Sword

by Amy Bai

  Taireasa shrugged. "There is, at the moment, very little to know," she said. "I never had any intention of sitting by while traitors attack our allies, Maldyn. The Lady Captain's notion is an unusual one, but that might be why it works."

  "Granted," Maldyn murmured. "Still…" A third time, his gaze flickered to the wine.

  He met her eyes, saw that she was watching.

  "Oh, Maldyn," Taireasa said, not angry, or even all that frightened—only sad, so sad.

  His face, so clear and calm under the lines of his age, crumpled. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "My lady, I'm so sorry. They have my wife."

  The truth of that was evident in his miserable gaze, and in the horror and sorrow and helpless, doomed determination in his heart. She had never read it, never thought to. He had invited it only today. Had that been a way of pointing suspicion elsewhere, or a genuine desire to be done with the long charade? She could hear Camwyn coming back to the door, hovering, waiting for the right moment to present a tray. She could shout for help, could order him imprisoned, killed...

  She couldn't imagine what she would be willing to do, who she would be willing to hurt, if it were Kyali or Devin the barons were holding.

  "Tell me everything," she said simply. "And we'll see if we can fix this."

  Maldyn's lips made a firm line. Tears followed the folds of skin down his cheeks. "I'm so sorry," he whispered again, and she understood.

  It wasn't Camwyn at the door.

  She turned her head, met the eyes of Aric, one of Kyali's lieutenants, one of her own bodyguard. Aric who had been in the tunnels under Faestan with her, who had come up the mountain by her side.

  Aric, who was holding a drawn sword in her sitting room.

  Taireasa stood, putting the chair between herself and the two of them. Sadness was filling her up, sinking into her bones, making it hard to move, to think. Fear and anger were there too, but distant, unreal. She slid farther back, knowing there was no way out of her apartments but the door he was standing in. Her bedroom was behind her.

  Then Aric stepped all the way into the room, filling it with his armed presence, and she was ducking, reading his intention in his heart, and fear was everything.

  HELP, Taireasa sent, with no aim, no thought who to ask for help from. The rest of her bodyguard was outside the door. They would never get here in time. There was no time, because Aric was coming at her, his sword easily long enough to make up the distance the chair put between them. Maldyn stood up.

  The sword passed close, a flash of firelit steel. Taireasa flinched back, tripped on the damned carpets, fell hard enough to knock the wind from her. She scrambled up as Aric got a fistful of her skirt and flung herself toward her bedroom door. Fabric tore, and the door fell open, and suddenly, from somewhere behind her, there was a great deal of yelling. She could feel Devin's terror and fury, hear his voice.

  He was going to be too late. Aric was full of grim, desperate conviction, moving very fast. Devin would arrive just in time to watch her die, and then probably die himself.

  No. That couldn't happen.

  Taireasa spun, just barely missed being skewered by another flash of the sword—and let all the walls keeping her wrapped in silence fall down at once.

  It was, for a terrifying second, overwhelming. Thoughts rushed at her, battered her senseless, filled her ears and her head and her consciousness. She could see the whole mountain, every soul on it. She was going to come apart in it, she couldn't hold on—

  There was a noise behind her like two stones grinding together. A shout.

  A blade at her throat, pressing against the delicate skin under her jaw.

  "Let her go," Kyali hissed, trembling and barely recognizable she was so hoarse, so breathless.

  "Get away," Aric said. He sounded far less sure.

  "Taireasa—"

  Oh gods, everyone was here. Devin skidded into the room, Kinsey and Annan on his heels, and came to a halt when he saw the sword poised just under her chin. Taireasa made an abortive twitch toward him, toward Kyali—where had Kyali come from?—and jerked up short with a small, smothered moan when the steel pressed in.

  I can't die in front of them. I can't do this to them. Oh gods.

  "She dies if anyone moves!" Aric sounded truly desperate now.

  "You die one way or the other," Devin promised him.

  "Let. Her. Go," Kyali snarled.

  Kyali was here with her. Kyali was right here—and not just in body. There was another presence where before there had only been Devin. This one was small, curled tightly in on itself, black and bloodied and wounded. But it was—it had to be—Kyali.

