“Didn’t Finch have you?”
“She is in discussion with the Councillor and Jarven. I do not think Jarven is best-pleased with her.” Jester’s arms stiffened, and the fox chuckled in response. “He will do nothing to harm her while war approaches. Not while I live. And while I am tolerant enough to take Jarven as a . . . student, I am not so tolerant that I accept random, ill-thought demands.” This seemed a non sequitor to Jester.
“In order to be what he is, he has accepted restraints. He has never ruled any but himself,” the fox added, “and he believes that the bonds laid against him might be circumnavigated at a later date.”
This did not surprise Jester.
“I did not believe he would be so foolish,” Meralonne said quietly.
“You have some acquaintance with Jarven?”
“Some knowledge, very little acquaintance. Jarven’s concerns were not my concerns.”
“But they are now.”
“No, Eldest.”
“No? We had thought you would be forbidden the forest heart, you see.”
“I had thought so, too. But the time is coming; can you not feel it?”
The fox nodded sagely. “It is almost a pity. I have not seen you revealed in your full glory for many a long year, and I would be witness to it when it happens.”
“If not me, Eldest, my kin.”
“Ah, yes. But they were not your equal, Illaraphaniel.”
“You are mistaken.”
“Am I? You walk, you speak, you have relative freedom; they sleep the sleep decreed by the gods and their Lord.”
Meralonne did not answer, but the air seemed a little chillier where he walked.
“Really,” the fox said to Jester, “you are more like Jarven than any of the rest of your kin.”
“Do not make me put you down,” Jester replied.
The fox chuckled. “Oh, very well. More like does not mean like. Finch understands Jarven; she accepts him.”
“She accepts hurricanes as well.”
“Yes, and he is very like that now: a force of nature. But it is our nature, not yours. Would you not agree?” This last was to Meralonne; the fox did not care one way or the other for Jester’s opinion or approval.
“I consider your choice interesting; it is not one I would have made myself.”
“No? But you could have chosen—”
“Do not speak her name here. She is not what Jarven is, and could I have altered her in such a fashion, I would not have.”
“Even if she so chose?”
“Even so. To alter mortals in such a fashion is to change their essential nature. I have learned with bitter experience to appreciate what I see before me; I do not need to change it into something other.”
“And you think him so changed?”
“Not yet, Eldest. Not yet.”
“Ah. Would you care to make a wager?”
The disdain in the mage’s expression was so clear Jester thought he’d recognize it from a mile away. Or more.
The fox laughed as Jester carried him at last to the tree of fire.
Chapter Eight
VENNAIRE’S HAND WAS COLD as he laid it against Adam’s. The air itself was frigid with winter chill, although snow was absent across the roots of the great trees the Matriarch of Terafin had planted. The brush of palm against palm was delicate, hesitant; Vennaire was, inasmuch as the Wild Hunt could be, afraid.
Adam sensed it instantly as their skin touched—but even if he had not been what he was, he would have recognized it. Adam was not of the North; he understood just how costly it could be to acknowledge the fear of a man of power. Because any such attempt would be an almost public recognition, he did nothing to attempt to staunch the flow of that fear.
He knew, however, that Finch would have asked and smiled.
He had thought the Northerners so different from his own kin or the clansmen of the Dominion; they were loud and more prone to speak or act in ways that would be inconceivable to the clans. But they were not like the Voyani, either. House Terafin was an amalgamation of people who shared no blood ties. They shared an oath of allegiance—but blood was stronger and surer than simple oaths in the South.
Regardless, Vennaire was neither clansman nor Voyani. He was not human. He was unlike anything Adam had ever tried to heal. He had thought there was a chance—a small chance—that Vennaire might feel demonic in nature, because oblique references the Matriarch had made in recent times indicated that there was some strong connection between the two: Wild Hunt and demons.
For mortals like Adam, the results of encountering either would probably be the same; if there was a difference, it was not entirely relevant. Adam had faced the taint of demons before—in the previous Terafin’s body.
He was, therefore, surprised. Touching the injured Arianni, he had thought that the Wild Hunt was very like the ancient, living earth. That the body of the now dead man was, like the earth, some part of the essential wilderness over which they now walked, and into which the roots of trees sank deep. But he now stood upon roots of trees that were not anchored in something as simple as soil.
No, he did not understand.
There was, in Vennaire, something else, something other. His was not a body in which all the elements essential to life were housed in some predictable order, but Adam could feel their existence as he examined Vennaire; it was as if they were shut behind a pane of Northern glass. There had been very little glass in Adam’s life until he had come North.
Vennaire spoke; Adam heard the words at a great remove. And this, too, was unusual. He closed his eyes, or perhaps they were already closed, but the voice did not become clearer; as he focused, it became more diffuse, more distant.
So: the bodies of the Wild Hunt were not the bodies of their dying. He reached out again, in the way he had been taught by Levec. He could still touch nothing. The sensation of glass grew stronger, not weaker. He listened more intently, aware that Shadow’s fear and dislike must be grounded in something, even if Adam had no idea what it was.
