War

by Michelle West

  Shadow’s foot fell more heavily on hers; she glanced down at him and froze. He was cat, yes, and winged; he was gray, golden-eyed; but she saw in him now something reminiscent of her time in the Between, beneath the watchful eyes and changing faces of the gods.

  Sssssstupid, he hissed, and the word thrummed through her, surrounding her. You do not simply bear witnessssssss.

  She shook herself, because after he had made his opinion known, he, too, began to sing. There were no words she could understand, not even the sense of syllables, but his voice was not grating, not harsh; it wasn’t the voice of the Wild Hunt, but it wasn’t the voice of an animal, either.

  His singing blended with theirs, and with the bard’s, and with the butterfly’s, and during it all, Gilafas worked, Adam struggled. Jewel’s arm began to shake with cold and with the weight of what she carried. She did not lower it, though. Could not, until all work here was done.

  As if the song itself sustained them, the Arianni continued to sing, their eyes upon Gilafas, upon Adam, upon Jewel herself. Voices rose, and rose again, as if to reach the distant heavens—the mythical place where the gods had gone to live.

  And then, suddenly, the singing banked, the voices dropped. The Arianni were once again silent, but this was a different silence; it was the silence of something akin to prayer. And in the distance, so faint it might have been the product of that fervent yearning made real, a new voice took up that song: one voice.

  Gilafas paused briefly; that single, quiet voice did what the raised voice of the host could not. It gave him pause, interrupting the flow of his labor, his making. Adam, however, did not raise his head; he did not respond to it at all.

  Shadow growled. “He has listened to only that song this entire time.”

  The hand by which she kept contact with Adam tightened.

  The song itself grew louder, the voice clearer, both deeper and higher; it made, of the earlier song, something pale and almost colorless, it was so clear. Jewel had heard Shianne’s voice raised in song and it had all but immobilized her; she had believed that Shianne’s voice was the voice of the White Lady. It was not and could not be.

  The ring that Gilafas had made for Jewel almost burned her finger; she was suddenly afraid that it would be seen, its lie revealed to the one living being that Jewel would never, ever have exposed it to, for she recognized, at last, what the Arianni recognized, and she understood, as Master Gilafas stepped away from his rough and hurried making, that the Winter Queen would know.

  The Winter Queen, whom she had stopped on the road in the Stone Deepings. The Winter Queen, who had so casually tossed both the Winter King and Celleriant aside for their failure to drive Jewel from that path.

  The Winter Queen, whom Jewel Markess ATerafin had seen again, and to whom she had reached in silent, inexplicable yearning. Her hand had touched what it should not have touched, and in the wake of Ariane’s passing, three strands of platinum hair remained, and those three had become Jewel’s most highly prized treasure.

  The moon grew clear, brighter, closer, its silver face shedding a light that might have caused the sun envy, and with it, oh with it at last, came the Winter Queen, framed by the arch that Gilafas had built.

  * * *

  • • •

  She could not pass through the arch. Jewel understood that before any of her kin.

  But Gilafas turned to Jewel and gently touched her extended wrist. “It is yours now,” he said gently. “And I am weary.” He glanced at Adam. “You must give the orders, Terafin, if you wish the others to pass through what I have built.”

  “But—”

  “She cannot. She can see her kin; they can see—and hear—her. But she cannot cross over this way. Until the Summer trees are planted, there is no road that she might ride that would lead her, once again, into the world. She cannot be Winter Queen; the Winter has passed. But she cannot be Summer Queen either.”

  Jewel’s nerveless hand fell slowly, and as it did, the light from the crystal dimmed. It made no difference now. Not to her, and not to the Arianni. She brought her hand to her chest and set the stone against it. This time, the pain that had accompanied its removal was absent, but it was nonetheless disturbing to have the very solid crystal sink through her coat, her shirt, her undershirt, and last, her flesh—as if flesh itself were simple adornment.

