Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (44 page)

Then, on the heels of this absolute resolution, the Rose
pushed her almost negligently to the back of her mind, reached out, and cut
Halcean
to pieces.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"I am Darien, boy. You would do well to remember that."

Arista
Couerveur
had not taken
kindly to being suspected of attempting regicide, nor to the amount of time
she'd been kept waiting before she'd been permitted to see the King. Soren, sitting in the audience chamber opening
off the throne room, listened to Strake reacting to being called 'boy', and his
brusquely polite termination of the meeting. She watched her Rathen pass a hand across his face as the former Regent
stalked away, and Aristide's face as he passed his mother. Briefly Soren glanced at the Tzel Aviar,
putting a freshly scrubbed killer to bed, then returned to gazing at the guards
in the process of removing pieces of person from the Champion's apartments.

After the thing behind her eyes had fallen back satisfied
into nothingness, Soren had been overwhelmed with a new kind of anger. It swelled in her chest, burning, choking,
urging her to scream and rant and tear at her face. But instead she'd very carefully said:
"She's dead," then closed her mouth on all the other words which
wanted to pour out.

The ominous silence she'd maintained since was no doubt the
inspiration for the expression on Strake's face as he and Aristide came into
the audience chamber and sat down. Frank
worry. Aristide looked at her intently,
but then succeeded in acting as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had been
happening. He'd taken off his
blood-stained demi-robe, but the white undershirt was also spotted with patches
of red, and his hands were swathed with bandages.

"A third child of my father's," he began, his
voice thoughtful, detached. "No
doubt originally intended to be a spy rather than an assassin, but
circumstances in Darest have altered of late."

Purpose-built to get every advantage out of Tor Darest.
Halcean
had told
Soren that, quite directly. She'd called
Court a game, apparently been happy to play the part she'd been set. Deliberately cultivated Soren, cast suspicion
on Aspen, pretended loyalty. But she
hadn't been happy to be made assassin. Another tool. Another puppet.

Strake snorted. "Does this
Veth
family even exist?"

"
Vereck
checks all residents
of the palace. A
Runath
family, settled in Darest out of the east some twenty years ago – my sister
would have been an infant, and I doubt the
Veth
woman
was her blood mother. They purchased the
semblance of a title and land close to the
Saxan
border and have been rigorously ordinary since. The local garrison has been contacted, but there is little chance of
finding them there."

"And what redress do we have?"

The smile which touched Aristide's mouth now was faint, and
very cold. "Her paternity is
clear. I will have her body delivered to
my brother. Beyond that? Accusation, counter-assassin, harsh
words? We can certainly go to war with
Cya
if you wish it."

For a moment Strake looked tempted, then he made a disgusted
motion with his hands. "
You
don't."

It was open acknowledgement that it was as much Aristide's
choice as Strake's, but neither of them marked the gesture with so much as an
eye-flicker. "I want a successful
Spring festival," Aristide said, very mild. "And to build ships, which I suspect is
what made our lives too costly for
Cya
. This is a distraction. Our energies are better spent."

Strake shook his head, not angry but frustrated. He knew perfectly well they'd lose a war
against
Cya
or any other land, and was twisting on a
need for vengeance gone unfulfilled. The
night's drama had left him with a small cut on one hand, a great deal of
nervous energy, and a rigorous determination to avoid all mention of
Vahse's
killer.

Head buzzing, Soren shifted her attention to the Fair. Damaris was holding someone's sigil, no doubt
reporting success. The boy sat in the
middle of a vast bed: clean, clothed, bandaged and miserable. There would be a price to pay for naming him,
Fae princeling, murderer, monster.
Shaol
.

He looked up, mossy green eyes fixing on the point where she
watched him through the Rose.

"Do your injuries limit your ability to cast, Lord
Aristide?"

