"You suffered a loss upon the road?"

This was a test. Ellora had always been a quick study, although she abhorred unannounced tests. "The roads in the Terrean have been well guarded," she said, careful now, her attention split between the box before her and the woman across the table.

She hadn't lied to Korama; she was hungry.

But she hadn't risen to the rank of The Kalakar without learning a little patience.

"We suffered a loss." She raised her face fully, then, and met the woman's unblinking stare. "Yours."

She saw, out of the corner of her eye, the movement of Duarte's fingers against the tabletop. But she did not give his silent words her full attention; the Serra commanded that.

She had wanted to meet this wife of Callesta.

"Are we not allies?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

FOR a moment, the Serra Amara regretted the lack of her veil; it was her shield, her wall, her defense. The moment pa.s.sed. She met the pale eyes of this woman in men's clothing, with her forward stare, her blunt way of speaking. Her features lacked any delicacy. In the South, she would have been a monstrosity-or a seraf whose only worth was measured in toil in the fields.

But she was more than that, much more.

Do you speak of my loss?

Yes. Clearly, yes. "It is not my place to choose the allies of my clan," she said softly. But she did not look to her husband; she found herself fascinated by the scarred geography of this woman's face, and she had no desire to miss the nuance of expression across it. Ramiro would forgive her this lapse; there were none to witness it save the most trusted of his kin and the Northerners themselves.

"I ask your pardon, Serra," the barbarian woman said, bowing, if such an awkward slouch could be called a bow. "I am of the North; our customs differ."

"They differ, yes. But in the North, warriors are still valued, are they not?"

"They are not so highly prized."

"What is prized then, in your Northern City?"

"Food," the foreign Commander replied, with a smile that was far too wide. "And wine. Song. Art, artistry, the molding of words into phrases that invoke images of beauty. Magery, healing, drama. The Makers. The Kings."

"In the South, these things are of value, but they are not separate from the way of the warrior."

"In the North, I fear, the soldier's life is less poetic, more mundane. Only a few, a very few, make an art of such a task."

The Serra Amara could see that the eyes of the Commander who sat between the woman and the silent man were unblinking, intent, as he watched the side of this stranger's face.

Commander Ellora AKalakar spoke slowly, her accent poor, her words deliberate; she chose them with care. With more care the Serra suddenly realized, than she would have swung sword in the middle of a combat that would end in death. There was only one way to measure failure in such a combat.

But this, this life and this death, were subtle, slow, strange. I have misjudged you, Amara thought, watching. Listening. You are not so bold or foolish as you would like to appear.

"Is not your Kings' Challenge the pinnacle of achievement among your young men?"

The woman who was called The Kalakar almost answered. But although the words hovered on the edge of her lips, they did not emerge. She looked across the table, to the kai Leonne. Instinct.

"The Tyr'agar has partic.i.p.ated in the Kings' Challenge; I confess that I have not. I could not answer your question as truthfully as he."

Again, Serra Amara knew a moment of surprise. Deft, she thought; deftly done. She had extended herself too far, and the Commander had taken advantage of the question, parrying it, turning it in a direction that could prove awkward.

"Ser Anton di'Guivera, honored guest, has done so twice," she countered. "And perhaps it is to he that the question should have been posed. Forgive me, Commander."

"Ser Anton is entirely of the South," the Commander replied. "And his view on the Challenge is entirely Southern. It would have to be; he is the only man to have won the crown two years in a row.

"No, it is the Tyr'agar whose view on the matter might prove the most enlightening."

Amara allowed herself a glance at her husband. His expression was serene; composed. He had gone to the North, had witnessed the Challenge. Whatever reply was to be tendered, he did not fear it; did not fear that the question, so artfully deflected, so artfully returned to, would offer offense.

