Illusions

by S_Star

Disclaimer: If you recognise their names or descriptions, then the characters, places, etc, belong to Tamora Pierce. If you don't, then they're either mine and don't really matter or you haven't read the Tortall quartets recently. ^_^

Rating: PG-13 for now; maybe a later R if there are any particularly grotesque battle injuries...

Summary: Set after Lady Knight. Kel may have destroyed Blayce, but King Maggur is still sending Scanran troops into Tortall; and one of the mage's spells remains, even after his death. Throw in confrontations with Dom; Roald and Shinko's wedding; and junior glaive-training, and you get this fic. You thought it was the end, but Kel's career is only just beginning...

Pairings: Possibly some K/D along the way, but this isn't specifically a shipper fic.

AN: Hey, my first TP fic! I always thought I'd end up writing for the Immortals quartet, but evidently not. *shrugs* Oh well. Feel free to flame, just keep the expletives to a minimum.

I also wanna apologise for any lapses in character, etc. HD helped me smooth out most of them, but I'm sure there are a couple of messy bits in there.

Quick thanks to: HuntressDiana for lending me the books and doing canon!beta for me. Girl, you shouldn't have got me started on this... ^_~

I: Daybreak

Keladry of Mindelan was a reasonable sort of person. She may have been headstrong and stubborn, but she also knew when to keep her mouth shut. This was not one of those times.

'Domitan of Masbolle, come out here immediately!' she shouted, banging her fist hard against the thick wooden door.

From inside the room came a muffled curse followed by a long silence, and Kel leaned back against the wall in exasperation. 'I thought it was meant to be you who wasn't the morning person,' she groaned, turning her head to look at her friend.

Nealan of Queenscove gave her a lopsided grin. 'What can I say? It runs in the family. And,' he added as an afterthought, 'I'm awake, aren't I?'

She smiled back. 'Yes, but you had to drink about five tankards of that foul brew you Healers insist on taking before I could get a coherent sentence out of you.'

Neal scowled. 'At least I'm up.' He gestured at Dom's door, through which Kel could hear soft snores.

She sighed and banged on the door again. 'Dom, if you don't get up right now, I'll send Neal in to make you!'

After a few seconds, they heard, 'I'm up, I'm up!', and minutes later Dom emerged, running a comb through his tousled hair.

Kel rolled her eyes. 'Anyone who says girls are vain obviously never met you.'

Neal and Dom exchanged grins and followed her down to the palace's practice courts, Neal muttering about whether she was taking Joren of Stone Mountain into consideration when she accused the two of them of vanity.

They had returned to Corus for Midwinter, as was now tradition, and had brought with them a large number of New Hope's children who had insisted on continuing their weapons training with Kel, despite the season. The camp itself was being guarded by a selection of the strongest refugee and ex-convict fighters: there had seemed to be no need for any full troops to remain, as anyone foolish enough to try to cross the Vassa at this time of year would be no match for Kel's people if they survived.

'Lady!' came a familiar voice, and light footsteps followed, bringing Kel's servant Tobe into view. 'Lady, Duke Baird says you should drink this before training.'

Kel winced at the sight and smell of the 'foul brew' Neal had gulped down earlier. 'I'll be fine, Tobe.'

'But he said that—'

'—A cup of this a day will keep you healthy, happy, and, most importantly, awake,' chorused Kel, Dom and Neal, familiar with the Tortallan Healers' theories about the drink.

'And I've already had enough to keep me sleepless for a week,' added Neal cheerfully.

Tobe smiled broadly, gesturing at Neal. 'It does seem to work, Lady.'

'I know,' she admitted, 'but it tastes awful.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Give it to Dom, Mithros knows he needs it.'

Dom narrowed his blue eyes at her, but the effect was spoiled by a wide yawn. Tobe placed the cup in the sergeant's hands. 'Begging your pardon, sir, but she does have a point.'

Scowling, he drained the cup, screwing his eyes up at the taste and trying his hardest not to gag, and soft laughter drifted towards them from the palace entrance.

Looking round, the four of them saw the smiling faces of Kel's old Yamani friends, Yukimi noh Daiomoru and Princess Shinkokami. They were dressed in practice clothes and clutching glaives like Kel's own.

Another wave of laughter swept round at the glazed look that entered Neal's eyes when he looked at Yuki, his betrothed, and this time it included the children, all clutching their short spears eagerly.

With a cough that brought everyone back down to earth, Kel set Dom and Neal to work with the youngsters while she and the other two women worked their way through complex pattern-dances with their glaives.

This was what Kel found always woke her up, she thought as she lunged. Forget that herbal magic nonsense; there was nothing better than the wind whipping over her face and the glint of the blade of her weapon when she span.

Part of her pointed out that her aversion to that kind of magic was residual envy of the Lioness's Gift, but she crushed that thought immediately. She was still in awe of Alanna, especially now that they'd had proper conversations, just much less starstruck. Kel flushed slightly, remembering the idiot she'd made of herself when she'd first laid eyes on her idol.

She knew that Alanna's Gift had been the cause of many accusations and problems, and knew that it was foolish of her to even consider herself at a disadvantage: if anything, she was a better aspirational figure to many of Tortall's girls than the Lioness, as she was easier to identify with. Those words had been spoken by the mother of one of the older refugees whose dream it was to become a knight, and, while they embarrassed Kel horribly, she fairly glowed with pride when she remembered them.