  Taireasa turned her head carefully and met a gaze gold as coins, bright as lanterns. Kyali was bleeding from a cut on her cheek. There was a bruise blooming there. There was more blood on her armor, on her hands. She was trembling in visible waves, rising up on her toes, her sword held steady in spite of her quivering muscles. She looked stunned, wretched, terrified, furious. She looked awake.

  "It will be all right," Taireasa said, for the second time that day… and she shut her eyes, shut out the voices, shut out the shouting and the terror, and fell backward into Aric's unfriendly embrace. The sword followed her, biting into her skin, but it didn't matter. Her mind found Aric's—found it and held it hard.

  He froze against her, making a high and horrified sound like a rabbit in a trap. Taireasa dropped to the floor as Kyali drove forward and ended his life in one blurrily fast thrust.

  Aric fell sideways, sword toppling out of his hands.

  Taireasa knelt, looking at that, at the thin film of her blood on its edge, and heaved out a long sigh. Then Devin's arms were around her, pulling her up, and he was murmuring nonsense into her ear while he rocked her like a man holding a small child.

  "I'm all right," she said, because if he kept doing that she was going to cry. "Maldyn."

  "Dead," Devin said. "In your sitting room, with wine all over him."

  "It was poisoned." She laughed into his shoulder, only it turned into something else halfway through and she had to bite her lip hard until she dared to raise her head and let the world see her face.

  Annan had already dragged Aric from her bedroom, bless him. Kinsey had taken command of the sitting room and was ordering servants, telling his bodyguard to find more Cassdall men to guard the queen, which was a wise idea, considering.

  "Don't look," Devin murmured when two servants carried Maldyn's twisted, crumpled form past the bedroom door. She was only too happy not to see that. She could still hear the despair in his voice, see the misery in his face. "Just stay here. You don't need to see. Where'd you come from?" he said then, and Taireasa blinked slowly.

  "Secret passageways," she heard, and understood he'd been talking to Kyali. "Like in Faestan."

  "Excellent timing. You're bleeding. What happened?"

  "I met Earl Donal on my way here."

  Donal.

  "Oh gods, that bastard," Devin hissed.

  "All that time I spent placating him," Taireasa muttered. "What a waste of effort."

  Devin went still against her in sheer surprise. From behind her, she heard a strangled sound that might be laughter, or possibly something else, and she turned to see Kyali wipe her sword on her sleeve and sheathe it.

  "I'll go, then, and speak to the guard," the Lady Captain said, and if she hadn't the faint thread of presence in her heart to tell her otherwise, even Taireasa might have believed Kyali was all right. It was that good a performance.

  "Stay," Taireasa said. Kyali darted a glance at her, looked away.

  "Stay," Devin echoed.

  There was something new in him, a sadness, an understanding. Kyali began to look a little desperate. She was bleeding rather a lot, Taireasa saw, and she went into her small bathroom, found a cloth by candlelight, and soaked it in water from the washing bowl. Her hands were shaking badly. Nothing felt quite real.

  When she came back, Annan and Kinsey were hovering by the fire, and
Devin and Kyali were facing one another. Kyali looked like she was close to bolting, all blood and bunched muscles and desperation. Taireasa handed her the cloth, ignoring that desperation because acknowledging it would make Kyali bolt, she was sure. She peered into the darkness beyond the little door of stone in her bedroom wall. The door was just big enough for a tall person to step through, if she bent her head. She'd never had the slightest suspicion it was there.

  "Just like Faestan," she said, and heard Kyali draw an unsteady breath behind her.

  "I suppose, Majesty."

  "Much of tonight is just like Faestan, Ky," Taireasa observed, ignoring that Majesty. The symmetry of it was horrible, and strangely comforting. Kyali had kept her safe again. It was what Kyali did.

  Devin reached out and caught Kyali's hand in his. She flinched, rose up on her toes again like she was preparing to leap away, and then, surprisingly, held herself still.

  "You've carried it long enough, don't you think, sister? Far enough? Aren't you tired? "

  Oh—gods.

  "Speak sense. I don't know what you're talking about. Let go, Devin."

