Yes. Only an idiot would be without fear.
The dragon’s jaws opened. Arann’s knees unbent. He held the sword in both hands, discarding his shield. He could see flame and fire—some early morning candle or stove knocked over by the devastation—and he could almost feel their bracing warmth, although such fires were death.
Sparks of fire flew, as they did when the fires were not doused; they found fuel in exposed timber, dry wood, and they spread, leaping as they did. Above his head, the air swirled, and embers caught fire, growing in size as they passed overhead. He did not watch; could not, without diverting his gaze from the largest threat to life: the dragon’s jaws.
This close to the dragon’s breath, he could hear the howl of Northern winds, could feel the chill of blizzard, the certainty that weather was as deadly as any predator. But even in the North, men built, men made; shelters existed in which survival from weather was almost guaranteed.
Fires burned, for warmth.
Fires burned here.
The dragon exhaled, and Arann lifted the sword; held it before him in two steady hands, as if breath were tangible, solid, as if it could be cut. He felt nothing as the dragon exhaled; saw no frost, no ice. But he felt resistance as he brought the sword down; felt something pushing back against the edge of the golden blade.
He had the whole of the dragon’s attention now, but he was not the only member of the Terafin Chosen to stand his ground in this place, and if his weapon was, truly, a thing of legend, of story, so, too, were the weapons of his comrades.
Arrendas shouted a command to Gordon. Take the shield. Protect the civilians. Get them to cover.
The captain had seen what Arann’s sword could do. And the captain, like Arann, understood that at this moment, in this small section of the city, the Chosen, like the earliest of the Kings’ Swords, followed their Lord and the way of life she had chosen.
Chapter Nineteen
HECTORE OF ARAVEN WAS one of the wealthiest men in the Empire; he had elected to remain—for sentimental reasons—in residence on the mainland. The Isle was home to the wealthy and the powerful; the address itself an indication of status. Hectore, however, felt a disregard for status conferred by something as simple as an address. The land on the Isle was expensive, and much of it leaseheld by the Crowns; he could not have the grand and enclosed estate he had come to value for both its privacy and its size were he to live on the Isle.
Nor could he occupy the manor he now did, a building that had seen many architectural changes over the years. While he understood the advantage of the Isle, the disadvantages that accrued by such a move were far greater.
Today, for perhaps the first time, he wondered if he had made the right choice. He was not a man given to introspection, or at least that form of introspection that was commonly called regret.
One of his grandchildren, the youngest, shoved the door to his personal offices open, flying across the threshold without so much as a by-your-leave. “Grandma says more people have come and you have to meet them.”
As he was not seated, he engulfed said grandchild in his arms, lifting her, shrieking, from the carpeted floor. “Well, then. It’s good that you came to get me. It wouldn’t do to upset Grandma.”
“She won’t be upset, she’ll be angry.”
“Fair enough. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.”
“It’s not hard at all,” his granddaughter replied. She then obligingly cataloged the differences while he went in search of these so-called new people, her voice dropping in volume as he walked. She was not dressed for company but was now dressed for morning; when the first of the people had arrived on their grounds, she had not been. Hectore had half-hoped that she would see the evening out in pleasant dreams; that she would wake to a morning not much different than the mornings with which she had, until now, been blessed.
He had ordered the gates open to allow people entry, but he was not so foolish as to leave the gates wide once they had been granted it; the Araven guards had therefore been called up, to a man. Hectore’s manor was not in the poorer holdings.
But when he surrendered his grandchild and exited the foyer, he saw the color of the skies, hidden from view by heavy curtains and a desire for a moment of privacy and peace in which to gather his strength. He had seen skies this color only in one other place, and he felt a brief, visceral hope: that she had somehow returned with those skies. That The Terafin was home.
The things that gathered in the skies, however, could not be hers. Nor, he thought, could the new building that dominated the mainland’s skyline. He had watched it rise. He had watched it rise, reliving, perhaps, his ancestors’ dread beneath the rule of the Blood Barons.
Andrei was not in residence.
Nadianne had asked, three times, when he might be expected, and Hectore, usually so good with words, had had none to offer her, not even for her own comfort. He had learned, in his first marriage, that lying to one’s wife was never as wise as it seemed. It was easy in the short term, but the returns could be ruinous.
But Andrei had told him two things: that the manse Araven and its grounds would be safe and inviolable until Andrei returned, and that Hectore was to keep every member of his family that he valued—which would, to a greater or lesser extent, be all of them—upon the grounds. He did not care what excuse Hectore made to achieve this and winced only once when Hectore turned a pleasant invitation into a patrician’s demand.
Accordingly, Hectore went to greet his new guests. Was he safe? Yes. He was safe, and his family as well. But his neighbors were not and, beyond that, the people upon whom his fortune had been built. They sought entry into his domain because the streets without were chaos and battle; the din of raised swords, raised voices, and conflicting horns could be heard almost constantly anywhere else.