  She dropped the now free hand to Adam’s shoulder, which she squeezed. He lifted his head slowly and his gaze went straight to the arch, to the woman framed by it but held back by the rules of the ancient wilderness that Jewel did not understand.

  Nor did Adam seem to be surprised; she thought, in that moment, that he understood it all, but he had, and would find, no words to describe that understanding. His eyes were darkly circled, his expression almost haunted. She reached out and caught the hand he raised in both of her own.

  He did not appear to notice.

  “Shadow,” she said, because she would not let go of Adam, was afraid that she would lose him here.

  Shadow understood what she wanted; it seemed to amuse him. Reaching up almost casually, he sank one long talon into her wrist, cutting her instantly to the bone.

  Angel cried out; no one else seemed to notice.

  Ah, no, not no one else. Adam did. Adam’s gift did. The hand Jewel held in her own tightened around one of hers—the injured one. She gritted her teeth, glared at her cat, and closed her eyes. It was not a fatal injury, but the loss of blood would be disastrous if the bleeding were not stopped—and if Adam of Arkosa was lost in his yearning for, his desire for, the Winter Queen, he was healer-born nonetheless, and the whole of what remained of his power turned toward Jewel.

  And she let him; she made no attempt to hide anything that she was, anything that she wanted, or anything that she feared; she wrapped his younger self in the force of her own personality, and held him fast; the healing would, and did, do the rest.

  He did not even tell her, in the unique intimacy of the healer’s trance, that her gesture had been unnecessary; it would have been a lie, and she was too close to him at the moment to accept it.

  We need you, she thought. Your sister, your family, your kin need you as well. Arkosa is waiting. And just as she had done on the road in the Stone Deepings, she squared her shoulders; she raised her head to meet the eyes of the Winter Queen, and she stood her ground. She understood the yearning, the strange, inchoate desire that Ariane invoked simply by existing; she understood the reason that mortals and the Winter Queen did not, should never, meet.

  As the wound closed, she glanced at her gray cat. He sat on his haunches, spine straight, tail twitching impatiently. He complained—about Jewel, about Adam, and about their spectacular lack of intelligence—but did so softly, as if afraid to disturb or distract the Arianni.

  No, Jewel thought; nothing would disturb the Arianni now. Although their Lord could not join them—and did not even try—she was there; they were in her presence. She felt the awe and the hope and the desire; it was twin to the Winter King’s.

  And she would not surrender Adam to them.

  It was, perhaps, selfish, but it didn’t matter.

  * * *

  • • •

  Shadow growled; Jewel looked down at her wrist. Adam had, midway through the healing, understood what the injury and the healing itself was meant to accomplish, and instead of withdrawing—as he had been taught to do, so severely, by Levec—he drew closer. Leaving her should not have been difficult; she was not dying. He did not need to find her, shelter her, and pull her back from the bridge; she knew.

  She let Adam go, leaving some part of herself within him, as she had done when she had been called from the edge of death by a different healer. Adam was fourteen or fifteen now. He was no more wise or serene than she’d been at his age. No more wise or serene, she thought, than she was at more than twice his age. She rose, her arm sticky with blood, and ma
de her way to the portal.

  The Arianni watched her move; she was surprised that they had managed to pry their gaze from their Lord at all. But, of course, they had. Gilafas had just told them, indirectly, that Jewel was—once again—the roadblock. At her command, or by her request, they could travel to the White Lady’s side; without it, they could not. This, then, was what Gilafas had built.

  But Jewel had every reason to distrust Ariane.

  Ariane had every reason to wish her dead. Jewel now lifted her hand, exposing the one thing she feared most. The ring did not so much catch light as shed it, and in the night sky, it was impossible to miss.

  The singing of the White Lady stopped, and as it did, Jewel sensed movement among her host. She was tall; her hair fell down her shoulders into invisibility at her back. She did not wear the armor that Jewel had last seen; she wore a winter dress, but it seemed that winter, like distant gods, failed to reach her; the fabric seemed light, almost airy. But her breath came out in clouds, just as Jewel’s did, warmth condensing in cold air.

