Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (40 page)

"He's not that bad, surely?"

"Just not devoted enough to it. Too busy chasing scandal, or making it. More to the point, Lord Aristide's never
taken an apprentice."

"There doesn't seem to be that many true-mages in
Darest to 'prentice."

"I doubt that's the reason. He has the talent," she added
carefully. "Instinct, strength, all
the rest. But really, I don't think such
a perfectionist as the Diamond would be interested." Watching Soren's reactions carefully, she
added: "Unless
Choraide's
been putting on an act
about not studying."

"Where would he find the time?" Soren said,
shrugging it off.
Halcean
,
it seemed, had already held suspicions.

Tired of watching and worrying, Soren did not at all want to
pursue the idea of Aspen as two-faced assassin. Instead she would try and unravel a different thread from this endless
tangle of suspicion. "Do something
for me,
Halcean
?"

"Of course." Her aide was immediately on her feet.

"Ask Baroness
Couerveur
if
she can spare me a short interview."

-
oOo
-

Lady Arista had given nothing away when told the Champion
wanted to see her, and had settled in the cup of a heavy, high-backed chair
while she waited. It was, Soren
reflected, an arrangement designed to conjure memories of the Regent's Court.

"Do you bring messages, Champion?" Lady Arista
asked, as soon as the door had closed behind Soren. She was intent, no doubt eager for details
about the bargains made with the Fair. How much did she hate not being the centre of Darest's world? How much did she hate her son?

"Questions, Lady Arista," Soren replied, with all
her self-composure. This was the kind of
thing she needed to be able to do.

"Then ask."

Easily as unnerving as Aristide, her pale blue eyes beyond
incisive. It was necessary for Soren to
remind herself how much the balance of power had shifted, that she had become a
person of considerable consequence while the Regent had been reduced to one of
sixteen barons. Then she could manage to
say: "Who was
Jansette
Denmore
working for?"

There was not so much as a shadow of surprise. Soren's guess had been right – no-one as
intelligent or frankly suspicious as Lady Arista was reputed to be would have
neglected to investigate those she took to her bed. Even
Jansette's
transparent beauty had not been sufficient to turn this woman's head. But would she answer?

"I am told Lady
Denmore
has
been notably absent from Court, these past two days," Lady Arista
commented.

"Recalled," Soren said, offering honesty in hopes
of provoking it.

"Having lost access to the inner Court." Lady Arista's reaction was pure Aristide: she
looked thoroughly appreciative, nodding to herself. To this woman, knowing her lover was a spy
may have only increased the attraction. "Why is this important, Champion?" she asked then, gaze
sharpening until Soren wanted to move out of its way. "All the West has spies in Tor
Darest. They change them on so regular a
basis it's scarcely worth tracking the rotation."

Soren hesitated, aware that Lady Arista marked her
indecision. But she couldn't admit to
the theft of the trump blade – any mention of Aristide would surely bring the
conversation to an inglorious conclusion, even if Lady Arista wasn't directly
involved. She had an awful sense of
having taken hold of the tail of a tiger.

"I want to test some information Lady
Denmore
provided," Soren said, stamping on her
nerves. "To do that, I need a
better idea of her loyalties."

"
Jansette
Denmore
provided you with information?" The
tone was intrigued, not threatened. The
only answer Soren gave was an uncommunicative nod and the former Regent's gaze
became all the brighter, her interest very evidently roused. Then, with the faintest edge of malice, she
launched into a tangent. "Tell me,
Champion: is the Tzel Aviar to remain long in Darest?"

"I don't believe a definite period has been set,"
Soren replied, after only a small pause. Wanting to know more about
Jansette
, she had
put herself in a position where Lady Arista could press for answers of her
own. She decided to pre-empt matters a
little, adding: "He is to capture the Fae killer who has been stalking the
King."

"An individual the Darien guard has been ordered not to
harm."

