The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5

by Michelle West

  “My apologies,” she said, in the softest, the most pleasantly musical, of voices. “I did not ask for the time to dress myself appropriately. No one thought to inform me that you might be present.”

  “No matter how you choose to dress yourself, you could never be accused of impropriety.”

  She lifted her face. The lamp’s glow was soft in the evening light, but not so soft that it could completely disguise the lines in her face, the pale edges of hair that had once been black as night. “Is that Ser Fillipo I see? By your side?”

  Fillipo looked, for just an instant, ten years—twenty—younger than he was. “It is, Aliera.”

  “Then our enemies have much to fear, much indeed, if the two Callestan brothers stand once again side by side.”

  Ramiro smiled. “It has been far too long, Aliera.”

  “You have been busy, of late. Or so I am told by your lovely wife.”

  “She is, as usual, correct. I have been busy. But sometimes the rigors of duty are eased by the grace of the familiar and the trusted. Aliera en’Callesta, it is my privilege to introduce you to Ser Valedan kai di’Leonne.”

  Her expression, perfect in spite of—or perhaps because of—the lines that spoke of age, shifted; her lips widened in a smile that seemed, to Valedan’s eye, to be entirely genuine.

  He bowed. She was en’Callesta, but she was far too old to be wife to the Callestan Tyr—and had she been, she would not have been summoned in haste in such a fashion.

  “Aliera en’Callesta was the youngest of my father’s wives,” Ser Ramiro said. “I asked her to attend my Serra after my father’s death; the Serra Amara herself enjoined me in my pleas.”

  Her smile deepened. “You must not speak so openly of things that are said in the harem, Ser Ramiro, lest you be judged to be too fond of that harem.” But she bowed her head to ground as she turned to Valedan. “Tyr’agar,” she said gravely. “Please, accept my apologies for the terrible disarray you see. The Tyr’agnate honors me greatly by offering me the name of his clan, but in truth, I am no longer wife; I am no longer a part of the harem. It has been many, many years since I was required to perform the rituals and the observances of the High Court, and I will not have the worth of the Callestan wives judged by so humble an appearance as the one I now present.

  “I lead a simple life within the confines of the city Callesta, and Ser Ramiro has been far too kind; I want for nothing. His serafs attend my simple needs with grace and care.”

  “She is, and will always be, my father’s wife,” Ramiro said quietly.

  Valedan understood what that meant: she was one of the many mothers that the kai and the par Callesta had had during their enclosure within the harem itself.

  “You honor us with your presence,” he told her, meaning the words.

  Her smile did not falter, but for just a moment, her eyes seemed as bright and sharp as new steel. “The honor is entirely mine. I believe that I will petition the Serra Amara for some small part of her time, if she herself is not absorbed whole by the task you have set yourself, Tyr’agnate.

  “But it is not to speak of the foolish desires of the elderly that I was summoned.”

  “It should have been,” the Tyr’agnate said, and there was no doubting the authenticity of his affection. “But alas, no. You are the only woman present in the city of Callesta that I could call upon, Aliera. I trust your judgment, and it is both that trust and that judgment that I require.

  “Ser Callas.”

  “Tyr’agnate.”

  “Please escort us through the guardhouse. I wish to see those who have requested an audience.”

  “Tyr’agnate.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HOURS seemed to have passed since the cerdan bid them wait; too many hours. The moon’s face had grown brighter, larger; it hung low in the sky, as if approaching, at last, this most wayward of daughters.

  The packed dirt beneath Elena’s feet had given way slowly to the weight of her boots, the repetitive cadence of her steps. She walked the rim of a circle, deepening its edge. Wondering what it enclosed.

  But when the guardhouse door opened, she stopped her instinctive pacing and took a step back. Had her answer.

  Men entered the moonlight, as if gracing the Lady’s dwelling; they were sleek with metal, drawn sword, and the soft orange glow of lamps. Those lamps now numbered four; they were carried upon the stiff backs of wooden poles.

