Skirmish: A House War Novel (85 page)

4th of Henden, 427 A.A.
Avantari, Averalaan Aramarelas

Avandar felt her anger from the remove of
Avantari
, but anger itself was not unusual; Jewel’s anger was a constant, to be shunted between events until it was spent. What was unusual was the quality of it, the focus; she had left no room for the conscience that plagued her, waking or sleeping, and no room at all for the doubts that did likewise. She spoke; he was certain of it—but for the first time since he had taken her to his ancient home in the bowels of the Stone Deepings, he could not hear her words.

But he knew the moment the earth did; it froze in its tracks, a misshapen pillar with fists of broken rock. He knew when the wind suddenly stopped its ferocious play for power; Celleriant dropped like a stone, and landed, cracking marble; his opponent lurched and plunged, but managed to retain his command over the element.

“What is this?” Kincallenne whispered, his soft voice audible because almost everything about the broken great hall now seemed to hold its breath.

Avandar turned to his ancient foe. “It is the end of hostilities,” was his equally quiet reply. “If you will not be destroyed without recourse, you will take your companion and you will retreat; if you are now tired of the mortal plane, you may remain and return to the Hells.”

“And you will send us?” Kincallenne said, brows rising in shock that was only half feigned, lips once again turning up in a smile of manic delight.

“Ah, no. You mistake me, Kincallenne—and you were always perceptive; I must assume you have chosen to do so. It is not I who will destroy you where you stand, not the Swords of the Kings, nor the sons of the gods whom you came to assassinate.”

“Then who?”

“Ask the earth, if you dare; it might even answer before remembering its rage at your ancient betrayal. Ask the wind, if you do not.”

Kincallenne’s frown was sudden, swift; it transformed the whole of his face, edged as it was with curiosity or confusion. He glanced at the Lord with the red, red sword. “Amaerelle, it is not your way, but consider a brief retreat.”

Lord Amaerelle did not trouble himself to acknowledge the words.

Celleriant, however, sheathed sword. To Avandar he said, “Viandaran—will we survive?”

The domicis smiled. “If I can guarantee little else, Prince of the Winter Court, I can guarantee that. She is not the Lady you once served, but in her own fashion—her mortal, flawed fashion—what she claims, she holds.”

4th of Henden, 427 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

She had their attention. It was attention she had never thought
to
want, but it didn’t matter; they spoke to her now, and they spoke as politely as forces of natural disaster could. Their voices offered no words, nothing she could easily grasp and hold onto. But what she
could
grasp, she had. She didn’t decline to use words, because words were what
her
voice conveyed.
But she spoke in Torra, a concession to her Oma, who had considered Weston a language of merchants and commerce—on her good days.

She also kept it simple and concise; there was no point in talking to elements about petty things like love, loyalty, and trust. “This is
my
home. It is bounded by sea to the east and earth to the west, and it is open to the whole of the sky—but it is
mine
. If you want to walk here, you walk
through
me; if you want to pass through, you
ask
my permission.” She gentled her voice and continued. “You have given us gifts, in your time: water sustains us, earth sustains us; we die at birth without air. You are not unwelcome in my home—but you are forbidden to destroy; if you
must
fight among yourselves, you must do it on unclaimed ground.

“This city is mine.”

Water spoke; the rain strengthened. She felt its slow and cumbersome movement as it built itself into a wall without containment.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice soft. “I know you did not waken here at your own behest. But you will sleep at mine; no one can command you here without my permission, and I
do not
grant it to those who force you now. Be still; be at peace.”

She felt resistance, and to her surprise, she realized it was not the water’s; it was other. She couldn’t see whose, and at the moment, didn’t much care. She called on the water, and it came to her in a rush, the wall falling, and the volume of water that had composed it rushing away like a swollen brook in Veral. It pooled at her feet, and she realized that she had walked, unaware of all movement, to stand by its side. But it failed to touch her or the boundary defined by the fall of her skirts. Instead, she reached out to touch it; it slid between her fingers, cool, clear; light absent from the sky seemed to be caught entirely in its folds.

