The fact that the healerie existed at all made clear to the domicis that Jewel knew she would not, in the end, be able to keep her people out. Or perhaps her emotional desire was not in line with her intellectual decision. It mattered little.
He was not surprised to see Haval Arwood. The neat and fussy tailor appeared to be waiting for him. When Avandar approached, Haval bowed; it was a shallow bow, meant to indicate more respect than a simple nod of acknowledgment. Avandar returned that bow, measure for measure. When he rose, he moved, and Haval fell into step beside him.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” the Terafin Councillor said.
Avandar indicated, by nod, that he could continue.
“I am aware of your condition. The Terafin made it clear some time in the past. My educated guess about your willing servitude concerns that condition. You came to serve her because you felt—or more likely, were told—that she could cure you.”
“Yes.”
“You could not know, at the time, what she would become.”
“No.”
“Did you suspect it?”
“Not until the first day of her predecessor’s funeral rites.”
“And you have come to ask her to alleviate you, at long last, of your burden.”
Avandar was silent. He did not entirely understand Haval Arwood; the man was far, far too cunning not to be a threat. But Jewel had always trusted him; she trusted him still.
“Yes. Has she spoken of it to you?”
“No.”
“Then this is a favor to you and not a request from my Lord.”
“Indeed.”
“Ask it, then.”
“You are Warlord.”
Silence.
“I have had some time to discuss it with those who would know you by that name. You are not invulnerable, but your injuries do not kill you, no matter how severe. Decapitation does not kill you. Nor does fire or lava, although I believe you are not immune to pain.”
“Not at all.”
“You have never served a Sen.”
“No.”
“And you served but one god.”
Avandar nodded.
“Jewel can grant you what you now desire.”
Avandar stopped walking. “And you wish me to decline what she offers.”
Haval nodded.
“You wish me to decline the only reason that I came to her, the only reason that I agreed to serve her.”
“Yes.” Haval held up one hand before Avandar could speak again. “But on the condition that you will not outlast her. She has never feared for you. Because you came to her as domicis, she has never truly feared you, either. And no, I did not consider that wise. Now I do not consider it relevant.
“But she is concerned about the effect of her presence on her den, on her Household Staff—saving perhaps only their master—and on the citizens of her city. She will not, therefore, live among them in any prior sense of the word. And that presents difficulties for us.”
“She will not harm you.”
“She will not intentionally harm us, no. But she is aware that the intentions of a deity are irrelevant. We might crush a single ant without any awareness of its existence at all. She cannot, therefore, live entirely among us.
“The decision is yours, of course. She has not come to me for advice. She will not consult me in this matter. Any agreement she has made with you—if one exists at all—exists between the two of you. But she is Jewel. She will offer.”
“If you understand, if you have been informed of, my history, you understand the weight of the favor you ask.”
“I did not say it was a small one.”
Avandar glanced at Haval.
“You are not, now, tired of life.”
“I am not now tired of living. Not at this precise moment. I—as the Wild Hunt—feel almost young again. But I was mortal, Haval. And I have lost everyone and everything I have ever cared for, not once but times beyond number. If this opportunity slips away from me, I might never have it again. What, then, is the incentive you offer?”
“None, of course. Should you acquiesce, you will remain by her side as domicis until the end of her life—and I am not at all certain that the end of her life will be the normal span of years. Are you?”
“The Sen did not die of old age,” Avandar replied.
“Surely they did not die at the hands of their enemies?”
“No. They cannot be killed in the heart of their strongholds—and this is the heart of Jewel’s.”
“But they died.”
“Indeed. The cities, however, had time to build and maintain other defenses. Those defenses differed between the cities, but the cities themselves were not uniform. What the Sen built could not be toppled easily from without. There is nothing now from which she cannot protect herself.”
“Nothing except herself.” Haval did not smile as he met Avandar’s glare. “She has never been able to live comfortably on her own. She will have the cats, and they are company of a kind. But there is only one mortal to whom she has an attachment for whom she has never felt fear.”
“And you disapprove.”
“Ah, you mistake me. I disapproved of her trust. But her lack of fear where you were concerned, no. If you could not be killed, you would not abandon her. Death could not deprive her of your presence. She will offer you what you desire; it is in her nature to do so. And today, tomorrow, next month, she will not regret it, because it is what you desire.”
“And you are so certain that her death will be my death?”
“I am.”
“You will pardon me if I do not trust your opinion.”
“Of course. There is always risk, and our goals are almost diametrically opposed in this. What I want is the safety of our city in this new age. And the safety of this city now rests on the shoulders of one young woman. Were she what she was, I would have no concern. But she is not, as you are well aware. Her emotional state is now almost a physical force—as much a law of nature as storms, as earthquakes, for those of us who now live within these walls. Were I in your position, I know what I would decide—but we are different men. Were I you, I am far less certain.
