House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  “As you command.”

  Jewel watched the Kings depart. The Queens left with them, as did the Astari. The Terafin left the Exalted upon their thrones; they would not, it was clear, remain there for long. But she did not return immediately through the halls of Avantari to the Terafin carriages that waited; she followed Devon instead.

  He led them through the large and beautiful halls seen by visiting dignitaries, passing through the almost awe-inspiring galleries as if they were beneath notice. Jewel struggled to do the same, but she was weary enough to let light’s play catch her eyes as she walked. Devon showed no signs of impatience; he slowed his graceful walk, waiting and occasionally commenting on the history of whichever item caught her attention.

  Eventually, he led them to a set of very fine doors, and he opened them. A man who looked much like any other intimidating official Jewel had ever met looked up from his desk—and if desks had a secret longing to be something dramatic, like a fortress, it was this one. But the man caught sight of Devon and resumed his seat with a precise nod that implied a certain amount of grudging respect.

  Devon led them to a large office that was in keeping with the public offices of House Terafin. No one, however, was in it. He crossed the room to the much more subdued desk and sank into the chair behind it, indicating the three other chairs that faced him. “You took a risk,” he said to his Lord.

  “I was not the author of that risk.”

  Jewel winced. She had taken a chair and vacated it immediately; moving toward the tall, fine windows that hinted at escape. But The Terafin’s expression wasn’t severe; it didn’t radiate disapproval or disappointment. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Jewel’s part, because she very, very much wished that she hadn’t backed herself into that corner with the cold and autocratic Lord of the Compact. “I’m sorry,” she said, cheeks red. “But thanks for covering for me. I owe you.”

  The Terafin looked at her for longer than was comfortable and then glanced at Devon, who shrugged very slightly, his lips turning up in an odd smile. It was Devon who broke the silence. “I don’t think you understand. Did you think she was merely trying to save you some time at the hands of the Lord of the Compact?”

  Since that’s exactly what The Terafin had done, Jewel stared at Devon in silence, trying to sift through his words to get at their meaning.

  “The name ATerafin is not offered lightly, and it is never offered in jest or in subterfuge. You are ATerafin, Jewel. This is no game.”

  You are ATerafin, Jewel.

  The words hung in the air as if the voice were ink and they were written there in a fine, strong hand. A hand, she thought, like Rath’s. She looked at the woman who had been his sister, a woman who had betrayed him by becoming ATerafin, and a woman whom he had never forgiven.

  But unforgiven, he had trusted her enough to write her the letter that had started Jewel’s life in Terafin. That letter had led to this meeting, to all of the many meetings that had simultaneously terrified her and made her feel that her endeavors were useful, even necessary.

  She had imagined—in daydreams and in the odd and debilitating nightmare—the day in which she would be called into The Terafin’s presence and offered the House Name. She had assumed it would be offered only if she succeeded in whatever larger-than-life goal The Terafin had set, that the name was the symbol of passing the test.

  She had imagined, as well, what she would tell her den when she accepted, because in her daydreams, she had always accepted. This was like none of those times.

  Had she thought it a lie? Yes. But it had been a lie offered to protect her from the most intimidating man she had ever met. Now, looking at The Terafin’s face, she understood what that assumption was: a small slap in the face. It was the House Name, and this woman was the House.

  She had offered the House protection to Jewel because Jewel was finally, somehow, worthy of it.

  But she didn’t feel any different. In her daydreams, everything was shining and clear; she had proved her worth. She had earned a place, and she felt as if she belonged there.

  Here, in clothing that chafed her neck, surrounded by the walls of the intimidating Avantari, she accepted that daydreams were just that. The truth was never all of one thing or all of the other. She had proved her worth to the House—she must have—but she still felt the same insignificant and helpless Jewel Markess that she was the day she’d tried to rob Rath.

  No, she thought, the day she’d succeeded.

