Daughter of Blood

by Helen Lowe

  The Lovers: Myr repeated the name of the tapestry to herself as she retreated to the chair and her blanket. Like the patterns incised into Ise’s table, she knew the scene it depicted by heart: the dark warrior and the fair maid who stood on the summit of a hill with their hands clasped, while a circle of milk-white hounds formed a border around the web. A hind as white as the hounds lay at the lovers’ feet, and a crow perched on the vine above their heads. The latter always seemed out of place to Myr, because in the poems and songs of the Rose that Ise had taught her, tradition always placed a singing bird in the garden where the lovers met.

  The young lovers, she amended, remembering how Sarein and Sardonya had both insisted that the Earl of Night was old. Now she debated whether they meant old as in their father’s age, or older still—although surely they could not have meant old like Ise, who relied on her cane and could never walk very far, or fast, even when she had it. Myr wondered about Commander Asantir, too, in light of Anvin and Parannis’s claim that she and Earl Tasarion had been, or were, lovers. She doubted the Commander was even as old as Kharalthor, but it didn’t follow that the Earl must therefore be a similar age. Better not to think about it, she decided, and studied the vine above the lovers instead. Ise said it was a rose, which in some versions of The Lovers bore flowers as well as leaves, the rare blooms that were now only found on the one remaining vine in the Court of the Rose.

  One day, Myr promised herself, I will see that remnant for myself, perhaps when my seven years in Night are up. She tried not to let mournfulness color that thought, even when the far-off hound cried on a sustained, eerie note. This time another beast answered it, baying as though somewhere in the keep the hunt was up. For us? Myr wondered, alarmed: would they use wyr hounds? She reminded herself that often the keep’s wyr pack howled to warn of a new storm building, but she could detect no change in the wind’s low whine. Possibly the beasts were simply on edge with so many strangers crowded into the keep. I can understand that, Myr thought, but was still glad when the howls subsided. Drowsily, she watched the play of light and shadow across the mirror, as though clouds moved in the metal depths—although after a time she fancied the shapes became people, moving to and fro.

  “Fro and froward,” she murmured, “like Dab.” She felt as though she were looking into the room from outside, watching herself in the chair and Faro before the fire, while Dab lay in her old bed and tendrils of mist crept out of the mirror toward the three of them . . .

  Footsteps crossed the outer room, and the tendrils fled back into the mirror. By the time Khar’s broad shoulders filled the doorway, it was just a metal oval again and the shadows tarnish, rather than clouds or people moving below the shield’s surface. Myr blinked fully awake as the Storm Spear’s gaze swept the room. Eventually his frown rested on the tapestry and the lovers, standing within the circle of milk-white hounds.

  “The web’s called The Lovers,” Myr said, mostly for something to say as she rose to build up the fire. “But I’ve always thought the crow seems out of place.” She waited until the flames leapt higher before looking around, to find Khar still studying the web.

  “It’s not,” he said finally.

  Myr frowned in her turn, puzzled by his certainty. “Who are you?” She spoke softly, and was surprised at the way his eyes widened as he turned toward her—as if she had startled him. “How would a Storm Spear know what elements belong in a Rose tapestry?”

  She must have imagined the startlement, because Khar’s reply was matter-of-fact. “This particular depiction may have come from the Rose, but I doubt that’s where it originated. As for the crow, it’s nothing do with my being a Storm Spear. I’ve seen it before, that’s all.”

  He didn’t really answer my question, Myr thought. She was about to ask whether the Storm Spears had the same tapestry, or what they knew of the background story, when the hounds howled again: not just one or two this time, but a full pack belling. She jumped, but they still sounded distant. “I’ve never heard them like this before,” she said, feeling she needed to excuse the jump.

  Khar frowned, his head tilted as though listening more intently. “They’re not hunting,” he said finally. “Sleep if you can, Lady Myrathis. Your part in the plan will be critical if we’re to save Dab.”

  As if, Myr thought, listening to his retreating footsteps, I’m ever going to sleep after hearing that.

  25

  Guest Friendship

  She slept almost at once, sliding down into darkness, and it was still profoundly dark when Taly woke her. “It’s time, Lady Myr.”

