Jewel opened her eyes. Shianne was not Duster. There was no anger in her, no rage, no desire to destroy. For Duster, destruction had been the truest test of power; she’d spent too much of her life feeling powerless.
And this woman? Had not. She had none of Duster’s doubt, none of her fear. She had all of her intensity, but it was turned, in this moment, with this song, to sorrow; sorrow and yearning. There was beauty in sorrow; beauty in resignation. And pride in both.
But surrounding them, elevating them, engraving them in some sense into a memory that was far too thin to fully hold them, her song.
Jewel was almost shocked when a voice joined hers, it felt so wrong. The voice was rougher, lower, less consistent in its strength and urgency; it should have clashed horribly with the eerie, almost overwhelming beauty of hers—but it didn’t.
Of course not. There was only one man present who might have dared to draw breath and use it to reach out, to touch, to entwine himself inextricably with her song.
Kallandras was the youngest Master Bard Senniel had ever produced. What he sang now, he had not learned in Senniel College. He hadn’t learned it in the streets of the hundred holdings, facing starvation and isolation; he hadn’t learned it in the rooms of a brothel. Jewel knew because she had been in those places, and the loss he sang of now was Shianne’s loss—but it was also his own.
It wasn’t hers. She had felt a hint of it in the days when Lefty disappeared; she was shadowed by an echo of it whenever she thought of Duster’s death. But the certainty of loss and separation—no. She was here to find Carver. She was here to do everything in her power to save him.
No part of that salvation meant walking away.
And yet, she heard in his voice—and in Shianne’s—the certainty that only by walking away could lives—and love—be preserved, even if neither the bard nor the woman would ever be part of it again. Other lives. Other loves.
It wasn’t a gift she could give. Surrendering the family she built for its own sake was surrendering the very thing that made her what she was. She accepted this as her own truth, and accepted, as well, that it was not a truth that defined either Kallandras or Shianne. They were, for a moment, beautiful in exactly the same way: the mortal man and the woman who had chosen to become mortal although she was, in all ways, of Ariane.
So she stood, listening, as each note shifted and changed, moving into the next note, the next lift of voice, the next breathless silence; she tried to gather the song into memory, to hold it for as long as it could be held, because she knew she would never hear it again; not this way.
• • •
The long hall spread out before them as far as the eye could see—or as far as Jewel’s could. A ceiling that existed in shadow, if it existed at all, was supported by pillars whose heights likewise disappeared from view. The air was chill; breath rose in small clouds. Shianne had taken the lead, although she was sandwiched between Night and Snow; the two cats, for once, did not fight over the same position. They did complain, and as they were the only voices raised, the procession sounded as if it were composed of growling four year olds.
Adam woke twice while they walked, startling as if from nightmare; he subsided the moment Jewel spoke into his ear, her voice far softer in the echoing hall than it would otherwise be. She was worried, but worry was a constant companion. She knew the cost of overusing one’s talent-born power.
“He is not suffering from mage fevers,” Kallandras told her. She heard his voice, although his words were softly spoken and he was not beside her. Her own voice, to reach his ears, would have to carry, and she was hesitant to shout here. She didn’t question the hesitance; she was seer-born.
You fear danger, here.
She almost laughed. Yes, she told the Winter King. How could I do otherwise?
We will not be attacked in these halls. He spoke with certainty.
You didn’t even recognize the halls when we first arrived.
No. But if you listen, you will hear the Winter Queen’s name; it is spoken in the silence. None but the desperate or the very, very foolish will seek a battle here. If I did not know better, Jewel, I would swear that we walked at the very center of the Hidden Court. The Winter Queen has not dwelled here for a long, long time—but she is everywhere within it.
“How long are these halls?” she asked.
Shianne paused and turned back to look over her shoulder. “I no longer have an answer for you, Jewel.”
Jewel briefly regretted denying the use of the title Matriarch. There was something almost intimate in Shianne’s use of her given name; the title—Matriarch—was far more distant. “Have they changed greatly?”
“Yes, as you must suspect. They are silent, now; the echoes speak of abandonment.” She paused and added, “If you fear that we will find new residents, be comforted. Nothing that passes through these halls without the White Lady’s permission would survive the night. No one dwells here save my sisters and I.”
Angel cleared his throat. Shianne frowned. “I’m all for comfort, Lady. But—we don’t have her permission.”
“Without her permission, you would never have arrived at all.”
Angel glanced at Jewel. Jewel glanced at her wrist. She did not lift her arm. “We did not travel here as others must have, in the past.”
“No.”
“We arrived because the Oracle sent us.”
But Shianne shook her head; her hair moved like liquid lit from within. “You do not understand. The Oracle might open a door to this place; she is first of the firstborn, and there is no place, no matter how dire or distant, that she has not seen in her many, many visions. But such a door is not permission. Nor could she herself beg entry.
“If she chose to send you here as part of your quest, Jewel, she did so because she was certain you would be granted entry. Nor was she wrong.”
“Is she ever?”
“Wrong?”
Jewel nodded.
