Sworn to Sovereignty Read online

  Sworn To Sovereignty: Courtlight #8

  Terah Edun

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Sworn To Sovereignty Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Terah Edun

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 978-1-946217-01-1

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  Sworn To Sovereignty Summary

  Ciardis Weathervane has one simple rule – win the first fight, then move on to the next. But she’s finding out that the citizens of Sandrin have other plans in mind.

  When she returns to the imperial capital city, she finds that nothing is as she left it. Only a week has passed and yet chaos reins. Vana Cloudbreaker has been attacked and surprisingly, she did not come out on top.

  The woman Ciardis thought was invincible stands a broken shell of what she once was and Ciardis isn’t entirely sure what or who was the cause of the fabled assassin’s derailment.

  To top it off, the revolutionary party is determined to make itself known, starting with a call for an impostor emperor to vacate his throne. They couldn’t have chosen a worse time to start their revolution. Right when the noble societies at court are ready to throw their support to the prince heir and princess heir-in-waiting against the blutgott itself.

  Now revolutionaries and courtiers are at odds, but even stranger—the duchess of Carne stands among the revolutionary guard. Ciardis is faced with the predicament of saving an empire and sacrificing a revolution, all while facing down a clock that has run out of the time.

  The gods are here and there’s nothing that she nor anyone else can do to stop them.

  1

  Ciardis sat atop her mount and stretched her shoulders as far as she could to undo the kinks in her muscles without dislodging herself from her ever-patient horse.

  She’d been doing a lot of those stretches lately. But to be fair, so had everyone else.

  They had been riding hard. Day and night since they left the city of Kifar.

  Through desert and finally into the grasslands the day before.

  Ciardis grimaced. Three days of desert winds, barely any water, and trading off sleeping in the saddle as someone else led her horse had put a crick in her back. She was starting to wish they could take the same way out of the westernmost lands of the Algardis Empire as they had into it.

  Namely, atop a dragon eager to get between here and there quickly.

  Around day two in the desert, Raisa had actually offered to carry them all across the land using her magic as before. There was only one problem. She wanted to be paid.

  And a dragon ambassador as powerful as Raisa didn’t want to be paid in gold.

  Everyone who actually wanted to hold onto anything dear to them, like their mortal souls, had quickly declined.

  When Raisa had amended her offer to say she would accept payment in blood—that is, she wanted to eat every single horse in their group before they set off—Terris had jumped down from her place astride the wyvern, placed her hands on her hips and glared with such ferocity that Ciardis feared that Terris might throw herself in front of the quadrupedal beasts before allowing any harm to come to them.

  Christian had casually let it slip that “They were horses, not pegasi, and therefore not protected by the governing law of the lands against murder,” and Terris had snapped right back that “He’d need protection if he finished that sentence.”

  So here they were. Day four of their return to Sandrin. Just entering the plains of Raisa’s people and nearly halfway home.

  Home, Ciardis mused. When did the city by the sea become home?

  It took her a long while to realize what she meant by home.

  It wasn’t the place itself; she knew that like she knew that her butt was going to be sore for long into the night.

  So instead she focused on what home had come to be for her. Her gaze wandered off to her left where a grey stallion with dapple across its withers was trotting just ahead of her. Its rider, his shoulders stiff either from pride or weariness she couldn’t tell, was Sebastian Athanos Algardis. He had been the first mystery to catch her interest in the city by the sea, and slowly become something more than a passing acquaintance. Then Ciardis thought of her mother, Lillian Weathervane, trapped in a prison of her own making inside the beautiful imperial palace like a finch in a gilded cage. Even the people surrounding her now made Sandrin feel like her home. But it was the friends that she didn’t know so well, the casual acquaintances and the fleeting smiles—like the bookbinder’s daughter, and everyone else who had welcomed her to the city—that made her new home special.

  Sandrin became home a long time ago, she decided.

  Because that’s where the people she loved resided.

  Blood.

  Family.

  Friends.

  They all meant home to Ciardis Weathervane.

  She didn’t have much longer to muse, though, as the horses began to whicker nervously and the wind picked up to a brisk pace. Ciardis looked up at the sky with a frown. It was bright and sunny with nary a cloud. She was certain then that the weather and an oncoming storm wasn’t making the horses nervous.

  Which meant something else entirely had them spooked, and that made her nervous.

  The soldier at the head of their medium-sized train of individuals called a halt up ahead and they all pulled back on their reins in curiosity.

  He swung around and galloped back. Ciardis could see it was Tobias.

  “Sir,” he said urgently to Sebastian. “There’s something up ahead.”

  “A campground?” said Terris eagerly.

  Ciardis felt her heart rise in hope.

