War

by Michelle West

  Jewel exhaled. What happened with Adam?

  I do not know. You must ask him if you wish the answer.

  What do you think happened?

  There was a beat of silence. I believe he did as he desired: he touched the immortal. What he found was not, perhaps, what he expected—but Adam is unusual.

  Oh?

  I do not believe he expected anything; he was willing to observe whatever it was that he touched. Were he to touch me, he would find a mortal. You, too, would be mortal—as Shianne herself is. But the Arianni are not what we are; the great cats are not what we are. And, Jewel, he has touched the sleeping earth, and he has wrested from it a path that would not otherwise have existed. You do not fear him. I will not even call you foolish, although I think it unwise. They, however, fear him for a reason.

  Vennaire doesn’t. Vennaire doesn’t, anymore.

  Avandar nodded.

  * * *

  • • •

  Adam helped Terrick prepare food. The Arianni withdrew; they did not join the merely mortal for anything as mundane as a meal. They disappeared into this unknown, nighttime forest at an unspoken command; it was not Jewel’s.

  Shadow was bored. This was both good and bad, for obvious reasons.

  He wandered around the fire without singeing fur or tail and eventually plunked himself down beside Jewel, knocking Angel onto his backside in order to make room for himself. Angel glared at the cat as he dusted himself off; he almost sat on Shadow’s tail.

  “I don’t want to,” the cat said, as he dropped his head into Jewel’s lap.

  “Don’t want to what?”

  Shadow growled. Jewel scratched behind his ears as she listened to him complain. She was warm when in contact with the gray cat; she was warm when in contact with the Winter King. But the Winter King, like the rest of the Arianni, was absent.

  “I don’t like him.”

  Oh. “You mean Adam?”

  “Yesssssssss. Him.”

  “Has he asked you to do anything?”

  This touched off a loud, whiny round of stupid girl, comforting in its familiarity.

  “You should have kept Snow. Snow should do it.”

  “I need Snow at home.”

  The gray cat continued to whine and mutter, his words shaking her body because he didn’t bother to lift his head.

  Calliastra approached Jewel from the opposite side and glared with disgust at the gray cat’s head. Folding her arms, she looked down at him, her facial muscles twitching. Jewel was prepared for verbal spats, but Calliastra said nothing for one long breath. When she did open her mouth, she said, “I could do it.”

  Jewel did not understand the comment. She did not understand Shadow’s complaints. Shadow lifted his head. “Are you stupid?”

  “Not in comparison to you.”

  Jewel place a staying hand on the cat’s head; he clipped the side of her face with a wing.

  “You are not hers. You are his. What will he learn if he touches you? You will eat him!”

  Jewel understood, then.

  “You aren’t hers, either,” Calliastra snapped, arms tightening. “What will he get if he touches you? Fleas?”

  Shadow roared in outrage, tossing his head in a snap that dislodged Jewel’s palm. The Arianni returned to the clearing, drawn by the possibility of conflict. Even the Winter King appeared: silent, waiting.

  Jewel rose. If, by chance, predators who existed in this forest had been sleeping, there was no way they could remain that way. Shadow had a dragon’s voice.

  She signed to Angel, who had also appeared from between trees. Pack up. Leaving. He nodded and went in search of Terrick.

  To Jewel’s surprise, Lord Celleriant also appeared; he came from the air, at the side of Kallandras of Senniel College. His expression was one of disgust as he glared at the gray cat; he spared some of that heat for Calliastra, but not much.

  “You will endanger her if you continue your challenge. The forest has heard it, and not all its denizens are sleeping. Even were they, they could not fail to hear your voice. What were you thinking?” Unlike the rest of the Arianni, he was armed. But . . . he could be, without raising Shadow’s ire. Or more of it.

  Shadow snarled, tensing as if to leap.

  “Lord,” Celleriant said, “we must leave this place.”

  Jewel was already gathering the things that had to be returned to their packs. “Terrick has—”

  “We must leave now if we wish to avoid battle.”

  Jewel turned suddenly as a glint of red in the forest caught her eye. Arianni swords appeared in that instant. Swords, shields, and the glimmering silver of narrowed eyes.

  “Too late,” Avandar said, lifting his hands.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was no surprise to Jewel that Adam, half-drowsing by Shianne’s side, woke immediately; no surprise that his first thought—and probably second, third, and fourth—was the pregnant woman he had come, in the end, to help. If the Arianni could be instantly armed and armored, the mortals could not; Terrick and Angel made more noise than the entirety of the Wild Hunt present. Then again, it was the mortals who required both the food and the shelter that could be confined to traveling packs; it was the mortals who could not afford to be without at least one of them.

  Kallandras aided them; he was accustomed to travel and, at that, to travel in war-torn, hostile lands. But he was also accustomed to the winter of this particular world. He had traveled the Winter paths before, and they had not devoured him.

  Jewel could not remember when she had learned this, or even how, but watching him, she thought he looked more at home here than in the glittering ballrooms of the patricians who were Senniel’s patrons.

  “Terafin,” he said. “With your leave?”

  She nodded. “Take Celleriant with you.”

