Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "Cortano will kill her."

  "This is not the appropriate place for such a discussion. And you, a Serra, are not the appropriate person with whom to have it."

  "He will kill her," Teresa continued softly.

  "Teresa, you go too far."

  "No. No, I have never gone far enough, and perhaps that is why we are here, we two, at this shrine, in this wilderness. We have hidden much, Sendari."

  "I have never successfully hidden anything important from you." Bitterness. Truth sometimes held little else.

  "But you have, Brother. You were—you are—the seeker of knowledge. I did not realize that the search was only a means of leaving behind what you were afraid of knowing."

  "Teresa. Enough."

  "No." She rose. She rose without even the patina of proper respect for their differing positions.

  "We are no longer children in our mother's harem," he told her. There was warning in his words, but worse.

  "No. We are children—we are all children—in the Lady's harem. And it is night, and the Festival is coming."

  "Wait, then. Wait until Festival Night when the truth—when all truths—are forgiven."

  "That, Sendari, is precisely why I will not wait."

  He could have turned and walked away, but he, ungifted, heard the threat in her voice: the voice itself. She had never dared to use it against any of them: father, kai, or par. Never yet.

  He bowed to the inevitable truth that governed the Dominion: It was better to have the semblance of choice, even if both parties knew it was entirely illusory. Because if she forced him to turn, there were only two outcomes that could follow from her action.

  His death. Or hers.

  He could not be certain that she would be so unwise; she had never been a reckless woman. But certain or no, it was a risk, this eve, and he was not willing to face it.

  "You will not wait because you will not see the truth forgiven?"

  "There are some truths that cannot be forgiven."

  "Teresa—"

  "Cortano will kill your daughter. Have you told yourself otherwise?"

  "Perhaps you have not heard. She is to be wed to Eduardo di'Garrardi on the morning following the Lady's Night."

  "I have heard."

  "Then this is—"

  "Do you think that will protect her?" She paused. "Do you think that you have left her any choice? The Festival Night will occur, and it will be either the first of its kind or the last for many, many years. She will be forced to act. Cortano will be forced to kill her.

  "And I gave my word to Alora, and my word means something. I have come for Diora, Brother. How will you stop me? Will you call the Lord in the Lady's Night?"

  He was silent. "You know."

  "There was a time when you would have had the courage to tell me yourself. There was a time, Brother, when we might have planned together the safest course to follow."

  "You would never have agreed to this," he said flatly.

  "No. But perhaps, had we spoken, you would not have agreed either."

  "And you tell me that I am untruthful."

  All masks, gone. All trivialities, all niceties, all rules. They stood, the anger between them growing, as if they were children, with the rawness and the passion, the immediacy and the purity of emotion, that that state implied.

  "Tell me that you are not."

  "I owe you nothing."

  "Truth." She paused. "And lie. You believe it as you say it, but it is wrong."

  "Teresa—"

  "You have always said that you did not desire power. That you desired love. I watched you with Alora, and I believed you. I watched you attempt to refuse your daughter to the Tyr'agar's son, and I believed you."

  He was silent. The storm was gathering sand.

  "But you do not love your daughter, Sendari, except at your own convenience, and you have never loved her."

  "How dare you?"

  "You sold her to Leonne; we understood it. You wept, and we felt the pain of your loss. But that's all it was: your loss. You wring your hands, you twist your beard, you suffer. You. And Diora?

  "She has lost far, far more at your hands than at any man's. It would have been more honest to kill her when you slaughtered the clan you forced her to join."

  "I saved her life."

  "You saved her life because you could not bear to accept the truth: Your love has always been a matter of convenience. You think your suffering hallows it. It doesn't. You mourned Alora because you let her decide your life, your life's course, rather than choosing it for yourself. And when she was dead, you turned to Alesso, and gave your life, and responsibility for your life's decisions, to him. Your daughter, mourned or no, became an object of barter.

  "As all daughters are, when their fathers seek power."

