Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (95 page)

But Elena watched her slow crawl. She knew what Margret looked like when she was in pain, and she
was
in pain.

"But you—"

"She is paying the price that the fire demands. She will survive it."

Something in his voice. Elena's eyes narrowed. "Or?"

He raised a brow. "You have… exceptional hearing."

She turned around again. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Do not force me to stop you, Matriarch's heir." Something in his voice was as black as the Lady's longest night. As merciless as the Lord's glare, but hidden by cloud, by pretty features, by a soft voice.

"Don't force me to choose between your threat and my cousin," she shot back, although she was chilled. She'd seen death before, and she recognized it here.

"Let me force you instead, Matriarch's heir, to choose between your cousin and the Lord of Night; your cousin and the children.

"Help her, break her concentration, take her away from the giving, and there will be no fire."

Elena could be swayed by pretty faces; a weakness of hers she readily admitted to anyone who would listen. But this man's beauty was shorn by the ice of his words into starkness that she could not trust. His words, however, were true. She felt them settle and take root, and she turned away from him again to watch.

At least the argument had served one useful purpose. It had spared her the watching.

Margret was almost there.

She had never had to crawl this far. Not physically. Not emotionally. Her mother, as mothers will—or as she assumed they all did—had put her through her tests; endurance, patience—she failed that one frequently, but her mother was indulgent enough because, well, it was in their blood—and subterfuge. She had crawled because crawling was a way of hiding. She had crawled because it was a way of moving when too injured. She had crawled when her mother had dropped the bones, branches, smooth stones, and rings that she used to make herself look either mysterious or gaudy, depending on how much the clansmen could be taken in by appearances, her face to the ground because each of the fallen items was precious, some bit of history, some important artifact of Voyani life.

And she had crawled as a baby, a time of her life so long past memory that only the motion itself remained true: the struggle to get from one place to the other without falling face first or having one's knees slide out. Why? She couldn't remember. Maybe to get to her father's side, her long dead, much-loved father; maybe to get to her mother's—because surely her mother might pick her up, might offer her comfort? Might drive away the terrible, terrible fear that pressed her into the ground as if it were a foot getting heavier and heavier against her back.

Inch by inch she spread her blood against that wood. She had never been much for smell, but there was salt in the air, and wood was so tangy in scent, so fresh, it overpowered her a moment. But only a moment. Fire was for burning, and she had to get to the center.

She was Margret of the Arkosans.

If she couldn't walk—and she couldn't—she'd crawl. And when her body became too heavy for that; when the lights had dimmed until she could follow the wood by touch and smell alone, she dragged herself along, lifting the dish with care, moving, always moving, toward the center, dabbling her fingers in blood that had cooled but had not yet become sticky and tracing its pattern—her pattern—into the grain.

Lady
, she said, as she crawled, or she thought she said it, she couldn't tell for sure whether her vocal chords had the energy to express the sound,
Lady, we are Your servants; the darkness is coming. We have cleaved to the road; we have followed the Voyanne into the darkness and out of it. If it leads us into darkness again, we will follow; we will fight it, we will never again be its subjects, slaves, or allies
.

So swear the Arkosans, so swears Margret of the Arkosans as their Matriarch.

I ask for no mercy. I offer no mercy. But as we enter the darkness, save our children. Show me a sign that they will see light if they follow the road. Show me a sign that the road is our home that the road leads to home that there's life if we follow your road.

The wood ended. Suddenly. Just like that. The trail she had laid was gone; the center open before her. All she had to do was offer the last of her blood, and the fires could be summoned.

Give me
, she tried to open her eyes, and to her great surprise, succeeded. She lifted the dish, holding it as far out as a shaking arm would reach. Emptied it. Refused to let it fall to earth where it might somehow be damaged.
Give me a sign
.

Light flared as she squinted into its radiance. The Matriarchs had not yet summoned the fire, but Margret had summoned something very like it: A nimbus of white light that burned vision as it spread upward and out like a beacon in a darkness that she had been afraid would be without end.

A sign.

From the light a hand reached out, and a voice that sounded very, very human said, "I'm not sure where we are, and I'm not sure who you are, but you look like you could use some help."

She started to say,
It's not allowed
, but the hand seemed a sign from the Lady.

She took it; felt its very firm grip, and felt strength come down through this unknown woman's palm into her own. Shakily, she rose, blinking back light as light died into night sky and the stillness of held breath.

