Teller signed. Finch did not respond. She knew—had always known—that their secret language was not secret, that it was not private. Haval could read it all. He could use it. That had never seemed like a weakness before this moment.
“He is Councillor, Finch,” the tree by her side said softly, as if only just aware that Finch might not know this.
“He is not part of the House Council.”
The tree laughed; the sound carried, as if it were the rustle of leaves in strong breeze. “No.”
“He is mortal.”
“Ah. I understand your confusion. Yes, he is mortal. But so, too, the Sen. He is canny, as mortals oft could be. You live short, short lives—but in them, your minds move so quickly, absorb so much. He is considered wise.”
“By the forest?”
“Yes.”
But Haval said, “By The Terafin. It was to advise her—advise only—that I joined her staff. She is Terafin, yes. But she has never given in to her fear where I am concerned. Or even where Jarven is concerned, although in that case, she has taken few pains to hide her mistrust.” He came to stand by Finch’s side, subtly displacing Teller, who stepped back without demur. “It is not yet done,” he continued, glancing at the trees who bore actual weapons. His gaze moved to the Chosen. “Every man and woman in this small cadre serves The Terafin.
“Some are bound by oath, simple mortal oath. It confounds the eldest, and even the older trees; they wish an oathbinding. Do you understand what that is?”
Finch did not reply.
Haval nodded, acknowledging the silence for what it was. “It is not—quite—enough.”
“Where is Meralonne?” she asked.
He smiled, as if in approval, and she curled her hands into fists by her sides. She knew this trick, had seen it used by Jarven so often. She had learned not to trust that smile. And yet, in some way, she still craved it.
“He will come,” Haval said.
“And that’s the reason you’ve armed the forest?”
“Ah, no. You mistake me. It is not Meralonne that we need fear—not yet, although I am told that the time is coming when we will bitterly regret the choices the Sen has made in this regard.”
“Haval, what are you doing?”
“I am building,” he replied. “It has been many, many years since I have done so. I do not know if I have the tools I require; however, I have always adapted the needs to the implements at hand. I have spent some time in conference with the elders who are rooted here.” He frowned. “Your hand is bleeding.”
“Yes.”
“You are not Jewel. You see more pragmatically than she does. You are, however, like her. Your loyalty cannot be bought, cannot be sold. Every creature in this forest is, at heart, like Duvari.”
She blinked.
“And every creature is likewise similar to Jarven.”
“Even you?”
He smiled. “Even me, Finch. Duvari will not, I think, be allowed entry into this forest without escort, but he is not necessary; Birgide is Warden. She is The Terafin’s law here, in the absence of The Terafin.”
“And Councillor?”
It was his turn not to answer. “Come. They will be here soon.”
• • •
Armed tree spirits—and unarmed—joined them. They looked to Haval, and although he did not speak, they acted on the slightest tilt of his chin. His gaze was alert; she was certain that he, like Jarven, missed nothing. And she wondered, again, where Jarven was.
Jay trusted Haval. Finch trusted him because Jay did. But Jay had always had a rule for den: the past didn’t matter. Only the present and what you intended to build going forward.
And that was folly of a different kind, she thought. It was a luxury that they had had because the den itself was composed of the poor, the under-aged, the under-educated: people who had no power.
Now? Jay was Terafin. If there was a more powerful House in the whole of the Empire, Finch didn’t know about it—and it was her business to know these things. Decisions made by The Terafin could move armies. People would live or die by her mistakes.
Haval, she thought. Haval Arwood. She needed to know who he had once been, and what he had once done. She might never share it with Jay, but the information was necessary.
He glanced at her, and she lifted a hand before he could speak in his mild, neutral voice. “Do not tell me that I am wasted where I am.”
“Ah. No, Finch, I do not believe you are, although perhaps I have said as much in the past. Where you were? Yes. Where you were was not a match for what you are. But where you are? You are not, and will not be, wasted. Jarven will miss you,” he added.
She frowned. “I have no intention of leaving the Merchant Authority.”
“No, you do not. And I pray—inasmuch as a man of my temperament does—that you have the option of remaining there. But you are now regent, and it is not only the Terafin merchants that are your concern. This forest—those trees—are wed to and rooted in Terafin itself. While you are regent, they are also your concern, your domain.
“She will confirm you in your position.”
“The House Council has, at Haerrad’s insistence, already done so.”
“Do not imagine, in the end, that it is the House Council whose decision now matters.”
“The House Council does matter.”
His smile was benign . . . and surprisingly annoying.
“What The Terafin has built, what The Terafin before her built, she values. The wilderness has not stained or lessened that value. It is of import to her. If what you say or imply is true, it will remain so. And I can oversee it. I intend to preserve it.”
He inclined his head. “You are Jarven’s student. I speak perhaps too freely. You will see, in the end, what is in front of you.”
She exhaled sharply. “Where is Jarven?”
“In the wilderness,” Haval replied. She realized that she had not expected an answer only when she was surprised at receiving one. “I believe he will return soon.”
She bowed her head for several beats. “Haval.”
“Regent.”
“What will Jarven be, to you? What will he be to Terafin?”