  He turned then. His hand rose of its own accord, the ice of desert night burned away in a flash of fury. "Do you know what I have sacrificed for her? To save her?"

  She was made of stone. He struck her; she teetered back, but lifted no hand in her own defense. And she would not be silent. She spoke through the pain he had caused, and he knew he had caused pain; the marks of his hand across her dust-adorned face were already blossoming.

  "And you no doubt wept for yourself because she did not love you for the gift of her life. You wept for yourself without ever once recognizing the depth of her love for her wives, for her husband's child. The depth of love.

  "The time for weeping is done. The Festival of the Moon approaches and in it all things will be laid bare. You have invited the Lord in to visit, and he will not leave so easily. I thought—I had hoped—for better. But it is done. You have betrayed us all."

  "Teresa, I warn you—"

  "What warning have you for me but death? And what death could be worse than the death the Lord of Night brings?"

  "The death," a soft voice said, "his servants bring."

  They both turned, then.

  And in the pale moonlight, a lone man bowed. "Widan Sendari," he said. "I suggest you retire."

  His face, in shadows, was of them; long, slender, dark. He was taller than Sendari; taller than Alesso. He wore clothing appropriate to the station of high clansmen, but he wore no colors, no crest, and Sendari expected none. But he did not recognize the man.

  It was clear, from the sudden stillness of his sister's face, that she did. "Sendari," she said, the nuance of the spoken word so complicated he almost didn't understand anything it encompassed.

  "This is a private affair," he said to the stranger.

  "No. It was a private affair. But the rules of the Courts are clear. She is an enemy, and she has knowledge that she should not have."

  The shadows lengthened, lengthened, lengthened.

  And Sendari, slow to understand anything through the haze of the pain Teresa had inflicted, understood at last that those shadows were a darkness that even the Lord's gaze could not pierce; they were not of, and not for, the Lady.

  "You have not been granted permission to hunt in the Tor," he said softly.

  "No. But we have been granted permission to protect what is ours: secrecy. Silence."

  "This is not your affair."

  "It is my affair. Go, Widan. Or stay and witness. It makes little difference to me."

  "I would not advise it," the Widan replied. The pain fell away as the Lord's gift filled him: the clarity of battle. The imperative of life or death, and only life, only death.

  The whole of the creature's attention turned to him. "Do you seek to give me orders? I am ad'Ishavriel. I follow the commands of no mortal."

  "You will follow mine, in this."

  "Or you will use your pathetic magery against me?" The creature smiled.

  Sendari had seen just such a smile, many times, on the face of his closest friend. It had always ended in victory for Alesso. He stopped then. Considered his options. Clearly, the Shining Court understood some part of his measure, but how much? How much of his magic had he displayed in the presence
of the kinlords? He would not risk the fevers in a gaudy, and useless, display.

  And would he risk them for Teresa?

  For Adano, yes.

  And for Diora, although her words—her cutting, her terrible words—would haunt him in the doing.

  But for her?

  She was his sister. They were kin, clan, blood. He lifted a hand.

  And she lifted her head, the tilt of her chin so slight only he and Adano, their kai, might have recognized it for what it was. His face was a mask now; the presence of a stranger bled it of emotion until all emotion was once again as it should be: hidden. Unreadable.

  "I will not use my pathetic magery against you," he said quietly. "If you have made a study of me, you understand that I am not, in the end, driven by pride."

  "No. But I have discovered much by listening to your conversation; you are governed by worse: the weakness of affection."

  It was meant to sting. It stung.

  "Perhaps," Sendari said, conceding the obvious truth with a mild shrug, a mild nod. It was easy, after all; clean. This creature wished to see him squirm, and he offered, in return, bland acknowledgment. A parry.

  Teresa, his terrible, his much hated, sister, wanted so much more from him than mere pain.

  "You have no taint of attachment to this one. Leave her with me, and I will rid you of a difficulty."

