Secrets of the Elders (Chronicles of Acadia: Book I)

Lady Cassandra winced as the thorn pierced the skin of her thumb. Dropping her shears, she instinctively sucked on the injured digit, the salty copper flavor a reminder that she needed to be more careful. Her mind had drifted elsewhere while she worked the rooftop garden. Smelling the pungent, musky gardenia she had been clipping, she sighed contently. A little thorn-prick was well worth the feeling of gratification these flowers brought to her.

  “Hard at work again, I see?” Alan teased her in his jovial manner, walking onto the rooftop with Viktor in tow. She really must have been daydreaming not to have heard their coach arrive!

  Alan gave his wife a hearty hug and kissed her forehead tenderly, the bristles of his thick beard tickling her skin.

  “Hello, dear.” She kissed him back lovingly on the cheek. After all these years together, her husband still made her smile every time he came into a room. “Good eve, Viktor,” she said, shooting their friend a slight bow. “How was the council meeting today, boys?” A pet name she reserved especially for these two, even after over two hundred years of age.

  Alan grumbled, his thick red moustache twitching, and walked over to pour himself some mulled wine.

  “That good, huh?”

  Viktor raised a telling eyebrow. Their day must have been long and drawn out.

  “Who was it this time?” she inquired.

  Alan handed his colleague a small glass then sat in one of the wooden chairs, momentarily distracting himself in the scent of orange blossoms.

  “Who else could it have been to get Alan so stirred up?” Viktor said. “He’s still brooding over our last meeting of the day.”

  “Hmmm…the magistrate poking the hornet’s nest again?” Cassandra asked.

  Alan grunted in response, with Viktor nodding beside him. “It was the whole Third District tirade all over again,” Viktor explained, rolling his eyes.

  “I swear that little rat has it in for us!” her husband growled. “After all we have done for him, every year he just grows more and more despicable.”

  Cassandra did not like seeing her husband so agitated. Things must have turned ugly indeed during deliberations for Alain to get this riled up. He was normally a calm, even-tempered man, one of the more rational members of the High Council. And for a group of Elders whose members had been presiding over Falian law, as richly interwoven as it had become, for ages now, it was a virtue that he could remain so level headed.

  “And to make matters worse, Arch Councilor Zacharia excused that crooked bastard of standing testimony to the whole thing,” Viktor said.

  “Well, if the high elder excused him, then there must have been a good reason,” Cassandra said. It was not like Zacharia to act without due course, after all.

  Alan hopped to his feet, nudging Viktor to continue, and slammed his drink back.

  “That is the odd part. There was no justification for it. Arch Councilor Zacharia called it a fallacy in informal logic, whatever that is supposed to mean.” Viktor refilled their drinks, offering her an empty glass.

  “No, thank you, it’s too early in the day for me to partake in libations.” Victor chuckled at her formality. “And what that means is,” she continued, “basically, there was some flaw in the reasoning that renders the conclusion unpersuasive.”

  Alan laughed at his wife, as she was always one to take everything so literally. “Alright, dear, no need to show off, we know what it meant. What good Viktor here means is that the reasoning was in fact, not flawed. We had a witness ready to testify against him, said he saw the magistrate accepting a bribe and everything.”

  The three of them stopped talking, each mulling over the futility of the situation.

  Viktor cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the silence. “What do you think, Cass? How can we get this guy?” he asked.

  Alan leaned forward in his seat, eager to hear her potential solution.

  “Ah, I see what you two are up to now,” she said, winking one gray eye and playfully pointing at both men in turn. “Trying to rope me into council issues again, are you?”

  “C’mon, dear, you know how much we value your opinion. Instead of teasing us for hours and then giving in, can we just skip to the part where you give us advice?” Alan whined like a schoolboy. Except he was not a schoolboy, he was a respected member of the high council of Elders, a pillar of New Fal’s community. Someone who gave everything he had to protect the civilization they had built here in Vanidriell, and she could not resist his endearing desperation.

  “Alright, I’ll consult on your case. Why don’t you fill me in on the details tonight, so I have the full picture?” she said.

  Viktor set down his glass and clapped his hands together. “Right then, I ought to be heading home. It’s almost time for supper and we have some guests coming by.”

  “Helped your pal here get what he needs, and now you’re pulling the old cut and run?” she teased, pecking Viktor on the cheek.

  As he slipped out the door, Alan hugged her from behind, his beard tickling the lobe of her ear. She reached back to stroke the thick mane as they rocked softly side to side.

  “Looks like your best arrangement yet,” he said, complimenting the decorative topiary she had been working on.

  “Aw, thank you. I want to top last year’s Culhada floral displays.”

  “Well, with what you have here, it’s sure to—ugh!”

  Alan backed away, gripping his temple and swaying slightly, clearly off balance. Deeply concerned, Lady Cassandra steadied him; it was not like her husband to get tipsy off so few drinks.

  “What is it, dear? Was it the wine?” she asked, trying to look him in the face.

  Alan steadied himself, the moment of dizziness past. He wore a grim expression, staring out solemnly over the roof far to the south. His silence was unnerving as he contemplated the sudden surge of emotions that had rocked him.

  “Something just happened to Elder Morgana…something awful.”

  The implication of his words carried a heavy weight. Lady Cassandra grabbed his chin, forcing him to look down into her fearful eyes, the question written plainly across her face. Alan pulled his wife in tightly against his broad chest to console her.

  “Is it…?” she asked, fearing his answer.

  “Elder Morgana is gone, my love,” he groaned in despair.

  The bloody, thorned gardenia she had been clutching was caught up by a gentle breeze, drifting off over the rooftop.