Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown (5 page)

She could not banish the fear.

Lord Isladar came, frequently, his displeasure a crease at the
corners of black eyes, or a tightening of the lips. She was afraid of
him; she could not hide the fear, and the more she tried—and she did
try—the more it called him. He would come, stand by her, a statue that
spoke a word, or two, or three. Then, satisfied, he would nod and speak
soothing words, of a kind that were forgotten the moment he uttered
them.

She would speak just so, she knew, to an injured child. Or an
animal, half-mad with pain.

A dusk, heralding the northern, frozen night, had come; after
it, after a night so long that she dared not close her eyes, the dawn
had followed.

And the dawn, in this thin, dry air, was glorious.

The sun rose, framed by the stone sill; hands that barely felt
like her own gripped its edge; breath stopped a moment. For the first
time since she'd arrived in this terrible place, she did two things.

She accepted that this was no dream, no capricious nightmare.
And she prayed.

There was, in this room, a bed; it was wide enough for two,
she thought. Like the city that spread in silence far beneath the open
window, the bed was gray and colorless—and as she approached it, as the
sun's rays crested the window's sill, she realized that it was of a
piece with the wall.

The headboard that grew out of the wall itself was tall and
plain, except for a single small detail, a symbol that she did not
recognize, but felt oddly comforted by, in its center. A circle, made,
she thought, of chain, with a flower at its center. But the flower was
unlike any flower she had seen; its petals were wild, unmatching. The
first was a thing that seemed to flicker and burn, a leaf of flame, the
second, a lily's petal, the third a long, flat leaf—she thought it
cornlike. There was a fourth petal, but it had been pulled from the
flower, as if by wind.

She reached out to touch the symbol.

"I would not, were I you."

Her hand stopped a hair's breadth from the stone; she did not
look up, but his shadow fell across the bed. Swallowing, she pulled
that hand away and buried it in the folds of her skirt.

"I have brought food."

Silently, she turned; he set it down. And then he stared at
her for a long moment, displeased. "Askeyia a'Narin," he said softly,
"why do you dispel my magicks?"

She shook her head numbly, her hair tumbling into her eyes and
away at the force of the movement. "I—I don't—I'm not—"

He shook his head. "The room," he said softly, "is warded;
from without, no one should sense your presence. But this is the
Shining Court." He frowned a moment, and then added, "Askeyia, you have
no friends in this Court."

She nodded.

"Neither do I. I am
Kialli
. The
Kialli
do not know friendship in any way that you would understand it. It is a
mortal flaw—an impulse that draws the weak together and binds them
fast. We are, none of us, weak; we seek power, and the power that we
seek overlaps in all things.

"You are a part of my plan, of my Lord's plan; my enemies may
well seek you. If you do not stop this, those who seek will find." He
did not touch her; did not move at all.

"I—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what you want me
to—to stop."

"I have cast this spell ten times. You—" and then he froze,
his frown of a piece with the wall, gray and hard, but only half as
cold as his narrowed eyes. "I see," he said softly. "This is most
unfortunate."

What
? she wanted to shout.
What
is most unfortunate? What am I doing
? But she was afraid of
the answer, and she said nothing, and this time he left at once,
speaking no words at all, and making no gestures above her upturned
face.

The tower was of the stone itself. The mattress, heavy rolls
of cotton under broadsheet, was not, and the light warmed it. She sat.
She sat in the silence of this terrible room, seeing the dawn give way
to day.

It fascinated him, this unconscious rejection of his shadow.
As if it were just another minor flaw, some petty injury like the
scraping of skin or the breaking of a nail, his shadow, his hard-won
Kialli
cloak, was cast aside. He was certain a greater spell would hold her,
just as a greater injury would call her attention; he could afford
neither for the mere trifle of masking her fear; not when so much lay
ahead that required true power.

