Skirmish: The House War: Book Four

by Michelle West

  Jewel had gained little height in the past fifteen years; she was small, her shoulders slender. She walked like a boy in the streets of the hundred holdings. He was uncertain whether or not she had ever actually killed a man. He was certain she had seen death, but seeing it and causing it were in no way the same. Death was not her gift, but he could see no clear path to the future she wanted if it could not become her tool.

  All this he thought dispassionately, even coldly, as the famous galleries of the Terafin manse passed by him. He had an eye for geography that was almost as sharp as his eye for human detail; he knew the statues, the arms, the paintings, and the windows, and knew as well when the next turn would lead into the west hall in which Jewel’s home was situated. He knew the tabards of the House Guard well; the tabards of the Terafin Chosen were similar. He saw both on display, and wondered, briefly, what would become of the Chosen; they had not, to his knowledge, been disbanded yet, although the Lord to whom they swore their life was now gone.

  Frowning, he accepted his sparse knowledge of the minutiae of the guard structure within the House. He would have to ask Jarven who the Captain of the House Guard now was. He disliked even the thought of having to all but beg Jarven for information; it pricked at his dignity.

  But…it gave him something to think about. Walking as he was, he couldn’t retreat to smooth seams and stitching; nor could he soothe thought with the numbing task of perfect beading. The only other option was Hannerle, and that was not a place he wished to revisit, he had spent so much time by her side thinking of little else.

  The doors to the wing opened as Jewel approached them, and he realized that wish or no, he would now do exactly that. An old man stood in the opened doors, bowing in greeting as the three members of the den approached. “Jewel. Finch. Teller.”

  It was Finch who spoke. “We have a guest,” she told him, turning toward Haval. “And we require a room in which he can work in relative peace.”

  The man nodded briskly, and waited until they had all entered, even Haval; he sent the overburdened footmen on their way while he disappeared to prepare tea and something that smelled very like hot cider with a touch too much cinnamon. Only when the footmen had left and the doors to the wing had closed at their back did he speak again.

  “He is not the only guest on the premises.”

  “Ummm, we know,” Finch replied. “We had no real way to send word.”

  One white brow rose. It was as much criticism as the older man seemed prepared to offer, at least in the presence of guests. “I have taken the liberty of assuming the guest’s stay will be for an unspecified length of time, and I’ve opened a room for her use.” He turned to Jewel. “Avandar is taking a brief rest; he will join you shortly.”

  Shortly.

  Haval glanced at Jewel, who seemed both unsurprised and unfazed by the comment. Jewel’s domicis had always radiated an unseemly confidence—even arrogance—for a man in his chosen profession, but Haval was honestly surprised. A short rest for the magic he’d used implied a depth of power that no domicis in Haval’s experience should have. It was novel.

  Jewel rose, tea in hand. So far, her hand was the only thing that had touched it, but the room was chilly, even with wood burning in the grate. “Take us to her,” she told the man. Her tone was rough and cool. Finch cast her gaze at the carpets. Even when she chose not to speak, she was expressive, which was unfortunate. Haval noted that Teller was not.

  The man bowed and led them past the sitting room into a hall that was girded by modest doors on either side. He paused at the third door on the right and opened it. Haval, following at the same distance as he had in the external halls, was last to enter the room. Hannerle was already in bed, her head propped up by pillows. She was not, however, alone.

  One young man and one boy stood beside her, on the side of the bed farthest from the door; they were both looking up at Jewel as Haval approached.

  Jewel lifted a hand, signaling with a brief sweep of three fingers; the older of the two nodded. The younger, however, seemed to take no information from the gestures. Interesting.

  “Daine, why are you here?”

  Daine had now transferred his gaze from Jewel to Haval. She coughed and said, “This is Haval. The woman in the bed is his wife, Hannerle. Neither of which answers the question I just asked. Why aren’t you in the healerie?”

