Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (84 page)

He lifted his head, seeking the ships.

He found them, felt them as an extension of himself, and smiled. They moved. They still moved.

And then, a hollow gesture, he released her from his own binding.

He gave her freedom.

The earth reached up to embrace her; she lifted her head. But she had no strength to roar, and if she had, he was not certain what she would have offered him; she had no word for gratitude.

Nor did he, anymore.

He waited until there was no sign left of her passage before he began the last short trek.

Bruises were evident in the sun's light; their dark and purple hearts, tinged yellow or black, adorned Arkosan faces and hands. The passage through the tunnels, at the behest of rushing water, had given hard rock and dirt the opportunity to rub skin from flesh, and most of the blankets that might have been used to cover rents and tears in flowing robes had vanished with the tents.

Had they the luxury of time, they might have attempted to collect their things. No one asked. The Arkosans were accustomed to swift flight; they were accustomed to the loss necessity decreed. They had escaped the grasp of the Lord of Night, and if they had never expected his reach to be so long, they did not dwell on it.

Instead, Donatella, Tamara, and Caitla busied themselves taking inventories of what had, and what had not, been lost, and while they did, they also prepared breakfast. Some false cheer dominated their bustle, but it lasted only as long as the food did, and the Arkosans—and their guests—were hungry. They ate quickly.

Jewel's appetite was blunted; the stag had not returned. She ate sparingly, with an eye to the landscape that the sun had made somehow less threatening. She had searched for tracks, but halfheartedly; she expected to find none.

Avandar ate well. Lord Celleriant did not join her, although he chose to accept the hospitality the Arkosans offered. He took their dried fruit, their dried meat, their water.

She was surprised to see that he, too, had been injured; that his clothing bore the scars of his aerial fight; that his forehead sported a gash that the length of his hair did not fully hide. It made him seem almost human. Mortal.

Of course
, Avandar said,
mortality is about death. And the only way the Arianni approach death, the only way they have ever approached it, is in combat
.

Think on that, Jewel.

Kallandras sat beside Yollana. He moved slowly when he moved, and to Jewel's eye, his arms seemed stiff as he brought food to mouth. But although he bore the same wounds that the Lord Celleriant did, although his clothing was perhaps the most spectacularly rent, he seemed younger somehow. When he smiled at Yollana, when he nodded at the occasional comment—too distant for Jewel to actually hear—from the Serra Teresa, the smile seemed genuine in a way that his smiles often did not.

To her eyes, at any rate.

He was charming.

His charm was almost infectious. Elena flirted with him shamelessly, and had he been anyone else, Jewel would have felt embarrassed for him—but he returned the Arkosan's gestures with a laugh that made them seem harmless.

This is what they're like after last night.

Nicu and his two friends ate as well, but Elena's gaiety was clearly unwelcome to the man Jewel understood to be the effective equivalent of Captain of the Chosen in these parts. His expression had fallen into the sullen anger that she associated with his face.

Everything was normal.

Except that neither Margret nor the Serra Diora chose to join them in their meal.

Stavos came late, and he came as errand runner first, taking food—anything he could rescue—from his wife and her cousins and retreating up the ramp of the Matriarch's floating ship.

"Tell her to come down and get it herself!" Tamara snapped, mock-severe. "She spends too much time in the air, not enough time on the ground."

"I always wondered what it meant, to have your head in the clouds," Donatella added, grinning broadly.

Stavos' chuckle was as forced as Kallandras' smile was natural. "She wants to be ready to take the ship up the minute the food is gone." He disappeared and reappeared almost as quickly. "But
I
want food and company."

"Get it in a hurry," the Havallan Matriarch told him. "It appears that we're not to have the advantage of time in the sun to thaw old bones."

She did not eat with her people because she would have had to sit near Nicu, and she could not bear to look at him. Did not want to see his face, and especially did not want to meet his eyes, his wide, brown, perfect eyes.

Because meeting them, she would know.

And she was not prepared to know anything, not this morning. Not now.

