Firstborn

by Michelle West

  The cloaks and the boots were nothing short of miraculous. Ellerson, who had spent some time in Arrend, had expected the going to be rough. Walking through or across snow added a level of difficulty to any journey. But the boots seemed to skirt above the snow’s surface, as if the snow itself were a cosmetic dusting over smooth, worked ice. It wasn’t.

  The cold could be felt, but at a distance—it was like pressing a hand against glass windows in the winter—from the inside. He knew it was cold; it was possibly as cold as the Rendish winter of his distant youth. The cloaks denied something as trivial as temperature.

  Between these two things, Ellerson’s estimation of their chances of survival rose. Food would be their worry.

  But the rings concerned him as well. He understood that the Oracle was, in theory, the child of gods who had long since deserted the world. The mortal world. If he had considered the philosophical existence of other worlds—and he had been young once—he reevaluated now. A world in which the Winter Hunt—if that is what the passing hunt was—made itself at home was not a world in which mortals could, as anything but prey.

  He could understand the cloaks. The boots. The blankets. He could understand the packs—packs which did not seem to increase in weight, no matter how they were laden. But the rings troubled him. What had the Oracle seen? How had she seen it? Had she somehow known that Carver would, or could, be found, carrying a leaf that did not look at home in this forest? Had she known that he would find the half-height door that to Ellerson’s actual hands had felt like solid stone even as Carver passed through it?

  He did not know much about the Oracle. Information about characters in children’s stories—and at that, very old ones—was never going to be thick on the ground. The idea that she might know exactly where and when to meet him was not, at this point, cause for concern. The meeting had been a boon.

  The fact that she was returning to the site of a previous visit in very different circumstances was also not alarming. The fact that the existence of the safe space beneath the hard, cold earth had come about because she had asked it, in awareness of that future meeting and future need was slightly more unsettling. Ellerson, however, did not question survival. If somehow these gifts led to death, they had been walking that road since the moment they had stepped into The Terafin’s wardrobe. Anything that extended life extended the possibility that they could find a branching path off that road.

  But the rings disturbed him.

  He could not say, with any certainty, that they had been left for Carver. The impassibility of the thick, stone wall implied heavily that they had not. Only the metallic blue leaf allowed them to see and enter the small chamber in which the rings had been left.

  If the rings had been made by the same makers who had crafted cloak, boots, and blankets, they had seen future need. It was a need that Ellerson could not see. The rings themselves were plain enough that he did not consider them decorative.

  • • •

  “You want to wear them?” Carver asked, lifting his head as if he thought he’d drifted off into an almost waking dream.

  “Everything left in those rooms was meant to increase our chances of survival. Nothing, of course, is a guarantee—but the odds are so enormously improved I believe we will see home again before we perish.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “Almost nothing in life is free. There are costs to any interaction—some of which we are so happy to pay we do not count it costly. Any one of the three things—cloak, boots, blankets—would be a costly, costly commission were we to request such a crafting from the Guild of Makers. I do not believe any but the Artisans could craft them.”

  Carver whistled. “Not the mages?”

  “We might have more luck there—but it would be the work of years, and even then, the magi are limited by the material they work. These cloaks have not stained or torn; they do not get caught on branches, no matter how tangled the branches are. I am not certain we could cut them or harm them without concentrated effort.”

  “And the rings?”

  “Everything was left against possible need. I cannot see the need for them. I do not know what hold the Oracle had over the people who created a space for us. I do not know if they resented her or feared her; I do not know if she forced them to do what she demanded. I do not believe she did—but I do not know.

  “If she did, perhaps the rings were a single act of defiance.”

  “And if not, they might be necessary.”

  “Yes. I mistrust necessity that I cannot identify or understand—but the whole of this place defies easy understanding.” He paused. “Or rather, our part in it. The winter is winter, except for the passage of the Hunt. And at a far enough distance they, too, might seem a natural part of the winter order.” His smile was slender as he straightened the fall of his cloak. “I am domicis, Carver. You are part of what I have chosen to serve. If you choose against the rings, I will, of course, accept it and continue.”

  Carver shook his head. “We’ll wear them.”

  • • •

  The rings were simple bands. Carver had assumed they were silver. Jay—or Finch or Jester—could have identified them by weight and color. Carver’s ascension to the Terafin name had not, however, changed his essential nature. What had Jay once said about gold? You couldn’t eat it when you were starving; you couldn’t wear it when you were freezing. You couldn’t shelter beneath it.

  He couldn’t remember who pointed out that with gold you could buy the things that were lacking; he had a dim memory of Rath’s voice, Rath’s tone. And of course he’d been right. But the hang of ostentation had been slow to come to the den, and for some members, it had never arrived.

  There were two things that became obvious immediately. The first, that the rings were sized for the two men who now wore them. Carver hadn’t expected that. Ellerson, given his reaction, had. The second: they weren’t cold. Carver hadn’t expected them to be freezing—they were carried in a backpack beneath the voluminous folds of heavy cloak—but hadn’t expected them to be warm. It was as if they’d just been pulled from someone else’s fingers.

