Elenai had been an Altenerai squire long enough to know her superiors didn’t have any special compulsion to keep her informed of their comings and goings. Still, as she woke the next morning in the predawn gloom her mind turned almost immediately to Alten Asrahn. He’d never come back to inspect her work or replace the sword.
Last night she’d wondered if his absence were some deliberate test of her character or initiative, and after waiting for more than an hour, had decided to rouse Sareel, the aged and surly Keeper of Keys, to restore Irion to its case.
Sareel had been astonished to learn Asrahn had given Elenai the blade, cross that she’d been wakened (apparently Elenai’s intrusion was the capper to “an insufferably interminable day”), and frustrated because she felt duty bound to accompany Elenai rather than loan the only other key to Irion’s case.
Elenai offered no explanation, as Alten Asrahn had provided none, so she just squirmed uncomfortably and tried to placate the angry woman with “yes ma’ams” or “no ma’ams” whenever appropriate. Afterward, she had sought her own bed in a swirl of uncertainty, hoping to consult with the Master of Squires in the morning both for reassurance and to confirm the repair was completed to his satisfaction.
She rose at the usual time, despite a long day of parade drills before her late-night activities, and sleep clung to her fitfully. She swung her legs out of the covers, then reached across a narrow distance to turn up the oil lamp to maximum burn. As a squire of the fifth rank, she had earned a room of her own, but not one of any real space—just a small rectangle, with nightstand, bed, and storage chest arranged along the wall leaving only a narrow aisle between the door and shuttered window. A proper stretch would have to wait until she left her quarters.
She lingered on the bed’s edge, reviewing her options. A visit to Asrahn’s quarters was as unthinkable this morning as last night. He maintained private lodgings somewhere in the city—she’d have to ask precisely where—and visiting his home seemed a presumptuous, and embarrassing, invasion of the old gentleman’s privacy. Even inquiries about his whereabouts would invite questions she couldn’t answer without disobeying him. No. He would take a dim view of her cravings for reassurance, and she didn’t want to diminish the trust placed in her when, no doubt, he’d been called to a more urgent duty.
So, she’d carry on with the activities she planned for this morning. It wasn’t likely she’d encounter Asrahn on the practice field, but she might be able to speak with him before the parade. He’d be there to inspect the squires’ formal turnout before public presentation. Once everyone was in place at the lineup, he might have a spare moment to appraise her work. And he’d surely have stopped by Irion’s case on his way to the assembly, if he hadn’t already checked on it last night.
She got up to pour water from a brass pitcher into a porcelain bowl on the nightstand, washing her hands and face before peering into the tiny bronzed mirror that magnified the lamplight. She thought her eyes looked only a little tired. Her hair was a wild corona of chestnut, though. She stuck a tongue out at herself, rubbed more cold water on her face, and set to ordering her mane.
It didn’t take long to dress and get ready for her dawn workout, shoulder-length hair in a utilitarian braid.
She stopped with her hand upon the door, ashamed that in her eagerness she’d neglected an important portion of her daily regimen. She returned to the window, head bowed, and offered prayers, first giving thanks for another day to the Goddess Darassa, who’d founded the realm where she now lived. It was she who’d overseen the construction of Darassus and its great domes and bridges and who had once walked the streets of the city with her people.
Elenai then prayed to Vedessa, the creator of her homeland. She hoped the Goddess would watch over her father and sister, who might be starting their day, far away in the city of Vedessus, but were more likely still abed.
Finally, she thanked the God Elahn, after whom she was named, for the continued gift of health.
It was no bad thing, her father had told her, to be connected to three of the four great Gods.
Prayers complete, she left her room. The hall mirror showed nothing amiss, from calf-length black boots—slightly worn, for her best boots were reserved for special occasions—to the gray surcoat emblazoned with the sapphire star at its center. It draped her from collar to knee. She studied the familiar figure looking back at her, thinking that her eyes appeared guileless. How could she ever hope to be a full-fledged Altenerai if she looked so young?
She experimented with lowering her brows, as Asrahn seemed perpetually to do, then laughed at herself and pushed out her lip to look even more ridiculous before moving on. Alten Enada had reached the sapphire when she was twenty-four, a year younger than Elenai was now. Earning the ring wasn’t about looks, but performance.
The sun had just shaken off its own covers to set the sky aglow beyond the slanting stable rooftops and the golden domes of the city temples, visible through the windows as she descended the central staircase. It was unusually quiet this morning, with even the songbirds silent and only an occasional rumble of thunder … as if the very air urged her to stillness. She had other plans, though. Elenai Dartaan wanted to make excellence a habit, just like the great N’lahr.
