It was Avandar’s transformation that was the most astonishing, to Jewel—and possibly the most unwelcome. She had not seen what he himself packed to carry across the wilderness, and even had she, she was certain she would not have seen what he now wore. They were Southern robes in drape, in form, but they were heavily embroidered and dyed, and the wide sash that cut across his chest and waist caught the natural light and seemed to burn with it.
By his side, he now wore a sword. It was the sword that gave her pause, and she almost demanded that he set it aside, but the words would not come.
No, instead, the Winter King arrived.
He knelt instantly, with no command or indication from Jewel that he should, and she mounted in the same way.
Angel and Terrick had neither clothing nor uniform with which to play dress guards, and Jewel understood that was exactly what was happening now. But she would not leave them behind. If she was willing to be the Lord that Celleriant had sworn a blood oath to serve, she was nonetheless Jewel Markess ATerafin, and Angel was at the heart of the transformation from struggling den leader to House ruler.
Kallandras called the wind. As Angel and Terrick, he was not equipped to be a living adornment, but he did have other gifts at his disposal, and he used them now. Angel glanced up at him and said, “No.” But Terrick nodded, and Terrick was lifted in the folds of the wild air.
Thus equipped, Jewel rode, once again, to meet the Winter Queen. In her lap was the small wooden box, a box so humble in appearance it looked immediately out of place.
I would release you from your oath, Jewel thought, glancing briefly at Celleriant. If it were possible, and if it would make a difference to your White Lady, I would release you back to her service in an instant.
Such was the gravitas of the situation that the Winter King did not immediately criticize her, although she could feel the weight of his momentary disapproval.
And you, she thought. You swore no oath to me; you have done everything you have done in the White Lady’s service.
Yes.
Would you return to her?
That decision is not—and has never been—in your hands. This did not seem to sadden him. She knew. She understood what you must carry. He spoke with certainty. She understood that you were mortal, and she understood some of the danger that you would face; she did not believe you would survive it on your own. And so, she sent us. She could not send her hunters because they could not return, and they could not walk the paths you have walked.
There it was. Pride.
What we did, only we could do.
She did not argue; it was not an argument she wished to win. Instead, she lifted her chin, straightened her back, and allowed the Winter King to take her, with his stately, graceful steps, to the Queen of the Hidden Court.
Chapter Twelve
A THRONE SUCH AS JEWEL had never seen came into view. It dwarfed the woman who occupied it; its back grew in perfect, carved splendor, out of the trunk of a tree that was likewise without equal; that tree reached for the sky with such height, Jewel couldn’t see the crowning leaves. But the leaves she did see were not all of a kind, and she recognized only a handful. She wondered what Birgide would make of this tree; she was certain it was the tree and the leaves that her Warden would see, not the woman who sat in repose beneath their shadows.
Arrayed around the tree were the Arianni, but they did not wear the armor that Jewel associated with them. They wore, instead, robes that caught light, even in the shadows; they reminded Jewel of the robes Evayne wore at any age. Their brows were adorned with slender tiaras, worked into such fine, interwoven tendrils they seemed fragile, delicate—too much so for warriors. But she understood, as she glanced across the gathered court, that they were here to support the White Lady in her chosen context; she was jewel, they, her setting.
She was not aware of the moment when Kallandras began to play; nor had she been aware that his lute was in his hands. She understood that gravitas, here, was as essential as breath, and did not turn to look.
Celleriant now walked to the left of the Winter King, Shadow to the right. Jewel knew the moment Shianne and Adam joined the procession but did not lift hand or turn head to acknowledge them as she pulled them along in her wake. Although she could clearly see Ariane and her living throne, she felt that this road was the longest she had ever walked, and the most difficult. It was fanciful; the practical side of her mind rebelled at the thought, but even her Oma’s harsh voice had fallen silent, as if enspelled.
When she was a yard away from the foot of that throne, itself a mass of orderly roots that seemed to be embroidery made large, the Winter King knelt. Jewel alighted from his back; Celleriant was there to offer her a hand, something he had never done before. On the roads they had walked together, the practical ruled; here, it was different.
She remembered, as she gained her footing, the day she had first been summoned to Avantari. She had knelt, entirely abasing herself, in the Hall of Wise Counsel. On that day, she had given over all responsibility, for a brief period, to those exalted with crowns; she had not been a power and had had no desire to become one.
On this day, in the presence of someone far more exalted, she did not kneel, did not bow; she offered the White Lady the grace of a very structured nod, a lowering of chin, a straightening of shoulders. The eyes of the Lady’s court were fixed to the dress that was now the best armor she could wear; what they saw in it, Gilafas had seen, although he had had no words for it.
No, she thought, they saw more. In some fashion, this dress and their Hidden Court were similar: they were of the wilderness.
Her hands were steady as she turned to Celleriant. Into his hands she placed the humble wooden box that she had carried from the Dominion of Annagar. It had contained a sword, a dagger, and in its history, perhaps many other weapons—but none, in the end, as potent as the one it now sheltered.