  To Jewel’s surprise, she smiled when her gaze alighted on the lifted hand and the ring that adorned it, and Jewel’s cheeks reddened. This was never going to be easy.

  “So,” the White Lady said softly. “You kept my gift.” She recognized it, hidden as it was by metal and shape. There was no anger at Jewel’s presumption; she seemed to believe—in a way Jewel could not, even now—that she had deliberately gifted her with those strands of hair for just this purpose.

  Her eyes then moved past Jewel, and only when they closed did Jewel remember that it was not the ring, or its lie of a promise, that was her worst crime.

  She whispered a name; Jewel heard it and understood it and could never repeat it. When the White Lady opened her eyes again, her gaze seemed frozen; she was the heart of winter. And it was as winter that she turned once again to Jewel.

  Jewel did not bow, did not dissemble, and did not apologize. As she had done once before, she held her ground, aware that the single difference this time was that the Wild Hunt was behind her, their Lord in front. If they could not join their Lord, they could nonetheless obey her commands, and Jewel suffered under no illusion here: she would die.

  As if he could hear the thought, Celleriant joined her, and seconds later, the bard did the same; Gilafas remained by her side, gazing into the portal, past Ariane, as if the Winter Queen were of no interest at all. It was shocking. It was also becoming crowded.

  The presence of the Winter King did not help matters, but Jewel did not have the heart to send him away. Adam, however, she kept firmly behind her back.

  And the Winter Queen knew. Of course she knew.

  “Did you know,” she said softly, “that Evayne and I share a parent?”

  It was not what Jewel had expected to hear.

  “You have come to me when none of my kin might, should they pass out through the gates of the Hidden Court.”

  Jewel nodded. She was seldom tongue-tied, but words evaded her in Ariane’s presence.

  “Will you not join me?”

  More silence.

  “I offer you the hospitality of the Hidden Court. You will be honored guest, not prisoner and not sacrifice.”

  Gilafas touched her sleeve. She did not shake him off; she could not look away. But Adam reached out; Adam touched the back of her neck; he left his palm against her skin, and she well understood why.

  “No mortal who has not sworn themselves to me has been offered that freedom and that honor; will you decline it?” Although she rode no mount, led no host, and carried none of the weapons of her people, Ariane had never been more dangerous to Jewel than she was at this moment.

  As if to underscore this, Jewel heard the sound of drawn sword at her back. Not Arianni blades; they could leave their hidden sheaths without even the slightest whisper of sound. Angel she thought, and she knew what he’d seen. The Arianni who had followed them, who had sacrificed one of their own without hesitation, had never served Jewel—and she now stood between them and their Lord.

  “I haven’t the luxury of time,” Jewel replied, picking words and forcing them through trembling lips. “And time is not a pressing concern for the immortal.”

  “Oh?” And she looked past Jewel once again.

  “But imprisonment is. Your ancient enemy once again walks the lands the gods abandoned. You have no responsibility to either me or my kin; your war with the god we do not name is older, by far, than ours.”

  The silence this time came from the White Lady.

  Jewel, the Winter King said; Avandar was silent.

  “But I have responsibility for them.”

  “Yes.”

  “There are no Summer trees,” Jewel continued, and this time, she heard the whispers of the Wild Hunt behind her. And she knew, as she stood, facing the White Lady, that Celleriant had, at last, drawn both sword and shield.

  Jewel, the Winter King said again.

  “Without those trees, you will not be able to leave the Hidden Court.”

  “And without my presence upon the endless fields, you will not be able to win this war.”

  Jewel nodded. “The people who travel with me—mortal and immortal—are mine, saving only the Wild Hunt. They are my responsibility, my servants, my lieges; they bear arms in my name and with my knowledge.”