She reached the wider hall at the bottom, her footsteps ringing rebelliously on the ancient marble. The quiet was not entirely unexpected. Festivities were not to begin until the late morning. Normal routines were delayed or canceled. Squires could take their rest for an additional hour, an unheard-of luxury. She easily had time for a warm-up and several runs through the Falling Water sword form, including those tricky middle stances, before thoroughly grooming her horse and herself.
After that, and breakfast, would come several hours of rigid posture as the parade wound before thousands of eyes from all over the five realms. While the throngs began their celebration, the Altenerai and their squires would further escort the queen to a formal ceremony at N’lahr’s tomb, but after that, three days of light duty were scheduled. The queen wanted her soldiers to revel with the rest of her people—a fine idea in theory, though it struck Elenai as ironic that the realms’ finest fallen general, famed for his devotion to the corps, should be honored by a vacation from it.
Elenai hoped to follow her hero’s example, so light duty didn’t mean the lounging and feasts her friends planned, but the opportunity to work on her weapon forms without distraction.
As she emerged onto the worn granite steps and breathed deeply, she spied a figure striding across the yard. Whoever it was wore a knee-length azure robe with a stiff collar, crossed at the waist with a belt. Altenerai. Only a handful currently served in Darassus. Might it be Alten Asrahn after all?
As she started down she knew that the approaching officer was someone else. The figure walked briskly rather than with Asrahn’s measured military stride that subtly favored one leg. She realized it was Commander Denaven at about the same time he changed course to direct his steps to her. She halted, erect with hands behind her back.
The leader of the Altenerai Corps rested his hand on the old stone railing at the bottom as if to signal this was a casual meeting. “Squire Elenai.” Denaven’s diction was precise as ever, but he seemed strangely affable, down to his crooked smile. “Good morning.”
The commander had spoken with her before, but he’d never gone out of his way to do so. And she’d never seen him in the early morning hours. “Good morning, sir.” She saluted, then descended to the ground level so she wouldn’t tower over her superior officer.
Denaven’s eyes roved over her. She imagined him searching for some unpolished button or frayed thread or even a hair out of place. She was fairly certain he’d find none, but she’d been in the corps long enough to know an alten could always find something wrong with a squire if he or she were in the mood.
Denaven himself was as impeccably dressed as always. His khalat, blue-black in the pale early light, was crisp and creaseless, and his boots shone like dusky glass. Not a single one of the rust-colored hairs swept back from his high forehead was out of line.
“What brings you out so early, Squire?” He strove for a relaxed air, as if these sorts of meetings were an everyday occurrence.
“I like to rise for stretches and informal practice on my own, sir.”
“The dawn hunter on her rounds, eh?”
Denaven was a great one for maxims and proverbs. The dawn hunter, like the early bird, always caught fatter game, although in Elenai’s experience a good hunter was out before the sun. “Yes, sir.”
“And on a feast day! That’s to be commended. I’m an early riser myself. Headed to the practice fields, then?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll walk with you.”
Stranger and stranger. They’d already exceeded the amount of words exchanged in any single conversation she’d yet held with the corps commander. They paced together across the roadway and on along the edge of the gardens, passing a row of unbloomed bushes.
“I always forget how tall you are,” he offered into the uncomfortable silence. “I didn’t think Arappan girls grew so high.”
“It helps my reach,” Elenai said, unsure how else to answer. She might have mentioned that her younger sister was taller still, but this was the response she’d learned to dole out over the years when people said something foolish about her height. She didn’t think her stature remarkable. She could measure up to most men in the corps, it was true, but she was shorter than some.
Denaven tried another line of conversation. “Asrahn has commented upon your sword use. And your overall talent.”
“That’s good to know, sir.” An approving nod from Asrahn was more rewarding than precious gems, and she’d been receiving more of them the last few months. Compliments from his lips were rarer still, and she could count the sum total since entering the service on one hand. Still, she wished she could think of something more eloquent to say.
“He told me he’d picked you for a special duty. How did you like handling N’lahr’s sword?”
“It was a tremendous honor,” she asserted, trying to keep her relief and enthusiasm in check. Alten Asrahn must have reported to Commander Denaven already this morning. Might the commander have noted her work as well? She’d certainly applied the leathers with meticulous devotion, taking care the risers were well skived like the originals. But … surely the simple soldier’s grip, even well done, wouldn’t garner a special visit from the commander? Had she somehow erred? Was this a prelude to reproach?
“What did you think of it?”
This wasn’t the question she’d anticipated, but she didn’t mind answering. “Irion’s one of the most perfectly balanced blades I’ve ever held. And it was still incredibly sharp.”
