Free Sworn To Defiance by Terah Edun

SaAlgardis’s face, her golden eyes met his dark brown ones. Strength flowed from one person to the other. Ciardis couldn’t say that it wasn’t a give-and-take. The man was clearly risking his life her own and that his daughter’s. He was resilient. But she knew and he knew that he would break. Not necessarily to torture. But definitely in death. Either case would be an unpleasant experience to watch. Not just for her, although she had seen death and torture in many forms. This would just be another one of those.
    But for his daughter, who would see every last moment of her father’s demise.
    Ciardis slowly shook her head and mouthed, “Think of Seraphina.”
    Jason SaAlgardis smiled. “I am.”
    She opened and closed her mouth. Then she swallowed as she sat back on her heels, uncertain.
    Unless Jason SaAlgardis knew something they didn’t, she, Seraphina, and Skarar would never be able to escape the group of soldiers even if he didn’t submit.
    Weary calm flowed into Jason’s eyes. He knew it too. As she watched, the shield’s wall slowly fell down. Dissipating inch-by-inch from the top, the wall was visible to the naked eye in the shining daylight. As it slowly came down, Ciardis knew he was giving her every opportunity to shout and scream to bring the shield back up before it fell low enough for the soldiers to reach in and grab them. He wanted to fight for his daughter’s safety, and this was the only way he knew how. Unfortunately, it was only delaying the inevitable.
    Ciardis wouldn’t say the word. She wouldn’t scream, “No!” and force him to die before her eyes. There was no reason to; therefore there was nothing to say.
    Besides, Ciardis wasn’t the type to sit back and watch her comrades die just to give herself a few extra seconds of life. Not when the end result would be just the same. That would be cruel and cruel was one thing she wasn’t.
    Kneeling face-to-face, one on either side of a dissipating wall, Ciardis and Jason watched each other as the shield fell.
    When it finally came all the way down she stood up and looked at the soldier in charge. Smiling through her pain, Ciardis said, “Well, sir. I believe you have me at the disadvantage.”
    The man with salt-and-pepper hair and narrow eyes said with deep satisfaction in his voice, “Surrounded on all sides?”
    She stepped forward around Jason SaAlgardis and gave a girlish shake of her head, made garish by the blood dripping down her front. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
    The soldier in charge raised a graying eyebrow. “Lady, that’s the least of your worries.”
    Ciardis said, “Oh, I’m not worried. I just want the proper spelling of your name so that when I give it to the emperor for obstructing his son’s path and nearly getting us killed, he’ll know exactly whom to order to their deaths.”
    Coldness grew in the man’s dark eyes while the thin line of his mouth bent his face into a frown. “You’ve got some balls on you. We endangered you? We saved you.”
    She laughed. “Do you think we would have been pinned down in a hail of arrows if you hadn’t flagged us down with your cruel display?”
    Uncertainty sparked in his eyes. She had him.
    “That’s right, sir. You played right into their hands. Whoever they are. Now let’s hope there’s not more surprises in store.”
    The way she said “they” conveyed her contempt at their prowess without saying a word further.
    Ciardis stepped back. Tired of playing the game. Besides her arm hurt something dreadful.
    “Now let’s try this one more time from the beginning. Who sent you and why ?”
    The soldier frowned. “As I told you, the imperial chamberlain—“
    “In case it wasn’t clear, I don’t believe you,” she said with an ineffectual wave of her hand. “The imperial chamberlain wouldn’t send orders to have us pinned down right before a fire fight. Now try again.”
    The man’s jaw tightened but this time he spoke more shrewdly.