The Paladin Caper (34 page)

“As I recall,” the griffon said, flapping its own wings and driving the manticore back, “it was Master Unstoppable Deferential Fist.”

“Man, Imperials and their names,” Tern muttered. “I mean, Indomitable Courteous Fist is pretty bad, but Unstoppable Deferential Fist is . . . actually . . . synonymous.”

Icy vaulted onto the stage. “Stop this performance.”

“Oh,” Tern said quietly.

Icy strode to the side of the puppeteer’s stage and flung back the curtain. “I asked you to stop this performance.”

The puppets went limp, and the crowd muttered as the puppeteer stepped out.

He was a middle-aged man, balding, wearing the simple dark clothes of a master puppeteer.

He also wore a crimson band on his right arm.

“Confirmed contact, Mister Slant,” the puppeteer said, and his band began chiming in a signal for all to hear as he raised it at Icy.

Naria had sent the guards away, leaving her and Loch alone in the throne room.

She stepped down from the dais. Her rich-orange gown shimmered in the light of the glowlamps, and whatever impractically high-heeled shoes she wore under the garment clicked with each step.

“Come and have a kahva, Isa,” she said, and began walking.

Loch fell into step beside her. Even with the heels, Naria only came up to Loch’s ear. “Are you sure, Naria? You come down from the throne, how am I going to remember that you’re the one in charge?”

Naria didn’t look over. Her crystal lenses wrapped around the sides of her eyes, snaking into the frames that rested over her ears. “I think I preferred it when you called me baroness.”

“I preferred it when you weren’t killing people for the man who killed our parents,” Loch said.

Naria’s pace quickened, little click-click-clicks on the stone coming faster. “I didn’t know.”

“You’re not an idiot, Naria,” Loch said evenly, with no heat. “You didn’t
want
to know.”

Now Naria did look over. Her hair was done in an intricate series of tiny looping braids, and the gems in her tresses tinkled at the fast movement. “When I discovered the truth, I corrected the situation.”

“Corrected it with a knife to Silestin’s throat, as I recall.”

Naria stepped into a hallway, with Loch following. There were still no servants or guards. “If you remember that, you may also remember that my actions then saved your life.”

“And covered your tracks,” Loch added, coming back to Naria’s side, “leaving you free to take over Lochenville as an upstanding citizen.”

“Is that why you’re so angry?” Naria asked, and smiled thinly. Even in mockery, the expression made her lips curve sweetly in a way that always made men want to dance for her. “That I stole the barony that was rightfully yours? Has the barony done poorly under my care, Isa? Are the people suffering?” At Loch’s stony silence, Naria laughed again. “Don’t be shy, Isa. I know that my big sister would have looked at the town as she came in, and Isafesira de Lochenville was
always
ready to pass judgment.”

Loch took a slow breath in through her nose. “You’ve done well.”

Naria raised an eyebrow. “But part of you still believes you could have done better.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Perhaps you’d be baroness today if you hadn’t run off to join the army,” Naria added. “You were so eager to fight. What if you’d fought
here
against the men who killed mother and father and left me alone and blinded? Do you think you might have saved them?” She took the crystal lenses from her face, and Loch saw the ugly scars across her dead white eyes. Naria didn’t stop walking, though. Both she and Loch could walk the manor from memory. “Do you think I might be looking at my sister face-to-face, instead of through this damned magic?”

Loch chuckled, and Naria started, then shoved the lenses back onto her face as she turned a corner. Loch asked, “Does the damsel-in-distress act work for the nobles like it did on all the boys?” Naria glared, possibly the first honest expression Loch had seen on her that day, and Loch added, “After you put a knife in Silestin’s throat, you left me hanging over a mile-long drop with a broken rib. I could’ve used a hand.”

Naria stopped at a large double door. Loch remembered the small sitting room inside, where her father and mother had shared drinks and gossip with old friends. “I knew you’d be fine, Isa. You were always the strong one. You were the fighter, the survivor. The one who could do everything on her own. I’m not like you.”

She gestured politely, and Loch stepped to the doors.

They opened before her. Baron Westteich stood inside, with three black-coated paladins flanking him.

Quietly, Naria said, “I have to make compromises.”

Sixteen

C
APTAIN
T
HELENEA
WAS
sitting in her cabin reading and drinking kahva when she heard the sound of booted feet on the gangplank. They carried the rushed sound of running, and she was up in a flash, one hand casually checking the blade at her hip.

When she opened the door, Irrethelathlialann stood there, his face grim. His blade was drawn, and he watched the sky, not her.

“What happened?” she asked.

He looked back and seemed to catch himself. His pale-green skin was flushed with effort. “Stress reaction resulting in brief hyperawareness and imminent exhaustion,” he said, and she saw the look in his eyes that no human would understand, the way they tracked the light. He had been around crystals, and they had weakened his soul. “Sorry,” he said, and took several deep breaths. “Presence of crystal technology, discomfiting but temporary. New information suggesting identity of those responsible for the attack on the Dragon.”

