How odd.
Odd?
Your definition of strength does not usually agree with mine.
Do you know what happened here?
No. But I understand that, in the tangle, this is what happened. His history—his long history—of defiance began here. What I see in him now—what you force me to see—he cannot see in me. Nor should he.
“I am seer-born,” Jewel said quietly.
This did not seem to impress the Arianni Lord. He lifted his sword, and Shianne stepped between them; Celleriant had not moved. Not once. He held his sword, his shield; that much, she could see. That and the chain that adorned the back he had turned toward her, as part of his duty.
Shianne turned to Celleriant, and then away.
“Lord,” Celleriant said, his voice so soft she was surprised she could hear the word at all.
A cry broke from the rest of the Arianni, and Jewel understood. Celleriant was young, in the terms of the ancient world. But these men? They were not. And some of them had been alive when Shianne had walked the ancient world as a child of, sister to, the White Lady.
They spoke and spoke again; their words traveled, igniting a depth of feeling that must remain otherwise hidden in their service to the Winter King.
And Jewel understood then. They served the Winter King; they loved the White Lady. They could not forsake this man—and his commands—at their own whim, no matter how dire, how necessary, the act now seemed. Three of the ancient Princes of that vanished court lay in unending slumber, cast aside for that very crime.
She wondered, then, if they knew. She wondered at the chronology of the last Winter King. He was of the Cities of Man, and the Cities had existed in tandem with gods and ancient elemental wilderness. But he had resided in the heart of the hidden pathways.
“How long do you wish to rule?” she asked the Winter King.
“Eternally.”
“The world will exist in Winter.”
“Better Winter than death.” And she heard, as he spoke, other words. She understood that he longed for Summer, and that it would not come again while he lived, and this seemed strange to her, given the life he had led, the life he would lead.
“I have seen you,” Jewel finally said, “in vision. I did not come to seek you, but I do not believe in coincidence.” This was a lie. Coincidence had troubled her life, much of it bad. She closed her eyes. Opened them again. At the edge of her vision in all directions, she saw glittering, icy blue. “I have need of your men.”
Whispers rose in the stillness and died just as quickly.
“They will not serve you.”
“Not without your direct command, no.”
“Not without hers.”
“I am willing to take that risk. They obey you. They must obey you.” This was a gamble, but she dredged out all of her merchanting experience to make it. “You desire my . . . cats.”
He hesitated, the first real hesitation. “I do not desire them more than I desire my life.”
“No. And perhaps you will not have the strength required to keep them.”
His eyes narrowed. He was not, more’s the pity, a fool; he understood that she had begun negotiations. She had, however, something he lacked, and moreover, something he wanted. It was a luxury, yes—but men had beggared themselves for luxuries before. And would continue to do so in future, if the future arrived for any of them. “The cats serve you, yes?”
“They serve me in a fashion. They are not, as you perceive, caged; they are not—”
“They are disrespectful, quareling, arrogant creatures,” Calliastra interjected. Attention had moved from her, shattered by conversations Jewel couldn’t even hear; the firstborn didn’t like it. “You would be well quit of them if you were to leave them here.”
Night hissed. Snow hissed. Shadow’s tail lashed out at the firstborn. He remained more-or-less silent.
Jewel automatically dropped a hand to the gray cat’s head and pressed down. He hissed. “They will not remain with you,” Jewel continued, as if there had been no interruption, “if you do not have the strength to bind them, the will to keep them.”
Shadow angled his head awkwardly, attempting to meet Jewel’s gaze. Or to catch it. “You are not stupid all of the time,” he said, as if this came as a great surprise.
Jewel grimaced. The Winter King, however, frowned.
“If this is your idea of strength, Sen, it is . . . lacking. No man or woman in my service would dare to speak with such obvious disrespect.”
“I am not Winter King,” Jewel replied. “But the cats exist, now, in the tangle.”
“And you found them here?”
“I? No. They found me. They found me the moment I claimed some small part of the high wilderness as my own.” She closed her eyes again. “I grew trees, there, of a moment. Trees of silver, of gold, of diamond. A tree of fire burns at the heart of my lands, and the trees, Ellariannatte, have begun to wake.”
“They cannot—it is Winter.”
“It is Winter in lands that are not mine,” she replied. She chose, as merchants do, to speak the truth, but to speak it at a slant.
“If you did not seek your companions, why are you in the tangle? You are Sen, if the gray cat did not lie; you have no need of them.”
She gazed long at the Arianni, who were now listening to every word she and the Winter King exchanged. “I had some need of them. I do not know what you know of the Sen; I do not know if the Sen are all of one thing, or all of another. Until I met you, I did not know what I sought.” And this was true, although it was also a lie. She had come—as he had come—seeking the cats. No, she thought, she had come seeking her cats. The cats of the Winter King were stone and silent unless he desired sound.
Shadow hissed, as if he could hear her.
“The Wild Hunt will serve me,” she continued, “if you command it. And that command will last until your death. Until the coming of Summer.”
“Summer will never come.” He spoke with a strange intensity; it was not arrogance, not confidence, and not—quite—desire.
“Then they will serve me.”
“And in return?”
