War

by Michelle West

  “You don’t expect that to hold.”

  “If The Terafin doesn’t return?” Teller exhaled. “The forest elders don’t expect it to hold. Not in the city itself. They believe it will in the forest. Therefore, a retreat to the forest must be organized, and it must be sounded when necessary.”

  “You wish to start this now?”

  “I don’t want panic to influence decisions. If we lose Terafin people to natural—or even unnaturally summoned—disaster, I accept that. But if we lose Terafin to panic—to each other—I can’t. It would be a failure of leadership.”

  “Finch is regent.”

  “Yes. Finch is assembling the forest elders. They will be the bulk of our defense, if physical defense is needed. If you require her presence—”

  Marrick lifted a hand. His expression was, however, serious; lines of intent, seldom used, changed the whole cast of his face. “Her presence is required, and she does what she can do. We are House Council, not frightened children; we will do what we can do.” He smiled, but this smile was not the jovial facade behind which Marrick ATerafin had built his considerable strength. “It’s not the way of people to trust youth; youth lacks experience. The mistakes that we’ve made, you have yet to make—and survive.

  “But experience is our guidepost, right-kin. We have not faced the demons—literal and figurative—that The Terafin has. And she has faced them by your side. All of you, even Jester. It is her work, in the end, this saving of our city and our House; you do her work better than we could. But the work we can do? We do it better than you. Leave it to us.”

  “I am not certain Haerrad will agree.”

  Marrick grimaced at Elonne. “Even Haerrad has been less extreme in his criticism of The Terafin, of late. Do you understand why?” he added, to Teller.

  “Demons. Assassination attempts. Obligation.”

  “Be wary of Haerrad’s sense of obligation; it bites.”

  “All obligation bites,” Elonne said. “And you well understand that by now. But this is Terafin. Haerrad will not fight us for advantage if what the Kings fear becomes reality.” She rose and hesitated, standing in front of Teller’s desk. She looked very much as if she meant to add more, but she shook her head, straightened her shoulders, and offered the right-kin a very respectful bow. It was not necessary and was, in fact, overly formal. Teller reddened, uncertain of how he might both accept and return it.

  This, on the other hand, made her smile.

  “We accepted Gabriel ATerafin because we knew him from the first succession conflict.” She did not use the word war. “And Gabriel did not change. Until he retired, he did not change. You are right-kin, Teller; what we require of the right-kin is not what is required of The Terafin.” Smiling a little more deeply, she added, “Do not think you have to change.”

  “Don’t say that where Barston can hear it.”

  She laughed. Marrick laughed as well.

  Chapter Ten

  DARRANATOS WAS NOT THE only demon who died—if demons could even be killed—that day. Those he had taken under his literal wing, those who were less powerful, less awe-inspiring, perished as well. But not by Shianne’s hands. Nor did she weep over their fallen bodies, for as long as those bodies remained; like Darranatos, they crumbled to ash and by wind were swept away, as if the fires they commanded had at last been freed to devour their physical forms.

  Adam walked across the battlefield, the ground shorn of ice and snow, adorned by the warriors of the Wild Hunt who had both fought and fallen. The Arianni had begun to collect their living and their dead. The snow was dark with their blood, where blood had spilled. Jewel thought that even the demons’ blood had withered to ash or smoke when the demons who had shed it had died.

  Shadow, who disliked Adam, nonetheless chose to join the Voyani youth, which should have served as a warning to Jewel. But she could not speak—could barely move—in the wake of Darranatos’ death; could not approach Shianne, who wept long after her arms held nothing but ash. There was something so large, so historical, and so personal to her pain, Jewel was certain her presence would be an intrusion, and she did not want to intrude, did not want to overstep the boundaries that existed there. That history was no part of her.

  And yet that history had led to this moment.

  The Winter King was likewise silent, but speaking to him did not involve breaking silence. Did you know him?

