The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (42 page)

Has the North so scoured you of grace, Serra
?

She turned to her husband; saw that his expression was entirely hidden behind the stiff mask of his face.

She knew what her duty was, then.

Knew it. “Serra Alina?”

The Serra turned at once, obedient, to face her.

“Did they not make the offer
to
the kai Lamberto?”

“Ah. No, Serra Amara, they did not.”

Amara almost closed her eyes. Almost. But it was a weakness, with her: she had to see, to know, to hoard the naked truth that she was certain she would not witness again.

“He was a boy,” The Kalakar said quietly. “And it was clear, from the campaign, that it was not a boy’s hand behind the commands that controlled that army.”

“They delivered their offer to the General who stood by the kai Lamberto’s side. They offered the General the safety of internment, in return for the kai’s surrender.”

Nothing that had been said this evening was as grave a shock to the Serra Amara as the Serra Alina’s words.

“But—but—”

Serra Alina nodded bitterly.

Serra Amara turned to the barbarous woman of the North. “Had you demanded the
General’s
surrender, in return for the safety of the kai Callesta, it would have been difficult, for the Northerners have no way of sealing their oath.

“But
that
would have been possible. Surely you must understand that no General could have acceded to the demands you did make?”

Ramiro’s hand touched hers. She felt it as a sudden warmth and a sudden pressure.

“We understand it now,” Commander Allen said quietly. He bowed, both to the Serra Amara and to the Serra Alina.

“And if there existed some method of changing the past, we would undo the damage we did, in ignorance, more than a decade past. Your ways are not our ways, Serra.”

But Serra Amara’s gaze was captured by the Serra Alina’s face.

She had never understood the Mancorvan hatred of the North until this moment.

How can you sit by the side of that boy
, she thought, clenching her husband’s hand—the hand that had been offered in command and in warning.
How can you sit across from these
 . . .
these barbarians? How can you work with them when they murdered your nephew
?

As if she could hear what had not been said, the Serra Alina spoke to the Serra Amara.

“The mercy of the North,” she said softly, “has often been mistaken for weakness.” She closed her eyes a moment. “I have spent twelve years in the Northern court. I have spoken to the Kings who rule it; I have conversed with their children. I have spoken to the men who serve it in capacity of war; who serve it in capacity of peace. I have seen . . . much . . . there to admire.

“But it was bitterly, bitterly galling to understand, in the end, that Ser Andreas died for the folly of their ignorance. They did not intend his death, Serra Amara. I know it. I understand it. But . . . I have returned to the Dominion, and the knowledge rests uneasily now that I am . . . home.”

She bowed her head. “It is not a mistake that Valedan kai di’Leonne would make. Would ever have made.”

As much an explanation as a woman could offer in such a terrible room as this.

“And you,” Commander Allen said, into the moment’s silence, “Serra Amara. What would you cede to your son’s assassins, if indeed the Lambertans
are
the hand behind his death?”

She was shocked. He turned to her, spoke
to
her. It was a question not even the bold would ask of her husband, the answer was so obvious. The question was an insult.

And yet, the man who asked it meant no insult; his expression was clear of malice, and free also of the mask of neutrality that served Generals in good stead. She turned to look at her husband; met his gaze. She knew how to read the subtle lines of his face, the careful neutrality of his expression.

But this eve, he offered nothing.

“It is not my place,” she said quietly. “It is not my decision.”

He seemed to accept this.

But he did not speak again, and the silence grew awkward. She had wanted the company of these people; she realized her mistake now. They demanded the intimacy of the harem without even understanding the demands they made. They were shorn of grace, these men, this woman.

“We did not kill the kai Lamberto,” she said at last. “And we will not pay the price of his death, if that is a part of their negotiations.”

“Not even if the price we pay for the lack of those negotiations is the death of the rest of your clan?”

She was shocked again.

Silence reigned, but briefly, and when it was broken, it was broken by the kai Leonne. She would remember this.

