Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (79 page)

"When?"

"When you rescued Valedan from the demon in the Great Hall. Every noble of any value at all saw you."

That seemed to please her.

"Why do you think you have no value in and of yourself?"

Kiriel stared at her for a long, long time, and when she answered, there was a wariness, and a weariness, in her voice that aged her, when most of her questions seemed to rob her of adulthood. "I don't understand the rules of power the Empire is run by. In the Shining Court, they're simple. If you have power, you survive. If you have a lot of power, you rule.

"I
had
power. Jay. Now, by the standards of the Court, I have nothing."

"By the standards of the so-called Court, most of the men and women of this City have nothing," she replied almost sharply. "But you'll notice it's the demons who lost."

"Last time," she said slowly, and Jewel knew she was speaking of the events that preceded her birth.

"Last time," Jewel added, "there was a big fight, there was also a god present."

"Not one," Kiriel said, parrying. "There were two gods present. Without Bredan to fight for you, diminished as he was, this city would
be
the Shining City, and Allasakar its ruler—diminished as
he
was. He's not what he was in the Hells. But he's more than he was when he was trapped in a gate at Vexusa—and you?

"Your god is in the heavens. He has nothing to offer you. No followers. No children, and therefore no power."

"First of all, he's not
my
god. Second of all—"

"Don't let me interrupt you," another voice said. Carver stood lounging in the doorway, his arms across his chest, his eyes narrowed.

"What?" Jewel said irritably, half-glad to be pulled out of an argument that she didn't want to have because she was, dammit, getting really angry, and she knew that that was the one thing she couldn't be where Kiriel was concerned.

"Our boy actually managed to scrape a tenth-place finish."

"Our—you mean Valedan?"

"Unless you were rooting for someone else and I missed it."

"How?"

"Gods know." Carver's shrug was economical and elegant, but he still paused to brush his hair back over his eye. "If we were betting event by event, I'd've lost my House crest."

"Not even as a joke. Carver."

"Yes, sir." He paused. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?" And was gone through the open doorway before he could hear what she had to say. Good thing, too. It wasn't pretty.

"Kiriel," she said, not looking at the younger woman, "My life is in this fight. I get to keep it if I'm lucky, I lose it if Kalliaris frowns—but the fight is worth the loss. It's worth my loss, and it's worth the loss of my den, possibly even my House.

"It's that big. It's that important. I wouldn't have chosen a fight like this for the world—but having been handed it, I couldn't walk away no matter what it cost. Do you understand that? This is a fight
worth
dying for. Even more important, it's a fight worth killing for. If we've got nothing else, we've got that."

"Is that important to you?" Real curiosity now; all anger, all proud display was gone.

She started to answer. Stopped. Thought about it for a long time, feeling the shadows; Evayne's. Terafin's. Her den's. "Yes," she said at last. "It's important to me. And in the end, I'd rather fight a fight worth dying for than not, a fight that puts blood on my hands I can actually live with. But more than that, I'd rather the fight weren't necessary at all." Jewel shook her head, her grin half-rueful, and totally unlike any of Kiriel's expressions. "But it
was
really important to me, when I was younger. You make me feel like a youth again."

"Is that good?"

"No, it's very bad. Because a youth can't run a House in the middle of a war."

Kiriel left Jay in the healerie. The news about Valedan didn't matter to her; winning was everything, and he had, so far. won one event. She didn't understand betting, and had allowed Auralis to take some of the coin of the realm—the coin by which she was paid for her services, although so far she'd done nothing but stand around and wait a lot—and place a "bet" for her.

Betting was something that Jewel apparently did as well. It seemed like anything else the Ospreys did for amusement— harmless
and
pointless.

This is a fight worth dying for.

Even more important, it's a fight worth killing for.

Kiriel understood the first concept well enough; there were fights it was worth risking death for. Obviously that risk had never born fruit, but she had undertaken it no small number of times coming of age in the Shining City.

