Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (73 page)

"Our research—"

"Will keep."

Silence. Then, "Have you come to aid us?"

"No. Nor to interfere. I come to confer. If we assume that the
Kialli
are intelligent—"

"Alesso—"

"There are two things within the Tor Leonne that make it special." He waited a moment.

Mikalis frowned.

Sendari said, stiffly, "The Lady's Lake."

"Yes." Alesso smiled; it was brief, but the sun's light did not extinguish it. "And the Sun Sword."

"Their action can have no bearing on the Sword itself." Mikalis spoke with the flat tone of absolute certainty.

"They could destroy it."

"They could not destroy it without aid. It was made to stand against them. The Widan, working in concert, would have trouble destroying that blade." His tone implied that they would fail for their trouble.

"Very well, Widan. I accept the knowledge you offer." He waited. The Widan exchanged another glance.

"The Lake," Sendari said at last.

Mikalis lifted the mask on the mat at his feet and brought it up, clutching the chin in a half-fist of frustration. But he did not argue with the two words; once spoken, they had the weight of the self-evident.

"The Lake is an artifact of the Lady," Mikalis added gravely, "and one of the few proofs of Her existence. They dare not even touch the water; how are they then to harm it?"

"Bend your thought to that task," the General replied. "Because if we cannot stop the use of the masks—and it appears we will be denied that ability—we may well stop their effective use. If the water
can
be harmed, let us guard it."

"Elena."

She stiffened. She didn't need to stand or turn to know who spoke. She did neither. She had had trouble even meeting his eyes since he'd tried to steal what Margret had forbidden him.

No, be honest, Elena
. Since she'd flogged him. If she closed her eyes for longer than a blink, she could see the stretch of his back broken by leather thong and rising blood; could see where he would scar.

Could see, if she pulled back, the shaking hand that drove the whip. It was the only hint of weakness Margret had shown, and it was one that Elena was fairly certain no one else had been close enough to catch.

Lady, the cost of it.

"Elena, we need to talk."

"We need," she said, grunting as she heaved the sack up and over deceptively strong shoulders, "to feed our own."

"That's not your job. You're the heir, now."

"That never stopped Margret from working her fingers to the bone."

"Margret's not Evallen."

"Not yet, she's not," Elena snapped back, "but she's working on it."

She took a step. Two.

Then the bag of ground corn meal wasn't the only thing on her shoulder.

"Nicu," she said, through clenched teeth, "remove your hand, or I'll do it for you."

His fingers tightened, a reminder that he was the stronger of the two. She wondered who needed the reminder more: herself or Nicu. The flogging had taken something from him. She wasn't certain how desperate he was to get it back.

But she was certain she wasn't going to be the way he did it.

"
Elena
," he said, changing tactics. His hand fell away, and his voice developed that… dimple, that fold in the middle of her name that fell just short of whine or plea.

She tightened her grip on the heavy sack and turned to face him. "What?"

"We need to talk."

"So talk."

"Not—not here."

"Nicu, you're starving our children. What do we need to talk about that can't wait until after dinner?"

"Everything."

She turned away. Started to walk. Remembered two things, one easy and one difficult. Easy: the fact that the sword was still in the camp. Difficult: that he was her cousin, that she had grown up with him, that once upon a time they had been closer than siblings. AU those bonds, built then, still had the power to cut when struggled against.

She stopped struggling, wondering whether or not he'd've even tried to steal the sword back if she'd given him the time he'd been begging for.

She stopped wondering as quickly as she could because she didn't like the answer she was getting too close to. Nicu had always been strongest of the three. And he'd always been weakest.

"All right," she said at last. "Let me just go talk to Donatella, and I'll be back."

"Why do you want to talk to my mother?"

"Nicu."

"Why?"

"Because," she said, forcing her jaw to relax although she couldn't keep the irritation from the words, "the children have to be fed."

