"Kai el'Sol," was the altmtst UHlMd reply, "is he among the six?"

"Yes."

"Impressive."

Grudging even this agreement, the kai el'Sol was silent for a moment. The moment ended as

Eduardo di'Garrardi's opponent drove his blade point first into the sheath of the plateau itself:

surrender. It was a near thing, but this closely watched, Eduardo had no choice; he held his hand. The man's kin came to him, quickly, as if that moment of control were a pa.s.sing cloud in a brisk wind. They gathered and they retreated, giving the defeated combatant the opportunity to display both dignity and strength-such as it was-by walking off the field. But they did not sheathe the weapons they had drawn, and no witness could think it coincidence that the honor guard they formed was heaviest at the rear.

Alesso laughed. "I see that Garrardi has indeed distinguished himself."

The day waned slowly; the Lord's face was harsh and complete in its dominion of the sky. Food had been brought to the Serra, and water, but she touched neither. Alaya's seraf hands held a fan that caught air and used it; the hint of cool breeze wafted across downturned cheek, an echo of the rainy season.

Brave girl, to try to mime the winds.

Fire could be contained, but air, never. Hold out your hands, and it pa.s.sed through your fingers more quickly than water. It lifted the veil of sand, casting it into unwary eyes, and at the peak of the storm, that sand buried those who had not managed to find shelter from the wind's full fury.

The Tor Leonne was far enough from the desert winds that it was not troubled by them, yet close enough that the wind's whisper still held menace and warning.

She heard its whisper.

And contained within it, words.

"Diora."

"Ona Teresa."

"Have you spoken with the kai el'Sol?"

She raised the lashes of her perfect eyes and gazed a moment upon the broad back of the man who had kept his word. He protected her from the curiosity of the clansmen, and from those who might-just might-seek a chance to gloat at the fate of the Serra who had, a year past, been the most envied young woman in the Dominion. She thought he might leave an honor guard during those times that Festival duties demanded his attention, but not even Marakas par el'Sol had been allowed to stand alone with the Radann the kai el'Sol had chosen; what she endured, he endured, and for the same length of time.

Once, she might have thought him brave and honorable.

Then, as she grew wiser and more learned, a fool.

And now?

"No."

"The time is now, Diora. If you do not do this thing, you will-"

"I know what I must do."

And now she would consider him a doomed man. She h.o.a.rded her voice and her voice's strength. Because tonight she intended to speak in private with the Radann kai el'Sol. To offer him not the soothing tones of the Flower of the Dominion, but the command-the implacable command-of the oathsworn wife.

Silence then. Ona Teresa's blessed and cursed voice became wind, hot and languid in its silence. But the silence was a lull, a trick of timing. "You need the Sun Sword." I know.

And the man who dared to bring the Sun Sword into the open at the height of this particular Festival was a doomed man, for the General could not overlook the insult and the implication of the weapon's presence.

He is dead, no matter what happens. This way, his death serves a purpose.

She tried, as Alaya bent just a little too close and caught the edge of her chin with the soft, thick leaves of the fan, to believe it. And because she was born of Sendari di'Marano and his long dead wife, because she was trained and taught by the Serra Teresa di'Marano, she could.

But another truth came to her as she sat, waiting for sunfall, counting the truths she did know: that men of power should never be trusted. The obvious reasons had been given her: that they were not trustworthy, that they valued nothing above their survival and their supremacy, that they made, of those Serras foolish enough to dally, p.a.w.ns-or serafs.

She had found one more: that they could be trustworthy. That they could value honor and prize something greater and deeper than their power over the realm they had chosen for their dominion. And that they, not the Serra, might become the p.a.w.n that was sacrificed in the hunt for a larger piece.

She had not thought to like the Radann kai el'Sol, but she did, and it was a terrible thing.

Later, she would remember that the Festival of the Sun was marked not by light, but the shadows the sun cast; those shadows fell long, and when the season pa.s.sed, they remained, scars against the hidden heart, evidence of a wound that had only just missed its mark. Only just failed to grant its peace.

But she thought that those shadows were night, and she thought that night, even as brief a night as the Lord granted at his Festival, was the Lady's dominion. So much of the world slept, and the parts of it that woke- serafs and cerdan, crickets and night blossoms-were, as she was, a part of the invisible world, the world in which power was measured in little things because it could never be measured in greatness.

She could not say that she had never wondered what it would have been like to be born a man, a clansman's son. But at thirteen she had lost the illusion that that would grant freedom, for she had seen many men trapped by bonds as strong as hers, into different services, whether they wielded sword and rode stallion or swept the open courtyards after the clansmen and their Serras had pa.s.sed.