  She wasn’t so foolish as to think there was a town with people or a waystation for them to recuperate at. But she would take a nice piece of soft ground to lie on and a saddle on which she could rest her head. All of which she could provide herself.

  “No,” said Tobias grimly. “Warriors. I count at least a dozen. Armed with spears and—”

  “Position?” grunted Sebastian.

  By this time everyone, except the lone other soldier Samuel, had nudged their horses closer to get a better sense of the conversation. Samuel however kept his gaze pinned on the far distance, scouting the perimeter before anything else could sneak up on them.

  “Northwest of us and closing fast,” said Tobias.

  Tobias barely had time to finish his sentence before a harsh cry interrupted their talk. It had come from within their group. There was barely time to register who had emitted the scream before the shaman took off without speaking any actual words. All Ciardis could m
ake out was the bright red roan of her horse heading back the way they had come at full speed.

  Intent on doing something, anything really, Ciardis hauled her horse around and screamed at Rachael’s fleeing back, “Wait, Rachael! Where are you going?”

  Ciardis heard her shout back something about “People!”

  “What’d she say?” demanded Sebastian.

  Ciardis shrugged. She hadn’t a clue. One word wasn’t enough to make an inference.

  The shaman didn’t stop. They watched as her horse gained distance with clods of earth churned up in its wake.

  Ciardis said nervously as she eyed the growing distance, “She may need our help.”

  Sebastian, of course, knew exactly where she was going with that. He wasn’t convinced.

  “And it may be a trap,” Sebastian said flatly. “We wait.”

  Everyone turned their mounts to follow but no one moved. Yet. Orders were orders.

  Thanar landed in front of them with wings spread. “At least a dozen soldiers up back the way we came and heading here,” he said curtly. “What is that fool shaman doing?”

  “We know,” said Sebastian absentmindedly as he pulled a distance-viewer out of a saddle pocket.

  “You know what it is she thinks she’s doing?” Thanar asked, every word laced with ire.

  “No,” said Sebastian. “About the soldiers.”

  “But that’s about all we know,” Ciardis heard Christian snap. “Who they are, what they want, that’s all pretty much vague right now.”

  Thanar raised an eyebrow and folded his arms. “Then shall we stop Rachael?”

  Sebastian narrowed his eyes and nudged his stallion forward until it was a few steps in the lead. “Not yet,” he said softly while lowering the distance-viewer he’d brought up to his closest eye.

  Ciardis eyed the object in Sebastian’s hand and thought about asking him to let her use it. But she doubted he could see much better with it than she could alone. If there was one thing she’d learned in the northern mountains, it was that round glass and flimsy metal was as useful as a knife in a mage fight. It was a toy. There was no distance-viewer that could hold a candle to the magic of far-sight.

  “I don’t know either Thanar. We maybe half-way to being friends but she didn’t stop to inform me of her plans before galloping off,” Ciardis said to Thanar as she caught him throwing an irritated glance her way.

  He didn’t have to speak to voice his query, she had known he wanted more information. Trouble was, she didn’t have any, none of them did. Ciardis bit her bottom lip and unconsciously tightened her grip on her reins—pulling her horse’s head up abruptly and causing it to side-step in agitation.

  She wanted to go after Rachael. But she also knew that the security protocol was clear: they needed to stay together as a group and not be separated.

  “Were they advancing?” Tobias demanded.

  “No,” said Thanar. “Though your scout was.”

  “Scout?” asked Christian.

  “He means me, sir,” Samuel said. “I came back when I saw the approach.”

  “It might have been best for you to stay back where you were,” Tobias said with an angry pound of his fist on his thigh.

  “You need men here and I’m all you’ve got,” countered Samuel.

  Tobias shook his head and muttered, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I highly doubt one more soldier would have made that much of a difference in information either here or there,” the ambassador said.

  Tobias didn’t bother turning to Raisa but his eyes tightened perceptibly in anger.

  Thanar ruffled his wings. “Relax, soldier. They may outnumber us—”

  “Three to one?” Ciardis said dryly.

  “—but,” Thanar continued, nonplussed, “we’ve got five mages. Six if that one doesn’t get herself killed. And most of us are well-versed in combat.”

  The soldier grunted.

  Ciardis shook her head.

  Men, she grumbled. Never satisfied with double the odds.

  What was that, my dear? Sebastian asked sweetly.

  Don’t call me dear, Ciardis sniped back just as quickly.

  Thanar snorted. Heads up, you two.

  What? Ciardis asked. Her eyes were still fixed on the shaman who was quickly gaining on the ridge and would soon be out of sight.

  Trouble, Thanar replied.

  What kind of trouble? Sebastian asked quickly.

  Thanar didn’t have time to respond as Rachael’s mount disappeared over the ridge miles off, still in a headlong gallop. A second later, the largest boom Ciardis had ever heard sounded.

