Sun Sword - The Riven Shield Part 20

She missed them, in its heart, but children did not travel in the Sea of Sorrows unless death threatened them otherwise. Having survived the trek, she knew why. She wondered where they were.

She trod carefully when she approached the water itself, afraid to crush these small miracles, these new births. She noticed their leaves, small and squat; their stems, thin and supple as they leaned toward the moving river.

If she knew how to listen, she thought she might hear the plants whisper or speak as they nodded and bowed like a congregation of children.

But she did not know how to listen; only how to observe. In the brilliant hue of setting sun, she watched.

Kallandras of Senniel College walked the river's bank in silence, but not in isolation. Celleriant of the Green Deepings, Celleriant of the Court of the Winter Queen, walked beside him. He moved without apparent effort, his steps light and graceful; he disturbed nothing as he pa.s.sed over it. Every so often he would bend, his knees brushing sand and dirt, his fingers caressing the upturned face of a pale flower, a leaf's bud, a delicate stem. He would speak, then. But even when she could hear his voice, his words were like a song; she could understand none of them.

If Kallandras was likewise enc.u.mbered by ignorance, it did not show. He would tilt his head to one side, listening, and on occasion, he too spoke.

Those words were private words; they made no sound. She envied the person who did hear them.

Was surprised at the strength of that envy.

By her side, warm shadow, and tall, stood the stag. He left her only to drink from the waters that rushed past, and he did not stay long in that water.

Yollana of the Havalla Voyani and the Serra Teresa were likewise inseparable. Stavos attended them in almost perfect silence, for they seldom acknowledged his presence. He had left wife and Matriarch behind, but if he yearned for either, it did not show; he walked with quiet purpose.

The man who had identified himself as Radann-which was, as far as Jewel could tell, a priest of some sort-often walked alone. But like the stag to Jewel, he did not stray far from the side of the Serra Diora. Neither did her seraf.

Seraf.

Jewel knew that in the Empire, he would have been called a slave; knew, too, that in the Empire, she would have despised the Serra for retaining him. Knowledge and emotions tangled briefly, and as was so often the case, emotion won; this was not a man who seemed chained and bowed by the servitude that his country considered his only recourse. Although he seldom spoke, his attention was focused, tuned, honed; she was his craft; she was his life's purpose. In the relative prosperity of the Empire, the concept of a willing, proud slave would have been anathema, an intellectual puzzle at best.

Jewel was far from home.

And the only person that she had brought with her was as silent as this seraf.

But he was not her shadow. He walked alone. Ate alone. Slept alone. He was never far from her side, but he was never too close; she could look at him and see profile, the proud line of brow, the strong nose, the unmoving jaw, a statue's repose.

Something warm and wet brushed the nape of her neck. She turned to meet the large, unblinking eyes of a creature that had once been-in a lost season-the Winter King.

"What?"

He nudged her arm gently. Only when he did so did she realize that she had been reflexively rubbing her sleeve, running its rough, heavy fabric against skin broken by the mark on her arm. It was flat; she could not feel it. Nor could she see it. But she knew its shape better than she knew the shape of her hands, her legs, her feet, the parts of her body that she could almost always see. Red, red S, livid like burned flesh, broken in the middle of each of its outer curves by a silver V and a gold one. She stopped at once, letting her arm fall loosely to her side.

The stag nudged her arm again.

"Let it be," she whispered.

You are worried.

The sound of his voice was warm and deep. She remembered, dimly, that she had once found these words vaguely threatening, but all that remained of that feeling was memory.

"I'm always worried. If it's not one thing, it's another."

She heard the dry chuckle of an older man. You are worried about Viandaran.

"Avandar."

As you wish.

"You read too much into gestures."

You read too superficially.

Her shrug was economical.

Speak to him.

She said, by way of reply, "I think Marakas is about to call it a night."

But the stag nudged her again, drawing tines across her brow. They were sharper than she remembered, a reminder-if she needed one-that he was not the hunted, here.

You are worried, Jewel.

"I told you-"

And because of your gift, you cannot afford to ignore what you feel.

She hesitated for another moment. "You were like him, when you were . . ."

When I was a man?

Her nod was brief. Yes.

I was like him, yes. But unlike; even at the height of my power, when I could see no threat to my dominion, I acknowledged the power of the Warlord.

She hated that word. "It's easier to forget that. About you."

You have no desire to remember it. And I have little reason to remind you. But again, he stroked her forehead with his lower tines.

She withdrew then. But she also surrendered. "I would. I'd speak to him if I could think of anything to say."

Avandar had come too soon from the mountains, and he yearned for them, although he knew the pa.s.sage into the Stone Deepings had destroyed much of the bindings that kept them safe from the old paths, the hidden ways.

He might have returned, but he was held fast by a binding he had made in haste. It had been centuries, more, since he had last chosen to cast such a spell, and leave such a mark, and after it, too, had failed, the disappointment had scoured him of desire. He had not thought to be tempted by mortality again.

And had he guessed that the time would come when he would be, he would never have guessed that it would be for someone as simple, as reckless, as Jewel ATerafin.

She was no fool. Had she been, they would never have met. But had she been competent, had she been-as all of his wives had been, in a painful and distant past-truly powerful, he might never have been summoned from the halls of the Domicis to serve her.

The service rankled.

