Oracle: The House War: Book Six

by Michelle West

  It was easy to forget, in this winter place, the maimed Voyani child Isladar had abandoned on the edge of the Sea of Sorrows. Adam had taken care of Ariel, and Shadow had tolerated her remarkably well—but she remained in the Terafin manse, under the watchful eyes of the rest of the den—men and women who did not have a single child between them.

  “She is safe.”

  Shadow growled, then. Before Jewel could finish drawing breath, he lunged for the Kialli lord who had almost broken Kiriel di’Ashaf. Kiriel, Jewel thought dispassionately, who had both hated and loved him. She knew then that Isladar’s fate was not in her hands, but in Kiriel’s. Jewel’s near-death was not personal in the sense that Isladar cared one way or the other about it; it was merely another tool in a demon’s arsenal.

  He had meant to hurt Kiriel. To hurt her and, in a perverse, demonic way, to protect her.

  Isladar was not a fool; he was yards away from where Shadow landed, and he moved damned fast.

  “She is not yours,” Shadow growled. He had crushed snow and broken the branches that sheltered beneath the winter blanket.

  Isladar looked genuinely surprised. “Ariel is mortal,” he told the great, gray cat, as if that fact would not be obvious to him.

  “She is not yours,” the cat replied, and leaped again, without visible warning.

  Isladar leaped as well. All of his movements were defensive; he made no attempt to harm Shadow. All of the aggression at the moment was squarely in the gray cat’s court. “This is unwise,” he told Shadow, as Shadow once again broke the crust of ancient snow and ice with the full force of his landing weight. “I am not your enemy here, but enemies gather; they search. You were clever; the fire is gone, and there is no clear direction for the breach—but they will find you if you continue.”

  Above, the serpent roared.

  “They will not,” Shadow growled. “There is too much noise.” He gathered himself again, but this time, Jewel had had enough.

  “Shadow!”

  The cat hissed his displeasure.

  “He is not wrong. We do not know what we face here—but we’d like to avoid it. You’ll survive. Some of us won’t.”

  Shadow’s expression immediately sank into the exaggerated lines of cat sulking. He tossed his head back and forth and expelled a litany of sibilants, most of which were wrapped around the word “stupid.” This, Jewel could live with.

  Isladar could live with it as well; he didn’t even seem to be surprised by it.

  I agree with your cat, Avandar said grimly. This is not wise.

  You think he’s lying?

  No. I think truth, in this case, is irrelevant. Of the Kialli, he is the most opaque, to me. He cares little for the dignity that even Calliastra maintains; he is willing to bend—to bow—to your cats. I do not think it would matter which of the three. He is willing to speak with you, treat with you, as if you were an equal. You do not understand the threat in this.

  No, I really don’t.

  He would be considered dangerously insane by his own kin.

  “Lord Isladar, I will speak with you if you will answer one question.”

  “And that?”

  “In the air above us, in which the combat so far has been largely contained, there is a woman upon the back of my white cat. I do not know if you can see her from this distance.”

  “With effort—and without the intervention of your gray cat—I can. Your question?”

  “Do you recognize her?”

  Isladar glanced at Avandar. “Did you, Warlord?” His question was cool, casual.

  “No.”

  “And yet, your lord expects that I might?”

  “I have not asked; I am not privy to all of her thoughts or her moods.”

  “But you suffer them, regardless?” Isladar’s smile was thin, but genuine. “I understand mortals as well as any of the kin.” The kin, Jewel thought. Not my kin. “I raised one from birth.”

  She stiffened. The words that came to mind, she kept to herself, although it was hard. She could not imagine a demon raising a mortal child—even a child like Kiriel. And yet, Kiriel was demonstrably alive. She understood why a demon might—just might—keep Kiriel alive. But Ariel was, as he himself told Shadow, a mortal child. There was nothing about her at all that made her remarkable; she might be food for demons, but no more.

  And yet, Ariel was also alive.

  “Yes,” Jewel said quietly, “you did. You did not raise Ariel.”

  “No. I . . . found her. She was surprisingly costly, to me. Tell me, Terafin, would you throw away your House to protect the life of a cat?”

  Shadow growled.

  “Eldest,” Isladar replied, bowing. “I speak of mortal cats, as you must well know. Your preservation is not in the hands of The Terafin.”

  Jewel said, “I don’t like cats, much. Even if I did, no. No, I would not.” And she thought of Carver, and she stilled. “Not cats.”

  Isladar’s gaze fell immediately to Jewel, and it remained there for a long, long beat—as if he knew. And, of course, she thought, he did. He couldn’t know what caused the pain—beyond the fact that it wasn’t him—but he could sense the pain itself. It was what demons did.

  “You have grown,” Isladar said quietly. “You are not, now, what you were when last we met, and even for mortals, the time between has been almost insignificant.” He offered her the same bow as he had offered Shadow, which struck her, of all things, as funny.

  She kept this off her face, as well. “My question?”

