Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  “Duvari suspects,” she said softly.

  “Duvari suspects his own shadow,” was the dismissive reply. “Do you know what Jewel ATerafin is creating?”

  She almost corrected him, but knew it was pointless, and kept her peace. “No.”

  “To me, she is like, and unlike, you in your youth. Every accepted rule we have been handed demands her death—but without her, what we face will be far, far worse.”

  “How much worse? You know that I am fond of the girl, and in some ways protecting her is the only responsibility left me by—” she shook her head. “But she frightens Duvari, and the Exalted all but pale at the mention of her name. I would not be surprised to see another attempt on her life.” She considered discussing the Kings’ missive.

  “It will fail.”

  Considered it, and rejected it. “She must travel from her stronghold to Avantari on the morrow—which is fast approaching.”

  “She will face danger and death soon enough, Sigurne. If it will comfort you, let that death be on another’s head.”

  “What will you do if the Kings demand her execution?”

  “What will you command?” he countered.

  “I am a citizen of the Empire; I owe my allegiance to the Kings.”

  “And I am a member of the Order of Knowledge.”

  It was not an answer; she knew it. But Sigurne was watching the rise and fall of strands of his platinum hair. She was, she knew, afraid, and it was an odd fear. She knew that Meralonne APhaniel would never harm her unless it were necessary, and if it were necessary, he would kill her as quickly and as painlessly as she allowed. She was not afraid of death at his hands—just as she had not been afraid of death so very, very long ago on the edge of the Northern Wastes.

  She was afraid, of course, of treachery. She was afraid that the coming night would transform him utterly. She turned toward the dresser, and toward the small jewelry box on its upper right corner. She touched the engraved surface of its lid in silence. “Meralonne—”

  Words, written in luminescent orange light, began to trace themselves across the wall directly behind that dresser, and she watched it as if it were cloud or rain: a thing that was natural, and unwelcome, and no part of her. “APhaniel.”

  “Sigurne.”

  She could not turn to face him. Instead, she lifted the lid of the simple box. It wasn’t even hinged. “You have served us for so long,” she said, still unable to face him.

  He said nothing.

  “Was it always, and only, a cage?”

  The chair protested as he abandoned it.

  “I have told no one of my fears,” she continued. “But the Exalted know, and the Kings; they know what the gods know. What will you do?” She reached into the sparsely occupied box and pulled out one item: a ring, and it lay a moment in her palm, catching magelight and reflecting it. It seemed, at first, a simple ring; it was not heavy, and it had no signet; it had a single gem, embedded into the curved band. In the dim light of the room, it was not clear what the gemstone was; Sigurne had never asked.

  “I will do what I have done. Wait,” he added, “for the coming of my enemy.”

  “Meralonne—”

  “It was not a cage, Sigurne.”

  She turned to find him a foot away, his pipe in his hand. “I chose. I was offered the choice, and I might have chosen to sleep until the appointed moment. Instead, I chose to watch. To watch, to wait. It was—it has been—tedious, but there have been surprising glimpses of the ancient and the wild, even in the constraints of your world.” He glanced to the right, as if he were looking out a window; he was looking, instead, at solid stone.

  Sigurne did not find this disconcerting; had she, she would have had difficulty with over half of the members of the Order of Knowledge. But in Meralonne’s case, she wanted to know what he saw. She had never been, even as a child, one who could ask.

  Turning, she lifted the ring. He looked down at it for a long, long moment. “No,” he finally said. “Not yet. Not yet, Sigurne, but soon.”

  “Will I know?”

  “Do you not know already?” he countered softly. “Jewel has touched the slumbering wilderness, and it is waking at her call.”

  “Jewel did not—”

  “She did. She is not aware of all that she has touched, and she is not in control of most of it, but the ancient world feels twinges of her presence in its sleep.”

  “How much will things change?” she asked, bracing herself for the answer.

  “They are changing now, in subtle ways. Even the Order of Knowledge will not—cannot—remain unaffected.”

