Chapter 14
Cyan did not wake when Fuegoleon untangled himself from her embrace nor when he got dressed for work. Salamander did wake, his silver eyes glaring at the mage while he dressed.
When he was clothed he motioned for the lizard to come to him. Salamander hissed and buried his scaled head under a pillow and pressed his body closer to hers.
"Come. Don't wake her up." Fuegoleon whispered, grabbing the beast by his tail and pulling him off.
They paused when she made a soft noise and rolled over, arm searching the bed for Salamanders warm body. He smiled and pulled a blanket up over her mostly naked body, tucking it around her shoulders. She wiggled around for a moment then stilled falling back to a deep sleep.
Salamander and Fuegoleon exchanged glances and left the room quietly.
He didn't go to his office in the palace, instead he headed straight for his office at the compound. Mereoleona was supposed to have kept up with his paperwork while she trained Cyan and ran the squad. If any of it was done he'd be surprised. His sister was a wild woman who lived apart from civilization and such mundane tasks like paperwork. Sometimes he envied her free spirit and lack of restraint.
His office was a disaster upon inspection. Stacks of papers on every surface, plates of half eaten food on his desk and ledgers scattered around.
"Are all the women in my life slobs?" He murmured. His face twisted at the comparison between Cyan and Mereoleona. "That was a disturbing thought."
Salamander huffed and curled up under his desk to nap again. It would be some time before he was back in fighting shape after how hard he'd been pushed getting home.
After an hour the office was clean again and work separated into four neat stacks. Just as he was finishing up the first stack the office door opened and Tinny stuck her head in. He waved to shut the door and set his work down for the briefing.
Tinny was out of her maids uniform for the first time in months, back in the black on black ensemble, chestnut hair braided and lower face covered by a cloth mask. His own personal spy and sometimes assassin. She had no sigil on her uniform since she wasn't a Crimson Lion King, she worked directly for him through the Vermillion house. All royals had personal guards, he had a beautiful bloodthirsty killer that did her job perfectly every time.
"How's your wife been? I'm sure she's tired of this assignment." He started conversationally when she didn't speak.
Tinny yanked down her mask and glared at him. "When all of this is over I plan on taking a long vacation Sir, Tasha is ready to kill me."
He chuckled thinking about the friend he hadn't seen since their wedding. Tasha had also worked for him up until an accident crippled her leg. Now she lived in a small town outside the capital while Tinny continued working.
"Once these Devil Banishers have been taken care of and I can ensure Cyan is in no danger you can have all the time you want."
"That's another thing Sir, I like Cyan. We are friends. I'm going to deliver this last briefing to you and then I will never spy on her for you again."
Fuegoleon sat back and rubbed his jaw and realized he hadn't shaved that morning. "That's where you draw the line? Friends?"
She folded her arms and glared at him. "Yes. She doesn't need someone following her and trying to pry information out of her. That chicks an open book. I want her to know who I really am and then I'd like to take her to meet Tasha."
"Tasha and Cyan together in one house. That's horrifying."
"Oh it'll be a disaster," She agreed. "But man, it'll be so much fun."
He chuckled. Tasha might be a hydro mage but she had the temper and self control of a pyro mage. Cyan liked to push people's buttons and irritate them as much as possible according to missives sent by his sister. The personality trait became apparent when he walked into his destroyed bedroom. He liked order and cleanliness and she was chaos incarnate.
Those two together would be fun to watch.
"Okay, give your report and then you can tell her whatever you want. If she gets mad you can blame it on me."
Tinny shook her head. "She's already figured out most of it, it's kinda become a game. For someone with trust issues she's pretty understanding."
With that Tinny began at day one after he left and ran through the events of the last month. She spent a particularly long time giggling about making Cyan do her shopping and buying her chocolate cake just to get her to go to Clearwater. It was funny because no matter what she would have gone since it was her job but getting desserts out of it was more fun.
When Tinny described the night of a drunken female rager he had to suppress a smile. Apparently they pierced their ears in the bathroom and stuffed themselves sick with sweets.
"I thought you were all adults. Now I wonder if I need to have all of you supervised." He remarked, earning him an annoyed look.
"Relationships between women are a delicate and beautiful thing. I wouldn't expect a cold faced man to understand."
She continued till she was finished and leaned against the desk. Her hazel eyes focused on something far away while she chewed on her lip.
"There's one more thing and I'm only telling you because I'm worried about her." She looked shaken. "And you can't get all macho man or whatever since the situation was handled."
Fuegoleon sat straighter and waited for her to report what was bothering her so much.
"There is a man in Clearwater, his name is Everatt. I looked into him. He has a history of violence and assault. Mommy and Daddy are loaded and have managed to pay off everyone to keep the information from going public."
"What does this have to do with Cyan?"
"Because he's her ex lover." She replied lightly.
Fuegoleon froze. He clenched the arms of the chair to stop their shaking. The magic in his arm flicked and smoke rose up from the arm rest. Salamander sensed the shift in the atmosphere and let out a deep growl from his napping place.
