Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (89 page)

He had replaced Ellerson, the domicis the Terafin had sent her den on its first day in the manse. Ellerson had been older than her father would have been, had he survived, and a good deal more formal, but she knew, with Ellerson, that what she saw was what he was.

And knew, too, that he cared about her and hers. It had been such a blow to lose him. The years had gentled the loss, but had not removed its shadow. That was part of the reason for her distance.

Morretz, The Terafin's domicis, a man she also instinctively trusted, disliked Avandar, and mistrusted him. His eyes, the steely cast of his lips, the way he drew his spine to full height whenever Avandar came into view, told the beginning—or middle—of the story, but neither he nor Avandar would disclose the end.

That was another part.

But the last lay buried by sands and time. A
lot
of time.

The past was not a place, but it existed, and with care and attention, a map might be made from start to finish, replete with landmarks, terrain, and roads. If one knew the personal geography behind its making.

Jewel had, in her time, both upheld and decried that geography. She had promised those in her care that if they dwelled in the present she foisted on them, if they met her demands, followed her rough guidance—and it was rough, for she had never been the most patient of people—the past would remain a foreign place, a country in which she could neither speak nor understand the language.

They had accepted her rules because they were desperately hungry. And that hunger had two forms that she recognized. The first, the one that was easiest, she resolved as she could in the streets of the twenty-fifth; she scavenged for food, stealing what she could, buying what she had to. That was one of
her
truths, and a gold ring, a wing in the Terafin Manse, could not eradicate it.

The second hunger was more difficult.

And in appeasing that, she had turned her den into her kin, the only kin that she had claimed after the death of her father.

The past was not a place. The present was not a place, but it was rooted in reality. She had made a geography out of loyalty, trust, and a shaky respect, and she had made it stick; she had made it so real that the past lost its grip to paralyze or terrify in all but the darkest of circumstances.

It was the here and now that she had been best at.

The only past she relied on was her own. Her Oma. Her mother. Her father. Old Rath. Beyond that: Terafin, the Chosen, and her kin—Angel, Carver, Finch, Jester, Arann, Teller.

No, that's not true.

There was Duster
. Duster, her killer. Her wild card. Her friend. She had asked no one else for their stories, but Duster's had both fascinated and frightened her, and in the end part of her confidence in the strength of her den was built on the foundations of that story, that past.

What had she said?

/
won't judge you. I promised you that. But I need to

know what you are, and to know that, I need to know who you were. No, that's not what I mean. I mean
—/
mean I need to know where you came from. I need to know
why.

Duster had trusted her.

Duster had answered. She had started out so edgy and defiant, the words hard and shiny, her pride in her past and her accomplishments—
death, three killings
—like a light, a beacon.

But beneath steel, there was something else. And after the edge had been ground from her words, after the pride had burned so brightly and exhausted itself so thoroughly, Jewel had found it.

She had never tried that with Avandar.

No
, he said.

She jumped.

And you never will.

He was back; he was behind his eyes.

Why?

"Because, ATerafin, you already know what you'll find, and if you find it, you will not be able to accept it. There is nothing of you in it. Nothing at all. But I am… touched by your concern."

He pulled himself away from Elena's ship and began to walk off.

"Avandar."

"ATerafin?"

"Did you truly surrender the gates of Carrallon?"

He looked at her for a long time; she felt his gaze as if attention were a responsibility and a burden.

And then he smiled.

She took a step back.

When he turned again, she let him go.

The Serra Teresa had been quiet for most of the day's light. Every so often she would rise and turn in a circle that began and ended with Yollana, her gaze upon the distant horizon.

"Teresa."

"Matriarch?"

"Sit. You make me dizzy."

It wasn't true. Teresa completed her search and resumed her unofficial place by the side of the Havallan Matriarch.

She pushed dark curls away from her neck and stared, almost ruefully, at her hands; they had become darker in the past few weeks than they had ever been. Stranger's hands.

