He did open his arms then, a bit stiffly. He did offer the hug that she was certain would be an imposition. It was awkward, but he hadn’t lied to her; he was not comfortable with obvious sentiment. In that, he was more like Duster than any of the rest of the den.
And she accepted it, the gesture grander to her than any of the obvious trappings of wealth or power. Her grip was gentle, even tentative, and he felt two things: her trembling, and the sudden difference in their size. Jester was not tall, would never be tall—but he was taller than Jay. Taller, broader. If he had ever paused to think, it would make sense, but he had never paused to think of it, not this way. And so he was confronted with the unwelcome sense that she was small, that she was slight, possibly too slight for the weight she had willingly shouldered.
And then she pulled back. Her smile was fragile, but it was there, and it was entirely hers; he had seen that smile at twelve years of age, and at every age that followed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, and that, too, was familiar. Only when her hair was utterly and completely pressed flat and confined did it stay where it was put.
She did not leave, not immediately. She stayed in the courtyard, Sigurne by her side, until the Arianni arrived. They came on foot, and they offered her the obeisance due a lord in Weston lands; she accepted it without comment, as if it were her due. Calliastra came with Shianne and Celleriant, and behind them, silent and graceful, Kallandras of Senniel College.
She waited, still, until Angel arrived, wetter than the Arianni—of course he was—but ready for the road. Beside Angel came Terrick, and beside them, Snow. Last came the great white stag. He approached her, passing through the ranks of the Arianni to do so, and when he knelt to the ground, bending supple legs, she nodded and mounted his back.
True to her commands, there was no Adam. Jester didn’t like it, but he understood why she wanted to leave him behind. He was young, and he was kind. As a healer, he had not been raised to war. Ah, but he hadn’t been raised a healer. And he knew the effects of war, and the cost to those who did not have the power to flee or to fight. Adam had seen as much death and destruction as Jester, in half the time.
Jay looked down at Snow and Night. “I’m leaving my home in your hands,” she said. “I’m certain you can do a much better job than Meralonne at defending it.”
“Of course we can,” Night said.
“Everything of import is here. Everything. Guard it well.”
No one asked where she was going. But Celleriant drew close—as close as Avandar—and she allowed it. Seeing her this way, it was hard to imagine that she had been a petty thief in the hundred holdings. It was hard to imagine that she belonged to a den—any den, anywhere.
Last, very last, came Haval, the man the forest denizens called Councillor.
“Listen to Finch and Teller,” she said, her voice drifting into something less grand, less mythical. “The forest trusts you because I trust you—but listen to them. There are prices that I cannot pay and survive, and they understand them well. Listen,” she continued, “to Jester.”
“For my sake,” Jester said, lifting a hand, “I’d like you to withdraw the last one.”
Her smile was her own. “I bet you would. I’m doing everything I can—even the things I don’t know I’ll have to do until they’re right in front of my face. But I need—” She stopped. “You know what we were. Keep as much of the good parts alive as you can.”
“I will have you know,” Haval said, “that my wife has issued the same orders—and in far less friendly language.” He bowed to her then. He bowed as if she were the Kings. “Return to us, Terafin.”
The road that Jester couldn’t see was obviously there because Jay began to walk it; the waters of the fountain swallowed her. None of the men and women gathered here were as blind as Jester now was: they followed in her wake, disappearing from view.
Birgide waited until the last of the travelers had vanished and then turned to him, an odd half-smile across her lips. “That was well done, ATerafin.”
“And my reward is a stodgy title?”
“Your name, but if you prefer, Jester.” She grimaced. “That can’t be the name you were born with.”
“Probably not. It’s the name I prefer. What was well done, by the way? I don’t hear a lot of praise, so if you could be more explicit, I’d appreciate it.” He grinned.
She didn’t. “We should leave. You’ll need to speak with Teller, and possibly Finch.” To Sigurne, who had remained behind in the wake of the company, she bowed. It was a low bow. She did not—as Jay would have done—offer the guildmaster her arm.
Jester, sighing inwardly, stepped in with his, which the guildmaster accepted without comment. She was still gazing at the fountain.
“Do you know where they’re going?”
“For the first leg of their journey? Yes.”
“Will you share without demanding an arm or leg in return for the information?”
Sigurne frowned. “Because you are hers, yes. They are going to Fabril’s reach.”
“With an army?” Jester’s shock was only partly feigned.
“Fabril’s reach is an uncharted wilderness that is, in the opinion of our experts, the equal of your Terafin’s forest. If that army intends harm there, they will be sundered from the Lord they have chosen to ally themselves with. She will, however, continue.”
Birgide said, “Fabril made this fountain.”
“That is our belief, yes.”
“Could he know what would happen here?”
“I have never understood Artisans. I would say yes, but he was not seer-born. Perhaps he understood that in the heart of the wilderness, some way must exist that could reach the heart of his own domain. The fountain did not appear until Jewel declared herself. Fabril was, by all accounts, mortal. And his time is centuries past.”
