It cut her hand. She bled.
But she’d bled before, and for lesser cause. Or maybe for the same cause. She glanced at Celleriant who was utterly still, utterly silent. Surrounded by his kin—his estranged kin—he said and did nothing that would harm the dignity of his master. No, she was perfectly capable of doing that on her own.
But the pain was bracing. The fall of blood seemed natural. As natural as it had when she had accepted Celleriant’s oath.
It was Shianne who spoke or started to speak; it was Celleriant who cut her off as if he, too, understood what Jewel intended—even if she had not, until that moment, intended anything.
Andrei could not pull away from Hectore. And if he could not, he could no longer pull away from Jewel. He wanted to. She saw that. And she saw the desire in multiple forms, because she could hear them all. But the one she clung to, in the end, was his concern. He was worried for her.
People, she thought, were like this in much smaller and much less visible ways. Had she loved Duster? Yes. Had she despised her? Yes. Had she been afraid of her? Yes. But, also, afraid for her. Had she wanted to strangle her? Yes, especially when she had gone after Lefty, the most vulnerable member of their den. Had she trusted Duster?
Yes.
Yes.
All of these things were true. Many of them were contradictory; she had always contained those contradictions, brokering a peace between them because they were all inside her, all part of her. They could change from moment to moment. They did.
Andrei’s contradictions were stronger; they were not contained within him. But . . . the metaphorical struggle was one she could, with effort, understand. Just as she could understand the choice he had made, somehow, with every internal voice so visceral, so real.
Corallonne spoke. Jewel recognized the voice of the firstborn because it contained the multitudinous plethora of voices; it was like—and entirely unlike—Andrei’s voice because Corallonne’s words were a concert of sound, each part a spoken harmony. Andrei’s were not. Could not be.
And yet he had struggled, she thought. He had struggled, he had chosen; he had fought the impulses that pulled him in different directions to remain by Hectore’s side. And she intended to help him remain there. She intended to honor that choice. All revulsion aside—and she felt it as sharply, she thought, as Calliastra, as Corallonne—she accepted that it was the struggle itself that defined Andrei. That possibly ennobled him.
“Terafin,” Andrei said, sounding strangled.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You are Andrei to me.”
“You have seen—”
“And heard, and—” she glanced at her palm, blood deepening the lifelines it contained, “and touched. You are Andrei. I have granted you free and unconditional passage through my lands. I cannot grant the same through the lands of any other.”
“I am not—”
“All one thing? No. But neither am I.” And as she said the words, the vision faded, taking sound and noise and ugly, continuous struggle just to exist with it. “I know what I want to be. And I know that I’ll never be it—not completely, not entirely. I struggle all the time. To do the right thing. Hells, to even know what the right thing is. And I don’t always get it right. Sometimes my anger gets the better of me. Sometimes my sorrow does. Sometimes it’s all I can do to put a foot forward, in any direction. I’m not—I know I’m not—facing what you face. But . . . I think I understand some small part of it.
“Hectore was Rath’s godfather. I would have him as kin and be proud to own him. I cannot take you from him—I would never try—but while you are with me, you will be like kin to me. Blood of my blood. And, Andrei? When Hectore passes, when he dies, I will still claim you as kin to me. As den, if that is your desire. If it is, come to me then.”
Andrei was silent. Utterly silent. All voices dimmed. Those that returned were a cacophony of sound; some derisive, some disgusted, and some desirous. And he fought. She saw that. He fought. He did not reply.
“Give me your word,” she said. “Give me your word that you will at least seek me before you make any other decisions.”
“I will not speak of Hectore’s death—”
“You will,” Hectore said quietly. “You will speak of it here, to this woman, at this time.”
“Hectore—” But Andrei fell silent. “I cannot swear a binding oath,” he said to Jewel.
“I don’t need it. Give me your word as Andrei.”
Andrei nodded. Hectore cleared his throat. Again. “. . . I give you my word. As Andrei.”
