Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (91 page)

She felt the fires burning in her fingers, in her feet. She saw them rise, like a veil, before her eyes. But where anger was red, these were blue and white and gold. She looked at the stranger's face and she saw him clearly: he was dead, and he walked.

Abomination.

Servant of the Lord.

His shadows were everywhere; they trailed from the hair that she had admired down the length of the back that faced North, faced away from her. They fell from his shoulders like a great cloak, swirling in folds around his arms, his legs.

She knew that the living could not bear such a cloak; it would consume them—slowly, yes, where fires were quick, but just as completely as flame.

Nicu was angry, too. "Elena," he said, the last syllable a pitched whine. "Don't make me do this."

Her cousin, her cousin, whose hair was fire, whose heart was heat, broke the simple law of desert travel; she wasted water on him, spitting to the side like an angry cat. "You'll have to kill us. Surely you understood that. You cannot take the Heart from the Matriarch without taking her life as well."

"If she gives it to me, I can bear it."

"Do you understand so little, Nicu? Do you not know what the creature behind you is?"

"Elena—"

She spun in place, her gaze the only weapon she wielded. "Carmello," she said, her voice low and tense, "do you understand what he's saying? Do you understand who you serve?

"Andreas?" Elena's brows, slightly darker than her hair, but still red, still fiery, had drawn together. "Andreas, you can't believe what you're doing is right. Maybe Nicu can. Maybe Carmello. But you? I won't believe it."

Margret felt a pang as she, too, looked toward Andreas. Of all the Arkosans under Nicu's command, Andreas was most like her brother Adam. He was the youngest of Nicu's men, and of them, the most sincere, the most naive. He believed in the glory of combat; he believed in making a stand, not for reasons of manhood, but because it was the right thing to do.

He met her eyes, and his expression wavered for the first time. "Nicu?" he said, the word a question.

"Will you let her decide for you? Have you understood nothing? The Matriarchs are our masters!"

"Maybe," Elena said, speaking for Margret. "Maybe they are. But we have served willingly. Those who did not wish to walk
this
road have traveled North and made lesser homes in the lands of the demon kings, and we have not hunted them; we have not killed them.

"We are not the danger. We have never been the danger. Did you not understand what happened in the Tor Leonne? Did you not see for yourself what the Tyr'agar would have made of the Lady's Festival?"

Nicu did not reply.

But Andreas did. He stepped forward, toward Margret.

Margret felt the heat rise in her hands, in her face; it was sudden, terrible; it consumed breath. She did not understand it, and because she did not, Andreas died.

Andreas died.

The creature that had come to the desert, to Arkosa, the creature that had tempted her cousin, gestured; swung wide with a long, graceful limb. She had not seen a weapon until that moment; it flickered in air as his hand moved, taking form, substance, strength from the motion itself.

And it passed through Andreas.

He had no time to scream, but he
did
scream, his lips turning the color of blood, his blood, as his chest collapsed forward and onto the sand, leaving his legs behind.

She did not think.

Elena had often accused her of that, of not thinking things through, of reacting when it was dangerous to react.

She cried out as Andreas screamed, and the two sounds were a harmony, a melody, a cacophony.

Fire answered—white, gold, blue. Andreas' cry died in the lap of that flame, and his eyes, before they lost all life, met hers in a dim surprise. His lips moved over syllables that he had no breath to utter, but she saw what could not be heard.

Matriarch.

The shadows of the creature rose in defiance of her flames, and she realized that the flames were no longer contained; she had set them free.

Nicu screamed, a heartbeat after she had fallen silent.

"What have you done?" he cried, not to Margret, but to the creature who was gathering his power beneath the open sky.

The creature did not reply.

"You have something we require, Matriarch." He did not offer her safety in return for the Heart of Arkosa; he did not seek to barter for the lives of her companions. It was a game he did not insult her by attempting to play.

"You will never have it. We made our vows when we set foot upon the
Voyanne
." She lifted her hand, and fire streamed from it.

