Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (59 page)

He hung his head again. When he didn't lift it after the passage of a half inch of candle, she nodded at Stavos; grabbing a handful of hair, he lifted Nicu's head for him.

"Nicu,
from whom
?"

She saw the shame in his face, although it was hard to separate it from the anger. His gaze slid off her, past her, to her left.

To, she knew, Elena.

Pity stabbed her more strongly than anger.

"From someone who knows our history and cares about us more than—" He fell silent. Chose silence. It was the first smart thing he'd done all evening. "He offered me the sword. He said it would make me—make
us
—strong."

"And you took it."

"Yes."

"And what did you give him in return?"

"Nothing."

She felt it, then. He was telling the truth, yes, but it was the type of truth you told when you were lying. He knew what she
wanted
him to answer; he chose how to best use the words to thwart her. He wasn't stupid enough to lie to a Matriarch. At least he had that.

"So you accepted a sword from a stranger."

"Yes."

"A sword that didn't see you into adulthood, a sword that hadn't been offered your blood, and your family's name."

He flinched. "Yes."

"You used a boy's sword."

That stung; she could see new red in his cheeks, and he pulled at the men who held his arms, breaking his slump.

"I used a boy's sword? Maybe, Margret,
1 finally
used a
man's
sword. Maybe that's what this is all about. I used a
man's
sword. I fought like a man."

"Like a clansman," she countered, cold as desert night. "Is that what you want? The life of a clansman? Sorry, I can't offer you that. I can offer you the death, though.

"Who was the stranger, Nicu?"

"I don't know."

"Who?"

"Damn it, Margret, if you're going to have me killed, kill me, but I'm telling you the truth.
I don't know
."

She cursed; she had wished for the Arkosan heart, but never so strongly as now. She hadn't her mother's gift or her mother's talent; she hadn't Yollana's famed sight. All she had was herself, her instinct, her experience. Wasn't what she wanted for a situation like this.

It would have to do. She was certain he spoke the truth. "What did he offer you, Nicu?"

"Nothing."

And that, that was not.

"Did you trust him?"

"I didn't think about it."

Truth.

"The sword is off-limits. I won't have my men—any of my men—use a sword that confuses which of the two, sword or man, is the wielder, and which the weapon.

"But I told you that. You didn't listen.

Now, the only drawn breath in the clearing was her own, and she wouldn't have bothered if she hadn't needed the air to speak with. The night was cold, the stars clearer than they had been in years, or so it felt. Her hands were numb and shaking, they'd been balled into fists for so long.

Stavos was watching her. Stavos, uncle, adviser, trusted ally. She saw his face, saw how hard the lines of it were, saw how dark the eyes. She was no expert. She didn't understand people all that well—Hells, she'd grown up with Nicu and spent more than half her life in his company, and she couldn't understand him at all.

But she
knew
what Stavos expected of her. She
knew
, then, what the only thing she could do was. It was a test.

And it was an
easy
test. No trick questions. No stupid games. This was as black and white as it came. She had given Nicu an order, a direct order. A serious one. He had disobeyed it.

He had disobeyed it, risking them all. He had chosen the Lord's ways over the Lady's at a time when the children—their future, their only true future—had not yet made their way out of the Tor Leonne.

What other choice could there be?

"Take him," she said, more to the two men who held Nicu than to Stavos himself. "Leave him in the wagon circle. Wait until after the Lord's height tomorrow." She looked at Nicu, and then away, her gaze like a glancing blow. Hard, that. Harder, though, to look at Donatella. Donatella, whose gaze, tear-marred and wide-eyed though it was, was measure for measure the same as Stavos'.

She could not turn to look at Elena; all she heard was Elena's drawn breath. Long, slow, steady—a sign that she was controlling either her tongue or her temper. Rare enough it might have been worth seeing—on any other night.

A test. Yes. A test of the new Matriarch.

What do you do when your kin won't follow your orders?

Yollana's answer hung in the air between Margret and the cousin she had grown up fighting with. But she was Evallen's daughter; not even at four years old would she have been stupid enough to ask for another Matriarch's help with her family.

She knew what must be done. Knew what her mother would have done, although she wondered bitterly if her mother's orders would ever have been treated so casually.

So stupidly.

She drew a breath as deep, as slow, as Elena's had sounded. And she faced her cousin's bruised face. It wasn't the first time it had looked like this. She couldn't actually remember the first time he'd gotten into a fight; the first time bruises and swelling had taken the edge off his wild, pretty face.

But she remembered fighting him for a place on Uncle Stavos' knee. Remembered fighting him for a doll that had been his mother's birth gift to her. Remembered how fearless he'd been— how stupid—when he'd saved her life from clansmen raiding what they thought was a small Arkosan caravan. They'd taken heads that day.