  As soon as Myr moved, she found her neck was stiff, but she straightened her rumpled clothes and tucked stray hair beneath her cap, trying to look more like a Daughter of Blood. She paused momentarily, her eyes fixed on those of the shadow girl in the mirror, before turning when she saw Khar and Taly getting Dab to his feet. His color had improved, but his mouth was shut hard and his breath came in harsh gasps. You can do it, Myr willed him: you have to.

  He did do it, but their progress was almost as slow as it had been just a handful of hours before. Faro and Liy were charged with scouting ahead, while Bajan led the rest of their small party. Khar and Taly followed with Dab, and Myr brought up the rear. She was about to propose they take the wider of the two stairs when Taly made the same suggestion, and the rest of their painstaking descent to the training hall level was completed in silence. “It’s probably best if I go for Mistress Ise,” Taly said then. “She might argue with you about what’s best, Lady Myr, but she’ll come at once if I say you need her.”

  She had barely departed when Liy came flying back. “Someone’s in the hall,” the page whispered. “Faro’s still there, on lookout, but we couldn’t identify ’em in the dark.”

  Bajan looked at Khar. “Lady Myrathis is the most likely to know them, since this area’s restricted.” The Bronze warrior’s nod acknowledged Myr. “If you go ahead with Khar, Lady Myrathis, Liy and I’ll take care of Dabnor.”

  I might not recognize them either, Myr thought—but she followed Khar along the still-dark corridor without argument, leaving Bajan and a plainly disappointed Liy to ease Dab down onto the stairs. Khar appeared relaxed, but after the first few paces he moved further out into the corridor, indicating Myr should walk between him and the wall, and his hands stayed close to his weapons.

  They found Faro waiting outside the upper entrance to the smallest training hall, his face shifting from uneasiness to relief as Khar appeared. The main door lay around the next corner and down another flight of stairs, but Taly had suggested the pages use this one, which opened onto a gallery that allowed a watcher to observe the hall without necessarily being seen from below. Myr crouched low anyway as she slipped inside, kneeling to peer through the balustrade’s fretwork. The hall was dimmer than the corridor outside, with only one glim burning by the main doors. It barely illuminated the training floor, and the area beneath the balcony was darker still, but Myr could see someone moving. Curious, she waited for her eyes to adapt to the darkness, while Khar settled onto his heels beside her, leaving Faro to keep watch outside.

  After several intent moments, the movement below resolved into a single figure with two swords, although Myr thought there were others present, concealed beneath the gallery. Shortly afterward, as the warrior flowed seamlessly from one form into another, Myr realized she was seeing a variant of the Derai-dan. Patterns at ground level spun into airborne, acrobatic leaps, and she barely breathed as the blades continued to inscribe their flawless, fatal parabolas around the warrior at the heart of the gyre. This is the true Derai-dan, she thought, not the flashes of it we’ve seen in the arena, or the fragments incorporated into Blood’s drills. Kolthis’s counter, she admitted grudgingly, probably came closest, but seemed like a journeyman’s technique now, when set against a master’s work. Khar, too, looked absorbed—but what struck Myr was the way he leaned forward and the angle of his head, which suggested that he knew who this was.

  Bel
ow them, the flow of the Derai-dan slowed and then ceased altogether. Myr held her breath and waited: for someone to move or strike a brighter light, or for the warrior’s face to lift and turn so she could put a name to it. Instead applause sounded, a slow mocking handclap that fragmented the silence, and she pressed back panic as Parannis stepped through the main doorway.

  The glim cast a halo around her brother’s tightly braided hair, and Myr saw that he was wearing his swords, as well as the light mail he preferred for dueling. Household warriors filed in behind him, several carrying lanterns that illuminated their lord’s sleek, predatory expression. Two warriors stepped from beneath the gallery to intercept them, and the lanternlight glittered on the winged horse device on their breastplates. Night honor guards, Myr thought, and knew who the warrior in the center of the floor must be.

  “Commander of Night.” Parannis was almost purring with satisfaction. “I hoped I would find you here.”

