by Amy Bai
Taireasa's mouth made a hard line, but she didn't flinch. "So be it," she said, cutting off Devin's outraged objection.
Kyali pushed her way through to stand next to Taireasa. There was a sudden, shocked silence as the soldiers took in her shining armor, the sword over her shoulder.
"Are you quite done speaking for me?" she said coolly.
Feldan's chin lifted. "You know I'm right, little cousin."
"What I know is that you've put your ambition over your oaths, Feldan Corwynall." She stepped into the empty space in the center of the circle and reached up over her shoulder to draw her sword. "I know you've challenged," she said, and a rising wave of shock and worry echoed through the army. "And I know I will answer. Cousin."
Clearly this wasn't part of Feldan's plan. "I will not harm one of my own—"
"I'm not one of your own now, Feldan Corwynall. Her Majesty needs a champion: I am that. Or you can retract your challenge."
"Kyali, no," Taireasa murmured, but if she heard it, Kyali didn't bother acknowledging. It was, Kinsey had to admit, a neat solution: if she won, Taireasa's claim would be established, and if she lost, House Corwynall would have no one of the direct line on which to pin a claim of their own.
It was truly brutal, though. Kinsey didn't dare look at Devin just then.
"Then I suppose I must fight," Feldan said slowly, drawing his sword from the sheath at his side. "Cousin."
Taireasa reached blindly for Devin's hand, and he took it in a pale grip as Feldan backed farther into the circle and Kyali followed.
"I'll be sorry to kill you, little cousin," Feldan said. It had the sound of a taunt, but his face was grave as they began to circle one another.
Kyali said nothing.
She brought her sword up slanted across her face and placed her feet carefully. Kinsey felt some of the desperate tension around him begin to seep into his own bones. He hoped that this angry young woman was as good as she seemed to think she was. Feldan closed suddenly, feinted left and drove in with a quick, forceful stroke. But even as the crowd was gasping, Kyali had sidestepped it with fluid grace. She twisted her own sword in a complicated blur of movement and metal sang as their blades met.
Feldan staggered backward. He dove in at her again immediately, quick and vicious. This time it was she who stumbled away, a cut appearing on one cheek. Her eyes were a golden smolder. They circled again, both of them warier now.
“Yield or die,” Feldan demanded, eyeing her over the edge of his blade.
“There will be no yielding today,” Kyali hissed—and spun into a startling leap to avoid his sweep at her legs. The soldiers muttered: it was a coward’s strike. But Kyali landed lightly and spun a second time, sword flashing up and around, quicker than Feldan by far. Feldan loosed a cry that seemed to be more frustration than anything else and battered her with a furious set of blows. Kyali staggered again, then seemed to find her footing. She parried each blow with one of her own, perfectly slanted so that her cousin’s sword slid, time and again, from the angle of her blade.
And then she was done defending. She began to strike, faster and faster, until Feldan was backing away, trying to gain enough space to move. But Kyali gave him no quarter. Her sword flashed in patterns almost too quick to follow, leaving a streak of sunset-stained silver afterglow trailing through the twilight. She was faster than anyone Kinsey had ever seen. Beside him, Annan muttered something, sounding uneasy. The air in the circle began to shiver eerily, like the trails of heat above a fire.
Feldan uttered a furious shout, raising his sword overhead for a killing blow, and Kyali’s next, blindingly fast motion brought the point of her sword to his chest.
He turned right into it, and his mouth opened in a choked scream.
Kyali froze. Her gaze fell to the sword that connected them, the blood welling darkly out, and then rose to his face. For a moment, if Feldan had wished it, he could have split her head in two with his half-finished blow.
Instead the sword fell from his fingers. He wrapped a hand around the blade in his chest. He said something to her, too soft for Kinsey to hear, but whatever it was it bled the anger and all the flush of effort from her face. Feldan sank to his knees. Kyali followed, holding the sword in place carefully. He spoke again, blood bubbling from his lips to run down his chin. She nodded once, decisively, and set her hand over his, on the blade.
