Read Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows for Free Online Page B

was.
    But as Diora didn't have the decency to look away, neither could Margret.
    "Evallen of the Arkosa Voyani came to me in the company of the Radann kai el'Sol."
    "Impossible."
    "I would have thought so, and perhaps it was; but she had a unique voice."
    The Serra Teresa reached out gently and touched the Serra Diora's shoulder, and although she was dressed as a slender clansman, the movement made it clear that they were of the same blood. Family. It made Diora seem less cold.
    Which was no doubt what they both intended. Margret didn't trust them at all.
    "And?"
    "She gave me the pendant."
    Silence.
    "Matriarch," Yollana said, her voice the cracked, dry voice of age withered by sun and wind—the perfect foil for the Serra Diora's voice. "The Arkosan Matriarch made her decision."
    But the bitch knew that she was going to die; she knew, and she gave the Heart to
—
to
her!
    They watched, and Elena touched Margret's shoulder, her grip harder and more obvious than the Serra Teresa's grip upon the Serra Diora. A small mirror. Margret shrugged Elena's hand off; Diora failed to notice Serra Teresa's.
    "How did she die?"
    "You know how she died, Margret." Yollana, again.
    "Were you there?" Margret said, deliberately ignoring Yollana—which would no doubt have repercussions later— because, Lady's blood, the wound was open, the pain raw in a way that spoke of all kinds of loss.
    Diora froze for a moment, although, until she did, Margret would have said that she had not moved at all. There was some subtle difference between her economy of motion and its complete lack; it was as if the cold had spread in a flash, like fire, from her eyes to the rest of her. The Serra Teresa seemed to be speaking, but there was no sound, no words. Then the young woman—whose gaze had never left Margret's—said, "Yes."
    They all turned to stare at her. Until then their gaze had been bouncing, like a child's toy, between the Serra and the leader of the Arkosan Voyani.
    "You—you were witness?"
    "More," she said quietly.
    The Serra Teresa's hand tightened perceptibly. The younger Serra raised her own and touched it, capturing it, or perhaps easing its grip.
    "More?"
    "I killed her."
    Before Elena could stop her—before she could stop herself—Margret slapped the young woman who sat, her perfect knees bent on a rolled mat before the fire. That brought noise back into the circle.
    Elena caught Margret's wrist in a grip that said, clearly, do-that-again-and-I'll-break-it, and Yollana shouted her name in a tone reserved for Havallan curses. The Serra Maria, the Matriarch Maria, ever on the fence between the two worlds she had chosen, spoke.
    "Serra Diora," she said flatly, "that was unnecessary."
    Her hair disheveled, the bruise coming to her cheek, the Serra Diora di'Marano turned to look—at last—at her accuser. The grim stare was as much a struggle as Margret's attempt to free her wrist from Elena's grip.
    But in the end, Elena won.
    Serra Diora di'Marano bowed her head, bowed now as a clanswoman did in the company not of women, but of men. Or of enemies. "She was being questioned by the Sword's Edge, another man, and a servant of the Lord of Night.
    "I do not know what you know of the Sword's Edge—"
    "We know enough," Yollana replied, grim now, her voice as flat and cold as Diora's. It was as frightening a transition as Margret had seen in the old woman.
    "—but she was not afraid of him; it was the demon. The demon was destroying her."
    "This was done in public?"
    "It was done at midnight."
    "And you just conveniently happened to
be there
?"
    "No."
    "Why were you there?"
    "Her punishment for the crime of daring to wear the robes of a Radann was that she be put on public display for the remainder of the Festival and killed at its height."
    "And?"
    "I could not free her; it was not within my power. But I—"
    The understanding did not ease Margret at all. It came, like a flash of storm-light, blinding, terrible. "You went to kill her."
    The