Battle: The House War: Book Five (24 page)

Jewel
.

Yes
. She walked toward where the Winter King knelt, and she slid, without effort, onto his back. He rose.

* * *

They traveled through the forest. Trees opened into sunlight and small patches of wild grass, and as the Winter King ran, Jewel saw, at last, the white foam of moving water; they had come to a river, not a brook. The water was clean, here; the riverbed appeared to be sand and stone. She had lived on the banks of the river in the holdings for only a short time, but this river reminded her, perversely, of that one. There was even a bridge.

Will you cross it, Jewel?

I’m not driving.

You are
, he said, and he knelt.
You cannot cross this bridge while you are mounted.

You can’t cross it?
She slid off his back, following the logic and the demand of dream, her feet touching rounded rock. They were, she realized for the first time, as bare as her arms. There was very little bank beneath the bridge; the water was high.

“I can,” he said, and she turned.

Where the Winter King had stood, a man stood in his place—a man with the same dark eyes. He was not a young man, but not yet old; his lips were full, but his face seemed long and fine-boned. It reminded her of Celleriant’s face, although this man was mortal. She had seen him once before, and she remembered it.

He smiled; lines deepened in the corners of both lips and eyes. His smile was not a kind one, although it held no malice now.

“Winter King?” she asked, lifting a hand to touch the line of his jaw—something she would never have dared had she not been dreaming.

He allowed it, his smile deepening. He was a foot taller, if only that.

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“These are not the lands of the Winter Queen,” he told her quietly, gazing now at his hands, at the mounds of his palms, as if seeing them for the first time and finding them strange.

“But you’re a stag in the normal world, as well.”

“Yes.” He held out an arm in a gesture that was familiar; after a moment, she took it. “Be prepared, Jewel.”

“For what?”

“For anything. Do you not sense an intruder, here?”

She frowned, following as he led her toward the height of the bridge. “You don’t cast a shadow,” she pointed out, as if this were natural.

“No more do you, here; you have no love of shadow. Be ready,” he said again.

She looked ahead to the far bank—and it was far, now; the bridge had elongated the moment they set foot on its solid planks. No dream she remembered clearly had ever been like this. She glanced up at the sky to see a lone black bird gliding in circles in the air overhead. As she watched, it plunged, its dark claws extended.

She frowned, watching it. Forbidding it to strike. Its talons skirted strands of her hair as it screeched, its voice at once discordant and oddly beautiful. It landed on the opposite end of the bridge, the end which the Winter King and Jewel were now approaching. She glanced at the Winter King’s face; all warmth, all surprise, had drained from his expression; he was as cold as his title—the only name for him she knew.

“Intruder is a rather harsh word,” the black bird said. Jewel had thought it a crow, but it was far too large for that, and in shape it looked more like a giant eagle; a bird of prey. “I prefer the word visitor.”

“A visitor,” the Winter King replied, “is invited.”

“Not so, not so,” the bird replied. “Oft visitors come without warning, and they are still welcomed.”

“Or they are sent fleeing into the night.”

“You don’t have that ability, not here. No one does.” His eyes were a very odd color; Jewel couldn’t place it. Some part of her knew that color at this distance should have been impossible to discern, but she tried anyway, as if the information were important.

“No?” The Winter King said.

The bird failed to answer. He was watching Jewel as she walked. “You are not what I expected,” he said at last. “Too scrawny, for one, and far too young. I should like someone harsher, tougher.”

“Stringier?”

“Stringier.”

“Then you are a very odd carnivore.”

“Oh?” He began to preen his feathers, although he didn’t look away.

She stopped walking. The Winter King’s steps shadowed hers. “Will you allow me to deal with the intruder?” His voice was soft.

“No. Not yet.” She waited until the bird had finished with his feathers. When he looked up, she said, “You’re the Warden of Dreams, aren’t you?”

The bird cackled. “I? Would the Warden of Dreams be trapped in such a diminished form as this? I am merely his sentinel.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I? Tell me, little human, how do you know that?”

“I just know.”

“Interesting.” The bird suddenly lifted both wings; they shot out, extended and extending as if they would encompass the entire horizon.

