Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (55 page)

And he had helped.

He had asked the Serra Teresa into his harem. And when Alora had died, he had given Diora into her care.

Teresa would never have raised voice to save his life. He felt certain of that. But he had been more certain that his daughter would not have.

He wanted to ask her why.

But he was a coward; he acknowledged the truth without particular fear or shame.

"Diora." He did not make any effort to disguise himself, to flatten his voice, to keep the truth from it. He wondered what she would hear.

He was no longer certain himself.

The woman whose power was words had none.

Her face was once again the perfect mask, and if her hair was in disarray, her sari carelessly arranged, her chin darkening with a bruise that would require the judicious use of powders to conceal, she rose above it all. She was the Serra Diora di'Marano.

Na 'dio.

Oh, her dead spoke.

They spoke with such terrible voices. When she could imagine them as angry, they hurt her the least; in anger, they were harder to face, harder to yearn for. She had embarked upon the Lord's path, under the Lady's guise, so that she might hear their anger, face it, and not be shamed.

And so, of course, the Lord let the wind whisper in other ways.

Na 'dio, we each have gifts for you, but if you accept them, they demand as much back in return.

Her hands became fists; the nails of her exquisite fingers cutting crescents in the flat of her palms. She
would not
think of this here. Not here, not where any could witness it.

It hurt her. She had not desired death—which of the wives had?—but she knew, now, that death would have been far, far easier than the life she had chosen. She would not have had to face life alone, her arms bereft of the child she had done nothing—
no
— nothing—

Death would have been hers, and peace with it, if not for the man who lay, bleeding from two wounds, neither fatal, on the ground in the room's center.

You condemned me to this
, she thought, summoning her anger as if it were a creature from the Hells and she a Widan. But like a creature from the Hells, it twisted, defying her command, becoming not a shield behind which to view her father, but rather a blade upon which she might cut herself. Deeply.

She had
saved
his life.

And he had helped destroy hers.

She was numb. She had spoken with
the
voice. She had stopped the fall of the Tyr'agnate's sword, using a power that she had not once used in her own defense against him. She had raised voice to save her
father
even though she had sat in the dark of the only true night she had ever known, listening to the screams of the dying, her hands in her lap, her head bent forward, her body perfectly still.

"Diora?"

The body in the room's center moved.

And her father spoke. He spoke with fear, with hesitation, with the curiosity that had always been the strongest element of his speech, and with something that she would not name. She had nothing to offer in return but silence.

427 AA

Stone Deepings

Jewel had always disliked it—a matter of principle rather than practicality—when Avandar was right. But he was right about the stars. They didn't move at all; they didn't change. Hours spent walking in the great stone crevice under their cool guiding light had not dimmed or deepened the night blue sky; it had not brought dawn or moon. The stars, like the stone, were fixed in place.

She liked them better, but she found them disturbing. "Why can I see them?"

"The stars?"

"The stars."

"I don't know."

"Liar."

"If you are going to ask me a question, do me the grace of believing the answer I give you."

"Avandar, I can
hear
the lie in your voice. Learn to lie better or don't bother."

"It is not a lie," he replied, through teeth that were gritted in a comforting and familiar fashion. "I have some suspicions—and before you ask, no, I won't share them—but I do not know for certain."

"But the stars aren't real."

"No."

"And you can't see them."

"No."

"And you
know
that my gift has always made me pretty much impervious to illusion."

"Jewel, I am not ignorant."

"I wasn't lecturing you; I was thinking out loud."

"Think more quietly."

She subsided. Thought quietly. If what she was seeing wasn't illusion, and it wasn't real, what
was
it?

Why are they weeping, Oma
? Her grandmother's face was still, the lines of it, cut—as her grandmother said—by sun and wind, scars from a South that Jewel had never visited. A South she was walking toward, if
Kalliaris
was in the mood to smile.

Her grandmother and her father—not her mother, not her Southern-born mother—stood on the edge of a large circle of people, all dressed simply, all carrying either clothing or food or offers, word offers, of shelter. Waiting for the Voyani merchants to unload their forbidden cargo: people.

They started to tumble out beneath the heavy flaps of canvas, rolling and stumbling as the bolts of fabric, the cords of Southern wood, the bottles of spice or exotic perfume, were removed and their hiding places destroyed: Men, women, children.

We have to offer them shelter
, her Oma had said,
and you are old enough to understand this now. They come from a land that is harsher than Mandaros when he's angry. You remember what you see here. You've the blood, child. It's no sin against pride to take what you need to survive. But it's a sin not to offer it in return when you have it
.

