“Don’t get me wrong,” he assured. “We get along fine. In semi-small doses. We’re good at watching each other’s backs and under orders.”
“Orders from whom?”
“Now that you’d have to ask Stephanie.”
“Ask me what?” came the question from behind them. Stephanie stood there redressed in a clean tunic and pants. She must have had a spare in her knapsack.
“Whom do you take your orders from?”
“Whom do you think?”
Ciardis fought not to get angry; it didn’t really serve any purpose.
With a sigh, she said, “The Shadow Council?”
Stephanie smirked at her and started brushing her wet hair. “But who runs the Shadow Council?”
Deciding that she could play this game Ciardis walked over to Stephanie, “You said you told the council about me and what happened with the Duchess of Carne. So they have to be in the city?”
She said it as a question and was delighted when she saw a surprise of confirmation flash on Stephanie’s face.
Ciardis grinned and held up two fingers. “Secondly, they have to be well connected. Enough to have a torturer on their payroll and spies in the courts.”
Stephanie didn’t say anything, but she stopped brushing her hair.
“And three, they have to be mages,” Ciardis ventured as she looked over at Christian, “because the two of you are. If they have runners with this much power, then the head person needs to surpass you.”
Christian crossed his arms and smiled. “Very good, little mage. Now who would you guess?”
“Christian,” Stephanie hissed.
“No,” said her partner as he waved his hand, contemplating the girl in front of him. “You started this. Let her finish.”
But they didn’t get the chance. The ground began to rumble and they stumbled backwards as it continued to shake. Ciardis, Stephanie, and Christian hurried to get closer together and figure out what was going on. In front of them the earth began to bulge until a large mound had formed. With one last rumble the mound, at least three feet high, cracked, and out of it poured shadows. Individuals and groups, shapes and objects, dozens came forth out of the darkness. In the center of the moving pit of shadows, a large one began to rise. It smoothed into a human shadow and then a line appeared down the front.
Out of the center stepped a man: the Shadow Mage.
And behind out of the shadows came another man—the one she seen one sunny day in Jovelin’s bookshop. The man with the golden Weathervane eyes.
“Hello, Sister,” he said politely.
If Stephanie and Christian were startled, they didn’t show it.
This didn’t look good.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’ll be doing the talking for now,” said the Shadow Mage with an unpleasant smile.
“You see, my friend here is a Weathervane. One of only two in existence,” he said congenially. “By the looks on your friends’ faces, they have known about it. By the look on yours, my dear, you didn’t.”
“Is that why you tried to kill me the other day?” Ciardis asked softly. “So your friend would be the only one?”
The Shadow Mage laughed. “Well, no. That was merely a side bonus.” The forest around them and even the brook was silent as the world fell away and all Ciardis could look at was the male Weathervane standing in front of her.
The Shadow Mage glanced between the two and said somewhat sympathetically, as if he had read her very thoughts, “Oh, but you see he has no choice. Show her the bracelet.”
The Weathervane stood silent and lifted his arm to pull back his sleeve to reveal the bracelet. His arm trembled with the effort, as if he hadn’t wanted to but was forced to reveal the cuff on his arm.
It was a wide silver band. Plain in nature, circling his wrist in a perfect sheet of metal. It was molded to his skin and didn’t look like it would come off over his wrist. Not easily.
“That bracelet controls his movements and his powers. It has done so for his entire life.”
And then he smiled. “And whoever controls the bracelet controls
Pain and anger crossed the male Weathervane’s face, but he didn’t argue with any of the facts.
“If there were another Weathervane I would have known,” protested Ciardis. “And they’d never be chained, like you’re saying.”
The Shadow Mage looked at her with something akin to pity, “I believe you believe that. And that is what’s so sad, little Weathervane. Do you know who ordered this?”
“Enough,” Christian hissed as he stepped forward. “If you want to kill us, kill us then. No need for this torture.”
“This will be through when I say it’s through,” the Shadow Mage said calmly while looking at Ciardis’s shaken face.
Christian interrupted again and suddenly there was a shadow creature behind him that forced him to his knees with its blade at his throat. Stephanie moved to help him and shadows quickly sprouted out of the ground, this time in the form of vines. They pulled her feet out from under her and bound her arms behind her back with thick, dark ropes.
At the Shadow Mage’s imperceptible nod, the creatures put thick black layers of shadow over both Christian and Stephanie’s mouths.
“Now, little Weathervane, where were we?”
“Ah, yes,” he continued in giddy excitement. “The shackle on his wrist, pretty though it is, was ordered by your emperor. But don’t think your precious prince didn’t know about it. Oh, he knows, and it serves him well.”
Ciardis wanted to shout and scream and deny it all.
“You’re wrong,” she said fiercely.
The Shadow Mage motioned for the gag to be removed from Christian’s face.
“Ask your friend over there. Am I wrong?”
Tears running down her face, Ciardis looked Christian in the face. Hoping for a denial. But he said not a word. Just stared at the Shadow Mage with hatred.
“Why?” Ciardis said. But she wasn’t directing the question at the Shadow Mage. She was looking at Christian, who was bowed on his knees.
Reluctantly, he turned his eyes to her. “Ciardis,” he pleaded, “this is neither the time nor the place.”
“Why?” she shouted in his face, tears running down her cheeks as she fell to her knees, “Why have you all been lying to me this whole time? Why is he shackled like a dog by the very man I serve?”
Christian closed his eyes in thought and opened them with bitter anger. “Because your mother didn’t just run away from court. She killed the empress when she left the court pregnant.”
Ciardis stared at him, uncomprehending.
“They found your mother midway to the North,” the Shadow Mage said thoughtfully, “A child—a boy child had just been born. They arrested her for crimes committed against the Imperial family and the death of the empress. And they took her son away from her.”
“It wasn’t meant to happen like this,” Christian said forcefully. “They were going to arrest her but somehow she used her power to control the Weapons Initiates around her. They killed their compatriots while under her control and then killed themselves. They’d already had her son dispatched with a rider back to court. He was supposed to be placed in a new home with a new family.”
“But,” interjected the Shadow Mage gleefully, “she killed them all, then escaped or died—no one’s quite sure which—and her son was forced to pay penance for her deeds.”
“Shut up!” shouted Christian at the Shadow Mage. “Ciardis, it wasn’t like that—”
Someone was lying, Ciardis knew that without a doubt. She had known her mother. It was true she had very few memories of her but she couldn’t forget the memories of the woman with laughing eyes who had raised
