Oracle: The House War: Book Six

by Michelle West

  “What happened?”

  She said nothing. A long nothing. And he remembered the long days spent in the old apartment in the twenty-fifth, waiting. Waiting, first, for Fisher, and then after, for Lefty. Her expression reminded him of those days, because the only thing that was different about it was the years that had passed over her face in the interim.

  Jay was not Duster. She’d never been Duster. You could talk to her, argue with her, be fearful in her company. You could weep, and she accepted it. But she and Duster shared one thing: they didn’t cry in public. They could rage, yes. Duster could threaten your life sixteen ways before the sun had truly cleared the cover of buildings. Jay could throw pots and cups. They could curse.

  But tears? No.

  The obvious evidence of those tears left Angel stranded. He retreated, stepping on Adam in the process. Terrick muttered something under his breath. The only person present that Terrick felt comfortable criticizing was, in fact, Angel. It was, however, Adam who apologized to the older Rendish man. And to Angel.

  “It’s not your fault he can’t watch where he’s going,” Terrick snapped.

  “He doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head.”

  “His ears don’t face forward—you weren’t exactly silent.”

  Angel lifted a hand and in den-sign begged Adam to stop. Adam glanced at Terrick, and then at Jay. He lifted his own hands. His den-sign was only slightly slower than Angel’s, but Adam was the age they’d been in the twenty-fifth, when den-sign had been half their public talk. He took to it as easily as they had, back then.

  Adam seemed so young to Angel. But Adam had saved The Terafin’s life, several times, before the assassination that had made Jay The Terafin. He wasn’t a child.

  But he wasn’t the fourteen-year-old youths of the Free Towns, either. He had no awkward strut, no need to brag; he tended to children and aged women with a gentleness that Angel saw almost nowhere else. Life in the South, among the Voyani, must have been very, very different.

  Jay had said that the leader of one of the Voyani clans was the most terrifying person, without exception, she had ever met. The name of the woman escaped Angel, but it didn’t matter. Adam called Jay Matriarch. And Adam, without the long history of the den to hold him back, was waiting for her.

  Angel lifted a hand, signed.

  Adam glanced at him and shook his head. I’ll wait.

  What do you think happened?

  Adam’s hands were still for a long second. But he signed a name at the end of that silence.

  Angel’s eyes widened; he turned back to Jay, stepped forward; Adam’s arm caught him—to Terrick’s further disgust—in the chest. The boy didn’t swing it; he merely held it out, as if he were a slender, human gate.

  But Jay grimaced, seeing them both. To Adam, she signed, it’s good.

  Adam glanced, again, at Angel. He swallowed and nodded and retreated.

  “The Voyani,” Jay said quietly, “are ruled by their Matriarchs—and it is death to know too much of a Matriarch’s business unless you are her heir or, as Adam, her actual child. I think he means to spare me the necessity of killing you.” She smiled as she said it, but the smile was a window into pain. “You’ll note he hasn’t stayed, himself.”

  “He would have.”

  “Adam is always willing to risk his own life. He does it with a quiet purity—you can almost see his desire to be helpful or useful. I don’t think I was ever Adam. Certainly not at his age.”

  “Jay—”

  She had taken the time to gather her thoughts, to find the control to speak. Adam had, intentionally or no, given her that much space. “I don’t understand the mechanics of the Oracle’s test. But I understand why Evayne speaks of it with such loathing. Remind me, if we meet again, to ask her what her test was.”

  “Would you answer that question if she asked it of you?”

  Jay said, voice low, “I’m not certain, yet, what the whole of the test comprises.” But she inhaled, held breath, and exhaled white mist. “And I know how little time we have to reach her.”

  “Did she ever tell you what happens to you if you fail?”

  Jay shrugged. “No. The implication was insanity or death. Mostly insanity.”

  Angel fell silent. “How bad was it?”

  “Was what?”

  “The dreaming?”