  The Terafin had already begun to speak with Devon, as if the matter were decided. And it was: Jewel was no fool. Or not more of one than her Oma had often called her. She wanted the House Name; it meant safety for the den. Whatever else it meant, she’d leave to the future, because the conversation wasn’t such that she could interrupt it with a frenzy of questions. Which was hard.

  “Because,” Devon was saying, “the Sleepers are history, and they have slept, unchanged and unchanging, forever. I do not believe that our enemies somehow missed this entrance into the undercity; I believe they unmade it, as they unmade the rest. But the Exalted believe that the unmaking was rejected, as all known attempts to change the Sleepers have been—in a slow and subtle reworking that a mage in haste would miss completely. It is almost as if time itself guards them.”

  “They unmade the way,” Jewel said quietly, “and the protection around the Sleepers unmade their unmaking.”

  Devon nodded in quiet approval, but then again, everything he did suggested quiet. It was a good quiet. “Yes.”

  “Then . . . they don’t know.”

  “That is our hope. And we believe that it is our only hope.”

  “No.”

  Jewel and The Terafin turned toward this new speaker; Devon’s reaction was entirely different, and later, Jewel might find it funny. Now, she was shocked and silent as he threw himself out of his chair, rolling along the ground to the flat of his feet as if there were demons in the room. Both of his hands had sprouted daggers, which she saw for an eyeblink before they left his hands, flying in the direction of the stranger’s face.

  They never reached her. She didn’t so much as lift a hand or move to stop them; they simply froze in the air an inch away from her open eyes and fell.

  “Well met, Devon ATerafin,” She raised her hands. “I come in peace; I mean no harm.” She now removed the hood that obscured much of her face; the hood was a deep—and familiar—midnight blue.

  Jewel had seen the exact robe once before, and recently, but the voice was wrong. So was the face that the fallen hood now exposed. This woman was older than The Terafin, although her hair was still raven black, shot through with one white streak. Her eyes were a striking violet, a color that Jewel could not remember seeing on anyone else; she was not lovely. She was, however, intimidating in a way that even The Terafin was not.

  “I am Evayne.”

  “And I am The Terafin.” The Terafin lifted two fingers, as if in den-sign, and Devon resumed his seat. “I do not . . . recognize you.”

  “No? But we’ve met. A long, long time ago. I was a youth, Terafin, and you were a combatant.”

  The Terafin did not assume that this stranger was mistaken; she was silent for a moment. “The robes.”

  Evayne nodded.

  “Seer. You are . . . much aged.”

  “Yes. I am.” She turned then to look at Jewel, who did not shrink back, although it took effort. “Jewel. You have not yet made the pilgrimage, and if I am not mistaken and my memory does not fail me, you will.”

  So much for effort. Jewel didn’t realize she’d stepped back until she felt the wall against her shoulder blades. There was a threat in the words the woman had spoken, even if the words hadn’t been spoken to threaten. It was hard to believe that this woman had once been frightened enough to run, leading two foreigners to the protection of The Terafin Chosen.

  How much could a person change?

  How much could Jewel?

  “You are young,” Evayne continued. �
��Younger than I was when I was left upon that road.” The faintest hint of what might have been either sympathy or pity transformed her features briefly. “But enough. My time is brief; if the Lord of the Path is willing, I will meet you ere this battle’s fought.”

  “Put them away, Devon.” The Terafin’s voice was both soft and chilly. “I believe that if the seer wished us dead, we would be.”

  Evayne raised a dark brow, and offered just the faintest hint of disapproval. “I am no threat to the Crowns you defend, Astari.”

  The single word dropped into the room as if it were part of the ceiling.

  Devon did not deny her. The Terafin had called her seer. But he said, “How did you know that I am Astari? It is not . . . common knowledge.”

  “I’ve met you many times, ATerafin, and in many situations. This is one of the most peaceful, and it may be the last; it is not given to me to know my future.”

