Calliastra’s eyes couldn’t narrow further without closing; her hands could ball into tighter fists, and did. “Do not seek to humor me. You have survived greater threats—I witnessed one. You have found ways to stand your ground on ground that is not, in theory, your own. There is no threat that would instantly cause your death.”
It had been so long, Jewel thought, since she’d lived with Duster. And both she and Duster had, themselves, been young. Young, raw, and lacking in experience. “You’re right. I’m unlikely to die. But as it’s not my death I fear, it doesn’t matter. There are people here who are far less likely to survive rampaging, angry dragons than I am. I have Lord Celleriant. I have the Winter King. I have Avandar.
“And I have the talent I was born with. They don’t. If you need to set violent ground rules with the cats, you need to do it somewhere else. I’m sure they’d be fine with that.”
Shadow hissed. This was not the laughter hiss.
“And you two—and Night, if he’s listening, and he probably is—I mean it. Most of the creatures that know you on sight, or know of you, probably avoid getting embroiled in your company, just for the sake of peace and quiet. They won’t avoid Calliastra in the same way. They probably won’t avoid Celleriant, either. You have a freedom none of the rest of us do.”
“It’s not freedom,” Calliastra said. “It’s lack of dignity, lack of gravitas. They do not suffer the consequences of either their hostility or their trespass.”
“It doesn’t matter why. They’re indulged. Or ignored. Or despised—but people don’t often close with them. They don’t seek them out. If they know you’re here, they’ll come.”
“Not if they are weak, they won’t.”
“They don’t have to be strong to kill Angel or Terrick.” She didn’t mention Shianne or Adam; she knew that almost nothing short of instant decapitation could kill the young healer. “They just have to be fast.”
“Why did you bring them, then? You didn’t honestly intend to take the Oracle’s test while accompanied by vulnerable encumbrances, did you?”
“Clearly I did, because they’re here.”
“You tie yourself down.”
“Always. But that’s what friendship and companionship is. Ties. Bindings. I could cut them all loose, if that’s what I wanted. I could set them all free. But if I did, what would I have left? What would my motivation be? I’ve come seeking the Oracle because of those ties. Sacrificing one of my friends in the almost vain hope that I can rescue another isn’t a good trade.
“Look—you’re the daughter of gods. I get that. I’m not.”
“You are Sen,” Calliastra said.
“I have no idea what that means.” She exhaled mist as Calliastra opened her mouth. “No, that’s not true. I have some small idea of what it means to other people. I have no clear idea of how to leverage it. I’m not here because I’m Sen. I’m not even here because I’m seer-born.”
“Why, exactly, are you here? You are far from your home, and in my opinion, it is likely that you will never return to it.”
Jewel shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’d like to keep the odds from declining, which is why I don’t want you to go all out with the cats anywhere near us.” She folded her arms as she spoke.
In her current form, Calliastra wasn’t much taller than Jewel—if she was any taller at all. She wasn’t terrifying. She was compelling, of course. She was not distant, cool, unapproachable. She didn’t stand on a pedestal; she invited touch. She invited interaction.
And of course, accepting that invitation was death.
Calliastra gave Shadow the side-eye, which was fair; he looked like he wanted to rip one of her limbs off, and wasn’t particular about which. Jewel felt the breeze lift her hair, and she exhaled, loosening her arms.
“I don’t need anything from you,” the gods’ child said. “I don’t particularly want anything, either. You are not attractive. You are not powerful.”
Jewel nodded as if she didn’t care. Largely because she didn’t. “Do you need the type of food half of the rest of us do?”
“No.”
“That’s all that’s on offer. We’ll feed you if you want to eat with us. If you’re bored, you can keep us company. But no one here is food.”
“And you think you can stop me?”
“Yes, actually.”
Dark eyes rounded. Calliastra laughed. The laughter contained both derision and genuine amusement. “And how, exactly?”
Jewel shook her head. “In my position, would you share that information?”
“I don’t believe you have it.”
“Your risk to take. I’m willing to alleviate your boredom. I’m willing to give you something to do while you wait for the end of the world—”
“The end of your world.”
“—But all of that is off the table if you make any attempt to harm anyone here. I’m not a saint. I’m not going to tell you to starve to death. But you don’t feed off your companions, and that’s what the people here will be for as long as we travel the road together.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid girl,” Shadow said, hissing on all the sibilants.
“You let them run far too wild,” Calliastra replied, speaking to Jewel, as apparently Shadow was now beneath her.
“So I’ve been told.”
• • •
In case the great, gray cat had been too subtle—in his own estimation, of course—he muttered the word stupid at every opportunity, or at least every opportunity that involved Jewel. Snow was unimpressed, but took it less personally. Night remained at a distance. Celleriant left off exploration of the surrounding forest with the introduction of Calliastra, and had the Arianni Prince been as unconcerned with dignity as the cats, would probably have been spouting the same words Shadow was.
Shianne, however, appeared to find Shadow’s ill-humor amusing. Regardless, she kept herself between Adam and Calliastra at all times. There was very little she could have done that would have endeared her more to Jewel. Adam, on the other hand, kept trying to move.
