Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  She knew that the voices of the wild were not the voices of the human crowd; knew that she was trying to find some similarity to the things she understood because she couldn’t grasp the whole of what she could now see unfolding beneath her. But she knew where it was occurring, and if she was afraid, she was also angry.

  ATerafin.

  She heard the clear, low voice of the Winter King above—or beyond—the tumult of the wilderness. Are they safe?

  Angel and the guildmaster are safe, Jewel. As are your other guests, for the moment. Wet, but safe; the water has not yet reached them.

  How?

  Listen. Can you not hear his voice?

  The only reason I can hear yours over the storm and a bunch of angry elements is—the words, even unspoken, trailed off into a peculiar stillness in the center of what had been a complete, if annoyed, thought.

  You begin to understand.

  …because you’re mine.

  Yes, Jewel. Given you by the Winter Queen, but given nonetheless. You hear me clearly, and if you put your mind and will to it, you would see me, no matter how hidden I might otherwise be.

  Whose voice, then? Whose voice should I hear now?

  Ah, no, ATerafin. That is not the way it works. Put no faith or trust—and no power—into the things that have been given you for free; they are worth what you paid. Everything in the wilderness has a cost. Even ignorance, should you choose it; perhaps especially that. Listen, Jewel. Listen and understand what it is that you hear. How did I come to be in your service?

  She ground out several choice Torra curses, the syllables lost briefly to the rumble of thunder in the bleak, green-gray shade the sky had become. Lightning followed it a brief beat later: the storm’s heart. It was both baleful and beautiful, nature itself answering forces that existed beyond it.

  In the Stone Deepings. On the road there. He offered no answer; she knew he wanted more. I held the road against the Winter Queen.

  Yes, ATerafin. Do you not yet understand how? It is time; you will know now, or you will not survive to know it. Listen. Learn.

  “He’s very annoying,” Snow shouted, into the wind. “Especially when he’s right.”

  Jewel closed her eyes. The rain still fell; the thunder continued to rumble. The steady clarity of the Winter King’s voice was absent, withheld; the elements beneath the open sky continued to speak in wild, wild fury. Water rose and fell in fists far too solid to be liquid, although they were; stone broke beneath them; wet, heavy clods of earth spun outward, striking trees, grass, fragile lamps and ornaments.

  But the water was not—yet—free to strike and drown as it desired; it moved like a tidal wave writ small, but it moved at the whim of another. Was it the voice of command the Winter King expected her to hear? She could not imagine that any lives were owed to its control.

  If something binds the water, she asked the Winter King, why are the earth and the air awake here?

  They were called. The voice that replied was not the Winter King’s, but she recognized it. She’d heard it within weeks of arriving at the Terafin manse, and she’d heard it countless times between then and now, although she had only once seen the likeness of the man who used it: the founder of Terafin, bound to the land in some way that Jewel might never understand.

  But she understood the visceral desire to protect what he had built; to guard it, guide it, advise those who must take up the mantle of rulership. She wasn’t certain she’d cling to the edges of life in the fashion he had—if he’d even had the choice—but at the moment, she was damn grateful he was here: he spoke to the water. Inasmuch as it could, the water was listening. It did not obey, not exactly, for the Terafin House Spirit—the Terafin, the first—did not seek to order or command; nor did he beg.

  Terafin!

  Yes, Jewel. I am here.

  She could hear his voice so clearly he might have been part of her, as much hers, in this wilderness of stone and hierarchy and ceremony, as the Winter King himself.

  I am both more and less, he replied. I wear no reins that can be easily handed between one master and the next, not in life and certainly not in the half-life. You are not my lord, not my lady, not my Queen. If there is service given, Jewel, it comes from you to me, for I am Terafin.

  She shook her head, denying it as storm circled the stage of the sky.

  But I am not your lord, not your King; these are not the lands I built, although some semblance of their origin can still be seen clearly if one understands our history. I cannot command you, although perhaps I have been proud enough in the past to try. I am done now with pride, ATerafin. I am done now with stewardship. I am not yours, but what I built—what I hoped to build—might yet be. You are not mine—but you are the heir Amarais chose.

  And not you?

  It is to her that you grant the greatest of your respect, the most personal of your obeisances. To me, ATerafin, you grant the guilty pride of possession. This is your home; you have built it, made it, changed it; you have touched its shadows and fashioned some part of its light—but you have walked, always, beneath the roof and within the walls of another’s construction. Neither of those will last now. The time is coming, has come, and cannot but move forward; you have the option of looking back—but if you cannot turn from the past, the future will take you while you are so blinded.

  Jewel, is this your home? You have wandered far, seen much; you have grown. You ride a King of the ancient Cities of Man, and you are served by a Prince of the Hidden Court; even now the immortal bears you above the worst of the water’s anger and desire. You wear the raiments of a Queen; visions of the future come to you, whether you will it or not. What you were in the streets of the hundred holdings, you are not now. Is this your home?