"To not approach." Soren looked down, thinking about conspiracies and the nature of her
duties, then went on to give Lady Arista a detailed and unadorned account of
the events on
Vostal
Hill. The former Regent was not a woman to be
underestimated, and certainly not to be treated as a fool. A clear understanding of the day's sour
victory might stave off any plan of Lady Arista's to move against Strake.

When Soren's recital reached the point of
Desteret's
departure, she stopped, unsure how effective her
strategy had been. Lady Arista simply
sat back with a contemplative air, and said: "Thank you, Champion. You
may go."

Before Soren had done more than take breath in
disappointment, she added a single word:

"Sax."

-
oOo
-

It hadn't brought her any
forrader
. Watching closely, Soren had seen no sign that
Lady Arista was at all perturbed by the thought of
Jansette
passing on information, as she surely would have been if the Regent had
displayed Aristide's knife to her lover. That did not rule out
Jansette
having seen
more than Lady Arista had realised, but was not nearly enough to verify the
former Regent's place at the head of their list of suspects.

Could she at least put Sax at the bottom? The kingdom took up much of Darest's western
border, and when the mines were at their peak had positively longed to change
that boundary. But those mines were
known to be failing and Sax's King was a cautiously greedy sort of man, the
kind who advanced by increments rather than a sudden coup. Since it was unlikely
Jansette
would have revealed a plot of her own country, Soren could be at least
moderately certain Sax was not behind the disappearance of the trump blade.

Cya
was the foremost enemy of Sax,
trade rivalry occasionally escalating to diplomatic falling-out, with open war
in living memory. If a
Saxan
spy had a choice of secrets to spill, they would most
definitely be Cyan. But how would a
Saxan
have known a Cyan had stolen Aristide's knife?

Jansette's
proclivity for flitting
from window to bedroom would have provided plenty of opportunity to discover
all manner of things, but that only widened the field of suspects. It could be anyone. Lady Arista, a Cyan spy who had slipped
through Aristide's nets, a mage hired by Everett Rothwell before his downfall,
or someone she didn't even know to worry about. There were simply too many people to watch.

Dispirited, Soren made her way back to her apartments. Lady Arista stayed enthroned, head resting on
one fist.
Mogath
was writing innocuous-seeming letters, and
Peveric
,
various other barons, were all doing things she couldn't call suspicious. The Tzel Aviar was reading
Laramae
of
Seldareth's
notebook,
as he had been all afternoon. Aspen had
found an adventurous girl to chase about his cramped room, and the ambassadors
were making Soren dizzy with their comings and goings.

Strake and Aristide had abandoned lists and diagrams to talk
to each other with frowning absorption. It seemed to Soren she would be best served taking a bath.

To her faint surprise, soon after she'd returned to her
apartment her Rathen bid Aristide good night and left to join his Champion in
soapy caresses, urgent and intense, with not a word between them until they
were tangled damply in his bed.

"Feeling better?"

"Immeasurably." But he looked tired, and again more regretful than pleased. Her Rathen had given in to wanting her, but
he didn't like himself for it.

She told him what little she'd learned, and he listened with
brooding attention. "The
blood-price will be paid to Darest, with or without me. They'd be best advised to get rid of both of
us."

"And who rules then?"

He lifted himself onto an elbow, looked down at her face.

"Lady Arista?" Soren asked, not flinching.

"I'll have to suggest that to Aristide." Amusement flickered, then was lost. "She may well be a good choice, if he
were gone. She'd at least not be
promoting her heir in our child's stead." He touched a hand to her stomach, eyes darkening. "Sun. Go to sleep, Soren. I can't talk
about this just now."

