Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  But wind came, as if summoned. She heard no voice, felt no animosity, none of the presence she associated with the wild, the elemental, air—but absent these, it still lifted Meralonne’s hair, trailing strands across his upturned cheeks.

  When he finally turned, his eyes were wide, clear, bright. “You do not recognize this fountain.”

  “No.” She had barely looked at the fountain the first time, caught instead by the table, by Evayne, by the amethyst skies, the strange but familiar cats, the trees—the things that had changed her life in ways she knew she hadn’t yet begun to fully understand.

  “Come, Jewel. Leave the books; they are yours, if I understand what I have seen correctly, and they will not vanish. You have seen the marvel that the library has become, but you have failed to understand what it presages. Come.”

  She joined him. Angel, silent in a way that made him almost invisible in spite of his hair, came with her, as did Teller. Avandar stood back, and to her surprise, Shadow stayed with him. Meralonne glanced at the three of them, and something in the look—not condescension, and not the arrogance so often adopted by the mage-born—made Jewel once again feel as if she, Angel, and Teller had just arrived at the front gates of the manse in their terrified flight from the streets of the twenty-fifth holding. Young, she thought. Young, shadowed by death, but still caught by desperate, frenzied hope.

  He smiled, as if he could hear what she would never again put into words. “Right-kin,” he said, granting Teller the respect of title and station. “What do you see when you look at this fountain? Do you see a fountain?”

  Teller frowned; his hands folded into a brief question.

  Yes, she signed back. Real.

  “A fountain.”

  “Describe it for me.”

  Teller took a breath; Angel signed, wait. To Meralonne, Angel said, “We’ll answer your questions.” It wasn’t an offer.

  Meralonne raised a brow.

  “If you tell us, in turn, what you see.”

  At that, the mage smiled. It was a strange smile; it felt like arrogance would feel if it were charming, natural, inevitable. It felt almost like the smile of a god. “Very well. But I would hear your answer first.”

  “I see a fountain. It’s stone, and it’s larger than it looked at a distance.”

  “And?”

  “The stone is rough. It looks old.”

  “In the center?”

  “I see a . . . a pillar? I think its the rough shape of a man, but it’s hard to tell; it looks unfinished. The water is falling from its hands; its hands are lifted.”

  “It?”

  “I can’t tell if it’s a small man or a woman; there are no distinguishing characteristics; I think it’s meant to be wearing robes—but honestly, it doesn’t have a face.”

  Angel was watching Teller carefully. He said nothing, but Meralonne was magi; he noticed the way in which that nothing was significant. His brows folded in curiosity. “ATerafin.”

  Jewel said, “He’s not ATerafin.”

  “Is he not?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. My apologies.”

  “No apologies are necessary,” she replied, because his apology had been offered to her, not to Angel. “He could have taken the House Name at any time he wanted it in the last sixteen years.”

  “There is clearly a tale in that,” Meralonne replied, inclining his head. “And it may be, in the end, that his tale is entwined in yours.”

  Her brows rose. “Is there any question? All of our stories are entwined.”

  “Not all are entwined in the same way.” He turned to Angel. “My apologies, Angel. I am unaware of your formal name, and will use the familiar in its place if that does not cause offense.”

  Angel nodded. He was staring at the fountain.

  “What do you see?”

  “Water.”

  “Water?”

  “It’s not a fountain, to my eyes—not the way Teller sees it.”

  “To your eyes?”

  “It’s a well.”

  Meralonne’s brows rose. “You were not born and raised in the city.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No.” It had been a long time since mention of the Free Towns made Angel flinch, but his expression was somber; the echoes of old losses could be seen in the downturn of his lips, the brief, slight gather of his brows. “No. There’s a chain,” he said. “The well looks old to me—old, but solid; the stones are worn in the direction we’re facing. There’s a bucket,” he added, “attached to the chain; it’s a large bucket, and it definitely looks as if it needs replacement. Sun-bleached, the wood is warped.” He shook his head. Jewel knew that he had used a well similar to this in his time, although it surprised her. She knew very, very little about life in a farming village.