Celleriant’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly as they met Jewel’s, and she thought his hands trembled. But he did not betray himself in any other way. He did what he, as liege, could do: he approached the White Lady’s throne and knelt there, bowing his head as he held the box out to her.
Jewel willed him to lift his face, to meet the White Lady’s eyes, but even bearing what he now bore, he could not do it. Ariane did not motion a member of her own court to take what Celleriant now offered. Instead, she looked past him to the Lord he had chosen to serve.
“You have exceeded all expectations but not all hope,” she said, to Jewel. “You know what you carry. You are, I believe, a mortal merchant; you have not bargained well. But I am the White Lady, and I understand its significance, regardless. You have done me a great service, made larger in all ways by the fact that I could not accomplish this task myself. Do you understand?”
Jewel inclined her head.
“I am in your debt.”
“No, Lady,” she replied. “We both, in the end, choose to fight the same war. You are not my Lord; you are not my god; you are not my kin. You are comrade on the field we must take.” Her voice surprised her; it was steady.
Ariane inclined her head to acknowledge the truth of the words—and there was truth in them. “You wear a ring. You feared the consequences of bearing it; you feared it was a lie.”
Jewel inhaled, lifting her chin.
“I will make of it, instead, the truth. You are not mine, and cannot be, but in the lands that I rule, in the lands that I claim, you will be recognized. Only those bold enough to attack me—and they are not small in number in the high wilderness—will dare to raise arms against you, and should they succeed, they will pay.” She turned to the left, and a man approached the throne. He bowed, much as Celleriant had done, rising when she commanded it. “But, in truth, I have crafted and offered such rings before, and no one of their bearers have ever done me so large a service as you have done. And so, I must ask, what boon woul
d you have of me?”
“Save my city.”
The White Lady smiled gently but shook her head. “I cannot grant that. Were the debt not so large, I would agree.” As Jewel stiffened, she continued. “What I can save of your city, I will save—but I have been trapped here for too long, and the roads are not fully open, yet. I have reasons of my own to involve myself in your affairs, and I believe you understand some part of them.
“I will not be in your debt, Jewel Markess.”
* * *
• • •
Jewel met the steady gaze of the White Lady, aware that all eyes were upon her. She found it difficult to speak and act as an equal to the ruler of this Hidden Court, and asking a boon of her felt like an impossible task. But she let her eyes fall to Celleriant’s back. He remained kneeling, the wooden box outheld until the moment Ariane chose to accept it. He had chosen to swear an oath to serve Jewel—to truly serve her—but all that he wanted was here, in front of him.
“I am not firstborn,” Jewel said, finding the strength to speak. “Service, among my kind, does not mean what it does among yours.”
Ariane waited.
“The Winter King serves you. My Winter King.”
“Yes.”
“He serves me at your command. He serves me in spite of the fact that he wishes to be here, to be by your side.”
Ariane nodded again.
“I wish to return him to you.”
“Ah, but he is not yours. The command, and the service, was mine to offer, a penalty for his failure. Nor do I think it wasted or unnecessary.” She lifted a hand as Jewel began to speak, her voice so soft Jewel was surprised that she could hear it so clearly. “You wish to ask me about the Summer King.”
Jewel nodded.
“You understand Tor Amanion. You understand his service and his desire. You understand what he once was, when he was merely a man.” She smiled as she gazed upon the stag by Jewel’s side, and Jewel could feel his yearning as if it were a physical effect, a storm or an earthquake.
“He was a worthy Winter King, a worthy opponent upon the winter fields. Even as a mortal, he was a force to be reckoned with; his shadow fell long and dark. If you mean to ask me if he might remain here as Summer King, you fail to understand the needs of both Winter and Summer. He is not one born for Summer. Understand, Jewel: the Winter requires a strength that is borne in and of the desperate struggle to survive the cold and the hunters who revel in it; the Summer requires a different strength entirely.
“The strength of Winter resides, in part, in the Winter King; the strength of Summer, in the Summer King. There have been greater and lesser men to reign as kings in the Hidden Court, for mortals are never all of one thing or all of another—but if I understand what has transpired, and what will, this is the final Summer.” Her words appeared to rob the Arianni of breath, of movement, of all semblance of life. She did not so much as glance at them; her eyes bore down on Jewel, and if her gaze was not unkind, it was far too intense to meet.
And yet, mindful of Celleriant, Jewel did just that.
“Against the foes we will face, we must choose a Summer King wisely. Summer Kings often fare poorly in the Winter. I understand your fear, and I understand your sacrifice. But Terrick is not of the Summer, and your Angel is not for me. The bard is likewise Winter’s—Winter’s and a different god’s.” Jewel froze. “Adam could be Summer King.”
“No.”
“The choice, surely, would be his.”
The Winter King was almost outraged; Adam, to his eye, was a boy in all ways unworthy of the White Lady. Jewel kept her hands by her sides; she did not look at the great stag. Nor did she look at the Voyani boy.
Jewel felt a glimmer of annoyance; she was certain, were the White Lady not present in person, it would flare to rage. “You understand, as well as I, why Adam cannot be your Summer King.”
