Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  She jumped for the knotted rope as it swung above her upturned face. Wind blew it out of the grip of her trembling fingers. She cursed again—loudly, deliberately—all the while continuing to strain, arms uplifted; she could feel the fire at her back now, was aware that it was almost upon her.

  It hurt. She thought it burned, the pain was so sudden, so pitched—but she smelled no singed flesh, felt no spreading heat. Whenever she’d accidentally courted flame before, the first thing to curl and blacken had always been her hair. She caught the rope on its third pass. The rope wasn’t her problem now; it was her weight, her hands, the strength of her shaking arms; she struggled to pull herself up off the ground, hand over hand; she kicked her boots off and thought she heard a brief hiss and pop as they landed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “MOVE! MOVE!” SHE SHOUTED toward the floating vessel as she clung. She twisted the end of her rope around her foot, using the large terminating knot as an awkward step. Chancing one downward glance, she saw the fire; it had spread. Each of the wagons was burning in its wake, but the flame hadn’t yet managed to reduce them to ash; she was certain that had she been caught in its folds she wouldn’t have been as lucky.

  Her foot slipped; the rope itself was slippery with dry sand, dry dust. The wagon hadn’t budged an inch since she’d started to climb; it was as if she were ballast, anchor, something to hold it in place. The only solution that came to mind didn’t involve her survival. Her hands were slippery now; the fire was hotter, wider. It seemed to encompass more and more of the desert sand until all she could see were fields of orange, moving at the whim of different breezes.

  Her hands slid. Her foot slipped. She strained against gravity.

  “What are you doing, stupid girl?”

  She’d never been so happy to hear Shadow’s voice, and felt almost certain she would never be so happy again. She was certain she would open her eyes—now—and see his, golden and faintly luminescent, in the darkness of her own room. But as she turned in the direction of the voice itself, she discovered she was wrong. She was still clinging helplessly to a stretch of old rope, still attached, very tentatively, to the side of a wagon that wouldn’t, without magic and blood, be airborne at all, and still suspended above a fire whose voice nonetheless seemed chill and cold.

  Shadow’s ashgray wings were spread, tip to tip, almost motionless as he glided toward her. His ears were pointed up, toward the sun; his hackles had risen, his claws were extended. “Stupid, stupid girl!”

  “Can you get beneath me and catch me when I let go?”

  His familiar hiss was almost a comfort, as he tilted in air. His idea of remaining stationary wasn’t helpful, though, and in the end, when Jewel’s hands failed to obey her command to take the risk of missing his moving back, he snarled another few rounds of stupid, and flew up. She thought he might abandon her, but instead, he came in from above—and grabbed the back of her tunic in what she assumed was his jaws. She started to tell him she didn’t trust the strength of the cloth, but didn’t have the chance; he didn’t tell her to let go of the rope. Instead, he climbed, wings definitely flapping now as he gained height.

  What had been an insurmountable distance by length of rope was achieved by dint of annoyed cat. He set her down on the platform that fronted the wagon; she stood with her back flush against the nearest standing surface, and looked down, her hands still bone-white and stuck in a death grip around the rope itself.

  He didn’t join her, but flew in tight circles in the air above the front half of the wagon.

  “Will you stop calling me stupid?” she finally said, when her arms had stopped their uncontrollable shudder.

  “Maybe when you are less stupid. What are you doing here?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Why are you here? This is not a good place for you, stupid girl.”

  Her jaw slackened; she slammed it shut in a teeth-rattling way. “This may come as a surprise to you, but it’s a dream, Shadow. I don’t normally get to choose.”

  Shadow hissed. He landed to one side of her. His wings nearly knocked her off the flying wagon; she almost didn’t bother to get out of his way. If she fell, she’d wake up; she’d had that experience dozens of times, at a variety of ages. Age hadn’t improved it much. But dream or no, Jewel clung to survival; she always had. She thudded against the cabin as Shadow folded his wings, glaring at his back.

  “Stupid.”

  “You could at least use different words for variety’s sake.” She frowned as she looked at the minuscule deck beneath the cat’s paws—his claws were extended, and they weren’t a boon for the short wooden slats. This was, of course, a dream—and those slats now extended, turning the ungainly, rectangular body of a wagon with largely motionless wheels into something that might have graced a small ship.

  “Jewel,” Shadow finally said, his voice lowering into the beginning of a growl. “Where are we going?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because the wagon is moving.”

  “Shadow—it’s moving on its own. I’m not steering, you’ll notice.”

  “I noticed, yes. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Resisting the urge to throttle the cat—largely because she suspected her hands wouldn’t actually fit around his throat—she said, “I’m not the captain. It’s a dream. I have no idea where we’re flying; I only know it’s better than being reduced to ash.”

  “Is it?” he hissed.

  She looked. The sky had lost its startling clarity in the space of a few sharp words; it was darkening, and not in a way that implied night. “Tell me that’s not a storm.”

