Sword (15 page)

"Enough, you two," their father scolded. "I had forgotten the sound of the both of them in one room," he said to the king, who wiped an eye and set a hand on the general’s shoulder.

"They
are
your children, Niall. I seem to recall you were no better once."

That
was impossible to picture.

Kyali and Devin looked instantly to their father, faces incredulous. "Oh, aye," the general agreed blandly. "Far worse. As were you, Farrell." He aimed a cool glance at his son, who ducked his head in feigned remorse. "Though I believe we were both more subtle."

"Not
always
, Niall."

Whatever memory that recalled, it brought a genuine grin to the general's face, an expression Taireasa had only seen once, when one of Kyali's more elaborate pranks had left her brother mud-covered and running across the fields in a dressing gown. "All too true," he agreed. "And no, there's no use in asking," he added, gracing his children with a mock frown.

Kyali and Devin traded a look of determined intention, united by curiosity. Kyali darted a glance at Taireasa as well, invitation to enlist, and Taireasa raised a single eyebrow. The general surveyed the three of them. "Ah," he murmured. "They've made common cause, Farrell. Again. We'll not rest easy this season."

"Have we ever?" the queen asked wryly.

"Not in my memory, love," the king replied. "My own heir, who sits here so demurely now, managed this spring to incite more mayhem in the ladies' court than it has seen in a decade, and several chickens are now educated in the mysteries of embroidery as a result."

Her father aimed a reproving glance her way and Taireasa smiled, refusing to give even a hint of apology.

Devin snorted into his glass. "I was
sure
it would be the well," he murmured.

What that meant, Taireasa had no notion, but it made Kyali choke on her bread.

The past two years might never have happened. The past
ten
might not have happened when Kyali turned to her with a wicked light in her eyes, wearing that crooked grin that entirely transformed her face. She hadn’t known how lost she had been without these two.

"My son and I will be riding back tonight, by your leave," the general announced when the meal was over. "We've things to see to. My daughter will stay a night and these two can reacquaint themselves, yes?"

The king stood and clapped a hand to his shoulder. "We’ll deliver her back to you ourselves, old friend," he said. "It’s been too long since we visited your estate. And you will come here again soon: we see too little of each other these days."

The general bowed to Taireasa and her mother as they stood, then laid hands on Kyali’s shoulders. "You did well," he murmured low, meant only for his daughter's ears. Kyali nodded.  Some of the tightness lining her eyes and her shoulders fell away. She caught Taireasa's gaze and flushed.

Devin followed his father, kissing first Taireasa’s hand and then his sister’s, the latter by ambush and with comic extravagance, as Kyali fought to free herself and finally kicked him in the leg.

The king patted Kyali's shoulder, then Taireasa's. "You did well today," he said simply, echoing the Lord General. "You
all
did. Now I need you to stay quiet and unseen—which, if memory serves, is not so hard a thing for you two. But no hiding in the old passages, and no pranks. There will be barons looking for trouble tonight, and I prefer they find none."

So her father
didn't
believe today's victory had settled the matter. That was a relief. Taireasa nodded, wondering what sort of trouble he expected.

"Aye," Kyali said. "Majesty—"

"I know. I
do
know, child. We set them back hard today, though. It will take them some time to come up with a new plot. They're a contentious lot, these barons. I've often thought they ought to have their own court—then they wouldn't plague ours. But we deal with what we have, no?" He pulled them both into a brief embrace. "Wait it out. It will blow over."

Kyali's frown was the mirror of her own worry. Taireasa felt some of the glow of pleasure leave her, and cold uncertainly steal in to take its place.

"Yes," Taireasa said, because there was nothing else to say. She would wait to see, and stay on her guard.

With Kyali at her side. That was enough, and more than enough, to balance the rest.

* * *

Dinner was finished. They'd snuck a bottle of wine from the cellars (she hoped the king never learned of that small theft, or the passages in the walls would be barred for good) and had two glasses each, unwatered. Kyali's head still spun. They had gone to bed hoarse-voiced from talking and not a little silly.

