Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (29 page)

He laughed. Or he tried to; the sound was uneven, a forced expulsion of breath. "I'm damn tired of running."

"You never run," she said, nonplussed. Herself.

The line of his shoulders straightened, as if he heard the change in her voice as clearly as she did.

"Don't—" she cried out.

He
moved
.

The sword moved with him.

She wasn't sure whether or not she had spoken to the sword or the man.

"You are mortal. You are living. You are not yet what you will be."

"I'm not a child."

"So all children say." He smiled, a
Kialli
lord. "Peace. If you raise sword against me, you will die. Do not offer a challenge you do not understand."

She frowned, stung to be corrected in front of the silent Isladar. "And what if I don't want your stupid sword?"

"You have already accepted the responsibility of the blade: You have killed with it. But I think you are too young to make the sword your own."

"What do you mean?"

"The
Kialli
call their blades, little one. They summon their shields. Have you not seen this?"

She nodded.

"Would you not like such a blade? It can never be stolen, and it can never be broken outside of combat. It is safe until you require it."

"How does it work?"

"The blade becomes a part of you; as much a part of you as heart or spirit. Or will."

She did not say yes. Instead she said, "But you made this blade."

He raised a brow. "Yes, of course."

"And I wouldn't be able to remake it."

"You would change it, in effect; you would alter its substance. But no; the blade is forged as it is forged, and you will destroy it should you attempt to reforge it."

She snorted, then, a young child. "I wouldn't trust anything another person made inside of me."

He laughed. "If you of all
Kialli
—you who sleep while the lord least understood by all watches over you—are not willing to take that risk, so be it. It is strange, and it surprises me. But understand that the sword will never be yours; it will be something you wield, no more. Understand that to own something is to be owned by it."

"You want me to kill Ashaf."

"No, little one. Who you keep as pet is not my concern. But had you chosen to sacrifice what you obviously valued, it would have satisfied the Covenant between yourself and the blade."

She was quiet.

"The blade, I think, will wait. Of course, I may be mistaken—but I believe you will give the blade the minimum that it requires in order to secure your own safety." He bowed. "You are not what I expected. I will watch with interest.

"But do not forget, Kiriel."

She was so tired of being weak. She was so tired of struggling to figure out what right, and worse, wrong, meant in this city.

And she was so angry that tears she could not shed— had never been allowed to shed—because of the risk such a statement posed to her life, could be shed over something as trivial as a flag. Even now, the pain became rage by some alchemy of a spirit her only teacher had not possessed and had not claimed to understand. Alchemy. Purification.

She hated it. She hated it because Ashaf would have hated it; only Ashaf had ever understood how to peel back layers and layers of anger to expose what lay beneath.

But worse—she was afraid. Because the debt she had almost forgotten she owed was coming due and she did not want to pay it.

After Anduvin had left, there was a coolness between Kiriel and Lord Isladar that was unmatched by the voice of the Northern Wastes. She had, of course, failed him, and he tolerated failure only slightly better than the other
Kialli
, the proof being her continued existence.

"You wanted me to kill her."

"I wanted you to be more powerful."

"But by killing Ashaf."

Isladar shrugged.

"I want you to protect her, not destroy her!"

"She is not my concern. She is your weakness."

Kiriel's hands curled and uncurled around the hilt of her very fine sword. There were only three things she loved in the depth and breadth of the Shining City, and she was tempted to challenge one of them
right now
and have it over. Give him to the sword, and protect Ashaf, who could not—it was perfectly clear now, would remain clear forever—protect herself.

But he turned a look upon her that froze her in place. And she discovered, in that remote wilderness—or perhaps rediscovered, as Lord Isladar disparaged her ability to remember anything well—that she did not want to die.

He was ill-pleased.

She forgot her own anger, or rather, her own anger was dwarfed by his, and although her grip on the sword hilt did not change, the reason for it shifted.

"Why are
you
angry at me?"

"You do not understand what passed there."

"He gave me a sword."

"Yes."

"And he told me that the sword would kill me if I didn't figure out how to feed it."

Isladar's smile was cold and grim. "Yes. And then he… withdrew… that threat."

"He didn't. He said—"

"You have never seen him gift a weapon before. You failed, Kiriel, and yet he chose to let you keep the sword. You failed to give him what he requires of the
Kialli
, but he made it as clear as it could be made that his sword— and until you feed the sword, it
is his sword
—will serve you and your interests."

"What do you mean, his sword?"

"He is its maker, Kiriel. Until you forge a bond with the blade that is more intimate than the bond it has with its maker, it belongs to him. It was always… a tricky proposition. To ask the Swordsmith for a blade was to put yourself at risk." He turned away from her, his anger guttered by words, as it often was.

"You have been given a gift."

She was still. "
Kialli
gifts are never without cost."

His smile was slight, but it was present. "No, never."

"Not even yours."

"Especially not mine." His smile broadened. "In the end, I am
Kialli
. But you have proved a most interesting charge. Very few of the
Kialli
have chosen to raise a child. And none a God's child."

"What do you think he wants?"

"The Swordsmith? Or your father?"

"The Swordsmith." She was not, had never been, comfortable with the word "father." It drew his attention whenever it was spoken. The shadows took edge, carrying all words—and all thoughts, she was certain—to the most powerful of the gods. She feared him. He was the only creature in the world that she feared.

"I do not know. But you have attracted his interest. He is interested in so very little."

"The sword?"

"It is the most powerful blade he has ever crafted—but it is a wild element now, a thing unknown. There is not another
Kialli
lord who could do what he has done. There are others."

"Others?"

"The Arianni. Among them, there are those who have a skill that is almost the equal of the Swordsmith's. They are not, however, amenable to the request of a mere
Kialli
lord, unless it involves combat and death.