  She stiffened.

  “I will tell you what the gods will not: it is time—past time—for your mages and your magi to take remedial classes.”

  “Pardon?”

  “They will require them. The magics they have nurtured and honed until now was not a stream; it was a drip. That will change, Sigurne; it is changing. If they are not careful, it will devour them. They will make beginner’s mistakes—but the consequences of those mistakes will be large and unmistakable.

  “Word must travel to the makers, to the bards.”

  “And the healer-born?”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Word will travel to the healers.”

  “Meralonne—”

  He smiled. “I will attend you on the morrow in the Hall of Wise Counsel, at the side of The Terafin. I do not think you face the danger you fear to name yet; but it is coming, and when the Lord of the Hells stands outside of the city’s walls—and they will be walls, Sigurne, not the scattered, broken demi-walls that suggest its outline to the dim and the foreign—it will be full time, and the questions of the ages will be answered.”

  She closed her eyes. Eyes closed, she asked the question she had avoided asking even herself. “Meralonne, what of the Sleepers?”

  When she opened her eyes, he was gone. She put the ring back in the jewelry box, and prepared for a sleep that would elude her for some time yet. In the morning, she would begin the onerous and ugly fighting that remedial classes would no doubt involve. No, she thought, sliding between the sheets, in the afternoon, she would begin. The morning involved gods, wary Kings, the Exalted, The Terafin, and Avantari.

  The afternoon, only fractious, bitter, aggrieved mages. The thought gave her some comfort; given the tedium of the afternoon, the morning seemed less dire in comparison.

  10th of Fabril, 428 A.A. Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Jewel woke to the gray of early dawn; the sun had not yet crested the horizon. If, she thought, sun did in these rooms.

  The Chosen had advised—strongly—that she repair to other quarters in the manse. It was advice she herself would have given had she been in their position; it was advice she could not take. “It’s not about Carver and Ellerson,” she told them softly. “Word has traveled. I can’t now flee in terror from the rooms I was meant to occupy.”

  “You chose not to occupy them for almost three months,” Torvan pointed out. The words were sharp.

  “Yes. And had I never entered these rooms at all, I—” Carver would not be lost. She inhaled. “I would have that option. I have, and I do not have it now. I will,” she added, as he opened his mouth again, “allow the Chosen to stand guard in the room in which I sleep. That is the only compromise I can offer.”

  It was also, they both knew, necessary. Had she forbidden it, they would be in this room regardless. She knew Torvan was angry, because Arrendas joined him shortly after their return to lend his voice to their argument in progress. Arrendas, however, was silent; he observed for fifteen minutes, and then turned to Torvan and said, “Shall I work out the guard details?”

  When Torvan failed to reply, he continued. “She is right, as are you. But she is The Terafin.”

  “She is taking an unnecessary risk.”

  “She is taking a risk she feels is necessary.”

  The other Chosen were content to let their captains speak in their stead—but
their stance and expressions made clear that they were in agreement with their captains.

  “We are not The Terafin; we serve her. If she is committed—and Torvan, she is—we put our energy into minimizing the risks she feels it necessary to take.”

  Torvan opened his mouth, but this time he closed it without ejecting further words. He then left the room with Arrendas, and after forty-five minutes, four Chosen entered the room and took up their positions around the mouth of the splintered closet. Jewel had forbidden its removal, although she feared the way would never be open again—not through that door.

  It was not as hard to sleep in a room full of armed guards as she feared it might be; they were hers, after all, and she had spent half her life sleeping in far more crowded rooms.

  Shadow, however, was not amused to see them, and made it known.

  * * *

  Avandar was waiting, and at Avandar’s side, one of the servants, an older woman whose name escaped the fragmented memory dreams left in their wake. Shadow was on the bed. He wasn’t precisely sitting on her, but he was sitting on the counterpane, and she couldn’t easily move. It was a blessing.

  It was a blessing she couldn’t afford.

