Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown (115 page)

She turned to Alesso and Eduardo and Jarrani, wielding the
Sword although she never once touched its hilt.

Eduardo's anger was instantaneous, but quenched— slightly—by
the pallor of Sendari's suddenly aged face. "A Serra does not choose
her husband," he said, his voice a growl. "You have developed too fine
a notion of yourself, little Serra, if you feel that you may dictate to
us
."

"And you," she said coolly, "have developed too little esteem
if you feel that you cannot meet the challenge of a simple Serra."

"Enough, Garrardi. You demean yourself," Jarrani said, beneath
his breath. His eyes, as he met the unblinking gaze of the diminutive
Serra who held the Sun Sword, were dark and clear. "You will revoke
that vow. Now." He would have taken a step forward, but it would have
carried him into the lake itself.

"No, Tyr'agnate, I will not."

"Sendari."

The Widan shook his head, almost wordless. "Na'dio…"

"Force is only one form of strength," she said evenly. "There
are others."

Alesso was like the Sword itself: Steel. But he stepped where
Jarrani could not, for he wore the crown, and the waters were not
forbidden him.

She turned then, for the shadows the sun cast once again
started to lengthen. "Clansmen of Annagar, I appeal to you, for yours
is the power, and mine the supplication. If you will it, I will remain
di'Marano until one of these three men can in honor and truth draw this
sword from its scabbard.
You
know that any woman of
honor cannot dishonor her husband's memory by taking a lesser man in
his stead. Lend me your support. Tell the Tyrs that you have heard the
Lord's Consort, and you find her words fair."

Kneeling, she plunged her hands into the water, that their
shaking might not be seen. But when she rose again, she drew from the
Lake of the Tor Leonne the Sun Sword's scabbard. With perfect grace,
although both sword and scabbard seemed unwieldy in her delicate hands,
she joined these two. But she did not rise.

The clansmen did. Their voices carried her words, filling the
hollows of the gently sloped hills, removing, temporarily, all the
silence behind which a man might hide.

The Flower of the Dominion for the Tyr of the
Dominion.

She faced Alesso without so much as a smile.

And then she turned once again to the clansmen, but not before
she met her father's gaze, and held it, and saw in it his knowledge of
a truth that he had never seen before: that she was Alora's daughter.

And that she bore Teresa's blood.

Moonlight.
Stars. Pale reflection on water that would not be
still. He saw all of these things with new eyes. Saw all of these
things without seeing.

He had won, and he had lost, and it was the loss that was the
freshest wound. At his side, as silent as the reflection across the
waters, but darker and humbler, the only man not of his kin that he
counted friend: Sendari di'Marano, Widan. Father.

The sun's height was as far away as it could be; the darkness
carried all of the sky with its weight and its freedom. "Cortano?"

"Beside himself with rage."

"She
is
your daughter," Alesso said.
"And if anyone's kin could outsmart the Sword's Edge, it would be
yours." He said it with affection, but there was no answering smile, no
chuckle, no wry grin. Just darkness and silence.

There was much to be angry about, certainly. They had all been
bested by a woman. They had seen to their enemies within the court;
they had taken precautions and caused all of the right deaths. Only
Cortano had seen a glimmer of danger in the song of a willful girl, and
he had seen it late; she was already the Lord's Consort, and guaranteed
of His protection by the kai el'Sol.

The kai el'Sol.

Garrardi made it clear—before retreating to the pavilion which
served as his home when he chose to grace the Tor Leonne with his
presence—that political concerns were not his concerns; he would have
Sendari abide by his given word. Cortano and Jarrani argued against
him, in a terse, short way; they knew, as Alesso and Sendari did, that
by her actions this Festival, Diora di'Marano— Diora
en
'Leonne
—had given herself a role as vital to the Anngarian
Tyr'agar as either the crown which graced the
Tyr'agar's brow or the Sword which he dared not wield.

Throughout the argument, Sendari had been uncharacteristically
silent; he was silent now; the water lapping against small rocks made
more noise than he.

"Tell me," Alesso said.

The Widan stared at the waters a long time before answering;
long enough that Alesso thought he would not. But when he spoke, he
said, "She will never be yours, Alesso."

There was no possessive anger, no heat, in the words, no
parental protectiveness. He spoke as Widan, cool and distant. Alesso
grimaced. "Am I that obvious?"

"Is it obvious that you think you can make this work in your
favor? Is it obvious that, as you intend to wield the Sun Sword at the
end of this war, you are not nearly as angry as you should be?" Sendari
snorted. His exasperation was as close as he had yet come to humor
since the close of the Festival.

"I see."

"Alesso," the Widan said, the exasperation leaving his face
and taking the momentary warmth with it, "I know my daughter now. She
will never be yours. What she wants, and why she wants it—I cannot
fathom. But she works against us. And it is not in furtherance of her
goals; I believe her goal
is
to oppose us."

"And what would you have us do?"

Sendari was silent. At last he said, "We have been so long at
the work of the Lord that I have forgotten the moonlight."

"Sendari—"

The Widan turned to his friend in the darkness, and Alesso
took a step back as he saw, in the moon's light, the lines of Sendari's
face.

