“And his friends, but yes, his enemies. They have failed a second time. There is only one other event at which they might have success.”
“The marathon.”
“The marathon, yes. And it must be clear to them—as clear as it is to either of us, now—that they must succeed. He is more capable than any of us thought, perhaps even the kai Leonne himself.
“He has fire,” the Tyr’agnate added, “but not wisdom.”
“The Lord values fire.”
“True enough,” the Tyr replied quietly. “But death is the domain of the Lady, and she values wisdom.”
The evening was upon them.
21st of Lattan, 427 AA
Averalaan Aramarelas
Jewel Markess ATerafin sat in the open halls of the Queens’ healerie; the sunlight, from the height of cut glass, was broken by lead crossbars as it came to rest upon the floor by her feet; short as they were, those feet cast shadows. It was early, and she had slept most of the previous day, but fitfully, as befits the ill.
Avandar was by her side, and Daine; both men wore the night poorly, for she had been offered a bed, and they had made their way through the night cramped by the backs of chairs or a hard length of floor. Torvan waited just outside of the healerie, no doubt to escort her back to Terafin.
Unfortunately, without the permission of Dantallon, that escort would have to wait.
A meal had been brought, but it had been brought for Jewel; Avandar and Daine were, of course, free to come and go as they pleased, and their keep was not the responsibility of the harried palace staff. At any other time of the year, they would have been better treated and tended—but at any other time of the year, Jewel would not be in the Queens’ healerie.
She tried not to feel too guilty, and succeeded—in Avandar’s case. He could take care of himself. She did offer Daine part of the food she’d been brought, but it didn’t particularly surprise her when he refused with just a hint of offended pride; he was not starving, just hungry.
The door swung open. She sat up quickly enough to knock cutlery and dishes off the uneasy perch her lap made. Luckily, they were empty.
Unluckily, the visitor wasn’t Dantallon.
It was Devon.
He bowed. “ATerafin,” he said, softly and formally.
She nodded in return; etiquette didn’t demand a bow, and even had it, she didn’t particularly feel like giving one. But she stopped short of open hostility; she was curious. There were questions that she wanted answered, and she knew he had the information.
“You’ve heard,” he asked, “about the outcome of the sea’s test?”
“Valedan won.”
He nodded to himself.
“And chose to share the podium with one of the men sent from the Dominion. I don’t think anyone—even a man who hid in the most deserted place in Averalaan with his fingers in his ears—could avoid knowing that much.”
That provoked a smile from the ATerafin, albeit a thin one. “I do not know what was said or done, but Kallandras of Senniel College, with the information that Meralonne APhaniel somehow provided,” and at this, he raised a dark brow, asking and not asking the question, “with the aid of the Southerner that Valedan chose to honor, found your Kialli threat and ended it.”
“Is Kallandras—”
“Both he and the Southern man were injured, and in the same fashion.”
“I’d heard—”
“Yes. The Southerner will withdraw. He was offered—and has refused—the aid of the healers here. As did Kallandras, but he is legendary for that.”
“He’s . . . a private man,” Jewel said softly, her glance drawn to Daine’s stiff profile. Would I do that again? She thought. Would I risk that with anyone else?
She already knew the answer. Yes, and never. Some part of the healer was a part of her, and only because she was older and somewhat more experienced could she easily pull strand from strand and know whose was whose.
“Yes. The fear of a healer is a great fear—even though it is well known that a healing less than the call from death is not nearly so invasive. Men are superstitious by nature.”
“And with cause,” she said softly.
As did Daine.
There was an awkward pause. He blushed; she didn’t.
Devon granted them their silence as if it were a natural part of the conversation. He looked away, and when he looked back, it was gone. “I must ask you a favor,” he said reluctantly, as if it pained him. It probably did.
“What?”
“I want you to stay here until the end of the Challenge.”
“In the healerie?” she asked, half a smile tugging at her lips.
His smile met hers halfway. “No. Dantallon wants that.”
“You?”
“If there’s going to be a fight, I want to stand beside a woman who understands what the cost of both fighting—or refusing to fight—will be.”
She waited then. “You realize you’ve got no right, no damned right at all, to ask that of me?”
He said nothing.
She looked away from him, the wall suddenly fascinating in its flat lack of anything interesting. The silence stretched out for minutes on end.
It was her domicis who broke it. “I will inform the Terafin,” he said.
She cursed him, but in silence. Nodded.
He watched her profile, waiting. Knowing that he had to wait, and liking it about as much as anyone would. He knew why he had to wait. Teller’s near-death stood between them, between the woman who—and he admitted this bitter fact without bitterness because it was just that, fact, no more—had, at heart, begun to learn the price of rulership. It was a lesson that too few rulers ever truly appreciated, and a lesson that The Terafin had always understood. He would not have chosen to take her name otherwise, and he knew that the House Name was hers.
