Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown (11 page)

"You're a demon," she said softly, not to the child, but to
Isladar.

"I am a demon," Isladar agreed.

"The waters of the Lord would not even bear the touch of your
lips."

"Indeed."

"And this child—is this child yours?"

Isladar laughed, and the laughter was like a slow, deliberate
cut. "Not mine, no."

The Radann did not suffer the golden-eyed children to live.
And often, did not suffer their mothers to survive such an ill-omened
birth.

But… but the child had taken the waters of the Tor Leonne. Had
even, after a moment, been comforted by them, as any child would be.
Surely, if the Lord's waters burned at the very closeness of Isladar,
they would have harmed the child had she been of such evil birth.

Her arms tightened a moment as she gazed down at the sleeping
face, seeing in it so many sleeping faces, so many sleepless nights, so
many memories that had nothing at all to do with the baby herself.
"What is her name?"

"It is not important," Isladar replied evenly. "Either you
will accompany me, or you will not. If you will not, it is better that
you do not know."

Knowing the answer before she asked the question, Ashaf said,
"What is the choice that you have come to offer me?"

"You know it," he replied. "But I will say it, if you feel it
must be said. You may remain here, with your memories and your people
and your dead, or you may travel with me—a long way, and not a pleasant
one—and when we arrive at your new home, you will be given sole care of
the child until she is of an age to learn. Then," he said, seeing that
she intended to interrupt him, "I will teach her. To read, to write,
and to use what powers she may be gifted with. But when she is that
age, while I am teaching her these things, you will teach her, Ashaf
kep'Valente, to be human."

Her arms tightened again as she stared at a now sleeping
infant, thinking that the golden-eyed were demon-kin. Thinking that
they must not be suffered to live. Thinking that, for a demon's child,
this one was warm and light and scrawny, like any new life, any new
possibility. Arms tightened, hands shook; she had held each of her own,
her own precious burdens, just so. Each of them, wizened with new life,
free forever from the element of water, the body of the mother. Had she
begun each life with a prayer? Had she begun each new possibility in
both pain and in hope, and ended each—

Ah. She stood, babe in arms, history surrounding her like a
shadow family. Thinking, because she could not stop from thinking it,
that Evayne of Nolan had said this one, this only, important thing two
evenings past.

You will never have to bury her.

ANNAGAR

21st of
Scaral,
415 AA 
The Tor Leonne

Serra Teresa di'Marano was uneasy, and if she was very
careful, and kept her thoughts upon the festive celebrations, she hoped
not to put a name to that unease, for things named were things with
power. And she knew well that it was hard to rise above those things in
life that held power.

Her lips, turned up in a gracious smile, and her chin, lowered
just enough that she might not meet the eyes of the gathered crowd too
boldly, were steady, but these were the perfected surface of manner, of
grace, of social standing. And of these things, by necessity, the Serra
Teresa was master. Her hands, folded around the handle of an ivory fan,
sat in the lap her bent knees made; she wore a white silk sari, fringed
in a deep, sapphire blue, with golden stars and moon and sun
embroidered across the swath of the perfect cloth.

She was thirty-two years old, long past the first blush of the
youth men found so pleasing, yet even so there was about her a beauty
that endures, and the poets made much of the fact that long into the
twilight of her life—should the Lady will it—she might capture more
than the lust of men by her mystery and her strength.

Strength. A chill touched her beneath the skin—a night chill,
here, at the sun's height. She could hear the howling of the desert
wind.

"Teresa, you must be so proud. The children of Marano have
voices worthy of the Lord himself!"

Proud? Ah, yes. It was Serra Teresa's gift to the festival to
find those voices—young voices, as pleased the Lady—within clan Marano
that she thought noteworthy, and to train them so that they might, in
their unblemished innocence, in turn please the clansmen who gathered
in the Tor Leonne for the Festival of the Moon. If, she thought wryly,
such unblemished innocence existed, ever, outside of the boundless
realm of a poet's heart.

"Worthy of the Lord? But this is the Lady's Festival." She
smiled perfectly, gracefully, hoping the momentary unease would pass.
Then, remembering herself, she said, "Lissa, when we are not in the
harem, you must remember to use the honorific."

"Yes, Serra Teresa."

Lissa en'Marano, youngest of Ser Sendari par di'Marano's
sub-wives, was perhaps the Serra's favorite; she therefore spoke with
affection as she offered her correction. Had any of the important
clansmen—the Tors, or the Tyrs, although none of the latter were in
attendance— heard the comment, she would have saved the correction
until they returned to the harem, but upon return, would have been much
stricter.

And perhaps she showed a little weakness now. But it was the
Festival of the Moon, or it would be in three days, and she felt the
pull of that singular night of freedom already taking root.

Or she felt the unease growing.