It was women's work, the feeding of the children. The Matriarch—Evallen—said it was a natural extension of the fact that women had breasts. Men could be trusted for many things, but they were short on attention span and shorter on patience. The children
had
to be fed, or there was no Arkosa; it was one of the highest responsibilities any woman in a caravan could be given.

Elena privately thought the Matriarch crazy; the men in her life had been far more patient—with the single notable exception of Nicu—than most of the women, and far less likely to raise their hand and lash out in annoyance. But they had also been far more indulgent and therefore more likely to be late with food or angry about the waste of it. The latter was necessary, because no matter how hungry the family was, children were peculiar creatures with odd likes and dislikes and a propensity to choose play over sustenance. They had to learn to take what they were offered
when
it was offered; they had to know, as they grew older—and they did that so quickly—that any food they ate was less food for the men and women who protected them from bandits, clansmen, and Voyani raiders. To waste it was a slap in the face, and worse.

During the hungry season, men died to protect food. Because, of course, in protecting their food—and water—they were saving the lives of the children.

You didn't throw away food. Not even as a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.

"Elena?"

"Donatella." Elena dropped the sack neatly in front of the older woman's bent knees. "I hate to do this, but—"

"But I need to talk to her, Momma."

Nicu. Voice where she least liked it: behind her back, but close enough to her ear she could feel it tickle her spine.

"Nicu," she said, forgetting for a moment that she stood in front of his mother, "
go away
. I'll meet you desert-side in five minutes if I can."

"But—"

"If you don't, I'm going to feed the children. You decide."

He made a big display of drawing breath, but she could only hear it; she didn't bother to turn around. She also heard the heavy tread of his feet as he dragged and stomped them across the flat brush.

Donatella's face had taken to shadow since the flogging. She had spoken no word against the Matriarch—and she never would—but she had spoken no word to her either, and Elena knew it hurt Margret. She also knew Margret would swallow her sword before admitting it, and you talked about Margret's pain at your peril. Her business.

The older woman rose. Her back was more bent than Elena remembered it, but her hands were just as strong. Age wouldn't deprive her of strength, although it would probably try. She reached out for Elena's hands; caught them.

Like Margret's, these days, they were shaking.

"I'll feed the children," she said quietly. "You speak to my son."

The tone of her voice drove a dagger a hair's breadth to the side of Elena's heart.
Lady, Nicu. All this pain for a sword. Didn't you even think
?

To his mother, she said, "I will, Donatella. I will. He's not a bad boy. He's just wild with anger. Who wouldn't be? The clansmen—"

"Enough, Elena. I know my boy."

She'd thought the shaking hands were bad. "I'll talk with him," she said, backing away from the words.

Ai, Nicu, there's not enough pain in the world, you have to cause more of it
? It was a graceless thought, and she tried to rid herself of it before she met him. Because he was so much like the children that she'd been about to feed: willful, easily wounded with sharp words, in need of direction. You could manipulate him into doing what he needed to do—but it was work and it took patience, and the older he got, the less patience she had with him.

And where had that led?

Broken back. Scored flesh.

He'd hurt them all.

But not half as much, not a tenth as much, Lady, not a
hundredth
, as he'd hurt them if he tried something like that again and Margret was forced to kill him.

The streets of the Tor Leonne had opened before him and closed at his back as if they were liquid and he a diver. He spoke the right words to the right guards and they nodded him through gates. Of course he spoke with a voice that was, as he was, more than it seemed, and he spoke words that they would lose to the undertow of memory almost before they'd finished listening.

He passed from gates through the various pavilions that were—finally—being richly and deftly built in the city that was closest to the Lady's heart on Festival Night.

Silks, some deep with color that seemed like it must have been set in cloth by a blend of tradition and magic, others pale with light and sun, were being hoisted up on poles to make something that would be called tenting when composed of a lesser material. Men worked, straining against both weight and time; very few of these bore seraf marks.

