Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance
Chapter Five
The best part of the weekend was the mornings. That was when Tabitha could put on her glasses, reach for a book, and read with the sun warming her back. She often skipped breakfast on such days so she wouldn't have to get dressed until noon. The time she could spend just lying in bed with a good book to fall into was so...
Her door slammed open and Kirche burst into her room. "Tabitha! I need your dragon! I just fell in love!"
...peaceful. And it was gone. She glanced up at her friend.
"So, I saw this guy, right? Well, I saw him yesterday, but I never got the chance to talk to him with all the whatnot, and he seemed to be working, right? Royal guard and all that. But this morning, I saw him again, so I was thinking, it has to be fate, you know?" Tabitha didn't know how much longer Kirche wanted to monologue, so she went back to her book. "Well, he left before I could catch him, but I found out that he was asking about–get this–Louise de la Valliere! It turns out that she just left this morning, don't know where, somewhere to the north, so my mystery man must have gone after her, and I figured, no way am I going to lose to Louise the Zero in something like–hey, are you listening, or just reading?"
Well, she managed to get through another page. Tabitha put her book down and looked at Kirche innocently. Kirche was the best friend she ever had, but she wished Kirche could reign herself in a bit more. Or at all. But if there was one thing that provoked Kirche to irrationality, it was men, and if there were two things, it was men and Louise, and if there was a man interested in Louise, then Kirche would never rest.
And, by extension, neither would she.
Tabitha stood up, grabbed her staff, whistled for her familiar, and stepped out the window.
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Louise always assumed that if she ever met Viscount Wardes again, it would be after he had annulled their engagement and had gotten married to someone taller, prettier, and more skilled than she was. Other than that, she thought that they would have met at their wedding, with him passively accepting the arrangement if only for the political advantages.
Meeting him out of the blue, assigned by the princess herself to protect her, still in love with her–in love with her...it was so impossible it felt like something out of a dream.
Or at least, it would have been, if he hadn't had some sort of history with her familiar.
"So, you two know each other?" Louise asked. Her familiar was looking at Wardes as though he had insulted her ancestors and murdered her family, and he was looking at her as if she had caught him crossdressing.
"We've met," Wardes said. "Briefly. She seemed inordinately curious in the her Majesty's unicorns which I was guarding, and I fear I was more brusque than I should have been."
That...that described Louise's first meeting with San pretty well, too, with Louise taking for granted San's understanding of societal propriety, and San climbing out the window and running away. But they had gotten over that, so Louise's familiar and fiancé could get over their unfortunate first impression, too. After all, San wasn't the type to hold a grudge, right? Right?
"Well, whatever happened," Louise said, "it's all in the past. Both of you are now starting over and meeting each other for the first time." She tried to sound unbiased, but she meant her words more for San. "Wardes, this is San, my familiar. San, this is Wardes, my fiancé."
"Hello, San," Wardes said. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope that we can become friends." He extended his hand to her like a perfect gentleman. Louise half expected her familiar to sniff it like she had when Colbert offered the same courtesy.
But she didn't. San only stared at Wardes, her eyes boring a hole in his jugular vein.
Oh, Founder, Louise thought. This is going to be a rough trip.
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San would have found the hypnotic rhythm of Alo's hooves soothing under different circumstances. The road was too open to sneak up on anything, but that meant that it was also too open for anything to sneak up on them. She didn't know Guiche that well, but if he was half as good as Verdandi claimed he was (and didn't talk), then she was sure she'd be able to tolerate him. And Louise...San was starting to like that human. Around her...
San didn't feel that old, visceral hatred surging up from the pit of her stomach that she felt around other humans.
But then there was Wardes. She glared at him as he rode in the front of the group on his bird-cat. His cruel indifference for their first encounter and his deliberate kindness for this their second with a thick background of arrogance made him feel so very human.
"You can't judge people by their first impression," Louise said, riding beside her. The white mare she had started out on had grown tired, so she had switched to a black stallion that Alo described as irksome. "You didn't like me when we first met, and I didn't much care for you either, but everyone deserves a second chance, and I'm sure that–"
"Louise," San said. "Is Wardes part of this group?"
She blinked. "Of course he is."
"Then, as long as he is part of the group, I will endure him." Somehow. "What's a fiancé?"