“But she, at least, will never abandon you. Death will not claim her. Your enemies cannot assassinate her. You will, however, have to tolerate the cats.”
“And I am to serve her until she at last surrenders to madness?”
“Yes.”
“Very, very few men have had the courage—or the gall—to call so large a request a favor.”
Haval nodded. “I have other matters to see to now. I believe you know where you will find The Terafin.”
* * *
• • •
The interior of the Terafin manse was more faithfully recreated here than it had been on the Isle, although it existed beyond the very large doors at one end of the forbidding halls. Avandar walked until he reached stairs, mounted those stairs, and proceeded to the doors that had, in a different building, led to The Terafin’s personal chambers. He was not attired as domicis; he was attired—still—as warrior, as Warlord, although he did not wield a sword.
To his surprise, these doors did have guards: the Chosen. Torvan and, he thought, Marave. They did not stop him, although their eyes flickered past his face in acknowledgment of his station: domicis to The Terafin.
To his surprise, the doors opened into a library. Not the library into which the wilderness had encroached; there were no tree-shelves here. But he heard the trickle of water that implied the fountain remained. He could not, however, see it. He recognized the table. Only one book remained upon it—the book that Jewel had taken with her on their journey to take the Oracle’s test.
She had passed it.
“Yes. She passed, Viandaran.”
Avandar stiffened. From between the row
s of shelves behind the table came a familiar figure. “Oracle.”
“Well met. You have survived not one age, but two. This is the third, Viandaran. If you desire it, I will offer you a glimpse of the future.”
“I do not desire it,” he replied. “I have nothing with which to pay your price.”
The Oracle’s face could barely be seen, recessed as it was within the frame of her hood. But her lips folded in a smile. “Think you that you are the only person burdened as you are burdened?”
He did not answer.
“Very well. The future has not concerned you for centuries, and I imagine it will not be of great interest to you now.” She reached through the folds of her robe and removed the heart from her chest; it beat now with blue-gray light. “But the future is, of course, of interest to me. It is what I am.”
“Firstborn—”
“Hush. Keep your voice down, or you will disturb them.” She held the orb in her hands, lifting it. “I will tell you what you might have seen, had you the courage to look.”
Avandar’s anger was a flash, a tremor.
She smiled. “Or perhaps I will answer the only question of relevance today. When Jewel dies, you will die.”
Silence.
“It is, in part, a death of your own making, although that was not your intent. You marked her; it was meant to save her life, although in my opinion the mark was irrelevant in the end. But that mark, that binding, was made in the Deepings, where hints of wild magic slumbered. And she has built on that since her ascension. Unless you remove it—and there is some possibility that you can—her death is your death.
“But she will grant you death now, and it will be a clean, instant death. Certainly, the cats have counseled her to do so.” Her smile deepened at his expression. It then faded. “They are not, as you must understand, cats; they are held in that shape by the visceral will, the need, of the Sen. All caution has been taken—by my sister, by her Artisan—to succor Jewel on the road that lies ahead.
“But the attachment between such elemental forces can never be one way—and Jewel was born mortal. You have avoided attachments, inasmuch as possible, for centuries now. This last one is yours to avoid, if you desire it. I must leave. But, Viandaran, I owe your Lord a great boon.”
She replaced the heart she held. “Mortals have often been surprising.” She bowed then, holding that bow, as if she knew what his answer to Haval’s request must be.
* * *
• • •
He passed through the library, noting the absence of the extra door that led to the rooms she had occupied before she had joined the House. The hall was short, and at the far end was the conference room. There would be a small dining room as well. He was surprised at the fidelity; she had not spent much of her tenure as Terafin in these ordinary rooms, but they were almost exact.
As domicis, there was no room into which he could not enter; the Chosen forbid him nothing. Nor did the cats, although they complained. So he entered her bedchamber, assuming, given the Oracle’s words, that he would find her asleep. To his surprise, she was not.
Her bed was occupied, but not by Jewel; she had pulled up a chair and sat by the bedside, as if the occupant were ill and she meant to nurse them. Jewel looked up only as he approached the opposite side of that bed, and she held a finger to her lips.
Calliastra lay between the covers.
“I had to send the cats away,” Jewel whispered. “Or they would have destroyed things. More things.”
Avandar did not tell her it was irrelevant. What they destroyed, she could remake—and probably would, in her sleep.
She is dangerous.
Not to me.
Were you a ruler of old, that would be true. You are not. She is dangerous to your kin. She is dangerous to your kind. You forbid her to feed, and she has not—but she must. She spent far, far too much power in the fight against the Sleepers, and it is not power she can easily replenish if she does not want the attention of her father.
Jewel said nothing.
