Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown

by sun sword

  And then she, born to the voice that was gift and curse, froze.

  There was no sound in the garden. The bowers of the trees above did not shake in the wind; the crickets did not sing; the insects did not buzz. And beside her, on blankets that were slightly too rough to be truly fine, her sister-wives did not breathe.

  She might have cried out in terror, in fear—but before she could break the silence with the sound of her voice, another woman did.

  "They sleep a… magical slumber. They will awaken unharmed and unchanged, but what I say must be said to you alone.

  "Well met, Serra Diora. I've heard much about you."

  She turned at once, and in the dawn's growing light saw a midnight shade: a woman, robed in a blue so deep it should have looked black. Should have, and didn't. She wore a hood, and as she spoke, the hood began to curl back on itself until her face was revealed.

  Not a young woman, this. Older, she thought, than Serena en'Leonne, for all that her hair was black as midnight shadow. Diora carried a dagger, as so many of the women born to the clans did; she drew it.

  "I mean you no harm, Serra Diora."

  But her voice—her voice told a different tale.

  "You are not telling the truth," Diora replied evenly, planting her feet in the garden's path, standing between this stranger and her sister-wives. Living her vow, so soon after it had been made.

  "I am telling the truth," was the heavy reply. The woman's eyes were unblinking. "I am Evayne a'Nolan, and I come to offer the only warning I am able to offer you, here, so close to the heart of their power."

  That was true. Diora let the blade's flat reflect the rising sun as she met this woman's odd, pale eyes. They were not gray, nor blue, nor green, nor brown; they were the color of purple lilacs. Caution decreed that she maintain her guard, but some instinct caused the dagger to waver.

  "I believe that you mean me no harm," she said at last. "But you know of a danger to me, or you believe you do, and you think it will kill me."

  "In a manner," Evayne replied, and her voice was bitter with grief and something that Diora would have called rage, had it not been so quiet. "I have little time, Serra Diora. Listen to me now.

  "There will come a time, well before the next Festival of the Moon, when the heart of the Dominion will be struck by the howling winds. I cannot tell you what exactly occurs; I do not know it."

  A lie.

  "But I will tell you this much: You cannot prevent it. There is nothing at all that you can do that will change what is to occur. It is a tide, a current. Fight it, and you will be both exhausted and destroyed. Ride it—ride it, and you will have your chance to right what has been wronged, in a fashion."

  Truth. Absolute and unshakable.

  "What do you speak of? What wind? What event?"

  The stranger paused a moment, as if listening. "You will know it when it comes. There will be no mistaking what it portends. Listen to me," the woman said, her voice so intense it could not be ignored. "To survive, you must be a rock that the winds cannot shake. You will be hurt almost beyond measure; certainly beyond your own. Hide the pain, Diora en'Leonne. Hide it well. If it is seen, if it is known at all, you will join them; you do not deal with fools but with cunning men, with men of power."

  "What do you mean? Join who? Who do you speak of?"

  "Do not move, Diora en'Leonne. When the time comes, no matter what you see, or hear, in spite of all you feel— do not move." She lifted her head, testing a wind that Diora could not see or feel. "They will find me, if I linger even five minutes. Child, I am sorry."

  The figure in blue bowed; the hood climbed up her face as if it were alive. She gestured and took a single step toward Diora. The air swallowed her whole.

  Noise returned to the garden; noise and life.

  But the sun was cold where it fell upon her sleeping wives; her heart, as she gazed upon those perfect faces, sleep-gentled and vulnerable, felt as if it belonged, for a moment, to some other woman, to another body; as if it— as if it were becoming a standing stone, or a tree cut and bent and twisted into a shape that was its own, unique.

  For she had heard death in those words, death in each and every one of them.

  And it was not for her.

  * * *

  WAR

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  8th of Morel, 427 AA

  The Tor Leonne

  When riders gather in silence, the storm follows.

  —Mancorvan proverb

  Danger is more than one powerful man in a quiet room.

