The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

“You trusted us so little?”

  She was silent. The Serra Teresa arranged her weight with care, stepping to one side so that she might better judge her expression. To her surprise, she saw that the old woman’s eyes were closed.

  “I am . . . sorry . . . cousin. Believe that I have carried the weight of this. Believe that the stains have never left my hands.” She lifted her head, opened her eyes, and met his again; his face was white. Dead.

  Only the Serra Diora sang now, and her voice was soft.

  “Why?”

  She flinched. “I had not thought . . . enough of you would remain . . . to ask that question.”

  “I am not Andreas. I am not Sergio.”

  “No. Of the three, you were—” She closed her eyes again. “You were my cousin. The closest kin to the bloodline that could be spared.”

  “For this?”

  “For just this.” Her words were bitter. “Against this night, against this coming day.”

  “You saw it.”

  “Yes.”

  He drew closer. Kallandras let his arms fall to either side.

  “Tell him, Yollana.”

  “Bard,” the Matriarch said, “stand aside. You cannot harm him, but if you do not step aside, he will harm you, and all of our losses will mean nothing.”

  “We cannot afford to lose you.”

  “You can,” the old woman replied curtly. “There are other Havallans, and if I fall, my daughter will rise to take my place. We must reach Mancorvo, and we must reach Lamberto soon, or we will have lost the war.”

  Lord Celleriant stepped forward, and placed his hand upon the bard’s shoulder, drawing him gently, and inexorably, to one side. “I understand now,” he said softly. “She is right.”

  The Master Bard of Senniel College turned toward his companion.

  “He can harm you. And although she does not understand it, you have the power to harm him. But that was not the price she chose. These three have hallowed the way; they have made it hers. But she must pay the price she bargained for, or we will be lost in the Deepings.”

  “The . . . Deepings?”

  “The Dark Deepings,” Celleriant replied. “The heart of the oldest forest in this world. I may find my way out, in time—but time is a luxury that you do not possess. Stay, and the forest will devour you.” He turned to the Matriarch. Gazed at her, his brows furrowing slightly.

  Kallandras bowed.

  The old man drew closer to the Matriarch; the last obstacle had passed. “I could kill him,” he told her coldly.

  “Yes.”

  He lifted his dagger. “Havalla?”

  “Tor Arkosa has risen,” the Matriarch said simply. “And Tor Havalla must follow in the years to come. But there is no way home for you, Marius. You are doomed to the freedom of the dead. I had hoped—”

  “That I would be Andreas, or Sergio, wild with anger and pain.”

  She was quiet.

  “And I am, Matriarch.”

  He lifted the dagger and before she could speak another word, he plunged it, with care, into her left eye.

  Teresa cried out in horror.

  But the blade sank an inch, no more, into the curve of that eye.

  Yollana did not grunt; did not cry out in pain. She stared at him now, from the eye that was left her, and in the growing light, Teresa saw the tears that trailed from it.

  The dagger grew insubstantial as morning mist.

  “You are free,” Yollana whispered, choking on the words.

  “And you,” he said, with malice, “are not.”

  He stepped back, weaponless now; he had done his damage.

  The boy was beside himself with rage. But the younger man watched in a cold silence, waiting until the oldest had joined their ranks.

  As one, they lifted their arms, their fingers pointing toward her in accusation, and then the dawn came at last, and the rays of Lord’s light that could penetrate the forest heights fell upon the ground, speckled and broken by branch and swaying leaf.

  That light, scant and meager, took root. The footprints that had served as guide along this hidden path reached for it, broadening, lengthening, covered the surface of earth and the rounded curve of roots with a long, thin stream of light that stretched forward—and back—as far as the eye could see.

  The Radann Marakas par el’Sol, absolutely silent until that moment, walked the path until it brought him to Yollana. He knelt before her, as supplicant, and offered her the open flat of two weaponless palms.

