Jewel’s throat was dry. Her mouth was drier. She forced words to cohere from the chaos of thought, of fear. “It was Snow,” she whispered. She looked at Shadow.
Corallonne looked ahead, straight ahead, as if she could now see what had roared in such pain and fury.
“We must leave,” Shianne told Jewel. “We must leave immediately.”
Celleriant frowned. His sword did not waver, but he turned to look back at the woman to whom he had sworn his life.
Jewel nodded. Terrick and Angel were geared, although the larger man had dropped his pack at the first roar; his ax was in his hands. “Adam?”
The boy was staring at his hands; turning them over, and over again, as if looking for an injury he was certain he’d sustained.
“What did you do, you stupid, stupid boy?” Shadow demanded.
Adam ignored him; it wasn’t deliberate. He turned to Corallonne and said, voice shaky and slight, “What is the tangle?”
Corallonne did not reply for long enough that Jewel thought she wouldn’t. But she exhaled. “Shianne is correct. It is time to retreat. I do not know what your cats have done, but they have destabilized this region, and it is on the move.” She frowned at Adam. “Do you understand the endless?”
He blinked.
“No more do we, although we have more experience with it. The gods are not endless. The firstborn are not endless. We persist; if nothing kills us—and, Adam, even we can be killed—we endure. But we had a beginning. We are not endless; there was a start to us, a will to our creation.”
Adam nodded.
“The tangle is endless, as we understand it. It is not like us or like our parents—but we believe that our parents were born of it, indirectly. Have you spoken with your gods?”
Adam was silent.
Jewel said, “I have.”
“They are not the parents of my childhood, my youth. What knows life, knows change, even gods. Even firstborn. We do not change so readily, so easily, as mortals—and that, Terafin, is the gift of mortality. Some among your kin thought it a curse: the shortness of the span of years. But in that short span, you change, are changed, so easily. It has been conjectured that change is mortality.
“The gods changed slowly, as mountains change, or shorelines. They are their natures; to rise above them, to move the forces that they are in a different direction of their own choosing was never simple, and it is never complete. You speak of trust, you who are mortal, as if trust were simple.
“Our trust is different. We see what a thing is, and we understand how much its base nature controls it. We understand both the struggle and the intent; oftimes intent is not enough. The tangle is unlike the gods. It is unlike the wild gods. It exists and has existed since the time before the gods themselves saw this world and found it fair.”
“Why did you choose these lands as your home?”
Corallonne’s smile added years to her face. “Because the tangle is here, as you suspect. It is compelling to one of my kind; it exists as it exists, and it does not compromise. I have walked the tangle.”
Calliastra’s breath was sharp, singular; it was followed by no words.
“It is a force that exists without history; there are stories of the tangle that might be dream, and stories that might be nightmare. What it can, it devours.”
“And what it can’t?”
Her smile deepened. “It accepts. I have set rough boundaries around its edges—these are my lands, and I am capable of at least that. But, Jewel, it cannot be changed. It cannot be—as you must be considering—destroyed. It is, in its entirety, what it is. You might drain an ocean more readily than you can alter the tangle.
“But the tangle can alter you; the ocean can destroy you. A storm sings harmony to the ocean’s waves. Perhaps that is what I seek to do. But it is not mine. It is not owned. It cannot be.”
“You like it,” Calliastra said softly, “because it lacks ambition.”
“Say rather I like it because it is, in its entirety, what it is. What care does it have for respect? What care for rulership? What care for ownership? There is no contest, and no war to be fought that would change its essential nature—and it has been tried, many, many times.” She hesitated.
Jewel marked it.
“No, Adam,” Corallonne said, although the boy hadn’t spoken. “You feel—you felt—what it is. If it cannot be changed, it changes what it touches, where it can; that is the nature of the tangle. But the change is not predictable; it is wild and unknowable. Except,” she added softly, “perhaps by one such as you. Would you dare it?”
He was utterly silent. He glanced once at Jewel and then away, as if this was again wholly the business of Matriarchs.
“But if the tangle is unpredictable, there is a raw storm of power at its center. It was once called—and you will, I think, hear this again in time—the forge of the gods.”
She froze.
“Yes, Jewel. Yes, Terafin. I will not speak of what was forged there; it is known, in some fashion, to you and your kind.”
“A forge.” It was Terrick who spoke.
Corallonne raised brows, inviting him to continue.
“And what was created in that forge?”
She shook her head. “The tangle could not, cannot, be controlled; its will is its own, if will is even the word to describe it; do mountains have wills? Do oceans? Arguments were made, for and against, but in the end they were discarded because no interests—no singular interests—would rise to elide all others. And I remember that day. It echoes, even here.”
Adam said, “The sword. The sword of Moorel.”
Her brows rose, then, her expression darkening. Her face was forest night—a night that contained predators, broken sleep, nightmares.
A roar broke the silence, broke all conversation. Jewel thought all her hair that wasn’t pinned down would be standing on end if most of it weren’t covered.
“Snow?” she asked Kallandras.
He shook his head. “Night.”
