Sworn To Transfer

she never showed.”

“If this is what you say it is, the duchess wouldn’t have just given the locket to Ciardis,” Stephanie pointed out.

“She would if she thought she couldn’t open it by any other means,” he said. “After your mother was accused of crimes against the throne that same night, she disappeared...”

He never got to finish his sentence. A resounding boom echoed in the room. The walls of the room shattered and they were all thrown off of their feet.

Chapter 11

Minutes later Ciardis was struggling to remember where she was. Her ears were ringing, her head pounding, and her whole body felt like it had been run over by a horse at full gallop. Pushing herself up on her hands and knees, she felt wooden shards and glass under her hands. The minstrel, who’d been closest to the outer wall, was unconscious on the floor. She was shocked to see a piece of glass the size of her arm sticking out of his shoulder with blood quickly pooling beneath.

Before she could go to him, a voice stopped her. “If you want him to live, you’ll leave him there.” The duchess of Carne stood in the wreckage of the outer wall which had been blown apart. Her silver hair glinting in the moonlight as she smiled and said gently, “And you’ll come with me, Ciardis Weathervane.”

Her head still fuzzy, Ciardis tried to reason out in her head where the woman had come from. The wall was gone, shattered, and in its place stood the duchess. Frowning, Ciardis took in the two guards behind her. One with his hand on the duchess of Carne’s shoulders; an impropriety that usually would not be tolerated. Usually. Ciardis wondered if he had his hand on the duchess to pull her back to safety if necessary. But that couldn’t be the case. There was nothing but open air behind them, where the hole in the wall was.

Blinking Ciardis opened her mage sight and saw that man was glowing. He had some kind of power. It wasn’t the huge glow of a full mage, but it was sizeable enough to get what he needed done.

“I do not have all night,” the duchess snapped. “Take my hand and we’ll be transported back to the palace grounds by my guard. You have my word.”

Ciardis eyed the duchess but couldn’t see a hint of magic on her body. She wasn’t planning on anything nefarious with magic anyway.  At this point it didn’t look like Ciardis had much of a choice.

Ciardis didn’t see Stephanie. Where was she? Abruptly she noticed that half of the wall had come down where the girl had been standing. Was she alive or was she dead?

“Be a good girl and come along,” the duchess said with impatience. “I don’t know how long that minstrel will survive bleeding like that. The sooner we leave, the sooner the healers can arrive.”

Ciardis had the knife up her sleeve. She was contemplating using it, stabbing the duchess and making a run for it. And then the lighter in her pocket lit up with heat against her thigh. Not enough to burn her, but enough to give her caution and hope. Perhaps Stephanie was alive.

Relying on Stephanie wasn’t Ciardis’s preferred option, but then again the duchess might know more about her mother’s last night at court. Then again, she might just try to kill her.

Reluctantly, Ciardis took the duchess’s offered hand. “Good girl.”

And then they were gone.

*****

Kicking off the portion of fallen wall that covered her, Stephanie picked herself up off the floor. Quickly she went over to the minstrel and felt for a pulse. The duchess had been right: He was alive, but barely. The blood was beginning to pool beneath his body and the only thing stopping it from becoming a torrent was the very thing that caused the wound. The glass was preventing more than a trickle from escaping. Which meant Stephanie couldn’t remove it and tend to the wound herself. She had medical training, but not enough to stop the blood flow and heal the wound at the same time.

Her hearing tuned for any movement, she heard what she assumed were tavern patrons beginning to clear the fallen debris from behind the door. When she looked up she saw structural damage to the roof, which would have caused the beams and walls to fall all around them. It would take the rescuers some time to get inside the room, but hopefully they were fast enough to save this man’s life. There was nothing more she could do here. She had to go after that idiot girl.

Stopping quickly for a resupply of weapons in her apartment she left a note for Christian telling him were she’d gone and why. She hoped she’d be on time. Otherwise she feared Ciardis would disappear just like her mother did so many years ago, only this time she would be dead.

Ciardis, the duchess, and her guards reappeared in the court gardens not far from Swan Lake. She snatched the locket from Ciardis’s hands immediately.

“Now,” said the duchess leisurely while holding up the locket, “why don’t we see about destroying this locket, shall we?”

Ciardis stared at her mouth agape.

“Why keep it all these years? Why didn’t you destroy it before?”

The duchess almost snorted. Magic was a fickle thing and objects imbued with residual magic in particular were hard to handle. Walking around Ciardis in circle, she wondered not for the first time if the girl truly was as smart as her mother. And who was her father?

Perhaps I’ll find out tonight. Before she dies.

“If you can keep something close to you, it’s better than losing it forever, or having it fall into enemy hands; it might be useful one day ,” she replied.

“By that logic, you should be keeping snakes.”

The duchess was no longer amused. “You and I are going to destroy this locket together. You see, my dear, since you inherited it and your mother is dead, that means you can destroy it.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because you don’t want to die.”

“It sounds like you want to kill me anyway.”

The duchess gave her a cold smile. “Perhaps I could use someone with your...talents.”

*****

Uneasily Ciardis thought, Over my dead body.

Suddenly Ciardis felt a sharp slice in the palm of her hand. She held it up to see a deep cut in her palm with blood already welling up in the wound and flowing off of her hand into the grass. She looked around, but there was no one else near her. Just the duchess. Her guards stood five feet back, at attention. The duchess smiled cruelly, “Now you see.”

Ciardis stared in confusion. She could see a dark hint of mage power radiating from the duchess now. But she’d checked her at The Blue Duck Inn. She couldn’t suddenly just have magical talents.

The duchess laughed with mirth as she read the shocked look on Ciardis’s face. “No one has shown you how to hide a magical signature, I suppose? Ah well, now you know.”

Neither of the duchess’s hands moved but just as suddenly there was a long cut on her cheek. Ciardis brought trembling fingers up to her face as she backed away swiftly. The duchess didn’t move and the attacks kept coming. Along her back a long slice appeared, and then a shallow cut on her thigh, and another cut on her arms. And then they grew too numerous to count – cut after cut appearing without end. Ciardis fell to the ground, dizzy with blood loss. The duchess sauntered up and knelt down in front of the severely bleeding girl.

She traced a light finger over the wound on her cheek, smearing the blood. The delight on her face could have frozen Hell.

“I told you, Ciardis, you have to be wary at court,” she cooed.

As the duchess moved her finger back across the wound, Ciardis felt her flesh knit back together and the pain from that one scar ebb away.

“Just as I can give pain, Ciardis, I can take it away,” she said gently.

She sat on the ground beside the shuddering girl. “Now, why don’t we see about destroying that