Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 (17 page)

It is an odd position to be in
, Sara thought.
I’ve never ventured out
for
and
by
myself before. It was always for a cause. When I confronted people on the street and challenged them, it was in my father’s name and for the honor of the Fairchild family. When I entered the academy and trained at the arena, it was in the empress’s name and in an effort to join the elite officers’ rank in the imperial army.

Sara was brought back to the present when she heard a faint commotion at the end of the gangplank. She turned her head to see what the fuss was about. She saw a man dressed in the tunic-style of the archers arguing with the guards surrounding him, only to be dragged off by two soldiers and a third at his back.

“Now,” Sara Fairchild whispered to herself, “I’m infiltrating an army under the leadership of a man I no longer believe in and beside a friend who may be more my enemy than ally.”

The man seated at the end of the long line shouted, “Next!”

Sara shuffled forward obediently and thought,
Making your own path sucks.

She didn’t know whether she should be disgusted or impressed at the complete fallacy the public of Sandrin was living under.

“They think we’ll be winning this war any day now,” Sara muttered to herself as she lowered her arm and took a good look at the Algardis encampment she would be calling home. At least for the next day or so. Sooner, if she could find Hillan and get recalled back home with her father’s journals in hand.

She watched the backs of the final four weary and filthy mercenaries in front of her proceed down the gangplank and out into the wider area. No complaints. No arguments. Just walk up, talk a few minutes, get a piece of paper, receive some supplies, and head off again. Uncomplicated was just what she needed right now.

As she strode down the gangplank with only her weapons and the clothes on her back, she took in the size of the camp before her. The empress’s encampment was extraordinarily large. For the sheer amount of territory taken up, it dwarfed the massive Kade fortress three times over.

She knew she would be exploring the camp soon, if not within the next few hours. But for now, it was time to leave the ship.

The tired-looking official didn’t even glance up at her as he asked, “Name?”

It was the tedious first question he had asked each person before her.

“Sara Fairchild.”

“Occupation and regiment?”

“Mercenary. Corcoran Guard.”

“Division?”

“First,” she said.

That elicited the first non-banal response she’d seen from him yet. He looked up at her sharply with something akin to disbelief in his eyes.

“A chit like you?”

Sara raised her eyebrows, not bothering to get angry. Yet. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The man spit to the side without taking his eyes off her. “It means a young girl without any battle experience, who wouldn’t know her hands from her ass on the first charge. What are you doing on the front line?”

Sara glared down at him and crossed her arms. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business...
Ensign.”

She was guessing his rank, but she’d gone as lowest as she could safely go without outright insulting him.

The man flashed his darkened and pitted teeth in a grin. “Lieutenant.”

Sara smiled with no amusement. “Lieutenant, then.”

He shuffled some papers while looking up at her as if he had all the time in the world to harass her. “Well, Mercenary Fairchild, I can’t seem to find any record of you being assigned to first division,” he said with a malicious leer.

Sara stared in disbelief. She didn’t know what had crawled up this man’s bum, but he was actually
enjoying
this. She was hungry. She was tired. She was filthy. She was scared—not of him, but of the questions that kept piling up in front of her like an endless riddle with no clue how to solve it.

So having a
lieutenant
mess around with her on her first day at post was not her idea of fun.

Not one bit.

She leaned forward and placed both hands on the table, baring her teeth in nothing that could be mistaken for a smile. Coldly, she said, “Listen here, you self-important worm of a man, who I am and where I am assigned is no business of yours. I work for the Corcoran Guard....” She paused and glanced at the badges on his shoulder blade signifying his assignment, if not his rank, and continued, “...not the empress’s imperial army. Nor the crappy Buccaneers’ Union, if you catch my drift.”

“That’s all well and good,” said the administrative official with a growl in his voice. “But I outrank you, so don’t get snooty with me. You’re probably lying your face off, and when I speak to your superior officers, you’ll be demoted to latrine duty before this day is through.”

“You must be joking,” Sara said dismissively.