  “Jay.” Angel turned toward her. A smile touched his face, adding to the aura of loss, instead of alleviating it. She knew the expression; it came to her when she thought of her Oma. Or of Duster. She signed; he signed back. “What do you see?”

  “I see a fountain,” she replied.

  “Same as Teller’s?”

  She shook her head. “It’s made of stone, yes. But it’s edged in iron, as if the outer edge is meant to be a bench. The iron isn’t solid; it’s worked, and there’s a pattern in the flat that looks almost like a—a sculpture.” She hesitated, and then said, “There are gems in the iron. They’re set in either silver or—some other metal; they’re large, and they’re not all the same.” She approached the iron edging and frowned.

  “It is not iron,” Meralonne said softly.

  “It’s black, like wrought-iron fences are black.” She reached out to touch it, but stopped just shy of contact. “This is diamond,” she said, pointing instead. “That’s ruby. That’s sapphire, I think. That one is amethyst, that’s beryl. Topaz. Pink diamond, blue diamond.” She wasn’t certain about the colored diamonds, but the light they caught and reflected was bright enough, strong enough. “Pretty fancy bench. The Kings could sit on it and be at home.”

  “No,” Meralonne said, “they could not. You have not finished. What do you see in the fountain’s center?”

  She hesitated for a long moment, as if this were a test and failure would cause a loss of face so profound it would injure all aspects of her future. She forced herself to let the fear go. She was Terafin, yes, but she was no longer walking a path prescribed by the experience of any other ruler of this House—not even the Terafin spirit himself; ignorance was, must, be assumed and accepted. There was only one way to alleviate ignorance.

  Who had said that? Not her Oma, a woman who expected common sense to be a birth trait, and took its lack as a personal insult. Ah, she thought. Rath. Rath had said it.

  So many ghosts, here. “I see water,” she told the mage. “It’s contained by the shape of the fountain—and it’s falling—but it’s not falling from anything. I can’t hear its voice,” she added. “If there’s a statue in its center, I can’t see it—but small man or woman is wrong for the length of its fall.”

  The words did not trouble Meralonne.

  “What do you see, APhaniel?” Angel asked softly.

  “Winter,” he replied.

  “The water’s not frozen.”

  “No. But fountains such as this did not freeze in the Winter and did not evaporate in the Summer. Do you understand what this is?”

  A glance was passed around the three den-kin as if it were too hot to retain. It was Teller who spoke first, and Jewel was aware that it shouldn’t have been. “It was made by the maker-born.”

  “Indeed,” was the soft reply. “By an Artisan, if I am not mistaken.”

  “I haven’t seen enough of an Artisan’s work to judge.” Teller bent and touched the surface of rippling water with the tips of tentative fingers. Meralonne did not object. “I have seen some of the work of the maker-born; the fountain on the terrace is one such piece.”

  “It is not the only such piece within the manse, but it is the most publ
ic, and the most notable. This,” he added softly, “was gifted to Terafin.”

  “How do you know?” Jewel asked, bending in turn to touch the water. It was so cold she wondered that it wasn’t frozen.

  “I can see the maker’s mark,” he replied. “It is not a wonder to me that you cannot, although given your gift, there was a chance that you might.”

  “Is it magical in nature?”

  “It is, of course, magical in nature—the workings of the Artisans always are. But it is not a magic that is simple or mechanistic, and there are very, very few of the mage-born who might achieve its like, should they devote their time and energy to replicate it.”

  “Are all Artisan works so marked?”

  “No, ATerafin. Only the works that are made in the wilderness, and they are marked as a courtesy and a warning. As a courtesy,” he continued, before anyone could ask, “to those who might assume such artifacts the detritus of the passage of ancient gods, and as a warning, in the same measure: they are made for a purpose, and that purpose is not . . . mine, in this case.

