Skirmish: The House War: Book Four

by Michelle West

  “The grounds.”

  She nodded. “I think the pavilion is more or less standing, but the tenting has been ripped beyond repair.”

  “The…tenting. Please tell me that you are not referring to the area in which the reception is to take place three days hence?” He also pinched the bridge of his nose. Gabriel was subject to headaches when things were enormously stressful; Teller thought he’d been suffering from one for a week now. Or more.

  “I can’t.”

  “Very well. What happened?”

  “We’re not entirely sure. No, sorry, we’re sure about what happened—but we’re not sure how or why. Sigurne—”

  “Member Mellifas was present?”

  “Yes. There was a very obvious magical disturbance. You know the old tree that overlooks the pavilion?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s mostly dead, now. But before that, it was mostly not a tree anymore. The House Guards were called by the gardeners; the gardeners were in a panic.”

  “How exactly does this involve you?”

  “One of my retainers discovered the inimical nature of the tree,” she replied, with a perfectly straight face. Jay wasn’t much of a liar, but if she could find a truth somewhere to hide behind, she put up a good fight. “Sigurne and Matteos arrived; the House Guard summoned them at my request.”

  “Your injuries?”

  “They’re minor. My retainer was more heavily injured in the fight.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widened before they narrowed. “This retainer of whom you speak—would he happen to be the man who killed the demon responsible for The Terafin’s death?”

  “The same.”

  “He was not injured in that fight.”

  “No. He didn’t consider the death of the demon to be much of a fight at all. This was different. Are you going to convene the House Council?”

  Gabriel looked as if he would rather cut off his own hands. He grimaced. “We cannot rearrange the timing of the funeral rites,” was the grim reply. “Let me accompany you back to the site to see the extent of the damage. We have no time, Jewel.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” she added again. “But the tree was enchanted, and it must have been enchanted with the funeral in mind. Everyone’s going to be there—it would have been a disaster in the best possible case.”

  “In the worst?”

  “A slaughter.”

  “Then perhaps I must thank you. Believe,” he added severely, “that I am nonetheless finding it difficult.” He opened the door. “Barston!”

  Barston was seated at his desk in front of Gabriel’s pressing appointment schedule—and another, larger, set of papers that Teller recognized as a guest list. “Regent.” He rose.

  “Send for the Captains of the Chosen. Now.”

  “At once, Regent.”

  * * *

  Barston had cheated; the Captains of the Chosen were already on their way, and it took less than four minutes before Gabriel’s door was subject to the sharp rap of Barston at his most officious. He allowed Torvan ATerafin and Arrendas ATerafin into the office and closed the door at their backs. He didn’t close the door quickly enough; Teller could see that there were now half a dozen people in the office, and he recognized at least one of them: Rymark ATerafin.

  Gabriel did not look out the opened doors; he seemed marginally surprised at the speed with which his curt command had been obeyed, no more. But he sat heavily behind his desk, and he touched one of the paperweights that adorned it. Jewel’s expression sharpened as he spoke a single word.

  “Captains,” he said quietly. “There has been a disturbance on the grounds.”

  Torvan and Arrendas exchanged a glance. There was history in it; a history built on friendship that had been thoroughly tested and hadn’t—yet—broken. They waited.

  “I would like you to serve as escort while we visit the site of the disturbance.”

  They saluted in perfect unison.

  Gabriel rose. “I have a few words to speak with Barston before we leave. Please, wait for me here.”

  Jewel was confused. Gabriel had clearly invoked a magestone for the purpose of protecting the privacy of any conversation that occurred in this room—and then he’d gone and left it. She turned to glance at her domicis, but her domicis cleared his throat and looked—pointedly—at the Captains of the Chosen.

  Torvan ATerafin looked down at her with some concern. “Jewel, your hands.”

  She wanted to pull her hair out in frustration; instead, she shoved it out of her eyes. “They’re just scratched.”