It was the second concept that was odd.
All
fights were worth killing for. To enter into combat, one declared, by action, a desire for the death of one's enemy. What had Jay meant, "worth killing for?"

"Kiriel!"

Interruptions were rarely welcome. Whoever called her name was met with the frown that all the Ospreys had become accustomed to.

"What?" she said shortly.

Auralis, sword sheathed and unarmored, fell into step beside her. "You look," he said, "like I feel."

She'd heard that one before. It meant… it meant…

"You look pissed off," he added.

That one, she knew. "You're angry?"

"You aren't?"

"Not really. Confused."

"Because we humans are so stupid?"

She shook her head. "Not all of you, no."

"Well, thank the gods for small miracles." He had an edge to his voice that was also familiar; it meant that he wasn't really thankful for anything. Sarcasm. Yes. She wasn't a fool; she understood sarcasm when it was used to wound. She didn't understand it when it was used for nothing. No reason, like betting, like standing around with a sword waiting for a fight to come to you, and getting gold for it.

"Somebody told me that we're involved in a fight," she said at last. Auralis, used to her by now, failed—just barely—to roll his eyes. "She said it was a fight that was worth the risk of losing everything she cares about—and she cares about a lot of things the way Ospreys seem to care about each other—but more."

"More?"

"More." A word of warning in her voice. It surprised her. She tested it as the streets brushed past them in the growing darkness. Power or no, it was still to the darkness she turned for comfort and anonymity. "She's important to me, Auralis. She trusts me."

"We trust you."

"She trusted me before. Before the—before." Lifted her hand; let the ring catch his sight. She could not speak of the loss openly.

"I trust her," Kiriel added, uncertain why she spoke to Auralis at all. And then, because she was honest, she added, "I trust you in a fight, but I don't trust you, Auralis. There's too much about you that wants power and death."

"And she doesn't have that?"

"No. She
has
power, if I understand the Empire—"

His clear snort was comment enough, but he didn't interrupt her further. "But the power—she's afraid of it. Afraid to take it. Afraid to fail it, I think. I understand the fear of losing power. It's the fear that any normal creature has. That anyone I knew growing up had—except for one woman, and even she—even she was afraid of losing the influence she had with me.

"But she's not afraid of losing power. She's afraid of what she'll lose if she has to take power."

"And she told you this?"

Stung, irritated, Kiriel rounded on him. "I understand
power
, Auralis. I understand its use, and its lack. I am not an idiot because I don't understand your childish phrases and the way you use words to mean the opposite of what you've said.
I am not a child
."

The sound of metal against metal woke her; he was still. But she—she had drawn her sword. It was a crime, in the city streets, to draw sword as she had done. But Auralis didn't reply in kind; he waited. Waited, shoulders tense, his body ready to answer the thrust or slash of a wild blade.

The bower of night trees were high, high above them, and all around them a stream had opened in the press of bodies that the city had become since the challenge. She had thought it crowded and oppressive when Evayne had first brought her—and now, now the temptation to cut herself some space was something she constantly fought against. Harder, when a sword was at hand and ready. When
this
sword was at hand. She struggled a moment to sheathe it.

Realized that she had drawn it. That she
could
use it. But not here. Not in Jay's city.

"'No." Auralis said, when the last click of tang against sheath ended that struggle. "You aren't a child. Believe it or not. Kiriel, it's not my first thought." He shrugged, as if the sword had never left the sheath.

Someone tried to sell her something. He opened his mouth, got halfway through the sentence, and then stammered his way into invisibility.

"But you were talking about someone?"

"Yes. She says we're involved in a fight. She means, of course, a war. But she said it was a war worth losing everything she values for—everything. I think she meant that she wouldn't regret the loss, if the war itself was won. She's wrong about that," she added. "But she said that this fight was a fight worth dying for."

He did roll his eyes.

"That's not confusing, not to me."

"And?"

"She said it was a fight worth killing for. and that's what she needed, in the end. A fight worth killing for."

"So?"

"'You don't understand it either?"

