Sylvi had always been a little afraid of the Sword just because it was the Sword. But she wasn’t the king’s heir, and she’d never heard that it was especially severe to anyone but heirs and rulers, so she didn’t really dread the fealty-swearing—not nearly as much as she had dreaded meeting her Speaker. But standing next to her father on her birthday, up on the little platform that was raised even higher yet from the Outer Great Court’s stage so even more people could watch what was happening, it seemed bigger than it did hanging on the wall of the Great Hall. It wasn’t a large sword, for it was intended—and had, in the old days, often been used—as a single-handed battle sword. But it had presence, like a person—like an important person. Like the king. Sometimes her father was just her father, tired and kind and overworked ; but when he was the king you knew it. You knew when he changed over too, even if he hadn’t been the king a moment before and was now. The Sword was like that all the time.
Swearing by the Sword was the second-to-last thing in the ceremony ; then Lrrianay would bring her pegasus through the Great Gate and they would meet, and the magicians would blow the binding dust over them and burn herbs and things, and speak some words that no one but other magicians understood, and then they—she and the pegasus—would pretend they understood each other, and she would say her Welcome Excellent Friend speech. Her pegasus would make some of the funny whuffling noises that pegasi did make when they were speaking aloud and which, according to the magicians, was the pegasus version of Welcome Excellent Friend.
Then the magicians would finish the spell, and blow more dust, and wave their arms around and look grand, and then the banquet would begin, when at least she could get down off the platform and have something to eat and there weren’t any more words she had to remember to say. Although when there were too many people around—which there certainly were today—it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning. And being polite to people like Great-aunt Moira, who always came to rituals, would be tricky, because she always told you that you’d done whatever you had done wrong, and Sylvi knew she’d have done something wrong, but it was going to be hard to listen to how wrong it was right after it happened.
Right after it happened. Right after she started to have a pegasus just behind her right shoulder at all important court events for the rest of her life. She was sure she’d trip over her hems even more with a pegasus standing there looking magnificent and supercilious. It had always rather suited her not to know anything about her pegasus in advance, so she didn’t have to think about it, but now that the binding was here....
She came back to herself staring at the Sword: it was as beautiful as a pegasus, in its own way. Frighteningly beautiful.
What she had to say during the swearing of fealty was easy: every time her father paused she said“I swear.” She was supposed to say it with her hands on the blade of the Sword. She’d never touched it before, although her brothers all had, long before they had to swear fealty; she thought maybe it was a boy thing, wanting to handle swords, although she put in her time in the practise yards, like them. A sword was a sword: it was a great big knife, much too big for any purpose but killing things, and she knew the stories of it defending the realm in the hand of the ruler. Her father had never gone to battle with it, but she was glad she didn’t even have to carry it on feast-days and during ceremonies.
Her father pulled it out of its scabbard and laid the blade over his palms, and she put her hands lightly on the blade between his two hands, and her father began speaking.
She heard him pause, and so she knew to say “I swear,” but she hadn’t heard a word he said, and her own voice seemed to come from queerly far away. She heard him start speaking again, pause again, and again she said “I swear,” her voice echoing in her own ears as if she stood in a huge empty cavern. The Sword didn’t scold her or scorn her but it ... it looked, as Danny had said—as her other two brothers had said it didn’t. “Don’t worry about it, minikin,” Farley had said. “It doesn’t bother with us.”
But it bothered with Sylvi. Its looking seemed to wrap her up all round so that she could no longer hear anything but the indeterminate murmur of her father’s voice, and she could see nothing past its bright blade. She thought it looked at her with surprise and ... and ... What made her think it was looking at her with anything? Maybe it was just interested to see a girl for a change: the first daughter of a sovereign since her grandmother.
And then the swearing was over. She had missed counting—she was supposed to say five “I swear”s, and with the last one she was to take her hands off the blade, but she had been looking back at the Sword. Her father moved slightly and lowered the point of the Sword to give her a chance to recover herself and take her hands away—and the Sword released her—she came back into her body, her hands on its blade, with a little start—and did as she should, only a little slowly (Great-aunt Moira was sure to have noticed). He looked at her, half the king making sure the rite was going as it should and half her father, puzzled and perhaps worried, for he had noticed that something had happened. But there was no opportunity to say anything: the Great Gate was opening and her pegasus was entering.
Her pegasus.
The one thing she knew of her pegasus was that it was the fourth child of the pegasus king, as her brothers’ pegasi had been the three before. But that was all she knew. Not knowing anything about your pegasus beforehand was supposed to make the binding spell grip and hold better when you finally met. Her heart was beating faster; the pegasi were strange, amazing, almost impossible, entirely unlike anything else in your human life, just by being themselves. Eight hundred years of the Alliance had not weakened the wonder of them. To have one bound to you ...
For a moment all the words of the ritual that Sylvi had memorised drained away, leaving her mind a blank.
She saw a tall black shape pacing down the length of the Great Court beside the pegasus king, almost as tall as he, but still with colty legs slightly too long for its body. It would be bigger than its father when it finished growing, and Lrrianay was big for a pegasus—bigger than any of his elder three sons—as tall as a carriage pony. She tried to guess its age: her brothers’ pegasi were all within a year or two of their age. She thought this one was probably near her own age too; maybe a little older.