Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (37 page)

Whatever it meant to be
coralith
, the Tzel Aviar was
obviously not alone in considering it a conclusive argument. The dismay in the pavilion was tangible. Having heard all her life tales which
extolled the power of the Fair, it was unnerving to realise that they were
truly afraid.

Beneath her throne's crown of Autumn leaves,
Desteret
turned the weight of her attention to her
Court. "Who has knowledge of
this?"

With a transgression of such obvious magnitude, simply
asking seemed as likely to win a positive response as Soren's attempt to be
nice to Aristide. And yet, one group
stirred.

There was a waterfall behind this cluster of people, a thin
streamer bathing dark, moss-laden rocks with mist as it fell to a fern-shrouded
pool. Two men and a woman were
reluctantly stepping aside, as if they wanted to shield their fourth, a pale,
dark-haired woman dressed in colours to echo the moss, with a single heavy
silver wristlet weighting her arm. Although her face was no more lined, she was the oldest-seeming Fae
Soren had ever seen. The grace of her
carriage owed more to care than ease and her slender body, though very upright,
spoke its frailty.

"
Seldareth
would speak,"
she said, moving to the centre of the pavilion. Her voice had a tenuous quality, woven through with threads of fatigue.

Beside
Soren, Strake leaned
forward.
Seldareth
was the name of the Deeping land directly north of Darest. The 'North' which, like 'East', had once
disputed possession of Darest. And the
place where
Vahse
had died. On the throne opposite,
Desteret
moved just enough to set those silver ropes silently swinging once again,
granting permission.

Damaris, unselfconsciously collecting his case, moved aside
and the woman, who could only be
Seldareth's
lord,
took the central position.

"The boy is Moon-cast," she said, fragile voice
apparently finding this a statement almost beyond its ability to deliver. "His purpose is laid upon him beyond the
blood, but his structure has not been altered."

A thrill of disbelief ran through Soren. 'Moon-cast' meant nothing to her, but she
could scarcely credit that this woman had admitted before the full Court of the
Fair that she knew the identity and purpose of the killer who had attacked
Princess
Sethane's
hunting party. It was far more than she had expected from
this Council, something entirely solid and real to make firm centuries of
unprovable suspicion. The Fair had
known. And if they had done this, what
else could be marked down to them?

Worried, she glanced at her Rathen. Hands resting on his throne's arm-rests –
because they gave him something to grip – Strake seemed to be biting the inside
of his cheek, his eyes boring through the woman's thin back. But he did not speak, leap up and demand
answers, or even blink. As Aristide had
counselled, he was listening. The Court,
though still less than sanguine, had seemed to find the news mild relief. Moon-cast was apparently not so bad a thing
as Shaping.

"
Laramae
of
Seldareth's
skill in drawing the Moon was
unparalleled."
Desteret
showed no sign of shock or anger, but each word she spoke next fell with momentous
clarity. "Lay clear this
matter."

The woman,
Seldareth
, gave a tiny
nod of acquiescence, then paused as if to muster her thoughts. It was impossible to see her expression while
she faced
Desteret
, but she retained a frail dignity,
her stance upright and determined. Was
this their enemy?

"It is not excuse but explanation to say that in the
years before her death I believe
Laramae
of
Seldareth
– she who was my mother – suffered from
[fault-distortion-backlash]."

Another fractional pause. The word had been
azrhul
,
and lingered unpleasantly. Her
companions had lowered their eyes at it, a gesture Soren thought might be
grief, or resignation.

"Her purpose in creating the boy lay in a discovery
made by
Acander
of
Seldareth
little more than a century after
Daseretal's
Gift."
Seldareth's
voice firmed as she continued, as if beginning this tale had been the hardest
thing. "When
Daseretal
laid upon the People that none should act against the human possession of
Telsandar
, there was great resentment. But none broke the interdiction.
Acander
watched
closely as
Telsandar
became Darest. He hoped, I believe, to discover–" Minute hesitation. "– some failing in the Gift which would
warrant
Daseretal
breaking the Covenant and expelling
the humans. This he did not find. Instead, over several decades he isolated
something new. The ill-will held by many
of the People toward those who had been given
Telsandar
was a powerful thing. There was more
than one who said they would rather see the Morning Reaches stand forever empty
than have them trampled by the blind and unknowing. Over time, this resentment gained substance,
drew power from those who would not relinquish it. What
Acander
found
was a
malison
, no structured enchantment or
distinguishable curse. Merely
dissatisfaction taken on life."

Biting back her own increasing anger, Soren had watched
Strake throughout this speech, but her Rathen remained tightly intent. It was Aristide who reacted. The smile had long been absent and now his
lips parted, just a fraction. He had
gone beyond pale.

"The effect of the
malison
,"
Seldareth
continued evenly, "could not be
considered an act against Darest. There
was no choice in it, no single will driving it. It simply was. Well-pleased,
Acander
waited for the Darien endeavour to fail, for defeat
to spread, for all but the luckiest and most stubborn to be driven out. He knew very well how this would be
interpreted among the People.

"And it did not happen. Darest waxed in power, grew populous and flourished. The
malison
remained, but it was impotent against them. It was
Laramae
of
Seldareth
who found the reason why."

Seldareth
stopped speaking again,
and stood very still, then turned part of the way around, looking first at
Strake and then directly at Soren. Her
eyes were moss green, and for some reason struck Soren as too dark, an
incongruous note she clung to against the dragging weight of
Seldareth's
grief. She didn't want to feel sorry for this Fae lord, who, even if she spoke
like a spectator to events, had known and not told. Who had kept this secret while Darest
withered like an orchid in winter.

