“As many times,” she replied, “as you want, if it makes you happy.”
“You cannot be a power and dwell in ignorance.”
“I don’t want to be a power.”
“It is far too late for that, Jewel. Far too late. You have made your vows.” He lifted an arm, pointing, and she followed the gesture, her gaze dragged by the imperative of dreaming.
The mists that were often so heavy in the city began to clear, and she realized that the hilltop was not to be a refuge. She was not in Averalaan.
“Where are we?”
“At the heart of your gift,” he told her, almost gently.
She knew it was true.
“Avandar.”
He looked down. “Yes?”
“Why are you here?”
“I will always be here. But that is not your question.”
Rolling her eyes, she spoke again. “Why are you here, in my dream?”
“I . . . do not know. But, yes. I am . . . myself.”
“Where are we?”
The lift of his brow was a gift, although she knew she had annoyed him. “Did I not give you the maps of this terrain?”
“. . . No.”
“Ah.” He lifted a brow. She was a terrible liar, which was why she so seldom tried to lie. “Let the mist roll away, and you will have your answer.”
She watched; the sun was creeping up along the eastern edge of an obscure horizon. “Avandar. I—the City—”
He lifted a hand. “I have never asked you about your past.”
“I’ve never hidden it.”
“No?” His hand brushed her shoulder; she felt his palm against the curve of her exposed skin. As if it were fire, she leaped back, lifting both hands, palm out. Denial.
She knew—knew—that her control was precarious here; that she could take a step backward into a landscape that had ceased to exist years ago. There were places she never wanted to see again; she held her ground.
“Does your past never anger you?”
She said nothing.
“Does the lack of justice in your early life never give you pause? Have you never wondered if justice was a concept that only those in power could enforce—or reject?”
“Whatever happened in the past is there—in the past. I am not ashamed of my life. I am not ashamed of what I did in order to survive it.”
“Good. Let it go, Jewel.”
“I’m not the one bringing it up.”
He smiled. She hated it.
“You could answer your own questions, if you so chose.”
“How?”
“You are seer-born. And the Oracle acknowledged your gift; you are not without power. The seers were prized at the height of man’s rule. Why do you think they were valued?”
She shrugged. “Because with a lot of work, you could get answers about the future.”
“Indeed. With some work. But the future is a murky place, full of possibilities, probabilities, foolish hopes. What you see does not always come to pass. Try again.”
“Avandar.”
He raised a brow.
“I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl any more. I’m responsible for one third of the trade routes owned by House Terafin. I—”
“You are the heir to the seat, yes. But Valedan kai di’Leonne is heir to an entire kingdom.”
“No one treats him like a child.”
“It is my supposition, from our limited exposure, that he frequently fails to act like one. But he is a good comparison, because in the end, if he is to succeed to the throne, he will wage a war in the Dominion the like of which has not been seen in generations.
“He understands this. Accepts it.”
The mists were giving way to flat, clear plains. Jewel had expected to see trees, for some reason; had expected to see forest, roads, rivers. The hill was high.
But what the mist suggested, its absence denied.
“I will tell you. If the seer-born chose to do so, they could see the past of a man almost as clearly as they could see the shadows he cast. The future is a place of possibility; the past is fixed. The road between the two is often connected, and once the path is found, it can be followed.
“The Oracle invited you to walk upon older roads than could be found in even the Stone Deepings. Walk them, Jewel, and in the end, I will be able to hide nothing.”
She felt cold. Looked down at the hands that had slowly fallen to her sides, and saw, cupped in them, a round, glowing orb. Inside its wall of curved glass, mist was in motion, a constant dance.
She blinked; her hands were empty.
But the mists of the morning had given way in a sudden gust of wind, pulled like curtains to either side.
Beneath her, extending for as far as she could see—and she was no fool, she looked—lay a sea of tents, gray upon gray except where a banner stood upon a fixed pole. She saw horses, haltered, impatient; saw men, some with spears, some with swords.
“Where—where are we?”
“We are, if I guess correctly, at the border of the Terrean of Raverra. And this, this is some part of the army the young kai Leonne faces.” He held out a hand. She stared at it, but he did not withdraw it.
She shook her head.
“Jewel. You are seer-born. It is time that you understand what that means. Come.” He caught her hand in his, and she was surprised at the difference in the size of their palms. For just a moment, she relaxed, hand clinging to his as if he were someone she could trust.
He began to walk toward the body of the army.
“No,” she whispered. She would have said more, but she heard her own voice, and she knew that she was a child, younger even than the child he accused her of being. He led her toward the tents. What had seemed so large grew larger still; the army was huge.
But they passed through it as if it were the illusion, the mist, the vision, and they were real. He paused a moment every few steps, contemplating the forces gathered.
“Ah,” he said. “Come.”
She did not withdraw her hand.
The ground beneath their feet was trampled; what had grown there before the men had chosen to lay down their camp was flat now; soil, moist and soft, showed through layers of wild flora. She saw the curved imprints of heavier feet; horses had passed here, in number.
