Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (87 page)

So, too, his robes; gone silks and the perfect seams of master tailors; he wore armor, and the armor itself was without exaggerated shoulders, paint, or color. He was not dressed for display or parade; he could have been any cerdan, and Toran, if not for the fact that his surcoat bore the sun ascendant. Only two men had the right to wear it, and Diora doubted that she would see the Tyr'agar again before the day of her wedding.

He was not Marakas par el'Sol. He would not, she thought, ever bow to a woman who was not in the ceremonial position of being the Lord's Consort. But if he would not acknowledge her in a way that debased him, he acknowledged her by two things: first, when she began to lower herself to the ground in the full supplicant posture, he stopped her by a single, sharp gesture, and second, he nodded and met her gaze fully.

She should have looked away. She began to; the lessons of years turned her muscles gracefully, exposing the side of her face to his inspection in as pretty, as perfect, a way possible. But something in her tightened; some imperfection, some part of her that had been broken by the truth:

That perfection, that obedience, never guarantees safety. That
good
and the reward of being
good
were for the discipline of children. She had done everything as it was to have been done; had been everything she had been taught to be; more.

It had given her everything, she thought, only so that she might learn what loss was.

The Serra Diora di'Marano met the gaze of the Radann kai el'Sol, and held it. His brows rose a fraction, a fleeting gesture of distaste at what she guessed must be her boldness.

"Serra Diora di'Marano," he said, "the Radann have been told by the Tyr'agnate Eduardo kai di'Garrardi that you are to wed the morning after the night of the Festival Moon.

"Accept our apologies for our rough state; we have seen the beginnings of war, and it is not from the direction we would have expected." He paused then, to look to the North. To the North, where the traditional enemies of the South lay in silence, their movements unascertained because the spies and the scouts of the Tyr were in the streets among his own people.

The words that he spoke next were not for her; they had that faraway quality that spoke of unguarded thought. More than anything else he had said or done, the lack of caution surprised her. Frightened her. He said softly, into the wind. "Where are they?" It was almost like… a prayer.

And the wind twisted the heavy flap of his surcoat, pulling it in the direction where their historical enemy lay in silence.

427 AA

The Stone Deepings

"You must let yourself relax," a familiar voice said in a darkness sharp with nightmare. The words, calm and wise, could be heard with ease over the dying sound of a scream. She shook her head. Opened her eyes.

She'd been dreaming, of course. All she did on this road was dream; what made it hard was that she could not remember— ever—falling asleep. Her journey had been one of waking from nightmare into crisis; waking from nightmare into crisis. The act of sleep itself had deserted her.

She found her breath with difficulty because she was waiting for familiar sounds that would—of course—never come; Finch's light step, Carver's cursing, Angel's sharp words, and Teller's quiet Are
you all right
? But from them, only silence. She had no room, no bed, no wing; there was no House Terafin, no manse, no shelter. The road was open and she felt as if she would never leave it.

Wise, wise child.

Oh, shut up
, she snarled.

But at least one thing hadn't changed: Avandar stood at her feet—which was probably as close as he could come to the foot of her nonexistent bed—carrying a lamp, or rather, the magical outline of a lamp whose heart was white fire. His own.

And when she shook sleep off, she found that the other shadows had not left her: The stag, horns heavy, stood to one side of the sweep of the rock strewn path, and Lord Celleriant stood against a rocky outcropping, his sword unsheathed, his back toward her. A sentry, she thought, but against what? The worst of the dangers had ridden, abandoning him to her care.

"Jewel?"

She nodded. No kitchen to go to, but she stood anyway.

"Where are we going?" Avandar asked her quietly.

"I don't know." She started to walk.

"Jewel, may I—"

"No." She stopped and began to roll up her figurative sleeves; the ones she was wearing wouldn't easily roll into the loose folds of cloth she best liked. It was time to
wake up
. "Is any of that money real? Any of that gold?" She reached down and gave the front of her tunic a sharp tug. Felt real enough. "Am I going to walk off this path and end up stark naked? Because this isn't the weather for it, and even if it were, it's probably not the right country."

"Jewel."

"Yes?"

"Your dream."

"I don't remember my dream. I haven't remembered a dream since—" Silence. The stars were so bright she couldn't believe they were an artifact of memory.

Believe it
, a familiar voice said, almost too softly to
be
familiar.
But believe that it is not
your
memory that makes them so, but mine. The world was young, once. I was young
.

You remember that?

I remember everything
, was the quiet reply.
And you remember more than you know. You were dreaming, child, and your dreams are a part of my gift and my curse to the creations of the one who would not be trapped by a name
.

Starlight. Bright. And beneath it, the movement of men, of hundreds of men, thousands.

