Skirmish: A House War Novel (20 page)

“If you intend to rule the House, ATerafin, you will never make such an open admission of ignorance again.”

“I’m not Amarais.”

“No. No, you are not. Very well, Jewel. I want you to announce your candidacy.”

“I’d have to do that anyway.”

“Yes. But you will put it off, and it will be a disadvantage. There are people who are now waiting for you, and their neutrality puts them at risk; there is some pressure on them.”

“And on you?”

He smiled. “Indeed. If you forsake your promise to the previous Terafin, I must choose another behind which to stand. It is not a simple matter to be both highly placed in the House and a member of the
Astari
, and it
will require some time and some finesse to arrange, if that is even possible.”

“Who would you choose?”

“Elonne, I think. Possibly Marrick. Haerrad is so antagonistic to both Duvari and the Kings, any approach on my part would lead to my death.”

“Not Rymark.”

“Not now. Not given what you have said. I will speak with Gregori; I believe he was present during the assassination.”

“Gregor?”

“Ah. Never mind; he is another member of the House, a junior one.” Devon leaned back in the chair and let his neck hug the hardwood at its height for a moment. Avandar refilled his glass and set it on the table. Devon closed his eyes, his face aimed toward the ceiling. “When I offer you my support, Jewel, understand what it means.

“Most of the work I have done for the House involves
Avantari
and the various Royal trade routes. Some of it involves less bureaucratic matters.”

“I know.” It was with Devon that she had been sent to the Merchant Authority so many years ago; it was with Devon that she had crawled through the dark basements beneath that Authority, where every shadow and every sound they made might be their death.

“It is in the less official functions that I would most be of use to you. It may obviate your need for any secondary employee to, as you put it, spy for you.”

“And will you kill for me?”

“For you, Jewel? No. But there will be death in the manse—and beyond it—before this is done, and I cannot say for certain that I will not kill on command. I will advise you, as I can; I will provide what information I now have about the other four. It will not be complete; they are cautious, and I am forced to be cautious as well.” He opened his eyes and added, “You have your domicis, and he is meant for a struggle of this nature. But you will have me, as well, and where I am not present, one or two others. We are not yours, but inasmuch as you serve our purpose, we will protect your life as if it were the very Kings’.”

“Is it safe to offer me this?”

“It is safe to offer
you
this, yes.”

“And would it be safe for me to refuse it?”

“Although you might doubt me, Jewel, yes. It would be safe. Duvari
has no interest in your death at this moment. That may change—that will almost certainly change—in time. You will never speak directly to Duvari about the House or its war. If any word is passed to Duvari, it will go through me.”

This time, when Jewel looked at Avandar, Devon let it be.

Avandar now turned to Devon. “She does not require another guard,” he said in a cool voice. “She has me, and one other.”

“You counsel her to reject my offer?”

“On the contrary. I would counsel her to accept the offer, but I wish to alter the provisions. I understand that Jewel is of value to you. She is of value to me, but my loyalty is completely undivided. You could not kill her while I was in the room, ATerafin, and you are skilled.

“But she has oft disregarded her own safety in favor of those that she cares for.”

“That is a weakness she cannot afford.”

“It is. But it is a weakness, nonetheless. Demanding that she become something entirely other than the woman she is is as much a fool’s dream as her own dream of taking the House without death.”

Devon nodded slowly. Jewel watched his expression shift and harden; it was subtle. Devon, she realized, didn’t like Avandar. She wondered if he had always disliked him this much, or if this was new.

“Protect her den, in her stead. If you give her your word that you will do everything within your means to achieve their safety, she will believe you, and she will forgive any unforeseen circumstances that lead to your failure.”

“Avandar, no—”

Avandar lifted one hand. “His duty when he arguably failed Teller was neither to you nor your den; it was to The Kings and The Terafin. He made no promise, Jewel, and no oath, to you. This would be different.”

“I don’t—”

“Trust him? No? And yet you feel comfortable enough to speak frankly in his presence; you willingly—and needlessly—expose your ignorance time and again. You cannot trust him to love what you love, no. I will accept that as fact because you cannot trust me to do likewise. You cannot trust him to obey your commands when his own imperatives and morals dictate otherwise—but Jewel, you trusted both The Terafin and Alowan, and that was true, as well, of them.

“I do not understand the hostility you feel toward Devon, but it is time
to choose which of two things is greater: that hostility or your own needs in the matter of the succession.”

Devon raised a brow. He also raised an empty glass, and after a moment, Avandar removed it and once again walked over to the cabinet. During all of this, Angel had been silently observing—and listening. He lifted a hand in den-sign, asking permission to speak. She nodded.

“Trust him.”

Jewel stared at Angel as if an unexpected gulf had opened between them, swallowing the floor, the chairs, and anything else in the room in the process.

“Jay, he can’t be what you are. No one can. If it was that simple, we wouldn’t have followed you.”

“But—”

“He’ll do what you tell him to do here. He’s not stupid enough to do otherwise. He’ll do more, yes, and you can’t prevent that—but he won’t work against you. He’s got knowledge and experience that none of the rest of us can offer. Let him in.”

She was silent. Devon, drink once again replenished, watched her; he never once turned to look at Angel. But Angel hadn’t finished.

“We know what we’re up against. No, I’ll take that back—we don’t know. But we know that the chances we’ll all survive are next to none. We know what The Terafin wanted—but Jay, we follow
you
. Always have.”

“No,” she finally replied. “The rest of us are all ATerafin.”

“They wanted the name because you wanted them to have it. I didn’t care what you wanted; I cared about what I wanted. I cared about my own pride. I wasn’t willing to swear an oath to anyone else while you lived.”