“I will release the cats. If you can find them—if you are strong enough, clever enough—they will serve you. They will serve you in a fashion they have never, and will likely never, serve me. I cannot build cages.”
“You undervalue the Wild Hunt.”
“You undervalue the cats,” she countered. She drew breath, but before she could speak, she heard a familiar—and unwelcome—voice. Jarven ATerafin stepped onto the beach. He had always been there, but Jewel realized, from the reaction of both the Winter King and the Arianni, that he had remained unseen, undetected. He offered Jewel a deep, almost reverent bow, and when he rose from it, no hint of anything but respect touched his expression.
“Lord,” he said quietly, “if you will allow me to handle these negotiations? They have never been your interest, and they have never been your strength; your abilities and your power have always been necessary for far greater things.” He glanced at the cats as if they were a simple housekeeping chore, and Shadow—of course—bristled. He even waited for her nod before he turned from her to face the Winter King.
To Jewel’s surprise—and there had been far too many surprises in the recent past—the Winter King relaxed as he faced Jarven.
“You serve the Sen?”
“I bear her name,” Jarven replied. He had not said yes, which did not escape Jewel. It did not escape the Winter King.
“And that name?”
“ATerafin,” Jarven replied. “It is the only name of relevance.”
Jewel did not, instinctively, trust Jarven to negotiate anything of personal importance to her. But she felt a hand on her shoulder before she could speak, and although she did not look to see who the hand belonged to, knew anyway. Andrei.
“And you, namann? You also serve the Sen?”
“No. But we are allies, and we are friends.”
“Let Jarven do his work,” Andrei said softly. “You do not trust him, and that is both fair and wise. But he is the blade you must wield at negotiations such as these. I wish I had seen that more clearly sooner. There is a reason you brought him here.”
She had not brought him here, and Andrei knew it; nothing in his voice, which was pinched and slightly disapproving, as if this were merely a matter of conflicts among the Household Staff, gave this knowledge away.
The Winter King smiled. “If it is acceptable,” he said, to Jewel, “I will deal with your agent.”
Jewel nodded.
• • •
Jarven was a merchant at heart. Whatever else he had been, he was good at his job. The changes made in him—and they were neither insignificant nor irrelevant—had not robbed him of acumen. The skills that he had honed, sharpened, and used to disastrous effect for his opponents in his early years shone here. She could believe that he had faced death so often it was a matter of course; she could almost believe that he treated with immortals and ancient, wild beings on a daily basis.
He had never had Haerrad’s ego; he had always had ambition.
She was very surprised when he opened with praise of the cats and their abilities as guards. She had never discussed them with Jarven, and while she had not forbidden Finch from doing so, was almost appalled at the depth of his knowledge. He extolled their many, many virtues, but did so almost casually, which was, of course, a merchant’s trick.
And when the Winter King frowned, calling into question the value of simple guards—given that he was served by the Wild Hunt itself—Jarven nodded. “They are the equal of the Hunt here.” This predictably riled the Arianni, as it was no doubt intended to do.
“But they are problematic in other ways.”
“Ah, yes. The Sen has always liked cats; it is the reason for their appearance. They are not, otherwise, as they now appear. It takes power to hold them in this shape, at this size; it takes power to confine them at all. But no power, I have been told, can confine a cat unless one does not care about the cat’s survival. I myself have never understood the appeal.” He waited a beat.
The Winter King’s gaze remained narrowed.
“They are wild,” Jarven continued. “They will always be wild.”
“They would not be so with a true Lord.”
Ah.
“No? But they are hers, regardless. If she desired what you desire, perhaps they would be different—but they would not be as compelling to you.” Jarven stopped speaking for long enough that Jewel thought he had finished; she opened her mouth and shut it as his words once again resumed. “But they serve a different function. You will have noted, no doubt, that the Sen is not like the Sen of the City you once ruled.”
“I have. But it was never wise to disturb the Sen; the Sen seldom disturbed the rule of my City, and never deliberately. For obvious reasons, the only Sen I have addressed has been the Sen of my City; I had assumed that all Sen were similar. You imply the cats are somehow responsible for this difference?”
“Yes. The gray cat walks in dream.”
Silence. “He walks in the dreams of the Sen?”
“Yes. He walks where the Wild Hunt cannot walk. And he guards what the Wild Hunt cannot guard.”
Jewel’s jaw would have fallen had her mouth been open.
You are surprised. Did you think your mistrust of Jarven was baseless?
Does the Winter King dream the way the Sen did?
I did not. But we were not all of one thing, just as the Sen were not and clearly are not. In broad strokes, yes—but not in specificities. This Winter King spoke of a dream that led him here. And you spoke of a dream in which you met him. Tell me, Jewel, did you not bring leaves from that dream?
He knew the answer.
• • •
“Yes,” the Winter King said. “I will take them.”
“I cannot simply hand them over,” Jewel said, before Jarven could speak. This time, Andrei’s hand did not tighten.
“Loose them, then; I see them, and I know them. Only loose them, and I will find them, no matter where in the tangle they choose to hide. The Hunt that serves me, I will command to your service, and they will serve you while my Winter reigns.” He spoke without doubt.
