Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (16 page)

Stillness. Then: "You spoke to him?"

"He spoke to me."

"And was there anything unusual about him?"

"You mean besides the fact that he's dead?" But the laughter died because The Terafin's words brought back the night, and the night was strong. She looked up, met the older woman's dark eyes, and wondered how the spirit could look so fragile when the woman looked so strong. She turned her face away, to the light upon the water.

"If I name my heir," The Terafin said softly, "that person's rule will be contested, either before my death or after it."

Jewel wasn't an idiot. She understood what The Terafin meant: the heir was unlikely to survive the naming.

"So name Haerrad. I'd be willing to see him buried in the infighting."

"If I could bring myself to do it, I would. But there's always the chance, however small, that he would survive—and of the self-proclaimed candidates, he is the least acceptable."

"And what is it exactly that Terafin's Founder will do if the candidate who reigns is unacceptable?"

Silence again. "You know what Terafin is asking of you."

And then Jewel spoke, so quietly that she was surprised the words carried at all. "Yes. And… I don't know."

The Terafin was silent again, a punctuation to her still vigil, the watchful clarity of her clear eyes. When she spoke, those eyes were leveled upon the younger woman's face, searching for something buried there. "When I came to Terafin, I came with dreams of power. There was no other reason to join a great House.

"When you came to this House, you did not seek power."

"No." The younger woman stared out at the ocean because it was safer. "I came because Rath told me to come. And I stayed because I thought—I really thought—that here, my den would be safe."

"You came to Terafin seeking safety." Her lips touched her glass as if it, and they, were ice.

"There's no such thing, is there?"

"Yes, Jewel, and no. Most things that are worth seeking exist only a moment at a time. Safety. Strength. Love. A moment at a time, you might build a life; it would certainly be architecture that would stand the test of time."

"But you never—" Jewel had the presence of mind to leave the sentence dangling; she wished she'd had the presence of mind not to start it in the first place.

But The Terafin, this awkward morning, was expansive. "If each of those things is worth pursuit, and each exists a moment at a time, it is also true that each takes time, dedication of its own. I chose to rule; I chose this House. This is as close to the Crown as any man or woman will ever come."

"The Kings marry."

"The Kings, my dear Jewel, have never married for love' You are past thirty; no young girl. You must be aware of this."

Jewel ATerafin rarely saw the Kings; she did not speak with them. And because she was no longer a young woman, she did not bridle at the veiled accusation of ignorance, although it was a near thing.

"The fact that they marry as they do doesn't mean that no love can grow. Nor does it mean that there is no affection, no respect. But they marry for children, and they marry women who understand that the Kingdom will—and
must
—always come first." She paused a moment, the stem of her glass between fingers made translucent by sun's lack. "It seems such an easy thing, to the young, that they think they can accept this: they dream of love with little understanding. But the ability to accept that one will, and must always, come second in time of need is rather more rare than that.

"I sometimes think you've never been young. Jewel. But today, this morning, I look at you and I also realize you've never been old enough."

At that, Jewel Markess ATerafin did stand. "I've always been true to the responsibilities
I've
accepted. I'm not you. I don't want what you want. I never did.

"I want my den. I want to choose my den. I want to build it a bit, I want to surround myself with people
I
trust. But I won't do that if I can't protect them. Because that's what I promised them."

"No," The Terafin said softly, making no move or gesture that might indicate displeasure at the outburst, "that's what you've promised yourself. I believe this interview is at an end. Remember that we are to meet with the three Commanders in the afternoon, and be prepared. Commander Allen, in particular, will view you as a skilled talent which, like any of his soldiers, can be trained and pointed. Watch what you say to him."

"We've met," Jewel replied.

"Ah, yes. I'd almost forgotten."

Jewel didn't snort, but only because she was with The Terafin.

"And?"

"He's the Eagle."

The older woman frowned as the younger woman smiled.

"Jewel, you would do well to remember that that's what his soldiers call him. It is not an acknowledged title."

