by sun sword
"And are you?"
"Am I?"
"In his service."
"Until the kai Leonne is Tyr'agar. Or dead."
She nodded as if she expected no less.
"You knew this."
"You are not Callestan," she said, with a hint of pride. "You offered him your word, and you knelt beneath the open sun. Of course I knew you would serve him."
"Yet you did not see fit to tell me more of the man I serve."
"I am not his wife, nor his daughter, nor his mother, nor his sister. I have no right to speak in his stead, where he does not seek to speak." She did not ask him what he meant; she knew.
But Ser Kyro left little unsaid. In matters of this nature, it was not his way to be silent. "Serra Alina, he was offered his life, and his clan's life, by the Imperial Kings before the servants of the Lord of Night attacked. You knew this."
"Yes."
"And he chose to refuse their offer if they would not likewise spare us."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She turned to face him then, seeing his age as if it were a great and terrible distance. Will you survive this war,
Ser Kyro? she thought, for she knew, at that moment, that he would ride to war unless he was strictly forbidden. Knew that his age was not so feigned that the journey would not be harsh, and knew that even if his death was certain, he would have to go, for he was known, and respected, among the lower clansmen as a man of honor. They needed that. Less than eight years had passed; when had they come to rest so heavily upon him?
"Might I keep my own counsel, Ser Kyro?"
"No. Not in this. I have sworn my service to the boy, Alina, and I will not waver from that vow. Tell me. Why did he not accept his life?"
"Because he knew that our lives depended on his, and that he was the only shield that might possibly stand between us and the wrath of the Northern Kings.
"He is young," the Serra said, cupping cool water in her hands and letting it run between her fingers. "He can face death without flinching because his enemies have already cut from him the things that he valued. He would not have been so quick to offer, if he better understood all that he had to lose by dying."
"Perhaps it is not youth," Ser Kyro said. "Perhaps it is true honor. The Leonne clan had it once or they would never have been given the Sun Sword."
"And what do you believe?"
"I believe that he is Leonne," was the older man's reply. "And I am heartened by it." His smile was a momentary warmth that transformed his features. "For I will die in this campaign, and I would rather not go to my Lord serving an unworthy man."
"What of Serra Alina di'Lamberto?"
Fillipo smiled, but the smile was slight, one his brother could easily miss in the lamplight of a night that would have been better used for sleeping than planning. "She is the preeminent Serra in the exile Court," he replied. "Sharper-tongued than any woman I've met who could still sound noble born and bred. She is no fool."
"No. That much is obvious." He frowned. "But she seems to speak for the Tyr."
"Ramiro," Fillipo said quietly, "She has spent time with the kai Leonne since he was a child of six. If he can be said to have had a teacher, it is the Serra."
"And what has she taught him? I do not need to remind you, brother," he said, in a tone of voice that gave lie to the words, "that she is Lambertan."
"Indeed. Ramiro, you have expressed some admiration for the Serra in the past."
"Yes. I have said that she would make a worthy foe." But he smiled at his brother, and it eased their tension. "And you know how I feel about worthy foes. They have their place, and it is not against me." Just as quickly as it had come, the smile dimmed. "She seldom leaves his side, whether she is given cause or no, and she is well within her rights in this court."
"Yes."
"You do not fear her influence."
"No. Her influence has kept the boy alive at least once."
"Twice," Ramiro said softly. "Which brings us to my second point. The Ospreys."
Fillipo shrugged. "He did not seek my advice."
"No. Nor the General's. Nor, for that matter, Ser Kyro's or Ser Mauro's."
"You believe he accepted Alina's advice."
"Yes."
"If Lamberto is said to bear enmity toward Callesta," the par said to his quiet kai, "it is nothing compared to what Mareo di'Lamberto will feel when he sees that banner flying beside Leonne's in the field of battle. If she advised him to accept their service, she is no servant of Mareo di'Lamberto's." He paused. "And for all we know, the boy made the decision himself." His eyes were dark. "Certainly the Serra Alina did not tell him to get involved in a knife fight with one of the Ospreys—and she did not urge him to protect that man by his silence. I tell you, Ramiro, the boy has surprised me, and I feel that this is not the last time that he will do so."