But not here. And here, the skies, although amethyst, were clear; the creatures in the sky did not cross the boundary his fences marked.
And so he let them in. And clearly, given the clothing and deportment of the newest arrivals, word of safety, of sanctuary, had traveled. His beleaguered House Guard were almost overwhelmed. Almost.
But they understood why Hectore had commanded them to open the gates; understood why the grounds that bordered the manor were slowly filling, and understood that, until this battle ceased, they would continue to fill.
* * *
• • •
The differences between the two Commanders who had waged successful war in the Dominion of Annagar were almost legend among the troops who followed them, and the depiction of these differences, a matter of oft heated retort and rejoinder.
Today, however, they were the two Commanders of the Kings’ armies. The difference in style was lost to the greater press of humanity, trapped in a city that was being transformed, instant by instant, breath by breath. They were Kings’ soldiers first. The rest of the divisions didn’t matter.
To the north and the south, they met the host of the Arianni, the servants of the Sleeping princes whose waking seemed to usher in the End of Days. And they fought. Their training was experience: the experience of wars in the South and the introduction of the demons and the ancient earth that had literally sundered the battlefield and its combatants from each other.
That experience did not include homes—their own—and civilians of all ages and hierarchies; it did not include screeching, panicked chickens, dogs, horses, pigeons; nor did it include the elderly, confused by the din, who were—in at least two places—attempting to direct their families to build barricades. One had to admire their determination in the face of otherwise nameless panic; most of the people who the army encountered had one destination in mind: away. That the definition was nebulous did not dim the strength of their imperative.
The Kalakar, however, was a known entity—by standard, by insignia—and her presence did much to persuade the would-be builders that their be
st chance of survival now lay in a different endeavor. Where the armies were present, the barricades would be irrelevant. This was not, of course, the truth, but Ellora only needed to be believed for a few minutes, and that, she could easily manage.
But the streets were not empty, and some of the living that occupied them were not human. Their pursuit of panicked civilians ended at the human wall of the armed forces, whose first job was to pin them to ground in some fashion.
The mounted ground forces that had come at the Sleepers’ call did not seem to acknowledge the winged predators as allies; they cut down those who did not move or instantly surrender the road to their progress. The winged creatures did not appear to accept the Arianni host as allies, either—but they obviously considered them far more of a danger than the humans. Even the armed and armored divisions of the Kings’ armies did not appear to be a threat to them, although the armies made sure they regretted that.
But the aerial advantage was not small, and the forces were split across the terrain of a city. They could be certain that no enemies waited in ambush in the opened windows above the street, but that was all. They could not be certain that the earth would not break beneath their feet; could not be certain that fires would not erupt in the wake of panicked abandonment; could not be certain that the water would remain relatively calm in the harbor.
They could be certain of one thing: that the time they bought containing and engaging the enemy forces could be translated directly into lives: the lives of the civilians who were normally left far behind on the eve of war and battle. They were literally fighting a staying action, not for the safety of their homes, but for the safety of some of the people who lived within them.
The Kalakar used the emotions, the desperation, to create a single, focused goal, a driving force behind which she could rally her centrii. The Berrilya used the very strict adherence to protocol, hierarchy, military rules to keep his men in line. They achieved the same ends aware of all the differences between this battle and the last one in which the army had engaged as an army.
* * *
• • •
And above them, Andrei watched. It had been his intent to distract one of the hosts; he knew of The Kalakar, knew of The Berrilya, and could feel the power of the Kings from his position at the height of a building that had not yet been structurally damaged; it was too far from the dragon.
For reasons of his own, he had no desire to engage that beast, and would do so only if the men who now stood in its way faltered. But . . . they did not falter. And he recognized the weapons they bore—all the weapons. He could name them. He could have—had he so chosen—instructed the mortals in their use.
But that instruction did not forge the bonds that this battle would, if they survived it; such was the way of weapons like these.
He had expected a fourth host, a fourth army. He had seen Illaraphaniel join his brethren; had felt—at a distance—the radiance of their mutual joy, the exuberance of homecoming. In all his long life, he had yearned for such a joy, and only in this semblance of a servant had he found something approximating it. His envy was bitter, profound, expected, but it had been centuries—more—since that envy had turned to rage and destruction. He did not hate the Sleepers because they had what he had desperately lacked; did not hate them because they were born to it, where he had been born to division, distrust, disgust—both his own for himself, and others for him.
Yet Illaraphaniel had not called his herald, and his host had not come at his command. Perhaps neither now existed? He had not passed through the long, mortal age as his brothers had, sleeping at the command and judgment of both gods and the White Lady who had created them; he had lingered, diminished in almost all ways, bitter memories the only proof of his prior existence.
And perhaps that diminishment had robbed him, in the end, of the regalia of his station. It had robbed him of his shield—but the wrath of the White Lady had likewise scarred his brothers, for their shields proclaimed none of their names, none of the truth of who they had been before they had ridden out against Allasakar at the side of Moorelas.