Louise looked up. "Pardon?"
"You referred to him as your fiancé. What does that mean?"
"Oh, um, it means that we are engaged."
Another meaningless word. San waited for her to finish.
"To be...married."
Married. San had heard that term before. It was another human thing, but it meant basically...
"He's your mate?"
Louise's face turned pink and she glanced ahead to see if Wardes was watching them. "It's more complicated than that, but in the future, eventually, we may or may not...yes?"
Wardes continued to sit with his head facing forward, but San could tell he was listening. "Why him?"
Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "I didn't pick him! My family did!"
"Is he your family's mate or yours?"
"That's not a term people use," she hissed, growing irritated. "But in a way, both."
San tried to make sense of her words, but she failed. How could families mate? Wolves mated to start their own families, and San knew that when her brothers were old enough, they would go off on their own to start the cycle anew, but humans...she'd never understand them.
"Did that make any sense to you?" San asked Alo.
"Sorry, what?" the horse said. "I wasn't really paying attention."
San smiled weakly and shook her head.
"So, we're good, right?" Louise said, misinterpreting Sans gesture. "I mean..." She stopped as a shadow passed over them.
San looked up and saw a dragon, its blue wings blending into the sky. Louise's horse whinnied, but Alo stayed calm. Wardes drew his sword and his mount spread its wings.
"Put it back, Wardes," San snapped. "She's a friend." She recognized those wings.
Sylphid slowed her flight and landed on the road ahead of them. Sylphid's human, Tabitha, sat on her back, and the redhead Kirche dismounted.
"Louise!" Kirche said cheerfully. "What a surprise meeting you here! And you brought your familiar too. Hey San!" She turned to Wardes. "And who are you, handsome? My name's Kirche, by the way, but you can call me anything you want. This is a pleasure."
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Louise froze in horror as Kirche appeared out of nowhere to try to ruin her life. As if things weren't complicated enough trying to resolve whatever dispute her familiar had with Wardes, now Kirche had to arrive. This always happened to her! Whenever she was on the verge of some sort of resolution, Kirche happened!
"My name is Wardes," he said. He tugged on his reins, pulling his griffon away from her. "And I would appreciate it if you would cease stroking my leg. I'm already in a relationship."
"Really?" she said, undaunted. "With who?"
"I'm engaged to Louise Françoise de la Valliere," he said coldly. "I believe you already know each other."
"Louise, huh?" Kirche glanced at her with a smirk. "You can do better than her."
I will murder you in your sleep!
"I doubt that," Wardes said. "I doubt that very much."
Louise blinked. She was so surprised, she almost missed the expression on Kirche's face when she was, possibly for the first time ever, rejected by a man she liked. Almost. She would cherish Kirche's shocked bewilderment for the rest of her life.
"Kirche," Louise said. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know, just flying around, thought I'd drop by and say hi." Liar. "What are you doing here?"
"That's a secret."
"A secret? As in, you haven't decided yet, or it's a secret mission kind of secret?"
"The latter," Guiche said smugly. "Why, the fate of the entire kingdom of Tristain could depend on the outcome of our royal mission."
"Guiche!"
"What?" he said. "The secrecy of the mission wasn't the secret part of the mission. It's not like I mentioned the princess's letter we need to retrieve from Prince Wales."
"Guiche!" I'll murder you both!
"Oh, I am so sorry." He actually sounded sincere. "I cannot shut up when I'm talking to women."
"You can't shut up when you're talking at all!" Louise shrieked–in a wholly dignified and ladylike manner. "That's what talking means!"
"She has a point," Kirche said.
"Don't agree with me!" Louise said, pointing at her. "Don't ever agree with me!"
"Before you ask," Kirche said, turning to Wardes, "yes, she always this demanding and unreasonable."
"And before you ask," Louise said, "you are not coming with us." This was her mission that Princess Henrietta entrusted to her, and by the Founder, there was no way her family's ancient enemy take that from her.
"Well, I wasn't planning on joining you," Kirche said. "But I have always wanted to meet Prince Wales." She turned back to her friend. "Hey, Tabitha! Do you want to go to Albion with me?"
Tabitha sat on her dragon, reading her book, wearing, for her own incomprehensible reasons, a nightdress and a nightcap. "Don't care."
