Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (22 page)

“Of course you do,” said Terris smugly.

Then an impatient squawk interrupted their conversation. Terris cooed at something off screen and then a griffin kit impatiently pushed its way into her robed lap.

“Wow,” Ciardis said. “They’ve certainly gotten bigger.”

The golden griffin was butting at Terris’s free hand, which she obliging shifted to scratch its tufted ears as its long and feathered tail twitched back and forth in enjoyment.

“Can they talk yet?”

“Not yet,” Terris said. “He’ll be talking soon enough, though. It takes griffin kits about eight months to learn human sounds, and then they develop the ability to mentally speak with beasts outside of their race a year after that.”

Ciardis nodded as she eyed the golden griffin.

“I’m glad you stayed to care for them,” she said softly, “Sometimes we need that in our lives. The innocent. The uncomplicated. The soft and cuddly.”

Terris gave her a small and understanding smile, “Especially after what we went through with that Shadowwalker and that blasted wendigo. Did I ever tell you it landed on top of me? It was when we went after Barren and the Shadowwalker kidnapped you. Grossest thing ever having its slime dripping down my back while I knew it was seconds from piercing my neck with those disgusting, razor-like teeth.”

Ciardis grimaced. “You went through a lot for me. I wouldn’t trivialize it.”

Terris scoffed and waved her mirror-free hand, which the baby griffin promptly protested with a high-shrieked bark. She returned to petting its head.

“I went through a lot for myself – to grow, to learn and most of all because I believed in what we were doing,” Terris said.

Ciardis nodded.

Terris waved her hand impatiently, “Now you know I would do anything for you. Anything. So spill.”

“The mirror in your hand and the sketch of the Kifar beast. We need both here in Sandrin within three days. And it’s not just that. We aren’t the only ones seeking information on the princess heir—either to destroy it or use it. We’re not sure yet. We’ve already been attacked twice. You have to travel fast, travel light, and trust only those you know.”

Meres and Terris exchanged a glance. They both nodded grimly.

Terris laughed. “Like I said. It’s never easy with you. So how’s Vana?”

“Always into trouble. Your mentor has a dark side. A very dark one.”

“No kidding,” Terris quipped.

For a minute all was silent. They looked at each other. Memorized each other’s faces. Noticed new features and smiled sadly. They had grown so much since their first days as companion trainees in the halls of the infamous guild. Then their moment was broken. A second griffin baby had decided that the golden one in Terris’s lap was getting more than enough attention. He reared up and bit Terris’s left hand. Not hard enough to break the skin, but certainly hard of enough for her to startle and cry out as she dropped the mirror from the wounded fingers.

As it fell to the ground, Ciardis winced, expecting it to shatter into a million pieces on the hard wooden floor. But it didn’t shatter and the connection didn’t falter. Terris and Meres’s frantic faces appeared side-by-side above the mirror, Terris’s left hand clutched to her mouth in horror.

She dropped the hand and exhaled in a long sigh of relief as she said, “Thank the gods. The thick blankets on the floor broke the fall.”

But Ciardis wasn’t paying Terris’s words the least bit of attention. Her gaze was focused with eagle-sharp vision on Terris’s now visible left hand.

Ciardis’s mouth dropped open. “
Terris Tatiana Kithwalker
, is that a ring on your finger?!”

Terris grinned sheepishly. “Um, yeah.”

Terris and Meres looked at each other and then back at their audience.

“We’re married,” they said quietly. Ciardis heard trepidation in both of their voices.

She processed that. She wanted to leap to reassure her close friend and the man she trusted that she approved of their union. But she couldn’t. Besides, her eye was twitching.

“And when did this happen?” Ciardis spluttered as she sat back, flummoxed.

Terris and Meres looked at each other as she said, “Recently. After caring for the kits and being paired together after the Panen people discovered how similar our gifts were. I started rehabilitating the survivors of the Shadowwalker’s attacks and Lord Meres came with me to assist. We truly belong together, Ciardis. I know that.”

“Well then, what else can I say than that I’m happy for you? I am. I truly am,” she said while looking back and forth between them.

Terris laughed. “I’m so relieved. I was kind of scared for a moment. There’s so much I need to tell you. About Meres’s powers. About mine. But what do I want to tell you most? That he is perfect for me.”

