She nodded. “You have my word.”
• • •
Jewel woke to the light of the butterfly, which rested on her chest, wings spread as if to alleviate the Oracle’s darkness. She was not alone. Adam was sitting by her side, both of his hands cupped around her right hand. The left, which lay above the thick covers, bore a new ring.
The necklace was not around her waking neck; the bracelet, and the tiara were not in the pack into which she’d placed them in the dream that was not a dream. Gilafas, she thought. She knew that she must return to him—if she could return at all.
Chapter Eleven
24th day of Morel, 428 A.A.
Terafin grounds
“COUNCILLOR, WERE YOU AWARE that Jewel paid us a visit?”
Haval, standing beneath the benign flames of the tree of fire, glanced toward his feet. Of the elders—or eldest, as they were often called—that dwelled within Jewel’s lands, this one concerned him most. He knelt. It was not a gesture of obeisance; Haval would not grovel before any of the wild powers that inhabited Jewel’s lands. He did not serve them, and he did not wish to confuse the issue of position, if he could be said to have one.
The golden fox, however, disdained to shout, and if he was the wrong color for a fox, he was otherwise the right shape and size. He therefore preferred to be carried, as it brought his mouth closer to people’s ears. Haval understood that preference was not necessity, and the fox did not demand it; he merely waited upon the expected courtesy as if he were a fussy, elderly aunt.
Haval considered the fact that cats were also accorded the title of Eldest. It was surprisingly difficult for Haval to remember that the cats were ancient, wild, powerful. But he did remember. He had watched the white cat, Snow, weave a dress out of literal air. The memory did not dim with time; instead, like legend, it grew brighter, larger.
“You really ought not to carry him like that,” a familiar voice said.
Haval didn’t bother to turn; he did, however, raise a brow at the golden fox who now curled in his arms. “I am expecting a guest,” he said, the severity in tone aimed entirely at Jarven.
“And here I am.”
“A guest, Jarven. I do not believe I included your name on the invitation, such as it was.” He exhaled. To the fox, he said, “Has he shown promise as a student?”
“Remarkable promise,” the fox said. “But I find him exhausting—the young often are.”
“And I am not young, Eldest?”
“You wish me to say that, to me, you are all children, is that it?” The fox smiled, or at least exposed his small, perfect teeth. “And I would, Councillor, but some are born old.”
Jarven laughed. His laughter was infused with the type of delight that generally meant a man’s ruin—a man who was not Jarven, of course.
“Finch is expecting you at the Authority building today.”
“Ah, yes. Did you know that I can walk there from here without ever touching the city streets?”
“I had heard, yes.”
“You should try it. You never know when it might come in useful.”
“I cannot travel as you do, as you are well aware.”
“Am I?”
“If you are not, you are being deliberately obtuse—and I am an old, busy man with a very short supply of patience.”
“When this guest arrives, he is not to be harmed,” Haval told Jarven. There was no humor or inflection in the words. Some words spoke of hidden depths; Haval’s now spoke of endless, impenetrable walls. He had not otherwise shifted position.
“Does she understand what he is?” the fox asked.
“I have not asked, Eldest.”
“I was under the impression that you ask far too many questions, yet you answer far too few.” The fox’s reply set Jarven chuckling again.
“If you wish my opinion, I will give it; the opinion is not a promise and not a guarantee.”
“Very well.”
“Yes, I believe she understands what—or who—Andrei is. It is entirely irrelevant to her. She once offered home and shelter to the living daughter of the god we do not name. She is aware of danger; she believes, because she is seer-born, that she can circumvent most of it.”
“That is not wise.”
“No—but as you have pointed out, the young are exhausting.” He turned, then, to face Jarven. To the eye, Jarven had not magically shed years; he was still an old man. But there was, about the whole of him, a restless, enterprising energy that he had lacked this past decade. Only his eyes seemed instantly different to Haval; they were lighter and warmer in color than they had once been. They were not Birgide Viranyi’s eyes. They might be called hazel, a notoriously imprecise description.
Haval measured the man standing before him in a dispassionate fashion, as if he were a cut of cloth, a suit, a dress. “Your eyes.”
“Yes. It is a bit of an issue, but you know as well as I that almost no one will mark the difference a sentence after I’ve opened my mouth.”
It was true. “The Merchant Authority?”
“I will go. The travel is practice. I will not tell you where I arrived in the city the first time I tried it. Apparently, there was hilarity.” He looked down his nose at the fox, who looked up to meet his gaze.
“You must admit, Jarven, it was amusing.”
“Not for me, and not for the other people I so rudely interrupted. I am, however, glad to know that some joy was taken somewhere.” He lifted his head at the same moment the fox did.
Haval noted both.
“Why did you not desire what he desires?” the fox asked, genuinely curious.
“I cannot be of the forest and of my own life; the two would not mix well.” Haval smiled, and added, “I am what, and who, I am. I am old and set in my ways.”
“You do not enjoy the game.”
“I enjoy it some of the time; it is a test of wit, of observational skill, of knowledge. But I am not a casual gambler, Eldest. The stakes must be very, very high if you wish me to sit at the table.”