  “The Artisans,” he continued, after an unbroken pause, “are as close to the gods as it is given any creature in this world to be. They are driven, and they are wild, vessels for their talent and its strange compulsion. But if they possess some small part of the power the gods once possessed, they are nonetheless mortal. It has never been clear to me whether or not they work at the insistence of the echoes of the gods’ lingering voices, or from a compulsion entirely their own.”

  She said, “Fabril made this.”

  Chapter Eleven

  ONE BROW ROSE. Or rather, five brows, but only one was Meralonne’s. “You are certain?”

  She nodded. “I can’t see the mark. I trust that there is one—but it doesn’t matter. Fabril made this.”

  “Yes. And he gifted it, if I am not mistaken, to The Terafin of the time. It has waited long to be revealed. Do you understand its purpose?”

  “No.”

  “No more do I, before you ask. But it is a work, Jewel. On some level, he must have known what your House would face.” He exhaled, a strange, small smile at play around the corners of his lips. Although nothing about his appearance had markedly changed, he looked wild, elemental; she would not have been surprised to see him draw sword, here. Sword, armor, even horn.

  “You will have to arm them,” he told her softly. “If they are to walk your lands, they will need arms, armor.”

  She shook her head, knowing that he spoke of the Chosen, her den—the people who lived in the manse and who worked to defend it in all ways, some subtle and some markedly less so. “They’re armed, Meralonne.”

  “They are not—”

  “They are. It was not Lord Celleriant who injured the Warden of Dreams: it was Torvan, one of the Captains of the Chosen.”

  “Impossible.”

  “No, Member APhaniel, it’s not. The weapons wielded by the Warden of Dreams were not the weapons wielded by the Arianni or the Kialli. They were mortal weapons—sword and whip.”

  “I tell you again, Terafin, that that is not possible.”

  “And I tell you it is. In this manse, on these grounds, the weapons of the Chosen are the weapons by which the House—and its ruler—is defended.”

  “Terafin—”

  “Maybe it wasn’t true, before I woke. It is true now.”

  His eyes widened. “Do you understand what you are saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Be cautious, Jewel.

  I am, damn it.

  You do not understand it, and it is unwise in the extreme to lie to the magi.

  I can’t explain it. I understand it. My home is not home to gods or immortals or firstborn or wild elements. It’s home to my den, to my Chosen, my servants, my House Guards and my counselors. It has stood for centuries on the backs of people exactly like them, and it will continue to stand in the same way.

  You do not understand what you face.

  I don’t have to understand it. The Warden of Dreams made that clear. I only have to understand my home and my people, my enemies and my kin. They don’t have to be more than they are; they have to be all that they are. She turned and left two of her den at the side of Meralonne APhaniel, and walked over to the table where the book that had caught Evayne’s attention lay open for her inspection.

  She lifted it with care. “Do you understand where you stand, APhaniel?”

  “It is my belief that I understand it better than you, Terafin.”

  She smiled. Shadow came to stand by her side, his wings a little on the high side. “This House is my House. The Library is part of the House, and it’s part of what I can see and touch. I can’t control it, not consciously. But I understand it in a way that you don’t, or can’t. I’ve lived here. I’ve worked here. I’ve learned here.” She lifted the book. “Evayne came to me. She couldn’t touch this book; I can.”

  He said nothing.

  She drew breath and continued. “Averalaan was built at the crossroads of the wild paths. It’s how the demons arrived, how they stayed. It’s not the only way they can—but it’s the most natural, or it was. But if I understand the Warden of Dreams, if I understand the sleepers and what they signify, I understand what Averalaan is, and will be.”

  “And that?” The question was soft, almost gentle.

  “A city,” she replied. Her hands were shaking; she forced them to still. “A City of Man.”

  * * *

  “Do you think that the men in those ancient—and buried—cities wielded what you refer to as swords?” He did not dispute her statement; he failed to acknowledge it in any other way. “Ask Viandaran.”

