Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  Sendari was utterly mute.

  They were saved from further awkwardness.

  Red light blossomed in the sky to the South.

  Into the stillness the wind returned bearing two things: heat, and the sound of screaming. Fire. Sudden, intense, and compelling in its beauty—a beauty that Widan fire and hearth fire had never possessed.

  Eduardo was forgotten in that instant. Alesso turned to Cortano; Cortano's eyes were wide. His hand had left his beard and hovered midway between chest and face. He had cast something; Alesso was certain of it.

  "Sendari?" he said, his voice deceptively calm.

  The Widan who was his closest friend was gray as new ash. But he did not answer the question.

  And that was answer enough.

  The flames grew higher, brighter, wider; they seemed capable of taking the sky from the Lord himself.

  Alesso drew his sword. He shouted an order, and then another, bowing to his guests before he departed in the direction of the fire.

  Too late: the fire faltered. Noise returned, silence followed, words broke it and then retreated; the conversation moved like the Averdan ocean. He had seen that ocean so seldom it still contained mystery and wilderness.

  Conversation, on the other hand, held only danger.

  Eyes to the sky, he watched as the fires that had reached for the sun itself were banked. In the glimmering death of burned copper light, he thought he saw lightning, although the skies were as clear as the Lord could desire.

  Alesso gathered his Tyran to him, and dismissed Eduardo almost summarily. The Sword's Edge was his shadow; Sendari his second. They began to walk down the road to the main gates, and stopped when they saw the four men.

  They were almost bald—in fact, to Alesso's eye they were bald, but they were still some distance away—and they wore full armor, which was unusual in the Tor. They carried naked blades, which were forbidden almost all men who walked that road, but they had passed the Tyran and cerdan whose sole purpose was to weed out the acceptable from the unacceptable when granting passage.

  Obviously, they were acceptable.

  Although the cerdan paid with their lives, and the Tyran with their ranks, for any mistakes made, Alesso was not completely certain that he would trust them to stop these four regardless: they walked abreast, they strode with purpose, they carried blades that not only reflected the sun's light, but seemed to have swallowed it.

  Lightning, he thought, and as the distance between the four men and the waiting Tyr dwindled, he recognized at least one of them by gait: Peder kai el'Sol.

  Only the man's features were the same; his hair had been singed off, and the resulting ash had dusted his face into darkness. His eyes were narrow, his lips slightly thinned.

  "It would not be wise," a voice to his left said quietly, "to greet them."

  He turned, then, to see a face that he had never encountered before in broad daylight, exposed to the eyes of his enemies and his sometime ally. He was, quite literally, speechless.

  "They have been tested," Lord Isladar of the Shining Court said, "and they have not yet been found wanting. They burn with the fire; they are the instruments of their weapons, not the masters." As he spoke the words, he fell to bended knee, and only then did Alesso—Alesso who took in all detail in a single glance— realize that he was dressed, and had been acting all along, as seraf.

  The two, kinlord and seraf, were separated by such a distance that he could not easily combine them; in the attempt, he was silent.

  "If Peder kai el' Sol served you before—and I will not question his service, as you accepted it and you are more conversant with mortal politics than I—he will serve you no longer, no matter what he chooses to say. And perhaps that will serve you against Ishavriel, perhaps not. I cannot stay, General; the events of this day have already begun to cast shadows in the Shining Court.

  "But I advise you to clear the road, and to allow no obstruction to the Radann. They are… almost new. The swords they carry have been invoked for the first time in centuries; they have encountered the enemy they were forged to destroy, and they have emerged victorious.

  "The Radann will return to their residence, unless they see you first. If they see you first, I believe they will behave in a fashion that is both imprudent and unlikely with the passage of but a single evening."

  His bow held for a moment longer, and then he rose.

  "Widan," he said quietly, to the silent Cortano. "The Shining Court has grown too large for subtlety; we have always warred among ourselves when our numbers are large, and they have grown. There may be culling. Be prepared."

  He was gone.

  Alesso turned to Cortano. "Sendari," he said. "Disperse these men in my name."

  Sendari bowed at once.

  The General was known for his instinct; he trusted it when he trusted little else. He chose. "Let them pass unhindered." He turned to the Sword's Edge. "Accompany me, please."

  The word at the end of the curt, short sentence was only barely a request; had he been speaking to any other man, it wouldn't have been spoken at all. Cortano chose to ignore the slight.

  Even before they had found shelter in the cultivated wilderness, the Widan had bent his will to silence, enveloping and protecting the words they would speak from eavesdroppers, no matter how powerful they might be.

  "Ishavriel?" Alesso asked softly, in a tone of voice that he could not quite make free of threat.

  "I do not know. No two members of the Kialli cooperate for long. Isladar plays his own game."

  "Isladar," the General replied, "would not—if I read him correctly—allow demons to fight in the streets of my city before he owned it entirely."

  "Am I to suddenly understand the minds of the Kialli?" Cortano frowned. "I am not Sendari, Tyr'agar."

  "No." The silence was long. At last, Alesso said, "I ask your opinion only."

