Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (37 page)

"She probably thinks that's because we're afraid Jay would know."

He laughed. "True enough."

"But she said something else. She said Haerrad has asked to 'help' oversee the merchant offices that have been unsu _ pervised. And one of them is ours."

He smiled. "And so he has."

"How—how do you know?"

"I am afraid, ATerafin, that I am not at liberty to discuss my source. And neither are you." He opened the door, reached for the lamp, drew the light that she wanted away. "You have been awake long enough. Do you think that The Terafin is so careless with people of value? She knows well what Haerrad's offer means; she will spend time considering it, but in the end will decide that such a minute operation is beneath his station; that to use him in such a fashion would be to the detriment of the House. She would not dream of demeaning him in such a fashion."

The tears started out of the corners of her eyes before she could stop them. "Ellerson," she whispered, "I'm—I'm so afraid."

He set the lamp down; let the door swing shut. "ATerafin," he said, his voice stern, his expression gentle.

"No—I
am
. Jay always led us. Jay always told us what to do. Jay could
see
. I can't." She pulled at her hair a moment, and stopped when a small handful obliged her by coming out. "I don't want to die here. I don't want my den to die here. And I don't—I don't know that she's coming back—I don't—"

"It is not my policy to discuss former masters with a new one," he told her gently.

It was more than just policy; it was strictly against the code of the guild; Finch knew it.

"But let me discuss, instead, a member of the den that is my Master. Jewel ATerafin was destined to be a woman of power, and it is not power that I am destined to serve. I… was fond of Jewel. I was fond of you all, which is why I agreed to forsake retirement and return."

The tears were running down her cheeks. She smeared them across her face.

"But I chose Avandar Gallais as her domicis."

"You? You did?"

"Yes. I'm afraid it was me. And I did so with misgivings," he added softly, and for a moment his expression was as distant as memory could make it.

"What misgivings?"

"You must promise never to repeat this; it goes against guild law, and I am a proud member of the guild, and in good standing."

She nodded.

"Having understood at an early age that it was not my destiny, not my desire, to serve people who desired power, it became incumbent upon me to recognize such people. Avandar Gallais is perhaps the most powerful man I have ever met."

"B-but—but if he's so powerful—why—"

"I do not know, Finch. But I have observed him, through reports, for many years, and I am satisfied with the choice that I made. I am not certain that a force exists, now, which could bring about his death. But I am certain—very certain—that there are forces which would try. I know that there has been speculation that Jewel ATerafin was the target of the attack in the Common. But I do not believe those speculations."

"You think they were after Avandar."

"Yes. This would not be the first time, in this city, that demons have chosen to challenge him. It would not be the first time that he has accepted that challenge in the heart of the Common. But I believe it is one of the first times that he has chosen to flee. With Jewel. Until the day he brings me her body, I will not believe that she is dead."

The tears still fell, but they were different tears. Better tears. He let her cry for a while, in silence, and then he lifted the lamp again.

"Why hasn't she contacted us?"

His lips twisted a moment in a wry smile. "The truth? It is difficult to remember, in war, that duties other than survival are paramount. Ah, let me say it differently. Jewel is always focused on the task at hand. She said her goodbyes. She told you she was leaving. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that she has been busy enough that it has not occurred to her just how worried you are by her absence.

"She feels she has left you in safety."

Finch laughed.

Ellerson did not.

"I'll smack her when I see her," Finch said. "I'll smack her so hard—" She leaped up out of her chair, ran the few feet to the kitchen door, and threw it open.

"TELLER! ANGEL! CARVER! JESTER! ARANN! KITCHEN, NOW!"

He raised a frosted brow.

Finch froze. "Ummm, that bit about never repeating what you just told me—you didn't mean to the den, right?"

He raised the other brow as the doors in the hall began to fly open, dislodging her den-mates into the night.