The words were quiet, marvellously calm. For the first time in her life, Soren had
found an absolute certainty. It left
doubt quite behind, and brought that worried foreboding back to Strake's face. He mightn't fully understand why she had
struggled against
Halcean's
death, but he could hardly
fail to recognise the blasted fury locked beneath her rigid composure.

Aristide's expression barely changed. "I am not a follower of the
Tybol
School. Few
castings would be unmanageable."

"And do you think yourself equal to sewing with
lightning?"

This was quite incomprehensible to Aristide, but Strake knew
what she meant, the only possible course of action left to her.

"Soren, it can't be done–" he began.

"It
has
to
be!" She shouted it, loud enough
for distant guards to lift their heads. She found herself bent forward, her hands flat on the table. "Has to be, Strake. Right now it's the weakest it's ever going to
be. The longer you're here, the more
Rathens
you produce, the bigger the power backlash will
be. Am I right?"

"Quite true." It was Aristide who answered, unblinking. "But weak is a relative term, and you
are not equipped to survive so much raw power. I could try and shield you from it, but your chances are slim."

"I know that." She was still staring directly at Strake, at her Rathen. "Your rose isn't black
any more
." It
was, in fact, a very bloody red. "Hypocritical of it to kill
Halcean
for
attacking, when it was quite ready to let you die a week ago. That's what it is, Strake. Something prepared to do whatever it needs to
survive, something full of anger and malice. Inside me."

"This isn't the way, Soren," Strake said, shaking
his head. "The price is too
high."

Soren turned away from him, looked at star sapphire eyes
which did not mock. "You said it
slept. That it was something which had
grown inside the Rose, not particularly developed. What happens if it does? Isn't it inevitable? What do we do when it's awake all the time,
when it's more than a sleeping bear? What if the next person it kills is someone we do mind being dead?"

"Yours isn't a life I can throw away!" Strake shouted it, was on his feet. But this time she remained steadfast.

"What happens if, next time it rouses, it makes it
impossible for us to stop it, puts a blank space in our minds for that? Or simply decides to replace me with a more
complaisant Champion, as soon as this child is born? Or sooner. You know, after all, that it's willing to sacrifice individual
Rathens
. And it can
always get another child off you."

He went white, veins standing out at throat and temple,
hands clenching. But he couldn't deny
it, knew very well she was speaking bare truth. "You're asking me to kill you."

She took a deep, sobbing breath, full of hate and fear. "Strake. If you don't destroy it, I'll go take a sledgehammer to it myself."

And he bowed his head.

-
oOo
-

"I'll never
forgive you for this."

"No." He
probably wouldn't.

"But I'll miss you."

For the first time her determination wavered, and Soren
quickly put a hand on his arm. "Please don't make this harder." She couldn't keep the quaver from her voice.

"There isn't any way to make it easier."

Aristide, politely not noticing their embraces, studied the
reflected moonlight patterning the walls beneath the great bell. After a suitable interval he said: "I
cannot cross this."

"No." Strake's arms tightened convulsively around Soren one final time, then
let go. "Only King and
Champion. You'll both have to stay
here."

"Very well." Aristide glanced at Soren. "Has it shown any awareness?"

"Nothing." That had been Soren's great fear, the reason this had to be done now,
tonight. It could so easily stop them,
once it read this resolution in her mind. The next time the worm at the Rose's heart roused, it would know.

Her Rathen walked away from her, very tall and upright, with
a face from the frozen north, but paused at the entrance of the room beneath
the bell.

"Aristide–" He glanced at his Councillor's face. "I doubt I'll forgive you, either."

For not sewing with lightning. Aristide's eyelids dropped, but no smile
touched those exquisite lips. This could
put King and Councillor at each other's throats, and only their awareness of
the potential for disaster, their forbearance, would save them.

"I imagine not," was all Aristide said.

Strake nodded, and walked down the stair into a black, unlit
room of runes, outside the limits of her palace-sight. He didn't look back.