  "Then in my opinion, no. Lord Isladar is cautious. He has rarely if ever offered advice. He has never shown interest in the domination—the obvious domination—of the merely human." There was irony in the words he spoke; irony in the words that followed. "Had he been human, I am certain he would have been Widan—one of mine, in fact."

  He was willing to let go of his anger. It was wise, after all. Cortano di'Alexes had his pride, but he was no fool.

  "Cortano, I have trusted your guidance, and I have even taken your orders on occasion. Forgive me mine, if you find fault with them, but find out what game is being played."

  The Sword's Edge bowed.

  9th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Evereve

  The nature of Jewel's rooms shifted during the first four hours she managed to sleep in something that did, after all, feel very much like her own bed. It was the first calming moment she'd had in this place.

  She rose slowly because she didn't want to leave the familiarity of that bed; she dressed in clothing that would never again be so terribly, expensively gaudy, and she walked to the door. Took a breath. Opened it. Gold and gaudiness, high, domed ceilings, the quartered golden circle of bright magelights—all had vanished as if they were a waking dream. His halls were outside, but inside—she'd somehow made it hers.

  Almost. The curtains remained closed, and she didn't have the courage to open them. She turned her head to the side and wondered, eyes tracing their straight, heavy fall, if she would any time soon.

  The day had passed; although she was afraid her absence would let the rooms revert to their former state, she was also hungry, and she made the trek to the dining hall, following the lights as if they were servants; as if, in fact, they were somehow alive, and trapped and broken by their service just as the statues had been.

  After dinner, however, she took advantage of Avandar's awkward silence, broken only by sentences he fractured with a word or two from a different language, to come back to the room as quickly as possible.

  She saw the doors as she drew near, and when she did see them she felt her shoulders drop two inches as she relaxed
.

  That night, she slept with the oldest and most worn of the blankets closest to her skin, drawing them up to her mouth and tucking them under her chin. She made certain that no stray limb, not even a toe, was exposed; there was comfort in that. Home.

  What was missing were the sounds of the wing itself. As magelight, in the halls of Terafin, was not considered too great an expense, Teller and Finch often worked late into the night. Even when their voices couldn't be heard—and as they were the quiet ones, that was often—the comfort of their familiar footsteps could. Here, the silence was absolute. She filled it with her breathing.

  The pack, cracked leather now fully round and almost ball shaped, was tucked into the corner nearest the doors. Avandar had told her just how useful he thought it would be—not at all— but she felt safer having it ready, and she wanted to leave it that way. Or so she'd told him. It was half true.

  The other, more practical half, was that she'd managed to cram so much into the pack that every piece of clothing, every small pot, every piece of flint, was like the keystone in a large arch: if so much as one thing was pulled out, the whole would follow in a messy, inevitable spill.

  She sat up in bed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Reached for it, bound it back, and watched out of the corner of those eyes as the shorter strands popped free immediately. Shaking her head— which freed half the rest—she rose and dressed. The clothing was hers, or as much hers as anything in this place could be. She was happy to have it.

  Avandar came in through the doors carrying a tray.

  "You've missed breakfast," he said, obvious disapproval in the lines of his frown. Familiar, comfortable disapproval.

  Jewel had discovered, over the days that had passed, that Avandar was most himself—or most the man she knew—when he was in these rooms with her. The farther away from them she got, the farther away from himself he got, as if all that bound him to the man she knew was what she knew of him, until—at the edge of the picture gallery that should have collapsed under the weight of its adornments—he lost Weston entirely and spoke in broken something-or-other, the language he never identified. His mother tongue, she was certain of it.

  His whole demeanor changed. If she had ever needed proof that words had power—in and of themselves, and not wrapped in enchantment or bardic talent—it was there in the way his voice broke around syllables, like water around river rocks.

  She thought about this now, her sleeves unrolled right to the wrists to cover the mark on her arm. She rarely wore her sleeves full-length; she liked to roll them up. Made her feel as if she was about to start working, even if the work she was doing didn't actually require it. But rolled up, she could see the stretch of red and gold and silver that disquieted her. The anger had passed. The explanation—that the mark was necessary to identify her in a way that would save her life—had been offered. She'd almost accepted it.

  But it bothered her.

  It was going to cause problems. She knew it, but didn't know how.

  "Jewel?"

  "Hmmm? Oh. Food. Sorry."

  Asking him questions was tricky. Ask the wrong question, and he'd start to answer in the wrong language. Language was the first sign. It went downhill from there. But ask no questions, and she was certain they'd stay here forever, or for at least the next two weeks, after which it wouldn't matter much. In a bad way.

  "Avandar?"

  "Food first."

  "I can talk and eat at the same time."

  His raised brow was a clear indication of how poor a liar she was.

  "I didn't say I could talk and eat neatly." He put the tray down on her desk. "Look, it's not like there's anyone to offend by my manners."

  He raised a brow.

  She ate first. Picked up the tray and started to walk to the kitchen before she remembered that there was no kitchen here— or at least not one she had access to. Wondered what the kitchen here was like—if there was one at all. It wouldn't have surprised her if food had magically appeared from the ether. In fact it would have surprised her if it hadn't. Not much place to grow things here.

