Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  Gazing out the window—and noting the emptiness of the early morning streets as they passed—she said, “Member APhaniel?”

  “I will accept your formality,” he replied, “if I am permitted to smoke.”

  “I have no objections; if you’re hoping to cause minor and politically safe irritation, you’ll need to find another habit.”

  “I find it calming,” he replied, in exactly the wrong tone of voice. She gave over the window view to look at his shadowed face; his eyes were glinting. “It is a habit that is entirely of this world.”

  “Smoke, then. It reminds me of my grandmother.”

  His brows rose, but he lined the bowl of his pipe as the carriage moved; its procession was stately, to Jewel’s mind a more pretentious way of saying slow. “What occurred in the evening, if I may be so bold?”

  “I’m not entirely certain,” she replied, her voice soft, the words stiff. “A closet door was opened; it led into the darkness of a long, stone hall.”

  His hand stilled in the act of carrying leaf to pipe. “You opened this door?”

  “No. Not in any sense of the word. It was a closet. Closets in the Terafin manse contain clothing, no more.”

  “Where was this closet situated?”

  “In my personal rooms.” She drew breath, held it for a moment too long. “Meralonne, who are the heralds?”

  “What an odd question. Whose heralds?”

  “No names were given. But if I were to convey the message that the heralds are abroad, what would that mean to you?”

  “It would mean little without knowledge of the messenger,” he replied. He glanced at the bowl of the pipe, but did not light it.

  “His name is Mordanant. I had the impression that he knew you.”

  The mage set the pipe aside. “You ventured into the world into which your closet opened.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she replied, “but I had little choice. It was not I who opened the closet, and therefore not I lost to it. But, yes, we met there. It’s not the first time,” she added. “And it was not an accident; he knew where I was.”

  “And he came to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “To deliver a message to me?”

  “No. He was sent to hunt the heralds, whoever they are.”

  “He was sent?”

  She nodded. “And if he was, there’s only one person who could have sent him.” She hesitated. He marked it. “He came for his brother, Lord Celleriant. He was . . . concerned that his placement, here, would be his doom.” Silence; it was cold in the carriage. “But he counseled Lord Celleriant to speak—with you.”

  “Those were his words?”

  “They were not his exact words; I’ve stripped the patina of desperation from them.”

  At that, he smiled. It was not a friendly smile. He glanced at the carriage wall behind her, as if it were a window. “The heralds are not a concern,” he said, “if they cannot reach their Lords. They have searched.”

  She didn’t mention the Sleepers. Not directly. Instead, she said, “You know where they lie.”

  “I have always known, but I was never herald.”

  “Can the heralds wake them?”

  “Not yet. Not yet, Terafin, but soon it will not matter.” He glanced at the pipe in his hand, frowning.

  Avandar, light the pipe. Light it now.

  What he tolerates from you, he will not likewise tolerate from me.

  Please, just do it.

  Avandar glanced at the leaves in the bowl and they began to smolder. Meralonne’s eyes rounded; he looked down at the now orange leaves. To Jewel’s surprise, he laughed. His glance returned to her as he lifted the pipe’s stem to his lips. “Lord Mordanant—and he is Lord in the Queen’s Court, Winter or Summer—may overestimate my abilities. Did he speak of the Winter Queen?”

  “Yes.”

  Rings of smoke rose in the air between them. “And?”

  “Evayne visited her.”

  His grip on the pipe tightened; it was subtle, but he had the whole of Jewel’s attention. “And?”

  She exhaled. “I won’t play games with you now.”

  Jewel. Whatever he has been to you in the past, the time is coming; he will change; he will become something that you cannot touch, reach, or trust.

  Why?

  If you do not already know the answer, you suspect it.

  And you know.

  He did not answer, not directly. Be cautious. Believe that he will step beyond your reach or the reach of either your words or your history. Do not trust him.

  You don’t think I should trust anyone.

  You understand the difference.

  She did. She studied the mage’s shuttered face for a long moment, weighing the benefits and the cost of silence. Lifting her arm, she pulled up the edge of her sleeve; around her wrist sat a bracelet made of three strands of platinum hair.

  His eyes widened. He was not Haval; he almost never forced his expression into shuttered neutrality, although he made the occasional attempt. He made no such attempt now. Pipe smoke, like a ragged veil, streamed up around his face; his eyes were silver and unblinking.

  “I don’t understand why you’re here. I don’t understand why you serve the Order of Knowledge.”

  “Such understanding is not a necessity.”

  “No.” She looked away, letting her sleeve fall.

  “Where did you acquire your . . . bracelet?”

  “In the Tor Leonne,” she replied, gazing at empty streets, at stone buildings, at trees that were in every way junior to the trees that now girded the Terafin manse.

  “You were foolish enough to ask?”

  “Me?” She looked down at hands that were brown with sun and pale with winter dryness. “I wouldn’t have dared.”

  “She did not offer.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, Meralonne. She doesn’t give gifts. Not in Winter.” Speaking the words, she felt them as immutable truth.

  “You did not steal them.”

