The Terafin Spirit laughed. His voice was rich and deep, and it echoed in the silent forests. Leaves rustled, as if it were a breeze. “While you live, I will serve you in whatever capacity I am allowed. Will you not accept that service?”
“It’s not the service,” she said. “It’s what it means.”
“What does it mean to you, Jewel?”
Jewel shook her head.
“Are you afraid of your failures?”
“I’m afraid to fail, yes. I’m afraid—” She closed her eyes. Opened them again, and straightened her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter, does it? The war is coming. For the House. For more.”
“For far more. You have begun to build not a House but a city, and you cannot see it yet. Where you travel, I have never dared to travel, alive or dead; nor could I. I cannot guide you further. I cannot demand your service, as I have done in the past. What you give, you must give willingly, because so much of it will be done in ignorance.”
“And you can’t enlighten me.”
“No, Terafin.” He smiled, and his eyes were the strangest color; she couldn’t quite pin it down.
“All right, get up. We need to get back to the others; they’re probably worried by now.”
He rose then. “Not gracefully done,” he told her. “But done, nonetheless. Do you know where this path leads?”
“Yes. The shrine. The heart of the House.”
She had never come to the Terafin shrine without passing the shrines of the Triumvirate first, and it felt almost wrong to do it now. But shrines to the Mother, Reymaris, and Cormaris didn’t join or touch the road the Winter King now traveled. Only one shrine did, and it stood at the end of that road, as if it were anchoring the pathway.
She could see the altar at the height of its polished, concentric circles; she could see the light of the sconces at the circular height play off the surfaces of smooth stone. She could feel the weight of the House descend, at last, upon her shoulders; if the Winter King hadn’t been carrying her, she might have stopped walking for a moment, dwarfed by what she felt.
But he was carrying her. He didn’t run or leap, but he didn’t pause either. This slow, stately walk gave her whatever time she needed—or rather, granted her the only time she was allowed. He didn’t stop at the path’s end; he continued beyond it, to the stairs of the shrine itself. These, he mounted; his hooves clicked against the surface of marble, but only lightly, as if he weighed no more than the squirrels that sometimes annoyed the gardeners so much.
She slid off his back at the altar’s side. Arann had already reached the height, and he knelt by the altar, bowing his head. Jewel touched its surface; it was cool—but it would be; it was Henden, and dark.
“Are you not going to ask me what I have to offer the House?” she asked the Terafin Spirit. He was there, silent, his face still Torvan’s face.
“No. I will never ask it again. This is not an altar for you to make offerings upon, not anymore.”
“Then what purpose does it serve?”
“It is a reminder, Terafin, of what others will sacrifice in service to both you and your House.”
“And you think I’ll need it?” she asked, trying—and failing—to keep the bitterness out of the question.
“You? No. But I am not a seer, nor was I ever one; I cannot tell you, in the end, what you will need and what you will cast away. I can tell you what you must be willing to do—”
She lifted a hand. “Thanks. You’ve done that already.” She took a deep breath and said, “Well, we’re home. Shall we go find the others?”
The Winter King nodded, but waited; he intended for her to ride.
“I won’t run away,” she told him.
But he knelt anyway, the posture the whole of his demand; she gave in because, damn it, she was tired. The Terafin Spirit did not leave the shrine. He stood at its height, beside the altar, as if he intended to remind her of everything that he himself had sacrificed in the name of Terafin. She didn’t—couldn’t—hate him, but she was aware as she left that he had lost some of his aura of mystery and wisdom tonight, and she wanted it back.
She wanted to believe that someone, somewhere, knew what they were doing; that someone, somewhere, knew what she had to do. Because if they did, it meant there was a right way to do things, a correct path to follow, some way of navigating the strange shape of what House Terafin would become. She wanted it, needed it, and knew that it probably didn’t exist. Maybe it never had.
But the need for action, the commitment to it, did. She had given her word to Amarais, and she intended to keep it, and as she passed through the most private areas of the Terafin grounds, she felt, for a moment, that she could. She clung to that feeling; it was sure to evaporate under the harsh glare of reason if she examined it too closely. There were so many ways in which she could fail, and so many people who intended her to do exactly that.
Some of them weren’t even human.
She glanced up as the Winter King paused, and slid off his back at the shrine of Cormaris. He allowed it without comment, and she made her silent prayers for wisdom and the guidance of gods who had chosen to abandon this world so long ago no one really believed they had walked it. She mounted again, and was not surprised when the Winter King also stopped to allow her to offer her respects—or private pleas—at the shrines of Reymaris and the Mother. At the Mother’s shrine, she lingered longest, because the Mother knew mercy, of a kind. Mercy, healing, home.
But she wondered, as she rose, if this was the danger the gods presented to mortals: the sense that someone, somewhere, knew it all, and knew it well enough that there was no point and no need to struggle to reach a decision; one could leave it, for eternity, in their hands. If the Mother were here, Jewel would have gratefully handed the whole of the war—all of it—into her keeping. What did you become, in the end, if you never had to make those decisions and those mistakes?