Jewel met Adam’s eyes. To her surprise, he nodded, his expression grave and pale.
“We will leave you,” she said to Corallonne, “and approach the tangle.”
“You see its heart?”
“No. I don’t want to see any more of it. Nature, except where it would kill me, wasn’t inherently interesting to me. I want my cats.”
“Your cats?”
“My cats.”
Shadow hissed. He did not, however, interrupt.
“Sister,” Corallonne said to Calliastra, “come. Keep me company.”
Calliastra was staring, almost openmouthed, at Jewel. “They are ancients, they are eldest. If they cannot survive, what hope do you have?”
And Jewel said, “If they do not survive, we will not survive.” She hadn’t meant to speak the words, had meant to offer something more bland, more impersonal. But she welcomed the words that did come because they were viscerally true. She knew. The words did not frighten her; they did not terrify her; the truth was simply what it was.
“They cannot be killed!” Calliastra shouted. Her hands were fists, her skin both pale and flushed. She turned on Shadow. “Tell her!”
Shadow hissed at the child of gods. “I will bite you.”
Not here, Jewel thought, placing a very firm hand on the top of Shadow’s head. He flicked his wing and almost knocked her off her feet. Angel stepped in to steady her if it became necessary; it wasn’t. Barely.
“Do not go,” Calliastra said. It wasn’t a plea. It was, however, as close to a plea as Calliastra could ever come, and Jewel knew it was costly. “You do not need the stupid cats; they will never serve you.”
Jewel shook her head, offering a pained smile. “That’s not the way I work,” she said, voice low. “Most of my friends don’t serve me. You—you came to me as Duster, do you remember?”
Calliastra stiffened.
“Duster would have slit my throat if I’d ever implied that she served me. But she was my muscle. Sh
e was my heavy. She could only do one thing well—but she was willing to do it for me, and not to me. Not to any of mine.” That was an exaggeration, but the heart of it was true. It had always been a struggle, for Duster. She had done the work. She’d done it imperfectly, but she’d done what she could. “The cats are like Duster.”
Shadow hissed in outrage.
“They’re what they are. I’m surprised the tangle has any effect on them at all.” As the words left her lips, she froze, caught in the thought, in the oddness of it. She did not know the tangle, but she understood that this knowledge, like the certainty that had come in flashes that had guided her life, was the gift of talent, of birthright.
She turned, slowly, to Shadow, upon whose head her hand still rested.
“The Winter King said he made you, he created you.”
Calliastra rolled her eyes in open contempt. “He was always a vain fool of a man.”
“You knew him?”
“I had reason to interact with him when he was actually alive. And speaking of vain fools, where is your Winter King?”
Jewel turned to look. He had not entered the Oracle’s domain. He had not, she realized, entered Corallonne’s.
“Yes,” Corallonne said quietly. “He will not go where the White Lady will not go, unless you command it. You have not done so.”
“I’m not comfortable giving orders about trivial things.”
“And it is trivial, to be without the Winter King on this road?” Corallonne shook her head. “Mortals have always been strange to me; they are slight and perish so easily; they are driven by preference at the oddest of times.” Her expression shifted, her voice gained depth, edge, strength. “Call him, Terafin.”
“He can’t walk where the White Lady hasn’t walked.”
“Yes. I know. Call him.”
• • •
The Winter King came.
He came at her command, and when he approached, he lowered himself to the ground to allow her to mount. She bid him rise unburdened, and he did, but his eyes were almost black. You should not be here, he said.
You know where we are?
You should not be here. It is not safe for you. It was not safe for the Winter Queen the one time she was forced to traverse these lands. Do not trust the firstborn.
Corallonne.
Yes. To her, all corpses are fertilizer for her gardens, and her gardens are in constant need. Do you understand? She is not your friend. Jewel, you must away. This is not the place for you.
I’ll leave the minute I have my two wretched cats, and not before. Do you understand why the Winter King considered them his greatest creation?
He had been the Winter King, in his time; one in a long line to accept Ariane’s challenge, to love her, to possess her, and to fall at her hand.
No. The Winter Queen did not love the cats; they were little better than vermin to her.
You can walk this road.
I do not know.
You can walk any road that she has once walked.
Yes, Terafin. But I do not know if even I can walk where you desire to go. The land remembers Ariane, do you understand? The wilderness still echoes with her footsteps, where she but rode. I am of her. If she dies, I will die. While she lives, I will not.
You can’t be killed either?
No. I might lose this form. I might take a century to return to her. But in that century, no matter what I do, I will not escape her. There is no bridge to the beyond for one such as I. I do not know if I can carry you as I have carried you if you step on this road. I would not step on it, given any choice at all.
We have to.
Why? In all of history, there was only one who could walk into the tangle and emerge unchanged. Only one.
But you said Ariane did it.
I did not say she emerged unchanged.
What if your history is wrong?
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of others—
Are doomed to repeat them, yes. It had been one of her Oma’s favorite phrases. My cats are in there, and we need to find them.
You will not find them unchanged. What they have become, what they are becoming—you cannot hope to control them.
