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

  "My apologies, Matriarch. You have done so much, saved so many lives. But I cannot grant your request at this time."

  "It's not a request."

  The young woman—the beautiful, almost flawless young woman who by appearance alone made Margret feel old, wind-worn, sunburned, and distinctly unattractive—bowed her head. Her hair was tied back in an almost careless knot, but its perfect, raven's wing black caught the firelight and held it as if it were a dark, dark diamond. Her skin was white and unblemished; Margret knew it was childish, but she looked forward to the effect of wind and sun on that pampered, oiled, powdered skin.

  Because there wasn't any way that the Serra was going to return to the life she'd just left. How could she?

  And what did it matter?

  The clansmen could politic to death; all Margret wanted—all she had ever wanted—from them was now hanging on a slender chain around this woman's throat.

  The Heart of Arkosa.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Margret, don't!" Elena's voice. Elena's words. They were just a little too far away. Margret crossed the circle, circumventing the fire that protected them all, and grabbed the Serra by the shoulders, shaking her.

  "Yes," the Serra replied evenly, the steel hidden in velvet. "I heard you, Matriarch."

  "It would be impossible not to," Yollana snapped.

  "Heartfire's protection or no, Matriarch, it's nothing short of a miracle that the whole family isn't listening."

  "And making bets, if I know the Arkosans," Elsarre added. But her criticism was muted. Of the four Matriarchs, she had taken the sharpest dislike to the Serra Diora, and while she was willing to snipe in general, she was careful not to do it in a way that would aid the Serra. To Margret's embarrassment, it was Elsarre's dislike that made her treat the Serra with anything approaching courtesy; it was the safest way to slap Elsarre in the figurative face for free.

  Slapping her in the face in any other way would just rekindle the wars that—with the luck of the Lady—had been put to rest by the Night's work and the presence of their ancient enemy. The Corronans and the Arkosans were not friendly. Of course, with a Matriarch like Elsarre—all pretense of beauty and importance, all sharp-edged arrogance and casual cruelty—it would be hard for the Corronans to make friends. Unfortunately, killing one's own Matriarch was a precedent that a woman with a tenuous hold over her own title couldn't quite support. And sadly, if Margret wanted to do her in, the Corronans were likely to express their gratitude for being rid of such a blight in only one way: war.

  But at least it would be a fight that Margret understood. Unlike this one, with this Serra, this so-called Flower of the damn Dominion.

  It was hard to have an argument with stone.

  Slapping stone also had its consequences, and they were obvious enough that Margret, in fury, managed to hold her hand, although her fingers were curled into fists that trembled with her effort. But she couldn't contain movement, and within the guarded circle of heartfire and Voyani magics, she paced the thin grass off the earth. Grinding her heels into the packed dirt made her feel slightly better.

  "We saved you, you ungrateful—"

  "Margret!" Yollana made her name a harsh bark.

  But the Serra-Diora-damned-di'Marano said nothing at all. Strands of her hair had fallen loose with the shaking, and now trailed down the side of her delicate face; disheveled she looked… beautiful. Margret hated her. And was fascinated by her, in a furious way. There she knelt, hands in lap, on an unrolled mat that the Serra Teresa had brought into the circle for her when Margret made it perfectly clear that her seraf was not welcome to enter. Her precious knees never once touched dirt. She had spoken only a sentence or two—but she was like all clanswomen; as speech was so often denied them, they'd learned to hone words until they were like the thin edge of a dagger in their effect.

  On the other hand, no one knew how to wield a dagger better than a Voyani Matriarch. No one.

  The Serra Diora bowed low, her head touching her perfect, protected knees. "Yes," she said softly. "Although I do not understand how it was possible, I have some understanding of what you faced, and what you defeated; I understand my debt to you. I do not know if I will be able to pay it, and I regret… that I must refuse your request." She sat in that submissive posture, and Margret understood, again, the subterfuge of posture.

  Because there was nothing submissive about this woman. Oh, she was good. If Margret didn't keep an eye on her, she'd probably have the caravan wrapped around her little finger without speaking more than a dozen demure words.

