The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (74 page)

“Then accept the curiosity and the mute awe of strangers,” he replied gravely. “Because accept it or no, you will receive it.”

“Jewel ATerafin is not noted, among The Ten, for the grace with which she accepts the inevitable.”

“Why, thank you, Avandar.”

The domicis offered her a shadowed smile, and she realized that it was one of the few he had offered in a very long time. “Understand that the Tor’agar plays no game,” he said quietly. “You’ve never been on the field in a battle.”

“I’ve been in battles before.”

“True enough. But you had the luxury of command in those situations; you have no such luxury here. While you can hear him, while he can speak to you, the course of the combat
is
his. Do not forget this.”

She nodded stiffly.

The stag entered the courtyard and came to stand before her; she stood in the cage of his shadow, staring up, and up again, at the length of his neck, the length of his jaw, the proud lift of his head.

She could almost see the man in the creature, and as always, it disturbed her deeply.

Come
, he said.
If I am to be servant, and I am not disturbed, you have no cause to trouble yourself
. He bent, his forelegs kneeling into the flagstone that seemed so out of place in the South.

She nodded and reached up, gripping his antlers in the palms of her hands. He rose as she slid over his neck and across his withers to the slight curve of his back. Then he turned to gaze upon the cerdan; Jewel turned as well, seeing them from the vantage of height and safety.

The Tor’agar had joined them in silence.

He met her hesitant gaze, his own unblinking. “So,” he said softly, “it appears that we saw no mirage on the road.”

“We thought it . . . best . . . to . . .” her voice trailed off.

“Had you arrived in the presence of any less a man of the Lord than the Radann Marakas par el’Sol, I think we would consider you as great a threat as the one we now face. But I am well aware of who his master was, and I know how far he will go in his odd pursuit of honor. You walk out of story, Lady, and the stories of the South are not kind.”

“It seems very little about the South is.”

Avandar’s frown was a thing more felt than seen.

“Kindness is often ill-rewarded,” Ser Alessandro replied gravely. “As you will no doubt see, should you remain in the Dominion. I have not asked you why you have journeyed South, and perhaps it would be prudent to have such an answer.”

“It would take far, far longer than you have,” Avandar said, bowing.

“No doubt. But when we have the time, it is a story I would like to hear.” He turned to his cerdan. “Enough. The gates are open, the stables are waiting. Bring me Quick-heart, and ready yourselves; we ride to join the rest of Clemente.”

Moonlight crested the horizon before the sun’s light had faded; the dark of night had not yet banished crimson and orange gold from view. Against this backdrop, the cerdan of clan Clemente rode behind their leader and his Toran. They were silent, although the hooves of shod horses spoke in a clipped, steady thunder, the drumbeat of war.

Lord Celleriant went unmounted; Kallandras and Avandar accepted the offer of horses, and rode to one side of the Tor’agar. But although the Arianni lord followed the paths by foot, he did not fall behind; indeed he disappeared for long stretches, following the road and the shadows trees cast across it. Every time he disappeared, the cerdan spoke; every time he returned, they spoke again. Only the Toran and the Tor’agar seemed immune to his presence.

Jewel watched them all, nervous now.

She had told the Tor’agar she had seen battle, and she had. But she had never seen it shorn of all her den. Never seen it at the head of a small army. She might have said something, but there was no one to say anything
to
.

There is me
, the Winter King said quietly.

She had thought he would be amused.

Not this eve
, he replied, his voice rich and somber.
Can you not feel it, upon the wind
?

Feel what
?

The servants
, he replied,
of the Lord of Night
.

No
. But as she spoke, she realized the words were a lie. She could not see, could not hear, the enemy—but she was aware of them.

She wondered whether or not she should speak with the Tor’agar. In truth, she didn’t much care for him. He was cold, and obviously fond of the rank he held.

Do not mistrust power so openly
, the Winter King said.

Why not
?

You will be one
.

Great

Power is the only way to ensure that your law and your justice prevails
.

I thought you said I was weak
.

You are. You have chosen weakness
, he added quietly.
It is a choice that I could never have made
.

Would never have made, you mean
?

They are the same, your statement and mine
.

Understand, Jewel ATerafin, that the power you will wield will never be whole. It will be broken. It will be tested. It will never be a certain fortress
.

You say this to me? When you look like
—

I say it because I can
.

I’m . . . sorry. That was unnecessary
.

It is hard to choose the power you have chosen
.

There is no other power, for me
.

No. But
 . . . His voice, devoid of amusement, was stark and uncomfortable. Great, she thought, attempting to keep the words to herself. I’m now only comfortable when I’m being mocked and condescended to.

It will be hard not to be twisted and broken by the sacrifices you must make. It is easy—for you—to contemplate death. But only as long as it is your own. Learn to contemplate others. Learn
, he said softly,
to be unbowed by them
.

I can’t
—

You can. The Terafin does
.

You know nothing of The Terafin. You’ve never even met her
!

I know
, he said quietly,
what you know
.

Leave it alone
, she told him. Just that. But she was uneasy again. How much of her life had she given him, in the silence of musing and thought? How much more of her past did he know?

She seldom gave him orders. And if she was honest, it was not what he knew that troubled her—it was what Avandar might also have gleaned.

