Oracle: The House War: Book Six (4 page)

He did not reply.

Nor had he need; the stone that had once housed the back half of the Oracle as she was currently constituted was now a whirlpool in miniature.

“I know what you seek, Kallandras. You will not find it where you travel, but if you survive, you will at last be upon the final leg of your long journey. So, too, Evayne.” She held the crystal in her hands aloft, and in its heart, there were roiling clouds and small flashes of light that made them appear a storm in miniature.

That lightning leaped beyond the confines of the crystal to the wall; it struck the heart of vortex. Liquid stone scattered, pushed outward in an oval that solidified to form an arch. It was round, not rectangular; it looked like uneven, melted glass when it ceased motion.

“It is not an easy thing to reach the heart of my lands,” the Oracle said softly. “Reaching them is the first part of your test.” She turned to the Kings and the Exalted, and tendered them a bow that was almost Weston. She did not speak. Instead, she lowered her arms. The crystal remained in cupped palms, like an offering.

“Go,” she told Jewel. “I must remain to close the way.”

5th of Morel, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

H
ANNERLE WAS NOT IN a happy mood. Years in the company of his wife made this clear to Haval, although the rest of the people in this impromptu gathering did not know her well enough to realize it.

On the other hand, she wasn’t angry with
them
. They had spent the earliest years of their lives—almost half of them—in environments in which anger directed at other people was safety, of a type. Or perhaps they were perceptive enough to realize that the age difference between Hannerle and themselves made it unlikely that they would become targets for her anger.

Looking mildly distressed, Finch stood before Hannerle, her hands enveloped by Haval’s wife’s. “Are you sure you won’t stay?” she asked, squeezing her hands as if Hannerle were a beloved aunt and not a recovered convalescent.

“If I stay much longer,” Hannerle replied, “I’ll forget how to look after myself.”

Finch’s brows rose in mock-derision. “That’s impossible.”

“Trust me, it’s not. The Terafin manse is impressive, but in the end it’s not mine. And there’s very little I can do to make it mine. You let me putter about in the kitchen—but the servants hate it, and can’t say as I blame them. It’s stressful being a guest.”

“Haval, help me.” Finch cast an imploring glance at the clothier.

“I have offered my wife every possible entreaty to remain,” he replied, his shoulders slumped, his expression one of regret at his failure.

Hannerle frowned. “You’re the only reason I would stay,” she told him, voice sharp.

Finch cringed. Not even she could pretend that the comment was delivered with any affection.

“It pains me to watch my husband wrap you all around his fingers,” Hannerle continued. “I’ve half a mind to break something over his head—but none of the things here belong to me, and breaking
your
crockery seems like poor thanks for your hospitality.” Her hands tightened briefly before she pulled them free. “I understand why he’s here. I don’t like it, but I understand it.

“So I’ll give you advice, and it’s worth every penny you pay for it. He’s arrogant. He thinks the world of himself. And he hates to lose. He notices everything, so you might as well not bother trying to lie to him. But if you put your life in his hands, he’ll keep you safe.

“Don’t put more than your life in his hands.”

“Hannerle—”

“Jay trusts him? Aye, I know. As do I. But I know him, Finch. If he causes you trouble, kick him out. If he causes you too much trouble, come to me.”

Finch nodded. “I will.” When Hannerle hesitated, she smiled. “He’s not the only older man I have to keep an eye on.”

“That,” his wife replied, with a significant glance at Haval, “is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

 • • • 

“I
like
the girl,” Hannerle said, when she was of a mind to speak to Haval. This did not occur until they were almost at the bridge that separated the Isle from the mainland.

“Yes.”

“I like Teller as well. Don’t involve them in games they can’t play.”

“Hannerle, I am unlikely to involve
them
in anything. They are—in case it has slipped your mind—the putative regent and the
actual
right-kin of one of the most powerful Houses in the Empire. I realize they are young, but they are not incompetent children; there is no need to coddle them. If they actually require such coddling, there is very little I can do to preserve them.”

“You know what I meant.”

He did. He considered, and reconsidered, the wisdom of his present position. “Hannerle,” he finally said, scrubbing his face of all expression.

“I hate it when you do that.”

“I know. But you also hate it when I lie.”

“It makes me wonder why I married you in the first place.”