He nodded. “Indeed. Someday I’m sure you’ll have a sword like it of your very own.”
That was an astonishing sentiment, because so far as Elenai knew, no one had ever unraveled the secrets of the weapon’s unusual qualities, try as they might to manufacture its equal.
He grinned in that lopsided manner. “I imagine Asrahn told you all sorts of stories about it.”
“Not really, sir.” Where was this going?
“No? I’m surprised.”
She didn’t know why he would be. Denaven had squired with Asrahn, and according to everything she’d ever heard, Asrahn trained all of his charges the same way. The older alten was never particularly garrulous. He kept a cultivated distance, careful not to appear overly familiar or to demonstrate favoritism among his pupils, on or off duty.
They turned a corner and strode by a dense stand of shrubbery from the Storm Coast. These were already heavy with yellow blossoms that reminded her of summer days of her childhood and the perfume of highborn ladies come to see the latest work at her father’s playhouse.
“N’lahr was his star pupil, you know,” Denaven went on. “Rather like you.”
“Me, sir?” She felt her cheeks flush. So there wasn’t anything amiss. Denaven was just familiarizing himself with those most likely to rise in rank. But the three sixth rankers were more polished with their sword forms, and two of her own rank managed some of them better. She hadn’t heard of the commander seeking conversation with any of them. Was she truly the star?
He chuckled. “You’re too modest. Surely you know it was a special honor to be chosen to care for N’lahr’s sword. I just can’t believe Asrahn didn’t talk to you about it.”
“Alten Asrahn asked me to clean it up and replace the leathers, but didn’t say very much beyond that.” Maybe Denaven was looking for some personal stories to accompany a speech he would give rededicating the sword. She probably should be saying something more meaningful, but couldn’t think what.
“Hm. Well, I suppose Asrahn was terse as always.”
They’d drawn close to the carefully tended field of brown sand behind the stables, across from the long barracks building for the third- and fourth-ranked squires. The dry pebbles surrounding it crunched under their boot-heels. She struggled to fill the awkward pause in their conversation with a stray thought. “Do you have any stories about the sword, sir?”
Something about that question unsettled the commander. His step faltered and his expression blanked. It was as though she’d thrown a log into a mill wheel. There was a delay before he spoke, as if that wheel strained to break the wood before it could reengage and turn once more at full strength. Denaven’s bland smile returned, perhaps a bit more warmly. “I suppose I do. I was there for its forging, you know.”
Eager to establish an easier avenue of communication, she urged him on without consideration. “You were?”
Denaven nodded. For a brief moment, her enthusiasm seemed to have struck a sympathetic cord. He opened his mouth to speak, then said nothing. His eyes took on a penetrating quizzical aspect as they searched her own.
She didn’t understand that at all, so she strove to return a gaze of earnest sincerity. Her manner must have eased his suspicion, because the scrutiny dulled and Denaven cleared his throat.
“A story for another time.” He smiled slightly. “Asrahn’s remarks drew my attention to you.” He stopped at the edge of the sand and clasped his hands behind his back. “I think I’ve neglected your education.”
She answered this time with measured curiosity. “Neglected, sir?”
“I keep thinking I’ll have time to personally instruct squires like you with magical talents, but my official duties continually interfere. So I’m bringing in an outside tutor, and I’d like her to meet with you this afternoon.”
Elenai brightened. “That’s kind of you, sir.” Apart from Denaven and the reclusive Varama, who worked only with handpicked squires, none of the sorcerous Altenerai served in Darassus. Famous Altenerai mages like Kalandra and Belahn, she suspected, would have been far more skilled after six years of squire training; she’d had to make do mostly with self-instruction, using the library in her off-hours.
Denaven dismissed her thanks with a hand wave. “Long overdue. I’ll have her meet with you after the parade, today. What say you to that?”
“That’s wonderful, sir.” She hoped this woman wouldn’t prove to be another Mage Auxiliary officer trying to lure her from the Altenerai path. She’d long since grown tired of their recruitment attempts. “I’d intended on some extra training over the next few days, sir. This will be a perfect addition.”
He looked at her in bemusement. “That sounds like something N’lahr would say. Of course, he wouldn’t have been nearly as charming while saying it. No offense meant to N’lahr, of course,” he added quickly. “It’s just that he wasn’t the warmest of men.”
“I met him once,” she said, then regretted it, both for blurting the information and because Denaven had clearly been winding up the exchange.
“Did you?” He sounded puzzled for a moment. “But he was dead the year before you joined the corps.”
“Yes, sir. I met him in Vedessus when I was a girl. During the Naor invasion. You were there, too,” she added.
“Terrible times.”
