by sun sword
But he did not bow to the two Kings who sat in judgment. Silence reigned beneath their watchful eyes.
At last, King Reymalyn turned to King Cormalyn. "You see?"
But the wisdom-born King did not meet his brother's gaze. "Stand forward," he said, using no title, granting no authority. "Stand forward, and speak; this is the audience that you have requested, and it will only be granted once."
Valedan raised his eyes from the circle of light, uncertain as to when his gaze had fallen there. "I am Valedan kai di'Leonne, the Tyr'agar of the Dominion of Annagar."
"They cannot hear you, Valedan," a soft voice whispered in his ear. "Speak loudly, and speak without fear. King Reymalyn is justice-born, and if you address him well, you will be heard."
That voice again, quiet and feminine and sure. He knew, as it passed, that no one else in the room could hear it. Straightening his shoulders, he spoke again, and this time he put force behind his words. "I am Valedan kai di'Leonne. The Tor Leonne is mine by right of birth and blood; no man of honor in the Dominion may call any other Tyr'agar while I live."
The King Reymalyn, red hair bound in a plaited braid in She Northern warrior style, spoke quietly. "You are the son of a concubine."
"The Kings of Essalieyan would have taken no concubine's get as suitable hostage for the behavior of a clansman," Valedan replied. "Before the assembly of the clans, I was claimed by the Tyr Markaso kai di'Leonne. In the waters of the Tor Leonne, I was baptized. Those who did not gainsay the Tyr then cannot gainsay him now with honor."
A murmur to the left and right, the susurrus of disapproval or surprise. Valedan met the eyes of the justice-born King as if they were the too-bright sun. And he had long been warned against staring at the Lord's exposed face.
"Well said." King Cormalyn drew Valedan's attention away from his brother's burning eyes.
Valedan did not acknowledge the praise of the King, although he felt a momentary warmth at the words that King offered. "I have come to the Kings of Essalieyan to seek justice."
"Justice." King Reymalyn, his voice a cool neutrality.
"Even so. My father has been murdered. My brothers and sisters lie in a seraf's grave, without prayer or blessing. But while I remain, clan Leonne exists, and if rumors are true, you will be the last of the assassin's blades."
"Take care," Valedan's unseen adviser said, the words sharp.
It wasn't necessary. The hall erupted in a cacophony of angry whispers, shouts, insults. In three places, he heard the sound of metal against metal—swords being drawn, men straining forward and down, as if to reach him as he stood in isolation upon the great chamber's floor.
* * *
The Kalakar nodded.
"Ellora."
"He's got spirit," she said, leaning into Korama's shoulder. "You've got to give him that."
"He's got gall," Vernon snapped.
"He has," a younger voice said softly, "nothing to lose."
The three turned to see Kiriel, staring down from the gallery as if mesmerized by the handsome young man. Only Korama smiled, and it was because he chose to believe that her attention was the same, measure for measure, as any romantic young woman's would have been when confronted with a handsome, youthful—and unmarried—monarch.
"I have committed no crime against the Empire," Valedan continued, as the Kings called for, and received, the hall's silence once again.
Jeering, wordless because he chose to ignore the suddenly foreign Weston language, replied. The King Cormalyn turned and whispered something sharp to a fair-haired boy at his side; the boy nodded grimly and disappeared. The King then turned to glance at his brother. To demand, if Valedan was any judge of gesture and expression, that Reymalyn respond.
He did.
"You have committed no crime against the Empire."
Valedan froze a moment, but the King did not give him any chance to feel false hope; he was not a cruel man.
"But you are not being judged as an individual, or a group of individuals. You are being judged as the surety that you agreed to become when you crossed the border at Averda. You are the deposit, if you will, which was to be forfeited in the event that the Dominion chose to betray the trust that we held sacred." He rose, and the runners to either side melted away as if his wrath burned. "Will you argue that you are helpless to influence the decision of those you left behind? I will agree. You are helpless. But that is not your function here. We have been made to feel a great and grievous loss. You are the instrument by which we will respond." He lifted his hand, and in it, a scroll glowed suddenly with the light of his seldom-used power. "This is the testimony of the witnesses that were allowed to pass out of the Tor Leonne after the massacre. This is how our people—each and every one—died."