“Go back to the fount,” she told it. “Please. It is your home here, and men and women will travel from foreign lands just to gaze upon your movement. Go back and be welcome.”

It receded as she spoke, withdrawing. As it did, the broken and ruined terrace was fully revealed; Jewel grimaced, took a deep breath, and let it out in a long exhale. To the earth, she said, “I think I know why you’re here. I’m not angry. But help me now; what is broken, I must remake, for I, too, have my duties to my home; they cannot wait. The greatest of my kin, the most worthy, waits upon our farewell; she has waited too long already for the respect that is her due.

“There is no place within my lands where you cannot sleep in peace, but before you sleep, help me.”

She gestured again, and watched as the earth moved, touching stone and dirt and flower bed as it rippled carefully outward. Where its first movement had broken the things that lay upon its surface, the second now built and healed; the stones that were cracked re-formed. She had seen this once before, had watched in awe and terror. Now, she simply watched as the earth remade the whole of the grounds.

But it continued beyond the grounds of the Terafin manse.

4th of Henden, 427 A.A.
Avantari, Averalaan Aramarelas

The living, moving column that Avandar had summoned began to dissolve in an instant.

Lord Kincallenne lowered his blade as the broken and cracked marble floors began to seal themselves, becoming flat, smooth—and utterly seamless. A casual observer might think them the same floors as those that had been destroyed when the earth had risen; the
Kialli
were not capable of so casual, or ignorant, an observation. Even had they been, they could not mistake the shuddering reformation of the stone support pillars as they, too, were remade.

No smile touched Kincallenne’s lips; what touched it instead was thin and sharp; a brief acknowledgement of pain. “This is not your work, Viandaran, unless you have learned subtlety in my long absence.”

“It is not my work,” Avandar agreed. “You were ever my superior before the long choice; this, you could have coaxed from the earth without pause.”

A shadowed smile replaced the expression of pain, but the wild, exuberant humor was guttered for the moment. “Not without pause,” he said, looking down the long hall. “If you survive what must follow, you must explore; I think you will find the architecture somewhat changed in the earth’s passage.” He nodded. “I will leave you now, but I am certain, Viandaran, that we will meet again, you and I.”

“May it be on neutral ground.”

“Ah, indeed. I fear that our Lord is not a Lord who accepts such a concept. Amaraelle, it is time.”

“I am not yet done.”

“Then I will see you in the abyss; can you not feel the power waking beneath your feet?”

“I can, but I am no stranger to the hidden paths.”

“You were not, when you lived; what they are to you—or I—now, no one of us can know for certain. If you will test it, test; I at least must depart. Word must travel,” he added, his smile growing edged.

Celleriant’s sword was drawn again in an instant and he leaped forward, slowed in his passage and his attack by the utter absence of the wind that oft carried him. When he landed, Kincallenne was gone. “Viandaran—”

“Do you think he will not know?” Avandar replied. “Do you think there is any denizen of any note who can walk—and claim—the hidden paths, the sundered ways, who will not know? What he tells his Lord might buy him a moment’s mercy.”

“They will come prepared.”

Avandar nodded. “We cannot tarry; I fear we must leave Devon behind. Our Lord is unaccustomed to the power she now wields, and if she is not careful, it will devour her.” He turned and held out a hand to Celleriant, who ignored it.

“Lord Celleriant—”

“It is not necessary to travel that way, not now. It will also be costly, and I fear our Lord intends to continue the ceremonies these events have interrupted; she will require your presence.”

Avandar slowly lowered his hand.

“Look, Viandaran,” the Arianni Prince continued, his voice softening into hush. “Can you not see it?”

Avandar did not reply, not directly; instead he said, “Lead the way; I will follow if I am able.”

4th of Henden, 427 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

The earth was slow to move, slow to subside, but Jewel was almost grateful; her feet were now wet, and were it not for the warmth the living earth radiated, they would have been cold. It had seemed a good idea to remove her shoes—why, she couldn’t now remember with any clarity—but mud
squelched between her toes as she walked. She reached up without thought, pushing wet curls out of her eyes.