  “Snow,” she shouted, bending head toward his ears, which were almost standing on end. “Land. Take me down.”

  Snow hissed. “Can’t you jump?”

  She smacked the space between those stiff ears in earnest. “Take. Me. Down.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  SNOW LANDED IN THE TREES or, rather, came crashing through high branches, their leaves sodden and heavy with rain, but not yet surrendered. Beneath the varied bowers of their crowded heights, no rain fell. Nor did the wind now blow; it was silent, a twilight silence that could not last. Jewel was not surprised to see undergrowth beneath her feet; the carefully manicured grounds, broken by ornaments and artful light, were lost to the forest itself.

  She had come here bearing leaves and the leaves themselves had taken root—and they had grown.

  Oh, they had grown.

  Diamond glittered, thin and hard, in the moon’s light; silver and gold seemed almost one shade. She reached out and touched the bark of one of these trees and then let her hand fall away. It was part of this particular forest, but it had come in its entirety from the hidden path. It was, therefore, to one of the ancient trees that girded the Common that she went. It, too, had grown on the night that the three leaves had taken root, but she knew it was grounded in some fashion in the life of Jewel Markess ATerafin. The Terafin grounds had never grown such trees; no land in the Empire could, save the Common itself—or so experts had always said.

  In some fashion, it was true.

  But if Jewel Markess had never played beneath the tall, grand trees that ringed the Common, these trees would not now exist. If she hadn’t watched the magi rise to their heights during festival season, if she hadn’t watched the displays of light scatter across night sky like stars captured just for that purpose, she would never have loved them. Those trees endured. One or two had been lost to fire, and one or two had been destroyed by the demons that had inexplicably attacked the Common scant months ago, but at a distance, the height of those trees could still be seen, even from the Isle.

  She had seen them up close at the side of her Oma; her Oma was dead. Her Oma, her mother, her father. She had seen them at the side of her den; Duster was dead. Fisher. Lander. Lefty. It had never occurred to her to doubt t
he trees; they were like the landscape, like the weather, a fact of life.

  But it was her life. Hers, and the people like her, bound to the hundred holdings by poverty and the ties that living day to day made stronger. It was her home, and it was the strength of home that she had called upon to face down the Winter Queen—because the Winter Queen had no part and no place in that life, felt no respect for it at all.

  She took a step away from the tree, drew a deep breath, held it while she counted seconds. Snow walked by her side, sodden like the leaves high above them; the dress he had made was dry and unwrinkled, and it glowed very softly in the evening light. And it was evening here, or edging toward it: the light was dusk’s light, or perhaps dawn before the sun had fully risen. The earth moved beneath her feet, rumbling with thunder’s absent voice. As if she were wearing clothing meant for digging and not for court, she knelt and placed her left palm against the cool earth.

  What she heard, she had no words for, not then, and not later; it was like…music. Like the music of the storm, or the music of the waves breaking, at greater and greater heights, against the seawall; something she herself could never accompany, no matter how strong her voice. She thought only the bard-born capable of it, and at that, only the truly powerful among their number—but it never occurred to her that any of the bards would make the attempt; there was nothing human in it, no experience to touch and tease into the emotion of melody and harmony.

  She rose and began to walk toward the path’s end. There was no sun in this forest, rising or setting, but there was light, and it shone on the path ahead, where the Terafin shrine stood sentinel against the wilderness and the hidden ways—joined to it, but not beholden. It was such a small building. She saw that clearly: small, round, almost humble. It had loomed so large in her life, because so much of significance had occurred on its flat, round dais, at the foot of its simple altar. She stopped moving and almost stopped breathing, because as she approached, she saw the source of the light that had led her this far: the altar itself was almost white in its radiance.

  She would have feared to touch it, but even thinking that, felt both its warmth and the chill of its winter stone surface in either of her palms. This was Terafin’s heart.

  Lying across it, arms folded upon his chest, hair unbound, was a man she had both never seen and always seen; she knew him. His eyes were closed, his hands curved in fists; he carried no blade, no dagger, no shield. But absent those things, he was their essence distilled, and he fought in this silent, unmoving state for House Terafin and the people it sheltered. His skin was pale, almost translucent; he looked thin the way the elderly are thin, and fragile. His tabard bore the familiar sword of the House, but its colors were washed out in the spill of light, blue becoming azure, a thing of the sky at sun’s height.

  Lifting trailing skirts out of habit and not necessity, Jewel ran up the shrine’s stairs; she dropped the skirts as she approached the altar that had always been so intimidating. What she saw stopped breath and motion for a long, long moment; time itself seemed to shy away from where she now stood.

  He was bleeding. The only dark spot on his body looked all of black against the contrasting light, and it was centered in his upper left chest, just beneath the arms that were crossed in poor mimicry of repose. This close to his face, she saw the lines age, sun, and wind had worn there; she saw the brief rictus of pain transform an expression that defined inscrutable, and she understood that this was not happening now. She was seeing the past.

