Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (19 page)

Ciardis said, “Then I will do my best to help you in that journey. But first, what can I do now? What would ease your aches and relieve your torment?”

Christian said, “It is enough to know that you would try.”

She was abuzz with thoughts for a moment as they shared a companionable silence.

“And the hot tea is good for my bones. I’m like an old man that way,” he said, flashing a devastating grin.

She smiled, but it wasn’t the same. She knew he had the power of a
koreschie
now. And what was more, she couldn’t look at him still without remembering the deathly visage of his transparent skin and glowing sapphire eyes.

Coughing the healer interrupted them politely from across the room. He didn’t dare come closer. “I’ve done all I can with these patients. Would-would you like me to care for the satyr?”

Christian turned a dark gaze on the satyr who lay shuddering on a chaise in the corner. Thomas was covered by a blanket up to his neck, but not out of any concern for his ailments. It had been done to spare their eyes from the rotting of his body before them.

“No,” he said. “We’ll take care of the satyr ourselves.”

The healer nodded and motioned for his assistant to gather their things. They left quickly with a heavy purse of gold from the lord of the manor as payment for their speedy service. Lillian came forward from where she had been speaking quietly with the dazed but awake Vana. “How long does he have to live?”

“It’s not precise but less than an hour—no more,” said Christian as he joined her.

They all stood in a semi-circle around Thomas.

Thanar hobbled up, his wings drooping in pain, but his prideful gaze made them hold back their comments.

Without pause he leaned over Thomas and blew a small breath in the satyr’s face. The pain of the forced air upon the pustules on his sensitive skin was apparent immediately. He surged awake with a gasp and tried to shrink back into the chaise instinctively.

“Wakey, wakey,” said the daemoni prince with an ice-cold look.

“Thomas, we have questions for you,” said Sebastian, “and you
will
answer them. Because we can do this one of two ways. The first: You answer our questions promptly and thoroughly and you’ll die a painful, disease-ridden death within twenty minutes. We won’t leave you to suffer beyond that point. The second: You stonewall us and you die in agony with daggers in your thighs and screaming to your gods to relieve your suffering up until the last second of your miserable life.”

Ciardis turned to the prince heir in partial astonishment, somewhat impressed that he had come up with such an inventive torture and somewhat mystified as why his demeanor was so dark so suddenly.

“Sounds like two very good options,” purred Vana as she twirled a dagger in an unsteady hand.

“And before you make your decision, satyr,” she continued, “know that the effects of that poison you forced down my throat still linger. I can’t be too sure that my daggers won’t slip into some muscles with painful pressure points. Or underneath fingertips for testing. Or carve off the skin around the horns on your face. Any of those things are possible. Are you sure you want to test me?”

Shuddering for breath, in delirium from pain, and surrounded by enemies, Thomas had no choice. He knew he was dying; Ciardis could see it in his eyes. The only question was how he wanted to die. Slow and torturous or quick and painful?

“What do you want to know?” the orange-eyed
kith
said.

Thanar leaned over with a satisfied smile until they were face-to-face once more. “Who hired you?”

Thomas’s eyes shifted from person to person until he settled on Prince Heir Sebastian’s face. “The first was his aunt. She contacted me through a mercenary wrangler a year ago. Don’t-don’t remember the man’s name. He said he had a client, a wealthy one, who was looking for a mage with special gifts. The gift to beguile any beast—
kith
or human. He knew of my reputation and he set me up with her for a fee.”

“Why?” Sebastian demanded. “Why did she want you?”

Thomas licked his cracked lips. Unfortunately the tension on the dry skin burst a blister, allowing pus and blood to stream in his mouth. Half of their circle reared back in disgust and the other half leaned forward in rabid attention.

“She said she had a job for me. I told her I had my price,” he said, his words speeding up as he spoke. Ciardis knew that he just wanted it to be over with—the quicker he told his tale, the quicker that he could die.

“And what was that price?” said Vana.

A smirk flashed across Thomas’s face. “A dragon. I told her I wanted a dragon.”

Disbelief crossed Ciardis’s face.