  “Let me see them.” It was not a very captainly thing to insist on, not when dealing with a member of the House Council. “Hands, Jewel.”

  Arrendas surprised her. He chuckled and shook his head. “Just show him your hands, Jewel, or we’ll be here all day.”

  “We won’t. Gabriel will come back.”

  They were both, in theory, working—and the work today was deadly serious. It would be at least as serious tomorrow and the next day, and for the three days that followed, because every member of the patriciate of any note whatsoever would be in attendance for The Terafin’s funeral. The Kings would be here. The Queens. The Princes, but they would attend only one day, and that day didn’t overlap with the Kings. In any case, there’d never been a bigger security nightmare in the House—because the last Terafin ruler that had died hadn’t died at the hands of demons, and in particular, no evidence existed that implied enchanted bloody trees lurked on his grounds, waiting to destroy his visitors.

  Jewel relented and shoved her exposed palms under Torvan’s nose. He caught her wrists and lowered them so he could actually see them. His expression shifted instantly. “Where did you get these?”

  “Thorns,” she said promptly.

  “Someone threw you into a burning bush?”

  “They’re fine, Torvan.”

  “Good. I’ll accept your word, for now. But before you tell us why Gabriel needs an escort to visit the site of the disturbance, we would like to speak with you.”

  Chapter Seven

  JEWEL GLANCED AT THE CLOSED DOOR. From there, her eyes went to the silence stone that Gabriel had so deliberately invoked.

  “Jewel,” Torvan said quietly, and with just a hint of humor, “You’ll have to look at us sometime.”

  Squaring her shoulders, she did. “I’m sorry,” she replied. “It’s not that I’ve been avoiding you—you’ve been up to your ears in security details, and I’ve been trying to get a dress made.” She grimaced as she said it. Haval would no doubt be short on sleep when he did show up. “I’ve just been thinking as far ahead as the funeral. I want it—and me—to be perfect for her. Even if she can’t see it.” Thinking of what had just happened to the grounds surrounding the pavilion, she cringed. So much for that.

  “You have yet to declare your intentions to the House and the House Council,” Arrendas said.

  “I know. But the House Council won’t meet again until after the last day of the funeral rites. I thought I had time.”

  “And that’s why you’ve hesitated?” It was Torvan, this time.

  She nodded. The truth was simpler than that. If she declared herself as a contender for the House, it put everyone in jeopardy, and it meant in an absolute way that Amarais was dead. Oh, she knew it. But some part of her held on—why, she didn’t know.

  “The other four have no such compunctions.”

  “No. But they’ve made it clear for years that they intended to succeed her.” She looked at the closed door as if the very finely accoutred room was a cell. “I wish Gabriel had chosen to put himself forward.”

  “He won’t.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you fully understand why?”

  Jewel glanced at Teller; Teller didn’t so much as lift a hand to help—and in Teller’s case, a lifted hand would have been as good as words, given den-sign.

  “…no. I assume it’s partly to do with the fact that his blood son is in the running.
”

  Torvan’s silence was chillier. Arrendas said, “The Chosen were not asked to stand down.”

  “Well, no.”

  “Jewel—the Chosen were The Terafin’s. They are The Terafin’s. The Terafin selects them, and they serve her. Not the House. Her, directly. They’re counted as part of the House Guard in any other way. It’s common practice to ask them to stand down and return to the House Guard when The Terafin to whom they swore their oath dies. We are, however, still the Chosen of House Terafin.” He stopped speaking.

  “Did she ask Gabriel to do this?”

  “I haven’t asked him.” Arrendas glanced at Torvan and passed off the conversation.

  “What do you think, Jewel?”

  “I think she must have.”

  He nodded. “She meant for you to succeed her.”

  “I know.”

  “Jewel, do you want the House?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you want it? Do you want to rule House Terafin? Do you want to occupy the Terafin Seat in the Hall of The Ten?”

