“I’m sure it will,” was Carver’s stiff reply. He dragged himself, with Ellerson’s help, halfway up the nave before his knees buckled. Ellerson took on more of his weight, which did not seem to help. In the end, the domicis chose to forgo Carver’s dignity entirely; he bent and slung Carver over his back, rising until Carver’s feet were no longer in contact with the stone of the floor.
Carver did not seem heavier to him. Even had he, Carver was one of the burdens he had chosen—with pride—to bear. He was afraid now. The domicis contract was a life contract, but Ellerson fully expected—had fully expected—that the den would outlive him. While he could, he would bear this burden. If he could, he would never set it down.
When he was three quarters of the way to the altar, the door shattered.
• • •
Anakton shrieked, a wordless high sound that embodied both distress and shock. Ellerson turned then. He whispered an apology to Carver and bending knees, set him down; he then stepped over him and stood his ground. He was not talent-born. He had, in his youth, been trained to more martial arts, but it had been years since he had engaged in physical combat. He had no weapons of note available. Regardless, he would not move.
Wind rushed in, Winter wind; the light that illuminated the intricate stained glass was guttered in an instant. The demon—for it could be nothing else—was all of shadow, but the shadow had form and texture; it implied velvet. It implied death. He was almost the height of the arch as he stood, silent and still, looking down the nave.
Anakton’s screech became a growl. “Boy,” he said to the prone Carver, “You do not have time. Plant the tree, or you will die here.”
The demon smiled. Ellerson could feel the sudden shift in the contours of his profoundly disturbing face. He was not monstrous, then; he was compelling. Beautiful, if such a word could be used to describe the demonic. His wings reminded Ellerson of the windows, now absent sunlight; his form invoked the statues of the gods in Avantari. He bore a shield of fire, a sword of flame. Ellerson met his eyes and could not look away.
He heard Anakton chittering at a great remove as Darranatos began to walk down the nave.
• • •
Carver could feel the demon’s steps reverberate; it was almost as if the stone floor itself was attempting to avoid the creature’s feet. He turned his head, with effort, to see what Ellerson saw: the red sword, the red shield, and the ghost that wielded it. He saw no beauty there; he saw death.
He reached out for Ellerson’s leg. The domicis stirred, shook himself, and looked down. “Run,” Carver whispered.
Ellerson smiled. “Soon.” It sounded like never.
Anakton was making a sound that resembled language but didn’t make sense; Carver could hear the fear in his voice, so unlike Ellerson’s. But in the absence of words, he thought he understood what Anakton was trying to say.
“He wants you to plant us,” Stacy told him, for Stacy, like the demon, was present: the ghost of a child, her dark eyes unblinking and serious. Beside her was a much older man, with scars across his left cheek and forehead. He frowned down at Carver; Stacy didn’t seem to notice that Carver lay prone across the ground.
“What are you doing?” the man snapped. “Get up.”
Without thought, Carver struggled to obey. “I don’t know how she can carry this,” he finally said, on his knees now, levered there by shaking arms.
“She is not what you are, and we are not—to her—what we are to you, now. What do you intend, boy?”
He was heartily sick of being called boy, but now was not the time to complain. “If I plant this leaf,” he whispered, “will he be safe?”
“He?”
“Ellerson. Our domicis.”
The man seemed to consider the question, as if it could be made to make sense. He finally shook his head. “Yes.” It sounded like no.
Carver’s hand trembled. He reached for the leaf, struggling to gain his footing as he did.
Ellerson moved for the first time, shifting position; as if the demon approaching them both did not exist, he offered Carver a hand.
Anakton was practically screaming, but again, his voice was absent the actual syllables that might have made language of the sound. But when he saw the leaf in Carver’s hand, he stilled, his eyes widening at first, and then narrowing.
Carver looked at Stacy, not the vastly more intimidating old man at her side. That man was a soldier. He was like a House Guard—trained to fight, and accepting, at base, that that fight might cost his life. Carver had no idea what Stacy might become in the future; he had no idea what her adult life might make of her.
But she needed a chance to have that adult life to make any choices. His hand trembled as he rose. The weight of the leaf lessened, now that it was in his hand.
“Stacy, what will happen to you if I plant this?”
Stacy glanced at the old man. She didn’t answer.
“What will happen to you if Jay plants it?”
She smiled then. It was not a happy smile.
The old man said, “What happens to us is irrelevant. It will happen, regardless. Look, boy, I was a soldier. I obeyed commands to the best of my ability. But I served the Kings’ armies, not some random street gang; I was a soldier, not a criminal. Do you understand what the difference is?”
Carver waited, not sparing a thought, because at different points in his life, he hadn’t been certain there was a difference.
“The Kings protect the Empire. They protect our homelands. Their orders are meant to do that, at a remove. I am an agent of the King while I wear the colors. If I die—and I haven’t, yet—I die in service to things I believe in. We don’t think about them, much. Sometimes officers are idiots. Sometimes we’re busy trying to survive their interpretation of the orders they receive. Sometimes we look as far as the men and women standing on the front lines beside us, and we think of their survival, and our own, because they’re almost the same.
