City of Night

by Michelle West

  As Torvan approached, Arann in his arms, the guards raised swords, crossing them to bar entrance, as if the closed doors didn’t already have that effect.

  Jay stepped in front of Torvan ATerafin, shielding Arann with her body. It wasn’t effective. “We’re here to see The Terafin. It’s urgent. We’ve got to—”

  “Marave.” Torvan spoke, literally, over her head. “We’re here by The Terafin’s command.”

  The female guard, who had failed to hear Jay, glanced at Torvan and the burden he carried. She nodded, a short, smart motion. “You may pass.”

  Her sword fell in unison with the raised sword of the bearded, fair-haired man who stood directly opposite her. “You may pass.”

  The den fell in behind, glancing at the swords of the House Guards, or their reflections in those swords. For Angel, it was the former; he knew enough about blades to recognize the quality of these at a glance. Still, the muted and often mismatched colors that were den clothing passed across the sheen of the flats like ripples or waves. It was comforting.

  They entered the chambers beyond those large, solid doors, and saw four more guards; these men stood with swords sheathed, along either wall. The room itself was large, but it had none of the colorful finery that the galleries boasted. There were shelves on the far wall, to either side of a fireplace mantel that was dark and oiled; those shelves carried books in larger numbers than Angel thought he could count without a slate. In one half of the room was a grand, but severe looking desk, behind which was one empty chair.

  Torvan passed between the guards, and came to a halt in front of a lone woman, who stood, rather than taking one of the many chairs that were placed along the floor in the back of the room. Tables joined those chairs in a sparse arrangement that implied an equally spare welcome.

  Torvan ATerafin started to bend, and Angel darted forward to help with Arann. But the woman spoke, and Torvan froze.

  “Don’t stand on ceremony. I do not require you to kneel, Torvan.”

  And so it was that Angel a’Garroc first laid eyes on The Terafin.

  Her hair was dark, where it touched her forehead, but it was bound back behind her ears, and held in place by a very delicate net. In that net, something sparkled, a hint of the finery that the manse displayed openly. At this distance, Angel couldn’t tell what caused the sharp little twinkles of light as she turned her head. She wasn’t tall. Taller than Jay, Finch, and Teller, yes—but she was at most of medium height, for a woman.

  And she looked, to Angel, like the exposed blade of a sword, a Northern weapon. She was pale, but in a way that implied light on steel and not something softer or more feminine, and she wore a pale blue drape that suggested clear winter sky. In his days on the docks, Angel had seen all manner of current Imperial fashion, as well as the fashions of other nations; she bowed, in the end, to none. The dress was almost a simple shift, and it fell unimpeded by something as restrictive as a belt.

  As if aware of his regard, she glanced at him, and her eyes, dark as her hair, narrowed slightly. He offered an awkward half-bow in response and acknowledgment. This woman, he thought, was the leader of her House, not only in name, but in fact.

  He remembered, again, the task set for his father, Garroc of Weyrdon, a task that he had, in the end failed. The duty of its completion, the redemption of Garroc’s life—and death—now rested with Angel.

  And what, in the end, was the geas laid upon him?

  That he find, and serve, a worthy leader.

  But to do that, he had to have something to offer; he was aware, as he stood in this room, that he had nothing at all that she could not easily find elsewhere. Elsewhere in men like Torvan ATerafin, whom she clearly trusted.

  “I believe that you have a message for me?” The Terafin spoke to Jay.

  Jay nodded. Angel felt that this was smart, given the difference in their ranks, and their relative power.

  “Then I would have you deliver it.”

  Jay nodded again. But this time she unfastened her left sleeve, and from it, withdrew several curled papers that had obviously been half-wrapped around the length of her forearm.

  Carver lifted his hand in den-sign, but his fingers froze; Jay jumped forward, and grabbed, of all things, a lamp that rested on one of the tables. By its flickering, Angel knew it contained not an expensive magestone, but rather, simple oil.

  Fire, he thought, almost numb, which was now held in one hand below the curled paper.

