Firstborn

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by Michelle West


  “An Artisan.”

  “I think so. I wasn’t there when it was made.”

  “Were you there, then, when it was remade?”

  Jewel exhaled. “Yes. I gave the maker the necklace that I wore.”

  Snow shrieked—it was hard to tell whether the sound was one of outrage or horror.

  “Did you not see this?” Adam asked the Oracle. It was a mild question that implied it could be ignored with ease.

  The Oracle smiled. “Yes. Yes and no. I see many things. I see everything that might happen. But I do not experience my visions as Jewel experiences her own. If time is not a yoke I bear, it is nonetheless relevant.

  “This? It was a glimmer of possibility. It was not something I could influence; it was not something I could bring, by planning and the careful deployment of those very few who serve my interests, into being.” She lifted a hand. “And perhaps this will be enough.”

  The butterfly left Jewel’s shoulder and fluttered in its winding, chaotic aerial dance toward that open palm. It rested there as the Oracle studied its closed wings.

  “He will know,” she told Jewel.

  “Who?”

  “The owner of the necklace. You have heard his sleeping voice if I am not mistaken. He will know.” She closed her eyes, her mouth; the lines of her face grew heavy with gravity. “It is too late. You gifted what you could not gift to a man who could not, at the time, understand the consequence of accepting it. But it is you who will pay the price of it, if a price is demanded.

  “Guard this butterfly.”

  “It’s not just a butterfly.”

  “No. But done is done, Terafin. I cannot change it, nor can you. You are not Evayne; she is god-born. You are Sen. Do not seek to be what she is; do not seek to do what she does. I had hoped—” She shook her head. “But so many hopes are ash and bitter daydream. You have bought—although you cannot realize the cost of it—time for yourself. Now you must spend it wisely.”

  The butterfly left her hand. Jewel could hear the echoes of a wordless tune as it once again landed on her shoulder.

  She turned to the gathered group, who had fallen silent—as they often did—in the Oracle’s presence. The exception, as always, was the cats.

  Kallandras was staring at the butterfly. Just . . . staring.

  “You can hear it,” Jewel said.

  “Can you not?”

  “Only if I listen very carefully—and the room isn’t full of bored cats.” She glared at the cats, which did nothing to decrease their volume.

  “What do you hear?”

  “Mostly? Singing. A young girl singing. Her voice isn’t particularly strong—but it’s happy. If that makes sense. I’m not even sure she’s aware that she’s humming.”

  Kallandras said nothing, and after another silent moment, Jewel lifted the butterfly very gingerly from her shoulder, carried it to the almost stricken bard, and set it on his.

  “Terafin—”

  “Jewel,” she said firmly. “I’m Jewel.”

  “I cannot—”

  “The butterfly doesn’t belong to me. It’s just another responsibility, another burden to shoulder.” She grinned briefly. “And I am choosing to share. It is vitally important to us—to all of us—that no harm come to that butterfly until we reach . . .” She stopped; the words died. She was no longer aware of what she had intended to say.

  “Can you protect it, Kallandras of Senniel?” the Oracle asked. “It is no small task she has set for you, and if you decline, she will accept it.”

  Kallandras nodded.

  Celleriant had, from the moment he had seen the ring on Jewel’s hand, been transfixed in his regard; the rest of the conversation had passed above or around him as if he were a standing rock at the center of a small, fast moving river. He blinked and glanced at the bard to whom he had always been unaccountably drawn.

  “It is no small charge, brother,” he said softly.

  “No,” Kallandras replied, “it is not. Can you hear it?”

  “I cannot. It does not speak to me. But it speaks to you, and passion is oft that way. If you will accept, I will aid you as I can.”

  Kallandras bowed to the Arianni Lord; it was not a formal bow, nor a stiff one, but it was not perfunctory, either. It said and implied many things to Jewel as she watched, but she couldn’t untangle them all, and after a moment, she gave up trying.

