Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (87 page)

She listened for his words, but there was only silence.

For the first time in her life she wondered exactly what he
had
seen in the House war that had propelled Amarais Handernesse ATerafin to the high seat.

The Chosen brought Alayra to rest in his healerie, laying her upon a bed over sheets downturned by Alowan out of habit. He touched her face, which was slack-jawed now and quite cool, given the weather. The veins of his eyelids were green-blue and purple under the white of his skin; he seemed for a moment a thing of foreign marble, shot through with cracks of color, bright and dark.

When he spoke, they were almost surprised to hear it, but he did speak. Alowan was one of a handful of healers that could get the body to reveal the truth of a death hours after all life had passed.

"Poison."

"Thank you, Alowan," The Terafin said. "Arrendas." The Chosen bowed. "Accompany me. Jewel, I require your presence as well. I thank you for your intervention, Auralis AKalakar; your needs will be tended here by those who are in a better position to fulfill them." As she turned back to Jewel, she frowned. "Where is Torvan?"

"Avantari."

"You left without him?"

"Alowan wasn't the only one
she
visited tonight." Silence. Then. "Arrendas, send for Torvan at the Palace at once. Tell him his presence is requested." "Terafin."

"They're—they
were
—Haerrad's men, every one of them."

"You are certain of this?" The Terafin asked.

Arrendas nodded grimly. The moon was almost full, and the light it cast still considerable in the personal library of The Terafin. At her back and to the left, Morretz stood, arms behind his back. He looked up as the sound of heavy steps broke the silence.

The Terafin nodded, her eyes dipping to tabletop and back. Morretz detached himself from her back and walked toward the door. After the events of this evening it was almost disquieting to see them separated; it was as if shadow cast by light had peeled itself off the ground and gone its separate way.

Which was stupid. Fanciful. Jewel was too old to shake her head, but not too old to call herself an idiot. She did so freely but quietly as she watched The Terafin's face.

Tonight, she looked old. There were lamps, both on the table and the wall; there were mage-lights, but they'd been spoken into a softer glow, being of the expensive variety where words actually had an effect. Combined, they cast the worst kind of shadows— the ones that brought out the hollows rather than hiding the flaws.

Arrendas rose; the sound of his chair brushing floor caught her attention.

Torvan ATerafin entered the room. He walked to where The Terafin sat and fell to one knee before her, bowing his head. Breath didn't come easily to him, but that wasn't surprising; Jewel hadn't expected to see him for another hour at best.

"Terafin."

The woman who ruled them all reached out then, placed a hand on his head. He lifted his face, and their eyes met. Jewel couldn't see his face; his back and the table obscured it. But she could see The Terafin's, and it scared her.

"You have not failed me," The Terafin said, "'and you will not. Rise."

He rose; in all things, he did as she commanded; he was one of her Chosen, and would do no less. "Captain Arrendas," she said softly, and he nodded; he had already risen, as if expecting something.

"Captain Alayra was poisoned tonight, probably by the same hand that sought the death of Alowan. My apologies. Jewel, but I believe it clear that Angel and Teller ATerafin were an afterthought, a way of ensuring no witnesses to the deed." She raised a delicate hand to forehead, fell silent a moment, then took a breath, bracing herself by the arms of her chair.

"We have had two captains for almost ten years now."

But Alayra had been retired. She was accorded the honor of her rank, and more; she was given the responsibility of training the House Guards from which, in time, the Chosen would be selected. She was an excellent weaponsmaster; she had been an excellent Captain. They had been together, Alayra and Amarais, a long time.

That was what was wrong. They had been, in as much as they could be from such disparate backgrounds, friends. The Terafin had just lost one of her oldest friends. That was not a surprise to Jewel. What was—and she was ashamed to realize it—was that The Terafin was grieving.

She had never seen grief, not like this, not from this woman. She'd resented the Hells out of its absence time and again, but she had accepted it; The Terafin was, in the end, the woman against whom all strength was measured. And against all odds, she'd been strong.