She stayed her ground, but gripped the Winter King’s arm far more tightly.
Do not
, she told him,
take one step forward.

He is a danger, Terafin, and he is here.

No, he’s not. This is as far as we can safely travel.

I can see the path.

Yes. But the path you see doesn’t belong to me.

It does not belong to him, either.

Can you claim it, Winter King?

He was silent. Angry, she thought. But she? She wasn’t. Not yet.

“You are not what I expected,” the Warden of Dreams said again. Where a giant black eagle had stood, there now stood something that was almost a man—pale, slender, his wings spread wide, flight feathers trailing shadow.

“Why?”

“I recognize these lands. It has been long since I have seen them, but I recognize them. Look,” he added, one arm rising.

She did. She looked up. The skies had darkened—but it was a dark that was not night, not shadow, not cloud; it held a depth of color not seen in a natural sky: amethyst. From its folds, snow fell.

Except that it wasn’t snow.

The Winter King frowned.

“They’re butterflies,” Jewel said softly.

“No,” The Winter King said. “They are the tears of mortal dreamers, given freedom.”

C
hapter Seven

T
HEY LOOKED LIKE BUTTERFLIES to Jewel; she didn’t argue. She felt . . . at home, here. The strangeness of the Warden, of his skies, of the delicate white butterflies that seemed to crest air in a movement that was almost, but not quite falling, were distant. No, not distant; they simply felt natural; they had no power to surprise or shock.

But they had the power to move her; as she watched their delicate, crowded flight, she felt something tighten in her throat. Snow, she’d thought them. They drifted in the currents of wind; they struggled against them—perhaps they even reveled. They had no power to deny strong winds, no matter how hard they might struggle, but when the winds shifted or changed, they had control of their wings. She could see, at this distance, how the winds shifted by the movement of butterflies.

“Why did you call them tears?” she asked the Winter King, her gaze absorbed by the thin, living clouds.

“It is a phrase, no more. If I understand what we see, they are your dreamers. Your sleepers. In the streets of Averalaan, they do not wake.”

She tore her gaze away from the butterflies, as if finding them strangely beautiful and compelling now made her some sort of carrion creature. The Warden of Dreams was watching the skies as well, his wings spread high, as if he might at any moment join them in their flight. “They are beautiful, are they not?” He held out the palms of his hands, and the butterfly cloud moved toward him.

But the winds buffeted them, pushing them back. She realized that even the edge of the cloud was confined by the shape of the bridge. “Let them go,” she told the dark angelae. “Let them go now.”

“They do not wish to leave me,” he replied. “Will you force them? Will you break them?”

“They don’t
know
what they want; they’re
sleeping
.”

“As are you.” He leaped then, and his wings carried him immediately toward the cloud. He cast a shadow here that was much, much larger than his size. “You do not have to remain, bound to ground. But you do; you cling to what you know and you force the heart of these lands to obey you. Let them free, and you will see glory and wonder such as you have never seen in your waking life.” His voice was so clear it sounded as if he were standing just a little bit too close to her—but she could see him, in the air, at a much greater distance.

“My waking life,” she replied tightly, “is also a refuge from nightmare.”

“Nightmare has its grandeur, but it exacts its price, it is true. Your waking life—their waking life—girdles them, binds them—it hurts them.”

“It’s because they’re alive that they can be here
at all
.”

“Ah. Yes, that is true. It was not always true, and in the future, it will not be. But you have come to me, tonight.” He had reached the heart of the butterfly cloud, and in those heights, she could see that the butterflies—some of them—now flew to where he hovered; they lined his arms, his hands, his chest; they landed in the wild, black flow of his hair, tangling in the strands. Adorned by them, he was beautiful in a way that he had not been standing on the far side of this elongated bridge. She felt her mouth grow dry and her throat tighten; there were tears that wanted shedding.

But she was Jewel Markess. She didn’t cry in public.

“Not even in your dreams?”

“Not,” she said tightly, because it was the only way she could speak, “in
yours
.”