  But his eyes opened, long lashes framing them as he grimaced. “Jewel.”

  She reached out; her hand stopped an inch from his, and hovered there. Snow’s claws on marble were the only noise she heard.

  “He looks dead.”

  “I am dead,” the Terafin Spirit replied. “But even in death, there is an end. Jewel, the House—”

  “I know.”

  “I cannot hold these grounds for long against what has come; I cannot hold them against what will follow. I have tried,” he added softly, his voice thin and weak. “But the road is open now; it calls me.”

  To where? She didn’t ask. “You killed yourself on this altar.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, ATerafin. But I died upon it as the price for the stewardship I have kept these long years.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t follow your example.”

  A wry—pained—smile twisted his lips. He reached out for her hand and paused the same inch away that she had. “Can you hear them?”

  She nodded. “I—I don’t understand what they’re saying.”

  “No. No more do I; I sense only their abiding anger. I speak to calm it; I do not know what they hear of me when I speak; they hear me, of that I’m certain.” He hesitated, and the hesitation made Jewel more uncomfortable than the blackness across his chest. “They might hear you more strongly; you are both alive and of the hidden ways in a way that I have never been, save by bargaining and by guile.” He reached out again, and this time Jewel moved the half inch to meet him.

  His hand was cold. “You have not yet declared your candidacy to the House Council.”

  “No. But I declared it before the Chosen, and in some ways, that’s the larger step.”

  He coughed, smiled. “You are not one of nature’s liars, ATerafin.”

  “I’m not, no. But I’m not lying; I’m not even trying.” She looked up at the lights that rimmed the ceiling, brass holders gleaming. “I can’t see the pavilions.”

  “Nor the rain, no. But when you leave the shrine, you will be in the center of the storm. If you are not cautious, it will devour you; if you are too cautious, it will destroy you. You have not yet declared your intentions to the House Council,” he repeated. “But as you surmise, that declaration in this place is decorative.

  “Take the House, ATerafin; take it now. You will understand much, much more when you do.” His smile was less pained, less stretched; peace touched it. “I have waited, Jewel. I have waited, and now, you are here. I am sorry that I could not protect Amarais.”

  “You couldn’t protect any of them,” she heard herself say, aware that she’d been angry at his failure regardless until this moment.

  “No. But I did not love them all. Like anyone who is steward and guardian, compromise is necessary. But in her, very little was required. She knew. I told her, as I was able. I gave her that much of a choice.”

  Jewel snorted. “That was no choice.”

  “No.” His smiled dimmed. “Not for Amarais; for another, it would have been. But she fought her fate until the end; she bought you time, and it was necessary time. Had she died three weeks earlier—”

  Jewel lifted her hand. “Don’t. Don’t say it. I know what you want.”

  But he shook his head. “It is not what I want that is relevant now. What do you want, Jewel?” He smiled again, but this time the pain etched itself into the corners of his lips. It wouldn’t leave until he did, and she did not want him to go. “Such a simple question; we ask it of our children time and again. What do you want? Children answer within the context of their knowledge and experience, and their answers are true but ephemeral. Your answer cannot be trivial; it cannot be as simple as ‘water’ or ‘bread’ or even ‘wealth’ or ‘power.’ ”

  “Power is an answer that defines the lives—and the deaths—of many,” she replied, thinking of Haerrad. Of Rymark.

  “It is,” was his soft reply. “But it is not an answer you can tender, and not an answer that the land will accept. I ask again, what does Jewel ATerafin want? What will devour the whole of your life, your heart, and your will to bring into being?”

  She had already answered the question. She had answered it the day she had come to save Celleriant, walking the edge of the dreaming to where he was impaled, suspended in air, the means by which he might save himself momentarily rendered useless. She had answered it a second time when she had come bearing three leaves—leaves that shouldn’t have existed at all, given what she knew of go
ld, silver, and diamond. Those trees grew, not at her command, but with her permission.

  But the trees of the Common were different. They grew for two reasons. The first, the old land, long fallow, upon which she walked, and the second: she loved them. Not the way she loved Finch or Teller; not the way she loved Angel or Arann; not even the more complicated way she loved Carver and Jester, men she was just as likely to throw crockery at as not. No, the trees were the walls and the bowers of her first home, and those walls and bowers stretched unseen all the way to the Isle.

  The South had begun lessons she’d never dreamed existed—not for her, not for an orphan. But the learning of those lessons could only be done here, because this was home. Home, where Angel now rode the back of the Winter King, Sigurne before him, her hands pale and shaking because she could not quite bring herself to trust her mount; home, where Teller and Finch now sought to comfort the House Council and its various entourages as the rain began to fall with vengeance; home, where Arann—Arann!—now took command of the House Guard as if he were a captain, and not the least senior of the Terafin Chosen. Jester, she could not see clearly in her mind’s eye—but her imagination surprised her, there: Jester was helping the guests from their increasingly unstable seating; the earth had shifted, and shifted again, and the carefully planned arrangement of benches was in disarray.