The commander had the gift of understatement. The Naor had swept through the realm of Arappa on their long march toward Erymyr, a grim tide of blood and ashes. United for the first time behind a determined leader, their warring clans had left off murdering one another to systematically inflict their evils upon the nearest civilized realms. She felt her jaw tighten as unbidden memories washed against her.
“I should have realized,” Denaven said in a lower voice. “You probably saw all sorts of horrible things, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” She wished she hadn’t opened this line of conversation. Pity wouldn’t help her or impress her superior.
Denaven forced cheer back into his voice. “Did I speak to you as well?”
“No, sir,” Elenai admitted awkwardly. “I don’t think you saw me.”
The shadows had been long the evening the Altenerai gathered after their great victory at the First Battle of Vedessus, eleven years before. The temple bells resounded through the central square. Vast crowds cheered and laughed and offered up wine. Denaven hadn’t been the aloof and dignified man before her today; he’d snatched up a goblet and dumped its contents over a companion’s head, the two of them laughing like idiots.
Elenai, all of fourteen, her mother missing, her father wounded, viewed the celebrations alone on the temple wall near the immense sandaled foot of the statue of Vedessa herself. She watched in awe as the dusty, dirt-and blood-flecked demigods jested roughly among themselves or danced with the most jubilant of the Vedessi people. A dozen of the great winged lizards known as ko’aye soared overhead, calling excitedly in high, shrill voices. As newcome allies to the cause, ko’aye had scouted out the Naor movements, and some had even dragged horsemen from their saddles. Yet only a few among the crowd cast nervous glances skyward.
She had climbed to her vantage point both in hope she might see her mother among the recovered prisoners and to escape the celebration because she felt certain she never would.
Amidst the carryings-on, a solitary figure rode up from an alley, reined in apart from the crowd, and climbed down from his horse. He looked over the noisy throng shouting and singing only paces away from the somber zone about the shaded temple. Satisfied, he carefully poured from a watersac into a battered helm for his gray gelding, just as remote and indifferent to the raucous proceedings as his rider. Once finished, the man leaned against the wall beneath Elenai, a mere arm’s length from her dangling feet. She stiffened, statue still.
The serious soldier, dressed in the famed khalat of the Altenerai, seemed oblivious to her as he uncapped a smaller wineskin and downed a drink, so she was startled when he turned to her and offered it up. She forgot to breathe as their eyes locked.
His face was too angular to be truly handsome, his nose a bit long, his eyes deeply set. Elenai had later studied N’lahr’s image on his tomb enough times to confirm her impressions. Yet when he smiled encouragingly, she’d fallen a little in love with him.
She’d taken the offered wine and sipped, too nervous to note the flavor.
Denaven brought her back to the present. “And what did N’lahr say to you? Something encouraging, I hope?”
“He didn’t really say anything,” she confessed. To this day she wondered if he might have planned to speak before another alten, Kyrkenall she learned after, called him away. N’lahr left her with the winesac. It held a place of honor in her storage chest to this day.
“That sounds like him,” Denaven said with an air of finality. “Well, I should let you get on with your day. I have duties of my own. I’m sure I’ll see you in the line at the parade.”
“Yes, sir.” She wasn’t sure he would.
He nodded once and walked back toward the Altenerai wing of the palace.
She ran the form a dozen times, then saw to her horse, ate with the upper-ranked squires, and readied herself for the parade. Despite the praise and prospects for enhanced training, a vague sense of unease haunted her. Astride her gelding, Aron, a black with striking points, she joined a long train of paired squires waiting behind the palace, feeling unaccountably smaller than she had at dawn.
Beyond, the Altenerai themselves waited in a disorderly mass, talking freely with one another. Elenai scanned them from afar, seeing both the faces of legends and the newly risen.
Asrahn wasn’t there.
But then neither was Commander Denaven, nor one or two other Altenerai she felt certain were still in the city.
Her friend Elik, sitting saddle beside her, suddenly let out a low oath, his voice ringing with disbelief. “I think that’s Kyrkenall.”
Elenai turned in her saddle to follow his gaze as another horseman rode out of the stables on a beautiful bay dun mare with white blaze and feet.
So far as she knew, Alten Kyrkenall hadn’t visited Darassus for seven years. Yet there was no mistaking him, even from a distance—she’d glimpsed him in Vedessus, and studied a half-dozen statues and paintings that featured him, or showed the archer in a supporting role.
Those artists had depicted him with incredible accuracy. If anything, they’d downplayed his appearance, for apart from those disturbing obsidian eyes Kyrkenall was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, with flawlessly smooth almond skin and wavy neck-length hair so lustrous and dark it looked liquid. As he passed Elenai and Elik, he must have felt their scrutiny, for his gaze briefly brushed their own. It didn’t linger, and Elenai sensed that he, too, was searching for someone.
