“You are all stupid.”
“Yes, probably. We weren’t born to the wilderness, and we are not of it. You will kill no more of the Wild Hunt. They want what we want.”
“They do not. They want her.”
“We want her, Shadow. If we don’t reach her in time—” She stopped.
“Yesssss?” He spit to the side. “They are not trying to kill me. They are trying to save you.”
Silence. Jewel glanced at the Arianni. Celleriant was not among them; clearly, he did not believe that her life was in danger. But Shadow was, surprisingly, correct. She exhaled. “He does not serve me as Lord Celleriant does, but he will not harm me here. He will not harm any of you now.” When they failed to move, she said, “Please put up your weapons.”
They were slow to obey what was only barely a request; Jewel wasn’t certain they would.
Adam said, “Vennaire.” Just that. Jewel thought it a foreign word but realized, as one of the Wild Hunt put up his weapon, that it was a name. “The cats will not harm the Matriarch.”
“And will they harm you?” the man Adam had named asked.
Adam did not answer.
“You are foolish, but I sense you are not without power in this place,” Vennaire continued. He spoke softly in a language Jewel did not understand, and the rest of the swords vanished, if slowly.
Adam hesitated, glancing at Jewel as if for permission. She hesitated as well. But Adam was healer-born, not seer-born; his talent was not hers. She could try to protect him—had tried, by leaving him at home.
But even thinking it, she felt cold, and she understood viscerally something that she had feared for far too long: home was no longer safe.
“Yes,” she said quietly, although she didn’t know what she was granting him permission to do.
He held out one slender hand toward the man he had named. “I will not harm you,” he said quietly. “And I will do nothing to change you.”
Vennaire stared at Adam’s slender fingers as if they were vipers. He spoke again to his brethren, and this time, the conversation was longer, the syllables sharper. No weapons were drawn, but Jewel was aware of the way words could be used to devastating effect in their stead; she waited, exhaling only when silence once again reigned.
“Mortal child,” Vennaire said, “were it not for the predicament of the White Lady, were it not for the threat to the seasons, we would consider your request a threat.”
Shadow growled. The growl was not a threat; it was, as far as Jewel could tell, conversational. The Arianni were surprised by his intrusion, but they spoke to him, and he growled back. It was the first time she could recall that she could not understand Shadow’s words. When he fell silent, they fell silent, and that silence seemed to spread across the forest like a pall, a shroud.
But Vennaire turned back to Adam, who had slowly lowered his hand. He spoke; Adam frowned. He spoke again, and Adam’s frown shifted into one of concentration. Jewel did not understand the Arianni’s words—but Adam, it seemed, thought he could, or should. Jewel started to speak; Shadow stepped on her foot, demanding silence without breaking it.
When Adam turned to her, however, he was pale. “Matriarch?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied, “but I don’t understand what he said.”
“It is—it is the Matriarch’s tongue.”
“Not this Matriarch. I didn’t understand it. What did he say?”
Adam repeated what she had already heard; it remained incomprehensible. He tried a second time, speaking the syllables with greater volume.
“Adam, I don’t understand. Saying it slowly, saying it louder—none of this is going to make me understand. It’s not a language I recognize.”
He fell silent.
“Where do you know it from?”
And flushed, his shoulders sloping toward the ground, his chin dropping as if it had sprouted weights. “Arkosa,” he said quietly. “My mother taught my sister when my sister would mind her.”
“And she taught you?”
He cringed, although his mother was dead, his sister absent. “I listened. I eavesdropped.”
“Matriarch business,” Jewel said.
“. . . Yes.”
“Arkosan Matriarch business.”
“Yes, Matriarch. I am sorry.”
“I’m not. I have enough business of my own, I don’t need to mind your sister’s for her. I am not Arkosan, and I never will be. I consider you kin; you are ATerafin to me for all that you lack the House Name. Nothing you say or do will change that; I owe you my life. If you cannot tell me what he said, I accept that. I ask only that you do not act if you believe you yourself will be in danger. Because, Adam? I’ve lost enough kin for one life. We haven’t known each other long, we share no blood, but it would kill me to lose you.”
His smile was uncomplicated; there was a trace of surprise in it, but also joy. “I was told that I might save my own people if I spent time with yours. I thought it meant that I was to learn how to be a ruler.”
She said nothing.
Adam once again held out a hand, and this time, Vennaire placed his own hand across it.
Chapter Six
7th of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
FINCH WOKE TO DARKNESS in a room that should have been silent. She was out of bed and stumbling into awkward clothing before she was fully awake. The clothing her half-asleep self had chosen was meant for the office; the dress had been created by Haval Arwood, a substitute for armor. The cloth out of which he had worked it was dark and heavy; in the light, its sheen added layers of color. It was not light now, but she found her voice, and magelight—the single luxury she had allowed herself when she had set out upon the road to a regency she hoped and prayed would never be necessary—flared to life.
