War

by Michelle West

  Jester nodded, and then, because Snow continued to move, said, “Yes.”

  “This stone is akin to that. The city that fell to ruin, the city the gods destroyed, was worked of that stone.”

  “. . . The entire city.”

  “Yes. And it was a city that has not even been conceived of by your makers, your Artisans, your artists—except perhaps in fevered dream.” He spoke with a hint of hush, a hint of reverence, but when Snow’s flight brought him closer to Andrei, Jester saw none of that reverence in his expression.

  “Ask your companion,” Andrei said, “to retreat to the forest.”

  “We’re—”

  “The forest is here,” Andrei added, lifting an arm.

  Jester looked toward the Common. The Ellariannatte had proliferated, spreading.

  “The Kings’ Swords have been tasked with saving those who are unfortunate enough to live above the shops in the Common; the merchants who otherwise travel here will be turned away—if they survive to reach us.” He glanced at Jester again. “Do not think about the deaths you cannot prevent, ATerafin. Think about the lives you will save. Understand that, without your Terafin, the survivors would be counted in the dozens, and not all of them would thank you for it.”

  “And Hectore?”

  “He will survive. Hectore, his wife, his grandchildren, most of his children. While I survive, he will survive.”

  “Shouldn’t you be—”

  “No. The danger, the worst of the danger, will be here, and it is here we will face it.”

  Jester was mute for one long moment.

  “You are thinking that there is little you can do to be of aid.” It was not a question.

  Jester watched as the base of the building itself rose. To his surprise, where it encountered the floor of tree roots, it was the stone that cracked, the stone that crumbled; he could see that Ellariannatte were attempting to root themselves, in part, in the rising walls.

  “Snow,” he said, suddenly. “Take me to Birgide.”

  “Who?”

  Jester cursed. “Take me to The Warden.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I’m on your back, and I can’t get there on my own.”

  “I could drop you.”

  Jester cursed again. “Then drop me in front of the damn Warden!”

  Snow hissed. “She won’t like it.”

  “Birgide is used to me by now.”

  “Not her, stupid boy.”

  Ah. “She won’t dislike it.”

  “She wants you to be safe.”

  “Yes,” said Jester, thinking inexplicably of Duster, of Lefty, Lander, Fisher—all their lost, whose shadows in their absence were longer and darker than the shadows cast by the living. “But she wants to save what she can of this city, and there’s no way to do that without risk.”

  “What can you do?” Snow demanded.

  “I’m Jay’s,” he replied. “And I think that here and now, in the forest this place is becoming, that actually counts for something.”

  Snow hissed again—laughter in it—and did as Jester had all but demanded.

  As they flew, his wings clipped the crenelations of a building, that, broken in places by trees, continued to emerge from the ancient darkness below.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE MASTER BARDS OF Senniel College moved through the hundred holdings; they had abandoned Senniel at the behest of their bardmaster. She sent them, she said, into danger; there was, for the unwary, death. She did not offer them the choice, even though they were not young men. The greatest member of their order was absent.

  But when they saw the spire break the ground of the Common beneath the feet of a statue that could no longer be seen, they understood why. One man among their number was no longer of Senniel College; he had come to the general meeting the bardmaster had called. And he had traveled with them across the bridge from the Isle, into the holdings themselves, although he was of The Ten, and not subordinate in any way to Solran Marten, the woman who commanded them now.

  He wore bardic tunic, bardic colors, the blue and purple that implied Royal association. But he wore, as well, the signet ring of his House: Wayelyn.

  “Come,” he said, with a joviality that did not sound forced to those without the gift to hear it. But the Master Bards did have that gift, for the most part; they were talent-born, bard-born, and it was said with some truth that one could not lie to the bard-born. “It is Lattan; without the current crisis, we would still be expected in the Common tonight for the festival of lights.”

  No man said what all thought: that if it was a celebration of life, there might be little indeed that remained to celebrate. He was aware of the fear, regardless, and the joviality fell away from his voice as he turned to look to the South.

  “Kallandras will come.”

  “And what can he do?”

  But The Wayelyn moved on. As he did, he began to strum the strings of the lute he carried; it was not, strictly speaking, a necessity. Nor was it a command. But the Master Bards likewise armed themselves; they understood what he did not put into words. Here, in these streets, with a building that loomed larger and higher as the moments passed, their biggest enemy would be fear.

  That they were wrong did not make their presence less essential.

  As he sang, The Wayelyn turned his attention to the West. What he was waiting for, no one knew for certain—but every member of the college had heard the song that had so embarrassed the Kings; every member of the college now understood that at its heart there was some grain of truth. And perhaps, The Wayelyn thought, every man and woman present hoped that it contained more than a grain.

  Because if it did not, in the end, they were doomed.

  * * *

  • • •

  Birgide’s eyes rounded as Jester slid off Snow’s back. “What are you doing?”

