Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (88 page)

"The Heart of Havalla," Margret whispered, "is more than enough for the Heart of Arkosa."

The old woman smiled, and the smile took years from her face—something that Margret would have bet money against a scant few weeks ago. She wondered what made the old woman so happy.

As if she could hear the thought, Yollana said, "If any of my daughters are half as strong as you have been today, not even the winds will be able to keep me from my pride in them."

Margret started to speak, and then stopped, remembering that there was only one condition that had to be met for her daughters to be so tested: the Matriarch of Havalla's death.

But she felt a twinge of pride and pleasure at the praise, even while wondering if she were still such a child that praise alone could mean so much.

* * *

The ceremonies of Havalla were not so different from the ceremonies of Arkosa. From her sash, Yollana took a very small knife and a very shallow bowl. The knife was silver, but the shadows could not prevent it from glinting as if it were under full light. She cut her palm deeply enough that it bled.

The bowl, pale and bright as the blade, caught her blood. She passed the knife to the men and women who had gathered in around her. Her silence demanded silence; she bent before them with the bowl and gathered the blood that fell.

But she did not give the knife to the Serra Diora, Elena, or Nicu.

Only Lord Celleriant hesitated. He glanced up at Yollana, his lips rounded in a smile that was neither friendly nor pleasant, but still beautiful to behold. "Is this wise, old woman?"

Her silence was her reply.

"The Cities of Man were not my cities; I was… only barely… welcome within them." He held the dagger carefully.

Jewel ATerafin rose as if summoned. "Lord Celleriant."

"I offer truth," he said, looking up. "And caution. If you would have me participate in this ceremony, have me do so with the knowledge of my place in your past."

"The choice isn't mine," she told him. "But if it were, I would take what you willingly offered. Whatever you were, then, there is only one enemy now, and if we cannot stand together against him, we will fall separately."

"Well spoken, Lady." He rose. "But I fear you do not speak with the voice of the Cities."

"Cities don't have voices if they aren't ours."

But Margret said, "Don't be so certain, ATerafin. But even so, I will take what you offer."

He raised a silver brow, met Margret's eyes.

At any other time she would have taken a step back to put distance between herself and what she saw in his.

He placed the knife gently in the cradled cup of his palm.

And grimaced as it burst into flame.

But the flame did not char his skin; it burned with a pale blue light from the tip of the blade to its hilt. He closed his fist around it, grunted, and uncurled his fingers, pulling the blade back as if the separation required great effort.

His blood—for the knife had cut him deeply—was burning brightly. Yollana was still completely silent, but she moved the shallow bowl in shaking hands.

He turned his palm slowly, and she caught the blood that fell from it.

The flames fell with it. Both blood and fire completed the circle of offering; she held the bowl in both hands and made her way to Margret.

Margret could see that the flames continued to burn.

"Take strength from our strength," the older woman said, speaking for the first time. "If you have need of it on the path you must walk, we offer it willingly. You are the door. You are the portal. And you are the key.

"Open the way, Matriarch. Find our past. Return—as no others of us may do—to our home." She bowed her head again, and Margret had the distinct impression that she was supposed to kneel.

But the Voyani were nothing if not practical; there was no way that the Matriarch of Havalla could both kneel and continue to shepherd the contents of this shallow vessel. She held out her hands, and Yollana placed the bowl within them.

And said, "Drink."

The fire still burned, and the bowl was warm to the touch. Margret took a slow, deep breath. It was as much hesitation as she was allowed to show. She stared into the flames that burned; they were no longer a simple blue; there was, within their flickering, dancing tongues, hearts of white and gold.

The fire spoke.

It was all she could do not to take her hands from the bowl.

The way is watched. The enemy is waiting. Use only the old roads. Touch nothing that does not call your name. Take nothing that you cannot control. Offer only that which you can afford to lose; offer nothing that you do not value.

