"Kiriel," the Tyr"agar said quietly. "The Ospreys come. What would you have them do?"
She raised a brow, and the shadows dissipated. Moonlight, silver, remained across the fine porcelain of her skin. "He is Kialli," she said softly, "and of necessity, no friend of ours."
But the boy Tyr frowned. "I have seen you approach the kin before. You have never once hesitated. You have never once chosen to speak where attack was possible."
"The Kialli have never held so obvious a hostage." She turned to Valedan as an equal, her gaze intent. "Is the woman important?"
"She is important."
"And her loss?"
He shook his head.
"You take too many risks," she said calmly.
"And you. But this one?"
She turned to face Elena, to face Telakar. "I have not attacked because he did not. Had he desired it, he could have killed you, and ended the war in that instant; we were too far away when I . . . became aware of his presence."
"Perhaps," Telakar said, with an edge of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice, "I did not recognize his import."
She did not grace him with a reply. "It is what our enemies would have demanded, Tyr"agar. Your death. And perhaps the Tyr"agnate"s."
Ramiro di"Callesta stepped forward. "What warning," he said softly, "would it suit your purpose to give?" He spoke to the Kialli lord.
"I came with information," he replied quietly. "First: The Tor Arkosa has risen in the Sea of Sorrows."
Elena cried out in denial. She was bleeding now; the two wounds that were obvious were beneath notice; the third consumed her. "You cannot speak of that!"
Telakar laughed. "It may have escaped your notice, Elena Tamaraan, but you are not in a position to dictate."
"I thank you for your information, but I confess that its meaning is not plain," Ramiro kai di"Callesta said.
Telakar stilled. After a long pause, he said softly, "You are so diminished, and the greater part of your history has been buried more effectively than the Cities of Man. Very well, Tyr"agnate. It is a refuge of great power, a place which the Kialli cannot, without temerity, approach. There is knowledge there, old magic, old artifacts, that if bartered for, would make your cities a great deal safer from the incursion of the kin."
"I . . . see." He met Elena"s gaze; she turned away. She would not answer his questions; not about the Tor Arkosa.
Not even to save her life.
"Second," Telakar continued, "to tell you that there are indeed demon kin within the city of Callesta; there are certainly kin, and kinlords, within the borders of Averda. Averda is a distant concern," he added coolly, "compared to Callesta."
"If that were true, would we not have seen evidence of their presence?" Ramiro kai di"Callesta continued, speaking softly, his gaze intent. As if demons were just another part of the political game that men of power played.
"I expect that you would see evidence, yes, but in time. I had not counted upon the quality of your . . . guards. If the kin are still present, and they are aware of just how much power resides within the walls of your city, they will bide their time."
"There are ways," Elena said, against her will, "to detect those who serve the Lord of Night."
"Oh, indeed. And they are time-consuming, little one. They also depend greatly upon the kin"s inability to flee or fight. I had thought," he said quietly, "to offer my services."
"And in return?"
"Amus.e.m.e.nt," Telakar replied. It was probably the only answer he could tender that would be acceptable to the Callestan Tyr. Elena saw that, now, in the lines of his face. She had not recognized him when she had first seen him; she would never forget him now. She was trapped between them, Telakar and Ramiro di"Callesta, and given a choice between the two, she was no longer certain in which direction she would run.
"My own amus.e.m.e.nt. War does not displease me, but if the odds are too uneven, it is a short and pathetic affair. I seek merely to prolong it until it reaches its inevitable conclusion."
"And that?"
"Your defeat, of course."
"Ah."
But he shifted. "Kiriel di"Ashaf," he said at last. "Will you grant me leave to depart?" He spoke coldly, but the words were softer than any he had used this eve. Certainly softer than any he had spoken to Elena.
"The woman?"
"She goes with me."
"And if I grant you leave to remain?"
Telakar stilled. "I do not believe that such leave is yours to grant."
It wasn"t; Elena knew it. Telakar knew it. But Kiriel did not seem to; she waited, her gaze inches above Elena"s. For the second time that eve, Elena desperately wished she could see Lord Telakar"s face.
"Tyr"agar," Kiriel said quietly. "Tyr"agnate."
She had their attention instantly; the t.i.tles she had chosen to invoke to gain it were of almost no import.
"Kiriel," the Tyr"agar said. The Tyr"agnate, for his part, was silent.
Into the silence, footsteps came, like the fall of hail. His guards, she thought. Callestan Tyran. Nor was she mistaken.
"Tyr"agar," Kiriel said again, as if the Tyran were of no concern.
"You cannot trust him."
"No."
"Will you release him, then?"
"To the Lord of Night and his Kialli lords? They can trust him even less than I," she replied. "I believe that his destruction will aid their cause, even if they are unaware of it."
"And you believe him when he says he came to offer warning?"
Her silence was as cold as the Callestan silence. Her eyes were once again upon Lord Telakar"s face, her gaze above Elena. "I believe him," she said softly, gaze dropping, eyes once again meeting Elena"s. Cold comfort. Elena felt lightheaded.
"Why?"
She shook her head.
Auralis, the Northerner, stepped up to her side. Elena had heard the phrase closing ranks before, but it had always had some distant military meaning, had hinted at the neatly ordered posture of their foot soldiers, their legendary discipline and organization. The uniforms that graced the handful of men and women who had arrived at Kiriel di"Ashaf"s side were made mockery of by the disparity in their size, but they had done just that: had closed ranks.