The Voyani were ruled by Matriarchs. Their sons were raised in an environment in which governance—and power—belonged to the women. But the future of the clan was its children, and Shianne was pregnant. Being protected by a woman whose pregnancy was visibly advanced was just too much.
Terrick returned; he stopped for a long, quiet moment when he saw Calliastra. She smiled. It was a red-lipped, heavy-lidded smile that made Jewel’s cheeks redden—and it wasn’t aimed at her. Terrick, however, appeared to be made of the ice and snow in which he was raised.
He built a fire in tight-lipped silence.
• • •
Sleeping arrangements were disorganized and problematic. Jewel had not considered winter travel with any more care than choice of clothing. In the hundred holdings, winter had been met with dread—but defense against it was simple, if money could be found. When money couldn’t be found, it was still simple; it involved bedrolls and very, very tightly packed rooms. Shelter existed, regardless, if one could scrape by on rent.
Shelter, however, did not exist in the wilderness. Open branches did not provide protection against the wind or the snow. Terrick once again took over. He gave instructions to Angel, Kallandras, and Adam. He also gave instructions to the cats, although the instructions were entirely different and mostly consisted of growling to warn them to play elsewhere.
At the end of hours of work, during which both Angel and Adam rotated toward the fire and back, he had dug what looked like a cave out of heavy snow. “That,” he said, with quiet satisfaction, “is where we’ll be sleeping.” And that, for Jewel, was a problem.
It was dark. The ceiling—such as it was—was low. There were too many people to fit comfortably, but Terrick insisted that with nightfall, that many people were comfortable. “You need to respect the cold,”
he told Jewel firmly.
Celleriant did not require the snow cave. Calliastra did not require it. The cats offered to demolish it by landing on the roof, which Jewel instantly forbid; Snow and Night howled their boredom to the skies. If there were wolves in this forest, she hoped it would keep them away. Wolves had figured prominently in the stories of Northern climes she had heard on her Oma’s knees.
But snow caves hadn’t.
“Terafin,” Terrick said.
She sucked in air while Calliastra mocked her.
But the Winter King came to her rescue. I will stay with you, he told her. You will not freeze. While you are with me, simple weather will not be your death.
She realized, as he spoke, that the cats could serve the same function. Shadow pretty much insisted on it, by shouldering the great white stag to the side. The Winter King was not pleased—but like any other immortal present, he considered the cats a natural pestilence to be endured, if not enjoyed.
Jewel therefore remained outside of the cave when it came time to bed down. Shadow hissed at Calliastra, who frowned. “I will tend the fire,” she surprised Terrick by saying. “I require neither sleep nor heat. Mortals require both. Even men such as you.”
Terrick glanced at Angel; Angel shrugged and nodded. No one else offered any argument, although Kallandras whispered a question that only Jewel could hear. Well, that she and the cats could hear. Shadow growled. Had he not otherwise been his usual, whiny self, it would have been a terrifying sound.
Kallandras, however, accepted it without apparent concern. He nodded once to Celleriant, who returned the silent gesture; the bard then disappeared into the dark, cramped hollows as if this was familiar to him. It probably was. Jewel had never seen Kallandras out of place anywhere. Clothing didn’t define him; language didn’t define him. Battle didn’t define him.
She wondered if anything could, which was an odd thought. She curled up around her great, gray cat; he lifted his wings and folded them over her, sitting at attention, his unblinking gaze scanning the forest as night truly fell. Jewel couldn’t imagine sleeping in such a cold, exposed space—but it had been a long day; it was almost certain to be a long day tomorrow.
• • •
Tomorrow came in a way she had not expected.
She couldn’t say for certain when closed eyes and unnatural warmth gave way to natural sleep. She could, however, say when sleep gave way to dream, and she understood why Shadow had peremptorily shoved the Winter King to one side. In this dream, she watched Calliastra tend the fire. She didn’t tend it the way Terrick did—that would no doubt be so far beneath her she wouldn’t understand the how of it. The why—that it was necessary—would likewise escape her.
The fire’s light harshened the shadows; Calliastra’s hair blended with the line of her back, trailing down her shoulders and moving in a way that suggested hair had a life of its own. She spoke to the fire. Jewel could hear the murmur of syllables as a blend of voices, an echo of the voices of gods. The fire whispered back.
That was the first sign.
Shadow lifted his head on a low, deep growl—which, given proximity, could be more felt than heard. That was the second sign.
“We meet again, Jewel Markess.” The voice itself was the third, although Jewel felt it was unnecessary. The figure that had once been Calliastra rose, hair spreading to the sides and out in a snap, and becoming, in that motion, wings of black shadow.
Jewel rose. She place a hand firmly atop Shadow’s head, which did nothing to lessen the low, deep growl she found so disturbing. She was, however, very surprised to see Night and Snow saunter in from the sides.
The last time she had had all three of the cats in her dreams, she had almost died. If Adam had not been present, she would have. If Adam had not been a healer, he would have. And yet, for all that, she felt safer surrounded by them.
