Sworn to War Read online

  The Emperor nodded. “So here are the consequences. Your word is your will, just as my word is my will. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. If I order a person to protect a charge with their life, I expect it to be done.”

  Ciardis said quietly, “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty. I understand.”

  Maradian continued on as if she hadn’t even spoken. “If I order a proclamation, it must be seen through. If it is not, if my subjects balk, it is I who appears weak.”

  Maradian pinned his gaze on her, impressing upon her the importance of his words.

  Ciardis nodded silently, encouraging him to continue.

  “So,” the Emperor said slowly, “I cannot appear weak. By default, if you are going to be my representative, my right hand as your mother so brilliantly deduced, then you cannot appear weak.”

  “No, Your Imperial Majesty,” Ciardis said as she straightened up, doing her best to appear strong in the eyes of a man who held so many lives in his hands.

  “Good,” the Emperor said in satisfaction.

  Ciardis watched as Maradian called in his magic. She wondered, Is this it? Is this the end?

  They were surrounded by soldiers, and the Emperor had already proved that they were no match to his magical might.

  But as she watched, he called sharp dagger-like blades to his fingertips. Almost like claws, but she could see they were cleverly perched blades set on finger straps. She had a moment to wonder if the objects themselves were made of residual magic or if the Emperor had created them out of thin air as they appeared.

  The next moment, the only thing on her mind was horror.

  Maradian lunged forward with the clawed fingers. Caren, her guard, stepped in front of her with nary a word.

  Ciardis watched as Maradian’s magically enhanced hand plunged into the guard’s chest like knives carving through butter.

  As Maradian stepped back, not a single other guardsman moved.

  Ciardis stood with wide eyes and watched Caren’s body twitch like it was a puppet on a string. Once. Twice. Then he fell to the floor.

  She was too stunned to move. When Ciardis’s eyes turned back to the Emperor, he said simply, “My word is my will. I ordered him to protect you and he did. No hesitation. That is what I expect of my subjects, and that is what you will expect in my stead. Am I understood?”

  Ciardis licked her dry lips. “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  “Good. Now, let’s try that negotiation one more time,” the Emperor said with a delighted smile, as blood dripped down his arm. In his hand, the still-beating heart of the guardsman pumped its last beat.

  26

  Ciardis waited a moment. Then two.

  But she could tell this was her last chance to impress him. The Emperor would tolerate no more juvenile overtures. He wanted a true opponent. A protégé who would one day rival his skills; perhaps even surpass them. Of course, she wouldn’t be alive a minute longer once she did, but she could feel his desire for a formidable match. So Ciardis had to push down her feelings of nervousness and heartsickness. She had to push past all of that and take strength.

  Strength and courage from the knowledge that she could do this. She would do more than excel under her tutelage, she had to become Maradian Athanos Algardis.

  She just had to tamp down her emotions and get past her hurt and her fear first.

  “All right,” said Ciardis in a tempered tone. “Say I play your game, Emperor.”

  Maradian smiled.

  She didn’t flinch, she didn’t emote. She just spoke like a ruler. Inside, Ciardis felt something blossom. Something she had never thought possible. It felt like strength, but it was more than that. It was confidence. It was power.

  She had the feeling that the new thing she had found was called leadership.

  Ciardis continued, “I must have something in return.”

  Maradian laughed. “I suppose I do owe you a boon for your…resilience. It’s been long since I had a proper opponent. Name your price, daughter-to-be. My empire is your empire. Jewels, land, even the greatest artifacts of residual magic—they can be all yours.”

  Ciardis bit her lip and paced forward. She halted when two soldiers stepped forward and not too subtly blocked her from getting within five feet of the Emperor of Algardis. Which was fine. She didn’t need to physically attack him. She was done with that angle; this time, she only needed words.

  Staring at her mother, who stood by the Emperor strong and proud, Ciardis named one of the two things she wanted most: “Freedom.”

