How cold, how hard, how deliberate did one have to be to become a Matriarch worthy of an empire?
“Stupid, stupid boy.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. I won’t always be stupid, though.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” Shadow growled and removed bark from the nearest root. “You will because you are like her, and if you were smart, you wouldn’t be.”
“You don’t like me.”
“I don’t like any of you.” The possibility seemed to offend the gray cat. Then again, breathing offended the gray cat on the wrong day. Or the wrong minute.
“Why are you here, Shadow?”
“Because she will cry if you die.”
Adam couldn’t be certain that the misunderstanding of the question was deliberate. He took a breath.
Shadow flexed very, very prominent claws. Animal claws—normal animals—were surprisingly blunt without the force of weight and momentum behind them. The winged cats, however, were not normal animals. Adam swallowed. Shadow could not kill him easily—he healed himself instinctively—but he could cause an enormous amount of pain while making the attempt.
No. I meant: why are you with the Matriarch at all? He swallowed the question. Although Shadow had walked slowly, they had reached the end of their path. Before him, surrounded by and surrounding the trees that the Matriarch had caused to grow, were the men of the Wild Hunt.
They were like, and unlike, Celleriant. Adam thought Celleriant cold and unapproachable. But somehow, he was part of the Matriarch’s clan. These men were not. Their stares were cold, but none of them were turned on Adam; they watched Shadow with a baleful hostility. None drew weapons.
Shadow raised his head; his fur sank until he was sleek, his shoulders rising with a kind of angular grace that spoke—of course it did—of hunting and death. And perhaps the Wild Hunt recognized this as a common element; they did not speak. Neither did Shadow.
Shadow was at his most dangerous when silent.
“I’ve come to examine the man Shadow injured.”
Silence, but it was qualitatively different. One man spoke quietly in a language that Adam did not understand. He waited. Farther back, another spoke, and the silence shifted again.
“You call him . . . Shadow?”
“Shadow. Because he is neither black nor white, and if he wishes, he remains unseen.”
More discussion, the fluidity of syllables joining but never overlapping.
“And this . . . Shadow obeys the mortal?”
Adam grimaced. “As much as he obeys anyone.”
Shadow growled. Adam remembered the Warden of Dreams and froze, the nightmare returning to him so suddenly and so viscerally that his legs locked, and his breath became shallow.
“We do not obey,” the gray cat then said. “Who would dare to command us?”
“Do you challenge the Wild Hunt?”
Shadow glanced at the speaker but did not answer. Instead, to Adam, he said, “Go.”
Adam moved, his body obeying the single word before his will, his intent, could catch up. Swords were drawn in an instant in perfect synchronicity, as if the Wild Hunt were one man. Adam raised both of his hands, displaying his empty palms. “I mean him no harm,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady, given that his arms were shaking. “I wish to make certain that he will survive.”
“And the eldest?”
Adam blinked. Ah, they meant Shadow. “None of you have challenged him; none have insulted him. He has no cause to harm any one of you that do not try.” Silence. “Shadow?”
“The boy is of value. Harm him, and I will kill you all. I have no other interest in any of you.”
Adam’s shoulders sagged. “Shadow, I don’t think that’s the way—” The gray cat flexed his wings, and Adam lost the rest of the sentence.
“You are stupid. You understand nothing.”
“Might I see the injured man?”
More speech, and then one of the Wild Hunt disengaged from the rest. “You may call me Vennaire. Follow. I will lead you.” As he spoke, he turned and began to walk. “Where did you meet your Lord?”
“Ah—in the South. In Annagar. A different country.”
“Not a country I recognize.”
“Do you recognize this one? The one in which the Matriarch’s forest has grown?”
“Perhaps. We have been discussing it; it is both familiar and foreign. How long have the eldest served your Lord?”
“They came to her when she planted the forest in her own lands. It’s—not the same as this one. There are trees of silver, of gold, of diamond.”
The man’s brows rose, and his lips turned up in something that might have been a smile had it possessed any warmth. “And how did you come to serve her?”
How? “I owe her my life.”
“I see. A debt of honor. Those are burdensome, little mortal; it is why your kind so often fails to carry that weight. You are young for your kind.”
“Yes. But I am not considered a child by my people.”
“Your people are all children, to us.” Silence again; he moved quickly and easily across the snarl of interlocked roots. Adam did not, but he moved regardless, following his guide. Shadow walked to the left of Adam, pausing only to criticize his progress.
“You let him speak poorly of you,” Vennaire observed. There was a question in the words.
“He speaks poorly of everyone. It’s when he’s silent that he’s at his most dangerous.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Then Calliastra was correct. It has been long since we first encountered the three, and they were not then as they have become. We thought them children of the tangle.”
Shadow hissed.
“But they travel with you and they defend you, and perhaps that is enough for those such as you.”
“Why did your friend insult Shadow?”
