"But you are not being judged as an individual, or a group of individuals. You are being judged as the surety that you agreed to become when you crossed the border at Averda. You are the deposit, if you will, which was to be forfeited in the event that the Dominion chose to betray the trust that we held sacred." He rose, and the runners to either side melted away as if his wrath burned. "Will you argue that you are helpless to influence the decision of those you left behind? I will agree. You are helpless. But that is not your function here. We have been made to feel a great and grievous loss. You are the instrument by which we will respond." He lifted his hand, and in it, a scroll glowed suddenly with the light of his seldom-used power. "This is the testimony of the witnesses that were allowed to pa.s.s out of the Tor Leonne after the ma.s.sacre. This is how our people-each and every one-died."

The stillness of breathing left Valedan as King Reymalyn unfurled the scroll and began to read.

Ellora rose as Kalakar's House name pa.s.sed the lips of the justice-born King. Rose, hand across her chest, fingers tight around the pommel of the weapon that she carried by right. Vernon stood to one side; Korama to the other. Memory hurt them, and the knowledge that there would be no other chance to make new ones. The King's voice, laden with anger and sorrow, made of the death of Madson AKalakar a loss that everyone could feel as keenly as The Kalakar and her advisers had upon first hearing word.

At once, the approval that Ellora had felt, reluctantly drawn out by the courage of a young man, was buried beneath the greater loss.

She gazed blindly across the gallery and met the dark eyes of The Terafin.

He knew how they died, of course. Serra Alina made the horrors of their executions clear. But somehow, until the King spoke their names and the manner of their individual deaths into the heights of the vaulted chambers, they had not been real. They would never, after this day, be anything else. Shaking, Valedan willed himself to stand as straight and tall as possible. He lifted his chin; his eyes held fast to dignity and shed no tears of horror, although they hovered at the edge of his open lids.

We will not escape our deaths, he thought, and knew it for truth. But he had not been sent to accept failure, and as the King's voice died into a grim, terrible silence, he cleared his throat and began to speak anew.

"These actions were carried out by the men who would rule the Tor in my stead. They asked for, and received, no blessing from me-nor would they have.

"If you kill me, they will take the Sun Sword, and the Tor, and they will hold it by the Lord's right and the Lord's test. All that they have sought to accomplish by the ma.s.sacre of your people, they will have accomplished. I am the only threat they face." It was King Cormalyn who answered, perhaps only King Cormalyn who could. "We are aware of your claim." He paused and then smiled grimly. "Tyr'agar." The term held only a hint of respect. "And it is true that your death will accomplish nothing-for the Crowns- within the Dominion. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that we have considered sparing your life."

The King Reymalyn's eyes were the eyes of the Sun. "It is true. For you would be a thorn in the side of those responsible for the deaths of our people. But you will stand alone if you stand after this day; your people will meet the fate that is their due.

"For we have had no word that the Tyrs of the other four Terreans have been a.s.sa.s.sinated, their clans destroyed; indeed, we hear that they flourish. Such a hand as was behind this strike is a hand that would not have been raised without the approval of the Tyrs.

"You have been abandoned. There is no clan that will follow you, and if your claim is one of blood-right, it is not the first in history to have been cast back, like shadow, by the harsh light of the Lord of the Sun." He rose. "The a.s.sembly has reached a decision, Valedan di'Leonne.

"You are the wronged party, singularly, and you are the claimant to the Tor Leonne. Should you choose it, we will grant you our amnesty. But you will accept it in isolation. The others will be executed before the sun's rise."

"I have taken the responsibility for their safety upon my House," Valedan said, his voice steady.

"That is your choice."

"Then you do not understand the rules of the Dominion, and the rules of honor. I will not flee to the skirts of your wives to plead like a coward for my life while your executioners do their work. We will share a single fate, my people and I."

"So be it," King Reymalyn said grimly. He lifted the staff of his office, and the light once again limned his hands. But the light was shed by the staff. "I p.r.o.nounce judgment, in the name of Reymaris, Lord of Justice."

The doors at the far side of the hall were thrown wide, letting light and noise into the stillness of a vast audience that was hushed with the waiting of several hundreds of people.

"HOLD!".