  “Bad. Bad enough that we’d be sitting in the kitchen for hours if we were back home.”

  “I’m no good at transcription.”

  “You’re no good for anything,” Shadow said. He stepped on Angel’s right foot as he shouldered him out of the way. “Be more useful or we will eat you.”

  Jay, however, dropped a hand onto gray fur. “You will eat him over my dead body.”

  “But he can’t do anything. You don’t let him do anything. What is he good for?”

  Jay started to speak, stopped, and met the gray cat’s unblinking eyes. “Does it matter?” she asked—and to Angel’s surprise, the question was grave.

  “Look at where you are, stupid, stupid girl. Everything matters. Why did you bring him?”

  “He wasn’t willing to stay behind.”

  Shadow growled.

  “What? That’s the truth. I promised I wouldn’t go where he couldn’t follow—and he could follow, here. So he did.”

  Shadow snorted, turned, stepped on Angel’s foot again, and stomped toward the campfire. Angel glanced at Jay. Her hands were free of mittens. She signed: Carver. Just as Adam had done.

  She signed the name again, and this time, she met his gaze and held it. This time, she let tears trace the line of her cheeks and chin. She couldn’t speak. He wouldn’t have demanded words, regardless. He was frozen for one long minute, and then, because he had nothing else to offer her, he crossed the distance that separated them. He wasn’t certain if he was offering comfort or seeking it. She wasn’t certain, either.

  He was aware when Adam rejoined them; aware as well that no one else did—or would. Adam was new to the den, but Adam was of them—the only person that had come to the West Wing at an invitation other than Jay’s. He asked no questions, but slid his arms around them both, and bowed his head, and after a moment, sang a very quiet, very short song. It was Torran; more than that, Angel couldn’t tell.

  • • •

  Jewel rode the Winter King for half of the first leg of their journey. She walked for the other half, to the Winter King’s amusement.

  I wish you would carry her, she said, for the hundredth time that morning. But he wouldn’t unless she commanded it. Command—resolute, no-nonsense command—was not her strength in any situation that was not a matter of immediate life or death. He knew this, as well.

  What he did not completely understand was the guilt riding caused her. No explanation resulted in comprehension; he found it mystifying. In his defense—not that he needed one—Shianne found it equally mystifying. Guilt, apparently, did not come easily to denizens of the ancient world.

  Respect does. If you are to be worthy of respect, you must be seen to be a power. You can be a power, without the obvious trappings—but you will have to prove that power, time and again.

  This was a conversation they had had multiple times during her brief reign as Terafin. They occupied the same positions at the end of such arguments as they had at the beginning. Today, she clung to it because of its familiarity. But she clung to it, for the most part, while walking. Terrick had fashioned rackets that were tied to her feet. They were awkward and cumbersome—but as promised, they made walking less exhausting.

  Terrick said they would make everything less exhausting; Jewel couldn’t imagine running in them.

  If there is need for flight, the Winter King said, in his most severe internal voice, you will not be touching the ground.

  Jewel laughed almost bitterly. I will not be riding aw
ay while we abandon a pregnant woman.

  She is not a woman, he replied, which was also a familiar refrain. She is mortal by her own choice—but her death—

  No.

  You do not understand what she presages.

  No? Possibly because no one has explained it. I’m willing to bet you don’t understand it, either. It makes you uneasy, but you can’t tell me why. And I’m terrible at making hard choices when I do know the reasons for them; I won’t even consider it when I don’t.

  “Matriarch?” Shianne said.

  Jewel had become accustomed to this title from Adam, but cringed every time it left Shianne’s mouth. Admittedly, this happened less frequently. The Arianni woman only used it when she wished to catch Jewel’s attention—and as it was hard not to notice Shianne, Jewel’s attention was generally already caught and held.

  She blinked. She noticed, as she looked around her, that the moving company had, with two exceptions, come to a halt. The two exceptions were Terrick and Angel, who forged on ahead.

