Daughter of Blood (63 page)

Within the dreaminess, he realized that Malian was observing the reverse unfolding of his short life before the Ship's Prow House: his mam's death, and the years before that, living in the narrow rooms above the armorer's shop. She seemed very interested in his mam, as the wyr hounds were, too—but more so in a shadowy figure from his very earliest years that Faro had forgotten he remembered. The shadow sharpened as soon as Malian focused on the memory, and gradually became clearer still. Finally it was not a shadow at all, but a young woman gazing back at Faro through a frame of light. She was of the Sea House, he knew that at once because of her cabled hair and the rings in her ears, and he thought she would have been beautiful if she had not looked so sad. When he concentrated, he could hear what she was saying.

“I was bound to the ship and to Ammaran, and despite his sacrifice, I cannot live now that both are gone. Every day I fade more. Only our child has held me this long, because he, too, is theirs. But you tell me our ships come here, so I must find a way to protect him—to hide him so no one will ever see, or know . . . And you, Kara, on your honor and your oath of fealty to Ammaran: you must protect him too.”

“My life for his, always. Fear not, Lady, I keep faith.”

Mam's voice, although Faro could not see her, just the Sea woman's face bending over his. I keep faith, he thought. But those are Khar's words, the ones that belong to the Storm Spears.

“
Indeed.”
Malian's observation was as cool as silver, before she spoke out loud. “She must have spent the last of her strength weaving wards that turn away eyes and minds, not just from you, but from any thought of the Derai and the Wall of Night. The working's profound, but very elegant. Almost invisible, as Raven said. The Darksworn did not see it, that's certain, or I doubt Thanir would have let you go.”

Faro shuddered, but felt deeply grateful to the unknown woman with her rings and cabled hair, at the same time as he wondered why his mam would say the Storm Spears' words. As though, he thought, puzzled, she was one.

“
Because
she was one. The weatherworker was your birth mother, Faro. Kara must have been your foster mother, but also a warrior, honor-sworn to Ammaran—who was your father.”

“The last Heir to the old line of the Earls of Blood,” Khar said. “He and his Honor Guard were lost sometime after the Betrayal War.” Wonder stirred beneath his sternness. “A Blood father and a Sea mother: that explains a great deal.”

Foster mother, not
mother, Faro thought, bewildered. He caught a glimpse of
something
that surrounded him like a chrysalis, only spun from glass so it was invisible. But now a fracture ran through it, or perhaps it was the world as he had always known it that was splintering . . .

“I think you'll know about all of this,” Malian said softly. “Kara will have told you, against the day when the wards—and their prohibition against knowing who you truly are—would lift.”

But will I know what my mother was protecting me against? Faro wondered. And Ma—Kara, too? Or why the death of my father and a ship meant my mother couldn't live? Unless she had died of a broken heart, like they said in the stories . . . A vignette asserted itself, out of the Grayharbor years: Stefa and Leti's mam scoffing at just such a tale, sung in her inn one Summer's Eve—but his own mam saying no, in fact she had seen it. “And you so hard a case,” the inn-wife had replied, shaking her head and smiling at the same time.

Kara
was
my mam, Faro thought. She
was the one who had raised him, living in a narrow house in a backwater town, when she could have gone anywhere with her genius for making and mending armor. She had died there, too, far from home and House and kin. And perhaps, if Lady Myr had guessed right, over four hundred years out of her own time.

“The four-hundred-odd years
is
a mystery,” Malian agreed. “But it's not the strangest I've ever encountered and still found to be true. As for the warding, it's a casing, not a working woven into your psyche or physical being, so not intended to be forever.” Her cool eyes looked deep into his. “The key, I suspect, is for you to want to step clear.”

The chrysalis was already fractured, but Faro hesitated, because if Malian was correct, it had protected him from Aranraith and those with him—while still allowing him, at great need, to call the lightning that was an inheritance from his mother. So I really did burn Arcolin, he thought, caught between remembered horror and satisfaction. Dark and light, he told himself, as the chrysalis split wider still. Only now Faro felt as though the fissures ran through him, too, despite what Malian had said.

“You are Derai,”
the wyr hounds answered. Their voices were in his mind, as they had been since the Red Keep whenever danger or need threatened. The
Che'Ryl-g-Raham
's voice had been as well, when he sailed north.
“There were always reasons, beyond those the Alliance will admit to, why the Wall is named for Night. But the Derai world and all that goes with it is your birthright. The old Blood returns—and
we
have chosen the new to raise up with it, as was always our right.”