I don’t control them now, she snapped.
Corallonne watched, as if she could hear the unspoken conversation. And maybe she could. Or maybe the content was obvious enough that she could guess. It didn’t matter. “I will not accompany you further,” she said.
Jewel nodded.
“But know this: my lands know you. They know your companions. Should you traverse the tangle unchanged—should you survive—you will be welcome in them as honored guests.” She turned away then, without preamble or further leave-taking. The trees parted to allow her unimpeded passage.
All but one: the tree that had come from Jewel’s leaf—the leaf that had come from the Ellariannatte.
“Some of my distant kin once dipped roots into the tangle; the tangle was not confined, at that time, to one realm. It is the all-mother’s burden now; she cannot change it—and will not try—but she hems it in, she restrains it.”
“Could it be used?”
“No, Terafin. It is like, and unlike, the rest of the lands.”
“What happened to the distant kin who had their roots in the tangle?”
His smile was strange, brilliant and yet reserved. “They woke, Terafin.”
“Pardon?”
“They woke. They could see, they could feel, they could—with time and effort—communicate with the firstborn.”
“But that’s not bad—”
“No, perhaps not; it is not, we believe, what trees were meant to be when they were first created, first conceived.” He bent at the waist, but it was a cumbersome movement, where all other movements were supple and graceful. “We do not fear the tangle, but we are not like you. What point fear of something we cannot contain, cannot control? What point fear if we cannot change what moves toward us?” He rose. “I will remain planted in the realm to which you have carried me. But I can hear my brethren across the wilderness.”
“You’re speaking to the trees in my lands.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re here.”
“Yes?” He looked vaguely confused.
Celleriant’s lips were twitching although he retained his weapons. “She is mortal; she does not understand the nature of true forests, true wilderness.”
“Ah.”
“Never mind. Go, with my blessings. And know that if these lands prove inhospitable—”
“You will come for me?” He shook his head. “That is not the nature of gifts such as the one you have given. I am of your lands, but I am now Corallonne’s. Do not,” he added, his voice becoming lower but not in any way softer, “attempt to take from the firstborn that which you have surrendered. It will not end well.”
Jewel hadn’t intended that the Ellariannatte bloom; she hadn’t expected that what did grow from her leaf would be a person. A thinking being, something that had will, and desire, and thoughts of its own. She was not comfortable with it, either. Giving a plant away was one thing, but one didn’t give people as gifts. That was generally considered slavery, and it was illegal.
Even if it weren’t, it was hugely, personally distasteful.
She wanted assurances now to assuage what she recognized as the seeds of guilt. She wanted to be told that he would be safe and happy. She wanted to believe it. And she didn’t have time to be patted on the head by a child of the gods. Or anyone else, either.
What you meant to do doesn’t matter, her Oma said. What you did counts. What are you going to do about it now? And the answer was: nothing. There was nothing she could do about it now.
“You are thinking you will be more cautious in the giving of gifts in future,” Celleriant observed, which surprised her.
“Yes.”
“That is wise. You may perhaps survive to accrue some wisdom.”
“You’re not afraid of the tangle.”
/>
“Fear is irrelevant, Lord. Where you go, I will go. What you consider necessary is therefore necessary.”
“Angel—”
“Already had this conversation.”
“Fine. We’re moving out.”
• • •
Out was, for another ten yards, forest. Trees. The same undergrowth, the same oddly colored insects, the same fluting bird cries. Even the sound of a passing brook or stream remained unperturbed by anything but the roars of rage that broke the deceptive, steady noise of forest life.
And they weren’t cat roars. She’d heard the cats in all their various moods. She’d almost been killed by them—but that had happened in a dream, and the threat of it, the fear of it, remained in that dream. She both knew it had happened and could live as if it had not.
“Shadow, what are they saying?”
Shadow hissed.
Jewel exhaled. “What exactly did the Winter King do to you? Besides turn you into stone?”
“He liked cats,” Shadow said, as if this were proof of superiority on the part of the fallen king.
“So does Teller.”
The gray cat stepped on her foot. He seemed to be considering her question. “We are not stone now.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She blinked. He seemed to be asking that question as if it honestly puzzled him.
Have a care, Terafin, the Winter King said, just as Avandar said, be cautious.
Jewel stopped walking. Shadow was asking as if he didn’t understand it. They were already in the tangle. The trees, birds, and brook notwithstanding, the journey into the unknown had started. It didn’t affect Jewel in the way it seemed to be affecting Shadow; nor did Celleriant seem discomfited.
But Calliastra’s eyes had darkened—literally. And above the line of her perfectly straight shoulders, the hint of midnight wings cast shadows.
Jewel’s hand rested on Shadow’s head. She remembered the cats of stone, but they were distant, a dream. She knew cats of flesh—one gray, one black, one white. She could hear the echoes of their childish, constant complaints; could almost see the sum of the damage they had done to furniture and flooring on the center of her desk.
She could see Shadow’s eyes, in all their various states; she could see him as he walked by her side in dreams, usually calling her stupid, or some variant of that word.
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