“That wasn’t you—”
“It wasn’t me, no. But what I do would be much worse, now. The Sleepers weren’t awake. The Warden of Dreams interfered.”
“They were here, though—and they still affected the manse—”
“They were in the ruins of a building. But it was made of the same stone as the basements in Avantari. And it is whole now. It will remain whole.”
“Jay—”
Shadow growled. To Angel’s surprise, he was growling at Jay, not Teller. He did step on Angel’s foot, however. “You are stupid. He is right.”
“But I can’t—”
“We can. We can, stupid girl.”
“But we don’t want to,” Night added, from the heights.
Shadow’s roar should have shattered glass. For miles. Snow hissed laughter.
“We can’t move everything all at once,” Teller continued. “But the Chosen, at least. And the rest of the den.”
“There’s no place—”
Shadow hissed.
Jay bowed her head and surrendered. She looked up at Teller, and her eyes threatened tears—a storm of tears—but she would not allow them to fall where anyone could see them. “Fine,” she said, voice gruff and momentarily completely singular. “But you work out the details with Finch. You can let go of my arm,” she added. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He signed: promise?
And she signed: promise.
Teller looked to Angel, and Angel said, “Go talk to Finch. I’m staying put.” And that offered Teller whatever comfort he could take; he did leave then. He tried not to look back, but failed several times. Jay did not move again until he was out the doors.
She then turned to Shadow. Shadow growled—at Angel—and stalked ahead. “It’s too hard,” she whispered. “To be just one thought, just one thing, to see just one reality.”
Angel shrugged. “There’s no reality that contains you that scares me. Except the ones that I’m not in.”
“And they exist,” a familiar voice said quietly. Old Rath. He had not aged, but then again, the dead didn’t. “Go, Jewel. Let me speak a moment with Angel.”
Angel didn’t like it. Shadow, however, sniffed dismissively and growled when he made to follow Jay.
“Her fears are not unfounded; they are not foolish. I spent some time as a captive in the Hidden Court, and I learned. About the Cities of Man. About the Sen. It is not something I would ever have chosen for Jewel—but in the end, it is not something I chose. She chose. I think you are beginning to understand what she is and what she fears.
“She will create a space for herself; she will live in it. Think of that space as The Terafin’s personal chambers. Within that space, nothing will be stable.”
“Nothing but you?”
“I am dead,” Rath agreed. “She will—ah, she should—be able to speak with you. With all of you. But . . . she will not be able to do it often. It will be important,” he added. “To the shape of the city, to its continuity. It will be important to the Kings and the rule of law. And it will be important to her. But she will be trapped here until—and unless—she decides that she no longer cares what happens to the city and the people in it.
“You think she would never decide that. But that future does exist. She is, at heart, mortal. And she never could stand to live alone, in a silent home.”
Thinking of the apartment in the twenty-fifth holding, Angel said, “She won’t have to.”
“That was not real.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, oddly enough. The wilderness understands reality; it merely changes it with ease. It can create dreams and phantasms, but those who appear to live in those dreams are not actually alive; they are . . . part of the landscape. They conform as nightmares or dreams conform. The only place in which that would not be true is the heart of chaos, and that is nowhere near here.”
Angel thought of the tangle but did not disagree. “What do we have to do?”
“What you have done,” Rath said quietly. “Survive. And love her.”
“How—how often can we speak with her?”
“One hour a day? Perhaps up to three. You would have to ask Cessaly.”
Angel’s eyes widened.
“It is Cessaly’s maker-born gift. It was created by the greatest maker the world has ever known. She . . . was not the one who explained it,” he added, his grin wry. “And I do not understand the whole of it. There is some risk, because in order to create the materials, something of great value to one of the firstborn was destroyed. Not that this made much of a difference to Cessaly,” he added. “She is a miracle.”
“Are you telling me that if she hadn’t made something for Jay, we could never talk to her?”
“Not and be guaranteed to survive, no. Or at least that was my understanding.” He smiled. “I will be here—and the Sen of the ancient cities did not have that. I am . . . part of Cessaly’s making; the Winter Queen—or Summer—no longer binds me. Jewel does. It is a binding I would have chosen for myself, and it is a binding that will be of aid to her. What she wants, Angel, is what she always wanted. Her family and her home. She will have the power to keep that safe now.”
“But we won’t have her.”
“How often did you see her when she was acting Terafin?”
Angel said nothing.
“The difference, now, is that you will have to see her. She will require that. Because in some fashion, she understands the difference between reality and dreaming—it is just very, very slender at the moment.”
“Will she—can she leave?”
“For one hour a day—but . . . I don’t recommend it.”
“Then this is just a cage for her—”
“Yes. And it is a cage of her choosing because she could not see any other way of preserving the things that matter most to her. She would have willingly died to do so. And she is not dead.” He seemed to exhale. “The Kings need her now. There is a god walking this world. She can secure this city against him.”
“Is she . . . is she still mortal?”
