Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  But only the unlucky escaped it without knowing what Jewel knew now: friendship, trust, love. She frowned. “Arann?”

  He was staring straight ahead.

  The Winter King paused to wait for him, as if she needed an escort.

  You do.

  Not here, I don’t. Not now.

  You do not require it for reasons of safety, no. But you require it for other reasons. I did not meet your Terafin in any significant way; I saw her die. But having never met her, I can answer the question I now pose to you.

  Jewel bit back a weary sigh. The question?

  How often did you see her, within the manse that she ruled, unattended?

  Only a handful of times, and all of them had been within her private quarters. She could have numbered them for the Winter King’s benefit, but she got his point, and hers would have been petty or childish in response. “Arann?”

  “Jay—the trees.”

  Frowning, she looked at the trees. They were far fewer in number on the grounds than they had been on the path, they were a lot thinner and a lot shorter, and not a single one of them was silver, gold, or diamond; nor did there happen to be, oh, a burning one.

  “Not those trees, stuuuupid girl.”

  Chapter Ten

  SHE’D FORGOTTEN THE CATS. Probably because she’d been proven, time and again, to be optimistic or hopeful. Arann’s eyes widened, then; she understood why. Returning to the Terafin shrine had been a lot like waking from a dream—or a nightmare. Hearing the cats meant there was no waking.

  “We came to help you,” the white cat said, landing to one side of the Winter King, and accidentally knocking Arann almost off his feet. The cat whirled and hissed at Arann, who’d managed to keep his balance. “Clumsy. Watch where you’re going.”

  Please, please, please tell me that they’re not going to stay here, she said to the Winter King.

  He was silent.

  “I want that side,” the black cat said, landing pretty much on top of the white one. The gray cat, on the other hand, landed to the right of the stag.

  “Is it very boring here?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.

  “If we’re lucky, yes.”

  “Oh,” he said, practically rolling his eyes in disdain, “luck.”

  “What happened to the demon?”

  “He burned some fur,” the cat replied.

  Jewel was silent for a long moment. “What I meant was—”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. You have the wrong priorities.” The cat gave a huff of sound, very much like a long-suffering sigh. He lifted a paw and inspected it. “He left.”

  “And Lord Celleriant?”

  “What, the noisy, ugly Hunter?”

  “That’s not how he’s normally described, but yes, you know the one I mean.”

  “He’s still there. He’s hugging trees.” The cat snickered.

  The other two, however, were hissing and spitting, and their fur was quite a bit…fluffier. The white cat, much like the Winter King, was looking a little bit blackened and worse for wear; Jewel had no doubt the black cat had received his share of fire-scoring, but on his fur, in this light, it was harder to tell.

  “Look, guys—go home. I’ve got the most important funeral of my life in less than three days and—”

  “Is it yours?” the gray cat interrupted.

  “No. I’m not particularly going to care about being ready for my own funeral; my funeral will be someone else’s problem.”

  “Well,” the gray cat replied, “we’re hungry.”

  At this, the white and the black cats stopped in mid-scuffle. It was a scuffle that would make the gardeners rage had they the energy to expend on anything but the funeral grounds.

  Jewel had no idea what obviously magical cats ate—and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to ask. Can I get rid of them? she asked instead.

  Yes, I believe you could.

  Good. How?

  Destroy them.

  ...

  “Fine. We’re heading back to my home. It is not large, we have guests, and I will be in trouble for every piece of furniture you damage or destroy. There are mortals living in the manse. There are nothing but mortals living in the manse.”

  The gray cat cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the Winter King.

  How, exactly, do I destroy them?

  How, exactly, he replied, mimicking her, did you cause the forest to flourish?

  She didn’t know. “The mortals are not to be harmed in any way. In fact, it would be best if you didn’t speak to any of them at all.”

  “Can we play with them?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” She urged the Winter King forward, and Arann chose to walk beside the gray cat, rather than between the cat and Jewel. Her den-mate was staring at them, at their wings, and at their size in visible awe—but he still managed to snicker at their interaction. Jewel might have found it funny had she not felt so tired. Or sane.

  As the Winter King started to walk, however, the white cat and the black began to eye each other with growing antagonism.

  “Enough!” Jewel shouted, thinking with guilt of the raging, weeping Master Gardener. “You,” she said, pointing at the white cat, “will walk beside Arann. You,” she continued, to a gray cat that looked about to take offense, “will walk in front of the Winter King. You,” she told the black cat, “can stay where you are. Do you think you can get along for an hour or two?”

  “We’re hungry.”

  “You don’t get food until we get through the rest of this. Got it? I don’t get food either.”