"Yollana, what do we do here?"

The Matriarch reached into her robes for her pipe. Her hands, lined and dark, were as steady as rock. "We wait."

It was not an answer to the question she had asked, but it was answer enough.

The Arkosans had withdrawn; some sought the interior of Elena's wagon, some the makeshift shelter they had erected for Margret.

"How long?"

Yollana settled the pipe in the corner of her mouth after placing leaf around its wide, flat bowl. She searched her robes for a moment and then snorted and passed her hands over the tobacco. Fire, the smallest of sparks, swirled in the wake of her fingertips. Her breath caught those sparks, drew them into the leafbed.

"It varies. I have my own experience to go by, no others. In the Western Kingdoms there is a saying: No country is large enough to contain two heads that have worn the same crown unless one is on a pike."

Teresa smiled.

"It's a good saying, although the Voyani don't invest their titles in symbols; if we had crowns, they would serve a purpose; they would house some part of our power."

"The Crown houses power in direct measure to the power of the man who dares to lift it."

The older woman shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Our lives, our names, are enough. There have never been—to my knowledge—two Matriarchs at the foot of the
Voyanne
. The Voyani do not love the clans, but history has shown that they bear each other no great feelings of fellowship either. I bear the responsibility for some of that truth. If I were Margret, I would have left me with the rest of the Arkosans; I would never have allowed me to travel. Not here."

"No. Evallen would not have allowed it either."

"Indeed. I had respect for Evallen."

"And her daughter?"

"We'll see. But… she has surprised me, Teresa. And at her age, that's no small thing." She smoked a while in silence. Teresa thought she had finished speaking, and was almost sorry; her voice, textured and layered with conflicting emotions, was a welcome companion.

But after a moment, she said, "We will not have long to wait. Other Matriarchs have taken days to pass this test; in Havalla, one is given no more than three."

"And if the Matriarch fails?"

"She is no longer Matriarch; she passes the burden down."

Teresa fell silent. She had asked Yollana questions before, but she had chosen each word carefully, aware that answers exposed her to as much danger as a direct threat might have. The Voyani guarded their past a little less carefully than they did their secrets, and there was only one sure way to keep a secret.

Today, Yollana was more forthcoming than she had ever been. "If Margret does not find what she seeks today, she will never find it. The sun is almost at its height. Teresa, don't stand. If she succeeds, we will know."

"But—"

"We will know. What she will do about that knowledge, I cannot say, but we
will
know."

The Serra smiled almost bitterly. She rose. "It is not for Margret that I search," she said simply.

She lifted her voice, her private voice, the voice that, had she been born in any other land, would have been gift, not curse, blessing, not bane.

A mile away, the Serra Diora di'Marano lowered her face. It was a slight movement; she did not cease to walk, to follow the path that the Matriarch followed in the vast, unmarked plain.

But slight or no, it caught Margret's attention. She paused, or perhaps slowed, and turned to the Serra.

"Diora?"

Elena was close enough to hear the unadorned name. Had she been a clanswoman, she would have marked the lack of title as either active insult or act of intimacy, and would have hoarded the knowledge while failing to show that she now had it.

The Voyani, constrained by no such formality, were often less likely to notice. But Elena's eyes narrowed. The rest of her expression was hidden by desert mask, desert hood.

Margret had no sisters.

Elena, her cousin, filled that role. Cherished it. She had been concerned with the enmity Margret willfully displayed to the Serra Diora; she was concerned, now, with its lack. It was not in Diora's interests to exacerbate that concern.

But she did not correct Margret; that would be worse; that would draw attention to the lapse in the older woman's behavior. Instead, she smiled wanly. .

"I am… tired," she said, pitching her voice to make it both pleasant and weak. "Forgive me, Matriarch."

Margret's eyes, like her cousin's, were so openly expressive it didn't matter if the rest of her face was obscured.

