Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (46 page)

Her turn to shrug; she never recalled shrugging so much in the Shining City. Habits. She'd forgotten how easy it was to absorb them, from humans.

"I don't want to take you."

"I know."

"If you die, Duarte will blame me."

"I'll be dead. I won't care." He smiled. She saw his desperation then, hidden in the folds of his smile the way the knife's edge was when the blade was turned away from the light and only the flat was visible. It was hard not to turn that desperation in on itself; hard not to twist what she could see so clearly into a shape that was more gratifying to her.

She would never have tried to deny herself that pleasure had it not been for Ashaf.

Ashaf.

Isladar.

Jewel.

"Yes," she heard herself saying. "You can come with me. But I warn you—I'm accustomed to fighting alone."

He shrugged. "We all are, Kiriel," he said, staring into the moonlit night, the quiet of the courtyard. "Do you think it's any different, just because we're Ospreys? In the end, we all fight alone, because in the end, that's the way we die."

He was good at what he did.

Some men were killers without competence, killers of convenience; some were killers because they could think of no other way of affirming their power. Some killed out of desperation, to protect the things that they valued, some because they had built a life around following the orders of a more powerful authority, and some killed out of boredom.

She could not tell, watching Auralis—for her eyes, in the darkness, were drawn to him again and again, as if he were one of the dangers of the city, and not in fact a willing ally—which of these things Auralis was. Did not know why she was curious.

Did not understand why he was here. Why she let him be here. And she did not want to think about it, so she turned her thoughts, her senses, her instinct, toward two kin in the streets of the city.

How human.

They were not together.

One was stationary; and one was on the move, and it was the one on the move that caught her attention; it was that demon's power that was the greatest. She had been taught, time and again, that to confront the strongest of the kin was two things, simultaneously: It was the best way to proclaim her own power, and it was the easiest way to expose herself to combined attack. She was what she was; the kin constantly underestimated her ability to survive them. Such estimation served her well in an actual fight; it served poorly because it was the reputation of power that protected one from having to fight at all.

That, to Isladar, was of import.

To Kiriel it was not.

Yet she stopped a moment, beneath the moon's strong light.

"What?"

"There are two."

"Where?"

"Different places."

"And?"

"There's a powerful one and a not so powerful one."

"Where are you going?"

"To the powerful one."

She could see his smile in the night shadows as clearly— perhaps more clearly—than she could in the open day.

"I think I understand," she said softly, "why Alexis worries about you so much." And for a moment, she surprised herself, because she did.

Even at night it was hot.

The kin did not mind the heat, as they did not mind the cold; they rose above either, unconcerned. Kiriel, trapped halfway between their power and the frailty of mortality, preferred the cold. She'd gotten used to the heat, but she could not get used to the heaviness of the air itself, the wetness of it.

When she was four years old, she'd tried to stop breathing because Isladar did not need to breathe. She had, in time, grown immune to the cold, as Isladar was, and immune to the heat, and fire in particular seemed to melt to either side of her skin as if it were a prettified variant of water. But air—she needed it. 'Just as she needed to sleep. Oh, not so much as the rest of the human court did, but the need was there, a weakness that waited to be exploited.

Everything about her life was weakness.

As if to deny that, she hunted.

She'd learned that. To hunt. To kill. To strip the kin of their physical facade and send them screaming back to the Hells, where their names were so weakened by the journey they could not be defined by them, held by them. She had thought that if she could do that enough—hunt and kill—they would finally fear her. That she would become like Isladar.

Like him.

She needed the anger, tonight.

She needed it, so she let the hurt come; they couldn't be separated, not with her. What had he taught her? Not to trust kin.

What had he hoped to teach her?

Not to trust? No. Too easy.

Jay.

"What?"

"Nothing. I thought I heard a name."

She did not understand this unknown demon's game. She could sense that he moved, and that he moved in a straight enough line that he was either magicked and hidden from sight, or human in seeming. Human, she thought. Human in seeming would make the most sense. If he were here to kill Valedan kai di'Leonne, what better guise to take? There were, more humans in this city than there had ever been
Kialli
—she was certain of that—and it would be easy enough to lose one in the crowd.

If one wasn't Kiriel.

But it was hard to force the world to render human image, human form; hard to force the world to render a body that was not unlike the forms the
Kialli
once had when they walked the world of their birth. This world, Isladar said. This world was home, and foreign to them.

Do not underestimate the desire for home, Kiriel
, he would tell her.
It is strong in humans as they age, and they never reach the age of the
Kialli.
Home is where we were young, and even though we do not remember our youth as clearly as you remember yours, we desire it
.

When you are Queen, you must remember this. It is a weakness, and one of perhaps two.

The other, she thought, was arrogance.

Auralis ran a hand over his eyes. "Can you find him, in there?"

"Yes."

The light from the tavern's many lamps smeared and cast shadows. It was night, but the moon was high, and on the morrow the Festival would begin in earnest. There were bets being placed, coins being exchanged. Money. She'd learned about money. "Are they comfortable, like that?"

Auralis cast a sideways glance at her, one heavy with suspi-cion. He was more afraid of humor than venom; of laughter than pain. She could see it there, behind his eyes. She had been so careful not to watch anyone in this city too closely; not to stop and stare, not to study them. They were so different in texture and feel than the men and women of the Court, she might be trapped watching them for hours. But she watched him now because it was easier than asking him questions.

"No," he said, when he was satisfied that her question was exactly what it seemed, "they aren't."

"Then why do they do it?"

"Company. Money. Connections." Pause. "Is he hiding there?"

"I don't know."

"Is he going to kill them?"

"I—I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"I—I' in not close enough." She wasn't. She wasn't close enough to see his name, to hear it announced by the presence of his power. But he
was
a power, or she would not have felt his summons from so great a distance. Would she?

