Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (28 page)

So intent was she, Soren almost missed seeing the Tzel Aviar
fly in. A faint speck above the bay
became man-shaped, very upright and travelling rapidly. Soren had only occasionally seen mages fly,
since most of them considered it a lot of effort best reserved for
emergencies. A kind of magical
sprinting, it was quick to exhaust them, and only the most powerful, like
Aristide and evidently the Tzel Aviar, would use it to travel long distances. And even they could not easily manage a great
deal of baggage, let alone passengers. Like running with an armful of rocks.

Tzel Damaris wore a backpack and carried two smaller bags
slung about his shoulders. Covered up
against the wind, with a scarf tied across his face, he was as peculiar as he
was intriguing.

She thought he saw her. The muffled face seemed to turn as he sailed past, but he continued
without hesitation around the curve of the palace wall, not crossing its
boundary, and vanished from her sight. Gone to knock on the front gate.

It was not very long before he was escorted inside by a
guard, a trailing porter now laden with the bags and coat. Soren was faintly disappointed to discover
the much-vaunted Tzel Damaris to be not half so beautiful as his reputation
suggested. He was handsome, certainly,
as Fair usually were, but not extraordinarily so. Soft brown hair and creamy skin, fine bones
and clear grey eyes. He was not even so
tall as most of the Fair, was at least an inch or three shy of Strake's
measure. Still, it was not his face they
needed. What if his magical talent also
came up short? What if death followed
death, every one leaving no trace or sign of the killer? How long before the vulnerable, the fearful –
the sensible – left? Escaped this
past-born threat? It would destroy Tor
Darest, all Darest.

Aristide and Captain
Vereck
met
the Tzel Aviar just inside the main entrance. Soren watched closely, but could detect no sign that the Deeping visitor
was a particular ally of Aristide's, brought in as part of some deep
manoeuvre. There was an exchange of
greetings, and an air of formality about the brief explanations which
followed. Then the porter and guard were
despatched with the luggage, and Tzel Damaris was turning back the way he came,
with Captain
Vereck
leading the way.

And for a moment, when only Soren could see his face,
Aristide's expression changed, became a stiff, tense mask completely unlike his
usual self. But before Soren had more
than a bare chance to mark it, the look smoothed away, that courtier's mocking
smile curled one corner of his fine lips, and he followed the others out of the
palace.

Surprised, Soren waited until she could see the three, now
trailed by another pair of guards as they rode toward Lustring Bridge. But there were no answers to be found gazing
after them.

Soren went to her Rathen.

-
oOo
-

Strake didn't stir as she walked into his bedroom. He was slumped in the chair where he usually
read, brandy tumbler lying on the floor. The decanter was empty.

She touched his cheek, her
ungloved
fingers cold enough to spark a reaction. He twitched, turned his face away, then opened bleary eyes to look at
her. After a moment, dim memory and her
expression combined to rouse him, to wince and put a hand to his head as he
frowned at her.

"What is it?"

"Another death. A man in the
Vermissa
.
Vereck's
investigating."

The shutter came down. A deep breath followed to temper the blow.

"The Tzel Aviar has arrived. He and Lord Aristide have gone to inspect the
– the body."

"Who was it?"

"A carter. I
don't know any more."

He was slow to respond, shock combining with the aftermath
of the night's excess. His eyes flicked
over the sword strapped to her back, the set cast of her face. Then: "Wait in the breakfast
room." Eyes more closed than open, he
gained his feet and stumbled out.

She went to Fisk first, told him to bring a suitably light
meal, then sat watching news of the carter's death spread. Excitement, fear, dismay far outstripping
that awarded a slaughtered horse. But
no-one obliged by pantomiming fiendish glee or committing to paper a confession
of their plots and plans. The reaction
of the various ambassadors confused her at first, until she realised that they
found a violent death of little account compared to the arrival of The Deeping's
Warden.