The past, invoked by the dormant Tor Arkosa, had opened its doors and windows, beckoning. Not a single one of the Voyani could claim the kinship with that unearthed City that he could, should he so choose; not a single one of these diminished, neglected descendants could conceive of what that City had been-and could still be-when it was ruled by a man who understood how to take and wield power.

They were broken, shadows, crippled mortals whose only link to the past lay in a name and a measured span of years. They could not understand what had pa.s.sed before them, and even if they did, he was certain that they would not seek to attain it again.

And why should they?

In their mediocrity and their fear they had almost outlasted the ancient powers that had guided their ancestors; one or two of the ancient weapons, crafted in the forges of the Deepings, were theirs to command-but they understood these weapons so poorly.

It was their war.

It was theirs, but he had walked the perimeter of the Tor Arkosa, and he had heard, in its ascension, the ancient voice of the slumbering earth. He had seen the ghosts of his own dead, and he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he had not-could never-join them.

Lord Celleriant of the Green Deepings cast a slender shadow in the slow progress of dusk. The mount of the Winter Queen cast a man's shadow, if one knew how to look; for Avandar, such knowledge required no effort. The knowledge that Lord Ishavriel walked across these sands had hardly moved him.

But the existence of Telakar in the wastelands spoke to him in a way that he could not deny. He desired power, now.

And he desired peace.

He stood between these two, and thought of the mountain stronghold in which he had often sought refuge.

ATerafin.

He lifted his arm. Lifted it, letting the folds of his simple shirt drift elbow-ward at the behest of gravity. She was his; he had placed his mark upon her in an attempt to save her life. She had reacted as she so often did: In haste, in anger, and in ignorance.

But this binding, unlike the previous one, was unique. He might have explained it, had his waking in the mountain vastness been untroubled and unenc.u.mbered. He might have explained it later, but her vision, hobbled by lack of training, by lack of exposure to the path of the Firstborn, was cutting nonetheless, and he had retreated from the unexpected vulnerability left him by her sight.

If he had wondered, in the distant past, about the power of the seer-born, he wondered no longer; his only hope of maintaining his own control lay in her profound inexperience.

Lifting his arm, he gazed at the skin between wrist and elbow. Nestled there, gleaming like the edge of a narrow blade, was the sigil of the Warlord.

In the long years of his adulthood-childhood was a territory that had long deserted him, and not even the memories of its pa.s.sage remained-he had only chosen to bear such a mark once; it had almost killed him.

Death should be a gift; it was denied him. He had searched many years for it, and each time, it had eluded him. But he felt a different desire now, and it was hard to turn away from it.

He let his arm drop to his side. Night was falling.

He needed no protection from the elements, and he was capable of sustaining himself in the absence of food and water, although it was costly.

But he had learned, with time, that sleep was a necessity. For three days now, he had avoided it.

But it was coming. This evening, he would sleep.

And in dreams, he had little defense against her.

Jewel stood upon the flat of a gra.s.sy hilltop. Her boots were wet with dew, her feet cool. She wore her own clothing-the thin Northern cottons that she favored when the humidity in Averalaan had become at least as uncomfortable as sweat. Her arms were bare. Her head was covered, although her hair-curling ferociously in the damp air-constantly pushed the covering askew.

Finch gently prodded her about hairpins and braids; Jewel hated both because she couldn't keep track of where she'd put the former, and the latter, besides being a bit of a fuss, made her feel like a twelve year old.

She turned to say as much, but Finch wasn't there. Nor was Teller.

Instead, she saw Avandar, robed as domicis, his expression vaguely disapproving, his arms by his sides. He looked so normal, she had a sudden urge to hug him, to cling to him, as if by clinging she could force him to retain this shape.

"Knowledge," he said, the word itself a condescension, "is power. How many times must I repeat this?"

"As many times," she replied, "as you want, if it makes you happy."

"You cannot be a power and dwell in ignorance."

"I don't want to be a power."

"It is far too late for that, Jewel. Far too late. You have made your vows." He lifted an arm, pointing, and she followed the gesture, her gaze dragged by the imperative of dreaming.

The mists that were often so heavy in the city began to clear, and she realized that the hilltop was not to be a refuge. She was not in Averalaan.

"Where are we?"

"At the heart of your gift," he told her, almost gently.

She knew it was true.

"Avandar."

He looked down. "Yes?"

"Why are you here?"

"I will always be here. But that is not your question."

Rolling her eyes, she spoke again. "Why are you here, in my dream?"

"I . . . do not know. But, yes. I am . . . myself."

"Where are we?"

The lift of his brow was a gift, although she knew she had annoyed him. "Did I not give you the maps of this terrain?"

". . . No."

"Ah." He lifted a brow. She was a terrible liar, which was why she so seldom tried to lie. "Let the mist roll away, and you will have your answer."

She watched; the sun was creeping up along the eastern edge of an obscure horizon. "Avandar. I-the City-"

He lifted a hand. "I have never asked you about your past."

"I've never hidden it."

"No?" His hand brushed her shoulder; she felt his palm against the curve of her exposed skin. As if it were fire, she leaped back, lifting both hands, palm out. Denial.

She knew-knew-that her control was precarious here; that she could take a step backward into a landscape that had ceased to exist years ago. There were places she never wanted to see again; she held her ground.

"Does your past never anger you?"

She said nothing.