As the Altenerai glimpsed him, they erupted in glad cries of surprise.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Elik observed.
“I wonder how long he’s planning to stay?”
“It’d be wonderful to meet him, wouldn’t it?” Elik asked. His broad face was lit in a boyish grin.
Elenai nodded agreement. Kyrkenall had been N’lahr’s greatest friend. According to popular gossip, the general’s death had so shattered him he’d wandered into seclusion, popping up only occasionally to right some wrong in a remote land before vanishing once more. Some said he’d gone half-wild.
Elik must have been thinking along the same lines. “He doesn’t look like a madman, does he?”
“No. Do you see Asrahn anywhere?”
Elik grunted and looked back down the line toward the lower ranked. “Now that you mention it, no. It’s not like him to be late.”
“Probably inspecting someone’s horse back at the stable,” Squire Sansyra offered behind them.
Elenai rose in her saddle, looking not to the low-slung stables behind, but up toward the imposing façade of the palace on their right. It dominated the surrounding buildings and gardens, a four-story expanse of white stone with casements and doors ringed by decorative carvings and a roofline ornamented with scrollwork. Could Asrahn be inside, in conversation with the queen? His devotion to the corps and long years of experience had long since made him the acknowledged expert on all matters of tradition and decorum related to the Altenerai. Was this delay connected to whatever duty kept him from checking on her last night?
“Looking for something, Squire?”
At the amused question, Elenai started and sank quickly back to her saddle as Alten Rylin came alongside upon his tall, coal-black horse. One of the newest ranked, he was dark haired and rakishly handsome. He casually returned Elenai’s salute, smiled, met her eyes as if they shared some tender secret, then continued on for the rest of the officers. She discovered herself blushing, though she wasn’t entirely certain why.
Sansyra muttered something about him. Elenai didn’t quite catch it, but from the tone the words weren’t complimentary.
“What’s wrong with Alten Rylin?” Elik asked. He turned in the saddle to address their fellow fifth ranker. Elenai knew that the young alten was one of Elik’s idols.
The square-chinned brunette behind them frowned. “He’s never met a pair of breasts he didn’t love.”
That hardly seemed fair. Rylin was the most kind of the young Altenerai, always patient when teaching the lower ranks. “He’s always been nice to me,” Elenai said.
Sansyra scoffed. “That’s because he wants to sleep with you.”
Elenai was about to counter when Elik snapped a warning. “Look steady.”
She sat back in her saddle just in time. Denaven trotted past on his horse, hand to chest in acknowledgment of the salutes given by the squires. On any other day he might have had a sharp word for someone craning a neck like a sightseer, but he said nothing to Elenai. His attention was clearly focused inward, his expression serious. As soon as he joined, the Altenerai left with him, presumably to take their position before the queen’s carriage, parked by the grand front entrance around the corner of the palace.
Only a short while later the column advanced into the public streets, so the queen and Asrahn must have taken their positions out of sight. From her previous parade and their long rehearsal yesterday, Elenai knew the order of the participants. After heralds and banner bearers, the veteran foot soldiers of the Second Battle of Kanesh would precede the mounted Altenerai—most of whom had served in some capacity during the battle, some as squires. Then came the queen’s carriage and attendant governors. Because the sixth rankers were all posted to border realms, the fine coaches were followed by Elenai and Elik and four other fifth rankers on horseback in uniform rows, then dozens from the fourth and third rank; the second ranked had been allotted sentry duty for all but the most important posts. After them came several score of the famed riders of Kanesh, the greatest cavalry unit in the realms, resplendent in their long gray coats, tasseled hats, and shining horse tack. Their nominal commander had long been Alten Enada, but she, like Kyrkenall, seldom traveled to Darassus. Certainly she didn’t seem to be in attendance today.
A regiment of colorfully outfitted musicians brought up the rear. However, the noise of the crowds and clop of horse hooves masked almost every sound reaching Elenai beyond the rattle of drums and the occasional trumpet fanfare or shrill fife stab.
This was Elenai’s third year riding in the parade, and it seemed the crowds had grown. Even if the directive to sit straight, eyes front, kept her from watching them, she could see that folk were piled four to eight deep along the boulevards, cheering and waving. Merchants moved among them hawking banners with the victorious Kaneshi regiment numbers, or Altenerai symbols, or artful drawings of N’lahr’s face. All of these were held up and shaken by their purchasers, or draped from second- and third-floor balconies alongside homemade works.
