Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  “The dress?”

  “Behind the screen.” She glanced at the cat, who looked very pleased with himself. Then again, when he wasn’t fighting with Night, he generally did. “ATerafin?”

  She made her way—carefully, to avoid stray pins—across the room, and stopped a yard from where the screen stood, staring at it with a frown.

  “ATerafin?” Haval said again, his intonation different.

  “Where did you get this screen?”

  “Very good. Do you recognize it?”

  “No. But I recognize that mountain.”

  “It was not, before Snow came to assist me, a mountain.”

  “What was it?” she asked, as if staving off fate.

  “Flowers. Not,” he added, “terribly good flowers, on the other hand. This is better; it is simple but exact.”

  “It had bees,” Snow hissed.

  “Haval—what did he do to the dress?” Her voice was too loud to be a whisper, but not by much.

  Haval did not respond. Instead, he folded arms across his chest—and across the thick apron he wore—and waited, his face a mask.

  “How’s Hannerle?”

  “Sleeping.” The word was curt but neutral. “And that was a very sloppy attempt to buy time, ATerafin; I expect better in the future.” As she hesitated, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Expelling it cost him inches of height. “My apologies, Jewel. If it has been a trying day for me, I imagine that it has not been entirely pleasant for you. I am always impatient when I work, and in the end, the impatience will be of little benefit to you.

  “You have made at least one significant decision.”

  “The House?” she asked softly, aware that he was allowing her to stall in a more graceful way, and grateful for it.

  “That is one, yes.” He glanced at Snow. “Your cats are another, and if they are less considered than your decision regarding the House, they are no less significant. But you fail to see their significance clearly. I fail to see it, at the moment, but I see that it is there. You cannot afford to choose ignorance at this juncture in your career. Ignorance may appear as the more comfortable alternative, but it is not, in the end, the act of someone who will—must—be a power.

  “What, exactly, frightens you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I will allow that. And I will allow you the fear that knowledge brings. I will allow you the ignorance that comes with a surfeit of fact. But I will not allow you to knowingly choose it from this point on. It is a luxury you cannot afford. Fold the screen, ATerafin, and see what a creature without hands has achieved.”

  “Creature?” Snow said, rising. He shrugged off Finch’s hand and ambled across the floor, taking distinctly less care than Jewel had. He was immune to Haval’s ire; it was too subtle. Wings spread, he rose, hovering in the air at the height of Haval’s shoulders, which shouldn’t have been possible given the size of the room and the inadequate height of the ceiling. Shouldn’t have didn’t cut it. He flew, and to Jewel’s eyes, he was glowing; a nimbus of interwoven blue and white surrounded and hallowed his open wings.

  His eyes were gold, wide, unblinking. “Creature?”

  Jewel began to gather the three panels of the trifold screen, slowly collapsing them in nerveless hands. The work steadied her until the moment she saw the dress. This was not the dress that she had tried on in pieces as it came together under Haval’s rapid needles. It wasn’t even close to that dress. It was almost entirely white; there was black that trailed the edges of sleeves that were not, in any way, current with Court fashions. They were long, their ends belled in yards of falling fabric. Gold strands of something seemed woven into the fabric itself, catching and bending light. The skirt was far, far too full; it had a train that seemed to contain as much material as the rest of the dress itself.

  “This isn’t—this isn’t the dress we agreed on.”

  “We did not discuss the dress we purportedly agreed on,” Haval replied. It had been one of his common complaints over the years; he expected Jewel to take an interest in current fashion; Jewel expected Haval to be aware of it in her stead. His pride as a craftsman had never allowed him to embarrass her in public, because it was his business that would suffer.

  “This isn’t—”

  “Current fashion, ATerafin? I am surpised. No, indeed, it is not. Will you try it on?”

  She reached out to touch it, not to take it. Her hands lifted sleeves and dropped them almost instantly. “What is the fabric?”

  “You will have to ask Snow,” he replied. “It is not a fabric with which I am familiar.”

  I can’t wear this, Jewel thought, staring at the dress. She turned toward the hovering cat.

  He slowly alighted. “You don’t like it?” His brows rose as high as his voice.

  “Yes—I like it,” she said, too quickly.

  “Then put it on.” His wings brushed the tip of her chin as he stretched, and then settled them.

  “Snow.”

  “Yes?”

  “Look at me.”

  The cat sniffed.

  “I mean it. Look at me.”

  “Yes?”

  “Look at Finch.”

  He didn’t bother. It would have required him to turn around.

  “Are we wearing clothing like this?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t make that clothing.” His sniff was the very essence of disdain.

  “I can’t wear this, Snow.”

  The great cat froze in place for a minute, and then he turned his head toward Haval. “What did she say?”

