Firstborn

by Michelle West

  “That is not true anywhere else. I have watched you. You can summon your heart, and it holds. You can search it. You can accept the pain of what you see. And your heart, Jewel, does not shatter.”

  Jewel stopped, arrested. “Shatter?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence for a long, long beat. “Does that happen often?”

  “You must define often. Has it happened? Yes. More than once? Yes.”

  The sunlight on the rock was warm; Jewel exposed her eyelids to its light. “Did they lose their power?”

  “You must also define power,” the Oracle replied. “If you mean to ask did they die, the answer is no. Did they lose their gift? Not as such.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No,” the Oracle said quietly. “No, you don’t.” She lifted her chin. “You have met Yollana in your travels. You fear her. She did not come to me, in the end, but we have spoken.”

  “You didn’t test her.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “There are two reasons, Jewel. First and foremost, it was not necessary. Understand that I cannot travel in time. Understand that Evayne a’Nolan does not travel at her own will—but she is the only one who can. I am said to see everything that might possibly occur in the future. I do, on a much larger scale, what you are learning to do. I search, child.”

  “Even now?”

  “Yes, even now. There is one outcome I desire. To reach that outcome, there are many, many things that must happen. Yollana is, and has been, some part of that.”

  “But you didn’t teach her.”

  “No. There are forks, always, in paths that lead to desired outcomes. There are things I cannot control, events I cannot influence. Could I simply choose to achieve the desired outcome, you would not be here at all. I cannot. In Yollana’s case, the possibility of failure was too high. I could not increase those odds. Nor, in the end, could I increase yours. Do you understand? I could see many roads that would lead you to my domain, and I could see many roads that would lead you away.

  “But passing—or failing—is not in my hands; it is not I who am being tested.”

  “And my chance of failure?”

  “Not as high as Yollana’s. But it is irrelevant. Yollana was not, could not become, Sen. You are and can. Some risks, we have no choice but to take. In Yollana’s case, what she could do without passing my test was enough. It was risky, but it was enough.

  “You understand what the seer’s crystal is. You have seen some of the harshest of Yollana’s choices, and you have seen the price she has paid. You think of her as strong, cold, proud. She is all those things. Could you hold her heart in your hands? Could you hold yours if you had been forced to make the choices she has made?

  “But I wander. You cannot remain here indefinitely. What I can teach you, I have taught. The rest is in your hands. Now you must return to time. You must make the choices that build a future in which your lands and your people survive.”

  “Tell me,” Jewel said. “How do I find Ariane?”

  The Oracle raised a brow. “Daughter,” she said, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from Jewel’s face, “that is not the question you have been asking. When you have not searched for the people who have vanished, you have been searching for your kin. But if you do not, cannot, find your way to the Hidden Court, the rest of your kin will perish.

  “You do not have the time I have. You do not have the ability to hold what I hold. The time you’ve been given must be used wisely; there is so little of it left. When you leave this place, time will enfold you differently. You cannot go back; there is only forward. But when you return to your own lands, you live in the time stream you were meant to occupy. And there, daughter, time is among your greatest foes.

  “Tomorrow, if you wake, you must leave.”

  If.

  Chapter Eight

  The Hidden Wilderness

  THERE WERE NO DREAMS.

  In the darkness of what seemed perpetual twilight, there was cold and pain, although pain receded. Carver knew this was not a good sign, but good or bad didn’t matter here. He was in a wilderness that even the wildest streets of his city had not prepared him for, and he was not dressed for cold. Dressing for cold had been one of Jay’s primary concerns when the den had lived in the twenty-fifth holding.

  He lifted a hand to his throat, grasping air. The locket was gone. And the leaf she had left in its place, which was of no use to him, remained. Jay had been here, somehow. In a dream.

  There were no dreams now. No sleep. No people. In the distance, Carver could hear the baying of horns, as if the horns themselves were alive. They were not close, not yet, but would be soon. He rose. His back, pressed against the half-height of a ruined wall, was once again exposed to wind, but the stones themselves had been cold as ice. He moved, stumbling forward, the effort almost involuntary. He had come to hear horns in his sleep, a certain sign that he was not alone.

  Here, he thought not of survival, but death. Of the many deaths in his life. Of pain and triumph, of guilt, of regret. Lefty, Lander, Fisher, Duster. Duster. He wondered if anyone would be waiting for him when he crossed the bridge. He was half-certain he would see Duster, and she’d snap at him because she wasn’t waiting. She just happened to be there, and he could mind his own damn business.

  He wondered what the dead talked about. How they died? What killed them? He had a story or two to add. The thought made him smile.

  He shook the smile off, forced himself to his feet again.

  • • •

  I’ll have your back.

  I don’t need anyone at my back.

  I need someone to have your back. Jay. What Duster wouldn’t accept from any of them, she’d accept from Jay. Didn’t mean she wasn’t angry about it, but Duster was always angry. Everything with Duster was about strength or weakness. Needing someone at her back was definitely the latter.