  “Jester called me. He said Avandar had brought a guest.”

  “…Jester told you to come. To our wing, in the middle of the day, without any visible reason.”

  Daine said nothing. Given the shift in her tone, this was probably wise, at least for another few minutes. It became less wise with the passage of time, however.

  Haval cleared his throat loudly. “Adam and Daine are both healers.” It wasn’t a question.

  Jewel nodded; she knew there was no point in lying, not to Haval; she had brought Hannerle here for one purpose.

  “And it is Adam who can achieve your minor miracle.”

  She nodded again.

  “Adam is not from the Empire.”

  “Adam is new to the Empire, yes. Before you ask, no, I didn’t bring him here.”

  “You knew he was healer-born.”

  “Haval—it’s long, complicated, and entirely irrelevant, but yes, I knew he was healer-born. He was given into Levec’s keeping, and Levec doesn’t let go of much. Believe that here was not where I expected to find him. He’s so young—”

  “He is not much younger than you were, when you first became involved with Terafin.”

  “He looks younger than I felt at the time.”

  “They always do. I cannot tell you how young you all look to me, and I know what I was doing at your age. Will he start soon?”

  “Yes. Just as soon as Daine answers my question.”

  Daine now squared his shoulders and gained two inches of height. “I’m here,” he told his den leader, “because I want to see what Adam is doing. I know he’s different. I know I can’t do what he does—if Levec can’t do it, I’m surprised anyone can. But we have no idea how far this will spread, and I want to be familiar with what it does. And with what he does.”

  Jewel offered no further argument. The damage was already done, and it was Haval’s guess that Daine also lived in this wing, which made travel between the wing and the healerie vastly less suspicious than it might otherwise have been. “Adam.”

  Adam nodded and silently took one of Hannerle’s hands in his; Daine took the other. They both closed their eyes almost simultaneously. Haval had seldom seen the healer-born at work; he had certainly seen his share of doctors, but doctors didn’t have the peculiar ability to draw memory and knowledge from the minds of those to whom they were ministering.

  He watched. “You understand that Hannerle is not likely to evince gratitude when she wakes in a strange bed?”

  “Yes. But that’s not my problem.”

  “It may well be, if you insist on having your dress made on time.”

  She chuckled at that. It wasn’t forced. She even walked closer to the bed, and after a moment, Haval joined her. “How angry would she be?” she asked in soft Weston.

  Haval did not choose to mistake her meaning. “It would break her heart,” he replied.

  “And will you?”

  “Break her heart?”

  Jewel nodded.

  Haval didn’t answer. He watched the rise and fall of his wife’s chest; watched the play of magelight over her pale hair. Her skin was sallow and her wrinkles more pronounced, she’d lost so much weight. She wasn’t fond of strange rooms, but she would wake in this one, if she woke at all.

  Haval knew Jewel well. He knew that her inexplicable absence from her den, her House, and the Empire, had made changes in her; he was not certain how deep those changes were, or how dangerous. As always, he was curious; curiosity was the one weakness, the one appetite, that he struggled to deny. He could control it, but he could never entirely banish it; it troubled him, moved him, angered him; i
t brought him to life. It defined half of who he was. But Hannerle defined the other half, and he had managed, over decades, to hold those two halves in such perfect balance they looked whole.

  That balance had faltered.

  He wasn’t certain when, but knew why: Hannerle did not wake. She had—hopefully through no choice of her own—withdrawn from his daily life; she had left him in the silence of his own thoughts and the routines of his unmoored habits. He had cleaned, in her absence. He had cleaned like a compulsive, returned to her side to dribble water into her mouth before he once again moved away. She was the center of his orbit, but the orbit grew.

  Wake, Hannerle, he thought, watching her still face. Wake.