“Commander Allen, enough.” He raised a hand; there was, in his tone, a gentleness that did not belie the command beneath the words. “There are some prices that
cannot
be paid.”

Commander Allen was, indeed, silent, but his gaze crossed the table like the sudden plummet of an Eagle in flight. She thought of their names, of their Northern names, and understood them completely.

“Do you not remember the Mother’s judgment?”

Commander Allen said dryly, “The Mother judges many things. Of which judgment do you speak, Tyr’agar?”

“The story of Olivia and her children.”

“Ah.”

Serra Alina bent slightly across the table; she whispered a few words that did not travel the distance, and Valedan kai di’Leonne nodded.

“It is a Northern tale,” he said quietly, nodding gravely to the Serra Amara. “And it is long enough that I will handle its telling poorly. I will say this: She had a son and a daughter. In the South, the tale might better be told if she had two sons. But . . . it is a Northern tale.

“A son and a daughter, and she loved them both. They were young. Her bloodline was found guilty of treason against the Baron of Estrican—one of the Blood Barons who ruled before the founding of the Empire. But because she was his kin, if distant, he decided against the destruction of her family.

“He desired that she remember the cost of her crime, however, and told her that she might choose among her children: one would live, and one would die.”

“She loved her children. It was her greatest weakness.”

He said nothing for a moment. Serra Amara watched his face carefully. “The rest of the tale, kai Leonne?”

“She could not choose; they were young, but not so young that they did not understand what she had been offered. They were terrified, but as children do, they both believed that they were best loved, and that in the end, their mother would choose to spare them.

“And she knew it, of course. She would have fled with her children, would have taken the Mother’s oath, and forced it upon them. But the Baron was canny, and he understood her weakness well. He did not trust her.

“And he was wise. She accepted his offer, accepted his poison, and in the end, she told her children that the Halls of Mandaros awaited them all, and that she would never send them, alone, to the Lord of Judgment, although she told them he greatly loved children.”

Serra Amara said, simply, “She killed herself, and her children.”

“Indeed.”

“And what is the point of this tale, kai Leonne?” A bold question. The Serra Amara, stripped of gentleness.

“The Mother came to her daughters in the lands of Estrican, after her brother, Mandaros, had told her this tale. And in the lands of Estrican, while the Baron ruled, no healing was done. His crops failed. His children were left to suffer the ravages of plague and illness without her aid or her blessing.”

“Surely he did not allow this slight to go unpunished.”

“Indeed,” Valedan said gravely, “he did not. The Mother’s temples, within Estrican, were pillaged and burned—but he had little satisfaction in that burning, for they were left almost empty; the sons and daughters who served the Mother hid themselves among the villages and the towns that he claimed.

“And the Barons on either side of Estrican understood the weight of this judgment, and they offered no similar insult to her, and in time, when the Baron of Estrican was overthrown, his sons rebuilt the Mother’s temples, and did all that was in their power to placate her great anger.”

“Ah,” she said softly. “This Mother, this Northern goddess . . . she is not like the Lady.”

“No. She is not. But she understands well the parent’s heart, and she will not see it blasphemed.”

Commander Allen coughed into the cup of his palm.

“Commander Allen?”

“The parable is, of course, a parable of value—but it is not analogous. The kai Callesta is regrettably already dead, and his mother had no hand in the manner of his departure.”

“It
is
analogous,” Valedan replied quietly, “in the Dominion. Do not ask her that question, Commander Allen. Do not ask it again.”

“As you command, Tyr’agar. But I wish to point out that during the reign of the Blood Barons, it would have been acceptable to the Mother had he merely had all three put to death.”

“Indeed.”

“And in the end, it is the results that concern us.”

“The ends justifying the means?”

“In the end, the dead are dead. It is to prevent more death that we have come.”

Valedan’s smile was a rare one: it was cold.

