The Uncrowned King

by Michelle West

  “This is it,” Duarte said.

  Auralis said nothing; Alexis nodded. Kiriel split her attention between the rest of the Ospreys and their leader. The Primus was finely dressed and sharp as a good blade; the men who followed his command—and they did, if with poor grace—were discomfited in the sun’s glare.

  As was she.

  But as Duarte did not condescend to notice it, she hid her own discomfort as best she could. Duarte knew when to show weakness in the face of humans who were, by their very nature, weak, and he chose not to show it now. She was learning.

  “Sentrus,” he said, and she knew by the slight edge in his voice that he was referring to her.

  She snapped a sharp salute—sharper, in fact, than was the wont of a regular Osprey. She felt Auralis rolling his eyes at her back.

  “You know what we’re looking for, Kiriel. I give you dispensation to deal with an emergency as you see fit. The rest of you,” he continued, his voice both louder, firmer and somehow less stinging for it, “will follow standard procedures. There will be no heroics—”

  That was interrupted by catcalls and jeers; he allowed it—for three seconds.

  “Admittedly a poor choice of words, given the audience. There will be no grandstanding—”

  She did know what he was looking for. The problem at the moment seemed to be giving it to him. Her practiced eye swept the hands of all Ospreys present, looking for the thin band of gold that separated her from them. But all she had to go on at the moment was her vision, and her vision was not what it had been.

  The guardian of her weakness—and she had come to think of it, perversely, as just that—sat upon her finger, as bright and unmarked as a newly made promise. Beneath it, inseparable from her life itself, was the thing that marked her as tainted—or as strong; her father’s blood and gift. It was a distinction that she and Ashaf had often argued about in her fourteenth year.

  And here, again, again, Ashaf came.

  She could see the old woman’s lined face, sun-bitten and wind-burned; ancient compared to the faces of the other human women who gathered in the Court. She was not afraid of age, but she was afraid; Kiriel had sensed it early. Had sensed also that it was not a fear that was—quite—satisfactory to feed on, to encourage, to incubate. It was a thing of wonder, that fear, and of curiosity, and she had spent many a night wrapped in Ashaf’s frail arms, drawing warmth from the questions she asked her old friend.

  Ashaf, what are you afraid of?

  Would you be sad if I died?

  Would you be sad if I killed a demon?

  Would you be sad if I killed a human?

  Would you be sad if I didn’t love you?

  Her face was so clear in the heat of the Challenge day that Kiriel had to close her eyes and turn away from it. Which only made it worse. Always did.

  How much do you love me, Ashaf?

  Will you love me forever?

  And Ashaf would answer while Kiriel was rocked there, cradled in the weakest arms in the Shining Palace as if they were the only safe haven, the only true strength.

  “Kiriel?”

  Auralis’ voice. He knew better than to touch her to catch her attention—they all did—but he could make a slap of his words by the tone he chose. This was more of a forceful nudge.

  She looked up at him.

  “Your hand,” he said softly—and he almost never spoke softly.

  She lifted her sword.

  “Not that one.”

  Her other hand, then. Balled into a tight fist.

  Ah. That was the problem. It was bleeding. He didn’t ask her any questions—she thought he might; Cook would have. But the silence stretched out until she realized that he intended to stand a moment, as if he were already in combat, and guard her back.

  Exposure. That was Auralis’ fear.

  And he shared it with her now. It struck her, numbing her hand, her arm, the lines of her face, that that was exactly what he was doing: He was sharing his fear. But not the way that scared humans usually do—no weeping, no wailing, no gnashing of teeth. No; his was a different gift. He blanketed her with the protection that he himself might have desired in the face of vulnerability. She had never, ever expected to see this from Auralis, the darkest, the most crippled, of the Black Ospreys. Had never, in fact, expected to see it from anyone but Ashaf and Jay.

  But because he offered, she answered the question that he would never ask.

  “I was thinking of the only woman who ever cared about me while I was growing up. A Kialli lord killed her.”

  She saw all the darkness in his unblinking gaze before he turned away, and she wondered how much of the kinship she felt was to that darkness, and how much to the flash of recognized pain.

  Jewel Markess ATerafin was tired.

  But when the silver shadows crept beneath the surface of her closed lids, she shook it—and fast. She sat up in bed, in her wing, surrounded by walls, doors and windows she was familiar with.

  And standing before her, in the haziness of after-sleep, was a woman who belonged to none of these things, but was recognized immediately.

  Evayne.

  “Jewel,” she said.

  “Evayne.” She was torn a moment between staring in stillness and silence to catch every word, every gesture, every nuance, and rushing to cover herself with the clothing most convenient to reach. But Evayne never came for a friendly chat; there was always something at stake. She dressed.

  “I am . . . hampered, Jewel ATerafin.”

  Jewel frowned.

  “There are forces at work, now, that I should have more clearly foreseen and did not. I had thought—” She frowned. “You are not yet what I have envisioned you to be. You have the power that I, too, was born to—perhaps, because it is so natural to you, you have the stronger gift.

  “But it has lain fallow.”

