“But we need Summer. We need Summer.” She hesitated, as if trying to decide how much more she could safely say. Then she lowered her head. Head lowered, she continued to speak. “I envied you. I had friends. I had a family. My mother—my adoptive mother—is still alive, but from the day I turned sixteen, I haven’t set eyes on her. I might never see her again. I wanted—I so wanted—to ask my mother’s advice. I wanted to visit my friends.
“I never wanted to leave them.”
Jewel waited.
“I left them because it was the only way I had any hope of saving their lives. But their lives are lost to me, anyway. You have a home. You have a family, even if your parents left you orphaned in the streets of an unfriendly city. If you make this decision—if you choose to leave the baby to Ariane—you’ll still return to them. You’ll return to a home. You’ll see that home when the sun rises, see it when it sets. You’ll hear the voices you know and love in something other than memory. Your kin, chosen or otherwise, will see you, and they’ll know you.
“I envied you.”
Jewel was silent.
“I envy you still.” Her smile, however, had a glimmer of something else in it. “But I begin to understand why I live the life I live. There are things I know I must do that you could not do, because you have so much to lose.”
“I don’t—”
“You do. Your sense of who you are is necessary. It’s not what I have. It’s not what I’m allowed to have. But it’s necessary.” As she spoke, Jewel saw a hint of the woman she would become in the lines of her face, the set of her jaw. “This is necessary. I am sorry. If you try to interfere here, I will stop you. I have no choice. If every action I am to take—if every action I have already taken—is not to be wasted, not to be pointless, I have no choice.”
Jewel exhaled until there was no air in her lungs, until she felt the lack as an emptiness, a hollowness that must be filled. Her hands were fists; she felt she might never unclench them.
“Will he be happy?”
And Evayne said, “Does it matter?” The voice of her anger, her envy, at last finding some escape.
Chapter Thirteen
7th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
FINCH STIFFENED BEFORE HAVAL did. She turned, almost blindly, toward the tree of fire, reaching for its trunk. Haval, who had been silent, frowned, the line etching itself into the corners of his mouth, his eyes. He did not ask her why she had startled, which was good—she asked herself that question and could come up with no answer, no explanation. Haval was a man who relied on instinct—but he could turn instinct into pointed, acute observation should words be required to explain it.
They were not required now.
Haval raised his voice. No, Finch thought, as his words cut through the fog of sudden fear, that was wrong. He honed it. But he was Councillor in this forest, and his voice—cold, sudden, sharp—was the only voice the forest heard. Until the moment he spoke, Finch had not realized that she was part of the forest. But she would not forget.
“They are coming. Prepare.”
She did not ask who. As the ground shook beneath her feet, she thought she understood. She had never desired the presence of demons—she considered herself far too rational, far too sane, to ever desire that. But in the wake of Haval’s grim expression, she thought demons would be the safer threat.
* * *
• • •
When Barston threw open the door to Teller’s office, Teller jumped. Barston was stiff, officious; many members of the House thought he was possessed of only one or two expressions. They might have preferred that to the open expression of panic on his face. It chilled Teller, because Barston did not panic. Ever.
But as Teller opened the book on his desk, Barston entered his office, and Teller saw immediately the reason for his secretary’s expression. Behind Barston, armed and armored, were two warriors who did not appear to be even remotely human.
He was accustomed to Celleriant, who was not mortal. His skin was pale, his eyes, silver and his hair a perfect platinum. But if Lord Celleriant was other, he was an ideal that existed at the far range of mortal daydreams.
Not so, these two.
They were golden-skinned, green-eyed; their eyes were a single color. Instead of hair, they had trailing leaves, and their fingers were long and gnarled, resembling roots far more than they did human hands. But they wore armor now, and they carried long spears. They did not blink as Teller met their gaze.
He swallowed.
Barston was silent. The etiquette of the right-kin’s office was largely political, and Barston could deal with even the most enraged of patricians without so much as raising his voice. This, however, was beyond him. Sadly, it was also beyond Teller.
The Chosen—Marave and Gordon—did not enter the office, which was unusual. They were tense, but they had not yet drawn weapons. Teller closed the book on his desk and then lifted it, tucking it under his right arm.
To Barston he said, “Send a message immediately to the Master of the Household Staff.”
Such was Barston’s dislike for that august woman that he almost immediately sank beneath the patina of his normal self. “Do you wish me to have her summoned?”
“Yes. Make clear,” he added softly, “that it is an emergency; this is not a council of war, but the beginnings of the battle.” To the arborii, he said, “Will you wait here?”
“We are to accompany you,” the one on the left said. “If you remain here, we will remain here. If you are to leave, we will be your escort.”
The Chosen didn’t even bridle.
“What has happened?” he asked.
As one, they turned to look at a wall. It was, Teller thought, the wall that faced the heart of the city itself.
