Sword

by Amy Bai

  "You've the Gift now, yes? You've used it—against, dare I guess, young Lord Alusyn in our cellar last night?"

  How could he tell? She'd said nothing of the strange effect of that shout, or—

  Wait. Lord Alusyn?

  It was one of his strikes from the side. The surprise made it to her face; she could feel it there, widening her eyes. Kyali thought hard. She knew the name; a moment's thought gave her the lineage and the location, and her knees went weak.

  She'd killed a baron's nephew. A Western baron's nephew.

  Her father gave a grim smile then, seeing her understanding dawn. "I need not explain to my daughter the repercussions of this," he said, looking her steadily in the eye. "Need I?"

  He had explained it enough already, in lessons and lectures. Relations with the four provinces of the West were difficult: the rule of the kingdom sat in the East, on the other side of the Deepwash River, and all sorts of things from trade to taxes to the old names of the seven gods were points of contention—but the real issue, she suspected, was simply that the throne sat in the East. A girl raised in House Corwynall, the more martial of the two royal lines of Lardan and the one on whose estate the Eastern provinces' soldiers were trained and housed, could hardly be unaware of the tension. A girl who sometimes couriered orders to troops stationed near the Deepwash's winding border as part of her training was aware of a bit more… like that the men on their side were matched precisely in number and location on the other. It was not common knowledge, and her father wanted it not to be.

  She was of the Blood, as was her brother: as eligible for the throne as Taireasa was, though nobody had voted a Corwynall onto the throne in so many generations it was just history now, something to read in a book. She was of the Blood and she'd killed a Western baron's nephew.

  A Western baron's nephew had come to kill her.

  Kyali shook her head, swallowing a thousand questions, beginning to be truly afraid now. She sensed in a vague, startled way that her whole life had just turned on this point. Her father watched as though every thought in her head was already known to him, and they probably all were. He was the Lord General, after all, and troops moved at his orders, as did she. "Good enough," he grunted.

  It wasn’t; not nearly. But she held her tongue and stared, a tactic that sometimes worked. He laughed without much mirth and tipped his chin out, toward the fields.

  "Just look," he said. "Look at it."

  She did. The habit of obedience was too ingrained in her not to: she heard his voice and her muscles moved before her mind caught up. Devin, older by a few years and having studied music instead of warcraft, had escaped such thoughtless compliance. Why was Devin’s question, generally before one was done speaking, and his flighty attention skipped over half the explanation anyway unless you caught his interest. Changeling, he had called her last night. Outside of Síog girl, it was his favorite to throw at her, because of her eyes and her hair. (And because she hated it. But he had given her the best of the pancakes this morning without a word, and that was Devin too.)

  "Change in the wind," her father murmured, dragging her attention back to this strange morning and all the things she didn't want to think about. He nodded at the distant fieldhands. "They know it. They watch because you’re part of it, daughter. They’re looking to see which way it blows, and what it brings. Allow them that with whatever grace you can."

  Well, that was hardly comforting.

  "Look at it, Kyali Corwynall."

  It was utterly unlike him. Kyali gave up obedience to stare at him, finding his face as impassive as ever when she turned, but there was a haunted look to it just the same. She frowned, worrying, waiting for him to tell her how to mend this mess she had made.

  His eyes wouldn’t quite meet hers, and his mouth tightened.

  "Time I told you a few things," her father declared then, and turned to gather his sword and walk down the hill. Kyali followed silently, in confusion and dread.

  CHAPTER 2

  Taireasa’s face was unusually impassive, for Taireasa. A strand of curls wafted into her eyes, which darted to the river, then to the bramble on the far side, and finally came to rest on her hands, tying knots in a blade of grass. Even when she was trying to be as stone-faced as her father, Kyali thought, some part of Taireasa always gave her away.

  "You already knew," Kyali accused, and watched those fine-boned knuckles whiten. Taireas’s hands stilled a moment, then tangled into her skirts, twisting into fists. Tailors and handmaids were on hand at every court event: good cloth suffered whenever the princess’s nerves did.