"Alright, it's settled then."
"No! No, no, no, no, no!"
"Oh, come on, Louise," Kirche said. "I already know too much for you to turn me away." She winked at Guiche. "Thanks for that, by the way."
"What can I say?" he said. "Guiche de Gramont always leaves women satisfied. Whether I want to or not."
I am rapidly losing control of the situation. She looked at Wardes helplessly.
He didn't look any happier than she did, but he looked ahead and motioned his griffon forward. "Let's get going. We've wasted enough time here as it is."
"You're just going to let them come with us?" Louise protested.
"We can't exactly stop them," he said, his voice cold and logical. "But who knows? They might come in handy somehow."
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They arrived at La Rochelle late in the evening, exhausted from their journey. Or at least Louise was. Dragons were more comfortable to sit on than horses, and it seemed like Wardes and San were born on the saddle. Or at least Wardes was. San still rode bareback, so that left Louise and Guiche, and Guiche's feelings didn't matter.
They stopped at an inn called The Goddess Temple and Wardes paid for the rooms. Everything Louise had needed at the Academy had already been paid for, so she didn't have much experience spending money, and she realized that she had underestimated their traveling expenses.
That was probably why Princess Henrietta sent him along. Otherwise, Louise might have had to have asked Kirche for money, which could very well have killed her.
They sat around a table in the inn's common room. The rest of the patrons were either nobility or wealthy commoners, and Kirche leered at some of them appraisingly. If that kept her away from Louise's betrothed, then all the better. Guiche flirted unsuccessfully with the waitresses, and Tabitha propped open her book at the first opportunity, still in her pajamas. San stood in the corner fidgeting, glaring at anyone who thought that a girl with face paint and a wolfskin cloak looked out of place.
"I have the keys," Wardes said, sitting down next to her. "The girls are in room two-thirteen and Guiche is alone in one-sixtynine."
Guiche took his key. "Well, we'll see how long that lasts."
"And Louise, you and I will be in room one-oh-eight."
Louise sucked in a breath and felt her face heat up. "B-but Wardes, we're not married yet."
"We're engaged," he said indifferently. "Besides, I have something important to discuss with you."
Oh. Well, as long as it was strictly business, it was okay then. There wasn't anything at all inappropriate with a man and a woman sharing a room together to...discuss important matters.
Kirche picked up her room key and leaned towards Wardes. "If you ever get tired of the Valliere playing hard to get, come knock on my door. Tabitha is so quiet, you won't even know she's there."
Wardes ignored her and led her to her–their–room.
Oh, Founder, what am I doing?
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Oh, Founder, what am I doing? Wardes thought as he poured two cups of wine. I'm trying to seduce a child, he replied to himself. That's what I'm doing.
He could say what he liked about the fate of the world and the greater good, but that didn't change the reality of the present, and that reality would make him the laughing stock of the Reconquista in a way he'd never be able to live down.
Not that he'd ever cared what others thought about him, but still, he'd have felt more comfortable trying to kill the kid than wooing her.
He gave a cup to Louise and smiled as warmly as he could. "To a safe journey."
"Yeah," she said, but she held the cup with both hands between trembling knees. "Safe journey."
Wardes downed his own cup, pretending not to notice her discomfort. He remembered her being more gullible when she was six. Hopefully, she was still as insecure.
He put his hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "Don't worry, my Louise. I will always be there for you."
That was a lie, and an obvious one. He hadn't bothered to keep in touch in the ten years since they were engaged, and when his father died, their betrothal was one of the many obligations he felt relieved to be free of, but it was the sort of lie that people wanted to believe.
"And," he added, "your familiar will be there for you too."
"My familiar?" she said, looking up. "But she hates you."
"Yes," he admitted. "And I take full responsibility for that, but she's loyal to you." Magnanimity would take him further than petty grudges would.
"But she's just a commoner. She can barely handle polite conversation."
"Perhaps. But she's very good with animals, isn't she?"
Louise looked up in surprise. So Osmond was right.
"On the way here," he continued, "you changed horses, what, three times? Four?" His griffon was strong enough to not even notice his weight, especially if it was walking instead of flying, but horses tired.
"Something like that," Louise said.