His eyes widened in surprise when that flame began to lap at the edges of his power, devouring it. But he laughed. The laughter was louder than the crackle and hiss of flame.

"Serra," Margret said quietly. "'Lena. We must leave."

She caught their hands in hers; they were that close. The sun was overhead; she cast no shadow. She took a step back. Diora came with her.

Elena did not.

She tugged at her cousin's arm; her cousin grunted in pain. The creature's shadow leaped skyward, above the boundary her flame had set. She knew, she
knew
, that she was not his match.

She had made time for flight, no more.

But Elena did not move. "
Elena
!"

Could not move forward.

Margret pulled harder. But she had crossed a barrier that she could not see; the Serra Diora had come with her. Elena had not.

Could not.

No
. She had the fire within her. She felt it lessen as the shadows grew.
NO
.

But her cousin understood what she did not, could not. "Let me go, 'Gret."

"No!"

"Leave me."

"No! No, I won't leave you here!"

"Arkosa has its law, and its law cannot be broken. I see that now. Let me go, or the Lord of Night wins, and everything we have ever lost means nothing. 'Gret, let go."

"I won't."

Elena smiled, but the smile was a tight little movement of thin lips; it had none of the generosity for which Elena was known. "I'm sorry, 'Gret. I truly am."

And before Margret could reply, her cousin drew her dagger and stabbed Margret's hand.

Margret cried out in shock, pulling back instinctively. She fell across the sands, and her blood fell with her. Into the ground.

The ground above Arkosa.

Elena turned her back; exposed robes that flowed with the wind. Her dagger glinted in the sun as she faced the demon, her cousin, his man.

Alone.

Margret rose, enraged, terrified. She reached for her own dagger—and felt a hand touch hers.

She looked into the face of the Serra Diora.

"Matriarch."

The word was a slap.

"If he can, your cousin will defend Elena. He loves her, in his fashion. But we must flee, now. Arkosa is waiting."

She hated the Serra.

And she hated Arkosa in equal measure.

But she turned her back on her kin, on a woman who was like a sister to her, and she ran.

Because the sun was in place, and she knew that if she failed to reach the place—
what place
?—in time, she would never reach it.

Elena faced death. She had faced death before. But never like this. She could not look at Nicu. Could not look at Carmello.

And was terrified of facing the demon. It had taken courage to wound her cousin, and she felt that courage desert her. Her hand shook. To still it, she clenched the dagger tight.

The creature walked toward her.

Nicu raised an arm. In his hand, he held the sword.

"Do not be foolish," the creature said, voice soft as the silks of the High Court. "I know this mortal. Is she not the woman that you hoped to make your wife?"

"You will not hurt her."

"Hurt her?" The creature smiled. "No. I will not hurt her. I merely mean to convince her of the truth of your claim. If you refuse me, I will abide by your decision. The Matriarch is not beyond us."

Nicu said tersely, "Elena, come here."

She shook her head; she could not trust her voice.

His brow furrowed. "Elena."

The creature continued to walk. The length of his reach was great. She took a step back; it was a damn small step.

"Do not touch her," Nicu said again, but his voice wavered.

"Do you not desire her? I will not kill her, Nicu. But she is the key to the City, for when the Matriarch fails, it is her blood that will invoke the City's rise. She will aid you."

Nicu wavered. She saw him waver.

She could not bring herself to speak his name. Instead, she clenched the dagger more tightly to her chest.

"Elena, come here. Choose now. Stand beside me, or stand against him alone. I will not ask again."

Lowering her chin, she made her way to Nicu's side.

"Good," he said quietly. He reached out with a hand and touched her cheek; his fingers were gentle.

But she flinched anyway.

He frowned. His hand dropped. He turned away from her, and then turned back, and she could see the fury in his eyes, in the sudden turning of his lips.

Without pause for breath, Elena turned and ran.