“Jarven.”
“You don’t like him.”
“No, if we’re being honest—and if you are Jarven’s, you will understand that no man of power is ever completely honest—I do not. He has always been frivolous, egotistical, competitive. What has saved him, time and again, is ferocious competence. Nothing he does can whittle away that particular truth.” The frown deepened. “I will not say he has not tried.”
“Then why Jarven?”
“Ah. I did not choose him, Finch. He was chosen—and possibly chosen for the selfsame reasons he held the position he did when we first met. But there is a use to restless, caged energy when it is coupled with the aforementioned competence.” He nodded, once again, at trees. Trees who bore spears that seemed to catch sunlight and contain it. They swept him magnificent bows—bows such as bark and trunk would never have allowed had they still been sleeping within them.
“You do not serve me,” he continued. “Nor should you, ever. The trees do not serve me.”
“They follow your orders.”
“No, Finch. They follow my advice. They understand that The Terafin values it highly, even when it causes her pain. In all ways, their view of me is informed by Jewel.” He gestured once, watching now. “The elders have explained, inasmuch as they can, what we will face in the very near future.
“There is some hope that we might save a large portion of the city—but without Jewel, the hope is scant in my opinion.”
“And Jarven?”
“He is the wild card. Ah.” He lifted his head. “She has returned.”
Shadow, silent until that point, hissed. Finch glanced at him; to her surprise, Ariel had caught one of his ears in her hand—the hand that had lost fingers on the night she had lost her family. She did not speak of it, ever, but Jay had.
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Without thought, she said, in Torra, “It hurts his ears when you do that.” Her voice was mild.
Ariel’s forehead creased at this obviously new to her information. She bent forward and whispered something into the ear that she still grasped.
Shadow said, “Yesssssssss.”
The girl let go. Still frowning, she looked at Finch, and then away. It was the most rebellion Finch had ever seen Ariel show.
The sound of rustling leaves stilled suddenly, as if the entirety of the forest were holding its collective breath.
The stillness was broken by the sound of a very familiar voice, speaking very familiar Torra. Jay was swearing.
• • •
Finch forgot herself. Teller, beside her, did the same. The strangeness of pastoral tree spirits bearing weapons of war fell away. The moment Jay’s voice could be heard, the forest was home. As much home as the manse. As much home as the dingy apartment in the twenty-fifth holding, or the shared space in the thirty-fifth had been. Finch lifted skirts to run in the direction of that voice, and Teller joined her.
She wasn’t surprised to see that Jester was already ahead of them; nor was she surprised to note that Haval remained where he was. The Chosen surged forward, but they had an excuse. They were there as escort to the right-kin and the regent, after all.
But they were there because they were Jay’s.
The trees understood this urgency, this inexplicable relief, this strangely sharp joy; they parted.
Adam knelt, his hands pressed flat into the ground; Jay stood over him, inches from his bent back, her expression forbidding. Adam was hers. Angel stood to one side of Jay, and the grim Northerner to the other. There were others, but that didn’t matter.
Jarven would be angry, she knew. There was no excuse—there was never an excuse—to be anything less than precisely, instantly observant. But here, for just this moment, nothing would—or could—harm them.
Jay looked up, eyes widening, lips turning up at the corners; the first thing she saw, or seemed to see, were her den-kin, rushing toward her, arms out. They met in a tangle that almost knocked her over and did unbalance poor Adam, who ended up at the bottom of the sprawl. Finch was in full Merchant Authority clothing, Teller dressed to entertain dignitaries of note—and it didn’t matter.
The captains of the Chosen kept the distance they had always kept; they saw nothing out of the ordinary. Even Jester chose to join them, at a remove. He had never been one for displays of obvious affection and probably never would be. But he joined Angel and lifted his hands in sign.
Angel signed back. Finch caught the dance of fingers forming a single word, a single name.
Carver.
She might have said more—would have said more—but the clearing had not yet finished filling. If Jay and Adam were back, if Terrick and Angel stood to either side of Jay, if Kallandras and Celleriant and Avandar, grim and unusually distant, stood a half circle back, they were not the only ones.
The pregnant woman who had stood only briefly in the forest during the night of the assassination attempt—on Finch, this time—was with them, which did not surprise Finch.
But the small army that materialized slowly at Jay’s back did. She thought, at first glance, that they were somehow echoes of Celleriant—but their style of armor was different, and something about them spoke of the very heart of Winter. She felt her arms go slack as she recovered the composure she never lost in the office.
Teller, less reserved, was slower to disengage, and even when he did, his hands were dancing.
Shadow roared, and Jay’s eyes widened. The great, gray cat padded toward her, foundling on his back, and then took a swipe at Jay’s thigh. He was irritated. She laughed, mostly because he hadn’t actually hit her hard enough to knock her over and reached out to catch his face in both of her hands.
He told her she was stupid, repeatedly. But even that was a comfort because it was so normal.
The men, however, were not.
And the woman who seemed to stand at their heart wasn’t either. Finch met her gaze and froze, her lips half open. There was a story here, and she was suddenly afraid to hear it, to be part of it. But fear was not her master, not her lord. If she had one, it was Jay.
