Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (10 page)

"I do not believe that speaking with the boy will change his mind," Baredan said quietly. He paused. "No word has come from the Tor Leonne."

It was a question. Ramiro shook his head. "No word."

No war, then. Not yet.

But it was coming, as inevitably as the rise of the sun and the fall of the night, the Lord's time and the Lady's. They were, each of these four men, seasoned by war. anointed by it, elevated by it—and wounded by it. But they were warriors born; the wounds, they buried deeply beneath the facade of proud scars.

10th of Lattan, 427 AA

Terafin, Averalaan
Aramarelas

He had served as Chosen for almost twenty years. Taken up in what, at this remove, felt like his distant youth, he had stood his ground in the face of demon and darkness; he had proved his worth time and again.

But he had not fought in the Terafin war. The grizzled veterans— and that, they were—of that early battle had about them a mystique and a confident wariness that the younger among the Chosen envied. He was not so young now. Not so foolish.

Or perhaps it was because they were dead, those veterans, with a few exceptions, that their early years of glory and loyalty were no longer such a siren's call. Captain Alayra, one of the last of The Terafin's first Chosen to continue to serve, retained her title in a form of retirement that honored her early service.

He had never seen her look old before.

"News, Torvan?"

He saluted her. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

She nodded, her eyes on a spot someplace beyond the windowless walls. Seeing, he thought, the war. Old battles. He had been blooded in the South, and he knew now that such a blooding, in a foreign land, at the hands of distinct and clear enemies, was the easier introduction to death.

She rose from her solid, simple chair. She walked with a cane during the humidity of the summer months; it was beneath her slightly gnarled knuckles as she made her way to him. "Arrendas?"

"Ready."

"And you?"

He nodded grimly.

"Good. The Terafin's waiting."

He saluted. Lowered his hand. Alayra was still bent, still old.
We've fought demons
, he thought,
and mad gods. We've fought the South, twice, and won. We've fought Darias, we've fought Morriset
.

We've never done it without you.

She met his eyes. "I've lived through one succession war. It was… enough. I did things in that war that I've been able to face because of the peace and the justice that followed it."

"Alayra—in war we all do things we wouldn't otherwise do."

"A war for succession happens
after
the death of the reigning Terafin," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Why now, Torvan?"

From anyone else, the question might have been evidence of the torment and the shadow of a war they both saw coming, inevitable as a sea storm. But, from Alayra, it was what it was; it demanded a real answer.

He thought about it a long time in the confines of the simplicity of her rooms. At last, he said, "I don't know. At this point, it's not clear who gains if Terafin is severely weakened."

"No. It's not." She turned. "You're escort, Torvan." Pause. "I've assigned Chosen to Alowan. He won't have them. It's your job to force him to accept them."

"Gracefully?"

Her turn to wince. "At all. I don't care about grace."

By House rules, any member of the Council proper was allowed two attendants and two guards when the Council sat in session. It was a formality; a governing rule written into the House constitution—or whatever it was they called the rules; Jewel couldn't remember and didn't particularly care—during years that The Terafin preferred to pass over when she spoke about House history.

Funny thing.

Every member of the House Council save three—Gabriel, Cor-mark and Jewel herself—had, surprise, surprise, two attendants and two guards. The great chamber, which was called "the bowl" by anyone who had to work in it or clean it, had room enough that the addition of three or four bodies per member didn't make the room seem that packed.

But the lamps had been lit along the light rails, and they cast a brilliant, cut spectrum of hard edges against a tabletop that was completely free of fingerprints or grime. No food here, no water, just the sheen of polished wood. It was a very fine room in the way that the largest part of the cathedrals on the isle were fine: Grand, high ceilings that were meant to make the occupants feel even smaller than they were. The tapestries added to that effect, as did the curtains and the towering windows; this was not the hall for a war council.

Jewel had the single attendant she was forced to accept by House and guild law: Avandar Gallais. To leave him behind was, unfortunately, to absent herself from the meeting as well; both The Terafin and Avandar had made it clear enough in their early years together that it had become a fact of life.

Fact as well that Avandar was possessed of unspecified magical abilities that made him both servant—although the exact definition of the word
serve
had yet to be offered—and guard. Apparently good service and full disclosure had nothing to do with each other; Jewel could see when he used magic, but she couldn't see what was available to him.

His job was to see that she neither embarrassed herself—he called it the impossible task, which might have been true if his standards for so-called embarrassment weren't so damned high— nor died, although, as she tartly pointed out, she
was
a seer.

He was in a vigilant mood today. She'd learned, over the years, to figure out what was vigilant from what was sour; it wasn't all that easy, given that most of the statues in the Terafin grounds were more expressive than he was.

"Well," she murmured for his ears alone as she took in the guards, the attendants, and the weapons that adorned the ATera-fin Council like so much gaudy jewelry, "looks like Angel wins."

Avandar frowned. "At eighteen, it was, if not permissible then at least understandable, that he turn everything into a wager. But at his current age…"

She laughed. "You tell him. Me, I'd be happy if he'd lose more often."

Her laughter, unguarded for a moment, caught attention. Just what she wanted.

The doors to the great hall were left slightly ajar; they would be left that way until The Terafin's arrival announced, by presence alone, that the Council meeting was in session. At that point, the Chosen who accompanied her would close the doors at her back as she took her chair at the head of the long table.

Nice to see that at least that custom had not changed, although Torvan ATerafin noticed the slight space between two open doors not because he was overly watchful—although today, he was— but rather because the low, deep laughter of a familiar voice wafted through them like an autumn breeze after a scorching summer.

The Terafin raised a peppered brow, her lips turning up in the only half-smile that had reached her face since news of Alea's death had become known.