Striding into the chamber, followed by guards who wore the dust and sweat of the open road as heavily as their armor, came two men: and one was Tyr Ramiro kai di'Callesta, and the other, General Baredan kai di'Navarre.

Tyr Ramiro kai di'Callesta was known to The Ten; he was known to the Crowns. Even dust-stained and worn from travel, his bearing was unmistakably that of a man of power. And that power had no place in this chamber, at this time.

At his back, his cerdan faced not the thrones, but the doors, and following a discreet distance behind them came the Kings' Swords in great numbers. He ignored their progress across the chamber floors; ignored the swords that they had drawn by right of liege-defense. He walked, looking neither left nor right, up nor down, until he stopped five feet away from the only other man in the chambers to stand directly upon the audience floor.

There, in the sight of the Greater a.s.sembly of Essalieyan, he dropped to one knee and drew his sword. The Annagarians did not draw blades often from the supplicant posture; a sword was a man's weapon, after all, and a man did not live on his knees.

But he lived by his honor, and he lived to serve his liege lord.

Many of the men and women gathered in the great chamber did not understand how his action was significant, but they were runners, guards, pages, lesser priests. The Kings knew, and The Ten, and the golden-eyed, demonic Exalted: Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta of the Terrean of Averda, was pledging his loyalty to a boy less than half his years.

And he pledged it with no less a weapon than the Sword of Callesta, called Bloodhame in the North of Annagar.

Valedan's reflection was caught and trapped, lengthened and twisted by the metallic sheen of the sword's blade. He stared at himself but a moment, and then lifted a steady chin. Dark eyes met dark eyes, measuring and testing and gauging.

Tyr Ramiro raised a brow, a slight lift of muscle. Then he nodded and lowered his head once again. But his hands were absolutely steady; they did not shake, but held firmly to what was offered.

At seventeen, untried and untested, Valedan kai di'Leonne understood that the t.i.tle Tyr'agar had suddenly become more than a desperate charade-much more than a means to an end, even if that end was the preservation of the only people in the world that he cared for. He knew that to hesitate was to show both that newfound understanding, and his fear of what it meant.

But he hesitated as he looked once again at the blade's perfect edge. Then he straightened his shoulders, and he spoke, as loudly as he could, his young voice filling a now silent room with its determination and its gravity.

"Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta, why have you come?"

The older man raised his face to meet the younger man's pale visage. "I have come," he said, as strongly but more surely, "as my father before me, and his father before him, to lay the Sword of Callesta in the hands of the only man who, by blood and birth and the Lord's will, may rule the clansmen. I rule Averda by your grace, and I rule it at your whim." He paused. "The riders of Averda will stand behind your banner."

The younger man reached out slowly to touch the sword's haft, and although the older man was kneeling, it seemed for a moment that it was he who ruled. Then, Valedan kai di'Leonne lifted the sword and swung it once in a great circle above his head. Holding it, raised, he turned to face the men who sat in judgment before him.

"I am Tyr'agar Valedan kai di'Leonne. I am the last of my line, but I will not remain so. You doubted," he said to the justice-born King, "that the clans would follow the son of a concubine: I tell you that they will follow the blood of a Tyr." He turned, and only Ramiro could see that his arm-the arm that held the sword extended-was shaking slightly. "Rise, Tyr'agnate. No Tyr'agar before me has ever doubted the value of Bloodhame. Or the man who wields it."

Thus freed from the supplicant posture, a man who was not used to its confines rose gracefully. Rose, and then bowed, low, in the direction of The Ten, and The Six. To the Exalted, he did not offer his respects, nor did they expect it. The golden-eyed G.o.d-born did not survive for long in the harsh clime of the Southern Dominion.

"Tyr'agnate," King Cormalyn said softly. "You risked much."

"Lord of wise counsel. To remain in Averda was to risk more," Ramiro replied gravely. "Ser Fillipo is my par, and I will not deliver him to the rightful wrath of your n.o.bility. I had no hand in, and no knowledge of, the actions taken by the men who now stand in the Tor Leonne. I will make no trek to their side; the Festival of the Sun will be held, for the second time in Callestan history, without the presence of Averda. I sent my brother, who is valued, to these lands as proof of my faith in your rule.