• • •
Jewel then looked across the forested clearing to Corallonne. “Yes,” she said. “I know what he is. Is this acceptable?”
Corallonne watched Jewel bleed; her face was waxen, pale. It was no longer, however, disapproving or judgmental. Jewel had always hated pity, but in this one instance, pity was a useful emotion for her cause, and she could live with it.
“You are unlike any Sen I have ever encountered,” the firstborn said quietly. “And perhaps, had they all been like you, the Cities of Man would never have fallen.”
“They couldn’t,” Jewel replied. “They couldn’t be like me. They lived in—in isolation. They lived inside their own fantasies, but those fantasies became reality, over and over again.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t want to,” she countered, thinking of The Terafin’s personal chambers, remade into a patch of wilderness that housed a growing library, replete with trees that sprouted shelves for branches and had roots that extended beyond sight. “I have help.” Saying this, she slowly lifted her hand; her palm was throbbing.
Corallonne then turned to Andrei, stiffening as she did. “Understand that any harm you do in my domain will be laid at the Sen’s feet. Any responsibility, any debt, will be hers to pay.”
Andrei nodded, but did not speak. Instead, he looked to Hectore. Hectore shrugged dismissively. His servant frowned. “There is blood on your shirt.” As if this was the most unacceptable thing that had happened today. Or possibly ever.
Hectore chuckled. “Yes, but this time it’s not mine.”
This soured the servant’s expression. Jewel laughed. She curled the cut hand into a loose fist.
Angel signed; she signed back. He couldn’t see what she had seen, and Jewel was profoundly grateful for it. “Do you have objections to any of my other companions?”
“Yes, as it happens.” Corallonne turned now to the lesser threat: the Wild Hunt.
To a man, they remained unarmed.
“Are you hers?” the firstborn demanded.
Silence. Jewel was profoundly sick of the question of ownership. And yet she considered Angel hers, Adam hers. The den. Terafin. But the Wild Hunt? No. She didn’t answer for them; she waited.
It was Shianne who said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “No.” It carried in the silence left by Corallonne’s question.
“Why are you here?”
“We have been commanded to the Sen’s service by our Lord.”
“Your Lord?”
“The Winter King, firstborn.”
“And you have not accepted their service?” she asked Jewel.
“I have,” Jewel said, picking up the reins she had dropped.
“Then, for the nonce, they are yours.”
Jewel did not say that the Winter King who had given the command was dead; there was no profit in it. But she knew that it was folly to lie to the firstborn in the lands that they had claimed; she didn’t know what the cost would be.
Jewel, Avandar and her own Winter King said in unison.
She squared her shoulders, lifting her chin while her hand continued to bleed. “They are mine,” Jewel said evenly, “for as long as the Winter King lives, and no longer.”
At that, Corallonne smiled for the first time, and the smile was a reminder of everything Jewel had lost: family, kin, home. And that, in turn, was a reminder of everything that she, almost empty-handed, had
built after that loss. While Avandar and the Winter King spoke in her ear, she felt herself relax.
“If I could,” Corallonne said gently, “I would open my lands to you and offer you a home.”
“I have a home.”
“I know, child. I know. I am sorry.” She turned again to the Wild Hunt. “You are my sister’s,” she said quietly. “No service into which you are pressed by my sister changes that fact. You will make no oaths of allegiance to any but the Winter Queen—but she is now trapped in the wilds of her Hidden Court. She might never emerge, and the night is falling; the only god she truly called enemy while he lived once again shadows the living world. Can you not feel his presence? Even here, in lands he has never walked, I feel it.
“I will not hold the Sen responsible for your actions or your decisions while you are here. You are not hers and cannot be hers. But these are my lands, and there is a cost to walking them, as there has always been. It is not to the Sen I will look should you cause damage here. It is to the White Lady, my sister. Your behavior here—all of it—reflects on your Lord.”