  I? No. He was gone before I became Winter King; gone before there was a true Winter. His name is not spoken, Jewel. In the presence of the White Lady, he has never existed, and he will not be mourned.

  But Jewel, glancing at Shianne, did not believe this. Could not.

  Shadow yowled, an annoyed screech that sounded nothing like a cat. He was, once again—and predictably—berating Adam for his stupidity. Adam, with the beleaguered patience that at times reminded Jewel of Teller in his youth, not only tolerated the remonstration but appeared to be apologizing.

  Enough, Jewel thought, and began to march across the snow. Terrick had joined the Arianni in their search for and recovery of the injured and the dead; Angel joined Jewel. She dropped a hand on Shadow’s head; he growled. The sound traveled up her arm and into her chest, where it seemed to reverberate as if trapped and desirous of escape.

  Shadow ignored her as much as he could with her hand plastered over his head. It was Adam who had the full force of his attention, and Adam who weathered it.

  “Do not apologize to him,” she told the Voyani healer. “His behavior is appalling, and it will only encourage more of it.”

  Shadow shrieked.

  Adam knelt at the side of one of the injured Arianni. To Jewel’s eye, the injury was not likely to kill him. He gazed up at Adam with both fear and an odd type of hunger. And he held out his hand, indicating that Adam could take it. Adam, the healer.

  She felt the cold then. Turning without thought, she said, “Master Gilafas.”

  He appeared to her right. “Terafin.”

  “Stay with me.” She lifted her hands, gave Angel orders, and then bent her head as he left to carry them out. Here and there, across the field, she could hear something that sounded like music, like song. It was not Arianni song; nor was it bardic. Shianne was silent and drawn, her eyes like hollows that had been emptied of everything. She no longer carried a sword, and Jewel knew that she would never carry a shield again. But she rose, as if she, too, could hear song.

  She met Jewel’s gaze, held it, and looked away. Some light had gone out of her; she looked more mortal in this instant than she had ever looked. When Jewel beckoned, she nodded, and crossed the battlefield, unmindful of the injured or the corpses that were being gathered by the hunters as she walked.

  Adam had taken one of the injured man’s hands in both of his, and he clasped it loosely, as if afraid that pressure might break something. He threw a backward gaze at Jewel and mouthed the word, Matriarch.

  Shadow hissed in outrage, sputtering on syllables that didn’t quite seem to contain the necessary vehemence for his disgust.

  Jewel hesitated. Angel returned. Celleriant and Kallandras came down from their invisible, wind-woven perch to stand near her; in ones and twos, the Wild Hunt did the same. The air was still; were it not for the injured and the dead, it might have been serene. No other evidence of the demons remained.

  Vennaire came to stand beside Adam or, rather, behind him, as if he were a personal guard. Or as if he wanted whatever it was that Adam now touched for himself. Shianne noticed, but did not attempt to intervene. Whatever had passed between Adam and Vennaire had extinguished her suspicion of the latter.

  Or perhaps all suspicion had become irrelevant. Jewel wanted to offer comfort, felt an almost painful need to do so. But there was no comfort to offer, nothing that she could say or do that would ease Shianne’s pain, the obvious sense of her loss.

  She surprised Jewel.


  She reached out and placed a very gentle hand against the back of Adam’s neck, which was exposed to air and moonlight. He did not react; did not appear to notice. He was still watching Jewel, awaiting her command.

  She understood that and understood, as well, that this was somehow the moment. Out of the corner of an eye, she caught Angel’s den-sign. Wordlessly, he told her what she already knew: he had her back. She remembered him on the day she first met him, remembered his hair, the agony of loss and rage blended perfectly in his expression.

  He had stayed.

  He had followed her to Terafin.

  He had refused to accept the House Name—the only member of the den to do so. He had refused in spite of the fact that Jewel had wanted that name so badly for her den. To her, half a lifetime ago, demons and mage-born notwithstanding, the name had signified safety. Because it had signified power. She had wanted power because without power, she could not protect the people she loved.