The man stood and leaned forward in her face. “I don’t joke with the likes of you.”

“The likes of me?”

“Grunts,” he said with a sniff as he sat back down. “Now tell me your
true
position.”

“What are you not understanding?” Sara demanded, “I may be young but I’m not stupid. I’ve told you the truth. It’s your job to act in good faith and follow up.”

“No,” disagreed the man, “It’s my job to man this desk, at this time, for this reason.”

Sara glared at him.

He barked at her, “True assignment.
Now
.”

People began muttering behind her. She didn’t plan on them. She’d already been standing in front of this desk for twice as long as anyone else.

Sara’s mouth dropped. She couldn’t fathom why he was being so obtuse about this. Instead of ramming the same answer down his throat, she tried to confront the situation from another angle.

“Why is this so important you?”

His skinny framed swelled with pride as he puffed out his chest. He didn’t fill out much of his uniform. “My duty is clear. Too many skinflint mercenaries trying to get an extra coin or two from the imperial coffers. You’ll not be paid a shilling more, if I have anything to say about.”

Sara sucked in a breath in realization at what this was about. “You honestly think I lied about my division—committed a
criminal
offense—for money?”

“People have lied for less,” he said while pawing through the papers with a devious glint in his eyes. “Let’s see what your records show.”

“Wait—” Sara tried to intervene, already knowing what it would say.

“Ah ha!” crowed the ensign triumphantly, pointing his finger at whatever was on the page. “I knew you were lying.”

“I’m not lying!” Sara argued. “Those are records from my registration in the Corcoran Guard upon leaving Sandrin. That assignment changed mid-journey.”

“No one’s assignment changes mid-journey,” the man said derisively.

“Mine
did
,” insisted Sara.

She heard more grumbling, and the person behind her reached up to tap her shoulder. As she turned around, he asked, “What’s going on? Hurry it up, we all got meals to get to!”

Sara snarled in his face. “Get your hands off me and mind your own business.”

The man behind her upraised both hands and backed away. “Relax. Didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Not to worry,” said the obnoxious lieutenant behind the desk, “Mercenary Fairchild was just leaving.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sara said as she whirled back around.

“You are, since you can’t prove...“

“I don’t have to prove anything to you, you obnoxious toad.”

“You’re demoted to latrine and pit duties as of now,” he said with a malicious smile.

“You can’t do that,” she spluttered.

“Little-known rule. I can demote lower-ranked mercenaries and soldiers as I see fit. And I just did,” he replied.

Sara reached over the table and grab him by the throat.

“Don’t you touch me,” he squabbled.

She pulled back a curled fist, fully prepared to give him a well-deserved broken nose, when she was stopped by a newcomer’s command.

“Mercenary Fairchild,” said a strong-timbered voice. “Halt where you stand.”

Sara’s eyes opened wide. She released the administrative official from her grip and turned around stiffly to see the woman with her own eyes.

Standing just a few feet away from her—with her grey hair cropped short, a shield on her back, and her dark brown eyes as wise as they had been ten years ago—was her father’s captain of the guard, Alena Moonsetter.

Also known as Alena Bonebreaker, Scourge of the Western Isles.

S
ara blinked for a moment, not quite believing her eyes. It had been years since she had seen any of the people who had served in her father’s households or under his capacity as commander in any position of the empress’s armed forces. That enforced separation had happened for good reason. It wasn’t that there had been some great betrayal of her family or massive exodus of staff after the initial verdict, no that had come after she and her mother were summarily dismissed from their own home. Until they had been forced to leave their two mistresses unprotected, the men and women who had served the Fairchild family faithfully had not left. But an imperial edict had been issued in the months after his death which not only evicted them from their home, but also  forbidding her and her mother from contacting household staff, servants, and guardians on pain of a fifty lashes per an offense after her father’s death.

At the time, Sara had wondered why the courts had bothered to keep kicking her family while they were down.

