Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (61 page)

"Don't start, Duarte. We can't afford to be ignorant, not here. He can play his games when there isn't so much at stake."

Which is true. But he knew, watching the white lines around her thinned lips, that wasn't all that was bothering her. "Alexis."

She didn't look at him. Wouldn't, not when he used that tone of voice. He did not know how to be gentle with Alexis. He wondered if any man did. If anyone did. Not a comfortable thought. "She's one of us," he said at last. "And Auralis looks after his own."

"And what are
we
?"

"We're officers, love," he replied, half-coldly, which was as coldly as he could. "They're not."

"He was."

"He was never an officer. Killing got him the rank, the first time. Killing lost it. Nothing owns Auralis. Especially not something as intangible as rank. Alexis—"

But she was already gone. She'd mastered that skill, to be absent while standing an inch or less away and he—he was suddenly aware, was Duarte AKalakar, that he'd lost it. Love, he thought, made fools and weaklings of them all, and always when they could least afford it.

18th of Lattan

Averalaan Ammonias, the Test of the River

She couldn't
see
anything. Oh, she could see bodies, living ones; she could see the rise and fall of chest that spoke of breath and breathing. She could hear voices, could see the exchange of words that passed from man to man. But all she could see was the color of hair and eyes and skin, the height at which the body stood, the attitude it adopted on the outside. She could see clothing.

"Kiriel?"

Cook's voice. She remembered that she hated it. "What?"

"Valedan's ready for his practice."

"They've barely started!"

"They've started. He drew early. He gets three attempts."

"At what?"

Cook's skin lost color. It meant—it meant that he was afraid, although he didn't look afraid. Her nails bit her palms as she balled her hands into fists. She couldn't
see
anything but the face. Not the colors that twisted beneath its surface. Beneath any of their surfaces.

"
Kalliaris
. Kiriel! You told Duarte that you'd read what he'd given you."

"Auralis told him that," she said curtly. It was true; Auralis
had
said it. He was lying, but he'd said it.

"This is the river's test. River vaulting?" His eyelids compressed into a fine line before he managed to pry them open again. "Kiriel, I can't believe that of all the Ospreys to imitate, you chose Auralis. The man's got a death wish written all over his face, and in enough languages that no one misses it. Okay, pay attention. You see those long, thin frames that are set up over the sand pits?"

She squinted, feeling the brightness of the light. Hating it, be cause it caused her eyes to tear.
Her
eyes. Sweat ran. "Yes?"

"See that long pole on the grass, there?"

"No."

"There, right underneath—you see the guy with the flag? He's straddling it at the moment. What an idiot."

She couldn't see it. She, who'd been able to see almost anything, could not see this. Her fingers were white, and around one of them, like any harmless piece of precious metal, a thing that could not be removed. Not even by removing the finger.

She'd tried it, cutting the finger off; had had to steel herself to the act. She could still feel the ice of blade's edge, the call for blood, but it was more distinctly separate from herself than it had ever been. The sword was it had been made. The sword's master was not. And the sword knew it.

She was afraid of very little—she would be damned if she'd be afraid of wielding her own sword. But although the sword had been willing, the flesh was not; the ring protected the area of her body around which it had found purchase.

She notched the blade.

So, she was here, a defender of an earthly lord. She had one sword that would aid her, and very little else. No vision. No shadow. Her power had been the only thing about herself that she'd understood.

Not true, Kiriel
, a voice from the past said.
You have more about you than power. You have curiosity. You have honesty, of a kind. You do not seek pain for pain's sake
.

But I
do,
Ashaf. I force myself not to seek it for
your
sake. And how is that honest
?

We all desire things that we feel in our hearts we should not desire. It isn't the desire that defines us, Kiriel. Never that. It's only the action.

Today, she stood very still beneath the sun whose heat she could suddenly feel. Because her whole life had been defined by those words, that exchange: to struggle against desire, to win through, to beat it, so that—and this was the truth—Ashaf would not be hurt. It was cowardice of a type; she had been afraid to hurt Ashaf.

The struggle itself hadn't ended with Ashaf's death, and perhaps it should have. Perhaps she should have accepted the truth and learned to live, in the city that was her only heritage, the life that she had been born to, or would have been without Ashaf's interference. She hadn't. She'd fought herself, pushed against herself. every day of her life. It had become so very much harder when she'd knelt at her father's feet to accept his gift; when she'd risen, literally a changed person.

But she knew the struggle.

What she did not know was this: What she should do, what she
must
do, when the thing she'd fought against simply gave up, rolled over, and died. There was no desire, now. For anything.

"Kiriel?"