He lingered only a second or two at each, listening to the tenor of men's voices. Fear, but it was masked, and remote enough to be due to the orders of a more powerful man. Anger, but again muted enough to be part of the life of a man living in the Dominion.

There was no joy. No hint of the wildness that was promised on the night of the Festival Moon. He wondered, then, if any of them believed it would come to pass.

He was certain, but he understood—as they did not—that wildness could not be denied. It was as old as the Lord's gaze, as old as the Lady's full face, inevitable as dawn or dusk. Nowhere did men speak of masks.

Instead they spoke of demons.

They spoke of the Radann, the swords of the Radann, the work of the Lord. As if their words themselves were a harmony—several harmonies—to an old, well-known song, history blended with politics, past and present coming to a single, sharp edge. Someone would be cut by it; someone would bleed.

But it was enough, at the moment, to know that person would not be Kallandras of Senniel.

Not, that is, if he performed the task set for him by Yollana of the Havalla Voyani.

She had not told him what to look for. She told him little, hoarding the texture of her aged and perfect voice as if aware of how much of a gift it was. It was, of course. Nothing slipped past Yollana. Nonetheless, Kallandras knew what he sought: Corronans. Lyserrans. Men who bore the marks of the Matriarch's van. They were not easily detected among those whose feet never walked the open road.

His had. He understood the Voyani better than most men. After all, they were a people defined by lack of home, their penance for past sin.

"Not all roads," she said softly, "make Voyani."

He felt the spark of the storm touch the tips of his fingers and hover there. "No," he replied, without turning, her voice more distinctive than any vision of her face would have been, "Some roads are far harsher."

"I can't believe how much you change as you get older. You live behind your experience. You probably don't even realize how different you are. But I just saw you twenty years younger, and I wouldn't even guess you'd become who you are now. You were so angry. At me. You could be so cruel…"

"That any kindness seems out of character?" She was, he thought, not much past thirty. It surprised him slightly; he had not heard this much youth in her voice for long months. He turned to face her.

Her hood was down about her shoulders like a cowl, her chin framed by the depth of a blue the silks upon the pavilions he had just passed couldn't hope to match.

"You change," he said softly, "as much. More, perhaps. One is never the best judge of one's own evolution."

She snorted. At this age, shored up by the certainty of youth and the confidence of experience, she was the most open. Younger, and her anger was as great as his had been, perhaps greater for the fact that it was so aimless. Older and she had begun to delve into the mysteries, to shoulder the burden of power that would either redeem the choice that she had made at the beginning of her adult life, or prove it to be a waste and a conceit.

Here, now, she was almost beautiful.

With Evayne, now was all one had, and perhaps there was a lesson in that. "I… did not expect to see you."

"Oh. I thought—I thought Yollana would tell you."

"Tell me?"

"I met her for the third time tonight. She's not as intimidating when she can't walk." Her grin held warmth, self-knowledge, no fear. When she was older, she was wiser. "I thought I'd been sent to you. No, I was certain. But she was there instead."

"Unusual."

"She's—she's gifted."

"Yes."

"She said you'd left something for me?"

It was Kallandras' turn to raise a brow. "Evayne," he said gently, "the heart of the crisis is not yet upon us. I did not think to see you yet, if at all." Had she been younger, he would have chosen his words with far more care.

"Oh."

"What, exactly, was I meant to have left for you?"

"A mask."

"I… see. What else was I meant to have said?"

"That these were magicked in a way that you didn't understand and the Voyani didn't understand either."

"Slanted, but truthful. Go on."

"It had the right feel to it. Her words, I mean. I took the mask."

It had the right feel to it
. He wanted to ask her what she meant.

But asking would remind her that she spoke of things she should not—or could not—speak of. He kept his silence.

Her eyes had that pale tint that often added a touch of coolness to an otherwise warm face. As they narrowed, he thought them very like a shade of purple steel. Her grip tightened. Very carefully she turned the mask over.