  The Emperor raised an eyebrow but waved a swift hand. “If you can demand it, then you can have it. As soon as we all leave this room with each other’s word—and I know, Weathervane, that once I have yours you will not break your bond—then you may go anywhere within this empire’s domain. Even beyond, if you are so inclined.”

  Ciardis shook her head. “I don’t want freedom from your physical chains. I want carte blanche. I want to rule.”

  Maradian bared his teeth in a fierce grin. It was as much a laugh as it was a calculated warning.

  “You?” he hooted. “The girl who can’t see two steps ahead of her? The one who bumbles through my court games like a bear in a forest? No.”

  Ciardis didn’t flinch. It could have been his final word. It might have been another test. But she wouldn’t know which until she stepped forward and tested the flames.

  “I am your chosen one. Without me, your god cannot be broken,” she said, her eyes flaring in warning. “From now on, we play by my rules.”

  The smile faded from the Emperor’s face. He could see that she was serious.

  “And why would I agree to your demands?” he asked solemnly. The amusement was dying in his eyes as she watched; caution was taking its place.

  Ciardis laughed and spread her hands. “Because you need this.”

  He stared at her. Even Lillian watched her performance, fascinated. Ciardis watched them both and her heart flipped. The Emperor was willing to listen. This was her chance. It seemed that bravado was the key to this man’s heart.

  Ciardis began to tick points off on her hands.

  “I now rouse commoners and nobles, revolutionaries and loyalists, as well as believers and non-believers to my cause,” Ciardis said cautiously. “We face a god and then we face dragons. Even if the deity doesn’t take the physical measure of war, Sandrin is a long way from Ban. Individuals must be roused across the land as needed.”

  “And yet you have no proof of this need?” the Emperor questioned softly.

  “You have all the proof you’re going to get from the battles we fought in front of the gates of Ban,” Ciardis defiantly countered. “Question your troops who were there. Ask the clans of the frost giantess. Read your nephew’s report. The beings we faced were prisoners from another realm. The kind of creatures that haven’t been seen alive in the Algardis Empire since the Initiate Wars. And they are coming here to fight for their gods. To fight for their own freedoms. We need to be ready.”

  Maradian frowned. “Say I give you this freedom. How do you intend to use it?”

  So he was eager, now that Ciardis could actually see a plan a forming in her mind. “I’ll crisscross the lands. Re-open the old watch towers. Set mage guards at access points of great magic. Call the landed nobility to provide their strongest people. We will need to have them gather at a focal point.”

  “Which?” asked Maradian sinuously.

  Ciardis jumped in guilt. She didn’t yet know. But to admit that would be weak.

  Instead she said, “I’ll consult the texts.”

  “You don’t know,” said Maradian in a disgusted voice.

  “We’ve been a little busy since we returned to court, left again for Kifar, and got back,” said Sebastian. “At your behest, I might recall.”

  The Emperor sneered at his nephew. “I don’t recall asking you.”

  Ciardis hurried to interrupt, but the Emperor turned to her with a snarl in his voice. “Does my nephe
w speak for you now? Do you cede your voice to his?”

  “No!” Ciardis shouted. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel like Sebastian was perfectly capable of going toe to toe with Maradian. It was that this was her time and her place. The prince heir had had a lifetime of confrontation with the Emperor; now she would take a swing. Besides, as silly as it sounded, she felt that Sebastian was too close to Maradian. Tied by blood and tied by power. They understand each other in a way that Ciardis never could, and that gave her a distinct outsider’s advantage.

  She would never be tempted to agree with Maradian’s policies, or even attempt to put plans in place that would have gone his way. He would see that as an interesting factor. Like a beetle under an observer’s glass, Ciardis Weathervane knew that the Emperor would be watching her closely. Not necessarily for a misstep, because she had and would continue to make plenty of those.

  But for waning interest.

  Because, as powerful as Maradian was, he had proven long ago that he was like a child.

  With a limited attention span, and an even shorter temper.

  It was a dangerous place to be: under his gaze.