"And how many times did your familiar, San, change her horse?" Wardes asked. "I wasn't watching too closely, but whenever I looked back, she was on the same white horse."
"Then...she must have picked a pretty strong horse."
"Her mount looked pretty scrawny to me. And she controlled it perfectly without reins, too. Don't you think that's odd?"
"Well, maybe a little. What's your point?"
"My point, my Louise, is I've recognized the runes on her right hand. Runes have always been something of a hobby of mine, and I recognized hers as soon as I saw them. If I'm not mistaken, they spell Windalfr."
"Windalfr?" She put her full wine cup on the table and stood up. "I've heard that word before. Wasn't that the name of one of Founder Brimir's familiars? The one with the flute?"
"I think the flute was meant to be symbolic, but yes. According to the legends, Windalfr could control any animal she met."
Wardes could see the wheels turning inside her mind. She knew he was right, and she had pieces to the puzzle that he didn't. "What does it mean?"
"That you've summoned a familiar who shares the marks of one of the Founder's own four?" Wardes asked. "It means that you could very well become the most powerful mage that the world has seen in millennia."
She stared at him, evidently having arrived at a different conclusion. "What? But that's impossible."
"Why? If a void mage can happen once, it can happen again."
She began to pace. "Well, yes, but me? Brimir was a legend, and I haven't been able to cast three spells right."
"Irrelevant. You're still coming into your power. You'll be a legend too, when you are done."
Louise looked away and seemed to mouth the words, "Louise the Legend," as a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
It seemed as a good a time as any to make his move, so he did. "Marry me when this mission is over, Louise."
He calculated how much time he had before the Reconquista secured Albion and was ready to make its move on Tristain. In an optimal scenario, the Reconquista would invade while the void mage was safely honeymooning in Romalia, so they needed to wed quickly.
Louise jumped in surprise and stumbled back into her chair. "What?" But...but...I'm not ready for that! I still need to finish school, and...and..."
"The Tristain Academy teaches only four of the five elements, and there's nothing you can learn from them."
"But I'm too young!"
"You're sixteen. That's old enough to make decisions on your own." But probably not wise enough. "I don't want to spend my whole life as just a knight, Louise. I want to change the course of Halkeginia." That was the first time all night he had heard emotion in his voice. Those words were also the truest. "And I want you by my side, my Louise, because I know that, regardless of what you think, you will change Halkeginia."
He had never been good at flattery. It always came out as false or frightening, and as his words settled, Louise looked truly frightened.
"Well, just think about it," he said as lightly as he could. "We have a long trip ahead of us."
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Worrying about Princess Henrietta's mission as well as Wardes's claim that she was a void mage with a legendary familiar did not help her sleep. The next morning, she woke up even more tired than she had been when she had gone to bed.
Wardes had already left. Either he was a morning person, or he had something to do. What, Louise couldn't say; none of the ships would leave for Albion until tomorrow, so they all had the day off.
She rolled out of bed and put her shoes on, having slept in her clothes. That was one of the many things that had kept her from falling asleep. So far, she had not done a good job of planning ahead for this mission. Tabitha's idea of traveling in her pajamas suddenly didn't seem so foolish.
Louise went up the stairs to the second floor of the inn where her familiar and her classmates were staying and knocked on the door.
Kirche greeted her with a grin. "Hey, Louise. You look like you've had a fun night."
Louise looked down and smoothed the wrinkles out of her shirt, glaring at Kirche's clothes, which looked as fresh as they had the day before. "Is my familiar here?"
"Nope."
"Do you know where she is?"
Kirche cocked her head innocently. "What, don't you?"
"I'm not in the mood for games, Kirche, just answer the question."
"Sure, if you answer one of mine."
Louise really should have stayed in bed. Morning people were much easier to deal with in the afternoon. "You just can't make this easy on me, can you?"
"What, it's a question for a question. That's fair." Kirche grinned. "So give me the double D."
"The what? I don't know what that is, but I'm going to assume that's obscene."
"The dirty details," Kirche explained. "How was he last night?"
"How was who?"
Kirche gave her a long suffering look.
"Oh, Wardes. There weren't any dirty details. We talked business, we went to sleep in separate beds, and nothing interesting happened at all."
Kirche looked aghast at her. "What is wrong with you?"
"That's a second question. You only get one."