"I've got more in common with his soldiers than I do with him."

"Is that really true?"

You guard the Standard
. Jewel turned pale in the white-gold of the sunlight's rays. "It—used to be."

"Jewel—"

"I
don't know
, Amarais."

Silence, long, profound. Jewel did not use The Terafin's given name. Only those who were her equals, or her confidants, did. But she had to do something to stop that question. Oh, she was afraid. She felt it again, and again; The Terafin spirit's words were working their way to her core. She wasn't sure what would happen when they reached it. Half her life had been spent in Terafin; a quarter with her dimly remembered parents, a quarter on the streets of the twenty-fifth holding.

Yet it was true that the quarter on the streets still defined her. Her friends, she kept; her responsibilities, she entrenched. Oh, she could read Old Weston now, and Torra, the tongue of the Dominion; she knew the history of the realm as if it were more than her grandmother's superstitious, dangerous, and terrible stories.

But when she thought about herself, she still
felt
like the sixteen year old who had crossed the Terafin threshold seeking— demanding, in her awkward, naive way—shelter. She didn't feel like a woman of power, although Avandar assured her she had become one.

It suddenly occurred to Jewel, as she sat in the sun's growing heat, the woman she most respected watching her quietly, expectantly, that she never would feel like a woman of power. Like, say it, an adult. Even if she was one; even if she had to become one. She would always feel like she was groping for the right thing, the right answer, the right action.

For the first time in her life, Jewel Markess ATerafin looked at the woman who ruled and saw past her to her age. And that age, like a web, lay beneath the surface of translucent skin, where all else lay trapped by it.

"You were… gentle," Morretz said quietly, long after the thud of doors closing had faded into the silence of birdsong and wind. He glanced at his master's face, but only briefly; there was something in the wide eyes that he felt might sear him if he met it too directly.

"I understand her," The Terafin replied. "I understand her desire to protect those that she can. I am not immune to it myself. She is… she is to me what Alea was."

"She is not Alea." Morretz began to remove the fine-stemmed glasses from the table. It was rare that he desired something to do, but when he did, he found it.

"No. She's younger."

"She's stronger," he said.

She did not speak to him of her visits to the shrine of Terafin, but what lay between them was such a visit; she had come, ashen, from it, and had gone directly to the roof, forbidding him access to a moment of weakness that still echoed in the little nuances that defined her. He had tried most of his life to understand her. He tried now.

"Amarais," he said softly, using the personal.

For his trouble, he received her attention, but not as he desired it; she did not meet his eyes, and her shoulders stiffened and rose, as did her chin.

He thought she would remain silent, but he waited, as he had always waited. There was reward, this time, of a sort.

"I wanted," she said, speaking so softly a strong sea breeze would have taken her words, "nothing but the House. I left my blood kin for it, and that was bitter. I had only the approval of my grandfather—but he said to me, the last time we spoke, that I wanted it because I did not understand what it was that I wanted.

"'Like children,' he added. 'Like first children.'" She raised her head further; her skin caught light, and the light was unflattering in its harshness; it traced the contours of time-worn crevice, bleached the color—what there was of it—from cheek and brow. "What was my first act as Terafin?" Soft question. Hard edge.

He was silent a moment.

"Let me ask a different question, then." She turned to face him, fully, and he almost regretted his desire for her full attention. "Why did you choose to serve me?" She had never asked him before.

Silence again. Stiffness. He did not know how to answer her. To observe, yes. To serve, yes. To comfort in a very oblique fashion— which was as much as she had ever allowed him. But this was to invite her across a wall that had always divided them.

It was the first time he had thought that the wall might be of his own making, and not hers at all.

Her smile was rare; sharp as the sword that defined her rule. "I ask," she said dryly, "because it provides me insight, indirectly, into Jewel born Markess."

"Insight?"

"I might better understand why Avandar would agree to serve her."

"I… see."

"Do you understand it?"

"Yes."

