Chapter 23 Kasira
KASIRA
“SHIT.” KASIRA HEARD ALLASTER’S CALL FOR HER TO WAIT AS IF through a long tunnel as she snapped her fingers.
She materialized in front of the Queen. The Syovar lifted its great, dragon-like head, its jagged bottom teeth curling up around its jaw, and studied her with luminous green eyes.
A thin trail of smoke rose from its slit nose.
Exhaustion swept over Kasira, and she nearly stumbled. Teleporting within the Library felt like sliding through air; this time had been like wading through waist-high mud, and just like that, her plan to grab the Queen and go fell to pieces.
“Stand very, very still,” said Queen Sarren’s deep voice from behind her.
That, Kasira could do. Bit by bit she relaxed her muscles, elongating her breath silently.
She never looked away from the reptilian eyes watching them, didn’t flinch as the creature’s forked tongue shot out to taste the air.
She had spent hours hiding in tight places after cons, days doing nothing but staring at a black space. She knew how to be still.
Then the man who had called the Queen’s name drew his sword with the pure ring of vylor steel and said, “Don’t worry, Your Majesty. I will see this beast dead,” and Kasira couldn’t hold back her groan.
The Syovar’s head curved toward the Kalish man, its tongue tasting the air quickly now.
The man sank into a fighting stance. He was thick limbed and sturdy, with a cropped blond beard and hard green eyes, and he held his sword well.
Under any other circumstance, Kasira might have been impressed—and then the shape of his face settled into her mind, and a pit opened in her stomach.
Lord Morvir Finnodor—one of her old marks.
“Stop!” Allaster commanded. “It can smell your aggression. It knows you will attack. If you would just—”
But Lord Morvir didn’t listen. With a cry, he charged toward the Syovar.
The beast let out a violent hiss and reared, its wings spreading in a wide arc.
Kasira spun, dragging the Queen into a crouch to avoid the razor-sharp talons of the wing that slashed above their heads.
She wobbled slightly, the sudden motion too much for her tired body.
The Queen’s hand curled about her upper arm, holding her steady.
“Jump!” they yelled. They both surged up and over the constricting body of the beast, landing in a heap of limbs outside its coils. It lowered its scaled head and slammed into Lord Morvir, flinging him back into a thorny bush. His sword clattered to the ground.
Kasira scrambled to disentangle herself from the Queen, but they placed a subduing hand on her shoulder, their ebony eyes willing her into stillness.
The Syovar rose, its wings spread like a canopy above them, and let out a bellowing roar.
Then Allaster was there, clutching palm-sized midnight-purple buds in his hands.
He crushed one, dark ink spilling across his skin.
The beast’s tongue flicked out, and it cocked its head toward him.
He crushed another, holding it aloft, and the Syovar’s wings relaxed.
“Kill it now!” Morvir yelled. He’d disentangled himself from the thorns, his white skin awash in scratches, and scrambled for his sword. The Syovar spotted him and released a low hiss that shuddered along its coiled body.
“Stop, you fool,” Allaster snapped. “Before you get us all killed.”
But Morvir had already recovered his sword and was brandishing it at the Syovar. “If you won’t, then I will. Stay out of my way.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Kasira dove into the magic despite her exhaustion.
With a snap of her fingers, she reappeared beside the man, disarming him in one move.
Focusing on the stream of magic, she thrust the vylor blade through it, and it vanished.
Lord Morvir let out a cry of dismay and scrambled away from her as her strength failed, and she slammed the tip of her sheathed blade to the ground to keep herself upright.
Allaster moved between them and the beast, the crushed tyvna bulbs held aloft in one hand. He waved them, dispensing more of the calming scent, like lavender and aloe intertwined. The beast lowered its great head and furled its wings slightly, tongue lashing out to taste the air.
“Easy,” Allaster said gently.
Kasira heard the soothing lilt of his voice and felt the calming effect of the tyvna’s tranquilizing properties spread through her as it did the Syovar, and she realized that, without meaning to, she had accessed the connection between her and the beast. She felt Allaster there too, working to convince the creature that they were not a threat, and was surprised by the gentleness she found in him.
She had known Allaster cared deeply about beasts, but it had been a theoretical awareness.
Feeling it now, the depth of his desire to protect them, stunned her.
“Come with me,” Allaster coaxed it and snapped his fingers.