  Twelve men entered the small clearing in front of the gates. Had it been possible to flee, Elena might have. But she knew that Lord Telakar would not join her in her flight. She drew breath; held it. Her knees locked.

  She did not recognize the men—any of the men—who now watched her, swords drawn, faces expressionless. But she recognized the crest that two men bore. The full face of the sun rising, with eight distinct rays, and the half sun, with eight rays. The Tyr’agnate. And his Tyran.

  Evallen of the Arkosa Voyani would have recognized the man; Elena was certain of it. But neither Margret nor Elena had ever had cause to meet him—at least not in Elena’s memory; cause or desire.

  Without thinking she took a step back. Another.

  Lord Telakar’s hand rose; it landed upon her shoulder. A warning. Or a threat.

  The Tyr’agnate stepped forward. He turned to the young man at his side. “With your permission?”

  The young man nodded.

  It confused Elena, and confusion—in company such as this—was close kin to fear. The Voyani did not meet with clansmen. Not like this. Not even under the cover of the Lady’s Night.

  Lady, she thought, guide me. Guide me, Lady.

  The Tyr’agnate stepped to one side. Behind him, in the center of the four lamps, stood a woman in night robes. She lifted her hands and drew the hood from her hair, settling it with unconscious grace upon her shoulders.

  And then she smiled. “Elena,” she said softly.

  No. No, not this, not here. Lady, she thought, bitterly aware that she had lost the right to bespeak the goddess.

  “You recognize this woman?” The Tyr’agnate said quietly.

  The older woman nodded. “Although it has been almost a year since last we met, I recognize her well.” She stepped past the Tyr’agnate; past the circle of light, the circle of silent swords.

  But her feet stopped just shy of the circle walked into ground, the circle of dirt.

  “Elena,” she said again. “How fares Tamara?”

  “My—my mother is well,” Elena replied. Her throat was dry, too dry for Averda. She had swallowed the desert air.

  “And the Matriarch? Her daughter?”

  Too damn dry. “Margret of the Arkosa Voyani is Matriarch now.”

  Aliera en’Callesta crossed her heart center with the flutter of deliberate, delicate gesture. Even in horror, she was delicate.

  “Aliera,” the Tyr’agnate said, “can this woman speak for the Arkosa Voyani?”

  No. No. No.

  Aliera turned to the Tyr’agnate. “She can,” she replied quietly. “For if I am not mistaken, she is now daughter to the Matriarch; she is heir to the line.”

  The Tyr’agnate nodded. Turning, he bowed.

  He bowed to Elena, daughter of Tamara. “I am Ser Ramiro kai di’Callesta,” he told her gravely. “And I am honored that you have chosen to travel to the city of Callesta. Few of the Voyani do, and of those who have chosen to speak with me, you are the only one who has asked for me directly.

  “This is a poor welcome,” he added quietly. “And it is perhaps not the right place in which to speak. If you will trust me, I offer you the hospitality of Callesta. It is, I assure you, far less threatening than the hospitality of the Tor Leonne.”

  A smile touched his lips; it was as cold as the blade his Tyran held.

  She hesitated.

  Into that hesitation, he poured more words. “And this,” he told her, meeting and holding her gaze, “is the true heir to the Leonne bloodline; the man who is meant to wield the Sun Sword.”
r />   She froze.

  “Ser Valedan kai di’Leonne.”

  She almost told them then. But Lord Telakar’s hand was cold; cold as desert night.

  She offered the Tyr’agar presumptive the most proper, the most careful, of Voyani bows.

  His brow rose slightly, and then he smiled; he returned what she offered. As if, Elena thought, he was used to women who did not place knees and forehead against the ground at the mention of his title.

  He was young. Older than Adam, but not, she thought, by much. He was slender with youth, and his face was pale, his skin smooth. His eyes were wide and dark, night in miniature. Lady’s Night.

  She said weakly, “We bear word.”

  “Come, cousin,” Telakar said. “Let us not keep the Tyr’agnate waiting.”

