The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

  He lowered himself over her, and then, as the tall grass parted and the shadow of Ishavriel-kevar was lent substance by the moon, he smiled. A moment, he waited, until he saw the widening of her eyes, and then he whispered four guttural words.

  Run for your life.

  The sound of the fleeing boy’s ragged breath and uneven steps was taken by the lake and the air and the wind and made louder, made final.

  “Devlin! DEVLIN!”

  His name echoed, unanswered. Lake water lapped at it, eating away at its edges until even the name was gone.

  She was alone. With them.

  He entered her then, as the realization did, because this was the first of her fears, and he intended to visit them all.

  Devlin.

  They hurt her. The one, and then the other, great, terrible shadows that shone with the harsh light of new silver, of silver that has never known time. What she had kept from the miller’s brutal son, what she had offered shyly at first, and then insistently, to Devlin, they took, and in the taking, made her realize that she had never had anything to fear from the miller’s son.

  Devlin.

  They hurt her, and then they left her a moment, like garbage, in an unclean, bleeding heap. She lifted her head and saw the tent, like her dress, spread and torn across the goldenrod and tall grass, white in the poor light, a revenant. She tried to stand, bunching her knees beneath her limp body and pushing her weight up; throwing her hands out to stop her body in motion from returning groundward too heavily.

  The tears were on her cheeks, and they were water, and they burned.

  Why? Why?

  “Devlin.”

  It angered Algratz; angered and confounded him. He was not Kialli, but he was a free creature, inasmuch as any of the kin could be, who served the Lord of the Hells. He understood pain; no one of the kin did not. Even the imps—even the lesser, squeaking gnats of the outer regions—had it bred into their brittle, tiny bones.

  But the pain he inflicted here did not touch the girl as deeply or as viscerally as the pain that the boy caused by his flight.

  Is this what you hoped to gain? he thought, as the silver curves of his claws sliced his own palm in reflexive anger. It would be Lord Ishavriel’s game—to give and to take with the same gesture. Is this why you ordered us to let the boy flee?

  She had not, he noticed, even made the attempt to flee. No, wait; she rose. He had so hoped to make her last for hours, for days; he surrendered that hope now. He had no doubt that he could make her surrender everything, but all of the lovely subtlety, all of the pain that might be caused without lethal damage—that was lost to him.

  Angry, and hungry, he stalked forward as she lurched to her feet. If there was no subtlety, there was still victor and a victim, and that at least was something. A scrap. From Ishavriel’s dominion.

  She heard him and she turned at once, lurching, overbalanced.

  She stumbled out of his way, evading his grip, and shredded the skin of her hand on the hand of his companion; the shock was bracing in its clarity, its unexpectedness.

  She seemed almost confused, and stepped back, bleeding, naked, her whole hand clutching her wounded one, as if she would be allowed, in the end, to keep either.

  “What—what do you want?”

  They, neither of them, chose to answer, sensing that their silence was worse; in the silence, she might fashion the words she most dreaded, and say them, over and over.

  She drew back, and her eyes were white and wide; almost gratifying. Almost enough.

  But when Algratz finally touched her, scudding along the underside of her skin with the very tip of his fingers, when she finally screamed, the pain was still distinct.

  “Devlin!”

  She heard the footsteps with a wild hope, a crazed and terrified hope; the words on her lips were a rush of giddiness, of forgiveness, of anger—that he could leave her, but it might be all right somehow if he could just save her now and tell her why—

  But even in the moon’s terrible light, so white and harsh and brilliant, her vision could not contort the moving blur into Devlin’s shape; it was too tall and too fast.

  And it carried, of all things, a sword.

  The creature peeling the skin from her arm froze stiffly as the sword passed through its body, starting from the crook of its ebony neck and ending at the joint of its hip. She thought it unharmed, for it seemed to turn—

  But that was night illusion; the shadows gave lie to the movement and the body fell, at once, into distinct pieces. The grass burned where it landed; the air burned.

  The other creature turned, jumped, leaped into the air; he cried out in anger, his voice harsh and metallic. But the man with the sword—and he was a man—only laughed as the, creature turned and fled.

  Fled.

  She stood alone by the lakeside, the insects waking to the warmth of her body and the promise of her blood. He bowed, his bow so perfect he reminded her, in the single motion, of the silver-haired mage. The mage who was the end of her world.

  She couldn’t see for tears. “And w–what do you want, then?”

  He sheathed his sword and bowed again, turning his glance to the blackened patch of earth that would not support life for decades. It was all that remained of the demon’s corpse. With great care, he unfastened the golden clips of the chain that held his cloak’s collar together. He raised it, slowly, gently, and then, folding it carefully, placed it upon the ground at his feet.

  As if she were a hungry, wild animal, he backed away, every movement slow and deliberate. She knew it, of course; she’d seen Devlin do it a hundred times. She had even done it herself.

  Devlin.

  Her knees collapsed when she took a step forward. She rose; the man had not moved. Scrambling, dirt in the cuts and the scrapes of her hand, she reached for his cloak and wrapped it as tightly around her body as she ever had a blanket after a terrible nightmare.