And the sweat was running down her forehead. She'd never really understood the bands that the Osprey wore beneath their hair, and above their eyes; that it had been practical hadn't really occurred to her. How much of human life was like that? Practical in ways that hadn't occurred to her?

Sivari watched his charge. Watched the boy—no, that wasn't the right word, but he couldn't quite bring himself to think of Valedan kai di'Leonne as a man—as he lifted the long, slender pole that would be his first challenge. It was heavier than it looked; hard and stiff with just enough flexibility to carry his weight in an arc several feet above ground—if they were lucky. He'd drawn poorly, but the draw was what it was. He had three chances to clear that stupid stick. If he did, he progressed. If they all did, they all progressed—but Sivari knew they'd lose at least half—if not more—in the first round. He just prayed that one of them wasn't Valedan.

"Are you nervous?"

General Baredan di'Navarre. Sivari gave him a half-nod; it was all the attention he was willing to spare. The more correct Southern General did not choose to feel slighted. The Tyr'agnate, Sivari thought, was that hair's breadth less practical. But the South was bred into them both.

"From here, he'll go on to the river's banks."

"And that's safe?"

Sivari snorted. "General, we are not in disagreement here."

Baredan clearly did not believe this, which was just as well; it wasn't—quite—true.
Admit it, Sivari
, the Commander thought, with just a twinge of shame.
You know the boy's almost good enough. Hells, he might be good enough. He's no Anton di 'Guivera
—
but he's maybe one or two years away from being
that
good
.

And you want to be a part of it. You miss this.

River vaulting was a Northern trial; Commander Sivari said it had come into being as a time-honored way of crossing a river when the people involved in such an enterprise were too barbaric to have developed an understanding of the simple concept of bridges.

Valedan, having spent some time at court in
Avantari
, understood that this was exaggeration, a thing said because the Northerners were the men who set the trial's standard; the men to beat. Alina, however, found it graceless, tactless, and untrue.

Why is it
, she said softly,
that the Northerners feel a need to belittle their opponents? A worthy opponent, and the ability to master him, is the rank of one chosen by the Lord; to beat weaklings and fools is the sport of weaklings and fools
.

Spoken
, Sivari had countered,
like a person who's never had their life saved from the wrong edge of a sword because the person who was wielding it was stupid. You thank Kalliaris for whatever saves your life
.

This is not a contest about
life.
Commander. It is a contest of display and challenge
.

And then she had stilled, remembering even in the privacy of their odd war council that she was Southern. Or so Valedan thought, until she spoke:
No. you are right. This contest is about life. Your pardon
.

But he felt, as his hands gripped the pole, that the argument was already beyond him; that he was, in their eyes, a child, to be advised, to be coddled, to be protected where possible—and, as all children of power, to be feared in some small way.

He prodded sand with pole, putting his weight against it.

Looked into the stands for sight of Alina and Mirialyn. The former, he could not see, but the latter sat with the Kings in attendance, waiting, her eyes clear and steady across the vast gulf of grassy field.

I cannot take the test for you
, she had said.

I don't want you to
. But he knew that she would fly where he might fall; that she would remain steady, where he might falter. He took a breath; filled his lungs with sea air that seemed more natural to him than the dry stretch of harsh land that had surrounded his home.

He cast a shadow as he walked to the starting position.

Cast a shadow as he ran, steady, bending slightly into his knees us he approached the lip of the long furrow of white sand. He leaped before pole touched ground, almost anchored by it; the sun was in his eyes, and the crossbeam—the height was before them. He twisted, flat in the air; passed over the beam.

He remembered—as he had not done the first dozen times he had tried this—to let go of the pole. The sand was hot when he hit it, and he hit it with poor grace, grazing face and forehead as he rolled in it.

At this rate, there won't be a pit—just a bunch of would-be champions carrying sand in the folds of their clothing
. He rose, shook himself, and made his way back to Sivari who stood, arms folded across his chest, lips pressed into a thin line.

"Well?" Valedan said.

Sivari shrugged. "It's the first round."

The younger man nodded, wanting encouragement, and hating the desire for it. Someone came with silks and water, and he scrubbed his face clean of sweat; his moment had passed and already another man stood in the sun's glare, casting a thin shadow.

The river jump itself was different, but there was only one path to the river.

First test. Ser Anton was not impressed with the jump itself; it was stiff, and very close to the bar. Still, he had to admit that he thought it likely the boy would edge his way into the middle of the pack, and this was only the first jump. He did not need to cast a backward glance to his own students to see them clearly in his mind's eye—and that was about as much, in this particular event, as he needed to see. This test—it was Northern in invention and Northern in execution. Short of removing the men from their families for years—as had been done with him—he could not expect them to fare as well.