Taireasa was still Taireasa, to her inexpressible relief: as kind, as clever, as perceptive. She was forgiven for leaving, and in spite of two years' distance, she still had a friend who knew her well enough to see all the things she couldn't say.

Kyali shifted gently in the bed. A single candle remained lit, bringing a flickering light to the tapestry-covered walls of Taireasa’s bedroom. The darkness beyond the window seemed ominous, and all the triumphs of the day smaller than she had believed.

It wasn't over. She was sure of that.

She held onto the memory of her father’s hands on her shoulders, the shock on the faces of certain lords in the hall this afternoon. She warded off the dark with them. She was still shaken from speaking, from choosing. Most of all from giving her oath, which had felt strange and strong in a way nothing in her life had until now… but also familiar, in the way that working magic was beginning to become familiar.

What that meant, she had no idea.

She had altered the course of things in some way she didn't yet understand. Now things she'd been certain of for most of her life were thrown into question, changing shape in the dark on the other side of that decision.

Outside, the wind whispered and moaned to the old stones of the castle.

It hurt to think of it: carrying a sword for the rest of her life, Taireasa bound irrevocably to the throne, Devin to wander the land—welcome everywhere, but no longer with a true home, and no longer able to bear the title of Head of House as a firstborn should.

She
was the heir to her House now. She felt entirely inadequate for that honor.

It was bitter. Tomorrow it would be better than it seemed right now, with the dark pressing in on them all from the window and the wind keening secrets to the sky. Corwynalls and Marsadrons had fulfilled such duties for generations. She told herself this over and over. The lump in her throat did not grow any smaller.

The warmth at her back shifted, leaned up on an arm. "Ky," Taireasa whispered.

"What?" The word came out more harshly than she had intended. She cleared her throat.

"Are you asleep?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Taireasa lay back in confusion, half-asleep herself, and Kyali grinned into the darkness. "No, you’re not!"

"Hush, you’ll wake the guards outside."

"They don’t sleep on duty, you fool."

"Care to wager on that? It’s entirely possible to sleep standing up, I’ll have you know."

Taireasa rose up again and looked at her, nothing more than a glimmer of eyes in the dark—and even half-awake and with no light to speak of, she still saw far too much.

"Fool, am I?" Kyali added, and prodded her fingers into a convenient ribcage, which was an instant distraction. They tussled for a moment on the bed like the children they had been. Fingers found her own sides and she had to stifle a shriek: Taireasa still remembered quite well how to win this sort of battle. She was challenged well past what she had counted on, but she was by far the stronger. She won by seizing two fine-boned wrists and bearing her full weight down on them, both of them breathless now with hushed laughter.

"All right, I yield!" Taireasa yelped. Kyali rolled to the side, panting. "Gods
bless
, you must weigh twelve stone."

"Lovely. They can use me to weigh down the canvas in windstorms."

Possibly they should both have outgrown such things by now. Probably so. But Kyali found she had no desire to do so, ever. The shadows still pressed too close, but the air was easier to breathe now, and Taireasa by her side after two years was comfort enough to balance all other wrongs, at least for tonight. She sighed, tired again, but Taireasa turned toward her, raising a tangle-haired head and resting it against hers.

"It’s hard," she said simply, getting right to the raw center of the thing the way she always did.

"Yes," Kyali agreed. She heard the rough edge to her voice and didn't object when Taireasa twined long, chilled fingers with hers. She was grateful Taireasa found nothing else to say: the lump in her throat was back, an aching mix of gratitude and grief. They lay together in silence, listening to the wind rise from whispers to whistles, then to howls.

It sounded almost human. It brought the dark into the room with them.  

Another sound came into the room then, a noise from
inside
the walls. A sound like a muffled scream.

Kyali froze, willing herself perfectly silent. A door slammed shut somewhere in the castle, hard enough that she felt the stones shiver. Every hair on her seemed to stand on end. That pulling in her middle returned with awful force and she drew her knees to her chest.  

Taireasa's hand tightened painfully on hers.