Valedan was quiet for a moment. "To the young," he said at last, "and to those who feel they have something to prove, winning the crown in the Kings' Challenge is, as you suggest, the pinnacle of success." His smile was disarming, and far too young for his t.i.tle; it suited his face. Amara knew a moment of fear then. "I speak from experience. I would not have entered the Challenge had I not felt I had something to prove."

She glanced again at her husband's face, and this time his reaction was-to her-telling. But his expression did not falter. His hands remained in the fold of his lap. She almost told the kai Leonne that such a display of vulnerability was foolish, dangerous. Almost.

And she felt a terrible blur of emotion. This man was not her son, but by his gesture-no matter what motivated it, he shared blood with her husband.

Unaware of this turmoil, Valedan kai di'Leonne continued. "But the men who gain the crown are not revered. They are . . . celebrated. They are feted, for a year. They pa.s.s into obscurity unless they make their mark in some other fashion." He glanced a moment at the perfectly still face of Ser Anton di'Guivera.

Amara's curiosity was intense. She said nothing.

"Perhaps," the boy added, with just a hint of self-deprecation, "I speak thus because I . . . did not win that crown. But I will say that it is, in the end, a game. This," he added quietly, "is real."

"The kai Leonne suffers from unnatural modesty," Ser Anton said quietly. "He did not take the crown because he chose to accept a Southern Challenge. The rules of the Kings' Challenge are Northern; the blood that is shed is not shed in pursuit of death. To accept a . . . different challenge . . . is to disqualify yourself from the tournament.

"Even when I partic.i.p.ated, in my . . . younger years . . . it was thus. It is not a game of death, although in odd circ.u.mstances, death may occur. It is my belief that, had he chosen to withhold his sword, to deny the challenge offered him, he might have taken the crown."

"Whose Challenge did he accept?"

Ser Anton smiled quietly. "Mine."

She was absolutely still. Her grief had robbed her of the presence, the intelligence, of the Tyr'agnate of Callesta; had it not, she might have been apprised of this strange turn of events before the meal.

She glanced again at her husband.

Saw the barest flicker of a smile cross his lips and fade.

"It was," Ramiro di'Callesta told his wife, "truly enlightening."

Had they been in private, she might have shown him her displeasure; she might even have raised voice, certainly brow, at the lack of information his words contained.

Had it been so long?

Had she truly been so far from him?

As if he knew what she was feeling-and he was Ramiro; he must-he continued to speak. "There was another presence upon the field; an ancient presence." Gravity informed his expression, lent weight to his words. "In sun's light, the shadow of the Lord's enemy.

"The kai Leonne, in full sight of the delegation from the South, defeated that presence; injured, he then accepted the challenge offered by Ser Anton di'Guivera."

But they both stand, she wanted to say. They both live.

"He won, Serra. He won the challenge that he accepted. And he chose . . . to accept Ser Anton's pledge of allegiance in return for the grace of sparing his life."

There was more. She heard it in the s.p.a.ces between his spare words. But she accepted ignorance as the cost of her terrible anger, her terrible grief, and she bowed her head.

"Then truly we are honored by his presence."

"We are," Ser Anton said. "I have served other men, in my time; I have never served another that I considered to be so worthy." His words were devoid of the falsity of flattery; he spoke them surely, quietly, as if their truth was self-evident.

Ser Valedan kai di'Leonne looked . . . uncomfortable.

She liked him, then, in a way that she had not when he had taken up her dead son's sword.

Ser Anton di'Guivera was, in truth, his man. She had heard the rumors, of course. But it had been almost impossible to lend them credence until this moment. She gazed at the impa.s.sive face of the Dominion's living legend; saw the lines sun and wind had carved there deepen for a moment. Understood that he was not a political creature, although he understood politics well enough; he had offered to serve.

He served.

She felt a fierce envy. "Commander Kalakar?"

"Serra."

"Did you witness this battle?"

"I did."

A terrible envy. "I envy you," she said, choosing the starkness of truth as a means of disavowing the weakness.

