Battle: The House War: Book Five (31 page)

Angel was at her side just before her knees collapsed. She didn’t faint; she didn’t lose consciousness, but the world felt suddenly both fragile and untenable, somehow. Angel caught her, lifted her; the Chosen began to converge and paused as she lifted a hand, palm out. The words that should have preceded the gesture wouldn’t come.

“Is Levec in the manse?”

“He’s in the West Wing,” Torvan replied crisply.

“Get him. Tell him—tell him Adam needs to leave the rooms.”

Adam stiffened and then bit his lip; the gesture made him look so much younger. It was strange; she knew that the healer and the healed were somehow joined; that the healer had to see, to
know
, the person who skirted the outer edge of life to even call them back. She knew that Arann had been called back from the brink of death by Alowan, and when Arann had awakened, he
knew
Alowan as well as Alowan knew himself—and Alowan, in turn, had the same knowledge of Arann. It was because Alowan had healed Arann that Alowan had developed an instant affection and respect for the young Jewel Markess and her den.

Yet Jewel, at this moment, did not feel that she knew any more about Adam than she had before she had inadvertently dragged him into the dreaming with her. She wondered what Adam now knew about her, and wondered if—in part—this was why he looked so strained. The Matriarchs did not suffer their secrets to be known; she wondered if Matriarchs ever put themselves into the hands of the healer-born.

Levec came so quickly time barely seemed to pass. The two Chosen who were still on guard duty in the room barred his entrance until Jewel commanded them to let him enter.

He looked like hell.

Jewel suddenly became aware that she probably looked worse. Sure enough, her night robes were stiff with caked blood—and not a small amount of it, either. They weren’t torn; they weren’t the dress she’d ended up wearing after visiting the world of Leila’s dreams.

Avandar bowed. “Allow me.”

She nodded but approached Levec directly as the Chosen fell to either side of her. “I’m sorry,” she said, without preamble. “Adam is awake now.”

“I can see that.”

Adam’s clothing was
also
stiff with blood that had mostly dried. He glanced at Levec, no more; his face was pale, and his eyes were anchored to Jewel. Levec’s single brow bunched more tightly across the bridge of his prominent nose. “You will tell me what happened.”

Since Jewel had seen Levec talk to
Duvari
that way, it was hard to find the demand insulting. The Chosen clearly didn’t care for his tone. Neither did Jewel, if it came to that—but in this case, she felt it justified.

“We had a little trouble with the dreaming,” she said.

“Your definition of ‘little’ in this case leaves much to be desired. Adam, did you heal her?”

Adam nodded.

Levec exhaled. “I will not tell you that you were foolish.”

“She was fighting for the sleepers,” Adam continued, when Jewel failed to insert any further words of her own. “There is at least one who has woken, and will not fall asleep again.”

“Which one?”

“Leila.”

“You are certain?”

Adam nodded again.

“If every time a sleeper is permanently woken it causes injuries that would absolutely be fatal without the intervention of the healer-born, I am not certain it is worth the risk.”

Adam drew breath, expanding his slender chest; his arms slid down, to their full length, and his hands tightened. It was clear he found Levec intimidating, but clear, as well, that intimidation was not terror. “I do.”

“No doubt. No doubt she does as well.”

“The Terafin,” Adam continued, emphasizing each syllable in a way Jewel herself wouldn’t have dared, “does.”

“Adam—”

“It’s not something I know because of the healing, Levec. It’s what she is. It’s what she’s always been. In the streets of the twenty-fifth holding—”

“And how do you know that? You are not a native, and you have lived in the Houses of Healing and the Terafin manse, nowhere else.”

“Finch told me. Finch, Teller, Carver.”

Levec’s skepticism tightened his brow. It was amazing how much of a weather vane that brow could be.

“It’s probably true,” Jewel offered. “It’s Finch, after all.” She hesitated. She did not want Adam removed from the manse, but dim memories of Alowan’s enforced separation from Arann haunted her. Adam had saved her life; she owed him. But what she owed him now was uncertain. On the other hand, that’s what Levec was here to tell her.

Levec, however, shoved both of his blocky hands behind his back as he approached Adam. “I will return to the Houses of Healing,” he said. “I do not doubt you; Leila will no doubt be awake. If it is safe, I will send her back to her family. I would like you to visit.”

Not a demand.

“Can you now wake the others in the same fashion?”

Adam turned to Jewel. “I cannot do it myself,” he told Levec. “Jewel must help.”

“Jewel—The Terafin—is in much demand at the moment. There is some uproar occurring in
Avantari,
and rumors persist throughout the holdings.”

“About my death?”

“I did not say they were well-founded.” Glaring pointedly at the front of a dress that was more blood than cloth, he added, “but had Adam not been present, they would have been.” He exhaled. That conceded, he returned his full attention to the younger man. “I know what the sleepers have come to mean to you. I will not tell you you are wrong; you are strong, Adam.

“But you must stay in the West Wing, and The Terafin must remain in her own rooms. If you cannot do even this, you will return to the Houses of Healing for at least a month.”

“I can do this,” Adam replied. His Weston then deserted him as he turned to Jewel. “I don’t think we’ll be able to wake the sleepers from the Houses of Healing.”

Jewel nodded; she wasn’t certain, either.

It was Avandar, carrying a dress with care over his left arm, who said, “If The Terafin decides to exercise her power, it should be possible. Those who were struck with the sleeping sickness came from across the holdings as well as the Isle; they did not come from the Terafin manse. If they could be ensnared in the holdings, they can, in theory, be wakened from the holdings as well.”

Adam wilted.