"Okay, fine. No, Louise, I do not know where your familiar is."
"What? But she was with you!"
"She was, but as soon as she came in here, she sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and climbed out the window."
"What? But..." That actually sounded a lot like her. "Did she say where she was going? When she'd be back?"
"Nope. You might not have noticed, but your familiar is not the most talkative girl I've ever met. In fact, she might very well be the second least." Kirche stepped out of the doorway and invited her in. "As you may notice, only two of the three beds have been slept in."
The room was almost as nice as the one Louise had stayed in, though a bit bigger. One of the beds was still perfectly made, one had its blankets strewn across the floor, and one was almost still made, except that it had Tabitha still in it reading a book.
And no sign of San. Not that there was anything to worry about. Even at the Academy, San had stayed outdoors whenever she could and never cared for human food. She had probably gone just outside the city limits or something. She had almost certainly not run away. Again.
"Magic eye," Tabitha said without looking up.
"What?"
"Tabitha's suggesting that you use the magic eye," Kirche explained. "You know, the one that lets you see what your familiar is doing? That might give you some clue about where she is. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see how tall, dark, and silver is doing."
"Oh no! Don't you dare! He's mine!"
"Not yet, he's not," Kirche laughed. "Why don't you focus on what is yours, and leave what isn't to everyone else?"
She walked out the door, knowing that Louise couldn't do anything to stop her. Or could she? Louise raced out ahead of her and ran down the stairs and banged on Guiche's door.
"What is it, Louise?" he asked, looking like he had just stumbled out of bed. "I was up late with a beautiful–"
"I'm not interested in Rosie Palms, Guiche! I have a mission for you."
"A mission?" He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "But I thought we weren't leaving until tomorrow."
"And until then, I need you to keep Kirche and Wardes away from each other. Until I get back, I need you to be with at least one of them at all times."
He blinked. "Is there something I need to be aware of?"
"No, you don't have to be aware of anything. You just need to keep the sex demon off my fiancé."
"Distracting a sex demon," Guiche mused. "I don't know. I am in the middle of a very satisfying relationship with Montmorency right now."
"Montmorency?" Louise repeated. "You mean the girl who publicly dumped you at the Ball of Frigg with the rest of your girlfriends?" It was the highlight of an otherwise dull evening.
He cleared his throat. "Well, we're hitting a rough spot, admittedly, but still. Anyway, don't you trust Viscount Wardes? He is your fiancé."
"I don't trust Kirche, and I'd rather not trust Wardes any more than I have to." Wardes had never shown himself to be anything less than honorable, but Kirche had methods. Louise didn't know what they were, but she knew that Kirche had them, and that they were devious. "I need to work on something, and if anything happens between the two of them while I'm gone, I will hold you responsible, and I will personally feed your manhood to a pack of wolves! I have those connections!"
Guiche yelped and face paled. Well, it was his blabbering fault Kirche was with them in the first place, he could deal with the consequences.
"I-I say, I seem to have, um, underestimated the dangers of traveling with you to a war torn kingdom wrought with civil war. But nonetheless, this rose does not wilt in the sight of peril."
Louise left him to his flower metaphors to find her familiar. Now, if I were raised by wolves and hated humans, where would I be?
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San was admiring a fountain in the middle of the human city when a crow landed on her shoulder. She ignored him for a moment, trying to figure out how the humans had convinced the water to shoot up perpetually in a gentle, artificial geyser, when he spoke.
"You smell like God."
San didn't respond for a moment. She knew no crow god, by neither name nor scent. But could crows smell at all? She had never asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"It's your scent," he said, looking at her with one eye the color of a midnight lake. "You decide what it means."
That made even less sense. Smells were objective; they meant the past, where she had been and what she done. "What do you want?"
"I want to be there when you kill."
Without warning he fell off her shoulder and flew past one of the few humans San recognized.
"There you are," Louise said. "I was worried that I'd have to leave town and wander around the forest for a few hours." She sat down on a short, wide stone sculpture that must have been designed for that purpose. "We need to talk."
Humans always wanted to talk, even when they had nothing to say. "So talk."
"Have a seat," she said, motioning to the other side of the stone sculpture. She took her right hand and looked at the markings on it, as though she had never noticed them before.
And then she began to talk.