“A dragon?” said Ciardis incredulously.

He turned his orange eyes to her. “They’re worth their weight in gems and not only that – their magic is powerful. If I could conquer one, have it act as a slave to my commands, I could have anything I wanted.”

“What makes you think it wouldn’t have snapped its jaws and eaten you whole?” Caemon asked.

An expression of indignation crossed the satyr’s pain-filled face. “A
baby
dragon. I didn’t think she could do it. I had more than enough gold. I told her that was my price. She accepted.”

“And then?” demanded Thanar.

Thomas’s eyelids hooded his eyes, “And then we went to the Ameles Forest. She had a pet that she wanted freed...with reservations. My task was to implant insurmountable instructions in its brain. Instructions that it would follow through without fail.”

He coughed again, this time so hard that bright red blood spewed from his mouth and stained the blanket underneath his chin. “You know what that noble bitch did once I did what she asked?”

They all looked at him silently. He smiled, a gruesome smile with pointed teeth reddened by his own coughed up blood. “She gave me a freaking under-dragon. Bestial idiots that are the very bottom of the dragon race. The thing wasn’t even a mage. And you know what she told me then? ‘
You asked for a dragon. Now begone.’”

As useful as his story was, the tale of the beast of the princess heir left shivers running down Ciardis’s spine. In particular, the casualness with which she had fostered off the deadly beast that had nearly killed them the night before. If she had given Thomas an under-dragon as payment, what had she kept for her own purposes?

My thoughts exactly
, whispered Sebastian through their mind link.

Whatever it was, it can’t be good,
she thought to Sebastian.

I’m more worried about what she has her beast doing
, Sebastian said with dark hints in his mind.

Sebastian asked Thomas, “What were the instructions?”

Thomas looked at him in amusement as the coughs wracked him again. Thirty-five minutes had already passed. He would die soon even if they drew this out. “Don’t you want to know who ordered me to attack you in the ballroom? Because it wasn’t the princess heir.”

“Listen here, you insignificant worm,” said Lillian Weathervane, “you will tell us everything, and you will tell us all of it
now
. Stop your games.”

“Or what?” said the satyr. “You’ll kill me? Already done.”

Fine time for the dying satyr to grow a backbone
, thought Ciardis.

Fortunately Vana was skilled at turning obstinate prisoners into willful confessors. She started with his left cloven hoof. After she had picked apart the seam and driven her dagger up the shaft of his hoof for the third time he became a lot more talkative.

“To destroy the city to the west,” he said fretfully. “On the night of the harvest moon. The beast will emerge and bring death to all those who call the city of Kifar home.”

“Why?” demanded Sebastian.

“I don’t know why,” shouted Thomas. “Truly, I don’t. I was just ordered to give it the instructions.”

“The harvest moon was a year ago,” said Caemon thoughtfully.

“You would dare lie to us?” growled Thanar.

“No, no!” said Thomas anxiously as he watched Vana’s dagger in hand.

“It was to attack on the harvest moon nine months after being freed from the cage in the center of the Ameles Forest,” he sniffed, “on the fifteenth anniversary of the emperor’s rule.”

“But the creature was released over half a year ago. The cage was empty when we arrived in the forest,” said Vana.

“And it waits still for the time to pass and the anniversary to arrive,” said Thomas. “Until its task is ready to be completed, it will roost. Where, I know not. But it waits for the harvest moon.”

“That’s in three weeks,” said Lillian.

“And the attacks against us?” Ciardis slowly. “If the princess heir was dead, then who gave you your orders in Sandrin to target our people in the ballroom and here at the manor?”

“Funny story, that,” said Thomas through painful breaths.

“Tell us you don’t know again and I’ll flay the skin off your hand,” said Vana.

“No, I
know
,” said Thomas. “I was offered a contract through that damned mercenary again. I complained to him—no, Shiv, that was his name—that I hadn’t received proper payment for my last job. What in the world was I going to do with an under-dragon anyway? The stupid thing was useless except for eating and sleeping.”

“And?” prodded Caemon.

