by sun sword
Before the last of the flames had consumed even the crystal with which the kai el'Sol's robes had been beaded, she walked into the waters of the Tor Leonne. Eduardo di'Garrardi could not stop her, nor the Tyr'agar, nor the man who had been her father; they were transfixed.
To stand in the lake itself was a crime, but she stood, for the Festival's Height had not yet passed and on this day she was still the Consort of the Lord of the Sun.
Hands shaking, she knelt—or so it first appeared. But she had not stepped into the waters to kneel; she merely bent to retrieve.
The flat of the Sun Sword rested in her palms as she brought it out of the water's cradle. "I am Serra Diora di'Marano, the Lord's Consort," she said, pitching her voice so it carried the width and length of the Tor Leonne, stretching her abilities so that she might clearly be heard by not only clansmen, but serafs and Serras and those who tended the grounds. "And I say to you, clansmen all, that I was promised, in the eyes of the Lord, to the man who would be Tyr. Where the kai el'Sol has given his life, I give less, for he was a man of honor, and I am a simple Serra. But in honor of the laws of the Lord, and in honor of the memory of Ser Illara kai di'Leonne, I say to you that I will never survive to marry a lesser man—a man who cannot wield this Sword."
She turned to Alesso and Eduardo and Jarrani, wielding the Sword although she never once touched its hilt.
Eduardo's anger was instantaneous, but quenched— slightly—by the pallor of Sendari's suddenly aged face. "A Serra does not choose her husband," he said, his voice a growl. "You have developed too fine a notion of yourself, little Serra, if you feel that you may dictate to us."
"And you," she said coolly, "have developed too little esteem if you feel that you cannot meet the challenge of a simple Serra."
"Enough, Garrardi. You demean yourself," Jarrani said, beneath his breath. His eyes, as he met the unblinking gaze of the diminutive Serra who held the Sun Sword, were dark and clear. "You will revoke that vow. Now." He would have taken a step forward, but it would have carried him into the lake itself.
"No, Tyr'agnate, I will not."
"Sendari."
The Widan shook his head, almost wordless. "Na'dio…"
"Force is only one form of strength," she said evenly. "There are others."
Alesso was like the Sword itself: Steel. But he stepped where Jarrani could not, for he wore the crown, and the waters were not forbidden him.
She turned then, for the shadows the sun cast once again started to lengthen. "Clansmen of Annagar, I appeal to you, for yours is the power, and mine the supplication. If you will it, I will remain di'Marano until one of these three men can in honor and truth draw this sword from its scabbard. You know that any woman of honor cannot dishonor her husband's memory by taking a lesser man in his stead. Lend me your support. Tell the Tyrs that you have heard the Lord's Consort, and you find her words fair."
Kneeling, she plunged her hands into the water, that their shaking might not be seen. But when she rose again, she drew from the Lake of the Tor Leonne the Sun Sword's scabbard. With perfect grace, although both sword and scabbard seemed unwieldy in her delicate hands, she joined these two. But she did not rise.
The clansmen did. Their voices carried her words, filling the hollows of the gently sloped hills, removing, temporarily, all the silence behind which a man might hide.
The Flower of the Dominion for the Tyr of the Dominion.
She faced Alesso without so much as a smile.
And then she turned once again to the clansmen, but not before she met her father's gaze, and held it, and saw in it his knowledge of a truth that he had never seen before: that she was Alora's daughter.
And that she bore Teresa's blood.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Moonlight. Stars. Pale reflection on water that would not be still. He saw all of these things with new eyes. Saw all of these things without seeing.
He had won, and he had lost, and it was the loss that was the freshest wound. At his side, as silent as the reflection across the waters, but darker and humbler, the only man not of his kin that he counted friend: Sendari di'Marano, Widan. Father.
The sun's height was as far away as it could be; the darkness carried all of the sky with its weight and its freedom. "Cortano?"
"Beside himself with rage."
"She is your daughter," Alesso said. "And if anyone's kin could outsmart the Sword's Edge, it would be yours." He said it with affection, but there was no answering smile, no chuckle, no wry grin. Just darkness and silence.
There was much to be angry about, certainly. They had all been bested by a woman. They had seen to their enemies within the court; they had taken precautions and caused all of the right deaths. Only Cortano had seen a glimmer of danger in the song of a willful girl, and he had seen it late; she was already the Lord's Consort, and guaranteed of His protection by the kai el'Sol.
The kai el'Sol.
Garrardi made it clear—before retreating to the pavilion which served as his home when he chose to grace the Tor Leonne with his presence—that political concerns were not his concerns; he would have Sendari abide by his given word. Cortano and Jarrani argued against him, in a terse, short way; they knew, as Alesso and Sendari did, that by her actions this Festival, Diora di'Marano— Diora en 'Leonne—had given herself a role as vital to the Anngarian Tyr'agar as either the crown which graced the Tyr'agar's brow or the Sword which he dared not wield.
Throughout the argument, Sendari had been uncharacteristically silent; he was silent now; the water lapping against small rocks made more noise than he.
"Tell me," Alesso said.