* * *
• • •
The Master of the Household Staff might have had her own mage-born talent, given the speed with which she responded to Barston’s summons. She did not seem to find the presence of the trees worthy of more than the briefest of glances. Teller had always admired her—from the safest distance possible—and that admiration now grew. He hoped, however, it didn’t show on his face; she would not approve. He never quite understood her position in the hierarchy of the House; he knew only that she was the person Jay found most intimidating. Or terrifying.
“It’s time,” he told her. “Gather the Household Staff and lead them to the forest.”
One of the two trees said, “It is best to approach from above. The path between your dwelling and the forest itself is becoming less stable.”
“Above?” the Master of the Household Staff said. “Do you mean from The Terafin’s personal chambers?”
The question confused the trees; it did not, however, confuse Teller. “Yes.”
“That door—”
“I will make certain the door is open.” He headed toward the smaller door of his own office. “My duty now is to rouse the rest of the Household and see them safely out as well.”
“Perhaps you could forget to inform a Council Member or two,” she replied. It was the only indication that she was highly unsettled; under normal circumstances she would never, ever have forgotten herself so much.
Barston had regained his composure. “I will send word to the Council members currently in residence.”
But Teller shook his head. “We won’t have the pages to deliver them; they are Household Staff.” And not a single one of them would be left behind; not when they received their orders. “I will go, in person. You,” he added, “will close up the office and evacuate.”
It was a comfort to Teller to see Barston’s mutinous expression. It was a hint of normalcy in a day in which normal would be otherwise painfully absent. And he was taking advantage of the presence of the Master of the Household Staff; if Barston was willing to argue with Teller,
he would not condescend to do so while “that woman” was present.
7th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
The Common, Averalaan
For one long, breathless moment, Jester thought the ground across the city had broken; that the whole of Averalaan’s hundred holdings would now fall and shatter, just as the city-beneath-the-city once had. All its citizens, many of whom were just waking in the darkness before the dawn, would fall with it, and time would make skeletons of them, just as it had made skeletons of the citizens of that darkened, ancient city through which the den had scavenged.
He did not fall, although the stone carvings beneath his feet gave way; Snow’s wings snapped to the side, and he hovered, as if the existence of stone itself were a trifling convenience, easily dismissed. The Kings, their Astari, the Exalted, and the priests that attended them had not clambered onto the back of a large, winged cat—but they did not fall as the stone fell. And from the vantage of Snow’s back, rescued from the grim pull of gravity, Jester could see that the stone that had crumbled had been the carvings, laid out in a very large circle, around the base of the statue of Moorelas.
That statue, unlike the stone, did not immediately crumble or fall; Jester could not see what was supporting it. But perhaps that was because his eyes could not penetrate the darkness beneath the statue’s feet, not immediately.
Moorelas raised stone sword and looked down. Stone did not generally offer much in the way of expression, but it seemed to Jester that he could see sorrow in the graven face. Sorrow and loss. It was a brief glimpse, no more, because Jester could now see what Moorelas saw.
Beneath the statue’s feet—beneath what had once been stone that had purported to tell his legend, his story, something was, at last, rising from its temporary grave. It was not a figure, not a form, not a person or even persons, although Jester had expected three. He wasn’t even certain what he was looking at as it rose, slowly, from that darkened, hidden place.
But it did rise. Snow growled, the fur on his immediately visible body rising almost in time to the sound of his voice.
And Jester fell utterly silent, became completely still, all movement dependent on Snow, as his mind resolved what his eyes were seeing: A spire.
A spire was rising from beneath what had once been, and would never again be, a sanctum.
The High Wilderness
Cessaly came to Jewel at dawn, and the dawn in the Hidden Court was glorious. Jewel saw the brilliant hue of sky, the welcome return of sun and light, and felt it from a great remove. Sleep had been slow to come, and much interrupted.
Cessaly, however, did not rush in; she waited, almost as hesitant as Evayne had been. This woman, Jewel could believe was almost her age; her expression was careworn and almost adult. “It’s time,” she said quietly. There was a gravity to the words, and to the line of her shoulders, her chin.
“I made something.”
Jewel nodded.
“I think it’s for you.”
“You’re not certain?” she asked, before she could bite back the words.
Cessaly’s smile was almost weary. “I’m never entirely certain. Sometimes I’m moved to Make, and I can’t see anything else. I can see what I envision, but that’s the whole of my focus, my will.” She exhaled. “But sometimes the making is arduous, and it takes everything I have. Every talent-born speck of power. Sometimes, then, I can open my eyes and see the world clearly.
“And, today, I can.” She lifted her hands, her palms cupped. Her fingernails were chipped, her hands rough and reddened. Jewel’s eyes narrowed. The hands had been bleeding. Although Cessaly had taken some care to clean up, she didn’t have, or perhaps couldn’t tolerate, attendants.
Jewel’s hands remained at her sides. “Did Evayne send you?” she asked, refusing to raise them.
“Evayne?” Cessaly frowned in confusion.
Evayne had said she had lived in the Hidden Court, but Jewel had not thought, would not have thought, to ask for how long. Cessaly had been in the wilderness for longer. But Cessaly’s confusion did not clear.
