Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (72 page)

Or Devon, this eve.

"ATerafin," she said.

"I am not the seer. Jewel. You are. You are the best judge of your duty here."

She waited; music was being played, and song sung end to end, out of sight of the balcony, but below it all the same. No night was a quiet one, not during the Challenge season. She had thought that somehow
Avantari
would be different; it was the Palace of Kings, and the Kings were dignity defined.

On the other hand. King Cormalyn at least was probably smart enough to cut his losses.

"Yeah." she said, speaking into the night. "I'm finished."

She turned, almost angry; moved too quickly. Must have.

She heard him say something, brushed his words away with the heavy wave of a hand, took a step toward the doors and teetered there, on the edge of night. And fell in.

The darkness when she woke was alleviated by light, but the light was gentle and soft-edged; the sleeping room of a rich or a powerful woman might be lit in just such a fashion.

And she noticed it, too. Because when she woke out of nightmare, when she woke out of the grip of a dream that propelled her through all levels of sleep and its nuance in her need to flee it, the first thing she wanted was the light.

Avandar, who was no comfort in anything else, was a cold comfort in this; he came with light, either lamp or, on rare occasion, open fire. He had, in the beginning, carried magelight—but she took no warmth and no calm from its sight; things magical were often no small part of the fears that drove her.

"Jewel," he said, and she realized the moment she heard the voice that it
wasn't
Avandar who held the lamp aloft.

It wasn't Avandar because she wasn't in her room, her wing, or her house. She was in a small room, in a small bed, with an open window to her left; the window was her height, from the floor up, and three times her width. Real glass, although two of the leaves had been opened to the cool night air.

"Jewel," Devon said again, quietly.

She turned to look at him; he hovered in the doorway, and she saw that his foot was almost, but not quite, across the threshold. She pushed the bedclothes away and stood, shakily; important to get her footing and keep it.

"Where am I?"

"You collapsed," he told her. "I had you carried down to the healerie."

1 carried you
. She blinked. "This is part of the healerie?"

"It's a room reserved for convalescents. As you well know, the healer himself does not attend everyone who enters." He lifted the lamp; it illuminated the side of his face. "You called me," he said softly.

"I was having a nightmare," she replied, equally quietly.

The silence was almost painful.

"No," he said again. "You called
me
."

She shrugged and looked away, to the open window. "Maybe," she said at last. "Where's Avandar?"

"He's outside the room. As is the young healer. The healer.

though, is wise enough to sleep. He would have come to you himself had you not called me."

"Devon," she said, "I can't trust you. You've told me as much in more words than I care to remember. And in less."

He said nothing in reply; she turned back to him, spread her hands out in front of her, palms up. "But I'm stupid. I
do
trust you. I don't know why."

"Why did you calf me?"

Her eyes flickered, much as the lamplight did, off the side of his face. "We were down in the tunnels," she said, averting her gaze. But that wasn't the dream's point. "You need to get Meralonne."

"Meralonne is indisposed."

"I'm not kidding, Devon."

"Neither am I. At Dantallon's best guess, there's a greater chance that he perishes from the mage fevers than that he survives."

She reached up and cupped her face in her hands; sat back on the bed as if her legs wouldn't support her. "Mage fevers?" He started to explain, and she wanted the explanation, but she knew it wasn't the time or the place; he couldn't come. It didn't matter why.

"Why Meralonne?"

"I don't know. But there's—there's a demon somewhere, waiting for Valedan. I saw him."

"You… saw him?"

She nodded.

"What did he look like?"

"I don't know. We were too far beneath the surface; it was too damned dark. And I knew—I knew that if we could reach Meralonne, we'd be safe."

There was a long pause; a longer pause.

"Kiriel?" he said softly, almost—but not quite—hesitating. As if he knew that she was one of the den, and he was trying—damn him anyway—to leave her what little bit he could. He probably did know. Living as close to power as she did, she'd come to learn that nothing was secret. And nothing, not a single thing, was safe.

