Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (96 page)

"Am I late?" he asked, although he knew full well he was not.

The General understood the rebuke, softly spoken though it was. His smile was brief, almost rueful. "You are not, kai Leonne." He fell into step beside Valedan; Commander Sivari joined them.

"Are you ready?" Sivari said.

Valedan nodded.

The strange thing was, it was true. He heard the muttering of the impatient crowd that waited beyond the gates; heard the adjudicators, their voices sharp and sudden as the lash of a whip; heard the song of a dozen bards, rising and falling as if it were part of the tide that waited beyond the seawall. All of this, for the day, the penultimate event: the test of the bow.

And yet this one day, he felt a calm settle across his shoulders like a mantle. It was as if he had somehow taken the peace of the courtyard in which the blindfolded boy held sway, had swallowed it with the cool running water, had carried it here.

"That bow," Sivari said, his voice coming from both a long distance and less than three feet away.

Valedan took the bow from his shoulders. "Yes?"

"It—it looks familiar."

"Mirialyn gave it to me," Valedan replied.

"Can you string it?"

It was not the question he had expected, although as a trainer, Sivari often asked odd questions. Valedan started to answer carelessly and stopped the words from coming; there were Southerners here: Baredan and, at a greater distance, the Callestan Tyr.
Of course
, he thought. And then:
Why is he asking? He knows I can string a bow
.

As he often did, he found refuge in truth. "I haven't tried."

"I would try," Sivari said, his voice as neutral as Valedan ever heard it, "before the competition starts."

Sivari, what do you know about this bow that I don't?

"It's not magical, is it?"

"If it were," Sivari replied, "it would be taken from you by the adjudicatory body—as would your place in this competition." But his eyes were narrowed, unblinking; his hands were conspicuous in their sudden stillness at his side.

Valedan set the bow on end, wrapped the string half around his ankle, and bent the aged wood.

Something as heavy as this he expected a fight from; he put his shoulders and his upper body into the motion, holding the bowstring's free end. The dark, polished wood caught sunlight.

returning both that and the shadow of his bent reflection to his narrowed eyes.

"Valedan?"

Beyond it, he saw a darkness that was broken by starlight, by the clarity of constellation; he felt, at his back, the cold, cold wind, and he realized with a start that he had never seen a night so crisp as this, a sky so utterly clear.

This had been her gift to him: Archery.

As he struggled to join string to bow, he remembered the first bruises such a simple task had given him, and with bows much, much lighter than this. Oh, she had offered him sword, had watched his progress with Alina's daggers, had taught him the rudiments of combat with shield and with scant armor—but
this
had been her gift: The watchful kill.

"Wait, Valedan," she would tell him. "The wind is not right." Or, "Wait, Valedan. The grass is not moving, not the right way." Or even, "Wait, and we will eat well."

Later, she had taught him speed, but the grace of the weapon was in this: Watching, seeing, waiting—and then, only then, letting fly.

"Kai Leonne?"

He shook his head; his dark hair sent a shadow over the bow's reflection, bringing back the heat of summer sky, the approach of the Lord's Hour.

"Well done," Sivari said, his voice a hint of that cool breeze, that night sky. "Do you know what it is that you hold?"

"A bow," he replied, no more. But he
did
know. She had given him, somehow, the heart of the North, a North unblemished by the heat of the summer sky, the humidity of the open sea, the bitterness of the political squabble and the coming war.

And for the first time in months he was not afraid of taking what she offered; of holding it. She was the North, Alina the South, and he had never, in the course of his hybrid education, been separated from either:

Commander Sivari bowed. "Kai Leonne," he said, as a familiar might, "I think that you will never cease to surprise me. Come. They are waiting for you."

He had never been calmer than he was that day. Me thought he might never be as calm again, for the time in which he might draw the bow, fitted with arrow, and wait out the manipulative malice of wind and sea breeze, was fast coming to a close.

There were targets, painted in gaudy colors so that their import might more easily be gauged by those who watched. They could not move, of course; could make no attempt to evade.

Contestants came and went; they were allowed three shots; they were allowed their choice of which of the three they attempted to hit. Valedan took his time.

It
was
his time.

The crowd's chant became the chatter of gulls, of something so natural it faded into the background. His rivals were not rivals; they were there for their own reasons, and they met their own tests. But not one of them saw as he saw, felt as he felt: This was his time, and when he loosed the last arrow, it would be over.

His first shot flew true, piercing the dark, deep blue that stained the heavy targets. He drew another arrow after the first had settled. Pivoted slightly, staring down the shaft a moment to the target twenty yards to the west. He heard the judges, heard the crowd, heard the deep resonance of bardic voice.