The parade route passed first along the wide avenues of the central districts below the gilded domes of the marble temples to the four great Gods, then on across the old central bridge over the river Idris and into the city surround. If anything, the crowds here were larger, and Elenai’s nostrils gathered in the scent of roasting meats and spiced nuts and ales. The drumbeats and hoof clatter echoed off the closer press of buildings. From the glazed look of numerous citizens it was clear some celebrations had begun even before the parade.
The veterans stood aside to salute the queen in ordered rows at the city outskirts. The musicians remained behind as well, so that the procession that rode into the hills to the western plateau was diminished by three-quarters. Climbing the packed earth switchback up Cemetery Ridge finally gave her a good view of the queen’s carriage, decked out in crimson flowers, before the whole procession stopped along the outskirts of the vast city of the dead, the most honored of whom were entombed closest to the plateau’s edge. Row upon row of small buildings fashioned of marble and stone stretched into the distance, many depicting their occupants in friezes as they had appeared in life, though by tradition no figures were shown carrying arms—they were at peace, now.
Elenai saw the queen emerge from her carriage as a space opened up between the Altenerai. She was a slim figure in gray, her face hidden by a plumed sunbonnet. Last year the queen had personally carried the tray of fruits to set before N’lahr’s tomb; this time she merely looked on with a group of dignitaries, head bowed, while a servant performed the duty.
Elenai recalled with an uncomfortable jolt that last year Asrahn had stood to one side of the tomb, nearest the grim image carved in stone who had first been his pupil, then friend and commander. He hadn’t said or done anything special, but Asrahn’s absence today was not unnoticed. Though the squires around her maintained their disciplined posture, the horses beneath them shifted more restlessly, sensing their riders’ unease. Aron actually tossed his head and snorted before Elenai could still him.
This year Asrahn’s place was taken by Commander Denaven, who faced the assembled Altenerai. He was saying something in a low, sonorous voice. From the grand sweeping gestures it looked as though what he told them must be very important, although between the stiff wind rustling foliage and the snuffling of horses Elenai caught only an occasional word.
A knot of Altenerai was completely ignoring him, she realized, speaking in hushed conversation on horseback. Elenai watched intently, guessing their serious break in etiquette was kin to her own unease, and she couldn’t shake the impression that lantern-jawed Alten Varama pointed specifically at her. Others turning with her gesture included hulking Decrin and Kyrkenall, who kept scanning her with his strange black eyes even after the others turned back.
He’s not really looking at me, she convinced herself, and continued to think it even as Kyrkenall turned his mare away from his comrades and trotted through the scrubby grass toward her. Kyrkenall really was looking at her. What could he want? His expression was purposeful, almost menacing.
As he drew up, she saw the hilt of a slim sword hung at his waist and knew that this was Lothrun, as famous in song as the black horn bow, Arzhun, holstered at his side. He halted and raised one light brown hand. “Squire.”
“Hail, Alten.” She kept her voice low so as not to disrupt Denaven’s speech.
Kyrkenall kept his voice soft as well. “Have you spoken with Asrahn this morning?”
“No, Alten.” Did this mean that the Altenerai didn’t know where he was, either?
“When did you last see him?”
“Yesterday evening, sir. About six bells.”
“Where?”
“Just outside the Hall of Remembrance.”
“What did he say to you?”
She hesitated only a moment. Asrahn had wanted discretion, but Kyrkenall was asking her a direct question. “He told me to care for Irion.”
On the verge of her vision she saw Elik’s eyes widen, but she didn’t look away from Kyrkenall.
The archer studied her for a moment more. His eyes, like black cutouts, shifted to the squires nearest her. “Have any of the rest of you seen him since?”
There was a chorus of low, respectful noes.
Elik addressed him tentatively. “Alten, what’s happened?”
“Nothing good,” Kyrkenall said curtly. “Squire Elenai, ride with me.”
Elenai was sufficiently surprised by the order that she didn’t obey until Kyrkenall had ridden away from the group.
Her prior orders were clear—she was one of the squires assigned to the parade. Yet Kyrkenall was her superior, and he had told her to leave formation. And he seemed worried about Alten Asrahn. In the end, that’s what set her after him rather than asking for clarification.
She glanced back at Elik, who looked as confused as she felt, then looked farther back to the knot of Altenerai. She found Rylin and Varama returning her gaze. Worse, the queen herself had turned her head. Elenai was too far from her to read her expression, but she saw bright green eyes before the woman returned her attention to Denaven.