  “Anya,” her unknown companion said, speaking for the first time.

  She looked up at the sound of her name.

  “Come, child. This is not the place for you. I have killed one of the kin, but the other will return.”

  She shook her head, mute in the face of his words.

  “Child,” he said again, his voice not unkind. “There is no safety in anything but strength.” His gaze was as much a measure of her as Emily a’Martin had ever made when dressing her for church.

  Devlin.

  “You should not have trusted a boy,” he said, as if he could hear her thoughts. She would learn, later, that he could do exactly that.

  “And why should I trust you?” she demanded, with the thick layer of his soft, heavy cloak as her armor and her shield. The grass grew tall as her hips this time of year, and the goldenrod and milkweed taller still.

  His smile was cold as moonlight, as cold as silver; as cold, she thought, as the claws of the creature he had killed. “Because, Anya, I have power. What do you desire? If you wish to return to your home, I will take you there.”

  Devlin. She looked up at him, and the tears started, a thin, terrible train down the bruised mask of her face. “Where are you going?”

  “I? To my home, little Anya.” He held out a hand, and it seemed natural to her, as she met the absolute black of his eyes, that she should take it, and be comforted. “And if you wish it, you will find safety and warmth there.”

  “And who are—who are you?”

  “I? I am Lord Ishavriel.”

  She did not think to ask him what the creatures were. Did not think to ask him why they had come for her. Did not think to ask why he had been there, sword in hand, in the middle of a stretch of land between the free towns and the Western Kingdoms. There was only one question that burned at her, that burned more terribly than the pain that had, in
the end, driven her from the free town of her birth.

  And she could not ask it, and because she did not have the release of speaking it aloud, it consumed her.

  Devlin, how could you leave me to die?

  “Never trust a human, Anya a’Cooper,” Lord Ishavriel said. “For they want what they want so ephemerally, so pitiably. A human knows fear, and only fear; fear guides him, not oath or honor.” The moon faded slowly as he spoke. His voice was soft now, almost distant.

  “I am Lord Ishavriel,” he told her softly. “And I fear nothing.”

  He caught her in his arms as she fell, and brought her up and up to the center of his broad chest, cradling her as if she were a babe in arms, and a small one at that.

  The wind was a wild taste in her mouth. Ashes. Fire. Salt.

  When the demons came hunting him, he was ready.

  Not to fight; scant hours had passed, and he was no closer to home—or a weapon—than he’d been when they’d first come upon him. But the flight had broken something in Devlin a’Smith, and it was only hours later, stumbling with exhaustion into the hard crook between two large rocks on the side of a hill’s shelf, that he could even acknowledge it.

  He was a coward.

  Everything else that he’d ever believed about himself had been stripped away like the flesh of his finger; he was just as cowardly as the weaver’s weasel of a son.

  Aie, even that was a lie.

  He was worse. The weaver’s flaxen-haired boy had never once promised to love and cherish and protect. Had never, in words and in more than words, told a girl as trusting as Anya that he would be willing to—

  that he would die for—

  He was too exhausted to be sick; he’d been sick several times already, and none of them had helped; bile had scoured his throat and stung his lips and offered no relief.

  There was nothing I could do! He knew it for truth.

  Ah, but it cut, it cut because what he knew and what he believed didn’t quite meet. The words were a hollow, brittle shield behind which he could hide from the eyes of any man—

  Any man save himself.

  Oh, he tried; he still tried. For just a few minutes longer. No, it’s not true—I couldn’t have saved her. All I could have done was die. His death would have served no purpose.

  No purpose but this: it would prove that he was what he had always promised himself he would be. Brave. True. Honest.

  He could hear her screaming his name every time he stopped to rest. Could hear the terror in it, and then, worse, the terrible, terrible loss that came with, came from, betrayal.

  It ate at him, devoured him from within. But he could no more cast it off than he could the sunlight; he lived with it, as he could.

  When he saw the ebon shapes in the pale afternoon light, he was giddy with a terrible relief, although his breath quickened and his heart raced and his body desired to betray him.

  As it had already done once.

  It had killed him.

  But he had not accepted his death; there were stories like that, of bodies whose soul had already deserted them, and which had to be laid to rest. Just so.

  He could accept it now. He had no strength—and no desire—to flee. Swallowing, he saw the sunlight glisten off the sinews of their muscles, off the silver of their claws; only their eyes seemed to drink the light in, absorbing it, consuming it. They were the world; the trees lost color, and the goldenrod and the milkweed and the brilliant blue of forget-me-nots that were, that remained, the flower of Anya’s choice.

  And as he watched them, dazed, the sun bearing witness to this final act in the play begun an eternity and a nightpast, he thought that they were, in the strangest of ways, so terribly, terribly beautiful. That they were strong, that they were whole, that they moved with effortless, perfect grace, perfect strength.

