The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (47 page)

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.

“It’s women’s work,” they would mutter, into their cups or sleeves. He had, of course, a ruler’s means to compel obedience, but the words themselves would not give what he desired: egress into the Voyani world.

And so, of the peoples who made their living across the vast plains, the ones he could not quite fathom were the Voyani.

But something, Ramiro thought, was wrong.

The woman was terrified. She was not as wild and ineffectual as many of the Voyani were wont to be; she hid the fear behind a seemly mask. Could her terror be ascribed entirely to his presence?

He could not be certain.

He glanced at her; was certain she was aware of the inspection. She was, if he was any judge of character, accustomed to speaking freely. Was probably accustomed to obedience, if the Serra Aliera en’Callesta was correct in her surmise.

The Matriarch’s Daughter. Here, in the heart of Callesta.

The city unfolded in the darkness of a historic night.

Elena hesitated when the streets began to climb; hesitated again when they reached the flat plateau beyond which—by decree in all such cities of her acquaintance—they were forbidden any further height.

Both times, she had chanced to look up—if chance were something deliberate, and cruel—to see Lord Telakar, striding in raiment of moon and shadow across the winding road. He seemed a thing out of place, the essential wildness that lay at the heart of a desert tunnel, or the heart of a forest’s fire, when sticks of standing deadwood indiscriminately consumed everything in its path.

What do you want
? she thought, and realized—belated, and stupid—that she had never once asked this. Not of him, of course; she couldn’t trust any answer he’d give her, and she was smart enough—barely—not to want to anger him. But she hadn’t asked it
this
way, in words that she could shape and test beneath the tight line of closed lips.

Why?

Because she’d just woken up.

Because she’d been carried from the densest growth in the valleys to the height of the Callestan plateau. Because, even in slapping her, openhanded, his eyes intent, he made her feel not like victim, but like Voyani child. Voyani child in dangerous territory, where a misstep is death.

She’d struck children in her time. Wasn’t proud of it; wasn’t ashamed. When there
was
time for patience, patience was used. But she knew the difference.

She took a deep breath. Horse scent filled her nostrils, the insides of her mouth; strands of mane tangled in the rounds of her palms, the stiff curve of her fingers. Night in Callesta held none of the death that night in the Sea of Sorrows did by the simple expedient of existing.

Instead, it held the death offered by intrigue, the death that always surrounded men of power. Her gaze brushed the length of Telakar’s face.

Are you alive
?

No. Elena Tamaraan. I am not alive
.

Alive or not, he was beautiful. She hadn’t seen it in the desert. Wondered why she saw it now. He reminded her of the man who followed in the wake of Jewel ATerafin; the long-haired, pale-skinned lordling who defied desert sun, desert heat, and desert cold with the same nonchalance.

Yet she knew that that lord would have answered her question—had he condescended to speak with anyone save Jewel ATerafin or the Northern bard—very differently.

And so, she began.

You will kill the Tyr’agnate of Callesta
.

Silence.

You will kill the kai Leonne boy who would be Tyr’agar
.

Again, silence.

You intend no harm by your presence here
.

The words drifted, hollow and tinny, in the silence she had forced upon them. She knew this was a lie.

And she knew that the gift that she did possess, the gift she was possessed by, did not stoop to answer direct questions.

She shook her head. Once more. Once more.

You will carry information to the demons that will cause the death of the Tyr’agnate or the Tyr’agar
.

Again, silence.

Silence was better than the hollowness of lie, but it was less pleasant than the stabbing viscerality of truth.

She had her own instinct to go by; all that was left her. That and the certainty that he did intend someone harm by the journey he had chosen to undertake.

She stood in as Matriarch here. She would be identified as Arkosan. The Serra Aliera en’Callesta—the retired wife, the honored friend of the Arkosans in this city, and the woman to whom such rumors of war and the wayward behavior of the worst of the clansmen were sent, in Evallen’s youth—had marked her as clearly as a woman could be, and still retain any power in a city ruled by clansmen.

All cities were.

Had been.

Margret
.

Therefore anything that came out of the meeting to which they traveled would rightly be laid at the feet of the Arkosan Voyani.

The only way that Margret could distance herself from any tragedy or betrayal that occurred would be to disavow Elena Tamaraan; to choose another Daughter from among her younger kin.

And such a betrayal was only answered in one fashion, among the Voyani of
any
clan.

Not that
, Elena thought.
Not that; poor Margret. Not my death, too
.

And knew, the moment she thought it, that Nicu was indeed dead.

