Sworn to Quell Read online

  She wanted to shout out to them that they had it wrong, but it wasn’t just a problem of servants uttering the wrong title. Everyone from the head of the Merchants’ Guild to busy countesses looking to gain power while the social circles of the imperial courts were “in flux,” were referring to her with a higher title than her current one. That didn’t mean she had to like it. In fact, she was unsettled to think everyone was automatically foisting the title of Empress upon her. It felt like being selected to run a town as mayor without being asked if she wanted the position.

  Ciardis knew logically that by agreeing to the wedding, she had agreed to all assumptions of the office, but she hadn’t gotten married yet, by the seven gods. She wanted her freedom for a little longer.

  So she glared at all the servants standing around and staring at her silently. Not challenging them, but not letting this go either. Whatever they saw in her eyes made them hurry away.

  Which was just fine with her. She didn’t feel like having the discussion that she wasn’t yet married to the Emperor-to-be, and at this point in time wasn’t even sure she wanted to be.

  “We’re all going to die anyway,” Ciardis said as she resolutely turned and headed down the imperial hallways.

  If she had had a moment of clear thought, she might have wondered why the servant who had come to fetch her hadn’t waited to escort her to the conclave, but with a palace falling apart around her and no less than five friends dead in forty-eight hours thanks to the scheming of her former future father-in-law, to say that her judgment was a bit clouded would be an understatement.

  Grief could do that to an individual.

  Ciardis Weathervane, above anyone else, understood that.

  It was all she could do to rein in the tide of emotions threatening to sweep over her. The pain. The fury. The burning need for retribution.

  Retribution not just against the man who was a stone-cold corpse now, but for the actions he had put into place.

  But she couldn’t undo the past. No one could.

  She picked up her pace from a fast walk to a trot. As if she could outrun her personal demons.

  She couldn’t say it worked too well, but she did manage to avoid conversations with any more individuals along the way.

  When she reached the conclave’s chambers, she noted with a frown no soldiers guarded the doors.

  Even the hallway was empty.

  Ciardis hesitated, then lifted a fist and knocked on the door.

  It was the polite thing to do, after all, since she didn’t know who was in there.

  Though when she thought about it after a moment she realized how silly she looked. Not for knocking, but because no matter who was in the room, she outranked them all. She recognized that the triumvirate gifts had made her one of the most magically powerful Companions in the land, if not the most powerful, and she also happened to be in line for the throne herself as the future Empress.

  So Ciardis cleared her throat when no answer came and turned the heavy crystal handle on the door.

  With a bit of force and a firm hand, the broad door opened. She stepped inside to see dozens of individuals.

  None of whom were paying her the least bit of mind.

  Sheaves of paper were being waved about like weapons, voices were rising, fists being pounded into the table or the wall depending on where the occupant stood.

  She softly closed the door behind her and took in the scene.

  A long, wide room opened in front of her. As big as one of the minor ballrooms, it was taken over by a grand oval table made of dark wood, maybe ebony, inlaid with crystal panels at intervals. Intervals that corresponded to the chairs that sat around the table. There were at least thirty seats with proper placements, but even more had been wedged into open spaces at the table. It wasn’t the mannerly seating arrangements the nobility usually demanded.

  Instead, Ciardis silently counted men and women, even kith, arranged around the table, many with fists raised in anger. Even more leaned over the backs of the individuals with places at the table and screamed to be heard.

  The kith, she noted, stood apart. In a far corner of the room where their hooves and hands could defend against any challenger if needed. She noted, however, that they seemed more distressed than furious when compared to their compatriots around the room.

  Ciardis delicately made her way to the front, where she had spotted a rather large set of dark wings raised upward in warning. She hoped to find Sebastian standing firm by Thanar’s side.

  They had had their personal pissing matches, but she knew she could count on the members of the triumvirates having each other’s backs.

  Especially when faced with an angry mob.

  If they don’t, Ciardis thought grimly, I’ll twist their ears so hard they’ll wish they had.

  She ducked the wide swing of a merchant’s meaty fist and practically got picked up off her feet by an angry group of women dressed in gowns that had been fashionable when her forefathers were alive—wide hoop skirts being brandished like the weapons they were as the women wearing them took Ciardis along with them in an angry flurry of skirts.

  An imperial guard then noticed her presence and hastened to Ciardis’s side to make sure she managed to reach the head of the table without being waylaid.

  When the nobles closest to her noted who she was, their voices got louder and more belligerent instead of dying down.

  Ciardis felt a hint of fear when she was finally able to untangle the words tumbling over each other.

  Hate was spewing out of their mouths. And not directed at the Emperor. Nor at the coming god.

  At her.

  Ciardis turned to face the angry, powerful mob in the room that all of a sudden felt far too small, and she flinched.

  She looked around, wondering if she was mistaken, but she clearly wasn’t. Bloodshot eyes and furious expressions refocused on her.

  “We wouldn’t be in this mess if not for her,” screamed one noble.

