The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (78 page)

At least, she thought it was the seawall; the ocean’s voice was a crashing thunder, a horrible rumble of wave. No one with half a brain stood here in a storm; the water could easily crest the walls.

No. No, that was a comfortable thought. The truth followed quickly on its heels. That wasn’t the ocean’s voice. It was the thunder of a crowd. A mob, each voice subsumed by the whole, individual words lost to its shouting, its terrible anger.

She turned, clenching her hands into fists. One hand. The other couldn’t quite close.

Of course it can’t, idiot. It’s holding Avandar
.

She could see him clearly.

And after a moment, she could see some part of what he saw. Steel yourself was such a useless expression; all the steel in the world couldn’t prevent her from blanching.

He gazed at her, almost unaware of her grip on his hand.

But his frown, while not the familiar one, was the first expression he offered her. There was something else in it, but it took her a moment to recognize it for what it was because she couldn’t remember ever seeing it on his face before. Fear.

She even understood it.

“No,” she said quickly, before he could speak. “No, I’m not dead. I’m not one of your dead.”

She thought he would turn from her then. But his eyes remained fixed on her face.

“Avandar?”

He lifted his free hand and cupped her chin in it. She would have drawn away had they been in any other place. Had he looked at her in any other way.

But his face was rigid, and the hand beneath her chin was shaking. Not a lot, give him that, but it was the first time—

The first time that she thought he
needed
her.

She stayed her ground.

“Avandar,” she said. And then, after a long pause, “Viandaran.”

“Lady.”

Not the word she wanted, but it would do. She was surprised she could even hear it; the voices of the dead were
so
damn loud.

“We can’t stay here,” she told him.

His eyes narrowed. She didn’t much like the look.

“Viandaran,” she said again. “They’re already dead. The dead can’t hurt you.”

He laughed. “The dead,” he said, the words soft, “are the only things that
can
hurt me. Have you forgotten, Lady? I cannot die. I will
never
die.”

So much truth.

“Do you want to?”

“Can it be you do not know?” He turned from her then, releasing her chin, and his hand swept out in a grand gesture, encompassing the ghosts that she could hear, but could not see. “How else am I to escape the past, Lady? How else am I to know peace? Or can you grant me absolution from my sins?”

“Are they?” she shouted back; the voices, as if sensing the weakness in the Warlord, grew louder, grew frenzied. Or maybe it was her; maybe the frenzy was entirely contained.

“Are they?”

“Sins!”

He stopped then. His eyes were dark and clear.

Afraid to lose him, she continued. “You’ve walked darker roads than this. You’ve seen the dead before. Why are they stopping you
now
?”

“Should they not?” His voice was soft; deceptive. “If I am not mistaken, Lady, you met only one upon your road, and you could not continue. What might you do if faced with
them
?”

The curtain fell away. The darkness parted.

There was almost no distance between Jewel Markess ATerafin and the mob.

Her heart stopped. For just a moment, it stopped; her mouth was frozen, and her eyelids refused to budge.

What was the first comfort she offered her den?
The past doesn’t matter
. But against such a past as this the words were a thin, fragile shield. She couldn’t even lift it; couldn’t offer it to him.

Even Haerrad, she thought, if he were forced to walk this road, wouldn’t face what Avandar now faced. And Haerrad, she would leave to the wolves with a fierce joy. Could she do any less here? Could she?

No.

But she could not let go of his hand.

Was bitterly aware that had he injured any of
hers
, she wouldn’t have come here; wouldn’t have touched him; wouldn’t have taken the risk.

And yet there were men, and women, and children, that he had hurt just as much; was she to forgive—and forget—those deaths, that pain, because he had never done anything to
her?

“You understand,” he said quietly. He started to pull his hand back, and she almost let him go.

“Yes,” she told him. Because he had seen the truth and she didn’t much feel like lying. “I do. But what you do
here
won’t bring them back. And it won’t give them peace.”

“And your own dead?”

She shook her head. “He only . . . needed me . . . to acknowledge what I’d done. To understand it.”

“You understood it already.”

“Yes. And no. I . . . can ignore it. I have, for years. I’ve taken it out once or twice. I’ve used it against The Terafin, the only woman I’ve ever served, and ever want to. But I’m not ruled by it.”

“But you are, Jewel.”

Her name. She started to pull him away from the crowd, and he took a step as she pulled.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how.”
Tell me how
, she thought,
as we get the hell out of here
.

She thought to make a pretense of listening, but she found the words compelling. Almost as if she actually cared what he thought, which was strange, given how much of her adult life had been spent convincing him that she didn’t give a damn.

“You let his death define you.”

“Gods, I hope not.”

The corner of his lip turned up. It wasn’t quite a smile.

“You let it rule what you will—and will not—do. Haerrad is a danger. Rymark is a danger. At the very least, those two would always be a threat. But while the others play their games of power, familiarize themselves with the assassins and the poisons that they
will
use in the war for the House, you hide. You caused the one death—and a death, in the end, that no one but you regrets—and having faced it, having paid no other price—”

“I paid a price,” she said coldly. “And it’s as much of a price as I’m willing—ever—to pay.”

“And was it not a just death?”

“No.”

“Did he not cost you at least one of the family that you so value?”

“Enough, Avandar.”

“No. Not enough.”