“That,” he said, pointing, “Is the banner of Eduardo kai di’Garrardi, the Tyr’agnate of Oerta. He is present. I do not see the banner of Lorenza; the men gathered here represent the forces of Raverra and Oerta.”
He began to walk again, but this time she pulled against his hand “Not there,” she whispered.
“No?”
She shook her head. He frowned, but he hesitated.
“Can’t you see it?”
Gathering in the heart of this tent city was a darkness that spoke of storm. But it was a wild storm, dense and heavy; she could not look through it, could not see around its edges.
“We can’t go there,” she said abruptly.
What had been a comfort was now her only leverage; she pulled at his hand, gaining weight and substance; true dream or no, dreams had a way of shifting.
To her surprise, he smiled.
Yes, he told her, his lips motionless. Yes. They have a way of shifting. Use it, and you begin to understand what you can do. You have been born to a blind world; see, Jewel. That is your gift.
She turned her gaze upon him, losing sight of shadow and army. He was blurred now, indistinct, but he grew taller as she watched.
She stood, only her chin lifting as she followed the widening and shifting of Avandar’s eyes. They were dark, the eyes she had known for over a decade, but the heart of them was a terrible, burning gold.
She had seen the god-born before, at a distance; the Mother’s daughter; the sons of Cormaris and Reymaris; Kiriel, whose golden light was limned in shadow. This was different. Terrible.
Like, very like, the sands of the Sea of Sorrows.
She wanted to weep.
“No,”
she told him, “that is only part of my gift. Of whatever it is that you call it. The rest is me. I am Jewel. I’m Jay. I’m—”
“You are,” another voice said, “far from your home.”
She lost sight of Avandar as she spun.
Where the armies had stood upon the trampled field, there now stood a single man.
He knelt upon the blackened ground left in the wake of the fires. Later, she would wonder what had caused those fires; now, she accepted what the dream offered her. The buildings around him were broken ruins, the stone as black as the ground except where walls had cracked, revealing what lay beneath the surface.
They were bleeding, she thought.
She reached out to touch them.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” the man on the ground said. “There is always a danger when you heal the injured.”
He looked up as her fingers brushed the sharp edges offered by sheered rock.
And bled.
She felt the pain; it was wrong. Everything about it was wrong,
Jewel! Avandar’s voice. She could see him nowhere, but she turned; his voice was more felt than heard.
The man upon the ground straightened the curve of his bent back, his rounded shoulders. As he did, she saw that his arms were shaking; they were pressed tightly, not to his chest—for he was a slender man—but rather around someone’s back. A spill of dark hair mingled with his injured arm; blood from a gash across his forehead still wept, adorning the girl he held.
For just a moment, Jewel thought the child was dead, but she stirred, lifting her head along the line of his exposed chest. She moved slowly, carefully, minimally.
“This is irony,” the man said, and Jewel suddenly knew where she had heard his voice. She froze. Wondered why it had taken so long for recognition to come.
“Viandaran,” he said, lips thinning.
Jewel turned, then. To her back, like standing shadow, the man who was domicis—and could never be domicis—now stood. He held her hand. She could not remember when he took it, but she clung.
“I . . . do not . . . recognize you,” Avandar said quietly.
“Perhaps not. Recognition was never a concern of mine. Yours, perhaps; when the gods walked the world, there was not a creature upon it who had not heard of the Warlord.”
“It is not a title I use.”
“It is not a title, Viandaran. It is a simple statement.”
Avandar’s hand was torn from hers. She had time to cry out, but not time enough to tighten her grip against its loss.
She did not need to look to know that he was gone. Which was good; her gaze was no longer fluid; it had come to rest upon the face of Lord Isladar of the Shining Court.
“This is no dream,” she whispered.
“It is a dream. But it is your dream, Jewel ATerafin. What you see, I cannot see; what you see, I will not interpret.”
She took a step, but wasn’t certain whether it was forward or back until she saw that he was closer.
Kiriel, she thought. “I see the child you hold.”
His eyes widened slightly, although his expression did not otherwise change. “It is a pity that I tried—so unsuccessfully—to kill you.”
“It wasn’t because of the Sight.”
He lifted the arch of a blackened brow; blood shifted its fall. “No. But I will take care in the future, when we next meet. I should have known that Viandaran would never suffer allies of middling power.”
“Why are you here?”
He bent his head above the head of the child, obscuring her.
Jewel should have been afraid for the girl; in some way, she was. But she knew that he meant her no harm. As if he could hear what she felt, he lifted his head again.
“Ariel.”
The child shook hers in denial, pressing her face so far into him Jewel thought she would disappear. He winced, and she realized that the blood across his chest hadn’t fallen from shoulder or forehead; he was wounded.
“Yes. I am . . . injured.”
“And the girl?”
“Her name is Ariel. She is . . . whole.”
Jewel took another step.
She knelt an arm’s length from the girl’s back, aware as she did that she was now within his grasp.
Aware that she was not in danger, not yet.
“You are predictable, ATerafin.”