  He hissed again; water began to fall in large, cold splotches across the deck. Jewel turned instinctively for the door she knew was there; she found it, reached for it, and stopped before she touched its tarnished handle.

  Her hand was bleeding.

  Shadow’s hiss gave way to a far less comfortable rumbling growl, shorn of words, as her blood fell from her palm to the wooden flooring. She turned her hand over; it was pale, but uncut. Blood now fell from the back of her hand, instead. The skies darkened; the rain fell more heavily. Shadow’s fur flattened; so did Jewel’s hair. She turned toward the door again, and this time, the blood didn’t stop her from grabbing the handle.

  It was locked. Thunder suppressed most of the words that followed this discovery. The door was thick and solid; sun had bleached its timbers, although the falling rain darkened them now. She rattled the handle, and then gave up, banging on the door until Shadow almost knocked her over. She heard another iteration of stupid and girl as she struggled back to her feet.

  “It’s locked!”

  His eyes became as round as coins. “Then open it!”

  She remembered why she’d never been particularly fond of cats, even the small furry variety; if they could talk at all, she was certain they’d sound just like Shadow. The rain wouldn’t have been so bad if the water hadn’t been so damn cold. Her hand was still bleeding, but the moving stream of water that now traveled across boards and over the edge of the ungainly, flying wagon thinned its vivid red, washing it clean.

  Her hand was still uncut—it was a hell of a lot wetter, though.

  Shadow was now making the type of gurgling sound associated with unhappy, wet children. Although she suspected he lived to be annoying, this was the first time she had ever seen him look pathetic. “If you were stone,” she told him, between the lulls in the storm’s roar, “the water wouldn’t bother you.”

  He hissed. “If it were Winter, the water wouldn’t matter.” He roared back at the sky, and even bedraggled as he was, his voice was almost a match for the storm’s.

  Frowning as his words tickled something she couldn’t quite remember, she said, “It is winter.”

  His eyes grew round again, and this time, they shone.

  “Shadow—are we on the hidden path? Now?” She turned toward the closed door of the wagon, and wondered if she would meet the wagon’s Matriarc
h on the other side of it. There didn’t seem to be much way to find out.

  But staring, she remembered watching the Arkosan Matriarch painting symbols with her bowl of ink. She raised both of her hands. Margret of the Arkosan Voyani had labored for hours marking the exterior of the wagon with unfamiliar runes; Jewel had inferred only later that without the runes, the wagons themselves wouldn’t fly.

  There were no runes here, and the wagon was demonstrably in the air. Jewel reached out with the flats of both palms and touched not the handle, but the door itself. She couldn’t remember the runes Margret had so carefully painted, and even if she had, the rain would have made repetition of the act impossible. But she remembered that she had given her blood to the ink that Margret had used—and at the moment, the blood that fell from no visible wounds was all the ink she had.

  It’s a dream, she thought. It’s only a dream. Finch and Teller had often found it strange that she could be aware of the fact she was dreaming while she was dreaming; they weren’t. Nor was she always aware in that fashion; sometimes she was so caught up in reacting to what she felt she’d no time to think. But she knew, tonight; she knew.

  Her hands grew warm as she pressed them firmly into the door’s wooden surface; her face grew cold. Wind had joined water in its bitter assault; she could hardly feel her cheeks at all. Shadow came to stand beside her—where beside meant practically on top—and leaned into as much of her as he could. He didn’t call her stupid, and he didn’t ask why she was taking so long. That should have been a sign.

  But dreams had their own logic, their own shorthand, their own reality. Blood seeped from her palms, spreading visibly between her splayed fingers like slender, red filaments. These, however, the water didn’t wash away; they spread, like the finest of veins in autumn leaves, branching up and out in all directions. She had hoped—had meant—the blood to take the form of runes or sigils, but dreams were unpredictable. Like horses that knew she was nervous, they carried her where they wanted to go, and she stayed on for the ride—if she were lucky.

  Today, instead of sigils, they gave her veins. No, she thought, watching as the thunder was joined, at last, by the white flash of lightning that momentarily changed all color, they had given her roots. What had her Oma told her, so long ago? Roots traveled into the ground seeking water. She remembered it clearly because at the time, it had made no sense. Dirt was solid. Water was not. The roots were in the dirt. She’d been young enough that she could argue with her Oma and not feel the sting of the older woman’s hand; she’d never been young enough to be spared the edge of her tongue.

  But Rath had explained it differently, or perhaps, having lost everything that made the world make any sense at all, she’d given up on sense; the tree would die if the roots sought water; they’d drown. These roots were attempting to find their earth. Shadow rubbed his nose against the side of her tunic as they spread across the whole of the door’s surface and finally slid beyond it through the seams of its frame. Leaving her left hand on the door, she grasped its handle with her right, and this time, the door opened; she could feel its mechanism click, but couldn’t actually hear it over the storm.