  “Traitorous concubine,” shouted another. “I knew you and your guild whispered into our ears like snakes, but to see it with my own eyes—”

  “Enough!” Sebastian shouted.

  When that didn’t settle them down, he signaled to soldiers—strategically placed throughout the room, Ciardis noted in surprise—and they unsheathed longswords at once.

  That silenced their detractors.

  Or rather her detractors, Ciardis thought glumly.

  When she had entered the room, the nobles had been angry at Sebastian and scared at the turn of events, but they had also clearly acknowledged his right to lead in the place of his fallen family.

  But as soon as they saw Ciardis, their expressions and emotions had shifted, and like a feral pack they had turned on her in blame, in hate.

  No, not hate, she realized. It’s fear.

  Surprise colored her thoughts. Of all the things she had imagined when coming to court, being the instigator of fear had not been one of them.

  “Now that I have your attention,” Sebastian said in a steely tone, “you’ll act like adults or you’ll be ousted from this conclave like children.”

  There were rustles of fabric around the room as everyone looked at their compatriots and she could see from their expressions that they apparently decided it wasn’t worth it to keep insulting Ciardis like they stood in the midst of a taproom.

  She straightened her shoulders and tried to look as unintimidated as she could. But from the dark and disgusted looks directed at her, she wasn’t so sure she succeeded.

  Thanar, however, had no problem making his frustrations known.

  He stepped forward and magic seeped into the air. Dark magic that moved like shadows, forming into cloud funnels that reached with lightning quickness for the faces of the individuals surrounding him.

  They all jumped back and fell over each other to avoid his dark touch.

  Even the soldiers had to hastily sheathe their swords to avoid spearing an individual tumbling toward them by mi
stake.

  Ciardis couldn’t see the look on Thanar’s face as he came up to stand directly behind her and put protective hands on her shoulders, but she caught the looks on the faces of the individuals whose eyes he met.

  They all fell back in line after that.

  She glanced out of the corner of her eye to see how Sebastian was taking Thanar as the enforcer instead of himself.

  But if the prince heir had any misgivings about Thanar’s use of magic to cow the angry crowd, he kept that to himself.

  A moment later he reached out to her mind-to-mind. This is exactly what I need. I’m holding on to power with a tenuous grip right now, and to be seen arguing with my subordinates would not…be wise.

  Ciardis wanted to say more, but there was no time.

  Outwardly Sebastian said, “We’re calling this meeting to order. As the triumvirate that killed the sitting Emperor of Algardis, I have many claims to make known. The first should come as no surprise, I was present when it happened and I can say with no little relief that the Emperor’s death was a necessity which needed to be done.”

  There was a tense pause in the room as Sebastian continued, “I validate the actions which forced the former Emperor’s death.”

  “And the second?” said a voice from the far back of the room.

  Sebastian gave a grim smile. “He was family but the late Emperor wasn’t who you thought he was. He wasn’t who I thought he was. He was my uncle and an imposter who was doing everything he could to set the empire back in time a century or more as he consolidated power.”

  Shocked cries echoed throughout the room.

  3

  Ciardis heard more than one shout of “Impossible!” before Sebastian waved his hand and the outcry died off once more.

  Somberly Sebastian continued on. “It is true. My father, Emperor Bastien—first of his name—was unlawfully stripped of his title and his reign.”

  “Where? How?” said one lone voice—a female.

  Ciardis carefully watched faces and saw who was truly shocked. Who looked fearful. And who didn’t look surprised at all. She filed those mental notes away. Whether they had had any involvement with Bastien’s disappearance remained to be seen. But a knowledgeable conclave member could make a formidable ally or a powerful adversary, and at the moment, Sebastian needed the former to survive his first forays into his reign. They all did.

  “How?” rumbled an older gentleman, repeating the woman’s quandary from before.

  Sebastian’s eyes shuttered as he said with the least amount of emotion he could, “Subterfuge. Subterfuge and deceit, which we all know this court thrives on.”

  Mutters resounded but no one denied it.

  He raised his voice and continued with, “Deceit and power plays are our bread and butter in the court of Sandrin. We all know it. Those of us who’ve grown up here, lived here for decades, have weaned ourselves on it over the years. But now is the time to come together. To do something even my father’s transgresser could not—unite in the face of true evil.”

  There were murmurs throughout the room.

  A man banged his hand on the table. To get attention or to emphasize his point, Ciardis wasn’t sure.

  “You’ve yet to say who took his place, boy,” the older gentleman grunted out.

  Ciardis almost shot him full of lightning just for that comment. Accidently for sure, but still.

  Before she could, however, he continued on in a scathing tone, “And if he was a fraud, how can we know that you are not the same?”

  Ciardis didn’t even bother to look away to catch the temperament of the room. Her eyes were stuck on the exchange as much as the next person, although she did hear the shuffling of feet toward the door. Apparently some conclave members were getting ready to run.

  Smart of them, she thought—considering just how fraught with battles, magical and physical, the court of Sandrin had become lately.

  She, however, shifted over and felt deep down for her magic. Ready for anything.

  Sebastian, however, didn’t need her protection. He didn’t back down.

