33. Taldesa
Taldesa
The garden was darker the further Tala got lost in it. She would have spent more time admiring the pristine roses and intricate topiary if she wasn’t in the middle of hating herself. Admittedly, there was a lot to loathe about herself in the moment.
Failed at being a bodyguard. Failed at being a best friend. Failed at finding the origin of a mystery and finding the poison assassins…and majorly fucking failed at maintaining what’s probably been the best thing that could ever happen to you.
It didn’t matter how many times Tala fucked up, it would never stop hurting.
Anger may have been her go-to, but shame and regret were frequent house guests.
They lingered long after the anger faded, leaving Tala mute and absolutely useless.
The only thing that ever seemed to keep her from being buried beneath it all was training.
Punching wooden structures until her knuckles were bleeding was how she coped with it all.
But here, in the middle of the most expensive garden Tala had ever seen in her life, there was nothing to vent her frustration on.
No no-name to pummel into the dirt, no challenge to overcome with her reflexes.
Just the overbearing swell of her emotions doing their best to swallow her whole and even still, Tala didn’t cry, and that was somehow worse.
Avie would always refuse to believe she was broken. No matter how many times Tala had brought it up, pressed against her shoulder and drunk out of her mind with despair. And whenever Tala pushed the topic, Avie would staunchly shake her head.
“If you were really broken, we wouldn’t be friends,” Avie had hiccuped. “And we’re best friends, so your brain is silly, silly.”
It was never going to go away. The doubt, the self-deprecation, the knowledge that Tala could be liked, maybe even loved, but not for very long. There was an expiration on all of her relationships, and the deciding factor was—as always—her.
Get it together, Valay. Tala shut her eyes tightly, as if she could force her mind to disconnect from her emotions. You have a job, think about the gods damn job—
Tala didn’t register her body moving until she was already locking the incoming strike against her torso.
Her right hand shot up, preparing to block the next move of her assailant, but they struck against her thigh, separating them.
She readied a defensive stance, eyes adjusting in the pale light of the flickering lanterns the face of the—
“Wait,” Tala scoffed as the face of her attacker caught her off guard. “I know you. You’re one of No-name’s buddies.”
Tala didn’t know his name, but she recognized the face.
He was tall with tightly compact muscles that Tala would have killed to have when she was eighteen.
Dressed in attire that was passable for a royal gala, but not so much as to stand out.
A human man with light brown skin, dark hair and eyes wasn’t going to be as memorable as the orange peacock feather lady, and that was kind of the whole point.
“If you’re referring to Mikol, he sends his regards,” the man said with dry humor in his deep voice.
“Yeah?” Tala lifted a brow. “How’s his nose?”
“It’s a little crooked, but he’ll live.”
“So…You got a name?”
Not that Tala needed a name, but for some reason it felt weirder to refer to her contact as ‘friend of the guy I beat up once’.
“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t, but given we have a history…” the man waved his hand toward Tala’s fist. “My name is Kerith.”
“Sounds a lot like carrot,” Tala said without a thought.
An awkward beat went by.
“Cercel did mention you were…humorous,” Kerith said.
The idea that Cercel talked about her to anybody always rubbed Tala the wrong way.
Though, she knew logically it was kind of impossible not to.
The monastery was a community; community meant people talked about you.
It was more like hearing your older brother was talking about you to his friends. Anyone would be embarrassed by it.
“Surprised he remembers I exist,” Tala said instead.
“Surprised…” It was Kerith that lifted a brow in confusion. “You aren’t easy to forget.”
“Yeah, my fists do that.”
She wasn’t sure why she was trying to do small talk with Kerith. They weren’t close in the slightest, and gods knew he had more pressing matters to attend to.
Speaking of which…
Tala reached into her pocket, tossing the metal piece toward Kerith who caught it as easily as it were a gold piece. He turned it over in his hand, running his thumb over the engraving.
“That came off the guy who hit me with a poison dagger,” Tala explained. “I’m pretty sure it belongs to a circle of smugglers, but the way the guy fought kind of implied they might be more of the assassin variety.”
“I’ll bring it to Cercel’s attention when I brief him on our meeting,” Kerith said as he examined the metal. “Though, I can confirm I’ve seen this symbol before.”
“Wait— are you serious?”
Kerith nodded. “I can’t go into the details—you understand, I assume? But what I can say is that the men I’ve seen wear these are very dangerous. They’re part of a larger organization. You’re very lucky to be alive right now.”
That…didn’t make Tala feel better. Sure, she managed to take the man who wore that symbol down, but she had nearly died from being poisoned. If anything, it wasn’t just luck but a comedy of errors that she was even alive.
“Sorry I didn’t get much else from him,” Tala said. “I was…kind of preoccupied with smashing his teeth in. Starting to feel a little less bitter about those one on one lessons with Aelidon, though.”
“You’ve been training with the High Conservator?” Kerith asked, surprise clear in his voice.
“Yeah,” Tala bristled—just a tad. “I have, so what?”
“She sees something in you,” Kerith said, breezing past her distrust. “The High Conservator rarely trains with individuals unless she sees potential. What has she been training you in?”
Now that was news to Tala that made zero fucking sense. High Conservator Aelidon had only ever called Tala to her study when she got into trouble. A kitchen fight, a smart mouthed reply to a superior—those were the reasons why Tala were called in.
“Usually she’s teaching me stuff about patience and breathing and how to avoid getting hit,” Tala explained. “Last time I saw her, she nailed me with some poison darts.”
