The lines of his frown softened slightly; they would have smoothed away completely had he not been required to hold the sword for her. To gird her perfect dress with its ungainly weight. She knew him that well.
And he, in his fashion, knew her. He knew, of course, that she allowed him some hint of her vulnerability to forestall the argument to follow. But he also knew that such a tactic was almost beneath her dignity, and used so rarely that it could not be disregarded. Not entirely.
The sword was heavy in his hands. The Terafin sword. It was seen only during time of war, and her choice to bring it now—to the funeral of a member of her House, no more and no less—was a statement which he thought it wise, at the very least, to avoid.
Justice, the archaic Weston that ran the length of the blade said, shall not sleep. Terafin The Founder had proved the truth of that saying during a history in which the spillage of blood counted for less than the spillage of cheap wine. Death. War. Triumph.
“Amarais,” he said, his knuckles whitened as he gripped the sword’s dress scabbard. “Why now? Why this?”
She turned away again, because there was only so much vulnerability she could expose, to him or anyone. It was her nature; one of the things that he both admired and disliked. What weakness there was in her was buried, and buried deeply; he was certain it existed only because he had been so well trained in the guild of the domicis that he knew all power had its complementary weakness.
“Who killed her?”
Silence.
“Morretz?”
“We have not been able to ascertain that yet.” Pause. “And if we had, you would be the first to know.” The last was almost chiding.
“I know,” she said softly. “But Courtne is dead as well.”
As was Corniel ATerafin, but it was to Courtne and Alea that The Terafin had looked for quiet support and counsel; their opinions that she had trusted, always, to be in the best interest of the House itself, and not of personal political gain.
She lifted her arms, to better expose her hips to the width of the sword’s belt.
Courtne’s death had been a bitter blow. He was there when the news arrived; there to see it stiffen her spine and pale the already classical complexion of her face; there to see her hands tighten a moment into slender fists as she placed them behind her back, hiding them, hiding the truth that needed expression in some gesture, be it a small one.
Captain Alayra of the Chosen had delivered the news; she was still bleeding from the battle that had brought about Courtne’s untimely death, and had bypassed a gruffly intemperate—a grieving—healer to do so. Old wolf, old wintered battle-axe of a woman, she understood what the word would mean to Amarais Handernesse ATerafin. To The Terafin. And she’d delivered it in person to spare her the company of strangers.
He remembered that they had stood as they so often did in informal matters of House business: The Terafin by the long, empty library table at which she took informal meetings, Alayra, reflection a sheen of blurred light against fine, fine wood grain across from her, and Morretz one step to the side.
Silence, in that room, after Alayra’s terse announcement, broken at last by The Terafin’s single word.
“Who?”
There had never been a satisfactory answer. Had there been, had there been, there would have been at least two deaths that night.
But Alayra was not one to shrug and turn; she offered names instead, the names that he himself would have offered in privacy. Haerrad. Rymark. Elonne. Marrick. Corniel.
Because, of course, they were the surviving contenders in the eyes of House Terafin: the men and woman who strove to succeed to the House title and take the House throne.
“Not good enough,” The Terafin had replied.
“Then kill them all and have done,” the old captain had said wearily. She had seen House War once, and the blood of five of its most prized members troubled her very little compared to the blood that they would spill.
It had surprised neither Morretz nor Alayra when The Terafin tendered no reply. But it surprised them both when she dismissed them.
That night, she watched dawn from the roof of the great manse, in the solitary comfort of the oldest piece of clothing she owned. And the day after, she prepared—as she did today—for a funeral. A leave-taking. Had she cried?
He was certain of it. She shared her tears with no one, not Morretz and not the men and women in whose hands she placed her life. But she shed them; he was certain she must shed them, and she was given room in which to choose pride over public display. Dark times, those few days.
They were nothing compared to Alea; she was, had been in her fashion, the closest thing to a child The Terafin had allowed herself to have. Amarais had given her life to the House, and the House had become entirely hers for the sacrifice; for companionship she had her Chosen, her domicis, and her Council.
Only one other death, Morretz knew, would be—could be—as painful as this one.
Jewel ATerafin’s.
But Jewel was not considered by the Council to be a contender. Her past as a street urchin—a thief, if the truth were baldly stated—and the speed with which she reluctantly learned to treat the patriciate as equals on their own ground—slow—precluded her. If this bothered her at all, she showed it as often as The Terafin showed tears.
She was reliable in her fashion, but prone to a certain impatience, a certain wildness, that never harmed the House—but always hovered on the edge of doing so. Amarais trusted her in spite of, or perhaps because of, her past. There was affection between them that was on one level completely different from the affection she had offered Alea, and on the other, absolutely the same.
As if she could hear every word he was thinking, she looked up, her eyes hitting the surface of perfectly silvered glass to meet his. “The sword,” she said softly.
Jewel was in a fury.
