Battle: The House War: Book Five (22 page)

“Why?”

“They are not my home.”

“But you’ve lived here forever.”

“When dealing with the Members of the Order, it does feel that way, but no, Jewel. If I died on this soil, these lands would still not be my home. Yes, they are home to many—but the many are not you; they are not born with your gift.”

“Could Evayne have taken them?”

“A perceptive question. I do not know. It is my suspicion she could not; else, she would have done so long ago. Perhaps she did not choose to do so because she had seen an older Terafin in her travels, and she knew who now holds these lands.” This last was said with a trace of bitterness, a hint of anger—but it was only in his voice; his face looked oddly peaceful. “And if she is certain, she can be certain for only two reasons: the first, that she has attempted to cross them without your permission, and you are strong enough to block her way; the second—and in my opinion more likely—is that she has seen what you have built, and she understands what it means.”

“But I—”

“You have built nothing yet, no. But she is not bound by time in the fashion you are.”

The Winter King touched her shoulder with his muzzle, and she turned to meet his eyes; they were almost black, although the fur that framed them looked golden.

“There is, however, one other who stands some chance of wresting control from you if you do not assert territoriality here.”

“Who?”

“I can tell you his name, but it will mean nothing to you; I am not even certain you could pronounce it. He is not
Kialli
, not
Arianni
.”

Sometimes Jewel found the magi frustrating. “Tell me who he is.”

“I told you—”

“Then tell me
what
he is, at the very least.”

“You have seen his hand, Terafin. It has stretched across the hundred holdings; it has moved across the Isle.”

She frowned, wondering how it was that Sigurne had not strangled him yet. “Meralonne.”

“He calls the dreamers,” the mage continued, untroubled by her growing irritation. “And they do not wake.”

* * *

“Have you told this to Sigurne?” she demanded, when she could speak calmly.

“I have mentioned it, yes. There is very, very little that Sigurne can do in this case; very little, in the end, that
I
can do.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since my return. Remember, Terafin, you returned before I could.”

“Have you told the Kings?”

“The Kings now understand that it is not a plague, yes. It is not contagious. But there is no certain way for those who are not god-born to avoid it. Even the talent-born have fallen to the illness; two bards are sequestered within the walls of Senniel, at its highest remove. What the healers cannot do, the bard-born cannot do; their commands cannot wake the sleepers. There is, according to Sigurne, only one in the city who can.” He raised a white brow, waiting.

She offered him nothing, not yet. But in the end, she had to ask. “Why? Why only one?”

“I consider it a small miracle that there is even one. But there have been no sleepers outside of the city limits. Victims have fallen to sleep only here,” he said, raising his face to stare, unblinking, at the
Ellariannate
, “and within the hundred. Only in these two places. Do you understand? If you cannot yet touch the hundred holdings, the path exists there; you have made no attempt to walk it, if I am not mistaken. You have remained here, near the heart of your lands. But they extend. What you will not take, you cannot hold; Darranatos will come again, and I do not think he will come alone. But he will not come immediately; he is injured. He will gather his power, and he will gather his lieges; if the Shining Court has finished licking their wounds, they might come again in force.”

“Why do you mention the Shining Court now?” she asked. “It’s the second time today that I’ve heard those words.”

“How could I not? We have seen its hand at play throughout the South. We have seen its Fist, and its armies; we are only lacking its Lord. But he will not remain in the Northern Wastes forever. I speak too much,” he added. “It’s the pipe. It makes me careless.”

“How do you know where the Shining Court is?”

His smile was thin. “The armies of the Lord of the Hells walked the hidden path. No; they did more than merely walk it; they broke it and remade it so that it might carry the whole of its army from the cold, icy wastes to the Southern basket unhindered. The Lord of the Hells,” he added, as he began to open his tobacco pouch, “owns his great, cold city, just as certainly as the Winter Queen owns hers. And you, Terafin, could stand among them.”

“Mortal, remember?”

“It was not always a word synonymous with weakness and insignificance.”

And she remembered the Cities of Man and fell silent.

“To answer your one unanswered question, because I am indeed feeling mellow this evening, you deal not with the gods, not demons and not
Arianni
, but in some fashion, the god-born.”

“But—”

“Not all who were born to gods were conceived in the Between.”

“But the gods can’t—” she fell silent, then.

“You understand. When the gods walked the world, they had children, and the children were born to and of it. Many died. Many of the gods died, Jewel; they were not then what they are now. But the children of the living gods were not mortal, and some had power to rival the gods themselves. Yet when the gods chose to withdraw from this world, their children could not likewise leave—they were
of
it, and sustained by it.”

Jewel said, “The Oracle.”

Meralonne’s eyes rounded, his lips turning up in a pipeless smile. “Yes. She was first, or so it is said, but there were many. One is here, playing at the edges of lands you inconveniently claimed as your own.”

“Can you—”

“No. Lord Celleriant cannot either; he is an extremely subtle enemy.”

“He is working in concert with the Shining Court.”

Meralonne shrugged. “For now, as it suits him. But the Northern Wastes grant him no measure of power; he derives his power from the dreams of mortals. It is not a wonder to me that he is here, and if I had understood what the plague presaged, I might have understood some part of what the Lord of the Hells intended.”

“How?”

“He should not be here, Jewel. But he is, and had we known—”

“Meralonne,
known what
?”