“What do you think, Angel?”
Angel bowed his head. “I think we’ll be here. Is there a specific time?”
“No. But in the wilderness, it is the change of light that marks the day, and she is of the wilderness now. Go to your den. Tell them. Angel—I will stay. Until she leaves to cross the bridge to Mandaros and his Halls of Judgment, I will not leave her. She is kin to me; I failed her once, but I will never fail her again.”
Epilogue
THE MORTALS GATHERED IN the clearing that would, in time, become the Common, came from all walks of mortal life known to the city, for there were Kings, Queens, and the Princess Royale, and there were beggars in their threadbare, splinter-dusted rags. They had lost the city that had been home to them for all their lives, but a city was, as they stood bearing witness, being rebuilt, and if that city was marked—forever—by the losses of a single day, it held the faint promise of hope.
Hope was its own burden, its own pain. But better to carry it than to set it aside forever, no matter how sharp its edges when it shattered yet again.
The Summer Queen, as she was called and as she came to be remembered, walked across the stones that radiated outward into the city, a web of streets that held no interest for her, and the crowd gave her room. Even the Kings themselves. But her followers seemed to melt into the trees at the edge of that clearing, until only she remained.
If her isolation was a signal, it was a signal that the crowd did not understand. They did not approach her; they did not speak, did not dare to tread even upon her shadow, so powerful was her presence. They followed with gaze alone until she passed by. Where she walked, flowers grew in her passage—even through the stone; the sun seemed to follow her, and it seemed to the witnesses that that sun would never set i
f she stood beneath it.
But she came, at last, to a stop.
Kneeling, heads bent, were three men. No, three of the Winter people. They wielded no weapons, and they wore no armor; their brows were unadorned. They did not speak, nor would they until she had given them leave.
She did not do so.
Turning to look over her shoulder, she frowned into a crowd that had diminished. One young woman bowed her head and separated from that crowd, as if at silent command. She was shorter than the Summer Queen, and younger; her hair was a ruddy brown, too light be remarkable. Her skin was sun-dark, her hands sun-dark; she wore sandals on her feet.
To this stranger, the Summer Queen said, “There are only three. Was there, then, no fourth?”
And the stranger approached until she reached the Summer Queen’s side. She did not answer the question immediately but considered it as if the answer to the simple question—three or four—was both momentous and difficult. At length, she shrugged.
The Summer Queen’s eyes narrowed, their green losing warmth. “It is not a question that is beyond your ability to answer.”
“It is not a question,” the woman countered, “that is mine to answer.” She smiled. “I have never chosen to live in your Court, sister, and even had I, you are not the lord I serve.”
“And you claim to serve now?” She eyed the woman’s clothing with obvious disdain. “The appearance of servitude does not become you.”
“No? Ah. No.” And speaking thus, the woman shook her head. What had been mousy hair became ebon; she gained height, lost the traces of wrinkles, of age, that she had adopted. She then turned to the kneeling men. “Whether or not they were three or four, they are three now. Will you not bid them rise?”
Ariane did not answer.
“They were—they are—worthy foes. And you will not see their like again, I fear. Not in your Court. Were I as you, I would forgive.”
“No, sister, you would not. But it is Summer, not Winter, and in the dawn of Summer, there is warmth.”
“And at the end of Summer, deserts,” Calliastra replied, but softly, softly.
“Narianatalle.”
The prince in the middle of this kneeling formation slowly lifted his face; his cheeks were glistening. He opened his mouth, but no words emerged; his eyes were shadowed, dark.
None who could see him could doubt the strength of his feeling for this Summer Queen; none could fail to see his yearning. He made no attempt to hide his tears. Nor did he rise or otherwise move.
“Am I now so lessened?”
He tried to answer. He failed.
“Am I not the White Lady?”
Silence.
“Sister—”
She lifted a perfect hand, and Calliastra fell silent. “Of the princes of my Court, of the princes left me, you were my best. I did not doubt you; when the Lord of Shadows called your brothers, you did not hear his voice. I chose you.”
He bowed his head, seeing, in the end, no forgiveness and no mercy, and accepting—as all the Arianni must now accept—that he deserved none.
“My enemy once again walks the mortal world—as, now, do I. The Sen of this new city is my ally, and it is on her behalf that I have traveled.”
He did not lift his head.
“I did not destroy you when your disobedience resulted in failure. But the effects of that failure abound. I paid the price demanded of me in order to weaken my enemy—but my enemy remains.” She lifted a hand. “You have slept. It was my hope—for even I had hope—that you would have some chance to redeem that failure.” Her tone made clear, then, that no such hope remained.
“Tell me, Narianatalle, am I lessened by my choices?”
“Lady.”
“I cannot trust you, in the end, to do what must be done.” She raised a second hand. “But you were mine, and dear to me; you were birthed in an age of joy, of beginnings. I offer you a choice. Live as you have lived, in exile but awake.” She did not give voice to the alternative.