  “No, I didn’t, milord. As the rightful heir regardless of who inhabited this throne, I’ll let you in on a little secret—I don’t need your permission to rule,” the young man standing by her side with the eyes of the room pinned on him said.

  There was tense silence in the room.

  The man punted back a response with a fierce look. “Prove your worth. Prove that you are the true blood heir of Algardis, and I, and my allies, will follow you to the ends of the earth. Prove it or stand down now.”

  Ciardis’s stomach flipped. She wanted to say something but she had the feeling this was the absolute wrong time to speak up.

  And you’d be right, the daemoni prince whispered in her mind.

  How so? Ciardis questioned back in a tense voice.

  After a quick moment of silence, Thanar said, That man holds the military power and enough stockpiled arms to outfit half the northern lands. He is well known, not inside the imperial courts, but outside as a force to be reckoned with.

  He’s powerful, Ciardis whispered back.

  He’s powerful, Thanar agreed. And where he goes, the rest will follow.

  The prince heir let out a small mocking laugh.

  “Since I was a child these courts have underestimated me, milords and miladies,” Sebastian said in a scathing tone. “I have withstood assassination attempts on my life and my character. When no one stood by me, I stood apart.”

  No one said a word.

  “Now, today,” Sebastian continued with growing confidence, “I stand before you as the rightful ruler. Not because of trial by combat, but because the throne has always been mine. Stripped from my father’s grip by a despotic sibling, and yet that same head of the empire could not do the one thing all rulers of Algardis are called upon to do—heal the land. I could. I did.”

  There were murmurs this time. Small voices of confirmation.

  Then another man spoke up. “What the prince heir says is true. Too long has the magic of my lands gone wild and the crops gone fallow. What should have been adjusted and measured magically was amiss for years and years. And now…in a single year’s time I’ve seen a change, the likes of which many people on my land can only recognize by going back to the time of the prince heir’s grandfather—the Emperor Cymus himself.”

  Sebastian nodded and said in a ringing voice, “You want proof, you have it. It’s in the acknowledgment of the land that sings in my blood. It’s in the crops that are blooming in your fields. It’s in the roads and clearings that once more have a feeling of safety about them. It’s in the very air you breathe.”

  He fell silent and no one spoke. It was left to Sebastian to stand tall at the head of the table.

  And they waited.

  The room felt as if all the air had been let out at once.

  There was silence.

  Blessed silence. But also uncertainty.

  Would they follow the prince heir as the new Emperor? Would they stand for a man who all too recently they had ridiculed as a boy?

  An ineffectual one at that, Thanar said in a sarcastic tone in her thoughts.

  Hush, Ciardis admonished as she looked around the table at the hard-thinking nobles. She could read the expressions on some of their faces, and didn’t like what she found on those. For the individuals with skills to lock their feelings away until an opportune time arose…well, the less said about them, the better. They were more likely to decide to murder the prince heir than bend the knee to him.

  No, they won’t, said the prince heir.

  Ciardis fought the urge to reposition herself into a more defensible corner. She couldn’t; they had to appear strong. United. Unbowed.

  Besides…Thanar was still standing directly behind her with his grip firm on her shoulders. Moving him was like moving a brick wall. Impossible unless he deigned to allow her to.

  Which she could tell from the firmness of his stance that he didn�
��t intend to do that.

  She grimaced internally and thought about kicking the daemoni in the shin.

  She was all for heroism, but getting stabbed by a dozen daggers in the bowels of the palace wasn’t exactly how she planned to die.

  Instead of accosting Thanar, she sent a tersely worded reply to Sebastian’s mind: I’d love to know why not.

  Sebastian obviously heard the rancor in her tone, as he replied with some amusement, Because they need me. More importantly, they need my blood.

  Ciardis’s shoulders started to relax under the pressure of Thanar’s grip. Go on, she encouraged the prince heir softly.

  My uncle is dead. So is my grandfather. My father is either dead or disabled, and my aunt has long since passed, courtesy of you, Sebastian said.

  I didn’t do that. At least not all of them, Ciardis started to say in an outraged voice, but then she remembered. Oh, right, I did.

  Sebastian snorted in her head. That’s right. So if they want the union between the land, the Landwight, and my bloodline to continue to bring prosperity to Algardis, they need me.

  Ciardis let a hint of a small frown cross her face. Something about the way he’d said that irked her. Something that was important.

  4

  Before she could organize her thought process, though, a gruff voice cleared its throat behind her and a large fox-creature stepped forward. Upright on two legs with a narrow snout, large bushy tail, and a brilliant dusky orange coat, this was a kith who could not hide its nature.

  Ciardis couldn’t help but flashing back on her friend, Christian of the famed koreische, a race of kith which appeared human until its powers were called upon. But unlike him or even Thanar, who at least had the option of being almost human except for his very large wings and the intense expression of darkness in his eyes when you stood close enough to him, this foxlike creature couldn’t or wouldn’t hide what it was.

  “I speak for the voices of the displaced kith,” the foxlike creature said in a grave tone.