  It wasn't a request! Margret wanted to shout. But Yollana's expression had passed from forbidding to actively threatening, and Elsarre looked a bit too eager for a fight. Maria? Silent, silent, silent. But her gaze lingered a moment over Diora's bent back, and she straightened her shoulders, compressed her lips.

  Enough. The only winner in this confrontation was likely to be Diora, and Margret wasn't about to hand her her victory; let her work for it. It certainly didn't look like she'd ever had to work for anything else.

  "When, then?" Margret said, terse now because it was bloody hard not to say what she was thinking.

  In answer, Diora unfolded until her back was straight and her chin parallel with the ground. The Serra had, Margret thought, the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. Not cold, like Maria's almost Northern eyes, but dark as Lady's night and Lady's shadow. Mystery, there. She didn't want to be beguiled. She didn't want to seem intimidated; she met those eyes and held them.

  And then she said, in a voice that she knew was hers because of the sensation of speech, the movement of air across lips, the intake of breath and the sharp punctuation of the same breath when she was done. "Tell me about Evallen of the Arkosa Voyani."

  "Have a care, Matriarch," Yollana said. Margret almost ordered her out of the circle.

  And that would be the act of a fool.

  "Did she give you your—burden—when she was dying?"

  She expected the Serra to look away, as Serras so often did. She expected some pretty hesitation; the Serras were so often fluttery, delicate things, who moved with enviable grace and spoke in soft, fluting voices, and never wrinkled their faces with anything as common as a frown.

  But this Serra, while she did not frown, did not flinch.

  The eyes, Margret thought. For a minute, they were the dark of the Lady's Night—the Lady's desert Night; the terrible oblivion of cold. What have you done, Serra? What have you seen? She didn't ask. And not only because she knew better than to expose ignorance in front of an enemy or a rival.

  Part of her didn't want to know what the answer was.

  But as Diora didn't have the decency to look away, neither could Margret.

  "Evallen of the Arkosa Voyani came to me in the company of the Radann kai el'Sol."

  "Impossible."

  "I would have thought so, and perhaps it was; but she had a unique voice."

  The Serra Teresa reached out gently and touched the Serra Diora's shoulder, and although she was dressed as a slender clansman, the movement made it clear that they were of the same blood. Family. It made Diora seem less cold.

  Which was no doubt what they both intended. Margret didn't trust them at all.

  "And?"

  "She gave me the pendant."

  Silence.

  "Matriarch," Yollana said, her voice the cracked, dry voice of age withered by sun and wind—the perfect foil for the Serra Diora's voice. "The Arkosan Matriarch made her decision."

  But the bitch knew that she was going to die; she knew, and she gave the Heart to—to her!

  They watched, and Elena touched Margret's shoulder, her grip harder and more obvious than the Serra Teresa's grip upon the Serra Diora. A small mirror. Margret shrugged Elena's hand off; Diora failed to notice Serra Teresa's.

  "How did she die?"

  "You know how she died, Margret." Yollana, again.

  "Were you there?" Margret said, deliberately ignoring Yo
llana—which would no doubt have repercussions later— because, Lady's blood, the wound was open, the pain raw in a way that spoke of all kinds of loss.

  Diora froze for a moment, although, until she did, Margret would have said that she had not moved at all. There was some subtle difference between her economy of motion and its complete lack; it was as if the cold had spread in a flash, like fire, from her eyes to the rest of her. The Serra Teresa seemed to be speaking, but there was no sound, no words. Then the young woman—whose gaze had never left Margret's—said, "Yes."

  They all turned to stare at her. Until then their gaze had been bouncing, like a child's toy, between the Serra and the leader of the Arkosan Voyani.

  "You—you were witness?"

  "More," she said quietly.

  The Serra Teresa's hand tightened perceptibly. The younger Serra raised her own and touched it, capturing it, or perhaps easing its grip.

  "More?"

  "I killed her."

  Before Elena could stop her—before she could stop herself—Margret slapped the young woman who sat, her perfect knees bent on a rolled mat before the fire. That brought noise back into the circle.