"Not hardly. Most wars are worth killing for. That's why we're soldiers, after all."

Her shoulders bunched as she tensed. And then they relaxed completely.

Kallandras had no time to recover.

No time, although until he found his seat beside a crowd-weary Sioban Glassen, he did not realize it. His leg throbbed; at the commands of the physicians, he kept it elevated by the simple expedient of sitting on the earth in front of a few free inches of bench and dropping his foot, heavily, next to the bench's other occupant.

She didn't mind, and she didn't ask questions. Years of friendship had taught her that they were both useless and uncomfortable.

Years.

A young woman from Morniel College was singing a delicate lay; he heard it drift up from the rhythmic movement of the nighttime sea, a dream of love and death, a hint of history.

"She's not bad," Sioban said. "Not as good as any of my old students, but not bad."

He smiled. She'd said nothing else for most of the Challenge about any voice she didn't recognize, and it was understood by everyone, except perhaps for the unfortunate journeymen so discussed, to be high praise indeed.

"Your memory is kinder than you were," Kallandras said, and she laughed. Her laughter, earthy and rough, was almost a sensation; he was surprised, often, at how much he enjoyed the sound of it.

Layered between amusement was her experience, the depths of sorrow, the years of fear and responsibility, the wisdom that both had forced upon her. Experience, sorrow, fear—they underlay her joy in a moment's words, somehow strengthening, rather than weakening, the mix.

"You've grown wicked with time."

"I've a fair distance to go to catch my first master."

"What, me? I stand still, Master Bard, since my retirement."

He raised a single brow until it was completely obscured by the edge of his hair.

She laughed again.

And over the ripple of laughter, he heard a distinct sound. Or rather, just as her laughter had been a sensation,
he felt
it: the peel of a bell, the tolling of a death.

Jewel ATerafin.

A
second time.

Bruce Allen.

A
third.

Ellora AKalakar.

And a fourth.

Devran ABerriliya.

He smiled as pleasantly as he could; it was easy; he enjoyed the company of the woman who sat at his side. "I fear," he said softly, "that I must retire. I'm not a young man, and the minor wound I took is causing some pain."

"Nothing good wine won't cure."

"No, but good wine, I'm afraid, is hard to come by at this time of year."

She smiled, but her eyes were sharp and hard as a sword's edge; she could hear something in his voice.

Duty.

She rose. "Well, if you'll plead pain and exhaustion, I'll plead age and infirmity. I think I'll turn in as well."

Distracted as he was, he had to smile and shake his head.

"If you need to find me, you know how."

He had to return to his lodgings, find the ointments and the herbs that the evening required. He must now be wakeful, watchful.

The four names had been taken; the deaths sounded.

And he had been given the task of preventing them. One man.

One man against his brother.

There was a fourth visitor.

Jewel had expected one. Expected, in fact, two: Dantallon and Duvari, either singly or side by hostile side. She'd eaten and drunk—or rather, she thought sourly, been fed and watered— and she'd managed to get rid of Avandar at least three times on various thinly disguised pretexts.

The fact that there were six armed men at her door at all times, two of whom were Carver and Torvan, didn't hurt either.

Sleep came and went. The shadows lengthened as the sun came to rest on the horizon's blurred edge. This far away from the Challenge activities, she could still hear cries and cheers, most wordless, all faceless. Best was when the music, carried by bardic voice, drifted up through the glass. Bards could make themselves heard if they so chose—and to
be
heard in the tumult of a Challenge night, they did choose.

Even when she had lived in the lower city, she had enjoyed the Challenge season; people made merry with alcohol were far less sensitive to the clumsy fingers of nervous thieves.

That was a lifetime away; funny it should come to her so clearly here, in
Avantari
, as far away from her life in the twenty-fifth holding as she could possibly get.

The door didn't open. There was no knock. The sounds of merriment—all of which excluded her—without did not diminish or change. But she knew when she was no longer alone; it happened in a half-breath, between wandering thoughts, fragments of memory.