Battle: The House War: Book Five (46 page)

“Why?”

She exhaled heavily. “Ask Ellerson.” To avoid more questions, Jewel headed toward the closet into which Carver had disappeared.

“Where
is
Ellerson?”

Jewel frowned and turned, slowly, to look at the whole of the room. “Avandar, where is Ellerson?”

When he failed to reply, she wheeled. She still held Carver’s magestone as if it were her own; its light reddened her fingers and her knuckles, no more, her hands were so tight. “Avandar.”

He didn’t answer, but looked toward the closet into which Carver had just walked.

Gods, gods, gods. She ran across the room, comportment and title and Kings and Shadow forgotten. Only the last one followed her. Unclenching her right hand, she yanked the closet door open. The sight of dresses, in neat rows, did not calm her; something was wrong with the way they caught light, although she couldn’t immediately say what.

What she could say, no what she
couldn’t
bring herself to say, was that Carver was nowhere in sight. She had seen him open the closet, had seen him enter it. When had the door shut behind him? Why hadn’t she
noticed
?

Shadow started to growl, and the sound of his voice dropped the temperature in the room so severely her fingers felt winter. Avandar said, “A moment, Jewel.”

But there
were
no moments left. She heard armor, movement, understood that the Chosen were arrayed behind her, and that her presence in the small frame of the door blocked their way.

Jewel
.

She didn’t argue. She moved. But she moved
into
the closet, and not away. She understood what The Terafin needed—but in this moment, hand clutching magestone, she wasn’t The Terafin; she was Jewel Markess, and Carver had stepped into an unknown that should have been safe. And wasn’t. It
wasn’t
.

Shadow shouldered her to one side. Rows of colorful cloth brushed against her face, her hands, her throat, as she stumbled. He was still growling, and what she wouldn’t surrender to the Chosen, he’d taken: point.

“Stupid,
stupid
, girl,” he said, over his shoulder. The arch of his wings was higher, but the wings themselves were constrained by the width of the closet. She heard two things at her back. The first, the slow creak of a door closing. The second, the sharp crack of splintering wood. The latter was followed by smoke, dust, and the flying bits of wood that generally followed that sound.

This is not a game, Jewel
.

Where the door had been, Avandar stood.
Come back, now. There is something at play here that is beyond you.

Her right arm began to throb; she felt the brand on the skin of her inner wrist, and knew, if she ignored it, it would bleed. She ignored it, willing to divert some of the wild and endless fear she felt to instant, mutinous rage. Rage, she could handle. She inhaled and exhaled evenly as she continued to follow Shadow. She did not descend into pointless argument; she didn’t speak to Avandar at all. But it was better. Rage was always better than fear. Anything was.

Carver.

Anything, anything, anything. The closet gave way—as it must—to hall, the wooden floor becoming cold stone so suddenly, it felt as if it were the edge of a precipice. As it did, the hall widened, lengthened; the ceilings disappeared into darkness above her head. She felt exposed in so many ways the darkness didn’t frighten her. She forced her right fingers to loose their grip on the magestone, and stumbled over the syllables that would bring it, instantly, to the harshest of light it could shed.

Shadow was silent. Light sharpened the lines of his flight-feathers as his wings spread; light gentled the shape of his shoulders, the musculature of his legs, his back. Ahead of his rising wings, the hall continued into darkness; the magestone she held couldn’t penetrate it at this distance.

The floor was dusty, the air, stale. But the walls were unadorned by even the simplest of sconces or markings.

Light grew as Avandar approached. Given the width of the halls she could no longer block his passage, and didn’t try; he came to stand to her left. His eyes, in the poor light, were black. The Chosen were not far behind; their blades caught and reflected light as they walked, adding motion to the walls in the darkness.

Shadow padded forward, leaving paw prints in the dust. “Shadow, stop—the floor—”

He glanced balefully over his shoulder. “It isn’t that
simple
,” he told her, adding his usual opinion of her intellect as an afterthought. “Do you think they
ran
away
?”

She wanted to say yes. She said nothing. He lifted his head and roared; the sound reverberated off the walls, shaking the air. Jewel forced herself not to take a step back as his upper lip slid down over prominent teeth. She inched forward instead until she stood by his side; he hadn’t moved.

“Shadow?”

He hissed. “Are
they
here
yet
?”

“I don’t think—”

She heard the clatter of armor and turned. Snow and Night had barreled their way through the Chosen.

“Everyone
important
is here,” Night said.

“Many
unimportant
people are here, too,” Snow added. “Why are
they
here? Take the
ugly
one and tell the others to go
away
.” He paused, thought about this for a second, and then said, “No, send the
ugly
one away too.”

She felt the knot between her shoulder blades loosen as Snow then stepped firmly on Shadow’s tail, even when it predictably descended into a biting, scratching contest she doubted most of her friends would have survived. She let them squabble for five long minutes before dropping a hand on Snow’s head.

“Why
me
?” he asked, aggrieved.

She lifted the hand that held the magelight. “One free hand, not two.”

“It was
his
fault. He didn’t
move
his
tail.
”

Night snickered as he approached; they surrounded her. Avandar couldn’t get close.

I could
.

She laughed. Turning to Torvan, she said, “Captain, if it is acceptable to you, I will allow the cats to take point.”

Torvan nodded.

It was interesting, to watch the cats proceed. Shadow was in the lead; Snow and Night walked a few yards behind, in lockstep to either side of Jewel. They did not step on her feet or the skirts of her dress.