  She understood what he offered, but lifted her left hand to her eye and turned away, forcing Teresa to turn as well if she wished to continue to bear the older woman’s weight.

  “I have healed the Arkosans in my time,” he said softly, “and I have never spoken of what passed between us. There is a covenant between the healer and the healed that is not easily broken.”

  “Aye,” she said, pressing palm into wound, accepting a blindness that would never pass. “But there are things that I would not burden anyone with, no even a man who has given his life in service to the Lord.” She clutched her chest; blood trailed from her lips. “And there are things that cannot be healed,” she continued quietly. “A price to be paid that cannot, in the end, be revoked.

  “The road is open to us now. We must follow it while the light lasts; it will not last long, and if we are not quit of this forest before it fades, we will never leave it.”

  The Radann stood, brushing dirt from the front of his robe. He gazed at her a long time, and then said, “How did you quit it the last time? For you must have come here in order to . . . prepare the way.”

  “Do not ask,” she said coldly. “Never ask. Never speak of what has happened this eve. Were it not for the war we have chosen—or the war that has chosen us—it would be my duty to close the way to you.

  “Na’tere,” she continued, her voice losing ice and strength.

  “I am here, Yollana. We will walk this road together.”

  The Havallan Matriarch nodded, her good eye seeing the road, and seeing it in a way that no one who had not made it could ever understand.

  But she was tired, drained; she had no strength to spare Teresa the depths of her voice.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  14th of Corvil, 427 AA

  Terreon of Mancorvo

  MANY, many years had passed since Marakas par el’Sol had made the journey through the Terrean of Mancorvo, and although it was held as truth that once a man entered the service of the Lord, he severed all family ties, Mancorvo was the Terrean through which he had journeyed most often at the side of Fredero kai el’Sol. It was in Mancorvo that he had been healed, had healed, had learned to see the Lord that Fredero saw.

  He had thought to find it painful to return, for Fredero’s ghost was strongest in the lands ruled by Lamberto. But the kai el’Sol had never made the passage through the forests that defined its Western border. No wise men did; no men of the Lord.

  This was the accepted wisdom that governed Mancorvo, but Marakas par el’Sol had never understood the truth of that warning so clearly. He would not pass this way again, while he lived.

  He saw dawn clearly when they reached the path’s end, the unnatural light across the forest floor giving way, at last, to the shades and shadow of true day. Not since he had drawn Verragar for the first time had he felt the blessing of the Lord so keenly.

  He bowed his head a moment; it was a gesture of respect, as much of an obeisance as one could make to the Lord in the lands of the sun.

  He was accompanied by the Serra Diora di’Marano and her seraf; Stavos had fallen behind, had taken up his quiet position beside the Matriarch of Havalla. He did not touch her—in Marakas’ estimation, he did not dare—but hovered quietly by her side, as if he, younger in years, wer
e father, uncle, or brother. The Arkosans and the Havallans were not. friends. Although it was true that the Voyani claimed no home, they often chose to wander within the boundaries of a particular Terrean.

  Arkosa had claimed Averda; Havalla had claimed Mancorvo. Although they traveled the merchant roads openly between these two places, they seldom met, and never as friends. But a bond had grown between the Arkosan and the Havallan Matriarch. A bond and a debt.

  The Voyani were Southern in at least this: they accrued debt cautiously, and they repaid it—as they were able—in full. And so he labored, in silence, his presence almost ignored.

  The Serra Teresa di’Marano was crutch and cane; she spoke often to the Matriarch, and the Matriarch responded. It was the Serra Teresa—if she could be called that, robed as Voyani, and darkened even now by exposure to sun and wind—who fashioned a patch for the old woman’s lost eye; the Serra Teresa who placed it gently across her brow. The Matriarch allowed this.

  And he, man of the Lord, noticed. He had the excuse of observing a person of power—for no one who holds power is beneath the attention of the Radann—but in truth, it was not power which drew him, not a desire to observe one who might be, might yet be, enemy. Instead, he felt pity, and the painful desire to aid.