  To Celleriant, she said, “The ring was made to protect the Winter Queen’s gift.” She could think of it as hair, as strands of hair, but found it difficult to say it out loud—as if somehow something of the Winter Queen’s could never be so mundane, so simple. But Celleriant understood this far, far better than Jewel.

  “The protection was not required,” he replied. “And, Lord, that is not all that the ring does or will do.”

  “It is what I wanted,” she said—and knew, instantly, that it was true.

  “He has written her vow and her claim upon that band. He has written her declaration. Any who see it—any who can—will know that you belong to Ariane.”

  “The Winter King didn’t wear this ring.”

  “No. I do not explain well what requires no explanation to most of the immortals.” He turned to Shianne, who was staring at the ring, her mouth tight, her eyes narrowed. “Lady?”

  “Had you no part of the White Lady, the ring could not exist,” she said. Her voice was cold. It was ice. It had swallowed Winter and might never be free of it. “And the ring should not exist; it is a lie.”

  “It is a lie,” the Oracle said, “with a thread—a strong thread—of truth in it. The Terafin is mortal, and she is Sen, but it is not upon her own lands that she encountered the Winter Queen, and not upon her own lands that she was gifted three strands of the White Lady’s hair. You cannot know what the White Lady’s intent was although you might guess and guess well. Do not take offense in her stead, Shandalliaran.”

  “I take offense,” Shianne replied, “in my own.”

  “Jealousy and envy are not, in the end, offense.”

  Shianne swelled with rage.

  Celleriant, however, bowed to the Oracle. “We will take our leave, with your blessing.” He caught Jewel and Kallandras by the arm and almost marched them out of the room.

  “Why can she have fun when we can’t?” Night muttered. He stalked out of the room, followed by Snow, who bit his brother’s tail.

  “No one in that room is having fun,” Jewel told the cat. “Adam!”

  Adam had stepped between Shianne and the Oracle, his hands spread; Jewel could see his back, and some hint of his profile. Angel caught up with her before she could turn. Trust him, he signed.

  “He’s too young—”

  “When you were in a mood, we let Teller deal with you. He always could. When Duster was bad, we let Lander intervene. Trust him.” When she opened her mouth, he said, “He’s the age we were back then. He’s as much a child as we were. He’s chosen. He’s not a fool. And he’s damn hard to kill.”

  “He’s—”

  “Not as hard to kill as you, but short of removing his head by main force, his own talent won’t let him die.”

  Terrick’s ax was strapped across his back. He did not look as worried as Jewel felt; he looked both tired and strangely excited. “Listen to him,” he told Jewel almost impatiently. “The boy is her favorite. She will not harm him in her rage.”

  But Jewel had seen the Arianni in a rage. She tensed, briefly, and then nodded. She remembered being Adam’s age; she did not remember being young the way he seemed young to her now.

  She had dreamed of a world in which the young could be young, for just a little while longer. And why? What had youth ever gotten any of them?

  “She will not harm him,” Terrick repeated. “You shoulder burdens that would break the backs of many. Do not shoulder burdens which are not yours.”

  • • •

  When Jewel emerged from the mouth of a cave, the landscape was no longer white; the snowshoes which she
’d strapped to her feet with Terrick’s help no longer served a purpose. It was spring here.

  No, it was Summer.

  She felt a moment of lurching panic at the thought of the passage of time, because she knew what the cost of too late would be. But Avandar did not seem unduly disturbed. Terrick was bewildered, but his innate stoicism made his state of mind far less obvious. Angel began to remove layers of clothing, looking at the packs with some disgust; the morning’s work would have to be redone.

  “You are not late,” the Oracle told The Terafin. “You did not leave the way you entered. These lands are not the lands in which the ancient serpents live in their splendid, winter isolation.”

  “Whose lands are these?” Jewel asked.

  The Oracle’s smile was soft as she inclined her head. “You are learning, Terafin. Jewel. Can you not feel the answer? Can you not hear it?”

  Jewel shook her head almost impatiently. “I don’t ask questions if I already know the answer.”

