Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (30 page)

The sword froze.

Froze above her head, casting its slender shadow, even among the unnatural shadows that she herself had cast, and was casting.

But she saw no blade's outline against the ground that had broken before the sword's edge.

She recognized the profile of a slender, tall,
Kialli
lord. And she spoke his name. .

"Anduvin."

The shadow turned. The sword spoke.

"Kiriel."

"Now," Evayne said quietly.

"Now?"

"The young man, the one who has been fighting a half-goddess with the flat of an admittedly fine sword."

"He's not young, Evayne. You are almost at the height of your power, but so, too, is he."

She frowned. "Split hairs if it satisfies you. He has served his purpose. She has—inasmuch as she can—won the battle. Leave him here now, and she will lose the war."

"I have a feeling that he's not going to want to leave."

"No."

He swore in one of the several long dead languages he had spent a lifetime studying. Then he paused. "And why are you here, Evayne?"

"For the same reason you are, Illaraphaniel. Look: he comes."

"He?" And then he was utterly silent; completely still. Not even wind moved a single strand of his ivory hair.

"Do you recognize him?" she asked softly, because she looked to the man who stood between the rise of buildings in the narrow streets as if they were a forested wilderness, and not at the man who had once been her master in the Order of Knowledge.

"The Swordsmith," he replied, his voice flat. "I do not know what you have planned here, Evayne, but if it involves the Smith, it is poor planning."

"Perhaps. But our time is now, Meralonne. Will you stand in the shadows?" She gestured, and the hood that framed her face fell from it in folds; she was, in her master's estimation, almost as old as she had ever been when she had come to him. But she had none of the frailty of Sigurne about her; nor, he was certain, would she ever.

Without a word, he followed her into the street.

He bowed.

To her.

She snarled.

He rose at once from the gesture that obviously displeased her, his face devoid of something as common as expression. "Perhaps I misunderstand," he said, voice smooth as glass, but as opaque as the steel he had worked for her at Isladar's request.

"Misunderstand?"

"Is it not for fealty that you accepted the Lord's gift? Was it not to enforce the obedience of the
Kialli
lords that you accepted your title?"

"Do not," she said coldly.

"Do not?"

"Do not speak of that here. I am not in the Hells. It is
not
my title."

"You are not, indeed, in the Hells. And a number of the lesser kin have been dispatched to seek you."

"You are not one of them."

"I? No. I have the advantage of always knowing, of always having known, where you reside."

She started to speak; stopped. Looked down at the blade in her hand.

"Indeed," he said, again softly. "I do not, however, serve another lord, and it did not suit my interests to reveal that information."

"Does he know?"

"Lord Isladar?"

She swallowed.

His smile was infinitely cruel. "Of course."

"Did he send you?"

A very real ice in the flash of gray eyes. "I am not his keep, to be sent at his whim."

"You came at your own?"

"The sword," he said coldly. "I came because the owner of the sword has changed, and not with my permission. I travel… less quickly than Lord Isladar. It has taken me time to arrive here, in safety."

She froze, as cool in stance as he was in expression. The terrible heat of the urge to kill, the
need
to kill, dissipated a moment; her hand was no longer on fire. For the first time since she had fled Kalakar, she was not in pain.

"Do you want it back?"

"That is not the way it works, youngling, and you knew that when you accepted the blade."

"Maybe." She advanced a step. "But we could test it, now. I was a child. I couldn't offer you a challenge I had any hope of winning."

He laughed, not unkindly. "You are
still
a child. You cannot offer me such a challenge. I am bound to you through the blade. I know how you fight. It would be no contest."

"You said I was not the same."

He frowned. "I see why Lord Isladar valued you as a student. You are quick. Yes, you are not what you were; the blade knows. And you have killed so very little the steel has grown restless."

"And that's brought you here? These are not your lands."

"Yes," he replied, ignoring the second half of her comment. "That is what drew me here."

He turned, drawing her attention to where Auralis stood. "In the Hells, there were always deaths. There was always combat. Every creature with any memory at all was intent on your destruction. You could not rest except under Lord Isladar's care—and of that, I will not speak further. Here, you live fettered by mortal law and mortal command. I would not have thought it possible. I do not understand it now.