"Not Kiriel," Jewel replied. "I don't know why—but that was a death, and not the demon's. Not her."

He stood there, in the doorway, as if he were part of it. As if. Jewel thought suddenly, he had closed the world out for a moment, while he held light with which to banish nightmare. How could he offer her this and refuse her aid when she needed it so desperately? At last, he bowed, stiffly. Formally.

"Where. Jewel?"

"I don't know." And then, taking a deep breath, she added, "
the Challenge. "
It came out of her as if it were a force of its own— and that force, all the strength she possessed. Good damned thing she'd already bent her knees enough to touch bed again, because she knew, by the distinctly wobbly feel to them, that they'd no longer support her weight.

"Sleep."

"But Meralonne—"

"Sleep, Jewel."

The damnable thing was that she was
so
tired. "But—"

"We'll take care of it."

She wanted, very badly, to ask him who
we
was. And for all she knew, she might have.

He did not tell her, not then and not later, that the moment she'd begun to speak in her hesitant, angry way—precious anger that, for all it stung—he'd
known
about the attempt on Valedan's life; did not tell her that he was certain he'd recognize both the site and the assassin if he saw either. Because, of course, the memory, murky and insubstantial as it was, wasn't his.

It wasn't cowardice on his part, although he examined his fear dispassionately before he at last set it aside. Caution dictated silence; he was silent. The Astari, after all, prized discretion highly.

He knelt, on stone and marble pattern, before the altar of the Mother's finest temple. The stone there was cool, shadowed as it was by ceilings so high it seemed easier for them to deny the sun. Or the moon, giver of thin, silver light, echo of brilliance.

How much of the life he'd lived was left him? He was certain there were memories that had slipped between his fingers, unanchored and examined by
Kialli
, so much flotsam and jetsam. Did it matter?

He knew who he was, and if he did not remember clearly all of the hows and whys, he was old enough to know that the memories that he did have, that he was as certain of as any man can be certain of anything, were not a simple truth; they had been shaded by years and the perspective of years, changing and growing as he did, aging as gracefully.

Ah, there. Footsteps; a heavy tread for a lighter foot. They came from the left of the altar, growing steadily louder as the arches above caught and echoed them in the silence of prayer.

"ATerafin," a young man said; he looked up as if only now aware of his presence. "The Exalted will see you now."

"I am honored," Devon replied.

The man bowed in return and waited patiently while Devon rose. Together they went into the hallowed chamber of the Mother's stronghold.

She was Exalted, and he was merely mortal; he knew it so completely the fact was like air: necessary, unavoidable. He knelt at once, and the posture made his earlier supplication at the altar look stiff and wooden, although he was certain it had been neither. This woman, with her eyes of gold and shoulders that appeared too slender to carry any but the flimsiest of weights carried burdens that even he, sworn to protect the Kings and die in their defense if need be, had never considered.

She wore no finery; she was not expected to speak publicly on this day, or the next, or the one after. But to say that she took her leisure was untrue; she was like the Kings. The finery that her public office demanded did not define her authority, as it did for so many of her priests or the patriciate; it merely underlined the obvious.

And yet, even so, she was tired.

"I have heard," she said softly, "that Meralonne APhaniel has fallen victim to the fevers."

He grimaced. "Truth."

"And I have heard that a young child has fallen victim to worse."

He bowed again. There was very, very little that the Kings knew that the Exalted did not.

"I have therefore taken the liberty of speaking with my brothers, the Exalted of Reymaris and the Exalted of Cormaris; we have begun our labor, but we fear—"

"I know," he said softly. "But the girl's body was completely destroyed." He would have looked away, but her eyes gave him no such permission. "It was the only way," he added softly, "and in truth there was very little—if anything—left. It will not rise again to be used against us."

"Then you have done well. ATerafin." She turned; the balcony doors were open and breeze trapped in the billow of pulled curtains. "The Exalted have acceded to the request of the Lord of the Compact to the best of our abilities."

"And will you then accompany the Kings' party to the Challenge?"

