Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows Read online

  "No," she replied, ferocity returning as his words pricked restless memory, "the House Guard was not eager to lose you. You were always a part of the House."

  "The House Guard," he said, "was not, technically, yours at that time. Not yours to risk."

  "No. But mine to lead."

  "Yes."

  She looked away. "And they are still mine to lead." She swallowed. "But the Ospreys are yours, Duarte. Tell them."

  "Tell them?"

  "That if they desire it, there is still room for them within the House Guard."

  The enormity of the words took a moment to sink in. "Still room?" he said at last, reduced to mimicry, his voice almost too quiet to be heard.

  "No matter what decision they make, they will be AKalakar until they commit a crime too great for the House to overlook. They've been under your peacetime care for over a decade; I can well believe that they are capable of retaining the honor their role in war purchased."

  She closed her eyes. Opened them, as if unsheathing a flawless steel that had been carefully guarded until that moment. "I am retiring the colors of the company," she told him, each word flat and without inflection. "The Black Ospreys—as they were—do not have the numbers necessary to form a unit in the army, and because we will be traveling through largely friendly terrain in the South, it is believed that the Annagarian cerdan will be up to the task of fulfilling the role they once held."

  He was speechless.

  She expected this. She started to speak. Stopped. Started again. Protocol was something she understood well; how could she not? She was The Kalakar; ruler of one of The Ten, a political force to be reckoned with among the most elevated of the patriciate.

  But she was more than that. Much more.

  "Duarte," she said, voice low, "understand that I have no choice in this."

  "Just as," he said sharply, "you had no choice in the Averdan valleys?"

  "Just as," she spit back, as if slapped. "Figure it out for yourself. Or do you want me to say it?"

  He didn't answer.

  "Very well. You were the single force responsible for the Southern fear of the Northern armies. And with cause. I am not ashamed of the role you played. I would not have had that responsibility in any other hands. You did better than any of us could have foreseen. But if you travel with the army, the Tyr'agar and his retinue travel with the army. You know the politics of the South. You know that this is not the last war we will have. Either this generation, or the next, will come back to the borders with something to prove."

  He nodded.

  "I can withdraw you from the service of the Tyr. That was my first choice."

  He bowed his head then.

  "You know why I can't."

  "I would prefer that to this."

  "I know. You lived and you died for those colors; they're a part of everything you've achieved. To retire them in battle—at the end of the war—may have been the wisest decision. But I thought to leave you what you had achieved. I did not intend to—It doesn't matter. The colors will be retired. If you wish it, you will be absorbed into the House Guards, and with honor."

  "They won't do it," he said.

  She didn't insult him by asking who. Instead, she leaned across the desk. "You have never disappointed me. Not in any way that matters. You know why I did not withdraw you from service to the Tyr'agar."

  "Because you're afraid he'll die."

  "Because I know that anyone else will fail," she said quietly. "I will deny this, and you know full well why, but no other unit could have achieved what you have in the months that we've been preparing for this war. The boy is alive. And alive is how we need him. But not even the Ospreys are good enough to travel in Averda with that flag flying in their gods cursed winds. Not without the rest of the army. You're a legend there," she added, with a trace of bitter pride. "The Berriliya would be happy to see you make the attempt if he was not also certain it would cost us the life of the boy."

  Duarte AKalakar—no longer captain—was silent for a long, long time. "What happens after the war?"

  "You will always be AKalakar," she said. "You will always have a home in the House."

  "And the colors?"

  "What has been retired," she replied evenly, "can be honored again by men and women who have proved their worth—and their loyalty—to the House."

  "And what if they would rather stay with the House?"

  She snorted. "You serve me," she said softly. "But they serve you. They always have."

  "Kalakar—"

  "I need you there."

  "And is that an order?"

  "I have a suspicion that the moment you leave this room, I will no longer have the legal right to give you a military order; I can't as much as inspect your uniform."

  "Probably a good thing."

  She smiled. Gallows humor. "I have the legal right of the head of a House, and that is murky and easily contested."

  He nodded. It was true.

  So much about her was true. If he closed his eyes, he could see her face in the harsh and unforgiving sunlight of the Averdan valleys, blood streaming from a grazed forehead, like the proverbial river; he could trace its flow down the creases of her face as it met with the blood from a badly wounded shoulder. He remembered the shock of it; the one wound and the other; it was as if a statue was bleeding, no, worse, as if a House was.

  She spoke, her lips moved, the sound came to him over so many sounds it was hard to distinguish the words; but because they were her words, and she was inexplicably there, and bleeding, he had struggled to do so. Light glinted off mail and glove; light off sword, as if her sword were somehow burning. She was the Lord's Lady, on this field, and at her back, grim-faced and feral, stood the House Guards of Kalakar. Did you think we would leave you behind? I'm on the field, Captain. You're mine. It was foolish, but at that moment, surrounded by arrow and magefire and the broken bodies of the men he had forged into weapons, and worse—gods, so much worse—into friends, he had felt… safe. She had come to bring them all home.

  Strange, that he should recognize the feeling, when he had never experienced it before in his life, either in youth or in adulthood.

  Safety.

  Home.