“The meanings of the visions she grants are difficult to grasp, even by those who fully understand their context. She is not easily moved to rage or fear; nor has she ever been considered a creature of great pride. She has no need to be right.”
Jewel noted that Shianne had not answered the question, and she almost let it go. But she had too much invested in this quest to do so with any ease. “I understand she has no need to be seen to be right. What I want—what I need—to know is whether or not she’s ever mistaken.”
“No.”
Jewel fell silent.
Shianne laughed. The laughter was not kind, but it was not sharp or edged. “How can the Oracle ever be wrong? It has been said that she can see every possibility the future holds. Only one of those possibilities will become reality; only one will become the present, and from there, the past. Many, many are the gods and the immortals who have attempted, time and again, to use the Oracle to influence that reality in their own favor. Most failed. The Oracle could not be moved to choose one path or another; nor could she be moved to allow those who sought her aid in their endeavors to glimpse a present they could not otherwise easily see.
“She was considered a weapon.”
“Most weapons aren’t sentient.”
Shianne’s brows rose.
Jewel drew dagger, not as threat, but as demonstration.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot possibly think that is an example of a weapon.” There was no question in the words; they were flat and dismissive.
The Winter King was highly amused. In my time, Terafin, your knife would not have been considered a weapon; it might have been considered a tool of middling quality—if that.
“The Oracle would indeed have been a potent weapon in the hands of the gods—or their offspring. Those who understood her gift, those who better understood the context of her visions, could have used her to sculpt, from the multitude
of possibilities, the outcomes they most desired. We were,” she added, “oft at war.
“But of course she knew—how could she not, who could see all things if she but bent her will toward them? But she was not neutral—and if you believe that someone who sees every possibility is neutral, you do not understand the Oracle.” The words were bitter and softly spoken. “Like any of the firstborn, she forgets nothing, and her grudges can be long and harsh—but they are miracles in the making when she at last chooses to act—for when she does, she makes no mistakes. There are no last-minute reprieves for her enemies. She is thorough, Jewel—and perhaps she is because she is the only one who can see the entire game.”
“Does every vision she shows serve her purpose?”
“I do not know. We ask, and if she chooses, she replies. She does not ask for our approval or our gratitude.”
Gratitude was not what Jewel was feeling at the moment. Gratitude she thought, uneasily, was not what Evayne felt at the peak of her power. “It wasn’t just the gods,” she said. “Or even the immortals. I think, near the end, before the gods chose to leave, she saw mostly mortals. Mortals,” she added, “like me.”
“The gods chose to leave.” She glanced at Celleriant. “We will have many a day upon the path you have chosen to walk. Tell me, then, about the gods and their absence. Tell me about their wars, and their victories; tell me about their defeats.”
He was not comfortable in her presence. He was not as obviously awkward as Terrick, but that was impossible. He glanced at Jewel; she was surprised.
“I see no reason not to do so. Your knowledge—and Avandar’s—far surpasses any of ours. Tell her what you know, if you choose.” Jewel had often been curious, but she had never asked. His past was his past—just as Duster’s had been her own. She had always believed that the past was irrelevant; it was the present and the future you looked toward that counted.
But she understood, as her arms tightened around Adam, that the roots of the present, and the roots of the future they would soon face, were planted in all ways in that dim and unknown past—the two could not be separated.
“Do not trust her,” Shadow said, loudly enough that his words probably carried to the unseen ceiling.
Shianne glanced at the great, gray cat. “Trust,” she told him, “is only an issue where there is an absence of power.”
Jewel laughed, which caused platinum brows to lift. “It’s always an issue, for me.”
“Truly?”
Shadow was muttering to himself. There were a lot of sibilants.
“Yes, truly. If Celleriant chose to strike me down here, I would die.”
“You would not,” Shadow said.
“Absent all other interference, I would.”
“Would not.”
Jewel exhaled. “Fine. If I were alone with Celleriant and he chose to kill me, I would die.”
Celleriant was not Shadow; he did not disagree.
“But he serves you?”
Jewel nodded.
“May I ask why?”
“Yes—but you’ll have to ask him.”
Shianne frowned. “Too much has changed,” she said—to Celleriant. “Too much is strange. The halls seem empty of life and light; there is no sound, no song. Not even the wind plays here. What will we find beyond them?”
Celleriant said, “I do not know. I have not walked these halls. If they were ever spoken of at all, it was in ways so subtle I do not recall their mention. The wilderness was once a vast and endless space—but it was oft treacherous and unpredictable.” He smiled; breeze moved his hair. It did not, however, touch hers. “And I have not wandered in halls of this size and grandeur since my youth.”
“And how distant is your youth, Lord Celleriant?”
“Not as distant as yours.” There was no insult—at all—in the words; indeed, there was almost the hush of reverence. “I was born in the Summer; I came of age in the Winter. When the Winter Queen called me, I joined her host. I rode in the Wild Hunt, over the endless winter landscape. If you do not know winter, you do not understand the beauty of the ice and snow and the cold, clear face of the watching moon; you have not heard the song of the horns.”
She was silent and watchful, but her expression had softened. “And she rides at the head of the Wild Hunt?”