  It was like having a firebomb go off and having the unfortunate luck to be standing mere yards away. Yards that might as well have been a single foot length apart. She felt a wave of heat before she saw the magic roil over them like a cloud of dust. Then the second wave of sound hit her ears and the horses reared in panic.

  She couldn’t hold on. None of them could as all the riders fell to the ground clutching bleeding ears and trying to stay out of the way of flying hooves as the horses decided that the best course of action was to get away as quickly as they could.

  Ciardis felt herself fall on someone else. The soft body below her cushioned her lurching tumble, but it wasn’t enough to stop her own weight from crashing down onto the leg Ciardis had extended at a weird angle. She felt more pain. Different from the burning fire that had seared her skin. This was the sharp pressure like a dagger as the bone snapped and then the dagger puncture of slivers driving into her muscles. In short, it felt like being stabbed inside her own skin.

  Ciardis screamed as the pain crested and she rolled on her side to get some relief. Her vision was so blurry that she had to take a moment to reorient herself between the levels of pain and see the difference between sky and land. When she finally got a hold of herself, ears still ringing, she saw that she had landed on Terris, and that her sister companion wasn’t conscious.

  The darker-skinned mage lay crumpled on the ground with blood gushing from a nasty gash in her forehead. Ciardis easily saw the culprit, a large rock that sat innocently centimeters away from Terris’s head.

  Ciardis swept her eyes over her unconscious friend. It didn’t look good. Her skin was an ashy gray that reminded Ciardis of a color more comfortable on a tombstone than a person.

  Ciardis’s heart skipped a beat in horror as she frantically reached out.

  Crawling was all Ciardis could manage. She felt a sticky wetness, and a sharp burn hit her right leg in a wave of pain the moment she started to stand up.

  So she didn’t. She also didn’t look back. She didn’t want to see whatever mess of horror her leg was right now.

  She wanted to know that her friend with a face devoid of life was going to be all right.

  Ciardis reached Terris and quickly turned her over, feeling frantically for a pulse at her neck.

  She told herself that it was weak, but the woman was alive. The truth was that with all the blood flowing down Terris’s face and the clothing sticking to her skin like glue, Ciardis wasn’t sure of anything.

  Ciardis focused on getting help. She called out for help and she just had to hope someone would hear her cry. As of right now Ciardis couldn’t even hear her own voice thanks to the ringing in her ears, and she didn’t think anyone else affected by the blast could either.

  Luckily, her voice didn’t have to be strong enough to penetrate the echoes of moans all around her, because as she looked around frantically, she saw that Christian was already stumbling to his feet unsteadily and was making his way over to the fallen Kithwalker.

  When the koreschie dropped to his knees beside them, Ciardis felt a hand tightly grasp her shoulder.

  She didn’t look away from her friend as Sebastian shouted in her head, Ciardis, we need to regroup, they’re coming.

  His voice was at once clear as day and distant as if coming through a haze.

  Who’s coming? she thought back at
Sebastian and Thanar simultaneously while also thinking that she didn’t care. Her friend was in danger. She looked like she was dying.

  Or already dead, Ciardis grimly added.

  Sebastian yanked on her shoulder so urgently that Ciardis half rose in reluctance. As soon as she did, the same problem as before presented itself and her leg crumpled under her.

  With sharp cry, she collapsed. She saw herself falling head first into the same sort of rock that Terris had hit, and she didn’t swerve to avoid it because that would have left her entire weight slamming into the ground on a shaky leg.

  At least she wasn’t falling from such a great height this time or with the force of a blast behind her, Ciardis thought in resignation as she braced for a heavy bruise, maybe even another fracture.

  But she didn’t hit.

  Instead, one arm yanked her up as another simultaneously poured magic into her body through a tight grip on a shoulder and down into her leg.

  “It’s all right,” assured Sebastian.

  “Yeah, we’ve got you,” said Thanar.

  Ciardis had a moment to wonder, But who’s got you?

  Then the second wave hit. This one softer.

  But it still felt like being hit by a tornado.

  She and her saviors went flying.

  They landed in a half-jumbled heap that had Thanar cursing a blue streak and Sebastian tightening his grip on her arms with such strength that his hands felt like shackles in a prison.

  “Is it over?” she heard Christian say in a croak.

  Ciardis didn’t know. She realized that she had her eyes closed practically the entire time she was flying.

  Opening them, she saw a plain devastated with chunks of dirt strewn everywhere and her companions scattered like laundry in a storm.

  2

  She didn’t have to turn around to know whose front she was leaning against.

  The black of his magic and the irritation leaking through his emotional block was enough to tell her all she needed to know. He lowered his grip so that his hand rested more solidly on her upper right thigh.