  The breeze that touched the clearing was warm; it carried no leaves, but instead lifted bard and Arianni from the ground. In the distance, what had been a flash of moving red became brighter and far more constant, and Jewel understood that the fire, like the air, had been summoned.

  * * *

  • • •

  Jewel.

  The Winter King knelt by her side. She mounted, casting one backward glance at Shianne and Adam. If Adam’s failed attempt to save the life of one of their kin had had no other effect, it had this: a handful of the Wild Hunt came to stand by his side. No, she thought, in front of him. He was safer now than he had been the first time they had encountered demons in the Winter lands.

  She was certain that’s what they would now face.

  Terrick and Angel glanced at her while the Winter King rose, as if waiting on her command. She gestured to the packs, and Angel—sword drawn—grimaced. He understood, though; if the situation turned ugly—uglier—they had to be ready to move.

  She wondered then if the box that carried the single sapling could carry everything else as well—she had never considered it until this moment. She could not take it out to test it—but she would if they survived.

  * * *

  • • •

  Red blossomed against the white of snow; the snow became ice and water beneath the rushing bloom of color. At a distance, it was beautiful. Snow rose in a sheet, a wall; water fell on the fire. The air above Jewel’s head whipped past frozen branches and ice crackled in splinters, tugged from the comfort of bark mooring.

  At this distance, only the fire and the snow could be seen, but the red light did not entirely obliterate night’s shadow. The fire rose sharply, gathering and climbing as if it were a vine of many tendrils climbing up a lattice of darkness.

  Lightning replied—a flash of blue light that was incandescent and brief.

  Celleriant.

  Avandar nodded. He draws their attention.

  Jewel shook her head. The shado
ws cast by fire changed as the shape of the light changed—but there were now other shadows here, rimmed in a subtle red. Those did not move or waver.

  The winter had nothing to do with the sudden chill in the air, and Jewel turned on the Winter King’s back.

  “Shianne—”

  Shianne shook her head as another source of light joined the clearing: gold.

  She heard the Arianni speak, heard a whisper pass through their ranks, saw Adam reach out to touch Shianne’s shoulder, the tremble in his arm noticeable even at a distance.

  Shianne did not speak; she shrugged off his arm with ease, lifting a hand. To it came a shield to join the golden blade, and only thus armed did she return The Terafin’s stare.

  “You can’t fight—”

  “Can I not?” the question was cool.

  “You’re pregnant!”

  “Believe that I am aware of that,” was the equally cool reply. “Do those who bear your living children cower behind the lines of those weaker than they? Do you not understand why they are here?”

  Jewel opened her mouth to silence. In the distance, she heard the lowing of horns.

  The Arianni responded in kind, their horns closer, the sound louder. But to Jewel’s ear, the timbre of their horns was not as deep, not as low, not as consistent. They were angry, she thought.

  But their anger was candle flame to Shianne’s sudden bonfire.

  “I leave Adam to you,” she said, the words flying over her shoulder. The skirts of the dress she wore, for she did not wear winter clothing, flared in a sudden circle that spoke of the volume of fabric, their edges red as blood in the dim light. Snow’s creation.

  Jewel wished, for a brief minute, that she had not sent Snow away.

  Shadow hissed. “He is stupid,” the gray cat growled. He turned his head toward Calliastra. “Are you going to fight?”

  Calliastra smiled, and her smile revealed literal fangs. “What do you think, you furry monstrosity? Do you know who is coming? Do you know who is waiting for us upon this road?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Oh, Eldest, I do.” Her wings snapped open, snapped wide; they sheared the ice and bark off trees, although they did not seem to touch those trees. “Shandalliaran, he is not for you.” She took a step, and beneath her feet, flickers of fire melted snow. Her fire.

  Jewel had not seen her summon fire before, and when the godchild glanced back, Calliastra’s eyes were the color of flame. Flame and ebony. Jewel thought Shianne would argue; her gaze—her mortal eyes—were hard and cold. She did not; she lowered her sword, lowered her shield.

  “Who is it?” Adam asked of her—the only person in the clearing who would dare. Even Jewel could not find the words.

  It was Jewel, however, who answered.

  “Darranatos.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As if the name were a release, Calliastra leaped up, off the ground, her wings longer and larger than Jewel had ever seen them. Her skin was white, but glistening, her arms extended, her fingers curved and glittering. Gone was all semblance of, hint of, mortal woman—but she was not mortal, had never been. She had chosen—and Jewel understood this only now—to favor her mother, her mother’s form, and even her mother’s desire, but she had two parents.

  It was to the latter that she now gave herself.

  Shianne whispered a word, perhaps a name; it was lost to the sudden howl of wind.

  Jewel found her voice. “Calliastra—the shadows—”

  Shadow snarled. He did not call Jewel stupid, although that was clearly his intent. “Watch.”

  The godchild did not remain airborne for long. She landed between the campsite—what remained of it—and the fire, and where she landed, the air screamed. Shadows that lay against the cold ground rose, rearing up as if in threat as Calliastra looked up at them. She laughed, and her laughter was a screech of sound; it should have been bestial. No, it was. But it was more, far more, than that.