Quite perfectly expressionless, Aristide turned and looked
at her. Soren could only guess at his
thoughts, at how he felt to participate in the destruction of the enchantment
which had kept him from the throne. Did
he curse her for oversetting all plans, or did his mind race with possibility,
of the turning tide of fortune? After
this, only Strake's life to keep him from the crown. Would his oath hold him over a lifetime of
servitude?

The faintest curve of lips suggested he read her face a
little too well, but all he said was: "Ground the sword."

Obediently she drew the overlong shaft of metal, that
pleasurable tingle running through her arm. She touched its tip to the treasury floor, and Aristide nodded.

"It will help, a little," he explained. "It, at least, was created to channel
power." He came to stand beside
her, lifted one bandaged hand and rested it lightly on the back of her neck,
placing the other on the wrist of the hand holding the sword. And turned his head as the sibilant murmur of
casting came from down the moonlit stair.

Soren's stomach twisted, and a shudder ran through her. She was really doing this rather than
compromise, rather than accept bad with worse. "Will the – could the
saecstra
strike at you because of this?" she asked, needing distraction more than
an answer. Her voice shook, betraying
her terror.

She couldn't read the look Aristide gave her then, but he
answered with perfect composure. "Be assured, I will be making every effort to preserve you. That should fulfil the terms of the
oath."

"I'm glad." She didn't need any more lives on her conscience.

Because that was the worst of it, what none of them had said
but all had known. Her baby, unwanted,
forced on her. Her child she was willing
to risk too, to take with her into not quite certain suicide to save it from
becoming a puppet of a festering enchantment.

"
Selune
forgive me," she
groaned, hating herself, refusing to turn back from this. It had to be done.

Something stirred behind her eyes.

"It knows!" She felt it uncoiling, twisting up to jar her thoughts awry. The panic of unlooked for attack, of threat,
of fear and fury.

"Too late." Aristide's brilliant eyes were unwavering, fixed on her face as the soft
chant in the darkness fell silent and there was a moment of nothing, then a
tiny little ticking sound.

It burned!

Her back arched, spine curving, throat distended, every
muscle in her body locking as her head snapped back. Unseen fire ran the very length of her, up
through her feet, scorching the course of her bones, twisting joints to their
limits. Her eyes bulged and her jaw cracked
as that burning force rammed itself past throat and tongue and blasted with a
rising scream out and up and away. Agony, all-consuming and complete, beyond compass.

Fragmentary things touched her. Rage, the worm in the Rose, boiling with
fear, fury and no way to save itself. Aristide's hands tightening on her arm, the back of her neck. Palace-sight, the images carving into her
mind. She knew every true-mage in the
palace by the way they leapt in shock. Guards, battering the treasury door. The Tzel Aviar dropping a silver sigil.
Shaol
with tears in his eyes.

The sword was drawing some of the power, channelling it in a
focused and purposeful manner. That, in
some way, was also the Rose. But too
little. Her heart was going to burst, a
knot crushing her chest, pushing out her ribs.

Then a crack, like a frozen lake in winter melt: sharp,
echoing, absolute. Soren's scream cut
off.

She sagged and Aristide went down with her, borne over by
her greater height. A scrape of boot on
grit heralded Strake's arrival, and she heard him moan as he flung himself to
his knees, snatched her into his arms. She coughed, all she could do with the pain it caused. Her hand wouldn't work, the fingers fused
around the hilt of the sword, melted together. It hurt. So much.

"Soren. Oh, Sun,
Soren." Strake was weeping. She could hear it. There was a lot of banging, which she
belatedly connected to the guards trying to break down the door. Her head rang with every blow.

Aristide moved beside her, there was a cool touch on the
back of her wrist and the pain went away.

"It worked." She heard the delight in a creak of voice scarcely recognisable as her
own. "It's gone. It's all gone. I'm not dead." She found Strake with her undamaged hand,
touched his face. Smiled. "Not dead. It worked."

He made a choked noise and clutched her all the more.