  Elena caught Margret's wrist in a grip that said, clearly, do-that-again-and-I'll-break-it, and Yollana shouted her name in a tone reserved for Havallan curses. The Serra Maria, the Matriarch Maria, ever on the fence between the two worlds she had chosen, spoke.

  "Serra Diora," she said flatly, "that was unnecessary."

  Her hair disheveled, the bruise coming to her cheek, the Serra Diora di'Marano turned to look—at last—at her accuser. The grim stare was as much a struggle as Margret's attempt to free her wrist from Elena's grip.

  But in the end, Elena won.

  Serra Diora di'Marano bowed her head, bowed now as a clanswoman did in the company not of women, but of men. Or of enemies. "She was being questioned by the Sword's Edge, another man, and a servant of the Lord of Night.

  "I do not know what you know of the Sword's Edge—"

  "We know enough," Yollana replied, grim now, her voice as flat and cold as Diora's. It was as frightening a transition as Margret had seen in the old woman.

  "—but she was not afraid of him; it was the demon. The demon was destroying her."

  "This was done in public?"

  "It was done at midnight."

  "And you just conveniently happened to be there?"

  "No."

  "Why were you there?"

  "Her punishment for the crime of daring to wear the robes of a Radann was that she be put on public display for the remainder of the Festival and killed at its height."

  "And?"

  "I could not free her; it was not within my power. But I—"

  The understanding did not ease Margret at all. It came, like a flash of storm-light, blinding, terrible. "You went to kill her."

  The Serra did not flinch. Did not bow or scrape. Did not offer the submissive noises that made it clear that she understood the full consequences of her crime. Instead, as if they were equals here—here—she answered. "Yes."

  If she could have, Margret would have slapped her again, or worse. But she knew her cousin; Elena would break her wrist. That much was clear by the white edges around lips pressed into as thin a line as Margret had ever seen.

  "She knew everything," Diora said softly, lifting her head again. "She knew everything. Understand that what is at stake is too important to let knowledge slip into enemy hands without even the attempt to preserve our secrecy. I have lived the secret life," she added, her voice showing a hint—a trace—of emotion that vanished before Margret could name it. "I understand the need for secrecy."

  Yollana's voice, unexpectedly gentle; Margret hated it. "She would have expected no less from you, Serra. She would have done the same, or worse, were your positions reversed."

  The Serra nodded. "She gave me one other thing."

  "What?"

  "A dagger. The dagger is long and slender; it is not jeweled or adorned in any obvious way. But she named it—"

  "Lumina Arden," Margret could not keep the incredulity out of her voice. She had never had to. The cool of this… this… woman galled her, enraged her. "She gave you that knife?" But not so much as the fact that her mother's last act of significance had been to gift this stranger, this unblooded clansman, with the responsibilities that Margret herself had sought approval for for an entire lifetime.

  She had never hated anyone so much in her life—or rather, had never hated any two people. She wasn't certain whom she hated more: the stranger or her mother.

  "Yes. A gift, she said, free of geas." She bowed her head for another moment. "I kept both. I had both with me when I went to… to find your mother before the first full day of her ordeal had started. I did find her. But she was not alone."

  "Not alone."

  "She was being… questioned. I arrived too late."

  Now, three breaths were drawn, held: Yollana's, the Serra Maria's, Elsarre's. Margret's, already held in an attempt to keep her bitter, sharp words where they couldn't do any further damage to her reputation among the Matriarchs, didn't change. But the Serra was staring at a point beyond them, into night sky, dark night. Memory called, and to judge by the expression on her face, she was an audience and Memory was the stage, the ever-unfolding play; she was captivated.

  "Your mother saw me. I do not understand the gift she gave—and I wish no understanding; in my experience a true understanding of things Voyani is often a precursor to a death; death guards secrets far better than life, and I have much to do before I keep secrets in such a fashion."

  Margret realized that the Serra was actually speaking.

