Calliastra giggled.
“Lord,” Celleriant said quietly.
She looked up at him.
“She cannot remain as she is. Even if you do not move, the tangle will.”
“That’s not why I’m standing still.” But she heard the low murmur of the godchild’s voice, and it broke her heart. And she realized, then, that Celleriant wasn’t wrong. It worried her. She had fallen back into her patterned reaction to visceral instinct, but if visceral desire had the same strength, she would lose that compass, lose that certainty.
You don’t always get what you want, her Oma’s voice said. She grimaced, shook herself. Her Oma’s voice, her Oma’s lectures, her Oma’s criticisms, would never leave her. And they were, in some fashion, as much of a compass as her talent.
Nor did she argue with it now, although she sometimes did. She wanted this child to be happy. She wanted this daughter of darkness to have a few moments of a life in which love was not death. In which love was not an issue. And these were the only moments she could offer.
She lifted her foot and moved forward.
• • •
It would have helped her progress if the world changed on a footstep. It would have helped her to understand the tangle as a danger. But the landscape changed slowly when it changed at all. The rest of the mortals, as Jewel, saw what Jewel saw, even Avandar, who had been mortal at birth, before hubris and a desire for eternity had changed everything.
But the Winter King had been mortal at birth as well, and that mortality had been burned from him, along with his human form. He did not see what Jewel saw. Celleriant did not, without effort. Shianne, however, didn’t speak of what she saw. She watched Jewel and Adam as if they were toddlers, her shoulders stiff with unexpressed anxiety. She did not want to lose either of them here and clearly thought that was the most probable outcome.
It wasn’t affection, of course. Jewel knew that. Shianne owed loyalty—and love—to one person only. But to reach that person, she needed Jewel. And to deliver her unborn child, she needed Adam. They were necessary to her goals.
But even knowing it, Jewel felt a flush of warmth at the obvious worry.
The trees thinned, and thinned again, as if they were making themselves smaller and less significant. Celleriant had slowed to a very graceful, very stately walk. Terrick was fidgeting; he was clearly accustomed to scouting an area before it was fully entered, and that duty had been forbidden him.
Avandar, however, felt no qualms.
That is untrue. I am willing to trust your talent, but I cannot conceive of any way in which those cats are worth this risk.
Shadow was with Calliastra, who was no longer young. Her expression denied joy; a smile would have withered before it started. Her eyes were dark, her skin too pale, but she did not have the shadow wings that spoke of her father’s power. Nor did she speak. She walked beside Shadow in silence, looking at her feet.
Is she yours?
Jewel frowned. It wasn’t Avandar who had asked the question, nor was it the Winter King. She glanced at Shianne, but no, and Kallandras appeared to be listening to the butterfly that now sat on his shoulder.
Calliastra was the child of gods. She was the daughter of the Lord of the Hells. She was death—how could she not be, and sustain her own life?
But she was more Jewel’s than Shadow, Night, and Snow.
She’s mine. Just as Duster had been. Duster had been free to walk; she wasn’t caged or confined. No one could confine someone like Duster. But she could be worked with, valued for what she did, and nudged in the right direction—that direction being the one that Jewel needed her to walk.
Calliastra would never be Duster. But she was Jewel’s in the same way that Duster had once been. And the frown growing on her face was very like Duster’s frown, couched in different features. The godchild looked at Jewel, the frown deepening.
“I’m not worried about you,” Jewel said, before Calliastra could speak.
“Do not lie to me.”
“I’m not. I know what I see. It’s more than that, though. You could kill us all—”
“Not me,” Shadow said.
“I could,” Calliastra told him, looking down her very perfect nose at the gray cat.
“Could not.”
Very clever, Avandar said.
She hadn’t done it deliberately, and what her domicis thought clever, Jewel thought the edge of total disaster. She turned but did not take a step toward them; she couldn’t. “Fine. She could kill all of us easily except you. She’d probably have to work for that.”
Shadow hissed.