  "Avandar?"

  "Yes?"

  "You've eaten."

  "Yes."

  "You look—you look better."

  His smile reminded her of the shadow candlelight cast. But the gaze that followed it reminded her of nothing in their long— well, friendship wasn't the right word for it. In fact there was no right word for the way they related to each other.

  "Avandar," she said, knowing this was a bad question, but not knowing how to avoid it, "you've already said I can't leave the same way I came."

  "Yes."

  "Is there another way for me to leave?"

  Silence.

  "Can you leave at any time?"

  "I would have said yes," was his quiet reply. He rose. Walked to her closet. Began to methodically straighten the dresses and coats that hung there, as if he, too, were aware that it was the familiarity of his routine in her life that made him a part of that life.

  "And now?"

  "This room, Jewel."

  "Mine."

  "Yes. But not even my—wife—was able to exact such changes in so short a time as you have made here."

  "Maybe she wasn't as desperate."

  "Perhaps. It is not a matter of will; she was not a weak woman in any way."

  "Meaning that you think I am."

  "Meaning," he said, lifting the shoulder of the dress she least liked and carefully realigning it on its hanger, "that I've seen every weakness you have, and I can guess at those you've never dreamed of."

  Her hair stood on end.

  "You would be," he continued, no words from Jewel said to break the stream of his, "so easy to break. The right threat, and you would crumple; there would be no need at all to carry it out, although I confess a certain bored amusement might cause your enemies to consider it. When her child was killed," he continued, and the way he said the word "her" made it clear he spoke of his dead wife, "she did not so much as blink an eye, and by that time, the only thing in the world that commanded any of her affection, any of her loyalty, was that child."

  "You say that as if it were a good thing."

  He turned, the dress gripped in one hand, the hanger in the other, as if they were weapon and shield.

  "It was… an admirable thing. She had no defense against her enemies. They killed the child to cause her pain, and only to cause her pain. The only attack she could offer them was her absolute, her unwavering, distance. She gave them that. They took little pleasure out of what should have been a pleasure."

  "And the child?"

  He raised a brow.

  "The child died knowing his mother didn't care at all."

  "The child, as you say, was not so young as all that at the time of his death. He understood."

  "And this is a good thing."

  "Yes."

  "Something you want from me?"

  He turned his back to her. Placed the dress on the left rack. Turned back. Spoke to her in a language that made no sense. She privately thanked the gods for their momentary mercy.

  "So you won't leave me here because this place has made a room for me and you're afraid it will turn the entire place into Terafin behind your back?"

  "No." Language reasserted itself quickly; they were in her rooms. "If it turned the entire place 'into Terafin' as you so quaintly put it, I would have little concern."

  "But?"

  "You have not walked the breadth of my vision," he said quietly, "and I am not—have not always been—sane."

  "But I—"

  "You have seen the world that I am willing to share with at least one other living woman," he replied. "There are parts of this mountain's vastness that I share with no one. And not because I hoard. Are there not secrets, Jewel, that you would guard from even yourself if you had the ability?"

  "The ability?"

  "To lie," he answered softly. "To lie to yourself."

  "Gods, I hate it when you talk."<
br />
  Both brows rose slightly.

  "You never talk this much," she explained, as she turned away.

  "Except when you're telling me why whatever I'm doing is political suicide. I'm used to that. I never realized—I never did— how little I knew you."

  "Does it matter? I serve you. I have always served you."

  She turned to look at him. "Yeah," she said softly. "It matters. I don't know you. I know everyone else."

  "Kiriel?"

  "Even her, Avandar." She faced him now, drawing the hair out of her eyes, resting one hand loosely on her hip. "I know that she's half the dark god." The words that left her weren't the ones she meant to say; a sign of the gift and talent that she had always struggled to control. Good thing control wasn't everything. "But I know that there's more to her, that there could be so much more. That she's not the one to stand by while her child is killed and show nothing or do nothing; there's a rage in her that comes from a place that love hurt."

  "Eloquently put. Half a dark god," he said to himself. "I sensed the darkness; I assumed she was half kin. More, perhaps."

  "I know who she is. I don't always know what she'll be—and I'm afraid of it. I admit it." She laughed. "I know my den, Avandar. I know Arann. I know that he'd die for Terafin, and I know, I know that he'd take her orders over mine if it came to a choice."

  Avandar raised a brow. "I would not be so certain."

  "I am. I don't think he knows it. I'm selfish. I don't want him to know it. It would change what we have, because he'd feel different, not because I would. Angel would kill for me and die for me without thinking. Carver would do the same, but he'd complain a lot more. Finch and Teller and Jester? They'd have different, quiet lives."

  His smile was thin, sharp. "You keep them to yourself."

  "Yes. I do." She shrugged. "But you—you I don't know. And I thought I did because I could predict everything you'd do. I knew what you'd say when I wouldn't wear the council ring to Alea's funeral. I knew what you'd say when The Terafin—when she—before we left." She turned, the thickening in her throat unexpected and painful. "But knowing what you'll do isn't the same as knowing you.