But Jester, thinking of the Terafin spirit, said nothing.
He was afraid of only one thing: Ararath Handerness. Old Rath. Nothing appeared to happen in these forests by accident, and nothing by coincidence, and she had spoken Rath’s name so clearly that all of the forest had heard it. Even Jester, who was an outsider there.
Chapter Four
JEWEL FOLLOWED THE ROAD that Sigurne had opened. She knew that were she to put it that way to the magi, the old woman would demur, and might even do so in the honest belief that her denial was true. But she knew that the road would not have opened were it not for Sigurne Mellifas’ presence.
The Winter King was silent. His hooves were silent as well; he didn’t appear to be touching the road at all.
You said you could walk any road that the Winter Queen has walked.
Yes.
So . . . she walked here?
She has had cause to enter your city, your Empire, before. But yes. I recognize the feel of this path, and the air tastes familiar.
It tasted like winter to Jewel. The air was cold enough that mist rose from the collective breaths of the people who had joined her.
Are these my lands? she asked the Winter King.
No, Jewel. Can you not hear the name of their Lord?
No. But I can’t hear my own name in my lands, either. What you hear, what the elders hear, what the cats hear, I don’t. I’m mortal.
These are Fabril’s lands. This is part of Fabril’s reach. Tell me, did you know that you could walk from your lands to his?
No. And yet, she had taken the path. She had known that she must.
* * *
• • •
The Wild Hunt was as silent as the Winter King, and their silence was charged, like clouds in the full thrall of thunderstorm, waiting to shed lightning. Jewel glanced at them briefly, and then turned her eyes to the road. It was composed of almost pristine stone block, as if it had been built very recently, but never traveled. There were stone roads in the city, but they chipped, they cra
cked, they became homes to persistent, stubborn weeds; this was like the ideal of those roads.
They had been built in a land without people, without carriages, without wagons. Those creatures that might exist to either side of its parallel borders didn’t require roads. As a shadow crossed above them all, she thought some didn’t require feet; she looked up.
The sky was a shade of winter blue, and indeed, beyond the road the landscape seemed to solidify. Snow. Snow, she thought, and trees that were unlike the trees in her own forest. They seemed things of bark and ice and silence.
But snow did not touch this road.
What do you know of Fabril? she asked her domicis.
Very little that is objective. I know the stories. I did not live in these lands when Fabril lived, and by all accounts, he was mortal. But he was considered a maker without parallel.
Is this his work?
That, Terafin, I could not tell you. We guess, when we view astonishing work, that it was maker-made. The Artisans, however? No. Things crafted by gods might be considered Artisan-made by those who did not see the gods at work.
Could you tell the difference?
Silence again.
You saw the gods at work. Tell me, do you think this was crafted by a mortal?
It has never been wise to interfere in the games of gods, he replied. He said, and would say, no more, but his answer was answer enough.
Tor Amanion. Winter King.
I have not walked this road before. But the White Lady has, at least once. More than that, I cannot say. He glanced at the Winter Host, gleaming as they were in their silent, focused march.
Cannot or will not?
A glimmer of amusement reached her. Cannot, Jewel. This road has never been walked by the Wild Hunt assembled here, but they recognize the heart of Winter when they see it. Watch Shianne.
She did. It was easy to watch Shianne once one started, and much, much harder to look away. They had seen snow in the lands in which they had first met. A lot of snow. More snow in aggregate than Jewel had probably seen in her life. But that snow and this snow were clearly different to Shianne; to Jewel, it was almost indistinguishable.
Shadow hissed laughter. He walked alongside the Winter King, his head far enough below Jewel that she couldn’t easily clamp a hand between his ears. She could probably fit a foot there, but the results of that were unpredictable, at best. She settled for a glare, which caused his hissing to increase in volume.
The cats were not natural liars. They lied the way young children did: obviously and badly. The great gray cat was genuinely amused. But there was a different quality to the amusement. Although he was aware of Jewel, he was also watching Shianne.
Her eyes were round with wonder, her cheeks faintly rosy, her lips parted as if to speak, although no words escaped. She turned to the Wild Hunt, and then away, remembering at the last that she was no longer one of them.
But Celleriant said, “You have not seen Winter before.”
I don’t understand what the difference is, Jewel said to the Winter King. We’ve seen so much snow in the wilderness.
Winter—your winter—is not the Winter of the hidden world.
But—but the Oracle’s winter—
No, Jewel. This, this is: it is the first snow, the first, fallen snow. It is the start of the White Lady’s choice.
Silence.
“Celleriant.”
“Lord.”
“Tell me, is this the first snow of the hidden world?” Her breath came out in a wreath of mist.
“Do you not feel it, Lord? We are all, for a moment, young again, and the world, at its dawn.”
She shook her head, and he looked at her with something that might have been pity.
“I see it only through you. Through you, the Wild Hunt, and Shianne.”
“The world holds its breath here. The hush is the hush of anticipation. This is the first Winter—and here, the horns cannot reach. Have you not noticed the silence?”