Thomas shifted. “He said he had just the job. A wealthy duke wanted all of you dead. I thought I might as well use the under-dragon to complete the mission. Useless beast was eating me out of house and home. But first I had to force you all into one place or kill some of the fiercest protectors. I chose the frost giant and the soldier. I thought I lost that bid when they both survived, but it worked. You all went to the manor and even took me with you. Idiots.”

His voice was practical. He had nothing to lose by admitting the rouse now.

“The duke was part of some shadow group or other. He wanted revenge for his wife being forced to trial, which is funny because his group wants her dead anyway.” Thomas said as an afterthought, “Overheard his man chattering about that last part.”

“The duke of Carne,” whispered Ciardis in horror.

“Did you communicate directly with the duke?”

“No, I told you I talked to the mercenary called Shiv,” said Thomas. “After a while I started communicating directly with the duke’s man. Exchanged letters the whole time. I never knew who he was until his valet got drunk and mouthy one night.”

“I was supposed to use the under-dragon to kill you all in a messy scene that could never be traced back to him,” he continued bitterly, “but no one told me a real dragon would be there to get in my way.”

Lillian looked at her daughter while Ciardis put a hand over her eyes, “Wait—the same duke whose wife you had indicted for attempted murder?”

“Yes,” muttered Ciardis abjectly. “But I was only with her to find out more about
you
. She said she was your friend and knew about the locket from the minstrel and—”

Lillian stiffened and interrupted in a harsh tone, “My friend? Wait, slow down. There were a lot of things going on that day I found you in the magistrate’s court with Christian and Stephanie. And I don’t remember everything. You were there because this woman made an attempt on your life?”

Ciardis nodded.

“And this duchess said she knew me?” Lillian clarified.

Sebastian said, “Yes, the duchess of Carne.”

Lillian narrowed her eyes and Ciardis wondered why her mother wasn’t aware of the duchess’s ties to her already. If she had been at court this whole time masquerading as Serena, she should have known.
Or was she really somewhere else?
she thought, and she realized she really didn’t know if Lillian Weathervane had been present at court this whole time. In fact, the first time she had met her mother, who was in disguise as Lady Serena at the time, she had been traveling the roads of the northern communities under the orders of her patron. Whom Ciardis had also never met.

Impatiently, Lillian said, “Who is the duchess of Carne?”

The satyr reclining below them cackled, startling them all.

Lillian turned a fearsome expression on him and he quickly shut up laughing and spoke, “Leah. Leah of Carne, previously known as Leah Whitesmith.”

Lillian turned a sickly color, as if an apparition had risen before her. “She must have married again, because when I knew her she wasn’t the Duchess of Carne.”

Christian, who had been silent this whole time, said, “Ten minutes.”

Ciardis realized he was telling them how long they had until his poison did its work, ending the satyr’s life.

Vana said abruptly, “Fine—we’ll question the duke of Carne about the attack.”

“Do you know anything more about the princess heir?” Ciardis asked Thomas.

Thomas’s beady eyes moved back and forth frantically as his throat began to close and pustules underneath his skin began to swell. “I’ve told you everything I know! Help me!”

He meant for them to help him to die a noble death. No one wanted to die by asphyxiation if they could help it. It would become harder and harder to breath until your throat closed up, preventing air from reaching your lungs, then the blood vessels in your eyes would burst, and finally your body would shut down from lack of air.

It was a horrible way to die.

Christian said, “There’s nothing we can do to prevent it. Sometimes pustules get under the skin. It happens.”

“What else do you know?” Thanar barked into the satyr’s face. But Thomas’s throat had already closed. As they watched, his eyes rolled back in his head. He couldn’t breathe. His hands twitched and banged against his sides. A metal clank rang out from inside the vest.

As Thomas gasped his last breath, Christian reached over to feel at the vest on the dying satyr’s side. He discovered a lumpy object. “Open his vest.”

Quickly Sebastian did as he was commanded.

Once the garment was open, Christian reached inside and pulled out a round oval object the size of his palm. Although it was worn with scratches, it still gleamed a metallic silver. An inscription at the base read, “Property of Her Imperial Highness Marissa Athanos Algardis.”