Skirmish: A House War Novel (38 page)

Some of them weren’t even human.

She glanced up as the Winter King paused, and slid off his back at the shrine of Cormaris. He allowed it without comment, and she made her silent prayers for wisdom and the guidance of gods who had chosen to abandon this world so long ago no one really believed they had walked it. She mounted again, and was not surprised when the Winter King also stopped to allow her to offer her respects—or private pleas—at the shrines of Reymaris and the Mother. At the Mother’s shrine, she lingered longest, because the Mother knew mercy, of a kind. Mercy, healing, home.

But she wondered, as she rose, if this was the danger the gods presented to mortals: the sense that
someone
, somewhere, knew it all, and knew it well enough that there was no point and no need to struggle to reach a decision; one could leave it, for eternity, in their hands. If the Mother were here, Jewel would have gratefully handed the whole of the war—all of it—into her keeping. What did you become, in the end, if you never had to make those decisions and those mistakes?

Happier, she decided. But the Mother wasn’t here. An echo of her existed in her god-born children, one of whom would be here for the Terafin’s funeral rites. But if those god-born children had had either the full power or the full wisdom of their parent, would demons exist in Averalaan at all?

Probably.

They’d almost certainly existed alongside gods and other legends. It was a small wonder any of humanity survived at all.

She rose and once again joined the Winter King, but only because he knelt to allow her to mount—and she had no doubt he’d stay that way until she did, even if she left him behind. The night air was cool. The bright moon was high. It wasn’t full, but it didn’t matter; she could trace the shadows she’d once called eyes from the safety of the stag’s white back. White, she thought, and a bit of black that wasn’t there by design.

Arann had no difficulty keeping up, and alone of the Chosen, he escorted
her. He was silent, as he usually was, but that silence hadn’t devolved into either awe or fear. The weight on her shoulders sat on his as well, but it always had. Was it heavier? Yes.

But their shoulders were stronger now. They could bear it. They’d faced loss before, and they’d survived—Arann, by the skin of his teeth. Had it scarred them? Yes. But if there was one thing she’d learned in the intervening years, it was this: everyone,
everyone
, was scarred. No one escaped life unscathed.

But only the unlucky escaped it without knowing what Jewel knew now: friendship, trust, love. She frowned. “Arann?”

He was staring straight ahead.

The Winter King paused to wait for him, as if she needed an escort.

You do.

Not here, I don’t. Not now
.

You do not require it for reasons of safety, no. But you require it for other reasons. I did not meet your Terafin in any significant way; I saw her die. But having never met her, I can answer the question I now pose to you.

Jewel bit back a weary sigh.
The question?

How often did you see her, within the manse that she ruled, unattended?

Only a handful of times, and all of them had been within her private quarters. She could have numbered them for the Winter King’s benefit, but she got his point, and hers would have been petty or childish in response. “Arann?”

“Jay—the trees.”

Frowning, she looked at the trees. They were far fewer in number on the grounds than they had been on the path, they were a lot thinner and a lot shorter, and not a single one of them was silver, gold, or diamond; nor did there happen to be, oh, a burning one.

“Not
those
trees, stuuuupid girl.”

S
HE’D FORGOTTEN THE CATS. Probably because she’d been proven, time and again, to be optimistic or hopeful. Arann’s eyes widened, then; she understood why. Returning to the Terafin shrine had been a lot like waking from a dream—or a nightmare. Hearing the cats meant there was no waking.

“We came to
help
you,” the white cat said, landing to one side of the Winter King, and accidentally knocking Arann almost off his feet. The cat whirled and hissed at Arann, who’d managed to keep his balance. “
Clumsy
. Watch where you’re
going
.”

Please, please, please tell me that they’re not going to stay here
, she said to the Winter King.

He was silent.

“
I
want that side,” the black cat said, landing pretty much on top of the white one. The gray cat, on the other hand, landed to the right of the stag.

“Is it
very
boring here?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.

“If we’re lucky, yes.”

“Oh,” he said, practically rolling his eyes in disdain, “
luck
.”

“What happened to the demon?”

“He burned some fur,” the cat replied.

Jewel was silent for a long moment. “What I meant was—”

“Yes, yes, I understand. You have the
wrong
priorities.” The cat gave a huff of sound, very much like a long-suffering sigh. He lifted a paw and inspected it. “He left.”

“And Lord Celleriant?”

“What, the noisy, ugly Hunter?”

“That’s not how he’s normally described, but yes, you know the one I mean.”

“He’s still there. He’s
hugging
trees.” The cat snickered.

The other two, however, were hissing and spitting, and their fur was quite a bit…fluffier. The white cat, much like the Winter King, was looking a little bit blackened and worse for wear; Jewel had no doubt the black cat had received his share of fire-scoring, but on his fur, in this light, it was harder to tell.

“Look, guys—go home. I’ve got the most important funeral of my life in less than three days and—”

“Is it yours?” the gray cat interrupted.

“No. I’m not particularly going to care about being ready for my
own
funeral; my funeral will be someone else’s problem.”

“Well,” the gray cat replied, “we’re hungry.”

At this, the white and the black cats stopped in mid-scuffle. It was a scuffle that would make the gardeners rage had they the energy to expend on anything but the funeral grounds.

Jewel had no idea what obviously magical cats ate—and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to ask.
Can I get rid of them?
she asked instead.

Yes, I believe you could.