Diora therefore added, "I worry about Ramdan, that is all." She waited for the name to register, and when it didn't, she found herself adding, "My seraf."

It was Nicu who snorted. His hearing was, sadly, better than Margret's.

Margret turned to him and snapped a reprimand in Torra. Diora failed to hear it; she kept her face as smooth as a mask. That was what a face was, after all, in the High Court. A mask. And that mask was watched carefully, examined daily for cracks.

Nicu's comment and Margret's reprimand seemed to restore a delicate balance to Elena; she became once again absorbed by the pilgrimage.

But Margret tilted the balance again; although she did not stop—could not stop—moving, she reached out briefly and touched Diora's shoulder.

"We'll find him."

Although the Voyani Matriarchs were obligated to bear children, they also took no husband; the fathers of their children existed in a curious limbo. Some Matriarchs chose to bear children in such a way that no father could lay claim to his daughter's blood or title.

In Margret's case, Evallen had been secure enough in her power—and her husband—to risk a more traditional approach. If she had chosen unwisely in her youth, that approach would have been fraught with peril. The Matriarchs ruled the Voyani; that truth was unquestioned.

But in the Dominion, women did not rule, and that, too, was a truth that was unquestioned.

Diora wondered how many fathers of Matriarchs had been put aside; how many had had accidents that, while unexplained, were understood by all. She wondered what it must be like, to be a man who stood so close to power, without ever being able to wield it directly.

And as she did, her gaze passed over Nicu. He did not meet it; he had turned to look—as he so often did—at Elena.

Family
, Diora thought.

She turned her attention to the sand, the sun, the wind. To the shadows that were dwindling until they were cast upon the ground by the length of her stride.

The fires still burned within the Matriarch of Arkosa. She had swallowed them, and like a poison, they spread. The heat of the desert, the heat of the sun, the heat of light reflected by pale sand, were nothing in comparison; she did not feel them enough to be forced to acknowledge them.

Her hands tingled. Her legs. As she walked, her feet began to feel the fire's spread until each step she took was a mingling of pain and pleasure. The sensation was strong, sweet; she changed the fall of her foot against sand, lengthening it.

She felt
alive
.

She had faced storm and Serpent, sun and moon; she had accepted the loss of her brother; she had accepted the responsibility laid like a slap across her face. All of these things failed to bow her. She was the Matriarch of Arkosa. She
was
Arkosa.

"'Gret?"

Her cousin's voice came to her as a hollow, tinny sound. And until she heard it, she did not realize that she was listening to the wind, to the rich fullness of the voice that sent sand scudding across the plain.

"'Lena?"

"You said something."

"No."

"Yes," Nicu said, the sullen weight of his words somehow more substantial than Elena's. "You did."

She frowned.

"Margret."

The Serra Diora's voice was as clear as the wind's. Margret turned at once, drawn to it. "You spoke in the tongue of the Matriarchs." She paused for a moment, and then added quietly, "and your feet are no longer touching the sand."

She looked down; the winds left her.

"I think," she said, as calmly as she could, "we are almost there. Nicu, Elena, set up the tents. From here, we must go on alone."

"We?"

"The Serra and I."

Elena's eyes were as narrow as a blade's edge, but hot where a blade was cold. She would have spoken; Margret knew her well enough to brace herself for angry words even if she couldn't see the mouth they'd come out of.

But Nicu saved her the trouble.

"You're going to take an outsider with you? You're going to take
her
and leave your blood kin behind?"

She didn't trust herself with words. But her nod was as clipped as the words would have been had she said them.

"
Matriarch
," he said, all ice, "you will not."

Ishavriel heard the words.

Felt them, felt the immediate rage that propelled them. He matched the mortal's sudden fury with his own. How
dare
he? The time was not yet right.

And timing was everything.

At times he could understand Isladar's fascination with mortals and mortality; this was not one of them. Had he been standing beside the Arkosan, he would have cut short a span of years that was already brief enough to be almost beneath notice.