Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (61 page)

He was so surprised, he forgot to cling. He just stared at her. She was probably used to it by now.

She met his gaze, held it. In the end, it was he who looked away.

"'Lena—"

"It's been hard," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken or looked away. "On Margret. On us. I thought we'd never be able to work like that after the—after…"

He lifted a hand. It was easy. Here, in this darkness, he felt only the lingering warmth of her hand, the sweet surprise of her words.

He wanted the moment to last forever. He thought, if he knew what to do, what to say, it might, and the fear crept into the moment, heightening it. He had never been good with words.

As if she could hear the words he couldn't use, she said, "It was hard on me. I'm sorry, Nicu. But—tomorrow, we have a chance to really put everything bad behind us. We have something to prove—not because we're too young, but because it's
now
, and the Lord of Night has shown his hand. The Lord of Night." Her eyes widened as she stared at a point just past his shoulder. "He's here," she said softly. "Understand what that could mean for all of us."

He didn't want to ask her what it could mean, although he had no idea what she was talking about. She had never loved stupid men, and he felt… stupid. "This must be something only Matriarchs know." The voice was harsher than the words.

She caught the hand she had released in both of hers. "It is something anyone who walks the
Voyanne
should know. What do we vow?" Her voice was both softer and more pointed than the voice she used in open sunlight. He listened because she held his hand and he did not want her to let go.

But he had no answer to give her. He thought the scent of sweat and cinnamon lay across her skin; that the sand and dust in her hair was like a crown. He loved that she was strong enough to do the work of men and quick enough, intemperate enough, to do the work of women.

"Nicu, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"

In the darkness, there was no blush. "Yes."

"How am I supposed to be able to tell?"

"I'm not interrupting?"

She laughed; the sound was brief, but it was genuine. "I count that as a point. Yours. Pay attention."

"Yes, 'Lena."

"We left Arkosa for the
Voyanne
partly as penance and partly to serve as the sentries that walked old roads. Remember?"

He did remember some of it. His mother had spoken of these tales when he was a boy, before he had developed a man's impatience with being coddled and treated like a child.

"Of the penance, we do not speak. Speak it now, Nicu. Tell me why we were forced from our homes."

He shook his head.

"Nicu, if I ask anything else of you in the next three days, and you ignore it,
but
you answer this question now, I'll forgive you. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"We— 'Lena, why does it matter? We're not whatever we were then."

"We're Arkosan," she said softly. And then, before he could continue, added, "And that's not true. Of all of us, Margret must be what the first Matriarch was. It's a burden—because the rest of us remember so little."

"Why do I have to answer when you already know?"

"Because I want to know that you know."

"I don't want to play this game."

"—and if you don't know, I want to tell you." Her hands did not let his escape.

"Why? It's all a story, right?"

"You know it's not, Nicu. We lost
Arkosa
because the lords of that city chose to ally themselves with the Lord of Night."

"That's not true!"

"It is not true that
all
of them served," she said softly. "But I… believe it is true. We were not, then, his mortal enemies. And although in the end we became so, we must have done great harm."

"Elena—"

"There were more than four Cities at the Fall. But only four Families survived, bloodlines and memory intact."

"And what are the clansmen?"

She spit, the reflexive reaction to such a question. "Who knows? The servants of greatness. The slaves." She shrugged. "I cannot speak for the men of the clans. I can barely speak for the Voyani. We left to wander the open road. We left to bear witness, to stand watch. I'm sure of it. And the time has come for the sentries to finally,
finally
, stand their ground, take up arms, be counted. Make a difference."

He was completely silent. Shocked. He no longer felt the warmth of her hands; they were ice or stone around his. After a long pause, he said, "And what then?" because he could think of nothing else to say.

"What then? Then," her voice was quieter now, calmer, but no less frightening, "we go
home
: But there is no home for those who cannot stand against our enemies. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Truly understand?"

"'Lena, what else can I say? Yes, I understand."

Her grip tightened and then relaxed. "Good. I'm trusting you, Nicu. With my heart…"

"Elena…"

"… and with hers."

He didn't ask what she meant. He was stupid, but not that stupid. But he felt it: anger, inadequacy. He struggled to shut them out.

And the Lady, whose desert night was so merciless, and whose geas was so terrible, offered Nicu her mercy. She washed the sky in the most pale of iridescent light. It struck Elena's face, like spokes of sunlight too weak to destroy the darkness, and he saw her forehead and her cheeks, the bones heightened by the contrast of light and shadow.

Her eyes widened, first in surprise and fear, and then in sudden comprehension. A comprehension that he did not share. She rose, the lines around lips and eyes deepening as she gave her best smile, the brightest of her multiple expressions.

"She did it! Look, Nicu—look at the sky. Margret—she did it!" There were tears, unshed, that made her face that most lovely of things: vulnerable.

Avandar was still not speaking to anyone.

His silence was not, in general, something to complain about—at home, his silence was taken as assent. Well, either that or absence. Few of Jewel's den wielded silence as a weapon, but she had learned what the quality of a silence meant in service to The Terafin.

The man who had been domicis, and who might claim that he still was, had retreated to the edge of the encampment, and she had, out of force of habit—not to mention the particular exhaustion that came with bloodletting— chosen to join him.

On the outskirts of camp, all manner of strangeness lay in wait—and it said something about her life that she could take such strangeness in stride. She was not, however, immune to it. Never that.

She felt the shadow before she saw it; the complicated darkness of tines, with their unnaturally sharp points, left marks across things that the eye couldn't clearly see. Other shadows. Other light. Her hand. Even thinking about them made her palm hurt—a reminder of what she had accepted when she had saved his life.