There was something flat and hard in the sand. The wind had almost buried it, but the fall of her steps across its surface made her stop. She dug a bit with the toe of her boot, and clearing sand, saw the first hint of stone. It was white as bone in an open grave.

Her lips were dry; her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. She could not speak, but she did not need to; the Serra stopped as well.

The winds shifted. They howled. Sand flew in all directions. All save one.

The stone.

Margret watched as the wind danced along its surface, falling into worn grooves that had been carved there by a hand far more steady than her own. A veil was being lifted, grain by grain, and as it rose, she saw the circle carved there. It was blank.

Her hand was still bleeding from the cut Elena had made in it. It was a deep cut; no small cut would have had the effect Elena desired.

She touched the blood with her fingers; it was wet. She should bind the wound. Yes. But not yet.

The first symbol had been drawn for her. She drew the second, the inner circle, with her own blood. The ground rumbled beneath her feet. The winds rose. There was not enough blood, and she cursed its lack. Before she could draw her dagger, the Serra Diora offered her a different one.

She took it absently, and looked at its blade only when that blade pierced her skin. It was
Lumina Arden
. She set it aside on the stone, and continued to draw; the line across the circle; the shallow crescents across the line. Then, enclosing the carved circle and the symbol within it, she drew her own mark, start to finish; a larger circle. A containment.

The Serra watched her work in silence. She bent once to retrieve the dagger; Margret heard a tearing sound to the left, but she did not look up. This last part, this last was the hardest, the most intricate of her work: she wrote the name of her family in the space between two circles: Arkosa's, and her own.

The ground was shaking now; it was difficult to keep her hands steady. But she had traced this symbol at the beginning of her journey, with the blood of a stranger; she completed it again with her own.

As she traced the last rune, she rose.

The ground shook, rumbling with a voice that she almost felt she recognized.

The Serra Diora was at her side in an instant; she caught the hand that was slick and sticky with blood. "The blood," she said quietly, "falls too quickly. If you must rest—"

Margret shook her head.

Reached into the folds of her robes, and from them, drew the small jar that Yollana had gifted her with. Diora took it without a word. Opened it.

She did not ask permission to use what lay within. Instead, she touched it; her fingers rose, sticky with unguent whose smell was fresh as new rain on Mancorvan grass. She applied it to the wound. And then, after a moment, she bound the hand.

Margret lifted her waterskin, and waited patiently to retrieve her hand. Then she worked with stiff and aching fingers to remove the stopper that protected her life in the desert. Water.

She lifted it to her lips, drank carefully, and then offered the water to the Serra.

The Serra accepted with grace, and drank—of course— less.

"Are you ready, Serra?"

"Are you, Matriarch?"

Margret's smile was bitter. "No. Not for anything that has happened since we began our travel through this desert. I—I resented my mother's choices. I did not want to bring you here. But I am glad, now, that whatever I face, I do not have to face it alone. Diora—"

The Serra shook her head. "Look," she said softly. "Look at the stone."

But Margret did not need to look; she could feel it. It was glowing brightly. "Take my hand," she said wearily. "We are almost there."

The Serra gently picked up the wounded hand she had so carefully bound.

"Don't let go," Margret whispered.

Diora smiled, and if the smile was less bitter than Margret's, it was genuine; there was nothing of the High Court about it.

Together they stepped into the circle that Margret had traced.

And vanished.

She heard Nicu's angry shout. Knew that she could outrun him if the distance was great enough; that she could outsprint him if given enough of a start.

She clung to that thought as she had not clung to Margret. Clung as if her life depended on it; she was no fool. It did.

But she felt an icy cold take her limbs, retarding movement; felt her knees creak and groan with a dangerous pain. She tried to gain momentum by swinging her shoulders, but they, too, had become stiff.

No
, she thought.
No
.

Lord, this is
your
land; do not let the servants of your greatest enemy have Dominion here
.

She warded herself against the shadow; drew the circle across her breast in shaking hands. She heard footsteps. Felt the ground shake as they fell.