But more than that, he heard the wind, the rustle of leaves at the edge of the stadium and beyond it; saw the dip and flight of gulls above. He watched them as they swooped to ground and eddied up in the current, and when he felt the time was right, he let loose the second arrow.

It, too, flew to the target's heart.

The crowd was louder now; the only human noise he could hear. He waited them out, waited as patiently as he knew how. He fitted the third arrow, the third shot, and pivoted again.

The last target.

It wasn't necessary. He knew it. But it was the last one. He felt a cold, cold wind cut his cheeks with razor fingers, freezing blood instead of drawing it. He saw his breath hang like a shroud of mist in the air before that wind blew it out of his sight. He shivered a moment, knowing that cold, like heat, was a killer. Understanding the lesson.

And then he watched. He waited. He felt the moment approaching.

The arrow flew.

The target accepted it, swallowing wood and ending its flight perfectly: the heart pierced.

Three shots.

Three targets.

He knew this was a Northern skill, a Northern sport. He would gain nothing for it from the South, save the acknowledgment of victory. Knew that there were few in the Dominion who could do a third so well on a lucky day, and knew as well that it counted for almost nothing in their eyes. Alina would have frowned, but Valedan didn't care.

This was still his, this skill, this test, this time.

He turned away from the targets toward the spectators' boxes. The Kings were there, and the Queens; the man known as the Lord of the Compact and hated for it; the Kings' Swords. But beside them, the only person he wished to see: the Princess of the Blood. Mirialyn ACormaris.

He walked the grass for her, crossing white lines and gold lines with equal regard: none.

And when he reached as far as the grounds—and the guards— would allow, he paused before her. Raised the bow that had been her gift in both hands.

She met his eyes, and her smile was dim. a mixture of pride and loss, an acknowledgment of both his time and its passing.

He bowed, first to the Princess and then, only then to the Crowns.

Turning, he let the noise of the crowd in.

Lamplight, filtered by fine glass in too many shapes to count, touched the table, distorting its rough surface.

Pedro, who was so much more than a simple merchant—and now, with far too many mages searching for him through the breadth of the streets above, much less—gestured, guttering the lamp. The small, windowless room was plunged into darkness.

Yet even this was not so very dark, although he couldn't, without appropriate spell or ornament, see the hand in front of his face. He gestured almost absently and the light returned, flickering as if it were some serpent's lazy tongue.

Why?

This was to have been his triumph, and through it—through it the return, after centuries, of the brotherhood of the Lord. Let the cities laid to waste in the vast desert stand; let the ancient enmity between the followers of Lord and Lady at last end their bitter feuding. Already, the Voyani were being turned from their guardianship and their folly, and this boy—this boy was one of the few things that stood in the way. There was nothing personal in it; death was rarely personal, not to a man who wished to
be
a power.

The plan itself had been simple, and had the cursed creature
followed
it, the mages hunting him through Averalaan would find nothing: He, Pedro, would be long gone, his goal attained. The boy would be dead.

Instead, he sat here, his instrument—the highly prized gift from the Shining Court's Lord Ishavriel—having failed him utterly. And the failure would sting less if he understood it. That mage, that member of the Order of so-called Knowledge, had seen
nothing
.

True enough
, the voice said.
He saw nothing. But Allaros saw
him.

Pedro resisted the sudden urge, the visceral urge, to make the light brighter. Steeling himself slightly, he reached across the table to one of the many stoppered flasks that stood there, reflecting and absorbing the light. He lifted it gingerly, aware now— how could he be less?—that whatever resided within the bottle could free itself.

That, Ishavriel had quaintly neglected to tell him.

The Lord would be angered by it, no question; the flask itself lay in shards against the cobbled stone. And it had a value, both to Ishaevriel and to the Lord, for its magic was a thing so contained in the workmanship of its glass that it gave away nothing. It was not magic as Pedro understood it; nor magic, in the end, as the
Kialli
did. It was a work, a thing so utterly itself it could not be corrupted, although it could contain anything at all that its owner might choose to pour into it. Even the essence of the kin themselves, undiluted by contact with the world.

Voyani magic.

They were our enemies
, the voice said smoothly.

"Everything was your enemy," Pedro snapped back. He regretted it before the words had time to echo, but did nothing to attempt to withdraw them. Weakness enough, to show irritation. Unforgivable weakness, in the presence of the
Kialli
, to show contrition as well. And the Lord knew he felt no contrition.

The time is coming, human.

"And you're so certain that you won't decide on whim to destroy the last of your Lord's plan?"

Ishavriel is not my Lord.

"I spoke of
The
Lord.

Silence.

The test of the so-called Sword.

"I know."

Tomorrow. All he had to do was evade the magi for one long night, and reach Ser Anton di'Guivera in time to join his party before the start of the event.