  Carver didn’t care. Hadn’t cared then. Duster didn’t have partners. She didn’t have family. She didn’t have friends. But she stayed with the den while loudly making clear that she didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone.

  He had her back. In the worst of the scuffles with rival dens, he had had her back since the day she’d joined the den. I’ve got your back.

  She stopped telling him she didn’t need him. Stopped telling him he was getting in the way. She never thanked him—no, that wasn’t true. She had offered, once or twice, when things had gotten really dicey—a grunt, a nod of acknowledgment, unadorned by simple words.

  And she had had his back. Wordless, refusing to acknowledge even that much, she’d had his back. She didn’t like him. She didn’t like any of them. But they weren’t outsiders. They weren’t enemies. When push came to shove, she was there.

  When push came to shove.

  Duster had gone to face the demon. Duster had gone alone. It was the biggest fight she—or any of the den—had ever faced. It was the toughest.

  Had she been afraid?

  He pushed himself up, off the ground, off snow that was hard as ice, and just as warm.

  Had she been afraid of the demon, of the death? She’d gone knowing that Carver wouldn’t be there. Carver wouldn’t have her back. None of them would. They’d escape, maybe. That was the entire point. Duster was the only person who stood half a chance of delaying the demon for long enough all the rest of the den would survive. Only Duster.

  But she must have known. She must have.

  Carver stood no chance of surviving the Wild Hunt. No chance, if he did, of surviving the winter that enveloped them both, hunter and hunted. But it was different, wasn’t it? The rest of the den weren’t here. Carver’s death would mean nothing.

  He wished, then, that he had had Duster’s back one more time.

  • • •

  Carver lost consciousness for minutes at a time but struggled back to grim reality. He could no longer feel his face, his feet, his hands, and this was a mercy. The last time he fell
, the horns were closer. He could not rise. His arms would not support his weight.

  But something did. Someone spoke.

  The voice was familiar; it implied warmth and safety, although it could barely be heard over the howl of the wind, the winding of horns.

  He had thought there were no dreams here. No more dreams; Jay had taken them with her. But she had left one, just one, and it was perfect.

  Ellerson.

  • • •

  The wind was gone. The wind and the cold. He ached, his throat was dry, his eyes teared at artificial light. But to his side—or the side he could see without rising and turning his head—there were walls. Walls, not half-walls, not ruins.

  “Master Carver, you are in no condition to rise without aid.”

  Had he been trying? Yes. He sank back into a bed made of blankets and warm stone. Ellerson, however, now provided the aid that had been lacking. Also: food.

  “I do not believe you will lose the fingers, and your injuries do not seem fevered or infected. Inasmuch as one can be said to be lucky in these circumstances, you have been lucky.”

  If he had thought Ellerson a fever dream, doubts vanished as the domicis continued to speak. This was Ellerson. The domicis was not wearing Terafin clothing or colors; he wasn’t wearing anything that would have been suitable for his role in the West Wing. Which meant he had found clothing, people, or both. He had clearly found some way of lighting a fire because the liquid in the mug he now offered to Carver was warm. No, it was hot.

  “Where are we?” he asked, after he had stopped coughing.

  “We are in an underground shelter. The shelter itself is, as you can see, whole. Whatever transpired above ground has not transpired here. There are supplies that we can safely use, and there is both food and water. Neither will last indefinitely.”

  Carver listed to the side, and Ellerson caught him. “Food?”

  “Yes. I do not think you will be up to travel for a few days yet. It was a near thing.”

  • • •

  Carver disagreed with Ellerson by the end of the first day. He pulled himself out of bed, left the room, and began to explore the shelter. He had expected to find another room—perhaps another two, at most—but had been mistaken. There were several rooms. The rooms themselves had no obvious magestones, but the light emitted from the ceilings and walls was similar to the familiar illumination the stones provided. None of the doors were locked; none of the doors appeared to have locks. Carver didn’t manage to make it through most of the rooms, though; although he had recovered too much to lie abed—or aground, more accurately—Ellerson had been right. He was not yet fit to travel for any length of time. Even moving in the safety of these halls and rooms had left him exhausted.

  He slept soundly and dreamlessly, waking with no sense of time of day, not that being outside in the winter landscape would have changed that. Time did not work the way he was accustomed to here.

  Ellerson shared the room in which Carver was expected to recover. Carver noted that he had backpacks—two—that appeared to be stuffed. There were cloaks as well as boots, both of which would be welcome, and neither of which were proof against the winter.

  “No,” the domicis said, as Carver raised a silent brow. “These were left for our use, and they will be better than nothing. As will the blankets. There are very few things here, and we will carry them all.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away,” Ellerson replied, “from the ghosts of the Wild Hunt. Away from this place. It is not safe to remain here for longer than absolutely necessary.”

  It was enough of an answer. Carver ate food that seemed oddly bland; it was like bread, but with seeds and a strange sweetness that lingered on the tongue long after he’d swallowed. He drank hot water—Ellerson trusted food that had been here for gods knew how long, but not water.

