The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (28 page)

Your kai was killed by his own choice. He was one of hundreds of men
.

They killed him
.

They killed him because the Tyr’agar is a fool
.

Alina
, the Serra Donna had said, her voice gentle, her expression as gracious as grief and fear allowed.

He was not even considered worthy of ransom
, her brother had continued.

Ransom happens after surrender
. She had known there would be a cost for the words. Had known it, but had been unable to contain them.

He was your blood!

He was my nephew
, she snapped, her own voice breaking beneath the thin veneer of control.
He was my nephew, and I raised him; I stood by his side at his first trial; I held his hand when he took his first step. I sat, idle, while you trained him to be the perfect vessel for Lambertan honor
.

Be silent!

No! I was silent. I was silent, and now he is silent, and he will never have a chance to speak for himself. He died because he wanted to prove himself worthy of you!

It had not been Mareo who had intervened; it had been the Serra Donna. For the first time—for the only time—she had raised her hand.

At a remove of years, Alina could still feel the stinging rebuke of her open palm.

Horrified at what had been said, horrified at what she had done, the Serra Donna had risen, stiffly, had bowed with complete poise at her husband’s feet, and had retreated.

And less than one month later, the Serra Alina had been sent to the North.

Of all memories of the South, the day of her departure had been the clearest. She shed no tears, of course. Instead, as a dutiful daughter might, she had knelt upon the flat mats of her brother’s outer rooms, hands palm down a few inches above the bend in her knees. She had worn white and blue that day—not only because the death of a kai demanded mourning, but because she did mourn.

He was not even considered worth ransoming
.

Have you shed a tear for the men his decision led to death? Have you paused to weep or berate your enemy for his lack of consideration in the deaths of those who had no choice at all
?

Ugly words.

All hers.

But ugly or no, there was a twisted, strange liberty to be found in the folds of truth.

As she waited for the palanquin to be equipped, the serafs to be chosen, the bolts of silks to be loaded into the wagons below, she repeated those words, again and again, in the silence behind closed lips.

And during this terrible ferocity of litany, the doors slid open.

She had turned to tell the seraf to leave, and had found herself face-to-face with the Serra Donna en’Lamberto, knees bent to the wooden slats of the exterior halls, hands upon the rounded lips of sliding door, face framed by its warm panels.

The Serra Alina began to rise.

The Serra Donna rose swiftly instead, closing the doors at her back.

“So,” Alina said. “He cannot find the grace to say goodbye; he sends you in his stead.”

She was careless now with her words—although she had been accused of such carelessness in the past, it was never with such truth.

The Serra Donna had never been so careless; not with words. But she had expected the Serra Alina’s reaction, and barely flinched when Alina raised her hand to her cheek—accusation and reminder.

Such an accusation might have made a lesser woman wither, but although Donna was in all aspects the perfect, dutiful wife, she was no weakling. She met the Serra Alina’s bold stare, and after a moment, surprised her by nodding.

Had Alina’s anger been so easily stilled, she might never have left for the North. With far less grace than the Serra Donna had shown, she said, “Why have you come?”

“To tell you what you know he cannot tell you.”

“That he has decided that I am the perfect insult to offer the Northern victors? Have no worries on that account, Serra Donna. I was present for each of his discussions on this very subject; I am aware of his feelings.”

The Serra Donna’s gaze had darkened.

“Are you?” she said coolly.

Alina had spoken in anger, but confronted with anger, she fell silent. “Not, clearly, as aware as you are. You are his wife. I am only his unmarriageable sister.”

Serra Donna rose stiffly: “It is not because you are his sister that you are . . . where you are. You are harsh, Alina, and your temper is unbecoming.”

“For a woman?”

“For,” Donna replied, “A Lambertan. Of all of his kin, only you can invoke such anger. And it is your choice.”

“It is as much his choice, is it not? I am merely a Serra; he is the Tyr’agnate.”

The Serra Donna bowed stiffly, without kneeling. She opened the screen doors and would have stepped lightly between them.

But Alina said, “Na’donna, wait.”

The stiff shoulders of her brother’s wife relaxed. She turned, her hand against the soft panes of the closed screen. “Na’ali,” she said quietly. “He is not an evil man.”

“I know,” Alina replied bitterly. “He is an honorable man.”

“He—regrets—what he has done.”

“And he has told you so?”

“You know him; it is an admission that he could not make.”

Alina said nothing.

“I chose the silks that are to be sent with you; I’ve sent brushes and inks as well as gold. I do not believe that you will be treated poorly in the Northern court.” She paused. “You were wrong,” she whispered.

“Wrong?”

“They killed his son.”

“Na’donna—”

The Serra’s head rose in a snap of motion; her eyes were red. Surprise stilled Alina’s voice; surprise humbled her and sent her in search of different words.

“He was your son, too.”

“Yes. But—”

“What happened on the field? Mareo will speak to no one of it.”

“He was not there. But—”

“But?”

“Word traveled. Be as gentle with him as you can in your thoughts, in exile. Please. For me.”

“What word?” She was still Alina, still sharp and hard-edged. But she was perhaps much like her brother; she was not immune to the pleas of his wives, where orders failed to move her.

“They demanded the kai’s surrender.”

“I know.”

“No. You don’t. The cerdan, the Tyran—they were present when the demand arrived. The Northerners sent word to the Lambertan General.”

