardis said, “Please tell me you didn’t kill her.”

As Vana sauntered over to her fallen foe she said, “You don’t know much about frost giant physiology. I just stunned her.”

Ciardis swallowed in relief and turned to Thanar.

She gave him a pointed look. “What are you waiting for? An invitation? Help Kane!”

Thanar smiled and stepped forward into her personal space. “Understand this, Weathervane: I am not your pet healer. I don’t bark on command. And you will pay for this.”

“Fine,” Ciardis huffed out in irritation, “Tell us how much you want and we’ll pay you.”

He turned away towards Kane
a
nd she hastily stepped back to avoid being knocked over by his wings. “I don’t accept coins.”

She blinked and muttered, “Then what? Damn,
men.
”

“He’s n-not a man.”

Ciardis leveled a glare at Thomas for good measure and he hastily dropped his grasp on her arm.

Looking over the alcove, she knew it was too small for her to hover by Thanar’s side as he worked his magic, so she did the only other reasonable thing possible. She ducked under Thanar’s left wing and arm to squirm her way into the alcove. Carefully she climbed over Kane’s legs, which lay sprawled over the edge of the alcove’s ledge, on her hands and knees, hiking up her skirt as best as she could. When she reached his head, she noted the bloodstains on her dress but paid them no mind. Kane was awake. He was pale with blood loss, but he was awake.

“Are you insane?” whispered Thanar harshly.

Ciardis ignored him in favor of resting a hand on Kane’s cheek. “How do you feel?”

He let out a pain-filled laugh. “Like a skewered pig.”

“How do you
think
he feels?” That comment had come from the prince, who was looming behind her.

She didn’t turn her head or bother to acknowledge Thanar. She did, however, lean over to take a closer look at Kane’s wound. The blade of the knife was buried deep. It had been stabbed down into Kane’s gut and lodged to the hilt. Kane’s hand was weakly twitching next to it. He was probably trying to restrain himself from doing something foolish, like grabbing the hilt and tearing it out.

“Looks bad,” Kane whispered with a wince.

“No, no,” she hurried to reassure him.

“Don’t lie to him,” snapped the daemoni.

Ciardis whirled her head around while still kneeling by Kane’s side. “I wasn’t going to lie. I was merely going to say that you could fix it. That is, if you ever get around to it.”

“Don’t make assumptions either.”

Ciardis clenched her fingers by Kane’s head, fighting the urge not to slap the stubborn, pig-headed daemoni prince behind her. Kane chuckled. She leveled a glare at him. For a man with a knife sticking out of his gut, he was way too cheerful.

When she saw him wince and pale further, she put aside her anger and addressed Thanar, staring down at her guard’s pinched face. “Please.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Well, work
faster
.” Her patience was limited and blood was continuing to flow from Kane’s open wound. Thanar didn’t respond, but she felt the surge of dark magic coming from him.

“Is there a price?” whispered Kane from where he lay on the alcove floor.

“No,” responded Thanar shortly.

“There’s always a price,” whispered Kane weakly. His eyes began to close.

“Not for you,” responded Thanar.

Ciardis narrowed her eyes. “But you said—”

Kane had drifted into unconsciousness.

“And I meant it,” Thanar said. “The price is for
you.
”

Ciardis sucked in an anxious breath while staring down at her unconscious friend. What if Kane was dying?

“I rendered him unconscious intentionally,” Thanar said as he reached over to securely grip the knife hilt sticking out of Kane’s abdomen. “I didn’t want him screaming when I pulled this out. Press down hard on the wound.”

“When?” Ciardis said weakly. She’d thought that she would be used to blood and gore after being attacked on several different battlefields. But it still got to her, especially when her friends were wounded.

“Now,” said Thanar shortly as he smoothly yanked the knife out.

She lunged forward to press her hands down on the wound where bright red blood was gushing forth. “Thanar, do something!”

He said nothing and she watched as, miraculously, the blood stopped gurgling out. Tentatively she lifted her blood-covered hands to see a sealed wound with only a thin scar to show where he had been stabbed.

She leaned back, ready to cry in relief. “He’ll live?”

“He’ll live,” Thanar confirmed as he stepped back from the alcove, allowing the ballroom light to pour in. Ciardis hadn’t realized how dark the small alcove really was with Thanar blocking the majority of the light with his spread wings. She looked over her friend carefully noting the blood-soaked attire.

“Well?” said Caemon, peering around Thanar.