Jewel. You do not understand. Calliastra is firstborn. She is the daughter of both of her parents; it is why she is . . . as she is. She can stop herself from feeding. She has, before. But the hunger grows. If mortals cease to eat—at all—they will eventually perish. They will starve to death. That is not what happens to the firstborn. Calliastra will not starve; she will not die. But she will, in the end, break. She will feed in a frenzy—and she will not stop until that hunger is satiated enough that she can, once again, control herself.
Avandar, am I Sen?
Yes. But you cannot change what she is. She is not . . . as I am. She cannot be altered as I was altered, at the whim of a powerful deity. She is a deity in her own right. You cannot remake her. No more could you decide that Cormaris become a god of butterflies and daisies. To make the attempt is to destroy her. That is all you will achieve.
And if that’s what she wants?
Is it?
How could it not be? Jewel inhaled. It’s what you want. And you are not Calliastra. If you lost your family over and over again, it’s not because you killed them. I understand half of what she wants. Half of what she wants is all of what I want. It’s what I need. She needs it no less than I do.
He did not reply; it was true. That was the tragedy of Calliastra.
And I would not have survived had I eaten my den. Any one of my den. I think I can change her.
You cannot. He did not lie. It was impossible to lie to one seer-born. He examined this woman; she was no longer the child she had been when he had first come from the domicis hall to serve her. Her eyes were brown; flecked—as his own sometimes were—with gold, with light.
Can she kill me? she finally asked.
Here? Now? If you desired it. He paused. And perhaps if you did not. She is conflicted, always; it is her nature. Ariane could. Namann could. But not without will, without effort, and they would not, in my opinion, be guaranteed to succeed. If the god you do not name was present within the city walls, you would die. But no. There are very, very few who could now end your life.
I am going to keep her, she said, fierce now. She looked up at him, glaring, and he saw the shadows beneath her eyes; understood that she was physically exhausted.
Have you eaten?
She blinked; he might have asked the question in a dead language and received the same lack of comprehension.
You will require food. And sleep.
I don’t want to sleep.
No. I understand. Regardless, you must. He looked at Calliastra, and a slow understanding dawned. He was, momentarily, too stunned to find words, and even had they come readily, he was not sure which he would have chosen. He settled, as was his wont, on outrage and anger. You have let her feed on you.
Jewel said nothing. It was an angry, obstinate nothing.
Does your lack of caution know no bounds?
She folded her arms, her lips thinning, her jaw tightening. It’s my life. I can’t—I cannot just abandon her. I promised.
So, too, young children with no understanding of the consequences of their given word!
I understand!
And if you are wrong? If you cannot control what is taken? If you cannot give her what she needs without destroying yourself? The entirety of the Empire depends on the Kings. Your den. Your foolish, stupid cats—
Shadow growled.
If you die, they will die. The Empire will fall. Be more aware of the risks you take!
“She is aware,” Shadow said, without the whine that distinguished most of his speech. “And we are aware.”
“You guard her sleep,” Avandar said, voice low. “You have never been attentive enough, otherwise.”
“So? She will not be eaten in her sleep.” The cat materialized in the room, as if his body were an afterthought. “She is stupid,” he added, in a mu
ch more normal voice. “What did you expect?”
And he understood, as he stood shaking with something that was perilously close to rage, that it was too late. It was too late for him. He almost demanded his own death, then—the death she had not thought to offer because she did not wish to wake Calliastra—because his death would absolve him of all responsibility for hers. Because if he were dead, he would not have to watch—again—as she died. And she was certain to die; she was a babe in the wilderness. She was a fool—
Shadow was hissing laughter. It was not entirely kind laughter, but he was a cat.
Avandar understood Haval’s “favor.” He understood the Oracle’s presence. He even, he thought, understood the debt she thought she owed. Calliastra continued to sleep. She looked young. She looked vulnerable. And the fact that she was willing to be either meant that she had, for the moment, found a home that she was willing to take the risk of trusting.
She was at peace.
It was foolish. It was more than foolish. All prior experience demonstrated that there was no such thing for Calliastra. But . . . that was also her nature.
“And yours?” Shadow asked, voice sly.
Avandar glanced at the great, gray cat with his usual frosty disdain. And mine.
9th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse
The back halls were in an uproar. They had never been the quietest of places; even during the busiest parts of the working day, servants rushed headlong from one room to the next, carrying buckets, mops, cleaning rags, and other necessities of their duties in what amounted to a headlong rush.
This was, of course, acceptable. What was not acceptable was that same headlong rush in any visible, public part of the manse. Today, however, the rushing was far more frenetic, far more intense. The servants who now crowded the halls were far more numerous, and conversely, far less focused than was usual.
And, of course, they were. They were to travel across the bridge—en masse—to the new Terafin manse. Were it not for the location of that new manse, the halls might have been shrouded in gloom; the manse was in the hundred holdings, but not upon the Isle, where all the rulers of The Ten had lived . . . until now.
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