She lifted her chin. “So?”
“And defiant.” His smile was gentle. His eyes were cold. “Never put yourself at the mercy of a Kialli lord. Do you understand?”
She said, without thinking, “Kiriel did.” The moment the words left her lips she stilled; she knew they were true, and knew that in time she would know how. But that time was not now.
In the silence, he put the warmth of his smile out. “She was put at the mercy of one; it is not the same. Do not be confident of Kiriel’s intentions. She will hold the world in her hand, and she will remember that her power comes not from the Isle, but from the Wastes.”
The child in his arms whimpered, and he stilled. When he spoke, the edge of Kialli voice was once again hidden.
“Viandaran is your guide, and he is your protector. I would advise you to choose another, if you have the choice.”
“Oh?”
“Everyone that the Warlord has ever cared for has died.”
“Everyone does,” she said, flippant although his words disturbed her.
“True. But they die unusually badly, and in my experience the process is profoundly more amusing than the result.
“No,” he added, “the child cannot understand me. She does not speak Weston. It is by tone alone that she measures my intent. Or yours.”
“Ariel,” he told her quietly, speaking in a language that sounded like Weston to Jewel, “the others are coming. They hunt me now, and I must elude them by taking a path that . . . you cannot travel.”
The child tightened her grip. He reached up and pried her fingers—with ease—from their perch around his neck. “What did I tell you?” he said, but he spoke so gently Jewel felt herself listening almost as eagerly as the child did.
She sniveled. “No fear.”
“More.”
“Show no fear.”
He nodded.
“She doesn’t need to show it,” Jewel snapped, angry at the compulsion that he must be employing. “You’re demons. You can smell it a mile away.”
“And how do you know this?” Soft, soft question. He lifted a hand and touched the side of her cheek before she could react. Or withdraw.
He smiled. “I will give you this information. It will mean nothing to you. But take it to Kiriel and she will understand its import. Tell her that Ishavriel and Etridian have left the North; tell her that Assarak will join them.
“Tell her that when the battle is joined, Ishavriel intends to bring Anya to the field.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Ah, an intelligent question. I fear that I must leave you to puzzle over it. The Lord’s Fist has been . . . distracted . . . by events within the Court; they cannot afford to risk the wrath of their Lord by remaining distracted.
“I will send you this child.”
“What?”
“I will send her to you.” His smile was thin.
“Why?”
“Another question I have no inclination to answer.” He rose; his legs seemed frail enough that they would not support his weight. But they did.
He pulled the child from the protection of his chest, cradling her a moment in his arms. And then, after a pause that would—in any other man—have been a hesitation, he bent and pressed his lips gently against her brow.
“Take what you will from this,” he said softly. “But . . .”
“But?”
He shook his head. “You are predictable,” he said again. “I could tell you that she hosted the body of a demon that could shed her form at any time, and because she is small and obviously weak, you would take that risk; you would suffer her to live w
here she might, at any time, have access to you.” He set the child down.
“I would know her,” Jewel replied coldly. “I would trust myself to know when—and if—something changed.”
“And if she were still there, beneath Kialli control, Jewel ATerafin, would you allow yourself her kill?” His smile was as cold as her voice had been, but his tone was soft, gentle. Jewel knew this was not for her benefit. “That is what is predictable about you. You have not yet grown bereft of hope. You are not a practical person.”
“You . . . know nothing about me.”
“No? I know that you sheltered Kiriel. And I know that you know what she is.”
“She is one of mine.”
“Ah.” His eyes, narrowed, were almost entirely black. Jewel did not step back. Would have, but the child was there, and Jewel knew that if she wasn’t speaking, she was listening. Not to words; the words wouldn’t mean much; they had been speaking in Weston. But tone told enough of a story.
Lord Isladar was aware of this. “She is Jewel ATerafin,” he told the girl gently. “She is from the North. But she will know how to speak, and she will defend you.”
The child turned to face her. Her skin was darker than most Northern skin, darker than Jewel’s; her hair was dark as well—and straight, or it would have been had it not carried the weight of so much debris. She was bird thin, the way young children are, and her chin was a little too pointed; wherever she’d been, food hadn’t been abundant.
But it was none of those things that were her weapons. Her eyes, much larger in a child’s face than they would have been in an adult’s, were wide with fear. With loss.
Above her, Lord Isladar watched, daring Jewel to gainsay him. Daring her to be unpredictable.
Jewel was already kneeling; the dream had shifted her and she had let it, absorbed by what she could—and could not—see.
The child’s hair was a thicket; dust and blood and shards of stone were twisted in knotted strands. Her left cheek was swollen, her lip was bleeding, her arms—the forearms that were exposed to light—were scraped and raw. But the blood across the front of her small gown was clearly not her own.
She was crying.
Jewel looked up to meet the eyes of Lord Isladar.
And then she looked beyond his shoulder.
In the ruins, a fire had started to burn; a fire that needed no wood, no oil, no air. She could see it, contained in the eyes of two who now approached the Kialli lord’s turned back.
The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 Page 18