They all knew it. They could hear her clattering about the kitchen in isolation; she’d purged it entirely—in one sweeping curse—of both her den-mates and the one or two servants she grudgingly allowed to clean and tend it. Carver hadn’t moved fast enough, which is how they’d learned that fury was the right word: she’d sent a tureen—an empty one, but nothing in Terafin was cheap and light—flying into the wall four inches to the right of his head just to catch his attention.
Caught it, too. He left. They all left. No one stayed to ask questions.
Luckily—in a manner of speaking—she’d thrown Avandar out as well. First, of course. He wasn’t the den favorite—he had never become part of the den in any significant way—but they’d developed a sneaking admiration for his ability to deal with her graceless temper; he wasn’t a man who looked like he was used to hearing a single angry word, let alone what Jewel usually said in the heat of the moment.
“What happened?” Angel said, straightening out a spire of hair and looking at the closed door beyond which a small army’s worth of noise could be heard.
Avandar Gallais looked back over his shoulder before he shrugged. He was older than any of ’em, dressed better, spoke better, and knew how to read every language they’d ever encountered even better than Jewel did. They suspected that he could actually use magic; he sure as hells recognized it when he saw it coming. They didn’t know, though; no one had ever asked him directly. He wasn’t a man who usually answered direct questions—even Jay’s, which really pissed her off.
Avandar was, as he most often was, silent and thin-lipped. This meant he was both angry and resigned. Angel had already turned away, and almost missed the answer; it was curt and to the point.
“Alea ATerafin.”
“Oh.”
They knew what it was, then. Alea ATerafin had been about the only member of the upper echelons of Terafin that Jewel Markess ATerafin had actually liked. Quiet woman, in her own way, and in Fi
nch’s opinion a little on the watery side, but she was probably better than any of the rest of ’em.
And Jewel, seer-born, had never learned to accept that the only life her gift would ever let her save for certain was her own. They all had, and they all did. But not her.
Carver shook his head. “Glad I’m not you,” he said, as he pulled away from the kitchen door. “Funeral’s in two hours, and you’re going to have to dig her out of there and get her ready.”
The phrase “if looks could kill” took on significant meaning only if one knew Avandar Gallais well enough to understand the subtle sourness of his expression.
It wasn’t a rainy day; it wasn’t a dark one. It was the type of day that was so mild and so beautiful it made toil of any sort seem almost an insult to the benevolence of the weather gods—whichever gods those were at the moment. Changed a bit, with time.
Jewel hated it.
There should have been rain, storm, something that showed the displeasure of the heavens at the unjust, the unfair, the unacceptable passing of a decent woman. There should have been mourning, and if not that, than at least weather drizzly and gray enough to keep people from good cheer and ease. Petty thought, that. But Alea was dead, and the death should mean something.
She hated black. She hated gold. She wore them both for Alea because Alea would have insisted on it. For the good of the House, of course. For the sake of solidarity.
What she’d chosen not to wear spoke volumes, and indeed volumes had been spoken by Avandar all the way from her rooms to the edge of the grounds.
“You cannot leave your House Ring; it is the mark of your status as part of the House Council.”
“The House bloody Council,” she’d replied, “can choose to go straight to Allasakar for all I care.”
That silenced him for a moment. The name of the Lord of the Hells was rarely, if ever, spoken. In matters of protocol, however he was rarely silenced for long.
So she tried a different tack. “Look,” she said, “you’re not an idiot. I’m not an idiot. We’re standing on contested turf right now, and Alea’s death was just like Courtne’s—part of a turf war. There are two dens forming up. Maybe more.”
He was quiet another minute—which allowed her to get from her room to the great hall—before he spoke again. “Four.”
“Four. Or five. I don’t know. But I do know this. I don’t have the funds or the soldiers to throw away in a turf war over a House that’s not even up for grabs. The Terafin’s not dead, Avandar.”
“But the—”
“And the House Council is the collection of den leaders who are sharpening their knives. Who’ve already blooded them. Alea is dead because they’ve started their skirmishing. Who’s left that’s worth respecting? Courtne’s dead, and he was considered the unimpeachable heir to the title. Gabriel? Rymark’s his blood son. And I’ve already said enough about Rymark.
“Look, I’ve seen it before. I thought—because I was an idiot—that I’d never see it again. You think I want to be part of them right now? Think again. You want the ring?”
“You don’t insult them,” he’d said, “You insult her.” Avandar spoke of The Terafin, not the dead, and Jewel knew it. “You are her choice, as you well know, and your inclusion on Council was a matter of harsh words and politics.”
That almost worked.
Almost.
But she ached when she thought of Alea, and she could think of nothing else to offer her. She wanted to make a gesture. So it was childish. So it was a waste of time. It didn’t matter. She wanted to, and this was the only one she could think of.
“If she’s insulted,” she told the domicis gruffly, “I’ll grovel in private later. But I have to say something, and if I can’t say it this way, I’ll actually say it.”
He didn’t surrender gracefully. Never did. But he shut up, which was the best she could ask for.
They made it to the grounds in the relative chill of his anger and the relative heat of hers; her den were smarter than he was and walked about five yards behind her temper, letting her cool off the only way she knew how.