  And he had known, then, although he had suspected it before that moment, that he would willingly follow this woman for the rest of his life, no matter how long or how short that might be.

  "Duarte," she said quietly.

  He frowned and then realized that he had been staring at her, searching for the old scar of that particular battle. Like a map, he thought, the scar would lead him. But to where?

  She met his gaze, and he stared at her face for a full minute, understanding what she asked of him. Understanding what she promised: that she would cross the valleys for him—and his—again.

  If he did this; if he followed yet another set of orders that it was not within her legal power to give, and not within her power to acknowledge directly.

  He found himself smiling, although his mind was already twisting and turning around the explanation he would have to give his Ospreys—his, regardless of the flag that flew above their heads. "One question, Kalakar."

  "Ask it."

  "Who's going to pay us?"

  It had been so long since Auralis had blushed that he would have bet money—his own even—that he was no longer capable of it. Luckily, it wasn't a bet that anyone with half a brain would have taken, even after a night of heavy drinking, so his money, what little of it there was, remained safe.

  "Auralis?"

  By way of reply he kicked a stone. Unfortunately, that stone was part of a road that was actually in very good repair, given the section of town they were in. You could always count on the roads to be whatever it was you didn't want. He cursed.

  Kiriel frowned. "You tripped over the road?"

  "It happens."

  "Oh." She paused, her gaze half glare, half question. Since the night that she had lost most of whatever it was that had made her s
o deadly, she had also lost the preternatural ability to pick out a lie from a truth, or vice versa. She had what everyone else had: instinct. She also had very little raw ability to use it. But she was Kiriel. Anything that had an offensive application, she learned quickly.

  "Did you hear my question?"

  She also denned the word dogged when it sat in front of the word determination; once she started in on something she simply refused to let go. He had seen mastiffs who were easier to shake off.

  In a fight, it was a trait Auralis admired. She approached each combat as if the possibility of dying was so foreign a concept her language didn't contain a word for death, except in as it related to other people's. Unfortunately, she approached everything else the same way.

  "Kiriel, that's not a question you can just come out and ask a man."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you ask that of the wrong man, and you won't like the answer."

  She snorted, an unattractive habit she'd picked up from either Alexis or Fiara. "At least I'd get an answer." She paused a moment, and then smiled.

  For just that stretch of lip and teeth, he felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. He no longer faltered in stride or reached for a weapon when this happened in Kiriel's presence, but the upper and lower halves of his jaw met in a tight grinding of teeth.

  "Besides, if I didn't like the answer, he'd never give it again."

  "True enough," Auralis said, forcing himself to shrug. It wasn't hard; by nature his movements were quick and graceful. Even caution couldn't force stiffness into them. "And then every magisterian in the city would be after your head. I've seen your idea of 'never'." As he rounded the buildings that formed a tall and narrow corner of the intersection, he reached up and smacked a heavy sign that hung from two twisted chains. The words were lost to darkness—or dirt—but he knew what they said. This was Smacker's place. Neither he nor Kiriel had ever started a fight in it, and consequently it was one of a handful of places where they didn't have to circumnavigate a large man with a sword to get in.

  "We're here."

  "But you haven't answered the question."

  The door was open. The sound of a full house drifted lazily out into the cool night air. He hung back; he did not want to have this particular conversation in any place that could be remotely considered public.

  But he did want a drink.

  "Kiriel," he said, staring into a welcome haze of smoke and light, "just because you ask the question doesn't mean I have to answer it."

  He didn't much like the look he got in response. She was such a mystery to him. There wasn't anyone else he'd choose to have at his side—or back—in a fight. First, because of all the Ospreys she was the only one who was consistently—to his great chagrin—faster than he was, both on the draw and to the actual battle. Second, the Ospreys had an informal contest that had started up at about the same time as they met their first demon. It was a friendly competition, or about as friendly as any competition among Ospreys ever got; a head count. They'd started an Annie head count in the war twelve years past—one that was strictly speaking forbidden by the Crowns. That had been easier to win.

  The demons never arrived in great numbers. But at the moment, the kills racked up by himself and Kiriel counted as joint efforts, putting the informal team where Auralis best liked to be: at the head of the pack, rather than in the middle. He didn't allow for the possibility of being anywhere near the back. No way he could be, and still be fighting side by side with her.

  But outside of a fight…

  She was young enough to be his daughter, much as it pained him to admit it. In and of itself, this wasn't a problem; he'd certainly had any number of girls that were scarcely older.

  But he was no longer a young fool; he understood that entanglements of any sort had their price, and he paid it grudgingly. Better to cleanly offer coin and take only what was wanted, when it was wanted, than to pay in other ways.

  "You find me attractive." It wasn't a question.

  "A corpse would find you attractive." He smiled; the smile was politely refused by the stiff lines of her—yes, very beautiful—face. "But I don't sleep with Ospreys."

  "You've slept with Alexis."

  This was not he first time he had a strong desire to kill Alexis; if he somehow failed to do it, it probably wouldn't be the last.

  "Did she happen to tell you how long ago that was?"

  "When she was almost as young as I am," Kiriel said, through clenched teeth. "She says you don't like 'em old."