  On the third day of an increasingly frustrating convalescence, Carver took the metallic blue leaf from its place between shirt and skin, and held it by the stem, twirling it slowly to see how it caught—and reflected—light.

  Ellerson entered the room and stopped, arrested. “Where did you find that leaf?”

  “Not far from here,” Carver replied. “Not far from where you found me.” He hesitated and then, with his free hand, signed a single word.

  Ellerson knew it. The old man had never used den-sign; the den had never condescended to teach him because they’d known that he’d never agree. But Carver had always suspected that the domicis could read the signs if he could not communicate with them, and Ellerson’s expression confirmed it.

  “I met her. She said she was dreaming—and she meant it. She thought I was dreaming, as well. I gave her something to take home. She left me with this.” His smile was affectionate, rueful, tired. “It’s not one of her leaves. I mean, it’s not from the trees that grow in her forest.”

  “What did she intend you to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t either. I think she wanted to leave me with something, and this is the first thing she could reach. She said she wasn’t home. Angel was with her. The cats. That must mean Avandar is here as well.”

  But Ellerson said quietly, “No. It means they are with her. I do not believe she is here.”

  “It’s here that I saw her.”

  “Yes—but she was dreaming.”

  “She couldn’t be dreaming. I still have the leaf. I don’t have my pendant.”

  Ellerson nodded, frowning. He stood. “We are not in Averalaan. These lands do not conform to our lives the way our own do. We reached them through a wardrobe. She dreamed. If I recall correctly, she almost died in one such dream. Do you remember what happened?”

  And he did. She had never left her bed.

  “I believe that Jewel could find you—in her dreams—because that is the nature of the ruins beneath which we shelter. It is part memory, part dream.”

  “Whose?”

  “The Oracle did not say—and even had she, I think it highly unwise to mention the dreamer by name. The Hunt that you saw was not reality, but memory. According to the Oracle.” Carver’s cheek would heal; Ellerson had said there would be no scar. But his arm? That would scar.

  “Eat,” the domicis said quietly, “and sleep.”

  • • •

  The only thing Ellerson had not found in his inspection of the shelter during Carver’s extended and necessary sleep were the rings. He had gathered gaudy blankets, boots that appeared to be of a size although there were two pairs, rope, netting that seemed to be made of fine golden links, more suitable to jewelry than practical use. He had found the cloaks, the food, and skins meant to carry water, and also the packs that were meant to contain them.

  But he had not found the rings. Carver found those. There were—as there were with other items that were clearly meant to be worn—two; they were remarkably simple bands of white gold or gold. The light made it hard to discern.

  “Where did you find those?” The domicis appeared to be uneasy.

  “In the room at the end of the hall. It’s the one with the half-height entrance.”

  “I saw no door there.”

  Carver grinned. “How well do you know the back halls?”

  “Passingly well. Or I did until the change in The Terafin’s chambers.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  • • •

  Ellerson could not see the door.

  He could see Carver. He could see Carver enter it. He could not see the door itself, and when he attempted to follow Carver’s lead, he hit solid rock. This was uncomfortably similar to wardrobes that opened into icy hell. Carver was grateful that he had been able to return.

  Ellerson was troubled. “Rope,” he said.

  Carver nodded. He wound a length of rope around his waist. The twine was thicker than string; it wasn’t thick enough to bear much weight, but weight wasn’t their only concern. He was reminded, as Ellerson tied knots, of his early days with the den in the undercity. Those had
been good days, foraging in deserted, shattered streets and broken homes occupied only by the dead.

  And those had led to bad days, and then, very bad days. Their survival had depended on the streets of that hidden city, and their losses—until Duster—had come as a result of that dependence, that familiarity.

  He shook his head. These rooms were not the undercity. They were lit, dry, warm. They were not endless. Whatever had been left here—according to Ellerson—had been left for them.

  The room remained as Carver had found it. He could hear Ellerson’s voice through the open door he perceived; Ellerson could not hear his. He wasn’t certain why he could see the door, and why Ellerson couldn’t, but whoever had once lived here was long gone.

  “I am not certain,” Ellerson said, “that we were meant to take these.”

  Carver shrugged. “They’re not being used by anyone now.”

  “No.” Ellerson opened the small box that Carver had dragged back into the hall.

  “There wasn’t any more food,” he said. “No rope, no blankets.”

  Ellerson watched Carver. After a moment, he said, “Give me the leaf.”

  Carver shrugged and removed the metallic blue leaf from its resting place against his skin. He handed it to the domicis. He felt no hesitation at all.

  Ellerson examined the leaf carefully, his frown one of intense concentration. “My eyes,” he finally said, “are not what they were.” He turned to the end of the hall, as did Carver. Ellerson, as he’d clearly expected, could now see the half-height passage. Carver no longer could.

  “These rings,” the domicis said, “were not created for our use. I am not certain why they were left here. Perhaps they serve no useful function.”

  “Most jewelry doesn’t.”

  Ellerson frowned but kept his peace.