“You’ve been changing as you walk here. None of the rest of us have. I don’t know what it costs you. I don’t know how you experience it. But Shadow hasn’t changed.”
Calliastra’s smile was bitter, turned inward. “Is that how you perceive it?”
Jewel nodded.
“I have not changed, Terafin. I have simply been. We are not yet overcome by the tangle. But it seeks truth, and our truths are not yours.” She glanced at Celleriant, who had not changed in the way she had. “So, it was true. You are sworn to her service.”
“While she lives.”
A roar interrupted the conversation that had been punctuated by Jewel’s slow footsteps.
She looked to Kallandras.
“Night,” he said, frowning. “He is not happy.”
“He’s never happy,” Shadow said, sniffing. The gray cat did not look concerned.
“He doesn’t sound afraid.”
“No. I believe he is angry.”
She listened for a second roar as Night’s died into silence. “I can’t hear Snow.”
“No. I do not believe Night is angry at his brother.” The bard’s frown was slight.
It was enough. He didn’t tell her to hurry. He didn’t tell her that she was running out of time. But he didn’t need to. She felt it in the pit of her stomach. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and bent into her knees.
“We’re going to pick up the pace,” she said. “If I understand anything I’ve been told, don’t run ahead of me.”
• • •
She could not run in the tangle. That was the first thing she discovered. She couldn’t safely stumble here, so she had to open her eyes.
She closed them instantly.
The trees had given way utterly. There was no longer any forest. The ground beneath Jewel’s feet was rocky. The sky was clear. The air was very dry.
Adam whispered something, and Jewel nodded. She had seen landscape like this once before—as the Arkosan caravans had approached the Sea of Sorrows. There, rock gave way to sand in places; Jewel had expected the desert to be nothing but sand. As always, experience changed expectation. It wasn’t true that nothing grew in the desert—but nothing broke the line of distant horizon except the haze of heat.
Jewel turned. In the distance, to her right, she could see what looked like a cloud of moving dust.
“Windstorm,” Adam said.
But Jewel, lips compressed, shook her head. “Cat.”
• • •
The first thing she discovered was that she could move more freely in this space than she had when attempting to lead the way out of the forest. Or into the forest. She had never been particularly good at navigation; she had relied on familiarity, and she had been familiar with the holdings. She was familiar with the manse. She was not familiar with her own forest, but familiarity in the forest of the Ellariannatte had never been required.
She glanced at Terrick. “You’ve seen desert before?”
“That is our word for the snow plains,” the Northern giant replied. “But yes, I have seen the deserts in the Dominion. I have never seen a leader of The Ten in the desert.”
“I wasn’t The Terafin then.”
“Do not waste water,” Adam told them all. He looked to Shianne.
“I have seen the vast, empty plains,” she replied. “I understand their stark beauty and their danger
.”
“You were not with child then.” Adam said. Gone was the stammering, blushing youth.
“No. I was not mortal then. It is difficult to accustom oneself to the idea that simply standing outside can kill. And before you speak, Terrick, I have seen the snow as well, unadorned by tree or shrub.” To Adam, she said, “What would you advise? I cannot lose your Matriarch, and she has chosen desert.”
“It wasn’t a deliberate choice,” Jewel said. She reddened—but a walk in this sun would have that effect in the end anyway.
“It was deliberate,” Shianne replied, frowning slightly. “You did not know that it would lead you here. Had you, would you have walked away?”
The wind howled.
Kallandras was right. The storm was Night.
• • •
“Shadow.”
“Why do I have to go?”
“It’s you or me.” Celleriant started to speak; Jewel lifted a hand to cut him off.
“Then you get him. He is not right. He is dangerous.”
Before Jewel could answer, Celleriant did. “Ah. My apologies, Eldest. I did not realize he could be a threat to you. I will go.”
Shadow, however, sputtered in wide-eyed outrage. “He can’t hurt me!”
“But you said—”
He spit to the side. His wings rose.