“And these are suitably high,” Jarven added, his voice softer.
“Have you found Rymark?” Haval asked. Jarven did not even blink.
“I do not believe he is currently resident in the city. The forest’s boundaries define the reach of my newly acquired skills.”
“You might leave,” the fox told him. “There are some things you will no longer be able to see or feel—but that is the way of the land. There are roads like the Terafin roads; they are owned by others. If you wish to pass through those lands—”
“I must ask and receive permission.”
“Was he always this prickly?” the fox asked Haval.
“He was not considered prickly at all,” Haval replied. “Nor is he considered prickly now.”
“How is he seen?”
“With the exception of a very few, most view him as an increasingly scattered old man, long past his prime.”
The fox’s brows rose and drew together; it made the creature look disconcertingly human. “And this does not anger him?”
“He has, and has always had, his pride. But to find it disturbing at all, he would have to care about the opinions of others.”
“Ah.”
“Haval exaggerates, of course,” Jarven said. “I care very much about the opinions of others.”
Haval raised a brow. “When your plans require a specific opinion, yes. The accuracy of either your presentation or that opinion is otherwise irrelevant.”
“Haval, on the other hand,” Jarven continued, “has always been this prickly.”
“I like his cunning,” the golden fox said, ignoring Jarven’s interruption. “I like his intensity. He eats risk.”
“Yes. And on occasion lives—not, of course, his own.”
“Ah, Councillor. We understand that Jewel does not trust him. But we understand that Finch does. And we understand that Jewel trusts Finch enough that she is willing to accept him—and that is enough for me.”
Haval said nothing for a long beat. “Understand that you will have some competition.”
Jarven’s frown was mercurial. “I am not you,” he said, voice as sharp as it might have been in his distant youth. “If something is worth having, it is worth fighting for—and many will.”
“Ah. I mean only that Haerrad is searching for Rymark. Unlike yourself, he is free to travel; he cannot walk these roads and must, therefore, make do with the ones he has traveled all his life. It is my belief that he will find Rymark first, if you wish to devote your ferocious energy into more useful activities.”
The fox lifted its chin and then turned its face to better see Haval’s expression.
“Have I misspoken?” the tailor asked the fox, with far more respect in his voice.
“I cannot decide,” was the slow reply. “You are Councillor for a reason.”
“Yes. The Terafin.”
“Ah. No—if it were just The Terafin, many might fill your complicated position. We were undecided,” he added.
“You wished for Jarven?”
Furry brows rose alarmingly quickly. “I wished for him, yes—but not as Councillor. I might as well bite off my own tail!”
Jarven laughed. Haval heard, in it, the youth that was absent in every other visible way.
“He is cunning. He is bright. He is fast. He is both fearless and cautious—and that is highly unusual in the wilderness. He lies as if lies were truth; he tells truths as if he were dissembling. Also: I liked his jacket.”
Haval was patience itself with the creature he cradled in his arms.
“He sees what you see, Councillor—but his grasp and his reach are different. You know that he must find Rymark first.”
“I did not,” Haval demurred.
“I do not believe you,” the fox replied, unoffended. “Jarven is less certain. I have set him a task that is close to The Terafin’s heart. He must find Rymark, and he must finish him. He will return to me with proof that the deed is done.”
“Jewel would not countenance this.” Haval’s voice was flat and quiet; it was very much like walls.
“Yes, Councillor, she would. Do you doubt us? Do you doubt what we perceive? Here, we feel her rage, her fury. We feel her fear. We feel her desire.”
Haval seemed singularly unimpressed. In truth, he was, and did not scruple to hide it, although he considered it prudent to soften its edges. “Eldest, you are immortal and eternal. You do not understand the slow walk of man from birth to death—but every step we take is on that road.
“When we begin, we are infants—but helpless. We cannot speak. We cannot eat; we drink, or we starve. We cannot think. But we can feel. The feelings come first.”
The fox glanced at Jarven. Jarven’s expression was uncharacteristically sober—which meant nothing or should have meant nothing. He was the master of artifice. But so, too, was Haval Arwood.
“When we can walk, we are still too small and weak to even open doors on our own. We struggle to master language; to speak at all. We learn to think, but it is slow.”
“Some do not bother,” Jarven added, sounding a trifle bored.
“We feel, even then.”
“And your point?”
“The march to adulthood, to power, to competence, is our ability to master those feelings, those emotions. They are part of us from birth—but if they master us, instead, we will hold power for a brief, brief time, if at all. Jewel has long loathed Rymark. She has long suspected his hand in the death of the woman who once ruled these lands. She has, as you rightly discern, been beyond simple anger.
“And yet she has not once had Rymark assassinated. She has the power and the tools at hand to do so, and she has had them for some time. Why do you think Rymark lives?”
“You do not think she would have him hunted down, then?” The fox sounded doubtful.
“I think she would surrender him to the Kings or the magi. She would withdraw his House Name. But even then, I am not certain she would send someone to kill him.”
“But you are not certain she would not.”
“Given the events at dinner, and the possession of Haerrad, no. I am less certain. But it is my belief she would surrender Rymark, and knowledge of him, to the Kings and Sigurne Mellifas first.”
