AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eventually the sow’s cries and the sounds of her struggles weakened, and the collective wingbeats of the hummingbirds subsided to a drone. Even then, when Karigan finally opened her eyes again, she did not look in the aviary, but stared at the shoulders of the man in front of her. The show over, the guests applauded. They actually applauded! This was entertainment, this exhibition of slaughter, Dr. Silk’s show of bones and blood. She shuddered.
Dr. Silk ordered the cage to be covered and taken away, much to Karigan’s relief. After all she had seen tonight, the p’ehdrose, her sword, the eagle, Orhald Fallows, and now this, she wished to take action, to tear down the empire. But what could she do? She was only one person. She would not get far, although giving Silk a good whack with the bonewood would provide her with a strong sense of satisfaction. She was not helpless, but she felt it, immobilized by not knowing what to do, not knowing how to reach her own time where she could, perhaps, do the most good.
“How can I top that, eh?” Dr. Silk asked his guests. “The best of the night is yet to come, even more exotic than feral hummingbirds from the Imperial Preserve, something not even the emperor has seen since his rise to power almost two hundred years ago. A sight so rare you will not believe your eyes!”
Oh gods, what now?
A pair of white horses, red plumes rising from their headstalls, trotted into the big top drawing a garish circus wagon behind them. The wooden sides were painted with fierce lions and bears, and concealed whatever might lie within. The lights of the big top lowered dramatically, except for a pair that shone directly on the wagon as the horses came to a halt.
“Here is something you will likely never see again,” Dr. Silk told his guests.
Dramatic notes thundered out of the pipes of the music steamer causing more than a few people to jump and laugh nervously. They watched the spotlighted wagon with rapt gazes.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Silk asked.
His guests shouted, “Yes!” back at him and clapped.
He nodded to the circus men at the wagon, and they dropped a painted side down to reveal a cage. The wagon was probably used to transport and exhibit large, dangerous animals, but Karigan did not see an animal. What she did see so shocked her that she could only whisper: “Lhean.”
“An Eletian, ladies and gentlemen!” Dr. Silk announced to more applause and oohs and aahs. “A genuine living, breathing Eletian.”
Lhean’s face was turned away from the glare of lights, his hands clenched around the bars of his cage. Segments of his armor had gone missing, revealing black cloth underneath, glistening as though wet and oozing. His remaining armor was dull, not at all the almost glowing pearlescence Karigan remembered. He looked weak, the vibrancy that was him dimmed like his armor. And yet . . .
And yet, he shone, and it was not just the lights on him, but the innate power of what he was: an Eletian, a being of etherea. The crowd, gawking at him in awe, could see it, too.
Cade, however, was watching her. She turned to him when he placed his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s Lhean,” she said, stricken.
He raised his finger to his lips. “Shhh . . .”
“He needs—we need to—”
“Shhh . . .”
Her every nerve prickled with energy, with urgency. Cade stared at her calmly, sternly, steadying her.
She turned back to Lhean, who looked lost and alone. Slowly he peered into the light, his gaze sweeping across the audience, and then it alighted on her. She felt it, knew it, that he had picked her out from all the assembled. He thrust his arm between the bars, reaching out to her. The startled guests exclaimed and laughed. Karigan could not hear him speak, but she saw his lips form the word: Galad-heon.
“It is time to leave,” Cade said. He took her arm and began to lead her through the crowd.
“But I’ve got to help him,” she said, stumbling alongside.
“Not here, not now,” Cade replied tersely.
“I can’t leave him here!”
Cade drew her up close. “You must. You cannot help him now. We must leave before people realize he’s reaching for you.”
Fortunately the music steamer had started up again, drowning out their voices.
Cade was right. People were glancing about to see who or what the Eletian wanted, and it would be dangerous for Silk, in particular, to connect the two of them. Cade was also right that trying to save Lhean at this moment would fail, and she’d end up in even less of a position to help him. So she followed Cade, but could not stop looking at Lhean, his forehead now pressed against the bars.
Oh, Lhean.
It took what felt like an eternity to make it to the big top’s entrance, and it was a relief to step out into the open night air. There were no performers to greet them, just a couple of watchful guards. The torches still hissed along the pathway as Karigan and Cade hastened on.
A carriage drew up. It wasn’t a Hastings, but the professor’s. Luke must have spied them right off. He hopped down from the bench to open the door and assist Karigan inside the cab.
“Take us home at a good clip,” Cade instructed Luke, “but not so fast as to be too obvious.”
“As you wish, Mr. Harlowe.”
After the carriage lurched forward and the big top fell behind, Cade said, “That was an Eletian? An actual Eletian?”
Karigan nodded. Cade had not seemed unsettled in the big top, but he was now.
“You know him?”
Karigan nodded again. “Yes, Lhean. He was one of my companions in Blackveil.” She felt an impulse to leap out of the carriage and run back to the big top—she couldn’t abandon him! She had a terrible image of Dr. Silk taking him to a taxidermist to be stuffed and exhibited with the p’ehdrose and eagle.