  But she wouldn’t have it any other way, because that would give him a chance to switch his focus to someone else. Someone else to torture. Someone else to tempt. Whether they broke under his ministrations was their own business, but Maradian’s inclination to spread his malice to innocents who had done him no harm—beyond his prized attraction—that was where Ciardis Weathervane could not stand by and watch. She just hoped she could keep his interest long enough to outwit him at his own games.

  “I will do this,” Ciardis said directly to the Emperor. No hesitance in her voice. No submission.

  Maradian studied her face. Whatever he found there made him believe her.

  “And the second?” the Emperor asked icily.

  Ciardis stumbled. Does he mean how I would defeat a god, or where? She wondered frantically.

  “Your second requirement, girl!” the Emperor shouted. “I tire of this conversation. We have prolonged this for far too long.”

  Ciardis stared at him blankly, then mustered her gumption. She had the feeling he said that about any conversation that wasn’t going precisely his way.

  “I want you to undo the dark mental magic that you have done,” Ciardis said. “The pain you have inflicted on the entire court, on my mother, on my friends. I want them to see the world as it really is, uninfluenced by your magic. You feed on pain. Well, surely you’ve grown strong enough by now that your mental dance is done. You can set out to do what you’ve accomplished and leave us here to do what needs to be done.”

  Maradian’s lips twitched; for the first time, Ciardis saw him really frown.

  Finally, she thought with satisfaction. I am one step ahead of him.

  “If this question had come at any other time,” the Emperor said flatly, “I would have executed you on the spot. But I have plans in motion, and whether you realize it or not, I have hit on a critical stage. I will need to conserve my…abilities for some very special people.”

  Ciardis shivered at the croon in his voice.

  “You among them,” the Emperor said. “Agree to that, and you can have your blasted court and all the worthless ants in it.”

  Ciardis was uneasy. She hadn’t really expected him to be at all amenable to this solution. And frankly, it was uncharacteristic for a power-mad and usually manipulative man like Maradian. So why had she asked? Because she had needed him to come out of their little power play feeling as if he was winning.

  Instead, he had turned her entire concept on its head, leaving her wondering what his next move was.

  As always.

  “What do you mean, ‘me among them’?” she asked.

  Maradian waved a flippant hand. “It is of no importance right at this moment. For today, I won’t take you. Instead, I will require reassurance that you will do everything in your power to keep my court and my people loyal to me.”

  “You have it,” Ciardis said instantly. She wasn’t really interested in fomenting a revolution, no matter what Sebastian said. Citizen’s revolutions were time-consuming, wasteful and extraordinarily backbreaking work. She had a god to defeat; she didn’t have time to placate an Emperor’s conceit by pretending she wanted to be the leader of a cause that ended with a thousand screaming citizens celebrating his head on a pike. She’d rather stick a dagger in Maradian’s heart and be done with it.

  “And there’s one other thing,” the Emperor said triumphantly—knowing he had her where he wanted her. Over a barrel and unable to object, as they were so very close to walking out of this healer’s hall with a gentleman’s agreement that she so desperately needed in hand.

  So she waited for the other shoe to drop. For him to get the last word in. For the Emperor of Algardis to once more turn her world upside down.

  The Emperor paused.

  Ciardis felt her heart stop. What was he waiting for?

  Sebastian, however, apparently knew just what to say. “We stand by our demands, and we hope to accede to yours. Speak, Emperor; we stand ready to listen.”

  He ended his speech with both hands clasped in front of him at his waist.

  Ciardis slowly began to breathe again.

  “I accept your terms, and then I raise you mine,” the Emperor said formally.

  Oh, here it is, she thought numbly. The catch. What does he want? My mind linked to his? My mother still in his grasp? The revolutionaries imprisoned for eternity?

  Whatever it was, she knew at least it wouldn’t involve bloodshed. Maradian had already agreed that all cases of capital punishment were now under Sebastian’s, and by extension her, purview as soon as the wedding had been completed.