We need to talk meant that Louise needed to talk, apparently. So San sat next to her and listened.
Louise told her about her childhood, human problems that San never had. She had inherited a reputation to live up to, but not the capacity to excel. Both of her elder siblings were everything her parents wanted, but Louise was, in her parents eyes, and gradually in her own eyes, worthless.
That level of betrayal, of humanity, was beyond anything San could comprehend. Like Louise, San had grown up as the slowest and weakest of her family. Her skin was naked and hairless, her teeth as dull as an herbivore's, and she was so slow she needed to be carried. She was a burden.
But her brothers and her mother never saw her that way. She was born with the form of their enemy, but they accepted her as one of them, and she was one of them, and no matter how slow, weak, and ugly someone is, you never abandon family.
Assuming, of course, that you live among wolves.
Louise moved on with her story and told her about Wardes, about how when she felt crushed by the expectations that she would always fail to reach, he would find her and speak kind words to her. Humans always put too much value on words, but kind words were kindnesses, too.
"And one day," Louise continued, "I'm going to get married to him. It might be in a few years when I'm done with school, it might be when we get back from Albion, but one way or another, he's going to become part of my life, and I...I don't want you running off into the woods again just because you don't like him."
Of course she wouldn't. To abandon was human, and San was wolf. But that wasn't what Louise was asking. If San continued on her path, hating Wardes whenever they shared each other's presence, then even if she didn't scare him off, Louise would be caught in the middle of their...their cycle of hatred, and she didn't deserve that.
"And you know what else?" Louise said. "Last night when we were alone, Wardes could have badmouthed you and tried to get me to take his side in things, but it seemed like he really liked you, and he kept on telling me how great a familiar he thought you were. He said that you were the legendary Windalfr, which may have been an exaggeration, but–"
"Wait, what did he call me?"
"Windalfr," Louise said again. "You know, from Brimir's legend."
San didn't know what Brimir was, but she had heard the word, "Windalfr," once before. You will destroy each other, the unicorns had said. Or save each other. Choose Wolf Daughter. Choose, Windalfr.
"Yeah, I know," Louise said, misinterpreting San's expression. "If I had found out that Kirche had been going around telling people that I was the greatest mage she had ever met, I'd, well...anyway, we won't be able to take a ship to Albion until tomorrow, so I'd appreciate if you spoke to Wardes to reconcile whatever it is that needs reconciliation."
San nodded slowly. She still had no idea what the word, "Windalfr," meant, but she guessed that Wardes hadn't heard the term from a unicorn.
"You're right," she said. "I should talk to him."
"Fantastic," Louise said, standing up. "You just wait here, and I'll send him over."
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Wardes flew to where Louise said that San was on the back of his griffon. His wonder at the majesty of flight had long since given way to acceptance of the practicality of it, and griffons were practical beasts. They weren't as strong as dragons, but they were easier to tame, quicker to breed, and ate far less.
And today, his griffon would prove a legend.
He landed in the open square where he found San. Some children screamed and ran away and others approached the creature curiously, but the adults continued on their way and stayed out of his.
"San!" he said, planting a smile on his face. "Good morning to you!"
"Why did you call me Windalfr?"
Not one for courtesy, but he knew that from the day before. What surprised him more was how she showed none of the subservience commoners often displayed to their superiors, nor the condescension nobles gave their inferiors. In fact, the only emotion he sensed from her was the animosity of an enemy.
"Oh, that," he said. "The runes on your hand match those of Brimir's legendary familiar." He had hoped for some sort of reaction, but San only stared at him as though he were speaking a foreign language.
"What does that mean?"
"You're Windalfr. The only Windalfr that the world has seen in thousands of years. You decide what it means."
She nodded, and her animosity lessened.
"I know we started out on the wrong foot," he said, pressing his advantage. "But I'd like to make peace with you before we continue."
San cocked her head at that. "Are you a peacemaker, then?"
"I..." Was this a trick? She seemed to bury a deeper meaning in her words. "When I have to be." She nodded again. "Anyway, I have brought a peace offering." He stroked the long, white feathers of his griffon's neck. "You ride horses well, Windalfr, but crawling beasts bore me." He smiled at her. "How would you like to ride something with wings?"