"I'm sorry," the woman said quietly, "I've been traveling a very strange road, and I didn't know where it would finally end." She had hair, dark and tangled, like a Voyani's, but her skin was paler. She was short; too short for a miracle, but there was something about her eyes as she looked around the clearing, taking in the four women and the carefully laid out logs that led—to her.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll get out of your way for a bit."

Margret was on her feet. "I—I don't think I mind," she said shakily. She looked to the other Matriarchs.

But the young woman, the stranger, eyes narrowed, looked beyond them all. And her eyes stopped, her expression shifting between surprise, pleasure, and oddly—relief.

"Kallandras!" she shouted.

The Northern bard that Yollana trusted did something strange: He smiled. "ATerafin," he replied, nodding quietly as his strangely soft voice carried the distance. And then, "Jewel. Well met."

"Which means," was her dry response, "that you knew we were coming. Gods, I hate that woman."

"That woman?" Margret had to ask.

"Evayne," was Jewel's curt reply. "And if Kallandras is here, I have no doubt whatever that you've already met her."

"She has indeed," Evayne replied. "I am acquainted with all of the Matriarchs in this generation, and in the last."

They looked up, almost as one person. Four Matriarchs, and those who had been chosen to witness or aid in the building of their historical fire.

Her cloak was dark; it stretched in either direction like enemy shadow; her hood was low. Margret had not seen her many times in her life, but at no time had she looked like this. She was frightening. The youngest of the Matriarchs almost embarrassed herself by taking a step back. Almost. But anger held her in place.

Because
this
woman had robbed her of both mother and heart, and she never came without demanding—and receiving—her price. And what did they receive in return? Cryptic comments. Assurances that there
were no other choices
.

It was too much.

And it was Margret's camp.

"What," she said, almost losing the word as this Evayne turned, hooded, to meet her gaze. But anger was her shield and her prize; she held on to it; held it up. "Have you come for now? Have you finally come to give
us
the help that you've demanded from us for as long as I can remember?

"Or have you just come to make sure another one of us dies?"

"
Margret
," Elena hissed, but Margret was past caring. It was as if anointing the heart wood with her blood had cleansed her of something. Not fear, not exactly. But something.

Blue robes twisted in the stillness of the night as if the wind was wild and dangerous. It seemed that that would be the only answer the midnight woman offered. But when she spoke, Margret
did
take that step. "There is death, there is death coming."

Kallandras, the bard from the North who seemed to serve all interests that involved Evayne, stiffened. "Evayne," he said.

"The road," she said softly. "It is wide, this year; darker and longer than it has ever been."

"You traveled—"

"Do not ask. I have come with my message and my warning. I have come bearing gifts."

"And the price?" Margret said, although her voice was shaky; not the voice she would have liked to use. "The price for those so-called gifts?"

"It has already been paid," the woman responsible for her mother's death said. Margret wondered by whom. And she heard a strangled voice ask the question, and it was her own. She
hated
this woman, for just this moment, at just this time.

"Shall I tell you their names?" Evayne said coldly. "Shall I tell you the names of their families? There were four, Margret. Do you want to know what their deaths were like?"

She stepped back. Stepped back. Stepped back.

But Yollana stepped forward until they were shoulder to shoulder, and although it was a breach of etiquette, Margret was almost grateful to have that bent back to hide behind.

"No, Evayne a'Neamis. We have no desire to know how they died. Or their names. Or their families' names. There will be deaths in plenty to weep over. She is young. She has not been tested. Do not test her here, where we have power."

"Yollana, you do not seek to threaten
me
? I have traveled a long road, and there is a power here that will take that threat gladly."

"Then take it," the old woman said, the steel in her voice. "But there are four, Winter Lady, and we are stronger together than apart."

"I don't understand," Elena said. "She's our—"

But Kallandras' hand on her shoulder was so sharp she lost voice. He said, "Evayne." And then, when she did not turn her attention from Yollana, said again, but in a different voice, "Evayne a'Nolan." Her head turned. Her robes, wild twist of night, turned with her. "You have swallowed Winter, remember it. You have swallowed Winter."

Her breath changed. It became labored; the breath of someone struggling
to
breathe. She looked up, and they could see, for just a minute, that her eyes were of blackness; they were not human. But her expression was—aged, and tortured—she reached out with a shaking hand, and they saw it: fear. That was worse than menace. Worse than darkness.

She said a single word, and it was a prayer.

"Kallandras! "

He spoke, his word a song, the tone and texture of it so beautiful that Margret could forget the sense of raw power she felt when the words left his lips. She wanted to weep with sorrow, sudden and sharp, because she could not understand a single word.

The words were all for
her
.