Had the queen, too, been watching her? Or had she imagined that? She gulped, then self-consciously followed the legendary alten away from the parade route, hoping the sound of their exit didn’t detract from the ceremony she could faintly hear continuing behind them. Once they started down the road to the city, Kyrkenall urged his horse into a gallop, and she was hard-pressed to keep pace.
Upon reaching Darassus, Kyrkenall’s voice was like a savage whip. He shouted for festivalgoers to clear the street, and they scrambled aside, some alarmed and some outraged, while he and Elenai thundered past. More than once he came within a handspan of injuring someone.
Either Kyrkenall really was half mad, or he was sincerely worried about Alten Asrahn. Elenai wasn’t sure how he expected her to help, but she felt beyond foolish for not considering the Squire Master might be in some sort of trouble. She knew he was old, but he always seemed so … eternal.
Kyrkenall sped past the startled second-ranked squires at the gate, who belatedly saluted, then led her around the stable and the training yards and on to the Altenerai wing of the palace. There he grabbed his bow, swung down from his mare, and trotted effortlessly up the dozen wide steps to the portico. Elenai was fairly certain Aron, damp and puffing, would stay if ordered, as Kyrkenall’s mount had done, though she would have liked to tether him properly.
She ran to catch up to the archer. A single squire, his rank clear from his two shoulder brevets, stood sentry beside one of the fluted pillars holding up the portico. Elenai paused to exchange salutes with him before hurrying through the heavy wooden door through which Kyrkenall had already vanished.
He moved fast. The alten was already beyond the lobby and the stairwell. Elenai finally reached him and matched him stride for stride but a step behind, noting she was half a head taller.
Despite asking for her company, the archer seemed disinclined to speak, or even to acknowledge her presence. So she left off looking at the back of his head and considered instead the banners and paintings hung along the Great Hall between the closed doors to storage and meeting rooms. Kyrkenall ignored them, even a brilliant one of himself laughing and lifting his sword in a snowy forest clearing as he faced a trio of Naor in bronze helms and red capes. One of the famed ko’aye was lowering on leathery wings to plunge talons into a Naor. She supposed she could ask him, today, what she’d always wondered, and find out if that ko’aye was the one he’d ridden into battle.
The click of their bootheels was magnified on the venerable granite floor.
Just when she thought he’d all but forgotten her presence, Kyrkenall suddenly spread his arms and turned dramatically. “Look at all these vaunted weapons of the dedicated dead! There’s the broken spear of T’var. He was just as broken, after the battle. Maybe Lothrun and Arzhun will hang here someday soon, eh?”
Elenai had no idea what the alten intended. She simply returned his look.
Kyrkenall laughed mirthlessly, a chilling sound that echoed off the surrounding hard surfaces. “In fact, the only object that belongs to a living person on these walls is that shield there. It’s not even the one Decrin had riven at Kanesh. Did you know that? The real one was so smashed it would have looked like crap on display, so he took an axe to a new one. Looks pretty good, don’t you think?”
There was a mad, manic quality to Kyrkenall’s delivery; Elenai could feel the rage swirling about him, as one feels a storm rising in the air. She didn’t even look toward the splintered round metal shield the archer had indicated, wondering if she herself might be in danger.
He pivoted and walked to the glass display case where Irion hung vertically. N’lahr’s sword was a magnificent weapon, four feet long and gleaming. The sapphire set into the pommel sparkled, the new leathers so well-oiled and crisp they practically glistened.
Kyrkenall halted before the case, and she wondered if he’d brought her here to ask about her work. No. That was preposterous. Shouldn’t they be looking for Alten Asrahn?
“Now.” Kyrkenall’s voice was sharp. “Did Asrahn say anything more to you, yesterday, about Irion? Anything apart from care instructions?”
Why was there so much attention being paid to the sword? It no longer made any sense that it was her actions that had brought that scrutiny. Something had to have been wrong when Asrahn handled it. “He didn’t say anything more about it, sir. But he looked troubled.”
“What do you mean?”
An image came to her, unbidden, of Asrahn working through the stances, smooth, precise, and more flowing than when demonstrating on the practice field. She had carefully watched his transitions through the middle stances. “He opened the case and then tried out the seventh form with Irion. Falling Water.”
“I know the name of the seventh form,” he snapped.
“Yes, sir.” Kyrkenall’s tense manner had frayed her nerves. Normally she wouldn’t have prattled.
“Did he say anything after?”
“No, sir. I could tell something was troubling him, though.” Elenai remembered wondering if Asrahn’s leg were giving him more difficulty than he wanted to let on.
“Did you ask him why?”
“No, sir. It didn’t seem my place.” A squire simply didn’t question the actions or instructions of Alten Asrahn. Not out of fear, but respect, for the old warrior was the very soul of correctness.