And that, Jewel thought with reluctant admiration, was how you threatened the Arianni. It was not a tactic she herself would have tried, although it had faint echoes of one of her Oma’s favorite phrases: Your mother would be ashamed of you if she could see you now.
The man who had spoken Shianne’s name bowed to Corallonne. “We understand.”
“I am not a mortal, to be content with the mere surface of words, the shape of obedience.
“The Sen is your hope,” Corallonne continued. “She is the only possible key to the White Lady’s freedom.” She turned, then, to Jewel. “The White Lady has taken the field against the Lord of the Hells before. She has held it. She is one of the few to do so and survive.” Jewel opened her mouth, and Corallonne smiled. “Yes, Terafin. The Cites of Man held fast against the god who approached their walls. But those cities fell, regardless, for mortality is not of one mind, one heart.”
“The Allasianni also exist,” Jewel said. She felt Avandar and the Winter King’s disapproval. And she saw, in the rigid stiffness of every single Arianni present, even Celleriant, anger, outrage.
Corallonne, however, nodded. “Things living know change, little Sen. Even the gods. But you are mortal, and your changes are greater, wilder, than ours. A word of advice, however. Should you succeed—and I have doubts, but no vision to ennoble them—do not ask my sister about the Lord of the Hells. Discuss strategies, discuss war, discuss pragmatic enmity. Ask about nothing else, or you will not survive.
“If you do not survive, I think very, very few of your kin will. Will you take one last meal with me?”
Jewel glanced at the Arianni and saw the No that was forming collectively behind closed lips. She then turned, not to Corallonne but to Andrei. “You came here to find me,” she said quietly.
He nodded.
“How do you intend to get back?”
“You are so certain that that is his intent?” Corallonne asked.
Jewel nodded. “For himself, these lands might hold bad memories, but they hold no threat. It is not the same for the man he has chosen to serve. To strand himself here, in our company, he would likewise need to strand Patris Araven.”
Andrei did not smile. He had slid, once again, into impenetrable servitude, and clearly intended to remain there. But he served Hectore, and Hectore frowned. “Andrei. She is The Terafin. Please.”
“I intended to leave the tangle,” he replied, “after we had made contact. I did not realize that one of the firstborn would be waiting for you.”
“The tangle she entered was in my lands,” Corallonne said, her voice noticeably chillier.
“We did not have time to have a strategic discussion,” Andrei replied, his tone neutral. “Had I known, I would not have dared the tangle at all.”
“Dared? It is your home.”
Jewel saw Hectore’s eyes narrow, and she stepped between Corallonne and Andrei. “His home,” she said quietly, “is my city.”
“That is unwise, but I will not belabor the obvious. You will vouchsafe his presence here, and I accept it—but understand that he alone can do more damage, cause more harm, than the Wild Hunt itself, of which you have only a handful.”
Hectore did not say a word.
Jarven, however, chuckled. He swept Corallonne a magnificent bow, and in that motion Jewel could see proof of all the changes wrought in him; it was the bow of a man in his absolute prime. No age marred it, no infirmity, no hesitation. Her brows rose, and she smiled, a hint of surprise in her expression.
“I see that you have met the eldest,” Corallonne said. “I believe I know which one. You are a bold man, and a fearless one, to accept what he has so clearly offered. The Terafin has claimed the lands in which he slept?”
“Indeed.”
She looked at Jewel once again. “Have a care, Jewel,” she said, voice softer and warmer. “Does this man claim to serve you?” The question was so carefully worded, Jewel offered the firstborn a rueful smile. Jarven did not serve anyone, not truly, and clearly Corallonne could discern this.
“I am of her house,” Jarven replied. “But as you must guess, I do not serve her the way the Wild Hunt serves their Lord. I am not, frankly, capable of it.”
“No. No more is the eldest.”
“We make alliances of necessity.”
“Even so,” the firstborn conceded, glancing at Andrei. “But you are far from his forest, and far from your Lord’s. Why did you come?”