  “And you fear that I might harm them?”

  “It is not fear, Lady,” Jewel replied quietly. “You might honor them; you might elevate them; you might adorn them—and they might desire nothing more than that. But they are mine. If I accept your hospitality, they must be granted the full measure of that freedom.”

  “And if they choose to remain?”

  Jewel shook her head. The fear, the paralysis, left her slowly, but it did leave.

  “You demand, of me, a freedom that you will not yourself grant?” This seemed to amuse the Winter Queen, but it was a bitter, icy amusement.

  “Apparently not.” She felt Adam’s hand tighten.

  “No matter what agreement we reach, I cannot leave this place by the door you have opened. If that is what you seek to bargain with, it would be a poor bargain indeed to trade so much of my own personal inclination for the simple pleasure of your company.” Her tone implied heavily that the pleasure would be one-sided—and Jewel accepted that.

  She nodded again, knowing that this was true. She had to be careful. Years of merchant negotiations formed the ground on which she now stood; they were inadequate in every way. It was never a good idea to enter into negotiations in desperation; it was never good for one’s desire, one’s need, to be so clearly perceived.

  And it was never good to stand, sandwiched between one’s enemies. The greatest danger, however, was the negotiator. So she kept her gaze on Ariane when she heard the last of the weapons drawn: Terrick’s ax, she thought.

  “You have gone to my sisters,” Ariane said quietly. “You have seen them both. And what you bring with you is death, of a kind. Tell me, mortal, why I should not have you killed for your effrontery.”

  The sky lit then, not with moon, but with blade; the Wild Hunt held its breath, waiting only the command of their Lord—the lift of brows, perhaps; the wave of hand.

  Calliastra at last unfolded her wings, dimming the light of drawn Arianni blades because those wings seemed to cover all the sky. Her eyes were frozen, but they were pale and bright as she joined Jewel, towering over her, but mindful of Adam’s position.

  “Sister,” she said.

  The Winter Queen’s brows rose. “You travel with my sister and claim to care for your mortals? You are not what I expected.”

  “No,” Jewel replied. She kept her hands by her sides, her expression as neutral as she could make it. “They will not kill me,” Jewel said quietly. “If they do, they have no way to reach you.”

  “And if they do, sister,” Cal
liastra added, “they will return to you in death, and only in death; I will not leave one standing, save perhaps the herald of your ending.”

  “You claim this mortal, then?”

  “While she lives, I claim her.”

  “She wears my ring.”

  Calliastra snorted. It was an inelegant sound, at odds with both her appearance and the gravity of her expression, and it was certainly not a sound Jewel would have dared to make in the face of the White Lady, where even the most carefully chosen words felt profane.

  “I did not foresee your coming, sister,” the White Lady said. She glanced once again at Shianne. “And perhaps I should have guessed.”

  “I had no hand in that.”

  “No? Very well. I see the shadow of the first, in her.” She dispensed with the smile she had offered Calliastra; it was a shield. To Jewel, she said, “They are no good to me—or to you—if they return to me thus. But I know, little seer: I know what you carry. I have been waiting.” And she turned, then, to look back over her shoulder; she lifted a hand.

  Gilafas drew one sharp breath. No one else spoke.

  Into the frame came a young woman. She was Jewel’s height, perhaps a smidgen taller, and her eyes were far paler than Jewel’s; she had no touch of the South to her skin, and little of the sun. Yet there must be sun, in the Hidden Court, for her cheeks were adorned with a dusting of what appeared to be freckles, even in the moonlight. Her expression scrunched those freckles as her cheeks widened, forced up by the breadth of her sudden, unfettered smile.

  “Master!”

  Jewel had understood, the moment that Gilafas began his making, why she had brought him—but she understood, as she glanced at the man, why he had come; the two were not the same.

  “Cessaly.” He stepped toward the portal, unmindful now of Jewel or the White Lady, and if the White Lady felt displeased, it did not show.