29th of Scaral, 427 AA

The Terrean of Raverra, the Sea of Sorrows

The city stretched out so far beneath her feet her shadow was lost to other shadows; the fall of buildings, the rise of tents and awnings that colorfully staved off the worst of the blistering midday heat, and the moving wraiths of the memory shades that stood along the demi-walls of the first city.

Jewel ATerafin did not know what memory shades were. Not in this life. But nonetheless, she recognized these monuments to fallen nobles, these created ghosts that haunted those who lived beneath their terrible shadows. She had never lived in this city, but she hated it instantly.

Heights had never appealed to her, but she felt the distance between herself and the ground as certain death. She would have taken a step back, but there was nowhere to step that would not invoke that death.

He spoke her name.

Avandar.

And who was she? Who was she here?

Jewel Markess ATerafin. And she was dreaming. The familiarity of Avandar's voice brought a flicker of peace, but it was a pale flicker, and it died when she turned— carefully—to face him. She knew instantly why the heights were certain death. The domicis had been swallowed by the man, and if there had been any question about how she would feel about the man, it was answered. Sadly, there was no rule that said she had to like the answer.

He did not call her Jewel. He called her by some other woman's name. A dead woman.

"Avandar," she said, looking for a rail—or anything else she could hold—with increasing dread. "Why did you kill this girl?"

"It was nothing personal," he replied quietly. "But she caught the eye of my least obedient son, and she was an unsuitable object of affection."

"Why didn't you tell him to stay away from her?"

He chuckled. She
hated
the sound.

"I did, my dear. But he had much of me in him, and he chose not to regard what was, in the end, the only warning I was willing to waste time offering."

"You killed her because you didn't approve of her?"

"No." He frowned as if her stupidity was unusually severe. "I killed her to make a point to my willful son."

"And did it work?"

The mage frowned. Shrugged. "He was young and destined for weakness."

"He died."

"Yes."

"You killed him."

"Yes."

"Gods, I hate you."

"No doubt."

She knew she had run out of time an instant before he gestured and the ground beneath her feet dissolved. But she woke up with a terrible rawness in the back of her throat that reminded her—if a reminder were necessary— that foreknowledge never obviated fear.

The music was there, although the dawn wasn't. The night air left her breath's ghost hanging above her as she forced her fingers to relinquish the shape and texture of fist. The lute provided comfort and distance, drawing her away from the dream the moment her eyes opened to the perfect clarity of Southern sky. Strange stars looked down on her, waking or asleep. Curled beside her, the stag that had once been a man kept the worst of the night's chill at bay.

Kallandras had told her that the cold here would be matched and deepened when they at last entered the Sea of Sorrows.

"Do you ever sleep?"

"Yes." The music continued to cushion her fall.

"When?"

"When necessary, ATerafin." But his smile tempered the distance in the words.

"I think I owe you one."

"And on the road we take it is likely that you will have a chance to rid yourself of that debt." The bard stilled the strings of his famous lute. "Sleep well for what remains of the evening."

She nodded quietly.

"But ATerafin?"

"What?"

"I think that you must speak with your domicis. It is clear that you cannot continue in this fashion."

"W-what do you mean?"

"Look at your arm."

She knew what she would see the minute the words left his lips, wrapped in the privacy which was the gift of bards. But as if he had used
the
voice to compel, she lifted her arm anyway. To her eye, clear as starlight and just as bright, the sign of the serpent—stylized S bisected by two small vee's—was glowing with a silver blue aurora.

She cursed under her breath in both of the languages she knew. The stag nudged her forehead with his nose. She met his eyes.

"Don't you start, too."

But the stag replied by touching the skin of her wrist very lightly with the tine of his lowest antler.

She woke at dawn before the night had given way to the harsh exposure of sunlight. In this time, as at dusk, a man could speak freely should he choose. The Lord and the Lady paid no heed to that which they did not rule unless it threatened their Dominion.

A lone woman who would never return home was not such a threat. She passed beneath them.