He smiled; the smile was slight. “I was curious. I have heard very little about the tangle—but I have heard of it. And I wished to see if it could be traversed in an advantageous fashion.”
“How so?”
“I require entrance into a specific area in the Northern Wastes that has otherwise proven impenetrable.”
Jewel stiffened. So, too, did Corallonne.
“Having considered the experience, I do not believe such travel will suit my purpose.”
“And that purpose?”
“Ah. The eldest has set me a task. To graduate from his infernal lessons, I must pass it. Passing it, however, has proven a challenge.”
“And how do you intend to return?”
“Walk,” Jarven replied pleasantly. “The wilderness is not geography as mortals understand it, but it has laws and rules.”
“None of which you generally respect,” Jewel said before she could stop herself.
Jarven chuckled again. “I respect the power behind those laws. I respect the possible consequences. You are gathering forces for your own war, Terafin. I am gathering forces for mine. For the nonce it is one and the same; the Lord of the Hells is large enough that he can be enemy to all with no diminishment on the part of those who claim it.
“I will return to your forest. I will not, however, travel the paths you will now travel.” His eyes were bright, his smile unfettered. Jewel was suddenly certain it was genuine.
“He won’t be happy.”
“At a remove, that is not my concern. But he will accept it. I am beholden to him for the moment, but it is not—precisely—my obedience that he desires, and, frankly, obedience is not my besetting sin. I need knowledge, Jewel. I will not be able to stand against the servitors of the god we do not name without it. You’ve heard the old, trite phrase? Knowledge is power.”
She nodded, uneasy.
“It is true. For me, knowledge is power. And I have never been a man content to wield the lesser power.” She opened her mouth and he waved her to silence. “You are going to ask me why I am not Terafin. Or why I am not a hundred other things. The answer: it would bore me. You are a glorified babysitter, if history is to remember you with any kindness. So, too, the Kings. You are not free to do as you like. You are not free to choose your battles on a whim. You are not free to give in to your anger—and your anger, Terafin, is insignificant; it is a shallow puddle in comparison to my own.
“Not for me those things. Could I
take power? Yes. I could have taken Terafin in the last House War had that been my desire. But then I would have had to hold it, and it is not such a prize that I would willingly dedicate my life to it.”
Andrei now looked disgusted, which was comforting; it was his common expression where Jarven was concerned. Hectore, however, looked resigned. Jewel had never understood the relationship between these two men and thought at heart she was much more like Andrei than his master.
“Does any such prize exist?”
“I do not know. I have not found it yet. I have come by hard-won knowledge of myself, and I accept it: it is the hunt that motivates me. Not the kill, not the possession, but the hunt itself. It is illuminating, it demands all of my attention, all of my skill; it is intricate, like the steps of a very complicated dance. When that dance is performed to perfection—” He exhaled. “I am being extraordinarily sentimental at the moment. I will seek knowledge. I will seek power.
“And I will seek you, when I have achieved them. You are The Terafin, and I am ATerafin. I will make my report when I return.”
And just like that, he was gone.
• • •
Corallonne nodded, as if she—and she alone—had seen him leave. And she probably had. To Jewel, she now said, “You have not answered my question. You cannot return to the tangle that you left; it is not where or when it was. How, then, will you proceed?”
Adam touched her elbow. She glanced down at his hands, and he signed.
This was not what she wanted of Adam. This was not what she wanted for him. And it didn’t matter. What Adam could do, she could not. And what Adam could do was necessary.
How much would she sacrifice, in the end? How much would she demand of those who had chosen to serve her, to follow her?
Angel signed as well, but she ignored it. She could take no comfort from his unspoken words, because to her, Adam was a child. An Arkosan son, born of the open road and the desert skies. Loved, because it was safe to love him: he would never be Matriarch. He would never be the person who made the cold, hard decisions on who to sacrifice, and when. He would never become Yollana of the Havalla Voyani.
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