  Haval winced. “What she is trying to say,” he told the cat, and in a much softer and friendlier voice than he’d yet used on Jewel, “is that she feels unworthy of such a magnificent dress.”

  “Oh.” Snow looked back to Jewel. He walked to her side and then leaned into her; she stumbled. “You are a stupid girl,” he told her.

  It was ludicrous to have this conversation with a cat. She knew it. But her whole life now felt dangerously unstable. If flowers—or gods knew—trees had grown up from the carpets, it wouldn’t have surprised her. Things had gone insane the moment The Terafin had died. It was as if Amarais had been the anchor of not only the House, but Jewel’s world. She bitterly, bitterly regretted her absence.

  “You said it was an important dress. You said it was the most important dress you would wear in your life.” He hesitated, and then said, “Should it be armor instead?”

  “No!”

  “Should there be more black? I don’t like black.”

  “He did, however, listen when I explained why black was necessary.”

  “No. No, Snow, it doesn’t need more black.” She laughed. It was not a happy sound. “It needs an entirely different woman. This dress—this is something the Winter Queen could wear.”

  Snow’s hiss was as loud as a growl. “It’s better.”

  “Jewel,” Haval said quietly. “Come. Sit. Finch, if you will take Snow for a walk?”

  Finch rose, but lingered. The crisp command in Haval’s request was not enough to drive her from the room. “Jay?”

  Jewel lifted a hand, turned it in a swift motion, and then made her way to the chair that Haval was even now arranging for her. He stood behind it. Finch made space for herself—with care—on another chair. Its previous occupant, a bolt of fabric, she removed and set against the wall.

  “Be careful with that,” Haval said, as the bolt hit the floor. He did not ask Finch to leave again. Finch’s compromise was Snow; she called the cat, and he came and plonked his head more or less in her lap. His purr was as loud as his hiss, and Jewel, facing them, watched as Finch scratched behind his ears. But Finch wasn’t looking at the cat; she was looking at Jewel.

  Jewel, who knew she was as close to white as she ever got. She felt something pulling at her hair, and startled; Haval cleared his throat and she settled back into her chair. He pulled out the pins that Ellerson had so carefully, deliberately, placed into her hair, and as he did,
that hair, still heavy with the oils that were meant to keep it in place, loosened.

  “The dress is not in poor taste, ATerafin. It is, I admit, unusual; it is also striking. There will not be another like it—”

  “Ever.” Snow interjected.

  “—At the first day rites. It is not daring except in its circumvention of current fashion; it is not revealing. But it is not a child’s dress. You,” he said, as he began to brush her hair, “are not a child. It is not clear to me that the members of the House Council understand this, because it is not clear to me that you understand it yourself, except when you see those who are. Your Adam. Your youngest visitor.”

  She stiffened. She had forgotten them. “I’m not a child,” she told him, closing her eyes as he continued to brush her hair. Her knees crept up to her chin; the dress she was wearing crinkled loudly as she wrapped her arms around them.

  “No, and perhaps I am being too harsh. Amarais Handernesse ATerafin was like a parent to you; she stood between you and the world. While she ruled, you trusted her—and I will tell you now, you trusted her more completely than she ever trusted herself.”

  “She—”

  “She, like any who acquire power while still maintaining a sense of duty and responsibility, bore the weight of fear: fear of the consequences of failure. You allowed this because she demanded it. She cannot demand it now. There is now nothing between you and the future; no safety, no one to stand behind. It is time that you do as she did. Take up the fear, carry it, and protect what you have long sought to protect anyway. No more, no less.” He did not set the brush down; he continued. “Wear the dress.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “If it will comfort you this morning, yes. An order I have no right to give you, and an order you have no obligation to obey.”

  “For first day,” she whispered. “For first day, I’ll wear it.”

  “I have work to do here; Snow did not see fit to likewise clothe young Teller or Finch. The work will be done in time if I am allowed to work without interruption.” He finally set the brush aside. “Finch,” he said, in exactly the same tone of voice he had used earlier. “Take Jewel to her room.”

  This time, Finch obeyed.

  * * *

  Shadow was waiting for Jewel.

  Unfortunately, he was waiting on the bed, and he didn’t seem to hear Finch’s quiet request that he move. Nor did he feel her less quiet attempt to shove him to one side. After a few minutes of the pointless attempt, Finch folded her arms.

  Shadow then rose. He didn’t get off the bed, but he did move to one side. “Tell the old woman,” he said, “that she is sleeping.”

  Jewel shook her head. “Sigurne is—”

  Shadow leaped off the bed before she could finish, landing behind her. He knocked her over with the powerful swing of a forepaw. He hadn’t extended his claws, but it didn’t matter; she lost her footing so easily she might have been standing on ice.