  The Widan shrugged. "My apologies," he said, although whether it was to the demon or to the sister, he could not say.

  Teresa nodded. She straightened the line of her shoulder, shedding anger and emotion just as Sendari had done, but fully. Finally.

  He stepped back; stepped outside of the circle of the Lady's shrine. The moonlight was extraordinary in its brightness, given that the Lady still wore some part of her veil.

  The darkness approached his sister. Lifted a clawed hand to her exposed face. The motion was as graceful as a caress, as seductive; Sendari shivered, seeing it.

  Serra Teresa did not. She raised her head so that she might see, fully, the face of the demon who meant to be her death.

  And she spoke three simple words.

  "Do not move."

  Hearing them, Sendari forgot to breathe. Or perhaps breath was forbidden him. He had heard the gift in her voice before, but never like this. Wind was in her words. Death. The desert heat. The sandstorm.

  Had he ever thought he understood the depth of her power? He knew, now, that he had seen the sheathed sword, and only the sheathed sword. She drew the weapon, revealing herself. Exposing herself.

  She stepped forward; he saw a flash of pale light that disappeared in the darkness, and then he heard the surprised grunt of Lord Ishavriel's creature, cut off in its entirety as it lost first throat and then head to the clean precision of his sister's long knife.

  She had turned her back upon Sendari, obscuring much of the rigid demon's form, but because she had never been tall, he saw the creature disintegrate from headless neck to shoulder, crumpling slowly inward as if her blow had hollowed the whole. It shouldn't have been surprising—he'd seen it before in the Court—but it was. Perhaps because he had never stood so close to it; perhaps because he had never seen the kin fight outside of the great stone halls of the Shining Palace, or perhaps because his sister, hand shaking slightly, resheathed her long knife without hesitation.

  The wind was her servant.

  The ashes were carried away, and the night settled into the quiet of the Lady's contemplation. He had seen so much of the Lord of Night's power. It had seemed like the sun, like the wind, but stronger, more certain, an inevitable end to the life they had led. For what other purpose had the god himself come to earth?

  "Your compatriots do not trust you," she said softly. "But then again, no man of power trusts another who possesses it, no matter what assurances are offered." She did not turn.

  He did not speak.

  "This," she said softly, "is an ending, Sendari."

  He bowed; his clothing made the noise, rustling at both fall and rise, that his words could not.

  Her shoulders became a single line, and he saw that, from a distance, she might have been… a man.

  Teresa.

  He had never seen this, but he had always seen it in her. Numb, he watched her leave, wondering what she had said to Adano, if she had said anything at all. Wondering when, and how, he would see her again. Worse, if he would survive it. He was surprised at how much the question hurt.

  They had never been friends, but they had not—quite—been enemies, and he had thought that strange hostility would endure for the length of their lives.

  He lifted a hand.

  Surprised himself. "Teresa."

  She stopped; although she had moved, as she always did, with grace and certainty, she had not walked with speed. She did not turn. "Widan Sendari."

  Night voice.

  "Do you realize what you've done?"

  "I have killed an enemy," she said quietly, "of the Lady." And then, before he could speak again, she added, "Yes, Brother. I know there is no return."

  "You do not have to do this. No matter what has passed between us, I have never betrayed my clan. I would never betray you. Return to Adano. Return to your life."

  Her head fell slightly; her shoulders dropped. She drew a breath that seemed endless.

  And then, beneath the sharp light of the Lady's growing crescent, the Serra Teresa di'Marano turned to face him. "You have betrayed us all," she said quietly. "If it is not your hand that draws the dagger across our throats, it matters little; we are dead, or worse, if the Lord walks."

  "The Lord?"

  "Sendari, I have treated you as many things, but never a fool. Tender me the same grace. Adano does not know, and I have not told him; I think it would break him, in a fashion, and the Lambertan Tyr will need Tors of strength and integrity.