  His hands ached with it, as they had not done in years: healing denied.

  The Serra Diora di’Marano glanced up at his face, and then reached out gently to touch his sleeve. Surprised, he turned to face her, his chin lowering, his gaze falling. She was delicate, diminutive; her height forced his gaze down.

  “Serra Diora?”

  “We are in Mancorvo.”

  Not a question. But he nodded quietly.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “No.”

  “A pity. For I believe that we have been seen.”

  He lifted his head, turning toward the expanse of flat land, green and broken by rows of trees that spoke not of forest but of windbreaks. In the distance, he could make out a stretch of flat dirt that must be road, and upon that road, dust drifted up in a great cloud.

  “We have been seen,” Kallandras of Senniel agreed quietly. “Celleriant?”

  “There are twenty riders,” the Arianni lord replied softly. He turned, then, and looked not toward the growing cloud of dust, but rather, toward the only mounted rider in their group: Jewel ATerafin and the child she held so carefully.

  “ATerafin,” Kallandras said quietly. “Perhaps it would be wisest if you dismounted.”

  Avandar said nothing, but he came at once to her side and offered her a hand. The gesture was, on the surface, the perfect example of the domicis art, but beneath the polish of servitude lay the force of command. And there was only one circumstance in which he offered—which he dared to offer—command. She hesitated a moment, and he lifted a brow.

  “Ariel,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. The girl was awake, but barely, and she stiffened the moment Jewel handed her to Avandar. “It’s all right, Ariel,” she whispered quietly. “He’s a friend.”

  The girl’s eyes were wide and dark.

  “And he serves me. He is . . . like the stag. He will carry you, and he will allow nothing to reach you if it means you harm. Trust him,” she added, without much hope. “Trust him as much as you trust me.”

  And then, before she could think, she added, “Not even Lord Isladar could defeat Avandar in battle.”

  The girl’s eyes grew wide a moment, and then she nodded and turned away, burying her face against the domicis’ chest.

  He raised a brow above the tangle of her hair, but said nothing.

  What would you have of me, Jewel? The stag’s voice was regal. Calm.

  Take Celleriant, she told him quietly. Take him, and go.

  She thought he might refuse.

  “I do not like this,” Lord Celleriant said quietly, as he watched Jewel ATerafin dismount.

  Kallandras smiled.

  “The Kialli are abroad. Your human armies are scattered, and it is not easy to determine which is friend and which is foe.”

  Again, the bard smiled, but he offered no words.

  “I do not like to leave you.”

  “Nor I, you. I think I will find no better comrade in arms in the breadth of the Dominion. But you—and the Winter King—are a part of a different world, and we are not yet ready to declare ourselves.”

  “I am capable of bearing a lesser glamour.”

  Kallandras raised a brow. “You are capable of donning the appearance of mortality, but when you move, when you speak, when you walk, you deny its truth. I have never seen you sleep. I have seldom seen you eat.”

  Lord Celleriant shrugged. “I require less of the earth than you and your kind.”

  “Indeed.” He paused. Spoke again, privately.

  Brother, when you are needed, I will call. You will know when to come.

  It was not to Celleriant’s liking.

  “Remember,” Kallandras said softly, “who you must serve. The ATerafin has made her decision, and it is not without merit.”

  “I have served the White Lady for all of my life,” Lord Celleriant said quietly, “and she would never have divested herself of lords of power in enemy lands.”

  “She desires—is capable of—no subtlety. Jewel ATerafin has often been accused of the same, but she understands what is at risk in a way that you, my friend, cannot.”

  “I understand the Kialli. I understand the Lord they serve.”

  “And if our battle was in the Northern Wastes, you would be with us.” Kallandras bowed then, with perfect, fluid grace, as the Winter King joined him.

  “We will meet again,” Kallandras said quietly. “The war has not yet begun in earnest.”