  Taireasa sighed. "Not about Lord Alusyn, Ky, I couldn’t possibly."

  A poor attempt at misdirection. "And this stupid rhyme that's been around for gods know how many centuries, that everyone's now calling a prophecy? When did you hear about that?"

  That earned her a glare. "Oh, say you're surprised, Kyali Corwynall, and I'll know you're a liar. We've both known since we were old enough to skip to it that that one was more than whimsy. What else do folk do when the gossip gets stale and they need something to whisper about in the night? They've whispered about this one forever. Are you about to claim otherwise? Do you say you weren't whispering with me, when we'd run out of mischief to do and the shadows in my bedroom all had teeth?"

  Taireasa had a very sharp tongue when pressed. It was normally one of Kyali’s favorite things about her friend.

  Kyali felt a flush heat her cheeks and knew her eyes were admitting everything for her. "You still could have said," she snapped. "Or are you about to tell me you've never known more than what we scared each other with when we were ten? Say that and I'll know you for a liar, Taireasa Marsadron."

  It served to bring a matching flush to Taireasa's cheeks, if nothing else. Which she was immediately sorry for. Kyali softened her tone, trying to be more patient. "When did you know… more?"

  "You never come to court anymore—"

  "Gods, what has that got to do with it?"

  "If you’d come, you’d know!" Taireasa’s eyebrows rose as if even she were alarmed by the outburst. Kyali used the small silence that followed to gather the remnants of her composure. Nothing ever went as she planned with Taireasa.

  Well, to be fair, things rarely went the way she planned without Taireasa.

  Taireasa cracked her knuckles, then winced at the sound. She made a face. "Not that I blame you. Who wants to have their hands stared at for hours by the Western barons?"

  "You could have said something. I would have come."

  "You have better things to worry about, Ky."

  "Oh, aye, so many things preferable. I have so many pleasant pastimes. And my audience of fieldhands and farmers and soldiers, who it seems now think I'm something from a children's skipping rhyme."

  Yet another pause, quite different from those before it, and Kyali rose to escape that very direct green gaze. Taireasa followed, perfectly willing to press an advantage.

  "It does bother you, then. I wondered."

  "How can you ask me that? Why is everyone asking me that lately? Does it seem enjoyable? Would you enjoy being watched every hour of—"

  The idiocy of complaining to the king’s only child about audiences and stares caught her by the throat. She glared at the river and sighed. A leaf drifted serenely onto the water and floated, spinning, downstream. The birches rustled, dappling them with sunlight—all around, the forest went peaceably about its business. It was hardly a day made for brooding over dark and ancient prophecies that might or might not be true. And might or might not be anything more than stupid rhymes their grandparents' grandparents had sung as children.

  "Gullible fools," she muttered to the water, which only burbled back.

  Taireasa’s arms came around her shoulders. Her sharp chin dug a hollow just above a collarbone. "I don’t think you credit yourself for that expressionless face of yours. But for your eyes, Ky, I doubt I’d have the slightest idea how you feel about anything. Unlike me, with my hands, a
nd my skin—"

  "—and your eyes."

  One arm came away from her shoulders. "My eyes? They stay green, at least."

  "And your elbows."

  "Now you’re mocking me." Taireasa stepped to the side and buried her hands in her hair, sticking out the offending elbows. The locket at her breast, etched with the Marsadron hawk, winked silver in the sunlight. "You’d make a much better queen than I’m going to. Perhaps I should take up the sword and you can learn to enjoy ruffles and misdirection."

  Gods, what a thought that was; it made her shoulders twitch. "You’ll damn well make a better queen than I would."

  "Don’t curse, Ky."

  Kyali glowered, irritated at having to state the obvious. "Imagine me dancing with Anders of Orin. Or trading barbs with your cousin Lainey?"

  The corners of Taireasa’s mouth twitched unwillingly upwards. "You are somewhat ill-suited to negotiation," she admitted.

