Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown

by sun sword

  She gazed at the ranks of the men who had passed the first of the tests—a series of interlaced armed combats that had quickly separated the wheat from the chaff. Those that were injured were tended by personal physicians or serafs; those that were too injured were carried from the field by cerdan. She recognized the banners of many of the men here, and knew that they were vying for the title of the Lord's Champion. And the favor of the Lord's Consort. The Lord's Champion and the Lord's Consort were the highest ranks given to one who was not Tyr or Radann kai el'Sol at the Festival of the Sun.

  This afternoon, after the proper respect had been paid to the sun's most dangerous hour, there would be the basic tests of horsemanship, both handling and racing. Racing was always interesting, because the fastest horses were often the lightest, and they did not take well to mounted combat. The final stretch of the Lord's Challenge always began between mounted men. So the clansmen had to choose their horses carefully, by their paces, but also by their abilities in the arts of war. The Widan Sendari di'Marano was one of few men who had had little love of, or little interest in, horses; his daughter had been properly trained to show little interest in them as well, although by the grace of her aunt, she knew more than her father professed to—and less than he actually did, which was the case for many things.

  She thought that Sword's Blood would be too heavy a horse for the races, and she was proved wrong, although in the proving of it, two clansmen withdrew their animals from the field because they had dared come too close to the mount that had made Eduardo di'Garrardi famous among the clans. It would cost Garrardi.

  Although this seat was the favored seat in which to view the games, she was not the only woman who sat so; nor the only noble who watched. To either side, at the edge of the plateau, the clansmen and their wives—carefully protected from exposure to either the Lord's face or the clansmen's gaze—took their places, watching those who bore their name. Exchanging money, although it was frowned upon.

  She had watched these games with Ser Illara kai di'Leonne. Attended by his wives—her wives, the women of her choosing; he had no children who were old enough to be trusted to view the full ordeal in its entirety with the appropriate demeanor, but in a few years, they would have joined them.

  "Serra Diora?"

  She shook her head and smiled gently at the Radann kai el'Sol, wondering if he would mistake her distance for delicacy and heat-fatigue. Hoping.

  In the silence, the wind carried a scream up the slope.

  The only assassins she could trust were never summoned during the Festival of the Lord. They served the Lady, and during this threeday, the Lady's dominion was at its weakest. Out of respect for the Lord and the customs of the Lord, the assassins did not choose to accept a name—or so the popular wisdom went.

  The Serra Diora di'Marano had been taught only a little about summoning the servants of the Lady; she had been tutored in other skills of a more personal nature: the arts of poison, the ability to administer cures to those poisons that were swiftly diagnosed, the deft handling of a small blade in close quarters. To summon the Lady's servants took a different type of knowledge—one that she had little of.

  And the Serra Teresa had refused to aid her.

  "We do not summon the Lady's servants during the Festival of the Lord," she said. Diora knew finality of tone when she heard it, no matter how gracefully it was given.

  As if she read in the silence all that remained unspoken, the Serra Teresa said, "We do not have the resources it would require at our disposal this Festival." She had taken care to use the voice to hide the words, offering the words as if they could somehow cushion the blow.

  As if she knew what a blow they would be.

  Moonlight was at its height. It was not a bright light, not a full one, but it was more than enough to see by. The Serra Diora di'Marano listened for the movement of Radann at her doors; listened for the quiet huff of seraf's breath. Both came to her, neither as real as the piteous cries that memory would not let fade.

  Squaring her shoulders, she closed her eyes. She did not rise; the serafs had been trained from birth to hear the slightest of her movements and attend them at once, and as their lives often depended upon such hearing and such instinctive reaction, they were more difficult to escape than guards. Than men. She focused her thoughts and opened her lips, hardening them with the strength of her determination so that they would not tremble.

  "Sleep. Hear nothing. Wake in the morn."

  You cannot order a man to do a thing that is against his nature—not for long. You can hold him with the force of your voice if you intend to kill him, but if you intend to avoid notice, if you desire secrecy or privacy without threat of discovery, find a thing in that man's nature and exploit it. Work with his intent and his desires, not against.

  She listened for a moment longer and then nodded. Turning her face, she rose quickly.

  The seraf, Alaya, was younger than she, but in size they were almost identical. For this reason, Diora had chosen her, and for no other; she was Fiona's girl, after all, and if she was foolish and sweet, it was to Fiona that she would report when her tenure here was done.

  Without another word, she donned the seraf's simple robes, and with the paints of the day, she drew upon her wrist the brand by which Alaya was known. Her hands shook; this was not her skill, but it was night, and in the darkness, it would serve.

  She did not wish to kill the Radann, but to order them to ignore her was difficult and not certain to succeed. Success, of course, meant safety—but failure meant that a member of the Radann would know that she had the voice, and that she was willing to use it against the servants of the Lord.

  Against one man, she would have tried. The Radann kai el'Sol had left no less than four. She was happy with the four, however; they were well-behaved, and not one of them would have considered it appropriate to their station to harass a young seraf in the dead of a quiet night, even though her Serra would never discover the misdeed in time to attempt to protect her.

