Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (41 page)

She dressed for speed and not for elegance, which was a good thing; elegance was something that was really only within her grasp with Avandar's help, and someplace between Terafin and Evereve, she'd decided his help was too costly.

The shirt she grabbed was hunter green; gold circles had been embroidered into the sleeves and the collar, and they caught the unnatural light, reflecting it. She almost put it back. Didn't.

The mark, the S with the two little v's, was an angry red, decorated by silver and gold. Precious metals. "What does it mean?" She would never have thought her voice could be so quiet.

"It is… a claim. A… falsehood."

"I know you put them on your wife. But what does it mean?"

When the collar of her shirt had cleared her head, and before its sleeves had cleared her hands, he started to speak again.

"I… expended much of my power to bring you here," he said quietly.

"Why didn't you just use it to take us someplace safe?"

He laughed.

She turned, yanking her arms into clothing's confinement and comfort. "Just what is so funny?"

"This was safety," he said softly. "The only safety I, or mine, had."

"Well, I'm not you, and I'm not yours, and frankly I don't feel particularly safe here."

"You aren't. You are not of my blood and you are not… consigned to my service. The direction service takes in our relationship was… never conceived of in the time that this fortress was in use."

"Good. If you could just arrange for us to go home, I'd appreciate it."

"If I could just arrange for 'us,' as you so ignorantly put it, to go home, I would have done so before you woke." He walked to the door and closed it.

They stood together in her room. The curtains were closed; she wondered what she would see if she drew them. Started toward them to find out.

"Don't."

Stopped. "Won't it just be rock?"

"I… don't know."

"Oh." Silence, awkward and uncomfortable. "Why?"

"I never attempted to force windows upon this place. And my… wife… understood its nature well. You are, as always, surprising."

"How?"

"This. This room," he added, when it became clear that understanding was not going to miraculously occur. "It shouldn't exist. That it does speaks either to your power or to the dangers of tampering with a spell that was complicated enough to kill two of the mages required for its casting."

The tone of his voice made clear that it wasn't her power he was worried about.

She'd promised herself that she wasn't going to beg him for anything. She'd even promised that she wasn't going to ask, because on some level she was smart enough not to want to know. But smart wasn't enough.

"Who are you?"

"Avandar," he said smoothly. No cracks in that armor.

"All right. This?"

"This is… Evereve. Aristos told you its name, and he had no reason to lie. As you should well know, lies are best used sparingly."

"I don't lie."

"You've always been too lazy to learn the art."

"It's not laziness. My memory's lousy."

"As you will."

"And we were talking about you."

"In a manner of speaking," he replied. "I did not make this place, but I did discover it, in a fashion." His steps were flat and hollow in the still room; rugs absorbed their sound. "I… had already lost one wife. Two, although the first was killed when she tried to kill me." He lifted his head, folded his hands behind his back. She had seen him stand in exactly that position countless times.

"I lost all of my children."

She approached him slowly, as if approaching a wounded, wild creature—one that had claws, fangs, and weight behind it. His gaze was so far beyond her the walls couldn't contain it.

"I was… I am a very difficult man to kill. An acknowledged truth in my time. I was not… I
am not
a pleasant man. 'Pleasant' is a goal that those who have to live with fear struggle to attain.

"But my children were vulnerable. My wives. During a time in my life when I thought I could somehow attain happiness by protecting them, I found this place. I struggled with its essential nature. I made it my own. To do so was costly." His shrug told Jewel that the cost was measured in the lives of outsiders.

"I brought my wife here. She agreed to this; she was well acquainted with the death of her predecessor, and she was with child.

"She lost the child here. She did not conceive again until she left these walls, and she left them in haste."

"Avandar, please. We haven't much time."

"Yes and no," he said quietly, rising.

"Yes and no?"

"We discovered, in time, that time—within these walls—is not an issue. My wife did not age. Nor would she."

He was lying about something; she wasn't certain what. There was so much to lie
about
.

"But time is a jealous god."

"Time's a god?"

He raised a dark brow. "They teach you so very little these days."

"Thanks. I'll take that as a yes."

For a moment she thought she had his attention; that attention dissipated with the criticism.
It really is as natural as breathing
, she thought, stepping slightly back so she could see his face without being forced to tilt her chin up.

"You said she left."

"She left," he said softly, "because she desired a child."

Jewel shrugged. "Some women do."

And the edges around his dark eyes narrowed, changing their shape and his expression. "She was not a sentimental woman." His voice was cool. "She desired my legacy, or rather, a claim to it."

"And did she have her child?"

"Oh, yes."

"She survived?"

"She survived childbirth, yes. The child survived as well."