"You have been given a gift from one of the few who truly
remember
."

"Remembers?" She had fallen so easily into the familiar, shedding resentment, shedding anger. She had wanted to be his student—if that was the word for what she had been—forever. Why?

Why?

"Yes. Memory defines things that know life. Everything we are is shaped by everything we were. What do you think the word
Kialli
means?"

"Lord?"

He laughed. "Not that, Kiriel. Never that." He bowed his head a moment in the direction of her father's Tower. Knelt into the flagstones, as if penitent. It was some moments before he rose, and when he did, the winds were quiet.

"No. It is—it was—our word for the memory that scars." He smiled. She had learned not to trust that smile, but she had never learned to fear it. "What did you have for breakfast last week?"

"Last week when?"

"All of it. Any day."

She was silent. After a moment, she said, "Sianti." It was a Southern mix of brown rice and herbs, a warm, thick gruel that sustained the men and women who toiled in the fields.

"You forget; we ate with the Court in the morning. An intelligent guess. But…"

She waited.

"That is not
Kiallinan
."

"What about the day you brought me Falloran?"

"No, although that was significant." He nodded gravely, offering the approval she craved. "You learn quickly in almost all things. Let us forget Ashaf for now, Kiriel. I will not ask you to take her life again; that decision has been made, and it is behind us. Do you understand?"

She had nodded. She had
smiled
.

"
Kiallinan
is neither the trivial nor the significant memory. These memories—of food or the beginning of friendship—are not memories of passion. They do not burn. They cannot scar., They cannot move you to acts of great destruction.

"But I promise, Kiriel, that you will one day understand
Kiallinan
. And on that day you will better understand the kin. Because you will have to choose."

"Choose?"

"Whether or not you have the strength and the will to remember."

"Why will it take strength? You remember or you don't."

He laughed. He laughed and she had been both wise enough to take a step back, and wise enough not to run. "Ask them, Kiriel. But only when you are powerful enough to survive their greatest wrath."

"Ask?"

"The
Kialli
."

"And if I asked you?"

"What did I give as a condition?" he responded, but gently, so gently there was no threat in the words. She should have known then.

Instead, she had nodded.

She
screamed
.

She forced her blade to strike stone, scarring the earth as the road beneath her feet shattered.

She understood
Kiallinan
now in a way that words defied; she could not speak of it. She could not bear to be trapped by it. It was, she thought, what mortals suffer who have at last chosen to reside in the care of demons, in the Dominion of her father.

Ashaf was dead.

And Isladar—Isladar—

She had left herself open a moment in rage and pain; the memories, had they struck her this way in the Court, would have been certain death.

Auralis struck her again, and again, it was with the wide flat of solid steel.

The only other person who had ever deliberately struck her with the flat of his blade was Lord Isladar.

But Isladar had had the power to destroy her; he had chosen—had
condescended
—not to display it. Auralis had nothing. Nothing at all.

But he stayed, in the street of this terrible, mortal city, this crowded, hot, smelly place, bleeding from a dozen different wounds, holding his hand. Turning his blade.

"Why won't you fight me?" she said, or thought she said.

"Kiriel," he answered. "Kiriel,
come back
. Stop this. We don't have much time."

"Why don't you
fight
?"

He stopped for a minute. Then, to her surprise, he smiled. "Same reason I won't sleep with you."

And for a minute—just a minute—the shadows were still.

"Evayne, there
is
a risk."

"Yes, I know."

"Do you? Your knowledge of the Arianni was always superficial."

"It was—when I was your student. I learned much in your absence."

They watched Kiriel stiffen.

"She will kill him," Meralonne said softly. "Shall we intervene?"

"Not yet."

She put her blade up.

"Do you want to?"

"Kill you?" His frame rose and fell; hair had fallen into his eyes, and he brushed it aside with the back of his hand, taking care to never once obscure his line of sight. He didn't trust her. And yet he stayed.

"Sleep with me."

"I think we had that discussion already."

"I think you had it." She shrugged. "But if it's the same… all right. Do you want to?"

"To kill you?"

"To kill me."

"No. If you think I fight the impulse to kill when it's not a matter of my life or death, you haven't known me long enough. But you will."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Don't know. Don't know why
you're
doing this either. But—to me it's just another life-and-death battle, and in the end you're an Osprey."

"There are
no more
Ospreys," she said. Deliberate now, watching the pain arc like fire through the shadows that surrounded him. Seeing it, truly, viscerally, for the first time in far, far too long.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

It had never done that before.

He stiffened. Straightened out to his full height, which even among the
Kialli
would have been significant. "There's no more colors," he said. "No flag. But the Ospreys are still the Ospreys as long as Duarte leads us. And while he leads us, while we exist, you're one of us. I don't know what battle you're fighting. And I know damn well that Alexis or Fiara wouldn't understand it. But if I walk away, we lose you."

"You walk away," she said, the grip on the sword shifting, "and you save yourself. And maybe," she added, as the blade came up in a way that sent light in a spray across the buildings and the shattered ground, "you'll leave me something to come back to."

The shadows came back.

He didn't understand what had parted them. But he did understand—because only a fool would have missed it— that she was gone again. And the Kiriel that remained wasn't even the killer that had been introduced to the Ospreys by a reluctant Verrus; she was worse.

She would kill him.

He turned his sword from flat to edge.

And then he smiled. Laughed.

The sound brought her back. Because it was his reckless laugh. It was the laugh he used when he tried to get himself killed; when he tried—because he was
stupid
—to take a kill from her. They were partners within the Ospreys, but they were also fiercely competitive when it came to the actual kill.