  “Jewel,” Torvan said, his voice hard. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “This is it,” she said, ignoring him as she waved the rolled vellum above the burning flame. “This is the last message from Ararath.”

  “What are you doing, child?” The Terafin took a step. A single step. Then she held her ground as Jay spoke again.

  “Stay right where you are.” Jay’s voice was wild, almost broken; it was a desperate thing. Shorn of the control and the wisdom with which she had kept her den safe all these years, Jay sounded like . . . a child. A child upon whom their entire future depended.

  Had she always been this small?

  “Who are you?” The Terafin asked.

  “I’m—I’m Jewel Markess. I’m the den leader here.”

  “And you’ve come to my House in order to extort something from me?” She was cold, this woman, and what little friendliness she had displayed—and by Angel’s lights, there had been little enough of it—guttered. “I don’t know how you found out about Ararath, but—”

  “He taught me.” Jay waved the papers over the fire. “He taught me about all of this. I—” she shook her head. “I don’t want to do this. But you’ve got something I need.”

  “And that is?”

  “Money.”

  “You do realize that there are a roomful of guards in the antechamber?”

  Jay nodded. Her face was so pale, their skin—the woman’s and hers, leader of the most powerful of The Ten, and leader of a small den from the twenty-fifth holding—were almost of a color.

  “Vellum burns poorly. I dare say that they’ll have you in hand before even one of the scrolls that you carry are lost.”

  “Just try it,” Jay replied, but her voice was thin, and her words held no strength. What The Terafin said was true.

  “Shall I call the guards?” The Terafin took a step forward, and this time, Jay did nothing.

  “We used all our money to come here,” she murmured, so quietly it was hard to hear her. “And even if we hadn’t, we’d never have had enough for a healer.” Then she turned to look at Arann’s body, and she lost her voice.

  For the first time, The Terafin looked at Arann. “I see,” she said. “And this money—you want it for him?”

  Jay nodded. “He’s my den-kin,” she said.

  “And what would you do for it, if I had it to give you?”

  “Anything,” Jewel replied, straightening up and lifting her chin. “I’ll steal for you, if that’s what you need done. I’ll spy for you. I’ll kill for you. I’ll even—”

  The Terafin lifted a ringless hand. “Enough.” She walked to the fireplace and pressed her hand against a square of the stone wall just above it. She looked at Jay very carefully before walking back to her desk. This time, she sat behind it, signaling a more formal interview. “Tell me about Ararath.”

  Jay swallowed and looked, again, at Arann. She struggled with words—and Jay never had to struggle with anything but keeping them on the inside of her mouth. “I—we didn’t call him that. We called him Old Rath. He lives in the thirty- fifth. He’s a . . .” She took a single, deep breath, and straightened her shoulders, gaining an inch or two of height. It shouldn’t have been impressive

  But to Angel, it was. Because he knew that it would never, ever have occurred to Jay to ask for anything but Arann’s life. And she knew, now, that answering The Terafin’s questions as cleanly—and quickly—as possible was now the only hope she had. “He was a thief there. The best. He was good with a sword—that’s wh
y he lived to be old. He knew how to read and write and speak like a gentleman.

  “He didn’t much care for the patriciate. He didn’t much care for commoners either, when it comes down to it. But he was a good friend.”

  “Was?”

  “We . . . think he’s dead.” She looked at the letter she had claimed came from Rath, and Angel saw her expression stiffen, as if she was now holding its lines as rigidly as possible. She surrendered completely, then, and set the lamp safely down upon the floor by her feet, putting her life—no, putting a life she cared far, far more about—squarely into The Terafin’s hands.

  Chapter Fifteen

  22nd Scaral, 410 AA Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  THE TERAFIN GLANCED AT TORVAN ATERAFIN, and nodded. It was a short, graceful dip of the head, and although it was offered in silence, it had the force of words behind it.