  Shadow, who walked to her right, had dropped into a low growl, exposing fangs. His wings rose, rigid, above his shoulders.

  The growl caught Terrick’s attention; the older man turned. One look at the cat, and his ax was in his hands; Angel’s sword joined it as the two men once again turned to look in the direction they had chosen.

  Jewel looked to Shianne.

  But Calliastra, silent—and unencumbered by the snow-rackets and heavier winter clothing that was a necessity for the merely mortal—lifted flawless throat as she peered into the network of branches above their heads. “I fear,” she said softly, “we have entered the gauntlet.”

  “The gauntlet?”

  “You can well imagine that my sister would be of incalculable value to any who could either control her, suborn her power, or prevent its spread. This is true in the hidden world, and will be true until the end of days—or the end of her. The firstborn are not,” she added, “invulnerable. They are not deathless. They are not subject to the vagaries of time—and the age that graces mortals—but they can, in theory, be destroyed.

  “And many, many are those who have made, and will make, that attempt. Even now.” She smiled. It was not an edged expression, and made her look far younger. “I feel almost nostalgic, it has been so long. It is a grand game, to attempt to cut the Oracle off from any possible avenue of escape. She is, as you can imagine, hard to plan against.

  “Many of the seers who attempted to take the Oracle’s test never reached her side. That, in and of itself, is a test.” She glanced ahead, at the backs of the two who now served as scouts. “It would have been best for you had you come alone.”

  “Alone isn’t a possibility, for me.”

  “No. You have Lord Celleriant and Viandaran. You have the Winter King. You have the cursed, squabbling—”

  Shadow let it be known what he thought of the coming description. Loudly.

  “And perhaps—perhaps, you would have had me. I feel almost as I did when the world and my place in it was new. There is possibility in the very air.”

  And, apparently, lightning.

  Calliastra’s smile brightened, her eyes widening, as that lightning struck branches not yards from where they now stood.

  • • •

  Kallandras took to the air immediately, a reminder—if one were needed—that walking across the snow was an unnecessary courtesy. Branches, struck at the heights of the crowns of winter trees, didn’t break so much as shatter; splinters and chunks of leafless bark fell like black rain.

  That rain, however, failed to land upon the people directly beneath it; wind caught the detritus and shunted it to one side or the other, serving, at the bard’s command, as an invisible roof.

  Jewel, the Winter King shouted—and it was a shout, although no one else could hear it.

  Jewel, however, had turned to Adam; she grabbed both of his shoulders, turned him around, and told him to mount. The Winter King was not happy. Jewel didn’t give a damn.

  I have lost enough, she told him, and if thoughts could burn he would have been cinders and ash. I will not sacrifice anything else when I have any choice!

  He is a healer—he is unlikely—

  Carry him. Carry him as if he were me. Protect him and keep him safe.

  Lightning punctuated the internal words, and the Winter King accepted her command; he knelt. Adam looked to Shianne, however, instead of mounting. Jewel wanted to scream. She understood why he hesitated. She wasn’t climbing the back of the Winter King, either. “Adam, get on the Winter King now.”

  His body obeyed her tone, and she was—for perhaps the first time—grateful for his upbringing among the Voyani.

  “Snow!” she shouted, into the debris strewn sky. The white cat descended, landing on snow without breaking any of it.

  Jewel turned to Shianne. “Lady,” she said, with as much respect as urgency allowed. “Snow will carry you.”

  “Why me. She is heavy. Why do I have to carry her?”

  “Because I said so!”

  “But then I can’t fight!”

  Shianne ignored the cat’s whining. She lifted the skirts of the dress he had made and approached his side. His wings were high, and in the way; he tensed them. Jewel promised she would strip his wing of flight feathers if even one of them so much as grazed Shianne, which caused white hackles to rise and gray cat to snicker.