She was glad of them. Glad that they understood what she just didn’t want to put in words. Not now, not ever. Loss—it was the worst thing. The thing she hated most. Even speaking about it was somehow letting it in.
But she discovered that the strength of her loss was selfish, centered around her own fear and her own rage; discovered, to her surprise and her dismay, that she was not the only member of Terafin that somehow felt a gesture must be made.
That she was by no means the most powerful member either.
It should have comforted her, to see it, to see the act of defiance and anger and to know that even The Terafin could be pushed too hard, too far.
But when she saw the sword, her heart froze. She’d thought there wasn’t anything left in her heart to freeze; she was Jay, and she was stupid sometimes, and she constantly underestimated her ability to be surprised. Being a seer did that.
But this sword she’d only seen girded once before, and that time was one time too many. It still came back to her in nightmare: darkness and death, the madness of the mage-born, the god-born and the Allasakari. The deaths of too many of the Chosen.
Justice shall not sleep.
She knew Morretz just well enough to know that he disapproved of the sword, but it barely registered; her eyes were caught, everywhere, by the faces of the men and women who lined the walk in preparation for her coming: the Chosen. The men and women handpicked and trusted absolutely by The Terafin. The men and women who had each seen that sword at least once in their tenure: It was the sword upon which their oaths were taken, and to which a ceremonial amount of their blood was given. A sword of war, yes, but much, much more.
It chilled her.
“You see?” Avandar said softly, quietly. “A gesture has been made. How does it comfort the dead?”
Later, she’d remember to keep her face completely rigid in Avandar’s company; she usually managed it, but the sonofabitch could see so damned clearly it only took a twitch.
The phrase “cold comfort” took on a whole new meaning. I’m not sixteen anymore, Jewel thought. And she looked across the grounds to see that The Terafin’s gaze had stopped a moment to meet hers. Saw herself in those eyes.
Jewel lifted a ringless hand in salute.
10th of Lattan, 427 AA
Kalakar, Averalaan Aramarelas
The Black Ospreys were the lone company that had not been given leave—indeed, given specific orders to the contrary—to expand their number. Duarte had expected no less, and was resigned to the lack before recruitment started. Secretly, it did not displease him; the Ospreys were a handful at the best of times, and an increase in their numbers usually called for a pruning that he found, over time, he had lost stomach for. Dangerous that.
An Osprey was, after all, a bird of prey—you could fly it, hunt it, give it freedom in which to take its kill, and even force it to feed from your hand, but the relationship was a delicate balance of will and mastery, a subtle acknowledgment that, at the right time, the bird’s flight was the bird’s flight, and all the more breathtaking for the uncertainty it inspired.
But the Black Ospreys were more than just captive killers; they had their pride.
Duarte was no fool. When Fiara burst into the room, her eyes narrow and cool enough to freeze water where it stood in the pitcher on his desk, he knew exactly what was coming, and wondered briefly if holding both halves of the conversation—if such an encounter could be graced with that word—would make his point. He doubted it.
“Sentrus.” A warning, of sorts.
She snorted. “Duarte,” she began.
“Sentrus.”
It stopped her, but not cold. “Primus Duarte.”
“Better.”
He sighed. “What?”
“Every company in Kalakar is recruiting in the streets of this city. Every company in Kalakar is going to be recruiting in the West—and in the North—after the King’s Challenge.” Fiara, dark-haired and dark-eyed, was an anomaly; she came from the Northern kingdoms where a sword served as well as most speeches, and the people were as pale as the ice and snow that surrounded them for so much of the gods-cursed year. Duarte had done his time in the North, and had no desire to return to it; the ice had crept into his hair there, and the wind had frozen lines into his skin.
I am not a young man, he thought, accepting it as truth although it troubled more than his vanity. War was coming.
“I am aware of that, Fiara. It may surprise you, but as Primus and therefore commanding officer of this company, I actually do manage to hear a few words before the rest of you do.”
She had the grace to flush, but that was about as much grace as he could hope for; she was an Osprey, after all. They all were. Misfits, killers, mercenaries more than soldiers—their only real law was the loyalty they held to each other. And, by extension, to the Kalakar House Guards. He had gathered them; they were his.
But it had been well over a decade since he had pulled their hoods from their faces to let them see the light of the open sky. To let them catch sight of their quarry.
And that, he thought, was taking the analogy about as far as it could go without losing it entirely.
“Sentrus,” he said quietly, in a tone that brooked no interruption—even from an Osprey, “the time for peace is almost past. If you wish to be offended by The Kalakar’s order, be offended in silence. What I accept from you in peace, and what I accept from you in time of war are, of necessity, two different things. It’s been long indeed if you’ve forgotten it.”
“Primus,” she said, tapping her chest with the curled tips of her fingers.
He closed his eyes a moment. House Guards were expected to drill and present. Even the Ospreys. Given their reputation, probably especially the Ospreys.
The Uncrowned King Page 6