“His intent has always been clear.” The words were as cool as the passage through the Raverran night. “He is a fool.”
“A necessary fool,” Alesso replied, speaking as coolly. “If indeed he is one.”
“Were he not, he would ride by your side with the Oertan forces; he would assure himself of the disposition of the lands you have granted him in Averda.”
“Perhaps he trusts my word, Widan.”
A peppered brow rose. Cortano was pale in the lamplight; weariness made him unguarded. The field was a very different court from the palace of the Tor Leonne, and it afforded Alesso a rare glimpse into the men upon whom he depended.
“And were he a fool, he would not now preside over Oerta. He is . . . intemperate. He is driven too openly by his desires. But he has never failed to achieve them, and the lack of that failure marks him as something other than fool.”
“There is always a first time.”
“Indeed, there is always that.”
“You intend to let him go.”
Alesso smiled. It was a war smile. “No.”
“No?”
“Not yet, Sword’s Edge.”
“He will be angered.”
“He will. But with Garrardi by my side, I am served by three of the five Terreans. If my position is . . . contested . . . I am served by at least two who are not likewise encumbered. Garrardi has held Oerta for generations.”
Cortano frowned.
“The kin made clear that there was little battle offered; those who served him perished. He spoke of scant numbers. Five of his hunters were vanquished, and with ease. If the party of the Serra Diora encounters the kai Garrardi, I am almost certain he will not return in time. No, Cortano. For the moment, we have need of Eduardo kai di’Garrardi.”
The lines of Cortano’s shoulders shifted slightly. Approval there, but it was tainted by exhaustion. “I bring you word,” he said quietly.
The smile dimmed. “Speak plainly.”
“I have seldom spoken otherwise.”
“Ah.”
“Lord Isladar has left the Shining Court.”
Alesso reached for the water, and in silence, poured it. He was not as graceful as a seraf—a matter of choice, of will. Water sloshed around the rim of his glass, pooling upon the flat wood of the sitting table. He offered that glass to Cortano, and the Widan accepted it without comment, pausing to dry his hands before he drank.
“Why?”
“It seems the Lord’s Fist saw reason—or weakness enough—to dispose of him. They failed in that attempt, but he did not choose to stay by the Lord’s side in order to further wage the war.”
“And his whereabouts?”
“Unknown, of course.”
Alesso nodded. “Is he a threat?”
Faint lines of irritation marred the expression of the Sword’s Edge. “He is Kialli. And of the Kialli, he desires no obvious power, no title, no lands; he demands the respect that anyone would demand in a position of power, but he enforces it in a manner of his own choosing, and in an unpredictable way. Of the kinlords, he is the most subtle. Of course he’s a threat.”
“To us?”
“If we better understood his desire, if we better understood his game, I would have answered that question months ago. His departure does not have the appearance of careful planning; he does not appear to have chosen the timing of his unfortunate exit.”
“Carefully said.” Alesso reached for a second glass and, with the same care, poured water.
“I do not believe he intends us harm,” the Sword’s Edge continued, speaking into a distance of tabletop, his gaze intent. “In his fashion, he has been of aid to us.”
“His loss?”
“I do not know. You have seen the Lord’s Fist. You have bested them in your skirmishes. But they have never openly attacked you.”
Alesso bore scars that might make a lie of that statement; he said nothing.
“But in subtle ways, he stood beside us. I believe, of the Kialli, there is none who understand mortals half as well. That understanding is a double-edged blade.”
“He has not been destroyed?”
“No.”
“You are certain of that?”
“Yes.”
Alesso nodded. He did not press the Sword’s Edge for the information that was not volunteered.
“Where is Ishavriel, Alesso?”
Alesso frowned. “He is in the encampment.”
“No.”
And rose, water and the peace of its promise forgotten. His hand was upon his sword, his eyes narrow as its edge. Lord’s man.
“When did he depart?”
Cortano shrugged. “A . . . messenger arrived less than an hour ago.”
“Kialli?”
“Kin at the least. If kinlord, not a lord I recognize.”
“They spoke?”
“They spoke in the tongue of the kin; Ishavriel did not look greatly pleased.”
“He spoke to you?”
“No. But he chose to depart the camp.”
“His part in the battle is not yet come,” Alesso said coldly. “And any part he might play before the right time will harm us.”
“I am aware of the difficulty.”
“You are certain he is no longer here.”
“Oh, indeed.”
Alesso waited. This time, his patience was rewarded—but it would have to be; Cortano was no fool. “The Radann kai el’Sol came to me ten minutes ago with that information.”
“And the other Kialli?”
“They are present.”
“Good. Did the Radann kai el’Sol choose to further enlighten you?”
“He believes that Lord Ishavriel has traveled North, in haste. He will not be missed unless someone chooses to enter his tent; he did not leave by the conventional methods the army usually uses. The Radann kai el’Sol apologizes for his inability to provide you with more precise information; the sword he bears has some limitations.”