"Tyr"agar," Auralis said.
But the woman-the other woman-now lifted a slender hand. "Kiriel," she said softly.
"Decarus."
"The question?"
Kiriel shook her head.
The woman was poised to speak; the Tyr"agar simply nodded.
It was not to the liking of Ramiro di"Callesta. "Where are the kin?" he asked abruptly.
"Tell him," Kiriel said to Telakar.
Elena"s shoulders stung. The wounds themselves had been clean: she was certain of it. But what had started as a sharp pain had spread, had become something very like a burden-one that her shoulders were no longer capable of supporting. She could feel the beat of her heart to either side of her bent neck. Her clothing was sticky.
Telakar"s words came at a distance.
"Come, come, Kiriel di"Ashaf. Not all of the Kialli are military creatures; some are born merchants. I do not consider myself a creature of war, although war is the crucible of preference.
"What will you give me in return for that information?"
"The value of the information you offer is not high; I am here. I found you."
"Indeed. And that is curious to me, for I am almost certain that you have failed to find the others, and I can only guess that that failure has been deliberate. Of your choosing."
Again, again the large man with the sword stepped toward them, toward Telakar, toward his shield. "Kiriel-"
"Auralis, no."
This time, Auralis almost snarled. Elena didn"t understand what he chose to say; it was fast, Weston, guttural.
"We can hardly be trusted any less. Lord Telakar?"
"It appears you have made allies in the short time you have been absent. I would have thought it impossible, given how poorly you mingled with the human Court." He shrugged. "What will you offer?"
Kiriel di"Ashaf was silent. For a moment. And then she smiled.
Elena swallowed. Closed her eyes. She could not step back. Could not, she thought, although she did not say it, stand for much longer. The world was losing color at the edges of her vision; night was spreading inward from all sides.
"If the information pleases me," Kiriel replied, "and if it pleases the two men who rule these lands by mortal law, I will give you the life of the mortal you hold captive."
"It is not yours to give," he said coldly.
"No, but I fear that you"ve overestimated her ability to bear casual injury. It is . . . a failing . . . among the kin."
Elena only barely understood the words.
She wondered, briefly, if she would be better off if she could actually see the face of the woman who had spoken them, and decided that, better or not, it didn"t matter.
The ground was a long way away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
KIRIEL di"Ashaf watched the stranger fall as if her injuries and her probable death were beneath concern. For a moment, they were.
Her vision had shifted again; the fires banking. She could not longer see. She saw Lord Telakar no more clearly than any mortal present could, but she had seen him. For a moment, for a handful of moments, she had seen his name as a fire, a nimbus of light, a thing that was woven through him, and of him, in a way that it could be of no other. Beauty, in that, beauty and danger, and a terrible, visceral desire. To speak the name, to speak it well, was to offer challenge; to win that challenge was to own it.
There were very, very few who could win that challenge; his name was a subtle binding, a thing of power far easier to destroy than subvert.
Her hand was warm; the ring, as she lifted it slightly, luminescent. Luminescent or no, Telakar"s gaze was not drawn to it; it was beneath his notice. Whatever she saw when it burned, he could not see. Comfort, there, but it was cold.
When she had first touched the ring, it had almost been beneath her, but the woman from whom it had fallen had shown the only moment of fear that Kiriel had yet seen, and she wore it to invoke that fear. To enjoy it.
She had paid. Small and perfect, it was the only cage she had ever lived in; it had taken her power. It had robbed her of self. She had been frenzied with the terror of being helpless. That frenzy could not sustain itself-or her-and she had moved from it to a terrible frustration as she was exposed, at last, to weakness and mortality: She felt the air"s humidity, the sun"s heat; she sweated and burned when she toiled, f.e.c.kless, beneath it. She had always needed to sleep; she had always needed food. But the strength of those needs dismayed her.
Those, and others.
They had demeaned her.
For a while.
Her hand became fist. Closed. It had been months since she had felt the loss so sharply. She was not the power that she had been when she had dwelled within the Shining City-but her tenure there had taught her that power alone did not give her the ability to defend the things she most valued.
Aie. Loss, and here. What had her answer been?
To value nothing. To value nothing so highly that its loss could cause such a terrible, profound pain.
"Kiriel?" Auralis. Face long, almost gaunt in the evening shadow.
How weak had she become? How weak? Her first impulse had been to send the Ospreys away. But why? Without the certainty of her power, she needed the Ospreys. Or whatever it was they were now called.
She looked to Auralis, looked away. The Voyani woman"s knees had buckled; were it not for Telakar"s hands, she would have crumpled to the ground, struck it with chest and forehead, and lain there, still against the earth.
She wanted to tell Auralis the truth.
She had no idea how she"d been allowed to find Lord Telakar, although in the Shining City, such recognition had been the second nature upon which her life depended. Worse, she believed that he had come-for his own reasons, of course, always those-to deliver warning about the Kialli; believed implicitly that they existed, as he said, within the city of Callesta. Believed that he knew where they were to be found.
And worse, worst, knew that she would not be able to find them. Before she destroyed Telakar-if, indeed, she could in her weakened state-she wanted the information that he had come, in secrecy, to deliver.