Kyali rose to sit on the edge of the bed. Blood pounded in her ears.

Now
, she thought, without knowing why or what it meant, but the dread that came with it was strong enough to make her stupid if she didn't push it down. The tugging grew almost unbearable. At her side, Taireasa made a small, hurt noise, and she knew that whatever was happening, Taireasa felt it too. She was suddenly certain that Devin was in danger, wherever he was. She wanted her father and her brother beside her with as fierce and desperate a desire as she had ever felt. She wanted Arlen and Saraid and all the rangers of the Darachim. She wanted an army.

She didn't have one.

The wind wailed like loss, and Kyali shuddered.

Beside her, Taireasa slid off the bed and stood. The small door to her handmaid’s quarters opened and Marta emerged, her eyes shining and wide. They stood in the center of the room as footsteps and voices echoed through the halls. It did not sound like revelry. There was a muffled cry, a thump, and Kyali could stand to be still no more.

She turned, scrambled in Taireasa's wardrobe for her trousers, her tunic, her leather armor, most of all for her sword. She flung off the borrowed nightgown without a thought for modesty and pulled her clothes on in desperate, clumsy haste as Taireasa yanked a dress free and began the laborious process of putting it on. None of them spoke. A panic that threatened to swallow rational thought was rising in her throat. Outside the wind howled, and inside came cries and screams, the unmistakable clash of arms.

She was beginning to understand, and she wanted badly to be wrong.

The Western barons. Their large entourages camped outside the city. They didn't intend to connive or marry their way to the throne; they had given that notion up in favor of another. They intended to take it by force.

And someone had opened the gates.

Their own door flew open suddenly, thrown wide by one of Taireasa’s guards, his face stark and terrified in the torchlight, his sword bare in his hand.

"
Lady!
" he cried.

Kyali moved without thought, shoving a hand over his mouth. "Shush!" she hissed.

"The guards—the barons—the king and queen—" He stammered it out all in a rush, hanging a hand on her arm.

"Hold the door until you hear otherwise!" Kyali turned him about and shoved him back into the hall, barring the door behind him. She grasped in a single, ghastly instant what was required, what it would take, and was all but overcome by the horror of it.

But Taireasa’s safety was all that mattered.

Screams filled the halls now. Taireasa’s eyes were huge in the gloom, her face bloodless.

"My father, my mother, oh, Ky, the Western barons—oh,
gods
..."

Marta, bless her, was snatching after clothes, stuffing them into a bag in haste, filling her pockets with the bread rolls left over from dinner. She flung a cloak over Taireasa, not the royal blue of House Marsadron but a handmaid's plain wool. Taireasa clutched at the clasp and then at Kyali's wrist. Her grip was terror-tight.

"Taireasa." Kyali took her shoulders in a hard grasp, willing everything else, all the fear and anguish, away. She needed to think now more than ever in her life. The cold red clarity of battle-fury was waiting, and she hoped it would be enough to carry her through what had to come next. "You can’t go down there. You have to get away. You have to go
now;
we are out of time."

"I can't! My
parents
!"

"Listen!" She gave her friend a shake. "Get yourself free and give us one less thing to defend! They are here for
you
, Taireasa—they mean to use you to give credit to their claim! Take the servants’ passage and get
out
!" Kyali drew a breath, fighting tears of rage as much as grief. Thank the gods she'd renounced her candidacy today: she was no use to the barons alive. "Make your way to the guardhouse. You'll find men there who will protect you.
Ride to my father
. Marta—"

The older woman gave her a steady look and nodded, understanding perfectly what she didn’t say aloud.

"Where will
you
be? You’re coming with me! You can’t fight, Ky, you can’t think of it!"

Good. Taireasa was thinking again. Though it left her nothing to do now but lie.

"I’ll be riding after you." Taireasa's disbelief was evident even in the dark. Kyali embraced her quickly and fiercely, before her friend could see how the truth lit up her eyes. "I'm going to gather the guard here first. We'll need them. I love you. Believe in me, please, just
go
, now!"