The Widan stared at the waters a long time before answering; long enough that Alesso thought he would not. But when he spoke, he said, "She will never be yours, Alesso."
There was no possessive anger, no heat, in the words, no parental protectiveness. He spoke as Widan, cool and distant. Alesso grimaced. "Am I that obvious?"
"Is it obvious that you think you can make this work in your favor? Is it obvious that, as you intend to wield the Sun Sword at the end of this war, you are not nearly as angry as you should be?" Sendari snorted. His exasperation was as close as he had yet come to humor since the close of the Festival.
"I see."
"Alesso," the Widan said, the exasperation leaving his face and taking the momentary warmth with it, "I know my daughter now. She will never be yours. What she wants, and why she wants it—I cannot fathom. But she works against us. And it is not in furtherance of her goals; I believe her goal is to oppose us."
"And what would you have us do?"
Sendari was silent. At last he said, "We have been so long at the work of the Lord that I have forgotten the moonlight."
"Sendari—"
The Widan turned to his friend in the darkness, and Alesso took a step back as he saw, in the moon's light, the lines of Sendari's face.
"Go," he said, "and seek the Lady's solace. I will be waiting, and I will still be Tyr'agar."
"And is it enough?"
"To be Tyr?" Alesso shrugged and turned back to the lake that was now his most prized possession. "I don't know, old friend," he said softly. "I don't know."
The shrine was not neglected, but neither was it well tended; the serafs had been instructed to stay their hand until the Festival—and the attention—of the Lord had passed. Tucked away in a corner made of trees and tall rocks, the small monument of weathered stone stood at the northernmost part of the lake; here, the Tyr'agar and his family came to pay the Lady her due.
Sendari found the steps, built into earth and greenery, that led to the shrine, but not without difficulty; the lamp he carried was a pale orange glow, and his eyes—his eyes could not easily discern what was path and what decoration that led nowhere.
He felt betrayed by Diora.
And he felt as if he were her betrayer.
Both of these, he thought dispassionately, were true. Oh, not by the law of the Dominion; in t
he Dominion's law, she was guilty, and there was no mitigating circumstance that allowed a daughter to act not only against her father's wishes, but against her father himself. But the Dominion's law was not the law of the heart, not the law of the Lady, and it was to the Lady's shrine that he now repaired.
Sendari, give me your word that you will be as you are, for it is the man that you are that I love. Tell me that you will not seek the Widan's title, the Widan's art.
I promise. Alora. What word I have, I give you.
There were no words that could be said that could cut a man as deeply as his own. They were his words; he had walked away from them, thinking that he could just disentangle himself from the past, that he could leave it behind. But the words were a weave, and their mesh was of a thin, fine mettle; they pulled and cut.
Na 'dio…
Father, will you always love me ?
Always.
What did it mean? What was always! Was it significant that it was only the child that had asked the question, and only to the child that he had given the word? He set the lamp on a stair a moment and ran his hand over his eyes; he was getting old, to see so poorly. To see so much so poorly. Had he left her, or had she left him? For he was not the father of her youth, nor she the daughter of his memory.
Why? Why, Na'dio?
He picked up the lamp and continued the slow climb.
But when he reached the shrine, and stood beneath the peaked roof that protected the altars, he saw that he was not to be alone beneath the Lady's Moon.
The Serra Teresa di'Marano stood in the shadows cast by another lamp, almost as if waiting. For him. He wanted to withdraw, but he froze a moment, or perhaps drew breath too sharply; she turned.
"Sendari."
He gestured, sharply, the mage-light crackling from his hands as he struggled for focus. She did not flinch; her expression, the epitome of neutrality, allowed for no display of fear or worry. Or perhaps she knew him too well. A silence descended around them that would not be broken by any listener, casual or otherwise, who did not possess the art, and the craft, of the Widan.
"Teresa."
It was always tangled, this meeting of kin. He felt that he had never liked his sister, that he had, in fact, hated her. But she was his sister, and blood of his blood, and he could not easily walk away from her. Just as he could never have killed Adano. It was a weakness.
A terrible weakness.
"Sendari," she said again. "I did not expect to see you here again."
Did he hear too much in her words?
"This is not a game, Teresa."
"Oh, but it is. Because it is war, and men of power play at war as if it were a game that requires everything they can give it."
"And women?"
"There are no women of power in the Dominion," she said softly. As if it were fact. As if she believed it.
He wanted to strike her. Instead, he set the lamp upon the altar, illuminating the carvings across its face. These were contemplation carvings, circles and spheres and patterned mandalas whose whole purpose was to give concentration in the place of anxiety. Or anger. Or fear.
"How long?" he said, staring at the surface of the rock. It was more giving than the face of his sister. "How long have you known?"
Her silence was too long; he glanced up quickly, furtively, and saw that she was paler, if no less composed. But she did not lie to him.
"Since the Festival of the Moon, Sendari. The Festival in which you chose to forsake your vows to Alora en'Marano." She, too, looked down. "I would have told you, brother."
"And you did not?"
"No." She started to speak, and then fell silent; he saw a glimmer of anger, and something that might have been guilt. They did not expose themselves to each other. Or rather, she did not expose herself to him. He knew that her gift told her what lay beneath his words—all the anger, the fear, the lies, if he chose to attempt them.