"Morretz, what I want, we both want: She is the woman who will best understand the
cost
of power. But such a price cannot be paid unwilling, at knifepoint; it cannot be paid because of the wounded cries—" and here she grimaced, "of those who wish to pass the burden on." It was as much of an indictment of herself as she ever offered, and it was laced with bitter humor.

She rose. "But you have had years to observe young Jewel; as many as I have. Avandar, if I am not mistaken, is frustrated at almost every turn; she is not the master he expected."

"No."

"I will answer the question, and you will answer the question I have not asked. The first thing I did when I took the Terafin sword was to execute the traitor. Not to order it done; not to pass the blood on, but to execute him myself."

He was silent; she had silenced him. There was no doubt in his mind whatever that Jewel Markess would give her last breath in defense of what he, and The Terafin, valued about Terafin itself. But more than that?

"Not all rulers are killers," he heard himself say, but the words were very distant to his own ears.

"No?" She turned. Walked away.

Serra Alina di'Lamberto waited in the cool shade of the halls. Gone were the Northern beds, the accoutrements that Valedan di'Leonne had known all his life; there were maps here, Southern pillows, fans, low, squat tables that gleamed under the new light. There were no serafs, of course; this was the Empire, and the Empire did not approve of slavery, as they styled it. Nor would she have accepted serafs from the Imperial capital, even had they presented themselves.

Valedan was a threat only so long as he lived.

He lived; she intended that he continue to.

And so the Serra Alina di'Lamberto, no slave herself, and no woman of a lowborn clan, chose to provide what serafs could not: food and graceful care. Watchful care.

She waited, knelt, the tops of her feet pressed to the mats. It had been, in truth, far too long since she had kneeled thus, waiting on the kai of a clan—far too long and not long enough. She had waited willingly, then, because that
was
her life; she waited willingly now because this was her life. But between these two lives, the experience of Alina the younger and Alina the elder, was something that loomed large indeed, a gift from the North: Choice.

She had never intended to leave the Empire.

Listening, she heard the fall of steps against the stone. She frowned, only recognizing them at the last moment, and that, because she did not expect them here. But it was too late to rise with grace, and she was in all things—must be, until she could choose a suitable wife—graceful.

The Princess Mirialyn ACormaris pushed the hanging curtains aside without ceremony and entered the room. She stopped, nonplussed. The silence, between the standing woman and the kneeling one, was awkward.

At last, Mirialyn spoke. "
Serra
Alina."

"ACormaris." Alina rose as gracefully as she could. She felt, in the gaze of this distant Princess, embarrassed, uncertain. Standing gave her the strength that kneeling, in such a correct Southern posture, had taken away. "Have you come to speak with the kai Leonne?"

"I have come," the blood daughter of King Cormalyn said quietly, "to speak with you."

"Then speak. But be aware that these quarters are the quarters which the kai Leonne occupies; what passes here, he will learn of." It was a warning; the warning of a friend to a friend.

And Mirialyn's eyes, brown now under the curved, smooth ceiling, narrowed. Silence took them both a moment.

"So," the Princess said softly, "you make your choice."

Alina was stung by the words; she drew herself up, throwing her shoulders back, lifting her chin. "Why have you come?"

"To speak with the Serra Alina. To ask her, because she has influence, to speak with the kai Leonne."

"About?"

"The Kings' Challenge."

"You do not wish him to run the marathon."

Silence. And then the Princess smiled. Alina knew the cool expression well; it was sharp, as sharp as a blade. "And you do."

"Yes."

"Alina,
why
?" She asked the question as if it had been thrown from her lips, leaping with all of the anger and surprise she might otherwise have chosen to conceal. She had in her veins the blood of the Lord of Wisdom—such a loss of control was no small feat.

Alina took a bitter joy in this smallest of victories.

"Do you know how much he endangers himself? To run the marathon—to run the gauntlet—he will expose himself across the miles of this city, and its surroundings. We cannot stop every archer in the Empire should they choose that moment to attack.