"Do not envy me, Serra Amara. It is not the only battle I have seen; indeed, it is one of the few that has not scarred me. I am not, I realize, a pretty woman-even by Imperial standards; I live a soldier's life. It is my duty, and my responsibility, to lead to their deaths men whose wives, mothers, and children lie waiting in the illusion of safety.

"My duty to deliver to them the first word of their loss. Do not envy me."

She should not have spoken. She knew it. As a Serra of the High Courts, the choice was entirely hers; she could not impulsively speak her mind whenever a stray thought entered it. She was Serra to the Tyr'agnate of Averda. His wife.

His first wife.

"Should I not? For you will be at the side of the fallen; you will hear their last words, offer them their last comfort, ease them in their pa.s.sage. And I? I will sit. And wait. And know that nothing I am capable of doing will prevent a single death."

She felt her husband's hand take hers beneath the thin protection of the table's flat top. She did not meet the gaze that she knew was waiting. She had no desire to look away.

The barbarian met her eyes, held them across her untouched, cooling meal. After a moment, she nodded her head. "It is always hard to be helpless," she said gravely. "I envy you your composure and your peace, and perhaps I do so unfairly."

She did not laugh. She did not cry. She was the Serra Amara. But she desired both composure and peace, for she had none. They had died with her son.

What she had was the empty sh.e.l.l of either; the appearance, the seeming. And it was wasted, upon these foreigners. Her own people would have understood the cost of such perfect control; they would have seen beneath it, acknowledging the mask in respect and admiration for precisely what it was, no more.

She lifted her hands, freeing herself from her husband's gentle warning. That he had had to offer warning at all must have been a severe disappointment to him. With a smile-a perfect smile, a Serra's smile-she clapped her hands twice.

Serafs filled the silence with their graceful movements. Water was brought. Wine. Delicate, dark bowls. Everything was perfect.

Empty.

"Serra Amara," the kai Leonne said.

She met his gaze. "Tyr'agar?" And bowed as low as she could gracefully bow, enc.u.mbered by the dinner posture.

"You honor us with your presence at this difficult time. Please, remain while we discuss what must be discussed."

Ramiro's head lifted slightly. She saw his expression shift, his lips tighten. But he said nothing.

"You, your wives, your city, will pay the price for our presence here. You have already begun what will certainly continue. You have shown your people, by your example, how loss can be borne. Understand, then, how that loss might unfold."

"Tyr'agar," the Tyr'agnate said. "Is this entirely wise?"

Words, Amara knew, that he would never have offered the father to this strange, this vulnerable, this likable son.

Ser Valedan did not reply directly. Instead, he turned to Duarte AKalakar. Duarte rose. "With your permission, Tyr'agnate, I would like to . . . secure the perimeter of the room."

The hesitation between the question and the response was marked, exaggerated. Amara was almost shocked.

But the Northerners did not seem to notice it; neither did the kai Leonne.

Yet she could not believe that a boy so schooled in manners, in grace, could be, in the end, a scion of the North. He must understand how great her husband's reluctance was.

"You may."

Duarte AKalakar bowed. He rose quickly, and with an ease that spoke of practice. "The serafs?"

Ramiro turned to his wife. "Dismiss them."

She nodded. Clapped once. They left the room as gracefully as they had entered it, but perhaps more quickly.

Duarte AKalakar then rose and walked the length of each of the four walls in the room. "This door," he said, to the Tyr'agnate, gesturing at the open wall that let the gardens and the moonlight in. "May I close it?"

"If it is necessary, of course."

He nodded. He was no seraf; he struggled with the doors as he drew them across the grooves that held them in place. Then he bent. Touched the floor. Gestured.

Magery, she thought. Widan's art.

Here, in Callesta. Her mouth was dry. She regretted the absence of her husband's hands, but she did not reach for them; it was not her place.

Only when Duarte AKalakar resumed his seat beside the Tyr'agar did the younger man speak.