Narianatalle, however, understood it. He rose. Met her gaze, held it, read something in the unblinking green of a Summer that all his kin had yearned for during the passage of centuries. He did not smile; his expression was grave, stricken. But he did not argue. Instead, he approached the Summer Queen, understanding that the warmth of even Summer would be denied him while he lived.
“I will return to my Lady,” he whispered. “And when you ride out, at last, against your enemy, I will be some part of your power.”
“Yes.” She held out a hand, and he placed both of his across her palm.
He began to fade. His eyes widened, and his mouth; there was no pain in his expression.
To the other two, she now offered the same choice, and as their brother had chosen, so, too, did they. It was Taressarian who said, “Life without you is a hell not of our choosing, Lady. Winter, Summer, the endless seasons of the world, are bitter indeed. If you preserved us, if you preserved your making, for the moment when you might, at last, ride against our ancient enemy, know that we are grateful to be of use, of service.”
Only when they were gone did she turn. Lifting her face, she spoke a fourth name.
“Illaraphaniel.”
* * *
• • •
“Do not,” Meralonne told Sigurne softly, “interfere. Do not speak. Do not attempt to touch her with your magics.”
Sigurne reached out to him; the ring on her hand was a band of white light. He was weeping, but silently; tears traveled the pale expanse of his face without pause.
“Understand that she created us. That the power that was lost to her at our birth returns to her now. She offered them a choice, and they chose.”
“And if she offers you that same choice?”
He shook his head. “She will not. She will not, Sigurne. Remain here.”
* * *
• • •
The wind carried Illaraphaniel to the White Lady; he folded instantly into an obeisance that even the Kings did not command of the least of their subjects.
“Rise,” she said softly.
He obeyed, unfolding instantly. His expression, however, was shuttered when he at last met her gaze, as if to shield her from the knowledge of his pain.
“Of the four, Illaraphaniel, you were the only one who obeyed the commands given you. You failed, but that failure was not, in the end, of your making.”
He was silent.
“Would you now return to me as completely as your brothers have chosen to do?” Before he could answer, she said, “It is an idle question. The god the mortals do not name now walks the world again. He is not what he once was—but neither am I. What your brothers returned to me will strengthen me, but I am one, not many. I will not offer you the same choice.
“The princes of my Court are few. The dreams of the ancient world elude me. But I will wake those who have slumbered in some fashion for the entirety of an age. You have seen Shandalliaran.”
He said nothing.
“She will not return to me now. She cannot. But it is by her sacrifice that this final Summer has arrived.” The Summer Queen turned, then, to stare into the distance, as if her gaze could pass through trees and buildings to catch a glimpse of the woman she had named. “And I will wake her sisters. I will wake my sisters.
“We have lost much, and much has changed. But here,” she added softly, “I feel almost as if the world is new. Such is the power of the Sen.” Her smile was gentle. “Will you return to my Court?”
“It is all I have ever desired.”
“You failed me in the Winter,” the Summer Queen said. “But it is the birth of Summer, and I accept that that failure was not on your head. If you are desirous of return, there will be a seat for you at my many tables, and a mount for you at my side.”
“But not yet,” a new voice said.
&
nbsp; * * *
• • •
Jewel ATerafin stood by the side of the White Lady; she cast no shadow.
Meralonne’s gaze narrowed; he offered no argument, drew no weapon. Sigurne thought it a close thing, and she moved to stand between Jewel and the mage upon whom she had relied for the entirety of her tenure in the Order of Knowledge. She was aware, as she did, that she was no match for either of these two powers—but the stay of hand would not be, in the end, because she could overpower either.
“Sen,” the Summer Queen said.
“Summer Queen,” Jewel said, bowing her head for a moment longer than necessary. Sigurne could hear the echoes that attended her first words, as if they were being repeated almost, but not quite, synchronously.
“Has he served you well?” the Queen asked The Terafin.
“He has. But his service was never mine to command; it was merely mine to request.”
“To mortals, surely, there is little difference. But—ah. He is coming.”
“The Oathbinder?”
“The Oathbinder,” she replied. “And then, if he so desires, mortals will understand the weight and the cost of service.”
Jewel frowned. “We understand it now.”
“Not as you will. Not as Illaraphaniel and his brethren did. But you have interrupted our reunion for a purpose.” She did not seem to resent this interruption.
Meralonne did.
“He has a role to play,” Jewel said softly. “And if I understand what occurred yesterday, the Sleepers waited upon their heralds before they could unleash the full force of their waking power.”
The Summer Queen inclined her head.
“His herald has yet to arrive.”
The Summer Queen turned to Meralonne. Meralonne said nothing.
“And I am bidden to tell you that the sword has been found.”
Winter existed for a moment in the eyes of the Summer Queen, a reminder—if one were necessary—that the Summer Queen was not mortal, would never be mortal; she was elemental, a power in a shape that seemed almost human, but that nonetheless drove tidal waves, earthquakes, avalanches.
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