  "I am, you do, and never, sister mine. Never. You're stuck with me for good. I think you're beginning to understand now just how stuck, aren't you?"

  Or don't you hear me? he said, in that other way that they could. The air around their joined hands was beginning to shimmer. Kyali stared at the floor, trembling with the desire to flee, the desire to stay—the two urges shivered through her, through all three of them. She didn't take her hand away, though. The shimmer grew pronounced.

  Taireasa, I think this will take the three of us.

  I don't want to hurt her. I've hurt her so much already.

  She hadn't even realized she believed that until now. Taireasa put her hands to her face, too late to catch the tears.

  Taireasa, it was never you! It was them, and they're dead, and good riddance. But she's hurting herself. Enough. I know the truth now, and you always did, didn't you? My stubborn, courageous, blind little sister is the only one who believes she's still hiding something to spare us pain.

  Dear gods, that was exactly it. And of course, Kyali would.

  "We're not going to be able to do this without you," Devin said aloud, strong and steady and sure, looking at Kyali, talking to both of them. He reached out with his other hand and set it on his sister's face, cupping it gently. She flinched, but she didn't bolt: she seemed frozen in place, her jaw knotting and her breath coming faster. "I don't know what it is we're supposed to do, or how we fix this, but I know it can't happen without you. We need you. And you need us, Kyali, like it or not."

  The air was snapping now, making the drapes and the bedskirts flap. There was a faint hum coming from the abandoned glasses in the sitting room. Eyes grave, Kinsey got Annan by the arm and pulled them both back toward the wall, out of the way.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Kyali finally whispered. The faint thread of her presence was full of hope and terror and total despair.

  "You stayed in my room that night," Taireasa heard someone say. In the stark silence that followed, she realized it had been her.

  Kyali's eyes locked on hers. Taireasa swallowed, stepped closer, and made herself go on, because Devin was right. "You stayed to make sure they wouldn't find the doorway, that they wouldn't think to look for it. Didn't you? You were never going to gather the guard. You told me that so I would leave you there. And gods help me, I did, I should have known but I didn't, and I'm so—ah gods, Kyali, I'm so sorry—"

  She caught the first sob, but she had to cover her mouth to stifle the rest. She squeezed her eyes shut, looking for the calm center of herself. "But I stayed too," she said. It was obvious that was not clear, so she fumbled for the words. "My Gift." It was so hard to breathe. It felt like the tears were burning into her skin, leaving scars. "That's when it woke. There. With you. I didn't leave. You stayed in my room… and I stayed with you."

  "No," Kyali said in a small, shocked voice.

  "I never left you," Taireasa said, the words coming faster now, rushing out. "How could I? I haven't since. I'm not going to. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Kyali, I never meant for that, I would never have asked it of you, and I don't want you to hurt any more. I don't want to hurt any more. I miss you."

  "Stop!" Kyali cried, and stumbled a step back. She tangled her foot on the edge of the rug and thudded to her knees before Devin could catch her. He went down with her instead, pulled both her hands gently into both of his. He was crying now too, his presence alive with sorrow and horror and pity. Kyali curled into herself, breathing in great panicked gasps.

  "I can't. I can't. Let me go. There's nothing left, it's all ashes, just let me go."

  "Not true," Devin said. "Breathe, sister." You never backed down from anything, little sister, not once in your life.

  I can't!

  Taireasa knelt by Kyali and Devin, put her hands over theirs and lent her force to Devin's. They didn't press—she only knew now that they had been pressing, she saw that in Kyali's frustrated memory—only waited, open, hoping. Kyali shut her eyes, made a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl. And oh, there she was, wounded and despairing and stuck in that moment, that awful moment when she had known there was only a long, agonizing death in front of her and all hope was gone. There was the dark fury of her dreams, that Taireasa knew inside and out, knew by heart. Knew by her own choice.

  We skinned our knees on the same stones, Kyali Corwynall. We laughed and wept together, we shared all our secrets. We grew from children to where we stand now, side by side. Whatever you think they took from you, I have long since held. Take it back from me.