He smiled—and that, at least, was genuine. “I have often wondered that myself.” He slid a hand over both of hers; they were not so loosely clasped in her lap. She had withered during her convalescence, much of her weight lost to lack of food and near endless sleep.

“Do
not
,” she said, as if she could hear his thoughts, “mother
me
.” But she did not pull her hands away. Instead, she met his unblinking gaze and held it.

In decades past, there were very, very few who could meet and hold that gaze. Duvari. Jarven. Ararath. Not his godfather, Hectore. Rath’s protégée, the young woman who was now The Terafin, could—but only when anger swamped her uncertainties.

“Why have you accepted my involvement in Terafin affairs? I gave you my word that I would cease all my meddling and return to the store if you would but wake on your own.”

“I didn’t wake on my own,” was his wife’s stiff reply.

“It is unlike you to quibble trivialities, Hannerle.”

She glared. The glare was comfortable and familiar. It was not, however, comforting. His wife was afraid.

Haval understood Hannerle on an instinctive level; he always had. She was no more a mystery than The Terafin or her many allies. But she had a combination of characteristics that he found in very few. She was the sovereign of her domain, but she had always been willing to share the spaces she created. She considered her responsibilities burdens—but in the way that children were, to other couples.

They had never had children.

He wondered, now, how Hannerle might have changed if they had.

And he wondered, as he observed her, his own expression remote and impenetrable, what had occurred while she slept. He felt the edge of anger; it was bracing. He was given to frequent irritation, but anger, seldom.

“What happened?” he asked, after a long moment of silence.

She frowned. “Don’t play games with
me
. You were present in the Terafin manse for my entire stay; you probably have a far better idea than I do.” She clasped her hands in her lap more tightly, and her knuckles whitened. Her skin was pale, and her cheeks, hollow. Months of forced inactivity had taken their toll.

And that would, of course, affect her. She required her home, her space, the rules of her carefully disordered life. She needed—had needed—her husband to be part of that. He had, of course, fully expected to dance around the implacable ultimatum he expected to be handed the moment she realized she was no longer trapped in sleep.

He had not expected that no ultimatum would be forthcoming.

He knew his wife. There was only one reason she would forgo what was absolutely her right. “Hannerle.” He did not touch her again. She had withdrawn in place, and touching Hannerle when she was so barely self-contained had never been wise.

She turned to stare out of the window. It was not, sadly, the window by which Haval now sat. He gentled his voice. “Hannerle.”

She knew him. She did not know the details or particulars of his past; she never had. But she knew Haval. Perhaps that was the singular gift she had to give: she
saw
him. Facts were the detritus that, observed, confirmed what she knew—but Hannerle had never required outside confirmation of her knowledge.

As proof, she said, sharply, “Jewel did not
do
anything. You’ve never felt threatened by her before—don’t start on my account.” When he failed to reply, she turned to glare at him. “I mean it, Haval. Don’t take this out on Jewel. Don’t you even
think
of taking it out on poor Finch.”

“Hannerle, you misjudge me.” One brow rose as her lips thinned. He felt anger recede, but like any sharp-edged object, it left its mark. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“So? You’ve never answered all of mine. I don’t recall answers being a condition of this marriage.”

“Hannerle—”

“I mean it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I want to go home. I want to go home while I can still believe I have one.” She exhaled, her shoulders curling inward, as if to ward off blows from an opponent Haval couldn’t see. “Will she survive, Haval?”

“Who?”

“Jewel.”

He understood what she wanted from an answer, and it was not information. She wanted comfort. Unfortunately for both of them, she was far too perceptive to take comfort from meaningless phrases. “I do not know. I do not know where she now travels—but my conservative estimate is that the lands she now enters resemble the most startling elements of her personal chambers. She is unlikely to venture into friendly territory, but she numbers men of significant power among her small personal guard. If she is attacked—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

He held up one placating hand. “It is not always clear what you mean.” But it was, now. “Hannerle, I
am
fond of The Terafin. I have always felt a debt of conscience to her.”

Hannerle nodded. Jewel was one of the many subjects they discussed with care, skirting around the edges of events that could not be changed, and a sleeping anger that could be wakened.