  “Shadow,” Avandar said.

  Shadow nonchalantly climbed down. He did not, however, stray far from Jewel’s side as she slid out from beneath the covers and into the waking world. The closet door—the door Avandar had splintered in his haste to make room for the Chosen—and himself—to follow her into the darkness, had not yet been replaced; its splintered ruins were a reminder she didn’t need.

  Four of the Chosen were standing in front of it.

  “It is a closet,” he told her quietly. “No more.”

  She stiffened. She stiffened, but did not immediately run to the closet. Instead, she put herself into the hands of a woman who was not Ellerson, understanding what Avandar did not say: she was to meet with the Kings and the Exalted this morn, and if by some small miracle her death was not instantly demanded, she would spend the rest of the day fencing with The Ten.

  Carver.

  She inhaled. Exhaled. She moved to the dresser where the servant was waiting in a starched silence not even Ellerson could maintain. She put her appearance into the hands of a stranger as Avandar laid out the layers of clothing she was expected, as Terafin, to wear.

  The knock at the door surprised her; the Chosen answered.

  Teller was let into the room after clearly stating his business.

  “Is there word from Avantari?” she asked, facing the mirror while her hair was tortured, with steam and oil, into an entirely unnatural shape.

  He shook his head, and met her gaze across the reflective surface of silvered glass. She raised her hands in careful den-sign. His remained by his sides.

  She was The Terafin. He was her chosen right-kin. They were to meet with the Kings as near-equals, and it mattered. But not in the way she imagined it would. Carver was gone. Her only comfort—and it was scant—was that she did not, as she had in the case of Lefty, know that he was dead. Her peculiar instinct, the talent for which she was so highly prized that she had been adopted into Terafin and made a member of its House Council at the age of sixteen, told her nothing.

  She was afraid that nothing was the best she could hope for.

  Teller handed her a small stack of papers, which, given the ministrations of her attendant, she couldn’t actually read. “Beyond the expected, is there an emergency buried in this stack?”

  “No. There are some concerns with The Morriset’s recent ventures and the Royal Trade Commission; Darias has filed paperwork with the Port Authority about ‘irregularities’ in the manifestos of two of our shipping partners.”

  Jewel nodded. Neither of these difficulties were substantial enough to justify a full Council meeting in the Halls in Avantari. Teller knew it as well.

  “The last reports,” he said, “do not involve trade concessions, demands, or accusations.”

  “So they’re worse.”

  “They’re worse.”

  “Avantari?”

  “It was surprisingly difficult to acquire accurate information about the structural changes within the palace; the pillars and the foundations are, however, visible to any visitor.”

  “These are—”

  “Descriptions of the two rooms, yes. They are verbal; no sketch was done, and no attempt to magically capture the images was made—not by Terafin agents.” He hesitated, and then said, “Meralonne stopped by.”

  “This early in the morning?”

  “He’s waiting outside the door of your personal chambers; the Chosen did not feel that your grant of unquestioned access to the grounds encompassed unquestioned access to the . . . library.”

  “Was he smoking his pipe?”

  “No. I’m not sure he cares whether or not he annoys the Chosen.”

  Jewel grimaced. She rose with care as the servant stepped back, indicating by clipped movement of chin that she was free to do so. She was, Jewel had to admit, less painful than Ellerson could be. She dressed quickly, allowing Avandar to choose appropriate jewelry. She would not, however, remove the strand of gold around which the Handernesse ring hung; nor did he insist.

  Shadow then began his litany of the things that bored him. The servant did not appear to notice, but she tensed the first few times he spoke. After about the hundredth, she seemed as relaxed as anyone else in the room except the Chosen.

  * * *

  Meralonne met them as they entered the standing arch that led to the Terafin manse. If Jewel and Teller were dressed for an audience with Kings, Meralonne was not. His presence, in his opinion, was enough of a boon. He nodded. “Terafin.”

  “APhaniel,” she replied.