At this, Devon’s brows rose—slightly—and this time he did turn in his chair to look toward the wall at his back. Angel’s spire of hair bobbed as he met Devon’s gaze with a nod.

“They want more from the House—”

Angel exhaled. “Yes. They do. But what they want from the House is a grown-up version of what they—what
we
—wanted from you when we lived packed in two rooms in the holdings. You’re the only avenue to that future. We’re not going to walk to our deaths; we’ll make them expensive. But we’re not going to avoid the fight, either. We can’t.

“Devon ATerafin is an intimate part of that fight. If we didn’t need him, The Terafin wouldn’t have made him promise to support us.”

Devon turned back to Jewel and set his glass on the table. He added
nothing to Angel’s words, and Avandar had once again achieved invisibility on the Devon scale of attention. Jewel, unfortunately, had not.

“Jewel,” he began.

What he might have said was lost as his expression suddenly stiffened. A second later, so did Avandar’s, and they both looked toward the closed door that separated these rooms from the rest of the manse.

Avandar headed toward that door first.

“ATerafin,” Devon said sharply, “tell your domicis to be cautious. I believe magic is now being used in significant quantities not far from here.”

Jewel felt the blood leave her face in a rush.

Celleriant
.

1st of Henden, 427 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

T
HE WINTER QUEEN had commanded Lord Celleriant to serve Jewel ATerafin.

It was therefore the Winter Queen’s command that had brought him here, to the Terafin manse. This manse, with its small people and its equally confining concerns seemed to leech color and vitality out of all who inhabited it; absent was the wild fury of the elements and the subtle beauty of the hidden ways.

Celleriant had casually suggested that he and Viandaran could achieve, in minutes—or perhaps hours—what Jewel herself felt must be achieved: dominance over the House. She spoke of four possible rivals to the seat she would claim as her own; they were all, without exception, human; only one was talent-born, and his power, according to Viandaran, was insignificant.

Let us leave these rooms
, Celleriant had said to Viandaran.
The four are closeted here, like rabbits in these crowded warrens. Let us kill them now.
He had offered Jewel his sword and his service, albeit reluctantly, for that very end, and what had he received in return?

Her anger and contempt. It was to be expected, and for that reason, it did not gall him—but Viandaran
did
. Here, he played servant to her master.

It is inadvisable.

Inadvisable? Of all of the men and women gathered beneath these many roofs, only Viandaran was worthy of note; only Viandaran was worthy of fear. Even in the Court of the Winter Queen, Viandaran’s was a name that was considered apt for song or verse.

Yet he, too, chose to huddle, damping his light. Given the way the others treated him, he had also hidden the vast depths of his power. And to what end?

To play these pathetic, mortal games?

The world was shorn of glory. Once, it had been driven by, possessed by, and almost destroyed by a wild, savage beauty. Such beauty might be found around any corner, through any pass. Had there been death? Oh, yes. But it hardly mattered; death made life so vibrant, so immediate.

And the only thing that remained of it lingered on hidden paths, hidden roads. The Winter Queen.

He felt her presence, as all sworn to her service must, no matter where they might wander; he heard the attenuated music of distant bells, distant flutes, distant horns. It disturbed him; the Wild Hunt had been called in the lands of the distant South, but the Winter had not yet given way to the Summer. It was the Summer he yearned for; warm beauty instead of cold. The Summer, the Queen, and Mordanant, his brother.

Yet a different face, a different voice, troubled him as he walked these halls; not immortal, not perfect, not firstborn. A different song, both mortal and yet as beautiful, as haunting, as any voice raised in the Court of the Winter Queen save only her own.

Kallandras
.

The Senniel bard faced war in the South; war,
Kialli,
and death. In the North? Celleriant faced squabbling mortals, too timid to lift sword. They might bare their fangs at each other, but only at a safe distance. It galled him. Even had they lifted swords, their weapons were like dining utensils in comparison to true weapons.

And yet, the assassin that had killed Jewel ATerafin’s beloved ruler had been no mortal. That thought brought him his only comfort, even if scant—it had taken no great effort to kill the creature, after all. If the demon had managed to escape detection up until that moment, it meant two things: that someone within the House was conversant with the kin, and that the kin themselves were extending the humiliating effort to pass undetected among the rabble of humanity.

*   *   *

An hour passed, and the halls grew no less tedious, but they eventually led to doors that were all of glass, and faced the outside world. Celleriant had yet to see any significant portion of the city or the Isle, and he paused a moment before these doors. Beyond them lay grass and carefully constructed flower beds. He opened them and stepped out into the cool air.

This was a mortal garden. Yards away, trees—carefully pruned and cultivated—stood. They girded slender paths, which were marked by small statues and standing lamps. Along these narrow walkways, flowers had been carefully but hastily planted; he judged the weather cold for them, but understood that this was some necessary part of the funereal ceremony for those who lived huddled behind the walls he had momentarily escaped.

But here, he thought in disgust, mortality had leached all wilderness from the plants themselves, and all struggle; no weeds choked the flower beds, exerting their more primal power, and all that grew on the trees above were small buds; there were no leaves. Even had there been, they would be small and green; the wonder and the majesty of the ancient forest had never touched them. He could walk among them—and he now did—speaking and cajoling as he pleased, and they would never wake, never answer.

They lived, domesticated and fettered.

Is this the world you wanted?
There was no answer. His question was meant for the gods, and the gods could no longer hear him; when they had been able to do so, they would never have deigned to reply.
Is this the only world in which the mortals could survive?