  Kyali opened her eyes. All her careful indifference was gone: her face was stark and bloodless and ravaged with sorrow and rage. They were at the center of a silent storm of warping air. Annan and Kinsey were no more than vague shapes outside it.

  …I don't know how.

  Like this, Devin said, impatient, full of grief and a love so hard and unyielding it was like a blade. He tore one of his hands free, pulling a locket from under his shirt. "House Corwynall takes you back," he said grimly.

  "No," Kyali said.

  "Yes."

  "You can't do that."

  "I'm Head of House. For now, anyway. I can do anything I want."

  "You can't—"

  Devin leaned closer, and dropped the locket over Kyali's head, stopping her words. She shuddered as the shock went through her, into Devin and Taireasa; not the pain of that long-ago separation, but something warm and solid and enveloping. Devin shook his head. "We'll only follow you wherever it is you go, you bloody-minded, hard-headed, fire-haired wight. You'll never get rid of us. You'd do the same for one of us, and you know it."

  "Shut up," Kyali rasped, head bowed, trembling with the effort it took to hold herself apart from them. Her presence was coming alive with memory, with pain, with a thousand things too complicated and sweet and hurtful for words. She was fighting that with everything in her. "Just shut up."

  "Not likely."

  Taireasa thought of Kyali swinging a wooden sword bigger than she was, Kyali flinging herself fully clothed into the Sainey because she hated the dress her mother had made her wear, Kyali standing at her mother's grave, pale and silent. Kyali laughing, Kyali shouting, Kyali with that ferocious scowl that everyone else thought meant she was furious, and Taireasa knew only meant she was thinking.

  "When you were seven, you rode farmer Angus's prize milk cow halfway to Faiche Ford on a dare," Devin said, catching her tactic. "The same year, you rolled in a whole bag of flour and snuck into my room and scared me so badly I ran into the pig's trough trying to get away from you. I put eight crow-spiders in your bedroom the summer you were thirteen and you shrieked like a banshee, but you killed them all and put one in my pancakes the next morning. You thought I didn't know. I did. I ate them anyway."

  It surprised Kyali into a choked laugh, which became something else. She pulled her hands
free, and then simply knelt there, fighting and losing, yearning toward them and then away, her hands curled into fists on her knees and her eyes full of tears.

  "There is no part of yourself you could ever lose," Devin said steadily. "Between us, I promise you, we have them all."

  Kyali shook her head, fumbling for that cold distance, because moving forward was so frightening it made everything in her shake. Taireasa breathed with her, feeling that fear with her, that futile search. She reached out and put her hands over Kyali's as more tears spilled down her own face, no longer burning but clean, a cessation of pain.

  "Did I thank you, Kyali Corwynall?" Taireasa asked. "I should have long since. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for keeping me safe."

  "Oh enough, I'm sorry, I'm so tired I can't think—oh Father, I'm sorry—”

  Kyali rocked forward, pressed her forehead to Taireasa's. It hurt in so many ways, that gesture, and it was quite possibly the best thing she'd ever known. Kyali was shaking with sobs, coming apart under their hands, but it was exactly right. Devin wrapped an arm around his sister's heaving shoulders. Kyali let them hold onto her. After a moment, she let herself hug them back, a panic-tight grip, her heart a moil of gratitude and fury and drowning, terrible sorrow.

  Taireasa didn't even hear Kinsey and Annan leave.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kinsey stood in his own bedroom, swaying with weariness. Annan was shooing the servants out, poking the fire back to life—stomping around like an angry general, snapping orders at retreating maids, stabbing at the hearth like there was an enemy hiding in the coals.

  Kinsey stared at the high, lonely moon through the window. Tears kept stinging his eyes and he put a hand out and gripped the edge of his bed until the pain cleared his head a little. He leaned against the glass, trying to catch his breath, find his balance, think.

  Gods, he'd never hurt so much for someone else. For all three of them. Tonight had broken his heart more than a little. He wiped at his face, cleared his throat, and wished he had a bottle of wine.

  "Bed, my Lord Prince?" Annan said, coming up behind him, short-tempered and obviously hoping for his own. He turned, snapped something at a lingering servant who certainly didn't deserve it, and Kinsey met his eyes in surprise and curiosity.