“Always,” he whispered. “If you but close your eyes, you can see her astride her mount; she wears raiment of white and silver over armor of almost the same color; the horn is in her hand or at her lips and her eyes shame moon’s light. Nothing escapes her; there is no place that her quarry might flee that she cannot pursue.”
This was not entirely true, but Jewel did not interrupt. He seemed young and almost defenseless as he spoke. This was not the boy—if boy was the word—who had once sat beneath the boughs of ancient, Summer trees. And yet, she thought, he had loved those voices, too.
“Almost, I can see her,” Shianne whispered. “Almost, you make me yearn for this Winter that I have never known. But you did not see her as she was before she was Winter and Summer Queen. She rode to war—”
“She rode to war when the gods walked,” Celleriant replied, “Even in my time. The Winter and Summer roads were her power; not even the gods could move the lands against her when she stood upon them.”
This, too, surprised Shianne. “She could hold those roads against the will of the gods?”
“Yes. She could not be moved from them, and they could not be altered or changed while she stood upon them. It was tried,” he added, “but she spoke with greater authority to the ancient earth than even the gods themselves could.”
Silver eyes softened; Jewel thought, for a moment, there would be tears. And there were. She had to look away—and then, to look back. If tears were a sign of weakness, Shianne truly felt no fear exposing it. Jewel wondered what it would be like to be Shianne.
You could not, the Winter King said.
I know that.
He was amused. It is not that she is beautiful and you are not, although that is true. He spoke without rancor or malice. She is steel. She is edge. She is of the Winter Queen. On the most grim of your days, Terafin, you could not become as she is; on the best of your days, you would despise it utterly.
You don’t.
No—but that has long been a source of conflict between us. What I see as strength, you do not. You cannot. But I have come to understand, leader of your den, that what you see as strength is, in a fashion, strong. I could not take the risks you have taken. I would not have survived. But you have. Survival is the ultimate test. I had no desire to take the risks you take, when I ruled.
I know.
Yes. But when I was a youth, Terafin—no, even before that, as a child, I did. I had that desire; I took that risk. I was not wise; I lacked experience and the understanding that follows. I survived it. I only barely survived. I was mortal, as you are. But I did not come early into my power, as you did. You have seen me, in the dreaming, as I existed when I ruled the Tor Amanion.
Had I chosen the life you chose, I would not have been there. I think of you as weak, yes. But very few others see—or hear—the constant stream of fear and doubt that comprises so much of your thought. Do not attempt to change; Shianne is not an attainable goal for you.
Adam groaned; Jewel shifted her hold and whispered into his sleep. She wasn’t certain what he heard; he murmured the word “Matriarch” before he once again fell silent.
“I do not know what your life was like,” Celleriant told Shianne. “Nor, it appears, do you understand ours. She is the heart of Winter and Summer; she is not merely the detritus of the turn of the seasons. You knew Winter and Summer in your time.”
“. . . Yes. But not as you know them. They were deep things, the shift and change of a world that did not break the world itself. They marked the passage of time for those who must live, always, beyond its
reach. Do you feel the passage of time?”
“Yes, Lady. And no.”
“No more do I. I do not feel changed. I do not feel irrevocably wed to the march of both time and death.” Her hand fell to the rounded curve that spoke of new life. “Will I, Jewel?”
Jewel wanted to say no. The desire was visceral. But she could not lie to this woman; she said nothing.
Shianne turned. As she turned, the cats who bracketed her swiveled as well. Jewel exhaled. Age was a fact of life, as was death. “Adam,” she said, “is young. He is not yet adult, by our reckoning; he is a youth, not a man.
“And you?”
“I would be considered full-grown among my kin.”
Shianne crossed the distance between them; the Winter King had halted. He allowed her to approach, lifting his head, raising the tines of his antlers higher so that they might be farther from her face.
Shianne’s left hand remained upon the child she carried within; she lifted her right, offering it to Jewel. Jewel thought she meant to mount.
No, the Winter King said.
She’s pregnant, Jewel replied, irritated.
Yes. But, Jewel—I will not carry her.
You’re carrying Adam!
Yes. And I have carried old men and young before, at your behest. Had I found—had I located your Ellerson or your Carver, I would have borne them to you. But I will not carry this woman.
Why?
I would carry Lord Celleriant first, if you commanded it.
And if I commanded that you carry a pregnant woman?
A woman, yes. But that is not what she is. I will not—I cannot—bear Shianne. Do not ask it.
Something about his tone spoke not of distaste or fear or—as it would have in Jewel’s case—embarrassment. He spoke with a certainty she heard only in herself, and only rarely. She swallowed. Will you bear Adam if I am not—
Yes. He will not fall.
She climbed down. It was awkward; she almost dragged poor Adam with her. Angel righted the healer, but did not join Jewel.
Shianne touched her face with the tips of cool fingers, as if reading it. She searched her eyes, and the shape of those eyes; she touched her lips at either corner, the line of her chin, her cheekbones. Jewel held her breath without conscious thought.
Oracle: The House War: Book Six Page 32