  He wanted to close his eyes, but they held him, hypnotized, and he told himself, as the distance between the demons and the rocks grew smaller and smaller, that they were really only a doorway.

  A doorway, after all, to the Halls of Mandaros, wherein he might meet his Anya. Might meet her, and beg her forgiveness and—and ask her, as he never had, as she always asked him:

  Do you still love me?

  When the lightning fell from the clear blue sky without even the clouds to presage its coming, he blinked. It was a flash of incandescent light, a thing without thunder; it was almost beyond his comprehension. Almost.

  But it was not beyond the comprehension of the creatures who promised him, with the death they brought, reunion. For they were the field of his vision, and they were what the lightning’s fork sought.

  Could death scream?

  He learned the answer that late afternoon, watching, the rocks hard at his back, rough beneath his thighs, his calves. He cried out, as they cried out, and he could not have said whether the cry was one of denial or terror or relief; his heart froze as their shadows did, as they turned to look up, and around, seeking an enemy.

  Was it an act of Cartanis? Did the Lord of Just War ride, so late, to his rescue?

  A moment’s hope, and then it was gone, as much ash as wood fed to the fires. Cartanis was a warrior’s god, not a coward’s god; he would not raise a finger in aid of a man who had abandoned his responsibility and broken his vow. No god would.

  But then?

  Lightning, forked, blue and gold and white. Crackling with an intensity that broke the darkness. And the darkness, in this open day, walked on two legs.

  “THERE!” One of the creatures cried, and he turned—turned away from Devlin. A hollowness filled the young man, a hallowing emptiness. He opened his lips and swallowed air, choking on it as if it were water, or a very, very strong draught. His senses returned to him: He could taste the blood in his mouth, smell it on his clothes, and more besides: sweat, fear. He tried to stand. Legs that had carried him this far locked; they would carry him no farther this day.

  “The boy!” The other creature cried. “Kill him!”

  Ah, death.

  But as he waited, as the death came long-clawed and sudden, he saw the lightning for the third time. This time it was no tentative flash: it was a thing that caught. And held. And burned. He could not look; the white was so bright and the pain of the creature so visceral he had to bring his hands up to his eyes—and then, to his ears. But nothing took the smell out of his nostrils; it clung there, burning flesh.

  Burning flesh, as if the demons were, and could be, only flesh. In the end, there was silence and when the silence had reigned for long, for long enough, he opened his eyes.

  The shadows still waited, but they were no longer shiny, nor graceful, nor new; they were not black, but blue, a deep blue of the kind that only the evening sky sees. He followed their folds up, and up, aware that his gaze had started at the ground only when it finally met hers: violet eyes in a pale, careworn face. She held out a hand.

  “Devlin a’Smith,” she said softly.

  He could not speak. The world returned to him slowly, and the life. He stood, took a teetering step, scraped his hand against the gray-red of rock stained with blood; his blood; that was the shadow he cast. His hand ached terribly.

  She saw it, and her brow furrowed, but she moved slowly, as if afraid to startle him. He did not step away as she raised her other hand, and started once when she spoke in a language that was not language. He might have pulled back then, but she moved quickly, encircling his wrist with her hand.

  “So,” she said to herself, “this is how it was.” And before he could ask her what she meant, he saw fire start in her hand; a fire that was white. He closed his eyes.

  And screamed as she seared his flesh and bone away.

  He clutched his hand, stepping into the rocks again as he sought to protect it—and himself—from his savior. She spoke, but the p
ain still held so much of his attention the words were a tickle in his ear. He would wonder, later, if the words themselves had been significant.

  A moment passed; he stared down at his finger. No blood, no exposed bone, remained; the finger was puckered with an ugly red scar, but it was whole. A neater job than any save the Mother’s priestess might have done.

  But the Mother’s priestess would not cause so much pain in the healing; the pain of the cure lingered, and would, for as long as the pain of the cause, an echo; a twin.

  “Who—who are you?” And then, as a wild hope seized him, he added, “Anya—did you save Anya, too?”

  Her smile was graven in stone, cold and bitter; had he not been looking at her eyes, he would not have seen the flicker of pain in them. “I do not choose, Devlin, who I will save or who I will leave to death.”

  The hope left him in a rush, and he collapsed.

  “You cannot stay here. Lord Ishavriel will know, soon, that his servitors have failed; he will send others, and they will be . . . less easily disposed of.”

  “Who is Lord Ishavriel?”

  “I have already said enough, Devlin.”

  “He’s a demon?”

  “He is more than just ‘a’ demon. Come. If we debate theology for another hour, we will both perish. These creatures were blood-bound; even at this distance, he will feel their deaths.” She offered him a ringed hand; he took it.

  “Who are you?”

  “I? Call me Evayne.” She paused, and her violet eyes narrowed as she looked momentarily groundward. “Evayne a’Nolan,” she said, as if the saying of the name was costly.

  “You’re an Imperial?”

  “I’m a free towner. I was.”

  He relaxed at that; it made her smile again. The smile was not a comforting, or a comfortable, expression. “How do you know who I am?”