"But I understand this: The Covenant that you made in ignorance is binding. The blade needs what you have ceased to offer it, and you know this. You fight him; but you fight the blade as well. It has tasted his blood; finish him. Let the sword have what it desires."

"And that will end it?"

He favored her with an intent stare. And silence.

But she pressed him. "If I give you now what I refused you then, will the sword be mine? Will all connection between us be severed?"

His voice was surprisingly gentle when he replied; it put her on her guard instantly. "You did not refuse me, Kiriel. You refused the sword. Ultimately, it is the sword that must be satiated."

He gestured.

Auralis rose six inches off the ground, cursing roundly as he struggled against a force he could not see. Kiriel could; clearly. She lifted her blade to sever the power from the hand that controlled it.

And the blade swerved in her hand, and her hand burned, and Auralis grunted.

But again, the wound she caused was not substantial. Her arms and shoulders ached with the effort of that slight a cut; she looked up and she met Auralis' eyes. His face was almost never expressionless, certainly not when he was fighting, and only barely when he was gambling—which was his word for losing money, according to Alexis. But it was expressionless now. No anger there. No resignation.

But she knew that he knew he was going to die.

She cried out in Torra. In Torra, her mother tongue, if she could be said to have one. It was prayer and plea and curse in a language formed in a land whose gods were at best indifferent.

But it was said in the North, where the gods were something else.

She saw the orange light fade into summer gold; saw shadow struggle against it and fail; saw Auralis drop to the ground, grunt, and fall to one knee. He lurched to his feet, swaying there a moment before he planted himself firmly against the edges of the crater she had made in the road. They were going to pay for this later, if they survived. Perhaps they would pay for it now. It didn't matter. The Empire had no concept of suffering.

She wanted to approach Auralis; to ascertain that he was all right. But she knew that she couldn't. She couldn't go near him.

"Hello, Kiriel."

That voice. She almost forgot Auralis as she turned to look at the woman in midnight blue. "You."

"I know not who you are," Anduvin said coolly. "But clearly, Lady, you are a mortal force. Therefore, let me tell you that your interference here will likely cost the girl her life."

"In the old days," Meralonne APhaniel said, speaking for the first time since his spell had forced the release of the Osprey whom Kiriel clearly, and inexplicably, valued, "that would have been certain, But this blade was not forged when you had ties—legitimate ties—with this world."

The Swordsmith lost the steel of his expression to winter ice, and to something too intense to be simple cold. "
You
."

"Destiny works in strange ways," Meralonne replied. "But you are here, and I am here. And between us, one god-born child and one bleeding mortal."

"Thank you, APhaniel," Evayne said wryly. It passed unnoticed.

Kiriel lifted a hand. The hand that burned. "Hold. Evayne. APhaniel. Hold. I am in your debt. Take Auralis away. Take him anywhere safe."

"Kiriel—"

"Please."

Evayne lifted a hand. Let it fall. Bowed. "As you ask." She turned to the man.

He grimaced, his expression twisted with recognition. "And if I ask you to leave me be?"

Her smile was bitter. "I am always caught between two voices, two powers. At another time, Auralis AKalakar, I might choose to listen to yours."

"You'll pardon me if I pray to whatever joke of a god governs my life that there never be another time."

"Gods don't govern mortal lives. But pray, if you like. It's never done me any good."

He spit.

She said nothing, but raised both hands as Kiriel's blade also rose, moving in time with her movement, a silent harmony; a quick one. Orange fire fell upon him like a warm, summer rain. He didn't even bother to flinch. It didn't burn.

He did flinch when the blade struck.

And then he laughed.

For the first time in his life, he saw surprise, open surprise, in the widening of her eyes, the lifting of her brows. Her hood rose at once, to protect her expression, but the naked shock stayed with him.

The mage, motionless until her failure, stepped forward. "It is not defense," he said calmly, "that you require. It is Summer, Evayne."

And he, too, cast.

The Swordsmith smiled.

