“I will know when to wake you. I will know where your dreams take you. I will bring you back. If,” he added, “I want to.”
She rolled over onto her side. He tilted his head; his eyes looked like small, contained magestones. “Why?” she asked again.
“Do you always ask that question? It’s very boring.” His wings rose and spread, one of them hovering across her upper chest and shoulders. “Why do you think the Winter King made us?”
“I don’t know.” A few hours ago, she’d’ve said it was because his isolation had driven him insane.
“We watch, little human. We don’t need sleep. We eat bad dreams.”
“You—”
“You cannot always watch; nor could he. We can watch, while you sleep.” Shadow sniffed. “He let us play when he was awake.”
“I can’t afford to have anyone die because of you. They’ll blame me.”
“Only,” Shadow sniffed, “if you let them.”
“I don’t have much choice.”
Shadow snorted. “The Winter King was Snow and Ice; we are not sure what you will be yet. But your dreams are no longer safe dreams. The door is open and you have not closed it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” he said, slowly curving the wing around her as if it were a living blanket, “we are still here. Sleep. I will watch.”
“But—”
“No more. Sleep.” He leaned over and licked her forehead. He didn’t even have cat breath.
“Can I?”
“Sleep?”
“Trust you.”
“Of course you can trust us. You called us. We came. We will be wherever you are until—”
“I die?”
“Mmmm.” He lowered his head again, but this time he kept his eyes open. She was aware of his warmth and the soft, strange texture of his fur; she was aware of his wing because nothing about it was human or normal or threatening. She was aware of the darkness, but his presence held it back, kept it at bay.
She thought she could sleep, and the thought surprised her. Her own lids fell slowly because she was, in the end, very tired. “Shadow?”
“Yes?”
“Why did the Winter King turn you to stone?”
“Oh, that.”
Chapter Twelve
2nd of Henden, 427 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
AVANDAR WOKE JEWEL in the morning. In the very, very early morning. “What,” he said, in his clipped, short, and very familiar tone of annoyance, “is that creature doing here?”
Jewel pried her eyes open, glanced at the windows, and closed them again. “He came to keep watch over me while I was sleeping,” she replied.
“Implying that I did not.”
“No, nothing that subtle.” She rolled over on her side, facing the window, which was not coincidentally in the opposite direction. “Where were you?”
“Out. I apologize,” he added, in a tone that implied annoyance. “If you could tear yourself from your bed?”
“It’s too dark to be morning.”
“It would be, but you are required to dress appropriately on this particular morning.”
Appropriate was always so dire. “Have the Exalted come for me?”
“They are expected within the hour.”
She sat up. Or tried. “Shadow,” she whispered, pushing his wing.
Shadow retracted the offending appendage. He sat up, stretched, and exposed whole rows of very unpleasant fangs when he yawned.
“Where,” Avandar said, in the same pinched voice, “are the other two?”
“With Teller,” Jewel replied, hoping it was still true.
“You left them with Teller.”
Before she could answer, he lifted a hand. “Your clothes are here. It is not, however, your clothing that will cause difficulty.”
No, of course it wasn’t. It was her hair. She often longed to be bald at times like this.
“Ellerson has offered to take care of your hair, and if that is acceptable to you, I will agree.”
“He has Finch and Teller.”
“Finch’s hair is not a permanent disaster, and Finch will not be meeting with the Exalted unless they require a character witness.”
Jewel wondered, as she shrugged herself out of covers and cat hair, what she’d done in a previous life that was so bad she deserved mornings with Avandar. “Please tell Ellerson I’d be grateful,” she said, meaning it.
He bowed.
“Avandar.”
His eyes were a shade of dark that suited the desert and the howling winds of unnatural storm. “ATerafin?”
“Are you bleeding?”
“It is not your concern.” He left the room before she could argue.
Ellerson never complained about her hair. She did, frequently, as combs and oils were applied with fervor. Shadow sat on her feet, and Ellerson pretended not to notice him. “Haval and his wife arrived some hours ago,” he told her as he worked. “As per Teller’s instructions, I have made two rooms available for their use. I have informed the Master of the Household staff that one of those rooms is not to be cleaned or entered at all until it is permanently vacated.”
“Will that work?”
Ellerson failed to hear the question.
“Did you see Avandar?”
“I did, as you are well aware.”
“Was he injured?”
Again, the older domicis failed to hear the question. Jewel grimaced as he fought with her hair. “I don’t suppose Celleriant came back?”
“No, ATerafin. Member Mellifas, however, returned, some half hour before Haval did. She and Member Corvel are in their rooms, but they have asked to be wakened when the Exalted arrive. They will be joining you, I believe.”
“Is anyone else going to be, as you put it, joining us?”
“It is my hope that your three winged visitors will not.”
Shadow lifted his head and glared balefully at Ellerson. He then dropped that head back on his front paws and heaved a loud sigh of boredom.
An hour later, Jewel was more or less ready to meet important guests. She was also served breakfast in the breakfast room. She was often starving at this time in the morning; at the moment, the sight of food was almost unpleasant. Shadow, who sat by her, ate what she wouldn’t touch, although admittedly he ate disdainfully.