  “There are some questions that cannot be answered by others,” the Oracle countered, “even if those others do have the answers.” She glanced at Adam, who stood to her left; he was between the Oracle and Shianne. Shianne was not happy—but the instant, almost boiling rage that had possessed her had subsided. Barely. “You could not walk this road if you had not walked your own.” Significantly, she glanced at the butterfly.

  “Who owned the necklace that was destroyed?”

  “Owned?” The Oracle shook her head. “I will not answer that question. Should you desire it, you might search yourself—but as you have come to understand, that way is fraught. It was not, as you must know, a simple necklace; it was not a thing of craft and mortal metal. If you knew how to listen, it told a story—and the story is simple and as old as the wild gods.

  “It fell into your hands. No one of my kin, ancient or young, would have dared to touch it or to wear it; you did. Do you believe in coincidence, Terafin?”

  Jewel nodded.

  “I am not certain I do. Be that as it may, the lands you walk now are claimed. There is some contest of that claim along its borders, where you now stand. For that reason, the lands are guarded. It would not surprise me if you meet some of those guardians as you travel.”

  Jewel wanted to ask her where they were meant to go, but she knew: to Averalaan. Home. They had done it once. She shoved hair out of her eyes and grimaced. Adam had done it once.

  “Matriarch?” Adam asked.

  She shook her head. To Shianne, she said, “Shall we call truce and have done? I did not know what the guildmaster would make of what I gave him, but I knew—as seer—that it was necessary, once he had finished. I make no claims, now or ever, upon the White Lady, and if it were not necessary, I would never have surrendered her gift to his keeping. We could not reach her any other way.” She spoke the words as if they were truth, as if they were certain. No visceral sense of rightness followed them.

  “Guildmaster?” The single word was cool, but the curiosity in it was real, felt.

  “It’s a mortal term,” Jewel replied. “Come. If you can stand to do so, walk with me and I will explain what it means.”

  • • •

  For three hours, Jewel did as she had offered to do. Side comments came from Terrick, who had dealt with the most fractious of merchants—and the most powerful, although they were not always the same—in his decades at the Port Authority wickets. Avandar added his own opinions as if the discussion bored him with its necessity.

  The cats, not to be left out, let Shianne know how incredibly stupid mortal hierarchies were. And how boring. But Shianne dropped a hand to Night’s head when he came into range and asked softly that she might be allowed to listen to the boring and the stupid; she had been asleep for so long the world had changed, and changed, and changed. It was, to her, a new world, a new age.

  “Sssssso whaaaat?” Shadow said. “It is boring. It is stupid.”

  “Eldest,” Shianne said, with mild reproof, “I do not know enough to judge it. Perhaps, if you will allow me that small amount of time, I will come to hold your opinion.”

  “Time? Time? You are mortal. You have no time. And you are wasting it.”

  “The Terafin is mortal.”

  “That is different. She is Sen.”

  Since Jewel had made clear that she did not understand the term, Shianne nodded. But the woman who had once been immortal Arianni clearly found Jewel’s ignorance as frustrating—in her graceful, elegant way—as the cats did. It might have ended badly, as Shadow at least was spoiling for a fight, had a new and familiar voice not stemmed the tide of their growing spat simply by existing.

  “Jewel.”

  Jewel smiled. She felt instantly wary, instantly on her guard—but the smile itself was both whole and genuine. “Calliastra.”

  • • •

  She did not come to Jewel as Duster, not this time. Nor did she adopt any of the other guises available to her—and Jewel guessed that they were many, like the clothing in a rich woman’s closets. She was pale, her skin a perfect color, her eyes an almost shocking cornflower blue. Her nails were long, and her dress, far too revealing—but they better suited the Summer skies than they had the Winter ones. She did not bow. She did not, as Jewel turned toward her, move at all.

  Her eyes were wide with consternation, and then, as seconds ticked, narrow with fury. That fury was turned almost in its entirety on the cats. “What have you done?”

  Shadow, who had been in the midst of his own private argument with Shianne, turned only his head to glare at the newcomer.