It spoke, of course. It spoke in the storm’s voice, and while it spoke, Peder forgot that the sky was clear, the night unfettered by cloud or rain or the sweeping winds that sometimes came South from Raverra. He had expected to maintain his distance from Alesso di’Marente—a man he did not, in privacy, acknowledge as the equal his rank demanded. But to maintain a distance from Saval was far, far more difficult; a life spent in the study and practice of the subtle politics of the High Court was no preparation for this silent battle. The sword, the only true symbol of rank that he now desired, burned his hand when he touched hilt; it burned his vision when he drew it, singing of death, of impending battle.
Its rage was contained; its truth barely so.
He drew Saval seldom for this reason. The men who served Alesso, the cerdan who marched under his banner, the Tyran who rode above them on the backs of horses that would beggar large towns, were aware of the legends associated with the Lord’s Swords; if they could see the light that took the blade’s heart and laid it bare, they would understand what it meant.
And worse: he was attuned to Saval. Some part of him, Radann now, and purified by the Lord’s fire, wanted that revelation. But if he had intended to take the title of Radann kai el’Sol by treachery, it had come to him instead as a gift born of sacrifice and necessity. He was bitterly aware of the kai el’Sol’s legacy, of Fredero kai el’Sol’s truth: The man who could achieve what was necessary was not Lambertan. The Lambertans were cunning, they were wise, they were cautious in ways too subtle to be seen by those who cast aspersions on their honor as a thing of quaint, rustic Courts. But they were not masters of subterfuge. They did not lie easily. Or well.
What would Balagar have demanded of Fredero? Peder took his hand from the sword’s hilt, knowing the answer: no less than Saval now demanded. But Peder knew how to wait; knew when to bide his time.
Let the armies know of the existence of the Kialli before Alesso was prepared, and the Kialli might now rule in the Dominion. Rule in subtlety, rule in stol
en, human guise. The Kialli were not yet weakened by their role in this war.
And until the Sun Sword came into play—if, he thought, the Lady’s Moon high in the darkness of sky, her thoughts troubling his, it ever came to pass—they fought with half their strength, perhaps less.
And is the boy Leonne? The heart of Peder’s fears. Is the boy truly the child of the bloodline, or is he the bastard of a discarded concubine, the illegitimate get of a night offered in honor or amusement to an unknown man by Markaso kai di’Leonne?
No one knew. No one voiced these fears aloud.
Lord Ishavriel, he thought, gazing North into the heart of Averda, its valleys the site of so many massacres and so much death in the previous Imperial-Dominion war. Where have you gone?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
12th of Corvil, 427 AA
Callesta, Terrean of Averda
“IT WAS my kill,” Kiriel said, with some satisfaction. Auralis parried. “But first blood was mine.”
“He hardly bled.”
“And if you want that to be true of either of the two of you,” Alexis cut in, “I’d suggest you tone it down.” She gestured, her hair flying out of her tight braid in the direction of the somber Tyran who now stood around the broken stone of the Radann’s temple. Torches had been lit, although they could no longer be set in the wall sconces provided for them; hands caught them, made of their orange and red a floating, uncertain light.
Auralis rolled his eyes. He had the usual cuts and scrapes, which didn’t bother him, and a great rent in the center of his chain hauberk, which did. The quartermaster frowned upon unexplained damage to army property, and it had been made clear by Duarte that the explanation might have to be forgone—which meant that Auralis would be responsible for the cost, and the inconvenience, of the armor’s repair.
Kiriel had taken less damage—her boots would need replacement, but for the time being she could get by with a simple resoling, depending on the nature of the terrain they were forced to march across and the type of encounters they were to face. In the foothills, they wouldn’t last, but Auralis thought it vastly unlikely the fighting would take them to the Menorans; the valleys lay to the South and West, and it was in the valleys that all wars, in the end, must be fought.
He grimaced. He was not a superstitious man; the Tyr’agnate had taken some pains to move battle outside of the forested slope of the valleys in which most of the food of the Terrean was produced. His men had massed, and Alexis let drop the information—strictly forbidden, of course, and probably likely to cost her Decarus if she were discovered—that the Kings’ armies already waited just past the delta of the largest inland river in Averda to that end.
“Kiriel?”
She nodded. “But it counts,” she added quietly.
He snorted. “Of course it counts.”
As if the conversation had not been private—and in the South, it was said no conversations were, Duarte appeared beside them. “Sentrus,” he said curtly, speaking to Kiriel. “Decarus,” he added, even more curtly, to Auralis.
Auralis, used to Duarte’s moods, was surprised by the sharpness of the offered word; surprised and suddenly wary. He knew the tone of voice.
But he had forgotten it, the way a body forgets the reality, and the viscerality, of injury in battle until one is once again enmeshed in a fight for survival.
Kiriel nodded, unperturbed by the subtle change in Duarte’s tone. His past—the Averdan valleys, the war in the South—separated them; of her own, she would not speak.
But she turned to the shadows. “Telakar,” she said, speaking in a tone almost identical to Duarte’s. It surprised Auralis.
The kinlord bowed. And followed.
They did not retreat far; Valedan kai di’Leonne awaited them at the edge of the Radann’s path. The Tyr’agnate had not yet returned.
“Primus,” the kai Leonne said quietly. “We desire privacy.”
Duarte nodded. “The Commanders?”