Instead, with the Serra Diora for company, she ate in the cabin. She kept the windows open, but they had not been built for light, and the light that did come played across the backs of bruised hands in a very unflattering way.

"You can join them, you know."

"If you wish privacy, Matriarch," the Serra replied, rising immediately—and gracefully, all things considered, damn her anyway. "I will join the others."

"If I wished privacy, I'd have to strangle 'Lena, her mother and Donatella at the very least, and in Matriarch's circles, killing your heir is considered bad luck." She was silent; even chewing made too much noise.

After a moment, the Serra resumed her seat across the thin table. She ate the food Stavos had brought without comment, although she was almost certainly used to better. She drank the water from the jugs as if it had come from the Lady's lake itself.

In the desert, all water is the Lady's gift.

Who had said that? Ah, her father.

"Matriarch?"

"I'm sorry—did I miss something?"

"I—I asked if you were well."

Margret laughed, but the sound came out midway between growl and bark. "As well as anyone can be when they've run from their family, hidden from battle, and lost—"

She stopped. Lifted her hands to her face, her cheeks, aware of how much like an accusation that would sound.

And isn't it? Didn't she force you to abandon your brother, your stupid, stupid brother?

No. She asked me to make a choice, that's all. It was
my damn stupid
choice
. "No, dammit, I'm not well. And if you mention that to any of
them
, I'll just settle for strangling you, which on the surface of things wouldn't cause years of hard luck."

"What is wrong, Matriarch?"

"I don't know. My head feels like it's six sizes too big, my eyes hurt when I look at the lights, and the cold is in my bones. I can't feel the sun. I can't feel the warmth." She lifted a hand; it shook. Annoyed, she set it down on the table with a slap.

The Serra Diora's expression didn't change at all, but something about her did, although Margret couldn't have said what for money. "Perhaps we should inform Yollana?"

"No."

"Very well, Matriarch."

"And you could stop calling me that any time now."

The Serra was instantly still, instantly watchful. Maybe, Margret thought, it would have been better if she'd sent her outside.

But then she would be alone with her thoughts, and she didn't actually cherish that notion.

"Serra—"

"If I am not to use the word Matriarch, refrain from the use of the word Serra; we will be two women, in a small cabin, and when we are together, we will claim this space as our own."

Margret almost smiled, and if the smile was tinged with bitterness, it was genuine nonetheless. "Done, then. Done, Diora. I have to ask you—has the Heart spoken to you since last night?"

"No."

"No word at all?"

"None that I am aware of."

"Has it changed color?"

Diora reached into her robes and pulled out a long chain, at the end of which hung the Heart of Arkosa. To Margret's eyes, it was unchanged; clear, crystal, cold. But she could
see
it. She could see it now.

She closed her eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

"I wasn't going to sleep last night. I almost didn't. And no, don't bother to tell me I'm a fool. The others take more pleasure in it, so you might as well save it for them."

Diora's smile was quick, an asymmetric movement of lips.

In spite of herself, Margret smiled back, and realized that she liked this woman's smile. When it was real. When it didn't have that delicate air of the High Court about it.

"When I was asleep, I saw… I saw the desert. But it was not the desert we see now. It was a land where the earth was the color of blood; the sands were red. I saw the bones of old buildings, and among them, of creatures too large to be men.

"At a distance, the stones seemed small. Too small. But as I walked toward them, they grew larger, and larger still, and the bones of the dead were like great, open cages. I would not have walked near them at all, but there was a path beneath my feet, and I could not step off it. I had to follow it. But…" She looked away, to the open sky, glad—as she was almost never glad—for the light of day. "Do you know where we're going?"

Diora was quiet for a long time. "It is not wise to know Voyani secrets," she said at last.

"No. But sometimes all of life seems unwise. We struggle, endure, and triumph, but in the end we all die. I've always wondered what would happen if we just bowed to the inevitable."

"The same thing that would happen if we do not."

"Is it worth the work?"

