Terah Edun - Sworn To Transfer

For better or for worse, she couldn’t tell.

The door to her bedroom banged open with a loud crack.

Starting now .

Turning swiftly in her gown and robe, Ciardis confronted the person who’d barged into her room. She stared in shock at Stephanie, a transfer Companion with the talent to copy and deliver a specific talent from one person to another. Ciardis hadn’t seen the girl in almost half a year—not since they’d made the transfer deal for the Sahalian language at the very beginning of her arrival at the Companions’ Guild.

“What in a demon’s ass do you think you’re doing?” Ciardis demanded in outrage. She swiftly strode forward, intent on pushing the woman out of her room. But then Stephanie stepped around the bed and Ciardis stopped in her tracks. She held a loaded crossbow in her hands.

Hastily backing up a step, she said, “I mean...Stephanie, it’s been so long.”

She saw the second weapon she’d been training with out of the corner of her eye: her glaive. It stood in the corner, a wooden staff built of the finest hardwood with a wicked sharp curved blade on the end. She was as good at wielding the staff as she was at firing a bow and arrow. But it was something to defend herself with. Ciardis lunged for it and brought the weapon up so that the sharp end was pointed at her opponent. Standing with the glaive in her hands, her feet spread for traction and swift movement and her nightgown fluttering in the morning air, she didn’t look like the greatest warrior. But it didn’t matter so long as she came out of this alive.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Stephanie said with exasperation.

“Oh, well, then I guess I should put the glaive down.” She wasn’t stupid; the weapon didn’t move an inch.

Sighing, Stephanie tossed the loaded crossbow on the bed and held her hands out by her sides.

“Better?”

“I’ll ask you again: What in a demon’s ass do you think you’re doing?”

“Saving your neck.”

Stephanie lunged towards Ciardis’s bed and grabbed her loaded crossbow in a smooth movement. Turning toward Ciardis, she fired a bolt. Ciardis dropped to the floor, evading the shot but unfortunately putting herself at a disadvantage. The glaive had fallen. And the way her body lay facedown made it hard to use the staff for any sort of defense. As she pushed herself off of the floor, keeping an angry eye on Stephanie, she frowned at sudden wetness on her hand. Bringing her hand up to her face, she stared in horror at the red blood dripping down her fingers.

She wasn’t wounded. But someone was.

Turning around, Ciardis saw a man lying on the floor. Face up, with a crossbolt sticking out of his chest.

Standing up and moving off the bed, Stephanie said with sarcasm, “You’re welcome.”

“What? Who?”

“One of the Duke of Cinnis’s men,” answered Stephanie as she came over and yanked her crossbolt out of his chest. “I don’t think I have to tell you why.”

Pale and shaky, Ciardis moved away from the body, laid the glaive down on the bed, and sat down.

“I’ve been doing this all wrong, haven’t I?”

“If by ‘all wrong’ you mean making enemies, pushing away allies, and generally making a nuisance of yourself, then I’d say yes.”

Ciardis grimaced. “I did what I had to do to save Sebastian’s life.”

“And endangered your own. Did you think that you were the only one who cared?”

“I was the only one who did anything when his powers were failing,” countered Ciardis.

“We were working on that behind the scenes. You managed to turn a two-year investigation into the loss of the Prince’s powers on its head in less than a week.”

“I solved it in less than a week.”

Stephanie put an impatient hand on her hip and glared.

“Who’s ‘we,’ by the way?” asked Ciardis innocently.

The look Stephanie returned said she wasn’t fooled. “That’s not important right now.”

“Really? I think it is.”

“You know what is important?”

Ciardis stood. She was tired of being talked down to.

“Getting some straight answers out of you.”

“No, getting this body out of here before someone sees him.”

They both looked down at the dead man lying on the floor. Ciardis couldn’t say she disagreed. A dead man would be one more thing she would have to answer for and with the way things were going she didn’t have much faith in the Companions’ Guild backing her against charges of murder from a Duke. All of this made her wonder why Stephanie was here though...surely the Guild hadn’t sent her?

Stephanie sighed, “Look we don’t have much time and I can’t explain to the council that I’m here so we have to get rid of the body.”

An hour later, they had him wrapped in a blanket and were busy hauling him through a tunnel that existed behind a secret door in Ciardis’s room. The man was big, and carrying him was putting a strain on both women.

“Some stairs are coming up,” said Stephanie as they wedged around a corner.

Ciardis gritted her teeth as she lifted his feet while Stephanie angled his upper body, taking most of the weight, as they went up the stairs. Luckily it was just a few steps, and then they were in a different tunnel.

“About five feet to the right there’s a hole,” Stephanie said.

“A hole large enough to drop a body?” Ciardis questioned.

“It’s the trash chute that goes direct to the underground sewer, so yes.”

As they knelt down and awkwardly shifted the body around to drop him in head first, Ciardis had to wonder what her life had come to. From laundress to Companions’ Guild trainee to accomplice in a murder who couldn’t talk about the murder in case the assassin’s master wanted to take another shot at her. Meanwhile, Stephanie searched the dead man’s vest. She was methodical, looking for anything that would link him to the duke. In his inner pocket she found just what she needed: a bronze crow pin. The duke’s symbol, and worth its weight in gold.

“I have what I need to prove the duke ordered the man to kill you,” Stephanie said.

“Why would he be carrying that?” said Ciardis.

“I suspect because he never thought you’d catch him.”

“And the Duke? Once his man fails to return he’ll find a way to pin this on me or send another assassin.” Bitterly Ciardis spoke, “I’m not sure which would be preferable. Accussations of murder or another attempt.”

“With this pin I can make sure the Duke knows that we know about him. He won’t try again,” Stephanie said cryptically.

“Fair enough, as long as I’m not indicted for this crime.”

Stephanie nodded. She didn’t want to be accused of a crime, either.

Together they pushed the man over the side.

As they walked back in silence through the tunnels, Ciardis thought of the past. For a long time the only life she had known was the vale—the day-to-day drudgery of being a laundress and the hope of marrying well. She almost felt as if she’d left that life too soon. She had come into the courts eager to succeed, eager to show that she belonged. Now she was dumping bodies in holes, ducking arrows and breaking up assassination plots. In many ways she was worse than those at the courts she had initially sought to emulate.

“Wake up, airhead,” said Stephanie, “We’re back.”

And so they were. Opening the door into Ciardis’s room, they walked in to silence. The room looked normal except for the glaive and crossbow resting on the bed. And the pool of blood on the marble floor.

“We need to clean up the blood,” said Stephanie, looking around for cloth.

Ciardis was already on her way to the bathroom. “I’ve got it.” She returned with a bucket filled with lemon water and sanitizer as well as some rags. Stooping down, she started wiping to get every drop of red.