She wondered, then, what the Guild of Makers might look like with Cessaly as its titular head and shied away from that thought; the brief amusement it afforded her was both bitter and unkind, and neither would do her any good.
It was, in any case, neither bitterness nor unkindness that kept her hands at her sides; she knew the flavor of this emotion. She was afraid.
She did not hear her Oma’s voice, but could feel that aged woman’s disgust; words weren’t necessary. Jewel had faced demons. Gods. Immortals. She had walked in halls so ancient she could almost taste the dawn of the world in their fall. Was she, then, to be afraid of the gift of the maker-born?
Artisan, she thought, correcting herself. But, regardless, her Oma’s disgust would not be moved. “What—what is it?”
“It is, I think, a ring,” Cessaly replied, her brow creased.
“You think?”
“You will understand, Terafin.”
“Did Gilafas tell you that it was for me?”
She looked almost shocked at the question, which probably meant no. But her face creased in a soft smile. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing him to me. He has been searching for too long.”
“Will you come back with him?”
“He will remain by my side until we at last return to Fabril’s reach,” she replied, which was evasive.
“But the Order—”
“I do not think it is safe for him to travel where you now travel. I have begged the White Lady this one boon, and she has granted it. If you are worried for Gilafas—and I see that you are—be at peace. He will be safer here than he would be in your own city.”
Your own city, Jewel thought. Not ours.
“I have spoken with your cat. He is difficult, but warm, and I would trust him with your life. But not with Gilafas’. Trust me, instead.”
“It is not you, Cessaly, who will keep him safe or fail to keep him safe. It is the Winter Queen.”
Cessaly smiled; her hands remained extended, her fingers curved gently to form a cup of her palm.
“What will it do?”
“What is needed,” Cessaly replied. “Only that. It is a work, but it is not a work of war; it is not a scepter, not a sword, not a crown. It will not be a bulwark behind which to stand; it will not be armor in which to wage war. And it cannot protect you from the consequences of the choices you must make.”
Jewel listened to the list of everything that Cessaly had not made, and she felt her shoulders unclenching. There was something in that solemn list that seemed apologetic, as if, somehow, all Making must be an act of war, or in service to it. But the Guild of Makers was not the wealthiest of guilds because they made weapons and armor—although they did that, as well. No: they were wealthy because what they made, they made well, and often, they created and captured the essence of beauty—not a seen thing alone, but a thing felt.
And maybe it was to deny that apology, that implication that the creation itself, because it was not part of this long war, was less valuable, less important, that Jewel lifted her hand, opened her palm.
Cessaly closed her eyes. Jewel could now see that her arms were trembling, as if unaccustomed to the physical effort of keeping them still, of keeping them half-raised. Or as if she had borne a great weight she could now set down.
Jewel felt warmth. Only warmth, as if there was nothing at all between Cessaly’s callused palms and her own. She could not ascertain shape, size; could not see what Cessaly had Made at all. And yet she knew that Cessaly had passed something into her hands—something whose weight she was obviously relieved to shed.
“I don’t understand,” Jewel whispered.
Cessaly said softly, “I don’t understand, either. People ask me how I Make. They ask me why. But, Terafin, how do you see? Why do you see? To describe it at all is not i
n me. I understand that I do Make. And when driven, I understand why. But they are felt compulsions, things that seem to move me, more than to be driven or commanded. I can tell you how to work gold or silver or platinum. I can tell you how to carve wood. I can explain all these things, and in detail—I couldn’t always,” she added, with a trace of rare self-consciousness. “But none of these things answer the question that people are actually asking of me. Of us.
“If you ask, I will tell you what went into the making. But what went into it is not what it is.”
“I don’t understand what it is. You said you thought it might be a ring—but I can’t see or feel a ring.”
“What do you see or feel?”
Jewel was afraid to answer truthfully, but that fear, at least, was normal. “Nothing.”
Cessaly did not look concerned. “It was difficult to work with the materials. And I do not think Gilafas understood. But you will,” she added softly. “Can I come and visit you after this is over?”
Jewel blinked as Cessaly retrieved her hands. She looked at her own cupped palms; they remained, to her eyes, empty. But she knew that what Cessaly had given her remained with her; knew as well that she could lower her hands, and she would not drop it. “If we all survive, yes. Come visit me. You can bring Gilafas. Or he can bring you.”
Cessaly lowered her gaze and shook her head, side to side, as if exaggerated motion were breath. “He must go home.”
“But—”
“And I must stay here.” Lifting that gaze again, she added, “I promised. But—the ways are open, and she promised that if the ways opened again, and if we had somehow helped achieve this, I could visit.”
“She will keep her word,” Jewel heard herself say. And then, in almost the same tone, added, “And I will keep mine. You will be welcome in my home at any time you care to visit.”
The maker-born girl’s eyes became suddenly more sly. “And can I Make with the things I find there?”
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