  The second was more disturbing, at least to Carver. If Ellerson found it disquieting, he said nothing. But that was the domicis. He’d made his decision, weighing all known facts, and he’d live with it. The only time Carver had ever heard Ellerson come close to complaining was when the cats had first started destroying rugs and furniture in their boredom.

  The thought made his lips twitch. Cats were predictable and annoying. Much like his den could be. But they were deadly and efficient when dealing with assassins, much like most of the den couldn’t.

  He looked at the ring. A band of writing had appeared on the rounded surface of the metal the minute Carver had pushed it home. “I don’t suppose you can read this?” he asked.

  Ellerson shook his head. “When we return, we might ask the House Mage if he is available. He was renowned for his study of things ancient and long-buried.” He removed the ring to see if he could; the words didn’t disappear. Both of them had chosen to put the rings on their left hands.

  Thereafter, for the rest of the day’s march, the wind did not howl, except at a distance. That night, when wrapped in the folds of cloak and sheltered against the roots of sleeping, ancient trees, Carver heard no distant horns. He couldn’t say why, but sleep came easily, and when he woke in the long shadows of dawn, he felt refreshed.

  • • •

  The only evidence that this winter landscape had once been inhabited was the ruins from which they’d walked away. They found no other ruins, no hint that any other buildings might once have existed. Instead, there was snow. The only place the snow had been shallow was in the ruins themselves, as if even weather was afraid to overstep its bounds there.

  By the end of this full second day of marching, Carver missed the wind and the horns. The only other noise in this world was theirs; everything else was silent. It was a silence that reminded C
arver very much of held breath. He therefore filled it, talking first about the West Wing, and second, about the den. He asked Ellerson’s opinion about the House Council’s various members and listened—really listened—to the replies. There was nothing to distract him.

  He talked about the cats.

  And then toward nightfall, huddled against a tree trunk and gazing at a sky that held only one moon and no stars at all that he could see, he talked about the dead. About Lefty, Lander, Fisher. About Duster. But he didn’t speak about their deaths; he spoke about their lives—or their lives as they had overlapped Carver’s. He fell asleep smiling. He woke smiling. And hungry.

  • • •

  On the third full day, he asked Ellerson questions about his life; Ellerson was not a man to volunteer much, and generally when he did, it was worthwhile to listen. He began gingerly; he knew that there was a division between the serving class and the people they served—how could he not know that, by this time?—and he was aware that breaching that barrier was as much an act of condescension on the part of the servants as it was on the part of their masters.

  But domicis were not servants, as Ellerson explained. He spoke of Arrend and his time there—the winter reminded him much of the Northern climate, which led naturally into the people who lived in it. “But there is spring and summer, no matter how brief, in Arrend. I do not think this landscape has seen either.”

  He spoke about his travels in the Dominion; about his travels on the merchant transports that had reached the fabled and distant Eastern Islands and even returned. And he spoke of his time in the guildhall.

  He did not speak of family. He did not speak of kin. Carver didn’t wonder at it, though. None of the den did—and Ellerson was clearly part of them. If Carver had never consciously said it or thought it, he accepted it as truth, as bedrock. The loss of this one old man would be as devastating to his den-kin as Carver’s loss would be.

  He lifted his hands and signed, experimenting with the movement of fingers.

  Ellerson frowned.

  “It was useful in the old days.” He signed, where, followed by where? “You understand it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve never used it.”

  “No.”

  “You could.”

  Ellerson shook his head.

  “This one,” Carver continued, as if the motion had never been made, “is yours. It’s Ellerson.”

  Ellerson’s silence lasted for another long beat. And then he lifted his own hands and signed, slowly and distinctly, Carver.

  “You’re not den,” Carver said, smiling. “But you could have been, if your life had jogged a little to the right. Or the left.”

  “I am too old,” the domicis replied. It was hard to tell whether or not he was offended, but experience gave Carver the necessary clues. Experience. Familiarity.

  “You know we don’t have any family but den, right?”

  “I would quibble your use of the word family, but yes. You are of Terafin; in theory, Terafin is your family; it takes the place of blood ties and blood-kin. You are wed to it, responsible for it. It is why The Ten—and some of the other notable patrician families—adopt. Adoption allows them to choose those affiliated with the House Name, in a way birth does not. It fosters a sense that merit is the defining trait for which the House chooses.”

  Carver snorted. “Rymark. Haerrad.”

  “Ah, you equate competence with congeniality. They are not the same. Haerrad was—and is—a ferociously competent man. He is aggressive. He can be both vengeful and unkind. But, Carver, most men who are aggressive, vengeful, and unkind are very seldom competent. The force of their personality, if you will, their drive, is poured into the narrative of rage and resentment; they master nothing else.”

  “Rymark?”

  Ellerson shook his head. “Rymark is not Haerrad.”

  “Not competent?”