  They opened the gate. It was unnecessary; both Elena and Telakar could easily follow the cerdan back through the guardhouse, leaving the gates themselves untroubled. But such opening of gates, between the man who ruled the Terrean in daylight, and the woman who was heir to the night of its wild roads, was a symbol.

  A symbol, as well, the offer of horse.

  Elena accepted. She was no clansman, but she knew the beasts of the field, and of the open road. She was not the Matriarch, but she was of the bloodline; there was not a beast of burden that she could not, in the end, bend to her will.

  And yet, as she approached, the horse reared up, up again, on two legs; his hooves fell hard, creating crescents in the dirt.

  Telakar. She knew that the horse would not bear one such as he.

  “My cousin,” she said quietly, “does not ride.”

  The Tyr’agnate nodded. “And you?”

  “I do.”

  If the cerdan disapproved, they were silent; they offered her the respect, measure for measure, that their Tyr offered.

  She approached the horse again, her voice soft, low, steady. She spoke in the old tongue, the wild tongue, the Voyani tongue. It came to her naturally, easily; she held out her hands and the cerdan who had—just—managed to calm the horse reluctantly slid the reins into them.

  Women, she thought, did not ride in the Dominion.

  But she was Voyani.

  She brought the reins low, brought the horse to face her. Saw the foam flecks around his muzzle. Telakar had chosen prudence; he had withdrawn the hand from her shoulder, and then, as the clansmen came with the horse, had even withdrawn the night shadows he cast; she could see him if she turned to look over her shoulder, but she could also ignore his presence.

  Tell them, she thought. Tell them, Elena. There are enough of them now. The Tyr is famous for his sword skill. Tell them.

  But she hesitated.

  When she spoke at all, Elena Tamaraan was known for the quickness of her tongue; it was second only to the quickness of her temper. Many, many were the Arkosan faces that bore the imprint of her palm, her instant anger; many were the Arkosan eyes that had witnessed the tears that followed, as clansmen and women accepted the furious apology that she could not—quite—put into the grace of words.

  Therefore it might have come as a surprise to many of them to find that she was aware of her words. That in some fashion, as they rushed past her grasp, conveyed by an emotion that defied control, she watched them, listened to them, weighed them.

  As a child, she had been cousin to the Matriarch’s daughter. As an adolescent, she had proved that she had more—much more—than that simple, tenuous claim: she could see, as the Voyani Matriarchs so often could, some hint of the future that waited, lurking around the bend in the twisted path of the Voyanne.

  It had not started with dreams, as it often did.

  It had not started with images, with the bright, sudden flare of event that transported now into later as she stood transfixed by the fraying colors at its edges.

  No; it had started with words.

  Margret had said, You’re just growing up. Stop worrying so much; you sound like an Ona.

  If Evallen had said as much, Elena would have listened. But Evallen said nothing. The shadows of her gaze had shifted and changed with time, sharpening, deepening. Elena knew that she was watched, and would be, until the Matriarch died.

  Because Margret had failed to show the hints of such an early gift. And because, in the end, the Matriarchs did what was best for all of Arkosa. Not just their daughters, their own kin.

  She wondered if the dead watched; wondered if there was truth to the belief that the Matriarchs who served the Lady’s interests might reside by her side in the comfort of the night sky, rather than in the folds of the howling winds. Evallen.

  A name.

  A word.

  The gift had come in words. Later—much later—she would have the rest: the dreams and the bright, clear visions that seemed to come on like desert mirage in the glare of the waking day. But it had started with words. She let them come, and after they had fallen out of her mouth in a tumble, one after the other, she would suddenly sense the truth inherent in them. Or the lie.

  She was younger; she would practice her gift on the most trivial of games: the fates of the affairs of the heart that have such terrible intensity in the years of early womanhood. Giavanno will fall in love with me. Or Giavanno will leave Elisa. Or Giavanno will one day understand just how big a fool he is.

  She had been so young, then; so very young. Love had encompassed the whole of her ability to dream; the whole of her desire.