But the Serra Alina di’Lamberto looked across to the Serra Amara en’Callesta. “Do you understand, Serra Amara?”

Serra Amara bowed.

This boy, this man, this kai Leonne with his Northern fable, was a man that even she would be willing to serve.

She turned to her husband. “We have already lost the towns along the border.”

He nodded quietly. “We have had no word, but our forces were there in no strength.”

“How great is the loss?”

“That remains,” he said softly, “to be seen. Alesso di’Marente is shrewd. He will not destroy the villages he has taken; he will use them to feed his armies unless he is forced to retreat. Retreat means that we will lose the villages entirely; he will raze them as he passes back toward Raverra. But if he holds true to form, he will attempt to fight his decisive battle before his army reaches the foot of the valleys.”

“Will he not attempt to take the valleys?”

“If he can, of course.” Ramiro’s smile was thin as blade’s edge. “But taking the valleys will require him to move through the Northern armies. Commander Allen?”

“The armies are ready,” the Commander said quietly.

“They can begin to move on the morrow.”

“Send word, then. We will join them on the plains, if they can hold the forces of Marente upon it.” He lifted his head. “Tyr’agar?” he said quietly.

Valedan nodded. “You know Raverra and Averda better than I; I will follow your lead in this.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

9th of Corvil, 427 AA

Terrean of Averda

“
W
AKE.” From a great distance, a single word. She understood it, but everything about it was unfamiliar. The voice. The cadence. The word itself, prefaced by nothing; no snort of irritation, no edgy amusement, no gruff annoyance.

No warmth.

She saw darkness. Into night, the single word came again, unchanged. She listened and heard it: foreign, strange, unfamiliar. No voice of hers.

She was used to waking in sunlight; to sleeping in sunlight; used to waking in dusk or at the edge of dawn; used to waking in the dead of full moon. If there was a rhythm that punctuated her life, it was the lack of routine. The only demands were those of the open road; the weather in the Terreans, the season, the possible conflicts brought to the Voyani—or carried by them—and the clansmen.

She was accustomed to shedding sleep the way waterfowl shed water. But this sleep was heavy, and it lingered in her limbs, like the edge of sickness.

“Daughter of Arkosa,
wake
.”

Ah, a change in tenor.

Anger. Fear. Something that hovered on the edge that separated them.

She woke.

Saw starlight, saw the moon’s face, slipping by sliver of gray into nadir; woman’s face, veil falling. The stars were her stars. The air was warm.

Elena struggled to sit.

She felt something between her lips, her swollen lips; water trickled from the corners of her mouth before she remembered that water was precious. She curved those lips, tightening them around the mouth of a waterskin.

Her hands were shaking; she forced them to rise, lifting them as if they were weights. They worked against her until she lost moonlight and looked at the person who held that water.

He held her gaze for long enough to be certain that it no longer wandered, and then he waited until she took the burden he carried.

Had she not been so thirsty, she would have refused to swallow.

He rose. She was not comfortable with the sudden difference in their height, but she could not stand; her legs were weak.

The robes that had been graced by blood, rent by sword, were now whole. “Elena Tamaraan,” he said quietly. “Where are we?”

It was not what she had expected to hear. If indeed she had expected Lord Telakar to speak at all.

The Lady was gracious this eve; Elena’s vision, better than Margret’s in the night sky, was not so good as Adam’s; she could see the lines of the creature’s face, but they were softened by shadow. She knew that he could see her clearly.

She drank in silence.

“Elena,” he said again. “I asked a question.”

She nodded. “I heard you.”

And dropped the waterskin as his hand struck her face. It was a brief gesture, and no hint of its violence marred his perfect posture when she turned to face him again, her eyes stinging from the pain of the contact.

“You are no longer among your kin,” he said softly. “Learn to speak with grace, if you choose to speak at all.” His lips turned up in a smile. “You no longer carry a weapon. If I am not mistaken, you shed it in the desert.”

Her hands stilled.

“Now. Where are we?”

