Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

Raysia had used her own telling of the tale and wound it in on itself, and Aleksi found himself rooted to the spot and unable to move, listening to it, seeing it. Mother Sun exiled her daughter to the earth, and sent with her ten sisters to be her companions. These ten sisters bore the tribes of the jaran, and one day, the first dyan of the tribes fell in love with the Daughter of the Sun. She refused him, as surely any heaven-born creature must. He led his jahar into battle, and fell to a grievous blow.

Wounded unto death, he begged her for healing. Healing him, she loved him, and together they made a child. And she gave him a saber-the sword of heaven- because of which he could from then on never lose a battle.

Just as Tess and her brother had given Ilya a sword, which not even he knew the strength of.

Yuri Sakhalin never lost a battle after that, or at least, that is how the Singers sang the tale. No battle but the one every mortal being lost-that against Grandmother Night.

Aleksi strolled back to his tent, feeling thoughtful, feeling… curious. He knew the art of moving without being seen; it had saved his life more than once, when he was an orphan. He slipped unnoticed into Dr. Hierakis's tent, even keeping the bells from ringing, and he stood in front of her table and spoke the words he had memorized from hearing Tess say them: "Run League worlds."

Rhui he now recognized. He could recognize the broad pale expanse that marked the plains and the tiny tiny bay far to the south that marked the city of Jeds. Then the other worlds appeared, strange spheres with yet stranger names: Three Rings. Something unpronounceable. Cassie. Hydra. Eridanaia. Tau Ceti Tierce. Sirin Five. Ophiuchi-Sei. And last, her planet, the only one as heart-wrenchingly beautiful as Rhui, the only other one that wore as brilliant a coat of blue, symbolizing the heavens: Earth.

Aleksi sank down into a chair and watched as the program ran on, showing paler worlds and fiercer stars, showing webs of light dangling against a black void and many-eyed globes of polished metal and ships like blunt arrows docked at piers built of sparkling gossamer threads. He watched as thousands upon thousands of towers rose up from a bleak plain and became invested with lights as numerous as the stars, or as the fires of the jaran army.

No one disturbed him, hidden here in the doctor's private chambers. Outside, the celebration had already begun. Inside, in the quiet of the tent, Aleksi discovered the universe.