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Book: Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court by The Shining Court
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Authors: The Shining Court
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can't stop it."
He said, "She knows." It was a question; he so seldom asked them it took her a moment.
She nodded.
"She knows." He stood, his arms on her shoulders, his face perfectly still. And then he said, "I'll do what I can to protect them."
"And if it's not in the best interests of the Astari?"
"Let your den know. Tell them that when I send word—or bring it—they're to follow that word to the letter."
"Devon—"
"Don't say it. Don't ask it." He turned to look out the window she had covered with fabric. Stopped. "We had better win this war," he said softly at last, "and it had better be worth the cost."
----
CHAPTER TWO
5th of Scaral, 427 AA
Tor Leonne, Terrean of Raverra
The most beautiful woman in the Dominion of Annagar faced her interrogators in a silence that they would have thought defiant had she not been so exquisitely deferential, so perfect in manner and grace. Had they not seen her make a weapon of herself—and she, a mere woman, unmarried and inconsequential—at the Festival of the Sun.
Yet in this room of Southern finery, she, visitor, ostensible prisoner, a woman, was the centerpiece, the thing to which all eyes were drawn.
They would have said, the four men in the room, that they would never underestimate her again; that once cut by her concealed edge, they would scar, and that edge would be the only thing they would see. And for one man in the room, that was true.
Cortano di'Alexes simmered as the questions asked by the other three—Sendari par di'Marano, her father but also the canniest of the Widan save himself, Alesso par di'Marente, the newly proclaimed lord of the Dominion of Annagar, and the man who laid claim to the lake of the Tor Leonne, and the Radann Peder kai el'Sol—lost focus, lost sharpness, lost the edge that the Serra herself, Lord scorch her and winds destroy her, had not once lost in the months of her captivity.
She sat, her hands in her lap, her hair a straight cascade of perfect black across her back and shoulders. Those shoulders were straight, her head slightly bowed, her lips and skin uncolored by the vanities of harem women.
Which was as it should be; she was, after all, not wife but daughter, and at that, a daughter returned to the father's fold by the death of a husband whose end was known from one edge of the Dominion to the other.
She
should not
have been beautiful. She should not have had that power, or any other power. She was dressed like a seraf, allowed no jewelry, no combs, no fragrances. Her father had barely given her leave to speak, but her silence, her modest evasiveness, her momentary pauses—these were parries, weapons, affects. He knew it. Her father
must
know it; the man was no fool.
But in the end, having answered all their questions in her own deceptive fashion, she had been dismissed, and Cortano was almost certain that the expression that passed from father to daughter was one of regret. Had he been certain, he might have actually given vent to his growing anger; he was not. And this was not the time.
But, Lord of Night, his jaw locked when Alesso di'Marente bowed and stared at her retreating back until the screen doors, rolled open by no hand but hers, as if she were no better than humble seraf—and closed the same way—banished all vision of her. Men could be such
fools
. Fathers. Lovers. Warriors.
Idiots. They were almost always one and the same.
To complicate matters, the Tyr'agnate of Oerta, Eduardo di'Garrardi—the biggest fool of them all, and certainly the least cautious—was threatening the alliance they had built. Over
her
. He refused to understand—and at his level of power, his lack of comprehension could only be refusal, it could not be actual ignorance—that she had made herself a symbol of the Tyr'agar.
Alesso di'Marente—Alesso di'Alesso—had given Eduardo di'Garrardi his word that, upon taking the Sword and laying claim to Diora, he would grant her, as promised, to the Tyr'agnate. Had it not been
He said, "She knows." It was a question; he so seldom asked them it took her a moment.
She nodded.
"She knows." He stood, his arms on her shoulders, his face perfectly still. And then he said, "I'll do what I can to protect them."
"And if it's not in the best interests of the Astari?"
"Let your den know. Tell them that when I send word—or bring it—they're to follow that word to the letter."
"Devon—"
"Don't say it. Don't ask it." He turned to look out the window she had covered with fabric. Stopped. "We had better win this war," he said softly at last, "and it had better be worth the cost."
----
CHAPTER TWO
5th of Scaral, 427 AA
Tor Leonne, Terrean of Raverra
The most beautiful woman in the Dominion of Annagar faced her interrogators in a silence that they would have thought defiant had she not been so exquisitely deferential, so perfect in manner and grace. Had they not seen her make a weapon of herself—and she, a mere woman, unmarried and inconsequential—at the Festival of the Sun.
Yet in this room of Southern finery, she, visitor, ostensible prisoner, a woman, was the centerpiece, the thing to which all eyes were drawn.
They would have said, the four men in the room, that they would never underestimate her again; that once cut by her concealed edge, they would scar, and that edge would be the only thing they would see. And for one man in the room, that was true.
Cortano di'Alexes simmered as the questions asked by the other three—Sendari par di'Marano, her father but also the canniest of the Widan save himself, Alesso par di'Marente, the newly proclaimed lord of the Dominion of Annagar, and the man who laid claim to the lake of the Tor Leonne, and the Radann Peder kai el'Sol—lost focus, lost sharpness, lost the edge that the Serra herself, Lord scorch her and winds destroy her, had not once lost in the months of her captivity.
She sat, her hands in her lap, her hair a straight cascade of perfect black across her back and shoulders. Those shoulders were straight, her head slightly bowed, her lips and skin uncolored by the vanities of harem women.
Which was as it should be; she was, after all, not wife but daughter, and at that, a daughter returned to the father's fold by the death of a husband whose end was known from one edge of the Dominion to the other.
She
should not
have been beautiful. She should not have had that power, or any other power. She was dressed like a seraf, allowed no jewelry, no combs, no fragrances. Her father had barely given her leave to speak, but her silence, her modest evasiveness, her momentary pauses—these were parries, weapons, affects. He knew it. Her father
must
know it; the man was no fool.
But in the end, having answered all their questions in her own deceptive fashion, she had been dismissed, and Cortano was almost certain that the expression that passed from father to daughter was one of regret. Had he been certain, he might have actually given vent to his growing anger; he was not. And this was not the time.
But, Lord of Night, his jaw locked when Alesso di'Marente bowed and stared at her retreating back until the screen doors, rolled open by no hand but hers, as if she were no better than humble seraf—and closed the same way—banished all vision of her. Men could be such
fools
. Fathers. Lovers. Warriors.
Idiots. They were almost always one and the same.
To complicate matters, the Tyr'agnate of Oerta, Eduardo di'Garrardi—the biggest fool of them all, and certainly the least cautious—was threatening the alliance they had built. Over
her
. He refused to understand—and at his level of power, his lack of comprehension could only be refusal, it could not be actual ignorance—that she had made herself a symbol of the Tyr'agar.
Alesso di'Marente—Alesso di'Alesso—had given Eduardo di'Garrardi his word that, upon taking the Sword and laying claim to Diora, he would grant her, as promised, to the Tyr'agnate. Had it not been
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