The stag who had once been a man, and who would never be a simple animal, came to stand beside her. He was a short arm's length to the side, but he was careful, when he chose to approach, to walk deliberately, to make
some
noise, and to stay at that distance. As if, she thought, it was she who was the wild animal, she who would be easily startled or frightened.

He dipped his antlers.

"I named Celleriant 'Killer'," she said softly. "Because I told him his name was too pretty. I lied. It sounds too much like celery." Her smile was rueful. "But on reflection, Killer sounds too… sounds too much like a name I would have chosen for an eleven-year-old boy who was desperate and starving in the streets of the twenty-fifth holding. I thought I could use it. I use names like that every day. Carver. Teller. Angel.

"But he
isn't
those things. Not desperate, not eleven. Not a part of that city, that life.
I
can't even use it." She lifted a hand to touch tines. Felt a surprisingly gentle warmth emanating from the nubbled surface beneath her palm. "These are the trivial things I think about. I want to ask you what
she
thought about." Jewel raised her left wrist; around it, braided and knotted, a bracelet she had made of a keepsake: the Winter Queen's hair. These strands caught light, and the light wasn't bright; they caught her eyes as well, demanding attention she was both reluctant and eager to give. "I want to ask, but I don't want to know."

He did not answer. She suspected that he never would.

"I was worried about Celleriant. But it occurs to me that I never even asked you your name."

He said nothing. She met his eyes, because that was the only easy way to speak to him. They were large, round, unblinking—as different from her own as eyes could be that still saw.

"Did you know Avandar?"

The stag's gaze was unblinking.

"Is that a yes, a no, or a none-of-your-business?"

Yes
. She felt, rather than heard, amusement.
I knew Viandaran
.

She loved the sound of his voice, even though she couldn't hear it. She wondered why she felt so differently about Avandar's. Maybe because she knew too much about his past. "Did he know you?"

The massive antlers swayed a moment, side to side.

"Were you the Winter King in your time?"

He became absolutely still. Absolutely. She thought that the antler beneath her hand had been transformed into stone by the simple question.

"I'm sorry. I won't ask that again. I… met the Winter King." She lapsed into an awkward silence as her gaze strayed toward the horizon and back. "But—"

The cold was broken by the clarity of distant amusement; she realized that this man thought of her as a child. "I'm sorry. I have to ask—but I can't force you to answer. Did it change you?"

Very, very carefully, he bowed his great head and slid the side of the nearest antler across her upturned cheek.

She had the grace to blush. "I mean—I meant—did it change who you were, not what you look like. Are. Never mind, it was a stupid question."

He nodded. But he stood by her side in the darkness.

She could see Celleriant against the barren horizon, a shadow with pale hair. The Arianni lord did not speak. He did not join them. He stood, staring into the night sky, as if counting stars.

It seemed to Jewel, as she stared at his profile, that there were two men trapped within it; the one, a stranger, much as Kallandras was a stranger, caught in the midst of the Voyani ceremonies, the other—the other someone who belonged in the lee of the Winter Queen.

"He would have killed me without even noticing who I was," she said quietly.

She turned, lifting her gaze deliberately, carrying it across the landscape and dropping it upon Avandar's turned back, aware that he was aware of her. "Avandar would have killed me. He probably would have enjoyed it less. If he noticed at all.

"I'd like to think you would have been different. But I can't."

"Because you are wise."

"And you," she said, without turning in the direction of the familiar voice, "are eavesdropping."

"Guilty as charged, ATerafin. Am I to be banished or forgiven?"

"Forgiven, and you knew that or you wouldn't have announced yourself." She smiled as Kallandras of Senniel College took his place beside her. She was wrapped in blankets, except for the hand that rested against the stag; he was dressed as Celleriant was dressed.

"Have you come to watch the lights?"

"Lights?"

She frowned. "I'm not sure why I just said that."

"Ah. Perhaps you see more clearly than I." The irony in his tone was not lost on her. "With your permission, I would like to speak with Lord Celleriant."

"You don't need my permission."

"No. But he does."

"Pardon?"

"He does. He is trapped here; he has little understanding of humanity, of the minutiae of mortal existence. I know that he is part of the Wild Hunt, the Winter Hunt, and as such is worthy of both fear and wrath—but you must understand, who might never see it, that he is also part of the Summer Court. The world once revolved around its seasons to a much greater extent than you can know now. He is of that time."

"Evayne told you this."

"Evayne," he said softly, "has forced me to bear witness to much in my life."

"If he needs it, yes, you have it. But—"

"But?" Light, light word.

She shook her head. As if that were release or dismissal, he left her. She watched the Northern bard traverse the cracked, cold ground that separated her from Celleriant.

The Arianni lord stirred and lifted his gaze from the solitary sky, dropping it, slowly, to the waiting bard. She could not see his expression; she could not see Kallandras' face at all. But she had a sudden fleeting impression that these two were somehow kin, that they shared some secret or some pain that she had never shared—and with the Mother's blessing, never would.

It came to her, in the darkness of this lonely night, that Kallandras would—as Celleriant, as Avandar, as the stag whose warmth was so compelling in the chill night air— kill her with just as little regret if it served his purpose or his cause.

But the stag said, in that voice she found so compelling,
No. That was true, I think, of all of us, but I would not kill you now
.

No?

No. You are, as you suspect, weak. Avandar is correct in that regard; were you born in the time that birthed him, or the time that birthed me, you would have perished. Or so it appeared; you are far too straightforward; you say too much. But…

But?

He was amused again, but there was about the amusement an undercurrent of rue.
But even in my day, or his, no one held the road against the Winter Queen who did not have, or did not understand, power
.

She was silent.

His amusement deepened.
You don't find this a comfort
.

I find the sound of your voice a comfort. I don't know why. But no
—/
don't find your words comforting. You didn't expect me to
.

No.

I'm cold.