He laughed and swept his arms out to his sides, and she knew—just before it happened—what he intended to do. Knew it, but bound to ground in his shadow, could do nothing to prevent it. He grabbed a handful—a literal handful—of those pale white dreams, and he crushed them.

She thought she heard screaming, but it was attenuated and distant.

“Jewel,” the Winter King said, grabbing her arm. “It is time to retreat.”

Eyes wide, she turned on the Winter King in sudden fury. His hand loosened; he paled, but he did not step back.

She raised both of her arms, as she had seen Avandar do, and she shouted her fear and her fury into the skies above her. She called the wild wind, as she had never called—and could never call it, in life—and it came, yanking at her hair and the flimsy fabric of her shift. It carried her away from the bridge, the Winter King, and the water; it took her out of reach of the earth. Even in dreams, wilderness had its own rules.

She had no wings; no feathers, no natural gift of flight; she had no weapons and no armor except her anger. The Warden of Dreams reached out again, and this time, the wind all but tore the butterflies out of his reach, scattering them to the far corners of the sky and destroying the cloud in which they’d congregated.

But his hands were white with dust, and his eyes—his eyes were like every night sky she had ever seen: clear, indigo, star-strewn and cloudy; red-mooned and white-mooned and heavy with rain.

“They desire this,” he said, holding out his pale, dusted palm. “And I require it to live. Go back, little mortal. Go back to your drab and confined life, and hide there while you can.”

His wings snapped out, spreading again, filling the sky with what she had seen in his eyes. “These are my dreamers,” he said, and when he spoke his voice was the voice of thunder.

But hers, when she replied, was lightning. “They are in
my
lands.”

“They are yours only for as long as you can hold them.”

“I can—”

The wind dropped her.

* * *

“Stupid, stupid,
stuuuuuupid
girl!”

Jewel failed to hit the ground or the Winter King below because Shadow inserted himself between her and the fast-approaching bridge. She had never been so grateful to see—or hear—the cat.

“What were you
thinking
, stupid girl!”

“He’s going to kill them—”

“Yes, it’s
what he does
. But you? You should
never
fight in the
air.
You have no
wings
!” All of the sibilants in the outraged sentence were very loud and very long. If he’d caught her with his jaws instead of his back, he would have been shaking her.

Snow and Night were in the air, circling the Warden of Dreams. Their coats gleamed in the amethyst sky, as if they, too, were gems.

“I’m sorry,” she said, in a smaller voice. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Of
course
we’re here,
stupid
girl.” He alighted on the bridge; the bridge shook. Jewel climbed off his back, although she didn’t want to let him go.

“You must. I cannot fight him on the ground, but you? You
must
stand here. He has devoured some of his dreamers, and he will be stronger, now.”

She tensed as Shadow leaped into the sky, gray against purple, his wings not nearly so fine as the wings of the Warden of Dreams.

“If he’s become stronger because of—” she could barely speak the words, and let them drop, knowing he would hear what she couldn’t bring herself to say, “what must I do to become strong?”

“Take the land, Jewel.”

“But it’s already mine.”

“Ararath’s sword is yours,” the Winter King replied, “but you have never once attempted to wield it.” His voice was oddly gentle as he watched Shadow join Snow and Night. They had not yet attacked the Warden, but circled him instead; the circles were growing tighter. “You have begun to understand some of the more subtle weapons in your arsenal, but they are not part of these lands, they are part of you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No. But you have chosen to let your den bear some of the burden it must if you are to survive. They cannot do what you can do here. The Warden of Dreams is the only enemy you now have that might take the lands you rule, and if he does . . .” He didn’t finish.

She didn’t ask him to finish; she could still see the crushed dust of butterfly wings on the Warden’s hands. Those butterflies had scattered when the cats appeared; she could see them in ones and twos, lingering at the edges of the putative storm. But this time, she noticed where, in the sky, they flew. Not a single one crossed the boundaries set by the bridge, even in the air.

They were, each and every one of them, bound to the same lands on which she now stood.