"Kill him, for the actions of men who are my enemies, and not my just ruler, and the Sword of Callesta will be raised to the North, and not to the South, for the debt of blood is a debt that not even the Tyrs can ignore. Such is," he said quietly, although the words traveled, "the will of the Lord."

"Have a care," the justice-born King said quietly. "For that sounds perilously close to a threat, and not even I would be unwise enough to utter it before this a.s.sembly."

"A threat? Lord of just measure, since the signing of the treaty of the Averdan valleys, I have never in word or deed threatened you, or the territory that you rule. I speak the truth, and it is the only truth that will count in the Dominion of Annagar. We are the clansmen. We have our duties, whether we will it or no."

Silence a moment, and before either King could speak, the Tyr'agnate added, with a grim, mirthless smile, "Although it pains me to do so, I will speak for Lamberto as well. Tyr Mareo di'Lamberto categorically refused to travel to the Tor Leonne for the Festival. He has allowed his Tors to travel as they see fit, but there will be repercussions for those who have seen fit. Whether you will it or no, war is coming. Your decision this day will decide how that war turns."

Dryly, King Cormalyn said, "We thank you for your counsel; it is, as always, enlightening. We will have a recess in the audience chamber while we discuss this turn of events. If it pleases you, wait, and you shall hear our answer."

"I am, as always, at your disposal."

Queen Marieyan, alone of the four who wore the Crowns of state, smiled very slightly, the lift of her lips both rueful and sharp. She had, on several occasions, been party to the discussions between Patris Larkasir and Tyr Ramiro di'Callesta-and their various diplomatic envoys-and she knew well that Ramiro di'Callesta waited upon no man's whim.

"Then," King Cormalyn said, rising, "we will adjourn for the hour." King Reymalyn nodded in acquiescence, but his gaze was cool and distant. The Queens, Marieyan and Siodonay the Fair, rose as well. "We will take the counsel of The Ten, if they will offer it."

The Ten rose almost as one.

Ramiro di'Callesta.

The Kalakar's gaze was caught and held by him. They had both been blooded in the valleys of Averda, and although his was not the hand that had ruled the Southern Dominion during that war, it was the hand that had been raised, again and again, in devastating Northern raids. There was a simplicity about war: He was her known enemy, and a dangerous one. She did not trust him then, nor had anyone expected it of her, but after, with pretty treaties signed and the routes opened for trade, she had trusted him less; had, in fact, waited years for a slip, some sign of his true nature, his duplicity. It galled her to see him, dust-stained and obviously just come from the road, command so much respect in this room, from this a.s.sembly.

The dead had not been so loud for a decade; she had forgotten just how bitter the sound of their voices could be.

Perhaps they crowded her; perhaps they deafened her and held her in their angry thrall a moment too long. Or perhaps time had taken its toll, and age slowed her; she was not so foolish as to think that youth's strength survived the pa.s.sage of so many years, so much experience, unchanged.

Or perhaps it was because he looked up, from the audience chamber's grand floor, and met her eyes so precisely it was as if he knew which of the ten great chairs belonged to Kalakar; or because, although Annagar trained none of its women in the arts of war, his nod acknowledged her as his equal-as kindred spirit. And, to her chagrin, it was truth; she was both.

Or perhaps it was because the young woman that the mysterious Evayne a'Nolan had left in her keeping was not the young woman that everyone silently hoped she would be.

Whatever the reason for her distraction, she should have seen Kiriel in time to stop her. And she did not.

The cry that warned her, that sliced through the thoughts into which she'd fallen so cleanly she thought someone was dying, came from across the floor. From the Terafin group. A young voice, at that-a voice that she didn't recognize, although she kept informed about Terafin events.

"Kalakar! Your guard!" There was no question at all in Ellora's mind who that cry referred to: Kiriel.

The young House Guard stood beneath Ellora, in position, her hand hovering above the hilt of her sword as if the two-hand and weapon-were not meant to be parted. Her face, pale, was impa.s.sive; she watched the men below-Tyr Ramiro di'Callesta, General Baredan di'Navarre, and the young man carrying a sword whose full history he probably did not know-lips parted, youth absent from her young face.