Her frown was slight, but it pained him nonetheless.

"It is not our way," she said softly, "to attend the Kings' Challenge; there are no healers on the field, and none allowed. Such an event is a throwback to the warriors' days."

"Men war," he countered softly. "It is our nature."

"Many things that are our nature are avoided. Dying," she added, with a sharp smile.

"In the end we can't avoid that."

"No. In the end." She folded her arms across her chest, and for that moment looked like a mother, not the Mother. "I have little patience for the games, but given the risk and the danger—and given the indisposition of Meralonne APhaniel and the unfortunate age of Sigurne Mellifas, I do not see that duty allows us any avenue of escape.

"You may tell Duvari that we will, indeed, attend."

He bowed. It was the only way to look away from her face.

"ATerafin."

He rose.

"Your other request has also been granted, but I will now confess that the daggers that we give—and the five bolts—are all that we can give. Member APhaniel is adept at arts considered ancient, even by the Churches, and the metal will not take the summer enchantment unless it is properly treated. The bolts," she added, "are of a tree that is only found twice a year, and only then by people who know how to look for ways that man does not walk.

"We pray," she said quietly, "for Member APhaniel's quick recovery."

"He is not the only mage, surely?"

She did not lie; such a stem woman had no need for subterfuge. "He is not the only mage," she agreed. "But the arts that he has made his speciality were considered of little use four hundred years ago; he has begun to teach, but only since the Henden fifteen years ago have any been willing to actually study what he offers.

"He says he has two apprentices who may—in ten years—be as competent as he."

They both knew what that meant.

He wondered, briefly, why Duvari had not chosen to impart that information to him.

But only briefly. It was impossible to distrust the daughter of the Mother; it was almost as difficult to trust a man like Duvari. Especially if you were one of the magi; Duvari was notorious in his suspicion for and distrust of mages.

As had Devon been, once.

Kallandras of Senniel was waiting for him when he at last returned to the office, carrying his precious burden. He lifted a pale brow as the ATerafin dropped his ungainly sack across the desk's surface.

"I see," he said wryly, "that ornamental chests are in short supply this Challenge season. And," he added, eyeing the rumpled but sturdy sack, "that the Mother is more practical than the officials who serve the Kings."

"More merciful," Devon replied, with a quick flash of teeth. "Neither she nor the officials have to carry either burden—but she's aware of the weight regardless." Magelight, as even and smooth as a patch of cloudless sun, washed the room in a color close enough to green that it was clear Patris Larkasir economized where he could; moonlight had been denied by the pull of heavy curtains.

Kallandras slid off the perch the desk's surface provided, sliding his palms forward slightly. He didn't bother to ask what Devon ATerafin carried; it wasn't necessary. Beneath the momentary amusement, he heard urgency. They had little time.

"You sent a message to Solran. She sent me."

"Yes."

"In what capacity, ATerafin, do you wish my services?"

"Is there any question?" He unknotted the sack. Reached in. Pulled out an ornamental dagger, a heavy, awkward, jeweled display piece. His eyes rested on the scabbard as if caught by the finery there. As if.

"Devon," Kallandras said quietly.

The man he knew as Astari closed his eyes a moment. "Meralonne is indisposed," he said at last.

"I know it. He sent for me."

Gaze flickered off gemstone, like tongue of flame. "Is he as bad as they say?"

"Yes. Possibly worse."

"Do you know what the full implications of his death would be?"

"No," Kallandras said, certain by the question that he didn't. "Does it matter?"

Devon said nothing for a long moment. When he spoke again, Kallandras heard something familiar in his voice; an edge that reminded him that the Astari
were
weapons. "Valedan kai di'Leonne faces death at the test of the sea."

The master bard looked down to the knife that had become, in Devon's hands, that rarest of things: perfectly still. So had the ATerafin. "The Astari?"

"They watch," he said softly, "but it is not the duty of the Astari to protect a foreign monarch—or pretender. They watch the Kings."