Northlight

by Wheeler, Deborah

  “And so, we come to the present,” Esmelda said. “To here and now. To today.”

  A few people in the balconies grumbled, impatient for answers to the questions Montborne had raised. The Senators, who knew the rhythms of official speech, settled down to listen. Orelia and some of the Inner Council members leaned forward expectantly.

  “Let us consider the northers as they are today. Let us consider these northers.” Esmelda gestured toward Jakon and Grissem.

  “Let us ask ourselves why they have come before us — openly — into the presence of their dearest enemies. They still bear their weapons, so they are not prisoners. They make no hostile moves, you see them standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a Laurean Ranger, my daughter and heir, Aviyya. So clearly they have not fought their way here. What then?

  “They are here at my invitation. To end the long years of bloodshed. To begin that very era of peace and prosperity that Pateros dreamed...”

  The room had gone so still I could hear Terris’s heart beating as clearly as my own.

  “But, as General Montborne has so kindly pointed out, there is still the matter of Pateros’s death to be resolved. The General has said — or rather, the preliminary investigation has suggested — that Pateros may have been killed with a norther dagger. Jakon — ”

  With a single fluid movement, Jakon drew his dagger and handed it to her across the table, hilt first. Even so, every City Guard and military officer in the room jumped. Esmelda balanced it in her fingers, as if studying its ornamental markings or testing its weight. When she raised it, she did not brandish it. She held it as a scholar might display a relic or an antique artifact. I thought again of that day twenty years ago, when she stood out in the plaza and the rains came, as if at her command, to quench the fires.

  “This is a norther dagger. A true norther dagger.” She laid it in the center of the table beside the one that had killed Pateros. “Montborne, let us see how yours compare. Are they...norther daggers? Or are they malicious frauds, designed only to mislead us? To turn us against each other and those who would become our allies? Is that the conspiracy you warned us about?”

  Esmelda looked down at the daggers for a moment before continuing. She seemed taller and darker, and she spoke in a voice that would crumble granite.

  “The matter of the assassination of a Guardian is one of grave concern. None of these charges may be dismissed out of hand, no matter how far-fetched they seem. These weapons are now evidence for an official investigation. But to avoid any implication of special interest, I hereby recuse both myself and General Montborne from any part in the investigation. Instead, I appoint Senior Judge Karlen — ” she pointed to the serious-faced man sitting beside Montborne, “City Guards Chief Orelia, and the gaea-priest Markus.”

  The bald priest blinked as if surprised someone was taking him seriously, and then squared his bony shoulders. Orelia flushed, and for a moment I thought Esmelda a fool for choosing her. Then I understood. Orelia had already let Montborne manipulate her once. She would bend over backwards to avoid any appearance of favoritism to him. Her jaw clenched hard as she rose from her seat and took possession of Montborne’s two daggers. And Mother help that one-eyed man of hers if he had anything to do with their forging.

  Esmelda proposed some sort of resolution — authorizing this or that, all preliminary stuff, and quickly drew the meeting to a close. I gathered it meant Jakon could go back and talk officially to his grandfather. Nobody here was about to promise anything more or to guarantee what the Rangers would be doing on the border in the meantime. But it was a start. The audience grew noisier, restless even before the ushers opened the doors.

  I couldn’t understand how Esmelda let the moment dribble away. Why not nail Montborne right then and there? She had the daggers as proof; what more did she need? Orelia and the others on the investigating committee would track down every connection. Within a day they’d know who made the daggers and where. Montborne was as good as dead.

  The old dragon was crafty. If she pressed charges now, she’d lose the people who still thought Montborne was a hero. All she had to do was sit back, let the investigation do its work, and then take all the credit — the Guardian who unmasked the traitor general.

  I wouldn’t be in Montborne’s place for all the trees in Laurea.

  But I watched him as he stepped around the table to speak to Hobart...and he didn’t look like a man who’d just lost.