The stillness of breathing left Valedan as King Reymalyn unfurled the scroll and began to read.
Ellora rose as Kalakar's House name passed the lips of the Justice-born King. Rose, hand across her chest, fingers tight around the pommel of the weapon that she carried by right. Vernon stood to one side; Korama to the other. Memory hurt them, and the knowledge that there would be no other chance to make new ones. The King's voice, laden with anger and sorrow, made of the death of Madson AKalakar a loss that everyone could feel as keenly as The Kalakar and her advisers had upon first hearing word.
At once, the approval that Ellora had felt, reluctantly drawn out by the courage of a young man, was buried beneath the greater loss.
She gazed blindly across the gallery and met the dark eyes of The Terafin.
He knew how they died, of course. Serra Alina made the horrors of their executions clear. But somehow, until the King spoke their names and the manner of their individual deaths into the heights of the vaulted chambers, they had not been real. They would never, after this day, be anything else. Shaking, Valedan willed himself to stand as straight and tall as possible. He lifted his chin; his eyes held fast to dignity and shed no tears of horror, although they hovered at the edge of his open lids.
We will not escape our deaths, he thought, and knew it for truth. But he had not been sent to accept failure, and as the King's voice died into a grim, terrible silence, he cleared his throat and began to speak anew.
"These actions were carried out by the men who would rule the Tor in my stead. They asked for, and received, no blessing from me—nor would they have.
"If you kill me, they will take the Sun Sword, and the Tor, and they will hold it by the Lord's right and the Lord's test. All that they have sought to accomplish by the massacre of your people, they will have accomplished. I am the only threat they face."
It was King Cormalyn who answered, perhaps only King Cormalyn who could. "We are aware of your claim." He paused and then smiled grimly. "Tyr'agar." The term held only a hint of respect. "And it is true that your death will accomplish nothing—for the Crowns— within the Dominion. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that we have considered sparing your life."
The King Reymalyn's eyes were the eyes of the Sun. "It is true. For you would be a thorn in the side of those responsible for the deaths of our people. But you will stand alone if you stand after this day; your people will meet the fate that is their due.
"For we have had no word that the Tyrs of the other four Terreans have been assassinated, their clans destroyed; indeed, we hear that they flourish. Such a hand as was behind this strike is a hand that would not have been raised without the approval of the Tyrs.
"You have been abandoned. There is no clan that will follow you, and if your claim is one of blood-right, it is not the first in history to have been cast back, like shadow, by the harsh light of the Lord of the Sun." He rose. "The assembly has reached a decision, Valedan di'Leonne.
"You are the wronged party, singularly, and you are the claimant to the Tor Leonne. Should you choose it, we will grant you our amnesty. But you will accept it in isolation. The others will be executed before the sun's rise."
"I have taken the responsibility for their safe
ty upon my House," Valedan said, his voice steady.
"That is your choice."
"Then you do not understand the rules of the Dominion, and the rules of honor. I will not flee to the skirts of your wives to plead like a coward for my life while your executioners do their work. We will share a single fate, my people and I."
"So be it," King Reymalyn said grimly. He lifted the staff of his office, and the light once again limned his hands. But the light was shed by the staff. "I pronounce judgment, in the name of Reymaris, Lord of Justice."
The doors at the far side of the hall were thrown wide, letting light and noise into the stillness of a vast audience that was hushed with the waiting of several hundreds of people.
"HOLD!"
Striding into the chamber, followed by guards who wore the dust and sweat of the open road as heavily as their armor, came two men: and one was Tyr Ramiro kai di'Callesta, and the other, General Baredan kai di' Navarre.
Tyr Ramiro kai di'Callesta was known to The Ten; he was known to the Crowns. Even dust-stained and worn from travel, his bearing was unmistakably that of a man of power. And that power had no place in this chamber, at this time.