The voices of the children were superb. An eight-year-old boy,
Na'sare—Ami's son—sang the praises of the Tor Leonne and its magical
founding, while the seven children at his feet—three boys and four
girls—added harmonies. A child's song could never attain the full range
of emotion that an adult's could, but there was a softness, a
sweetness, a delicate Tightness to the voice that one lost as one aged.
And in the telling of legends, with their ideals, their valor, their
optimism, what better voices to sing?

It was cold, in the heat of the day; the notes reached by the
thin, pure voice chimed a warning. She raised her fan; she was Serra
Teresa, and the showing of unease was not for a woman of her age and
her responsibility.

The Tyr'agar Markaso kai di'Leonne ruled them all, demanding
their service, and their death, when that death was deemed necessary,
as his clan's due. His line had ruled unbroken for hundreds of years,
untouched by desert wind and change of rain and shifting season. It
was, or so the songs said, the will of the Lord. The Lord respected
power.

As did the Serra Teresa.

The clan Leonne, led by Leonne the Founder, had vanquished
their enemies and rivals, and before the slaughter of the servants of
the Night Lord—he whose name was never mentioned within the
Dominion—they came to the Tor, seeking the blessing of the Lord of the
Day. For some said that the Night Lord was the Lord of the Day, given
dominion in darkness as well as light, and they wished a sign that they
did not act against the Lord.

Yet it was not the Lord who gave the sign, or at least, there
was no sign during the sunlight hours, rather it was the Lady,
worshiped only in a secret way that often ended with death when the
worshipers were discovered, who by her powers and mystery created the
lake beside which the Tyr'agar and his family—and all of their
descendants— ruled.

Water was the source of life and of blessing; thus was Leonne
answered.

And it was thus that the Festival of the Moon began— with the
tale of the Tor. And the Tyr.

The clansmen raised their whips and their crops in approbation
as Ami's son, delighted by the gravity of their approval, bowed low. He
held the dying note of the setting sun nonetheless, and Serra Teresa
smiled in spite of herself. The smile froze.

Unease?

The harpists shifted, silence descending as serafs moved with
grace—and speed—to take the instruments that the Northern bards had
inspired from their masters and return to them the more traditional
samisen. The children, nervous, looked over their silk-swathed
shoulders to her; she nodded gracefully, flicking the fan in her lap
either left or right as she reminded the youngest of how they were to
arrange themselves.

"The clansmen are pleased. Look! Tor'agar Leo kai di'Palenz
just nodded! This is a coup for Marano." Lissa again, soft-voiced, her
excitement coloring her words. The folds of her sea-green sari hid the
quickening life she carried; she was still small enough that she was
allowed out of the harem's confines.

"You recognized the Tor? Very good," Serra Teresa said. She
meant it. Lissa was new to the harem, and she had come from the lowly
family of a seraf who worked the lands Marano held; her familiarity
with the clansmen— and their leaders—was not yet all that it should be.
Frowning, she added, "but the title, Lissa, is Tor'agnate." The lowest
of the ruling clansmen's ranks. "Above the clan marking, the sun—it has
only four rays. No, don't squint, it is very unbecoming. There are four
rays, not six." Her smile was gentle. "Leo di'Palenz is one of the
Tor'agnati of the Terrean of Raverra; his title gives him the right to…
?"

"Four rays in the rising sun."

"Good. He serves the Tor'agar Carlos kai di'Morgana."

"Who is allowed to wear six rays above the rising sun."

"Better." The Serra's smile was soft and almost openly
affectionate—a rare public display. But it was hard, with Lissa, to be
anything less. "And he serves in turn?"

"The Tyr'agnate…"

"It is a good guess," she said softly, for it was, but
Raverra, of the five Terreans, had no Tyr'agnate; it was the heartland,
and it was ruled by the Tyr'agar. "But in this case, the Tyr'agar
himself is their liege lord." She did not add, but could have, that his
crest was everywhere in evidence within the city of the Tor Leonne, and
the Tor Leonne proper: the sun ascendant, with ten full, distinct rays.
There were only two men in the whole of the Dominion who were
privileged to wear that rank.

The man who ruled the Radann, the warriors of the Lord. And
the man who ruled the Dominion.

Crestfallen, Lissa nodded, but her smile brightened as the
clansmen settled into the mournful musicality of the samisen's long
notes. "Na'dio!" she whispered.

Yes.

Serra Diora di'Marano, halfway between four and five, was
slowly and gravely rising. Her porcelain face had not once slipped in
unbecoming smile; of all the children who had sought the comfort of her
fan-signal, Diora had not once, this concert, been among them. It was
because of her extraordinary ability to retain her sense of an
occasion's gravity that Serra Teresa had chosen her own niece to sing
the last of this cycle: The song of the Sun Sword.

She felt the cold; it was sharp and sudden, like the wound a
clean blade leaves.

Her hands were slightly whiter around the knuckle as she
lifted the fan.