  Where was she going to put them? Where were they going to stay? Could she even offend their dignity by asking if they were box trained? Never mind that, she thought, eyeing the white and the black balefully. “This is your idea of getting along?”

  They were trading insults.

  “There’s no blood,” the gray cat said, over one shoulder.

  “How exactly did the Winter King put up with the lot of you?”

  “He was lonely?” the white cat replied.

  The black cat purred. “The Winter Queen doesn’t like cats. And we don’t like the Winter Queen.”

  “So…he put up with you out of spite?”

  The black cat hissed. But he fell in to her right; the white cat remained by her side and between the Winter King and Arann. She didn’t particularly like the way the two were eyeing the backside of the gray.

  But she liked it less as they finally cleared the private path that led from the four shrines that quartered the most private part of the Terafin grounds because the cats suddenly stopped their hissing and whining—mostly about boredom—and straightened their shoulders as they walked. They were not small animals, if they could be called animals at all, and while their wings were now folded, they were folded somewhat higher on their backs than they had been. They looked dangerous when they were silent.

  And she remembered, then, that they had felled one of the Arianni without taking any injury themselves. They were her escort. Were it not for Arann, she wasn’t certain what she would have looked like: she rode the back of a silver stag, she was attended by three giant, winged cats, and she approached the group from the wrong direction, as if by magic.

  As if, she thought, grimacing. Say it: by magic. But she couldn’t.

  Avandar was there first, and if the shallow lights of the garden in evening obscured his expression, experience made it clear enough for Jewel. He was not happy. By his side, and approximately as happy were Torvan and the two Chosen. They did not seem to be surprised to see the newest members of her entourage. Then again, when on duty, surprise was not one of their facial expressions, and Torvan clearly considered this duty.

  But the grim, feral padding of the cats was leavened when the white one whispered, “There’s the ugly one. Can we play with him?”

  “Not now, and not without his permission.”

  The ugly one so spoken of raised one dark brow. Avandar looked even less amused.
“Where did you find these?” he asked in a tone of voice that implied their presence was somehow a deliberate choice on her part.

  “They came on their own. Hopefully they’ll leave that way as well.”

  The black cat hissed. “Leave? Leave? Ssstupid girl, don’t you know you need us?”

  The Chosen still failed to evince surprise. They did shift their grips on their swords, though.

  “She does not require servants—”

  The gray cat felt the need to hiss at this word.

  “—who undermine her dignity, and therefore cause those who must also serve to question her power or her authority.”

  Jewel wondered why the gray cat looked at its paws so often. The inspection, however, was brief; he casually strolled over to the other cats and swatted both of them on the backside, which caused hissing of a different—and much quieter—nature.

  “ATerafin, is this entirely wise?”

  She glanced at the cats. Since the answer was obvious, she shrugged; she didn’t want the cats to complain any more than they already had.

  “The magi?” she asked.

  “They are waiting. As is the regent, and if you must know, the Exalted of Cormaris and the Mother. It is just possible that the Exalted of Reymaris will have arrived by the time you return to the funeral site.”

  Her jaw must have weighed a ton, judging by the way it fell open. She struggled to close it. “But—”

  “Sigurne felt it necessary to summon them—and in haste. I do not believe their attendants are at all amused.”

  “But—but why?”

  “You will see, if you do not understand yet.” He bowed to her. When he rose, he walked to where the Winter King stood, and examined her. “You are…singed.”

  “Yes. There was a bit of fire on the road.”

  “Which road, ATerafin?”

  “You’d recognize it. We walked it most of the way out of the Stone Deepings.”

  His smile was a twilight smile; it was cold and dark. It suited his face, but at the same time, made it almost a stranger’s. “And the fire?”

  “Indirectly, the gift of someone who called himself Lord Ishavriel of the hand—or fist—of God. I’m sorry—I don’t remember his title.” She nudged the Winter King forward, and he began to walk.

  When the cats started to fuss about their position, she stopped him and turned on them. “Guys,” she said, her voice low and very, very even, “what-did-I-tell-you?”

  Their ears flattened. Well, white ears and black ones, at any rate; the gray seemed impervious.

  “But we’re bored.”

  Jewel swore that if she heard the word “bored” one more time, someone was going to suffer. Someone, she amended, other than her. Teller had always had a fondness for cats that Jewel had never fully understood. She wondered what he’d make of these ones, because they seemed very much like his cats, to her. “I mean it. We’re not going anywhere until you can behave.” She folded her arms across her chest, and the Winter King turned to look down on them.

