“I have to ask.”
“So believes many a fool. Why?”
“Because I will travel—with Shianne—to the White Lady. The Winter Queen. I understand that the enmity between your Lord and the White Lady is endless and ancient, but—” She hesitated.
“But?”
“It is not to destroy you that she hunts him.” She spoke with certainty, because suddenly, she was.
“No.”
“It is to destroy him.”
“Little mortal, do not ask. It is safe, perhaps, to question my Lord—but you will never survive it. Even the mortals he graced with power could not, in the end. You do not understand what a god is, and what our Lord was, and only in experiencing it will you understand us. But it will change you. If you are lucky, it will only break your mind—but the effect of that, on the Sen, is a matter of legend.
“We loved the god who became the Lord of the Hells.” He spoke quietly, softly. Jewel listened, as if hearing, beneath the words he chose to speak, the words that hid beneath them, waiting. “We loved his night, and the subtle beauty of it. We loved the texture of his voice and the words that formed palaces and mountains and great, gaping chasms of rock; we loved his strength and his fury.”
“You were her children.”
“Yes.”
“And the Arianni are not born the normal way.”
Shadow hissed. “They are,” he insisted. “It is you who are strange.”
Jewel ignored this, focusing now on the question she had asked, and the questions that waited beneath it; she had a sense that she was not asking the right ones, as if this was the only chance she would ever have, and she was, in ignorance, wasting it.
“You were part of her, in a way that I could never be part of my mother, if I understand what Shianne said. Nothing you are, nothing you were, nothing you could be did not come from her.”
Isladar was still.
“Did she love your Lord?”
• • •
In the distance, she heard the panicked denial of the Winter King. Closer, she heard Avandar’s sudden withdrawal; the totality of his rejection of the single question.
“You must ask her,” Isladar replied.
Jewel knew she would not survive even the beginning of the question. Knew, as well, gazing at the benign neutrality of the Kialli lord who had, in some fashion, protected Kiriel, that she might not survive the asking now. “You mean to kill me.”
“No, not yet. But if you are this unwise, you will find death; the difficulty will be avoiding it. We are not of her, now.”
“But—”
“We are dead. You, however, are not. Shianne, as you call her, has almost finished, and when her voice falls into silence, many, many voices will fill the gap. But not all. They know you are here, Terafin, and it is through your actions that the most ancient of all losses has been . . . renewed. You will not survive; they will wake the earth in their attempt to see an end to you.”
“But the Oracle—”
“The Oracle is not—yet—where you are. The earth will not wake beneath her feet; the air will not move against her. She is firstborn, and she is the heart of her own world; if you reach her side, you—and your companions—will be safe.”
The rumbling beneath Jewel’s feet silenced her for a moment. This time, however, it did not fully still.
• • •
Lord Isladar—and he seemed that to Jewel, in this place—did not appear to notice. He lifted his palms; they were flat and straight, perpendicular to the line of his arms. He spoke three words—resonant words, syllables that encompassed sensation more than sound. She could not repeat them—not then, and not after, yet at the same time, she could not forget them; they remained at the heart of her memories, in a place that she could not easily reach.
Avandar’s shields rose; they were so strong and so solid Jewel saw the world through a brilliant, orange pane. The domicis did not speak.
No one did. Terrick had armed himself; he had not dropped the pack that encumbered his back. Adam, however, was frowning. Jewel saw this because she reached for him, drawing him instinctively to her side—and behind the magical shields Avandar had erected.
Shadow growled, but did not attempt to attack the demon lord; he watched, his golden eyes narrowed. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
“Eldest,” Isladar replied.
“Hurry. They will know.”
“What is he trying to do?” Jewel asked the great, gray cat.
He is hoping, Avandar replied, to take a short cut. Watch what he does; watch it carefully. It may be something you will be forced to do in future.
I don’t understand what he’s doing, which is why I asked.
We will walk between this world and our own.
But we haven’t finished yet. We haven’t reached—
That is why it is difficult, Terafin. He was annoyed; he seldom used her title privately unless he intended to lecture. The path he opens must be some part of this world, and yet must blend with some part of our own. We must walk it fully, and we must not step off—or we will be fully away from the hidden path, and we will not be able to return.
Could I do this?
It is my belief that you could, yes. He frowned. What is Adam doing?
Adam was, to Jewel’s surprise, kneeling. His brow was furrowed, the elastic lines of youthful forehead adopting the creases of thought that would fall away just as easily the moment his expression changed. His hand was pressed into the snow; he had removed the mittens that kept the cold at bay.
“Adam?”
Adam’s frown deepened, but he looked up and met Jewel’s concerned gaze. “He is not—he is not doing what needs to be done.”
Isladar’s eyes opened; he looked at Adam, and only Adam.
Avandar’s shields intensified. Jewel wanted to tell him to cut it out, because it was now hard to see the world beyond them clearly. Adam was beside her.
“I am attempting—” he began.