Meres smiled at his wife and took her hand.

Ciardis nodded. “Then that’s all I need to know.”

Terris gave her a grateful smile.

Sebastian said, “Congratulations to the both of you. I’m sure we’ll hear more when you arrive. Lord Kinsight, you’ll have to direct your troops to station themselves in Lineaus for proper documentation and entrance to the city. But from there it should be easy for you to get a small group of loyal men into Sandrin.”

“Of course, sire!” Meres said respectfully. Never mind the fact that Sebastian was five years younger than him. Meres Kinsight was still his vassal and Sebastian his liege lord.

Ciardis set the mirror down and it faded to grey.

T
hanar returned a few minutes later.

She turned around as Sebastian greeted him at the door. “What was it?”

“Nothing,” said Thanar with a shrug of his winged shoulders.

“Nothing?” replied Sebastian in a dubious tone.

“A couple of servants came back.”

“And that’s it?”

“Isn’t that what I said?” The edge in his voice could be heard from where Ciardis sat.

It made her even less inclined to believe a word he said, but they didn’t have time to play
Three Questions
with Thanar. The brisk sound of knocking and the front door being opened came. Vana, Caemon, and the lord chamberlain walked upstairs one after the other in short order.

“It’s lifted,” Vana said shortly, taking a drink of ice water from the offerings the servants had put out for them.

“Good,” said Lillian. When Ciardis glared at her mother, she retroactively added, “Thank you, Lady Vana.”

Surprised, Vana looked over with a raised eyebrow. Lillian might not be Serena anymore, but she still acted like her sometimes—conceited, spoiled, and entirely ungrateful. And besides, her reluctance was written in every word. When she saw Lillian’s daughter beaming over at her, Vana lowered the brow and took a long swig of water as if she wished it were whiskey and she was in a bar drinking her sorrows away. That, or she wished she’d garroted Lillian when she’d first had the chance.

“What now?” said Caemon as he, too, grabbed a glass.

“We go to the imperial court,” said Lillian. “We find out about the trial of the duchess of Carne, if the duke was really behind these attacks, and who among the Shadow Council supported him, if so.”

“But
your
trial is in just two days,” protested Ciardis. “Shouldn’t we be doing things in preparation for that?”

“Like assessing allies and enemies?” snapped Lillian. She had a fair point. If they went to court they could find the motivation behind the attacks as well as who would back their mother in her case before the imperial tribunal, and who would try to undermine her, not least of which would be the duchess of Carne. But Ciardis was more worried about the emperor’s tasks and proving her mother innocent of the crimes charged, than building allies at the moment. Both of which were more immediate problems in her mind’s eye.

Unfortunately what Lillian wanted, Lillian got. And what Lillian didn’t want right now, or seemingly ever, was to talk about the former empress’s death. As she swept out of the room to get ready to go to court, she whispered something in her son’s ear. Ciardis strained to hear but was unable to make out the words. But from her twin’s facial expression, it wasn’t good.

Sebastian came up to her and intertwined his fingers in hers. “It’ll be all right. One thing at a time.”

“We haven’t even discussed the regicide case,” Ciardis pointed out in frustration. “We don’t know what evidence the courts have, who will testify against her, or even how the empress died.”

“I might be able to help with that,” said the lord chamberlain. In his hands he held a thick binder full of loose pages, pamphlets, and drawings. He set the dusty tome down onto the table with a
thump
that raised dust in their faces.

“What is that?” said Ciardis.

“Courtesy of the magistrate courts,” said the lord chamberlain. “Three days late and highly disorganized, but here is everything that will be brought to bear against your mother as evidence of her crimes.”

Sebastian nodded as he said, “The magistrates are required by imperial law to provide all documentation of their prosecution before the trial. But the law doesn’t state by when. It’s usually up to the defense to demand the documents ahead of time if they want to see any evidence before they walk through the courtroom doors.”

“Which is exactly why so many people go to trial with incompetent defenses and end up in shackles unable to defend their positions,” said Vana dryly from where she leaned on hardwood-paneled walls.