  “His competence requires control; it requires acknowledgment. Haerrad seeks respect, but he does not mistake obsequiousness for respect. He does not equate fear with respect. Rymark does. Do not tangle with him,” he added.

  “Tangle, no.”

  But Ellerson shook his head. “In the narrative of the den, it was you and Duster who were the heavy muscle. If death was necessary, Duster was your killer.” He spoke without judgment.

  “That wasn’t muscle,” Carver replied, after a significant pause. “And yes. I was the backup Duster.”

  “You knew you could kill?”

  Carver’s shrug was stiff. “I knew I had,” he finally offered. “I knew I could. By the end, I would have done it without thinking if it saved any one of my den-kin. I was comfortable with that.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know. Back then, they were the only thing I had to lose. The only thing. I saw how each loss—of den-kin—scarred us, came close to breaking us. And you’re changing the subject.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. You can’t, you’ve said, be den. I wouldn’t have understood it, back in the holdings. I don’t think I understood it until Merry. I can now, and I do.” He turned to look at the domicis; it was dark beneath the branches, but the moon was always bright, the sky always clear. He could see Ellerson’s face.

  “So you’re not den. But you’re family, Ellerson. More than the rest of Terafin. You’re the father we wish we’d had. Or the uncle. Or the older brother. You’re not our life, but part of our lives.” His smile was wan, but without edges. “Things have gotten strange since Jay came back from the South. Not the demons—they’ve been part of our past since we arrived at Terafin. But everything else. The forest. The cats. The change in The Terafin’s personal rooms. Jay’s afraid.”

  “She is not a fool, no,” Ellerson replied.

  “When she’s afraid, we’re tense. We can’t help it. There’s not much that scares her—and it usually involves death. I wasn’t surprised when I walked into the wardrobe and found myself here. I didn’t expect it, but it was in keeping with what our lives have become.” He looked down at his hands; they were still. He began to sign. Speaking with his hands, however, he continued to speak out loud.

  “The fear came when I saw the Hunt. The injuries came then, too. I thought I’d never make it back—I’d be dead and lost. Our dead? They’re lost. We’ve never found their bodies. I was certain Jay would never find mine.

  “And then I met her. I thought she was here. She was standing in the ruins.” His toes began to dig at snow. He fell silent. His hands spoke. She was scared. “I told her to leave,” Carver said. “And I meant it. I understood that she was somehow choosing between me and everyone else. But—it’s cold, you know? It’s cold, the den’s not here. Duster died so that the rest of us could escape. I had her back, in every other fight. She had mine. It was the only time you’d ever want Duster at your back. It was the only time the two of us were a team. If I’d been with the rest of them, if I’d been with the den, I’d’ve died with her. I wasn’t. I was with Jay.

  “I’m not driven by guilt. Never have been. I know that if I’d been with Duster, I’d’ve died too. That’s it. We’d both be dead. But if I’d been with the rest of them, and not Jay, I would have died. Because it was a life-or-death fight, and I would have had her back.

  “I think some of us just need something to protect. Duster didn’t, until us, and even that took time.”

  “Sleep, Carver.” Ellerson’s voice was soft, a perfect whisper of sound. “The den is the master I have chosen to serve. It is a bit unusual—but not unheard of—for a domicis to serve a family rather than one of its individual members; for most, the burden of choice in difficult decisions makes the service too complicated, too difficult to untangle. The rest of the den is in Terafin.”

  “Not Jay.”

  “No, Carver. But if Jewel is part of the den, she is not part of my responsibility. I cannot and could not be domicis to her, and that pained me greatly at the time. But I have come to understand what my role
is, what it must be, in this conflict. This is where I’m needed. If I have served the den in other ways, it is service that the Household Staff could provide.

  “We will find our way home.”

  Carver said, so softly the words almost vanished into the winter hush, “I was so happy to see you. I thought I was delirious. I felt almost like I was home.”

  • • •

  In the dark, when sleep had claimed the younger man, the older man kept watch for an hour longer. The moon silvered snow; ice caught its light and held it. There was a beauty in the silent hush; were it not for the cloaks, the boots, the food, it was the beauty of something so powerful and so distant it must lead inevitably to death.

  The rings were glowing faintly in the darkness. The words were the color of sunlight.

  • • •

  “This is not a good time to be sleeping. I would wake up, if I were you.”

  Carver’s eyes opened instantly. The voice was not familiar.

  “That won’t hurt me, you know.” Carver’s hand froze halfway to the knife he always carried. He flattened his palm. No horns, no hooves, no sound of armored men could be heard. It was night, and the moon was low and bright; the forest—and the snow that covered its roots—glowed gently with reflected light.

  Ellerson was awake. Awake and utterly still. Nothing moved. For a moment, even the sound of breathing was absent.

  But not the voice. “There’s been noise, here, the past few days. Noise enough to wake me.”

  Carver’s hands flew in den-sign. Ellerson did not respond in kind, but his stillness was enough. It said, wait.

  “Why are you here? It is not safe, for you.” As the voice approached, it was followed, at last, by a visible form. “And what do you have there?”