“Oh, gods, cousin,” Devin murmured.
Kyali pulled the blade out in one quick movement and stood, cradling it in her bloody hands. Feldan sagged backward, hands fluttering helplessly over the wound. Blood pooled around him. He went still.
No one made a sound as Kyali pulled a small square of cloth out of a pocket and cleaned her sword, looking only at that.
"Is there question?" she finally said into the silence.
Clearly not. After a moment, someone shouted "Long live the queen!"—a cry that was taken up immediately, becoming a roar of approval that echoed off cliffs and filled the dusky sky.
Not seeming the least bit moved, Kyali turned to face Taireasa.
"Damn it," Taireasa muttered.
"Now, Taireasa," Devin said, never looking at her. "Take her oath. Please. No more bloodshed. It won't stop… you know it won't."
Taireasa sucked in a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "Not on these terms."
"Then damn it, make your own terms, Your Majesty!"
"Fine," Taireasa spat. "Fine. I will do that."
She shook Devin's hand from hers and strode out into the circle as the cheers rose and, all over the little valley, men knelt. The moon was rising in the east, piercing through leaves, and the last dying rays of the sun painted the western horizon. In the odd heat-shimmer still hovering over the clearing, thickening around the two young women meeting there, it looked like floating fire. Kinsey felt a shiver twist up his spine.
Kyali knelt, offering her sword up in both hands. She spoke her oath clearly. Taireasa set her hands on the sword, raised it, and spoke the reply as the air snapped and whined around them. Beside him, Devin made a small, surprised noise and went still. Kinsey sent him a worried glance. The Bard grinned at him fiercely.
"Watch this," he said. "Nobody gets the best of Taireasa for long."
Taireasa set a hand on Kyali's shoulder, still holding her sword in one hand.
"Sword shall guide the hands of men," she said. It was so silent now it was possible to hear the tidal whisper of over a thousand men breathing. Taireasa smiled then, a grim, satisfied expression.
"This day has been one of sorrow and sacrifice," she said clearly. "We have lost as much as we are willing to lose. From this moment onward, we are one people, united in our determination to regain our kingdom, and one army, united in our defense of Lardan—and of each other. Kyali Corwynall. For your devotion to the rightful crown, for the skill you have acquired in hard years of study, and for the gift of command that we all witnessed when you fought and won our first battle, I name you captain of this army, the Exile's Army…"
She wasn't done speaking, but the cries of the soldiers drowned out her words. Men shouted and clapped and whistled like boys, rising to their feet almost as one. Kinsey swallowed a shout of his own. It was impossible not to be caught in the joy these soldiers gave voice to.
Taireasa waited until the noise had fallen. She handed Kyali her sword, pulling her to her feet. "Rise," she said. "Captain Corwynall."
Kyali sheathed her sword in the gathering dark. For an instant, Kinsey was afraid she would refuse. But instead she clenched her hands into fists and squared her shoulders.
"My Lady Queen," she said, and saluted.
Then the soldiers began to chant, rhythmic and jubilant. They could probably hear it all the way down the mountain, where the enemies of these remarkable people sat.
"Lady Captain, Lady Captain, Lady Captain!"
BOOK TWO
LADY CAPTAIN
CHAPTER 15
"Excuse me, m'lord…"
"Yes, of course."
"Oh, m'lord! I'm so sorry—"
"No, it's fine, after you."
Devin ducked and dodged his way through a confusion of soldiers and servants and terrified villagers leading sheep and goats. Between the bleating and the shouting, it sounded like an invasion.
Another invasion.
A new party of refugees had arrived, bearing scant belongings, bad news, and sorely needed supplies from the Eastern barons—who, bless them, held strong in their keeps and sent what they could spare on the backs of newly homeless smallfolk. The grain and livestock were much appreciated, but their band of refugees was rapidly becoming a city. The constant press of people rubbed his already short temper raw.
