Free The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 by Michelle West

responsibility.
    “Not all who are asked accept. And many of the men and women—Alayra, for one, and Arrendas—asked for three days grace in which to consider what I have just said. But forgive me; I do not have three days to give you. You must decide, as I have, on this eve.”
    He raised his face again. “Do you trust me, Terafin?”
    The corner of her lips turned up slightly in a grudging smile. “A fair question.”
    “Do you believe that I am capable of what you’ve asked?”
    “A second fair question. Why do you ask?”
    “The timing,” he said.
    The Terafin’s brow rose; the smile left her lips. She nodded slowly.
    “You want me among the Chosen.”
    “Yes.”
    “Because of Jay.”
    “I would not weaken the Chosen,” she told him, her voice cool. “You are loyal to me if you stand among them. You make your vow, and take your rank, from my hands and mine alone.”
    “Tell me why,” Arann said. “Tell us.”
    She touched his forehead with the tip of her blade. Her hand was absolutely steady; it had to be. Finch could tell, by the sudden stillness of Arann’s face, that there was no distance between skin and steel.
    “Jewel ATerafin came to the House at a time that might be considered inauspicious by a lesser lord.” No humility at all in the words—but Finch didn’t mind; they were true. “And proved her value and her worth to my House from the day she arrived.
    “Her worth was never in question; yours—all of yours—was. I knew that she took responsibility for you, and I admired that in a girl of her age and her background; I was willing to take you on to observe how she handled the transition from poverty to power.
    “But I was impressed. From the streets of the twenty-fifth holding, with very little guidance, she chose her companions, and she chose well. I will leave out the peccadilloes of the two young men; they are beneath regard, but they do not invalidate their worth.
    “In time, I offered the den the House name.” The Terafin smiled. But she did not lower the sword; it rested between them, like the caress of an executioner. “I did not offer it for Jewel’s sake. I did not offer it as a reward for her service.
    “‘You earned what you now bear. But you, Arann, were slightly different.
    “I believed then, and I believe now, that had you not been dying when Jewel first arrived at the gates of the manse, had Jewel not bargained so harshly for your life, and had your life not required such drastic intervention to save, you would not now stand among the House Guard; you would cleave to your den.
    “But you did receive injuries that would have proved fatal, and Alowan did, indeed, call you back from the foothills—or the bridge—that leads to Mandaros’ Halls. I believe that Alowan has so often been forced to heal me that his impression of me shaded yours; you saw not what the den saw, but what Alowan did. And does.”
    Arann did not move, for the sword still had not wavered.
    I never realized The Terafin was so strong
, Finch thought, knowing that she would have cut his face from forehead to nose tip about two sentences in because the sword was so damn heavy.
    “What Alowan sees in me, he sees in Jewel ATerafin. What she desires for herself, and for this House, is tainted to some degree by the life that formed her—but it is also informed by the life she has built. She has never—and I believe she never will—stoop to assassination to achieve her ends.
    “And I will not criticize the limitations that she places upon herself; in some ways it is by the limitations we choose to labor under that we are best judged.”
    It was Teller who interrupted her. Or rather, Teller who spoke when she fell silent.
    “Terafin,” he said, with more respect than he usually put into a name.
    She shifted her gaze, but nothing else.
    “You haven’t answered his question. You haven’t told us why.”
    “Do you need to hear it? Very well. If I die here before Jewel returns, the chance of