Rasnake(20)

After a couple of minutes, they veered toward Tallant, curious and bold, pushing and sniffing and growling lightly. They suddenly barked, rubbed against him, and padded back to Cecil. They sat on their haunches on either side of him, and stared at Tallant, tongues lolling.

Cecil glared.

Tallant smirked. "So now that I have their approval, can I come over there and rub against you too?"

Cecil flushed again, but the heat of his glare only increased. "Do you always attempt to flirt with married men? Or only when their wives have been kidnapped and possibly killed?"

The words struck Tallant like a slap. "No," he said, bowing his head in apology. "I keep forgetting you are married. I have not forgotten the dire situation in which we are mired. But I have also learned that levity is necessary to temper strife, or the weight of the strife crushes all ability to think, even act. I mean no disrespect, Your Grace."

"Stop calling me that," Cecil snapped. "My name is Rasnake, or Cecil if you must. I'm not 'Your Grace'."

"But you are," Tallant countered. "You are married to Lady Irene. When the duke dies, she will officially become the Duchess of Fendal and you will be her duke. If she should die—"

"She won't!" Cecil snarled. "I made her a promise and I will keep it. If you are not going to help me, elf, then bugger off."

Tallant shook his head. "All that angry energy will help no one; neither will pushing away those of us trying to help you."

"Do not lecture me," Cecil said coldly. "You have no right."

"Whether or not I have the right is immaterial," Tallant replied. "You're too flik, exactly like your—"

"Stop saying that!"

Tallant regarded him in silence for a moment, then replied quietly, "What really bothers you? That he was gone for so long, or that now he's back all you want is to surrender the authority you've been forced to carry for so long? Milton wants to help, and no one would think less of you for ceding power and leaning—"

"Shut up!" Cecil bellowed, looking furious—but also so wretched and miserable that Tallant wanted to bundle him close and distract him with kisses and soft words. "Just shut up. We're here to investigate the wards, not lecture me."

Tallant sighed. "I'm trying to help. I wish I could get that through your flik head." He turned away and focused on the wards, not waiting for Cecil's scathing reply. Kneeling again, he looked over the base of the obelisk again. The obelisk was a full head taller than he; the runes covered each side, top to bottom, side to side, except the side that faced the sealed off portions of the land.

The runes nearest the base were the key runes, and it was these which had been most heavily covered in blood. Pulling out his water skin and a cloth he generally used to clean his weapons, Tallant slowly cleaned away all the blood.

Only when the obelisk was clean did he see what had caused the wards to fail—someone or something had smashed a small portion of it. Not much, only a few small fractures in the stone, but it was enough to shatter three of the key runes. Such damage unfortunately meant the obelisk could not be easily repaired, if it could be repaired at all. He motioned to Cecil, and pointed, "That's what did it."

Cecil frowned. "That wasn't there before. I would have noticed that sort of damage. I've been over this damned thing a thousand times—those cracks were not there before."

Tallant matched his frown. "That's interesting. If that's the case, it means someone broke the magic first, and only now is the obelisk beginning to show physical signs of it."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we're dealing with someone at least as good as me," Tallant said grimly. He thought again of Marden, wandering about the castle in the dead hours of the night. Tampering with the magic, attempting to alter it, he could easily have broken the wards by mistake and snapped his own mind in the process.

"So why the blood?" Cecil asked. "Whoever broke it must know this level of damage can't be fixed by a mere blood sacrifice."

"Desperation," Tallant replied. "A desperate person will take any and every chance. I think whoever broke the wards did not mean to, and is now struggling to fix his mistake."

"But who—" He was cut off as his wolves suddenly howled, then took off. Cecil burst to his feet and sprinted off after them. Groaning, Tallant followed, wishing fervently that he could put that energy to better use than running about like madmen.

Shaking his head, he shoved the errant though aside and focused on not losing sight of Cecil. He eventually caught up, but only because Cecil had stopped. As Tallant saw the reason why, though, he wished they were still running.

"Amber," Cecil said raggedly, brushing a strand of strawberry blonde hair from the dead girl's face. "Her name was Amber. She was only seventeen. That is three of the Dancing Princesses dead now. Damn it!" He struck the ground with his fist, and bowed his head, trembling with anger and grief.

"Dancing Princesses?"

"That is what Irene called them," Cecil said quietly, sadly. "To keep spirits up, she and the girls would dance almost every night to entertain the castle. She called them her Dancing Princesses, and the castle took up the name. There are only twelve left now." He reached out again to touch Amber's face, wiping away a smudge of dirt. "Who could want to kill a bunch of girls who never did anything but make people smile?"