She cursed quietly. “Who?”

He smiled bitterly, and when he spoke again, his soul had returned, unblemished by the touch of magic. “Your fears were well founded. He was taken down by someone attempting to gain favor with the ancients. Who else knew that you were bringing Loch here?”

Thelenea frowned. “No one, and my crew have flown with me for years.”

“Are you certain?” Irrethelathlialann asked urgently. “Check your messenger spore.”

She was turning to do it, caught by his urgency, when the insult of the command struck her, and she remembered Irrethelathlialann giving commands during the card tournament she had hosted, the grave offense and scandal of it. For one second, she fought the alarm, telling herself that it was because he traveled outside the Elflands so often, that he had lost his way.

Then the alarm took over, years of trusting her instincts, and her hand went to her blade as she turned back to him.

His own blade slid across her throat as she turned.

“I am sorry,” he said, and as she clutched at her throat, he grabbed her shoulder and put the blade through her heart.

The small sitting room held Westteich and three paladins in their black coats. In Loch’s mind, she thought of them as Left, Right, and Center. Center was next to Westteich, Right stood in front of a bookshelf, and Left stood behind a table.

“Isafesira de Lochenville,” Westteich said with a smug smile, “what a pl—”

She came into the room at a run, and the smug paladins fumbled with their bands as she was suddenly in their midst.

She lunged at Westteich with a leap that drove her forearm into his throat and her knee into his crotch and slammed him into the back wall. As he crumpled, she shoved him into Center, sending both men sprawling.

She leaped at Right as he brought his band up to fire, knocking his arm wide. A flare of crimson energy flashed out past her and slammed into Left. She heard him grunt as he hit the far wall.

She had Right’s arm and momentum, and she went for the break, but Right saw it coming and tucked his arm back to take the blow on the forearm. It left him open, and Loch put a fist into his throat, slammed the heel of her palm into his temple, and then smashed his head into the bookshelf as he reeled.

Center was up, band coming up to fire as he shoved Westteich aside, and Loch dove at him and got her left arm up to slap his shot wide. Crimson energy flashed past her, and she thought it hit Left again, but didn’t have time to look, because her desperate lunge had left her off balance. She tossed a jab at Center’s head, but he caught it with a boxer’s guard and countered with a jab that jolted its way down her spine even as she leaned in to take it on the forehead instead of the nose.

As she staggered, he came in with a low right hook that hit with bruising force even as she caught it on her arm, and then a high right that she ducked under. She felt the kick coming and tried to take it on the hip rather than the gut, but it still hit with crushing power that drove her to her knees.

Center’s fists rained down, once, then twice, and Loch kept her guard up against the battering storm, arms high to protect her head. She felt him shift again, saw his knee coming in to smash her face, and this time caught the blow, smothered it, and shoved his leg aside. As he wavered, off balance for an instant, she drove her fist into his crotch.

Center staggered. Loch grabbed his shoulder and hauled down as she punched up. She felt bone under the heel of her palm and heard that little click as his jaw snapped shut from the blow, and Center went down bonelessly as Loch spun.

Left was halfway back to his feet, leaning on the card table. Loch stepped forward and kicked the table, driving it into him and him into the wall. She heard ribs crack and saw his face turn ashen as he hung, pinned to the wall.

She stepped past the table and put him out with a clean blow to the temple.

“See, Westteich,” she said, still breathing hard, to the groaning man, “what you
had
was an ambush, and the thing about ambushing someone is that you don’t
talk to them first
.”

He was on his hands and knees, and it wouldn’t be fair to kick him, but the ancients had bands that shot blasts of energy, and Loch wasn’t entirely sure Westteich
didn’t
have one, so she kicked him once across the jaw to make sure he stayed down.

Then Loch turned back to the hallway.

It was empty, with no sign of Naria.

Loch raised her fists. “Naria, last time you came at me, I took you down and broke your lenses. You want a rematch, take your best shot, but I’m not leaving without that fancy crystal airship you used as First Blade.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, and Loch felt the slow ache in her arms and hip, as well as at the base of her skull where the jab had rattled her.

The air shimmered, and Naria appeared, crouched where she had been standing before.

“You came here for my wing?” Naria smiled bitterly. “Of course you did. You would only show up if you wanted something.”

Loch lowered her fists. “I had dangerous people after me. I didn’t want to bring that home.”

“And then you needed something,” Naria said, “and you did.” She looked at the fallen ancients and Westteich. “They knew you were coming. They threatened me and my people unless I helped them, all because you wanted my wing.”

Loch shook her head. “You’d be a dangerous woman, Naria, if you had the guts to take shots at anyone besides me.”