Torvan said nothing; he was well-trained to present the perfect dress face when the occasion demanded it. Today, if ever, was such an occasion. But he wondered, inwardly, what Jewel was laughing at, and hoped that it wasn't—as it so often was—another one of the Council members. She could take laughter, herself; she always said she hadn't much dignity to lose. But the men and women who marked the Council with their powerful presence were not in the habit of joining a social inferior in a joke at their own expense. She had offended Elonne and Haerrad more than once in the past year; she had offended Rymark and Corniel a dozen times each. Cormark and Alea had indulged her; Alea's indulgence was over. It left Cormark as her sole staunch ally on a Council that had suddenly become more dangerous than any Southern Empire. Mar-rick had a wicked sense of humor, and dealt well with her gibes. Unfortunately, the only thing to recommend him over the others
was
his sense of humor, and Jewel ATerafin was no idiot, for all that she had come to the Council a young girl. Charm alone didn't buy her allegiance.

What did?

Torvan smiled, and the smile was also genuine. Of all the ATerafin High Council—as opposed to the Merchant Council, for instance, although the High Council itself was a subset of what was usually considered the "working" body of Terafin—Jewel ATerafin held a special place in his memory.

She had, after all, saved his life when both he and the lord he both served and admired had determined that the only wise course was to end it. Why?

Because she was moved by a simple act of kindness. And he was impulsive enough to have offered it to a street urchin and her den of petty thieves, all desperate, one dying.

He had become the Chosen of choice when she required a special guard—and because of her talent, which was so very, very hard to keep hidden, it was required often. She was irreverent to the point of offense, but he found it hard to take any; there was about her the same dogged determination and the same sense of duty and responsibility—albeit to entirely different things—that he had long admired in The Terafin. If she had only taken to the finesse of political life as well as she had taken to the duties of merchant-ing routes—but she was Jewel ATerafin. Might as well ask for pigs with wings.

The Terafin paused, took a deep breath, and lifted her chin ever-so-slightly. It surprised Torvan; it was almost a gesture of… vulnerability. He gazed at Morretz, but all Morretz presented was a finely but simply dressed back.

It came to him for no reason, and it came with force.
Jewel
, he thought, almost missing a step between the threshold of hall and hallway,
stay clean. Keep out of the politics
.

They were gathered there like vultures, and she saw them clearly as exactly that for the first time in years. It was not a comparison much to her liking. Courtne had been cunning; his had been the formidable intellect. But Alea had had the heart of the House, its pulse her pulse, its people her people.

Beheaded, heart stilled, the Terafin responsibility fell across the shoulders of the woman who had once been merely Amarais Handernesse like a blow and a mantle. It had aged her, the taking of power, but not so much as the keeping of power had. She was tired.

But she was not yet dead.

The anger surprised her, although she had lived with anger for much of her life and had learned to make a weapon of it that was single-edged, aimed outward. She drew herself in now and looked at them all.

Cormark was old. Over the course of a day and a night, the age that she denied had seeped into his face, his hair, the line of his shoulders. She trusted him, but she thought, seeing him this day, that she could not lean heavily on him for support.

She was
The
Terafin; support was not required.

Elonne was, in carriage and poise, her match. She did not raise her voice, did not resort to tactics of raw power. Her size was diminutive; the only person in the room smaller than she was Jewel ATerafin, and Jewel ATerafin had never been considered a threat. Her hair was as dark as Amarais' hair had been fifteen years ago; her back was unbowed by the daily requirements of labor. She was responsible for the merchant routes in the far South and the far West, and she had gained much in prestige and power by her handling of House fortunes in those areas.

She sat now with one hand, palm down, upon the surface of the table. Her House Ring caught the light of the chandelier above; a quiet statement. She met The Terafin's eyes without flinching: without offering any reaction at all save a very, very slight inclination of head.

Was she capable of murder? Certainly.

As was Marrick, easily the most charming of the House Council, and almost as physically perfect as Devon ATerafin; he wore his age like the glowing patina on her most perfect silver. Nothing stooped or bowed him. He dressed well, but not flamboyantly, and spoke in a soft enough voice that he could seem, for long stretches at a time, to be almost self-deprecating; certainly self-aware. She liked Marrick; she had always liked Marrick. But she labored under no illusions. His heart was as remote as Elonne's, and his ability to take a life with the same charm and good grace that he hosted a dinner had never been in question.

Still, it would hurt to know that Marrick was Alea's killer. A pain she would never share with him.

Much better, for her, if Haerrad were the killer. Much better for them all. He was the throwback to the earlier years; there was not much in the way of civility about his temper, and his temper was prone to peak at unfortunate times. He was a brilliant strategist, Elonne's equal where, sadly, Marrick was not—but he played too close to the line, and there had been an unexplained caravan slaughter or two that had forced her to political extremes in order to protect her House from censure. It had also forced her to remove Haerrad from all but the Southern routes. In the South, the deaths were often not reported, and it was just as likely that the caravan lost would be Terafin; the Voyani and the poorer clansmen were bandits by less pretty names. There, battle driving him to prove himself in the way he loved best, Haerrad shone.

His nose had been broken at least twice, his jaw once; his face bore scars of early encounters on the trade routes. He had a rough charisma about him—but it was the charisma that came with power, not the charisma that led to it. She had taken him onto the Council because her only other choice had been to kill him—and she had considered it very, very carefully. His death, on balance, would have hurt the House, but it was a near call.

She regretted that decision. Unfairly, but the silence behind the perfectly composed mask that she now wore was a safe place in which to be unfair.

That left only Rymark; Rymark ATerafin.

Of the four Council members with strength in numbers, support, and financial means, Rymark ATerafin was the most careful to keep to the shadows. She herself did the same; to hide behind a careful, studied neutrality was a trait that in most cases evoked respect, if warily given.