"There's something you aren't telling me."

"I am telling you so little it might as well be a lie," he replied. "You have no context in which to put the information."

She walked over to the closet again. Closed her eyes. Opened them, and opened the door. On the floor, tucked into the corner she reserved for long dresses and skirts she couldn't stand, was an old backpack; cracks split leather that was shiny with sweat where her hands habitually rested.

There were blankets in the dresser drawers, and clothing fine enough for the Tor Leonne—if she came as a Voyani. She grabbed the pack's shoulder straps in her right hand and slung it over her shoulder.

"Jewel," Avandar said.

"I'm not really listening."

"You're listening to every pause in my breathing."

Damn him anyway.

She began to roll the blanket into as small an object as she could. It had been years since she'd done this for herself; she-was rusty. "What happened to her?"

"To who?"

"The wife you don't even grace with a name?"

"She tried to have me killed," he replied softly.

"Oh." The blanket stilled. Jewel looked up, but Avandar's face was like a wall whose only gap was arrow slits. "I'm sorry."

"And she died for her mistake."

"Did you kill her?"

"Does it matter?"

She took the shirts and the very Imperial pants out of the drawers and began to fold them up as well, taking less care than she had with the blanket. Years of training slid past her; she wasn't certain if the colors matched, or if the style, such as it was, was current. Didn't much care. "Yes."

He didn't answer. He wasn't going to. She knew him that well. "We don't have much time, Avandar. We've got to go."

"I know," he said quietly. "But to bring you here almost killed us both. To take you out in a similar fashion will."

"You're lying."

"Very well. It will kill
you
."

"Does it matter?"

His smile was grim, unfriendly. "Yes."

9th of Scaral, 427 AA

Tor Leonne

He held
Saval
.

Its hilt was fine, and its scabbard finer still, but the grip that made the sword practical was unadorned leather. In his tenure as par el'Sol he had patiently remade the grip; he trusted no one else with the sword that had become associated with his rank.

It should have passed on to the man who replaced him as par el'Sol; the kai el'Sol's weapon was
Balagar
, sometimes called
Balagar of the Long Night
. It was gone. Fredero kai el'Sol had taken it with him, somehow, and if Peder par el'Sol suspected the how, he was consumed with the need to protect the Radann from far worse, in the end, than the theft of the kai el'Sol's sword.

Or so he told the others, and if they chose to believe it—as he tried to do himself—so much the better. Whether or not there was belief, however, mattered little; they chose not to question him. The loss, theoretically, was his.

The streets of the Tor Leonne opened before him like merchant tents before the wealthy; he expected no less. He wore the full regalia of the warrior-priest; the armor in perfect condition, the surcoat a deep blue, signifying the depths of clear sky. In the clarity of cloudless day, the Lord's sight was keenest, his judgment most dangerous. Blue was bisected by the curve of a weapon's blade:
Balagar
, although very few would recognize the sword should they otherwise see it. From out of the valley its curve made the sun in gold rose, and it rose with ten rays, ten full rays.

They bowed to him, the people of this city, or they fled, depending on their rank. How often, after all, did the kai el'Sol venture among them? How often did he do so accompanied by the par el'Sol, each fully armored, each carrying a naked blade?

There should have been four: there were three, Samadar, Marakas, and Samiel. When he had allied himself with Alesso— Lord scorch him, winds scour—he had already decided upon the man who would replace him in the Hand of God. Significantly, he had not called upon that man to face the Lord's fire, the Lord's fight, and the Lord's test. Why?

The three men who stood at his back now were men he trusted.

Trust was a fool's game; it was also the game of desperate men. Desperation had forced him to trust.

For once in his life, he cursed ambition, because no man became par el'Sol—with the exception of Marakas, perhaps—without ambition. He had chosen his successor carefully. Grego di'Erreno was brilliant, cool, and politically wise; the perfect counterweight for Samadar, a man too much beholden to the Lambertan-bred kai el'Sol. He had intended to replace Samadar in time.

No matter; he could not afford it now. Too much was at stake. Gregor was ambitious, and Gregor had thrown his weight behind the General. The so-called Tyr'agar. No doubt—
no doubt
—the Erreno-born clansman, when confronted with the same truths that Peder had been confronted by, would make the same choices.

But by then it would be too late. Thus, Fredero kai el'Sol's revenge. What had he said?

/
am the Lord's servant, but the game that is played here is a game for men who understand treachery better than I
. Had he thought Fredero a fool for accepting—and forgiving—his treachery? He repented.

It did no good.

Sun glinted off metal; gold, he thought, although the momentary pain would have been the same if the light was reflected off something base.