She whispered it to a more bearable glow, and as she lifted the holder, she found herself staring into eyes that reflected that light. They were not, like the visible cloth of her skirts, flat and almost liquid; they were cat eyes. Night, she thought, given how well he blended into the darkness.
Adam and Jay had recovered from their encounter with cats gone wild at the whim of the Warden of Dreams. Finch, standing by Jay’s bedside, had not. She could, with little effort, recall the sudden, horrific wounds that had been clawed through her den leader. No; much greater effort was required to push that image out of her mind. She made that effort now. The cats were not cats. Cats did not speak. They didn’t fly. And they certainly didn’t launch themselves at demons, full of competitive glee.
But they were wild, and they were sensitive in the way predators were. Fear was not her friend here.
Fear, she thought as she shook off the last of sleep, was not her friend anywhere. She had learned that lesson time and time again but could never quite fix it in place enough that she did not need constant reminders.
“Did you wake me?”
He growled. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand instantly to attention. Her hair was the one thing that was still sleep encumbered; while it wasn’t as flyaway messy as Jay’s come new from the pillow, it was not in a state deemed suitable for either the Merchant Authority or the House Council. Still, when she pushed it back around her ears, it stayed there.
“Night?”
“Get up,” Night growled.
“I am.”
“Wake them. Wake them.”
“Who?”
“Are you deaf?” he demanded, adding rents to the carpet in her room. She grimaced. Iain had already made clear, with an angry emphasis that was entirely unlike his usual demeanor, that the House funds devoted to repair and restoration were already at their lowest level since he had personally taken office.
“I am not deaf,” Finch replied, cloaking herself with dignity. “I am merely mortal.”
Night shri
eked with frustration; it was not a quiet sound. “Get the others. I will wake Teller.” He then continued to speak, but many of the syllables were lost to a shrieking kind of growl. If he had hands, he might have been pulling his own hair out. Finch smiled in spite of herself.
It was to be the only smile of that long night.
* * *
• • •
Finch was not the first person that Night had roused—if it had, indeed, been Night’s doing. Haval was standing to one side of her door when she exited her rooms, his arms folded, his shoulders lightly touching the wall. He was dressed, but in clothing that made him seem both foreign and dangerous. This man, her instincts told her, could never be a tailor.
Her experience argued and won—but it was a close fight.
“Regent,” he said, the single word brisk.
“Birgide?”
He lifted one brow, and then dipped his chin in approval. “She is awake. She marshals the forest as we speak.”
“Haval, what’s happening? Night is frantic. And annoyed.”
“You cannot hear them?”
Finch closed her eyes. She could now hear footsteps and angry cat; could hear the change of treads as bare feet became booted. “I’m sorry, no. What do you hear?”
“The forest,” he replied. “And the horns. The hunters—”
“Jay took them with her.”
“Not these ones, alas. I have taken the liberty of speaking with the Chosen; they will require your approval of my suggestion before they act.”
“Act on what?” She wondered, for a moment, if she were still sleeping; if this dark-clad stranger with folded arms and a familiar face was a dream that stood on the precipice of nightmare.
“I have asked them to revoke all permissions granted to the House Mage. The former House Mage.”
Finch froze.
Seeing her expression, Haval smiled. “Have you seen Jarven?”
“No. I’ve seen a hissing, angry cat and a very displaced tailor.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll go to the Chosen. Can you make sure Teller and Jester are awake?”
“If I am not mistaken, Teller is almost at his door. Jester, on the other hand, will require more effort.” His smile was a sliver, something sharp and cold that implied a warmth it did not contain. “Go, Regent.”
* * *
• • •
Torvan and Arrendas were already awake, and given the hour, this was not their shift. Finch was not therefore surprised to see that the rest of the Chosen had been roused. The House Guard did not, as a general rule, live in the manse itself; the Chosen did. The advantage to that could now be seen. Unlike the den, they did not wear their lack of sleep openly; they had shed sleep completely.
Torvan saluted Finch before she had even come to a halt. “Arann sounded the general alarm,” he said before she could speak. “What are your orders?”
Jay had only just left this morning, and Finch already missed her. In her darkest hours, she wished—prayed—for just a touch of the gift that had made Jay so instantly valuable to House Terafin. As an urchin, her decisions had affected her den—and that had seemed so large, at the time. Now, they would affect people she could not see, and possibly had not even met.
It mattered, but the fear of that responsibility could not be allowed to take control of her, or she would do nothing. Nothing was not acceptable.
“I’ve come to request that the permissions granted the House Mage—especially in the interior of the manse—be dismantled.”
Torvan nodded crisply enough the gesture was a reply. “The permissions granted explicitly by The Terafin, however, are not in our domain.”
Finch had been worried about that, as well. But she trusted Jay. “The Terafin made clear that those permissions would endure while they were relevant, or rather, while he is. I am not magi; I have spent no time in the halls of the Order of Knowledge. I cannot tell you how or why, but I am certain that if he is now considered a threat, these lands will not accept him. Your responsibility—your only responsibility—are the precautions with which the Chosen have been charged.”