  Chapter 41

  Eventually Orelia’s people and the Senate ushers managed to thin the crowd on the floor. People wandered down from the spectators’ balcony, milling around and talking. At the far end of the table, Jakon stood with Markus in a circle of listeners, Grissem by his shoulder. The bald-headed priest was talking and gesturing dramatically with his hands. It was too noisy to hear what he was saying, but Jakon didn’t look too unhappy about it. Several people passing by even stopped to shake his hand. Grissem nodded, as if he understood what the priest was talking about.

  A few feet away, Avi and Esmelda had put their heads together with the woman medician and the chief judge. I spotted a few of Montborne’s people in their red-and-bronze uniforms moving along the perimeter of the chamber.

  I noticed Montborne himself, there to the right, just excusing himself from Hobart, the silver-haired Senate Presidio with the fancy medallion. Montborne strolled back to the table, relaxed and casual, as if all he’d done was make an honest mistake. I caught the quick searching flicker of his eyes, and suddenly the room leapt into a pattern.

  Terris said something to me, but I didn’t hear him. Everything blurred except for hunter and prey.

  Before I’d waded more than a step or two into the room, Montborne had already reached Esmelda. He stood by her side and laid one hand on her shoulder — so careful, so casual a touch. He could slide his fingers around easy and break her old-woman’s neck. But no, that would be too public a killing. Then what?

  Danger crept like fire up my spine. For a wild moment I wondered if I could reach him — another Kardith’s Leap? But that was impossible with all these people and the table blocking the way. Even I knew that.

  Esmelda looked up, civil but anything but friendly. Montborne smiled and said something to her.

  There was no way I could reach him, but Jakon, over there on the far side of the table next to them, could. Jakon’s eyes shifted to Montborne, wary, veiled. I took a breath to scream out a warning —

  Montborne turned and met my eyes with such a look of triumph that I froze. He knew me from last night, from his office so many weeks ago. He knew me, and in that moment he also remembered I’d tried to save Pateros.

  Mother knows why Montborne thought he’d get away with it a third time — the first must have been an agonizing choice, the deliberate sacrifice of a friend and leader. The second — the dagger meant for Terris — that was greed. This time now must be desperation, but that hardly mattered. Anything I did to send Jakon in Esmelda’s direction would only make it happen sooner.

  Think, Kardith! I dared not do anything to spook Esmelda — she was too close, she wouldn’t react right. I didn’t trust her.

  Damn.

  I had to do something. The throwing knife at my forearm was warm and ready. Where? At Montborne? He’d finish the old dragon sure if I missed. He’d become a martyr if I didn’t. I’d die as a norther spy and we’d have war for sure.

  Mother, be with me now!

  I slipped the knife into my palm and waited, waited for a clear path. With one smooth movement, I hurled it —

  At Grissem, standing behind Jakon.

  The blade flew true, burying itself in the fleshy muscle of Grissem’s shoulder. He staggered under the impact. A woman spectator standing nearby started screaming like she was the one who got cut. Lightning fast, Jakon knelt at Griss’s side.

  Me, I’d already shoved my way to the edge of the table, planted both hands on the near edge and swung my legs over it as if I were vaulting a horse. It was too wide to get
over in one sweep, but I slid and scrambled and somehow got halfway across.

  Montborne stared at the blood seeping through Grissem’s sleeve for only a moment, then he whirled and came at me. Half on my back, I aimed one foot at his groin. He was too far and I had no real power behind it. I slipped and caught his hipbone instead. Spun him only a little, but away from Esmelda’s direction. And now his attention was on me, not her.

  My long-knife was already in my hand as I jumped free of the table. I landed off-balance as people around me yelled and milled, trying to get out of the way.

  His face as calm as a priest’s, Montborne held his hands out to show everyone he wasn’t armed. He was still playing to the crowd. All they’d see was some bats-crazy Ranger attacking their brave general.

  Me, I saw the glint of metal between his fingers.