Happier, she decided. But the Mother wasn’t here. An echo of her existed in her god-born children, one of whom would be here for the Terafin’s funeral rites. But if those god-born children had had either the full power or the full wisdom of their parent, would demons exist in Averalaan at all?
Probably.
They’d almost certainly existed alongside gods and other legends. It was a small wonder any of humanity survived at all.
She rose and once again joined the Winter King, but only because he knelt to allow her to mount—and she had no doubt he’d stay that way until she did, even if she left him behind. The night air was cool. The bright moon was high. It wasn’t full, but it didn’t matter; she could trace the shadows she’d once called eyes from the safety of the stag’s white back. White, she thought, and a bit of black that wasn’t there by design.
Arann had no difficulty keeping up, and alone of the Chosen, he escorted her. He was silent, as he usually was, but that silence hadn’t devolved into either awe or fear. The weight on her shoulders sat on his as well, but it always had. Was it heavier? Yes.
But their shoulders were stronger now. They could bear it. They’d faced loss before, and they’d survived—Arann, by the skin of his teeth. Had it scarred them? Yes. But if there was one thing she’d learned in the intervening years, it was this: everyone, everyone, was scarred. No one escaped life unscathed.
But only the unlucky escaped it without knowing what Jewel knew now: friendship, trust, love. She frowned. “Arann?”
He was staring straight ahead.
The Winter King paused to wait for him, as if she needed an escort.
You do.
Not here, I don’t. Not now.
You do not require it for reasons of safety, no. But you require it for other reasons. I did not meet your Terafin in any significant way; I saw her die. But having never met her, I can answer the question I now pose to you.
Jewel bit back a weary sigh. The question?
How often did you see her, within the manse that she ruled, unattended?
Only a handful of times, and all of th
em had been within her private quarters. She could have numbered them for the Winter King’s benefit, but she got his point, and hers would have been petty or childish in response. “Arann?”
“Jay—the trees.”
Frowning, she looked at the trees. They were far fewer in number on the grounds than they had been on the path, they were a lot thinner and a lot shorter, and not a single one of them was silver, gold, or diamond; nor did there happen to be, oh, a burning one.
“Not those trees, stuuuupid girl.”
Chapter Ten
SHE’D FORGOTTEN THE CATS. Probably because she’d been proven, time and again, to be optimistic or hopeful. Arann’s eyes widened, then; she understood why. Returning to the Terafin shrine had been a lot like waking from a dream—or a nightmare. Hearing the cats meant there was no waking.
“We came to help you,” the white cat said, landing to one side of the Winter King, and accidentally knocking Arann almost off his feet. The cat whirled and hissed at Arann, who’d managed to keep his balance. “Clumsy. Watch where you’re going.”
Please, please, please tell me that they’re not going to stay here, she said to the Winter King.
He was silent.
“I want that side,” the black cat said, landing pretty much on top of the white one. The gray cat, on the other hand, landed to the right of the stag.
“Is it very boring here?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.
“If we’re lucky, yes.”
“Oh,” he said, practically rolling his eyes in disdain, “luck.”
“What happened to the demon?”
“He burned some fur,” the cat replied.
Jewel was silent for a long moment. “What I meant was—”
“Yes, yes, I understand. You have the wrong priorities.” The cat gave a huff of sound, very much like a long-suffering sigh. He lifted a paw and inspected it. “He left.”
“And Lord Celleriant?”
“What, the noisy, ugly Hunter?”
“That’s not how he’s normally described, but yes, you know the one I mean.”
“He’s still there. He’s hugging trees.” The cat snickered.
The other two, however, were hissing and spitting, and their fur was quite a bit…fluffier. The white cat, much like the Winter King, was looking a little bit blackened and worse for wear; Jewel had no doubt the black cat had received his share of fire-scoring, but on his fur, in this light, it was harder to tell.
“Look, guys—go home. I’ve got the most important funeral of my life in less than three days and—”
“Is it yours?” the gray cat interrupted.
“No. I’m not particularly going to care about being ready for my own funeral; my funeral will be someone else’s problem.”
“Well,” the gray cat replied, “we’re hungry.”
At this, the white and the black cats stopped in mid-scuffle. It was a scuffle that would make the gardeners rage had they the energy to expend on anything but the funeral grounds.
Jewel had no idea what obviously magical cats ate—and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to ask. Can I get rid of them? she asked instead.
Yes, I believe you could.
Good. How?
Destroy them.
...
“Fine. We’re heading back to my home. It is not large, we have guests, and I will be in trouble for every piece of furniture you damage or destroy. There are mortals living in the manse. There are nothing but mortals living in the manse.”
The gray cat cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the Winter King.
How, exactly, do I destroy them?
How, exactly, he replied, mimicking her, did you cause the forest to flourish?
She didn’t know. “The mortals are not to be harmed in any way. In fact, it would be best if you didn’t speak to any of them at all.”
“Can we play with them?”
“No. Absolutely not.” She urged the Winter King forward, and Arann chose to walk beside the gray cat, rather than between the cat and Jewel. Her den-mate was staring at them, at their wings, and at their size in visible awe—but he still managed to snicker at their interaction. Jewel might have found it funny had she not felt so tired. Or sane.