“No,” she said truthfully. “Is that a castle?”
* * *
• • •
The road was not entirely straight, and if snow did not touch it, branches grew above it; she could not be certain what she glimpsed in the distance through the bare, overhanging branches was. Angel’s sight was better, and he answered in Rendish, flushing as he realized his mistake.
Jewel asked the question again in Torra to tease her den-kin, and when he grimaced she realized it had been a while since she’d seen that expression. It was rueful, amused, chagrined. It was home. She couldn’t remember, for a moment, why she’d wanted to leave him behind.
“Yes,” he replied, in distinct Weston. “It’s a castle.”
“Like mine?”
“I only saw yours from the gates. And Shadow was walking on my feet, so I wasn’t paying as much attention as I could.”
Shadow muttered something that had a lot of stupid in it.
“But?”
“But I’d almost say we’ve been walking backward if it weren’t for all the snow.”
Jewel nodded. She felt obscurely better; the castle that she thought she could see looked like it was twin to the one that had awaited her upon her return—and, clearly, that wasn’t because it was her own desire.
That should not be a comfort to you. Avandar’s inner voice was sharp, but it was not chilly. He was annoyed.
It’s a comfort that a castle wasn’t entirely my own idea. It’s a comfort that there’s no part of my sleeping mind that wants to be locked a mile or more away from my den and the rest of my home. She exhaled. It’s a comfort because Fabril had something to do with it, and Fabril made the weapons that the Kings wield. If they trust his work, I feel like I can.
This did nothing to mollify her domicis. Avandar was probably right. But she was surrounded by the Arianni. She could not imagine an enemy action that could destroy them all—and Shadow, and Avandar, and Kallandras who survived anything. In a strange way, she had never been safer than she was now.
And she would never be safer again.
The thought came, and the cold came with it, and she understood that this certainty was her gift speaking. She accepted it; she couldn’t change it, couldn’t argue with it. But she also thought: if it can’t be changed, if it’s true, why can’t I relax for another mile or two? Why can’t I look at the world and see it as beautiful?
It was.
Angel was here. Shadow. Avandar. And Shianne was painfully, breathtakingly beautiful because she could not entirely contain her delight; it burst through the chilly perfection of her neutral expression and made her eyes seem incandescent. Jewel could well imagine throwing the entirety of her life away if she could cause that smile, that wonder, to bloom again under her own power.
But how much more, she thought, would she throw away to see that expression on Calliastra’s face? She turned; the daughter of darkness walked ahead of Angel and Terrick, as far from the Wild Hunt as she could. What she thought of this Winter, what she thought of this road, what she thought of Shianne, she kept to herself; she walked gracefully, lightly, as befit a child of gods—but she did not turn to look back at Jewel, not once, and the shadow of black wings seemed to be struggling to emerge from a faint, dark smudge of shadow.
* * *
• • •
The castle, like Jewel’s castle, appeared almost unoccupied. Calliastra stopped at the gates, which were closed; Jewel nudged the Winter King forward, although it was unnecessary. There was some juggling for position as Terrick examined the area around what should have been a gatehouse, barking Rendish orders to Angel, which were obeyed with alacrity.
They had to stop their inspection and move back as the gates opened, parting more like curtains than the wood and iron they appeared to be. The road they had followed continued past those gates to the main building, but b
etween the familiar line of recessed arches at the height of a gentle slope of stairs and those gates was a fountain.
Were it not winter in the world beyond the castle grounds, Jewel might have thought she’d led her party in a circle. She could see alabaster, a figure that had walked out of The Wayelyn’s song; it was larger than life, as befit a bardic lay.
“No matter where or how you look,” a familiar voice said, “you will not find a different answer.” Master Gilafas ADelios was waiting beside the fountain. Were it not for his voice, she might not have recognized him; he was dressed as a traveling merchant might dress, and not the ruler of the most powerful guild in the Empire.
“Where is my butterfly?”
Jewel was by now accustomed to the guildmaster. She did not take offense at the question that preceded the unusual greeting; indeed, she expected no usual greeting. “With the bard. He is coming,” she added.
He frowned. “You bring a bard with you?”
“He has traveled with me since the beginning of my journey; I expect he will see it to the end. No mission he has been given has managed to kill him. Rumor has it that he has often been the only man standing at the end of the most difficult of his tasks.”
“And you gave him my butterfly?” He seemed agitated.
“No. The butterfly chose to shelter with him. And before you ask, I don’t know why.”
“I will see this bard.”
“Yes. Shortly.” She looked at his clothing.
“I have something for you.”
She wanted to tell him that he had given her more than enough, but there was as yet little gratitude in her. So she chose to wait. She was surprised when Calliastra approached the guildmaster and, judging by his expression, so was he.
The darknessborn daughter, however, did not speak or demand an introduction, not directly. “This is your Artisan?” she said to Jewel.
“He is not, as I said before, mine. But he is the Artisan I mentioned, yes.”
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