  With effort he looked away, toward the aerial combat. “It is difficult to see much; I do not believe Calliastra is best pleased to have your cats as comrades.” Once again, he smiled. “But it is rare to see her so unaffected. She lacks caution, here. Any of those who now hunt you will recognize her the moment they lift eyes, if they are old enough. I would not be surprised if she is conversing—in a fashion—with at least one of them, even as she fights. She is not, I think, angry. Not yet.”

  “She’s always angry,” Shadow said, unwilling to be left out entirely.

  Isladar said, “To the Kialli, what she feels is not anger.”

  “You are always angry,” Shadow replied.

  Isladar raised a brow, although he had not once looked down. His eyes narrowed; his lips pursed in a brief, slender frown. His expression was human and familiar, which put Jewel instantly on her guard.

  She remained there when he whispered a single, long word. “Shandalliaran.” But she looked away. She had to look away. Something in his face was too bright, too open, to countenance for long.

  “So,” he said softly. “It has come to pass.” He lifted a hand, as if in greeting, or as if to grasp this one glimpse of a distant, perfect woman.

  “She is mortal,” Jewel told him, gentling her voice.

  “She would have to be. Even from this distance, I can see that she is pregnant.” He closed his eyes; closed, he could then turn again to Jewel. “You are unkind,” he said; it sounded like praise. “I would not have thought it of you, when first we met.”

  “Is it unkind to give some sort of warning?” she asked.

  “Perhaps not. The bearer of bad news, among the kin, offers that news with some pleasure.”

  “I don’t consider mortality a besetting sin or weakness.”

  “Ah, no. Of course not. You are one. But mortality—to us—means many things. Mortality is loss, Terafin. Mortality is always loss. One cannot capture a mortal in time unless one chooses to kill them, and even then, one discovers that much is lost. It is why those who kept mortals in a time when the Cities of Man were at the height of their power were considered at best strange. What we conquer, we keep—but we cannot keep you for long and every day is surrendered to time.” He lifted his chin, opened his eyes, and said, “I would not be here when she lands—but curiosity was my besetting
sin. I wish to know how much she has changed; how much she has retained, and how much she has cast aside.”

  Jewel said, softly, “Are those who hunt us now Kialli?”

  “Yes, Terafin. It is possible you will recognize one or two, but perhaps not. Their presence in your world and their presence here differs, often greatly.”

  “You appear the same, to me.”

  “Yes. I have that ability—but it is not trivial. We were not meant to return. When we do, the plane surrenders form and flesh for our use—but never willingly. We anger the earth, the water, and the air; if we have power and will, we can force them to obedience—but we cannot easily cajole or ask. And that is not why I came.” Almost, he turned to the sky again.

  “Would she recognize the Kialli?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You have spoken to her at length.”

  “I have listened where she is willing to speak, yes. She has been willing to speak with us.”

  “She seeks the Winter Queen.”

  Jewel saw no point in lying. “Yes.”

  “You do not understand what you have set in motion.”

  “I set nothing in motion. I am not the father of the child.”

  Irritation changed the cast of his features. “She is here. You are here. The overlap cannot be coincidental. I do not believe that you understood what you were doing; no more do I believe you understand it now. But you have changed, in one motion, the entire face of one long, long game. You understand only in part who she is.

  “But understanding who she was and how she came to be here is more relevant. I should not have come,” he added. “There is enough, here, to confound my brothers should they do as I have done.”

  “And that?”

  “Look,” he replied. “Observe.”

  “She has not encountered the Kialli before. If they are old enough, she might know them.”

  “Yes.” His smile was sharp and therefore felt more familiar. “You called her mortal. She is not, however, as you are. She is not as Viandaran is. There is no place in Mandaros’ long hall for one such as she.”

  Without thinking, Jewel said, “And her child?”

  “That would be the question,” he replied.

  “Why did you come?”

  “To offer you safe passage, for a time,” he replied.

  “You tried to kill me.”

  “Yes. As I said, your death, now, would serve no purpose. I am of my kin. If your death was painful and extended, it would offer me sustenance—but it is not a sustenance I require. Kiriel is not part of this game.”

  “Which game is she part of?”

  He smiled. He did not answer.

  Jewel.

  I don’t trust him.

  Of course not. What he wants, almost by definition, is not what you want. But if he intended to lead you into a trap, you would know. Does he?

  ...No. It was a grudging admission. Not me.

  Kiriel is not here. She is not, as he said, part of this particular game. Nothing you say or do at the moment will either protect or harm her.

  He will. He’ll do both. And saying it, even privately, she knew it for truth. He only tried to kill me to hurt her.

  Yes. And he is Kialli.

  Did you know him?

  No. In my youth, the Kialli did not exist.

  But you knew Meralonne.

  There were very few powers who did not know the four Princes of the White Lady by name, if not on sight. On sight, it was easy to mistake one for the other. If you do not trust him—wisely—he has offered an alliance of a sort. I would consider accepting it.

  “What game, Isladar? You serve the Lord of the Hells. Nothing he wants is anything I want, and if he perished tomorrow, I’d celebrate with the full financial backing of my House. I’d line the streets with banners and open the stalls in the Common to anyone who was hungry for at least a full three days. I am, in any small way I can be, your lord’s enemy.”