And then, for just a moment, he heard Shianne.
Her voice was clear as flute, clear as bell, clear as lute or the samisens of the clanswomen; she was singing. He had heard her song once and been moved to tears by it, especially when Kallandras had joined a harmony to the strength of her melody, but he had not listened like this.
His vision did not distract him. The beauty of her face, her form, the radiance of the light she seemed to contain, were now irrelevant. There was a purity to her voice, a purity to her song, that he thought he had never heard before. Not even the distant Serra Diora had come close.
He turned toward her, his hand still clasped loosely around Vennaire’s.
Vennaire’s hand tightened. It tightened enough that it was almost painful. Adam’s eyes opened, and he blinked rapidly. He was standing in the same place, but Shianne was no longer singing.
Vennaire said, softly, “She never was.” His eyes were dark, his brows drawn together in something that might have been a frown had it been less intent.
“I heard her.”
“No,” Vennaire said. His gaze moved from Adam’s confused expression to the Matriarch’s forbidding one, but he did not speak to her. Instead, he turned back to Adam, who was now trying to extract his fingers.
He bowed to Adam. He bowed low, and he held that bow; it was the most reverent gesture anyone had ever offered the young man. “You do not understand what you heard,” he whispered, as Adam, hand still clutched in his, pulled him out of that bow. “But I heard it because you did. I heard it.”
* * *
• • •
Jewel stepped in then.
In the time between the first hesitant contact of their two palms—healer-born and immortal—and now, the hesitance, the suspicion, had given way to something that was like respect. T
hat had shifted into reverence. Worse. There was a desire in the gaze, a yearning, and a growing fanaticism that made Jewel far more uncomfortable than his distrust or his anger had.
“Adam,” she said, “come away. We must leave this place.”
Adam nodded and swallowed. It was immediately clear that he was trying to let go of a man who no longer feared the touch of a healer. She lifted her head, and this time—with no drawn swords in the clearing—Celleriant came.
His feet did not touch the ground, but the light his sword shed did, and the light of his shield encased his face in a glow that reminded Jewel of sun on winter ice. He spoke a name—the name Adam had spoken—but followed it with a volley of quiet words, his sword pointed in Vennaire’s direction.
This was something Jewel did not want. But she wanted the Arianni to release Adam, and that desire increased in intensity the longer he failed to do so.
Vennaire did not draw sword; he couldn’t, and retain his hold on Adam. He did, however, summon his shield, and he lifted it in Celleriant’s direction.
Things might have gone from not good to very bad, but two things happened. Shadow growled, and Shianne spoke. The guttural animal sound should have clashed with the clarity of her voice, but they seemed to blend as they spoke the same words, or at least the same syllables.
Vennaire’s shield slowly vanished, becoming almost porous as Jewel watched. In general, the Arianni armaments appeared and disappeared instantly; that was not the case here. She wondered what it meant but knew she could not ask. He released Adam’s hand slowly, reluctantly, as if he had made the decision but could not force his body to obey it.
Shadow shouldered him out of the way before his hand could tighten again.
* * *
• • •
Adam grimaced; the Matriarch had prevented hostility between the gray cat and the Wild Hunt, and it seemed the cat wished to start it all over again. But he didn’t insult Vennaire and didn’t attempt to harm him; he did bare his fangs, but he did that to anyone if he was in a sulky enough mood.
He also stepped on their feet. In Adam’s case, Shadow generally avoided him, which meant the Voyani boy’s feet were safe. He was clearly annoyed enough today that he didn’t bother. He did complain bitterly about the Matriarch’s stupidity, but the Matriarch was immune to that, and she approached Adam as Shadow increased the distance between himself and Vennaire.
She lifted a hand in den-sign.
Adam shook his head. I don’t know.
More?
Stillness which encompassed silence, and then Adam signed. Yes. Not now.
She nodded and turned to Shadow. His head was once again covered by the palm of her hand.
But as Adam turned to glance over his shoulder, he could see Vennaire, eyes focused and unblinking as they met Adam’s. It was Adam who turned away.
* * *
• • •
When Shadow and Snow had been brought to heel, which meant Shadow was under Jewel’s literal hand and Snow was flying ahead of the Arianni, Terrick returned from his scouting mission. He was not entirely comfortable with the ground as it was currently constituted, although the roots gave him no trouble; he wished to move across this unnatural bridge to the lands beyond the divide the trees had covered.
Avandar agreed, but not for the same reasons; he did not doubt the strength or the solidity of what Jewel had built. Neither did she, but she was far more reluctant to leave the Ellariannatte. Reluctance, however, did not stop her.
Throughout it, the Guildmaster of the Order of Knowledge remained silent, almost withdrawn. The only thing that caught his attention was the dress Shianne wore—but even Gilafas in his odd maker’s trance was not foolish enough to approach her or touch her. Jewel took pity on him as he fidgeted, attempting to control the impulse.