  “Lord Parannis.” Asantir remained poised between darkness and shadow, her voice impossible to interpret.

  “You dance a pretty dance.” Parannis was smiling now. “You also tried to deflect me with pretty words at the welcome banquet. But I’m not so easily diverted.” When Asantir remained silent, his tongue traveled slowly across his lips. “I thought I had offered sufficient provocation to bring you down from your envoy’s pedestal. Alas, I was wrong.” Parannis tilted his head. “Or rather, I was proven right about how far Night has fallen from its greatness. Unfit to lead.” His smile twisted. “But it hardly matters. If you are too craven to answer me, even to defend your warrior’s honor, then I must challenge you directly.”

  If such words had been spoken within the clans of Blood, Myr thought, the fight would already be joined. But the two Night guards remained unmoving as stone warriors and their Commander’s voice was dispassionate. “I am your father’s guest and the Earl of Night’s emissary in his marriage to your sister.”

  “Half-sister,” Parannis spat, then collected himself, the smile settling back into place.

  “The degree of kinship does not matter, Lord Parannis. Oaths, honor, and law all prevent my fighting you. You should know that.”

  Parannis’s teeth gleamed. “What I know, Commander, is that my father has not sworn guest friendship with you. Or had you not noticed that?”

  He’s right, Myr thought. The Night emissaries might be Earl Sardon and Blood’s guests, but her father had not made them guest friends. She was forced to admit that allowed leeway for Parannis’s challenge—and possibly a sanction for it as well—and closed her eyes, her ears filled with a roaring that would have done credit to a Wall storm. Parannis’s laugh cut through her turmoil. “Perhaps, Commander, because your degenerate indulgence of Night’s priest-kind insults Blood. As for my half-sister, she may be the least of our line but this marriage sullies even her. And through her, all the ruling kin.”

  The Night guards were rigid, but their Commander’s voice remained thoughtful. “I am sorry you feel that way, Lord Parannis.”

  How can she stay so cool? Myr wondered—then immediately realized that if Asantir was anything but measured, she and her company might all die, and sooner rather than later. Like Tasian of Stars and his Honor Guard at the start of the Betrayal War, Myr thought, as Asantir continued speaking. “But that doesn’t change my situation or yours, not with a Daughter of Blood pledged to Night’s Earl and the contracts between our two Houses signed.”

  Parannis sneered. “I don’t give a storm’s leavings for any of that. The whole Alliance knows you have no honor, thinking you can bring the tainted back into our ranks. As for your Earl—” Contempt twisted his face again. “If he thinks he can use marriage to bind Blood’s greatness and trammel our destiny, holding us to the Wall with fireside tales when all of Haarth waits to be taken, then he’s mistaken. But you, Commander—you I intend to see dead by my own hand.”

  No, Myr thought. Her thoughts scurried, imitating the mouse of her nickname, but could find no alternative. Somehow, she must stop this. “No,” she repeated, aloud this time, and stood up. Parannis whipped around, and the lead weight of dread became faintness as she met his scowl.

  “No, did you say, little Myr? How do you intend to stop me?”

  I am a Daughter of Blood and First Kin to the Count of the Rose, Myr reminded herself—but was still astonished when she managed to imitate Asantir’s calm and speak without a tremor. “I am the Bride of Blood, Parannis, and the Commander and all her company are therefore my guests as well as our father’s.” From the corner of her eye, she registered Khar easing upright and withdrawing into the background: correct behavior for a warrior in a conversation, let alone confrontation, between members of the ruling kin. Myr tightened her grip on the balustrade until she thought either her fingers or the timber might crack. She also tried to remember everything Ise had taught her about pitching her voice to carry. “So I name them as my guest friends and bring them within the bond of First Kinship and blood that will be formalized by my marriage.”

  For a moment Parannis’s expression was pure snarl, and fury stripped his face of color. His eyes looked almost black by contrast, and Myr’s fragile courage wilted. If she had not been clinging to the balustrade, she thought her legs might have given way, just as they had the previous night.