  They had built their life together. They had built the store and its varied clientele with care; they had built their connections to the merchants who traveled from the South and the West. They had started in a modest, rented space and had graduated into their own building. Children had not come, and that had been the one blight in Hannerle’s existence; it had not overly troubled Haval. He understood all the ways in which children were a burden; they colored the world, and they made it vastly more dangerous simply by breathing. They were a weakness that he did not want, but he would have accepted that weakness for the sake of his wife.

  She had been so young when he had first seen her; so young, so blunt, so assertive—and yet, so strikingly naive. It was a peculiar naïveté, however. He could—and frequently did—lie to her, but the lies she accepted as truth were often small. She didn’t demand truth; she simply demanded silence, once with the open palm of her hand. He could coax her; he could charm her; with care, he could manipulate her.

  She had, therefore, never known the full scope of his activities. But she had nonetheless understood what they encompassed. She did not ask him who he served, or how; she asked him, instead, to stop. To choose.

  He so chose. But her absence, and the certainty that the absence would never abate, had unraveled at least one lie—one observational infelicity that galled, because it was not an intentional lie; it was one that he had told himself, and even believed. It was their life, but he had built it, in its entirety, from his desire for, and comfort in, her. She had played no games, when she offered him the choice. What had she said?

  Ah.

  It’s not that I don’t trust you, Haval. I do. And I even know it’s foolish, you lie almost as often as you draw breath. But your lies aren’t cruel, they’re not petty; they’re even meant to comfort. It’s why I’ve always accepted them from you, when I’d’ve gutted any other man or woman who tried.

  But love, for me—it’s practical. It’s a practical thing. It’s not just passion or romance. Her hair had been dark, and her eyes dark as well; the whole of her expression seemed hollowed by shadows. He’d lifted his hands to touch her face and she’d flinched.

  I know there are no certainties. You could fall to disease. You could be carried from me in an accident. I accept those. When I promise you forever, it’s a promise of intent; I can’t control the moment of my own death. But I’d live with those fears. Do you understand? I’d live with them.

  The fears that I have now—I can’t live with. Accident, yes. Disease, yes. But not poison, not dagger, not sword, not unexplained disappearance. I can’t build a future with that much fear. I trust you; I don’t trust your enemies, whoever they might be.

  Hannerle...

  And I understand that it’s part of who you are, and if I had any intelligence, I’d’ve never fallen for a man like you at all. But you lied, when I wanted to believe you, and I chose to believe. I can’t choose that, anymore. I’m selfish, I’m greedy, and it’s not enough. If you can make a life with me now, make one. But make it a life that has no more fear in it than it must. I’ll leave my family. I’ll work, and work hard. I’m not an empty-headed girl; I know how to work.

  But I want to face a future with you, not alone. If that’s not what you want—if that’s not what you need—I’ll cry, and I’ll keep walking.

  Hannerle. Haval bowed his head. He had chosen the life she’d offered. He loved that life. But that life, without her, was not his. He accepted it, standing in the Terafin manse, surrounded by Jewel’s den. Had he not met Hannerle, had he not inexplicably fallen in love with her, he would no doubt have been dead these past fifteen years, and not peacefully.

  Hannerle could not live with fear.

  Haval could. Until Hannerle, all of life had been a game of fear and chance, but it had satisfied his curiosity and his intellect.

  She stirred. He was uncertain how much time had passed. Her eyelids began to flicker, as they sometimes did when she slept or dreamed. Her mouth moved, her lips moved. He understood, then, that she would wake.

  He glanced at Jewel and found, to his surprise, that she was watching him, not his wife.

  Hannerle’s eyes flickered open. Her lips changed shape, falling into the frown that habitually started mornings in which she’d slept unexpectedly late. She lifted her arms, or would have; they were both attached to hands that were held by two different men. Adam and Daine opened their eyes as she tugged her hands free and pushed herself up on the bed. It didn’t last long.

  “Haval?” she croaked, as her gaze fell upon the one person she expected to see when she woke. “Where am I?”