“They have been summoned. They will join us shortly, but their time is valuable; cast now, and we will wait.”
He cast, frowning.
“Is there a problem?”
The question seemed to be absorbed by the spell, the words deflected. But Duarte looked up after a moment had passed, his hands settling into bunched fists at his sides. “There may be.”
“And that?”
“If I were to guess, I would say that someone is already listening.”
“And the spell?”
“It is not a powerful one,” he replied. “With spells of this nature, it is best to expend little power.”
“Oh?”
“Power has its signature, and it draws the attention of the powerful, if they are aware and they are looking for it. What I cast . . . is not a major magic. There are those with skills far greater who could breach its barrier with ease.”
“With pathetic ease,” the kinlord at Kind’s side offered quietly.
“Telakar?”
He looked at her for a moment, eyes narrow. “I am not a mortal,” he said stiffly. “I will not be tested.”
She hesitated for just a moment; the hesitation caught their attention, drawing all eyes. And she was aware of the weight of each stare. She had lived her life in the Shining Court, in the presence of the Kialli and the kinlords of note; nothing in that life had prepared her for this one. Not even for this war.
Telakar waited.
They all did, but it was his gaze that brought the past back, that defined her in its light.
When the Kialli went to war, battle was a thing of light and fire, a dance of ferocity, a movement that ended only in the destruction or subjugation of the combatants. They might bring their servants into play, the blood-bound, the creatures who had chosen slavery over death—but those deaths counted for little.
Here, upon the heights of Callesta, those wars seemed small and distant, and their cost, negligible; in the end, they were simply another expression of the laws of the Hells: Power ruled. There was no regret at the deaths of the weak; the Hells absorbed them, fed on them, sometimes caused them to be reborn in a fashion, weaker by far than they had been, and destined to serve.
She looked at the kai Leonne, a man who had chosen to stand against the forces of the Shining Court in defiance of all advice she had offered—would have offered—when they had first met. And yet, having chosen to join a battle that he half understood, he did not flinch or waver. Nor did he approach it as the Kialli did. He was mortal; he was surrounded by mortals, by those who could either seek death or wait for its approach, but could never rise above it.
She had met mortals in the Shining Court. Lady Sariyel, and her lord, the mage; the Imperial humans who kept their visits a secret from the mortal lords they pretended to serve. All of their fighting was done with words, and some little magic; they played games of power without apprehending the cost of those games, and their losses, in the end, were the more profound, for the mortals in the Court, when killed, were often escorted to the Hells, there to be fodder for the entertainment of demons the Lord had not seen fit to return to the plane.
She had cared little for them, had trusted them even less.
There was only one mortal in the Court that she had trusted. Only one. She bowed her head, losing the thread of Duarte’s words, his reasoned caution, his mild frustration.
Ashaf. Ashaf kep’Valente. She pronounced the words in the only place she would ever pronounce them: in silence, the privacy of thought. And she waited for the pain they caused, the terrible, burning anger, the truth of Kiallinan. Instead, she saw an old woman with soft arms, a softer face, a voice that cracked in the wind and wavered in the cold of the Northern tower. No weapons girded her; no power set her apart from the mortals that were said to populate the lands beyond the Northern Wastes.
Instead, she offered song, cradle song, child’s song. She offered stories of tall grass, and small children, of baking bread and casting clay in the summer kilns; of stalks of wheat in fi
elds that the sun made golden. She spoke of rivers that did not freeze, of water that was offered openly beneath a warm sky, of the fall of rain.
And she spoke of love.
Not even the mortal Court had been so bold, and so foolish.
Ashaf had paid the price for her weakness.
And in paying, had gone forever beyond Kind’s reach: for Kiriel might never join her in the lands it was said the mortals reached when at last they knew peace.
And yet.
She stood among these men, these women—the Commanders had come upon them silently—and she saw in them some hint of Ashaf’s weakness, although they told no tales, offered the comfort of no open arms, no folded lap. She saw them converse; saw them, expressions guarded, as they teetered upon the edge of a power that no single one of them could wholly claim, in the end.
They deferred to Valedan. That was his right. But they did not fear him; they did not plot to overthrow him. In his turn, he deferred to their knowledge, trusting their experience, and trusting his instinct, balancing carefully between the two.
No: life in the Shining Court had offered her no preparation for this, this mortal mess.
“Kiriel?”
She shook her head. Decided. “I cannot sense them,” she said quietly.
“Them?”
“The ones who listen.”
But decisions were complex, complicated, things done by halves. She glanced at Lord Telakar to see what he made of the weakness of that confession, aware that his home was the Shining Court, aware that his rules were the laws of the Hells.
She had not bound him. Did not know how. The only binding that lay within her grasp was distinctly mortal: the uneasy alliance that did not quite trust, but could not quite dismiss.
“You found me,” he said quietly. “Is your instinct so dulled that those of lesser power escape your attention?”
Old anger bridled at the accusation in his words. Old lessons returned, and with them, the voice of the Lord she had trusted, in a different life. His name, she could not say.
“I . . . do not know . . . why I found you,” she said at last.
Commander Bruce Allen raised a brow. “Do not know, or are not willing to say?”
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