  Since she'd arrived she had done nothing but defer or demurely shunt aside all questions, pointed or gentle; this was as much speech as Margret had heard. And the words were soft and sweet; not too high and not brought low by age. The voice was perfect.

  Even in capitulation, it was perfect.

  "I do not know if it was the pendant or the knife that brought me to your mother. She called me, and I came; I had to come to her side." She paused and looked away for the first time, seeking the faces of the three Matriarchs who had not built fire with heart's work and blood. They had faces of wood or stone; faces of earth. Everything was beneath the surface. She turned back to Margret, to Margret who struggled so ineffectually to keep rage and pain from her voice and face.

  "I walked among her enemies and they did not see me, but she did. She asked me—she asked me for death.

  "She was dying. She was dying and she was—I think— stronger than most men would have been. She told me she had told them nothing. I… am skilled in some of the Lady's arts. Very few of the living can offer me a lie that I will accept; she offered only truth. But she also said— and, forgive me, Matriarch, but I did not and still do not understand this—if I did not kill her, the servant of the Lord of Night would bind her for three days."

  "The Three Days," Yollana said quietly.

  "Yes."

  The oldest of the Matriarchs closed her eyes then, turning her head to one side to protect the brunt of her involuntary expression.

  "And you killed her? You're telling us that you—" Elena's hand, like a steadying, constant presence, piercing the flesh around collarbone in an attempt to shake the words loose in a way that wouldn't diminish them.

  "She wasn't there, Margret; think. What was she wearing? What did she bear? Evallen was alive; wearing it or no, she was still the source of its power; it was hers to command. The girl had no choice; she has never been schooled in our arts. Had Evallen commanded you or I that way, we would have had some ability to refuse. Although our ability and hers would be tested at that moment.

  "The Heart carried her spirit to Evallen; there is some mercy in the forces that drive us, inexplicable and beyond our ability to invoke, but present in its fashion." Again, Yollana's voice, for all the harshness of the words, was gentle. It was more than Margret could bear, but she was Matriarch; she bore it. "The
knife?"

  "The knife? I—ah. Yes, Matriarch. You are wise. I carried the dagger, Lumina Arden. I have carried it in any sari I wear since it passed into my hands; it is… light and… easily hidden."

  "It is."

  "It was the only weapon I had with me that night."

  The old woman bowed her head. "I will make my offerings to the Lady," she said, "before dawn. Had you carried any other knife, we would not, I think, be here tonight. But I'm old, and I am easily distracted. Tell us the rest, and I will smoke in silence."

  True to her word, she fumbled in her vest a moment and pulled out a short, squat pipe, something that seemed a lot like her: ancient, practical, and as enduring as the seasons. Margret had never taken comfort from the pipe. Or from drink, although the latter was more attractive. She wished she had one now, and that it was both warm and strong. The night was cold.

  "I pulled it out of my robe that night. I pulled it. She asked me to kill her." Her eyes fell to her hands, to her perfect, unblemished, undarkened hands—and she stared at them as if they were anathema; as if they were offensive to her in a way that only memory provided the key for.

  It made her seem human, for just a moment. It eased— only slightly—the terrible bitterness that Margret could not contain. It was almost as if—but, no, that was impossible. A woman like this one had killed before, would kill again. Could probably do it without crying or weeping, or shouting or smiling—without surrendering any part of herself to the act.

  "And he looked at me."

  "He?" All gentleness was gone from Yollana's voice, from Yollana's expression.

  "Yes. The servant of the Lord. He knew I was there." She was silent; the silence had the quality of indecision.

  Had it been Margret, Yollana would have snapped like a rabid dog; it was the Serra; she held her tongue and waited. Margret was almost beside herself with bitter fury.

  "He saw me."

  "He saw you." The oldest of the Matriarchs had a voice dry as desert dust—the kind the wind sweeps away without effort. Her lids fell; she sat a moment in a bleak, stiff silence that spoke of death or mourning. Yollana had a touch of the seer's blood in her. They all did, but in Yollana, it ran true. The silence held until she chose to open her eyes and speak. "And?"