Faro knew they meant himself and Khar. He understood, too, through their wordless communication, why the wyr hound in the Red Keep stable had let Sarein to take its life. Allowing the attack had distracted attention from those the wyrs sought to protect, but the Daughter of Blood's knife stroke had also severed their last bond to the current ruling kin.

This time Faro heard the crack as a longer, deeper, fracture split his mother's working.
“The old Blood that is true will always come into its own again—and the new must be raised up when the old is found wanting.”
His mam, who was also his father's Honor Lieutenant, had taught him that saying, along with so much else. Faro felt as though his eyes were full of the wyr hounds' light, a blaze that was in his mind as well, so that he knew Kara
had
been a Storm Spear—like his father, Ammaran, and all their company. Through the dazzle, he could feel Malian's hands holding him up as the last of the warding fell away and he spoke the words that were fire in his throat.

“I am Pha'Rho-l-Ynor. My mother was a weatherworker and navigator, also called Pha'Rho-l-Ynor after the ship of the same name. Through her and the name I bear, I brought a spark of Yelusin, once contained in the ship,
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor
, back to the Sea Keep fleet.”

Malian had released his hands now, but Faro continued standing straight and tall. “My father was Ammaran, a Storm Spear and Heir of Blood.” The fire was dying down, but he made himself meet Khar's eyes before his courage fled with it. “I have never lied to you. Everything I could say, I believed to be the truth. And I didn't kill Lady Myr. That was Thanir, although he tried to make me do it.” Faro knew what had taken place was more complicated than that, because without Ilai's intervention, Thanir would have killed him as well. Right now, though, he was filled with the wyr hounds' words, that were also his mam's:
the old Blood comes into its own again
. “So Lady Myr was right, you see. I have come home.”

And then, because it all felt like far too much, he did what he had once despised Myr for doing, and burst into tears.

“I
t's all right,” Khar said. And it was, because he had put his arms around Faro. Beyond his tears, Faro could hear Malian telling the others what she had seen in his memories: the truth of Thanir's possession, and the mirror, and Myr's death.
I'm sorry,
he whispered again to her shade,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . .
But Ilai had said she was sorry, too, which Faro suspected only showed how little it meant, no matter how often the words thudded in time with his heart.

“Heir, eh?” Tirael spoke lightly, but Faro could tell he was serious. “That'll loose a wyr pack in the halls of Blood.”

“Not just Blood,” Nimor said tersely, “among the entire Nine Houses.” He paused, his face haggard in the tent's dim light. “But
Pha
'Rho-l-Ynor,
after more than four hundred years—”

“So you know of this ship?” Tirael asked.

“Oh, yes.” Nimor rubbed his hands over his face. “We have a shrine in the Sea Keep, inscribed with the name of every vessel we lose. But the
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor . . .”
He paused. “The name of the ship's weatherworker was originally Taierin; she was also Count Tirunor's niece. Our history records that she stole the ship from its rightful navigator out of infatuation for Ammaran, who had more than his share of the old Derai glamour. He had come to Sea wanting a ship for some quest
he was on, but the Count refused him. The ships were as valuable then as they are now, and the risks greater . . .” He paused again.

“And he was of Blood,” Malian said quietly.

The envoy's eyes slid to hers before he nodded. “Probably. It was barely two generations since the Betrayal War, after all. Ammaran was also suspected of suffering from the Madness of Jaransor, having ventured there in pursuit of whatever quest drove him. In any event, he persuaded Taierin to commandeer the
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor,
usurping the role and name of the rightful navigator.”

“It wasn't like that!” Faro said fiercely, from the shelter of Khar's arm. “My mam—Kara—said my father loved my mother above his own life!” He stopped, still trying to fit his new memories together with those he had always had. “She told me they married in secret, because Blood and Sea were close to enemies then, and sailed on
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor
because almost all the ship's crew supported my father's quest. When the navigator would not, they agreed my mother must replace him, which meant her taking the ship's name as well.” Nimor shook his head but remained silent. “My father needed a ship,” Faro went on, “because he had learned in Jaransor that what he sought lay in Haarth, but he didn't know how far south he would have to travel to find it. My mam said the crew agreed,” he repeated. “She and my father's Honor Guard didn't take the ship by force.”

“They couldn't have sailed it anyway,” Khar said. “Or made a ship leave port against its will, I wouldn't have thought.”

“But—” Nimor began, then paused, looking simultaneously uncertain and worn. “Tirunor must have thought differently,” he said finally. “His Heir and a considerable fleet pursued the fugitives until they lost them in a great storm, one the
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor
never sailed out of.”

“In that time,” Khar said.

“So it would seem.” Nimor sounded reluctant. “But the ship's name is on our memorial, so I think it must still have been lost.”