Her mouth cracked into an ironic smile as she thought,
Not that I knew what being down before then meant. I thought it meant moving into a smaller mansion with less servants and having to go on the training field with whispers emitting behind my back. I soon learned it was living in the streets, not knowing when my next meal would be, and having friends turn to enemies for ‘honor’.

She shook her head silently to regain her thoughts and stared in dismay at the woman who had confronted her and her tormentor.

Although, he has a pretty good case that
I
was tormenting
him
,
Sara Fairchild thought to herself. She knew how this would look in court. She had her hand around
his
neck. She was looming menacingly over him. It was
her
voice that raised. Never mind the insipid smirk that graced his face, the knowing glimmer in his eyes, and the body language as he leaned over his desk, with every line of his shoulders screaming insolence. None of that would be proof in the courts. They would take any excuse to shackle and execute a battle mage who went from merely stoically angry to enraged, because enraged was just a few steps away from
berserk.
Sara knew it, and they knew it.

Alena Moonsetter knows it as well
, Sara thought as she stared at the woman who had been such a big part of her life growing up.

Alena had been the first name on the list of former servants forbidden to speak to a Fairchild upon her father’s verdict of treason. Even when Sara had tried to keep tabs on her through back channels and tips here and there, she’d quickly lost track of her in Sandrin. When the woman didn’t want to be found, she couldn’t be found. It was the same on the battlefield; it was said that she could disappear like smoke as she ghosted through the ranks of the living and the dead, striking down any who she decided met her challenge. Sara wasn’t sure how much of that was fact and how much was fiction, but Sara knew that even Alena couldn’t hide forever, and so she kept her ears open to any news about her whereabouts. Even after she had lost personal contact with her and had no definitive guess about what she’d been up to these last few years, she had heard rumors. The last bit of gossip she’d managed to collect had said that the woman was back to pillaging islands off the coast of the Algardis Empire—all in the name of the empress, of course.

Carefully studying her weathered appearance and hardened face, with the three cheek scars that indicated a sea commander with over a hundred kills, Sara thought,
I guess the rumors were true. Alena Moonsetter, scourge of the battlefields and all those who stood before her, has become a buccaneer.

The last part didn’t bother Sara Fairchild so much. Pirate was better than fishmonger, in her opinion, and it was even legalized under imperial codes, although it went by another name.

What was it?

The administrative official behind her stood stammering, “Thank you, Corsair Alena.”

Ah, yes. ‘Corsair’
, Sara repeated privately. It was never a term she would have associated with the fabled woman, nor with any of the few members of her father’s inner circle. But it made sense. Outside the main cities, there were very few ways for a seasoned warrior to make money, and even fewer more profitable than becoming some noble’s hired muscle. The civil war hadn’t started until a few months ago, which left privateering. Bureaucratically-controlled privateering was a way for the imperial armada to harness the ready fleet of small and medium-sized ships that terrorized the islands and disrupted commerce. Instead of pillaging for themselves, they pillaged for the empire and kept pressure on the allies of the hated dragons across the seas. The money looted from the captured enemy traders and vessels was then split between imperial coffers, officers, and the crew.

Judging by Corsair Alena’s stance, she was an officer.

Alena spared the annoying man one narrowed, piercing glance. “
Captain
Alena.”

Sara’s eye twitched as she remained immobile.
Of course she is.
She had dropped the title of ‘Corsair’ when she rejoined the imperial army.

Then Alena spoke again, “Captain Alena of the Empress’s First Mounted Regiment.”

Her tone was like weathered stone. Unbreakable. Unamused.

Sara sucked in a surprised breath. The fact that Sara felt shocked didn’t cover the matter. The last time Sara had seen Alena approach a horse, let alone ride one, was when the manor stables for her father’s prized stallions had been burning to the ground. Alena had picked Sara up, planted her firmly out of the way, and raced to help in to the effort to battle the flames. Sara had watched from a distance as Alena had broken through the door to let the horses run free and escape the blaze. Otherwise, Sara had never seen her more than glance at the hoofed creatures. Alena loathed horses as much as some people detested spiders or lizards. As far as Sara could tell, the feeling was absolutely mutual.