He made it to a doorway and all but fell over at the sudden cessation of noise. "Gods," he muttered, and wandered down the dark hall without a second thought, just because there was nobody in it but him.
It wasn't getting any easier.
Nearly two months they'd been here, clearing out rooms, building barracks, hunting mountain game, making this place as much a home as an ancient castle at the top of the world could ever hope to be to a horde of melancholy exiles… and every day was as much of a struggle as the first few had been.
He missed his father.
He missed his sister, who was still with him, but didn't behave as though she cared about anything anymore.
It takes time, Taireasa had said. We all deal with grief in our own ways.
But Taireasa couldn't meet his eye when she defended Kyali and he knew, through the thread of magic that bound them, that she hurt just as much as he did at that desertion. They had been joined at the hip their whole lives, and suddenly his little sister had nothing but coldness for Taireasa—and for him.
Did grief do this?
Devin leaned against the wall, probably getting dust all over his clothes in the process. His sorrow was a never-ending ambush, surprising him at odd moments—the sight of a child playing with a wooden sword, men singing war songs, Taireasa's strained, weary smile across a room—and he'd have to duck out of the company of others and bite his tongue until the pain chased away the threat of tears. Every time someone called him Lord Corwynall, it was salt in the wound.
He couldn't be Head of House—but his cousins, who were the next logical choice, were now tainted by Feldan's treachery… and his sister, who should have been Head and had been groomed all her life for it, was by her own choice not even truly a Corwynall anymore. Though he would never stop thinking of her as one.
He let his head hang, since there was no one here to see him do it.
"Captain, the party on the eastern ridge sent word of an encounter with Western scouts."
"I've heard. We'll send out our own band this evening, and I want another ready to—"
Kyali.
Devin straightened, making something pop painfully in his spine. He was rubbing his neck and grimacing when his old friend from a wild trip over the mountain and his little sister came around a corner and stopped, seeing him.
"Begging your pardon, then, Captain, I'll see to the men." Peydan sidled past them with a muttered greeting and a look of sympathy Devin wasn't sure he was meant to see. Kyali, all silver and black in the armor she was never without these days, stared at him for a long moment and then began to move past him.
"It's going well, I see," Devin said, just to have something to say.
They both paused to listen to the echo of his words die against the stone walls.
"Well enough," Kyali said curtly, and moved around him in the dark little hallway, clearly wanting to get away. Devin's stomach knotted up into a queasy, homesick heartache.
"Kyali—" It came out sounding strangled and far too desperate for his pride. But it did make her stop. She halted with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched as though she expected a blow. She didn't turn around.
"Where are you?" Devin asked, because he'd given up most of his pride already, and what little was left didn't matter much. He'd lost his father and his home. He didn't think he could stand losing Kyali, too, but it felt like he already had.
"Here," his sister said grimly, never once looking at him.
"No. You're not. You're really not."
One of her hands clenched quickly, then relaxed. That was the only sign that she'd heard him. "Then best I go on my way," she said, and left.
He stood there for a few minutes, listening to the noise wax and wane outside this little hall, then wiped his face and turned to follow the darkness to wherever it wanted to take him.
The hall ended in yet another hall. This one was lined with high windows that let in the slanted afternoon light. The Baar mountains loomed through the warped old glass like gods, huge and indifferent and coldly beautiful. Devin followed corridor after corridor, blindly seeking the hint of fresh air in the drafts blowing down the corridors, until at last he found a door of dark ironwood barred by a metal beam so rusted he doubted it would keep out anything but mice. He pried it open with effort—not that rusted, apparently—and staggered when the wind howled immediately in at him, snatching the air right out of his lungs.
"Ah," he groaned, mostly in relief, and pushed his way out into the merciless sunlight.