“Apologies, Terafin; given your authority over these lands, I assume you understand more than you actually do. That must be remedied. In their attempt to warp and twist the fabric of the hidden ways, the Shining Court damaged the containing walls that divide the two lands, something believed to be impossible. Yet it has happened. Those who were trapped on the hidden path—those with a measure of power—must have made their way through. There are only two nights during which they might otherwise do so: Scarran and Lattan, the longest night and the longest day. But he is here, now. Find him, Terafin.”

“But the demons—”

He shrugged, as if the demons—even though they included the formidable Lord Darranatos—were inconsequential. “You needn’t search for them at the moment. They will find you.”

* * *

Jewel returned to the path at the edge of the garden of contemplation. Avandar was waiting for her. He raised a brow as he saw her companion; Meralonne had not chosen to leave the forest, but the Winter King had. The domicis nodded gravely to the Winter King; the Winter King inclined his antlered head in response.

“Do you intend to enter the manse?” Avandar asked.

The Winter King inclined head again. Jewel raised a brow, but did not demur; unlike most of the animals resident in the manse—the living ones—he broke nothing, made no noise, and didn’t leave scratches or other unpleasant messes. He did attract attention, but attention tonight was going to be minimal, and mostly composed of servants on the night shift and House Guards.

“You don’t consider his presence significant?” the domicis said, as he fell in to Jewel’s right, the left being occupied by a rather large stag.

“Yes.”

“What do you intend?”

“Me? I intend to go straight to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

He raised a brow. “Terafin.”

* * *

Jewel did not return to the West Wing that night.

Instead, squaring shoulders, she mounted the wide, wide stairs that led to the empty and familiar grandeur of The Terafin’s personal chambers. She felt guilty that she had not done this during Gabriel’s tenure, because she was almost certain he would have been close to tears of joy—or at least relief. These were the small and precious moments lost when one failed to accept the fear of change, and she was determined to remember that fact.

Avandar’s brows rose higher when he saw the turn she had taken and followed her to the stairs; they descended as she ascended beneath the lights of the chandelier above. The halls were now clean and pristine; the drooping flowers, tear-stained letters and small portraits, some of no great skill and some, minor miracles, had been removed. There were very few signs of Amarais’ death—and the subsequent outpouring of grief and loss—within the manse itself. Jewel had, against custom and to the minor disapproval of her domicis—both of them—kept three of the small portraits; one was drawn so simply it would never be considered art, and two—well, two had been composed by Terafin-sponsored artists.

The rest had been buried with her, but gods knew the dirt didn’t need to see them, and Amarais couldn’t carry them with her when she crossed the bridge. She had no need of mementos now—but Jewel did. It would be nice to have something that she could place on a desk, a wall, or in a cabinet; most of her memories of the dead and gone she carried within her, where only words could express them.

As The Terafin, she was expected to reveal no such emotions.

She had the Handernesse ring about her neck on a slender chain; when she had time—if she ever did—she would have the band remade so she could wear it. Avandar, reliable as sunrise, disapproved, but no one else did. Rath’s sword was beneath her bed. She would move it later. She would commission a chest, much like the battered, heavy one that Rath himself had kept his past locked in, and she would eventually place it there, along with the battered iron box that she could not be moved to part with, much to Ellerson’s dismay.

But she had nothing of Duster, of Lefty, of Lander, or Fisher, because they’d had so little, and they had disappeared so abruptly. She
wanted
the few things she had that reminded her of the people that she had loved, and no amount of disapproval would sway her.

But this, this mounting of empty stairs, she could do. And there was a reason for it, beyond the obvious—that she was The Terafin now. The Winter King walked by her side, and if the House Guard thought it unusual, they didn’t blink and they didn’t say a word. Of all of the people who walked these halls at any hour of the day—or night—The Terafin was never stopped, never asked to state her business, and never questioned in any way.

Unless, she thought, grimacing, Duvari was on the premises.

The Chosen stood guard at the door—only two, because she was not, in theory, in residence. They moved to face her as she approached the doors, but they didn’t speak a word; she knew, the moment she was safely ensconced behind them, more Chosen, summoned gods only knew how, would appear, and the complement outside the door would number four; they would number at least four on the interior of the apartment. Given the day, probably more, unless she forbade it.

These were, however, the safest rooms in the manse, without exception. There were magical protections on the doors and walls that were strong enough they were visible to Jewel’s eyes. She tried to find them comforting, although they were a constant reminder of the fact that people she didn’t know were desperately trying to kill her. She found it less upsetting that people she
did
know were also trying to kill her because she didn’t like any of them, and she understood exactly why. It wasn’t personal.

“It is entirely personal,” Avandar said, in a clipped voice.

She laughed. She laughed, and she found the tension easing out of her shoulders, her face, the whole line of her body. “I guess I’ll have to find someone else to deal with my hair,” she told him.

“Pardon?”

“Ellerson is contracted to the den, not The Terafin.” She wandered through the library’s many shelves, gazing at spines, a full half of which she had trouble reading. Although these books comprised The Terafin’s personal collection—inasmuch as the head of the House could be said to possess anything truly personal—there were three archivists who kept them clean, bound, and organized. None of them would be present at the moment. She would need them if she were to have any hope of unearthing some of the older documents—and, more importantly, understanding them.

At length, trailed by both Avandar and the Winter King, she left the shelves and opened the doubled doors that led to the personal rooms; the small sitting room, the large bathing room, and the bedroom, with its entirely cavernous closets. There was also a small office, with a much more modest desk and a few shelves, none of which were full.