  There was sulking. There were, however, no other outbursts. Not even when her domicis chose to insert himself between the white cat and the Winter King. “They are no longer stone,” he said quietly.

  “No. I have no idea why. I have no idea where they came from,” she added, trying not to sound defensive. “I wasn’t even thinking about them. At all.”

  “They have left the side of the Winter King; that much makes clear that Ariane found him.”

  “Yes, but there’s no Summer,” the black cat hissed. “The Hunters were all upset about it. So was the Winter Queen. She tried to kill us.” It hissed again; this one was laughter. “But the castle fell down, and we didn’t want to play with them anymore, so we came here.”

  Jewel, astride the Winter King, failed to respond, which was kindest, not that she thought the cats would actually notice. She moved through the garden at night, and as she did, she became aware of the changes in it. Even in the darkness.

  “Avandar—” She glanced down at him.

  He nodded, the strange smile still curving his lips.

  “The Master Gardener is going to string me up!”

  “Oh, I doubt that, ATerafin. The changes, after all, are in his garden, in his grounds, and they will be celebrated across the Empire. Once,” he added, “it is determined that they are not inimical in nature.”

  She was silent as the Winter King walked in his slow, exact way. “What did you see?” she finally asked.

  “I? I saw you touch the tree,” he replied. “And I saw you take one step onto the hidden path.”

  “But—”

  “I was not close enough to follow, and you were not kind enough to leave a trail. Had you been, on the other hand, you would have had the company of every mage on the grounds. You may yet have that, if Sigurne Mellifas cannot contain them.” He hesitated, and then added, “You are likely to have less welcome company, as well.”

  She grimaced. “Duvari?”

  “As you say.”

  “And the tree?”

  “The tree?”

  “The one I touched. The one that almost killed Celleriant.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Had Jewel been walking on her own two feet, she would have frozen in shock at the answer to the question she’d asked. As it was, the silence of shock didn’t result in lack of movement because the Winter King kept going, oblivious—probably deliberately—to her reaction.

  What had been an almost burnt-out husk hours—had it really been hours?—before was now a tree in its full glory, and it was a very familiar tree. Oh, it wasn’t silver or gold or diamond, and it certainly didn’t burn with leaves of flame, but she knew its shape and form much better.

  So did everyone present; who among them hadn’t wandered between the trunks of those great, famed trees that girded the Common? The magi were responsible for the festival of lights that occurred there, and the magi often paused at the heights of those trees, heights untouchable by anything save magic and wind.

  When the demons had attacked the Common, it wasn’t the architectural damage they’d done that had raised the most hue and cry; it was the damage they’d done to some of those trees.

  Here, now, in the center of the Terafin grounds, one of those trees was in bloom. In the winter. It was as tall, and as sound, as the trees in the Common—trees that existed nowhere else in the Empire, as far as Jewel knew. But now, one was here.

  The magi made room for her as she approached, and why wouldn’t they? She heard their whispers—if something that loud could be dignified with the word whisper—as she passed them by, accompanied by Arann, Avandar, and the cats. It was the cats that had grabbed their attention, and she was certain they knew it, but they didn’t stop to preen.

  She slid off the Winter King’s back as they reached the trunk of the tree; by silent assent, she was given leave to do that much. She touched its trunk, felt familiar bark beneath her hands—and more. She could swear the trunk was warm, as if it indeed had a heart of fire encased within it.

  “It is not the only one,” Avandar said quietly. “If you look, Jewel, you will see that there are several.”

  But she looked at this one, and understood. No trees of silver or gold or diamond could grow in this soil; no trees of flame and fire could take root here without destroying everything they touched. Hand against bark, she could see them anyway: the Winter Forest, the Winter trees. They also existed, and she could reach out and touch them if she chose.

  She didn’t. Instead, she bent and retrieved one fallen leaf, and thought of her Oma. She was still holding the leaf when she finally turned to face the crowd that had gathered—at a more respectful distance—from the tree. From her.

  The third of the Exalted had, as Avandar predicted, arrived. All of the Exalted stood to one side of the magi, watching her. They watched the cats as well, with some unease; they watched the Winter King. She was grateful that Celleriant had not yet decided to return.

  Reme
mbering her first meeting with the Exalted so many years ago, Jewel bowed very deeply. She didn’t prostrate herself; she knew it wasn’t required. But she held the bow that form did demand until she was told—by the Exalted of the Mother—to rise. It was always problematic when the Mother’s Daughters spoke, because their voices had some essential warmth that screamed home in a way that made Jewel want to drop to her knees and crouch by their sides. The Exalted was no exception, but at least tonight that warmth was somewhat stymied by a clear sense of unease.