When had the shadows gathered, seeping from her eyes, her lips, the tips of her ringers, leaving the mask the The Kalakar and her advisers had shied away from inspecting? One moment her face was the shuttered face of a foreigner, and the next-the next, it was a thing stripped of humanity. Of mortality.

She did not speak, but the sword was in her hand as if it had no sheath, no bonds to hold it. Ellora had not drawn breath before Kiriel gripped the rail and vaulted herself over it in a type of graceful, deadly flight. Beneath her, three rows of spectators felt her shadow pa.s.sing; they had no time to glance up before she was beyond them, and into the arena itself.

"Kiriel!" Duarte shouted, finding the voice that had deserted his Commander. "Kiriel, stop!"

Men of Annagar did not often think women a threat, but there was about this one a shade and a grimness that spoke of death, and only death. To call her girl-or woman-was unthinkable. Unthought. Shadow wreathed and darkened her face, but it was no Lady's shade, no Lady's veil.

This darkness, he knew at once, for he saw in it the hand of the Lord of Night, whom no Annagarian named.

Leonne.

Ramiro di'Callesta reached for his sword and froze, mid-motion, as he saw the gleaming light in Valedan's hand; Baredan di'Navarre began to draw blade. Neither man moved as quickly as she; shock held them that necessary moment.

But as she bore down upon them-past them-in utter silence, The Kalakar noted grimly that Ramiro di'Callesta hit the floor and rolled away from the reach of her blade, but General Baredan di'Navarre threw himself toward it-in front of the man that he had come, from the heart of the Tor Leonne, to retrieve.

Kiriel snarled; there were no other words to describe the sound that filled the vaulted chamber, unless it be roar. And then she leaped, up and over, landing a foot beyond Baredan's stiffening back, well clear of the reach of his weapon. The older General had time to lose all color, but not hope; he began to turn as her feet touched ground.

Not the boy, Ellora thought, with horror. Kiriel-not the boy.

But Kiriel could not hear what she could not even say. Turning to Duarte, Ellora shouted, "Stop her!"

"Too late!" Duarte cried, although his hands were in motion. "She's too d.a.m.ned fast!"

Helpless, they watched her blade rise.

He heard the roar, a single sound as vast as movements of earth in the audience chamber. He, who had come seeking the lives of his compatriots-and himself-forgot politics; no fear that came out of the machination of human treacheries could be so visceral, so immediate.

Wheeling, moving faster than he had ever moved in his life, he saw death wrapped around a slender, sharp face and a long, clean blade. Tyr Ramiro had placed Blood-hame in his hands as a gesture of his fealty; he held her, still, both hands wrapped tight around her grip, as if she were the Sun Sword herself. As if he were her master.

The edge beneath his feet was an edge made of, and sharpened by, fear; to one side, flight, the other defense. It would not bear his weight for long. Decide.

His own voice.

Beyond her moving body, he thought he saw Baredan di'Navarre, his father's man, frozen in place, a statue of past times and past failure. He did not have the time to understand, although it would come, that Bloodhame was older than Averda-but she was not older than the war between the clans of the Lord of the Sun and the creatures of the Lord of the Night; she had been crafted for that war, and the sight of this enemy was waking her.

Valedan di'Leonne, the last surviving member of the clan that, by blood-right, ruled the Dominion of Annagar, looked up in shock as his blade struck hers. The creature's-the girl's?- charge was broken; he saw her eyes widen, although there were no whites to their depth. His grip tightened; it was all that kept the Sword of Callesta from spinning useless across the chamber floor.

"Get down" she said, and his knees almost buckled at the force of the single word. "Run."

A confidence buoyed him, then. The blade of Callesta seemed to shiver in his hands, as he brought it back. She did not move.

"Run," she said again. But there was no darkness in the word. "I am-"

She moved. He barely saw her. But he felt her hands around his shirt, his collar, his cloak. He cried out; he'd time for it, and little else.

"Take him away!" She threw him. Into the waiting arms of General Baredan di'Navarre. The older man lurched under the sudden burden, dropping his only means of protection that he might catch Valedan safely. They both staggered as they collided, but to Valedan's great surprise, Baredan held his ground, bracing his knees and his back to do so.