She lifted the vessel in shaking hands; felt the heat of the flames across her brow. But pain did not follow heat; the fire did not burn her. She placed the silver rim of the vessel upon her lower lip and tilted the offering slowly, carefully, toward her face.

She was prepared for flame.

But it did not burn her until she swallowed.

The bowl fell from her hands as her hands rose; she covered her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, as she fell to her knees. The sand caught her; she could not order the others to keep away.

But someone else could; she heard the command pass through her, swift as a quarrel, and she recognized the voice that had fired it: Kallandras.

She was grateful, in a fashion; she could not speak. Her throat was on fire. She opened her eyes and all she could see was blue and gold.

"Matriarch's daughter."

She stood on the sands, the pale, bleached sands, her feet in her mother's shadow. They were seldom alone, these two. Her eleventh birthday had passed her by, but she was some months from her twelfth; in between these two, her blood had started to flow.

She was no longer considered a child, and among Matriarchs, this was the first of the rites of passage through which she must pass to be called adult. She had journeyed with her mother into the Sea of Sorrows for the very first time, instead of away from it with her uncles. If she had felt special, if she had felt blessed, if she had felt somehow that she had crossed an important, invisible threshold, her mother's irritated formality reminded her that she was still Evallen's daughter, still her child.

"Matriarch."

Her mother's face was lined, her eyes were narrowed. She had, with stiffness, invoked the blessing of the family; they had offered her the respect that her mother withheld. Uncle Stavos had winked, but his expression had been so grave she wasn't certain if it had been her imagination.

"Are you paying attention?"

"Yes."

"What did I just tell you?"

She froze.

Her mother cuffed the side of her head. "I told you nothing. Now
pay attention
."

"Yes, Mother."

"Good. Why are we traveling at this time?"

Margret had been wondering that; it was the height of day, the time when the Lord's gaze was at its most merciless. The Voyani did very little when the full weight of his gaze was upon them. Her mother hated guesses, but she also hated silence. Margret hovered between the two evils.

But her mother did not expect an answer. "It is not an act of defiance, although most of the Arkosans think otherwise. We do it because we must.

"This is what we do not say to anyone: When we had a home, it was with the Lord's blessing, and at the Lord's command. We lived in cities that were fashioned from the only law he holds to be absolute: power.

"These lands were once the heart of Annagar, although the Dominion was called by another name, and there was no Tyr'agar. For as far as the eye could see, there was life: plains upon which the ancestors of the Mancorvan horses ran without challenge, forests in which trees that had stood since the beginning sheltered the lives of creatures that exist nowhere but in legend now. There were great lakes, mountains, rivers in abundance. Do you understand? There was no desert here."

Margret looked at the stretch of land that was broken only by cold, distant mountains. The air danced and shimmered as it caught the sun, folding the blue of sky, the gold of sand into the specters of vision.

"We claimed those lands."

"Arkosa?"

"And Havalla, Corrona, Lyserra." Her mother turned and began to walk; Margret had to lengthen her stride to keep up. "There may have been others. I do not know, and if I did, I would not speak of them. It is only here that I may speak, and only to you. But even among the Voyani there are secrets and silences; even the Matriarchs of the other families are not privy to what
Arkosans
know." She stopped for water; handed the waterskin to her daughter and watched, eyes narrowed, as Margret drank. Margret took care to drink as little as possible. The Sea of Sorrows was the only place in which water had more value than blood.

"We had power, then, that not even the clans dream of. We had the luxury of a similar arrogance. And we travel in the Lord's light because we cannot find our way in the night; we cannot find our way by the silver rays of the Lady's face. The Lady was adjunct to the Lord; it is not to her lands that we travel. Do you understand?"

She nodded. Stopped. Shook her head:

"Speak up, girl."

"N-no."

Evallen frowned. "Too much to be hoped for. The
Voyanne
is the Lady's. The Cities were the Lord's."

"But you said they were home."

"You
were
listening."