  Shadow stepped between them and flexed his wings. Or rather, flexed one—the one on the mage’s side. Meralonne did not leap out of the way; he caught the wing and held it as Shadow hissed. Jewel dropped her hand to his head as Avandar frowned. “Shadow. Now is not the time.”

  “It is,” the cat replied.

  “APhaniel, please.” Meralonne released Shadow’s wing without meeting Jewel’s gaze.

  “Today,” he told the cat, “is not the day to play games.”

  But Shadow said, again, “It is.” His lips had drawn up, exposing his prominent fangs; his fur rose.

  “Shadow.” At the tone of her voice, he turned away from the mage—but he stayed between them, allowing Avandar his position to her left. This left no room for Teller, but given Shadow’s expression—and the grimmer cast of Meralonne’s—Jewel did not push the point.

  Teller, however, did. He slid between Jewel and Shadow—which took flexibility, as he didn’t step on her skirts in the process—and placed a hand on the cat’s head, just behind Jewel’s. “In the presence of the Kings and the Exalted,” he said, speaking both softly and with respect, “she faces her greatest challenge.”

  Shadow hissed. He rarely called Teller stupid. “Stupid girl,” he said instead.

  But Teller, divining his reasoning because he had always liked cats, said, “It is not a challenge for you; it is not a challenge for Meralonne APhaniel. It is a challenge for The Terafin. They will not attack her; they will not attempt to harm her. But if the audience goes poorly, they may decide that she is a danger to the Empire.”

  “What Empire?”

  “The Empire,” Teller replied, before Jewel could, “in which we now reside. You have seen some of it. The Common, the whole of the manse. The Empire is part of the world in which mortals live. The Terafin—and almost all who serve her—are mortal.”

  “But not the important ones.”

  “No,” was his grave reply.

  Jewel wanted to kick Shadow; she refrained. “They’re important to me,” she said, as a compromise.

  “And we’re not?”

  “Of course you are,” the right-kin replied before Jewel could. Teller lifted his free hand, signing. She signed back, but briefly; he was right. She was worried; that
worry would sink roots and grow as the day progressed. She was much like her Oma: if worried, she was always on edge, and she dulled the edge by snapping or snarling, something she could not afford today. Today, she had to be perfect.

  “Will you accompany us, APhaniel, or will you return to the guildmaster?”

  “I will accompany The Terafin as the Terafin House Mage,” he replied, eyes narrowing. “Terafin, did something remiss occur in the evening?”

  Damn him, anyway. “I will answer the question, APhaniel, if you will answer the questions that arise from the events.”

  He raised a pale brow. “I believe you have already answered in a general sense.”

  “I have never met a mage who was satisfied with a general answer. On the contrary it only serves to pique their curiosity and sharpen their interest.”

  He chuckled. To Avandar, to her surprise, he said, “She has grown into her role.”

  Avandar didn’t even crack a smile. No, Jewel, he said, although she hadn’t voiced her surprise in any way. You are correct; today you must be perfect. But I ask you to consider one possibility.

  She waited.

  What if the Kings decide that your existence is a threat to their Empire? What, then, will you do? I will not stand by and allow the Kings their execution.

  I know. I have no desire to walk to my own death.

  Will you countenance theirs?

  . . . No.

  It was the answer he expected. It was not, however, the answer he wanted.

  “Terafin?” Meralonne said.

  “Accompany us.”

  * * *

  The Chosen were horsed; they numbered twelve. Four rode ahead of the Terafin carriage, four behind. Two flanked the carriage on either side. Meralonne joined Jewel in the carriage, taking the seat beside Teller. Shadow flew. Both of the mages were tinted orange in Jewel’s vision; Meralonne also had a subtle sheen of gray that overlapped it. Jewel’s protections were scant in comparison. One, a hairpin, had come from Haval, delivered alongside dire warnings about her future should she misplace it. The other was the House Ring itself. Her peculiar talent provided the immediate protections necessary to survive for long enough that the Chosen could come into play.