He reappeared on the rim of the domed ceiling’s opening, waving the tyvna bulbs toward the beast. She felt its intention before it moved.
Its wings spread, and it leapt into the air, trailing after him.
Allaster vanished again, the connection between them fading slightly as he led the Syovar away from the palace.
Which left Kasira with a queen and a very angry Kalish nobleman.
“You,” he hissed at Kasira, regaining his feet. “Return my sword immediately.”
“I don’t know how to do that.” She watched him closely.
“I don’t even know where it went, and if I did, I would not return it to you.
” She hadn’t had a destination in mind when she had shoved the blade into the magic’s threads.
It could have gone anywhere, or nowhere for that matter, a thought that suddenly put teleporting in a stark new perspective.
Lord Morvir surged to his full height. “You will do as I say, you wretched—”
He cut off as his eyes found the Kalish symbol on her uniform, his face contorting with something like a sneer as he realized who she must be.
The Morvirs were a noble family from the Kalish capital, which meant he likely wouldn’t know a country family from the northern reaches like Eirlana’s, as she had never gone to court.
But what of Kasira?
It had been nearly a decade since she had conned him, and the role she had played of the bashful, demure daughter of a coastal art dealer was vastly at odds with the confident noblewoman-turned-Assistant she was now.
It was Loraya he would likely remember, the elder daughter set on establishing her own business out from underneath her mother’s shadow.
Together, Loraya and Kasira had mapped every inch of his estate and security, then returned one evening to pilfer his entire art collection.
There was no recognition in his expression, but there was something, and Kasira knew better than to leave loose ends.
Queen Sarren joined them, and Kasira and Morvir bowed with their fists to their hearts. Ryn hovered anxiously, inspecting the Queen for injuries. “Lady Eirlana, I am grateful for the Library’s assistance,” they said with a dip of their head. “I did not want to see the beast harmed.”
They gave Morvir a pointed look, and he bowed again. “I apologize, Your Majesty, but I simply couldn’t stand by and watch a beast threaten your life.”
“The only threat here was you,” Kasira said tersely, seeking to needle him into giving something away with his reaction. Did he recognize her, or was his behavior that of a man with wounded pride? “You nearly got Their Majesty killed, not to mention the rest of us.”
Lord Morvir’s lips curled in a show of disgust. “Perhaps you have forgotten, Lady Eirlana, but beasts are our enemies.”
“I have forgotten nothing,” she replied, but Morvir only stared at her.
With a flicker of light, Allaster appeared beside Kasira.
He’d disposed of the tyvna bulbs, but his cheeks were still flushed from the exertion of teleporting, his hands stained purple with—she blinked.
His fingers looked strange, the ends almost pointed.
She blinked again, and the image resolved itself.
It had only been the last beads of purple ink dripping from his fingertips.
“I led the Syovar to the base of the mountains, far from any nearby towns,” he said with a nod of acknowledgment to the Queen.
“I did warn you this would happen, Your Majesty. Syovars are highly active at the height of fall, and the tyvna fields they would normally visit have been nearly decimated by your worsening blizzards. I recommended to Queen Ayel that the fields be replanted when the ice broke.”
“But the ice didn’t break,” informed the Queen. “It would have cost the crown a small fortune to do the work.”
Allaster looked alarmed at that. “The cold persisted through summer?”
“Worse than even the previous year.” Queen Sarren’s face was grim. “If I recall, Lord Allaster, you claimed to know the cause.”
“I didn’t say I could fix it,” he replied darkly, gaze narrowing on the crossed swords symbol sewn on Morvir’s high-collared coat. “That would require the cooperation of lesser minds.”
A ruddy flush mottled Lord Morvir’s face, his chin lifting with a practiced condescension. “Kalthos has been warning of these signs for years,” he said loftily. “The goddess’s patience wears thin. The beasts must be destroyed if we are to divert this course.”
“No, I have been warning of this for years, and your people have been twisting my words for your own gain.” The unbridled anger in Allaster’s voice surprised Kasira.
A general air of grumpiness was his natural state, but this was far beyond that.
“If you continue culling beasts at this rate, the disasters will worsen. You are children playing with forces you don’t understand. ”
“Can one kingdom truly have such an impact?” Ryn asked quietly.
“You are divided by a river, not an ocean, my Lady,” Allaster replied more calmly. “What happens in Kalthos affects us all.”