  He turned toward Esmelda, reaching out one hand as if to shield her from me. I stepped in, low and deep, and swept with the knife. Not at his body, but at his knees, angled to make him fall away from her. He twisted in midair and landed on me instead.

  His weight hit me hard enough to knock the breath out of me and jerk the knife from my hand. We both sprawled on the floor, half under the table. He swiped at me with the thing in his hand, but the demon chance was with me now. The angle was bad and the blood from the cut on his leg made everything slippery. He slammed into the table edge instead. I managed to bring one knee up into his solar plexus but without full power behind it. He coughed and buckled. I grabbed his wrist in both hands and pulled it into a control leverage, well away from my own skin. That move was another gift from Aram.

  I spotted what was in Montborne’s hand, a ring with a short thick needle sticking out of the palm side. It all came clear to me now. He’d planned to kill Esmelda and make it look like Jakon had done it. Jakon would be dead in a flash, and Grissem too, too fast to deny anything. That’s what the military goons were for. And all he had to do now was to scratch me...

  “Bitch!” Montborne screamed, and suddenly — now that he realized I meant to take him alive — he seemed twice as strong, all muscle and bone and crushing weight. His wrist twisted free between my sweat-slick hands.

  I fought to hold on, to keep the leverage even though I didn’t have a stance to fight from. It came to me that this was how I’d die — under a Mother-damned table instead of on top of one.

  I dropped Montborne’s wrist and hit him with a knuckle punch to the nerve point inside his upper arm, landed it right in the groove between the muscles, full out. He grunted, “Unngh!” as his arm went dead. Before I got him back under leverage, he grabbed his limp arm with the other and pulled it to his chest —

  As if it were the most precious thing in the world. As if his life — or his honor — depended on it.

  He fell across me like a toppled tree.

  An instant later a couple of Montborne’s men pulled him off me. One of them turned to where I lay underneath the table.

  A shadow fell across my face, a man’s head and heavy shoulders. He crouched over me, blotting out the brightness of the chamber. Slowly my eyes focused on the bronze and red uniform...

  ...and the gleam of a knife in his hand.

  I couldn’t make out his features, but I knew who he must be — Montborne’s senior officer. Suddenly I remembered the day Pateros died and the flash of knife steel in a man’s hand as he closed with the assassin. The same assassin whose throat was cut before he could be questioned. More than a bodyguard, this man made sure there were no witnesses, no loose ends.

  Now his weight pinned my legs, and I wasn’t sure I could move anyway. I was no shadow panther this time, but the hamstrung gazelle, waiting with my heart leaping in my throat...

  Mother, let the end come fast.

  Suddenly he crumpled sideways and his knife clattered to the floor. For a dazed second, I couldn’t believe what I saw — Terris standing there, the front of his shirt drenched with water. Holding the silver ritual bowl that he’d just thwacked the soldier over the head with.

  Terris shivered as he put the bowl back on the table. He said in a voice that meant there was a whole lot more going on inside him, “I never carry a weapon I don’t know how to use.”

  I felt just as shaky as when I woke up in the City Guards cell. My chest twisted into a knot. I struggled just to breathe. The room and all the milling, scrambling people went dim and blurry. I wondered if Montborne had scratched me with his damned needle after all. All I wanted now was to lie here under the table and be left alone.

  It came to me that I’d lost everything and everyone I ever cared for. That there was no promise I hadn’t broken, no leader I hadn’t failed. That my whole life was no more than blood and dust and racking memories. That I should have died up there on the funeral mount, rather than come to this.

  And for what — for that old dragon with a rock for a heart, who scarred the souls of the two people I loved most in this world? For her?

  Then I realized that what my body was going to do — whether I wanted to or not — was to cry.

  Damn. Crot-assed contaminated damn.

  I hauled myself to my feet, or rather, it was my traitor body that got up. Me, I was still under the table, along with the blood and the dust. Cherida, the medician, bent over Montborne, and after a moment said he was dead. Jakon touched my shoulder, and I saw no anger in his eyes. He understood what I’d done and why.