"Like I said, the situation was already handled. First by Cyan and then by me." She smiled menacingly and he could only imagine what she'd done to him. "I brought it up because of the way she reacted. I live in a world of death and destruction but she…terrified me."
Tinny broke down the exchange between Cyan and the moron called Everett. When she ran out of words she shivered.
"I think it's already started Sir, the curse or whatever Dorothy thought it was."
He relaxed his grip on the arm rest, ignoring the smoldering wood. "I've already reached out to the Queen of Witches. Hopefully she gets back to me soon."
"And if she doesn't?"
He looked away, refusing to meet her sharp eyes. He had also seen the dark thing flickering behind Cyan's eyes when he revealed who her mother was. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
The door slammed open, startling the room's occupants. Mereoleona stalked in, face twisted with fury. "Where is she!" She yelled.
Tinny and Fuegoleon stared at the seething women confused. "Where's who?" Tinny asked.
"Don't play dumb with me. In the last month she's only been late to training once. Now you're back and she doesnt show up for training at all." She slammed her hand down on the desk. "Tell me where shes hiding so I can put her through suicide runs till she pukes for ditching."
Fuegoleon shook his head. "Cyan's not with me. She was still sleeping when I left this morning. You might want to check the palace."
Tinny shook her head. "She wasn't in the room when I left this morning, Sarabell said she'd already gone. I thought she was at the training ground."
Mereoleona deflated. "No, she didn't show up. I figured she got caught up with her gross infatuation with you two and skipped out."
All three of them took a deep breath at the same time. The three people responsible for watching her and protecting her had no idea where she was.
"Fuck!" Tinny yelled and bolted for the office door, the two Vermillion's and Salamander close on her heels.
They burst through the bedroom door twenty minutes later to find it empty save for a message written in what appeared to be blood across one wall.
'Banished.'
Tinny disappeared down the hall. Mereoleona walked to the message and sniffed it. "It's paint, not blood."
Fuegoleon locked down the rising panic in his chest. Now was not the time to lose control, he needed to focus.
The room was just how he'd left it this morning save for the message and an overturned side table. He stooped and rummaged through the wreckage to find a shattered teacup and saucer. He sniffed the cup and handed it to his sister.
She in turn smelled it and frownd. "Pry leaf, it's a sedative."
"Someone put it in her tea. She must have knocked over the table when she lost consciousness."
"Who would be able to do that? Everyone in all three palaces are heavily vetted. The Devil Banishers wouldn't have been able to get in as an agent without someone noticing."
Tinny ran back into the room breathing heavily. "Sarabell is missing."
Mereoleona frowned even more. "That mousy little thing that's terrified of her own reflection?"
Tinny nodded. "She's been here for over a year, long before the Eyes of the Midnight Sun and this extremist group. It doesn't make sense, something isn't adding up."
Fuegoleon began to stand when bright wrapping paper caught his eye in the wreckage. He grabbed a small palm sized box and opened it. The box held two gold bracelets each with a tag with cramped looping handwriting with his and Tinny's name.
He touched the surface of one and felt the immense chilling power of Cyan. Temlar had told him that she could leave bits of her power in places to act as an anchor for when she shadow dived. It made finding places easier and allowed her to expand less mana when in the dive. The spells in the bracelets had been destroyed and re-spelled by her to act as anchors.
So she could always find him and Tinny no matter where they were.
Tinny plucked one out of the box and sniffed lightly. "I didn't know she bought these." She murmured and slipped it around her wrist.
At the same moment a book skittered out from under the bed and smacked into her foot. Everyone looked down to find Cyan's grimrior, red and black cover smoking and the smell of burnt pages filling the room.
Mereoleona picked it up, ignoring its hot cover and flipped through it. "All the pages are intact. That's good."
Fuegoleon hissed. "They tried to burn her grimoire. She must have slipped it into a dive." He looked at the bracelet on Tinny's wrist. "She connected dives to us and the book came out once it had an anchor point."
He quickly pulled his own bracelet on and felt the cool creeping touch of her magic on his flesh.
"She must be close, they couldn't have gotten far. They wont hurt her right?" Tinny asked.
He shook his head. "They might. There were two groups, the Devil Banishers and Devil Believers. One wanted the power of the devil and one wanted to destroy dangerous mages. We ran the Believers over the border of the Spade Kingdom so that just leaves one possibility."
They looked at the word painted at the wall and back at the smoldering grimoire. The Banishers had Cyan and they obviously weren't looking to have dinner with her.
Tinny looked down at her bracelet and asked despite knowing the answer, "Can she dive without her grimoire?"
The siblings shook their heads and Fuegoleon looked over at her. "Once she sent her grimoire away to protect it she lost her connection to her mana. She's stuck." He stated simply.
There was a pause while everyone collected themselves, running though what they knew about the Devil Banishers and their ultimate goal.
It was Mereoleona that spoke first. "Tinny get to the roof and use your magic to Listen, maybe they're still in the city. Salamander can try and track her by scent. I'll go get Leopold and some of the senior members of the Lion Kings. Fuegoleon-" She stopped when she noticed the seething look on his face. "Remain calm and go get Yami, he has a spacial mage. We'll need all the help we can get without alerting any other possible agents or the other squads that dont like her presents in the capital to begin with."
