Read Online Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows by Winterborn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Winterborn
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armed himself as well; two blades, to the single long sword.
"You do not mean to challenge me?" Contempt failed to rob Celleriant's face of beauty. Standing with a sword in his hand, he seemed to illuminate killing in a way that hallowed it, and Jewel ATerafin was suddenly glad that she had witnessed no supernatural hunt, no death.
What grace, after all, could be retained in the pathos of terror and mortality?
Kallandras replied softly, so softly the wind didn't carry the word to Jewel's waiting ear. She started forward, and the stag, silent, and as beautiful in his way as the Arianni lord, was suddenly in her path, tines gently pressed against throat and forehead like a caress.
No, Serra.
She could hear his voice.
Just as she had heard Avandar's—in a place where words had never reached, weren't meant to reach.
But Avandar's words—when he spoke them—made her arm throb, her stomach twist, her mind catch fire with the peculiar heat of fear. The stag's voice…
No one calls me Serra
, she said.
I'm called three things I answer to: ATerafin, Jewel and
…
And?
Two things. Two things. What are you doing?
There are three here who have the gift of the voice.
The gift of
— She was silent because she had to be; the silence didn't rob her of words. Only privacy.
Kallandras
.
Yes. And two others. His is the strongest talent that I have heard in a long time, although I grant I have heard little in the way of human speech these many years.
He's a bard.
He is much more than that; he is bound to a god, and he derives some power from the kill. I am… surprised…
Jewel's eyes left the stag's; she gave him a get-out-of-the-way shove that would have sent anyone but Arann half-flying. She might as well have tried to fell one of the many trees that defined the clearing with her bare hands.
Surprised? What do you mean, surprised
?
He is a killer; his scent is death's.
I told you, he's a bard.
With those weapons?
She was silent. When had she first met Kallandras of Senniel College? He was so much a part of her conscious life she could not objectively say. But the memory that was at the root of all things was as old as her association with Terafin, and she did not willingly go there. Not there.
He's not a killer
, she said firmly. But willing or not, she remembered the screams of the dying beneath a wall of earth so magicked and so deep that there was nothing anyone could do to save the people whose voices had become her most visceral memory. Her most visceral, most avoided memory. It came back, in this faraway clearing.
Because of all the songs that had been sung that day, she remembered his.
"You're dangerous," she said, forcing the words to leave her lips. Surprised that she could, now. She needed the distance.
Yes. I always was.
"Get out of my way."
He used his power against you. Will you allow this?
"What does it look like? Get-out-of-my-way."
The stag bowed.
I am in your service, A Terafin. I will do as you command. But I warn you
—
She was past warning. "The man Lord Celleriant knows as the Warlord
is
my chosen servant. If I were in any danger at all, he would protect me; he has never failed. But I made it clear years ago that crimes against my dignity were not capital crimes. If they were, I'd be responsible for more deaths than
he
has been by now. Let it be."
As you wish.
Swords clashed.
She turned and bounced off the chest of the man who had been domicis, and who was something now that she didn't want to think about. That was the problem; she knew that a false step was death, and she was so damn tired she was willing to take
no
steps, to stand in stillness until the motion of life passed her by.
"ATerafin?"
Almost. "Don't bother." She pushed past him in a way that she had not been allowed to push past the stag, and was surprised at how much the familiarity of the action comforted her. But she was also aware, as she hadn't been before, that Avandar allowed her this act of familiarity; that he, in
"You do not mean to challenge me?" Contempt failed to rob Celleriant's face of beauty. Standing with a sword in his hand, he seemed to illuminate killing in a way that hallowed it, and Jewel ATerafin was suddenly glad that she had witnessed no supernatural hunt, no death.
What grace, after all, could be retained in the pathos of terror and mortality?
Kallandras replied softly, so softly the wind didn't carry the word to Jewel's waiting ear. She started forward, and the stag, silent, and as beautiful in his way as the Arianni lord, was suddenly in her path, tines gently pressed against throat and forehead like a caress.
No, Serra.
She could hear his voice.
Just as she had heard Avandar's—in a place where words had never reached, weren't meant to reach.
But Avandar's words—when he spoke them—made her arm throb, her stomach twist, her mind catch fire with the peculiar heat of fear. The stag's voice…
No one calls me Serra
, she said.
I'm called three things I answer to: ATerafin, Jewel and
…
And?
Two things. Two things. What are you doing?
There are three here who have the gift of the voice.
The gift of
— She was silent because she had to be; the silence didn't rob her of words. Only privacy.
Kallandras
.
Yes. And two others. His is the strongest talent that I have heard in a long time, although I grant I have heard little in the way of human speech these many years.
He's a bard.
He is much more than that; he is bound to a god, and he derives some power from the kill. I am… surprised…
Jewel's eyes left the stag's; she gave him a get-out-of-the-way shove that would have sent anyone but Arann half-flying. She might as well have tried to fell one of the many trees that defined the clearing with her bare hands.
Surprised? What do you mean, surprised
?
He is a killer; his scent is death's.
I told you, he's a bard.
With those weapons?
She was silent. When had she first met Kallandras of Senniel College? He was so much a part of her conscious life she could not objectively say. But the memory that was at the root of all things was as old as her association with Terafin, and she did not willingly go there. Not there.
He's not a killer
, she said firmly. But willing or not, she remembered the screams of the dying beneath a wall of earth so magicked and so deep that there was nothing anyone could do to save the people whose voices had become her most visceral memory. Her most visceral, most avoided memory. It came back, in this faraway clearing.
Because of all the songs that had been sung that day, she remembered his.
"You're dangerous," she said, forcing the words to leave her lips. Surprised that she could, now. She needed the distance.
Yes. I always was.
"Get out of my way."
He used his power against you. Will you allow this?
"What does it look like? Get-out-of-my-way."
The stag bowed.
I am in your service, A Terafin. I will do as you command. But I warn you
—
She was past warning. "The man Lord Celleriant knows as the Warlord
is
my chosen servant. If I were in any danger at all, he would protect me; he has never failed. But I made it clear years ago that crimes against my dignity were not capital crimes. If they were, I'd be responsible for more deaths than
he
has been by now. Let it be."
As you wish.
Swords clashed.
She turned and bounced off the chest of the man who had been domicis, and who was something now that she didn't want to think about. That was the problem; she knew that a false step was death, and she was so damn tired she was willing to take
no
steps, to stand in stillness until the motion of life passed her by.
"ATerafin?"
Almost. "Don't bother." She pushed past him in a way that she had not been allowed to push past the stag, and was surprised at how much the familiarity of the action comforted her. But she was also aware, as she hadn't been before, that Avandar allowed her this act of familiarity; that he, in
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