Then she frowned, knowing exactly what Ellerson would—or in this case would not—say. To the wild air, she now said, “Give me back my hair pins.”

“You should tell it to
put
them back,” came Snow’s almost meek suggestion.

She glanced at the cat; the water that her dress had failed to absorb had beaded on his wings and had finally penetrated his fur; he looked, to be charitable, bedraggled.

She was curious enough to consider it—but only barely; she felt strangely exhausted by what had, in the end, amounted to simple speech. “If it gets it wrong,” she told the cat, “I’m the one who’ll suffer.”

“If you know
how
to do it
properly
,” was Snow’s arch rejoinder, “there will be
no
mistakes.”

“There’s a reason I let Ellerson do my hair for all the important occasions.”

“He won’t
like
the way it looks
now
.”

“It doesn’t look worse than yours.”

His hiss could probably be heard across the grounds and the back half of the mansion.

“I don’t like the pins anyway. They pull my hair so tight it makes my head hurt. But they cost a lot, so I want them back, I just don’t want them back
in
my hair. Yet.”

The breeze began to finger the hems of her skirt; it was, like the earth, almost warm. It was certainly warm for Henden. She stopped walking and waited; small, slender pins and two enameled golden combs began to dance and spin in the air, weaving in and around each other so smoothly they might have been alive.

She held out an open palm—her left, and they came to rest there one long moment later. Like the breeze and the earth, they were warm.

“You don’t have any
pockets
,” Snow pointed out, with some satisfaction.

“Pay attention. I do.”

“You
don’t
.”

Jewel shook her head. “I do. Watch.”

The cat’s wet brows rose; she did have pockets. “I didn’t
make
pockets!” His second hiss devolved into what was mostly a growl.

“Don’t look at me like that; I didn’t make ’em either. But they’re here, as needed. Let’s find the Winter King and your brother.”

“
Brother
?”

“Night.”

“Oh,
him
.”

The sky lost the gray-and-green pallor of storm as she walked. Jewel couldn’t find her shoes, but didn’t look very hard; she couldn’t. Although the shape of the path the earth had built—at her request, at her plea—conformed to the path the Master Gardener had designed for this very important occasion, the texture was different; the stone was smooth and it was, to her eye, all of one piece. The flowers that had been all but uprooted and overturned in the slow breaking of the earth resided in beds that were also similar in shape and form, but here, the earth proved it was no deliberate gardener; they were not so uniform in placement as they had been, and many of the stems had been snapped or broken. Yet, free of dirt, there they were.

The shrines had been built so long ago, mages had attended them; they survived the beginnings of the conflict well enough. But the rains had washed them clean. All but the Terafin shrine. There, the altar was now dark with blood; the color was no longer so deep and consistent a red, and the man who had shed it was gone.

The Winter King, Sigurne and Angel still astride him, came upon her as she walked. He lowered his tined head, but did not otherwise bow to ground.

ATerafin.

“Winter King.”

He did not admonish her for speaking aloud.
The worst of the danger has passed?
It was a question, not a statement.

“I don’t know. The water is free, and it sleeps; the earth and the air are quiet.”

Angel slid off the Winter King’s back. He was wet, which wasn’t remarkable—everyone would be—but he was worried. That much was clear from his expression; he was almost tentative.

“Jay?”

She nodded.

“What did you do?”

“I told them to stop fighting,” was her quiet reply.

“Them?”

“The water. The earth and the air. I wish my Oma could have seen me. She’d’ve been proud. I think. She’d’ve hated this dress, though.”

The Winter King knelt, and Sigurne Mellifas now slid off his back, looking more crumpled but less frail than she had. “ATerafin,” she said, in a voice as sharp as any voice her Oma had ever used.

“Yes?” Jewel hesitated as the guildmaster approached. “Sigurne?”

The guildmaster nodded. But she lifted one hand and very gently pressed the back of it across Jewel’s forehead. “How do you feel, ATerafin?”