  Angel had taken the name when Jewel had taken the House.

  He had taken a weapon from the armory of what was now a castle but had once been a war room.

  And he had taken down the spire of his hair. All to say what she had known the first time she had seen him: that he was hers, that he served her, that he would fight for her and die for her, if that death could buy her life. She had thought it not for her own sake that she had brought Angel with her, on both this journey and the one previous to it; she had thought the decision an odd and dangerous kindness to Angel.

  But she accepted, now, that this was a half-truth at best. With Angel at her side, she felt as much at home as she could in the wilderness; he was den. He was kin.

  “Matriarch?”

  “Shianne’s arm,” Jewel said quietly.

  Adam nodded. When he looked at Shianne, his expression was younger, and far more uncertain; he was not asking for orders, but for permission—and even if her arm was broken, he was uncertain that he was not overstepping. Vennaire said nothing as Adam turned to the woman who had once been his kin. Healing an arm, no matter how unclean the break, was not the arduous work of calling a person back from the brink of death; it took power, but not enough to render Adam useless.

  * * *

  • • •

  Shadow yowled in frustration, his head bobbing as he uttered imprecations and threatened Adam. “Shadow.” The silence that followed the name was the essence of sulkiness. Jewel then lifted her hand, because she needed it. She needed both of her hands.

  Her mouth was dry, her eyes closed. Was she afraid? No.

  She was terrified.

  Of what? The echo of her Oma demanded. Of yourself?

  She was annoyed at this echo, this internal criticism. She felt that her Oma would be the first person to understand the profound fear. Her Oma, who had never been willing to voice any of her internal softness; who filtered love through criticism, through nagging, through reluctance, because obvious love—the kind Jewel’s mother had shown her daughter when Jewel had been a child—was too weak. It would draw the predators, the jackals, the people who could see it well enough to manipulate it.

  You aren’t exposing weakness.

  No? No. But she was exposing her heart, what remained of her heart, after her sojourn in the Oracle’s cavern.

  She plunged her hands into her chest, and flesh gave way beneath them, as if they were blades. Evayne had never winced, never grimaced, in Jewel’s memory—but perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps Jewel had been so focused on what she pulled out of her own chest that she hadn’t noticed the cost of the withdrawal.

  She noticed it now. She noticed the pain, and the sensation of tearing; she noticed the sudden lack of breath, the growth of the insistent hammer of a heart made loud and wild by fear. She noticed the trembling of her own hands, and the way they had to reach, reach, and reach again, as if fumbling toward a center that both existed and could not be seen.

  But her hands, as she pulled them out of her chest, remained dry; the blood that followed a normal wound was absent. Nothing she had done to this point in her life made her feel so other, so alien, as this: cupping the crystal in her hands, and understanding that it was, in a very real sense, her heart. She understood, for just a moment, why Avandar, Meralonne, and a host of other immortals—nonhuman, all—viewed her as not-quite mortal. What mortal could do this to themselves and survive?

  She stood, and the light from the heart she now carried—she was almost afraid to claim it as her own—radiated outward, washing the field in a glow that almost changed its shape; the trees seemed unchanged, but the rest faded from her vision. She could see her companions, but they were stark in her vision, as if drawn in quick, mad dashes in charcoal by a perceptive artist intent on paring them down to visual essentials.

  And yet, they moved, and they breathed.

  Shadow remained stubbornly, essentially himself; his fur was gray, his coat a sheen of gently reflected light; his wings, each feather obvious and distinct, were folded. He had fallen silent—for Shadow—which meant only that he was forcing himself to acknowledge the fact that she wasn’t always stupid.

  But if Shadow remained himself, Adam did not.