  "War is coming. I knew it at the Festival of the Sun, and you knew it then as well. But I could not be certain, not then, what price you were willing to pay to not only start the war, but win it. I… had some warning. I have thought of little else since I received it. But I had hoped…

  "I would have said many, many things of you, but I did not see you as a servant of the Lord of Night." Her face was particularly beautiful in the dull glow of lamp and the pale silver of moon. "But that is my weakness; I saw the truth, and I planned for it, but not well. I hoped that the plan itself would be unnecessary. I waited, Sendari. I spent time that we did not have if we are to stand against the Lord of Night.

  "You've chosen your master, and I do not think, having made that choice, you will be able to turn from the descent you've begun; your path is steep, and it pulls you down at ever greater speed."

  He watched her face for a minute, two, three. "Why," he asked at last, "are you telling me this?"

  "Because, having chosen your master, you will still be yourself. You would not lift hand to save my life, but you will not take it, and you will not lift hand to see it taken."

  "You are so certain of this?"

  "Am I wrong, Brother?"

  "Teresa—"

  "I tell you this," she said, voice low, "because Alora loved you. And I tell you this because, in my fashion, I loved you as well; of my brothers, you were the one I most favored. You and I—we were ill-loved by the only man in our lives who had power. You were a scholar, a Widan-Designate, not a man. I, I was merely a woman."

  "Yes."

  "She saw it."

  He did not speak the name of his dead wife, but the breeze that stirred as Teresa's words ebbed into silence carried it. Alora.

  He could almost understand, seeing Teresa stripped of the finery and the mannerisms that had defined her in the eyes of the Dominion, what Alora had loved in her. And that was difficult.

  Almost as difficult as what she said next.

  "I told you I came for Diora, and do not mistake me; I gave her mother my word that I would watch over her, and death will break that word before I will. But I could have continued that task in the safet
y of anonymity.

  "I came to say good-bye, Sendari."

  "We should have let you have a life," he replied.

  "Yes. So much harder, then, to walk away." She bowed. A man's gesture.

  He could not quite offer her the courtesy that she offered him; he did not bow.

  And as she walked away, beneath the changing face of the Lady's strongest moon, he said no farewells. As if, he thought bitterly, hoarding the words would change the truth.

  The moon was bright enough to cast long shadows, but none of them were new; he stood in the darkness he had chosen, feeling a peculiar numbness as he listened to the rhythmic movement of water against the dark stalks of rushes.

  Diora.

  Teresa.

  And then, unnaturally, Sendari.

  427 AA

  Stone Deepings

  He would not let Calliastra near her.

  He did not have the power to send the child of gods away, but he had the power to prevent her from touching Jewel.

  Mostly, that was a good thing.

  But the road, still bowered by distant stars, was long, and the walk tiring in a way that it hadn't been when she'd had her Oma by her side.

  "Jewel," Avandar said softly, when she stumbled and he righted her, "let me carry you."

  "You've been walking as long as I have," she snapped, "And you're older. I can take care of myself."

  "Or you could let me help you," Calliastra said. There was no menace at all in her voice; there wouldn't be, Jewel thought, until a moment before death, if at all. Death had never had much promise, but when she looked too long at Calliastra's face, she understood the allure of suicide.

  Hated that.

  Calliastra took the refusal in stride, although there was a delicate shift in her expression at each refusal that Jewel came to understand meant hurt. Pain.

  "Jewel," Avandar said softly.

  "You could offer me a blindfold."

  He laughed. It was jarring to hear that laughter; the path was quiet and suffocating with the presence of Calliastra, and that presence had strangled all mirth. Well, all of hers anyway, not that she'd recently had that much to spare.

  "And that was funny how?"

  "You are seer-born," the goddess replied. "Blindfold or no, you would still understand what my presence entails; you would be drawn to it. If you could not see me, my voice would become that much more distinctive, that much more compelling; if you somehow managed to deafen yourself, the ground would slope toward me, the air would carry my scent. You, seer-born, must learn to accept what you do see; to run from it in any way—"