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San looked into the proud, golden eyes of the griffon. Nothing saw you quite like a bird of prey, nothing had that intensity, and the front half of the griffon was a giant eagle. His eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking, and easily three inches wide, wide enough for San to see her black reflection in his pupils.
"My name is San, daughter of Moro," she said. The griffon did not respond. "What should I call you?"
"My name is my own," he said. "Most humans call me griffon."
"I am not human. I am wolf."
"Could have fooled me."
She forced herself to let his words slide. She knew what she was, and that was enough. "The human, Wardes, offered me his permission to ride you." She was careful not to use the term, "master." Humans liked owning things, but only few animals were content to be owned. "What say you?"
"What say I?" the griffon snapped. "I have no say, so I say nothing."
"Yes you do, griffon. I will not ride you without your permission."
The griffon studied her, the only emotion she could read being the twitching of his tail, which San couldn't interpret.
"If I have a say," he said finally, "then I say no."
San stepped back, realizing that he hated her, hated her viscerally, instinctively, eternally, not for what she had done, but for what he thought she was. And once more, she saw her black reflection in the pupils of his unreadable eyes.
"No," she said aloud to Wardes. "I would not like to ride the griffon."
WWW
If she had flown on the griffon, then Wardes would have known that she was Windalfr, and if she had fallen, then he would have known that she was not, but by watching her refuse to try, he had learned...nothing.
Still, until he managed to dig up a book of void spells, the familiar was the only way he had of proving that Louise was a void mage. He didn't want to risk the fate of the world on the words of two old men.
But that would come later. Now, he had to cut the fat from his merry band of fools.
"Are the mercenaries ready, Fouquet?"
"They're mostly sober, if that's what you mean. And if they all die, we don't have to pay them."
"Their expenses are negligible."
"Not if you count the money trail. That's the sort of thing that comes back to bite you."
Wardes rolled his eyes behind the mask that he always wore when he was with her. What did she know of living a double life? She had been playing the game for what, a few years? He had been what he had become for half his life.
"I need them to distract and delay, only. Their survival is irrelevant."
"Are you talking about them, or me? Because I think that my survival is pretty relevant."
"If you think that you have been treated unfairly, Fouquet..."
"Oh, no, no, of course not. You gave me a choice between freedom and death, and I chose the former. Of course, I was kind of hoping that freedom didn't mean indentured servitude."
"Would you like a raise?"
She cocked an eyebrow. "I wouldn't complain, unless that's a euphemism for hanging me."
He knew her story. He had studied it before he freed her. He knew how her once noble family had been loyal to the Albion king's brother, and had fallen into dishonor when the archduke had been caught harboring an elf. Everything she had done since, becoming Fouquet, joining the Reconquista, she had done for vengeance.
"The targets include the girls who captured you before. Nothing that happens to them matters to the plan, as long as they are delayed."
A slow smile crept across her delicate, if severe features. "Oh, you silver-tongued devil."
"Give me a five minute head start. Then strike."
WWW
More and more, Louise was becoming convinced that Tabitha was the only person who was prepared for the mission. She had brought pajamas while Louise had to sleep in her clothes, she brought a book while Louise had nothing to do while she waited for the time to pass, and so she wasn't the least bit surprised when Tabitha walked down the stairs to the common room with her nightcap on her head and a book in her head and announced, "Enemies."
But that was mostly because Louise didn't understand what she meant. Fortunately, the earth shook and mercenaries burst into the room clarifying her statement.
She dove under a table and reached for her wand, but she didn't think that the innkeeper would appreciate it if she blew up his inn. The innkeeper...who was promptly murdered. Well, screw that!
"Fireball!" she shouted. No fire came out of her wand, but the ceiling collapsed on the mercenaries, and that bought them some time.
"Still," Kirche said. "That's not what I would call a fireball."
Guiche stumbled down the stairs. "Are we under attack, or is this the sort of thing that usually happens in these inns?"
"Attack," Tabitha said.
"Don't mind if I do!" Kirche said, seeing an armored mercenary climb out of the wreckage. "Fireball!" Her spell blasted the man away and lit the inn on fire. "Now, that's what a fireball looks like."
"No," Louise said. "That's what arson looks like!"
"I don't hear the innkeeper complaining. Oh, right, because he's dead." The earth shook again. "Is there something going on outside that I should be aware of?"