Ciardis grabbed the dusty tome with a cough and eased it over. As she opened the dark vellum pages, drawings fell out. As one fluttered to the floor, she picked it up. She looked at it and saw a beautiful dusky-skinned young woman with voluminous curls down to her waist. She wore a loose empire-waist gown of shell pink with pearls embroidered in the seams. A shawl was loosely draped about her elbows as she relaxed on a blanket in the sun in the height of fashion for her day.

The lord chamberlain looked over Ciardis’s shoulder at the image. “Your mother. Ever the belle of the ball.”

“I still am,” said Lillian from the doorway, where she had returned suddenly.

Ciardis looked up at her in guilt, as if she had been caught looking at something she shouldn’t have. Lillian walked over and took the drawing gently from her daughter’s hand. She traced a lingering finger over the image’s edge. And then she looked around at the gathered group—her twins, Sebastian, Vana, Thanar, Stephanie and the lord chamberlain.

“I think it’s time I told you all what happened that fateful night in the empress’s chambers.”

She sat down on a couch and beckoned for them all to join and surround her, like a minstrel preparing to sing her tale before a packed house of appreciative visitors. This time she would tell the tale of murder and treachery that had started it all—the hunt for the Lillian Weathervane and the fall of the entire family.

Swallowing gently, she placed the palm of her hand on Ciardis’s cheek with a pained smile. “I think you know some of this, my dear. Remember some of this. But I shall tell it so we all know the idealism of youth, the treachery of court and the pain of losing everything you didn’t know you had.”

“When you were younger, Ciardis, I lived with you in a small village in the very center of the empire,” Lillian said with a sad smile as she let her hand drift down to grip Ciardis’s open hand. “For a short while it was a happy and idyllic time—everything I'd ever dreamed of as a young girl at court. The freedom of living in the countryside, the fresh air, the honest people, and the simple way of life.”

Ciardis squeezed her hand. For the first time, the emotion in Lillian’s voice wasn’t calculated. It was raw.

Lillian paused, closed her eyes briefly, and continued “But frequently I had to run and hide, just ahead of the emperor’s assassins. Fearing for you all the while. I longed to find your brother as well, longed to avenge my friend’s death—the Empress of Algardis—and, above all else, clear our family’s name. But I couldn't do it as I was. It was hard enough to keep us hidden from the imperial patrols with our distinctive heritage. Even harder as you began to grow and desired to venture out to play with children of your own age.”

“And then?” Caemon said, his voice strained.

“And then,” Lillian said with a catch in her voice, “I remembered a tale I had heard long ago from a vendor of fine fur pelts who came to Sandrin occasionally. He had told me of one particular village that was far to the north, that many at court whispered was the most far-flung place on the imperial road.”

Looking to Ciardis, she continued as she bit her lip, “I took you there, to Vaneis. I left you with a young family and paid them to keep you in safety until I returned for you.”

Ciardis frowned and shook her head. “What family? What safety? I was passed around like chattel. Always hungry, always sleeping on dirt floors with threadbare blankets. I would have been better off with you.”

“Trust me—you wouldn’t have,” said Lillian. “I have done things, been places I would never want to subject you to. I did it for you. I did it for Caemon. I did it for the future of this empire.”

Then she turned to Caemon, who stood across from them. She reached out and took his hand as a wary but pained look crossed his face. “But you my son, you never had the chance to know me in childhood. Never had the chance to toddle through the fields of raw wheat with me or have me sing you a lullaby as you fell asleep in your cradle. And I am sorry for that. So, so sorry.”

Lillian’s voice hitched as tears appeared in her eyes. “I will tell you now what drove me to flee. I was young and vain, knowing that I was destined for greatness from birth. And I, as a young woman, reveled in being absolutely as irresponsible as they come. I flirted with dragons, danced with empresses and impoverished dukes overnight. I was a wild child, free of responsibility, free of judgment. So I didn’t care what they whispered about me at court. I didn’t care until I was forced to. Until there was no one I could turn to because my friends were shams more afraid of scandal than justice. But there was one woman I trusted more than any other—the Empress Teresa Athanos Algardis. A few months before her murder, her brother-in-law—the first-born son of Emperor Cymus, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. With the first-born son’s death, her husband and Sebastian’s father, became heir apparent and soon after that—inherited the throne.”