But if more proof were required, she had it in Avantari.
She did not distrust The Terafin. She had seen the girl in her youth, had understood the value of her talent to her House, and had watched, where possible, as that girl had matured. She trusted The Terafin’s intent.
It was not her intent that was in question. It was the power itself, and her ability to consciously control it.
“Kalakar?” Korama’s tone was grave.
“Sorry. I was thinking I could use a drink.”
His expression pinched, but only slightly; someone who did not know him might miss it entirely. She knew him well.
“Tell Vernon to take his people to the edge of the tree line. We’ve been told that we’re to guide our citizens to the trees themselves, or through them.”
He did not ask who ordered it; there were only two people present who could command The Kalakar, and the Kings were on the field, albeit hidden behind the trees themselves. He nodded as The Kalakar dismounted. She glanced, once, at her standard bearers, understanding the need for the standard.
“What are we to do with those?” Korama added.
“They’re not attacking us,” she replied. “And they’re accompanied by Terafin House Guards.” She glanced, once, at the tall creatures that stood a head—easily—above the tallest of her men.
“Does this mean The Terafin is in the city?”
Ellora shook her head. “We’ve received no such word from Avantari.”
“The Kings and their court are much occupied.”
“True—but my instincts tell me that if she were present, we would know.” She glanced, once, toward the demi-wall in the distance, remembering The Wayelyn’s song. What he hoped for, Ellora couldn’t guess, but that damnable song of his had been heard in every tavern in the city—possibly every inn across the Empire by this point—carried by bards who should have known better.
“Get ready,” she said, lifting her voice as the winged creatures grouped to land.
* * *
• • •
Jester felt Birgide tense, which should have been impossible; her body was shaking, her hand clutching his so tightly his fingers were almost purple and he could only barely feel them. She didn’t speak; her lips moved, but no sound escaped them. Blood did.
He hated everything about this war.
Meralonne gestured. The wind came at his call, lifting his hair, his cape, and eventually, the whole of his body, as if it desired to separate the magi from the earth.
“Illaraphaniel,” the fox said softly.
“Retreat,” Meralonne replied, passing to the left and over the fox’s form. “The Warden requires your aid.”
“She does not. She is Warden. It is not a position I would take, nor one I have ever been offered.”
“She does,” the mage replied. “You serve the Lord you serve; can you not hear the trees?”
“I am not certain I should allow you to pass.”
“Eldest.” He did not put into words what Jester thought obvious: he was windborn, airborn; the fox could not impede him.
“Oh, very well. But if I was not looking forward to engaging the three, I think it unlikely that your presence would make the possible outcomes better for me.”
“My apologies, Eldest.” His voice was soft, so soft it might have been a whisper. It was as clear to Jester’s ears as a shout or a scream. He looked up to see the wind curling strands of platinum hair—hair that caught light as if it were threads to be spun, raiment that someone like Jester could never wear.
And as one man, the three froze.
If Jester had expected Meralonne to defend the city, he gave up all hope in that moment, for he could see the three as clearly as he could Meralonne; the distance between them made no difference to the clarity of his perception. He could see grim and frosty condescension melt instantly, could see the widening of shining, silver eyes, could see the lowering of weapons, of shields, forgotten in the moment. He could see their joy, and he would remember it for the rest of his life: it was incandescent. Had he thought them beautiful before?
Yes. Beautiful and distant, harsh as the storms through which ships did not sail had they any other choice. When they saw Meralonne, that impression shattered. Here, now, in the moment of discovery and return, he could find no words for what he saw—and he felt a painful yearning to somehow be part of it, to be worthy of what they offered, without caution, to Meralonne.
He hated himself for it but could not banish the response.
He had not understood why Meralonne assumed he would become the fourth of the four, why he would lose all desire to protect the city he had defended against the magical and arcane for so long. He understood now. He could not imagine anyone who could stand against what was so completely and artlessly offered. He was bitterly certain he couldn’t. And certain as well that it would never be offered to anyone who was not Meralonne.
Not even the White Lady. She was their Lord, their ruler; she was their god, if gods could be said to have any need of them. But Meralonne was kin.
The air carried him to the stairs that the Sleepers had partly descended; he himself did not land. But he lifted his arms, held them open, as if he could gather the sight of them to himself, and hold it as closely as the air, as breath.
“Foolish child,” the fox snapped.
Jester nodded in agreement; he could not look away.
“Do not make me bite you again; your blood is bitter and thin.”
Jester forced himself to look at the forest elder; he was once again a golden fox. “. . . Eldest.”
“Yes, yes.” He looked up, expectant.
Jester knelt—awkwardly—to offer the fox a cradle composed of one arm. Birgide’s grip was too tight to easily disentangle, if that was Jester’s desire. It wasn’t.
“I did not think it wise,” the fox continued, as Jester once again unfolded his legs, “to ask a mortal to serve as Warden. I wish you to bear witness to that.”
