Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  “Haval.”

  “I will not perform services that I feel necessary without her express permission.”

  The lines of her shoulders softened slightly, and he now approached her. “I cannot promise more. I cannot take you home. Not for Jewel’s sake; that, I’m afraid, I would do. If she cannot deal with such a small risk, she is not fit to rule one of The Ten.”

  “It’s the boy.”

  He smiled. “You never valued your powers of observation, Hannerle. Never. Yes. I am far too selfish to avoid putting the boy at risk at all; he is the only thing that wakes you, and that act makes him vulnerable. I am not concerned with his welfare, however; if what he does here is discovered, he is at risk—and if he is harmed, kidnapped, killed—you will die. I do not want his health for its own sake; he is merely—”

  She slid her hands to their perch on her hips. “That is quite enough.”

  “As you say, dear. Hannerle—”

  “I’m not sure I should let you say another word; I’ll strangle you myself, and then where would I be?”

  “In the Terafin manse—but I’m certain Jewel would forgive you if you told her why.”

  6th of Henden, 427 A.A.

  Terafin Grounds, Averalaan Aramarelas

  “Will you not move from this place?”

  The moon was high; the evening was cold. The guests and the mourners had left the gardens and the grounds and—absent their singing, their laughter, and their arguments—it was silent. She was not, however, alone. The Terafin’s coffin had been placed—as was tradition for the House—upon the altar beneath the curved roof of the Terafin shrine; she would lie there until sun’s full height, when she would finally be laid to rest.

  Jewel had shed her followers, all save two: Angel, who stood at the foot of the path that led to this fourth shrine in the garden of contemplation, and Avandar, who was somewhere in the shadows. She had not had to tell Angel to wait; he knew. Avandar was angry at the assumed risk she’d taken. She knew that Torvan would know where she was; he probably had the men at his disposal watching the path even now.

  “Jewel.”

  “No.” She glanced at the Terafin Spirit. She was angry at his interruption, but grateful for his presence; she had been so certain that she would wake on the second day of the funeral rites to find him gone.

  “Not yet,” he said, his voice soft. “But soon, ATerafin. I am almost…afraid.” His smile belied his words. “You have the House Council meeting on the morrow.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He fell silent. Kalliaris frowned; it didn’t last. “She is dead,” he said, his voice gentle. “She is not aware of your presence; she cannot appreciate the respect you grant her in repose.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then—”

  “No.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Can I stop you? Clearly she couldn’t. She even knew he was right. But there was so much she wanted to say. So much she should be able to say. She couldn’t. She’d spent an hour and a half, head bowed over the coffin, aching with unshed words—but they were jumbled, messy, inelegant; they were entirely inadequate. She wanted for words, for the right words, and they wouldn’t come to her. She couldn’t even cry because he was here, he was watching, and he’d given his life for the House in a way that even Amarais hadn’t.

  “You have a visitor,” the Terafin Spirit said.

  It was almost a relief, although the words set her teeth on edge. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and turned. There, with as much hauteur as she would ever be able to manage, she froze.

  Marrick ATerafin was coming down the narrow, well-tended walk.

  The Terafin Spirit instantly fell silent, which was possibly the only blessing Marrick’s presence could grant. Jewel set her back toward the coffin, as if she were one of the Chosen, and The Terafin were still alive. Her own, she could tell to go away; this man? No. He was a House Council member, a senior member, and he had already made clear that he intended to take the House Seat in Avantari.

  Something was wrong; it took Jewel a moment to realize what it was: Marrick came alone. He had no attendants, no House Guards, none of the usual entourage. He did not carry a weapon—or at least not a visible weapon—and his expression was almost unnaturally grave. He was—he had always been—a friendly man. It was hard to dislike him; she knew, she’d tried. Because of Avandar, she continued to try to find fault with his actions, to see his charm as a subterfuge behind which lurked another Haerrad in the making.

  But it was only because of Avandar, and in the dark of a clear, cold night, she couldn’t even make the attempt. She offered him the polite nod of an equal, and turned away, toward the coffin in which Amarais would greet the dawn.

  He joined her. He did not ask permission—but permission was not, strictly speaking, required. But he did not speak either; where she stood, he now dropped to one knee. He bowed his head to the coffin in silence, as if he were alone, and after a moment, Jewel did the same.

  “Do you know,” he said, although he didn’t lift his head, “that I was not a Council member at the commencement of the last House War?”

  She hadn’t. She knew it was information she should know, and was grateful for the lack of any of her advisers at this particular moment.

  “I was a young man. A promising, bright young man,” he added, with a wry chuckle. “And I was, of course, charming. My mother oft said it was a failing—a bright failing. I am not lazy,” he added, “in my own defense. I have always preferred to cajole where another might threaten. But I was not without ambition in my youth.” He lifted his head, then, and rose. “I am not without ambition now, as you must know.”