Her Rathen had gone to his bathroom, emerging wet,
blue-lipped and shivering-sober. By the
time he reached the breakfast room, only bloodshot, black-shadowed eyes and a
certain corpse-pallor betrayed the night's trials.

That night lay between them: the anger, the hate and hurt
and frustrated defeat. The desire Strake
so obviously did not want to feel, twisted completely beyond bearing by the
Rose's violation. And by silent mutual
agreement they were not going to touch it. The Rose was a burden which would not be lifted without a price they
couldn't pay, and neither of them wanted to poke that wound.

Strake faced breakfast with only marginally less enthusiasm
than Soren, and she let him force down a few bites before beginning.

"Do you think there's any chance this creature, though
it followed us here, isn't interested in killing you? It hasn't so much as tried to enter the
palace proper."

He passed a hand in front of his face as if to push the
question away, but didn't deny her assumption that it was the monster out of
the past. "Speculation only takes
us in circles. If this Tzel Damaris
proves useless, we will have to bait the thing."

Soren stared at him, then poured a glass of water just to
have time to recover. "I take it
you're not proposing to stake out a goat."

"I've no intention of remaining a prisoner in the
palace for the remainder of my life. Or
cowering in safety while half Darest is slaughtered in my place."

The words hung in the air, waiting to be denied or
refuted. Soren couldn't do it, didn't
know if they were true or not. The thing
in the Tongue had definitely been after Strake. Could it have come to Tor Darest for any other reason than to finish
what it started? Kill the last living
Rathen? Her Rathen?

Who was considering parading about hoping to draw the thing
into the open.

"And what if having killed you it's quite prepared to
go on killing?"

"Then you will have to give up morning rides,"
Strake said flatly.

Soren could not let that pass, had to inject acid into her voice
to hide the hurt. "No doubt
watching Lord Aristide battle it out with his mother will provide me with
sufficient entertainment over the years."

"You don't think he'd emerge victorious?" The sardonic tone only just held back
anger. "The more I know Aristide,
the better I appreciate his oath."

"He is his mother's son." Soren watched the words sink in. "Lady Arista is still Baroness of one of
Darest's wealthiest baronies, and she cannot stand to see her son
ascendant. I don't think I exaggerate to
say he hates her, and, admire him all you like, there are many he's crossed in
the past, who are loyal to her. How much
damage do you think they could do, between them?"

Strake made a discomforted movement, then sat back in his
chair, accepting the argument. "I
can reinforce Aristide's claims at least," he said, weary oppression in
his voice. "A document in your care
endorsing his regency should it become necessary. Would it be to the Baroness' advantage to
kill our child?"

"That would depend on whether I'd any alliance with
Aristide."

"Delightful." Strake stared across the table at her. When she met his gaze squarely he seemed to nod. "If I'm killed, you're left in the fire,
I know. I'll try to avoid it. It's just – I want to face this
thing." He looked embarrassed, as
if revenge was a weakness. "It took
everything from me. In a way it has
already killed me. So I want, need it to
be trapped and destroyed. I want to
slice its heart out and grind it into the dirt." His voice quivered, then impatient irritation
returned. A cover, she realised, for
too-naked emotion. "I can't say I'm
brimming with confidence that this current Tzel Aviar will come any closer than
his predecessor. We tried everything
within invention to track it last time, and did not have a city to
protect. Tell me you have some plan
which will bring it down, and I'll happily sit back while you stake out a
goat."

"I'd like to draw it into the palace. See what it actually is. I think I've worked out how to operate the
defences."

Even to her it sounded inadequate. His response was heavily tainted with the old
derision. "Draw it how? You said yourself it hasn't so much as tried
the door."

"I know." Soren wanted to yell the words, to try and force into his head some
sense of how powerless being Champion made her feel. She threw out a hand, conceding the point
with an angry lack of grace. "No
use arguing over it until we've heard what Tzel Damaris has to say."

She bent over her glass of water, sipping it deliberately as
her stomach churned. Palace-sight made
her watch Strake watching her, his expression ambiguous at best. Then, when she was least expecting it, he
stood and reached out, took the glass out of her hands and put it down before
catching hold of her wrists, inspecting them. Faint lines were still visible beneath the cuffs.