  "Mmmn. Somewhat. And what choice do we have, after all?" She struck a swooning, tragic pose, a thing she would only ever do when there was nobody but Taireasa to see. "I am Sword, you are Crown, and foredoomed both to our fates…"

  "Gods bless, don’t make light of this!" Taireasa snapped, utterly unamused. "Let be, Kyali."

  Kyali sent a single frustrated glace at her friend and folded her arms. "It’s a children’s rhyme, Taireasa."

  But it wasn't, not anymore. She'd been able to tell herself so until she'd heard her father speak it aloud yesterday; until she'd seen the worry in his eyes that he didn't quite manage to mask. Until she knew he believed it was a true foretelling, one of the old rhymes of legend, from so far back the burned library of the buried years was probably the only place that had ever held the truth of it… and that his children were tangled up in its verses.

  Now it would never be that simple again. Nothing would, she suspected, even if by some miracle this turned out to be nothing more than a bad children's rhyme after all.

  She'd just hoped for one more afternoon with Taireasa where she could pretend, but all along Taireasa had been ahead of her in this, as she so often was. Kyali pulled in a deep breath, let it out carefully, and made her face perfectly still. There was an ache sitting in her chest, one that felt too much like a farewell, and it probably lit her eyes like lanterns.

  Taireasa took her hand, unfolding it and rubbing her fingers over the deep calluses made by the sword. "It’s on the lips of barons and kings these days, Kyali Corwynall," she said softly. "Some think it's more than that."

  Kyali tugged her fingers free. "And are you one of them?"

  "I don’t know, Ky. A year, even half a year ago—no. But it is passing strange that the only children of Houses Corwynall and Marsadron should happen be a Bard, a swordswoman, and the heir to the crown. When have we last seen a Bard?"

  "I am not a swordswoman! And Devin's not a Bard."

  Not yet, anyway. It was something of an event, the naming of a Bard, and it had not been done in living memory.

  "Not yet," Taireasa retorted, echoing her unspoken thought a bit too closely. "We both know he will be one day, though, don't we?"

  Gods, wouldn't her brother chortle over the notion of himself as a figure of prophecy? He'd preen like a swan. And tease her endlessly… if, she thought in sudden dismay, he hadn't already drawn such conclusions himself. What might their father have told his eldest, on those occasional trips to the capital she did her best to dodge?

  "Well, I'm not a swordswoman."

  Taireasa had paused, knowing there was thought happening, doubtless knowing there was distress—how she always saw such things was a source of constant consternation. Now she took up the argument again, putting her hands on her hips.

  "You are," she said simply, wielding that piercing stare of hers like a blade. "Or you will be. You probably know as much of martial strategy as my own father does. And you're more skilled with a sword at fifteen than half the gentlemen at court. It does occasion comment."

  "And you wonder why I never come to court anymore," Kyali muttered.

  "I never thought you cared."

  "Well… I don’t." This conversation had gotten far from where she wanted. Her shoulders kept trying to hunch.

  "You can’t have it both ways, love."

  Kyali looked away, feeling her face pull at itself. "Now you sound like Father," she grumbled, and Taireasa snorted with a decidedly unladylike lack of grace that Kyali loved to see. Court had made her lifelong friend so careful as they got older; it was good to see a glimpse of the waif she had skinned her knees with.

  "Dark the wind that brings the storm…” she muttered. “I suppose it is a rather morbid rhyme to skip to. Whose hands shall I guide, if all are lost? If this Eairon person who's supposed to have written it foresaw the end of everything, why did he only write two damned lines of verse about it? It’s stupid, Taireasa! I'm sure Alusyn of Arumilia had some business in my father’s cellar besides scaring me half to death, but shall we go to our fate like sheep to a shearing?"

  "I don’t think the idea is that we go to it, rather that it comes to us."

  "While we sit in our fields counting comets and the Western barons grow ever more bold. I think not, Highness."

  In the heat of the argument, Taireasa barely flinched at the title, usually something to bring her to a blushing silence. That was nearly as alarming as this sudden fascination with the old rhyme. Kyali realized suddenly, in the length of her bones, in the spare beauty of her face, that her childhood friend was no longer exactly a child. She wondered what changes were being wrought in her own form, and what they spoke of to the prying eyes of soldiers and country folk.