"What do you mean, not close enough? You followed him all the way here."

"Yes."

"Can you even get closer?"

"I don't know."

"Can you take him?"

"Not without killing half a dozen humans. Not in there."

Auralis was silent for the space of three heartbeats. Then he smiled. "We can clear room."

What had she learned in
Averalaan Aramarelas
? What had she learned in the Shining City? How did they intersect, the Kiriel before and the Kiriel after? The smell of smoke and sweat and ale was overpowering in the heavy stillness of the air, but it did her the mercy of driving away the smell of the sea and the harbor that otherwise always lingered.

She fingered the hilt of her sword, for comfort more than utility.

"Don't speak," Auralis said. "Let me do the talking."

The command was offhand; he expected her to follow it. Did not conceive of her doing otherwise. She tensed; her grip whitened her knuckles. But she nodded.
This is not my territory
. She said it three times, and then let herself believe that it was not a weakness, to say it. To acknowledge it.

She knew that he was at the heart of the tavern, not too close to the bar, and not near the exit.

"He's where the betting is," Auralis said. "I can't believe he's smart enough to be where the betting is." He cast a sidelong glance at her—as if she wouldn't notice the flickering stray of his eyes. "I guess he's spent more time around people than you have."

"I don't know. I don't know who he is."

Auralis shrugged, and then his eyes narrowed, his expression sharpening because of it. "You don't expect to know every soldier in a war, do you?"

"No. But I expect to know the—the officers."

Auralis said, "You've got a lot to learn."

She bristled. He shrugged, an elegant, graceful gesture. His apology; she could tell it by the way his colors shifted, muted. "Did you kill a lot of people back home?"

"People?"

"Humans. Us."

"There weren't many of you 'back home.' "

"Did you kill the ones there were?"

"I? Sometimes. Not often."

"When?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

She raised a dark brow. Wondered why she let him question her. Why she'd let him follow her. Why she was going to answer him. Because she was. "When they tried," she said at last, "to kill me. Or when our Lord ordered it."

"Did you ever kill for fun?"

"Not—no."

She thought he would press her. Ashaf had pressed her, Ashaf had hated every one of those deaths, although the excuse of self-defense muted her anxiety. But he was satisfied with her answers.

"All right. Do you think he knows you're here?"

"Yes."

"
Right
here?"

"Possibly. Probably."

"Is he hiding from you?"

"I—no." She- frowned. "Yes. He must be hiding somehow. But…"

"Does he have reason to think that you'll care whether or not these people die?"

"No."

"Do they hire people?"

"Yes…"

"I don't think that's the game. What's the game, Kiriel?"

"I don't know."

Blue light billowed like the breath of an ancient beast, hoary with smoke and the thick stateness of too little air, none of it clean. It came up from the floor of the bar, pierced and surrounded its heart.

"
Oh, my god
!" She froze as she recognized the power that permeated the words, that carried them across the breadth of the room, breaking into every conversation, every noisy argument, every private gathering, with equal facility.

She saw him then. He was tall; taller than Auralis, but not of such a height that he towered obviously over the rest of the men in this crowded, filthy place. But he was fair, where they were darkened by sun and summer's height, and his eyes were of a color, a rich darkness that the word black was too thin to describe. He lifted a hand, pointed. At her. At Auralis.

"Demon! "

"Shit. Duarte's going to kill us."

Clever bastard.

There was a pause; the collective drawing of breath, a prelude to action.

In
this
city, those words meant something.

Oh, in the towns they meant something as well—to small children and their exhausted or angry parents—but if you were living in this city in the year 410, if you'd lived through
that
Henden, and had managed to hold onto your sanity until the break of First Dawn, the word had a resonance, held a terror, demanded an action, whether it be flight or fight.

There weren't a lot of places to flee
to
.

Swords left scabbards, when their owners possessed swords; more often than not they didn't. They all had daggers. In two places, drinks hit the tavern planks in a thud and a spill as tables were overturned precisely enough to make shields of them. Luckily, the floors here were thick enough and old enough that the mess was right at home.

He thought blood would be, as well.

Because it didn't occur to him to doubt that the words of their accuser would be disbelieved.

"I think it's time to leave," he said, backing doorward, hand on sword hilt. The room was frozen a moment, in shock, in the space before deep breath is drawn and battle is entered in earnest. They had just that much time to flee. He'd seen enough action to know when he'd been outmaneuvered.

That was the problem with raw recruits. Raw,
powerful
, recruits. They could be so gods-cursed stupid. It had never occurred to Auralis to consider the best, the dirtiest, the fastest fighter in the unit stupid, until now. He hoped fervently that he survived the misestimation.

"Kiriel, no!"

In a single motion, she drew her sword and leaped across the length between the tavern's door and its heart. If there were men in the way, it didn't matter; the old building's ceilings were high enough to accommodate both her height and theirs, and she moved faster than he'd ever seen her move. He cursed. Because the moment she drew that damned sword, it sucked the light out of the air, it made the accusation not only fitting but exact.

He should've been grateful; the minute she drew that sword, no one really had a lot of attention to spare for him. He certainly didn't.

You'd better hope
, he thought to himself, as he quietly drew his own sword,
that someone here kills you, because if they don't, Alexis will
. He could face anyone in the Ospreys, would in fact face all of them combined, before he'd face her.

The silence broke like a wave against the sea wall.

They didn't matter to her.

Isladar had told her, time and again, just how dangerous they could be, these humans, these fully mortal, unclaimed humans, and she'd listened to him, as she'd always listened. In the Shining Court she'd discovered the truth of his words; the humans were as dangerous in their fashion as the
Kialli
. They had their power, their magic, their subtlety, and she had felt the sting of each as she grew.