  This Evayne, then, was younger than the woman who had come to preserve her life in the healerie; there was no demand and no command in her voice. She did not mention the oracle, and Jewel didn’t ask.

  Evayne shook her head and her hood fell away from her face, as if that minor gesture was a command.

  “I did not see the events that would rob Kiriel of her essential birthright at this juncture. I see,” and here she pulled her heart—for so Jewel thought of the crystal orb—from her sleeve, “Kialli, and death. I see the most dangerous of Valedan’s enemies in Averalaan finally making his stand.”

  “But—”

  “I cannot cross that threshold today; the coliseum is forbidden me.”

  “What?”

  “There are rules, Jewel ATerafin, and vows; I have followed the former in every way I can, and I have made the latter. The vows of the god-born are . . . particular. There is a power at work—about which I cannot speak—that interferes with my ability to walk the path of the otherwhen. I can give no aid when aid is needed.

  “And Kiriel is blind.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Not now!”

  “But there’s someone here for you—and I think you probably shouldn’t piss him off by making him wait!”

  “I have asked Kallandras to come,” Evayne continued, as if the interruption offered by Carver and the door were beneath her notice—or beyond it. “But I fear we may already be too late.”

  And she did fear it. That much was obvious to the eyes of a seer-born. “I’ll go,” Jewel said.

  Evayne smiled, the expression thin and half-bitter. “I know:”

  He prayed for a worthy enemy.

  It was a true warrior’s only prayer: to be given an enemy of worth against which to pit the skills of a lifetime. A true warrior did not pray to win; he prayed to be allowed to prove his skill, beneath the eyes of the Lord.

  But he
wavered on the definition of worthy.

  Certainly Valedan kai di’Leonne had proved himself to be a completely different man than the one that Andaro had been led from the South expecting: He was quiet, yes, but he did not have that placidity, that weakness, that implied he was another’s puppet. He stood beside General Baredan di’Navarre, called traitor by some, and the Callestan Tyr, called traitor by everyone, and it was clear from the Tyr’s watchfulness that he did not consider Valedan to be his. He did not flatter; he rarely spoke.

  And at least once, to Andaro’s knowledge, the boy had done something that had shaken both of his chosen supporters. Real anger, there. He had faced the servants of the Lord of Night. No question. He was Leonne, after all; the scion of the only bloodline considered worthy enough by the Lord that the Lord had come down from the heavens to anoint it in blood.

  Valedan kai di’Leonne’s father had been a weak man. They had said—all of Anton’s students had said it—that the bloodline had been lost in that father, and in the son; that the line was at an end.

  And here, in the heart of the much despised North, they had come to make truth of that certainty, that youthful contempt. This was the day, this the hour: The Test of the Sword. The Lord’s Test. The man’s test.

  Andaro di’Corsarro was a warrior. He prayed for a worthy enemy.

  The healers were on the field.

  Their twin palms, gold and platinum in what was almost certainly maker-made reliefs, hung round the neck, exposed for all to see. This was the test in which men were lost, and lives taken by overzealousness, by accident, by stroke gone awry or out of control.

  No man was required to die for the test, but the use of a healer disqualified the contestant; he could—should he somehow find himself empowered to do so—merely stand, brush off the proffered aid, and continue in his quest for glory. But the healers were that quest’s end.

  No one was certain where such a custom had come from, although it was widely believed to be a dictate of the first Kings, who felt that the expense of a healer would separate the monied and titled patriciate from their less fortunate competitors. Dantallon, Queens’ healer and lord of the healerie in Avantari, thought differently. For the sake of a game, for the sake of men’s ego and men’s vainglory, this contest had been created. And it had served its purpose—but no healer-born would fix a wound and return a man to battle over and over for such a poor cause.

  For any cause.

  There were two healers present; himself and one other that he was certain of. He had suspicion that the Astari had planted another, a man they might make use of in as advantageous a way as possible without answering for later. As the aim of the healer was to preserve life, he frowned at the politics, but was not openly critical.

  His aides from the healerie were with him; his supplies were in the bundles they, and their chosen servants, carried. Things were complicated by the fact that those entering the grounds were required to bear the rings that the magi had given as a mark of security. He was understaffed because of that requirement, and none too pleased by it, although he did claim to understand it.

  His own talent he had been privately “requested” to use only in the case of mortal danger.

  The sole exception to that: the young man upon whom the entire Southern war rested. Valedan kai di’Leonne, raised as a hostage in the Arannan Halls of Avantari.

  What will we see, boy? What will try to kill you, and who will die because of it?

  He did not ask the question aloud because he knew, without knowing how, that he would already get more of an answer than he liked. Although the sun was high and bright, there was a storm in the air, a crackling of energy that had yet to be released.

  Of the hundred, there were at best a handful of swordsmen who Ser Anton could—and did—dismiss as mediocre. Not hopelessly so, of course; it was clear that they had some experience or they would not have been allowed entrance into the Challenge. But their strengths had been split among the ten tasks, and only a very, very few of them had the time and the fortitude to hone those strengths, sharpen them, make of them a weapon.