“Yes,” the Winter King said. “They are—they can be—yours. They are drawn to the Warden of Dreams because of his nature; he can gift them or curse them as they sleep. He is their only reality, now; they are not aware of the boundaries that contain them. They are mortal,” he added, as if it were necessary, “and mortals seldom exist in isolation—but even here, where they congregate, they are not able to touch each other; he is the only reality.”

“Even if he destroys them.”

“Even so; they are lost in dreams that almost never end; what is one more death in the dreaming?”

She closed her eyes as the cats growled.

The Warden of Dreams began to sing. His wings folded, flexed, and snapped outward again, catching Snow and Night; Shadow avoided them because he folded his own and dropped like a stone. Against Snow’s white coat she could see a sudden slash of red appear; she had never seen the cats bleed before.

But this was a
dream
. A dream. She turned from the Winter King and sprinted toward her side of the bridge; he did not attempt to stop her. When she reached rock, she planted her feet firmly against its surface, feeling the whole of its texture and warmth against her bare soles. A dream, she thought, but she was awake here, and the cats, like the butterflies, were hers.

Beneath her feet, the earth began its slow rumble; the ground shook.

“Jewel—” the Winter King joined her.

“It’s not me.”

“I know. Remember what you need, here. Remember what defines you.”

She didn’t have time to ask him what either of those were, because the ground’s shift and tremble grew worse; it was bad enough that her knees buckled; she kept her feet beneath them.

What do you fear?
the Warden asked, his voice, like a thought, emerging from within.
What do you desire? In these lands, either are open to you. Come. Choose.

She bit her lip, tasted blood, wondered if she was bleeding in her sleep. She couldn’t remember falling asleep at all.

If you will not choose, I will choose for you
.

“No,” she told the Warden, “you
won’t
.”

But she couldn’t remain on her feet, the tremors were so bad; she couldn’t hold onto the ground. She could see the Winter King’s shadow, but she could no longer see the Winter King, and as she squinted into sunlight and amethyst sky, the world tore, as if it were thin cloth or paper.

* * *

She could see shreds of that cloth, that paper; torn, ragged pieces—and each small surface showed her some part of the world that had existed moments before: purple sky, rock, moving river. The river still flowed, rushing and gurgling high in its bed—but only in fragments. Those fragments overlapped sky, shadow, grass, bridge rail, as they fell.

She tried to catch them, aware as she did that the rock beneath her feet had been shredded as casually, as completely, as the rest of the known world; she stood—and braced herself to reach—on nothing. But the nothing supported her weight as her open hands caught the edges of one piece of amethyst sky and drew it in toward her chest. It was purple and dark, and within its now small and jagged canvas, three butterflies struggled. This wasn’t a window; they didn’t simply flutter out of view. But they tried; she could see them hit the boundary of the small scrap in her hand, and wondered if they were aware it was there at all, or if they perceived wind pushing them back in its stead.

She spun on her heels; the Winter King was nowhere.

She herself was nowhere; there was no landscape, no sky, no ground; there was no sound. The world was not dark, but it wasn’t bright; it wasn’t even gray, although gray was the color she would have used to describe the total absence of everything, if she’d had to pick one. She couldn’t hear the cats; she couldn’t hear the Warden of Dreams.

But she could see three butterflies, and these butterflies couldn’t reach the Warden; they couldn’t be found and crushed in the palms of his hands. Somewhere in the city of Averalaan—either in the holdings or on the Isle, three people slept; they had not yet died. She wanted to catch all of the butterflies then, and cup them somehow in the curved palms of her hand, as if her hands could be the wall that protected them from his.

No, no, that will not do. This is not a dream; this is the absence of dream. Come, if you will claim these lands. Dream them. Dream them into being. Create something vast and huge and impressive; make it, hold it. Nothing else will stand against me.

What, exactly, was vast, huge, and impressive to the scion of gods?

Certainly not the butterflies whose lives he had so deliberately cultivated and then extinguished.

Yes,
he said.
Yes, and perhaps butterflies are the wrong seeming for them; they are like stalks of your wheat or corn; they grow, and they ripen, and in time, they are felled. They will fall
anyway
. I merely accept the gift of their harvest; it is that, or leave it to go to seed.