  “So the mouse can squeak after all. We thought you ambitionless, with water not blood in your half-caste veins, but it seems you desire to be Countess of Night.” Parannis’s lip curled as he emphasized “desire,” his hand hovering near his sword. Myr swallowed, knowing the least move or wrong word would trigger violence. For the first time, too, she registered that Asantir had not sheathed her blades, and her breath caught as the moment stretched taut. No one moved or spoke—until Parannis laughed.

  “Quite badly, it seems.” His smile was feral, his words belying his conversational tone. “You will pay in full for your interference, Sister Mouse, but for now I fear you have overreached yourself.” His flourish parodied respect. “Although I’ll concede I’m entertained that you thought you could thwart me, when I would challenge Kharalthor himself—brother of my father’s blood, Heir and Battlemaster of our House—if I thought him tainted by the same apostasy and cowardice as Night’s Earl and his leman Commander, who whores for him along the Wall.”

  Both Night guards started forward, their eyes blazing, but froze at Asantir’s spiked, “Hold!” She waited a moment longer, then bowed to Myr. “We honor your guest friendship, Lady Myrathis, but insults of this order to our Earl and House must be answered.”

  “Yes,” Parannis agreed merrily, “indeed they must.”

  Asantir ignored him. “Within,” she continued, each word precise, “the bounds prescribed by the Honor Code.”

  The Honor Code: of course, Myr thought, as her brother’s guards smirked. Desperately, she thrust the darkness hovering around her vision back and recalled Hatha’s many lectures on the Code’s origin and strictures. “Yes,” she whispered, before moistening her lips and gathering her voice. “But not by you, Commander, or any of those I have named guest friends, for the reasons you yourself have given.” She paused again, praying that she had the next part right: “However grievous the insult offered, First Kin or guest friends may not fight directly. But the one insulted may call on a champion from outside those sacred bonds, to fight in his or her name.”

  Parannis’s guards exchanged covert glances, but he looked contemptuous. “What would Myr the Mouse know of the Honor Code? This for your talk of champions,” he said, and spat.

  “Actually, she’s quite right.” The Commander of Night remained cool, although she still had not sheathed her swords. “Both Code and law require that the sanctity of blood kinship and guest friendship, which help bind the Alliance together, may not be undermined.”

  Parannis hesitated, and Myr could see he was poised between precipitating a combat here and now, and suspicion his own life might be forfeit if he did so. He could not, she knew, feel confident tha
t Kharalthor would not demand it, if the circumstances allowed. One of his guards leaned in, whispering, and Parannis’s expression darkened, then as quickly transformed into a brilliant, savage smile. “You have frustrated your own purpose by including all Night’s company within your guest friendship, Sister Mouse. If no one from Night may defend Earl and Commander, then someone from Blood must champion them—and your guest friendship. Yet who,” he mused, “will be willing, do you think, if it means standing against me for a Half-Blood and Night’s apostate Commander? I suspect even your pet guards will balk.” His headshake was exaggerated. “Yet without a champion the Commander here will still be forsworn. As will you, little Myr.”

  At least he didn’t know about Dab, but otherwise Myr felt numb because Parannis was correct: this would now be as much about her as Night’s Commander. Her brother never lost either, so if Taly took on the championship for Myr’s sake, it would be as good as signing her own death warrant—and also expose the ensign’s family to Parannis and Sarein’s enmity. Anyone, Myr thought, would rightly balk at that.

  “What, nothing to say?” Parannis’s smile mocked her now. “Of course, you could always rescind your guest friendship for another of the Night lot.” He looked from one Night guard to the other. “Which one of you wants to be killed in your Commander’s stead?”

  “No one will be killed in my stead,” Asantir said quietly.

  Myr saw exultation and eagerness flash in her brother’s face, but before he could respond, Khar spoke from behind her. “Only a warrior of Blood may champion the Bride, or so we were told on entering the contest.” The Storm Spear resumed his place at Myr’s side. “And once pledged, it would dishonor Earl and House for a guest friendship to be taken back.” He was so composed that Myr felt sure he could not know Parannis’s reputation, however respectful his salute. “Son of Blood, I would be honored to meet you on behalf of Lady Myrathis and the Commander of Night.”