"I'm trying not to fight you," he began, baldly
exposed. "I'm not deaf to sense,
but I – I'm used to being angry with
people, but I've no experience with this kind of...festering grudge. Last – last night, everything before it, was
no sudden outburst, forgotten once it's over – the sort of thing I do know how
to deal with."

He sighed, fingers tightening. "I know perfectly well that being at
odds with you is base stupidity. And
that I have been indulging my anger. That will change."

An apology of sorts, for his ill-manner more than last
night's rages. Soren slid her hands
free, remembering his description of how it had felt when the Rose took
him. Drowning.

It was past time they both started to swim.

-
oOo
-

"They're
back."

Sitting on the floor among a circle of chests, Strake took a
moment to register the words. Then he
put down the latest in a series of coronets and rose to dust himself off. Trying to kill time and fear by sorting
through the Treasury had proven a messy business, despite the
scourers'
labours.

Soren put her effort at an inventory on top of its badly
decayed predecessor. It was an amazing
array, giving a glimpse at the sheer wealth of the Rathen past. "Any chance we could use something from
here as the prize for the Illusionists' Duel?"

"It can't all be 'chanted to work only for
Rathens
."

The words were casual, but then he picked up the sword he'd
selected from numerous others and once again tested the edge of the tarnished
blade. Soren didn't comment, merely
following as he set out at his habitual brisk pace.

When the doors to the Hall of the Crown were opened and the
Tzel Aviar announced, Strake was planted on his throne as if he'd been there
all morning. His expression was closed,
but he watched Damaris of the
Wryve
, bracketed by
Aristide and the Captain of the Guard, as if he were a serpent sliding across
the sunset floor.

Standing to one side of the throne, Soren was forced to
adjust her opinions. Tzel Damaris, as
she had previously observed, was a handsome man, moderately tall for a human
but smaller than most of the Fair. Brown
hair, grey eyes and a fine creamy skin were pleasant, but hardly extraordinary. Yet palace-sight had not begun to convey some
quality of his composition, a way of holding himself, or simply a way of being
which trapped all attention. It was,
Soren felt, the difference between the floor Damaris walked upon, and a true
sunset. One was beautiful, the other:
fathomless.

Caught up herself, Soren missed Strake's reaction. By the time Tzel Damaris halted before the
throne, her Rathen was austere and thin-lipped and his words of greeting
sounded grudging. He wanted, Soren
thought, to simply bark "Can you kill it?" and be done.

The Tzel
Aviar's
response was
formal and measured, his light tenor carrying no hint of warmth as he passed on
a decorous message of congratulation from The Deeping's Queen. Then, as if he also had no taste for further
niceties, he moved directly on to business.

"The area of the death shown to me has been distorted
by a powerful force, one which has the taste of the Moon about it. This meant I could not reconstruct the death
by scrying the past, and no standard tracking method is effective. Possibly this is a natural defence."

"Can it be overcome?" Strake's question trembled on the edge of an
explosion. It was clear at least to
Soren that he wavered on the verge of holding the Fair responsible for past and
present murders.

Tzel Damaris had the steadiest gaze. Unlike Captain
Vereck
,
obviously suppressing all expression, and Aristide with a ghost of that
glitter-smile, the Fae showed no sign of tension, of pleasure, even of
concern. He was a pool without ripples.

"It is unlikely we will be able to follow it by
magic," he replied. "There are
possibilities I will pursue."

Watching Strake, Soren thought that his jaw had locked. That he wanted nothing more than to throw
something or shake the Tzel Aviar until his teeth rattled and he promised
miracles. Instead, he shifted his gaze,
focusing on Captain
Vereck
. His lips were white, and the muscles of his
throat stood out. Then he said in a
reedy thread of voice: "Find it for me, Tzel Damaris. The resources of Darest are at your
disposal."