Nicu had been fourteen.

He'd also been incensed that he wasn't allowed to keep the head he'd taken.

"Margret—" Nicu began.

"Shut up. Just shut up." To her uncle she said, "Bring the whips tomorrow. I'll flog him myself." She turned away.

Because this had been a test, yes, and she knew she had just failed it.

But she couldn't kill Nicu.

427 AA

Stone Deepings

"Na'jay," a voice said. Her grandmother's voice. She opened her eyes, or tried to; everything was dark. "Na'jay," the voice said again. The first of the familiar things returned to her: the smell of her grandmother's hair when it hung, long and pale, the soap not quite gone with the jugs of water she'd helped to heat and pour. The second followed quickly: the feel of the rounded swell of legs widened with age beneath her cheek. Her Oma's lap. She opened her eyes.

"I can't see."

"I know, dear," that comforting voice said. "I thought it best. It will pass."

"Duster?"

"She's gone."

"She's not."

"Yes, she is. You have far too much power and far too little knowledge to be traveling this path. Lucky you aren't travelling it alone."

"Avandar—"

"I wasn't talking about
him
. He was right to be afraid to bring you here. Do you know where you are, Jewel?"

"The Stone Deepings."

"Yes. But do you know what the Deepings are?"

Darkness. Beneath her hands, the chill of hard rock, broken into jagged rubble. Beneath that, smoothed by time or water, the path.

"Would she?"

"Would she what, Jewel?"

"Would she kill me?"

"It's not for me to answer. I never knew her." The old woman heaved the sort of sigh that could be heard across a crowded dining hall. "You didn't kill her, you know."

"I sent her—"

"You sent her because she was the only person you thought could succeed.
She
failed
you
." Jewel's face scraped stone as it was unceremoniously dumped off the old woman's lap. "Get up. Start
seeing
. You've got a long way to walk in this darkness, and you'd better get good at it. I can only take you so far."

Jewel stood in the slow awkward way a person does who's afraid of what she might stumble into while denied sight. "Where's Avandar?"

"Him? Oh, he's frantic. He's shaking you by your shoulders until your teeth chatter, and you're about to wake up."

"I'm sleeping."

"You're dreaming the dreams of Stone Deepings," the old woman said, and her voice was suddenly cool. "You are the key; find the lock before the path kills you."

She was glad she didn't have a mirror. It was one of the vanities that she'd refused herself over time, that leaning toward femininity that seemed either above or beneath her, depending on the time of day, the phase of moon.

"
Next time
," she said, through teeth that felt as if they'd been chipped, her jaw was so sore, "wait."

"Jewel, I've walked this path. Waiting is tantamount to—"

"Is that my hair? Is that my hair I smell?"

"I… attempted to get your attention by slightly more drastic measures than I generally use."

"You
burned
my hair?" She got up. Her knees hurt; dampness had settled beneath skin and muscle into the heart of bone. "Oma?"

"She is… gone."

Gone. Just like that. Jewel felt an old twinge: failure. Consequence. Fear. She put it aside. "How long have I been lying here?"

"Long enough." He pronounced each syllable with painful exactness.

"Can't be that long. I'm not hungry."

He offered no reply. Certainly not the reply Carver or Angel would have: exaggerated shock. She was always hungry.

The stars were now an aurora of light, shifting in place in a curtain of pale silver.
They aren't real
, she told herself, but she stopped as if spellbound by their beauty. She probably was.

"Jewel." She shied away from his outstretched hand; he dropped it at once. Old habits, his and hers. "Do you now understand the nature of this path?"

"No. You're telling me you do?"

He didn't answer. Answer enough. Her eyes narrowed until they seemed closed; until the only thing she could see was Avandar.

"Tell me."

His gaze was remote and cool. "I am your domicis, Jewel Markess ATerafin. I owe you nothing more personal than that."

"It isn't what you owe her, Viandaran, but what you will
give
her, that fascinates the objective observer." Jewel had often heard voices described as velvet before; she had never actually credited the description as anything but lazy poetry. She apologized now to those of bardic bent; the words had a richness and a depth, a soft smoothness of cadence and tone, that made a listener want them to be physical.

Orange light flared like the most beautiful of magework, framing Avandar as if he were a gem and it the setting that would bring out his true worth. Burning and incandescent, he stood in its ethereal heart, fire's gift. Fire.

"Hello, Calliastra." His voice was like ice.

For no reason she could think of, Jewel was afraid. Of the stranger with a voice like one of those exotic drugs that were forbidden for good reason. Of Avandar. Of what she could see in the fires that he wore like the raiment of kings.

That's because you're not a fool; no one of my blood could be a fool
. Oma's voice.

Jewel hated to be afraid.

"And the objective observer is?"