If the Winter King heard her, he did not choose to acknowledge the thought. Instead, he turned his great, tined head toward the horse which bore the Tor’agar. Without order, he began to canter toward the stallion, Quickheart.

The stallion, unlike the men, did not view him with awe, although suspicion was there.

“ATerafin,” the Tor’agar said. “Does something trouble you?”

She nodded.

His face, in the moonlight and lamplight, was dark. “Speak plainly, as is your custom. I will take no offense. In times of war, much is excusable, and much excused.”

“The servants of the Lord of Night are ahead of us.”

She spoke in Weston, out of habit.

After a moment, he replied, and his Weston, unlike her Torra, was strongly accented. “Do you know their numbers?”

She shook her head.

But he marked the hesitation in the gesture. “Speak,” he said, the word inflected and brusque.

“More than one, I think,” she said at last. “Or one very, very powerful one.”

“Do you know much of these creatures?”

“More than I’d like,” she said, without thinking. And then, when the Winter King’s snort invaded the silence, she added, “I’ve seen them fight before.”

“And one is a danger?”

“A big danger, no matter what its power.”

He turned and lifted a hand, by gesture calling for a halt to the march.

She took advantage of it; she waved Kallandras forward. He came at once, in perfect silence. “ATerafin?”

“Has Lord Celleriant discovered anything?”

“Not to report, no. But he is . . . uneasy.”

He looked anything but.

“Is this the same kind of uneasy he was in the desert?”

Kallandras stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled; it was a slight smile, but it seemed almost genuine. “Yes.”

“And there were five. No, six.”

He nodded.

The Tor’agar nodded as well. “Thank you, ATerafin.” He turned to the Toran and spoke quickly and quietly; his words did not reach her ears.

But they didn’t have to; their meaning was made plain when the Toran wheeled and rode back into the column. When they appeared again, they bore two bows.

They gave these to their Tor, and he in turn gave them into Kallandras’ keeping.

“I need not tell you,” he said, although plainly he did, “that these are of value to me; we have few fletchers in the South, and they are not of note.”

“The bows are of Imperial manufacture?”

“Indeed.”

“We will return them to you before we depart these lands,” Kallandras said. He bowed. Something about the bow was subtly wrong, but it wasn’t until he rose that Jewel realized what it was: It was entirely Southern. It suited him.

The Tor’agar was silent. At length, he said, “I do not like this. I had hoped that you might strengthen my men by presence alone.

“I release you,” he said coldly. “From my command and my service. Go as you will; do what you must.”

Kallandras nodded. “The ATerafin?”

“She, too, must follow her own course.” He was silent a moment, weighing words. At length, he shifted into Torra. “We will buy time, if that is possible. My cousin will not . . . attack . . . before we have finished negotiations in Damar. But I do not know the servants of the Lord of Night; I do not know the intent of Marente. I cannot say what they will do.

“I am the Lord’s man; I can guess. Whether they stay their hand or not will depend in large part upon what we are seen to do—and if we are seen in the company of . . . the ATerafin’s mount, and her liege—”

“Understood,” Kallandras said. “Avandar?”

Jewel turned to look at her domicis. It was funny; he had shed the menace and strangeness of the desert and the mountain, and she had chosen to allow it; she accepted his presence as if he was still a complicated, condescending domicis.

The stag moved beneath her stiff legs; the night was cool.

Avandar’s profile faced her; no more. But his expression was distant, his eyes dark; he seemed taller in the shadows of night.

He swiveled his gaze; caught hers and held it. “What would you have of me, ATerafin?”

A hundred answers came to her lips, and a hundred answers died before leaving them. She could not see the whites of his eyes. She could see something akin to gold instead, and it burned. Her hands gripped folds of skin and fur as she met those eyes and held them.

“Avandar Gallais,” she said.

“Yes?”

Not enough, Jewel
, the Winter King said, and his voice was the soul of ice.

“I want you to be Avandar Gallais.”

“Is that not what I am?”

She lifted a hand then. Lifted an arm. It burned in the cold of night, and she knew which arm she had lifted; what lay upon the surface of skin, beneath the folds of rough cloth.

“It’s not all that you are,” she replied. “I—I know this.” She bit her lip and let go of fur for long enough to shove the hair out of her eyes. “But this is all that
I
am, and I . . .”

He waited. In silence, the time passed, and it was time they did not have. She knew it.

But she was afraid. It was night. Night now. Maybe in the day—

Pretend
, she thought.
Pretend, for just a little while longer, that that
is
all you are
.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, because even thinking them, she despised them.

“How many people are in the village?” she asked instead, and felt the Winter King’s bitter disappointment. Surprising, how much it could sting.

Avandar seemed to grow taller. The arm he had lifted—and he had lifted his arm, although when, she couldn’t remember, fell back to his side. He offered his profile for her inspection, but it might as well have been a wall.

The Tor’agar frowned. He was not a stupid man; he was aware that something had passed between these Northerners and the stag that was both significant and beyond his grasp. It did nothing to improve his temper.

“Ten thousand,” he said curtly.

Ten thousand. She thought of telling him that “village” was not the word she thought it was, at least not in the North. “How many—”

She lifted her hand. “No, forget it. I’m sorry.” She ran the back of her hand across her eyes. “Tor’agar.”