Jester asked the only relevant question. “Why?”
“Mortals are poor vessels. They are inflexible, delicate, and ephemeral. What was done when the forest accepted her as Warden was what could be done. Mortality is not of the wilderness; no more are animals.”
It was unwise to bridle. Therefore, Jester did not. He even welcomed his growing resentment because it displaced the Sleepers and Meralonne APhaniel, although they shadowed his thoughts.
“Wardens are not like your mortal soldiers,” the fox continued, pointing with his nose. Jester was not free to move much, but the fox wished to approach Birgide. “They are not many; they are one. Illaraphaniel’s presence will buy us time, although I do not believe that is now his intent. I require physical contact,” he added, as if this was not obvious.
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to aid the Warden.”
The reason for the fox’s prior words became suddenly, sharply clear. “What will it do to her?”
“I do not know. It has perhaps escaped your notice that the winged frostwyrm has taken to air above us?”
It hadn’t, and the fox knew it. Jester used irritation to brace himself because he had nothing else.
“What the harpies and the gryphons cannot do, the frostwyrm can. Its breath is winter breath, and the trees freeze at its touch. They will either die or sleep, and if the forest sleeps, you are all doomed.”
“And what can you do?” The question was perilously close to the dangerous type of impertinence.
“Were you not beloved of our Lord, I might rip out your throat,” the fox said, confirming just how close. “I chose to sleep in the winter. And I woke, Jester, when our Lord first stepped foot in our lands. I did not wake because she did; I woke because I heard her name and her voice, and it interested me. I do not require summer in order to simply be. I am older, by far, than the
cursed seasons of the high wilderness, and I am not subject to them.”
Jester apologized the moment he could slide a word in edgewise. The fox was bristling. “Apologies, Eldest. My choice of words was poor. I did not mean to question you or your abilities; I meant only to ask what it would do to the Warden.”
“That,” the fox replied, in a far less rumbling voice, “is the heart of the matter. I do not know. But there is only one warmth that might help your mortal kin to stand against the frostwyrm’s voice and breath in the whole of the forest.”
The tree of fire.
Although Jester did not speak the words aloud, the fox knew. “The burning tree. The tree that is part fire and part anger and part death. It is now those trees she must grow.”
“She can’t.”
“Not at the moment, no. And perhaps you are correct—but what she does with the Ellariannatte, she might do with any tree, any plant, that grows in our Lord’s lands. And it is that tree, with its bitter, burning roots, that she must bring to your gray, pathetic city.”
Jester almost said no. He opened his mouth to tell the fox to go to whatever variant of the Hells immortals occupied. But Birgide spoke. For the first time in what felt hours, she forced breath to accompany the movement of her lips. “How, Eldest? How can I contain the fire without harming the rest of my trees?”
The irritation bled from his tone as he turned toward her. “You must wake The Terafin’s trees,” he replied. Since the trees were obviously awake—and armed—this made no sense to Jester.
But it clearly made some sense to Birgide. She whispered, “They’re not real trees.”
To Jester’s surprise, the fox chuckled. “Is that what stopped you? Warden, Warden,” he said, shaking his head, “they are. They are not the trees with which you are familiar; they are not the trees to which you devoted the passion of your life, if not the whole of it. But they are real now. And they will wake properly, wake fully, only at the command of two people: the Lord of this land, and you.
“Wake them. They are merely sleeping.”
* * *
• • •
Jester had seen flashes and hints of silver and gold among the forest guard, and he had assumed, on some level, that those who bore them were the spirits of Jay’s almost mercantile trees.
“What can I do to help her?” he demanded of the fox. He could not keep anger out of his voice and didn’t try—but the anger only revealed the truth of what lay beneath it: Jester was afraid. For her. A woman who didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and preferred the company of clean dirt to people.
“Oh, hush, sapling. Hush.”
“She can’t do this on her own.”
“No. But I am willing to offer her aid if she will accept it.”
“I’d rather do it myself.”
“And what will you do? Will you shake the trees? Shout at them with your thin, reedy voice? Kick their trunks?”
Jester’s arm tightened, which was stupid. He forced himself to relax, inasmuch as it was possible. He wasn’t Jay. He didn’t have her knowing. But even absent that gift, he was certain that this would destroy Birgide, and he felt that he had only just found her.
He was certain it wouldn’t destroy the fox.
The fox snorted. “You are not a very smart mortal.”
“No. But you consider Jarven smart.”
“Ah, no. I consider him daring. Ambitious. He is a small flame in a gray land. You are not his equal.” This didn’t bother Jester at all. “He would never do this.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I? How so?”
“He would do it if it preserved him. He would do it if, by doing so, he could win his game. Everything is a game to Jarven.”
“And that is not true of you?”
Jester didn’t answer.
“Very well. But I will remove your hand if you so much as whimper, do you understand? It will make things more complicated for me, because you are Jewel’s, and she is not pragmatic where her den is concerned.”