She's allowed
, Jewel thought.
She's allowed to be human, gods curse it
. But she felt it as a blow, as a loss, to see this woman laid bare, even in as subtle a way as this.

The lamplight caught the tears that hovered in her eyes; they were unshed, yes, but they were there.

"Torvan ATerafin," she said, "you have served me well; you have survived the most difficult events that the House has yet seen, and survived your unwilling part in them."

Old history: Torvan had once been a demon's momentary vessel, and the weapon by which that creature had struck at Terafin. At
The
Terafin. Arrendas bowed his head. Torvan did not bow his.

"It was not easy. But I think it will be easy compared to this."

He said nothing, waiting. She looked at his face, and then beyond it. Beyond them all. "Do you remember what the House at war was like? Were you there, Torvan?"

"Barely," was his soft reply.

"I remember," she told him. She took a deep breath and then seemed to shake off the gloom as she straightened her shoulders.

"I choose, therefore, to continue the tradition of two Captains for the Chosen."

Jewel glanced at Arrendas; he had grown still.

Torvan was silent for a moment. And then—typical of Torvan to be so slow, in Jewel's opinion—he realized what she was offering him. "But—"

The first smile of the evening graced The Terafin's face. "You think I honor you. You think I offend Arrendas, and you may well be correct—if you believe him to be so small-minded as that."

He offered no reply, and her smile broadened. "You have not yet said you will accept this honor."

"I am—I am Chosen," Torvan replied. Then, with more confidence, "I am Chosen; I will do whatever you believe is necessary."

Her smile dimmed somewhat. "I know it," she said softly. "All of my Chosen would. Do you remember what happened to his Chosen?"

It was such a strange question they all stared at each other in confusion before they realized that The Terafin spoke of her predecessor.

"No," Torvan said softly.

But Arrendas bowed his head.

"Captain Arrendas?"

"Yes," he said. "Alayra made it clear to me when I took my rank."

"When I die," she said quietly, "what do you imagine will happen to my Chosen?"

"If you die at the hands of one of them," he said, tossing his head in the direction of the library door, and through it, the ATerafin who were gathering for war, "we'd die." He shrugged. "One way or the other, we'd die."

"Yes," she said starkly. "You are all ATerafin, and when I die, those who seek the high seat will not be able to trust you enough to keep you as part of the House—but they will not be able to expel you either; to take your names from you in such a fashion devalues the name, and my memory—it is too public. Easier by far to kill you all."

"And you made that choice?" someone said unexpectedly. It was, of course. Jewel.

"I? No," The Terafin said softly. "But The Terafin before me did not fall to unnatural causes. The Chosen—
his
Chosen— retired; they left the House, or at least the city, because they had no desire to choose another master to serve—because the choice would have split them, and they had served most of their years with the Chosen as an indivisible unit."

"Would you do that?" Jewel asked abruptly, turning in her chair to face this newest of Captains. "Would you retire if she died?"

"No," The Terafin said softly, "they will not. The Chosen of my predecessor retired because he died peacefully—and they ascertained that by whatever means necessary; they were not, as my Chosen are not. stupid. Had he been murdered, they would have had one more duty."

Jewel stared across the table at her Lord, finally hearing what had been said, although she'd been trying to ignore it. Maybe they all had. She bowed her head, and when she raised it, there were tears on her cheeks. Because she knew, she
knew
, that The Terafin was right.

"They won't choose well, you know," she said softly.

The Terafin met her gaze. Waiting.

"They—none of them—are capable of choosing men and women who are
worth
the title of Chosen. What kind of a man or woman chooses to work for a murderer?"

"Jewel—" Torvan said, lifting a hand.

"They've proved tonight that they aren't even worthy of the name Terafin."

"One of them has." The Terafin replied reasonably. "And now," she added, rising, "I would have two men summoned. Gabriel, because I wish his strength and wisdom, and Haerrad." The two Captains exchanged glances. "No, gentlemen, it is not as simple as that. I like Haerrad no more than you, and in fact, a good deal less. A good deal. But I have never understood him to be a stupid man. To use his own, his easily identifiable men, in a slaughter of this type—that would be, in my opinion, inexcusable stupidity.