“Where is this?” she asked them, when their silence grew too oppressive.

“Don’t
you
know?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

“You are asking the
wrong person
,” Snow replied.

“Who should I ask?”

Snow shrugged. “Ask
him
.”

“Shadow?”

The great, gray cat hissed. He disliked ignorance, but never complained about his own; he merely avoided exposing it. “You shouldn’t let people play here.” Sidestepping the question, he began a low growl.

The air here was now so cold Jewel could see her own breath; it hung like a motionless cloud in the still air. She expected to see snow, and if snow did not magically appear, wind did, traveling down the hall in a gale. “Avandar.”

“Yes,” was the soft reply.

“You are
not
in your home,” Shadow said, voice a growl. “The library is yours. The war room. The big house. The forest. This is not yours, not yet. If the wind comes, it will not
hear
you. If you
make yourself
heard, what will you
do with it
? Be quiet, stupid girl.”

“Shadow, where are we?”

“You should know. You should
know
when you open a door. You will not survive if you do not
learn
.”

“I didn’t open this door.”

He snorted, and his breath created a much larger cloud. “You did. If you ask me
how
, I will
bite
you.”

The air grew colder still, and the wind did not relent; the snow that Jewel had almost expected now arrived in its folds. It seldom snowed in Averalaan, and when it did, people died. None of the people in this hall—with the exception of the cats—were attired for winter.

Without thought, without deliberation, she called The Winter King. She did not envisage his ride through the manse; did not imagine that he could force his way through the splintered door of her second closet. She had no idea—at all—how he traveled or where he went when he chose to vanish, and at this point, it didn’t matter.

He came. She heard his hooves clattering against the stone floors of the hall through which they’d walked, and almost before she could turn to face him, he was there, scattering Snow and Night, who made their displeasure clear—but without drawing blood.

His eyes were wide and dark, his fur glittering, as if dusted with frosted crystals. He knelt—there was room for him to kneel—and she climbed, with as much grace as shivering allowed—onto his back.

Jewel
.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry—I don’t know where we are, but I—
she swallowed.
I think Ellerson and Carver are lost here. I need you to find them. I need you to carry them—home.

Jewel.

You carried Ramdan,
she said softly.
He was slave; he was not a warrior, not a Matriarch. But you carried him. Carry them. Carry them, and I’ll walk, I’ll learn to walk wherever you can run
. She hesitated, and when she spoke next, it was aloud, although that had not been her intent.

“Find them. Carry them. Bring them back to me. I will ride you to the edge of the Summer Court, and if you desire it, I will force her to release you.”

And if I do not seek that release?

“I will offer her no other Summer King.”

The cats hissed in unison.

And can you promise that, Jewel? Can you promise that much?

“
Yes
. Because if she will not grant this, there will be
no
Summer.” The words fell out of her open lips like a doom; she understood, as she spoke them, that they were
true
. How, why,
when
, were beyond her, but that was the way, with her gift. Her curse.

She met his eyes, and in their depths, she saw the man he had been in the dreaming; tall, proud, past the immediacy of youth, but not—never—beyond the bounds of certain power.
Do you understand,
he asked softly,
the fate of the Summer King?

“No. But I understand that it is still the whole of your desire.” She glanced down the cold, dark hall. “And at the moment, Winter King, Tor Amanion, what I ask of you is the whole of mine.”

You are a fool
, he replied.
If you can even manage what you offer—and you are Sen, Jewel, it is not impossible, although I do not see how it will be achieved—you will have no mount. You will walk the wildest and most ancient of ways on mortal feet, if you can traverse those lands at all. You will lose one of the very, very few who is bound to you completely; I will not be beneath you or beside you, and I will raise no weapon in your cause or for your honor.

“My honor does not require your weapons, and given what you ruled—and how—I very much doubt that
my
sense of honor would be served by yours.” She swallowed; her throat was dry. The cold did not numb her while she sat upon the Winter King’s back.

No. But it will, Terafin. You understand the heart of my desire. I understand the heart of yours. But mine, Jewel, is worthy of the gods themselves at the height of their glory. Yours, only the weakest of children would privilege. I say again, you are a fool.

“Why are we even arguing?”

Because I was tasked to serve you, little one. To serve, fully and completely. It was her command, and her binding. Yes, I want what you offer. But I am compelled to offer you the counsel that my service
demands
of me. Order it, and I will carry you to them—if they can be found here at all. There is no need for such negotiation.

His voice. It was winter ice and fire’s fury, night and day.

“I can’t,” she said softly. She did not want to leave his back, because he
was
warm, and she was cold in so many ways. But she did, slowly, treacherous hand clinging to the warmth of his fur in spite of her intention. “I understand what you’re telling me. I believe it. But I cannot ride you.”

Why
?

“If I am on your back, you will never find them.”

She felt the small huff of his breath across her forehead.
What do you see, Jewel?

“They will stop me, if they can; they come for me now. You can pass them, unseen, but not if I am your rider.”

And you will not send the cats
.

“I would send the cats in an instant,” was her quiet reply. “But if you cannot find them, I’m not certain anyone can.” She reached up with her right hand, and caught the side of his face. “Give me what I desire, Tor Amanion, and I will give you what you desire. I swear it.”

He bowed, then. She felt his sudden, visceral joy—and his derision, his contempt. She accepted both; they were, like the seasons, what they were.