Ramiro was silent for a moment longer, and then he exhaled. The glint left his eyes; he seemed, for a moment, tired. "I will be glad," he told his brother quietly, "when we have crossed the Averdan border again. There are too many rules here."
Kiriel sat alone in the open sunlight.
Her head was bare, and her arms; she wore no armor.
Her sword, however, was like a limb—only an act of violence would part her from it, and the Osprey that was foolish enough to begin such an action had been winnowed from the ranks of the House Guards by actions that were not quite so foolish—but just as suicidal—many years ago.
She liked the sunlight today.
She had always found it both repelling and compelling, although she suspected the latter was a gift of Ashaf's. A gift of a valley seraf from the Dominion. Without thinking, she lifted her hand to her throat and touched the slender chain that hung there; she pulled on it, pulled it up, and let the sun touch the large, heavy crystal that hung at its end. It was not a valuable stone, and yet it pulsed with the patterns of an unfamiliar magic.
Kiriel, schooled well in the arts, found that lack of familiarity comforting—for it was a magic that she associated with Ashaf. Only with Ashaf.
Ashaf.
There was a shadow across the sun's face. She let the pendant fall into the folds of her shirt. And she waited, listening for the sounds of footsteps, passersby, anyone who sought to intrude on a moment of privacy. There was none, but still she waited.
And when her visitor came, she came in silence, and only by the slight brush of cloth against cloth did Kiriel— whose hearing was unparalleled among the kin—know that she had at last arrived.
"Evayne," she said, turning at once to see the hooded face of the blue-robed seer.
The hood lifted; the hands that rose with it were older and stronger, and Kiriel thought she saw the white lines of scars across her arms in the brief glimpse of skin that the single motion afforded. "Kiriel," the seeress said, and Kiriel saw that she was a woman of power. She was also, the younger woman thought, slightly surprised; it pleased her.
Because she had known that Evayne was coming, and she'd waited for her. Evayne read it in her face; triumph was not a thing that the kin guarded well.
"You were expecting me."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
She had grown used to sharp questions from weak people, and she took as little offense as she could at the words and the tone behind them. Evayne made it easy; she was not weak, no matter how she might choose to display her age and hide her power until the last possible moment. "I knew that you would come an hour ago."
The seeress cursed softly, a single word; Kiriel did not understand it.
"He grows in power," Evayne said, "if you can sense my coming; if you can know, an hour away, what I did not know until this courtyard appeared on the path.
"I will be brief. I came only to deliver a warning to you."
"A… warning?"
"Indeed. Make of it what you will," the seeress added, her face now an unbending mask.
"Who gave you the warning?"
"You learn
ed enough on our journey here to know that I cannot answer that question," Evayne said softly, but without rancor. "The warning-is this: Lord Isladar has been sent to the South."
Kiriel knew that she had lost what little color she had; knew further that her eyes showed shadow and the lines of her face, the leanness of the fight. "Thank you," she said.
"Is this bad news?"
The young girl's laugh was bitter; Ashaf had always said it was too old for her. I'll grow into it, she'd answered. Her jaw tightened. She wanted to be quit of these lands, for the longer she stayed in their soft facade of safety, surrounded by those that were gray and white and barely capable of being a threat to a loaf of bread, let alone each other, the more she thought of the past.
And the past was dead dead dead.
"Of course it's bad news," she said angrily.
But Evayne, having delivered it, was gone. Kiriel rose and made ready to leave, but lingered a moment in the sunlight, as if waiting for a cloud to curtain it, to draw this scene to an end.
And because she waited, there was none.
He came next, and she would have known him anywhere: Pale hair, long, white, and perfect; eyes of silver, glinting with light that the sun couldn't touch; supple arms, legs, perfect grace—in all things, beautiful.