“He’s okay,” said Ciardis with a shaky smile.

“Good,” Caemon replied, helping her out of the alcove.

Ciardis took in the scene. Thomas stood off to the side, looking out of place. Thanar and Caemon were muttering to themselves over Kane’s condition. Vana stood over Inga’s unconscious body with a scowl on her face. She quickly beckoned to Ciardis when she spotted her inside the alcove.

With a muttered prayer, Ciardis walked over to the woman.

“It was as I thought—her mind was darkened with a poison,” Vana said without preamble.

““How can you tell? And why?” said Ciardis.

“Magically. Look at her aura.”

Ciardis knelt down next to Inga’s head and looked up at Vana in confusion. “Non-mages have auras?”

Vana’s eyebrows twitched.

“What?” asked Ciardis. “She’s
not
a mage.”

“Yes, they have auras. Their auras are usually weak and tied to their emotions. But in the case of an individual from a
kith
race like the frost giants, even their natural predilections like exhibiting dark blue skin when upset is a form of their evolving magic.”

“Right,” Ciardis. “So how do I find the aura?”

“Pretend you’re looking for her mage core and go from there,” snapped Vana.

She did as she was told.

Ciardis quickly saw that Inga’s aura was a misty dark blue. It swirled in and out of her vision, surrounding Inga’s body like a haze rather than the clear aura of a natural mage.

“Is it supposed to be misty like that?”

“Good girl,” Vana said with a small smile. “Look closer.”

Ciardis licked her lips, pulled a bit more power from her own mage core, and peered at Inga’s aura with more intensity. “It’s like a haze.”

“That kind of mapping on a person’s aura is indicative of a mind-altering substance. Like a poison or a hallucinogen,” Vana said softly, leaning down to rest on her haunches. “Usually one that’s ingested.”

Vana reached out with her hand and waved it through the haze of Inga’s aura just above her clammy skin. “This reminds me of a poison I’m very familiar with.”

Ciardis knelt next to her. “Dare I ask?”

Vana ignored the comment and continued, “A poison like root of widow’s peak is potent enough to do this and easily accessible.”

She paused. “Well, more easily accessible than most. It is harvested in the Ameles Forest and is strong enough to change the personality of a person for several hours. But usually...”

“Usually what?” Ciardis said quickly.

“It’s usually not strong enough to change the mental composition of something like a frost giant—not without extremely negative side effects.”

“Effects such as?”

“Death.”

Ciardis, who had been looking down at Inga, immediately looked back up at Vana in horror.

“She’s not dying,” Vana said hastily.

“Oh, good,” said Ciardis.

“Which is very much the problem.”

“Wait, what? I’m not following your logic,” Ciardis said, furrows lining her brow. “Can we take a step back? Was Inga poisoned with a dose of widow’s peak?”

Vana looked down at Inga. Thoughtfully, she said, “Do you know what race is best known for using widow’s peak as a war tactic?”

Ciardis paused. Vana hadn’t answered the question.

“No, of course you don’t. Your daemoni friend over there does, though.”

“You honestly think Thanar poisoned Vana in order to attack Kane and heal him ten minutes later?”

“No,” said Vana.

“Why not?”

“Whoever did this wanted us to
think
that the daemoni prince was the cause. But they made one fatal error: A dosage this high of widow’s peak in such a young frost giant should have killed Inga before her personality changed.”

“They overdosed Inga?”

Caemon and Thanar stopped conferring to look over at them.

“No. You don’t listen very well,” Vana said. “If they had done what they were supposed to do, she would have went into apoplectic shock five minutes ago and be stone dead now, regardless of her unconscious state. What they did do was magically dose her enough to make the symptoms
look
like those of widow’s peak, but they didn’t realize that they hadn’t calculated her capability to handle such a dose correctly. Thereby exposing the flaw in their plan.” 

“Because the only way they could have impacted Inga’s mental capacity this much was to have given her enough doses of widow’s peak that the medicine would have killed her in minutes,” Ciardis said softly.

“Exactly.”

“That, and Kane isn’t dead because the person who was supposed to have wanted him dead actually saved him,” said Ciardis.

“That, too.”

C
iardis sighed. Of course this wouldn’t just be a normal ball with just a threat or two between friends. No, there had to be mind control and a friend almost dying just to liven it up. The question was who wanted Thanar accused of murder and presumably dead himself? And who would sacrifice Inga to do it?