  —Averdan proverb

  Three men sat in an empty room.

  Before the dusk had settled across the shoulders of the night's cupbearer, but moments after the multiple lamps had been blessed by the priests and lit against the coming shadow, they met, as they had planned, in the Tyr's contemplation rooms.

  There were no cushions or palanquins, no divans, no benches; no serafs danced in attendance, no women brought trays of delicacies, flasks of wine, or warm wet towels with which to wipe away the sand and sweat of the day's exertions. Each of these men was allowed a personal escort of between four and eight cerdan at all times; it was not only an honor granted by the Tyr, but also a symbol of their rank. Not a single guard stood among them.

  The pleasing strains of quiet samisen music carried from across the lake that had been the gift of the Lady to the Tyr'agar over two hundred years ago. If they looked into the distance, they might see the family of the Tyr before night's repose.

  General Alesso par di'Marente looked. "The night is clear," he said as the lamps along the lakefront began their bright glow.

  Widan Sendari par de'Marano touched his long, fine beard. It was a habit of his, a gesture of contemplation and concentration. Or of nervousness. His face, placid and still as the lake's waters, showed no hint of which as he gazed at the profile of the most powerful man in the Dominion of Annagar. "Alesso," he said quietly.

  "There is no turning back," the General replied. His eyes, like the night, were darkening, and if his hair showed the slow march of time, that time did not touch the angular lines of his face. "Baredan and Cormano are dead."

  "You have proof?" The third man, silent until now, also turned his gaze upon Alesso di'Marano. Tyran Calevro kai di'Horaro clasped his hands loosely behind his back as he met the eyes of his ally. They were cold.

  "What proof is needed?"

  "They're Generals, not common cerdan. You cannot assume that they will trust any trap you've devised."

  "They received an urgent summons—carried not by any common cerdan, but by the Tyran. They answered it." He paused and then turned once again to gaze across the lake. "Why would they not? The Tyran are the most honorable men in the Dominion. They know no treachery."

  Tyran Calevro kai di'Horaro flushed an unflattering purple. "Alesso, I warn you—"

  "Calevro." The Widan spoke. "General di'Marente has not been in error once since we ventured down this path. You do him a disservice to question him." His voice was the voice of the most respected of the Tyr'agar's Widan counselors, at once calm and commanding. "Come. We gather tonight to witness the beginning of a dynasty."

  But the Second Captain of the oathguards was not so easily turned aside; his was the greatest crime, of all crimes committed here. He would not have it committed for no reason. "The army?"

  "The armies are in place," Alesso replied, without turning back. "The city will be ours, and the Terrean." Another light, caught in the shape of an eagle, flared to life above the pavilion upon which the Tyr'agar sat with his wife and his oldest son. "And after the Festival of the Sun, we will own the Dominion."

  "If all goes according to plan. We do not own all five of the Tyr'agnati."

  Alesso was angered a moment. "They will come. What choice will they have? If they hear rumors of the Tyr'agar's death, so be it. More than that, they will not have. They will be on the road, with their courts and their finery."

&nb
sp; "But the—"

  "But what? It is the Festival of the Lord—they will come."

  "And if they do not?"

  "Calevro, you try my patience. This moment is ours. Savor it. The game is about to be won."

  The Tyran fell silent, and when next a man spoke, it was Widan Sendari. "Alesso?"

  "Ah, look. He gathers his daughters to him. How fitting." The General's smile was soft; in another light, it might have seemed tender. "What concerns you, Widan?"

  "My daughter."

  "Serra Diora will be quite safe," the General replied. "As long as she does nothing at all to interfere."

  "That was not our plan—"

  "It is necessity's plan," the General replied. "She is canny, the young Serra. And wise beyond the ways of women, as her father taught her to be." He turned away from the Tyr'agar's family, to face his allies for the last time that night. "But if she shows her loyalty to be to her husband's clan, she will die with the rest of them.

  "She must, old friend," he added softly, reaching out unexpectedly to grip Widan Sendari's slightly bent shoulders.