Sigurne Mellifas and her aide, Matteos Corvel, joined Jewel in the breakfast room; Matteos stared at the cat as if the last faint hope he’d been dreaming had been shattered. Sigurne, however, nodded at Shadow as she took her seat. She was not under the auspices of the domicis—either—and it showed; she wore what she almost always wore, although admittedly the robes had been pressed and cleaned. Matteos was likewise simply dressed, but both of the magi wore the pendant of the Order over their robes, and on heavier than normal chains.
They also looked very underslept.
Shadow began to roll around on the floor, his claws clicking against wooden slats in a particularly annoying way. Jewel would have thought the wings would at least prevent the rolling part, but apparently she would have been wrong.
The three ate as if they were suffering from hangovers; they didn’t speak, although Matteos did grunt, once, in part because Shadow had landed on his foot.
Avandar joined them before breakfast had been abandoned; it certainly hadn’t been finished. He was dressed in clean robes, which were in all ways superior to the robes the magi wore. Of the four, he easily looked the most awake, although Jewel suspected this was the opposite of true. “ATerafin.”
She nodded and rose.
“The regent has sent word; you are to attend the Exalted in The Terafin’s audience chamber.”
“Alone?”
“I am, of course, given leave to accompany you.”
Shadow hissed.
“The guildmaster and her aide are also invited to attend; the regent implied that your attendance,” he added, turning to Sigurne, “was not mandatory.”
Torvan and Arrendas were waiting outside of the wing’s doors when Jewel emerged. Sigurne and Matteos had elected to accompany her; so had Shadow, but he’d allowed himself to be turned away on the right side of the doors. Jewel looked askance at Torvan, who saluted. Loudly. He was wearing armor that might have looked overdone on parade.
“Torvan—”
“ATerafin.” His face was completely blank; his voice, however, was loud. Jewel forced her lips up into what she hoped resembled a smile; it was going to be a long morning.
“It could be worse, dear,” Sigurne told her, with what sounded like genuine sympathy. “There are only two guards.”
This was entirely accurate until the small, moving party reached the large, public gallery. In the gallery’s wide halls, the House Guards outnumbered them. They were all dressed in their best armor, and they were on perfect, proud display; light from the expanse of windows was beginning to seep in, although it wouldn’t be bright enough to illuminate the gallery for a few hours. This hall, and the one on its opposite side and around a corner, led to the two entrances of the audience chambers; admittedly the one farther away was small and informal in comparison.
But the doors that admitted guests into the presence of The Terafin—or, today, the regent—were very, very fine. They were dark and girded on either side by sculptures on pedestals, and because they occupied part of the wall, and not the end of a hallway, they were wider than any of the other doors in the Terafin manse. At their height, engraved in stone, were words in Old Weston. They were, of course, gilded, as if the addition of a layer of gold could make the words of this almost forgotten language more true; it certainly made them more brilliant.
The doors were open.
Jewel, approaching them by Sigurne’s side, felt a twinge of sympathy for Gabriel as she entered the very deep room, because he was seated—in full House colors—on the single throne at the room’s far end. Two of the House Guard stood behind the throne, and six stood beneath it, fanning out in threes to either side of the wide, flat stairs that approached the throne.
Gabriel, however, was alone; the Exalted had not yet arrived. He gestured, and Jewel approached the throne. She’d seen it used only a handful of times, and its use now made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. For the first time this morning, she was grateful for Ellerson’s ministrations, and the stiff and complicated dress Avandar had chosen. She glanced at the magi; if they felt underdressed, it didn’t show.
“ATerafin,” Gabriel said. The vaulted ceilings of the room boasted very unforgiving acoustics. Jewel approached the throne, and the House Guards let her pass. Sigurne and Matteos, however, now stood back. Avandar did not.
Jewel bowed to Gabriel, who nodded as she rose. On closer inspection, the regent looked like he’d aged ten years in the past ten hours; the lines around both mouth and eyes were deeply etched. It made him look very severe.
“Jewel,” he said, speaking softly, “I must offer you some warning. The Lord of the Compact has both demanded—and received—permission to attend this meeting.”
“I guessed as much,” she replied. He raised a brow, and she added, “He visited the wing late last night. Do you have any idea what the Exalted are going to say?”
“None.”
“Any suspicion?”
“No. And before you ask, if insight before the fact is to be gained, I am not the person who will offer it. Come,” he added. “Stand to the left of my chair. Speak if you are spoken to; if it is Duvari who asks, answer minimally and with care. Your domicis may join you; have him stand near the guards.”
Torvan and Arrendas joined the guards at the base of the stairs, standing to the far right and the far left; nestled there, they didn’t make Jewel feel quite so out of place as they had in the halls. She glanced down at her hand; there, a heavy, gold ring girded the second smallest finger. Ivory, ebony, and ruby adorned it, coalescing into the geometric representation of a sword. It was meant to be the House Sword, but on the eve of a House War it merely looked martial.
As if he were regarding it in the same way, Gabriel coughed gently. She stiffened, met his eyes, and was rewarded by the slightest of smiles. “There are things you will never learn,” he said softly. “You will never dance well. You will never be a swordsman. You will never be an artisan.”
