Gabriel handed Jester the last of the scrolls. There wasn’t one for Jay; she’d been ATerafin for a month. But clearly, ATerafin or no, there was something she’d left undone, and it was important to the woman who ruled the House. The Terafin turned, fully, to Jay, as if everyone else was now simple backdrop.
Jewel met The Terafin’s gaze and held it. She had watched as the right-kin had handed out the official sealed scrolls to every member of her den except Angel. She’d watched Angel each time, as well, glancing briefly at the side of his face to see if there was any hint of regret or resentment. There wasn’t.
But none of her den had been asked to do what Jewel now knew she would be asked to do: make an oath to the House.
The Terafin walked to the side of the altar. “I will not ask for a formal oath, because in the end, we have no ceremony that is personal enough. What you offer, and the ways in which you offer it, will be personal. But you, Jewel, have seen more clearly than all but I what lies at the heart of Terafin. You have come, at last, to the Terafin shrine, and you will leave it as a member of this House.
“We do not come to the shrine with any other House Members except the Chosen; the Chosen come, but they have all, without exception, already been granted the House Name. It is not to earn the name that they stand beside the altar. It is not to be judged worthy of the name that they kneel.”
“Has the House ever rejected someone you’ve Chosen?”
“No.”
“But you come anyway.”
“Yes.” She nodded toward the flat, empty surface of the altar. “Sometimes it . . . reminds me.”
They shared a brief smile, The Terafin’s tinged with regret.
Jewel knelt by the altar’s side, remembering Torvan—her Torvan, not the real one, who stood down the steps, watching and waiting. She wondered if the Spirit would come to her tonight, and if he did, whose face he would wear. She had traversed the gallery of paintings that depicted the various rulers of the House from its founding, but there was no painting of the founder or his successor. Instead, there was a painting of the House Sword, and in this painting, the single word engraved in the blade glowed like sunlight on the clearest of days.
She had no idea what he had looked like in life. In death, it didn’t matter. He was fluid; he took the shape he required, donning it as if it were clothing.
She placed her right hand on the altar’s stone surface and almost jerked it back; the altar was warm to the touch, although there was no visible source of heat. It should have been cold; the night was, and it was now dark enough that no sun provided any lingering warmth. She left her hand where she’d placed it, but she glanced once at The Terafin, who nodded.
There was only one thing she could offer at this altar; that had been made clear to her the first time she’d found it. She had some taste of what life in House Terafin would be like: Avandar, not Ellerson; Meralonne, not Farmer Hanson; demons instead of rival dens. There would be days, weeks, and months when sleep was elusive, either because she woke so damn early to work and report to The Terafin, where she would be grilled for hours, or because her nightmares wouldn’t leave her alone.
The demons were gone, but she knew, as she knelt by the altar, that death wore many guises and that sooner or later, she would face them all: human, inhuman, and indifferent force of nature. She couldn’t prevent that. But if fear of starvation and death had driven her here, if it had ruled the whole of her life in the manse, it hadn’t been the whole of her life. And if she hadn’t been here, in the end, the warning that had brought the Exalted and the Kings to the foot of Moorelas would have arrived far too late. She couldn’t have carried that word on her own; no one would have listened. No one would have believed.
But The Terafin could, and had.
The future waited. Lessons very like the ones Rath had undertaken loomed and, with them, the responsibilities that knowledge would allow her to fulfill. She would face them with her den—with those who’d survived—by her side.
She bowed her head, drew breath to speak, and then closed her eyes; she was shaking, which was stupid.
“Did I not tell you that you are not to touch the altar unless you have something to offer?”
Jewel looked up then, and as she did, The Terafin turned as well; they both froze for a moment at the face that the Terafin Spirit had chosen for his own this eve. It was Rath’s.
He wore, as he sometimes did, his velvet jacket, the slightly ruffled sleeves peering out from the edge of its cuffs. His hair was drawn back, and he wore no hat; he wore his finest boots, and upon his finger a ring that Jewel had never seen. He meant to imply wealth, or perhaps significant birth.
No, she thought, rising. Rath, dressed like this, would have meant that. But this wasn’t Rath.
“Indeed,” he said, divining her thought and quenching, in the process, the sudden surge of her anger. “But it seemed appropriate, Jewel. Tonight.” He glanced at the still form of The Terafin, and added, with a very familiar dip of chin, “Amarais.”
The Terafin didn’t speak a word. But he had shaken her; Jewel saw that in a glance. He waited in silence, and then, to her surprise—and she thought, to The Terafin’s—he broke it. “Amarais,” he said again, and this time his voice was gentler. “It has been many, many years since I have come to you.”
“And both times clothed in the forms of the dead.”
“Clothed, indeed, in the forms of your dead. But this one,” he added, “is also Jewel’s. He binds you to each other.”
Jewel glanced from one to the other: Rath. The Terafin. And then, taking one sharp breath, she inserted herself forcibly between them, and placing her hands against the chest of the Spirit, she pushed. “You’re wrong,” she said, letting familiar heat envelop her words. “The House binds us to each other. House Terafin and what we’ve accomplished—so far—together. We don’t need to be bound by pain.”