“That would leave you without your guard.”
His eyes were flashing, almost literally; there was a hunger in his face that she saw seldom, a desire that was so focused it seemed all-encompassing. She thought, again, of Jarven—a man who affected boredom and the infirmities of age entirely for his own amusement—and shook her head. Would she trust this Winter King? No. She might mimic trust if her life depended on it.
But she would never trust her own Winter King were it not for the geas Ariane had laid upon him, either. She felt his vague, unvoiced approval at the thought, and shook her head.
Shadow hissed. He was unpleased to have lost even a fraction of her attention, which was normal.
Snow said, “I’m bored. Even here she is boring.”
Night added, “Booooooooored.”
The Winter King watched them with an expression that was sharpening, hardening; his grin was almost feral. She felt a visceral desire to call it off, to tell him no. Half of her time with the cats involved fantasies of somehow strangling them. But they were den. She did not want to hand them over to this man.
Shadow hissed. In a low, low voice the word stupid repeated itself often enough it seemed a continuous echo. This, too, the Winter King heard.
“You must care a great deal for cats,” the monarch observed, as if from a lofty height.
“Only the ones that can’t be poisoned or easily killed,” she replied. Her hand was warm with the softness and heat of living fur. “It is true. The gray cat guards my dreams. When the dreams are a threat to me, when they present a danger that I cannot clearly see while dreaming, he reminds me of what I am.” She inhaled, exhaled, lifting her chin, letting her shoulders slide fully down her back. “I have need of the Hunt, now.”
“Do you?” He turned to one of the Arianni then and spoke. Jewel did not understand a word he said. Celleriant, clearly, did. So, too, Shianne. They were white, almost breathless; they might have been clothed alabaster.
The Arianni thus addressed was silent a beat. Two. He then turned to his compatriots. He did not speak. Nor did they. But in their stretched, tense silence she felt the heat of urgency, of panic. Although no words were interchanged among the Arianni, some agreement was reached, some consensus developed. Or perhaps not.
Jewel wondered, not for the first time, how the Arianni had become Allasiani, and knew better than to ever ask.
Celleriant put up his sword. Or, rather, sheathed it. Jewel had never quite understood where the former phrase had come from, but she was not a swordsman, not trained in the weapon. He then turned to her. The tension that gilded the faces of the Winter King’s men was in him, bone-deep. “Lord,” he said, offering an exaggerated sweep of bow which he knew—had to know, by now—was both unnecessary and unwanted.
It is now neither, Avandar said sharply. The Winter King had words to add, but he allowed the domicis to speak them over the undercurrent of his frustration. Celleriant came to you at her command. These men will come to you at the command of the Winter King—and, Jewel, he is dead.
Not here. Not now.
There is no now in the tangle, as even you must understand. What he commands of them—and he has the right to command—they will offer. But what he said is true: they are his while he lives. And he is dead.
The Winter King had fallen silent, and Jewel turned to him. It was, however, to Avandar that she spoke. Is he? He understood the force of her argument; she didn’t even have to make it.
He is dead, the domicis repeated.
The Tor Amanion—
Mortals were not born of the wilderness except in a small, insignificant way. The Tor Amanion, as he styled himself in life, is dead. He cannot pass beyond. He cannot cross the bridge. He belongs to Ariane for as long as she desires to hold him here, but he is dead. The Winter King who cedes the Hunt to you is likewise dead. Unless you wish to spend the rest of your years in the tangle, when you return to the lands you have tamed, the Arianni will no longer be yours to command—if they ever were.
Ah. She said again, “We need them.” She turned to Shianne.
“They will not be yours,” the former Arianni said quietly, divining the only relevant question Jewel might ask. “They cannot be yours.” But she glanced, briefly, at Celleriant. So, too, did Jewel.
“He is young,” Shianne continued, when Celleriant did not speak. “The youngest of our kin, I think. The last of her fair Princes. What he offered you has not, in my experience, ever been offered. It was not, to his elder brothers, even conceivable.”
Silence. A beat. But silence would not serve here. “The Allasiani.”
Shianne’s expression did not cool but grew somber instead, and Jewel regretted the words.
“We are not—they are not—what you are. And what you are, little mortal, is chaos and change. You are not all of one thing, nor all of another; mortals are not predictable en masse, and only barely individually. Ariane was all of Ariane. She was—she is—the White Lady. Perhaps her descent into seasons changed her. Perhaps the losses she took in her war with the god we do not name changed her. I cannot say.
“But these are my kin, and I tell you again, they will never be yours. Not as Lord Celleriant is.”
“Will they serve until we reach the Hidden Court?”
“They will give up their lives and everything they might ever dream of becoming in a bid to reach it now. And if you are the only method, the only possibility, they will serve that cause with a devotion that eludes mortality. You can trust them to do that. But you cannot command them as the Winter King does.”
“Do you counsel against it, then?” Jewel asked, which was unkind; she knew the answer. But she was moved to see Shianne struggle to give it, and she lifted a hand, forestalling words. “They will live in my forest. There are powers in it that not even the Princes at their peak would dare to offend. The forest is mine.”
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