  “Yes. And sadly, it is, at the moment, a very small way. I want war, Terafin. I want war, and to have a war, there must be powers that can stand in opposition. As you are now, you will be crushed beneath my lord’s feet.”

  Jewel’s hands formed tighter fists.

  “He may—or may not—notice you before your death. That is all.”

  “I’ve survived stronger Kialli than you.”

  Do not let him provoke you, two voices said simultaneously.

  “Yes. You have survived. But we have never been free to act with full power in your mortal city. Here, we are not so constrained.”

  “Neither,” Jewel said quietly, “are we. If you have constraints, so do we. We don’t want to turn our city into rubble. We don’t want to kill people who have none of the obvious power that we’ve gathered here. Our hands are just as tied as your own.”

  One brow rose as he considered her words. “Perhaps,” he said, the single word smooth and uninflected. “Will you now abandon your companions to their aerial battle?”

  The serpent roared, as if in response; Kallandras was no longer singing.

  “How are they controlling the serpent?” she asked.

  “Carelessly.” Isladar’s frown shifted the lines of his face; he looked colder and far more autocratic. “The serpents are old and wild; they are not, however, earth or air. They can be reasoned with; they are willing to negotiate.”

  “What have you offered it?”

  His smile, on the other hand, was beautiful. Jewel thought all deadly things were, in their own fashion: they were compelling because they were dangerous. “Freedom, Terafin.”

  “He seems pretty free, here.”

  “Yes. To you, it would seem so. But these lands are not your lands. It may surprise you, but the wilderness is like an echo of the world in which mortals have been left on their own. Pockets of landscape, pockets of geology, pockets of weather. Each domain its own. Some are claimed, Terafin; some are not. The only place they once met was in the lands you now call the world.

  “Those lands were the backbone of the ancient. They were, in their entirety, the crossroads between the various enclaves. The old bindings are crumbling; they have promised the serpent that he will be—finally—free to roam as he pleases, unconfined by the walls the gods put in place before they withdrew.”

  Avandar, is this true?

  It is not the whole of the truth—but the whole of the truth would take you years to understand; it is materially correct.

  Then how in the hells are we to find the Hidden Court? How are we to reach Ariane?

  As if he could hear the question she would not ask out loud, Isladar said, “I am here. To venture here, I came from lands you yourself might once have traversed; to leave, I will return to them—as will you, if you survive. If I am not mistaken, you will seek other remote locations in the wilderness.

  “Understand that they are not all one thing, and not all the other—but to find them, you will have to touch—at least peripherally—the lands in which mortals now reside. Once,” he added softly, “before the worlds were sundered, all lands overlapped.” His smile was cold and unpleasant. “But when they did, mortals perished. Their existence was confined to small enclaves; they were pets. Much like the pets mortals now keep—your cats, your dogs, your birds—they were cherished by those who sheltered them. Those that were not so lucky died.

  “And died, Terafin. Only in the Cities of Man did mortality flourish—but even there, life for those on the ground was difficult and short.”

  “Not much different in our own cities.” Jewel was stiff, now. Bending would have probably broken her.

  “It was very, very different. Men lived, in those days, by the rules that govern all races.”

  “Power,” was her flat reply.

  “Indeed.”

  She had seen, in Avandar’s dreams, some of the Citi
es of Man, and she didn’t doubt him. She thought she would have hated those cities, had she lived during their reign.

  This amused the Winter King, who agreed with her assessment.

  “What will you do? You have come to find the Oracle. My brethren have come to stop you.”

  “Do they know that they’re hunting me, personally?”

  “Yes. You were unwise in your display of raw power in your capital. They do not believe that you can stand against them unless you undergo the Oracle’s test. They do not,” he added, “understand the test itself.”

  “And you?”

  “I believe that you could, indeed, thwart us without confronting the Oracle. I have studied mortals for much of my life; I understand why, as a body, they are insignificant, but it is never wise to dismiss them all out of hand. They believe that the Oracle will give you what you require.”

  “And you do not.”

  “No.” He bowed again, which surprised her. “If reports are to be believed—and I am not privy to the reports directly—you are Sen, Terafin. I believe that my brethren have miscalculated here. They do not want the Cities of Man to rise again. Effort has been expended—fruitlessly—to make certain that does not happen. You are aware of one such failure.”

  She said nothing.

  “But they do not understand why your ascension would serve as an advantage to us. They think that they can stop the Sleepers from waking.”

  She was cold. She was so cold.

  “Ah, yes. You are aware that your fragile, mortal city will not survive such a waking. We, of course, do not care. But the Sleepers were a danger when they walked the world; they will be a danger if they walk again. The Cities of Man were proof against even gods at the height of their power. Or some of the Cities were; you will not, of course, know of those whose ambitions overreached their abilities.

  “Nor is it relevant. I believe you have the ability to protect your city should the Sleepers wake in its midst—but it will be costly. I do not believe you can do that without the Oracle’s guidance. You hope to avoid paying her price,” he added, and again, he smiled. “You are mortal. You have lived in a barren, powerless world—and that is changing, even as we speak.”