“He was restless. It was folly, but a necessary reminder. Where we go, the wilderness does not acknowledge the White Lady.” Vennaire did not seem to be troubled by his companion’s injury, nor did he seem troubled by Shadow’s presence and the very obvious threat it implied.
“We understand what is at stake,” Vennaire continued. “Each and every one of us. Given in service to the Winter King, we are the Winter Queen’s. And if a way to reach her still exists, we will carve a path to it, be it in the very depths of the Hells. We will not harm your Lord; we will not rebel against her. She is the only hope we have of finding the only Lord we serve.”
“And the injury?”
“I do not understand your kind,” Vennaire said, in an equally quiet voice. “The Winter King is mortal, but he was not as you are. He understands, and understood, the rules that abide in the wilderness; he is almost of it. We had expected that your Lord would be the same—” He stopped and looked up, exposing the perfect line of a long, elegant throat. “But she is not. No more are you, mortal youth, to come to the heart of our gathering.
“Had he not had the power to withstand the eldest’s attack, he should not have raised his voice in challenge. What do you intend to do?”
“Make sure he survives,” Adam replied. He glanced, once, at Shadow, whose fur remained sleek, his claws catching bits of bark as he walked. His wings, however, were folded and his head was bent, not in hunting posture, not in search of scent, but in the muttering disgust with which Adam was most familiar.
Shadow had almost killed him. He had almost killed the Matriarch.
But it was Shadow around whom Ariel felt most comfortable. For reasons that were not clear to Adam—that might never become clear to him—Shadow seemed to like the child. She was safe around the gray cat in a way that no one else could be; Adam was certain that had Ariel been in the nightmare land of the Wardens, she would st
ill have been safe from what Shadow had become there.
“He won’t like it,” Shadow said.
“I don’t intend to hurt him.”
“He won’t like it.”
“Why?”
“I told you. We are not what you are.”
“You live. You breathe. You bleed. Those wounds can kill you, just as they kill us.”
Shadow spit. “You die so easily. You break so easily. We are not like you.”
“Are the Wild Hunt as you are?”
Clearly this was the most outrageous insult the gray cat had ever heard. Adam wondered how something as eternal, as immortal, as the cats could have memories so short. His sense of hurt outrage splashed outward as he explained in great detail why the cats were so superior the comparison could not be made by anyone who had functional eyes. Or ears. Or sense.
Adam glanced at Vennaire; the Arianni hunter did not seem at all pleased with Shadow’s sputtering—but he did not draw sword and he did not challenge the cat.
“He’s always like this,” Adam finally offered.
“Yes. And always was,” was the grim reply. “You are what the mortals call healer.”
It was not a question, exactly, but Adam nodded to confirm it anyway.
“It has been long since we have allowed one of your kind to approach us.”
“Lord Celleriant does not seem fond of us, no.”
The smile Vennaire offered was chilly, but so was winter. “No, of course not. Tell me, how did he come to serve your Lord?”
She was not Adam’s Lord, but he did not feel that he could deny the word safely. He understood instinctively that this was the business of Matriarchs. Yollana was not his master—she was Havallan—but he would never have denied her that title should someone else have used it, either.
“We met in the Sea of Sorrows,” Adam said quietly. “It stands, now, where the Cities of Man once stood.”
Silence.
“She found us, and she saved my life. I owe her at least this much.”
“What did she save you from?”
He grimaced. “The consequences of my own rashness.”
“Ah.”
“I was carried to her city, and in her city, I learned—” He stopped. “In her city, I was welcomed into her clan as kin. I could not go home, not immediately. I admire her. She is kin to me. I would die for her.” The last words seemed to surprise Shadow, who demonstrated this by stepping, hard, on his foot.
The Arianni Lord, however, took this in stride, as if it were no more than expected. And maybe, to the immortals, it wasn’t.
“You do not serve her,” Adam said.
“No.”
“And you will allow me to examine your kin?”
“If he was not strong enough, death is what he deserves. If you feel that he is worth preserving, and he consents, we will not interfere.”
And he consents.
Adam sighed, and nudged Shadow gently with his knee. The gray cat removed his paw from the top of Adam’s foot and stalked past him through the trees. Adam had to scramble to catch up.
“Wait, how do you know where we’re going?”
“Can you not smell it?”
“Smell what?”
“His blood.”
“No.”
“Can you do anything useful?”
* * *
• • •
In the end, there was no permission to ask. The injured Arianni lay, back wedged between the roots of one tree that seemed larger and more significant than the rest. The blood that Shadow could scent was obvious; it smeared the roots themselves, darkening their natural brown.
He was unconscious, and if Vennaire seemed to be nonchalant about the injuries, others of the Wild Hunt were not; two remained by his side, kneeling as if to check the rise and fall of his chest. They rose as Shadow approached, and one drew his sword.
Shadow sneezed at it, but lifted his wings in warning. One feather clipped the side of Adam’s face, drawing blood. And that, Adam thought in disgust, was also a warning. He kicked Shadow’s leg.