“What—what am I supposed to do?”
Birgide, however, whispered, “No.”
“I won’t take anything from you,” Jester said, voice low. “I won’t be Warden. I don’t want to be caged in a crop of trees that I can’t even name for the rest of my life.”
He had to practically press his ear into her moving lips to hear her answer. “. . . Idiot.”
He almost laughed.
The fox, annoyed, leaned across Jester’s chest, opened his pointed mouth, and bit Jester. Bit them both, where their hands were joined.
8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
The Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
Teller finally found his cat. He was grimly aware that he would have allowed no one else the luxury of the foolish attempt; a cat’s life was not worth the risk to their own. Certainly the Master of the Household Staff would have forbidden it.
Telsey was not best pleased to be manhandled—she had never truly liked being cuddled or held. She let him know. When her obvious vocal displeasure failed to produce the correct results, she scratched his hand, drawing blood, but not enough of it to cause a mess. She didn’t like the cold winter frost that now covered the floors of the manse; didn’t like the cold stone that had replaced a warmer wood.
He knew how Carver had been lost, but the forest people remained by his side; they seemed as relieved to see the cat as Teller himself.
“We must leave, Teller.”
Teller, exhaling a mist of breath that lingered in the still air, nodded.
He had responsibilities as right-kin, and he was failing those. But this cat had come to him in the winter, as lost and patchy as Teller himself had once been, and although Jay had never really liked cats, she’d allowed him to keep Telsey. The manse was home to other cats, which meant home to far fewer mice, but Telsey was his.
Given the amount of damage the three winged monsters regularly did, the damage this one small pet could do amounted to almost nothing. Of course, repairing the damage amounted to more than he had ever earned in the twenty-fifth holding, which was a stupid thought to have now.
But stupid thoughts were better than incoherent fear, and he understood the difference viscerally when he heard the loud, sharp crack of what might have been a wall nearby.
Here, he trusted the forest spirits; one led, and one followed, Teller sandwiched between them, the cat finally settled in his arms. There was no sunlight in the winter world the Terafin manse was fast becoming. The halls seemed wider, although that might have been an artifact of how empty they had become.
Twice during the jog that led—in theory—to either Jay’s rooms or the terrace, the forest people called a halt; once, they picked Teller up, forbidding his feet to touch the ground beneath them. There was no visible difference to Teller’s eyes, but he did not argue. Telsey did.
Teller could almost see sunlight when the forest people stopped him again, one hand on his left shoulder.
“Do not move, Teller.”
Teller nodded. He had none of Jester’s natural sarcasm when worried, and none of Jay’s anger. About now, the heat of that anger would be a blessing. As if words were movement, he remained silent, and because the sound of his labored breathing calmed with the lack of movement, he heard, once again, the sound of something cracking. He looked across the hall; this should have been one of the public galleries. No sign of Terafin’s patrician grandeur remained, although he could see the frames of paintings beneath a dust of frost or snow.
The forest people now conferred, their voices muted and hushed; he heard the sway of laden branches, the bustle of moving leaves, in their syllables, and without intent, huddled into them. If they noticed at all, they did not object.
Finally, the guard whose hand kept Teller from advancing at all shook his head. “We are too late,” he told Teller s
oftly. “And now, must do as we can. We cannot reach our Lord’s lands with you. Ah, no, that is imprecise. You cannot reach our Lord’s land from this place.”
Teller did not tell them that they were in the Terafin manse, because he understood instantly that they were not. If wardrobes could open into lands that could swallow Carver and Ellerson, it made bitter sense: every door was now a path into unknown lands.
“Can I move?”
“No. If you move from this place, you will no longer be in our Lord’s domain. This patch of ground is safe, for the moment. We will anchor it. When our Lord returns, she will close all of the open doors, deny all of the paths that lead from elsewhere to here; this is the heart of her domain.”
“The Warden?”
But the forest guard who spoke now shook his head. “The Warden cannot save you, now. The princes are awake, and their voices can be heard by all who once served at their command. This place,” he added softly, “belongs to them now.”
“But you don’t?”
“We are rooted in Jewel’s domain; we cannot be uprooted here.”
“Could you go home?”
“Yes.”
“Can you be killed here?”
They did not answer the question; it was drowned, now, in the calling of horns. Teller had heard horns like this before, in the foyer of the Terafin manse, and on that day, death had come.
“You must be still. You must remain silent. When the host rides past us, you must still all but breath—and if you can, breath as well for a short time. They will not notice us; to them we will be trees, no more. They ride in winter; they do not expect to hear our voices. If you are still, if you are quiet, they will take you for an animal, no more. They are called to war; they will not hunt or kill until that battle is joined, if you give them no cause.
“The walls between our lands and yours are very, very thin today—and tomorrow, they will not exist at all.” He did not lift his hand. “Your kind is not good at silence or stillness,” he observed. “But for now, you must not take a step in any direction.”
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