  Eneric of Darbanne was one such contestant. His style was purely Northern; it was a thing of speed but little grace, of accuracy that seemed—almost—to be luck and afterthought more than the result of deliberate action. And yet.

  And yet.

  He was unbeaten in this hazy day, unblemished by anything but water.

  So, too, was Andaro di’Corsarro. But the two men were cut from different cloth—were cut, Ser Anton thought with a momentary wryness—from rock and silk, from sackcloth and ironwood, from things so different the only thing that forced a comparison at all was the fact that they did cut; that they wielded the blade well.

  He felt a pride at his student’s achievement that he had not thought to feel. It vanished slowly as Andaro left the field. Another Southerner—Nicco—took his place; another Northerner faced him. There would be, if he were judge of it, blood shed in this fight.

  It was significant that so far neither Eneric nor Andaro had drawn or shed blood. He himself had taken this last test without leaving a mark on an enemy, and without being marked by one. Skill.

  Blessing.

  He turned away, closing his eyes as contestant’s steel began to clamor for attention.

  He was not a contestant now. He was not on a mission to prove himself, either to the South or the North—but the one link remained between that man, that long-dead man, and himself: He had much to prove to the dead; he wished to offer them a victory and have peace.

  He raised his head. Straightened his shoulders. We pay a higher price than we envision for peace, he thought. But that was a truth he had discovered years past, and he had never flinched from the search. He opened his eyes.

  Met the eyes of a young boy, white-haired, skin patchy with flakes of skin that suggested sun’s burning.

  Had the clouds obscured the sun’s face, the Lord’s vision? He felt a hint of the night breeze, the night’s hand, as the boy lifted a hand in greeting and then froze there, caught by the sudden indecision of a child who has only just remembered he is supposed to be addressing an enemy, and not the Uncle he had played with quite happily for most of his life.

  This was how it started, Anton thought, feeling no such indecision in the touch of the Lady’s proffered circumstance. He crossed the distance that separated them. It was not great.

  “Aidan,” he said, offering the boy the iron smile that he had offered him the second day they met.

  “Ser Anton.” The boy hesitated a moment longer and then thrust his hand forward. Ser Anton wore light armor—which, in this heat felt anything but—without gloves; the gloves were at his belt. He clasped the smaller, smoother hand and shook firmly.

  “I should have thought to find you here. This is where the swords are singing.”

  Aidan’s smile was instant, unaffected; it had a depth to it that only a boy’s smile could. Unalloyed. Bright. A thing of wonder that he had not quite learned to conceal. Wonder and vulnerability were so closely twined they might almost have been the same thing.

  And yet it was safe, in the presence of the dour swordmaster, to share such a thing. He stared at the boy dispassionately, thinking only that, at twelve years of age, he was probably too old to truly master the sword—but that, had he been born in the South, Ser Anton might have tried to teach him anyway; the instincts were there and an instinct and passion like Aidan’s couldn’t be taught, no matter who the teacher might be; one was born with it, or one did not have it at all. He had met very few born with it.

  “Your Challenger?”

  “Five fights,” Aidan said. And he answered so enthusiastically, so proudly, that Ser Anton realized it had not occurred to him that Ser Anton himself was paying at least as much attention as Aidan had. “Five fights, and not a scratch on him. But it’s almost impos
sible to get near him in between the fights; the Ospreys are thick as bees 'round honey.”

  “His sixth fight?”

  “Soon. After these two. No, after the two after these two.”

  “Do you know who his opponent will be?”

  At this question, perhaps a little too obviously disingenuous, Aidan fell silent a moment. His face hardened into the expression that children the world over wore when they lived too close to the streets and death. “You already know,” he said curtly.

  Ser Anton, unfazed, nodded. “Andaro. My own. I should have liked to see him face Eneric first, I think. That man is better than I would like to admit.”

  Silence. Then, “See who faces Eneric first? My Champion or yours?”

  Anton laughed; the sound was short and sharp, rare enough to draw attention to them both. He waited until that unwelcome interference had passed before replying. “Your Champion, of course. My own, whose strengths and weaknesses you have seen today, I would save for that ultimate test.

  “He is here, after all, to prove to the men who watch—the men from the South, the merchants and the cerdan who guard them, the Tyr, the Tyr’s Tyran, the General—that those born and bred to the South are superior in every way to those whose blood is dilute at best and who have lived a pampered and soft life in the Courts of the feminine North.”

  “I thought,” Aidan said, with perfect dignity, “that he was here to kill him.”

  Anton’s turn to offer silence in the place of words. At last, rather gruffly, he said, “Ser Andaro is my best student; he was rivaled by Carlo, and he has always claimed that their skill is equal; it is not true. He is my best in every way.

  “He has taken the field, Aidan, and he understands well what is at stake—but in the end, I do not believe that he will turn this from the test it is into the killing that it might otherwise be. I have had him for too many years, and in those early years, I was a different man.”

  No question of it; in those years, he would never have explained himself to a mere boy, and at that, a boy one step away from serafdom—if that. He knew he should leave. “A question, Aidan.”