"I am not the person of whom you should ask that question, if you desire reassurance."

Margret looked away from the azure sky; it only heightened the darkness of the cabin. "I've often wanted to kill. I've never wanted to die."

Diora's voice was a whisper; it was so soft that Margret failed to catch the words it carried. But she was not so clumsy as to ask again. "You will see almost everything, I think. I don't know why my mother wanted that. You're right, of course; there are some secrets we kill to protect."

"And will you kill me to protect them?"

"I don't know. I hope not. Yollana says we can speak in privacy here. I will tell you what I think you already know. We travel to the grave of the City of Arkosa. It was once called Tor Arkosa."

"And your dreams are of that grave?"

"No. I have traveled, once, to the—to the City. I have seen where it lies. It is nothing like my dream; there is sand, sand, sand." She bowed her head. "In my dream, there is a shadow that lies within its heart, a darkness that is living and breathing. I walked toward it because I had no chance. I woke before it devoured me.

"I don't have true dreams," she added. She hadn't intended to say it. Knew that a Matriarch had to have better control of her tongue.

But she didn't regret it.

"Were you alone?"

"I was. But that's how it has always been, for the long history of Arkosa. The heir may travel to the foot of the pass, but no farther. No one can, except for the Matriarch." She was silent a moment. "Or perhaps the woman who wears the Heart of Arkosa. I honestly don't know what will happen with you. I thought that you would walk with 'Lena and me until we reached the turning point; that the Heart would then come from your neck to my hand."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know. I am afraid that the City will reject me in front of my people. That you will be the one who must continue." It was hard to say the words. She struggled with each one, made each one a perfect, enunciated sound, each distinct from the last.

"Margret."

Her name freed her from the struggle to speak. She looked up, met large, dark eyes, so like, and so unlike, Nicu's. A small, smooth hand touched the back of hers; the contrast between perfect skin and freckled, windburned knuckles was everything she feared it was—and yet, the certainty that this was not a gesture offered to many was almost enough to stem her resentment.

We all live in cages
, she thought.
Why did I hate you so bitterly
?

"You are the Matriarch of Arkosa. Heart or no Heart, you will never be less."

She spoke with such certainty, this perfect, tiny woman, it was almost impossible not to believe what she said was the truth. There were so many things she wanted to ask her, suddenly, so many terrible things.

"Why did you cry for my brother?"

The Serra flinched, but she did not withdraw her hand. She said simply, "He reminded me of one of my wives."

And Margret found no reply.

Again she said, "I don't have true dreams." And then she added softly, "But I feel, in the air, in this place, as if I have two hearts, both beating wildly, and one is getting louder and louder."

"Can you not ignore it?"

Margret frowned. "If I ignore it, we will never come home."

"Home is in—" Silence. After a moment, Diora said, "I do not walk along the Sword's Edge, but my—my father did. He wore the blade and the blood. I watched him for a decade as he toiled to master the Widan's art. I watched him when he thought he had complete privacy. And I watched him when he struggled with fatigue. Twice, I believe it came close to killing him. I do not claim understanding of Voyani magic. But I think… there must be some commonality between his art and yours; you suffer the signs."

Ah
. She stopped her brows from rising; stopped her face from expressing the surprise of sudden knowledge. "I'm an idiot."

Diora laughed.

"I've never—I wasn't a good student. My face wore the print of my mother's hands more often than anyone else in my family. She knew I had no vision. She knew that Elena did—or at least more so than I showed. She taught me to build the heartfires, taught me the wards against darkness. She could not teach me the major wards because I could not follow where she led; I couldn't see the traces of Arkosan power; I could see the crooked claws of her hands, the intense emptiness of her expression. But not the symbols she drew in the air." She rose. "I am not as strong as Evallen was."

"No," Diora told her quietly, releasing her hand. "You are stronger, I think."

"Why? I am fool, yes, and I would give anything I owned if I could believe you—and I want that belief, especially now. Only tell me why you say it."