She could see trees in the darkness; the moon had risen above their tops; the forest was sparse.

But the stars were familiar. Stars.

She was alive. By the Lady’s grace, alive. And any gift the Lady offered was to be treated with respect, with fear, with caution.

But she accepted that gift; with life came possibility.

So she looked. She studied the stars. She listened.

And in listening, she felt the cold of the desert night, although she now knew that the desert was far, far away.

It was absolutely silent. She heard her own breath; heard the rustle of her shirt against the trailing folds of desert wear. Heard the wind’s voice in the distant branches.

But that was all; there was no other sound in the clearing. No insect song, no cricket dance; no movement of light carried on the back of night flies. There was no hunting cry; no owl voice, no padding through the undergrowth that spoke of waking predator.

“It’s too quiet,” she said, without looking at him.

“It is quiet, yes.” He moved in the silence, part of it.

“Is this—”
Speak with grace
. “Are you responsible for the silence? Is it like the heartfire?”

“I do not know what the heartfire is,” he replied. “But I am responsible for the silence.”

Some changing current beneath the surface of his words made her look up.

“It is . . . interesting. It appears that life, no matter how little sentience it possesses, is aware of my presence. Of what that presence entails.”

She said nothing.

“It is unfortunate as well. It appears that I am never to return to the forests of my youth upon this dwindling plane. The silence follows me.”

Something about his words. She frowned. “Are you not alive?”

He lifted a hand; it made a shadow against the moon’s face. “Alive? No, Elena Tamaraan. I am not alive.”

His voice. The Voyani almost never spoke softly; their voices, like their skin, were cracked and harsh. Before she could consider the wisdom of her words, she said, “Were you ever?”

He turned to her then, and knelt. Kneeling, he was taller than she; she reached his shoulders, if that. Felt dwarfed by his presence. Threatened by it, and Elena was no girl. But he did not raise hand again.

“Why do you ask?”

Had he been Voyani, her answer would have been couched in flippant nonchalance. She bit back that reply. When you traveled the
Voyanne
, you learned how to keep a safe distance when distance was necessary.

Here, now, she doubted it was possible.

“I don’t know. If . . . someone else . . . had said what you just said, I’d probably ask them if they were a ghost.”

His smile was silver. Too long, too thin.

“Ah. But?”

But I don’t want you to hit me again
. “You aren’t a ghost of mine.”

“Indeed.”

“Too solid, for one. Too cold.”

“Cold?”

She laughed; it was a forced sound, and it died quickly. “We don’t trust anything that’s too hot or too cold. Either one is a desert in the making.”

“We.”

“The Arkosans.” She paused. Her feet were finally waking, and they ached beneath the weight of her legs. She wanted to rise; was afraid that he’d forbid it. She lived with the discomfort. “The Voyani.”

He shrugged. “Your trust is not of concern.”

“No.” She returned the shrug with care, watching his hand. It was still raised against the moonlight’s fall, dark and still; the trees knew more motion than he did.

Hells, statues probably did.

“But your description is of interest.”

She was not born to the clans; she made no mask of her face. Expression moved across it with quickness and ease.

“Mortals have changed much, diminished much, with the passage of time. But we were often described as a cold people. I understand what was meant by it in the past; what do you mean by it now?”

She stared at him as if he were mad.

Saw his hand shift slightly as it hovered in the air.

“I . . . don’t know. I don’t have the words for it. I’ve never really thought about it before.” Although his expression was absent, she struggled to find words now. “Distant. Remote. Merciless.”

“Ah.”

“And heat?”

“Too quick to anger. Too quick to do anything, really.”

“Passionate?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“Among my kin, I was not considered cold.”

“No. But among their kin, neither are the clansmen of the High Courts.”

“There is a difference,” he said softly. “Among their kin, the clansmen of your High Courts have trust. Among my kin, it was always considered an entirely mortal conceit.” He rose. “Where are we?”