He stood beyond her door, listening to the rhythms of her
mortal body. Hearing the breath, the passage of air into lung, the flow
of blood in vessel and vein. Hearing, beneath that, other workings. He
had stayed outside this door for the passage of a day and a half,
gleaning the information that he required to cast this final spell. It
was unlike any spell that the kinlord had cast before it; a subtle
spell—a spell that the healer herself might have used.

And because of its nature, the cost was high. The shadow
struggled everywhere against his command as he drew it in; fought him
as if it were sentient, as if it realized the perversion of its truest
purpose.

Two battles, then. The casting of the spell. And the keeping
of it. By sheer force of will, he could hold the spell in place, and it
was necessary; it was her life.

He chose that moment when the night was strongest, and the
moon dim. He touched the door, paused, and then spoke; his sigil burned
a moment in air before his hand passed through it. Let another Lord
speak his name in this place, and the door would grant no passage
unless they could defeat the sigil itself.

She was awake. Which was unfortunate.

The window framed her; the wind chilled.

"Askeyia," he said. "
Come.
"

But she knew, he thought—or some part of her did. She stood as
if she were part of the mountain peak, frozen, immobile.

"Askeyia," he said again, ill-pleased, "if you fight me, this
will be… difficult. Fight or no, you will fulfill your role. Come." He
held out a hand but he knew, as he did so, that the gesture was futile.
She could not give him what he demanded; not willingly. It was not in
her nature.

And that was, again, unfortunate.

He could not wait; his plan required her presence, and it
required his power, and the two would slip farther apart as the night
waned. Without another word he crossed the room, taking a step, less
than a step, so great was the shadow he cast.

She screamed, he silenced her.

Then, in the darkness of tower and pale moonlight, he
surrounded her with the effort of days, submerging her. He forced her
to drink, to breathe. And as he felt the shadows slide down her throat,
as he felt them take root in her heart and her lungs and the vessels
that carried her talent-born blood, he closed his eyes.

For she was not—quite—ready for the evening's work, but he had
her body now, and he brought it, quickly, to its time.

The screams could be heard across the breadth of the Shining
City. The kin, lesser and greater, froze a moment and then shivered in
this familiar wind. The fields of the Hells were behind them, yes—but
they were carried within as well. They had chosen their place so long
ago the lesser kin could not remember the choosing. The greater kin
did, but even they, like their lesser cousins, were drawn by the sounds
of terror, of pain.

Through the empty streets they came, leaving the mockery of
buildings, of manors, of dwellings that had ceased to have meaning for
them. They came as if called, as if commanded, as if drawn by a spell
they could not ignore.

And they came to ring the tower in which the Lord of the Hells
reigned. There, in bitter silence, they accepted the crumbs from his
table, for they knew that the mortal trapped within would never be
thrown to them.

It was a rape, yes, but of more than the physical body; the
demands of the Lord reached farther than the magicks of his most subtle
servant could have guessed. In the darkness of tower and stone and
shadow, her life was the beacon that drew him, and it had taken all of
Isladar's craft to preserve her mind and her life.

He did not hide from her the fact of her violation; could
not—although had it been in his power, he would have.

Had she been other than healer-born, he might have been able
to force her to see the Lord as the kin saw him, and against the face
of such majesty, of such power, she would have willingly offered what
had instead been taken.

And had she been of weaker blood, the act itself would not
have had to be repeated, over and over, until the course of the evening
itself had stripped her of the use of her power. But he knew the moment
that those defenses flagged, and when they did, he knelt as the choked
and raw noises she made died into a lull, the weakest form of applause
that a soul could utter.

"My Lord," he said, speaking clearly enough to make his voice
heard, but no more than that, "it is done." Waiting was as natural for
the kin as drawing breath was for a mortal—and it was infinitely more
necessary if one waited upon the Lord. Impatience was rewarded, in its
fashion.

"Bring her back to me," the Lord replied, "when you are
finished."