“I see,” Kerith smiled.
Tala’s eye twitched. “Care to elaborate for the rest of the class?”
“Do you know why we’re called the Valiant Circle?
It’s because it takes courage to admit that you can’t do anything alone.
We work better when we work together, which means cultivating a community of different minds and skills.
I can’t say for certain, but my guess would be that the High Conservator has taken a liking to your resilience,” Kerith said before pocketing the metal piece.
“Dude—and I mean this with some level of respect since you’re part of the spy network—what the fuck does that mean?”
“Breathing helps you connect with your body. Patience allows your mind to open and find pathways that were closed off to you before. The High Conservator has been prepping your resilience to poison,” Kerith explained.
“Whether or not she knew you would encounter one of these criminals on the other hand, well...”
Well… fuck.
“I…I don’t know if I should be grateful or pissed off,” Tala said after a moment.
“Both. Both works,” Kerith’s eyes quickly scanned the area. “I should move on before anyone sees me lingering here. Do you have the other item on you?”
“Oh, right.”
Tala reached into her pocket…and when her fingers failed to connect with the ring, she paused.
Quickly, she reached into her other pocket, readying to hand the ring over, but it also wasn’t there.
She swore under her breath, eyes darting around her boots.
Maybe it had fallen out of her pocket when she pulled out the metal piece?
It had to have, because there was no way she—
“What is the matter?” Kerith asked.
“I—”
Whatever Tala was going to say was lost in the sudden echo that bellowed into the garden. The strings of a lute were amplified by an enchantment, playing a melody that Tala had grown very familiar with over the past week. Cashmere Fantasy were on stage.
Where is it?! Where the fuck did it—
Despite the panic buzzing in her ears, Tala’s mind quickly stepped backwards to recount the events.
She had put the ring in her pocket—the same one as the metal piece—once Seira had left her room.
Tala had made sure it was there when she left the carriage, had made sure to feel the weight of it when she had been watching the floor.
She had it on her when she had discovered the princess on the veranda and vaulted over the—
Vault.
“Fuck!” Tala swore. “I gotta go!”
Before Kerith could figure out what was going on, Tala was already sprinting past him.
She weaved through the hedges, pushed past bramble, and clumsily dodged stone benches.
At one point, her half skirt got caught on one of the rose bushes and Tala pulled until it ripped free.
She could apologize to Seira after the fact, because her mind was frantically urging her body to run faster.
Her heart beating wildly in the realization of how massively she had fucked up this time.
There was no time to admonish herself, no time to come up with some kind of plan that wasn’t just hunting Princess Osonia down.
Whatever the aftermath of her massive mistake was, Tala would face it.
She’d take full responsibility, even if that meant being banished from the Valiant Circle.
Even if that meant never seeing Avie again, even if it meant never being with—
Casimine’s voice broke through the melody Ameriden was playing on his lute.
His voice was beautiful, but filled with the kind of sadness that spoke of tragedy.
It cut through the anxiety in Tala’s bones the moment her feet hit the stone of the veranda and she swept through the curtain.
She couldn’t understand the words—Cashmere Fantasy had decided to sing their new song in elvish—but Tala didn’t need to understand the words to feel them.
It was just a reminder of what was at stake.
Within the main hall, standing on a raised platform near the orchestra, Casimine and Ameriden stood with an entire gala of people surrounding them.
Ordinarily, it would have been a sight Tala would have liked to enjoy, but her eyes were searching for someone else.
Nobles were usually seated in a separate area from the regular crowd, which meant the king was likely—
There!
Directly across from the stage was another raised platform surrounded by guards. King Oryin’vel sat upon a throne of ivory, dressed in his finest robes. Tala’s feet were already moving, eyes darting to the throne of ivory directly beside the king—that was empty! Fuck, it was empty!
Shit, shit, shit! Where is she?!
Everything was happening because of Princess Osonia’s upcoming birthday. The entire event was for her but she was nowhere in sight. In fact, the king didn’t seem worried at all, his eyes focused solely on the stage behind Tala.
He wouldn’t let his daughter out of his sight so where—
There!
Tala spotted the familiar figure of the princess standing next to Seira beside the platform.
She couldn’t tell what they were saying—the enchantment had overtaken all the chatter—but Tala managed to dart between bodies as she pushed her way toward the stage.
Her heart dropped when Seira suddenly stepped aside, allowing the princess up the small steps leading toward Cashmere Fantasy.
The bodies of nobles and merchants were enraptured in Casimine’s voice and for a moment, Tala wanted to curse at everyone as she pushed her way toward the front.
By the time she reached Seira’s side, Tala was panting.
The shorter woman—realizing she was there—spared her a look of concern even as the princess reached the two bards.
Ameriden slowly spun, fingers still expertly sliding across strings as he maneuvered the princess between them.
She gently swayed between them, all smiles.
Tala’s gaze was fixated on the princess, searching for the one thing she prayed wasn’t—
“What’s wrong?!” Seira shouted over the song.
Whatever Tala had wanted to say caught in her throat the moment the song reached a sudden pause.
Tala knew that part of the song, because Casimine had mentioned it.
That it was a moment to make the audience hold their breath, to add drama and suspense.
Ameriden took Princess Osonia’s hand in his, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the ring Tala recognized in that moment.
Before the princess could blush, a massive current of air assaulted the stage and an arcane doorway opened.