She sucked in air at exactly the wrong time; it was too dry and it scoured her throat, some tendril of malicious wind, of wayward breeze. She choked, losing her grip a moment on the mane of the horse; her knees locked in place and held her steady.

Nicu was dead.

Margret had killed him.

Aie, and where was she? Where was Elena, the only person who could truly understand what such a loss, such a death,
must
mean?

Here, at the side of a demon, the words
Arkosan Voyani
spread before her like a lie.

She rode.

They gained the plateau before Elena could think upon how she might extricate herself from her situation. Gained it before she could be certain to keep some room between Lord Telakar and herself. Only the horse guaranteed his distance; he traveled in front of the palanquin and behind the main body of horsemen; the Tyr’agar, the Tyr’agnate, and their two Tyran.

She wondered bitterly what the gatekeepers had said in their message to the Tyr; never in her life had she heard of two such important men traveling in such negligible numbers. Did not have long enough to wonder.

The Tyr’agnate himself came to stand by her side, dismounting with the ease of long practice. He paused for just a moment, and then he offered her a hand; it was gloved, but open; he carried no dagger, no other weapon.

The Tyran at his side stood, hand on sword hilt, in a posture with which Elena was much more familiar.

She hesitated, wondering if accepting his help was an act of weakness.
Think, idiot. Women don’t ride
. Of course it would be construed as an act of weakness. But such an offer, to a rider, would also be construed as insult, and it was clear from the way he stood that he intended none.

She was practical. She had tired, the horse was large, and her legs were shaking; she accepted his hand. Did her best to make sure that her dismount was not as clumsy and awkward as it should have been—or as it would have been without his support.

He said nothing, however. He allowed her to gain her feet and then stepped back, dropping his hand to his sword side, all hint of the gesture gone in that instant.

The boy Tyr dismounted, as did his man. The cerdan who had carried palanquin through the dark city streets deposited it with care and then retreated, retracing their steps back to the gatehouse. She wondered how long it would take those men to fall back into the boredom of nights punctuated by cricket, hunting bird, and starlight.

When Aliera en’Callesta had emerged from the palanquin, their party was complete; the Tyr’agnate bid them enter doors—the main doors—that had been drawn wide for just such purpose. The grounds of Callesta lay before them, a sea of shadowed trees, of captured light in transparent globes, of the flutter of insects drawn to fires that could not, by presence of glass, consume them. Elena paused for a moment, and drew a sharp breath.

Too audible; she knew it.

She saw the Tyr’agnate look down, a slight smile turning the corners of his lips skyward. “It is possible,” he said gravely, “that you will encounter the Serra to whom responsibility for these gardens belongs. No doubt you will be more schooled in expression at that time; in my limited experience with the Voyani, it is women who command their attention and their caution.

“Do not think poorly of me, however, if I recount your first expression upon seeing what she has labored over these past weeks.”

She smiled. For just a moment, the smile was genuine. Although the Tyr’agnate’s words were inflected in the manner of the High Courts, the meaning behind them was clear: He loved his wife, and he wished her to be honored.

It surprised Elena. She had not expected it, although in truth, she had not thought much about it at all.

“If I had time,” she said quietly, “and she considered my presence an honor, I would honor her gardens for the full three days before I took my leave. They must be beautiful beneath the Lord’s gaze.”

He nodded. “The face they wear is very different in the day, but, yes, I find them beautiful.”

He turned and set off down the path; she followed, aware that Telakar had joined her.

“He is not a fool,” Telakar said quietly.

“He couldn’t be. He is Tyr’agnate.”

“And none of the five Tyrs are fools?”

“Not one. Well, perhaps Garrardi—if rumor is to be believed.”

“But not this one?”

She was irritable; it was almost comfortable to be so. “No. Not this one; not the one who rules Mancorvo, and not the one who will rule the Terrean of Raverra.”

“These three?”

“They are the fertile lands. They are the richest. It is seldom that people starve here; seldom that they suffer from the lack of rain, the lack of water in the riverbeds.”

“It makes them soft.”

She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“Ah, yes. The armies will clash here.”

She said nothing.

Was trying to think of something to say when the world changed.

Swords were drawn beneath the night sky; the stillness of the garden was broken by the teetering dance of glass globes, and the bleeding flicker of spilled light as those globes fell groundward and shattered, scattering glass among the foliage, and wounding the leaves and the grass over which they passed.

She was afraid; sharply, deeply afraid.

She had no weapon to draw. The dagger was gone. She wondered if it would ever be replaced, or if it—like so much else that had
been
her life, had been replaced by the sharp edges of ice that hid in the shadows of the Lord of Night.

“Ramiro! Run!”