"Why, Teresa? Why did she do this? She must have known what it would cost."
Her eyes widened as he spoke, and then her face softened slightly, losing the quality of edge that made her seem so like a fine weapon. "You could ask her," she told him quietly. "I believe that she would answer, if you ever chose to ask."
Silence. Then, "I chose to ask you."
"And if I answer, as I see fit, you will answer a question I pose of you?"
"Perhaps."
"What would you have done, had a man you trusted been responsible for the death of Alora?"
He started to answer, and then he stopped. Thinking that, in all these years, his daughter had become a woman, unfathomable, and lost to him. That she had walked the path from a daughter who was much loved, to a wife, with a wife's friends and loves and loyalties. Loves that he was not privy to, that he would never—quite—understand.
What would he have done?
Anything.
"And how," the Serra Teresa continued, her gaze now intent, "would that man stop you from exacting vengeance?"
There was only one way, and they both knew it. She picked up her lamp and swung its shadows in the darkness of the Lady's night. Then she crossed the small space between them—the necessary space, the terrible distance—and she placed a palm on his shoulder. "Sendari, what will you do with her?"
"Is that your question?"
"Yes. And it is the only question I have, tonight, tomorrow night, and in the nights to follow. It is the only question I will have until it is answered and I—and we— move on, following one path or another."
He raised a palm, as if to ward her, and said, "What other choice do I have?"
And because it was as much of an answer as he could give, and her gift would make this clear, he waited in silence until she left. Because until she left, taking with her the question that he had not been able to ask of himself, he could not breathe.
The Serra Diora di'Marano was weeping.
You must not move.
The hardest thing she had ever done was to sit in the harem's Inner Chamber and listen. To the voices that she recognized, distorted by screams of pain and fear, ended by death. Knowing that she could use the voice, that she could force these men to stop for long enough that they might somehow, some way, escape.
Aie, she knew that she could not have done it. But her heart did not know it. And it never would. She had sat, while their blood splashed her lap, and she had lilted no hand, spoken no word. She had done nothing.
The rings that bound her fingers bound her heart; she swore to the Lady that she would never again remove them.
She had hoped, somehow, that the act of striking at the men who had been responsible for the deaths of her sister-wives—and her child, her son, no matter that Deirdre had borne him—would give her peace.
But there was no peace.
Because the last word that had been spoken to her had been a single word: her name.
And she could hear it now, rebounding in the emptiness of the room that was, for the moment, her prison.
Diora!
Ruatha's voice. Ruatha's shocked and terrified voice. Ruatha's angry, betrayed voice. Of the wives, only Ruatha had seen her, sitting, the power of her voice completely silent while the treacherous Tyran killed them all.
Killed— her son.
She could not breathe, except to weep. Her arms, she wrapped around her body, as if the ghost of Na'dani could be caught and held, just held, just one more time.
Diora!
And could she offer explanation? She told them all, in the private voice, that she loved them—that she would not let them be forgotten or unmourned. But she knew that Na'dani did not understand the words—and that Ruatha, her Ruatha, of the wives the one that she had loved most fiercely, had gone to her death bitter and betrayed.
If she could, she would go, now, and claw through the earth with her hands, digging up grass and worms and flesh until she found them where they lay in their bed of earth. And she thought, oh, she thought, that she might join them at last.
The Serra Diora was weeping.
Because she was the Flower of the Dominion, and her work was not yet done, and she did not know how she could continue it without them; they had been her strength. What remained of their memory, the months had leached from her, until all she could remember was their deaths, and her part in them.
Evayne, she thought, as her voice quieted, as she struggled to ride it and tame it, you were wrong. I have righted nothing.
Ruatha, please, forgive me. If you watch from the heart of the whirlwind, forgive. I have struck the first of the blows I will strike, and I strike it in your name.
She had not lifted a hand.
Please forgive me.
She had not raised her voice.
Please.
She had not used the voice.
Ruatha…
The night was endless; she had swallowed it, and it was devouring her. She knew that in the morning, when the sun rose, she would carry this night within her; the only people who could have gentled it with the coming of dawn lay dead.
And the worst of it was this: She was the Serra Diora en'Leonne. In the morning, she would wake, and she would plan. Because she had declared war, and now she must fight it. Nothing else was left her. Nothing at all.
* * *
The Tyr'agar was crowned, and the crowning both lifted, and lowered, his shadow. The blockade of the Tor ended with the Festival; the merchants who had been corralled within its walls were granted passage to their Terreans, be they North or South. Death had come, dramatic and terrible, and death had gone, and in its wake, a new leader had risen: the Tyr'agar Alesso di'Alesso; the founder of a new line.
The clansmen left the Tor with their entourages, large and small, like a human river moving down the plateau. And among that mass, no one noticed or remarked on a single unremarkable man.
He dressed like a clansman, albeit in garb that was a bit too broad for his shoulders, and he carried with him two swords, one girded and one strapped to his back. He had only a small pack with the possessions that he valued, and they were few indeed, and on his sleeve he bore the emblem of the sun with indistinct rays on a field of blue.