Good. How?

Destroy them.

...

“Fine. We’re heading back to my home. It is
not
large, we
have guests
, and
I
will be in trouble for every piece of furniture you damage or destroy. There are mortals living in the manse. There are nothing
but
mortals living in the manse.”

The gray cat cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the Winter King.

How, exactly, do I destroy them?

How, exactly,
he replied, mimicking her,
did you cause the forest to flourish?

She didn’t know. “The mortals are not to be harmed in
any
way. In fact, it would be best if you didn’t speak to any of them at all.”

“Can we play with them?”

“No. Absolutely not.” She urged the Winter King forward, and Arann chose to walk beside the gray cat, rather than between the cat and Jewel. Her den-mate was staring at them, at their wings, and at their size in visible awe—but he still managed to snicker at their interaction. Jewel might have found it funny had she not felt so tired. Or sane.

As the Winter King started to walk, however, the white cat and the black began to eye each other with growing antagonism.

“Enough!” Jewel shouted, thinking with guilt of the raging, weeping Master Gardener. “You,” she said, pointing at the white cat, “will walk beside Arann. You,” she continued, to a gray cat that looked about to take offense, “will walk in front of the Winter King. You,” she told the black cat, “can stay where you are. Do you think you can get along for an hour or two?”

“We’re
hungry
.”

“You don’t get food until we get through the rest of this. Got it?
I
don’t get food either.”

Where was she going to put them? Where were they going to stay? Could she even offend their dignity by asking if they were box trained? Never mind that, she thought, eyeing the white and the black balefully. “This is your idea of getting along?”

They were trading insults.

“There’s no blood,” the gray cat said, over one shoulder.

“How exactly did the Winter King put up with the lot of you?”

“He was lonely?” the white cat replied.

The black cat purred. “The Winter Queen doesn’t
like
cats. And
we
don’t like the Winter Queen.”

“So…he put up with you out of spite?”

The black cat hissed. But he fell in to her right; the white cat remained by her side and between the Winter King and Arann. She didn’t particularly like the way the two were eyeing the backside of the gray.

But she liked it less as they finally cleared the private path that led from the four shrines that quartered the most private part of the Terafin grounds because the cats suddenly stopped their hissing and whining—mostly about boredom—and straightened their shoulders as they walked. They were not small animals, if they could be called animals at all, and while their wings were now folded, they were folded somewhat higher on their backs than they had been. They looked dangerous when they were silent.

And she remembered, then, that they had felled one of the Arianni without taking any injury themselves. They were her escort. Were it not for Arann, she wasn’t certain what she would have looked like: she rode the back of a silver stag, she was attended by three giant, winged cats, and she approached the group from the wrong direction, as if by magic.

As if,
she thought, grimacing.
Say it: by magic.
But she couldn’t.

Avandar was there first, and if the shallow lights of the garden in evening obscured his expression, experience made it clear enough for Jewel. He was
not
happy. By his side, and approximately
as
happy were Torvan and the two Chosen. They did not seem to be surprised to see the newest members of her entourage. Then again, when on duty, surprise was not one of their facial expressions, and Torvan clearly considered this duty.

But the grim, feral padding of the cats was leavened when the white one whispered, “
There’s
the ugly one. Can we play with
him
?”

“Not now, and not without his permission.”

The ugly one so spoken of raised one dark brow. Avandar looked even less amused. “Where did you find these?” he asked in a tone of voice that implied their presence was somehow a deliberate choice on her part.

“They came on their own. Hopefully they’ll leave that way as well.”

The black cat hissed. “Leave?
Leave
? Ssstupid girl, don’t you know you
need
us?”

The Chosen still failed to evince surprise. They did shift their grips on their swords, though.

“She does not require servants—”

The gray cat felt the need to hiss at this word.

“—who undermine her dignity, and therefore cause those who must also serve to question her power or her authority.”

Jewel wondered why the gray cat looked at its paws so often. The inspection, however, was brief; he casually strolled over to the other cats and swatted both of them on the backside, which caused hissing of a different—and much quieter—nature.

“ATerafin, is this entirely wise?”

She glanced at the cats. Since the answer was obvious, she shrugged; she didn’t want the cats to complain any more than they already had.

“The magi?” she asked.

“They are waiting. As is the regent, and if you must know, the Exalted of Cormaris and the Mother. It is just possible that the Exalted of Reymaris will have arrived by the time you return to the funeral site.”

Her jaw must have weighed a ton, judging by the way it fell open. She struggled to close it. “But—”

“Sigurne felt it necessary to summon them—and in haste. I do not believe their attendants are at all amused.”

“But—but why?”

“You will see, if you do not understand yet.” He bowed to her. When
he rose, he walked to where the Winter King stood, and examined her. “You are…singed.”

“Yes. There was a bit of fire on the road.”

“Which road, ATerafin?”

“You’d recognize it. We walked it most of the way out of the Stone Deepings.”

His smile was a twilight smile; it was cold and dark. It suited his face, but at the same time, made it almost a stranger’s. “And the fire?”

“Indirectly, the gift of someone who called himself Lord Ishavriel of the hand—or fist—of God. I’m sorry—I don’t remember his title.” She nudged the Winter King forward, and he began to walk.

When the cats started to fuss about their position, she stopped him and turned on them. “Guys,” she said, her voice low and very, very even, “what-did-I-tell-you?”