  “Tell the old woman,” Shadow said again.

  Finch’s arms got tighter, and so did the line of her mouth.

  The cat hissed and turned to her. Jewel managed to right herself; she grabbed his tail. She fell over again, still attached to it.

  “She needs to sleep,” he told Finch, in a much less catlike voice. “And I will watch over her dreams.”

  “Why don’t you tell the guildmaster that Jewel’s sleeping?”

  “Will you watch her dreams?”

  “I’ll wake her if she has a nightmare.”

  The cat snorted. “You? You will drown in it. You will die.”

  But Jewel said, “Shadow—I want her to stay.”

  “But you have me.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. But—I want her to stay. Just for now. Just while it’s quiet. Haval still needs her to be in the wing, and I—”

  “I don’t want to talk to the old woman,” Shadow said, and sat heavily on the floor.

  Finch relented, but only slightly. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her. But I’m coming back, and the door had better not be locked when I get here.”

  Sigurne Mellifas stared into her cooling tea in the silence left after Finch ATerafin had delivered her message and retreated. Matteos, standing by the fire—which he also tended—said nothing; his gaze caught on flame, as if he were a child fascinated by its caged danger.

  Sigurne, however, was not in need of his words. It was chilly in the room; the fire was welcome. The magical wards that protected the magi from simple things like weather were wards Sigurne had always disdained as impractical; at this very moment, that disdain seemed more due to pride than pragmatism. She glanced at Matteos; he moved only to add dry logs to the small blaze. His back, shoulders bent, robes draping, was all that he showed her, but by it, she understood enough.

  Sip by sip, the cup in her hands emptied. The alcohol that Ellerson had graced his tea with failed to warm her. She felt old and tired—which, admittedly, she was—but more disturbing, she felt at sea. Demons, she understood. She understood as much as any living mage, with the possible exception of Meralonne. But how much, in the end, was that? They were ancient, deathless creatures—but the ancient was bound in ways she had never fully seen to the mysteries of the gods in their youth. It was now, on the day before the funeral, that she understood how insignificant her knowledge was.

  She rose; Matteos, sensitive to her movements, turned.

  “You are thinking of Meralonne,” he said stiffly.

  “I was,” she admitted. “But I fear to summon him too often. It is costly, and it is possibly costly in ways he cannot afford.”

  “That has not stopped you before.”

  “It has,” she said, in mild annoyance. “But while I feel certain that he would have a deeper and broader understanding of the possible threat Jewel ATerafin poses, I am far less certain that he would surrender that information to the magi.”

  “Or to you?”

  “Or to me.” She, too, watched the flames. “Do you remember how he trained the warrior-magi?”

  Matteos stiffened. “Sigurne—”

  “They still have those weapons. The weapons born in part of their power and in part of their force of will. I do not think they will set them aside, having summoned them; I do not think they can.”

  “And you think Jewel Markess will summon such a weapon?”

  Her frown was a teacher’s frown—a tired, worried teacher, shorn of all patience. “No, Matteos, that is not what I fear.” She turned away from the fire, from its warmth; turned back to her empty cup, and the pot that stood beside it, cooling as well. She poured tea for herself. “You are aware that the loremasters among us have come to prominence since Henden of the year four hundred and ten?”

  He nodded.

  “You are aware that what was once considered childish story and foolish bardic lay is now accepted as possible truth.”

  “That gods once walked the earth?”

  “The same.”

  “I am. No reason has been given for their decision to leave, however.”

  “The gods are not subject to our sense of reason.”

  “No, indeed.” A log cracked at his feet, and he knelt to pull another, untouched, from the pile in the rounded brass bin.

  “It is believed—by some, and I confess that at last, I am one—that there were men, mortal men, who could stand in defiance of the gods themselves.”

  “That I am less willing to grant.”

  “Allow for the possibility, Matteos.”

  “As you wish.” He set the log carefully on top of those that were already burning and fanned its embers until it, too, was embraced by flame.

  “There could not have been many,” she continued, after a pause. “And as we have little evidence of what the gods could achieve, we are not certain what level of power might be required to stand long against them. But there have been discussions.”

  “You believe that Jewel ATerafin possesses the power to stand—against gods?”

  “I do not k
now what I believe, Matteos; I do not trust what I know.” It was a bald admission from one who was styled the Guildmaster of the Order of Knowledge. “But I believe, now, that we will see the beginning of an answer, some proof of a theory that is so poorly supported by fact it can barely be considered theory at all.”

  He rose. “Why, Sigurne? Why that girl? Because she is seer-born? Because she has those loud, noisy beasts following her and making nuisances of themselves?”