But Adam cut him off. “I feel what you are attempting to build from the body of the earth.” He grimaced, shook his head, and reverted to Torra. “I believe that you do not intend us harm. Not right now. The Matriarch would know.”
“Can you do what I am attempting to do?”
The Voyani boy’s frown shifted, intensifying and turning—as it often did—inward. “You are not the only person here who is trying.”
They froze, then.
They froze as Shadow snarled and leaped.
Into what was not a clearing, stepping between the trees anchored in the rumbling earth, stepped a figure that Jewel had never seen before. In seeming, in shape, in form, he was Arianni. But his blade was red.
• • •
“Lord Isladar,” the demon said. “We should have expected this.”
“Lord Darranatos,” Isladar replied. He glanced, once, at Adam, and lowered his arms. “Have you come to redeem yourself?”
Darranatos. She would not have recognized him had Isladar not thought to use his name. She wondered if it was deliberate.
It is not, Avandar told her. To Darranatos, we are insignificant. I am not certain that he believes even you to be a threat. The presence of Isladar merely confirms what he has long suspected: it is not mortals who are the threat.
“Viandaran,” Darranatos said softly, as if he could hear the words the domicis had wisely chosen not to speak aloud.
Jewel lifted hand in brief, quick den-sign. She did not otherwise look to Angel. Winter King, she said.
We are coming, the Winter King replied. But, Terafin, understand: these are Immortals. Do not trust their response to sentiment, memory, or pain to be similar to your own. In the end, Immortals are concerned with power.
She thought of the Winter Queen.
Yes, he replied.
Darranatos called upon his shield before Jewel had time to raise her chin. His eyes were silver edges in the pale, perfect contours of his face; he was—of course he was—beautiful. Isladar was not. And yet, when Jewel managed to pull her gaze from Darranatos, he, too, was armed—and his sword and shield were almost the twin of the armaments that the Kialli carried.
Jewel.
Darranatos moved before the domicis could finish giving instructions. He moved before Avandar could draw breath. So, too, Jewel, who had dropped to her knees as the arc of the demon’s sword pierced the magical shield that Avandar had erected. It failed to separate Jewel’s head from her shoulders; Isladar moved before the blade returned.
Avandar moved as well, grabbing both Jewel and Adam and leaping back through the trees.
“Put me down,” Adam told him. “Put me down now.”
Avandar was not Adam’s servant; it surprised Jewel when he obeyed. Adam dropped to the snow-covered ground, and sank. His hands were red and slightly wet as he once again attempted to press them through snow and into the earth itself—the earth that had not stopped rumbling.
Jewel, this is unwise.
It was. But it was necessary. She knew, watching Adam, that they would not survive if he did not complete whatever it was he had started. And because she knew it so viscerally, Avandar sensed it as well. His jaw tightened.
You will let me summon my weapon. It wasn’t a question.
Jewel caught his arm, briefly, between her hands; she was mute. She opened her mouth to a roar that wasn’t her own. In the distance, the serpent was trumpeting anger and pain.
• • •
Terrick leaped back as two red swords clashed. Sparks of fire scattered across the surface of broken snow as the two strangers met, head on. For a moment the one who had been called Darranatos turned his back to the Rendish warrior; he shrugged himself free of the confinement of straps, shifting his grip on his ax as he divested himself of their necessary supplies.
He did not, however, attempt to take advantage of the opening; it closed too quickly. Angel motioned and slid around the trunk of a large tree; the snow on its bark implied the movement of wind in a single direction. There was no wind now. The roar of thunder above blended with the roar of armed men and the disturbing rumble of earth beneath his feet.
Gray fur appeared to his left; he looked down to meet the golden eyes of the disrespectful, talking cat. The cat’s fur had risen inches, but even so, the line of his tense shoulders could be clearly seen.
“What is he?” he asked of Shadow.
“You would call him demon,” the cat replied—in Rendish. “Your ax could cut him.”
Terrick was not so certain. “I’m not sure I can get close enough to land a blow.”
The cat growled. “He is dangerous.”
Terrick nodded. Dangerous and fell. His roar was not a sign of anger; it was wild and almost joyous. But his opponent did not likewise descend into the same battle-maddened state. Although they appeared to be of the same height and weight, Isladar was driven back, as if Darranatos’ size belied his strength. They left runnels in the surface of snow; Terrick would not have been surprised had they broken frozen earth.
Shadow watched, tense; he did not leap. Nor did Terrick. He did not and could not look away from the fight as it progressed in a wider and wider area through the standing trees. Bark flew; branches shed snow where one—or the other—hit trunks. Wood cracked.
Neither slowed, but Darranatos roared again. “Come, come, brother!” he shouted, his words moving the earth. “How long has it been since you’ve truly given yourself over to the glory of the moment?”
Isladar failed to reply.
“Be ready,” Terrick told the great, gray cat.
• • •
Darranatos, in combat with Isladar, had not forgotten his original purpose. His sword’s arc passed through the trunks of standing trees, and they fell, almost as afterthought, in his wake. But they fell toward Jewel.
Toward Adam.