  The Arianni had weapons; Terrick and Angel had weapons. Calliastra did not condescend to arm herself. It wasn’t required. She was the only weapon she needed. Her claws caught shadow’s ethereal essence and tore it, shredded it, devoured it.

  “Darranatos!” she shouted. “Have you come to play?” The last word echoed, rebounding off trees, off snow, off ice. The air caught the syllables, magnified them, and hurled them further.

  Laughter returned; it was warm, almost velvet, in texture. “Do not stand between me and my prey, child, or you will perish. Your father may walk the world once again, but you are not in his domain now.”

  “I have no need of his protection,” Calliastra countered, in a tone that made the word protection a vile insult. “Not against one who could not even defeat one single mortal.”

  The laughter softened, but did not disperse. And disperse was the right word, Jewel thought; it seemed to linger like pleasant fog in the winter air.

  Shadow growled, the sound low and resonant, and against the sound of the cat’s fury, the sensation of amusement, of condescension, evaporated. In its wake, the air was very, very cold. The cat took a swipe at the Winter King’s hind leg, but the Winter King was already in motion, and when he came to a stop, he was several feet above the ground.

  Get Adam.

  I do not think it wise.

  Get Adam now.

  * * *

  • • •

  Darranatos had not come alone. When he chose at last to appear, he cast off the raiment of fire, the disguise and the subtlety of simple flame discarded in the wake of Calliastra’s challenge. She was taller, grander, and darker than she had ever been, and he? He was different as well.

  He had wings of flame, and as he unfurled those wings, they were red light to her darkness, but Calliastra stood alone, and from the folds of his demonic wings came the forces that he commanded. What had Meralonne called him? A Duke of the Hells?

  Jewel counted five demons, including Darranatos himself. Four stepped back, fell away, lost to fire as if it were fog. He barked orders in the tongue of his kind, a forbidden language that Jewel nonetheless wished she knew. Nothing he commanded was his equal, which was irrelevant. Angel, Terrick, and Jewel herself could be killed by demons that were otherwise considered inconsequential by the powerful.

  By the powerful immortals.

  Jewel had seen Darranatos only once, and she had fled to her forest, to the ground upon which she could face such a creature. She had survived. The cats had survived. Meralonne and Celleriant had survived.

  But so had Darranatos. In the seat of her power, she had managed only to drive him away, and she was aware that she was very far from the seat of that power now. She pulled Adam up onto the Winter King’s back; he was seated in front of her, and she wrapped one arm around his midriff.

  “She shouldn’t fight!” he shouted.

  Jewel said nothing. She understood his outrage and understood as well that Shianne would tolerate it only from Adam. Given her expression now, perhaps not even Adam. Her eyes were golden, to the Arianni’s silver, but they were glowing just as brightly.

  Ah, of course. Shianne recognized Darranatos.

  The horns of the hunt sounded again, but there was a difference to the notes, their extension, their depth. There was an urgency to them that implied an ending.

  Calliastra moved first. She moved so swiftly she might have been the shadows cast by moving light. Her wings folded and spread, like whips in all the wrong shape; one of the four demons that had arrived with Darranatos did not move quickly enough.

  But their Lord did; his fire parried her blow as if both fire and wing were made of steel.

  The wind began to howl, and Jewel knew that Kallandras and Celleriant would soon join the fray.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Arianni were not like Meralonne and, to a lesser ext
ent, Celleriant. Where the mage exulted in combat, where the ferocity of the contest illuminated him from within as if it were the only source of joy he had ever known, the Wild Hunt was grim, silent, focused.

  To Meralonne, all combat was a game. It was a game he might lose, but she suspected that was part of its appeal. Here, now, the Wild Hunt, Shianne at their center, felt the possibility of loss keenly. And perhaps, were Meralonne here, he would feel it, too. Perhaps this fight would be different than all the others.

  He had not thought he could stand against Darranatos alone. She wondered, then, why he had not drawn shield, had not taken a stand against this demon; she knew that he recognized Darranatos.

  No, he knew what Darranatos had been.

  So, too, Shianne.

  Meralonne had had centuries—more—to accept the loss of kin, the choice that had sundered the Arianni from each other. He understood the hatred that the White Lady bore for the Lord of the Hells. Shianne was too new to it; the loss was profound, sharp, the betrayal still inconceivable, the flames of rage unbanked by the slow diminishment of time.

  Shianne’s sword and shield were no longer imbued with the blue light of her kind, but the gold was the gold of sunlight at the height of the day, in a clear, almost merciless sky. She had lowered them, but she had not dismissed them, and as Calliastra lunged at a Duke of the Hells, Shianne began to walk. Behind the shield, the swell of pregnant belly could only barely be seen, and Jewel could imagine that she was not mortal, not with child; that she was one of the Arianni—a prince of a court that, at its height, had never been hidden.

  As if they could see what Jewel herself could imagine, the Wild Hunt moved with her, her own betrayal—the choice of mortality and its slow and inevitable decay—the lesser betrayal. Shianne served the White Lady of their distant youth.