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  “No. You have not.” She turned from him. Unfortunately, she turned toward Jewel, and she reached into her robes. When she pulled her hand clear, it carried a globe that lit the room, although its light was laced with shadow, like the roiled light of brilliant clouds. “Jewel, or Jay if you prefer, I know who you are. Look at me carefully, and look at what I hold. Then tell them what it is.”

  They already knew, Jewel thought, glancing at The Terafin’s expression. “It’s a—it’s a seer’s ball.”

  “Very well. But what, exactly, is a seer’s ball? A crystal? A globe of blown glass for use by charlatans? Come, Jewel.” The words were compelling, although they were soft, almost quiet. Jewel looked to The Terafin, almost hiding behind the House Name that was now hers.

  But this time The Terafin nodded. So she faced the orb in the seer’s hand, as the room got colder. She did not want to look into the orb itself; she was willing to glance at it, but her glance slid away, as if it were a captive bird in a new cage.

  “Jewel.”

  A captive bird in a new cage with a new owner pressing her nose through the bars. She looked. Glanced away. And then she took a deep breath and looked at Evayne for permission, which was strange given that the order had come from her.

  But Evayne seemed to understand Jewel’s hesitation—which was impressive, because Jewel didn’t—and for the first time, a small smile touched her lips. It was not a warm one, but it was better than nothing.

  And there, in the heart of the folding, brilliant storm, she found the girl she had first seen, and she found, as well, the face of one of the two foreign lords; he looked friendly, and sympathetic, but he did not speak. She found the face of a man who had seen battle, judging by the scars; he was not young, but he, too, smiled, in the way the old smiled at those they thought much younger. She found no name for either man in the crystal itself, but she didn’t need one; for a moment, she knew who they were.

  Or who they were to Evayne. Evayne a’Nolan.

  She saw a boy the age of Teller, with a broad face and a mischievous smile; she saw an older woman, face careworn the way her mother’s had been before she died, and an older man, who smiled; she liked the sound of his voice, although she hadn’t actually heard him speak. But he smoked a pipe, too.

  She saw the Master Bard of Senniel College, his face twisted in rage and pain and made slender by time—for he was young, here. She saw him older as well, the man she had seen sing in the ruins of the Cordufar manse—that face, she would never forget. Older still, his voice unchanged by time, she saw him gentled and softened by age. Kallandras. She saw more, felt more.

  Fear had no face, but it grew as she touched the lives of people she knew would die. The lives of people she wanted desperately to save—but whose death might bring the only hope the world might have in the face of the—the Lord of the Hells.

  All her life was given to that fight, that war. All of their lives, given as well. There was no mercy left in her, but there was pain. Guilt. Jewel knew guilt better than anyone—or so she’d thought.

  But there was hope as well, and if it was slender, if it demanded the sacrifice of almost everything, it remained, and it was in its way one of the most beautiful things that Jewel had ever touched; she couldn’t see it, but she could feel its strength.

  Even now, with Allasakar on the threshold, it did not dim.

  At her back, Jewel heard Devon clear his throat as if at a great remove. She startled slightly and looked up from the orb in the seer’s hands to meet the startling violet of the older woman’s eyes. The face she saw was not the face of the woman who lived within the crystal; it was a mask, and it was meant for the inspection of others. But for a moment, it looked wrong. There was no weakness in that face, no doubt, no hesitation.

  Yet Jewel had seen it; she knew it existed.

  “Tell them,” she said quietly, in a voice so low only Jewel could hear it. “Tell them what it is.”

  “I’m not even sure I—”

  “Yes. You are. Find the words for the certainty.”

  Jewel nodded slowly and turned to face the woman who had given her the name of her House. “It’s her heart.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  IF SHE EXPECTED MOCKERY—and in her den, she would have received some—she was to be disappointed; The Terafin gave the slightest of nods and said nothing.

  But Evayne reached out and caught Jewel’s chin, turning it toward her with the tips of her fingers. “And can you read it?”