At his back, his cerdan faced not the thrones, but the doors, and following a discreet distance behind them came the Kings' Swords in great numbers. He ignored their progress across the chamber floors; ignored the swords that they had drawn by right of liege-defense. He walked, looking neither left nor right, up nor down, until he stopped five feet away from the only other man in the chambers to stand directly upon the audience floor.
There, in the sight of the Greater Assembly of Essalieyan, he dropped to one knee and drew his sword. The Annagarians did not draw blades often from the supplicant posture; a sword was a man's weapon, after all, and a man did not live on his knees.
But he lived by his honor, and he lived to serve his liege lord.
Many of the men and women gathered in the great chamber did not understand how his action was significant, but they were runners, guards, pages, lesser priests. The Kings knew, and The Ten, and the golden-eyed, demonic Exalted: Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta of the Terrean of Averda, was pledging his loyalty to a boy less than half his years.
And he pledged it with no less a weapon than the Sword of Callesta, called Bloodhame in the North of Annagar.
Valedan's reflection was caught and trapped, lengthened and twisted by the metallic sheen of the sword's blade. He stared at himself but a moment, and then lifted a steady chin. Dark eyes met dark eyes, measuring and testing and gauging.
Tyr Ramiro raised a brow, a slight lift of muscle. Then he nodded and lowered his head once again. But his hands were absolutely steady; they did not shake, but held firmly to what was offered.
At seventeen, untried and untested, Valedan kai di'Leonne understood that the title Tyr'agar had suddenly become more than a desperate charade—much more than a means to an end, even if that end was the preservation of the only people in the world that he cared for. He knew that to hesitate was to show both that newfound understanding, and his fear of what it meant.
But he hesitated as he looked once again at the blade's perfect edge. Then he straightened his shoulders, and he spoke, as loudly as he could, his young voice filling a now silent room with its determination and its gravity.
"Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta, why have you come?"
The older man raised his face to meet the younger man's pale visage. "I have come," he said, as strongly but more surely, "as my father before me, and his father before him, to lay the Sword of Callesta in the hands of the only man who, by blood and birth and the Lord's will, may rule the clansmen. I rule Averda by your grace, and I rule it at your whim." He paused. "The riders of Averda will stand behind your banner."
The younger man reached out slowly to touch the sword's haft, and although the older man was kneeling, it seemed for a moment that it was he who ruled. Then, Valedan kai di'Leonne lifted the sword and swung it once in a great circle above his head. Holding it, raised, he turned to face the men who sat in judgment before him.
"I am Tyr'agar Valedan kai di'Leonne. I am the last of my line, but I will not remain so. You doubted," he said to the justice-born King, "that the clans would follow the son of a concubine: I tell you that they will follow the blood of a Tyr." He turned, and only Ramiro could see that his arm—the arm that held the sword extended—was shaking slightly. "Rise, Tyr'agnate. No Tyr'agar before me has ever doubted the value of Bloodhame. Or the man who wields it."
Thus freed from the supplicant posture, a man who was not used to its confines rose gracefully. Rose, and then bowed, low, in the direction of The Ten, and The Six. To the Exalted, he did not offer his respects, nor did they expect it. The golden-eyed god-born did not survive for long in the harsh clime of the Southern Dominion.
"Tyr' agnate," King Cormalyn said softly. "You risked much."
"Lord of wise counsel. To remain in Averda was to risk more," Ramiro replied gravely. "Ser Fillipo is my par, and I will not deliver him to the rightful wrath of your nobility. I had no hand in, and no knowledge of, the actions taken by the men who now stand in the Tor Leonne. I will make no trek to their side; the Festival of the Sun will be held, for the second time in Callestan history, without the presence of Averda. I sent my brother, who is valued, to these lands as proof of my faith in your rule.