  “I have no desire to come late to that field,” Celleriant said. He had sheathed his blade, and did not now condescend to draw it.

  “And I,” Kallandras replied, with more gravity, “have no desire to come to that field at all.” He bowed.

  Watched as the Arianni lord and the Winter King retreated into the outskirts of the forest.

  The Serra Diora di’Marano had been raised in the High Courts. It had never been the intent of her father that she become bride to the kai Leonne, but he had had his pride; if she was never to be wife to a Tyr, she was to be—in all ways—the equal to the women who would occupy that position. She sang, of course, but she sang well; she read, and she could write in a hand as perfect and delicate as the Tyr’agar’s Serra. She could serve sweet water and wine, could arrange flowers, hangings, the fall of chains of gold; she could make a room that was empty an elegant, even an opulent, place simply by becoming some part of its center.

  And she could recognize, at a distance, the golden glint of a half circle, six distinct rays rising above the sword that formed its horizon: the standard of a Tor’agar.

  At her side, the Radann par el’Sol stiffened. His hand fell to his blade, but he was cautious enough not to draw it; twenty mounted men were not wisely antagonized before one knew their intent. Or perhaps even after.

  As Serra, the option to draw such a weapon had never been granted her. She had a dagger, of course, but daggers in the hands of Serras were seldom considered weapons; they were defense of a last resort, and turned as easily inward as out.

  She did not draw hers. Instead, she lifted hand, pulled hood from her face, touched the strands of hair that now hung there, untended by seraf, unadorned by jade or pearl, by flower or comb. Her clothing was almost inexcusable; she felt a pang as she looked at the heavy robes and saw them as they would be seen by the men who now approached on horseback: dusty, dark with the dirt of forest travel, of desert travel, of too little water.

  She felt a moment’s panic; her palm still bore a faint, red mark—a blemish made more obvious by the pale, per
fect lines of a Serra’s skin.

  The fear—one she had not felt since she had stood at the heights of the Sen tower in the Tor Arkosa—told her that she had, at last, come home. It settled about her, familiar, unwanted.

  It must have shown. It must have, because the Radann par el’Sol turned to her at that moment and lowered his head.

  “I am sworn to defend you,” he said quietly.

  She nodded.

  She nodded, and she felt grateful, for she had no other family here; she was a woman, without cerdan, without brother or father—and such women’s honor lay at the mercy of the men they encountered.

  Margret would have been angry.

  She bowed her head, thinking it, knowing it for truth, and finding in that truth the strangest of comforts. Margret would be angry, when she learned of it.

  As the horses drew closer, the standard grew clearer. The six rays were unmistakable; the crescent sword the perfect horizon for the embroidered sun, and beneath it, in orange, red, and gold, a shield of fire.

  The clan Clemente.

  “The Tor’agar has taken to the road,” the Radann par el’Sol said softly.

  She nodded. But she did not speak; she had passed the boundary of the darkest of forests, and that border, paid for by the blood of the Havallan Matriarch, had been closed against them. There was only one way, and that, forward.

  She was once again a Serra of the clan Marano.

  Garbed in desert robe or not, she knelt in the tall grass, and her seraf, her perfect seraf, came to stand by her side, choosing, carefully, where he might best plant his feet to protect her from the sun’s glare.

  No one joined her; Jewel ATerafin did not bow, and the Havallan Matriarch, supported by Ona Teresa, stayed her ground with a bitter twist of her lip. The child that had come to them, like ghost or doom, in the heart of desert night, was held fast in the arms of the domicis; Diora was alone upon the ground, knees bent in a familiar posture of obeisance.

  But because she was gifted—and cursed—she heard the sharp intake of the Radann’s breath. She did not glance up to see his hand tighten about his blade; it would not be seemly, and besides, she had a good view of the feet that trampled the slender stalks of dry grass, and saw that he had planted them firmly apart in a sword stance.