“I have followed—from a safe distance—her rise to power. It did not surprise me. But at the same time, it did. I could just as easily see her as the woman behind a shop that deals exclusively in fashions for the wealthy.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his wife’s lips, but faded into grimace before it fell away. “She’s a good girl.”

“She is mostly that, yes. I do not believe that she has ever done anything of which you’d disapprove—and not merely to avoid the cost of your disapproval, as I have. Hannerle, love, what did she show you? What did you see?”

“She showed me nothing,” his wife replied. After a pause, she added, “I will not have you angry at her in my own house.”

“We are demonstrably not in our home at the moment.” When she failed to reply, he added, “I have given my word that I will not lie to you. I will not, therefore, promise that I will not be angry; I know myself well enough.”

“She showed me nothing,” Hannerle repeated. Her hands separated and curled into tighter fists. “But as you’ve guessed, I’m angry.”

He had guessed she was afraid, but was wise enough to keep this to himself. “She is no longer the child she once was,” he replied, gentling his voice. “Were she, she would not be Terafin. You think of her as young—as young Jewel—because she was, when she first entered our lives. But she’s grown. She cannot be counted as a child forever.”

“Do you understand what she faces?”

His wife was one of the few people he knew who never failed to surprise him. But he considered her question with the same care he might have considered a question posed to him by the Kings themselves. “No. You have not seen Jewel’s personal chambers; I have. They are no longer part of the Terafin manse, although the doors that lead to—and from—them are.

“You have seen her cats. They are the smallest part of the magic that now surrounds her, in my opinion. If Jewel herself understood what all of these things presaged, I
would
understand what she faced. But she does not.”

“Do you understand it better than she does?”

He smiled. “I have never been a modest man, Hannerle. I believe that I understand many things better than Jewel does. But in this, I am willing to admit that I am stymied. It does not suit me,” he added.

“No. It doesn’t.” Her smile was weary, but she leaned—at last—into his shoulder. He slid an arm around her then. “She’s afraid.”

“Yes. And she is wise to be so. I know very little of the dangers she now faces; I did not put much credence in children’s stories in my youth. I do not think what she faces will change her beyond all recognition—but yes, Hannerle, that is the heart of her fear. She has defined herself for the whole of her life by the family she’s built—and with a single exception, it is not one she can take with her while she travels.

“She does not know what she will face. Nor do the wise. The only thing we can do for her is preserve the House.”

“Can you,” she replied, putting the responsibility for it upon the correct shoulders, “while also preserving yourself?”

“I have not changed, love. I have grown wiser, perhaps; I have become less competitive. Nothing I do for the House, or within it, will alter the substance of who I am. There is only one thing that could. I will not pursue this if it will threaten you in any way.”

She stiffened but did not withdraw. “You’d leave them on their own, then, because I demanded it?”

“They are
not children
, Hannerle. Finch numbers, among her allies, the right-kin of the House. She will have the whole of the Merchant Authority at her disposal. She is no fool.”

“She’s a—”

“Young woman, yes. But like you, she has a spine of solid iron; she will not bend. She is more graceful in the way she refuses to bend, of course. Your home is the shop we’ve created between us; her home is House Terafin. She will not do less to protect it than you yourself would do were
Elemental Fashion
to be threatened. I am not certain that I have much to contribute to her success.”

“Liar.”

He chuckled. “I am attempting to be modest.”

“I didn’t marry a humble man. If I believed you believe what you say, I’d be seriously worried about
you
.”

“You already are.”

She exhaled. “Yes. Because I
want
you to play your gods-cursed game. I would never,
ever
have said that would be possible—the wanting, I mean. I didn’t believe you’d ever stop the game.”

“You know why I did.”

“Yes. Because I couldn’t handle the cost.”

“And now you can’t handle the cost of my inactivity?”

“I know you’re right. I know they’re not children.”

He waited.

“But they’re like Jewel: they’ve never played the games you’ve played. I feel as if they’ll be walking blind into a situation which could kill them—and if they die, Haval, I’ll feel responsible.”

“It will
not
be your fault. I am one man. If they die on my watch, I will not consider myself responsible.”

“And you promised you’d never lie to me.”

“I am not lying. While I understand the sentiments that The Terafin and her den invoke, I have trained men and women far younger than they to acts far more difficult. I understood the possible consequences before the training started—but I also understood the possible consequences were there no such men and women employed.