“You mistake me, Jewel,” he replied. “There is pain, yes. But beyond pain, there are other memories and other strengths, which also serve as a bridge; it is narrow and it is private.” He bowed, then, to The Terafin. “Amarais,” he said, wearing Rath’s face, speaking with Rath’s voice.
Still The Terafin said nothing, did nothing. It was more than Jewel could bear. She turned and she placed both of her hands against the altar. “Here,” she spit out. It wasn’t enough. She climbed the altar, pulling herself up until she was sitting on the strange warmth of its surface. “This is it. This is what I offer. Take it or leave it.”
He raised a brow.
“She is,” The Terafin said softly, “what she is. She will learn to clothe and hide it, but it will remain. I understand—and accept—what she offers; there is strength in it, even when fear is at its strongest.
“Can you do less?”
“I, Amarais? No. I will accept what she offers because I know in the end what she will give—and what it will cost.”
Jewel tensed at the words; she couldn’t help it. He nodded.
“Yes. It is one of the dichotomies of life, Jewel. Without care, without concern, without a sense of duty and the affection it inspires, there is very, very little that one can give. But you will always be exposed because there will always be something that you can lose. Loss, when it does come, is always unexpected, and it always cuts.
“But there is no protection against it.”
She stared at him, and then she said, “Is that why you’re Rath?”
“Yes. And it is not for you, alone, but also for Amarais.” He bowed, then, to The Terafin. “You have done well. You will do well. I am watching, and as I can, I will guide and guard. Teach Jewel what you can; it is up to Jewel to decide how much of it she can learn.”
He turned then, and he looked not toward the House but toward the gardens beyond the shrine. “I am weary,” he said. “And it is almost my time. But I linger.” He lifted a hand, as if he were reaching for something, and then let it fall, slowly, to his side. “I linger, still.
“ATerafin. Terafin. Wh
at you offer, I accept. Go back to your House and make it as strong as you can.” He walked away then and became, in an instant, both a memory and a part of the night.
They were silent, watching him, lost for a moment in the memories he had invoked. Morretz broke the silence, and he did it by simple movement; his feet had weight and texture against the cold stone.
The Terafin closed her eyes, drew breath, straightened her shoulders, and turned. “Morretz,” she said softly. “We are done here. Let us repair to the manse.”
Epilogue
8th of Veral, 411 A. A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
THERE WERE NO SECRETS in the manse. There was the pretense of secrecy, and people who were highly skilled in various forms of polite social deception could easily pretend not to have the offending information—but truly, secrecy was scarce. This was nowhere more true than it was among the servants, and, in particular, among those who had been assigned the task of caring for the unusual occupants of the West Wing. Since they weren’t actually supposed to speak with those occupants, however, their social deception skills were somewhat lacking.
Carver had slid into the cramped, narrow halls used by the servants. He was fond of them, and over the months, he’d become as familiar with their layout as he’d been with any of the streetside entrances into the undercity. The farther away he got from the West Wing, the cooler the reception he received; no one, however, called either the guards, which would have been bad, or the Master of the Household Staff, which would have been worse.
He’d considered applying—as Merry called it—for a job as a servant in the manse; her reaction had made him reconsider, quickly. Servants in this manse were held to the highest of standards, and apparently, House Name or no, Carver would fail to reach them. Merry did say, in an attempt to cushion the blow, that she privately doubted that even The Terafin herself would meet the Master of the Household Staff’s very exacting demands.
The Terafin, on the other hand, had no desire to find a job.
But it wasn’t for a job that Carver had taken to the halls today; it was in part to get out of the wing, and in part to find Merry. He hadn’t seen her for most of the week, and while it was true she was busier than she had been, it had been a long—and boring—week.
He did run into a few of the servants he knew on sight, and they greeted him by his newly acquired Name, which, given how many ATERAFIN there were within these walls, was funny. One or two of them even hugged him, but they were older, and they were also the same women who ruffled his hair or complained about its length, depending on how harried they were by their own duties at the time.
He stopped one. “Vera, have you seen Merry?”
“She was off on break. Why?” Vera could sharpen a single syllable into a very uncomfortable point. “You two aren’t having troubles, are you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a week.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “Not that it’s my business,” she said, “but I’ll give you a bit of advice.”
Most of her advice had to do with his hair, his language, or his presence in the servants’ hallways. He nodded anyway.
“Give her a bit of time.”
“Time? For what?”
Vera raised an iron brow. “Your new status?”
Carver raised both of his, although the effect was probably the same, since only one was ever visible. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You’re ATerafin now.”
“Yes—but so is she.”
“Aye, and young for it, and the pride of her parents, too. She knows what she had to do to earn the Name and, more important, knows how long it took. But her life and your life are different. She wants to be happy for you; give her time and she will be. But—it’s harder now, and she’s smart enough to try to avoid you until she’s sorted it.”
“Smart?”
“She doesn’t want to say what she’s afraid she’ll say.”