But, while Kel was good with a glaive, Alanna's tongue was sharper than even that lethal blade, and her dry wit was almost as impressive as her status to her many admirers. She was probably the only person in Tortall able to make King Jonathan laugh, one honour Kel knew she would never be able to live up to.

Slightly confused as to the path her thoughts had taken, Kel twirled the weapon one last time and brought it back to her side, breathing heavily.

She shook her head and strode over to her students. Yes, she'd definitely take glaive-practice over that vile concoction any day.

Kel snapped herself out of her musings and rushed over to where Neal was yelling at one of the most recent additions to their groups, a cowering girl of about seven who had twisted her ankle when trying to turn too sharply. Patience was the one necessity of this job, and Kel thought it was a miracle that Lord Wyldon (the not-so-affectionately labelled 'Stump') had lasted so long as the training master here.

She shooed Neal away to go help Dom while she demonstrated the correct footing to the child, and almost lost her own poise when the girl looked up at her with glowing eyes

'Thank you, Lady Knight,' she said shyly, and Kel had to work to keep her face Yamani-blank at the waves of admiration rolling off the girl.

'You can just call me Kel.'

'But that ain't proper, Lady...Kel,' she amended.

Kel smiled. 'What's your name?'

'I'm Polly. Pollandra of Greensward, Lady Kel,' she added.

Kel nodded. The Greensward refugees had been a very small number, and she had, with much embarrassment, been forced to ask one of her newest clerks to look up the location of the village for her. It was a small, quiet town to the east of Tortall, in the Hill Country near the Tusaine border, and Kel had been flummoxed by their arrival at New Hope, not knowing of any particular conflict that could have driven the population so far north. She was still hazy on the details, but the group had been escorted, unusually, by a company of the King's Own, so she had willingly let them in.

'Do you enjoy your spear practice, Polly?'

'Oh, yes!' She nodded emphatically. 'I like archery better, though, cuz them Stormwings scare me, and I wanna knock 'em right down.'

Kel smiled fondly. 'It takes more than a good archer to knock a Stormwing out of the sky.' She looked down at the girl. 'Now, watch what Sergeant Domitan's doing, and copy him, okay?'

Polly nodded, and Kel wandered back to the company of Yuki and Shinko.

'You've got a way with children, you know,' said the latter softly.

Kel laughed. 'I can show them how to use a spear and shoot an enemy down from a moving horse, but imagine me having to teach them how to climb trees.'

'You're not as bad as you once were,' Yuki pointed out, gesturing to the jutting silhouette of Balor's Needle.

'I'd still be too nervous to let them anywhere near a drop.' She shuddered. 'I can just about go myself, but that wouldn't be risking someone else's life.'

The Yamanis laughed. 'Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan: Protector of the Small,' Shinko whispered, neatly sidestepping a mock-blow from Kel's glaive.

'Is this a private conversation, or may I join in?' asked a familiar voice, and Kel turned to see Queen Thayet – the only other person to have made the King smile; although Kel supposed that was almost a part of her royal duty – standing on her left, also in practice clothes. She was holding her very own glaive; a Midwinter present from Shinko, made by the Yamani royals' own private smith, ready for the now customary morning practice with her friends.

'You're late,' Yuki said with a smile, but Kel frowned slightly at the forwardness with which she said it. She liked Thayet very much, and was sure that the Queen wouldn't mind, but the patriot in her still felt that it was a bit rude of her companion.

'You would be, too, if you had to wake My Lord up at dawn for a meeting. However it may seem to you; he doesn't like the formality of these things, and it's impossible to get him up and ready. If it weren't for the servants, I wouldn't be here at all,' Thayet replied, laughter gleaming in her eyes.

'Meeting?'

'With Alanna and all the commanders of the Own. They have to make arrangements for the guard of the Scanran border: this weather won't last forever, and even Daine's spies are clueless as to King Maggur's plans for Tortall.'

Kel frowned at this, unease creeping into her gut. Everything had seemed normal lately, almost – if she dared think it – quiet, especially as she was solely restricted to the command of New Hope, and her intuition was reminding her that the loss of Blayce the Gallan and his Killing Devices did not necessarily mean the end of the Scanran war.

Normally, her intuition was locked away and hidden in a trunk under the few formal dresses she had allowed Lalasa to make for her, but on occasion it hit her hard. On half of these occasions – what would you call a half of seldom? she wondered absently – it told her the opposite of what was to happen, so she was reluctant to ever listen to it.

The rational side of her was saying that without the Killing Devices, Maggur Rauthausak's armies were nothing, and that the Tortallan knights could destroy them with ease, and Kel tended to favour her rational side. It was logic and common-sense that got her where she was, she reminded herself firmly. No need to get caught up in battles between head and heart.

Her stomach rumbled then, and she thought dryly that head and stomach was a different matter.

'See, Kel's hungry, too!' came the voice of a triumphant Neal. Kel looked over and saw that the spear class had disbanded, most of them heading over to the Mess Hall.

She smiled. 'Was that a hint?'

'Hint?' asked Dom sceptically. 'Meathead here wouldn't know a hint if it dressed up as a Centaur and stabbed him with your glaive. He was just about to throw himself at your feet begging for something to eat.'

Neal glared as the women laughed, but still grabbed Kel's arm and pulled her in the direction of breakfast. With a wave goodbye, she turned and allowed herself to be led to food.

~*~