“Reven is… the bard?” Eila asked. Azure landed on her head, making her grin. She missed the little phoenix a great deal. He went missing with her uncle.
Reven is Gannon, Eila heard. When she touched the phoenix, she could speak with him. She had not tried with Fionn but imagined it might be the same. Aeron could speak to them without touching them at all. It hardly seemed fair. Rielle was not so lucky, but made stones better than Eila did even if the girls kept that secret to themselves. But something happened while I hunted. I … lost him.
“How do you lose a bard?” Eila asked, tilting her head to look at the phoenix. He adjusted, flapping to her shoulder instead. Rielle only sighed and shook her head.
“Great, she’s talking to him. Alright look, when was the last time you saw them? Yesterday, right? What happened yesterday?”
“Reven showed us the house,” the copper- skinned woman said. Everyone looked at the manse. It was hideous but large and something their uncle would immediately burn to the ground for being an eye-sore. This bard was not their uncle no matter what Azure said.
“Rielle,” Eila said looking to her twin. She may not speak with mythical beasts, but she had her own secrets. Rielle only shook her head, her braid swaying back and forth as she moved toward the front door. She studied the ground, crouched to touch the flagstones or the steps leading to the door. It was there she stopped, narrowing her eyes until coming up with a tiny dart.
“Tondra,” the girls said in unison. The weapon was a signature of the Esbethi general, easily filled with any poison the woman liked.
“He’s in Esbeth,” Eila said.
“Wonderful,” Rielle added. “Who’s got money?”
***
Patience was something that Noelani Caelestis- Oenel prided herself on. However, in the face of pure insolence, she was beginning to lose that patience. Kaleo glowered at her. This boy she raised as her own, the child that nearly tore her from her beloved so many years ago, born of a single night of indiscretion; the child she’d forgiven and accepted had the audacity to glower.
They sat in her private study surrounded by things that helped to calm her. Incense burned near the open window and the sound of the sea crashing against the waves reached her ears. It did not help calm her at all. She wanted to rip the feathers right out of her son’s wings for what he’d done, for making her worry, for the lies he continued to tell. Kalelako, the Speaker of Tribes, stood behind her in a support role but offered little in the way of actual support. He now courted Noelani, the time of mourning for her beloved gone. It was a good match - he was as Powerful as Gannon was and Touched by Heaven as a guide for their ancestors into the next life; she could not refuse him. However, she could also do nothing until she solved the dilemma of the man in her dungeons either.
“Kaleo…” she began, rising to her feet. He watched her, ivory bracelets Binding his Power. “I want to help, to bring justice against those that took you.”
He scoffed. She pursed her lips and narrowed her almond eyes at him, silver wings bristling with barely controlled rage.
“Fine, then we will do this a different way,” Noelani said, walking toward the door. “Kal - if you please. I’ll need your assistance.”
“Leave him alone, Noelani!” Kaleo barked, rising to his feet as well.
“Then talk to me!” she barked back. “What you’re saying isn’t possible, Kaleo. It can’t be. Do you understand that? So, help me understand what you’ve done; what they’ve done.”
The boy refused, snarling as he sat back down. She let him, turning sharply with a swirl of silken skirts around her narrow ankles. The bangles she wore on her bare feet jingled as she walked with determination to the bowels of the cliff-side palace. Water filled the passages, dripping from the walls and ceilings. Two guards stood at the ready, both nodding when she approached.
“Have they said anything?” she asked.
“No, Amatessa,” one replied firmly. She sighed, looking to Kalelako who only offered a helpless shrug. She did not want to know the truth, not really. If she was right, her heart would shatter all over again, after years of careful mending. If Kaleo was right… she didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
“We are not to be disturbed,” she said. Both guards snapped to attention, allowing her and Kalelako to pass. He followed in silence, his black wings gleaming in the darkness while hers seemed to radiate moonlight. She moved to the holding cell with the tirsai man in it first. He was not conscious. Tondra was ruthless and her intel spoke of a Powerful caster; she’d gone prepared. Perhaps a little too prepared. The man’s hair was cropped short and his skin darker than normal for a tirsai as if he’d spent years in the sun. He had a scar at his left eye and a tiny fever rash across his cheeks caused by the poison. She saw the similarity to her beloved husband but nothing concrete.
The man in the cell directly across from the tirsai held a duende thief-taker that wore a bored smirk on his dark face. His hair was tied back with a leather thong, dreadlocks spilling down his back and underside of his head shaved as was customary for the duende. He had gin blossoms on his face and scars along his neck and arms along with a perfectly formed circular welt over his right eye like one might expect to see of a common bar crawler.
“You know this man, Master Roe?” Noelani began knowing the man’s name from Tondra’s report.
“Wha’ of it?” the man drawled back. “Useless bard.”
“Bard?” Noelani repeated, looking to Kalelako. “That was not what you told my general.”
“Cunt,” the duende spat. Noelani refrained from castigating