“Mam said the storm was greater than anyone on the ship had ever experienced.” Faro mimicked his foster mother's somber intonation. “The seas were mountainous, as high as the Wall itself, and Taierin believed there was some other power at work, beyond the Great Ocean tempests. The winds shredded sails and rigging, many were lost overboard, and the Luck died before the mainmast finally snapped. That's when my father made my mother bind his power to hers in the Luck's place, so her weatherworking would have greater reserves and she could save the ship.” Faro's voice shook, but Khar's arm, which had lightened to a hand on his shoulder, helped him remain steady. “He gave all his power and his life, but the ship was still wrecked. As far as Mam knew, she and my true mother were the only survivors.”

Nimor looked shaken. “But—” he said, then stopped a second time. The others watched him curiously until he spoke again. “As far as we know, the remnant of what had once been Yelusin first woke among the fleet that pursued the
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor,
when they turned back because of the great storm. We always thought it was because so many Lucks were lost as they fled before its fury.” Nimor sighed. “Perhaps the
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor
also woke at that time. But,” he repeated, “if the essence of a lost ship had returned, especially after so many centuries, it could not be kept hidden. The whole of Sea would be alight with the news. Yet I heard nothing before I left.”

“You weren't meant to!” Affronted, Faro nearly threw off Khar's restraining hand. “
Che'Ryl-g-Raham
made me wait until the very last night before we left with your company, and then go to the Ships' Shrine just before dawn.” He remembered how quiet it had been, stealing away from Khar and the horses, then creeping along the dock and into the dark shrine where the likeness of another ship's prow had awaited his coming, its watchful eyes open. “I put my hand on it, exactly like
Che'Ryl-g-Raham
said, and a light came out of me and went into the shrine.
Pha'Rho-l-Ynor
's name vanished off the plinth at once, and I could hear all the other ships speaking to me from around the harbor, welcoming me.
But they said my road lay with Khar, to the Red Keep and Blood.” The old Blood returns, Faro thought—and could see from the way Malian looked at him that she had observed that part of his memories, too.

“That makes sense, if your father was Heir,” Tirael said, still sounding grave.

“Even over four hundred years ago.” Faro could hear the same considering note in Khar's voice. “Kara must have realized something was badly amiss, though, even if she didn't know Haarth well, if at all, and was keeping away from Derai ships.”

“It would explain why she never returned to Blood,” Nimor agreed. “Because otherwise . . . However unacceptable the marriage may have been in those days, Faro was still Ammaran's legitimate son, and the last heir of the old line of Blood.”

“Mam was always worried about the stealing,” Faro told them confidently, because that was in his old memories. He frowned over the new ones. “But she said we couldn't go to Blood anyway, partly because of her being a Storm Spear, but also because of a new oath that she didn't like, both of which meant she wouldn't be able to protect me.” Khar's hand tightened on his shoulder and the others exchanged looks that told Faro, quite clearly, that they thought Kara had been wise.

“So what now?” Nimor said slowly.

“I believe it's time we turned our attention to the shield-mirror,” Malian said. Everyone else looked toward the silver tray, but Faro kept his eyes on a moth beating about the lantern, and concentrated fiercely on willing it away from the hot glass.

“I suppose we have to deal with it,” Nimor said. He sounded as though he, like Faro, would much prefer not.

“From what I saw in Faro's memories,” Malian replied, “it's far too malevolent to let lie, even overnight.” Settling onto her heels, she lifted Mistress Ise's staff clear of the tray. “Interesting,” she murmured, studying the twisted strands more closely, then looked up at Khar. “Between you and Nhenir, I think we can contain the shield's influence.”

Khar nodded, and Faro felt the flare of his power, joining with the same moonlit presence that had been with Malian when she removed Thanir's compulsion. Tirael and Nimor both looked equally intent as Malian set the staff aside and examined the tray. “I'll lift it clear,” she said, “but it had better be Raven who touches the mirror.”

Faro craned around at once, realizing he had made the mistake of overlooking Malian's companion, who had been obscured from his gaze by Khar. Watching us all—and missing nothing, Faro thought, his own gaze sliding away as Raven stepped forward.

“Why Raven?” Tirael asked, looking from Malian to the tall warrior.

“Because I'm largely immune to power,” Raven replied quietly.

The Son of Stars' brows rose, and Khar, too, looked around, his expression arrested, before turning back to the tray. “How do we deal with the shield-mirror permanently, though?” he said, as though thinking aloud. “I assume it can be melted down?”

“Not in any fire we could light in this camp.” Malian's eyes met his again. “I propose using the frost-fire sword.”

“You found it!” Khar exclaimed. Momentarily, delight broke through his grimness, so that he looked younger and less careworn than he had since the siege began.