Avandar lifted his left hand; light flared across the length of his forearm. In the winter landscape, it scattered across snow in a thousand little reflections that hurt the eye. Jewel raised her arms to cover Adam’s head, shutting her eyes briefly, although she knew—
What are you doing?
Jewel!
—That neither Avandar nor the Winter King would approve. They didn’t understand her gift. They didn’t understand that of all the people standing in this winter forest, the only person she was certain her gift would save was herself. She had never been able to rely on it to save anyone else. Not her father, in the end; not her mother or her Oma; not Fisher or Lefty or Lander—or Duster. Not Rath. Not even Rath.
She had buried The Terafin, the strongest woman—outside of her Oma—she had ever met. Morretz had died.
She had had no warning at all when Carver had walked into a damned closet and disappeared. Hovering protectively over Adam while Avandar’s shield radiated sunlight and heat was the only thing she could do for him; if the trees somehow pierced Avandar’s magic, her body would move before she could think.
It wasn’t Jewel the falling trunks or branches would crush.
Shadow roared. Even over the distant thunder of serpent and the growing presence of shaking earth, she knew his wordless voice. At any other time he would have wrapped it around insults and sibilants and hurled them at her. It was not at her that his ire was directed.
Nor was it Angel, who came out from behind a tree, his sword in hand, his expression both alert and grim; he stepped onto the battlefield as if it were a graveyard. Avandar gestured, and falling trunks burst instantly into flame, descending as ash and splinters.
Angel took up his position at her back.
She gestured; he couldn’t see her hands. Or he didn’t look, which was more likely. She knew there was very little he could do—but he had her back. He had always had her back. He had almost died because, unlike Kiriel, he could think past both his fear and his rage, and he had come to her aid when Isladar had attempted to kill her.
He occupied the position he had occupied since she’d found him in the streets of the holding.
Isladar is no match for Darranatos, Avandar said. And I am not, as I am. The shield he bore shunted aside a trunk that would have easily broken Jewel’s arm, if only that. Let me join him, Jewel.
She shook her head. If I die, she told him, you are free to do as you must.
Silence.
If I thought you a match for him fully armed—if I thought you a match for him as Warlord—I would let you do it. I don’t.
Why?
Because you don’t. It was true. She felt his momentary amusement; it was a grim, dark humor.
You have become more perceptive.
She shook her head. How many of them were like this?
Them?
The Arianni. The—whatever they were called when they left the White Lady to join—
Do not name him. Not even in this fashion. And the answer is very, very few. Meralonne is not their match—not yet. But the three who sleep were, and possibly will be. They were his closest kin, his closest brethren.
She exhaled. Speak to the earth, she told her domicis. Speak to it, calm it.
I cannot do that and protect you.
You won’t need to. Angel is here.
He was astonished. And annoyed.
• • •
Angel’s hair rose as wind gusted through the remaining trees, catching and dampening the fire that burned on fallen logs. He shifted his grip on his sword. He had no illusions about his ability; he could not meet the demon in combat and survive for more than half a breath. Nor could he stand long against Isladar. But he had faced the latter once, and he had managed to stand for long enough.
He intended to do so here, as well.
&nbs
p; Jay hovered over Adam; the young healer’s eyes were closed. His face had gone from wind-red to white; he neither spoke nor moved.
The forest was not like the manse; it was not like the crowded, tiny apartment in which the entirety of the den had eaten, slept, and wintered. But in this moment, it didn’t matter. Carver was gone. Duster was gone.
Angel remained. He carried the sword upon which, in the end, he had sworn his oath to the House while Jewel ruled it. Strands of his hair had escaped the confines of the Northern braid; the wind pushed it back from his face; it was bracing and somehow clean. He shifted, bending knees slightly; the snow compressed beneath the wide, flat snowshoes he wore. It was strange, to feel at home in this place—but for a moment, he did.
He knew what he wanted. He knew exactly what he was meant to do—and he was doing it. Nothing stood between him and Jay.
• • •
Darranatos had not come alone.
From between the trees in the distance, the rest of his companions emerged.
• • •
Adam felt their presence.
It was tangled in the body of the world itself—because the world, this world, was alive. If it had no heart, no lungs, no brain, no limbs, it nonetheless had something that felt like a living form beneath his spread palms. At a remove, he felt snow; he knew that his hands were—or should be—numb or even frostbitten, as Terrick called it.
He dealt with it almost without thought, as he dealt with most of the injuries he had sustained since his awakening. His own body knew its correct shape; it knew what it required to continue to exist. So, too, the bodies of the mortals Adam had been allowed to heal in his tenure in Averalaan. The earth was not, in any way, like them.
He had only once encountered anything that was.
He understood instinctively what Isladar was trying to achieve. He could see, with his eyes closed, the weaving of musculature, the altering of earth that occurred just beneath his hands. He could sense light and heat and starscape; could feel the tang of salt against his lips. All of these were things that were not of this place, this white, silent world.
Oracle: The House War: Book Six Page 74