Isladar nodded, still waiting, and at last the Lord bade him
rise. To rise, otherwise, was also rewarded. Isladar had stood by the
side of his Lord since the Hells first opened before them; he was the
only one of the
Kialli
who had occupied the
Lord's space so closely to remain within it. The others had perished in
the charnel wind, their screams loud enough, for an instant, to quiet
the whole of the Hells. The will of the Lord.

He took the healer-born girl, lifting her tightly curled body
in the span of two slender arms. He did not shift her; if he had had
the power, he would not have touched her at all. Perhaps it was best
this way. Without power, there was no shadow to linger in her eyes,
across her skin, in all the wounds and openings.

She did not come at night, and night would have been merciful.
The darkness, with moonlight's weaker silver, would have hidden much:
bruises, scrapes, tears and rents in cloth and the surface skin beneath
it. It might have hidden the odd angle of the leg that had not yet been
set. More merciful still, it might have blinded her to the terrible
emptiness of the young girl's expression—or better, to the young girl's
familiar
face.

But the sun was high and the sky as clear as the skies in the
Northern Wastes almost always were. She could see everything; every
detail. Nothing at all was spared her.

I am Evayne a'Nolan and Evayne a'Neaamis
—
but
I swear to you, Father, that I will be a 'Neaamis no longer if—
Her hands hurt; she glanced down and saw that they were bleeding. Her
own nails had pierced skin in the moment it had taken her to draw
breath and think. She was, by her own reckoning, fifty Imperial years
of age; her hair was a white-streaked darkness, her skin, weathered as
even the rocks were weathered by the passage of time and the scouring
of sand, be it carried by wind or water.

The path of the otherwhen took her where no one desired to go,
not even she; of late, it led her from death to death, and she was
tired. For more than thirty years, she had walked it at the whim of
immortal father and Time, and if it had been a hated path in her youth,
it was now just a path, a part of her life.

But her life itself was dedicated to war, and in the service
of that war, she was a lone soldier; she paused a moment to fight here
and there at the sides of those who were allies, but she did not
linger, no matter how much she might desire it. And perhaps, just
perhaps, she had come to see the wisdom of that forced choice.

There had been little rest in the past few months, and she was
certain, although no battle's sound reached her ears, that there would
be no rest here, for either herself or the girl. But the girl was not
dead yet.

At least there was hope.

As if she could hear the intake of breath, the girl who lay
curled upon the stone bed lifted her hands in a gesture that was half
plea and half defense; her lips were thick and swollen, the side of her
face, purpled by the blow— by several blows—of a large hand.

And yet, even this disfigured, Evayne a'Nolan recognized
Askeyia a'Narin. Levee's student; a child, an almost-woman with a soft
heart and a naive desire to see great deeds done. Of Levee's many
students, Askeyia was one who hovered, hoping against hope to catch
some snippet of dread destiny, as if it were a disease. Not even in her
coldest moments would Evayne have pointed out that this, this meeting,
was one such thing.

She had never seen a healer this injured who still lived; it
was against their nature, and their instincts.

"D-don't—" the girl said piteously, "don't." But it was weak
and fragile; the sound a mouse might make when it had been in play too
long between the paws of a cat.

She, who had seen much, looked away.

She did not recognize this room; it was barren of any detail
that might have given it light, or a sense of comfort or warmth. No;
light came from the window, and the window was a thing of stone. She
turned, as if the need for light was greater than any other impulse,
and stared out; stared down.

When she turned back to the injured girl, she was as gray as
the stone itself. Evayne's robes were blue, always blue; she spoke a
word, frowned, and spoke another, a stronger one. In the haze of the
light by the window—for she stood by the window itself—the midnight
richness seeped skyward from the magical weave, leaving her in white,
all white.

Because she knew where she was. And she knew that the white
would be a comfort, even if it was a lie.

"Askeyia," she said softly, speaking for the first time since
she'd entered this tower. She did not seek the crystal ball by which
she was known as
seer;
she did not need it. She
knew the
when
and she knew the
where;
the glance outside the single tower window told her both.