“With Raven's help,” Malian said, while Nimor and Tirael exchanged looks.

“Nhenir,” the Son of Stars said, as though testing the name. “
And
the frost-fire sword. You really are the Chosen of Mhaelanar.”

“I am,” Malian replied, but with so much regret that Faro looked directly at her, even though that risked glimpsing the shield-mirror. “Unfortunately, if we destroy the mirror, which we must do, I fear the Shield of Stars, or Shield of Heaven will pass beyond my grasp. It was shattered in the battle with the Worm, but it seems one of the shards went into this mirror's making.” She paused. “I've had several visions of the battlefield now, all focusing on the broken shield, and in one
I saw Thanir. He took something from beneath the body of the Worm, almost certainly a shield fragment. From what I overheard in Faro's memories, the Swarm melded it into their shield-mirror, using the shard's disguising influence to infiltrate Night, where Aikanor fell beneath the mirror's sway.”

Ilai had mentioned Aikanor, too, Faro thought, when she spoke to Lady Myr at the end—something about using the mirror to whisper him into Madness. Now Taierin's warding had been lifted, he knew this was one of the histories his mam had taught him: how Aikanor, the Heir of Night, had believed himself in love with Xeria, twin sister to his closest friend, Tasian of Stars. When she would not marry him, Aikanor had murdered Tasian and tried to seize Xeria by force, which plunged the Derai into civil war and ended with the Golden Fire being extinguished. By his mam's account, it was Xeria who had called down the Fire to thwart Aikanor and his adherents' attempt to assassinate their Derai enemies, at the peace feast intended to end the civil war.

But in relating these events, Mam had spoken of circumstances that were raw and recent and bitter, not the five-hundred-year-old history they were to everyone else in the tent. She had not known about the mirror, but Faro remembered Ilai saying that, unlike Aikanor, Lady Myr had not been susceptible to its influence. He wanted to remind everyone of that, but their faces and the wyr hounds' rigidity held him motionless. “Aikanor,” Khar said, as though he had tasted something rotten.

Malian nodded. “What was intended, I suspect, to thwart another child born of Night and Stars by corrupting his feelings for Xeria, ended achieving so much more.”

Tirael was white. “Tasian's murder, the whole wreckage of the Betrayal War, and the loss of the Golden Fire . . .” Any trace of a drawl had vanished.

“The mirror may also explain why Xeria was
able
to wreak what she did.” Malian was very quiet, almost stern. “We know she was extremely powerful, but even so, I've always wondered how she was able to override the Golden Fire's prohibition against striking at the Derai—especially
since until then, the Fire had been resolutely neutral in the civil war.” A silent growl vibrated through the wyr hounds. “We know she was no longer sane,” Malian went on, “and sometimes that increases strength. But by that stage, even if part of the mirror was from Yorindesarinen's shield, the Swarm influence about Aikanor and those sworn to him must have been so strong it was growing discernible.”

Khar scrubbed a hand over hair darkened by sweat and dust. “So when he initiated the Night of Death, Xeria persuaded the Fire they were striking against the Swarm. She probably believed it herself . . .”

“She must have,” Malian said, more quietly still, “because she couldn't have hidden a lie from the Fire. And in one way, because of the mirror's hold over Aikanor, she was right.”

The tent was so quiet that Faro could hear the warriors from Malian's escort, talking outside. He almost cried out as the moth finally came too close and singed its wings against the lantern glass. Crippled, it spiraled to the ground, where Malian saw its distress and killed it. Her movement broke up the tableau: Tirael rolled his shoulders as though sloughing off the old, dark history, while Khar bent to examine the line of solder running through the phoenix. “Was this more shards?”

Malian nodded. “Two of the larger pieces, I imagine.” Her gaze went to Faro. “When you called your lightning, the power activated a residual virtue in the tray.” Abashed, Faro fixed his eyes on the phoenix as everyone looked at him again. “Rithor,” Malian said, reclaiming their attention, “was the only one of Yorindesarinen's squires who accompanied her against the Worm. The divisions within the Alliance must have been less entrenched in those days, because Rithor was of the Rose. Yorindesarinen sent him away before the final battle, but he can't have gone far because I
saw
him creep back afterward.” She glanced at Raven. “I think Fire's arrival drove him off before he could retrieve more than the shield fragments. But,” she finished softly, “if we looked far enough back along Mistress Ise's family tree, I suspect we'd find Rithor.”

“So we know how the tray got here,” Nimor said, almost
explosively. “But how could the mirror get from the Old Keep of Winds on the Night of Death, to a place among Lady Myr's possessions?”