  Her father was silent. Serra Diora was known across the five Terreans as the Flower of the Dominion. And she was wise, but also cunning in the ways of women. Was she not as she was raised to be? She was the daughter of the most cunning man in the Dominion. Exquisite—even in a father's eyes—and dangerous. Ah, dangerous.

  "She is your daughter, Sendari. Trust her."

  He murmured her name so softly the samisen's strings carried it away from the ears of his allies. A mercy.

  From across the lake, the screaming began.

  She was the most beautiful woman in the Dominion of Annagar. The poets all said so.

  Her hair was the color of a night so dark and soft that a man could only dream of experiencing it. She was tiny and yet, once seen, she filled the whole of man's vision with her perfect grace and her lithe, supple movements. Her voice was the bell's voice, her hands were ivory made flesh; her nose and her lips and her chin were the subjects of countless poems. Even the bards of the North carried her name—and her fame—to the ears of undeserving, unhorsed barbarians.

  She sat, her legs folded perfectly beneath her, her head slightly bent so that the tip of her chin might hover delicately above the folds of her blue silk sari. Gold adorned the line of her jaw, trailing like a liquid spill from her ears.

  She was so perfectly composed one could almost miss the spray of blood that darkened her lap and speckled her bare upper arms. One might miss the slow, deliberate breaths, the clenched hands.

  Eight men, wearing the uniform of the Tyran, held their swords a moment, staring openly upon a face that very few had seen. They were tense; the kill had not yet settled and they glanced from corner to corner, waiting for their companions to join them.

  They made no move toward her, and she, no move to rise.

  No move at all, save breath, and breathing, by their orders, she was allowed. It was difficult; to kill her, one risked the wrath of the Widan Sendari, but to disobey the General was likewise unthinkable. A poor choice for simple oathguards.

  The harem of Ser Illara Valens kai di'Leonne was a wing unto itself, with rooms and fountains and courtyards to better display the women that the heir to the Dominion had chosen for his own use. There were places to hide here, places behind which a mother desperate to protect the life of her young child might find a moment's respite.

  There were guards in the harem—but not any lowly cerdan, with eyes too round, or a mouth too apt to spill the secrets of the beauty of the women therein. No; the Tyr'agar had decreed—and who would have thought to argue—that the harem, with its women and its valuable children, was far too important to be trusted to common men. The guards he had offered his oldest son—the guards that had been accepted—had been oathguards. They held the title of Tyran: the only men whom the Tyr trusted. Their life's work had been the safety of the women and children of Ser Illara.

  Their night's work was almost done.

  How long could the slaughter of unarmed women take? Screams and cries echoed throughout the rounded, acoustically exquisite harem. Sobbing, pleading. The Tyran did not take their time—but it was clear that they did not hesitate to indulge their baser urges before they continued with their work; who would be left to speak of it? And against whom was it an outrage? Ser Illara kai di'Leonne was dead. The Tyr'agar was dead. These women belonged only to the little families that they had been gathered from, year after year; families who had no voice and no power.

  Serra Diora had been wife to Ser Illara; a woman of power. She folded her hands in her lap as she listened. Her face was grave and lovely and demure.

  A child's scream, cut short almost as quickly as it began. Not hers. She had borne the heir no children in their short marriage.

  Had she, she would be dead.

  Heavy steps upon marble, upon silk. Cushions thrown and scattered. Cries of discovery, both victim's and victor's. Feet away from her straight back.

  "Diora!"

  Serra Diora looked the very statue of the Dominion's most beautiful woman. The child had been found. She closed her eyes as she heard the terrified fury of his mother's voice; the slight scrape of small dagger against sheath. The cry of denial.

  Then, silence. The child himself made no cry.

  "Tyran di'Barento." The man closest to the harem's wide, beautiful doors stood forward at the formal request of his man. He was young, tall, proud; his face was unscarred, and his hair a gleaming turn of Annagarian black.

  Tyran di'Barento.

  "Bring him."

