Sworn To Transfer

Chapter 12

The next morning Ciardis woke up in her bed when she heard a loud knock at her door. She sat up abruptly, remembering last night’s events and barely recalling how she had arrived home in her apartment. Pushing the covers back, she looked down and saw she’d been cleaned up and redressed in a nightgown. Deciding to put that thought out of her head for now, she put on her robe and answered the door. And there was Terris’s smiling face staring at her.

She took one look at Ciardis and pushed her way into the room. “What happened now?”

“What makes you think anything happened?” Ciardis asked guiltily.

Terris flashed her an amused grin. “Because it’s you.”

Sighing, Ciardis closed the door and hobbled her way back over to the bed. Christian had healed her last night but there were still residual twinges underneath her skin. He’d basically brought her back from death and her body was still in a little bit of shock.

“It’s...um...complicated.”

“We don’t have time for ‘complicated,’” was the exasperated response, “We have to report to Lady Vana this morning, remember?”

“Oh yeah...”

“And the last time I saw you, you were speaking with the duke of Carne, his wife, and the Sahalian ambassador. What was she like?”

“The duchess?”

“No,” said Terris with an irritated toss of her braids from in front of her shoulder to her back. “The ambassador.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s it?”

“And powerful?”

Terris gave her a disbelieving look, “I can feel you holding back from over here you know. Kind of feels like a too tight corset right?”

“All of those secrets,” she continued playfully.

Grimacing Ciardis said, “I have to appear before the court of Magistrates today. The duchess tried to kill me last night and might have tried to kill my mother eighteen years ago.”

Terris whistled in awe. “Oh, Serena is not going to like this.”

Flopping back on the bed, Ciardis groaned. “I know. For once, why can’t my life be easy?”

“Yeah,” said Terris. “I’ll go to Vana’s room and let her know. Serena’s already there so I’ll have her meet you at the court of Magistrates.”

With a wince and a sigh, Terris continued, “Good luck—you’re going to need it.”

Ciardis threw a pillow at her on the way out with a growled, “Thanks a lot.”

She made it on time to the court of the Magistrates and got in line with Stephanie and Christian. They looked no more happy to see her than they had the night before. In fact, Stephanie gave her a glare than made Ciardis feel like she should check to see if her boots were on fire.

Christian said affably, “Don’t mind her. She’s not a morning person.”

“And the council is pissed,” he added as he bit into an apple.

“Why?” Ciardis asked.

“Well, for one, they were hoping to personally torture the duchess themselves,” he said lightheartedly. “But lucky for them, the emperor’s best torturer is on leave now and his second is our man. So they’ll still get the information they want.”

“Torture?” echoed Ciardis in disbelief.

“What?” snapped Stephanie “Did you think they’d just put her in a room and say ‘pretty please’ until she divulged her network of contacts?”

“And,” said Christian stepping in to diffuse the tension, “they also don’t like that the dragon knows we’re back, and that is a whole different kettle of fish.”

“What about you?” asked Christian. “How’d your sponsors take it?”

Take what? The fact that I’m now a dragon’s best friend, that I was almost murdered last night, or that I’m appearing before the court of the Magistrates this morning?

“Well,” said Ciardis, “They don’t exactly—”

“Ciardis Weathervane!” came a screech that echoed in the antechamber and had every man, woman, and child standing in line angling their head to view the door where Lady Serena stood staring straight at them. Spying Ciardis, Serena pushed through the crowd with uncustomarily angry shoves and elbows in soft stomachs. Looking over Christian and Stephanie as if they were filth beneath her boots, she hissed at Ciardis, “What is the meaning of this?”

“This?”

“This!” said Lady Serena, waving a letter about in front of her face.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a summons to the court of the Magistrate for the trial of the Duchess of Carne, as well as a letter of complaint filed in the Imperial courts by the Duke of Carne.”

Ciardis took the letter hesitantly.

Lady Serena blew up. “What did you do?”

Ciardis decided to give a full confession on the events of the previous afternoon. It didn’t calm Lady Serena down. In fact, she had a fainting spell.

“That’s some sponsor you got there,” said Christian wryly.

For a moment, sympathy actually crossed Stephanie’s face as she said, “No wonder you’re as hopeless as you are. No one could learn with that as their teacher.”

Ciardis decided that it was too early in the morning to be offended. Especially at someone who’d saved her life the night before.

“For the pre-trial hearing about Duchess Leah of Carne, all witnesses are called forward,” said a man standing by the courtroom doors.

With a collective sigh, Ciardis, Stephanie and Christian went forward into the room. Ciardis, Stephanie, and Christian spent most of the morning recalling what they’d learned. A minstrel and wind mage were called in to open the locket and an unknown mage was present to have the contents sealed in a memory ball for records. The ministrel from the night at the Blue Duck Inn had hobbled into the court with a broken leg and a neck swathed in gauze to tell his experience. The locket was as he surmised - a conversation between a much younger duchess and the former heir to the Algardis Empire discussing ways to kill his father and take the throne.

The judge heard their thoughts, reviewed the matter, and announced that the closed trial of the Duchess of Carne would commence tomorrow before the emperor, a superior magistrate, and the head of the mages. No further efforts from the witnesses would be needed.

“Thank the gods,” muttered Stephanie as they exited the building.

“Where’s your dragon friend?” questioned Christian.

“No idea,” muttered Ciardis as she looked around for Lady Serena.

She walked down the steps with heavy feet. Ciardis knew that she needed a break. Her head was rushing and not many things were making sense. When Christian and Stephanie tried to follow, she brushed them off, telling them she needed some air before disappearing into the crowd. She had no idea where she was going and had no set direction. She just wanted to get away. With hunched shoulders, she decided to go to the one place where there were no distractions, where she could sit for a few hours and no one would question her. Crossing three streets and a bridge brought her into the bookbinders’s district and to the doorstep of her favorite shop.

As she walked into the dusty front portion of the shop, she sighed in happiness that nothing had changed. Books still covered every surface, including the sides of the stairs, and a smell of old paper wafted to her nostrils the minute she opened the door. She decided to browse for a minute before heading upstairs. Ignoring the one other patron who was there at this hour, she walked around, tracing her fingers along the spines of books and