  Strike that. This time, he was going to kill the bitch. He wondered if she were somewhere in the bar, listening with what little mage talent she had, and laughing. The slightly condescending and unpleasant expression that passed for a smile on Alexis' face often made everything about her seem sharper and harder.

  It was only with Duarte that she really let her guard down. Of course, it was only with Duarte that she really stuck the knife in and twisted.

  "Okay, let's try this a different way." He really wanted the drink on the other side of the door frame. Almost as much as he wanted to kill Alexis. He thought about both of these things with a forced intensity; it was better than actually thinking of Kiriel.

  Because she was beautiful; she was attractive. She had every bit of allure that walking death always does for the right kind of man—and Auralis knew that he defined that type. He also knew death when he saw it. Not the risk of death, but death.

  He didn't love life, but he had a few things he wanted to do before it ended.

  He had experience in letting people down. Bitter experience. He had learned the patina of letting them down gently when given the opportunity; was not above cruelty in the right circumstance. Was certainly not above a gentle lie.

  But she was Osprey. She would kill for him. He suspected that in the right circumstances, she would die for him. Somehow, the outsider had come in, when he wasn't looking.

  He owed her honesty. He considered honesty to be highly overrated. He put his left hand, half flat, against the wall; there was nothing he could do to stop the right one from curling into a fist with suspiciously white knuckles. Long experience made him give up after a minute of trying. He took a step away from the door to let people in and out. The sign above them swung, creaking when the winds came tunneling into the still streets; they didn't stay long.

  "Kiriel, I don't sleep with virgins. Too complicated."

  She was silent for what seemed hours. "Alexis told me," she said at last, "that you would say no."

  "Alexis," he said, "is smart. She's a bitch, but she's not a stupid bitch." He started toward the door, exposing his back. Stopped in the frame, when no echo of armor or footstep fell in behind him. He could feel his jaw clamping tight, and worked to loosen it.

  "Kiriel," he said, turning.

  She was still as stone, and about as colorful.

  "You are going to be my life and death when we leave this city. You're already unofficially considered my partner, the other half—the better half—of a team. I can't—I will never be able—to be a real lover, a half husband like Duarte is to Alexis, like most men are to the women they love. All I can offer is a good time, and I can't even guarantee that. I can't do that with you. You have to mean more to me than just a quick—" The door hit him, hard.

  The person pushing it made it clear that he thought people who got in his way were lucky to get hit in the back by a door traveling at high speed, and not something more fatal. Auralis, already not in the best of moods, thanked Kalliaris briefly for the interruption, and drove his conveniently preclenched fist into the man's gut, hard.

  Which was fine, but unfortunately, the three men behind him weren't all that impressed when he went over and started retching in the street.

  There was some chance, given the situation, that everyone's ruffled feathers could be calmed by a judicious display of apology for unfortunate reflexes, but Auralis, sometime Decarus of the Black Ospreys, wasn't about to let an opportunity slip away.
/>
  20th of Scaral 427 AA

  Terafin Manse

  "What is it about men and fighting?" Finch ATerafin did not have Jay's unruly hair, but she had—over years of exposure—picked up some of her gestures; she shoved straight hair back out of her eyes, giving it a frustrated tug over the forehead.

  Teller, so aware of the value of words that he used them seldom, shrugged.

  Carver's right eye was swollen shut; Angel's nose was broken. Finch considered it a small miracle that neither of them had lost any teeth—at least none that were visible. She didn't bother to ask them why they hadn't gone to the healerie. Unless it was likely to be fatal, neither the aged Alowan nor his young apprentice, Daine, were willing to offer their aid in relieving the pain of a self-inflicted wound.

  Or several.

  "Well?"

  They were silent, but Carver's eyes flickered to the side of Angel's impenetrable expression. Which meant that Angel had started the fight, and Carver had come to his aid. Again. Angel had chosen not to take the ATerafin name; he could not be accused of being a disgrace to the House. Carver didn't have that much leeway. He had already been called in, quietly, to speak with Gabriel, The Terafin's right-kin; the man she trusted to deal with potential embarrassments to the House name.

  Do you know what you're doing to him? She wanted to shout at Angel. Wanted to add to the bruises that were already discoloring his once perfect, pale skin. But what was the point? Carver had taken the House name, but at heart he was what he had always been: part of Jay's den, and willing to die to defend it when he wasn't scared witless by whatever it was that it needed defending from.

  The kitchen was absolutely silent. Finch was certain the reflection that stared back at her from the rounded sides of carefully cleaned pots had actual gray hair. On the other hand, she had walked into the job with her eyes open; she had always covered for Jay during Jay's merchant voyages.

  But those voyages, undertaken at the behest of The Terafin, were different from this one. Because on regular Terafin business, Jay always took Angel and Carver with her; she often took Teller. Jester, she left behind to man the kitchen with Finch. Finch had traveled with her once, by boat, and left Teller in the kitchen. She learned from that experience that she did not enjoy boats, and that she enjoyed the Northern cold and the Northern barbarians—a word she had to struggle not to use—even less, and she had commandeered the reading and writing work for every absence that followed.