“If he had lived, he would have made no difference.”

“Not to you. But to those who took your place in the twenty-fifth holding? Did you not, by his death, ease their future suffering?”

She was white now. “It wasn’t a clean death.”

“No. But in the end, clean or no, death is death.” He turned away again.

She hadn’t finished. “It makes a difference
to
me.”

“Justice, in its rudimentary form, is a wergild. Justice, in the absence of a wergild, is an eye for an eye.”

“Great. So we all walk around blind.”

His brow rose as she spit.

“An eye for an eye,” she continued, “makes me no better than Haerrad.”

“Ah, but it does. You did not
start
the hostilities. It can be argued that you finished them.”

“It’s too easy to argue that,” she snapped back. “It’s just too damn convenient.”

“You don’t trust yourself.”

Not a question. She shrugged. Shoved hair out of her eyes. “Yes. Yes I do. And I want to
continue
to be able to trust myself. I want to know who I am. I want limits. I want rules.”

“Why?”

“Because without them, I’m no better than—”

“Me?”

“Yes,” she said, softly now. “Yes.” She tugged at his hand.

“Is superiority so important?”

“Yes,” she said again. A third time. “Because without trying to achieve it, what’s the point? I know I’m not perfect. I’ll
never
be perfect. But if I don’t try to be as perfect as
I
can be, I might as well just
be
Haerrad.

“I met Carmenta tonight. But really, he was just
me
. Some part of me. I don’t want to add to him. Not even for the House. I want . . .”

“You want what a child wants.”

“Maybe. But it’s
my
goal.”

“And of me?”

“What?”

“What do you want of me? If Carmenta was simply some part of you, what of my dead?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want them.”

“They come with me,” he said quietly.

Her arm ached. Her hand had gone from warm to something just shy of burning.

Could she accept it? She closed her eyes.

“Let’s just start with this,” she said, almost to herself.

“With what?”

“I don’t want you to add to them. Can you understand that?”

“What difference will one or two make?”

“I don’t know. Maybe none.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not true. It will make a difference
to me
. No. Don’t say it. You can say it when the village is safe. Just don’t add to them. Don’t—”

His eyes widened slightly. His hand tightened around hers, and this was a shock: it was the first time he’d responded to her grip. He turned to look back at the dead. “If every single one of them were given permission to unburden themselves,” he said softly, “you would be dead before they finished.” And then he smiled; the smile was bitter. “I . . . begin to understand.”

“Good. Tell me, because I don’t.”

But he shook his head, reasserting himself; becoming, again, the man that she had known for a decade. “My apologies, ATerafin.”

Celleriant was waiting when Jewel turned around. The look on his face was an odd one. “What?” she said, more sharply than she’d intended.

He rewarded her with the lift of a brow and the faintest of smiles. “I will say no more than this, Lady. But I will say it. Were you to stand against my—against the Winter Queen upon the Winter Road, she would sweep you away without notice. But you forced her to stand a moment, and what she saw when she did, I only begin to see now.” He bowed.

In the cold of night, she felt a sudden warmth in her cheeks. From just a smile and a few soft words. She was
never
going to take him to Court.

“Was I gone long?”

“No. Do not fear; the village—and the rendezvous—are well within our means now.”

“Good. Avandar, you ride.”

His brow rose.

“That wasn’t a request.”

“The road will not hold me captive again; not this eve.”

“No. It won’t. Because you’ll be on his back.” When he made no move, she snarled. “I already asked him, and he said it was all right.
Get on.
”

The second brow rose to join the first.

Lord Celleriant’s hand tightened slightly, but he made no other move.

“ATerafin,” Avandar said at last, the word heavy with multiple meanings, “at your command.”

To her surprise, he climbed upon the back of the Winter King, and the great stag rose. Funny, how tall he seemed when viewed from the perspective of the ground.

“Okay,” she told them all. “Let’s move.”

Ser Alessandro saw the lights of Damar before his men left the road. They were many, and he found their presence disturbing; the eastern half of Damar was seldom so well lit. Oil was expensive; tallow expensive; the gathering of wood a distant second to the tilling of fields, the gathering of food.

Proof that the villagers did, indeed, fear the night, this new darkness. The villagers of Damar were not given to such overt displays of fear—for they lived in the lee of the forest.

Had lived in it, for all of his life. In Damar, there were stories and legends that predated the Dominion. He had heard some of them, in his time—but not all; they were common stories, and he was not a common man.

Still, he had stayed for some time in the village, hoping—in his youth—to glean some knowledge of the mysteries that lay beyond the Western bounds of Damar, the borders defined by forest.

He looked upon it now, and as it approached, as he did, he felt the strength of shadow, the cold of night. In the Eastern half of the village, with its low huts, its wooden homes supported by hidden stone, its flat roofs, he saw only what he chose to see: light, evening light. The fields that lay across the bounds of Damar spilled past them into the plains; the village had no walls. But where the scarecrows stood, the lanterns were also burning; in the drier seasons, this presented risk.

It was not dry yet.

No movement in the rough streets of the town distracted him, and his eyes, accustomed to silver moonlight, passed beyond them, tracing their egress. There were stone-bolstered causeways—those that led to the wide bridge, and those that led from the main road; the roads to the West were of necessity small; they were almost never taken. They were certainly not maintained.