Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

"I'm asking because I care, damn it!" he exclaimed, and Aleksi was astonished to hear how hurt he sounded.

She did not reply immediately. Instead, she tested her feet on the ground and Aleksi helped her to sit down. Her face shone gray in the dusk. She still had to lean against him, even then. "Oh, God," she said. "It just happened so fast. God, I'm exhausted."

"As well you should be," interjected Marco. "Goddess, Tess, it's hard enough to leave without worrying that you might-" He broke off and knelt down beside her, hugging her, and Aleksi let her go. "Why did you come after us?"

"That's a stupid question," said Tess. "I receive a note that states that urgent news from Odys forces Charles to leave Rhui at once, and you don't think I'd-" She paused for breath, Marco let go of her and stood up. "I need something to drink." Aleksi offered her water from his flask. She drank and gave the flask back to him. "If you're leaving this way, you must be leaving for good. Forever. It doesn't take any great brilliance to read your mind, Charles."

Aleksi was amazed by her tone of voice, and by the prince's expression, like that of a master of saber who has just realized that his apprentice can match him now. "It doesn't?" he demanded. "Then how am I to negotiate the maze of Chapalii politics?"

"By not underestimating your opponent, first of all. What am I to tell Ilya? That you disappeared? Right out from under his army?"

With dusk, the wind had dropped. Now it picked up again, a faint moan through the air.

"We've got incoming," said Marco.

Tess set her fists on the ground and took in three deep breaths. She heaved herself to her feet. Soerensen caught her by the arm and helped her up. "No, I'm all right. Just tired. So what am I to tell Ilya?"

"That I'm dead."

"How do I prove it? It isn't easy to fake a death, Charles. I won't have a body. At least a dozen people know I left camp, against their wild protests, and I refused any escort except Maggie's. I had to take messenger's bells and a seal to get past patrols without any questions. Ilya will hear all about that, I can assure you."

"You could come with me," said the prince.

She cocked her head to one side. Fear washed through Aleksi, and he took a step toward her. If she went, by the gods, he would go with her. But Tess only grinned. "No, I couldn't. You know that as well as I do."

Soerensen sighed and rested a hand on her shoulder- the gesture looked both awkward and intimate. "Tess," he said slowly, "I do regret how little time I've ever had just for you. I'm sorry."

Her eyes widened. "So you really are leaving Rhui for good."

"Yes! I don't have any choice. Listen!" He bent toward her and repeated to her the words that the woman Suzanne had told him. Aleksi realized that they had raised their voices to talk over the rising roar of the wind. How had the wind come up so suddenly? A few clouds lay torn across the sky, building in the west and concealing patches of stars, but there was no sign of imminent storm. The horses flung up their heads and pulled at their reins, nervous, and Maggie stayed with them, calming them.

Tess listened to her brother's recital in silence, and when he was done, she simply nodded her head. "Yes," she agreed. "You have to go."

As with one thought, the four khaja looked up into the heavens. It wasn't wind at all. Aleksi tilted his head back and stared.

It was a creature, a bird-not a bird-some monster- not a monster. The prince had said a ship was coming. And Dr. Hierakis had told him about ships that sailed the ocean of night, as it was night now, fallen all around them. A huge shadow blotted out the stars, and the air sang in a bellowing howl around Aleksi as the ship sank like a bird sailing in on the wings of Father Wind and settled onto the ground.

Dust sprayed out. Maggie's mare bolted and crashed down, constrained by the hobble, and struggled back up to its feet. Marco and Aleksi ran over to help Maggie, and the three of them led the animals back to Tess and the prince, fighting them, soothing them until they calmed, ears back, and resigned themselves to the presence of the beast. It roared; that was its voice, then. The swirling air was its breath, hot like summer, hammering at him, tearing at his clothes.

They showed no fear at all.

"What happened to Karkand?" Charles shouted, straining against the screaming voice of the ship.

"I don't know. Last I heard the jaran broke into the city. That's all I know. You really can't come back now, can you?" She sagged, just slightly, and Aleksi left the horses to Marco and Maggie and went to her. She cast him a glance, relieved and grateful, and let him hold her up. She shook, she was so exhausted.

"No." The wind pounded at Soerensen's back where he stood facing Tess, his back to the ship. It hulked there; small lights caught and winked on it, like eyes opening and closing. "There must be no link between me and Rhui until we're ready to launch the next rebellion, not anything else for dukes like Naroshi to grab hold of. I have to work as far into the Chapalii court as I can. In a way, I'll be providing the distraction. Because once the rebellion is launched, we'll need Rhui."

"You have Rhui," she yelled back. She squinted into the tearing gale, blinking back grit, and lifted an arm to protect her face.

"More than that." His pale hair whipped and danced in the breath of the ship. "You have to unite Rhui, as far as you can, you and Bakhtiian, his descendants, if it takes that long. So when the interdiction lifts, as it must, when we need its resources for the rebellion, we'll have some kind of central authority. But one that's grown slowly, without alerting the Chapalii. Without that central authority to coordinate our efforts on planet, it will be far too inefficient to exploit her resources with the speed and initial secrecy we'll need to make the rebellion work."

"We're such damned hypocrites!" The ship screamed behind her, and the wind battered them in waves. "By what right do we meddle on Rhui like this? By what right do you? You leave, but in turn you make Rhui the heart of your plans. And yet you made the interdiction in the first place. Now you're breaking it worse than anyone else. By what right?"

A single bright white light speared out from the ship.

It illuminated the prince and Tess as if the sun had risen on them alone, leaving the rest of the world in darkness.

"By the promise I made to free humanity," the prince said. His face was shadowed though light spilled around him, but hers was ail lit, white and angry, and then she rolled her eyes and laughed.

"I'll never be free of you, Charles."

"Never," he agreed. "We never are free from ourselves and our heritage." Abruptly, he wrung his hands together, a gesture that showed how deeply this parting hurt him. Only he wasn't wringing his hands; he was pulling the signet ring off of his right middle finger. "This is yours, the sigil of the Prince of Jeds. I left the gold chain of office in my tent, and Baron Santer in Jeds holds the scepter in trust, until you return."

She pushed herself away from Aleksi and took the ring from Charles and stared at it as if she had never seen it before. "How am I supposed to prove all this? When am I supposed to ride to Jeds? Is there any guarantee that Baron Santer will remember me, or be willing to give up his regency? And how in hell are Ilya and I supposed to unite Rhui, anyway?"

He lifted his hands, palms up, and smiled. "Tess, I never said it would be easy."

She laughed. "Damn you!"

"The prince is dead," said Marco, his voice almost obliterated by the ship's voice. "God save the prince."

"Marco," said Maggie. "Go to hell."

"No doubt I will."

The ship coughed. Only it didn't cough. Its mouth opened and a golden glow penetrated the night, washing into the hard white glare that illuminated Tess and her brother. A ramp pushed out from the maw of the beast, a bridge linking the heavens and the earth. A figure appeared in the glow and hurried down the ramp. An angel? One of Father Wind's attendants?