  Shianne, however, was looking toward the sky, her perfect lips compressed in a frown that implied confusion. “What is attacking?” she asked, as she seated herself.

  “I don’t know. Calliastra?”

  Calliastra smiled. “I would say, if I had to guess, that the Kialli do not wish you to reach the Oracle’s side. But the Kialli are not the only danger you will face. Unless I am mistaken, you carry upon your person a pendant of some value?”

  Jewel’s hands curved into fists.

  She thought of Carver; her hands rose to cover the golden locket. Calliastra’s mercurial frown was a thing of passion and beauty. Also contempt. “Not that. That is an insignificant mortal trinket. The other. If you value your life—or the lives of your other companions—you will not touch it, not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  “I do not know how it came to be in your possession, but it is, or was, a part of my brother’s collection. Perhaps you have heard of him? Mortals called him Verasallion, in my youth. He does not like to lose what is his. But if it is my brother you face, you will perish here. Do you see or sense your own death?”

  “No,” was the bitter, bitter reply. “My own death would be an end to pain.”

  “Only an end to yours, little mortal. Do not—never—forget that.” Turning to Shianne, she said, “the sky is not safe.”

  Shianne said nothing. To Jewel’s surprise, she closed her eyes and lifted her face; a rain of ashes missed her delicate skin. Fire joined lightning. The skies, which had been a cold, even gray, were lit, for a moment, from within: they became white and red and black.

  It was beautiful.

  Avandar approached from the rear. “You might consider lowering your voice.” His entire body was shimmering with light, predominantly orange. But there were hints of other colors: violet, blue.

  “I think they know we’re here.”

  “They know that something approaches, certainly,” he replied. “They cannot—or could not—be certain what, or who.”

  “Is Calliastra right? Are we facing demons?”

  “I am standing beside you,” was his mild response. “If we faced Verasallion, you would know; he would cover the sky with the span of his wings and the storm would destroy the forest and everything beneath him. Let us hope for demons.”

  Any day that involved hoping for demons was not a good day. Jewel started forward; Avandar caught her shoulder. “Not you.”

  “I want to see—”
>
  “You will be seen. You are unarmed. This is not your fight.”

  “We’re not in the normal world. If it’s not my fight, then whose?”

  “Those more likely to survive, Terafin. You are not upon your own ground, here. The elements will not obey you. The fire will not protect you. You stand in wilderness that has never been claimed. I invite you to consider why.”

  Calliastra was watching this exchange with a growing—familiar—impatience. Jewel was not surprised when she sprouted wings of shadow. “I will scout,” she told them both. “I hear your Night, and I would not leave all of the fun to him.” She leaped toward the sky as if the sky was her enemy.

  Avandar released Jewel’s shoulder; he met, and held, her gaze. “We follow Terrick and Angel. They are the two most likely to be lost, here.”

  • • •

  Terrick’s movements had slowed. He grunted, adjusting the weight of the ax as he slid behind the trunks of standing, barren trees. Angel’s sword caught light and reflected it as he found different trees; their progress was marked by the hide and seek the den had perfected in streets of a city.

  Lightning perforated the gray sky above their heads; it seemed aimed at their backs, where Jay was. But there was nothing in flight; no shadows cast upon snow to indicate that the combat was aerial.

  The den’s hide and seek had often been a matter of survival—but they had faced people. Lightning had been no part of the deadly games the dens played among themselves. Nor had fire. Not this fire.

  It erupted across the tree line a hundred yards ahead, and it spread, flames consuming winter wood as if the trees were dead and dry. Terrick pulled up, as did Angel. They could see no visible sign of enemies. The lightning itself seemed to flash in place, as if Terrick and Angel were so inconsequential they weren’t worth the bother of killing.

  And given the attitudes of the various immortals whose paths Angel had crossed, they probably weren’t. Unless the mortals in question provided some sort of sustenance, the way hunting prey did for humans. Angel lifted a hand and signed; Terrick frowned.