Two things occurred to Valedan as he gained his bearing: The first, that he was still alive, that somehow the shadow-hollowed girl had not killed him, and the second, that Genera] Baredan di'Navarre had not-yet- offered him the sword from the position that spoke of pro-ferred loyalty. He steadied himself against the General's arms, and then cried out in dismay.

Bloodhame had found her mark across the older man's left cheek; he bled. He did not seem to notice the wound; it was slight enough. But he said, "When you wield a weapon, it's always a danger. It doesn't matter where you are, or with who." He looked up. "Come. We've time, but I don't know how much of it. Let us join the Tyr."

Valedan nodded, but something caught his attention; something made him stop, turn, look back.

The strange, terrifying girl stood where he had, moments before, made his stiff plea for justice to the grim-faced, dour Twin Kings, blade ready, legs planted like spikes against the floor. The cerdan who wore Callestan crests backed away from her; the Kings' Swords held their ground. Men of two nations stood, side by side, in uneasy alliance, waiting the commands of their King and their Tyr, swords drawn and shields raised against a common enemy.

The Kings said, "Hold!"

And Tyr'agnate Ramiro di'Callesta said, "Hold!" as if all men who ruled spoke with a common voice. They stood a moment, held by incomprehension.

She drew her blade back and darkness shattered the light that came from the windows and open s.p.a.ces above. It also destroyed the perfectly worked floor, scattering shards of gold-inlaid marble in a wide, deadly circle. From beneath the ground, seeped in blackness that was armor and shield and weapon, a shadow rose, taking on obsidian, perfect form. He gestured, and the benches that seated the Exalted exploded in a burst of white heat and flame. There were screams that carried a moment above the crackle of wood, the shivering of timber and stone.

Cerdan cried out and stumbled, as did the Kings' Swords, although both were armored. The Tyr, standing closest to the gallery of all the men upon the audience chamber's floor, raised his arms and caught the little daggers the explosion had made in sinew and flesh, grinding his teeth to a close over the cry he might have made. He stumbled back, felt the common rail beneath his shoulders, and lowered his hands a moment to look.

"I apologize for the intrusion," the creature said, lifting his hands, "But I'm afraid that we cannot allow the Leonne p.a.w.n to be played on the field."

Darkness fell like a curtain, and with it came the ceiling. But the hands that had made this room, these chambers, were no ordinary hands; the ceiling resisted the darkness a moment, and a moment was-barely-enough. Only the center dropped, like stone into water, at the creature's command.

And in the center of the audience chamber, faces upturned in silence, stood Valedan di'Leonne and Bare-dan di'Navarre-the Tyr'agar and his General. The rock buried them, splintering the floor yet again with its terrible weight.

Tyr Ramiro di'Callesta pulled himself over the stone walls that separated the thrones from the floor, blooding them as the cuts and ruptures of opened skin and cloth rubbed against their surfaces. He sought the floor; the thin safety of chairs and rails and quarter-walls.

"Allasakar-Etridian," Kiriel said, standing her ground upon the broken floor as if terrain were illusion.

He spit, showing teeth that were-almost-human. "Too slow, half-breed."

Of all things to offer a creature twice her height and three times her weight, she gave laughter, and the laughter was grim and chill. "Failure." Threw an arm-not her sword arm-behind her in a wide arc. There, as dust cleared, stood Valedan kai di'Leonne and General Baredan kai di'Navarre in a grim, shocked silence beside blocks of fallen stone that had been sheared smooth in a circle-a circle that encompa.s.sed them both.

The obsidian creature snarled in rage, and hesitated a fraction of a second; his gaze went to the mages in the gallery, and to the Exalted, who rose, bloodied but unbowed, from the pyre he had made of their thrones. The desire for battle warred with the desire for survival; survival won.

Only the young woman who faced him knew how close the contest was.

"Take this back," she said, "and tell them that Kiriel sent it."

Before the mage-fires descended into the broken pit that the chamber floor had become; before the Exalted could recover and put to use those magics which were their blood heritage; before the bards could speak their words of angry command, she gestured, her arm moving so quickly it could not be seen in the shadows.

The creature cried out in fury and pain.