"Therefore we are looking at someone who had already managed to offend Alowan, and who fears that Haerrad is the most likely contender for the high seat in my absence."

"That would be all of them," Jewel said, without thinking. Jewel, who wouldn't admit for the world that she had assumed that Haerrad was the guilty party.

Captain Torvan—Captain in the space of minutes—said, "But, Terafin, it's clear that they didn't expect resistance. Had the eight arrived with no warning, they would have easily killed Angel and Teller, and almost as easily removed Alowan's head from his shoulders. Done quickly, they could have left."

"They were eight men. They were seen by someone on the way to the healerie." She lifted a hand to her forehead. "I am concerned, at times, but I have faith in my retainers. Jewel, you will attend as well."

Jewel ATerafin bowed her head. "I don't suppose," she said, turning to Torvan, "that you brought—"

The door swung open. Avandar stood in its frame, two Chosen at his back. He was, from her brief inspection of his expression, in
afoul
mood.

"Never mind."

He understood what it meant. When Jewel ATerafin left the room at the side of a domicis who was as close to murder as he'd ever seen one come, Torvan turned to The Terafin. Watched her watching the doors as they closed, in a strained, an uneven, silence.

"We didn't all retire," he said softly.

"No." . "You didn't tell her all of the truth."

"No."

She met his gaze squarely, evenly. Arrendas came to stand beside her. It was the Captain—the acting Captain—who spoke first.

"You know Jewel ATerafin better than any of the Chosen," he said quietly. Clear to Torvan, then, that The Terafin and this particular Captain had already spoken. "You know the other… candidates."

Torvan was as stiff as Morretz; he offered nothing.

"She trusts you," Arrendas continued. "Of all of us, were she to choose a Captain, you know who she'd offer the position to first."

Torvan ATerafin was silent a long time; he was habitually honest in the presence of both his best friend and his Lord, and they waited.

At last, he said, "Yes."

"Yes?" Arrendas; The Terafin had already closed her eyes.

"Yes, she would offer me the rank of Captain. Yes, I would accept it. Yes, she would take the Chosen of Terafin as they stand now, and keep them intact. And yes," he added, for he thought he understood The Terafin now, although she had not, and would not, speak further. "If your death were not natural, she would use us against your killers, and she would
take
the House. She would have the only force that has trained together, in adversity and otherwise, for decades: The Chosen. The others have House Guards, their own factions—but they are not our equal.
If we
stand together." He met Arrendas' gaze squarely. "What would your guess be?"

"If Jewel Markess ATerafin takes the House," the Captain replied evenly, "I believe that we will lose less than ten percent of our number—to retirement. We will lose more than that to the succession war." He smiled grimly. "But it is rumored that she is the chosen heir of
Terafin
, as well as of The Terafin. At heart, I believe that she will lose no one, and that the continuity of the House and what it stands for will pass unbroken—" He stopped. Stared back at his Lord as if realizing only then that he was openly speaking of her death.

The Terafin smiled grimly. "And if I offer her the House? The Council waits my decision, and it is mere weeks in the making."

"If you offer her the House," Torvan ATerafin sad quietly, "she will accept it. But, Terafin," he added, "you have done the best you can do: You've let her come to that decision herself. Give her a little more time."

"She's made that decision?" A quickening of expression across his Lord's face caught the light, sent it out.

He exhaled. Turned his back upon them both to stare at the closed doors. "Yes. Yes, I think she has. But she doesn't know it yet, and Jewel Markess ATerafin is not a woman who can be forced to admit in public what she's barely begun to admit to herself."

"That she wants the House?" Arrendas again, the clank of his armor drawing closer to Torvan's turned back.

"No," he said starkly. "That war costs lives, and that she's beginning to be willing to fight a war." He turned back to the woman who sat, Morretz a motionless statue at her back, and he bowed. "I will be your Captain, Terafin, and after you, I will be hers."

He saw her nod, then. Thought that—
hoped
that—the relief in her expression wasn't just a trick of both light and his imagination.