  She nodded, because this at least she did.

  He reached out and laid his right palm against wood that had grown chill with lack of sun in the Henden wind. “She saw something in me, in my feckless youth. She was not yet The Terafin; she was Amarais Handernesse ATerafin, and she was estranged from her family because she had chosen to take the Terafin name. You were aware of that?”

  Jewel closed her eyes and swallowed. “Yes. Yes, very familiar. I knew her brother.”

  “I did not have that privilege, although I knew of him. Handernesse was an old, old lineage; it was not a significant player in the courts of power. Had she stayed with Handernesse, it would have been.”

  “It would not have been one of The Ten.”

  “No. But Terafin would not have been first among The Ten were it not for her leadership, either. The finest of swords cannot make a man an expert swordsman; it is the same with the Houses. They have the raw resources, and the reach, but without a man—or woman—who understands the whole of the political landscape, it cannot be expertly wielded, and to advantage. You met her in her prime, Jewel. She was impressive, formidable, and entirely in control of even the slightest of gestures. She was adored by her Chosen, respected by her servants, feted by her merchants.”

  “When they weren’t drunk.”

  He chuckled. “They could be a tad overfamiliar when drunk; it seldom happened more than once.

  “You did not see her in her youth.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “I forget myself. When I joined the House, she was young to me—although to you now, she would not have been. She was not a gentle woman in her youth. She was not Haerrad; she was not a monster. But she was a blade, a honed thing, and she burned with righteous anger.” His smile was a strange, soft smile. “You could have warmed your hands on her rage on the right days—or the wrong ones. She was always careful with her words—but her words were like a slender dam; what lay behind them could always be felt.

  “Perhaps because she was so bold, she found favor in the eyes of The Terafin. It was clear to the House, and to those with ambition, that some bond formed between them; he mentored her, where she would allow it. She was envied, and she was feared, for that reason. But not by me—I was not a member of the House Council; the age of The Terafin si
gnified little in my case.”

  “And in hers?”

  He raised a brow. “I believe that question to be beneath you in your current circumstance.”

  Jewel had the grace to redden.

  “I was ambitious, Jewel, but it was more than that. She offered me a seat on the House Council for my support—what little support I could give her—when she made her bid to take the House Seat.” He sounded surprised. Still.

  “The House Council is not the House,” was Jewel’s sharp observation.

  “No. No, it is not. But it is by general acclaim, by consensus, that The Terafin is finally chosen.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Very well. It is by the consensus of those who remain alive after the worst of the conflict has occurred. Will that suffice?”

  She nodded.

  “I accepted her offer.” He studied Jewel’s expression; in the dark at the end of the three longest days of her life, she couldn’t guard it well. “You think I accepted it because I wanted the House Council seat.” It wasn’t a question. “That is fair, Jewel. I did want the seat, and if I were asked at any other time but this one, I would ask, loudly, if there was any other reason to accept such an offer.”

  She waited, now, her hands slowly unclenching by her sides, the night air in her lungs as he turned his gaze to the coffin again. “But this is the shrine at which oaths are made to the House, or of it, and here, I will not lie. It was her, Jewel. When she spoke to me—I wanted what she wanted.” He smiled. “She was so clear in her principles. She was so determined. She burned, in a way that made fire beautiful.

  “You will, of course, declare yourself for the House Seat in the Council Hall on the morrow.”

  She should have said yes, and knew it; she was silent. There was no question and no doubt in his words. But standing in the lee of the coffin, the woman she respected most in the world enclosed and in all ways unable to return, she could not. She had wanted three days to mourn.

  Life doesn’t have time for your tears, girl, her Oma’s voice said sharply. You shed them, fine. You’re still a child. But you keep moving while you cry. If you don’t move, the vultures will think you’re carrion.

  Yes. Yes, Oma.

  “We were not certain,” Marrick continued, when she failed to reply. “Until your unexpected arrival at the moment The Terafin was assassinated, your candidacy had been considered a possibility—but you are young, by the standards of the Council Hall, and you have not built an impressive base of power. Or so we believed. When you did arrive—without announcement, and in the middle of the chaos—it became a probability, but the caveat still remained. You are aware that at least four of the senior Council members intended to advance themselves as candidates before the full Council.”

  Jewel nodded.

  “And those?”

  “You. Elonne, Haerrad, Rymark. I’d so hoped that Gabriel—” She bit the words off. “Those were the four that I knew about.”

  “You are correct; if there is a fifth—besides yourself—I am unaware of them.” He watched her face beneath the flicker of lamplight; the shrine was not lit by magestones. “On the first day of the funeral rites, my dear, it was clear to at least two of us that you intended to declare. The dress,” he added, his smile softening as if the memory were precious, “drew every eye, from the highest to the lowest—and you wore it surprisingly well. I will say that when your cat chooses not to speak, he is fearsome.”

