Sworn To Transfer

courts on its head. This would be a problem if any human became a sarin – they were generally troublesome figures even if powerless. But a Weathervane? It would be catastrophic.”

“And?”

“Do you know what a sarin is? It’s Sahalian for ‘companion,’ but not just any companion. A bond mate and representative of the dragon.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Ciardis said politely. “We just met. Why would she pick me for such an important position?”

“It’s not a position so much as a lifestyle,” he said as he took a second shot of whiskey.

He looked over his shoulder and back down to her, “There’s a chance the dragon will forget. It’s best that you do as well. Nothing good can come of this.”

Ciardis lifted a chin and glared, “I don’t even know what this is. But as long as it’s not going to bite me in the ass I will happily forget about it.”

Staring into his empty glass miserably, the Duke looked like he wanted to get drunk at his own party.

“You know your mother—Lily—was always getting into trouble. Just like you. But when she met a dragon and he tried to claim her even she knew to run,” the duke said in a mumble.

“Wait, sir,” Ciardis said while grasping his forearm urgently. “You said my mother was running from a dragon? When?”

He looked at her and said with a barely concealed bitterness. “Why child...right before she disappeared.”

Ciardis stared at him, uncomprehending, for a moment. It upset her that her mother had been running from something. Running from a dragon even more so.

“Well?” said the slightly drunk duke. Ciardis didn’t reply. She was weighing his words. He might have been a tad drunk, but she heard truth in them. The question was what to do about it. The dragon calling her a sarin could be pushed off as a mistake, but her mother’s disappearance was different. She needed to know more. Why had she truly left the courts?

“I want to know more,” said Ciardis quietly. “I want to know everything about why my mother left court and I want to know now.”

“Then you’re talking with the wrong person,” said the Duchess of Carne. She had quietly entered her husband’s protective shield and stood looking down at Ciardis with a sad smile on her face.

“Come with me, Ciardis Weathervane,” she said. “It’s time someone told you the truth.”

With a backwards glance as she followed the duchess, Ciardis caught sight of Prince Sebastian as he was preparing to leave. She’d have to catch him up on the events pertaining to the Duke of Cinnis another day.

Chapter 8

Miles away on the road to the home of the kith, the Weather Mage was riding at a breakneck pace on a stallion built for long distances. Beside him, astride a horse of similar merit, rode the person the Weather Mage internally referred to as “the Shadow Mage.” Externally whenever he addressed the mage, he called him “Master.” He did it reluctantly. But he had learned swiftly in the few days they’d been together that the man would tolerate nothing less than absolute subservience.

The Weather Mage was a man of pride as most mages were. The Shadow Mage had entrapped his mind with his magic and could control his actions with just a surge of his magic. It was humiliating and frustrating - rankling his pride like a dog with too many fleas. He constantly itched to throw off the yoke that hobbled him and had finally sought to revolt against the Shadow Mage one night. It had not gone well. As punishment the Shadow Mage had his dark, ink-like creatures carve into the skin of the Weather Mage’s back with claws made of shadows. They left his flesh torn and in bloody ruins, causing rivulets of blood to run down and his poor back to feel like it was on fire. After that he’d never talked back—not aloud. He couldn’t help his thoughts, and he suspected the Shadow Mage could hear them. But he never responded to them.

They rode at a hard pace toward the only destination that this road led directly to: the Forest of Ameles. With a shudder the Weather Mage thought of what lay there: inhuman creatures with the powers of mages, creatures that could talk and were sentient. It made him ill to think about it. He had no hope of escaping once there. The creatures would eat him alive if he left the Shadow Mage’s side; after all, every mage knew the number one rule when entering the Forest of Ameles. Safety in numbers.

Sighing, he bit his lip and hoped he could escape before the shadows inside of him erupted again. They were always there. A dark presence that invaded his magic and his mind. Occasionally the Shadow Mage would call upon the shadows to overtake his mind. Once he’d even ordered him asleep when he’d been preparing a spell. He had begged the man not to. When he slept, he was surrounded by the darkness of the shadows in his dreams. He did his best to stay awake at all times now, which was why his eyes still looked bloodshot and his appearance unkempt. Aside from the ungodly hours the Shadow Mage kept, the Weather Mage was afraid—he was afraid to fall asleep, fearing his dreams and fearing what he’d wake up to.

When they were twenty miles from the forest, the Shadow Mage pulled their horses to a stop at a fork in the road. The straight path would get them to the forest in less than a day. The branch off the road led somewhere else. Practically trembling with exhaustion, the Weather Mage lifted his head, pushing back dank hair from his forehead to read the sign on the road ahead. Carved into wood with an arrow pointing east were the words, “Borden Village – ten miles.”

The Shadow Mage threw back the hood that shrouded his face from view. He turned to the Weather Mage with cold glee in his eyes. “It’s time to go home, Marcus.” Those whispered words sent dread down the Weather Mage’s spine.

The Weather Mage licked his dried and cracked lips while apprehension filled him.

“To the Ameles Forest?” he choked out from a parched throat. They’d been riding for hours, and before that the Shadow Mage had kept him locked in a cellar with little substanance.

The Shadow Mage looked to the forest with an odd smile on this face.

“Things have already been set in motion there. Tonight we go to Borden.”

*****

Hours later they reached the village of Borden and dusk had already fallen. The village looked like an ordinary one, with fewer than five hundred souls judging by the number of homes he could see. As children scampered under their horses and mothers shooed them home with admonishments, the Weather Mage felt like shouting, “Go! Run, save your families!” But he knew if he did anything of the sort, he would be worse off in the end. He wouldn’t have minded so much if the Shadow Mage killed him in retribution. But in the time spent with the silent, shrouded figure, he had realized that this wasn’t that type of man. A person who would make it a clean death. The Shadow Mage would torture the Weather Mage first and do it without a shred of regret.

And then the big butcher, his homespun apron of patches and canvas splotched with blood, spotted them. Heaving a big cleaver back to rest on his shoulder, he came out of his small, fly-covered shop.

“Well, I’ll be,” shouted the big butcher. “It’s you. Timmoris! You little scamp. Where ya been?”

Confused, the Weather Mage looked around. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think the butcher was referring to the Shadow Mage in such a congenial manner. As he stared, the Weather Mage noted with apprehension that the shadows on the underside of the buildings, in the shade of trees, and even behind people were moving independently. But none of the villagers seem to notice. Or if they did, they were attributing it to the clouds moving swiftly overhead.

The Weather Mage got down from his horse with a brittle smile.

The butcher let out a robust laugh as he slapped the Shadow Mage on the shoulder, “I knew you’d be back. Couldn’t stray too far from home. Not like your brother, the adventurer. No, not you.”

The man was practically crowing. The Weather Mage realized, in disbelief, that he was mocking the Shadow Mage.

“It’s certainly a pleasure to be back,” said the Shadow Mage quietly.

The only sign that he was upset was the moving shadows that had yet to distance themselves too far from their normal habitats and his glittering eyes.