  Torvan ATerafin knelt carefully—and in that much armor, with Arann as a burden, it was an impressively supple motion—and laid Arann gently on the floor. He nodded once to his lord, and then he stood and withdrew; he did not, however, leave the room. Instead, he took his place by the wall to the den’s left, his hands by his sides.

  Teller approached Arann first, and knelt to one side of his white, motionless face. He bent, slowly and hesitantly, to listen a moment, and then moved, and placed the side of his face against Arann’s chest.

  “Jay, I don’t think he’s . . .”

  “Arann!” Jay shoved Teller to one side, and Finch stepped in to catch him before he fell flat on his butt in front of possibly the most powerful woman in the Empire.

  “Arann, come on. We’re safe now.” She lifted his face in her hands and shook him, but not hard. “Please, Arann, please.”

  “Jay?” Finch approached her with care, her eyes turning down at the corners the way they did when she was in pain and she couldn’t decide for who. But she was smart enough, especially here, not to touch Jay.

  The only sign Jay gave of hearing her name was a fierce shake of her head. She didn’t move. Finch lifted a hand, and Angel caught it. Neither of them spoke.

  But Torvan did.

  “Jewel, come. There’s nothing you can do now.” He didn’t know her; he didn’t know better then to touch her. “Jewel. Come.”

  Angel knew she wouldn’t turn, and she wouldn’t rise, and he even knew why. Jay didn’t cry in public.

  “Torvan, that’s not necessary.”

  All of the den looked up at the sound of this new voice; all of them but Jay, who was huddled beside Arann’s chest, her shoulders curving toward him, her neck stretching as her head bent.

  A man had, silently, entered the room. He was old. Older, Angel thought, than anyone he’d met in the Free Towns, and older than anyone he knew in Averalaan, although the latter wasn’t hard. But his age didn’t quite make him frail.

  It wasn’t his age that caused a ripple of silence, an exhange of glances, and the lifting of hands in the comfort of familiar den-sign. It wasn’t his robes, which were all of white, except for golden embroidery at the hems; it wasn’t his odd, white hair, or the odd blue of his eyes. It was the pendant he wore on a heavy golden chain around his slightly bent neck. Two hands. Two exposed palms.

  Healer-born.

  Breathing almost stopped as he approached Jay, and approached, by so doing, the person over whom Jay crouched, defensive, and almost broken.

  Like Torvan, he didn’t know better than to touch Jay. But she made no attempt to shrug him off when he laid one hand on top of hers.

  The other hand, he laid against the center of Arann’s chest, where blood had fallen from his forehead or his lips, and dried in a red-brown crust.

  “I’m Alowan,” the man said. His voice was a whisper, but it was a whisper with the subtle strength of louder speech; it carried, filling the silence.

  “I’m Jay.” She glanced up at him, then, and her gaze drifted down the sleeve of the hand he had rested so gently upon Arann. She fell silent when she realized that he wasn’t speaking to her. He was speaking to Arann, who lay well beyond hearing.

  Moments passed, the silence swallowing Alowan’s gentle words. Jay’s eyes were red, yes, but she’d done with pride for the moment; she looked at the old man’s face, his hair, the veined, lined thinness of eyelids. Angel knew the moment her eyes drifted down from his face to the pendant he wore; he heard her breath catch, and he saw her turn her face away again.

  Hope was like that, when it came unexpected. It cut.

  Silence. Minutes stretching into nothing.

  They wanted to ask this man if it was too late.

  They wanted to preserve hope, who had almost none. If Duster had been here, she would have talked, because Duster was afraid of hope.

  Duster wasn’t here. Would never be here again. Teller lifted his head, swallowed, and opened his mouth. Before he could speak, Alowan did.

  “Come, Arann. Come home. I am Alowan. Follow me. No, do not be frightened. It is safe. Come.”

  Silence fell once again, but it fell deeper this time. No one opened their mouths to speak, to ask, or to give voice to the hope that was so much like fear it was impossible to tell them apart.