“The
General
?”

Donna nodded. “The letter said, in substance, that they would cease all hostility. If . . .”

“Lady’s blood.”

“If the General was willing to surrender the kai into their custody.”

For the first time since she had heard of the death of her nephew, Alina’s eyes were also heavy with tears. She held them back.

“They demanded
his
surrender.”

Alina closed her eyes. “Just his?”

“His.”

“And his men?”

“They would not countenance it. Who, of the Lambertan men, could have done so with any honor at all? Had they demanded the surrender of the General, he would have offered it, and gladly, in return for the promise of safety for his men and the kai. It would have destroyed him personally. It would have destroyed his ability to lead our men in the future. But he would have done it.”

“But he could not give them the kai.” There was no criticism at all in the words. “Na’donna—”

“They killed my son,” the Serra whispered.

This time, this time Alina said nothing at all. She rose instead, leaving the very empty pretense of servility behind. Crossing the room blindly she wrapped her arms around the Serra Donna’s shoulders.

In that fashion, in silence, she offered the Serra Donna her promise to forgive—as it was possible—her brother for his anger and his crime.

She remembered this clearly. The years had not dimmed the conversation. But they had explained it.

The kai, by Northern standards, was not considered to be of age. No boys led Northern armies; no boys led Northern units. The kai Lamberto, heir to the vast Terrean of Mancorvo, was not considered adult; he was not considered the person in authority upon the field.

The Northerners had therefore chosen to send their word—their perfunctory word—to the man they felt was in charge.

Ah.

She bowed her head. They had expected a surrender. They were not so bloodthirsty that they had expected to be forced to slaughter any man who would not flee.

But what man would, when the future of the Terrean had been entrusted to them?

For this, for this misunderstanding, her nephew had died, and her brother had been permanently scarred, enraged, embittered.

It was in the past, but the past formed the root of the present, as birth informed life.

And her life? She bowed her head to the ground again, waiting. Waiting in this foreign hall, in the stronghold of her brother’s enemies.

Enemies that he had made because the Callestans had chosen to treat the war as another form of politics; had opened up their borders to trade and treaties; had forgiven the North for its trespass, its act of willful murder.

A seraf paused in the hall before her. He fell to the ground, his posture matching hers in both grace and suppleness.

“Serra,” he said gravely, “the Serra Amara en’Callesta will speak with you now. Please accompany me.”

The Serra Alina was no fool. She expected anger.

And because she expected it, she had chosen to dress in the most demure of fashions. Her hair fell straight across her shoulders, unadorned by combs or flowers; her sari was white, her sash blue. These had been bought at some expense, but she had felt expense necessary; she was certain that the Serra would know when she had obtained these things, and from who.

The Serra Amara had chosen to forsake the veils of mourning, although the colors were in evidence everywhere; in the flowers upon the low table, in the hangings upon the wall, in the rugs upon the ground on which she knelt.

Her expression was forbidding in its utter perfection. She was not a young woman, but she conceded nothing to age; her posture was perfect, the line of her neck long and unbowed, the stretch of her shoulders straight as the steel of a Northern blade.

When she smiled, the smile did not reach her eyes, but she did not frown, did not glare, did not express her rage in any way that would embarrass a Serra of her stature.

“Serra Alina,” she said, nodding graciously. “To what do I owe the honor of your presence?”

The Serra Alina’s bow was not perfunctory; it was short of—just short of—servility. She knelt; she rounded the curve of her back, exposing it in its entirety to the woman whose harem she had entered, acknowledging in full measure the power that Serra held.

The power of Callesta.

“Forgive me,” she said, “for intruding upon you at this time.” She held the bow. Held it in the lengthening silence the Serra Amara offered in return.

Silence was the Callestan weapon here. It offered insult. Not even a seraf would have been kept waiting in such a posture for the length of time that it took the Serra Amara to gather words.

But the Serra Alina expected no more. Indeed, she was surprised that she had been granted entry here at all, and she was willing to suffer the loss of personal dignity in exchange for that permission.

Valedan needed this woman.

The seraf rose. Alina saw his shadow across the floor, heard the light pad of his bare feet as they passed her. The screens slid open and shut so quickly had he not been a seraf of the High Court she would have wondered if he had had the time to leave.

Only when he was gone did the Serra Amara speak.

“Have you come,” she said softly, “to plead your brother’s innocence?”

Alina did not rise. She waited in a humbling silence.

“Have you come to offer me assurances that, feeling as he did, the kai Leonne’s words were offered in honor?”

Again, she offered silence in return for the smoothly spoken words.

At length, the Serra Amara offered her first concession. “Rise, Serra. There is no need to humble yourself; you are an honored guest.”

Alina rose. Her hands were in her lap, her shoulders curved slightly toward the floor; in all ways she assumed the supplicant posture. She had no doubt that this would displease the Serra Amara. But she negotiated the fine edge between displeasure and anger with the finesse of a woman who had observed the interactions of the court for the whole of her life.

“I have come to do neither of these things,” she said softly. “Both my kai and my lord are full capable of speaking for themselves; they are men; they play a man’s game.”

“Ah. And the Serra Alina di’Lamberto?”

“I am not a man. I am only barely acknowledged a Serra by my brother, and you must know that I have never been considered worthy enough to be offered as wife to any of my brother’s valued lieges.”