Jarven cleared his throat. “This is all very well, Haval—but as you have aged, you have become almost determined to waste my time. What The Terafin wants is the safety of her House and her den. I have a particular fondness for one or two of the den myself, which signifies little. The House Council will see Rymark stripped of his name before the week is out.”
“If The Terafin is not present, the Council’s vote must be unanimous.”
“Indeed. But Haerrad is the driving force behind that vote. He is enraged, and the whole of his focus is turned toward this one thing: Rymark. The demons are almost a secondary concern. Rymark will no longer be ATerafin by the week’s end. Do you doubt me? Who would you expect to vote against? Abstentions will, by Council rule, not affect the outcome of that vote—unless the abstentions outnumber the actual votes cast.
“Can the House afford to devote the financial resources to such a hunt in the current climate? The Merchants’ Guild is sewn together by very fine, very delicate threads—it could disintegrate at a moment. There are shortages of everything—food being the primary concern—and scarcity has caused an unfortunate rise in prices. There is panic, Haval. There is fear. A man of Haerrad’s temperament is accustomed to fear, and the fearful; his attention at this time could be more effectively—and more constructively—spent.”
“You almost move me with your reasoning,” Haval said.
“And instead I have made you unduly suspicious.”
“Yes, actually.”
“You did not know me in my distant youth.”
“No, perhaps not; you did not know me in mine.”
“And a good thing, I think, in both cases; I am not certain we would be standing here now if we had. I have been tasked with Rymark’s death. It has been a long time since I have killed a man.”
“Or had a man killed?”
“Ah, that is different. I see you are determined to be tiresome.”
“It is a character failing. Very well.” He exhaled, losing inches and stiffness. The fox regarded them both with bright, inquisitive eyes. “My approval is not required—nor has it ever been, in your case. But for what it’s worth, I accede. Find Rymark. Test your wings. But, Jarven—you have work to do that is at least as valuable. If the merchants are hanging together in such a fragile condition, you have been the thread that binds them.”
“Oh, indeed. But I am a frail, tired old man, and the continuous burden of making my way to the Order of Knowledge—where all the primary meetings are currently being held at the largesse of Sigurne Mellifas—is too much for me. I have, therefore, found a reasonable replacement. I will find Rymark.”
“I ask only one small concession.”
“Yes?”
“Kill him cleanly.”
“Haval, that is dangerously sentimental, coming from you. Dead is, after all, dead.”
“Were he not ATerafin, it would be. There are things Jewel will accept—she is pragmatic, after all—and things she will not, not easily. As the entirety of the Isle is currently subject to her state of mind, it is unwise in the extreme to needlessly upset her.”
“And at need?”
Haval did not reply.
• • •
“I would like,” Andrei said, his expression so pinched and sour Hectore actually laughed, “to strangle Jarven and have done.” He had taken up his position by the table, and his expression was scaring away the rest of the inn’s servants.
“You must admit that he looks somewhat wan and fragile these days.” Hectore, his erstwhile master, was seated, of course. He had taken the opportunity to have a glass of wine; Andrei did not drink often, and almost never in Hectore’s presence.
“He looks wan and fragile while he’s cheating m
en out of their fortunes in the name of Terafin.”
“True, true. Come. You disliked—intensely, that I recall—leaving the governance of the guild in Jarven’s hands. The governance of the guild has now been placed in mine—I cannot see the cause for your concern.”
“You might recall the fate of the previous guildmaster?”
“Indeed,” Hectore replied, without blanching. “But I will not be guildmaster, any more than Jarven is. I will be a steadying hand.”
Andrei grimaced. “What does he gain from this?”
“Andrei, please. Jarven has been bored for the past two decades; I have only recently come to realize how much. He is not bored, now—and he is not looking at us. We are not his targets.”
“You know what he intends to do,” Andrei said.
“I do not know for certain; we have not discussed it. I have suspicions, yes—but where Jarven is concerned anyone sane and experienced has almost nothing but suspicion. Which, I suppose, would explain your current attitude.”
24th day of Morel, 428 A.A.
Order of Knowledge, Averalaan Aramarelas
Eva Juwal was a thundercloud.
Sigurne Mellifas was a delicate, tired old woman. A brief glance between them would not indicate any similarity of tone, of upbringing, of commonality.
“I would rather deal with that murderous, half-senile bastard—”
“Eva, please.”
“You know how I feel about Hectore of Araven.”
“I do now.” Sigurne drew her robes more tightly across her shoulders, as if to imply chill. It was unseasonably cold, but winter was past. And even were it not, she no longer felt the cold’s bite. “I would have this conversation, and at length, were the Merchants’ Guild not expected within the hour.”
“I know when they’re expected,” Eva snapped. “Merchant, remember?”
“Ah, yes.”
Eva’s eyes narrowed, shifting the shape of her facial scars. “Sigurne, what game?”
“No game,” Sigurne replied. “Or rather, no game of mine. The Kings are concerned. The destruction of the guildhall—and, more relevant, the men and women who died there—has caused instability at a time when the city cannot afford it. Hectore is universally—almost universally—well-regarded. Given some of the company you keep—”
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