"You will have as much success," he said. "I traveled with the Queen in both of her seasons."

"There are more than two seasons," Meralonne said quietly. "We know well the ways of Summer and Winter, but the mortals are creatures of the spring and fall. They may surprise you. But if they don't," the mage shrugged. "There are other ways.

"Kiriel di'Ashaf." Meralonne APhaniel turned to her, bowing. "Is there anything else you wish to say to the AKalakar?"

"Yes."

"And that?"

"Why?"

The bleeding man said nothing.

"Auralis, why? Why are you doing this? Why didn't you run?"

"They'll call the magi," he said. "They'll kill you."

"But I—"

"You're either a demon or a rogue mage. Ask him," he added, pointing to Meralonne with a toss of the head, his gaze never leaving her face—but never meeting her eyes.

"And does it matter?"

"Kiriel, this is not the place."

"I don't know if there will be another place."

"Then I'm not leaving."

She laughed. Her laugh was not quite as sharp as her blade. "You've never been very smart. But—you've always been the worst of the Ospreys. I saw it in you the first day I met you; the shadows are cold and hard. Alexis, Duarte, Fiara—the others are different. You're like—you're very like—the lords of the South, the men of the Court."

He shrugged. "Can't argue that. Can't see it."

"Why did you stay?"

"Too stupid to run."

"Auralis—" She grimaced. Smoke, black and greasy, rose in a fine plume from her hand. The sword rose with it.

"You don't understand," he said quietly, as he stared at the blade through a sheet of twined orange and gold. "You never have. I don't give a shit if I die. I've got nothing to lose."

And before she could speak or strike again, he was gone. So was Meralonne APhaniel.

"Very clever," Anduvin said, looking at the woman in robes, speaking to the woman with the sword. "But the blade will find him if you so choose."

"I don't."

"But you do, little one. You don't want to die. You are fighting yourself in this. You are
only
fighting yourself. And you are losing. You are your father's child: survival is everything, and the only certainty of survival is rulership, absolute authority. Absolute power."

"I am more than that."

"You are not."

"I am."

"You are less; you are mortal. You will know age—and death."

She was silent for a while, struggling; she had never been good with words when they hadn't been used instinctively to wound.

It was Evayne who came to her rescue. "What knows age and death knows change, Swordsmith. What knows change will always retain the ability to surprise, to shock, even to delight something as jaded as a
Kialli
lord."

He was silent as he studied Kiriel.

And then he bowed, as he had done when he had first appeared. "Your… companion… has acute vision. There is much about you that is of interest. And it has become more interesting in such a short, short time. I did not expect you to flee the Shining City. The Lord was… angry."

Kiriel's sword hand was shaking. The sheen of the blade reflected no light.

"I did not expect you to be here, of all places, in the stronghold of the Lord's enemies. I did, however, find some amusement in your frustration—and subsequent humiliation—of Etridian.

"However, I do not lie. I had hoped for a different resolution to the problem I posed you when I gifted you with this blade. Take that mortal's life, and it will suffice, and you will own the sword; you will be ruler, and not ruled.

"It is not what I desired."

"And if I don't?"

"You ask me that? The blade has a voice, Kiriel, even if you cannot hear, it. It has a will that simple steel should not have been able to contain. I had not the skill to forge such a weapon before the Sundering. No Swordsmith did. There are Makers who might have created such a… thing… by summoning and by trapping one of the kin within its casing—but a sword of that nature would never be accepted as a true weapon by anyone of rank or power.

"I had the skill to exact a price for the blade; no more. But it was a bitter price."

"But you—"

"I understand the nature of the sword; I crafted it. I saw, in you, in the sword, in the single evening in which you strove to conquer it—a futile gesture—a symbiosis. You evaded the choice that had been laid before you; it piqued my curiosity. And more." He shook his head. "I will not speak of that. In the Shining City, you killed. And you killed. You had no choice. There is a beauty that comes with simplicity; the rules were simple. Were you there now, they would be simple still. Regardless, you fed the blade; the blade was satisfied. Had I known that Lord Isladar would kill the old woman—"