Jay noted the direction of her gaze and nodded. “We’re back.”
“Have you . . .”
“Finished what I left to do?”
Finch nodded.
Jay’s chuckle was brief, brittle. “No. Not yet. But it appears I’m to be allowed to do some of it from home. I’m starving,” she added. “Can we talk about this over dinner?” She bent and offered Adam a hand, helping him to his feet. He brushed dried leaves and dirt from his pants, stood, and then smiled—at Ariel and Shadow. Jay gave him a tiny, almost invisible shove, and he joined the two: the gray cat who didn’t like him, and the child who only felt at home when he was present.
Ariel lifted her face and chattered in quiet, half audible Torra. He asked her if she had been eating. Finch let the rest fade as she turned once again to The Terafin.
• • •
Jewel felt home in the arms of her den-kin.
She felt home in the soles of her feet although her feet, booted, were not in contact with the actual soil of her forest. She felt warm, not hot; breeze moved the wretched tangle of her hair. Dressed as she had once dressed for caravan roads, she did not look, did not feel, Terafin.
She glanced, involuntarily, at her hands. She wore the ring Gilafas had made in a dream that was not a dream. She did not wear the Terafin signet. “I left it with the Oracle,” she said before Finch could ask. Finch, as regent, had the right.
She didn’t seem to care.
Jewel turned; Terrick was waiting for her command. So, too, Avandar. The den existed as part of her, but Calliastra was waiting as well.
“You look exhausted,” Finch said, the concern in her voice muted but clear.
Jewel nodded.
“Food?”
“We’ll eat here, for tonight.” Calliastra was here. And Jewel could not leave her in the West Wing now because she was not there. Not yet, and maybe not ever. “I’m too tired to change and look respectable for the rest of the House.”
Finch hesitated and then nodded.
“Tell me everything else that’s happened in the morning.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
5th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
THEY ATE BREAKFAST IN the West Wing.
Jay, dressed and bound in the fetters of clothing she almost detested, was nonetheless in better humor. She did not look markedly better rested. While the whole of the manse knew she had returned, she had made no official announcement; she did not wish to speak with the House Council or its many Councillors, with one exception. That exception, however, did not appear to be in the manse.
She was happy to see the Chosen; she was happy to see Haval. Haval was relaxed enough that he agreed to join the den for breakfast, which, if not a first, was rare. He seemed genuinely pleased to see her.
Finch wondered if he was. She was very surprised when Jay demanded, point-blank, “Has Jarven returned?”
Haval, however, might have been expecting the question. He said, “I expect him shortly. But Jarven—”
“Yes, I know. He does what he damn well pleases.”
“That’s not entirely fair,” Finch began. Jewel’s den-sign was abrupt to the point of rudeness, and one didn’t need to know den-sign to understand it. In spite of herself, Finch smiled. Jester, however, laughed out loud.
He had been the last to join them, hanging back on the inside edge of their circle—just enough that he was definitely part of them but not so close that he could be surrounded or overwhelmed. He had dark circles under both eyes which implied a serious lack of sleep or a serious abundance of alcohol. Knowing Jester, it might be both, but might just as easily be neither.
She signed only one word to him: wait.
He nodd
ed.
It had taken them some time to clear the forest, to find the manse proper; by the time they had, they had lost most of their gathering to the subtle barrier of the Ellariannatte. The men who looked like Celleriant chose to remain in that forest. The woman who looked like Celleriant—but obviously pregnant—chose to do the same. Adam didn’t approve, but he was clearly intimidated enough that he voiced only a minor protest.
Kallandras bowed to Jay. He spoke, but Finch couldn’t quite catch the words; Jay nodded. She then turned to Celleriant, a question in her eyes. Celleriant looked at his kinsmen, and Finch thought she would remember the momentarily desolate expression that crossed his perfect features for the rest of her life—no matter how long that life might be. But he did not speak—not to them, not to Jay.
It was Kallandras who drew him aside, Kallandras who led him away. It surprised her, but why should it? Kallandras was a Master Bard, and he was rumored to be indestructible. No mission upon which he was sent, no battlefield upon which he related perfect orders at the distant command of Kings, no political situation which might end with small armies and butchery, had ever managed to kill him.
And Celleriant prized power, prized the powerful.
She shook herself, waiting, as they were all waiting: Jay’s mortal kin.
• • •
Jay listened with ferocious interest when Teller brought up the question of the regency. Her hands were dancing, her expression alive, when he said that Haerrad had, as agreed, supported Finch as regent in Jay’s absence. She asked, pointedly, if there had been further assassination attempts.
Finch replied, as mildly as possible, that if there had been, they had been both unsuccessful and so subtle they had entirely escaped her notice. She added, before Jay could speak—and her mouth was open—that in Jarven’s considered opinion, there had been none.
Haval backed her up.
Gossip, such as it was, was exchanged, but no one asked her where her journey had taken her or what she had discovered.
Calliastra was introduced to the den. Calliastra reminded Finch of Kiriel, for no reason that she could put her finger on. But she knew, having known Jay for over half her life, who Calliastra reminded Jay of.
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