  He reached out, almost casually, and placed his palm against the bark of the nearest tree. This was not difficult; he might have reached in almost any direction and touched a tree. There was no silver here, no gold, no diamond—the detritus of mortal dreams of wealth. But there were Ellariannatte, the Kings’ trees, and he understood, now, that they had only grown here because the Sleepers were here.

  The Sleepers had always been here.

  “I’m gallantly coming to your aid,” he replied.

  “This is not the time for humor,” she snapped. Her eyes were bloodred, almost glowing with a fevered light, and the veins beneath her pale skin looked almost—almost—like the grain of wood. He understood that Birgide was not den, not truly; that she did not know den-sign, that she served another master. But here, in the heart of the forest that she had suffered so much simply to be given permission to steward, he could not see the difference.

  He would teach her, he thought. He would teach her den-sign. He doubted she’d be all that interested in learning but was confident that she would.

  One hand on the trunk of a tree, he reached out for Birgide Viranyi with the other; it was not the first time that he had held her hand. She stared at his hand as if she didn’t quite recognize what it was.

  But he shook his head. “Take my hand, Birgide.”

  She blinked again, this woman who had always loved the isolation of the forest. But Jester understood that it was not the isolation, exactly, that she had loved. She loved the fact that forest was alive, that the trees were alive, and that they did not hurt her. Had not hurt her.

  She loved that she could learn them, know them, that she could plant them, and they would grow. She did not need to fear them, only fear for them. They did not accuse her, did not judge her.

  But she was not a tree.

  And he thought, were he not here, she would try to become one; that she was, in some fashion, doing that even now. Jester was not of the wilderness. Of the den, he was most
tightly wed to the patriciate that he secretly loathed. He was their peacock, their irreverence, their distance, their disdain. He went to the powerful, drank with them, listened to their drunken murmurs as if they were weathervanes; he saw which way the wind was blowing.

  That had been his value to Jay, to the den; he understood that now. But he understood Birgide Viranyi in a different way. She was Astari, yes. But she was like the den: she was alone. She was what Jester might have been, had he lived her life and not his own. Oh, she hadn’t been sold into slavery and probable death by her own kin—but she had suffered at the hands of kin until she had grown strong enough to leave them, just the same.

  Why did people want family? Why did people want kin?

  He understood it, at a remove, because he himself had the same yearning. Had he despised himself for it? Maybe. But there wasn’t a lot, if he were truthful, that he didn’t despise about himself. And he had found his family, his chosen kin. They were his den. They were, in the end, what he was willing to give his life to. And for.

  Did Birgide understand that that was the choice she herself had made when she had chosen to become Warden? No, he thought.

  But he hadn’t understood it, either, the first time he’d encountered Jay. Jay had simply been a way out. A way out of the brothel. A way to survive. Everything else had come later because Jester could not fail, in the end, to trust Jay. Not even Duster had been able to do that, and Birgide was no Duster.

  She stared at his hand. Stared at the hand that he had placed against the trunk of the tree that she had willed into growth, into being. He understood that the forest heard her voice, that until Jay returned, it was the clearest voice the forest would hear. Haval thought that the den had influence.

  And Haval, that bastard, was never wrong. Cold-blooded, yes. But not wrong.

  Jester understood only now why Haval had so cavalierly sent him. Jester, not Finch. It was not because Finch was too important—although Finch was, in Jester’s estimation, of far more objective value to the den than he himself would ever be.

  It was because Jester was the person who’d been set to dog Birgide’s every step. Jester was the person who had carried Haval’s messages, who had asked Haval’s questions, and who, in the shadow of that duty, had asked questions of his own. Jester had shouted at the wilderness on the day Birgide became Warden, because Jester understood, personally, viscerally, what Jay herself wanted.

  Birgide reached out slowly and placed her palm over Jester’s. He closed his hand around hers, interlacing their fingers as she frowned.

  “What I’m doing,” he said, his voice genial, even casual, and calculated to annoy, “is reminding you.”

  “I’m busy, Jester.”

  “Yes. You’re doing what I’m too lazy to do. Nice trees, by the way.”

  Her brows rose. Her eyes, however, did not get any redder; it might have been a trick of the light, but the glow seemed to recede, although the color remained.

  “You’re Warden,” he added, his tone just as light, just as irreverent. “But to be Jay’s Warden, you have to be human. You have to put your pants on one leg at a time.”

  He almost laughed at her expression; he could not prevent himself from grinning. “I could really use a drink. Or ten.”

  After a shocked pause, Birgide said, “When we first met, it was a small wonder to me that The Terafin hadn’t strangled you.”

  “And now?”

  “It’s a large wonder.”

  He laughed.

  “Duvari is here,” she added, her own lips resisting the tug that would have transformed her expression into a smile.

  “Definitely ten drinks.” Jester’s grimace, on the other hand, did what his humor could not.

  “He is entirely focused on the protection of the Kings.”

  “Yes. But if it were up to Duvari, the rest of the Empire would be composed of toddlers, none of whom had any brains or money. The man doesn’t understand danger; he invents it.”