Freedom.

She turned the word around in the silence of closed lips; it was a Northern word. It had no roots in the Tyrian tongue, although it had been adopted in some fashion, and used. The closest a.n.a.logy that the Tyrian tongue could offer to the Weston language was Tyr'agar. First ruler.

What, in the end, was freedom?

Serra Diora took a deep breath and then, very quietly, she touched the door of the swordhaven and pushed it. It was ajar, and it swung toward the interior on a newly oiled hinge. Within there were lamps, light, and a window into the nightworld by which the Sword might be seen if the Lady chose to look. "Radann kai el'Sol?"

"Serra Diora." The Radann kai el'Sol stood at the foot of the stairs. To his left and his right were two men; they wore hoods, but by their sunbursts, she knew them to be par el'Sol. "Close the door behind you, make the offering, and join us."

She bowed in respect and accepted his command as if obedience was reflex. It was. Incense touched her fingers, leaving a hint of fragrance that fire would make less cloying. Then, rising, she made her way to the steps.

The Radann kai el'Sol bowed, which surprised her. "Tomorrow," he said softly, "is the Festival's Height."

"Yes." She met his eyes squarely, because she knew, at that moment, that he expected no less. She had no seraf and no cerdan; he had no attendants but these two. There were none to witness either her boldness or his deference. "Forgive me, Radann kai el'Sol." Speak truth where truth will do. "Forgive me, but I did not choose this site because I desired privacy."

He waited, grave, a stillness about him that was more substantial, suddenly, than the robes or the rank that made them so desirable.

To his right, Radann Samadar par el'Sol lowered his hood. To his left, Radann Peder par el'Sol.

The hood fell away from the latter's face as the night lost its aura of safety; she remembered, meeting his eyes, that safety was illusion, that only the desire for safety was real. That lesson, she'd learned the night the clan Leonne perished, but it was a lesson that she forgot, time and again; a lesson that, like real pain, and not the memory of pain, could only truly be felt when one walked its terrain again. The desire for safety was that strong.

And the desire for love, and neither could ever be guaranteed.

The dagger was in her hand; she had taken it with the ease and immediacy that she had once- and never would again-grasped her father's hand.

"Serra Diora," the kai el'Sol said, his voice low and gentle.

She did not shift in either gaze or stance, and they did not approach her, for the use of daggers was an art in which the women of the clans often excelled. "Kai el'Sol. I am... surprised at your choice of companion."

The Radann Peder par el'Sol grimaced. "Of course. You are the Widan's daughter, and the Widan serves the General."

"Of course." Her lips were set in a thin line. "This man," she told the kai el'Sol, "intends to preside over the Radann after your death." She looked for some sign of surprise in the kai's features; there was none. Instead, and far worse, was the hint of a bitter resignation, a turning of the corner of lips, a momentary drop of shoulder and brow.

"Yes, Serra, I know. You are... observant. And I should have expected no less; you were wife to the kai Leonne." He turned away from her-and from his companions, neither of whom spoke, and made his way to the steps that lay before the Sun Sword. "Join me, Serra."

She had to walk between the Radann to reach him, but she did not hesitate. Nor did she sheathe her dagger.

The steps, wide and flat, she mounted with ease, pulling up the hem of her sari with a twist of her left hand. He waited for her, and as she joined him, he knelt before the weapon crafted by the Lord. She thought he was praying, and perhaps he was, for very little else could bring a Radann to his knees.

But he said, "Serra Diora, is this the favor that you have come to ask?"

And she looked at the gleaming flat of the blade beneath the torches that marked and honored it with an echo of the Lord's light. "Yes." She hesitated for a moment longer and then sheathed the dagger in the folds of her sari. "Kai el'Sol-the Radann-"

"Serves the interests of the General. Yes, I know."

"But you-"

"He told me, Serra."

She was silent as she absorbed this. "He spied for you 'No. He intended to take the Radann."

Silence. Then she raised her face, slowly, to the night sky. "The Lord of Night."

"Yes. Peder is a man of great ambition, but he if Radann. To offer his support for my death and the t.i.tle of kai," the kai el'Sol shrugged. "But to offer his support for a return of the Lord of Night?" He bowed his head. "I am not the man for this game, Serra Diora. I am the Lord's servant, but the game that is played here is a game for men who understand treachery better than I."

She turned then, and saw that the face of the Radann Peder par el'Sol was turned up, toward the Sword, or the kai. Or both.