“But we’re there for a reason. And when we cross the Bridge, we know what it was. Death isn’t the desire, and it isn’t guaranteed—but we deal in death, and it’s one outcome.”
“I said you didn’t want to talk to him,” Stacy muttered, her voice clear.
Darranatos had not yet reached him, and Carver noted that Ellerson was the defensive front line. He wouldn’t last. Even armed, he wouldn’t last. The weapons of the House Guard couldn’t injure this demon, and weapons that could weren’t available.
“But you know what I speak of,” the old man continued, when Carver failed to speak. “Because your King is Jewel. Her war is your war, but you serve her. She will wander in Winter, and if she cannot return, Winter will never be broken. But Winter is the domain and preserve of the Lord of the Hells. It is the domain and preserve of the creature who threatens you now.
“What happens to us in time of war is irrelevant. As long as we do not fail in our charge, as long as we do not break, we have served our purpose, we have played our part. Do you understand?” The question was a bark of angry sound.
“Stacy’s too young to be a soldier.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“Yes.”
“Understand then, since you seem to be determined not to, that Stacy now lives on the battlefield. Every single person in the Empire does. How far that battlefield extends, and for how long, is in your hands now. But it shouldn’t have been.”
“You’re criticizing Jewel?”
“You’ve clearly never served under a green officer. What happens to us will happen. I believe that it is necessary. Stacy, tell him.”
Stacy looked up at Carver. “We know,” she told him gravely. “We knew on the day we awakened. We understood what the price would be, because we had to agree to pay it. I would have stayed,” she added, her voice becoming softer. “I would have stayed asleep. But my mother would be sad.”
“We don’t like it,” she continued, glancing at Darranatos. “But he could kill us all before we could truly w
ake, if he wanted.”
“Jay would never ask this of you.”
“No? But, Carver, she did.”
Not Jay, he thought, uneasily. Not Jay, but her forest. The ancient, wild forest that had come into being because of Jay; the ancient, wild beings who served her, following commands she never consciously issued. But they followed the commands she didn’t consciously give because they could hear things she didn’t say.
Shadow had said she would never have created this leaf—would never have allowed it to be created—had she understood what the creation itself would cost. Jay had always been good about paying for her own mistakes; she’d always been terrible at making others pay for them. Or at accepting the costs to others.
But she had sent Duster to die so that the rest of the den could make it out.
She had sent Duster to die, knowing Duster would try to take the demon down. Knowing, as well, that Duster couldn’t do it. Had she thought it through? No. Of course not.
And Duster hadn’t either.
Carver accepted it. He had had Duster’s back in all the fights the den was cornered into having—all except that one. Duster had faced a demon alone.
Ellerson was here. Jay hadn’t known, at the time, that the closet would devour them both; that they would be trapped in the Winter of a dreaming Sleeper.
She had left this leaf for him; she had placed it in his hand. She could know—without knowing—that it could save him. It could bring him home. Ah, no, not it. They. If she’d made this leaf, if she’d done something to bind the trapped dreamers, without understanding the need for their sacrifice—and he believed Shadow’s assessment though he felt no disgust or contempt for it—it wasn’t a stretch to believe that she’d unconsciously left him the way out she had, almost weeping, told him she could not make for him.
Because the cost was everyone else.
Same as Duster, really.
Carver had one regret—different from grief and sorrow and loss—about Duster’s passing. He’d had her back, until he hadn’t. He didn’t believe that having her back would have changed the outcome for Duster: they were not, even together, a match for a demon. Not then. Not now.
“We can’t give you much more time,” Stacy told him.
He nodded, only half listening.
Ellerson was here. The leaf was here. Carver wondered if that was coincidence. He believed in coincidence—or he had. But what Jay was becoming was different. Other. She’d gone to the Oracle in the hope that she could control the power she had; that much, he understood.
But . . . she was, in some measure, in control of it now. The leaf trembled because he did.
He believed, in that moment, that he could plant this leaf, just as Jay had planted a forest of silver, of gold, of diamond. He believed that if he did, he could go home and take Ellerson with him.
He believed, finally, that what Jay had told him, with words, was also true. She couldn’t come for him. Couldn’t save him. Because the balance of the rest of the city was now in her hands and she could not choose one person—no matter how loved, how important he was—over those many, many lives.
Because this was what she had to bear, as leader.
She had sent Duster; she had not sent Carver.
Anakton roared, but his voice, in the small form, was not nearly as impressive.
“No,” he said quietly—to Stacy, not the old man. “No, I’m not going to plant the leaf here.”
“You might as well,” Stacy told him. “It’s not like you can just return it to her, after all. She could come to you, if she knew she had to—but you can’t just fall asleep and walk to where she is the same way. If we’re going to be lost anyway—”
Carver shook his head.
Standing in the frame that had held the shattered door, shadowed and silent, stood someone in midnight-blue robes. Even in the darkness, he could see their color.
“You won’t,” he said softly. “Not here.” Hand trembling, he lowered the leaf; it rested by his side as Evayne looked down the nave and met his eyes.