  No, not love; something sweeter and far more destructive. Ah, and to remember that here, the rough strands of mane between her fingers.

  Foolish or no, she had learned the truth of her terrible gift when the Lady had chosen to lift the veil and give her a glimpse of the desolation of the future: Giavanno would never fall in love with her, no matter how much she tried to please him, how much of herself she was willing to offer. He would, big, stupid oaf, never leave Elisa. And he already understood how big of a fool he was, had been, would be; but he would not regret his love for Elisa, no matter who else offered him the whole of their heart.

  She whispered into the peaked ears of the waiting beast in the singsong voice of freedom and binding that was used by the Voyani women. She knew that the clansmen watched; knew that when the horse stilled at her command, she would hear their voices, their muted surprise, even their disgust, the revulsion they felt.

  She didn’t care.

  She had measured the truth of her silent words, their import so much greater than those earlier, girlish incantations, the pleas that she now found embarrassing, and she had found them wanting.

  If she warned them at all, these arrogant clansmen, these trusting idiots, they would die. It shouldn’t have mattered.

  But the time for making a stand, and an expensive one at that, had passed. A handful of cerdan could, of necessity, be easily replaced.

  But the Tyr’agnate of Averda? She glanced at him as the horse began to move; his eyes were full upon her face.

  Margret, she thought, suddenly glad that she would not be required to speak for some minutes. Forgive me.

  The Tyr’agnate of the Terrean of Averda was, of necessity, a man who appreciated subtlety; who strove to achieve it, and who understood it when it was presented to him. His birth to the High Clans had not, however, granted him access to the low clans; the low clans had been observed at a distance.

  It was a distance that he had gone to some lengths to lessen, to the amusement of his father and the very cool horror of his mother.

  In the end, he had told them both gravely, it is upon the backs of men such as these that my Terrean will rise—or fall. If I do not understand how men such as these are bought and sold—

  They are not serafs. Na’miro, his mother had interjected.

  They are not, he replied, acceding, with a great patience that he did not feel, to the nicety of the grace that an obedient son owed the woman who birthed him in the heart of the chambers she ruled. It was a figure of speech.

  Indeed. And a low figure, at that. She had t
urned to her husband, then, falling artfully to knees that age had stiffened. You see, my husband? You see what he brings into these chambers? He spoke without thought.

  Your mother, in this, is correct. If it amuses you—or better, strengthens you—seek the lowborn. Learn how to motivate them; how to manipulate them; learn how to elevate them. Or crush them utterly.

  It is certain, in your life, that you will be forced to all of these actions before the winds scour you.

  But while you are learning these things, Ser Ramiro, the name a pointed counter to the Serra’s use of the harem name, the child’s name, you will also learn that while the appearance of speaking without thought—the appearance of the fecklessness or the naïveté of youth—is of value, the substance behind it is not.

  Do not speak without thought. Among the lowborn, among the highborn, among foreigners that you cannot imagine, at this stage in your training, you will stand beside. Never speak without thinking.

  There will always be witnesses.

  His father, a man not prone to giving advice, had offered him—that day—the most valuable advice he was ever to offer. It had surprised Ramiro, years later, to hear just such advice travel from the lips of a peer to the ears of wayward youth. It had seemed so singularly profound, so terribly important, given with the full weight of the Tyr’agnate’s voice.

  Memory.

  He smiled. He had learned, with time, that the lowborn clung to many of the ideals that the High Court sheered away. That they did, as he had been cautioned against, speak freely and with little thought. It made the presence of the highborn particularly difficult, for the words of the foolish were always an avenue to death, should the powerful desire some scant excuse.

  He had not, however, offered those clansmen his father’s words. Instead, as efficiently as he had done much else in the tumult of that youth, he had attempted to have them teach him more.

  It was to be his only real failure.

  For he had desired some knowledge of the more intimate workings of the Voyani—Arkosa, Havalla, it didn’t particularly matter which—and although the lower clansmen were willing to trust his stranger’s guise in matters of drink and money, they fell silent when he asked them of the Voyani.