Sworn To Transfer

locket?”

Ciardis watched as the woman lowered the locket in front of her and picked up her hand, placing it above her own so that their two palms cupped the object.

“Blood of the line? Check!” the duchess said with a girlish grin. “You know, it’s nothing personal. But that locket could undo a lot of work. Work we’ve been doing to ensure this empire returns to its rightful place.”

Ciardis drew in a pain-filled breath. “The Princess Heir is dead. There is no one else to inherit.”

“This isn’t about the throne. It’s about filthy inhuman creatures with the same rights as humans; it’s about mundane people living above their station; it’s about righting wrongs done to the nobility decades ago.”

“Now I need you to will the locket open,” she said in a motherly tone. “Very simple, right?”

Teeth gritted in pain and almost unconscious from the blood loss, Ciardis prepared to do as the duchess asked. There was no alternative.

And then a roar split the skies. Out of the night air dropped a nightmarish form. The duchess lurched up and quickly looked to the sky. Shouting, she called for her guards.

The dragon kept coming.

Her vision going in and out, Ciardis couldn’t help but wonder what the dragon was doing here. It couldn’t be anyone else but Ambassador Sedaris. A rustle sounded off to the side. Stephanie and Christian crept out of the bushes to ease over to Ciardis’s fallen form. The duchess didn’t notice them; she was busy rushing towards her two guards. The dragon landed with swift wings, right between Leah of Carne and her two protectors. That didn’t stop the men from assaulting the dragon.

As Stephanie watched the battle she had to admit those guards had guts. Who stood up to a dragon and thought they would live? A minute later, her answer came. Those guards weren’t just ordinary men—they were mages. One was an Earthcaster and proved it when the ground underneath the dragon began to shake and rumble with a threatening earthquake. The dragon didn’t care too much for his tactics and targeted him.

Crouching next to Stephanie Christian used his healer’s abilities to patch up Ciardis.

Ambassador Sedaris could see magic like the entire Sahalian race. It was why she’d been attracted to the young Weathervane; not only did she have immense potential to enhance others’ magic, but she was also a powerful mage, or least she would be. Seeing the waves of power coming off the the guard who was clearly an earth mage and surmising his intent, she ate him first and followed up with his partner quickly.

When she felt a slice along her underbelly, she roared in fury. Deciding that the duchess deserved worse, far worse than being eaten alive, she transformed into her human form. By this time Ciardis was sitting up with the help of Christian. She watched in wonder as the transformed Sahalian strode across the garden like an avenging angel. When she reached the duchess, she hit her so hard that the woman flew ten feet to land in a crumpled heap before Ciardis, Christian, and Stephanie.

Reaching them, the dragon eyed the duchess with distaste. She put her heeled foot on the duchess’s midsection to keep her pinned and called up liquid fire into the palm of her hand. This wasn’t just any fire – it was everlasting. The fire would burn a person from the inside out over a slow period of time. A nasty remnant of the Initiate Wars and one not many mages could call upon. With a smile, she said, “I think being burned alive will suffice, don’t you?”

“Wait!” shouted Stephanie and Christian.

The dragon looked at all three of them with rage in her eyes.

“Please—we need her.”

“For what? You have the testimony. It’s enough to convict her in absentia.”

“But not the people that are threatening the throne and the empire itself. We need her in order to find and convict them,” said Stephanie.

“We want to use her to flush them out. To end the murders, the deaths and conflict,” Christian said.

“‘We?’” said the dragon coolly.

“The Shadow Council,” Ciardis said from where she stood in-between the two young people. She looked down at the duchess with anger in her eyes.

“They’re still around?” said the dragon with narrowed eyes.

“Fuck,” muttered Christian quietly.

From the woman curled up on the ground in pain came a startled laugh.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the duchess taunted. “With my death, more will take my place in the fight.”

The dragon simply ground her heel into the duchess’s bruised chest and waited for her screams to die down into whimpers.

“She tried to kill you, sarin,” the dragon said, ignoring the squirming woman on the ground. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” replied Ciardis, “and what’s more, so should you. I think she’s been working with the group behind the conflict in the Ameles Forest.”

The dragon looked at the three of them with unreadable eyes. And then she doused the flame.

“Very well,” she said. “Call your gardis.”

When Stephanie and Christian tried to renegotiate and get her to release the duchess to the Shadow Council, she looked at them and said, “No. This is your only chance. Call in your emperor’s men or she dies here and now.”

They spent the next two hours explaining the history of the locket, Ciardis’s mother, and the potential plot between the duchess and the emperor’s son. When the gardis left—saying they would be interviewing all of the duchess’s household, as well—they were exhausted. The dragon just looked irritated. The gardis hadn’t even bothered trying to question the ambassador. The look she leveled at them plus the fact that she had diplomatic immunity said that she would be more trouble than she was worth without a direct order from the emperor.

Citations for Christian, Ciardis, and Stephanie were issued, instructing them to appear in the court of magistrates tomorrow to recount their story before a magistrate, as well. And then they were bid goodnight.

Ciardis thanked Stephanie and Christian for coming to her aid. With barely a goodbye, they disappeared, muttering something about the Shadow Council coming down on their heads before the night was over. That left Ciardis alone with the dragon that had saved her life.

The ambassador looked over the girl covered in blood with measured eyes. She was contemplating her; Ciardis was far too tired to care what for. Unfortunately, that tiredness led to an increased inclination to be rude. She was fed up with running in circles and finding out that people knew far more about her and her heritage than she did.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Why did I save you?”

“No, why did you call me your sarin?”

The dragon turned away from her and looked up at the full moon lighting the night sky.

After a few minutes in silence had passed, Ciardis began contemplating making the trek back up the palace with the dread reserved for a walk through the desert at high noon.

“Because,” said the dragon, turning back with a wicked smile, “you are the one I would choose to name my closest human companion—my sarin. And by surviving that attack tonight you have proved worthy of the name.”

“Right,” mumbled Ciardis. It made sense that the dragon would be as cryptic as everyone else tonight. Nothing else made sense; why would she?

“I’m just...going back to my room now,” she said as she stumbled away like the walking dead.

“Sarin,” said the dragon behind her with amusement, “You have much to learn. Luckily I’m in a teaching mood.”

The last thing Ciardis wanted, needed, or desired was a lesson right now.

She was therefore surprised when the dragon came up behind her and with no further words swept her off of her tired feet. The sensation of being carried was disorientating for a minute, but she soon grew comfortable. The last thing she remembered as she rested her head on Sedaris’s shoulder was that the dragon smelled surprisingly like roses.