“Terafin,” Calliastra said, her voice somber, quiet, “this is not wise. Not here.”
“No. But it’s not wise to be here at all. If I relied on wisdom to govern my life and my decisions, I would never have left home.”
“Not true, as you well know. If you are killed here, none of your companions will escape the tangle.”
“Will you?”
“In time, yes. But I am not what you are. I am not what any of your companions are. I believe your cats—in some form—would also escape.”
Shadow’s outrage continued. “Escape? We don’t need to escape!”
Jewel nodded.
Shadow did not pad forward, as he might have if they had been at home. Instead, his haunches bunched. He didn’t coil silently, and his language was foul, even given his mood, but as it was all aimed at Jewel and she had heard worse in her time, she shrugged it off.
He leaped.
“Terafin—”
She shook her head. He leaped into the windstorm, and as he did, she shouted a single word.
“Night!”
• • •
The storm, a thing of sand and wind, moved as Shadow approached it; it halted the moment Jewel shouted its name.
Jewel stood her ground as the storm’s trajectory changed. “What are the cats?” she asked Calliastra.
“I have often believed,” the god-born woman replied, “that you fail to pay attention to the construction of words. But think: Catastrophe. Cataclysm. It is how I saw them, in my youth.”
“You played with—”
“Yes, of course. There is an odd, ruined beauty in destruction. They did not build. But their intent was not destruction. At heart, they are playful, proud, vain—but they are restless. They have learned with time—as all ancients have learned—to make . . . room in themselves for more.
“But no force on earth in their youth—or mine—could own them.” There was an implied criticism in this, and a question.
“They’re not young now,” Jewel replied. “What did the Winter King do?”
“I believe you have your suspicions.”
• • •
The storm enveloped Shadow. Jewel lost all ability to breathe as the great, gray cat disappeared in winds that carried abrasive sand. It howled with Night’s voice, a hint of Night’s triumph.
She had sent him there.
The Hidden Wilderness
Carver froze when a howl rent the air at their backs. Unlike the roar of a demon or the angry cries of the Wild Hunt, this was a familiar sound. Not entirely a safe one—but familiar. He froze in place. So, too, Ellerson, although the domicis’ expression was neutral. Carver thought his exhaustion had given way to hallucination; he shook his head to clear it.
The yowling, however, repeated itself. As it did, it drew closer. Carver could feel a shift in the breeze. So did the snow on the branches of the trees overhead; it fell. The bear wasn’t pleased with this. Or perhaps he wasn’t pleased with the sound of a whiny, angry cat. A winged cat.
“This is just what we need,” the bear snarled. Carver and Ellerson dodged to the side to avoid being bowled over as the bear turned in the direction of that familiar voice. “Take advice from me,” he continued, as he shifted his stance. “When you have the opportunity to sleep, take it.”
“No, wait,” Carver shouted. “Wait!”
“This had better be good,” the bear replied.
“Shadow?”
The gray cat emerged from the shadows for which he was named.
• • •
“Why are you here?” the cat demanded, glaring at Carver, his wings high, his ears almost perpendicular to his head. His claws created instant runnels in the icy snow, although he hadn’t moved them.
“Shadow? Shadow?” The bear demanded, in turn. His defensive posture stiffened, but he did not attack. He seemed almost dumbfounded. “Why is he calling you that?”
“Is he speaking to me?” Shadow asked Carver, a sniff at the end of the final syllable.
The bear growled.
Carver stared at Shadow. “Why are you here?” he asked, mirroring the cat’s question without the annoyance. “Did Jay send you?”
Shadow sat, folding his wings. He examined his left paw for dirt. “She sent me to get Night because Night is stupid. He is almost as stupid as she is.” His eyes, all of gold, narrowed. “Why do you have him with you?”
“Shadow—do you know where you are?”
The cat shrugged. “I am here.”
“Why?”
“We were in the tangle,” Shadow said. He offered no other explanation.
“Tangle?”