  The Tyran obeyed his commander; the body of the child was carried, like so much baggage, across the shining floor. Tyran di'Barento lifted the head that rested at such an odd angle, gazed at it. Nodded. "The last."

  "The women?"

  Di'Barento shrugged. "What is done, is done." But his eyes narrowed as his gaze came to rest upon the Flower of the Dominion. Dropping the corpse of the babe to one side, he bowed; the bow was low and respectful.

  "Serra Diora di'Marano, if you will allow it, we will provide you escort to your father's side."

  Serra Diora di'Marano sat on the flat silk mats in her father's waiting chambers. From before her bent knees, oil scent carried on the breeze; the lamp had been placed there by the Tyran, that she not be left in the darkness. She knew Widan Sendari would be awake, but wondered, briefly, if Serra Fiona en'Marano had slept through the slaughter.

  Diora had taken the time to change, donning a simple white sari and taking none of the jewelry that had been gifted her by Ser Illara. But there were rings on her fingers: three, each simple, none worthy of her station. No one sought to part her from them, nor would they have been easily surrendered—but even these she would give up with silent, perfect grace should the need arise.

  She knew how to wait.

  How to wait, when waiting was all she had.

  In time, the Widan came. He was girded not for war, but rather for the business by which he had become known throughout the Terreans. His shirt was fine, although night's hand bled it of the full richness of its color, its luster. He wore a cloak, caught in two places by the worked gold of the Sword of Knowledge; rubies glimmered along one edge, a warning to the foolish. On the third finger of his right hand, the sun in splendor; on the third finger of his left, the crescent moon. Symbols of his office, of his value to the Tyr. Only his footwear was unusual; boots made his tread heavy and unpleasing. As his toes crossed the circle of the lamp's reach, she saw the russet stains that had seeped into pale leather. These boots, he would not keep.

  "Serra Diora," Widan Sendari said, bowing his head and shoulders in quiet respect. "I am pleased to find you well."

  "And I, you, Widan." Like a fan, her hands folded delicately as they lay, palms down, in her lap.

  He stared down at her, from the vantage of height and the power of rank, the lantern's soft glow the bridge between them. His fingers crossed the width of his beard, stroking it absently
. She seemed a spirit, an otherworld vision, pure white against the muddied shadows. And she spoke not a word.

  Ah, she was Diora, and she was still his daughter. He walked past her kneeling form. "Come, Na'dio," he said, the words quite soft. He slid the wooden screen open abruptly; it stuck on the rails, adding a reality that the moment did not demand.

  She rose as he lifted the door, feeling its weight. She did him the grace of not offering her aid. Why should she? Her training was perfect; she could not be separated from it. And no true woman made a man feel weak and awkward in his own dwelling. Ah, there. He had it. He would speak with the serafs on the morrow, and if the door troubled him again, he would have them killed.

  Beneath the curve of his waiting arm, Diora stood.

  Night opened before them, and beneath its watchful eyes, fire across the lake. Fire on the lake. The waters were burning.

  When she was young—and Na'dio was the only name that she answered to—they had come to the Tor Leonne upon the eye of the Festival of the Moon, father and daughter. On Moon-night, masked in the veils and facades of the Festival's height, a man in his prime and a four-year-old child wandered the streets of Tor Leonne, caught up in the scents of spice and rich sweetmeats, of masked women's perfumes. She had asked him, then, why they had to pretend to be other people.

  He could still feel the brush of the eagle's feather against his cheek as he bent down to catch her in his arms and raise her to the heights of his shoulders. They don't pretend to be other people, he told her gravely, as a shameless, reckless young woman ran a hand across his chest, touching the darkened skin beneath the simple silk shirt before the flow of the crowd carried her away. She wore a tiger's face, but her voice was a kit's.

  Na'dio had chosen the night-hunter's mask, with its round, feathered visage and its wide eyes. He had fastened it with care, and this, too, he remembered, for the feel of the ties was not unlike the touch of his beard between his fingers.