But he also knew, when the answer came, what it would be. Because they had stood in a darkness that was timeless, beneath the streets of a city ignorant of the danger it faced. And she had seen what that danger was, when he could not—it irked him, even now, although this, too was simple fact.
Betrayed by him or no, she could not unsee it.
Duvari had already informed The Terafin, of course. Devon had counseled against; it was the surest way of pushing Jewel ATerafin away from the duty that she would otherwise embrace. Duvari’s compromise: Give Devon leave to tell the young ATerafin of her duty in any fashion he chose. That it was a compromise for Duvari spoke volumes about the Lord of the Compact, but the Compact had its own rules, and the Astari were there to follow them.
The Astari were Duvari’s as much as Terafin was The Terafin’s. He served both, as he could.
And if she rules the House? He thought, watching Jewel’s stiff anger as he waited. What then, Devon?
It was the domicis who spoke. Avandar Gallais, a man that Devon had never particularly liked. That, if he were honest, no one particularly liked, not even Jewel herself.
“I will inform The Terafin,” he said. His eyes crossed Devon’s, and it was clear to Devon that the domicis, at least, understood the situation. But if he conveyed the message to the House itself, he could also inform Jewel’s den. Her den.
Her own little coterie of Chosen. He wondered if she ever thought of them that way; knew that she didn’t. Wondered what she would be like when one of them finally died.
Because no one of power took the service of men and women without expecting to lose them. Not during a struggle for succession.
Not during a war with kin.
He waited; she gave him nothing except, through the rough nod of assent, her commitment to fight their common foes. It was enough that he gave her this: his continuing presence, a means of allowing her to vent an anger that he both regretted a
nd refused to change.
“Angel is pissed.”
“Not . . . not upset?”
“How’m’I supposed to tell the difference?” He shrugged.
“Good point.” She remembered the look in Alowan’s eyes, and wondered how much of it was reflected in her den-kin. She’d never know; that much, about Angel, was fact. If he suffered he kept it to himself, and there wasn’t any way, short of knife point, to pry it out of him.
Carver shoved the hair out of his eyes. All these years, and he hadn’t gone sensible on her; neither had Angel. Teller, Arann, Jester—even Finch—they’d adopted the practical look of the ATerafin, but Carver and Angel, long hair cropped in odd places as if it were sculpture, were determined to hang on to their roots.
Or their youth.
She appreciated it. Her own hair was still a mass of loose curls that tightened whenever the humidity was high. She kept it short when she had the time to sit still and be sheared, but otherwise, she kept it twisted up in a roll, with a wooden pin as anchor. She didn’t keep bangs, but strands of hair always managed to be just long enough to get in her eyes.
She mirrored his gesture. Grinned. “I bet.”
“He’ll be allowed up in four days. You haven’t heard that much swearing in a healerie in your life!” He was laughing. Good damned thing Angel couldn’t hear him.
“Teller?”
“Mending. Better, although I think it’ll be a week before he’s up and about.”
“The House?”
“It’s only been two days, Jay.”
“The House?”
He laughed. “Still standing. No one else has made any political moves. I don’t think we’ll see action again until after the Challenge, for what it’s worth.”
“Good.”
“You?”
“One true dream,” she said softly. “No, two. I’m exhausted, and I’ve been in a foul mood.”
“She has,” Daine said, quietly and helpfully.
“So what else is new?” But he stood. “When are you up and about?”
“As soon as Devon can find the damned healer,” she replied gracelessly. “The Lord of the Compact wishes my services. The Lord of the healerie wants the Lord of the Compact to drop dead. Obviously, he can’t quite say as much in as many words, so he’s absented himself. If I weren’t the one being inconvenienced or used to make a point, I’d think it was really funny.”
“Well, keep yourself well, then. I’m going to get food.”
“Good. While you’re scrounging, take Daine.”
“But—” the healer began.
She’d already lifted a hand. “Don’t argue with me. Eat.”
“But—”
“You heard the lady,” Carver said, laughing. “She’s just done two things. First, she’s generously told us both she’s in a foul mood. Second, she’s given you an order. When the first is true, the second had better be followed.” He caught Daine by the upper arm. “No one’s going to hurt her here,” he said. “Avandar’ll be back any time now.”
Daine allowed himself to be led away because he knew her well enough to know Carver was right. She was in a foul mood. The only answer to an order when she was in a foul mood was “yes.”
Her third visitor was Kiriel.
The day had worn on; the sun was past its height. Dantallon had still managed not to be found. Jewel contented herself with imagining the expression on Duvari’s already rather dour face, but it was a meager contentment. She was not ill enough that she found bed rest restful, not well enough that she didn’t find the irritation wearing.
But both of these things fell away when the youngest member of her den stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her. She rested against that door a moment with her back, her hands obviously clasped behind it.
“Kiriel,” Jewel said. She spoke tentatively. She always did, around wary wild creatures.
“I’m off duty,” she said, as if she needed an excuse to be here.
She probably did. “Anything interesting happen when you were on duty?”