  Lightning, which had continued its startling white monologue, remained suspended in the sky for a long time, as if it wanted to see what lay beyond the wagon’s door. So did Jewel, and she stood suspended for far longer, her hand falling away from the handle to rest on Shadow’s head.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. The rain was falling only on one side of the door, but it had become momentarily insignificant. What lay on the other side was nothing small enough—or dark enough, lamps notwithstanding—to grace a wagon. She knew; she’d been in similar wagons before, confined by the cramped and very narrowly spaced walls, the small windows—always latched—the thick air, the lack of sky.

  But she’d been in the room that waited on the other side of the open door as well: It was The Terafin’s library. Her personal library. Even from this angle, Jewel could see the night sky through the oval glass windows laid into the ceiling at its height.

  Shadow, who clearly hated the water, strained toward the threshold—but her hand was an anchor; he didn’t cross it. More significantly, he didn’t ask her what she was waiting for. The room appeared to be unoccupied, and it looked exactly as Jewel remembered it—books whose titles she couldn’t read were stacked in their familiar, slightly unkempt piles, with one or two lying open beneath the glow of magelight. All that was missing was The Terafin herself.

  The rain was cold, the cat was loud, the thunder louder still. Jewel stood in the doorway for another long breath, and then she came in, as it were, out of the rain. Only when she had one foot firmly across the threshold did Shadow join her—but he moved faster.

  She cringed as he shook himself dry, and opened her mouth to shout at him; water in the quantities they currently carried in either drenched clothing or fur was not good for books. No words came; before they could, the door to the library opened. She didn’t see it, because she was facing the doors visitors—the few The Terafin chose to invite into her inner sanctum—would have used. But she heard it and turned, dripping water, hair hanging loose and wet in her eyes.

  The Terafin entered her library carrying, of all things, a sword. It was a long sword—far too long for either The Terafin’s use, or Jewel’s. Jewel recognized it almost instantly, although it had been well over a decade since she had seen it last, and longer still since she’d seen it used. It was Rath’s sword. Rath had left his wealthy family, his Isle home, and his inheritance; the only thing he had kept for himself—besides the very rare use of his name—was this sword. It had been a gift, Jewel remembered, although she couldn’t remember from who.

  Jewel had taken it with her on the day she left his final home in the thirty-fifth holding—or perhaps the day after; memory was dim and she’d never been good with numbers of any kind.

  Nor did it matter, because she did remember how The Terafin had come by it: it had also been a gift, this time from Jewel, the only other person in the House who could speak Rath’s name, and then, only in the perfect privacy of The Terafin’s rooms.

  This is a dream, Jewel thought, because Amarais walked past her, past Shadow, without comment; she paused at the table upon which her books had been momentarily abandoned. Her color, in the magelight was poor, and her expression caused Jewel to flinch and turn away.

  “Who is she?” Shadow whispered.

  “The Terafin,” Jewel replied. She didn’t bother to whisper; she knew that The Terafin wouldn’t hear her speak. Nor did she. The door opened again, and The Terafin straightened shoulders, her face once again settling into a far more familiar expression. Morretz joined her. He held out a great cape, settling its weight around her shoulders. He also pinned it, because she didn’t put the sword down.

  “Will you do this?” he asked her back. He looked as weary as The Terafin, although Jewel couldn’t clearly pinpoint why; she had never completely understood Morretz, although she’d never questioned his devotion to his Lord. The Terafin moved instead of answering, the sword now cradled in her arms, the cloak briefly concealing it. He followed her toward the doors.

  Shadow’s eyes were luminescent now. So were Jewel’s, briefly. She waited until Morretz had cleared the door’s frame, and then followed them into the hall. There, by the door, were Torvan and Arrendas, unseeing as they so often were when they were on duty. She resisted the urge to touch them or wave a hand in front of their faces, in part because she saw what their stiff and unmoving faces somehow still revealed as they watched The Terafin walk down the hall, her domicis in her wake.

  She wanted to turn, to ask them—no, to demand to know—what day it was, what date, what time. They watched her as if they knew what she knew: that she would die soon; that it couldn’t, in spite of their guard, her domicis, and her planning, be prevented.

  “She is not like your den,” Shadow whispered. “I’m not sure I like her.”

  “No,” Jewel replied.
“You probably wouldn’t have. She’s dead now.”

  The cat hissed. “She doesn’t look dead.”

  “It’s a dream, Shadow.”

  A dream that led them, at last, to one of the fountains that graced the terrace that preceded the gardens to which visitors and dignitaries of import were taken during warmer months. It was not, by the way Amarais drew her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, warm now. Nor was it day; it was night; the moons were bright, the stars cutting and clear, like points of the needles she so disliked.

  Jewel couldn’t feel the cold, although she still squelched water at every step. Shadow, however, was dry.

  The fountain was enchanted in such a way that its water never froze. The water itself was probably a lot warmer than either the air or The Terafin. To Jewel’s surprise, The Terafin nodded and Morretz began to gesture; his hands were enveloped by soft, gray light. Were it not so dark, she might have missed it.