Jewel, silent, had reached up to grab her grandmother's hand. That leathery hand, bent with age into curves that were both comforting and clawlike, had gripped hers a little too tightly as she watched the men and women continue to stumble from the wagon. They were thin, worn; some of them wore women's clothing although they weren't women. They were all younger than her grandmother.

They are weeping
, her grandmother had said,
because they are free
.

No, they aren't
, Jewel said.

You shouldn't argue with your Oma
, her grandmother had said, breath sudden and sharp.
Come home
.

But you said I was old enough
—

Come home now
. She began to drag Jewel away.

This was the first time that Jewel remembered
knowing
something so clearly. She was pulled upstream, against the current of bodies, of people—like her Oma—who had come to help these people lucky enough to escape from their evil Southern masters. Gods, things were simple then; the good and the evil so clean. She said, because she was young, because she didn't understand her grandmother, except as the source of all wisdom, sharp words, and comfort:
No, Oma, they're crying because the babies died
.

And her grandmother had stopped in the streets, clutching Jewel's hand, grip so hard that Jewel was almost in tears. She'd turned back, letting Jewel go.

Jewel understood it now, but the child that she had been and the woman that she was existed for a moment in the same place, the fear of one, and the terrible pity—the unwanted pity that would have so angered the old woman—of the other in perfect harmony.

Kalliaris smiled on me, Oma. What you taught me
—/
never forgot it. I never will
.

And the old woman answered, "I know."

"Avandar," Jewel said, trying to keep her voice conversational. The problem with that was volume, which was for all intents and purposes nonexistent. She knew it and tried again, louder.

"Avandar?"

"Yes?"

"That was you, right?"

"No."

"But you heard it?"

"Oh, yes," was his quiet reply. She turned to face him, but halfway to familiarity was stopped by a woman she had last seen propped up by cushions in a flat, wide bed.

"Oma," she said, the woman dissolving into the girl, the girl on the verge of tears.

"Jewel," the old woman replied.

Jewel knew better. She
knew
better. But she walked toward her anyway, her steps picking up speed as they came, each faster than the last; she lifted her arms to shoulder height, wide, as if she could catch—as if she could catch—

But her Oma held out a hand, and her lips took on that thin, compressed line that was a clear signal of annoyance. Avandar's shout meant nothing compared to that disapproval. Jewel stopped again.

"Not here, Na'jay," she said quietly. "Never here. I will take you to where you cannot go, but must, if you are to do what you were born to." A faint hint of pride in the sheen of those eyes. Those familiar and entirely unnatural eyes. "Walk with me, or walk beside me, but
do not touch anyone
you see on this path. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Oma," Jewel replied meekly. When the old woman started to walk, Jewel took up her place at her side as if it were natural. She paused to look behind her; Avandar walked in his customary position. "This is—"

"The Warlord," her Oma said. "I know."

"Uh—that's not what
I
call him."

"It is not what he is called that matters," her grandmother replied, not even turning to acknowledge the man they spoke of, "but what he
is
. He is the Warlord, Jewel. And you will thank
Kalliaris
in your time for bringing him to you—although I am not sure he will."

"Oh." She absorbed the sound of a voice that resonated with the familiar, and she understood, then, why she saw starlight where Avandar saw rock.

"Yes," her grandmother said. "Memory has always burned its way into you. You hold on to everything so
tightly
. Everything. Every loss, Jewel. Every death. You will see others where we walk, but I am the first."

She froze. "I don't think I want to see others."

"This road was your decision; you are under the geas of one of the undying. You have no choice, so you may as well not whine about it."

Her memories of her grandmother were always of kindness and wisdom, but this sharp sting of words was just as real. Jewel winced. "Yes, Oma."

"You have a remarkable way with words," her domicis said dryly. "I may take lessons. I have seldom had such an effect."

"You are a man," her Oma said with a shrug, "and the only men a woman should trust are her brothers or her father."

Jewel laughed, thinking of Teller, Carver, Angel; of Torvan, Arrendas; of Morretz—and even, in a fashion, of Avandar himself.

"Yes, I notice you didn't pay attention to
that
," the old woman said. "But you've managed to survive most of your gullibility."

"Oma—"

"Never mind, never mind, not in front of outsiders, I know." The old woman shook her head. "You should be grateful I was first," she said softly. "I'll be the easiest thing you face." She turned, her eyes glowing faintly, her skin luminescent but still somehow her skin. "You," she said softly, and Jewel realized she was speaking to Avandar, "be careful."