Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

taint you're still home,” Istvan said breathlessly. His dusky skin was pale by torchlight, his eyes wide and startling in his face. “We need you to prepare the court.”

“Why? What?” With one hand resting on Karalti’s hand, I took a step toward him.

“My scout just returned to Kalla Sahasi, my lord. He says your vassals are marching on the castle.”

Chapter 3

Now? Really? Did it have to be NOW?

“My vassals?” I slammed the harness buckles in together. The harness was slightly crooked, but it worked. I’d spent the whole day making it. “Like, the other Counts, or-?”

Istvan scowled. “Your vassals, as in, the Barons who serve you. My scout reports they’re marching in force here. There’s apparently townsfolk from Karhad with them, and no fewer than two messengers…”

“Okay, no worries. Whatever they want, it can wait three or four days.” I took up Cutthroat’s part of the ensemble. The device was part bondage device, part baby carrier. She could be strapped to Karalti’s belly and told to find Suri. As she paddled and strained, her nose would point in the right direction and lead us right to her. That was the hope, anyway. “There’s no return trip. Once we find Suri, we can teleport back. We’ll be gone less than a week.”

“My Lord. You are the Voivode of Myszno.” The Captain’s normally pleasant voice took an acid tone I hadn’t heard since I’d met him. “Your appointment is so new that the mail ship carrying the Royal Charter hasn’t even arrived yet, and you’re already planning to let your subjects languish? For the sake of one woman?”

“That ‘woman’ died to defeat Ashur and his army and restore their lands to these vassals of mine,” I snapped back. “She died knowing that she would respawn in a place that is a literal hell for her. She’s not sitting there diddling herself, Istvan. She’s being tortured.”

“You don’t know that,” Istvan said. “Suri is a powerful, capable warrior, a soldier-”

“And that place traumatized her so badly that she screams in her sleep about it every other night.” I leaned toward him, anger pressing up behind my eyes, winding through my chest and up into my jaw. “We’ve got half an army bunked here. My vassals can have the best rooms in the castle, eat the best food we can give them, think about what they want to say, and chill here on my dime for four fucking days while I pull Suri out and bring her home. They’re not trapped in a dungeon. She is.”

I hadn't even quite finished speaking when another quest alert chimed and flashed in the corner of my eye. I muted it and waved my hand for emphasis, like shooing a fly.

Istvan's mouth opened, closed, opened again. “After everything we went through to be here, you're just going to leave me here to deal with this while you… while you…?”

“Rescue the future Countess of Myszno?” I whirled on him and glared. “If she was your partner... oh, for fuck's sakes...”

The quest alert wouldn’t shut up. I swore at the icon and muted it, then caught Cutthroat by her reins and dragged the hookwing over to Karalti. She snapped her teeth inside her muzzle, stabbing and raking at the ground with her hooks in petulant protest, but made no complaint as Karalti positioned herself over her like a hen settling onto an egg. Istvan knotted a hand up in his hair and shifted from foot to foot, watching as I buckled the hookwing's back to Karalti's front.

“If the lords storm the gate, tell them I have an urgent crisis to sort out and I'll be back as soon as I can.” I clapped Cutthroat on the shoulder, turning my head just enough that Istvan could hear me. “Let them stay if they want to, or tell them to go camp outside the walls or something. I care about Myszno, Istvan, but I’m not leaving Suri to rot in Al-Asad to keep them happy. If they don’t like it, too bad. I’ll sort them out when I’m back.”

Istvan's handsome face shut down into cold, disapproving lines. “As you say, Your Grace.”

[You have lost Renown: -100 Myszno Defense Force (Current Renown: 2373)]

“For fuck's sake,” I muttered. “Come on, Karalti. Let's get this over with.”

“Are you sure...?”

“Yes. I'm sure.” I grasped the saddle grips and crouched down for take-off. “Let's go.”

Karalti shot one last guilty look at Istvan's back as he stormed off, then spread her wings and drew a deep breath. I felt her second heart engage and speed up, stiffening her muscles, magically reducing her body weight, and pressurizing her limbs. She bunched like a panther about to pounce, then flung herself into the sky with powerful, sweeping downbeats. The ground lurched away below. My ears popped, and my heart lifted into my mouth, followed by the dizzying rush of adrenaline as gravity pressed me to the rough leather like the cold hand of God. There were no safety straps here, no net to catch me if I was flung off by her shoulders as the powerful muscles along her spine flexed beneath my knees. The rush hit me like a shot of vodka to the brainstem, numbing the stress that gnawed in the pit of my belly.

As soon as Karalti levelled out, I relaxed and tried to gather my thoughts. Was I really being irresponsible? Maybe. Istvan was so pissed off that I almost felt guilty for leaving, almost. The thought of Suri waking alone and naked in the place of her nightmares was too much for me to bear. Archemi didn’t let you respawn with your gear if you died in PVE, only PVP. Even though there’d been other players in the battle, she’d died from falling. She’d be in a cell, and no matter how strong she was… fuck.

“She’ll be okay,” Karalti said. She sounded as unsure as I felt.

“Maybe.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I didn’t. Instead, I pulled up the quest alerts