  “What have we done?” His wings rose, stiffening. His fur fell until he looked so sleek and deadly he was almost breathtaking. “We? Us?”

  Jewel placed a hand—quickly—on Shadow’s head. “They didn’t do anything.”

  “The consequences of the things they have done will be far larger than you can imagine.”

  “I’m seer-born,” Jewel replied. “I don’t need to rely on imagination for horror.”

  Silence. The comment was eventually rewarded with one of Calliastra’s languid smiles. “You seem to be well. I had wondered how your time in my sister’s domain would affect you.”

  “So had I. Still do.”

  “You will not find this road as contentious as the last you traveled—but it is not safe. The forests are waking to the sound of your . . . butterfly.” She hesitated and then added, “The ring you wear will be cause for much conversation. Can you not feel the curiosity?”

  “Curiosity is better than outrage.”

  “I am not so certain. Are there not mortals who satisfy their curiosity at dire expense to others?”

  “Yes. Thanks for that.” Jewel made space, and Calliastra slid into the position by her left; the right was occupied by bristling, gray cat. Angel drifted to the back of the group, where he walked beside Terrick in a companionable silence. This had been his way of dealing with Duster, in the long-ago past, as well.

  Adam did not appear to find Calliastra terrifying, but he had not found Shianne terrifying either. Shianne kept herself between Calliastra and Adam at all times. Calliastra chose to find this amusing; Jewel thought that took effort. And she was grateful that the effort had been, and was being, made.

  “He will be angry,” Calliastra said conversationally.

  “Who? Who exactly will be angry?”

  One perfect black brow rose, aimed in its entirety at Snow. “Have you still not told her?”

  It was Shadow who answered. “Why? She will just talk about it. And talk. And talk. And then he will hear.”

  “No one will tell me,” Jewel said quickly. “The Oracle wouldn’t. Shianne won’t. I believe Celleriant has some suspicions, but he keeps them to himself.”

  “Perhaps that is wise,” Calliastra replied. “Perhaps not. I considered it astonishing that your cats could be so bold as to steal from him—but if he slept so deeply that theft was possible, there was the chance—however slim—that the return of t
he item would allow its theft to go unremarked.

  “Now, however, there is nothing to return. The ring, he would destroy before wearing; I do not think he would condescend to retain it.”

  It was not the only thing that Jewel had carried from Fabril’s reach.

  “The butterfly, he would keep—but I think it too delicate to survive him long. Still, he would see its beauty; I myself have never seen a work so striking.”

  “It almost looks alive, doesn’t it?”

  Calliastra looked at Jewel, both brows lifting.

  Shadow hissed laughter.

  • • •

  Jewel didn’t ask Calliastra why she was waiting for them. Possibly because of that, no one else asked either. Although the Winter King and Avandar were willing to share their unspoken views—often at length—they understood that Jewel had accepted Calliastra. The only voluble complaints came from the cats—but the daughter of darkness had chosen to find the cats—or their opinions—entirely irrelevant, and as they spent most of their whining, long complaint accusing Jewel of stupidity in a screeching kind of harmony, she merely felt included. At least that was Jewel’s guess.

  Calliastra’s eye was drawn to two things when she was not moved to glare at the cats: Shianne and the butterfly. Since the butterfly sat on Kallandras’ shoulder, her gaze would shift to linger on the harder lines of his face. Twice in the long day’s march she drifted toward Kallandras.

  Shianne was content to allow this; she would not let Calliastra stand anywhere near Adam without interposing herself between them. Jewel was grateful. She knew that Shianne was protecting what she saw as her own best interests, but it didn’t matter. If Shianne kept watch, Adam was safe. He was one less thing to worry about—not that it stopped the worry.

  • • •

  “Where are we going?” Angel asked, and she blinked, shaking her head as if to clear it. They had shed winter clothing, adding bulk to packs that were not light to begin with; for obvious reasons, no one suggested abandoning that gear. Beneath the skies of this odd forest, it was summer, but summer in the wilderness could turn a corner into bitter cold without any of the usual warning signs.

 

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