  Jewel was silent. It was the first time she’d been asked that question, and instead of the automatic yes it should have engendered, she had nothing. She found words slowly. “For myself? No, Torvan.”

  He grimaced.

  “But I can’t think of anyone else I want to serve. Will that do, for now?”

  “I don’t know. Amarais wanted the House. From the moment she joined it, she wanted to rule it.”

  “I’m not Amarais.”

  “No, Jewel, you are not. Nor will you become her. She saw things in you that reminded her of her own sense of duty and responsibility, and she approved—but she never expected that you, coming from the holdings, would become a woman who was born to the patriciate.”

  Jewel glanced at the carpet. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m not ready for this conversation, not today.”

  “Be ready for it,” was his reply. “The House is in danger. We have been prepared to serve you, as we served The Terafin before you, since you returned. We’ve been waiting for your call to arms. We’ve been under some pressure, as you must expect; we are not inexperienced, and we can deal with that pressure for some small time yet. But it must be a small time, Jewel. The Chosen cannot exist as a headless body for much longer; it will be absorbed, one way or another, in the conflict.”

  “Torvan—”

  “Find the desire to rule Terafin. Find it somehow.”

  “It’s so big.” She was surprised she’d spoken, although her voice was so quiet and small she hardly recognized it as her own. She knew they were words she should never have said aloud. Avandar was silent—but forceful—in his agreement of this assessment.

  Torvan, however, nodded. “It was never a small responsibility for The Terafin. You knew her; do you honestly think she was without doubt? Her choices in the long Henden of the Dark Days were, in her later estimation, the wrong ones; we survived. We survived. But the demons have returned; The Terafin is dead. We will bury her, and we will work to install a new Terafin in her stead.”

  “And you think that I’m the right person for the job? Or will you do this,” she added, her voice sharpening, “because Amarais thought I was? Do you have no opinion of your own?”

  Arrendas raised a dark brow. Torvan raised a lighter one.

  “We trusted our Lord,” Arrendas finally said. “As did you. Do you doubt her choice?”

  “Every day.”

  “And do you not walk this path—even with hesitance—because of her choice?”

  “Yes. And because of mine. I gave her my word; it was the only thing I could give her, in the end. It was the only thing she wanted from me; the only thing that would bring her any comfort.” She looked at Torvan, waiting.

  To her surprise, he smiled. “Yes, I have an opinion, Jewel Markess ATerafin. Would you hear it?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “From the moment you first appeared at the front gates of the manse, I saw a leader in you. Those who followed you were not significant in status or number, but they were unwavering. You were willing to threaten The Terafin in order to preserve their lives—not your own.

  “I watched as you worked at her behest. I know why you worked. I know who you worked with, during the darker days. I know what you faced. I know what it cost. And I know that you paid that price, and that you will continue to pay it. I understood what The Terafin wanted for you, and from you, long before you did, and I approved.

  “I approve now, Jewel. If The Terafin had chosen Rymark as her successor, as he claims, I would have retired. She chose you. For you, I’m willing to wage the war that must be fought.

  “You are not Amarais. She was a woman of steel; a living sword. What she carried in her heart, she exposed to very, very few—but one of those few was you. I do not expect that you will present yourself—to us—as that sword; it is not how you lead. But, Jewel, you do lead. And where you lead, people will follow, even though they risk death. Is this not the case?” He looked across the room at Angel, pinning him there with his steady gaze.

  Angel proved—again—that he was no House Guard, no member of Torvan’s Chosen; he offered Torvan a lopsided grin.

  “Those who follow are not without fear. Teller, do you understand what you risk?”

  “I risk no more—and no less—than Jay does,” was his quiet reply. “But yes, Torvan, we know what we’ll face.”

  He turned once again to their den leader. “You don’t lead soldiers. You don’t command armies. But neither did The Terafin. Absent soldiery, absent armies, there is still war, still death. But you inspire loyalty in those who have little ambition; you inspire ambition in them, as well. You will never wield sword in your own defense; that isn’t your job. It’s ours. Our job—for which we expect to be paid,” he added, with a sudden grin, “and our privilege. Do you understand?”