  Jewel grimaced. “Luckily, that’s almost never.”

  To her surprise, Marrick nodded gravely. “It is lucky, ATerafin. Jewel. He is otherwise too strange and too dangerous. Most of the House has now been exposed to his constant litany about the perils of boredom; when they hear him, they roll their eyes and try to go back to their work, in much the same way they would were he a small, cranky child. It favors you.”

  “He made the dress,” she said. She wasn’t certain why; Marrick was clearly surprised.

  “How? He has no hands—”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really want to know; I never want to wear it again.” But she would. She felt it suddenly, sharply, certainly: she would wear that dress again, and the wearing of it might save her life.

  He was silent for another moment, and when he spoke, his voice was steady, low, and cool. “The wearing of that dress was a bold move, Jewel. Fortune oft favors the bold, and no one of us could have carried it off. Nor would we have thought to try. It did not please Haerrad—” He lifted a hand as she opened her mouth, and she shut it. “But Haerrad is not considered one of your natural allies. It confounded even Rymark.

  “I have spoken with Elonne; we speak often, as friendly rivals oft will. I have spoken a few words with Haerrad; those are, of necessity, chosen with care—but I have never been Haerrad’s natural enemy; in the past week, he has focused the whole of his anger and his attention on Rymark. To be fair, Rymark has returned that regard; they circle each other. It is a pity they are both still standing.”

  Jewel shook her head; she was smiling. She couldn’t help it. “Yes,” she finally said. “It is. I don’t suppose—” She stopped.

  “Don’t stop on my account; I am certain my advisers have heard me say far, far worse, and in far more descriptive language than you could manage—unless you spoke your native Torra.”

  She startled, and then relaxed. Of course he knew about the Torra; there was probably very little about her life he—or the other three—didn’t know.

  “Yes,” he said, noticing it. He said nothing else for a long moment; the night was dark, now; the moon was clear where it shone, veiled only by the bowers of the trees—the new trees—on the grounds.

  “When the rains started, ATerafin, when the earth began to break beneath our feet, when the waters of the statuary rose like a tidal wave in miniature, we put aside all thought of our own politics and our own ambitions; our ambitions, at that point, were more primitive. We wished to survive. We wished the House to survive. It was a very clarifying moment. I am not a terribly religious man; I do not give much thought to the gods, although I mind with care the dictates of their children. I expect that the gods do the same with regard to me and my desires. I did not, therefore, pray.

  “Elonne did. I do not consider prayer a weakness,” he added softly, still looking into the slightly moving boughs of the highest of branches. “Amarais was known to pray to Cormaris; she did so publicly. She was not a weak woman. But, Jewel, the strangest thought occurred to me in the moment when it seemed that the whole of the Terafin grounds might collapse beneath those of us who avoided being crushed—or drowned.

  “I remembered my youth.” He smiled as he said it, and this time he did look at her. “You are aware that a House War is often fought in Terafin when The Terafin dies. The Terafin may assign an heir, but the document of assignation is worth the paper it is written on—and while the paper is no doubt very, very fine, it is not a match for the forces that work against it. If the heir is to be appointed, if consensus is to be reached in Council, it is entirely because the heir has proved himself or herself worthy of the position—and worthiness encompasses survival.

  “I have told you I was young when The Terafin took her place on the House Council; she was considered young for it, but not as obscenely young as you were when you were appointed. In the early years of her reign, I do not think she would have dared to appoint you in that fashion. But the House Council understood the part you had played in that wretched Henden so many years ago; we understood that you were a valuable asset—even a crowning Jewel—and that some statement of your value and worth to the House must be sent immediately to the Crowns. We wished to retain you. We did not demur.

  “Ah, but I wander. Where was I? Ah, yes. Amarais approached me before I had achieved a Council seat, and she offered to sponsor me, conditional upon my future support. Have you likewise approached any members of this House? No, don’t answer; I know you have not. You lacked the ambition that drove Amarais; it was almost incandescent,
in her youth. In our youth,” he added, “she was ruthless.”

  Jewel started to speak, and stopped herself with difficulty.

  “You think of Haerrad as ruthless.”

  “Or Rymark.”

  “But not Amarais. Not Elonne, and not Marrick?”

  Aware that he might take the admission as an insult, she fell silent.

  “Not Jewel?”

  “Not Jewel,” she conceded.

  “Then you fail to understand what ruthless means in this context.”

  “I understand what it means.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It means there’s nothing—at all—a person won’t do to achieve their goals. Nothing. There’s nothing that causes pause, nothing that deters them.”