The hair on the back of her neck rose, but she was used to this reaction by now; she bit it back; forced herself to sit at a semblance of ease. Wondering. "Member APhaniel," she said, in a polite and perfectly respectful tone of voice.
"Kiriel di'Ashaf." He bowed. She saw that he did not carry a sword. But perhaps he did not need it.
"I have come to ask a favor of you."
"A favor?"
"Yes." A white brow lifted. "You are acquainted with the concept?"
"Oh, yes," she said, although his words riled. "A favor is when I agree to do as you've requested because we have a mutual goal, and make plans to have you killed, or to kill you myself, at the moment those plans come into fruition."
He chuckled, not at all offended. "I see. Daunting, but I fear I must ask it anyway."
Nonplussed, she rose, her hand on her sword hilt. She did not trust the mage; how could she? But she did not distrust him either. And anyone that you did not distrust was dangerous, because it was through trust—or the uneasy alliances that power in a shifting clime demanded—that you opened yourself to the naked blade, the unseen attack.
"I had a visitor," he said softly.
Ah. "So did I."
They were silent a long time, or what felt like a long time; Kiriel was only comfortable with silence when it wasn't shared.
"We are not friends, she and I," the mage said; Kiriel heard the steel in his voice more clearly than she ever had. Unsheathed, she thought it would be a wonderous sound. "I do not know if you know it, but we have encountered Isladar before."
"You are here; he fled. You won."
"Yes. And I would like to see that history repeated," the mage said quietly. "But the South has always been prey to the Allasakari and their minions because of their superstitious belief that the god-born are demon-kin. They do not have effective measures at containing what has been summoned—if they even have the desire to try." He bowed. "We will not, I think, be friends, Kiriel di'Ashaf. Neither you or I have that luxury—and perhaps, if I am honest, that inclination. But we have a mutual foe, if I understand Evayne correctly.
"Let us make the same pact that the kin make; let us take the same risks. Let us trust one another in this field, for this fight."
She nodded.
And then he said, "I wish the binding oath."
"No."
He shrugged. "Then I will not have it. I believe it has been a long time since the kin have used it—if they use it at all."
"They force the weak to it," she said with disdain. "Only the unnamed and those a tier above it will take that oath, and they take it to save their lives."
"Fair enough," he said coolly. "I have taken binding oaths in my time, and I have never been forced to them. Only forced," he added softly, "to their consequence. But that is not a story for this day. I will travel with the entourage of Valedan di'Leonne."
"Then why did you come to seek my permission?"
"Because the war he fights, and the war we fight, are entwined, perhaps inseparable in this conflict—but they are not the same war, and we two know it."
"No, Meralonne, you are wrong," a third voice said.
Kiriel's sword was out of its sheath; its shadows drained the warmth of the sun from the balcony. But she relaxed when she saw the young woman—the young seer—who had come to speak with her in the Kalakar House.
The young woman who had acknowledged that, alone, the Northern Imperials, and the man who claimed the waters of the Tor Leonne, could not win the war.
"Jewel," the mage said, clearly less pleased by the intrusion than Kiriel, "this is a private matter."
"It's not a private matter," Jewel replied, as if Meralonne were merely a man, and not a man of power. "If Valedan kai di'Leonne loses, we have lost; if he wins, we have won reprieve." Her eyes appeared, for just that moment, to be clear glass; a trick, no doubt, of the sun.
"The Terafin has given me permission to ride with the host. I have petitioned Valedan kai di'Leonne."
"Petition the army," Meralonne said, with an odd expression. "That's what I did."
"If it comes to that, I will. They'll take me because they'll hope I can jump through the hoops of their questions with answers they like. But I'd rather be accepted by Valedan." She paused. "And by you," she said, turning to Kiriel.