  She had seen the weapon that Avandar wielded when he stood so close to the edge of his personal abyss. She did not wish to see it wielded again. “I have no need to ask him.”

  He is correct, Jewel, the Winter King told her.

  No, he’s not. You ruled the Tor Amanion. You bore its name. But you didn’t build it. It wasn’t truly yours.

  Do you think you built this library?

  She carried the book to the edge of the fountain and sat on the metal bench that encircled it. It was warm. No. Not all of it. Some part of it was built by The Terafin, and The Terafin before her. Some part of it was designed by The Terafin who rode to offer his sword and his fealty to the two sons of Veralaan the Founder. Fabril labored for the Twin Kings—he gave, into their hands, the Rod and the Sword with which they rode to war.

  But Fabril was here. He wasn’t immortal. He wasn’t Arianni or Kialli. He wasn’t a King. He wasn’t even a ruler of one of The Ten. He was talent-born, and he offered his talents to the Empire. She let her fingers trail across the gentle swell of moving water. It was still damn cold, but the cold was bracing, not chilling. Do you understand? The Cities of Man existed because of people like Fabril.

  They did not exist as your cities exist now; these would have barely been considered farms.

  She controlled her sudden anger with difficulty. “These are the cities of men as they live now. Yes, you find them pathetic; yes, you consider them beneath notice and devoid of wonder.

  “You don’t—either of you—know how to look.”

  They were both staring now, with the usual dismissive arrogance that colored all of their interactions with the merely mortal. She remembered Farmer Hanson, her hands curling into fists. Was he talent-born? No. No more were Angel, Teller, Finch—any of her den. The Terafin who had changed the course of the den’s life had been without the graceful and unnatural talents that marked Jewel, the mage-born, the bard-born.

  So had Torvan, Arrendas, Arann.

  Jewel understood why magic was so compelling to the tens of thousands that lived within the borders of Averalaan. She even understood why so many people secretly—or openly—yearned to be touched by a talent. People wanted what they didn’t have; they wanted to be elevated by the other, because magic had no easily perceived rules. It didn’t cling to class, to money, to status; it was
a force outside of the familiar ones that conspired to keep them in their place, whatever that place was.

  But there was wonder in the mortal. There was a depth of humanity in Farmer Hanson and his attempts to quietly and unobtrusively help the street children who had crossed his path—often in an attempt to steal enough food to see tomorrow. It was larger than life—but it was larger than a small life, a single life. It could only touch what it could see.

  “Your cities were built by men who envied the gods.”

  “And in the end,” Meralonne said softly, “could rival them.”

  She uncurled her hands. “I didn’t grow up in a land where the gods ran wild. I didn’t see the tens of thousands of deaths they must have caused when they threw tantrums at each other. I understand that a god is now preparing to walk across the whole of the world—but I don’t need to be a god to stand against him.”

  She felt a warmth touch the space between her collarbones and startled. Looking down, she saw that the pendant given her by Snow—as the only accoutrement worthy of his dress—had begun to glow. “Shadow, what is it doing?”

  “How should I know? Ask Snow.”

  “Go and get him.”

  Shadow hissed, but the wings across his substantial back unfolded. He clipped Meralonne on the fly-by.

  “You do not even understand how to build, Terafin,” the mage continued, ignoring the cat with minimal effort.

  “No. But I understand what can be built here.”

  “Do you think they will thank you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you think the rabble of humanity to which you no doubt intend to somehow defer will be grateful for your interference? You have spent three decades within the streets of this city, in one locale or another. You have always given orders, even if they are not acknowledged as such. You lead, Jewel. You think of what you desire as a leader.”

  He turned to Teller. “Do you feel that the people who toil in the streets of the hundred holdings, in ignorance of what awaits, would thank your leader should they be given the responsibility of defending their homes, their children, and their lives from the very god?”