  Gathering the folds of her robes, she walked to the corner of the room and picked up a delicate, porcelain pitcher—a gift from a Northern noble, dead this past month. Then she drew the hood above her face, and made her way to the doors, pausing only long enough to retrieve a small object from beneath the hard mats. - She knelt, as she had seen Alaya kneel a hundred times, slid the screen doors open a crack, bowed to the Radann, and rose. Their lamps made her shadow seem long as she crossed the threshold, holding the pitcher in perfectly steady hands because she knew, of course, that the Serra Diora valued it. She knelt on the other side of the doors, bowed again, and slid them shut.

  The Radann glanced down at her, but serafs came and went, and besides, the pitcher in her hands made clear that she was to travel to the waters of the Tor Leonne, at the behest of her Serra. The kai el'Sol's permission to gather those waters, strictly and quietly granted, had been given at the gathering of the Radann who were to serve in the unusual position of guards to the Lord's Consort for the Festival.

  They were meant, these Radann, to keep clansmen from entering, not to keep serafs from leaving. They did not shift position to acknowledge this serafs presence, although she knew that they were well aware of it.

  She passed two other serafs in the halls before she found her passage to the outside; the cerdan who served her father and her aunt nodded quietly as she left. Not a single one of them paid close attention to her face.

  Even so, she did not breathe easily until the stars, and not broad wooden beams, were above her head. She walked quickly to the lake, and there, the Tyran that served the General Alesso di'Marente did stop her, but they were perfunctory in their inspection—for Diora had, every night for the last four, sent Alaya to the lake to retrieve the waters. This night was no different.

  Her hands did not shake as they touched the waters, although the waters were surprisingly cool. She filled the pitcher carefully and then, in her kneeling position, bowed respectfully to the Tyran. They were
clansmen of note, if not merit; they would expect respect.

  Carefully balancing the full pitcher, she lingered a moment to catch the soothing lap of waves against the shore, desiring a moment of peace, no matter how brief. Then she left the waters of the Tor Leonne behind, carrying only this small portion with her.

  She did not return to the harem.

  Instead, she found the long and carefully tended road that led to the gates of the Tor Leonne; the gates through which any lawful visitor must pass. In the shadows, they were still very fine, and she paused a moment as she saw the lights that glowed brightly by them.

  Did she falter?

  A moment, no more. If the Tyran were at their duties, she was safe; if they were not, she would make no approach.

  The night was very dark.

  She heard his voice before she saw him, because she knew how to listen better than she knew how to do almost anything except breathe. And sing.

  The Voyani's voice she would have heard in any case, and the listening magnified it, made of it a piercing, horrible scream instead of the whimper she knew it to be. A plea for mercy. A denial of knowledge.

  "You know this is not necessary," he said, his voice a blend of neutrality and distaste. "Only tell us what we wish to know, and we will leave you in peace."

  We.

  She froze; she knew how to stand in a silence that was almost absolute.

  "Who sent you?"

  "Cortano, with all due respect, I believe that I am better able to handle this interrogation."

  "Lord Isladar, with all due respect, I believe that you are not within your jurisdiction."

  They were of a kind; they spoke with the same precision, the same distance, the same surety of power. She measured the silence after this short exchange by the labored breathing of their victim. Her knees bent; she knelt, slowly, the folds of her robe crinkling beneath the breaths, heavy and hoarse, of the Voyani woman.

  "You were with the Radann." Not a question. "Who sent you?"

  Serra Diora di'Marano knew how to wait.

  Folding her knees, bowing her perfect, ivory face, she began her vigil, praying to the Lady's Moon for strength and guidance and an end to this—and all—torments.

  "Well, Peder?"

  "I don't know. I did as you instructed, and discovered her presence—but I do not know how she was used, or at whose instructions." She heard his shrug. "I assure you," he said blandly, "that she was not present during the meetings of the Radann; Fredero is weak, but is not a fool."

  A lie.

  She tensed and then relaxed, fighting her reactions. She had never trusted Radann Peder par el'Sol, and she did not trust him now—but he lied to his allies, and he lied about the Radann kai el'Sol, and in that, he found some small favor.

  They did not hear it.

  "Well?"

  "The wanderers caused us trouble once before," the man called Lord Isladar said softly. "They were a great people once, and they had cities that make the Tor Leonne seem paltry and dim by comparison. We thought them scattered, but the Annagarian winds seem to carry the dust and debris for a very long time. Cortano, may I?"

  Silence.

  No, Diora thought, willing the answer.

  But she knew by the time it took him to answer, what the reply would be. "Yes." There was warning in the word.

  "Thank you."

  She heard him step forward, and then she heard the woman scream, and every cry that she had ever heard— save only one—lost strength and meaning; from this point on, pain would be defined by a lone Voyani woman, one who was almost a stranger.

  One that she had come this distance to kill. Quickly. Cleanly.

  She could never have said why afterward, for it was her habit when in danger to sit perfectly, rigidly still. But this once she lifted her hands—both of them, and clutched a pendant that sat, unseen by even her own eyes, around her neck. It bit into the flesh of her palms as her fingers locked around it.