She didn't protest, but sleep was not easily won for either
of them. The palace marched through
Soren's mind until, an hour or more before dawn, her dreaming sight showed her
the Tzel Aviar moving through the shadows of Fleeting Hall. His hands were empty and his face grave as he
walked into the Garden of the Rose and looked at the black bloom which
represented Strake's life. Then toward
the concealed cluster of leaves which heralded a Rathen child.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The steady gaze of Damaris of the
Wryve
turned toward the focus of Soren's palace-sight and fixed there. Tangled up in Strake, Soren struggled into
full consciousness, and found that it definitely wasn't a dream. The Tzel Aviar stood in the Garden of the
Rose. Waiting for her?

Confused and curious, she worked her way carefully out of
the bed, managing to not disturb her Rathen. After a brief stop in her apartment to dress, she slipped out into
Fleeting Hall, where it was cold enough to steam breath and goose-pimple
skin. Glancing toward the guarded
entrance to the Hall of the Crown she briefly considered an escort, rejected
the idea, and then was filled absurdly with guilt, as if she went to some
clandestine assignation. It would help
if she could begin to guess what the Fae wanted.

Palace-sight showed Tzel Damaris turn his head as she walked
into the garden. Her own eyes could only
make out shadows: the upright of walls and curve of arch, the dark mass of
vines dripping in the wake of the rainstorm. The smudge beneath all this which might be a man. The storm had left not so much as a breath of
wind to stir the leaves, and Soren discovered an odd reluctance to speak, to
break the black silence. The place was
cold and close and crushingly still.

Vision apparently unhindered, Tzel Damaris was studying her
face, gauging something she was not certain she wanted to know. In the dark he was a more concentrated kind
of man, as if something had risen out of that bottomless well and was looking
at her over the rim. She felt like she'd
never met him before, and wished she hadn't now. Even in this place, where she had so much
power, he had somehow become a thing which made the hair on the back of her
neck stand up.

"I have completed my perusal of
Laramae's
journal," Damaris said then. Decorous, formal, pure Warden of the Borders. It almost made things normal again.

Soren took a breath, dismissing fear and trying not to show
her discomfort. Business. Like Aristide, he was always and ever focused
on business. Standing expectantly about
the Garden of the Rose had been a clear message, but why did he suddenly want
to speak to her? He should be reporting
his findings to Strake. What was she
supposed to do?

What should the Rathen Champion want to do?

To ease the increasingly awkward silence, she said: "I
wished to ask what Moon-cast meant."

His gaze shifted to the waning moon above. "Moon-sourced," he explained. "The power supplied outside the caster,
thus making possible very strong and, more usually, long-lasting
enchantments. While the Moon endures, so
will the spell."

"Oh." Soren
knew enchantments had to either be maintained or renewed to prevent them simply
wearing off. That was one of the many
reasons Shaping was considered so superior.

"To successfully draw power from the Moon is by no
means easy, so Moon-casting remains a rarity. But the link once forged is extremely durable. That is what I wished to speak of to
you."

"The link?" She sounded like a cowed fool, and wished that she could rid herself of
this ridiculous sense of threat. It
helped to look at him only through palace-sight, and focus on the measured calm
of his words. He had no reason to want
to hurt her, was just a man who would live for centuries, who looked human but
was not. Like the boy.

"Enchantments can be lifted, Champion. While the Moon is waning, the link will be
weaker. It should be possible to break
the casting, removing both the boy's need to kill and the abilities which make
him so difficult to capture. Along with
the drive to hunt
Rathens
."

This was better than good news. Soren looked up at Strake's rose, hoping for
the first time to see it some other colour. But–

"I'm no mage, Tzel Damaris. What would you have me do?"

The question was full of unease. Above their heads the Rose uncoiled, sending
icy drops of water to patter down around them. But there was no ripple of response from the Tzel Aviar, even when a
tendril descended to pass just behind him. He had returned that unflinching gaze to Soren, did not seem even to
have noticed the movement.

"
Laramae
conducted many
experiments to discover the limits of the child she had created," he told
her. "Although not truly Shaped,
placing the enchantment beyond the blood gives the effect of making the boy a
child of the Moon herself. The
death-urge is one part of that. But the
Moon is Death and Life."