"Everyone is against her and she hasn't done anything wrong." Tinny clenched the book to her chest.
"Yet." Fuegoleon added the unsaid word they all had been thinking.
"The sedative is starting to wear off again. Damn this girl has a high tolerance." A man spoke somewhere behind Cyan. She blinked and pulled lightly at the chains holding her against a half wall. Sheila used to dose her with Pry leaf when she couldn't sleep and indeed built up a tolerance to it. She recognized the flavor too late in the tea Sarabell handed her earlier.
"Make a stronger dose." The man said to the maid who watched Cyan across the room.
Sarabell refused to look her in the eye as she crushed more leaves and added warm water. She turned with the cup and approached her eyes downcast with anger.
"Why." Cyan croaked. Sarabell had always been wary of her but was friendly and gentle. Why would she help these people? Why did she want to hurt her?
Sarabell leaned down and dug her fingers into Cyan's jaw, prying her mouth apart and dumped the contents of the cup down her throat. Cyan gagged at the acrid taste of the herb, Sarabell covered her mouth forcing her to swallow it.
"It's nothing against you, well not at first. You were always nice to me and invited me to do things with you and Tinny…" She trailed off shaking her head. "My father died when your mother attacked the Capital. She hurt a lot of people, Cyan."
"I haven't hurt anyone."
"No. And in the beginning I was okay with you being at the palace. But then they started training you, the Wizard King offered to make you a Magic Knight and the Master let you sleep with him." Her face contorted into one of pure unbridled rage. "You, a freak and a commoner that could hurt people if you lost control. He let you near him when he wouldn't let anyone else near him."
A light flipped on in Cyan's mind. She laughed, a low angry laugh. "This is all because you are in love with Fuegoleon?" She closed her eyes against the swaying room. "That's what it really boils down to? Infatuation? Are you guys even with the Devil Banishers?"
Sarabell grabbed her face again, nails slicing through her cheeks. "Keep his name out of your disgusting mouth." She seethed and shoved Cyan back against the wall.
"That's enough Sara, she'll get what's coming to her." The man walked around the half wall and stood before her. He was tall with the same dark hair as Sarabell and similar blue eyes. Probably her brother. "No, we're not with the Devil Banishers. But they did make a convenient cover since they had also been looking into you."
The room swayed again, nausea built up in her stomach and it took all her willpower to not pass out. Fighting against the drug was getting hard and she didn't know how much longer she could hold out. There wasn't much she could do without her grimoire, drugged and chained down.
All the months of training with Temlar and then Mel just fizzled out. If given enough time she might figure out a way to escape but between the chains and the constant drugging she couldn't think straight. She looked up at her captures. Besides, she didn't think they were going to wait much longer before killing her. Why they hadn't yet was beyond her but it was going to happen.
She blinked back the fog in her brain and felt out with her mana. She still couldn't feel her grimoire anywhere which could be both a good and a bad thing. They had thrown it in the fire as soon as they got to the small hovel they were keeping her in. She had tried to pull it through the shadow beneath the grate, without a line of sight she didn't know if it worked.
She would have felt if her grimoire had been destroyed right? Mages are basically cripled without one so surely she should be able to tell. Cyan hadn't left anything in the limbo of a shadow dive before, there was no telling what would happen to it and if she couldn't access her grimoire then she couldn't pull it back out.
She may just live the rest of her life without it.
"This is cute." The man murmured picking up her hat from a table. Running his fingers along the silky brim. He moved to ensure she could see it better. "Fancy yourself a witch like you monster of a mother?"
"Don't touch that" She hissed and jerked against the chains.
He had enough sense to be intimidated by her and stepped back. "Why? Is this something important to you?"
"Dorothy gave it to her." Sarabell supplied as she too stepped back.
He smiled and dropped down to look Cyan in the eye. "A gift from your aunt. It must be special to you."
Cyan jerked against the chains again. The room spun faster and her stomach clenched. She couldn't concentrate anymore, couldn't focus on their faces as the drug began to win the battle.
The man smirked at her before tossing the hat across the room into the flames of the fireplace. The hat went up in a blaze of smoke, the brim curling in on itself and fabric turned black instantly. Within a matter of seconds the gift from her aunt was gone.
"Having fun, Jacob?" A new male voice spoke. "I see you got started without me."
Cyan craned her neck to find a familiar face walking through the worn wood door. He was the custodian in the palace. A quiet man somewhere in his forties with steel gray hair and tiered brown eyes. Cyan waved at him whenever they passed in the hall but had only spoken to him once after her first training with Mereoleona and he'd informed her she had burnt her hair.
She racked her brain for his name. "Christopher?"
This was the person they'd been waiting for and now that he was there they could finish the job. She forced a wide smile on her face and cocked her head to the side. "What? You're in love with Fuegoleon as well?" She quipped. If they were going to kill Cyan then she'd be as unpleasant as possible.
Sarabell's hand snapped out, smacking Cyan in the face hard enough to bounce her head off the wall. "I said keep his name out of your mouth!" She screamed.