Arrendas said, “The Warden?”
She understood instantly. “I have been informed that Birgide is marshaling our forces in the forest.”
“Regent.”
She exhaled. “I will be in the forest, should my presence be required.” She glanced down the empty hall. The den woke, or had been woken, but the manse as a whole continued its regular schedule. “I may require an escort when dawn finally breaks.”
“You intend to go to the Merchant Authority?”
“It will depend.”
“On?”
“Jarven ATerafin.”
Torvan shared Jay’s opinion of both Jarven and Lucille ATerafin. But he said nothing; instead he saluted.
“I will be safe from almost all forms of attack,” she continued. “But the right-kin does not share the same advantages.”
“His office is the most secure room in the manse.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But I am not certain that he will remain in his office if he has not reached it yet.”
Torvan turned immediately and began to arrange a more defensive shift for the right-kin. Finch did not remain to hear the details; it was not her job, nor her responsibility, and there were no two men she trusted more with Teller’s life. Or her own, if it came to that.
* * *
• • •
She made one more stop before she exited the building. She entered Daine’s healerie. The large box by the door was so much a part of visiting that she removed her daggers and dropped them into that box without a second thought.
To her surprise, Daine was awake. He sat on the edge of the fountain in the arboretum, his neck bent, his hands crushed against his knees. They were shaking. He looked up when she entered, and she thought that Daine—unlike the rest of the den—had not bothered with even an attempt to sleep. He was younger than any of the den save Adam, but tonight his expression was that of a much older man.
And she remembered why Daine was part of the den, why he was in the healerie, and froze for one long moment.
He knew. He rose, his hands shaking. “I have prepared the healerie,” he said quietly.
“Nothing’s happened.”
“No. Do you honestly believe nothing will?” Before she could answer—and she had begun to gather the strands of a regent’s dignity about herself—he said, “Tell me. Tell me that so I can believe it.”
She gave up on the regency then, lifting her hands in den-sign. What do you hear?
He frowned at the finger movements; she had made them both deliberate and slow. Although Daine had been taught den-sign, he did not use it often. Less, she thought, than Adam—but Adam was the age they had been when they had invented the language.
“Horns,” he said. “Horns. Do you remember the last time we heard horns?”
She did.
“The Hunter God.” Daine had not experienced that. But Daine, healer-born, had chosen to pull Jay from the banks across the bridge—and Jay most certainly had; he would carry those memories as part of his own until he died. She knew how much of a burden healing was—he was forced, by the act, to carry not one set of fears, but two.
More.
The Terafin—not Jay, but Amarais—had made decisions about who the previous healer tended. She made decisions about who he called back from death, when no other medical aid would be enough to save life. Finch was not certain that, even as acting regent, she could make a similar decision because in the end it was Daine, den-kin, who would bear the cost.
He signed.
“No. I hear nothing. I’m awake because Night woke me. And to be honest, I’m calculating just how much we can afford to piss off the treasurer. Or how much more.”
“He damaged something?”
“The
carpeting. Again. Night isn’t very communicative. How clear are the horns?”
“It’s not just the horns,” he said, his voice dropping. “When I woke, I went to the window. I opened it.”
She waited.
“It was winter, Finch. It was winter, and I could see the shadow of the hunters. They did not ride in a host; they were four.”
“Four.”
“They seemed almost ghostly to me, but solid. Terrifying.” He exhaled.
“The Sleepers.”
He said nothing. But he turned toward the room in which all the beds and supplies lay. “I think, if they are not awake yet, they will be soon.”
When the Sleepers wake.
She said, “The forest people are gathering. The Chosen are marshaling the House Guard.”
“I know.”
* * *
• • •
The moment she set foot on the sculpted garden path, the color of the night sky shifted. It had been dark, if clear; it now took on a tint that implied dawn was on its way. But it wasn’t the pink of coming dawn she saw; it was the orange and red of fire.
Finch had always been able to find the heart of Jay’s forest, although she entered it seldom. It was not that she felt unwelcome in it; whenever she made her way there, she knew she was safe. But it was not her home. In it, there were trees of silver, of gold, of diamond; in it was a tree of fire that was nonetheless also a tree of wood, with branches and flames for leaf and flower. It was not the Merchant Authority; nor was it the crowded streets of the holdings. It was Jay’s, yes—but it was part of Jay that had nothing whatsoever to do with the den.
The den had learned to give each other privacy, when the physical means for it was well beyond them; Finch stayed out of the forest because, in some fashion, she had learned this lesson well. But she understood, as the tree of fire came almost instantly into view, that there were different lessons to be learned. This was Jay’s, it was part of who she had become, and Finch as regent had to accept it fully.
She was not, however, the first person present; she was almost the last.
War Page 16