Kyrkenall rubbed his face and considered the case again. Elenai hunted for the courage to ask him what he thought was wrong.
“I don’t suppose you have the key?” he asked.
“No, Alten. Mistress Sareel has it. If you want, I can go get it.”
“No. Hold this.”
Without preamble she found herself gripping Arzhun. Despite her nervousness, despite her bewilderment, she had room yet to marvel. Yesterday she, Elenai, had held the most famous sword in Altenerai annals, and today she held the most famous bow! The weapon was different from Irion in every way. It wasn’t just that it was dark and curved rather than shining and straight. Instead of the sword’s striking simplicity, intricately detailed figures were incised into every visible inch of the black horn. They fought with sword and shield or hunted or rode mounts with streaming manes and proud tails. The lines were bold, sweeping: the weapon was an artistic masterpiece even more beautiful than described in song.
Her examination was interrupted by the sound of smashing glass.
She looked up to find Kyrkenall bashing Irion’s case with his knife hilt a second and third time as sharp-toothed triangles rained down amid glittering smaller shards. They struck the blue granite on the floor, splintering further, the sound disproportionately loud, as if the case indignantly cried out for retribution.
Kyrkenall sheathed his knife and stuck his arm past one fang of glass still securely wedged to the frame. He grabbed Irion’s hilt.
He must be deranged! Destroying the case was practically a desecration.
Kyrkenall pulled the sword free, then crunched through the broken remnants as he moved to the north wall and the double doors that led to the Hall of Remembrance. For a moment she thought he meant to enter there, but he stopped several feet shy and lifted the weapon into a slanting sunbeam. His ring of office glittered as he shifted the blade to left and right, studying it.
What was he seeing? Was there some obvious defect she’d missed while working on the weapon last night?
Kyrkenall lowered the sword precisely and advanced into the seventh sword form. The very form that still gave her trouble.
He moved with a careless speed that should have seemed sloppy. It wasn’t. Asrahn had promised there was a point with weapons forms when you moved beyond conscious consideration of the movements. And then he had lapsed into a brief, rare moment of reverie to describe Renik and N’lahr in action.
But he hadn’t mentioned Kyrkenall, one of the finest swordsmen she’d ever seen. He spun, parried, sidestepped, advanced, blocked, dropped, thrust, with astonishing precision. Even the awkward middle stances seemed somehow natural when Kyrkenall swept through them. It looked less the practiced individual movements she saw in the steps of the younger Altenerai and more a spontaneous and violent dance of deadly purpose.
Elenai had never seen sword work of the like. How was he doing it? She doubted he’d say. And she had a strong sense that he wouldn’t be around very long to ask, that he might depart Darassus again at any moment. She had to know how he managed it.
Hesitating only a moment more, Elenai centered herself, closed her eyes, and linked her will to the interconnected threads of the world around her. When she opened them she no longer saw the usual visual details of Kyrkenall and the hall, she saw their outlines and their internal energy matrices. The structures of old weapons upon the wall radiated fading glamours. Brighter by far was Kyrkenall’s life force, shining even through his clothing, especially brilliant wherever there was exposed skin. He seemed a moving man-shape of intersecting lines fashioned of golden light.
His ring shone, too, though with a blue tint, and whenever he turned she glimpsed a luster even through his sword sheath, where Lothrun rested. Irion radiated a similar glow, though surprisingly it didn’t seem as strong as that originating from the burning bow within her hands.
If she wanted to learn anything from him she’d have to move fast. He was nearing the end of the martial form. Elenai shaped desire into thought. In the real world her sorcery would have been invisible. Through magical sight the thread of her desire slung out like a spiderweb in the wind until it linked to the edge of the man-shaped frame that was Kyrkenall.
Temporarily linked, she reached for his mind. Reading surface thoughts required a deft touch. She didn’t mean to pry, but observe, and congratulated herself on achieving a careful peek without alerting him.
As she considered the images floating at the height of his consciousness she expected to find some kind of mantra, or meditative exercise, or advanced state of focus. But he wasn’t thinking about his actions at all. He was awash in memory, and she saw and felt what he experienced. She realized with a start that the broad-shouldered man in the muddy uniform walking in the mist beside her was Asrahn. He looked so much younger! She heard herself (or was it Kyrkenall?) cry out a warning and Asrahn ducked the blow of a monstrous armored Naor clansman, charging from the fog, then delivered a swift and deadly undercut between his protective plates.
Her weaving abruptly severed without her command. Startled, her attention returned to the real world, and to Kyrkenall, pointing that terrible sharp sword at her chest. His voice was disturbingly low and calm.
“Are you bewitching me, Squire?”