  She shook her head. “When she turned from me—when she turned to give word to her host—three strands of her hair brushed across my open palm. I didn’t mean to raise a hand—I couldn’t help it. I wanted to—” she shook her head. “I don’t know what I wanted. I don’t trust beauty,” she added. “Not the Winter Queen’s; it seems too much like death to me; it’s too cold and too distant. But even without trust, I wanted to hold it in place for just a moment longer. I—”

  “You feared to lose it.”

  It was true. She knew she could never love Winter. She knew she would never love or admire its Queen. But there was a hollowness, an empty space, that existed whenever she thought of Ariane. A yearning for things wild and ancient that she would never, ever, want in her home.

  “I closed my hand on the strands,” she continued, her voice dropping. “And they remained in my palm. I braided them.” She inhaled, and turned to face him again, expecting disappointment, possibly condemnation.

  She found neither. Meralonne lifted the stem of the pipe to his lips, losing some of his sharp rigidity in the process. “She is death, for you.”

  “I know.”

  “But mortals have oft walked willingly to that death. Inasmuch as she gifts any mortal, she gifted you; she will not acknowledge that gift in any way, but the lack frees you from obligation.” He blew rings of amorphous smoke. “Would you be parted from them?”

  “No.”

  “Wise, indeed. It is never safe to be cavalier with such gifts.” His eyes narrowed. “What do you seek to offer me, Terafin?”

  “Summer,” she replied.

  * * *

  He was rigid for a long moment after the word had died into silence. He smoked in that silence, and she took comfort from it, although he appeared not to notice the pipe itself. “You cannot offer that; it is not within your power.”

  “It is not yet within my power.”

  “And will it be, Terafin?” He leaned forward; Avandar stiffened.

&n
bsp; “It will.” As she spoke the words, she knew them for truth. They had taken root in the winter in the Tor Leonne, and they had grown.

  “You will not serve as Summer King,” was his gentle reply. “She would not take you.”

  “No.”

  “If you can reach her—and of the mortals here, I think you are the only one who might—you cannot force the roads to accept her; she has not offered what they require. She exists outside of their season.”

  Jewel nodded, as if this made sense. “If I can offer you Summer, Meralonne—if that is within my power—what will you offer me in turn?”

  “What would you ask of me? I will not insult you by pretending that it is of little interest.”

  “You have served Sigurne Mellifas for her entire tenure as guildmaster. You have advised Kings, and trained warriors within the Order’s heart.”

  He shrugged, as if each were inconsequential.

  “Mordanant felt that our only hope of survival lay with you.”

  He laughed, then. It was not, in any way, a happy sound. “The Kings do not command my loyalty,” he said, when he chose to speak again. “No more does Sigurne, although I am fond of the guildmaster. I will not vow to serve you in any way that matters; not even in return for Summer. Given that, what would you have of me? For what you offer, I have little of value to offer in return. You play games so poorly it is hard to discern a game at all.”

  “That has always been her failing,” Avandar said. Teller had not spoken a word.

  “It has. Terafin, I will tell you now that any hope of survival you have does not rest in my hands; Mordanant is wise, but he has never lived among mortals. Even when man was at the apex of his power, he little understood that the power they held was their own; he assumed—as do many of his kin—that it was granted by gods. The fate of this City is your burden, if you can see it in time to shoulder it. You are not what you were; you are not yet what you must be.” He reached through the window and emptied his pipe.

  “How? How can I protect the city?”

  “Do not ask me the question. It is yours, and only yours, to answer.” He began to fill his pipe again. “And if the condition for your offer is the safety of the City, it is not an offer I am willing to accept.”

  Avandar was surprised. She sensed it, although he failed to express it in any other way.

  Yes, he said, his gaze on Meralonne alone. It is a matter of little significance to promise little in return for much. I would expect—I did expect—such an offer, and I would have counseled against its acceptance. Inasmuch as he can, he understands you, or those like you; he understands your fears and your desires. But Jewel, he has not. He grants the import of what you offer, and he is unwilling to lessen it.

  “Can you walk the paths, Meralonne?”

  “In safety, Terafin?”

  “I don’t think safety matters to you.”

  His smile was sharp as a blade. “Indeed. If you mean can I walk those paths to reach that court, the answer is no. Could I, I would not find the way into its heart; it is forbidden to one such as I.” His glance fell again to the wrist around which Ariane’s memento was twined. “But if you mean can I traverse those roads which open into your domain with so little warning, yes. The best defense you could offer those who dwell within your manse was your ignorance, but in waking from the trap laid by the Warden of Dreams, you are awake.

  “Now, the only defense you can offer is knowledge, and it is a knowledge you fear. Shall I tell you why?”

  “Do you know?”

  “I cannot perceive the whole of your thought,” he replied, as he lit his pipe, “but I have watched Sigurne Mellifas since she first entered the Order; she was only slightly older than you yourself were when you entered The Terafin’s service. She walks—has always walked—a very delicate edge; it has scarred her, in ways you cannot see.