"Go," he said, "and seek the Lady's solace. I will be waiting,
and I will still be Tyr'agar."

"And is it enough?"

"To be Tyr?" Alesso shrugged and turned back to the lake that
was now his most prized possession. "I don't know, old friend," he said
softly. "I don't know."

The shrine was not neglected, but neither was it well tended;
the serafs had been instructed to stay their hand until the
Festival—and the attention—of the Lord had passed. Tucked away in a
corner made of trees and tall rocks, the small monument of weathered
stone stood at the northernmost part of the lake; here, the Tyr'agar
and his family came to pay the Lady her due.

Sendari found the steps, built into earth and greenery, that
led to the shrine, but not without difficulty; the lamp he carried was
a pale orange glow, and his eyes—his eyes could not easily discern what
was path and what decoration that led nowhere.

He felt betrayed by Diora.

And he felt as if he were her betrayer.

Both of these, he thought dispassionately, were true. Oh, not
by the law of the Dominion; in the Dominion's law, she was guilty, and
there was no mitigating circumstance that allowed a daughter to act not
only against her father's wishes, but against her father himself. But
the Dominion's law was not the law of the heart, not the law of the
Lady, and it was to the Lady's shrine that he now repaired.

Sendari, give me your word that you will be as you
are, for it is the man that you are that I love. Tell me that you will
not seek the Widan's title, the Widan's art.

I promise. Alora. What word I have, I give you.

There were no words that could be said that could cut a man as
deeply as his own. They were his words; he had walked away from them,
thinking that he could just disentangle himself from the past, that he
could leave it behind. But the words were a weave, and their mesh was
of a thin, fine mettle; they pulled and cut.

Na 'dio…

Father, will you always love me ?

Always.

What did it mean? What was
always
! Was
it significant that it was only the child that had asked the question,
and only to the child that he had given the word? He set the lamp on a
stair a moment and ran his hand over his eyes; he was getting old, to
see so poorly. To see so much so poorly. Had he left her, or had she
left him? For he was not the father of her youth, nor she the daughter
of his memory.

Why? Why, Na'dio?

He picked up the lamp and continued the slow climb.

But when he reached the shrine, and stood beneath the peaked
roof that protected the altars, he saw that he was not to be alone
beneath the Lady's Moon.

The Serra Teresa di'Marano stood in the shadows cast by
another lamp, almost as if waiting. For him. He wanted to withdraw, but
he froze a moment, or perhaps drew breath too sharply; she turned.

"Sendari."

He gestured, sharply, the mage-light crackling from his hands
as he struggled for focus. She did not flinch; her expression, the
epitome of neutrality, allowed for no display of fear or worry. Or
perhaps she knew him too well. A silence descended around them that
would not be broken by any listener, casual or otherwise, who did not
possess the art, and the craft, of the Widan.

"Teresa."

It was always tangled, this meeting of kin. He felt that he
had never liked his sister, that he had, in fact, hated her. But she
was
his sister, and blood of his blood, and he could not easily walk away
from her. Just as he could never have killed Adano. It was a weakness.

A terrible weakness.

"Sendari," she said again. "I did not expect to see you here
again."

Did he hear too much in her words?

"This is not a game, Teresa."

"Oh, but it is. Because it is war, and men of power play at
war as if it were a game that requires everything they can give it."

"And women?"

"There are no women of power in the Dominion," she said
softly. As if it were fact. As if she believed it.

He wanted to strike her. Instead, he set the lamp upon the
altar, illuminating the carvings across its face. These were
contemplation carvings, circles and spheres and patterned mandalas
whose whole purpose was to give concentration in the place of anxiety.
Or anger. Or fear.

"How long?" he said, staring at the surface of the rock. It
was more giving than the face of his sister. "How long have you known?"

Her silence was too long; he glanced up quickly, furtively,
and saw that she was paler, if no less composed. But she did not lie to
him.

"Since the Festival of the Moon, Sendari. The Festival in
which you chose to forsake your vows to Alora en'Marano." She, too,
looked down. "I would have told you, brother."

"And you did not?"

"No." She started to speak, and then fell silent; he saw a
glimmer of anger, and something that might have been guilt. They did
not expose themselves to each other. Or rather, she did not expose
herself to him. He knew that her gift told her what lay beneath his
words—all the anger, the fear, the lies, if he chose to attempt them.

"Why, Teresa? Why did she do this? She must have known what it
would cost."

Her eyes widened as he spoke, and then her face softened
slightly, losing the quality of edge that made her seem so like a fine
weapon. "You could ask her," she told him quietly. "I believe that she
would answer, if you ever chose to ask."

Silence. Then, "I chose to ask you."

"And if I answer, as I see fit, you will answer a question I
pose of you?"

"Perhaps."

"What would you have done, had a man you trusted been
responsible for the death of Alora?"

He started to answer, and then he stopped. Thinking that, in
all these years, his daughter had become a woman, unfathomable, and
lost to him. That she had walked the path from a daughter who was much
loved, to a wife, with a wife's friends and loves and loyalties. Loves
that he was not privy to, that he would never—quite—understand.