“The Terrean of Averda.”

“Is that what these lands are now called?”

She nodded. “What—what were they called before?”

“Before you were born? I don’t know. But when I walked these lands last, they were wild places. The earth woke here. The valleys were not so low, not so silent. They are silent now.”

They were. She swallowed air, and struggled to gain her feet, hoping they would hold her. “No,” she said quietly. “They aren’t.”

“You have nothing to compare them against.”

“I have. I’ve walked these valleys by day and by night; I’ve passed through the villages that they hold; I’ve spoken with the people who tend the lands.”

“They are,” he said coolly, “little better than cattle; if they speak, they speak in voices that not even the wind chooses to heed.” He waited until her legs stopped shaking, watching her in a darkness she was certain did not inconvenience him. “You yourself have said as much, Elena.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Do the Voyani now claim to be shepherds? Do they claim some touching concern for the welfare of those outside of their boundaries?”

“What boundaries?”

“Arkosa.”

“I don’t speak for all of the Voyani. I don’t speak for the Arkosa Voyani. I speak for Elena. For me. If you want authority, go back to Margret.”

“Margret?”

“The Matriarch.”

“Is that a family name? Margret?”

“It’s a name.” She shrugged.

He laughed. “Sen Margret,” he said quietly, “was the founder of your wandering clan.”

She thought about correcting his use of the word clan, and decided against it. It wasn’t hard to curb the words.

“Who was Sen Margret?”

“Do you honestly not know?”

“Lord Telakar,” she said, struggling to keep her voice as even—as respectful—as possible, “maybe you have all the time in the world. I don’t. I don’t ask a question like that if I already know the answer.”

He was perfectly still for a long moment; Elena thought he would slap her again, and she braced herself.

But instead he said, “Fair enough. Sen Margret was an adept of the Sanctum.” He waited. After a moment, he shook his head. “You have lost your history,” he told her.

“Maybe. Maybe it’s no longer ours. Maybe we only live long enough to make history, not to remember it.”

He laughed. “Why did you seek to save me from the City?”

The moon was bright. “I don’t know. Why did you interfere with the other demon?”

“Ah. I
do
know,” he replied. “But I do not think that this is the time to discuss it. Nor the place. Come, Elena.” He began to walk.

“Where?”

“Where?”

“Where are you going?”

“We,” he replied, “are going to pay a visit.”

A visit? She closed her eyes. “Lord Telakar?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

He was silent. After a moment, he said, “By that, do you mean to ask what I intend to do with you?”

“To me.”

“For the moment, nothing. You are mortal, you are of these lands. Over the rise of that ridge, there is a city. It is not large; it is not—in any way I once understood the word—a city of note. It is flat, its buildings of stone and dead wood; people huddle behind its walls as if they think to find safety there.”

He shook his head. “But there is no safety in such a poverty of power. Can you feel it, from here?”

“Feel what?”

“The city.”

“No.”

“No. Nor can I. It did not draw my attention in the way the old Cities once did. But it is there, and if I am not mistaken, it is the city in which the man who claims to rule now resides.”

“You mean Callesta?”

He shrugged. “We will travel there.”

“On foot?”

“Unless you wish to travel in another fashion, yes.”

“How did we get here?”

“There is a reason, Elena Tamaraan, that you remember nothing of that passage.”

“How—how long has it been?”

He shrugged again. “Days. Weeks, perhaps.”

There was no road beneath her feet; she had no way to judge the distance.

She said, “If we’re in Averda, we can find my people.”

“They are in this Terrean?”

She nodded. “Most of them.”

“And you wish to take me to them?”

Silence, then.

He laughed. “Come.”

He walked for hours.

Hours, as the passage of the moon shifted, and shifted again, changing the face of the sky.

She was used to walking. Although she was Margret’s cousin, the daughter of the Matriarch’s sister, she disliked the closed walls of the wagons, and where possible, she avoided them. Especially in Averda.