"Kill him, for the actions of men who are my enemies, and not my just ruler, and the Sword of Callesta will be raised to the North, and not to the South, for the debt of blood is a debt that not even the Tyrs can ignore. Such is," he said quietly, although the words traveled, "the will of the Lord."
"Have a care," the justice-born King said quietly. "For that sounds perilously close to a threat, and not even I would be unwise enough to utter it before this assembly."
"A threat? Lord of just measure, since the signing of the treaty of the Averdan valleys, I have never in word or deed threatened you, or the territory that you rule. I speak the truth, and it is the only truth that will count in the Dominion of Annagar. We are the clansmen. We have our duties, whether we will it or no."
Silence a moment, and before either King could speak, the Tyr'agnate added, with a grim, mirthless smile, "Although it pains me to do so, I will speak for Lamberto as well. Tyr Mareo di'Lamberto categorically refused to travel to the Tor Leonne for the Festival. He has allowed his Tors to travel as they see fit, but there will be repercussions for those who have seen fit. Whether you will it or no, war is coming. Your decision this day will decide how that war turns."
Dryly, King Cormalyn said, "We thank you for your counsel; it is, as always, enlightening. We will have a recess in the audience chamber while we discuss this turn of events. If it pleases you, wait, and you shall hear our answer."
"I am, as always, at your disposal."
Queen Marieyan, alone of the four who wore the Crowns of state, smiled very slightly, the lift of her lips both rueful and sharp. She had, on several occasions, been party to the discussions between Patris Larkasir and Tyr Ramiro di'Callesta—and their various diplomatic envoys—and she knew well that Ramiro di'Callesta waited upon no man's whim.
"Then," King Cormalyn said, rising, "we will adjourn for the hour." King Reymalyn nodded in acquiescence, but his gaze was cool and distant. The Queens, Marieyan and Siodonay the Fair, rose as well. "We will take the counsel of The Ten, if they will offer it."
The Ten rose almost as one.
Ramiro di'Callesta.
The Kalakar's gaze was caught and held by him. They had both been blooded in the valleys of Averda, and although his was not the hand that had ruled the Southern Dominion during that war, it was the hand that had been raised, again and again, in devastating Northern raids. There was a simplicity about war: He was her known enemy, and a dangerous one. She did not trust him then, nor had anyone expected it of her, but after, with pretty treaties signed and the routes opened for trade, she had trusted him less; had, in fact, waited years for a slip, some sign of his
true nature, his duplicity. It galled her to see him, dust-stained and obviously just come from the road, command so much respect in this room, from this assembly.
The dead had not been so loud for a decade; she had forgotten just how bitter the sound of their voices could be.
Perhaps they crowded her; perhaps they deafened her and held her in their angry thrall a moment too long. Or perhaps time had taken its toll, and age slowed her; she was not so foolish as to think that youth's strength survived the passage of so many years, so much experience, unchanged.
Or perhaps it was because he looked up, from the audience chamber's grand floor, and met her eyes so precisely it was as if he knew which of the ten great chairs belonged to Kalakar; or because, although Annagar trained none of its women in the arts of war, his nod acknowledged her as his equal—as kindred spirit. And, to her chagrin, it was truth; she was both.
Or perhaps it was because the young woman that the mysterious Evayne a'Nolan had left in her keeping was not the young woman that everyone silently hoped she would be.
Whatever the reason for her distraction, she should have seen Kiriel in time to stop her. And she did not.
The cry that warned her, that sliced through the thoughts into which she'd fallen so cleanly she thought someone was dying, came from across the floor. From the Terafin group. A young voice, at that—a voice that she didn't recognize, although she kept informed about Terafin events.
"Kalakar! Your guard!" There was no question at all in Ellora's mind who that cry referred to: Kiriel.
The young House Guard stood beneath Ellora, in position, her hand hovering above the hilt of her sword as if the two—hand and weapon—were not meant to be parted. Her face, pale, was impassive; she watched the men below—Tyr Ramiro di'Callesta, General Baredan di'Navarre, and the young man carrying a sword whose full history he probably did not know—lips parted, youth absent from her young face.