  So she held her breath and waited to hear what the Emperor of Algardis could demand from his blood family and soon to be daughter—in name, if not in actuality.

  The rising glee in his eyes forewarned her that whatever it was…it wouldn’t be good.

  She couldn’t help but think how much less of a hell-run her life would be without the Emperor’s constant intervention. At least for the next few weeks.

  It couldn’t be that easy to get rid of Maradian Athanos Algardis in one stroke, she thought in excitement.

  Granted, they would have to rule an empire in all but name, defeat a god, and corral a dragon legion that sooner or later would be coming for its lost comrade, but it still felt like they had won.

  Then the Emperor smiled. “Upon the acceptance of your terms, I demand an individual boon of my own. I want Thanar, daemoni prince and scourge of these lands, banished from my realm and into the one from which he came—that of the gods.”

  Ciardis froze. Like a rabbit that had jumped too high, she landed solidly back on the ground with a bone-jarring thump.

  She didn’t even hesitate before she uttered her next words. “Not a chance.”

  Her actual sentence was quite a bit longer, but she didn’t get a chance to dwell too long on that.

  27

  The world froze for a few seconds, and everything went out of focus.

  For a moment, she wondered if she had really uttered those words.

  The female commander’s slack jaw and wide eyes, indicating her surprise, clearly said Ciardis had.

  She had cursed out the Emperor of Algardis.

  Ciardis shook her head mutely in fear. But not regret for what she had done.

  She did it in denial of what Maradian wanted her to do. She had been willing to go so far, to do so much. But this was as if the Emperor were ordering that she gladly give him half of her soul with no hesitation. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t that far gone into Maradian’s game of power. Besides, she had lost too much already; she wouldn’t lose him. Not for the Emperor’s sick power games or to save an entire empire.

  Even Lillian stepped forward and in a cajoling voice said, “Ciardis—”

  But Ciardis cut her off with a snarl. “Save it.”

  She woul
dn’t do it for anyone, especially not a mother that the Emperor had wrapped around his little finger.

  No.

  When Thanar stepped forward and completely blocked her vision of a gleeful Emperor’s face, she almost sobbed in frustration.

  Maradian was enjoying this. He was.

  She knew it was because he expected her to fail to agree to his demand. He had found her vulnerable point, and he knew it.

  She’d just proved it to him, after all.

  But Thanar spread his wings and took her shoulders in his hands.

  “Don’t say anything,” Ciardis said. “Because I know what you’re about to say, and I won’t hear it.”

  “Do you?” asked Thanar with an impressed look and a gentle wipe of her face. “Because even I couldn’t tell you what I’m about to say.”

  That caught Ciardis’s attention. She looked up through watery eyes that she refused to let flow.

  She wouldn’t be weak. Not in a room full of spectators.

  When Sebastian stepped forward and put his hand on top of Thanar’s own on her shoulder, though, she almost broke down crying.

  However, she straightened her back and tempered her voice.

  As she spoke, it wobbled a bit, but it was firm.

  “I have given up my greatest friends and fought my worst enemies by your side,” Ciardis said as she hastily wiped her eyes. “When Stephanie died defending me, us, against that traitorous coward, I thought my world was ending. But I didn’t really know pain then.”

  She searched Thanar’s face and she put insistence into her words. “I didn’t know pain then, but I do now. I have been tempered by fire and steel, and I have come out stronger for it. But I can’t do this. I can’t survive this. We can’t survive this.”

  She said it defiantly as she tilted her head at the prince heir by her side.

  He was silent, but in his silence there was a comfort that she could draw on.

  “Can I speak now?” Thanar asked with dark amusement in his eyes.

  “No, no you may not,” Ciardis said. “Because I’m not done yet. I don’t just need your presence and your strength and your words of barbed wisdom. The empire needs you at its back. You have gone from being an evil traitor to someone who I know will fight with his last breath to stop the god of destruction from coming. I know that. The world should know that too. They need to see who you are.”