“Given some of the stuff she has said, I don’t know why she thinks I’ll care.”
Vera’s smile was careworn. “Aye, there’s that. But we all want to be our best when we’re talking to people we like, and right now, she’s not going to be that. Can you just let lie for a while longer?”
“Well, no.”
Vera was almost done with friendly advice, given the set of her chin. “Have you considered what your role in the House will be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t see it changing much.”
“No, you probably don’t. My break is almost done, Carver. I have to get back to work.”
“Vera—can you just give her something for me if you won’t tell me where she is?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether or not it’ll get me fired.”
“It won’t get you fired.” He handed her an envelope, which was sealed.
“What is it, then?”
“We’re having a party.”
“Beg pardon?”
“We’re having a party.”
“I heard that. What do you mean by ‘party’ and who is ‘we?’ ”
Carver was, given Avandar’s imperious insistence on any number of things, no longer certain exactly what was meant by “party.” “The den is having a party in the wing,” he finally said. “To celebrate the fact that we’ve been given the House Name.” Before words could fall out of her open mouth, he added, “Jay checked it out first. The wing is ours, The Terafin agreed, and we have money for it. We can invite whomever we want as guests. Doesn’t matter what they do or where they’re from.”
“And this?” Vera asked, waving the envelope in front of his face.
“It’s an invitation. Apparently we need ’em. Jay and Avandar discussed it.” They’d had a screaming row about it, but Carver kept that to himself. “Asking people to come by and telling them when apparently isn’t good enough.”
Vera looked down at the envelope and then back at Carver. “You realize the Master of the Household Staff isn’t going to look kindly on this?”
He shrugged again. “The Terafin does.”
The older woman took a deep breath, expelled it, and then gave the envelope back to Carver. “Come with me,” she said.
She led Carver up a familiar set of narrow steps and down an equally familiar set of halls. The narrow doors that girded this hall on either side were where the servants who lived in the manse called home; Merry was one of them. It was, in fact, to Merry’s closed door that Vera walked. She held a finger to her lips for a second and then knocked on the door.
Merry’s distinctive “hello” filtered through the wood.
“It’s Vera.”
The floors creaked toward the door, which opened to reveal Merry’s face. She was pale and looked distinctly unhappy. Unhappiness drifted into shock as she looked beyond Vera—indisputably present—to see Carver looming behind her. To no one’s surprise, the door slammed shut.
“I told you,” Vera muttered. She began banging on the door with her surprisingly ample fists. “Merry, open the door.”
“No!”
“Merry, if you’ve given up on the boy, just let him know now.”
Silence.
“And if you haven’t, I’m off break in five minutes, and I can’t spend much more time standing between the two of you.”
Creaking. The door opened maybe an inch—not enough for Carver to slide a foot in, not that he tried. He would have had to shove Vera out of the way to do it, which would have been suicidal. “I’m not well,” she said, speaking mostly to the door, although it was clear she meant the words for Carver.
“And if you’ve not given up on the boy,” Vera continued, as if the muted words hadn’t been spoken, “you’ll need to talk to him sometime. He’s a right pain,” Vera added, “as I’ve told you a hundred times. But for all that, I don’t entirely disapprove. He asked me to give you something,” she added with a sniff, “and I’m not on the West W
ing; I may be a servant, but I’m not his messenger. Go on, Merry. I’ve got my shift to make.” So saying, she moved away from the door, leaving Carver and Merry alone.
Carver looked at his feet. Which was fine, because Merry was looking at his feet as well. The gap between door and frame widened, and he looked up. Merry was still standing in it, but he could see all of her now. She didn’t look well. She was pale, her eyes ringed with dark circles, her lips cracked.
He felt suddenly awkward; this wasn’t the Merry he knew. She wasn’t always happy to see him, but she usually smacked him or cursed under her breath if he’d annoyed her; this was worse. It was awkward.
“I—I wanted you to have this,” he finally said. He held out the envelope, and she stared at it as if she’d forgotten how to read.
“What is it?”
“It’s an invitation. To a party.”
She didn’t break the seal. Instead she looked at him and then turned away and walked into the room. He was almost afraid to follow her, which annoyed him enough that he did. He closed the door quietly behind him, hating the awkwardness. It had been easier to run through the manse in the dark of night on the heels of demons, which was stupid—no one’s life was depending on this.
There were no windows in the room, and the room itself was small enough that it would have fit right in in the twenty-fifth holding. Or the thirty-second, or even the thirty-fifth. It was tiny compared to the room he now called his own.
“What party?” she said, tonelessly.
He wanted to hold her; he didn’t dare touch her. “The Terafin’s given us her blessing to throw a party in our wing.” He studied her expression.
“For what?”
“To celebrate.”
“The House Name?”
He nodded. Her expression rippled, but it didn’t shift much. And she didn’t swear or throw the invitation away, which might—at this point—have been better. “You’re inviting me.”
“Yes. We can invite whoever we want.”
She examined the invitation and picked at the seal. “We’ve heard rumors,” she finally said, her voice flat and hard.
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