  Taireasa drew her attention with a hand on her sleeve. "Is that what your father told you? He spent hours with Mother and Father this last visit."

  "I don’t know. I think so. He never tells me very much of anything, you know that. Just ‘you must be on your guard,’ and ‘discontent is not to discount’." Taireasa murmured the last adage with her and they grinned at one another in exasperated amusement; it was a favorite of both their fathers. Kyali pressed a finger to the bridge of her nose, trying to figure out how to steer the conversation elsewhere. The things her father had told her were still settling in her head, and thinking of them made her heart pound. "Nothing we haven’t both heard a thousand times before," she finished.

  Green eyes met hers for a long moment, penetrating.

  "There was somewhat more than that, Kyali Elliana Corwynall. You’re unsettled. What?"

  Damn. So much for the benefits of a straight face. For all her claims to the contrary, Taireasa had an unerring talent for sniffing out the heart of a matter and pecking away at it until she got what she wanted. Keeping secrets from her was like trying to dam a river with bread.

  "You’ll make a very decent queen indeed," Kyali sighed.

  "Ky."

  "Oh, all right. We discussed the Gift, which I do seem to have now. The… prophecy, or whatever it is. The West. The man I killed, and what he was doing there. Father was a bit more foreboding than usual. I don’t want to talk about it now. I’m still sorting it out."

  Taireasa was silent, thinking.

  Eairon’s old rhyme, stripped of all the innocence of childhood, sat between them like a third presence. Kyali looked toward the wide expanse of the river, unable to meet Taireasa’s sharp gaze.

  "Ah," Taireasa finally said, and stopped there.

  "Ah yourself. What point is there in worrying? It will come or it won’t. Father seems to think it will. So I'll keep studying. Shall I single-handedly hold off barbarian hordes from the lands over the mountains?"

  "I don’t think that’s required. My father is aware, and, one supposes, taking precautions."

  "I hope so. Gods. Why couldn’t this century be as quiet as the last few? And when did you become so gloomy? I thought you’d be thrilled I’m wearing this wretched frilly dress."

  Taireasa had dimples, which were very much in evidence at the moment. "It is becoming.
Though I figured it would be better not to mention it, somewhat like salt in a wound?"

  "Fie. My favorite is ruined, thanks to Lord Alusyn of Arumilia, who had not the courtesy to bleed decently on the floorboards. Prophesy or no, I’m not so ignorant of court fashion I'll go wandering about covered in the blood of my enemies."

  There was that wide-eyed gaze she'd been hoping for. It was a bad day indeed when she couldn't shock Taireasa. "Ky, that’s horrible."

  "Isn’t it?"

  They wandered along the bank of the Sainey in silence, followed at a discreet distance by Taireasa’s mounted escort. Kyali closed her eyes, letting the sounds of forest and river wash over her, and found some peace for the first time since a man had run himself onto her sword.

  She said nothing when Taireasa linked arms with her, willing to be a child for this brief bright afternoon, sure in her heart that there were few opportunities left for doing so.

  * * *

  Dinner was unusually quiet that night.

  Kyali kept her eyes on her plate and wondered if all the crops would be as dry: Cook had clearly struggled to make this palatable. She thought she tasted both butter and wine, not things one would normally expect to be in a barley stew. All the farmers were suffering for the lack of rain.

  It would be different on the mountain, where there were almost always clouds. Cooler, and windier, and probably rainier. Did they even grow crops on the mountains, or did they just hunt? Her father's first lieutenant had told her once that they did, that the mountain Clans cut great flat stretches like stairs into the very earth—but Deryn had also tried to convince her that they made magic with their swords, which was just mad, so he might have been having her on.

  She supposed she'd find out soon enough.

  She glanced up, mouth full of stew and sour unease, and was caught in her father's stare from across the table. His eyes narrowed. Kyali froze, feeling a chill twist up her spine. He gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Devin’s gaze darted between them. He frowned, and a spoon slid from the table to the floor. The general transferred the narrow-eyed look to his son.