  Unlike the others, even Shianne, Adam was solid, full-drawn, full-realized. But he was taller now, and the shadow he cast far longer; his face was sharper, the planes hardened not by light or form, but by age—an age he had not yet arrived at but was stretching unconsciously toward. His eyes were wide as he looked at what she carried, but he did not look away. The boy who became flustered whenever he encountered the danger inherent in what he thought of as the business of Matriarchs might have; the man he had—no, that he would—become did not.

  But she thought of Adam as she had first met him; Adam in the Sea of Sorrows. There, his gaze earnest, he had not looked away, either. He had seen the Serra Diora—a lone clanswoman among the Voyani, a stranger among people who had very, very little love for the clans—and he had understood some essential part of her isolation. The Voyani elders had laughed at his regard; they had assumed it was a puppy love, a childish fascination with things foreign and beautiful—for Diora was beautiful, even in her otherness.

  Jewel herself had felt that, in some fashion—but she had never dismissed Adam’s attention, his regard. Adam, too shy, too tongue-tied to speak with the Serra often, had been the one to bring Diora the lute of Kallandras of Senniel, as if understanding somehow that music might strengthen her.

  It was because of Adam’s deep sense of duty, of obligation, that he had died.

  She faced him now and accepted it: he had died. In any sense of the word as she understood it, he had drowned. It was only due to his hidden—no, his unknown until that moment—gift that he had survived the borrowing and the saving of that lute. She remembered Kallandras’ serene expression as it rippled. She understood, too, that the lute, inanimate and voiceless, was a talisman of sorts, to the bard; it had become a friend.

  Adam had understood that—or maybe he was akin to Jewel; the Voyani life did not allow for the gathering of possessions, and the few they were allowed to keep and carry with them—those not intended for show or sale—were precious in ways that had nothing to do with their essential physical nature.

  And although he had understood, he had come to Kallandras to beg the favor of being allowed to borrow the lute—not for his own sake, not directly, but for the Serra’s.

  When the flash storm had hit the dry, parched sand of the desert, the ground did not absorb the falling water. The lute had been swept away in the flood. Adam had gone after it. Kallandras would have forgiven the boy its loss—but Adam would not have forgiven himself.

  He was Evallen’s son; the current Matriarch of the Arkosa Voyani was his older sister, the daughter, the one raised to rule. Ruling abraded the softer parts of the Voyani soul. No, Jewel thought, seeing the man in the boy and seeing him dispassionately, it was not just the Voyan
i. It abraded the softer parts of all souls. And that softness?

  The Voyani wanted it. And so, in the end, did Jewel. If she could not preserve it in herself, if she could not sustain it in the face of the bitter choices she was offered—choices she, as ruler, must make, when others would pay the cost of her mistakes—she nonetheless wanted to protect it in others; to see it, to hold her figurative hands out to catch a hint of its warmth. Adam’s sister wanted it, Adam’s mother had wanted it.

  Not all young men were warm in his fashion. Nor were they gentle. Adam had been given the care of children—the highest of the Voyani responsibilities—and the children had both troubled him, as children will, and loved him as only children could. She had noticed this at the time, and had watched it, but the knowledge had become stronger, deeper; she looked at the man who was not here yet, who would not be here for years, and saw in him the boy that he was.

  That boy had faced demons, godspawn, and ancient, inexplicable magics; he had found the trapped souls of sleepers in the dominion of the Warden of Dreams, and he had sheltered them as if they were the Voyani children over which he had been given responsibility. He had—always—extended a hand, even before the power of the healer-born had asserted itself and saved his life.

  She was not sure what he would make of either Arkosa or the Voyani who had finally come to their stopping place, their true home. Arkosa as city was a myth to them, a legend; it was no part of their lived history, and no part of almost all their customs. But she thought—she hoped—that behind the safety of its walls, feeding the children would still be considered the height of responsibility for those who had begun to cut their teeth on adulthood.

  * * *

  • • •

  She did not know what Adam saw in the crystal. She had not taken it out to force him to look, to force him to retrieve some glimpse of a future she herself did not see.

  But no, she thought, she did see.