There were propitiations to make; she carried a flask of wine in one hand, a flask of water in the other. She also carried a small silver spade, tucked safely away in the little pouch that rested between sash and skin. It had value that was both sentimental and monetary, and the latter always posed a threat on the open road. So she had been taught as a sheltered, young girl, sitting by her grandfather's side. Basking in his warmth, as if it were the sun's warmth.

And it had been. Just as harsh, as unmerciful, as blinding. Just as necessary.

But she was no child, and would never be again. She was no longer certain who she was, although she had been the Serra Teresa di'Marano, one of the most powerful women in the Dominion, where a woman had power the way a spider does; by spinning the incredibly fine web and hoping that it went unseen. Now, she wore the clothing of the Voyani women, and she did their work; she spoke little and attempted to mime the clumsiness of their gestures. She failed, and it was a profound disappointment, this failure. But she had not come to think of failure, and if she dawdled doing so, she would lose the only thing she had: time.

She found her place and knelt against dirt that was hard with water's lack. But it still held moisture; the Arkosan caravan had not yet reached desert's edge. Taking great care to disturb none of the sparse vegetation that clung to this crusted soil, she turned a small spadeful of earth to one side—the left side—revealing a darker brown. Earth would give way to sand soon.

But not yet; not yet. She lifted her flask and very carefully trickled a thin, burgundy line across the wound she had made in the earth's surface. She spoke quietly, and in a voice that no other person listening—be they bard-born or no—would hear. She set the flask down, and bowed her head. Waited a moment, and then repeated her careful actions, but with water instead of wine.

Lady, please, hear me. Protect my niece. Guide her. We fight your true enemy. Give her a home among the wanderers who have never forgotten your laws or your ways. Please hear me. Please hear me
. She did not speak the words. Not even the Lady liked the way pleading stretched an otherwise melodious voice thin.

When she was finished, she rose.

Diora
. She bowed her head.

Margret heard the Serra's name, again and again, in a dozen different voices. Each time she heard it, she felt a little prickle across the back of her neck. It was tied to many things: her mother's death. Her mother's choice to trust—to always trust—strangers rather than her own daughter, her own heir.

Had it been only that, she might have left the clanswoman to freeze in the desert night, to burn in the desert heat; they were almost upon either. But Stavos, Uncle Stavos, had taken the girl under wing inasmuch as it was possible to take something that cold and placid under wing, and Tamara—'Lena's mother, and therefore a woman who should
know
better, by Lady's blood and wind—had done likewise. She shooed the gawking men away.

Margret's men.

"Matriarch."

Margret was baleful. "What?"

Nicu stood in silence at her back, waiting for her to fully turn and acknowledge his existence. She had beaten him in public and she had stripped him of some of his duties, but he was still popular among the younger men whose responsibility it was to fight and die protecting the Matriarch's van. Her cousin. After a moment, contemplating what she would see, she turned; she wasn't surprised. Nicu's eyes had taken on a darkness, a haunted exhaustion, that felt like accusation.

When she looked at his face, she saw, imposed upon it like a ghost, the knotted muscles of his back, the blood that flayed skin shed. Her own hand holding the whip. Nothing, nothing at all, was clean anymore.

But at least Nicu, the prettiest of the men by far with the single exception of Margret's baby brother, was not gawking after the Serra; he was constant in his obsessions. He mooned after Elena, and Elena, true to bitter form, did what she could to be anywhere in the encampment that did not contain her cousin.

Margret had once loved Nicu in her fashion. She had once thought him beautiful. "Yes?"

"The men are ready, Matriarch."

"And the others?"

"They are making ready to leave."

She turned back to the desert, the evening sky coloring its sand and cooling its heat. This was the path to Arkosa; she could
feel
it in the sand beneath her feet. She wondered if the Serra could as well. Wondered, bitter, if the Serra could feel it more strongly.

"Good."

"How many?"

"No more than fifteen men, Nicu. Bring no children."