  He cleared his throat. “You are in a room in the Terafin manse, Hannerle. Can you not see young Jewel? She’s returned from the South.”

  Hannerle looked at Jewel, which did nothing to ease her confusion. “I can see her, but why am I here?”

  The two healers stepped away from the bed; everyone did but Haval. He approached it, smiling at and for his wife. Knowing, as he took her shaking hands that he could calm her, that he could explain—because she was practical. But he knew, as well, that this was a respite. She would sleep again; it couldn’t be prevented. This was not a cure.

  Hannerle could not live with fear, but Haval had now accepted that he could not live with empty hope. Oh, he could endure it. But it wasn’t enough.

  “ATerafin,” he said, although there were three in the room.

  Jewel knew who he meant.

  “I accept your offer.”

  Chapter Three

  1st of Henden, 427 A. A.

  Terafin manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  TELLER ENTERED THE OFFICE of the right-kin half an hour before anyone but the House Guard or the men and women employed by Gabriel would. There were Chosen at the doors of Gabriel’s personal office, and Chosen at the doors to the outer office. Before The Terafin’s death, the numbers had increased from two to four; those numbers did not decrease in the aftermath.

  Barston, of course, helmed his great desk, as he had always done. Teller wondered if he would leave the office when Gabriel did, or if he would agree to serve whoever succeeded Gabriel. The Terafin chose his or her right-kin. Teller was no longer the new and nervous assistant, but in spite of his years in this office or its adjuncts, he always deferred to Barston in any circumstance that allowed it. Barston was still a stiff, formal man with a severe and unamused expression permanently fixed to his face. It had taken Teller a few years to understand the dryness of Barston’s humor; it had taken him more to learn the boundaries of what appeared his boundless support and devotion to the etiquette and rules that governed the patriciate in general, and Terafin in particular.

  He therefore bowed to Barston as he entered. Barston, of course, knew who it was. He looked up from his ledger of appointments. In the pale light that was not quite dawn and not quite night, he looked exhausted. “ATerafin,” he said briskly.

  “Barston,” Teller replied. Barston could seldom be moved to use Teller’s actual name. He had done so on some occasions in the past, but there was a comfort that had gone out of the House with The Terafin’s death, and it wouldn’t return until a new Lord took both sword and seat, if then.

  “There have been several requests for appointments, ATerafin.”

  Teller frowned. He now had
an office—a small one—of his own within Gabriel’s domain; it had two doors, with some detailed carving at the height, and a window which was habitually open to let light enter. The glass could even be raised, to let breeze through. It was not raised at this time of year. His office was not so fine as Gabriel’s, and it was not nearly as important, but Teller had, over the past five years, been ceded some small part of Gabriel’s duties. He met with outsiders and visitors, often visitors of note, and he conveyed the gist of his many conversations to Gabriel. On occasion, when Gabriel deemed it necessary, Teller had reported to The Terafin directly.

  “Am I a fool to hope that those requests come from people outside of the House?”

  Barston raised one iron brow.

  “I’m sorry. If I weren’t on the House Council, Barston, I wouldn’t have absented myself from the office yesterday. But neither Finch nor I have any clothing appropriate for a funeral of this import.”

  “You have failed to ask who made those requests,” was Barston’s response.

  Because the office contained only Barston and Teller, Teller said, “How long can I continue to fail?”

  “In safety?” Barston replied, surrendering. “Until the day after the funeral services. You will not, however, want to avoid all of the requests.” He lifted a few papers—they looked, on brief inspection, like letters—and handed them to Teller. “Gabriel wishes to speak with you as well.”

  “He’s here?”

  “No.” This was said in a distinctly chilly way. “But he should be here very soon.”

  Teller nodded. He turned toward his office, and then turned back. “Barston, a question. If it is too bold or too naive, tell me.”

  “I am not the right-kin,” Barston replied. “My opinion, and I judge it likely that you wish me to give one, carries very little weight or significance. Remember that.”