“It is like the dress I wore to The Terafin’s funeral,” she told him softly.
“It is nothing like that dress.”
“It doesn’t look the same, no.”
This finally pulled his attention from the dress; he was now staring at Jewel in open disbelief.
“It was made the same way.”
He sputtered for one long minute. “The ring you wear,” he finally said, when he had mastered what was almost outrage, “was made by me. The window in Fabril’s reach was also made by me. It is the only thing they have in common.”
She allowed the guildmaster to lecture her; she thought it safer than the alternative. Gilafas had no servants with him; no one to guide him when he lost track of reality. Jewel was the closest he was likely to come.
* * *
• • •
“Be wary,” Calliastra said. Shianne walked beside Adam now. Calliastra often took to the skies, but returned, the arcs of her flight narrowing or widening, the perimeter starting and ending with Jewel. “The lands above and beneath your forest are safe for you, but they are not empty, and when you leave the cover of your trees, there may be resistance.”
“Have you been seen?”
“Yes.”
“But not attacked.”
“Very, very few would be foolish enough to attack me when I fly.”
Glancing at her, Jewel thought this was true. While the wings looked somehow right on the cats, they added a menace, a coldness, to Calliastra; at a distance, she might be a demon. And if Jewel were honest, not much of a distance was required.
“What might we face?”
“Winged predators. If you fear the great wyrms, be at peace; we are not yet near the territory they occupy. And even were we—” She stopped.
Jewel stopped as well, and the whole of the slender column gradually came to a halt behind her; only Terrick and Angel continued to move. “What?”
“I do not hear their rumbling cry.”
“You said we’re not close—”
“If you had truly heard them in my youth, you would understand why that has little relevance.”
“You know where we are.” The words were flat.
“No. But there is something about these lands that is familiar. I cannot tell if it is simple nostalgia or if it is fact; I must alight on the distant soil to be more certain.”
* * *
• • •
The array of Ellariannatte roots seemed to stretch for much longer than the visible chasm had. While the roots themselves were not flat, Jewel thought the terrain didn’t account for the difference she had expected in distance.
Shadow snorted. He had remembered, with a vengeance, just how ignorant she was, and in case anyone else took comfort in forgetting it, made certain to remind them. Loudly. Snow contented himself with distant snickers until Jewel called him down from the sky above the tree boughs. “Go home,” she told him.
He protested—loudly—until he met her stony glare.
“You should never have left.”
When he glared at her but failed to move, she added, “They’re depending on you.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. I want them to survive whatever is coming. I expect you to do everything in your power to see that that happens.”
“Everything?”
“Everything, Snow.”
“Did you hear her?” he demanded of his brother.
Shadow hissed.
Snow hissed back. Fur rose on either side, white and gray.
“You know what she means.”
“But she said—”
Shadow leaped.
So did Snow.
“You might have some consideration for the rest of us,” Calliastra drawled. The godchild, however, appeared to be amused.
“Snow.”
Both cats froze.
“Listen to Finch.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Then listen to Teller.” She felt the curious, visceral compulsion take hold
of her. “Go back to him, stay with him, and keep him safe.”
“Can I kill?”
She cursed in rapid Torra, which felt surprisingly good. “You can kill anything that is trying to kill my den.”
“Quickly? Or slowly?”
“Enough, Snow. Go now.”
Shadow roared.
And Snow, looking resigned and resentful as only the cats could, pushed himself off the ground, leaving splinters in a rain in his wake.
It was another hour before they cleared the bridge of trees.
* * *
• • •
It was immediately obvious that, while there was forest, it was not Jewel’s forest. The roots of the Ellariannatte gave way, at last, to earth; it made movement simpler. Here, the ground was flat, and the few roots that had grown above it were closest to the trunks of the trees that they sustained. But the bark was different, the leaves different, and the air itself was colder; breath hung in clouds whenever someone spoke. It was more subtle in the silence.
There was snow in the distance, a visible almost sparkling sheath of white that seemed to cover the landscape. But that snow had not extended to the edge of the cliff.
“It did,” Shadow corrected her.
“There’s no snow here,” she pointed out.
“There wasssssss.”
“Do you think your influence so shallow?” Shianne asked her. There was none of the cat’s judgment in the question; she sounded genuinely curious.
“I don’t generally have much control over the weather,” Jewel offered. She found it hard to speak to Shianne the way she spoke to the rest of her companions.
“You have not wandered far in the wilderness if you believe that.”
“Can you control the weather?”
“Now? No. Not without significant effort.”
Effort which Jewel did not want her to make. Jewel transferred the question to Avandar with a simple glance.
“She is correct. I believe she could influence the wild lands, but it would be costly to her and the child she carries. She is not without power, Jewel. She will never, while she lives, be without power.” And in silence, he added, She is the equal of any of the magi; I would guess that she is superior. Do not think her helpless. She surrendered eternity; she did not surrender everything.
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