“Yes. The tangle, stupid boy.”
Ellerson now cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the bear did.
“He isn’t as stupid as you are, if you were in the tangle. What were you thinking?” The bear, like the cat, sat.
“The tangle is better than here,” the cat replied. “Here is boring.”
Not boring enough, Carver thought.
“Is too.”
Ellerson, however, turned to Carver. He lifted his hands in den-sign, and Carver felt a pang, but answered his question. Yes.
Certain?
Yes. Den-sign didn’t have much room for subtlety.
“Shadow,” the domicis said, in a far less outraged voice than the bear, “why are you here? Have you come to take us home?”
The cat hissed. “Can’t. You shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. Night is stupid. It is his fault.”
Ellerson bore with this as if patience was the very air he breathed. To be fair, he’d had practice. They all had.
The cat frowned then, and, once again, the whole of his attention returned to Carver. No, not to Carver, but to the leaf he held in a shaking hand. The cat’s eyes transformed; they were, in the Winter landscape, all blue. The blue of leaf. Of this leaf.
When he spoke next, his voice was free of the whine that characterized most of the cats’ speech. “Why do you have that?”
“Jay gave it to me.”
“She gave it . . . to you? Now?”
“She came to me when she said she was dreaming in the Oracle’s abode. She left it with me.” He added, before Shadow could speak, “I think she wanted to leave me something.”
The cat continued to stare, but his wings had once again unfolded, and they were rising into the night sky as if there was no end to their length, just as the wings of the demon had done. Shadow growled. It was an animal sound; speech had deserted him, or he had deserted speech.
Carver remembered, then, the night Jay had lain abed in the dreaming. He remembered the wounds that had appea
red across the whole of her body. She had said the cats had done it. No.
She had said Shadow had. She had no fear of the great, gray cat in the wake of that nightmare, but Carver remembered: these were lands created and held by someone who slept. And dreamed.
The cat’s tail swished back and forth as he regarded Carver. The bear, however, had had enough. He pushed himself up off the snow and leaped. Shadow, still growling, turned instantly to face him, and the two collided in a moving, roiling mass of gray and gold.
Ellerson exhaled.
“You don’t think they’re going to kill each other.”
“No more than I think Shadow will kill Night,” Ellerson replied. “But if we are attempting to survive in this place, now is not the time for this; it will almost certainly draw far more attention than we have managed to draw so far.”
“It won’t,” Shadow hissed, in his normal voice, a snarl breaking the syllables. “Nothing will draw more attention than what the stupid, stupid boy carries! Why? Why is it here?”
“I told you—”
“She is stuuuuuupid!”
Jay was, apparently, the most stupid creature to ever draw breath in the history of the universe. Ellerson, however, was right. The bear picked himself up as Shadow continued his tirade. He batted Shadow’s shoulder with his left paw, and the cat staggered, breaking his stream of invective and disgust to return the favor.
“Do not ignore me!” the bear roared.
“Why not? You are boring. All you do is sleep!” He turned back to Carver to continue his dissection of Jay’s stupidity. After what felt like hours of this, though it couldn’t have been more than five minutes, Carver dropped his head into his hands.
The bear’s roar, coupled with Shadow’s whine, joined in a disharmonious mess of sound; he could feel their words resonate in his jaw, which was clenched too tightly. Which made this day almost normal, if one didn’t count the Winter, the demon, the ghosts of the Wild Hunt, and the utter absence of anyone that he counted as kin, except Ellerson.
That would have been bad enough—relief giving way to the actual, less pleasant details of daily reality—had it not been for the other voices.
He could hear them, almost as a chorus, but they didn’t speak the way Shadow did; their voices were felt as a thrum that paced his breath, his heartbeat. They were a tidal wave, moving inexorably to where he stood rooted in this Winter world, this half-dream, this place of death. He could not understand a word they spoke, but he knew that he would. Let the tide reach him and sweep him away, and he would hear it all clearly.
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