The Arianni tensed. Shadow, however, did not. “What was that? Was that supposed to be a kick?” Like, very like, the annoying uncles of Adam’s childhood.
“You’re in the way,” he told the gray cat.
“Make me move,” the cat replied.
“Shadow.” And that was the Matriarch’s voice. Adam turned.
Jewel was not there.
The gray cat, however, seemed neither surprised nor greatly displeased. He sniffed. He sniffed loudly. “Fine, fine.” And moved.
Adam circumnavigated the drawn blade, but the blade didn’t move; it was aimed in its entirety at Shadow. Adam himself was momentarily inconsequential.
“Because they are stupid,” the cat muttered.
Adam had reached the side of the injured, unconscious man. He knelt.
“What are you doing?” the unarmed Arianni asked quietly. There was no menace in his voice, or no more of it than his people’s voices naturally contained.
“I wish to make certain he survives. We don’t,” he added, “play deadly games with the cats.”
“You are too cowardly.”
“Too sensible,” Adam said, through slightly clenched teeth. “But we’ve all seen the cats fight the demons.”
“Were the cats injured?”
“Not appreciably, no.” He hesitated, his hands hovering above the unconscious man’s forehead. He expected the man to wake and push him away; he was, in fact, waiting for just that. But the man did not wake. He knew that Celleriant would reject his aid if he had any choice. And knew, as well, that the clans of his youth, in the distant Dominion of Annagar, feared the healer-born—when they did not indenture them for their own use.
He almost understood it. Almost. But he understood, as well, that this man was alive, and that he might not remain so. The Matriarch had chosen to bring the Winter people home for a reason, and that reason had not changed.
“Well?” Shadow demanded. “Are you going to sit here while he dies? Or while we die of boredom?”
Adam took a breath, held it, and lowered his hands.
* * *
• • •
He had wondered, before this moment, what immortals were. He understood the word: they lived forever. They did not age. The infirmity that came with age, the accumulation of a life’s injuries and diseases, did not trouble them. He understood that they were not invulnerable, but he thought of them, had thought of them, as essentially similar. Except that they continued on past the point when mortals couldn’t.
This was wrong.
This was wrong in almost every way.
He understood how to knit together the sides of rended flesh; understood how to help the body deal with the loss of blood; he understood the ways in which organs and limbs were damaged. He had to understand this, in order to heal. His understanding was meant for, was of, mortals.
He could hear Shadow hiss laughter.
Touching this man . . . had Adam been blindfolded, he would not have recognized what lay beneath his palms as a man. Not even as an approximation of one. None of the healing he had ever done had prepared him for this.
Only one thing might have. He had touched the cold earth, beneath the ancient, endless snow in the unclaimed wilderness that surrounded the Oracle’s home. He had almost held the entirety of that earth in his flat palms, while he searched for echoes of it that led to the Matriarch’s forest, the Matriarch’s home. He could not have done that if he had not understood, viscerally, what home meant to her. It was not so far removed from what it meant, and had meant, to Adam, for all that she lived in a Northern mansion, with its stiff doors and cold stone.
That, he thought, was like this.
Yes.
Shadow’s voice, shorn of the to
nality of a petulant cat, was deep and loud and resonant. Adam could not see the cat; his eyes were closed.
We fear you, mortal child, for a reason.
“I mean no harm,” Adam said, surprised by the word fear. It was not something the cats ever readily admitted.
A fire in your mortal forests means no harm. Intent is not everything. Intent is not close to everything. Did the gods mean to destroy lands when they walked upon the earth? No. But destruction followed in their wake when their thoughts were not turned toward preservation. So, too, the storms in your harbors. You are stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It is not what you intend, but what you do.
“I only want to make sure he survives.”
The cat was silent. Adam thought he was done. But as he once again turned his thoughts to the injuries that were visually similar to the injuries he understood, the cat spoke again.
Remember that. If you wish it, he will survive. But if you are not very careful, he will not be what he was. And, boy? She will know.
“Yes—she sent me.”
Stupid.
* * *
• • •
How could he heal what he couldn’t perceive? The touch of the healer-born could effect miraculous cures. It could pull people back from the brink of death—from either side. But . . . the dead went to the bridge and crossed it, to stand at last in the Halls of Mandaros.
The mortal dead.
If immortals had been created in such a way that they were never meant to face death, what happened to them? Did they have a bridge of their own, a river to cross, a hall in which they must face the consequences of their life’s choices? Did they return to their makers, whoever those makers must be?
Or did they exist as part of the tangle—that place where all steps were treacherous and none led in a predictable direction?
Mortals left their bodies when those bodies died. He had seen the dead; he understood that what they had been remained in some fashion. This man, almost dead, was not, had never been, mortal. It almost seemed, to Adam, that he had never been physical; that his body was not a body at all. Ah, wait, there—
* * *
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