  Terris looked away from me, as I knew he must. I was wrong in giving him a new name. To name something was to make some part of it yours. If he were anyone else, anyone at all, he could be Terris, and he could walk out of here and into his own life.

  But he was Terricel, son of Esmelda of Laurea, the secret Guardian of Harth...and he must become Guardian of Harth after her. He had no choice now but to be just like her. The world was too full of Montbornes for him to be anything else.

  And he was right — what happened to him in the Light was a curse.

  He stared at Esmelda with a face like glass, nothing hidden. What I saw there wasn’t steel or fire or stone. Feelings stirred in me and I had to look away. I knew what I saw because I’d felt them, too — understanding, sadness, compassion...forgiveness.

  Forgiveness...

  “Thank you,” he whispered to me, his voice all raspy. “Thank you for saving my mother’s life.”

  Stung, I lifted my eyes to his and saw them as if for the first time. Eyes the color of rain, soft as dew and strong enough to etch a mountainside. Tears shimmered there — tears, ay Mother!

  Or maybe they were in my own eyes.

  I was wrong that he must inevitably become like her. His strength and vision were of a very different breed. He could no more be like her than Pateros could. I had so little faith, and now I’d never been so glad of anything in my life. I wanted to shout aloud, to jump, to laugh. I did none of these things, of course. I straightened my shoulders and marched up to Esmelda.

  She touched my hand, her fingers slender and fragile, all bone. Her eyes searched mine, bits of brightness in a face like a wrinkled flower, this formidable old dragon who’d twice now saved the balance of Harth. For a fleeting moment the Mother moved through me and I understood what it had cost her to turn her back on Avi, lost on the Ridge, that night I begged her help...and to let Terris go.

  Avi came up to us. “Orelia and I can handle it from here. Go home, Mother, and start organizing what comes next.”

  Esmelda stiffened and drew in her breath, but then something happened as she looked at her two children — her two heirs — so different and yet so alike. Maybe she saw something in them that went beyond her scheming and her secret oaths. Maybe she saw herself in them, as she had been so many years ago, charged with hope and fire, eager to reshape the world with her dreams.

  Her expression gave away nothing as she looked from Avi to Terris and back again. But I saw the way her body softened and the faint trembling in her hands as she took Terris’s arm and, leaning into his strength, walked away.

&n
bsp; Epilogue: Kardith of Harth

  The evening breeze gusts cool and wild-smelling off the Border hills and sends the gray horses running for the sheer joy of it, necks arched, tails bannered, coats like polished silk against the greeny silver grass. Only the sorrel gelding waits by the gate, hoping to be let back into the barn. Terris calls him “Lazy Bastard,” or “Fat as Butter,” dumbest-shit names I ever heard for a horse.

  Me, I stand on the newly painted porch of the ranch house with the smells of roasting barnfowl and potatoes tickling the back of my senses. Etch has done a great job fixing up this place. He never said a word that he knew it was my doing. It was Esmelda’s guilt-offering to me — but how could I tell what she really meant by it? I said I wouldn’t touch her money even if the Mother herself came down and blessed it, but I had a horse that needed a ranch to pasture in, and I knew just the man to run it. I didn’t add that Terris could use a place to go to, far from all the flowers and poisoned daggers.

  Etch saunters out on the porch and stands near me. I feel the heat of his body.

  “You going back tomorrow?” He means Laureal City.

  I sigh, shifting my weight against the railing. The long-knife waits in the chest in my bedroom, and my thigh feels half naked without it. But to be here is an act of trust. For all three of us.

  “Got to spit in the old dragon’s eye one way or the other,” I say.

  If it were just me, I’d as soon not go back. Avi doesn’t need me, that’s sure, though I think we’ll always love each other. While Jakon was off getting his grandfather’s consent to the new treaty and marriage contract, she was busy becoming Esmelda’s public heir.