"I do remember." Jewel said. She tried to keep the accusation out of her face when she looked up at him, his chin lit by the lamp he held, his face cast in shadows. "How did you know?"

"Because you called out two names," he replied quietly.

"And those?"

"Valedan."

"That's one."

"Kiriel."

She shuddered. "It was Kiriel who broke the dream."

"I… guessed. I have rarely heard you so terrified, and I have borne witness for so many of your nightmares I have lost count."

"Kitchen," she said, without thinking. And then, scanning the landscape—such as it was—added "Ledge." She pointed with her head. "You, pretty boy, sheathe that and follow. And you, four legs, if you've got a brain in there, you might as well join us."

"Jewel—"

"What? She told me they were
mine
, and in the end, there's really only one way to
be
mine. No, don't make that face. If you disagree, tell me I'm wrong. Go on. Tell me."

"I believe that you do not understand the danger of what you suggest," he said, but after a long pause. "But you accepted Kiriel where I would have killed her—if that is even possible now—and you have not yet been proved wrong."

"Meaning you think I will be."

"To your lasting regret, yes."

"Let's just say this is a matter of instinct and leave it at that."

"Let us, then." His lips were tight. It was a familiar expression, and she was very happy to see it. She walked to the ledge and stood to one side, propping her chin up by the use of elbows and palms. "Okay," she said, looking the almost-human newcomer squarely in the eyes, "these are the rules. It's late. I've had a nightmare. It's what I call a true dream."

The pale, silver brows of the most beautiful man Jewel had ever seen rose a fraction.
I'm going to have to do something about those looks
, she thought.
He cannot stay that pretty and be part of my group
. But she decided that particular set of changes could wait.

"You have the Sight," he said at last, as if speaking to her was a distasteful but necessary evil.

"More or less," she replied. "You're used to pomp, circumstance, ritual, and sadism. Guess what? Life's a lot different where we live, and it's going to
stay
that way, if I have to send everything that isn't human to the Hells permanently."

"Jewel."

She ignored Avandar.

The pretty man was only marginally less pretty when haughty; he was haughty now. "You really don't understand what's happened, do you?"

"Yes, I do. Dark god that we all don't name because we're afraid He'll hear us has managed to get a teeny-tiny foothold into our world. We don't want Him here, and we're going to send Him back to the Hells. Simple."

"Something is being simple," he said coldly.

She slapped him.

Just like that, hand snaking out and back in a movement that surprised them all. His sword was out of its scabbard so fast Jewel wouldn't have bet money that he'd ever sheathed it.

Avandar was faster still; lightning met sword as if it were corporeal. But the sword stopped.

The man who had been Lord Celleriant closed his eyes. Jewel could see the mark her hand had left on his perfect skin. She wondered, then, what sun would do. What age would do—if he would age at all when they left this place. "Do you think," he said, moderating his tone with such obvious difficulty Jewel wasn't sure whether she should be grateful for the attempt when the failure was so great. "That you can stand against a god?"

"If I remember my history," she began.

"You don't," Avandar said. "You remember your legends. History and legend diverge in details both great and small."

"If I remember my
legend
," she said, throwing Avandar the look he deserved for the interruption he'd given, "Moorelas—"

"Called Morel of Aston," Avandar said, speaking directly to Lord Celleriant now, "in your time."

"I know well of whom she speaks, Warlord."

"Good. I can do without the interruptions. Avandar, take a hint.

"Moorelas rode against Allasakar."

"And?"

"Well," she said, frowning, "he won, obviously, because there are no dark gods—no gods at all—wandering around making our lives miserable. Not that we're not good at doing that ourselves."

"Is that the tale that is told now?" he said, not to her, but to Avandar.

"Lays are sung about the Shining Lord and the Shining City," was Avandar's quiet reply. "But this is known: That Moorelas rode into the shadow, and in time, the shadow lifted."

Celleriant frowned.

"It is also known," Avandar continued softly, his words weapon now, and cold. "That he was to have ridden with the four princes of the Firstborn. Four, sworn to fealty.

"But he dared the shadow that they would not dare."

"Not so." Celleriant was stung. "There are only three sleepers."

Avandar frowned. "Death takes us all."

"Or almost all. Maybe this will be your battle, Warlord," the tall immortal said. His lips turned up in a smile that Jewel had seen before. Once before. On the lips of a demon. "Or perhaps not; it is said that your curse and your skill are one and the same. Perhaps you must hide with the rest of the cattle in order to achieve your—"

Blue light flared in Avandar's hands, but it wasn't his hands that concerned Jewel; it was the light that seemed to pour, like gouts of multicolored flame, from his eyes.