  Jewel nodded and turned again to The Terafin. “I—I’d trust her. I already do.” She looked at Evayne. “This—it was made by you.”

  But Evayne shook her head and offered a tired smile. Or a sad one. At her age, it was often the same thing. “No, Jewel. It was made of me. I walked the Oracle’s path; I passed the Oracle’s test. And she passed mine.”

  Jewel wanted to ask what test Evayne had set for the Oracle. It didn’t occur to her to ask who the Oracle was; not then. But it was The Terafin who spoke, and Evayne had not opened herself—her heart—to The Terafin.

  “The Oracle. You walked her path.” She glanced at Jewel and then at Devon before her eyes returned to the glowing orb in Evayne’s hand. What Jewel had seen, it was clear The Terafin could not. “They called this a soul-crystal, a soul-shard. I remember my grandfather’s stories. Is it like all stories? Does it lose its romance and power as you approach its reality?”

  “It loses none of its power,” Evayne replied, with a bitter, sharp flash of a smile, “and all of its romance.” She turned once again to Jewel. “I thank you, little sister. And I hope—although in truth, I fear there is little chance of it—that you will not bear a like burden in your day.”

  Jewel heard truth in every word. I don’t think I could. I don’t think I have it in me to do what you’ve done. Even if the world would end tomorrow if I didn’t.

  Evayne shook her head slightly, and then she curved her palms over the orb and enfolded it, once again, within her robes. Jewel found the robes hard to watch as they swallowed light, and she realized only then how very unnatural they were. She reached out and then pulled back as Evayne turned, drawing herself up to a height that Jewel saw was not much greater than her own.

  “You have in your dwelling a foreign noble,” she said to The Terafin.

  “Yes. We believe he is of import.”

  “He is. But he is the weapon, not the swordsman; know how to wield him and when to let him fly. It matters little who else is chosen, but Lord Elseth must be sent to the Sanctum when the way is open.” She turned, then, to Devon. “You have at court a young bard. Bring him as well.”

  “I see. She is to send, and I am to bring? You do not know The Terafin.”

  “It will not be easy, and it will not be simple, but the ways must be opened and the path must be walked. Jewel, you and I will meet again ere this long battle is over. But time is of the essence.” She smiled, but it was a brief, strange smile. Jewel understood why only seconds later: Evayne took one step toward them and vanished. No
sign of her presence remained.

  10th of Henden, 410 A. A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  No one who lived and worked within the manse would leave it on their normal rounds of business. Business, such as it was, was not normal. Those who lived in the manse but were obliged for reasons of employ to leave, braved the streets. Finch was one of them. Before she had set foot out of the West Wing, she was surrounded by House Guards; Torvan had come to her quarters in person to escort her to the Merchant Authority.

  Teller hugged her, briefly and fiercely, as she walked out the doors; she worked not to clench both her jaw and her shoulders, and she greeted Torvan with what she hoped was a smile. If it was, it was worn pretty thin around the edges.

  “You’re certain you’re needed in the Authority today?” Torvan asked. It was almost a ritual, these days.

  “Lucille told me she’d see me tomorrow.”

  He grimaced. But he didn’t argue—not with Finch, at any rate. He had asked to have a few words with Lucille, and she had, in ill temper, told him she would clear time on her schedule for this morning. That had been four days ago.

  “Very well,” he said. “Come. At this rate, we’ll be late.”

  The voices that poured out of the ground could now be heard almost as far as the bay; they could be heard in all of the lower holdings, and all of the middle ones as well. The Kings’ men roved the streets in their bright armor and their tabards—with the prominently crossed rod and sword front and center—in an attempt to keep peace.

  But peace was hard to find. The agony and the utter terror of disembodied voices made every turn of the corner the moment—in dreams—in which you enter nightmare and nothing is in your control anymore. Finch, like most of the den, knew those nightmares. Hers were almost always of the family that had deserted her, a kinder way of saying: sold.