darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,34
much to tell you and I’ve no idea where to start.”
Siri interjected, “I do. We made Aral First Blade.”
Jax turned. “You what?”
“Made Aral First Blade.”
“On whose authority?” she asked. “The goddess is dead, or hadn’t you noticed?”
Siri’s face went as cold as Jax’s. “On my authority, as the last First Blade personally named by Namara. Aral was First Blade before I was, and the only other living person to hold that title besides me and Kelos. I thought it only fit and proper that he reassume the role, and that’s why I asked him to do it when I stepped down. Do you have a problem with that?”
And now it was Jax’s turn to put up her hands. “No. Sorry. It was just startling is all. Do you mind if I ask why?”
“I was no longer able to do the job, and with only we three left of the true Blades, it was him or you.”
A flash of pain burned its way across Jax’s eyes. “That does narrow it down a bit, doesn’t it?” She opened the door to the council chamber. “Given that I missed the meeting, I guess I got off light. I’m just as glad that you didn’t pick me.”
“I’m not.” Maryam’s voice came out flat and hard.
“Not what?” Javan asked from within.
The young man was sitting at a long wooden table with his amputated leg up on a small stool beside him. The flesh ended just below the knee, giving way to a glossy black calf and a foot of glazed ceramic—golemite clay if I was any judge. Whatever it was, it registered as an intense shining green in my magesight. His familiar, Thiess, who generally took the form of an enormous horned owl, perched on the back of his chair. Like Maryam and Roric, Javan was missing an ear, and for the same reason. A previous Signet had delivered them all to Jax in a sack once upon a time.
Inaya and Xin were sitting across the table from Javan. The former was a short, muscular young woman with long dark hair that was nearly as curly as Siri’s and skin the color of strong tea. Her Shade, Ssayath, took the form of a tuft-eared lynx. Xin was a typical northern Zhani, with fine black hair, a round face, and a slender build. Alone of all the people in the room he carried a pair of short axes instead of any kind of sword. His Shade, Gulthiss assumed the shape of a hump-backed camelopard.
Maryam jerked a thumb at Siri and me as she crossed the threshold and went to stand beside Javan’s chair. “I’m not happy that these two decided to make Aral First Blade over Jax. She’s the one who gathered us all up from the various corners of the eleven kingdoms and brought us here. Her and Loris. She’s the one who has trained us and sheltered us and done what she could to re-create the order while Aral was playing the shadow jack in Tien. I think that if there’s going to be a new First Blade it ought to be Jax.”
Maryam turned back to me. “I owe you my life after what you did for us at the abbey, but while you were tucked away in Tien, Jax was rebuilding the order.” She bowed formally now. “No offense meant, Master Aral, but that’s how I see it.”
I returned her bow. “None taken, Journeyman Maryam. You make a good case for Jax’s dedication to the order, and for her dedication to its lost children, though I have never doubted either. That’s why, if the order continues and if I continue as First Blade, I intend to make Jax chancellor of our school and chief of my council. Rebuilding will start with you and your generation. Jax is the bridge between us.”
Siri spoke now, quietly, but with a cold and deadly precision. “I can’t speak to the matter of the order, but while I live and unless he voluntarily relinquishes the title, Aral is First Blade.”
Faran didn’t say a word, but she stepped up to stand with Siri and nodded.
Javan rose then to stand beside Maryam, and Roric joined him there. Across the table, Xin and Inaya backed them.
That’s when Jax moved between the two factions. “I. Don’t. Want. The. Job.”
“What?” Maryam looked shocked. “But . . .”
“But me no buts, Maryam. I have no interest. Even if I did, I would accept Siri’s word in this. She was the goddess’s final choice, and,