The younger woman looked vaguely surprised, and then shook her head. “No.”
“Good.”
Her forehead creased a moment, as if the weight of thought took effort. “Why?”
“Why is that good?”
“Yes.”
“Because it means that no further attacks, or attempts, occurred.”
“Oh.” She stood there, door at her back, as if she needed to be close to the only escape there was.
“Kiriel?” Jewel said softly.
The girl raised her head slowly. “I didn’t even know he was there,” she said.
Which made no sense, but Jewel knew better than to interrupt her. Conversations with Kiriel were rare enough they seemed fragile, and if they were going to be broken, it wasn’t by the den leader. She waited.
Kiriel let her wait, and it became clear to Jewel that the unidentified “he” was so obvious it never occurred to her that the confession wouldn’t immediately make sense. Who, Kiriel? Jewel thought. Time stretched; Kiriel’s shoulders slumped as if the silence itself were judgment. Come on, Jay. Who? And then she knew. “Maybe,” she said gently, “he wasn’t actually a demon.”
Kiriel’s smile was bitter. “Maybe,” she repeated, “I’m not actually god-born.” Then she stopped. Lifted a shaking hand. Stared at the ring round her finger. “I recognized him,” she added lamely.
“Oh, you’re god-born, all right,” Jewel said, wondering how many of the demons they’d meet were creatures Kiriel personally recognized, but unwilling to ask. “I don’t think the magic’s been created that can rob a person of their talent, if they were cursed or lucky enough to be born with one; with you it’d be even harder. But I didn’t know there was any water in the Hells.”
“I don’t know if there is.”
“You weren’t—”
“No. I spent my life surrounded by demons, but they were all here. I’ve never been to the Hells. I don’t know if—I don’t know if a mortal can travel there and survive it. I don’t know what they’d be if they came back.” She shrugged. “I think he must have used a lot of his power to cloak his presence—because he must’ve known I’d be here.”
Another pause. Longer, this time. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Awkward, the silence between them. “It was a vision,” Jewel said at last, stepping around each word as if they were broken glass. “And visions make their own choices.”
Kiriel’s stare was long, unblinking.
“Jay,” she said at last, “If you don’t even trust me to fight the kin anymore, than what am I good for?” She spread her hands out, palm up, in unconscious mimicry of either Jewel herself, or someone very like her in gesture. Rawness there; Jewel half expected Kiriel to bolt.
So she got out of bed, pushing the coverlet—which, given the season, was meant more for modesty’s sake than practicality’s—back and swiveling her legs to the side of the bed Kiriel was nearest.
“What,” she said, as she stood and walked toward a Kiriel who, surprisingly, waited for her, “are any of us good for?”
“You’ve got your sight,” the younger woman said, in a tone that made her seem, suddenly, every year of her fifteen or sixteen years—and not one day more.
“True. And it made me, I won’t deny it. Even before I understood what it meant, it made me. But Carver? Angel? Teller? Any of the rest of us?”
Kiriel said nothing.
Jewel said nothing.
This time, Jewel won the waiting game.
“It’s different.”
“Yes,” Jewel said again. “It’s different. But we got by on nothing. That sword—you still know how to use it?”
Kiriel nodded.
&nbs
p; “Means you can earn your way in the world. When I was your age, we did our best to get by by cutting the purses off of stupid, monied men and women who were careless enough to wear them in open view. We fed ourselves by stealing from farmers’ stalls, clothed ourselves as much as we could by getting wool or cloth the same way.” Something struck her, “Is the sword special?”
At that, Kiriel smiled, and the smile hardened the lines of her face. She was the only woman Jewel knew on whom a smile could look so much less pleasant than empty neutrality. “Yes,” she said. “A gift.”
“And it?”
“No other could wield this sword.”
“You can?”
The smile vanished. “I don’t know,” she said, and the admission obviously cost her. “I haven’t been in a fight since—since the ring.” She paused. “I can—I can still pick it up.”
“Isn’t that the same?”
“Don’t know.” The hardness returned a moment, lending the cast of her features the patina of age and power. “I tried to cut my finger off. Didn’t work.”
Jewel looked at the ring that seemed plain and harmless enough; ignored the comment. “Could you use a regular sword?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Is The Kalakar looking to kick you out of the House Guards?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Kiriel,” Jewel said, drawing close enough to touch—but not touching. “Not a single one of them can see a demon half a city away. I can’t either. And I’ve seen you with that sword.”
“When?”
“When you rescued Valedan from the demon in the Great Hall. Every noble of any value at all saw you.”
That seemed to please her.
“Why do you think you have no value in and of yourself?”
Kiriel stared at her for a long, long time, and when she answered, there was a wariness, and a weariness, in her voice that aged her, when most of her questions seemed to rob her of adulthood. “I don’t understand the rules of power the Empire is run by. In the Shining Court, they’re simple. If you have power, you survive. If you have a lot of power, you rule.
“I had power, Jay. Now, by the standards of the Court, I have nothing.”
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