  She did. But she turned, half-blind, toward the door, and this time, she saw a pair of familiar hands signing. Angel’s. Agreed.

  You couldn’t have philosophical discussions in den-sign, but Jewel understood the whole of what simple hand gestures couldn’t convey. Straightening her shoulders, she turned back to the two captains that Amarais had chosen—she understood that now—for her.

  “I want—I need—to turn the whole House into my den. Minus the signing. I mean to do that. I would die before I give up my House to Haerrad or Rymark.”

  “But not Elonne or Marrick?”

  “I don’t understand them as well.”

  “Meaning you’ve yet to clash with them.”

  She smiled. “Pretty much exactly that, yes. I would trust Gabriel with the House; in that, I’m different from her. She believed—and because she did, we did—that she was the only person for the House Seat. Good intentions or ill didn’t matter. I’m not that person; I don’t have that certainty of vision.” She grimaced, knowing it was an unfortunate choice of word.

  “Gabriel is not willing to take it. If it puts you at ease at all, his reason is simple: he is not willing to kill his son.”

  “I don’t think his son would suffer the same reservations.”

  “No. But that is not a matter to ever discuss with his father.”

  Jewel nodded.

  “Gabriel cannot support you now,” Torvan continued.

  But Jewel understood what he didn’t say. “He summoned you both to this room—with cause—because I was in it. He understands that I don’t want attention or hostilities yet, but he gave us the opportunity to speak. He can’t support me; he can help.”

  Torvan nodded gravely. “If I am not mistaken, he will assign us to guard you.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Your hands, Jewel. And, if I am not mistaken, the gravity of the destruction in the grounds.”

  “No one’s going to believe that once I declare my candidacy.”

  “No. Not then. But every one of them understands that you are valuable to the House. They also understand that you ar
e not experienced in this type of political game, and that you don’t have the stomach for outright slaughter. At least two of the House Council will preserve you if they can do so without loss.”

  “Elonne and Marrick?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe,” Arrendas added, “that Rymark and Haerrad will attempt to do likewise; they will sacrifice you earlier, however, should the need arise.”

  She was silent, considering all of the words—spoken and unspoken—trapped and contained by magic in this spacious room. “Torvan?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you think Gabriel will be happy if Rymark takes the House Seat?”

  The Captains of the Chosen exchanged a glance.

  Jewel exhaled. “Do you think he means for me to take it, even if Rymark has declared himself the designated heir?”

  “What we know,” Torvan finally said, “is that Amarais made clear her intent. No more, or less, than that. You must decide for yourself, based on his actions, both in the present and in the future.”

  She hesitated, as if that wasn’t enough. “Do you think, if I do manage against all odds, to succeed Amarais, that he would consider staying as my right-kin?”

  Silence. It was broken not by words, but by the opening of the door; Gabriel had finished whatever task he had fabricated in order to give them privacy.

  But he exposed some part of his power—or the power of the bookend that served to squelch traveling noise and discourage eavesdroppers; he replied. “No, ATerafin.” His voice was grave, his posture formal. But his eyes were ringed with shadow, and his face seemed paler and older than it had.

  Remembering everything she’d said about his son, she almost blanched; he walked toward his curtained windows and pulled those curtains wide to let in the clear, blue skies of this cold Henden. “I am not,” he said, his back toward them all, his hands gripping the curtain edges, “the Chosen. In my youth—or perhaps in my prime, depending on whom you ask—I admired Amarais. I admired the intensity of her vision. I admired her perfect sense of justice, and her desire to extend that justice, even beyond the boundaries of the House.

  “I served her. I served her before she became The Terafin, and I served her after. I accepted the position of right-kin with some reluctance, but I did accept it. Do you know why she offered it to me?”