The cats, however, said nothing. They shared a growl, but all of their hostility and focus was directed at the Warden of Dreams. And that probably made sense. If they had nothing personal against killing her, they took offense at being controlled and manipulated, and they were both on their guard and vengeful.
“Are you both here?” she asked.
“Yes. And both awake. But you are not in your own small demesne; you have wandered, in ignorance, into ours.”
Jewel would have folded her arms had she not been forced to collar Night—in a figurative sense—to keep him from moving toward the standing child of gods. Or children; Celleriant’s previous reactions had made clear that he accorded one respect, and the other, enmity; the fact that they existed in the same body didn’t seem to trouble him at all.
For Jewel, it would have been a difficulty. To kill one—if that was even possible—would be to destroy the other, who probably didn’t deserve it.
Shadow hissed, lifting his voice an octave. Jewel shook her head. He was obviously concerned about the Warden; he didn’t call her stupid. He didn’t step on her foot. He was, however, unimpressed with the direction her dream thoughts were taking.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve wandered onto roads like these. You are the Warden of Dreams. But you are not the Winter Queen and the Wild Hunt, and I survived both. If you’re here to deliver nightmares, it’s a waste of your time. Nothing you can do to me here is any worse than what I can come up with on my own. It’s probably more visceral, but it’s not more real.”
Except that she had almost died the last time. She failed to note this, but was certain they did not.
“Perhaps. Do you understand the way in which dreams are a prison? Perhaps you do not. Perhaps you depend on waking to unlock the cage and set you free. And if you were in the world to which you were born, it would be. But here?” His wings, dark, widened and rose.
Jewel was reminded that beauty and death were synonymous in this place; he was beautiful. Admiration was only safe at a distance. “You can’t cage me here,” she replied, keeping her voice as even as she might have in a very frustrating meeting of the House Council.
“No?”
“No. Unless you wish to meet the Oracle. It is not my path I walk, but hers, and I think you know it.”
He laughed. His laughter, like the rest of him, was glorious; although she knew better, she felt something akin to pleasure at giving such a creature cause for genuine amusement. “You have not walked these roads long if you feel that we cannot interfere with each other.”
“She knows we can,” Calliastra said. She was standing to the right of the Warden of Dreams, looking as dark as his wings.
His eyes narrowed, amusement dropping from their corners as he turned. “I did not think to find you here.”
“Clearly, brother.”
The word, like the firstborn woman who spoke it, annoyed. “You are wasting your time with this one,” he said, indicating Jewel as if she were just another tree in this vast, winter landscape. “She is not for you.”
“Oh?”
“She is seer-born. I have walked the edge of her mortal dreams for the whole of her short life. I know what she fears. I know what she desires. Nothing you can do can give her either. Leave.”
Jewel would not have dared to speak to Duster in such a dismissive way. She knew Calliastra was not Duster—but there were enough similarities in their reactions she would have known better.
Clearly, the children of gods did not have an edge in observation and derived wisdom.
“If I have chosen to spend time in her company, that choice is mine. Your opinion of my effectiveness means less than nothing.”
The bristling fur of three great cats began to flatten as they watched. It was almost comical; their heads drifted between the two firstborn as if they were watching a game of ball. Jewel switched a hand to Snow’s head when his tail began to twitch. He hissed. Night yawned.
He yawned loudly. He then set about grooming his pa
w while staring balefully at the firstborn. To Jewel’s surprise, this caught their attention.
“What did you wish to show her?” Calliastra asked the Warden, her voice stiff and deep and yet still compelling.
The Warden frowned. “You are here in the dreaming, where you should not be. The dreams belong to me—and to Jewel. You are no part of them.”
Snow hissed. It was, unfortunately, the laughter hiss. The Warden’s gaze felt, as it turned on the cat, as if it could kill. Snow, however, wasn’t bothered. “She is not afraid of you,” the cat said. “And we are not afraid of anything.”
“She is afraid,” the Warden replied. “You merely distract her from fear.”
“If she is not afraid of us,” Shadow growled. “She is not allowed to be afraid of you.”
The Warden was silent for one long beat, and when he spoke again, Jewel knew that one brother had retreated—as he so often did—in favor of the other. “She is not afraid of me,” he said, to the great cat. “And has no reason to be so.”
“You did not visit. He did.”
“That is true, but I am here now. Jewel, why do you remain in the wilderness? The dreams and fears you encounter on this road will scar you; you will never escape them while you live. Without intent, will, desire, no one walks these paths for long; they are swept off them, there to wander in broken sanity for the time that remains them.
“One of our brothers was lost here, once.”
Jewel frowned. “Firstborn?”
“Yes. And no.”
“That creature is no brother of mine,” Calliastra said, with evident disgust.
“You are unkind, sister.”
“Always.”
“No, not always, and that is your tragedy.”
Calliastra clearly preferred Nightmare to Dream—but Jewel thought she understood why. Hope was painful when it was dashed, and it was always dashed.
“Yes,” Shadow said, hissing quietly. “But despair is always broken, time and again, by hope. The two exist, circling each other. No matter how strong one is, the other cannot be avoided. It is like—very like—the Warden himself.”
Oracle: The House War: Book Six Page 59