And this so-called Sun King won't be your puppet? She had said it to Jewel ATerafin, but did not repeat it; the words had been meant for the Commanders, and they were no longer witnesses. Kiriel shrugged briefly, but not with disdain. Because there was, in Jewel ATerafin, a kernel of light that had not been dimmed.
Oh, Kiriel knew about Jewel's background; the Ospreys delighted in telling it. But it had not tarnished her; the guilt of it, or the shame in it, were simply not there. She had done what she had to do, done it cleanly, and survived; she felt a perverse pride in the fact that she had made her living stealing out of the pockets of the rich before becoming one of those rich.
And she never pressed charges against young thieves, or so the Ospreys said.
"I remain a part of the Kalakar House Guards," Kiriel said, neutrally.
"Then you've made your decision," Jewel replied, no relief—in fact, no expression—upon her guarded face.
"Yes," Kiriel said, turning to the mage. "Please leave us, Member APhaniel."
Jewel showed her surprise at that—and it only deepened when Meralonne APhaniel tendered a respectful bow and obeyed what was, after all, barely a request. "That's not the mage I know," she muttered.
"No," Kiriel said, and she seemed surprised herself. She folded her arms across her chest and waited until his footsteps—and the echoes they left—were gone. And then she met Jewel's eyes, and hers were golden. Even though she knew it to be safe—perhaps even an asset—in the Empire to appear so, she usually remained hidden behind eyes that were dark, dark brown. "I will fight this war, your war; I will fight it by your rules as I understand them. What oaths Valedan kai di'Leonne needs, I will make, if it is necessary."
"But—" Jewel was quiet for a long moment. Kiriel could see the flicker of surprise behind her eyes; the apprehension that almost stopped her from questioning the gift that Kiriel offered. Almost. "But you said that you didn't want to fight—that we couldn't win this war."
"You said it as well," was her grim reply. "If there were an easy answer, I would give it to you—and I am not used to being questioned. Pretend that there is ease. I have seen Valedan di'Leonne. I have seen him fight, and I've seen what he chooses to do after a fight. I don't understand it; but I know that it is a weakness that is his strength. And I find it… compelling.
"We are not the same, you and I, and we will never be. But I see in you some of what I see in hi
m."
"That's not all," Jewel said softly.
Kiriel raised a brow. The silence stretched between them a moment before she chose to break it. Ashaf would have recognized the hesitation; the decision implicit in that pause. "No. But I thought it would be enough."
"I'm a seer."
"I'll remember that." She shrugged and turned away. "An enemy of mine has chosen to go South. I would take any field against him that was offered to me. Any field. Is that what you wished to hear?" She turned as she asked the question.
Jewel grimaced. "No. But it's the truth, and it'll do." She held out a hand. Kiriel stared at it. Jewel laughed. "It's a gesture of solidarity, Kiriel."
Kiriel hesitated a moment longer, and then she took the hand, touching for the first time a person who was brighter inside than Ashaf had been. She was afraid; she had not thought to be afraid. But that light, unlike the light of Sigurne Mellifas, did not burn; it did not even flinch.
"Kiriel?"
She shook herself, angry at the awe and the awkwardness. "We don't even know if we're leaving."
"We're leaving," Jewel said, her gaze distant. "We just don't know when. And we're praying to Kallairis that it won't be until the Festival of the Moon."
Kiriel nodded, and they stood together companionably, both women holding secrets of their own that they still sought to protect.
"You aren't used to trusting people." Jewel's voice was quiet and so matter-of-fact it seemed surprising that she bothered to say something that self-evident at all.
"And you are?"
"With my life. Every day. Well, every other day." She grinned, although Kiriel sensed the pain beneath that rueful movement of lips.
"I never trusted anyone with my life."
Jewel turned to look at the younger woman, feeling, for a moment, that she was fifteen years old, and her responsibilities extended only as far as a handful of street children she'd chosen as family. "You can, you know."
"Oh?" Kiriel replied, her voice as cold as a Northern spring. "And if I did, who'd be foolish enough to trust me in return?"