She hated her mother's sarcasm. If she had known where she was going, she would have walked ahead. "You taught us that one day we can
go
home."

"I was taught that. And my mother, and her mother, and hers."

"You don't believe it."

Evallen's lips twisted. She stopped walking for a moment. The sun beating down on the peak of her hood cast almost no shadow. "I wish I didn't." But she would say no more.

Margret followed her for a long time, wondering why the word
home
had such value; her life had been spent avoiding the Lord, and the Lord's men, and she had always dreamed—when she thought of home at all—of a land without war, without combat, and without death.

Well, without death for Arkosans, at least.

She looked up; the dance of the air was growing dangerously real; colors that were not variants of sand and sky had begun to appear in the heat folds. Red, green, a lush, vibrant orange, and a subtle shade of gray, the color of rest and shelter.

Yollana's face was still, but her hood rippled and flapped as it spoke to the wind. Margret blinked back the memory. It had been
so
strong, she could still feel her eleven-year-old self lurking beneath the weight of years. She did not see that desert in this one, but she knew they were the same; that they must be the same.

The sun was not yet risen to its height. But it would be within the hour, and she knew that they must cast no shadows when they arrived at the place. She bowed to the Matriarch, and then, bending at one knee, retrieved the fallen bowl.

It gleamed, clean and new, against the sand between her feet. She touched its surface, and felt no heat, touched no blood.

"An omen." Yollana's voice was smooth and cool. Like, Margret thought, steel. She held out a hand, and Margret passed her the bowl. It disappeared into the folds of her robe.

"Nicu." Margret was almost surprised she could speak. "Ready your men. We leave now." She rose. "Uncle Stavos?"

He rose as well, his expression almost grim. She had hoped that she might see him wink or smile, but years of harsh wind had worn the corners off that expression. "We will wait until you summon us, Matriarch, or until you return."

"Good. Watch over the others."

He nodded. She thought that his eyes were filmed with tears, which was ridiculous—Stavos knew better than to cry in the desert.

Tamara hugged her daughter. The Serra Teresa di'Marano hugged her niece. Donatella hugged Nicu, and then, as if they were his brothers and not his men, Andreas and Carmello.

No one thought to hug Margret.

Jewel watched them leave. She joined the ranks of the Arkosans as they left the side of Elena's ship and flowed around it, pulling the hoods from their shoulders and covering their faces. The wind seemed involved in some sort of dialogue; it came first from one direction and then from another. The sand made her squint, as did the sun's light. Cold was forgotten in the midst of heat, but the sensation of the storm had yet to leave her; she was grateful for the day.

When she could no longer clearly see Margret and her companions, she turned away. She had thought, given the lay of the land, that she would watch them dwindle for a long time, but the heat had already begun to blur the lines of their bodies until it was no longer clear who was who.

She walked back to where Avandar sat, unmoving, by the side of the ship. Had it been a real boat, it would have looked like a beached whale; it was designed to be borne by wheels, not air, and it rested mostly on its flat.

"Avandar," she said, almost gently.

He looked toward her, but he did not speak.

If he had, she thought he might speak in the tongue he had used beneath the mountains, and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear him speak in that language again. Ever.

But she didn't like his silence much.

"Avandar," she said again, keeping her voice as soft as she could. "Who are you?"

He stared at the sand beneath her feet.

"Avandar."

And then, when he did not respond, she closed her eyes.
Avandar
.

Here, too, there was the silence of absence.

He had lived her life for over a decade; he had been an uncomfortable presence, a difficult wisdom, an unknown power.

She had kept as much distance as she could between them, although as domicis, she could in theory trust him with her life—and had.

She crossed that distance carefully, moving across the sand until she stood beside him. She did not touch him, although if she reached out, she could; instead, her eyes found the same patch of sand that caught and held his attention. Wood, softened by layered fabric that had grown damp with sweat, touched both of her shoulder blades.