"And if I were the man for this game, I think it would matter little," the kai continued. "But I will serve the Lord, and the Lord's work, as I can." He rose. "The Sun Sword is always displayed at Festival's Height. It has always been drawn and wielded by the Tyr'agar. I would be honored to bring it, as has been my duty for my tenure as the kai el'Sol, to the celebration of Festival's Height." She knew what it would cost, and she had thought to use her gift to influence a man of pride and honor to do exactly as he pledged to do. But she had thought to use him while he remained ignorant, and she was ashamed of the thought, and for it, for she saw clearly that he knew what the cost of his action would be.

As if he could read what could not be upon her face, he smiled. "A General knows when to surrender some of the men in his command to his enemy's slaughter, that the war effort elsewhere might continue.

"But I will ask a boon, daughter of our enemy." She waited in silence.

"Do not judge the Radann Peder par el'Sol too harshly, for he will be kai el'Sol." He offered her an arm, as if the steps were steep, and she took it. "The only loyalty required of the Radann is loyalty to the Lord. If he were to be judged by the Lord tomorrow, at the height of the Lord's power, he would not be judged unworthy." He took a step and then stopped. "But I must say in honesty that he does not know about the... gift the Voyani woman left you. He knows of the woman."

"He had her killed."

"He had no choice. You will understand that, one day, or you will never understand it. Her power was detected.

It was detected by the Sword's Edge. Peder could expose her, and maintain his role, or he could attempt to save her and doom us all.

"We are fighting a war, Serra. We are all, singly, expendable. All.

"The Tor Leonne will not be open to travel until Alesso wears the crown and holds the Tor. Until open travel is possible, we can send no word, gather no information, inform no others. The Tor will be the General's; we cannot prevent it. But I swear before the Lord's Sword that it will never belong to the General's allies."

As he spoke, she turned and the light along the blade flashed starkly and sharply in the poor light.

"Alesso di'Marente would never serve the Lord of Night." It was pulled from her grudgingly, as if it pained her to say anything about the man at all.

"No? Perhaps not willingly. But he overestimates himself, or underestimates his allies. If Peder believed that the General could withstand the forces of the Lord of Night, he would never have come to me. Peder par el'Sol is no loyal friend-but he is no fool."

"Kai el'Sol, with your permission, I would like a moment alone."

His arm fell away from hers, as if it had become too heavy; he bowed, and waited for her to make her descent. She ascended instead, and stood, as he had stood, before the gleaming crescent sword. And then she knelt, as he knelt, and pressed her head against the stone.

But her prayer, spoken, was silent; her gift and her curse protected the words from the ears of any save the Lord himself.

If the Lord listened.

He heard her sing from a distance enforced on all sides by the Radann, and although the song had ended and the sweet stillness of the Tor had pa.s.sed, he remained to greet the fall of night in the same position that he had held when she departed. The healers had done their work-at cost, and not to him alone-but the skin was new and pulled when he moved quickly; his clothing, heavy enough to protect him from the full heat of the sun, chafed.

The demon was gone, but others remained, less easy to destroy and far less gratifying. "Alesso."

"Sendari." He did not look away from the pavilion. "The Tyr'agnate of Oerta has been looking for you."

"Let him look."

Sendari chuckled dryly. "It is early for that game, Alesso. We have already agreed. Until the Festival's end we cannot afford this antagonism."

"Whether we can afford it or no, old friend, we will pay. I have done as you required, and I have mollified Garrardi in a fashion. But he was not soothed by Calevro's death."

"Calevro was the Captain of the oathguards. He broke his oath for personal gain. If Garrardi thought that we could afford the stain of his allegiance, he is a greater fool than I would have thought."

"Which," Alesso replied, lifting and swinging his arm as if the morning's exercise was not yet done, "says much."

"Indeed."

"Sendari, might I not-"

"No."

The frown flashed across the General's face and pa.s.sed in an instant, yet it could not be easily forgotten. A harbinger of the storm to come.

"It is not my choice," Sendari said, matching his friend's momentary anger. "And we will not argue about this again, I swear it by the Lord's grace. The Radann guard her at all times. If she is awake, the kai el'Sol attends her personally. If she is asleep, she is attended by his personally appointed servitors. Not even I am allowed into her presence."

"And you accept this? She is your daughter." Sendari said nothing, but turned instead to gaze up at the face of the moon in the clear, clear sky. It was a long moment before he answered, but although the shallows of night hid the twist of his lips and the quickly changing contours of his jaw, Alesso knew him well enough to wait.

"Yes," he said at last, and softly. "She is my daughter." His shoulders fell.