"There's a demon outside," San said, coming out of nowhere.
"Oh, that's encouraging."
"What do you mean?" Louise asked. "What kind of demon?"
"Earth demon," San said. "You called it a golem the first time. Fouquet's still alive." The last part came out as an accusation.
Wardes flew in through the window. "Louise, you're still alive. Good. I'm not too late."
"I'm alive too, handsome, if you're interested," Kirche said. "So we got some mercs and an escaped thief to play with. Do you have a preference, or do you swing both ways?"
"I fear our situation is more dire," he said. "Both armored commoners and earth golems require more magic to defeat than they really deserve, and are best used as willpower siphons."
"So they're the expendables to wear us out," Kirche said, switching from flirty to serious. "Dang it, are we going to have to hold back? I hate holding back!"
"There's more," Wardes continued. "If these forces are, as I believe, employed by the Reconquista, then our mission is no longer one of stealth, but of speed. Now that they are looking for us, the only hope for our mission is for Louise to reach Prince Wales as quickly as possible."
"Just Louise?" Kirche asked. "So what's the rest of us supposed to do? Are we just–"
"Bait," Tabitha supplied.
"I was going to say, 'expendable,' but that works too."
"Then it's agreed," he said. "Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche will stay behind to fight off the mercenaries and the thief. I'll take Louise and her familiar to the docks to take a ship to Albion."
"What?" San said, turning away from the pile of rubble that had blocked off the mercenaries. "I should stay here! I defeated Fouquet before, and I can do it again."
Louise wasn't sure about that. Before, San had horses, wolves, and whatever else was in that forest. In a town, she had, what? Birds?
"No," Wardes said. "You should stay with Louise. It is a familiar's duty to protect its master."
San's eyes widened in surprise, and as she turned to Louise, the surprise turned to betrayal and her body tensed. "Master?"
Louise had been careful to never use the M word around her, and she knew that she only had a moment to explain the situation, a moment to tell her that their relationship was not one between master and servant, but between familiar and...something else.
And she'd have to do in front of Kirche and Wardes, and reveal to her rival and her fiancé that she couldn't control her own familiar, that she had failed the most basic aspect of being a mage.
She hesitated, and the moment passed.
"Well, master," San said. "You can go do what you want." She reached up and lowered her ceramic mask over her face. "I'm going hunting."
"By yourself?" Louise almost forbade her, but she knew that San would not obey.
"Of course not," San said. "I'll ask Verdandi to help." She jumped out the same window Wardes had flown in through to go after Fouquet.
"I can't help but feel like there's a lot of drama going on here that I'm left out of," Kirche said. "So who's Verdandi?"
"He's my familiar," Guiche said. "He's more of a lover than a fighter, so I bet she really wanted my help, but was just too shy to admit it. I have that effect on women." He sighed. "Well, I guess I better go save the day." He levitated himself out the window.
Kirche flipped her hair back. "And I guess I'll have to amuse myself with faceless mooks. It's like the Ball of Frigg all over again." She winked at Louise. "Don't worry. Tabitha and I will tear through these guys and take the next ship to Albion, and we'll be interrupting your premarital honeymoon before you know it."
"Luck," Tabitha said.
That was the last Louise heard from either of them before Wardes picked her up and carried her away with the speed that only a square class wind mage could match. She realized that once more, she was alone with the man that she was going to get married to.
But inside, all she felt was alone.
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a/n You know, the more I study Familiar of Zero, the more I realize how little sense it makes. Guiche gets caught eavesdropping (on a conversation warded against eavesdroppers), so the princess decides that he must be trustworthy enough to get sent on a secret mission. Kirche and Tabitha aren't even from Tristain and they decided to tag along for no reason at all, and they get invited too. Fortunately, the bad guys would never take advantage of the protagonists' baseless and incessant trust.
By the way, I might have mentioned this before, but I'm following the light novel more than the anime, mostly because, in my unbiased opinion, it was better.
Looking back, I realize that I've been kind of rough on Guiche. It's like the only reason he came on the mission was so that everyone else would have someone to pick on. All have to make it up to him somehow, like making him the main protagonist of a harem comedy now that Saito's gone.
Ha.
Ha ha.
No.