  “You’re wrong. I understand that the patriciate fear—and dislike—Duvari. But he has to succeed in his duty every single time. His enemies only have to succeed once.”

  “He makes enemies,” Jester countered. “And increases his own workload in the doing.”

  “And would you have him be you?”

  “No. But he probably has people like me.”

  She did not answer.

  Jester shrugged. “You’ve met Haval, right?”

  She nodded, the gesture instantly more reserved.

  “I’d rather Duvari was—and please never quote me on this—like Haval. Haval is a ruthless son of a bitch, but he doesn’t rub people the wrong way. Duvari does it so often, it’s like that’s his intent.”

  “Duvari does not dissemble, no.”

  “You mean lie?”

  “He makes his position—and his duties—clear. There is no question of his loyalty. He cannot be bought, cannot be bribed, cannot be blackmailed. There is nothing he wants, nothing that can be used as a lever, nothing he loves.”

  “Love is not a lever.”

  Her hand shifted; Jester’s tightened.

  “It is a lever,” Birgide said, her voice tighter but at the same time somehow less contained. “It is something that can be used as a threat. Where people love, they are vulnerable. Surely you must understand this. Were it not for her den, The Terafin could make decisions that were materially better for the entirety of her House and the House’s position. It is why the heads of The Ten very seldom marry, very seldom have children. Historically, that has not been wise.”

  “It’s not been wise,” Jester countered, “because historically they were in danger from their spouses. You might call that love—but I think not even you would be so cynical.”

  Beneath their feet, the roots of the Ellariannatte tightened, shifting as if to entrench themselves.

  “But let me give you that: that fear for our safety—that fear for the safety of anyone, or anything, one loves—is a vulnerability.” His tone made clear he was not yet done. “What Jay is—sorry, what The Terafin is—is defined by what she loves. It’s defined by how she values love; it’s defined by how she fulfills responsibility.”

  “Love and responsibility are not the same.”

  “Why not?” Jester was accustomed to playing devil’s advocate; it was an amusing pastime. This was an argument he had had before, while men and women were deep into their cups and more likely to complain honestly.

  But it was different this time, and he knew it. He could play games with anything; could turn the most hallowed things into sport for words, for scoring conversational points, for debates that had, at their heart, a sense of intellectual hierarchy. There was no ego in this; the stakes were high enough that he could not quite make a game of it. Might never make a game of it again.

  Jarven could have.

  Jester was not Jarven. If he had some of Jarven’s external characteristics, he did not have Jarven’s drive, Jarven’s ambitions, Jarven’s desire to win. What he wanted, what he thought he had always wanted, was a world in which win did not also require someone else to lose. He had accepted that winners and losers was just the way the world worked, that the desire to have a different way was naive, foolish; that it made a mark of those who believed it. It disappointed them, embittered them, forced them at last to become the thing they despised.

  He did not think he had descended to that level, but he understood why: he had Jay. He could consider Jay a winner, could consider himself a winner by association. But Jay herself did not, had never, broken it down in that fashion. No. If she was, at heart, simple, she broke it down in an entirely different way. She loved what, and whom, she loved. That love defined her, and in some fashion, it defined them, as well.

  What she had offered, perhaps because her own family had not been theirs—Jester’s, Finch’s, Birgide’s—
was love. And even if one could never, ever admit that that love existed, all the den, even Duster, perhaps especially Duster, had in the end reached for it. Had risen above themselves, and their belief in their own lack of worth, to continue to reach for it.

  “It’s love that defines Jay,” he said, ditching the title that defined her to outsiders, to strangers. “And it’s love, therefore, that defines this forest, this small patch of wilderness that she claimed.

  “You can say it’s a weakness. You can say it’s a vulnerability—but, Birgide, it takes strength to be vulnerable, in the end. It takes strength to take risks. You’re in this forest; you’re Warden here because she’s what she is.” He hesitated. Drew breath. Started again. “You want to say I’m wrong. I’m not. The reason you wanted to be Warden was to protect the forest. But you didn’t see—maybe because none of us really thought about it that way—that the forest is what it is because it’s Jay’s. You wondered why she let you in when she avoided all the magi—who still resent her for it, in case you were wondering. You wondered why she trusted you when she knew you were Astari.

  “But I don’t.”

  Birgide’s hand was rigid; she would have withdrawn it, if Jester hadn’t held onto it so tightly. And she could still fairly easily retrieve it; he knew that as well. She was Astari. Her unarmed combat skill was vastly superior to his own.

  “She may have said she wanted to spite Duvari; she certainly thought he disapproved of your request. And that might even be part of it—if I were in her position, it would have been all of the reason.

  “But if you really believe that—no.” He shook his head as he studied her neutral expression. “You don’t believe it. You didn’t understand. You still don’t.”

  “And you do?” The words were almost a whisper.

  “I do. But I understand it only because she found me. In an entirely illegal brothel, with a handful of other kids. She’d come to rescue one person. She didn’t know us. She took a risk—a big risk, given demons and mages—to take us with her. I didn’t care why. None of us did. What we cared about was our own skins.