The view opened up before him, falling away in dizzy segments: first the lower wall of the castle, then the cliff's face, then a series of increasingly distant hills and valleys tumbling haphazardly toward the foothills. And after that came Lardan, green and brown and beloved. He couldn't see Faestan from here, and he was grateful for that. Everyone he loved that was left in the world was on this slowly freezing stack of rock.
Soldiers did drills in the courtyard below, the shouts and clangs rattling up to him. Devin shuffled forward, eyeing the drop warily, and leaned against the old black stone of the castle wall, listening. It sounded like home.
Home was gone.
He fumbled thoughtlessly at the strap of the case that held the Fraonir harp to his back, opening the catch. The harp fell into his hands like a favorite pet, and even though the air was cold with the promise of winter and snow, which he'd never seen, the shining wood of the neck and the pillar were as warm as skin. He set the instrument on his knee, leaned forward until his head rested on its carved shoulder, and let his fingers wander over the strings.
The notes, aimless as they were, soothed him. He sighed, heard it echo in the strings, and followed the sound until notes became melody. He'd never in his life been able to lay a hand on an instrument without thinking of song. It had driven his father and Kyali to distraction.
The memory of two exasperated pairs of eyes, both gold with that odd remnant of some other heritage, made his breath catch. When he pushed it out of his lungs, words rode on it. Devin let them come, finding solace where he always had.
Though our fields lie still and fallow
And the sky is filled with cloud,
Though our days seem darkly hallowed
Yet these moments we’re allowed.
Though the night is flame and shadow
And the stars veiled in a shroud,
Though our hearts are filled with sorrow
Still these moments we’re allowed.
Give me strength to fight the heartless
And the grace to stand unbowed,
Give me love to light the darkness
In these moments I’m allowed.
A little dramatic, he decided, and snorted; he did feel better, at least. It was a good thing he'd come so far from the crowds to mope, or he'd have to explain this very audible fog of sentiment to half the castle. He waved his hand through the blurry shimmer of magic his playing had made in the air around him.
Then he realized the noise of the drills had vanished.
Devin leaned over the edge, a little panicked: the last time he'd played a flute, terrible magic had followed, and he still wasn't wholly convinced the Fraonir were the ones responsible. His wobbly look down to the courtyard showed him several hundred faces at a distance, soldiers all standing aroun
d holding their swords, gone still, staring up.
"Dear gods," he yelped, and fell off the wall—thankfully on the safe side of it—in his haste to get out of sight, just barely saving the harp.
"Sorry!" he yelled, and hissed in pain. This damned stone was hard.
"Play elsewhere!" came his sister's shouted retort. Laughter wafted up to him—laughter and a few approving whistles.
Well, someone appreciated him.
* * *
Clouds of dust traveled across the room like flocks of tiny birds, dimming the light from the high northern-facing windows. Kinsey sneezed once, then again, and knocked over a stack of books cracked and stiff with age. He dropped the dustcloth and dove forward, catching them in his arms halfway under a table.
A carpet of dust shifted under his knees. Arms full of books, Kinsey sneezed again and banged the back of his head on the underside of the table.
"Ow!"
"This is an odd way to martyr yourself, my Lord Prince."
He cracked his head again as Annan's voice sent a jolt through his limbs. "Ow! Damn."
There was a slightly strangled cough from the general direction Annan was standing. Kinsey pulled himself up, sliding the pile of books carefully onto the table, and met his lieutenant's studiously blank gaze. Annan glanced once about the library, such as it was—at the broken shelves and the endless stacks of books coated in what might be centuries of dust—and edged one tiny step backward, as though he feared proximity might transfer all the mess onto his well-kept armor.
"You need servants in here, my lord," he said.
"I've a Fraonir assistant around here somewhere—"
"She's in the kitchens at the moment."
"Ah." Barely two months in, and Annan already seemed to know everything that went on in the fortress. He wasn't surprised. His lieutenant wasn't the sort to wait for a situation to sort itself out before getting his hands in it, pushing to see what would move, or break.
"How go the drills?" Kinsey asked, half in curiosity, half to change the subject.