Jewel, however, put an arm around his shoulder—or started to; Levec
barked
, and both she and Adam froze like children caught playing in the fountains in the Common by annoyed magisterial guards.

“I must be getting old,” he muttered, as he caught Adam by the arm and dragged him toward the door. “When I was younger, I would never have allowed any of my healers to take this great a risk at his age.”

* * *

Jewel said, once Levec had cleared the door, “I like him.”

“Adam?” Angel asked; he’d remained silent throughout Levec’s visit.

“Levec. He reminds me of my Oma—and there aren’t many men who can do that.” She turned to Avandar and removed the dress he was carrying from his arms. Lifting her arms, she allowed her domicis to lever the nightdress over her head. “How bad is it going to be?” she asked, some of the syllables muffled as the dress passed over her face.

“Survivable. The Kings, however, have expressed concern at your absence.”

She had slept through the command appearance with the Exalted in the Hall of Wise Counsel. “Did they send it through Duvari?”

“No, Terafin.” He glanced at the windows; dawn was slowly brightening the sky. “But there are several messages in the right-kin’s office, none of which can safely be consigned to the nebulous future.”

Jewel nodded absently and turned toward Angel. “Did the room always look like this? I mean—before the walls were shredded?”

Avandar’s brows rose. Angel’s didn’t, but the rest of his expression froze.

“. . . No,” Avandar replied.

Now that she was awake and no one was trying to kill her—or anyone else—she looked with care at the windows, the flooring, the bed itself. The walls were a mess, so it was harder to assess their original length. Or height. But the ceilings, she thought, looked wrong; they made her feel much shorter.

She glanced up, and up again. Angel caught her before she toppled backward.

What had once been ceiling in the normal sense of the word was gone; instead, the bowers of trees—or vines, it was hard to tell, they were so thick—now interceded between open sky and the rest of the bedroom. The leaves were of silver, gold, and diamond, but wound around and through them, the green and golden leaves of the trees in the Common, edged in a frill of ivory.

“I’m awake, aren’t I?” she asked.

Angel pushed her back to standing. “You’re awake.”

“When did this—”

“It wasn’t like this when you were sleeping, but given the choice, I’ll take this.”

“The window—”

“I wasn’t paying much attention to the window,” Angel admitted. “And I haven’t seen this room that often—”

“It is markedly different,” Avandar said.

“The wall—”

“It is my suspicion that the wall will correct itself overnight.”

“Have you been outside of this room? Did anything else change?”

“You are the person who can best answer that question.”

Clearly, she thought with some irritation, she couldn’t. She dressed quickly, allowing Avandar to fuss with her hair; he was neither as thorough nor as painful as Ellerson could be. Dressed, cleaned up to the degree that was possible when time was of the essence, Jewel approached the open doors of the room. The Chosen fell in behind her. In any other rooms in the manse, they would form up around her. Angel took up the right, leaving Avandar his customary position to the left.

Before she could leave the room—the glimpse of the hall implied that at least the hall was normal—the three cats sauntered in. They were still the wrong size, subtly the wrong shape, but were now hissing and squabbling, in admittedly lower voices.

Angel signed, moving his hands without raising his arms.

Night ignored him; Shadow gave him the evil eye, or the cat variant of same. Snow stepped on Night’s tail, and since they were blocking the door, it was not the optimum place for a scuffle. Not that that seemed to deter them on most days. “Gentlemen,” Jewel said, dropping hands to her hips and glaring.

Shadow tilted his head to the side. “Yessss?”

“We’re leaving. You’re in the way.”

The three cats stopped snapping at each other. Snow examined his paws; they were also larger. Night, however, pushed his head around the corner of the doorframe, hissed, and drew back. “Why are
they
allowed to scratch the
walls
?”

“They didn’t. The Warden of Dreams did. Anytime you’re the Warden of Dreams, I promise not to complain if you destroy the walls.”

Avandar cleared his throat.

“Cosmetically speaking.”

Night appeared to think about this, inasmuch as cats ever did. “So,” he said slyly, “if
we
try to—”

“No.” She exhaled. “You don’t seem hurt.”

“Of
course
not.”

Neither did Snow.

“Do you remember what happened?”

They all stared at her as if she had just said the most idiotic thing they had ever heard. Then again, on a bad day, every sentence she uttered was, by acclaim, the most idiotic thing they’d ever heard, and it seemed there was no lower limit to her idiocy.

“Did I change your shape?”

Once again a look bounced between the three of them. “What do
you
think?” Snow asked.

At this very moment, she was wondering how she had managed to miss them in their absence. Memory was obviously kind. “I think I preferred your former shapes. At this point, I think I would prefer something
much
smaller.”

They hissed in unison, but they got out of the way. Unfortunately, they then joined what was rapidly becoming a procession, and she could hear the hissing of laughter at her back. Since the cats generally laughed at someone else’s expense—or, to be fair, at each other’s—this was not a comfort.

“Do
not
bother the Chosen,” she told them. The hall was as she remembered it; the same pale color, the same baseboards and detail work in the corners of the ceiling. There were no branches here, no leaves or vines. She exhaled and glanced at Avandar.

“I would suggest we visit the library before we repair to the right-kin’s office.”

* * *

The last thing she wanted was to see the library altered in any way. It was one of the first rooms she had seen; it was the room in which Ellerson had taken his leave, and the room in which she had been ordered to accept Avandar as her domicis. She glanced at him, lips curving in a smile; he raised a brow in response.

“You look almost feline, Terafin; I would be cautious about the expressions you adopt from your cats, were I you.”

Her smile broadened, but she ducked her head to hide the worst—or the best—of it, as Angel opened the doors—the unchanged doors—at the end of the hall.