“Oh?”
“Your Summer King will not leave this court. Even when you ride to war, it is here he will remain.”
The White Lady smiled. All of Winter was in that expression. “Yes. You do not understand; nor does your Adam. But you will. Come. Even in the timeless land, we cannot wait forever. But Adam is not as you are, Terafin. He does not desire this.”
Jewel accepted the truth at the heart of the observation because part of her did desire this. Ariane was a power, akin to a god; she had knowledge and experience gained during the various wars of the ages that Jewel had hoped, still hoped, never to have. She could do what was necessary. She could make decisions without regret or fear.
Jewel was weary now, not of power itself, but of the responsibility that came relentlessly with it. To wish for a better world when she herself had been an orphan at the outer edges of society was a daydream; it came in the quiet of night, and often in stages of anger and resentment.
To wish for a better world now meant building that world, somehow. It meant carrying far more weight; she could not simply pick a pocket or snatch a purse and stave off death for a week or two. And it meant that her mistakes threatened people she did not know, could not see, and might never otherwise meet.
But so, too, Ariane. Ariane did not care. The lack of care was the reason she did not feel the weight of ruling in the same way Jewel herself did. And Jewel could not surrender the care of her Empire, her city, her family, to the Winter Queen.
“What, then, would you have of me?”
“When I am dead—and I am mortal, death is inevitable—I wish you to accept Celleriant, my liege, as your own. I wish you to accept his service once again.”
“He is yours,” the Winter Queen said. “By his own choice, he is yours.”
“Yes. While I live, he is mine.”
“And that was the whole of his oath?”
“While I live,” Jewel repeated.
There was a murmur now, building to either side of the woman who ruled, who had always ruled, this court.
Celleriant himself said and did nothing; his arms remained outstretched, the weight of this hidden world carried in steady hands. He did not look up; did not meet the eyes of the Winter Queen. Nor did he enjoin his voice to his Lord’s.
The murmur grew, and in its folds, Jewel teased out a single word: forsworn. She understood, then, the magnitude of his crime; in the history of the Arianni, the forsworn had become—literally—demons. Kialli.
Ariane did nothing to stem the whispers, but the whispers did not become—as they might in a mortal crowd—the beginnings of a mob’s anger. The decision was, in its entirety, Ariane’s, and what she accepted, what she offered, they would accept. Jewel understood people, or at least people’s anger and resentment. Had the Wild Hunt been mortal, they would accept their Lord’s decision—but, conversely, they would accept it poorly. Celleriant, in their mind, would be a traitor; they would make of him an outsider, and keep him there, building social walls between those who had not committed the gravest of crimes, and he himself.
But she knew, watching, that what Ariane granted, they would grant; what Ariane accepted, they would, in the end, accept.
“And if I tell you, Terafin, that it is a gift that you offer me?”
Silence again, the ripples sudden with surprise.
“He is yours, as you have said—and as he himself has vowed. He was the youngest of the princes of my court, the last; there will be no others. He is not equal to the firstborn princes that you have called, for the entirety of your city’s existence, the Sleepers.” She smiled. It was cold. “But I am not what I was when the first of the princes of the court were born.
“If I grant what you ask, I am not granting a boon; I am accepting a gift—and it is, without doubt, a gift of value.”
Celleriant’s arms trembled then. He did not, however, raise his head.
“And Terafin, I understand your lack of comprehension, in this. If it will put you at ease—a
nd you are odd enough, that I believe it will—I will accept this gift. But you have seen what I make of my kin in the Winter; you cannot believe it to be an unalloyed kindness on my part. He will be, and become, what he was when I first sent him from my side.”
Jewel knew that this was all Lord Celleriant wanted.
But the Winter Queen rose, leaving the setting of her throne, and it seemed to Jewel that instead of being diminished, she was elevated. The throne on which no other monarch might comfortably sit had dwarfed her, and she was free of its confines. The air was chill; the stillness alleviated by a biting, bitter breeze, a sting of wind.
She approached Celleriant but did not touch what he proffered.
“Your boon, Terafin.”
* * *
• • •
“Give me back Carver.”
* * *
• • •
Ariane reached for the box that Celleriant held. In her hands it looked unfinished, far too rough, too common, too ordinary. The facts did not change or alter this impression. Nor did her smile.
When she held the box, Celleriant lowered his arms; he did not rise, and would not, Jewel thought, without her express command, her permission. “Lord Celleriant.” And she gave it. It was odd. For Celleriant’s sake, Jewel had become more regal in this wilderness than she had ever been. It was the only thing she could do for him; the only thing she could offer that might stem the tide of the humiliation he faced—and accepted—because he had chosen her as Lord.
He rose, then. He rose, lifting his chin, the fall of his hair straight and unmoved by something as simple as breeze. He offered Ariane the bow one would offer a foreign monarch; it was stiff with respect.
Ariane accepted it, although she met and held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. He then returned to Jewel’s side. She wondered if he would acknowledge, in any way, what she had asked for. And knew it didn’t matter.
War Page 35