  Light flared in her eyes, blinding her with its flash. But it was a light more felt than seen, and although it terrified her, it was not because she feared the exposure it would bring. She moved; felt something beneath her feet— although she knew her feet were folded under her legs— and moved forward.

  Into the clearing.

  There were three men there; she could see their backs as she approached. One wore the robes of the Radann's office, one the silks of an evening's disturbed leisure. And one wore black, a color darker than the night or her hair or the nightmares that had plagued her since the death of the clan Leonne. She wondered what hand had fashioned the cloth, and then wondered if it were cloth at all.

  She did not wonder long; they did not see her. And she was drawn forward by a compulsion that she could not explain, and would never have ignored. The light bit her palms. Standing before the three men, she cast no shadow at all; they could not see her. And she could not look back to see their faces, for she found what she had come seeking, and it held her gaze and all of her attention.

  In the savaged ruins of the woman's face, Diora could still recognize the rictus of humiliation and agony. Blood was there as punctuation, and bone where flesh had been casually gouged away. She did not think that a body could suffer so much and still cling to life.

  Or be forced to it.

  The Voyani woman lifted her face with effort; the collar that clung to her neck far too tightly came with it, clinking and rattling. She raised hands—a single hand— and it, too, trailed chains.

  Margret, she said, although her lips did not appear to move, this is your mother's death. Understand what it is that you face. As if pushed, Diora turned—and when she saw the visage of Lord Isladar of the kin, she froze anew. For the darkness of his robes was nothing compared to the darkness that was his eyes. Beneath a face that was strangely, savagely beautiful was a chill that the wind's loudest voice could barely touch.

  She had never seen a creature that was outside of the Lord's dominion before. Having seen him this once, she would not forget. And she would try, at least once, before this war was over.

  This is our damnation and our salvation. I have come to the end that the Oracle's road decreed. And the bearer of this gem has paid the price to bring it back to the Voyani. Do not let our past be forgotten; do not let your past rob us all of a future.

  This is your mother's death, she said again, and Diora turned. Blessed death. Peaceful death.

  Avenge it.

  She reached out, the chains grew taut with the whole of the force she could muster. The three men watched in unseeing silence as the Serra Diora di'Marano lifted one hand, one free hand, and reached out, touching the fingertips of the Voyani woman with her own fingers, as if, for a moment, they stood on either side of a piece of glass.

  Aye, you are the Lady's dagger, the woman said, Grant me the Lady's death.

  Diora reached into the fold of her robes with her hand, with the one free hand, and pulled out the dagger that she had slid so carefully from beneath her bed. She had meant to blood it. She had meant to end both threat and torment. But as she looked at her hand, she saw that it was translucent, a ghostly image of a hand.

  I did not break. They know nothing.

  "What is this?" Lord Isladar said, stepping suddenly forward. "Cortano—are we watched?"

  "No. There are none within the boundary save us."

  The creature bent forward, and caught the woman's chin in his hands.

  Diora raised the dagger, and it, too, seemed translucent, but shone with a pale light. She hesitated a moment, for the creature was now in her path, but the woman faced her, unblinking.

  "There is someone. We are at risk—

  Lady's daughter, please—hurry. He is kinlord; if he is prepared, he will hold my spirit for the Three Days, and this will be nothing in comparison. Please. Strike.

  "There is an older magic here. They have it. Hold, Cortano. I need a moment or she will escape us."

  "Escape?"

  "There are many avenues of esc
ape," Lord Isladar said coolly. "Death among them. But I almost have her now."

  Diora drove the dagger into the Voyani woman's open left eye. It slid through the flesh as if it had no substance; the ghost of a knife, and not the knife itself.

  But the kinlord cried out for the first time in anger. His hands tightened. She could see the struggle beneath the woman's torn flesh; a struggle that eyes alone were not meant to see. And she could see that death was somehow losing. Without thought, she drew the dagger again, but this time, brought it about in an arc that drew blood from the creature's hand. Real blood.

  His grip faltered for a second, for less than a second, but it was enough. He was left with empty flesh, a shell, devoid of the ability to offer either answers or pleasure.

  Diora took a step back and froze; the clearing was gone. She sat, her hands clenched around the pendant that pulsed like a heart of light in her palms; to either side was a bush in full bloom in the darkness. Roses, she thought, or another exotic bloom. She did not dare open her palms; did not dare to release the crystal or let it fall back into the folds of her robes. Rising clumsily, she began to run with her hands clasped in front of her—for she knew that he would come for her. .

  The last thing she had seen had been his eyes, and their gazes, for an instant, had met.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Radann Marakas par el'Sol was waiting for her, although she did not realize this until they collided.

  The Serra Diora had not been the cause of a collision such as this since she was a child of four or five; she was stunned a moment, and before she could continue to run, he caught her wrists. Her hands were pressed into the pendant; the strength of his grip did not break the strength of hers.

  She wondered if anything could; the pendant seemed a part of her flesh; she could not tell whether the pulse she felt was hers or the crystal's. It didn't matter. The presence of a man without the Lord of Night's eyes was a blessing and a comfort, even though he was a man of power.

  "Radann par el'Sol." Her soft voice was completely natural.