She nodded.
“But there are things that you are that no one else will ever be; do not forget it.” He lifted his head as the first of the priests preceded the Exalted into the audience chamber.
If everyone else in the room looked as if they required another week of sleep, the Exalted didn’t. It was something about their eyes, Jewel thought; they were golden and warm and that light touched the contours of their individual faces, softening the whole and dispelling the shadows cast by something as insignificant as lack of sleep. If hosts were required to dress and comport themselves with the utmost dignity, guests were not. The Exalted arrived in the same robes they had worn scant hours past. Jewel knew this because some dirt still clung to the hems and knees of the Mother’s robe. They had repaired to their cathedrals, in theory to speak with their parents, the gods in whose name they ruled their churches.
Jewel felt her throat tighten as she watched the progress of the Exalted. Their eyes appeared to be far brighter than they normally were; she knew, because each and every one of them gazed, as they walked, at her, their expressions troubled. She noted that Duvari was also in the audience chamber, and that he stood with his back to the far wall in the cold silence that passed for a personality.
The priests that attended them carried the ever-present braziers on their long poles, but they stopped halfway between the doors and the throne, and set those braziers—carefully—to one side; they then drew what looked like small stands from somewhere in their voluminous robes and set them up, with care, at three points. The braziers, still wafting smoke, were placed atop them.
This did not seem all that positive a sign to Jewel who, of course, said nothing. She did hazard a glance at Gabriel; he didn’t return it. His gaze was on the Exalted as they approached.
Etiquette did not demand that the children of gods abase themselves before any man or woman in the Empire. On occasion, the Mother’s Daughter set etiquette aside as a gesture of either gratitude or respect, but today wasn’t going to be one of those. She, of the three, was the grimmest, although it took Jewel a moment to realize why she’d reached this conclusion. Some of her Oma’s anger—and worse, much worse—fear could be seen in the set of her jaw and the stiff line of her shoulders.
She bowed to Gabriel, who rose. “Exalted,” he said, bowing deeply to each of the three.
“Regent,” the Mother’s Daughter replied. “We have, as promised, asked for the guidance of our parents.”
Gabriel nodded, waiting.
“They are concerned with the events of yesterday. While we could answer some of their questions, we could not answer all of them, and they asked for the opportunity to speak with Jewel ATerafin.”
The braziers on the ground suddenly made a lot more sense. Following Jewel’s gaze, the Exalted of Cormaris now stepped forward. “It is a request,” he said quietly, speaking to her and not to the regent. “The gods cannot command you.”
Jewel smiled; it was a grim smile. “Not directly, no. But if I were foolish enough to refuse, Exalted, would the gods not then speak to the Twin Kings?”
He was silent.
“The Twin Kings, of course, can command. I’m nervous. Gods make me nervous. But I’m not opposed to speaking with them. I would have liked more time to prepare, but I don’t imagine the gods actually care all that much what I’m wearing, how my hair is styled, or how I speak.”
At this, his lips twitched, and the gold of his eyes warmed. “As you surmise, ATerafin, they do not.”
“The Kings do. So I’ll happily grant the request now.”
“There is one more favor,” the Exalted said.
“And that?”
“You tr
aveled to and from the garden grounds with…unusual companions. My father would like to speak with them, as well. There were three unusual creatures, your mount, and another that we deem immortal.”
Jewel winced. She was certain the gods wouldn’t find the cats all that charming—and equally certain that telling the Exalted their parents didn’t know what they were asking for would be very stupid. She had no idea where Celleriant was, and she didn’t look forward to riding the Winter King in the middle of a House full of servants who were already stressed beyond their capacity by the prospect of the funeral and its many, many visitants. She finally settled on, “I’ll try.”
The Exalted of Cormaris raised a brow.
* * *
Since she knew where the cats were—and couldn’t immediately face the prospect of attempting to herd them—she set out in search of Celleriant. She did not, however, set out alone; the moment she descended the stairs that led to the throne, Torvan and Arrendas detached themselves from the House Guard and followed her. Avandar likewise retreated from the wall behind the throne.
Jewel paused in front of the Mother’s Daughter; she bowed. “I’m not entirely certain where some of my companions are to be found.”
The Mother’s Daughter reached out and caught both of Jewel’s hands in hers, forcing her up from the bow. She met Jewel’s gaze, held it, and then released her hands.
“I cannot help but think that the gods are unlikely to be impressed by your guardians,” Avandar said, when they’d cleared the doors.
“I’m sure they won’t, but they asked, and I’m not about to argue with the Exalted. Do you know where Celleriant is?”
“I? No.”
“Avandar—”
“Lord Celleriant is not a House Guard, Jewel. Nor is he Chosen. He was ordered to serve, but—”
She shook her head. “He gave me his oath,” she said in a soft voice.
Avandar stopped walking.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, although she didn’t actually look back to see his expression. “I would have told you if you hadn’t ducked out.” She continued to walk; Avandar didn’t. When she was half the gallery’s length ahead of him, she turned.
Skirmish: The House War: Book Four Page 35