  Instead, they listened to the old man. He spoke seldom, and when he did, he spoke some variant of the same words, calling to Arann, wherever Arann might be. They knew, in this hush, that Arann was not—quite—here, but neither was he entirely gone.

  Silence. Words. Silence. Words.

  And then the words ceased entirely, and the old man withdrew the hand he had laid against Arann’s chest.

  “Welcome back, boy,” he said. He rose, and then realized that Jay’s hands were still sandwiched around his.

  “Jay, you must release my hand now. It isn’t safe for the healer and the healed to be too long joined.”

  She looked confused, but she did as he asked. Anyone would have, really.

  Arann’s eyelids began to flicker. It was ever so slight, and nothing else about his face had changed, but they noticed it anyway. They watched, bore witness, captive still to the beginning of hope, and anxious to see its fruition. He drew a sharp, audible breath, and they all breathed then, as if they were one person.

  But he drew breath to moan. It was not a scream, but it was unmistakably a cry of pain. He was still for another moment, and then he opened his eyes. His tears caught the light of the lamp that Jay had set on the floor.

  “Arann?” Jay spoke. She spoke for all of them.

  “Jay?” He reached out for her as if she were his mother. She froze for an instant, stiff as his arms encircled her neck and shoulders, and then she hugged him back. Hiding her face.

  Teller came first, and quietly; Finch came last, and hesitantly. In between, Carver and Angel joined her at Arann’s side. Jester rolled his eyes in mock contempt, grinning broadly and tapping his left foot as if to a tune.

  Arguably the most powerful woman in the Empire stood, to one side of her desk, and observed. She was utterly silent; she might have been a wall-flower at a great ball, seeing all and interacting with nothing.

  The message that Ararath Handernesse had purportedly penned lay on the ground, forgotten. It had, she thought, served the girl’s purpose. And if the girl had been foolish—and she had—she had not lied; the cause for that folly was written clearly both upon her and each of the young men, and the young woman, who attended her.

  She had called herself the den leader, and it was clear that these were her den.

  The Terafin glanced across the room at Torvan, and he, accustomed to her, lifted his head and met her gaze. He lifted a brow in question; she raised two fingers in reply. It was not a deliberate language; she was long past the age in which she required the delight of a hard code by which to communicate. But he understood what she meant, and he nodded.

  The Terafin watched this den. She gave them the time to touch their fallen giant, and they did; his face, his hands, his shoulders. As if they couldn’t believe he was alive, as if they had never thou
ght to touch anything of him again but his corpse.

  Then, when she judged the impulse satisfied, she looked at the boy himself. He was pale, and his face, tear-stained. His forehead would not scar, but Alowan had used as little of his power as it was possible to use in a healing of this nature.

  She was not, had not, been kind to Alowan, this day.

  Alowan was watching her.

  And he was, of course, watching the boy, the den. His expression as he did was not an old man’s expression, and the smile on his lips, if weary and pained, also held a very surprising joy in great measure. He was, indeed, happy. For them.

  Which told her much. The rest, she now desired to learn. She lifted a hand. Not a single one of the strangers noticed, but all five of her Chosen did.

  “Torvan, escort Alowan and the boy—Arann?—to the healerie. If our visitors are concerned take one of them with you. Any,” she added, “save the leader.”

  “Lord.” He stepped forward.

  “Carver.” The young woman spoke a single name without looking at anyone but The Terafin. There was, in the girl’s face, both gratitude and the weary reassumption of command. Had the circumstances been different, The Terafin might have taken the time to ask for the story behind their situation, for if it was true that many sought—and frequently attempted to demand—her attention, it was also true that they seldom came with companions who were literally at death’s door.

  She had known, of course. She had seen death before, much of it in this house. At least one death in this room.

  “Me?” The young man, with his ludicrous but strangely appropriate mane of hair, said, denying her the perfect obedience that the patriciate itself was accustomed to. “But—”

  “Go.” Jewel Markess did not seem to be embarrassed by this denial; she didn’t seem surprised by it either.

  “Yessir.”