The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [123]
The couple's color coordination did not bode well, to Olive's way of thinking. Giogi was letting himself in for a lot of heartache. She thought of the nobleman's ironic insistence that he would want to know if a woman he was involved with was "not so capital."
The mage looked happy beside the nobleman, but anyone who could take one of Flattery's blows calmly would have to be a superior actress. Olive wondered which had more to do with Cat's returning the spur to Giogi, his kindness and generosity or fear of returning to Flattery.
Giogi bowed very deeply to Mother Lleddew.
"Giogioni, it is good to see you," the priestess said. "I feared once that I might never see you again."
Giogi rose and flushed. "I regret not having come to visit you before," he stammered.
Mother Lleddew looked curiously at Cat, the priestess's head tilted to one side in expectation.
"Allow me to present the mage Cat of Ordulin, Your Grace," Giogi said.
Cat curtsied low and looked up at Mother Lleddew with wide-eyed awe. Olive couldn't help but remember how Alias thought of all priests as fools. Did Cat think differently, or was this a display for Giogi's sake?
The priestess motioned for both young people to be seated. "How is your Aunt Dorath?" Mother Lleddew asked.
"Um, fine," Giogi answered with some surprise. He pulled a chair out for Cat to sit, then seated himself. When he looked up again at the priestess, she still had an expectant look in her eyes, so he continued. "She's seems overjoyed to be a great-grandaunt. She likes taking care of the baby, apparently."
The priestess nodded. "Poor Dorath," she whispered, looking down at her teacup.
"I didn't know you even knew my aunt."
"We were very close once," Mother Lleddew said. "Her mother and I adventured together."
"Great-grandmother Eswip was an adventurer?" Giogi gasped.
"Oh, yes. Perhaps, Master Giogioni, I should start my tale in the middle. The beginning is very interesting, and just as sad, but it is the middle and the end of the tale that Flattery does not wish you to know. He has nearly exhausted his forces of undead trying to keep you from meeting with me. Now that we have overcome those obstacles, I should tell my tale without further delay."
"You know about Flattery?" Giogi asked.
"Not just about him, Giogioni. I know him. I watched him kill your father."
Giogi turned pale and clenched his fists. Cat looked numb.
Somehow, that doesn't surprise me in the least, Olive thought, remembering the scorched portrait in the carriage house, and how Flattery had screamed, "Curse them all!" meaning all Wyvernspurs.
Since no one spoke, Mother Lleddew began the middle of her tale. "When your father first learned he could use the power of the spur," she said, "he announced to me his intention to go adventuring to find a fortune that would finish the temple his grandmother and I had begun. I was too old by then to go tramping about the countryside bashing monsters, but Cole would go whether I joined him or not, and for the love I had for his grandmother, I agreed to accompany him. I thought I would be keeping him from harm." Lleddew chuckled at the irony of her intentions.
"Your father didn't want keeping from harm, though," she said with a grin. "With the spur's power, he was nearly indestructible. We spent a summer season in Gnoll Pass-that was long before His Majesty started building Castle Crag to station the Purple Dragoons. When we finally returned to Immersea, we were carrying enough wealth to embed diamonds in the ceiling of the House of Selune."
"But what was the spur's power?" Giogi asked.
"Dorath would not let Drone tell you even this, would she?"
"Tell me what? Please, tell me," Giogi asked.
"Each generation the guardian chooses a favorite," Mother Lleddew explained. "The favorites can use the spur to shapeshift into the form of a wyvern. A very large wyvern."
"A wyvern. My father could turn into a wyvern. You mean he fought as-as a wyvern?"
"Of course," Cat said to herself. "Wyverns can fly. It's a wyvem's