  “Had she desired it, she might have become a mage with few peers; her power is not insignificant. She might have taken the bitter lessons of her captive youth and fashioned a place for herself that not even the Kings could rival. Do not interrupt me,” he added, when Jewel opened her mouth. “When I speak of the possibility, it is just that; it is idle, it is speculation. The Northern mage did not kill her; the first—and the most significant—of her early teachers did not, although he came closer than she will admit to either of us, in my estimation.

  “She has, instead, devoted her considerable knowledge to denying any other the benefit of the knowledge she gained, and she has walked the narrow road, always, as sentinel. I see some of her in you now. What she fears, you also fear—but your fear is stronger. And that is wise; the danger is greater.”

  “What—what fear?”

  “You fear to be more than you are.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You fear, then, to lose what you are. You are wed to mortality, and you do not wish to leave it.”

  She glanced at Avandar. “Could I?” she asked softly.

  He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Mortals have oft chased the dream of immortality; it is a costly gift to grant—but the granting is less costly than the acceptance. I believe you are well aware of the latter cost.”

  She turned, once again, to the streets, glancing at the Chosen who kept pace with the carriage. “Immortality just seems like another way of being abandoned. Unless my friends are also immortal, what’s the point?”

  “The point for men of power—”

  “They don’t have any friends. The Winter King had rivals, enemies, and the allies he accepted for the sake of mutual convenience. Was he powerful? Yes. Far more than I’ll ever be. What did it do for him? He faces eternity as a ground mount for a woman he can no longer touch.”

  “You attempt to shift the conversation in a direction it was not meant to go. The responsibility—if it can be met at all—will be in your hands. You have not,” he added, lifting pipe to his lips, “been invited to Avantari since your predecessor’s death. You will not have seen the changes within the palace itself.”

  “I’m aware that changes have been made.”

  “Good. The Kings are undecided because the gods are undecided. I ask you again, what would you have of me for what you offer?”

  “If you will not stay within the Order’s walls, take up residence within mine. I will open a room for you in the upper floor.”

  He lowered the pipe, although tobacco still burned in its bowl, and turned to face her. “I don’t believe your House Council will approve.”

  “It’s not up to the House Council,” was her sharp reply. “It’s up to me. If there were obvious expenses associated with your residence, I would have to justify them, yes—but there won’t be.”

  “Why is this of import to you? I have already stated that I will offer you no oath and no pledge of service.”

  “I want you to walk those roads with me.”

  “I have already told you that it is not safe to even open their doors. Will you ignore advice that is meant entirely to bolster your chances for survival?”

  “Yes,” was her stark reply. “I sent the Winter King into the wilderness, and with him Snow and Night.”

  “To what end?” he asked, in a tone that made clear his astonishment at her utter lack of sense.

  “I told you. I didn’t open the door that led to the hidden roads.”

  Understanding, then. “Yes,” he said softly.

  “Yes you’ll—”

  “I will accept your offer, although it is singularly unwise. I will hunt, by your side, for those who have gone missing. They are not, of course, of value to me; no more, in the end, than all but a handful of mortals who have once called this City home. But they are, in my view, as valuable to you as what you have offered me. I will not lay down my life for theirs; I will not offer it in your stead. But what I can divert in this endeavor, I will.” He looked as if he were finished, but he lifted pipe again. “Call back your cats. Have the Winter King return to your side.”

  But she s
hook her head. “I have Shadow. The cats might return, but they were bored, as you might have noticed. The Winter King will lay down his life in this quest.”

  “He will not.”

  “He will; what I have offered him for the chance of success is of far more import—to him. While you are in my domain, Meralonne, close the doors that you see opening if I don’t perceive them. Stop my people—my mortal people—from stepping foot upon those byways.”

  He nodded again. “You understand,” he said, as he emptied his pipe out the carriage window, “that if you fail in Avantari, the fate of those I save will be no kinder than the fate they will meet in the end?”

  “But you’ll save them now. What we face in the end, we face.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, Meralonne.”

  “Yes?”

  “What happens when the Sleepers wake?”

  “It is said—”

  “I don’t care what’s said. I want to know what will happen.”

  “They will see the ruins of a city,” he replied, “infested with carrion. Their anger at your presumption will know few bounds, and they will scour the earth of you and your kind. They will not serve our enemy,” he added, “but that will be of little consolation to you.”

  “Can they?” she asked. “The demons themselves have chosen to approach Averalaan with caution; they do not bring armies to the city.”

  “Not yet. But the time for caution is passing. Come, Terafin. We have Kings to meet.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  10th of Fabril, 428 A.A.

  Avantari, Averalaan Aramarelas

  THE HALL OF WISE COUNSEL was, in all ways, a remarkable room. Most of the characteristics that made it unusual were not immediately obvious to a casual visitor. It was an audience chamber fit for the Crowns, a huge room the height of which instantly dwarfed any who walked through its doors. At any time of day or night, the room was brightly lit. The windows, stained glass, and almost of a piece with the intimidating architecture, shifted hue in keeping with external light, implying natural elements that did not, in any way, reach the room.