As the Winter King started to walk, however, the white cat and the black began to eye each other with growing antagonism.
“Enough!” Jewel shouted, thinking with guilt of the raging, weeping Master Gardener. “You,” she said, pointing at the white cat, “will walk beside Arann. You,” she continued, to a gray cat that looked about to take offense, “will walk in front of the Winter King. You,” she told the black cat, “can stay where you are. Do you think you can get along for an hour or two?”
“We’re hungry.”
“You don’t get food until we get through the rest of this. Got it? I don’t get food either.”
Where was she going to put them? Where were they going to stay? Could she even offend their dignity by asking if they were box trained? Never mind that, she thought, eyeing the white and the black balefully. “This is your idea of getting along?”
They were trading insults.
“There’s no blood,” the gray cat said, over one shoulder.
“How exactly did the Winter King put up with the lot of you?”
“He was lonely?” the white cat replied.
The black cat purred. “The Winter Queen doesn’t like cats. And we don’t like the Winter Queen.”
“So…he put up with you out of spite?”
The black cat hissed. But he fell in to her right; the white cat remained by her side and between the Winter King and Arann. She didn’t particularly like the way the two were eyeing the backside of the gray.
But she liked it less as they finally cleared the private path that led from the four shrines that quartered the most private part of the Terafin grounds because the cats suddenly stopped their hissing and whining—mostly about boredom—and straightened their shoulders as they walked. They were not small animals, if they could be called animals at all, and while their wings were now folded, they were folded somewhat higher on their backs than they had been. They looked dangerous when they were silent.
And she remembered, then, that they had felled one of the Arianni without taking any injury themselves. They were her escort. Were it not for Arann, she wasn’t certain what she would have looked like: she rode the back of a silver stag, she was attended by three giant, winged cats, and she approached the group from the wrong direction, as if by magic.
As if, she thought, grimacing. Say it: by magic. But she couldn’t.
Avandar was there first, and if the shallow lights of the garden in evening obscured his expression, experience made it clear enough for Jewel. He was not happy. By his side, and approximately as happy were Torvan and the two Chosen. They did not seem to be surprised to see the newest members of her entourage. Then again, when on duty, surprise was not one of their facial expressions, and Torvan clearly considered this duty.
But the grim, feral padding of the cats was leavened when the white one whispered, “There’s the ugly one. Can we play with him?”
“Not now, and not without his permission.”
The ugly one so spoken of raised one dark brow. Avandar looked even less amused. “Where did you find these?” he asked in a tone of voice that implied their presence was somehow a deliberate choice on her part.
“They came on their own. Hopefully they’ll leave that way as well.”
The black cat hissed. “Leave? Leave? Ssstupid girl, don’t you know you need us?”
The Chosen still failed to evince surprise. They did shift their grips on their swords, though.
“She does not require servants—”
The gray cat felt the need to hiss at this word.
“—who undermine her dignity, and therefore cause those who must also serve to question her power or her authority.”
Jewel wondered why the gray cat looked at its paws so often. The inspecti
on, however, was brief; he casually strolled over to the other cats and swatted both of them on the backside, which caused hissing of a different—and much quieter—nature.
“ATerafin, is this entirely wise?”
She glanced at the cats. Since the answer was obvious, she shrugged; she didn’t want the cats to complain any more than they already had.
“The magi?” she asked.
“They are waiting. As is the regent, and if you must know, the Exalted of Cormaris and the Mother. It is just possible that the Exalted of Reymaris will have arrived by the time you return to the funeral site.”
Her jaw must have weighed a ton, judging by the way it fell open. She struggled to close it. “But—”
“Sigurne felt it necessary to summon them—and in haste. I do not believe their attendants are at all amused.”
“But—but why?”
“You will see, if you do not understand yet.” He bowed to her. When he rose, he walked to where the Winter King stood, and examined her. “You are…singed.”
“Yes. There was a bit of fire on the road.”
“Which road, ATerafin?”
“You’d recognize it. We walked it most of the way out of the Stone Deepings.”
His smile was a twilight smile; it was cold and dark. It suited his face, but at the same time, made it almost a stranger’s. “And the fire?”
“Indirectly, the gift of someone who called himself Lord Ishavriel of the hand—or fist—of God. I’m sorry—I don’t remember his title.” She nudged the Winter King forward, and he began to walk.
When the cats started to fuss about their position, she stopped him and turned on them. “Guys,” she said, her voice low and very, very even, “what-did-I-tell-you?”
Their ears flattened. Well, white ears and black ones, at any rate; the gray seemed impervious.
“But we’re bored.”
Jewel swore that if she heard the word “bored” one more time, someone was going to suffer. Someone, she amended, other than her. Teller had always had a fondness for cats that Jewel had never fully understood. She wondered what he’d make of these ones, because they seemed very much like his cats, to her. “I mean it. We’re not going anywhere until you can behave.” She folded her arms across her chest, and the Winter King turned to look down on them.
Skirmish: The House War: Book Four Page 29