The lack of name, however, did not diminish the three who had slept. The mortal buildings that stood between Andrei and the princes did not diminish them; he could see them as if stone and wood were the flimsiest of veils. Only the trees blocked his vision, but he could see, through narrowed eyes, that they would not do so for long; they were becoming as insubstantial to those eyes as the dead wood and stone in which mortals made their homes.
And would not make their homes for long.
He rose, taking to air, as the light of the four grew; the canopy of sky paled directly above them as the building on whose steps they still stood became a thing of beauty, of splendor: a Winter building, created at the dawn of their ancient power. What the earth had swallowed at the command of the departed gods, it had released; the princes, all, had transformed it into a challenge and a declaration. This was their palace, in this gray, drab land. This was the place where they had fallen, and this was the place that would mark their long return.
Nothing lived in their lands without their express permission. Nothing. And the mortals had not received that permission, had not asked it, did not even know how to ask it. Andrei heard their names. He heard it in the hooves of their summoned hosts. He heard it in the roar of the dragon. He heard it in the screeching cry of the harptalons. And he heard it in the distant air.
But the leaves of the Ellariannatte rustled; the leaves of the trees of silver and gold chiming in, and they spoke a different name with the full force of their remaining life.
He was not given to cursing, and would have abstained even had he been, but he felt the stirring of resentment for Jewel ATerafin. Had she not been so desperate to cling to her mortality, her name would be the only name that Andrei could hear, for these lands were some part of her domain and she had failed, in every way that counted, to make them her own. She had accepted only the forest—and only because it was separate from the rest of the city.
And the city was paying the price for that.
But as he angled his flight toward that palace, those spires, he shook his head. What she wanted was not so different, in the end, from what Andrei himself wanted: that this home that she loved, this place that she had chosen and built for herself, remain inviolate, remain itself as it had been.
And had she accepted the power and its truth without reservation, it would not have.
Hectore.
* * *
• • •
Finch could not force an answer from the tree of fire. Nor could she make sense of the answer the forest guard—stopped in haste—had to offer.
Where is Teller?
Haval was not present within the heart of the forest, and had he been, there was no guarantee she would receive an answer to the question—but even the lack of answer, or more specifically, how he avoided answering—would tell her much.
In the end, she left the House Council in charge of the growing number of people; left the forest itself in charge of making room for them if not the dwellings to which they were otherwise accustomed, and she left the tree of fire. She had noted that the fox was willing to approach it, but he did not touch it; nor did the other trees.
And the fox was not here. She wasn’t even certain he was a tree; she was only certain that he was, like the other trees, wed to this land, and that this land was Jay’s. He was not, however, the only elder. And she did manage to catch one of the forest guard and ask to be led to the great tree that Haval had once said was the true heart of these lands.
Finch had glanced at the tree of fire.
“It is the flag that she planted,” Haval said, although she had not asked. “It is a statement that the forest understands. But it is the heart of her intent; it is not the heart of this place.”
Because Haval was far stingier with information than even Jarven, she had not aske
d him more. Teasing meaning out of Jarven’s words, lack of words, or misdirections had become second nature to Finch, but Haval still confounded her. Jarven was warm, and humor was one of his many tools—and the one which Finch saw most frequently when they were alone. Haval seemed entirely absent that humor and that warmth.
Were it not for Hannerle, Finch would have found it impossible to trust him, and the instincts that Jarven had honed made trust difficult. But Jarven had come into her life after Jay, and Jay trusted Haval. She wished she had badgered Haval. The forest guard did not speak of the elders—or to them—unless they were addressed. They spoke with Finch and answered her questions, but they answered them almost as if either they—or she—were confused children. Her questions made no sense to them. Their answers made little more sense to her.
But she knew immediately when she reached the ancient tree which she hoped to ask for more information. One glance made it clear that this tree was not like any of the others that grew in this wilderness. It was thick, wider across the trunk than even the tallest of the Ellariannatte. But its boughs were not all so high above the ground; indeed, it seemed short in comparison to the growth of the Kings’ trees. Short and wide; wider still as she approached it, shorn at last of the forest spirits who had led her down the path to this clearing.
When the lowest of the branches had become the whole of her visual horizon, she stopped. She could feel age here, an echo of things so ancient they might have woken at the dawn of time. She felt slight, insignificant, the weight of a lifetime of learning and experience no more relevant than the passing glance of a stranger on a crowded street.
She wondered, briefly, what it would take to become relevant in her own right, for she understood that she was important to the forest because she was important to Jay. In and of herself, there was no difference between her and the refugees who now sheltered here, growing in number. She was regent of House Terafin, and in the human empire, that was significant; there was no higher power she could achieve or, rather, none that she was willing to achieve. It meant nothing here. It had never meant anything.
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