Who looked like she'd never known a moment free of regret.

"The Covenant of the Gift was sealed by
enchantment,"
Seldareth
said, holding Soren's
gaze a moment more before turning to again face her Queen. "And that enchantment maintained by
every heir of the kingdom. It turned the
malison
aside as if it did not exist. Thus the boy."

She lifted one hand, a command to one of her companions, who
turned with great reluctance and departed the pavilion. For a moment sound broke in from outside, a
hush of falling water, the murmur of distant voices. Bird song. The Court simply waited, while Soren uneasily wished this was over,
heard Captain
Vereck
shift from foot to foot, saw
Strake's hands relax their hold. Aristide's colour had returned to its usual alabaster clarity.

Was this woman saying that the boy had been created to kill
Rathens
? That their
deaths had been secondary, that it was the Rose which had been the target, all
along? That it was the Rose which
protected Darest from this
malison
.

And yet, if the boy disrupted magic as the Tzel Aviar
claimed, why not simply send him straight to Tor Darest and remove the
enchantment at the source? And why
hadn't he attacked her?

That brief intrusion of sound came once again, and the man
walked forward, carrying with him a leather-bound book, old and well-used. He paused for direction, then handed it to
Tzel Damaris. Although the two men were
in different pavilions, in different countries, the transfer was accomplished
without any sign of difficulty.

"It was a lie, of course,"
Seldareth
said, as if she had never paused. "Self-deception and semantics. Killing the line of
Domina
Rathen to weaken
Darest's protections is an act against the Darien possession. Against Law. The boy was an attempt to muddy matters further, to place the act at one
remove, to give it the same status as the
malison
.
Laramae
wished to
create a creature whose very being was fused with death, whose purpose was put
on him beyond the blood, so that no-one need command him to seek out
Rathens
and slay them, any more than a moth is ordered to
fly to a flame. She wished for a perfect
killer, caged force rather than a servant, untraceable, untouchable and
impossible to hold to account.

"The enchantment took hold beyond the boy's blood:
power and purpose were endowed as she had wished and showed every sign of
increasing as he passed out of infancy. But he was still a child of the People, possessing will and frailties,
far too easy to detect, capable of resisting the casting. And the need to kill extended far beyond the
Rathen line. For
Laramae's
purposes, flawed in almost every way. She studied him, searching out her errors in hope of correcting
them. But the Moon would not answer a
second attempt, and I was born unaltered."

Bottomless silence. Of course the killer had to have parents. Being Fae made that an inescapable
progression of logic. From there it was only
a single step more to conclude that the most readily available child to a Fae
enchantress would be her own. The boy,
and this woman. Soren refused to allow
her hand to creep toward her stomach.

Seldareth
forged on, like a runner
bound by a need which surpassed exhaustion. "He can resist the kill," she said. "As the Moon wanes he becomes more in
command of himself, and if he avoids...everything, he can pass without shedding
blood.
Laramae
– our mother had him provided with a steady stream of small animals, and – he
would adopt them, go through agonies of care and live in horror of the waxing
of the Moon. It is one of my earliest
memories. Watching my brother weep,
clutching to his chest the corpse of the latest pet he had slaughtered."

The line of her back shifted minutely, and there was another
of those pauses Soren was beginning to dread. Each time, it seemed only to herald some worse revelation. This was their enemy? A boy made monster by his own mother? Another child no more than a failed
experiment? How old would
Seldareth
have been when this happened? Twelve? Ten? Even younger? Decisions had been made for her, and she had
borne the weight of them ever after. But, she too had kept this secret. It had to be remembered.

"He grew in strength far more quickly than
Laramae
anticipated. Barely fifteen and he was gone and my mother and his keepers lay torn
beyond recognition. The bodies were not
discovered for days, and before that there were other deaths.
Seradonthial
– he
who was my Regent – called in the Tzel Aviar never realising the identity of
the killer. It was only after the death
of the Darien Princess
Sethane
that the record of
Laramae's
endeavour was uncovered. My brother had vanished as suddenly as he had
escaped, was thought dead. Out of
cowardice or shame,
Seldareth
kept its silence. Then came the plague. No doing of ours, but it accomplished
precisely what my mother had wished. Many Rathen heirs died, the protective enchantments spent themselves
trying to sustain them. The
malison
began to gain ascendancy, though it has yet to
attain complete victory."

And
Seldareth
ground to a stop,
standing mutely in the centre of the pavilion. There was a collective sense of a breath taken, the Court's focus
shifting back to the figure of the Queen. The ropes of silver looked as if they had not moved since the Sky spat
out the world.

"Who gave the order for his death?"

"I did."
Seldareth
lifted one hand an inch from her side, then let
it fall. "It seemed best."

For a moment something touched
Desteret's
eyes, clouds crossing the face of the Sun. But her face remained clear and still, and her voice unhesitant as she
pronounced judgment:

"
Asterall
of
Seldareth
, the People turn their face from you. You have no lands. You have no title. You have no name. Walk into the Heart and seek an end."

Soren, who had been more than eager for retribution a moment
before, immediately wanted to protest. This
Asterall's
role had been so peripheral,
more a victim herself. What of this
Serandonthial
, and the others who must have known? There was no balance here. But the Court's only reaction was to bow
their heads in grieving acceptance. Glad, perhaps, that a suitable scapegoat had presented herself?

Without a word
Asterall
unfastened
her wristlet, placed it on the grass at her feet and walked, head high, from
the pavilion. Soren could mark the faint
resemblance to the boy now, this woman's older brother. For some reason, as she walked out through
the mist of the waterfall, her step was lighter than before. She looked almost happy.