• • •
The demon turned, sword in hand, as if Evayne was the only person beneath these vaulted ceilings. She pulled back her hood, and even at this distance, her violet eyes were flashing. She had swallowed a storm—a dark one—and lightning now struggled to surface, to escape.
“You make far too much noise, Darranatos,” she said, as her robes billowed and furled around her legs. “He will hear you, and he will know. He will wake, and that is not what your Lord desires.”
“What of it? These lands were once my lands.”
“Before your fall, yes. But the earth will have the living as its Lord, and you are no longer counted among that number.” Her voice was cool, dispassionate. “He has been Lord of these lands for far longer than you once were. It is not time yet.”
“I do not care if he wakes.”
“No? Ah, no. Can it be that you wish to see him, before the end? Can it be that you came here at your Lord’s command, but you linger because you truly wish him to wake?”
Darranatos was silent, utterly silent.
“He will not wake, not yet. Soon,” she added, her voice so neutral she might have been Haval. “I tell you now that it is not yet time; nothing you can do here will wake him while I stand upon this ground. You stand in my path, and I have business to which I must attend.”
“Then walk through me, little seer.”
“The earth is awake,” she replied. “And you are not its lord. Here, now, I can.” And speaking thus, she began to walk toward Darranatos, who waited.
• • •
“Come,” Anakton whispered. “Come away. She is not a match for him.”
Carver shook his head, in part to clear it. And in part because he understood that she never arrived anywhere without a part to play. Perhaps the demon’s destruction was in her hands.
Fire flew from the demon’s hand—but it flew backward, as if Evayne’s cool reminder had had some necessary effect.
Carver flinched; he didn’t run. He understood at least that much about wild, sentient fire; it traveled its own path, and it would find him, because it was aimed at him. He held his breath, waiting for Evayne’s response. It was not, however, Evayne who responded. Nor was it Ellerson or Anakton.
The floor did, tilting up, stone bursting through the brilliant mosaic of worked floor. That stone was a fist with many more fingers than the usual five, and it caught the fire in a crushing, rumbling grasp.
“Hurry, hurry!” Anakton shouted. “The stupid demon called fire here, and the earth is going to be angry.”
“The earth is already angry,” Carver countered, although he did turn his back on the demon and the seer, following Anakton as he scurried across level floor that was not likely to remain flat. Leaf in hand, he could—the weight of the trapped did not descend upon him in the same way.
But Stacy shook her head as if she could hear him. She now looked mutinous, which was not a good sign. Clearly, she was arguing with someone. Probably the old man. She no longer looked as glassy eyed, as deliberate; she no longer looked afraid—her fear hidden very well for a child of her age. She was annoyed.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. Compressed her lips. He half expected her hands to find her hips and rest there in outrage.
“She’ll be sad if you’re lost. She’ll be really, really sad. We could save you. And I like you. I think we should. But he says that’s not why she did this to us.” To us, he thought. “And I don’t think it matters. Not if she didn’t know. And if she did know that she could do this—she’d do it on purpose.”
Carver shook his head while Anakton cursed, or what probably passed for cursing to him.
“She wouldn’t.”
“She would. To save you—to save any of you—she would.”
“It’s not that simple for her.”
“Why not? I did this because I didn’t want my mother to die!”
He stopped.
“We had to choose. And we understood—while dreaming—what that choice was. Even if she’s forgotten. Even if she doesn’t want to know. We know.”
“It’s different,” Carver said.
“Yeah, that’s what he says. Why is it different to you?” Her tone implied that she might accept it, coming from Carver.
“Because you made the choice. It was given to you, and you made it. I have a choice here. But if that choice is to sacrifice you—and the other dreamers—it’s not the same as making a choice about my own life. If you asked me to dream with you, if I made the choice you did, it would be same. But asking me to—” He shook his head. “I’m not Jay. I don’t have to be Jay.”
“But she’ll be sad.”
“Yeah, love does that sometimes.” He smiled down at her.
“I don’t want that!”
“No—but there are a lot of good things to balance it out.”
“Not for her! And he doesn’t care.”
“I do,” Carver said quietly. “But it would make her even sadder if everyone else died.”
“You’re more important—”
“Am I more important than Finch? Am I more important than Teller?”
Stacy fell silent although she still looked mutinous. “You’re all important,” she finally conceded.
He could see a wall of fire rise in a wave, a tide; he could see parts of the ceiling collapse on it. He could feel the vibrations as the earth surrendered part of the cathedral it had—for no clear reason—built. And he could see, through the shimmering wave of remaining heat, the demon: it had taken to the air. The height of the ceilings allowed it.
Carver moved to stand on the side of the altar nearest the wall; at the height of the steps it gave him the best view of a fight he was both part of and incapable of joining.
“You could,” Stacy insisted.
Carver shook his head. “I think Evayne has come here so that I don’t have to.”
“Or she could die.”
He shook his head again. “If she was going to die, she could just take a step backward, and she’d probably be somewhere else.”
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