Skirmish: A House War Novel (46 page)

“I am, of course, given leave to accompany you.”

Shadow hissed.

“The guildmaster and her aide are also invited to attend; the regent
implied that your attendance,” he added, turning to Sigurne, “was not mandatory.”

Torvan and Arrendas were waiting outside of the wing’s doors when Jewel emerged. Sigurne and Matteos had elected to accompany her; so had Shadow, but he’d allowed himself to be turned away on the right side of the doors. Jewel looked askance at Torvan, who saluted. Loudly. He was wearing armor that might have looked overdone on parade.

“Torvan—”

“ATerafin.” His face was completely blank; his voice, however, was loud. Jewel forced her lips up into what she hoped resembled a smile; it was going to be a long morning.

“It could be worse, dear,” Sigurne told her, with what sounded like genuine sympathy. “There are only
two
guards.”

This was entirely accurate until the small, moving party reached the large, public gallery. In the gallery’s wide halls, the House Guards outnumbered them. They were all dressed in their best armor, and they were on perfect, proud display; light from the expanse of windows was beginning to seep in, although it wouldn’t be bright enough to illuminate the gallery for a few hours. This hall, and the one on its opposite side and around a corner, led to the two entrances of the audience chambers; admittedly the one farther away was small and informal in comparison.

But the doors that admitted guests into the presence of The Terafin—or, today, the regent—were very, very fine. They were dark and girded on either side by sculptures on pedestals, and because they occupied part of the wall, and not the end of a hallway, they were wider than any of the other doors in the Terafin manse. At their height, engraved in stone, were words in Old Weston. They were, of course, gilded, as if the addition of a layer of gold could make the words of this almost forgotten language more true; it certainly made them more brilliant.

The doors were open.

Jewel, approaching them by Sigurne’s side, felt a twinge of sympathy for Gabriel as she entered the very deep room, because he was seated—in full House colors—on the single throne at the room’s far end. Two of the House Guard stood behind the throne, and six stood beneath it, fanning out in threes to either side of the wide, flat stairs that approached the throne.

Gabriel, however, was alone; the Exalted had not yet arrived. He gestured, and Jewel approached the throne. She’d seen it used only a handful of times, and its use now made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. For the first time this morning, she was grateful for Ellerson’s ministrations, and the stiff and complicated dress Avandar had chosen. She glanced at the magi; if they felt underdressed, it didn’t show.

“ATerafin,” Gabriel said. The vaulted ceilings of the room boasted very unforgiving acoustics. Jewel approached the throne, and the House Guards let her pass. Sigurne and Matteos, however, now stood back. Avandar did not.

Jewel bowed to Gabriel, who nodded as she rose. On closer inspection, the regent looked like he’d aged ten years in the past ten hours; the lines around both mouth and eyes were deeply etched. It made him look very severe.

“Jewel,” he said, speaking softly, “I must offer you some warning. The Lord of the Compact has both demanded—and received—permission to attend this meeting.”

“I guessed as much,” she replied. He raised a brow, and she added, “He visited the wing late last night. Do you have any idea what the Exalted are going to say?”

“None.”

“Any suspicion?”

“No. And before you ask, if insight before the fact is to be gained,
I
am not the person who will offer it. Come,” he added. “Stand to the left of my chair. Speak if you are spoken to; if it is Duvari who asks, answer minimally and with care. Your domicis may join you; have him stand near the guards.”

Torvan and Arrendas joined the guards at the base of the stairs, standing to the far right and the far left; nestled there, they didn’t make Jewel feel quite so out of place as they had in the halls. She glanced down at her hand; there, a heavy, gold ring girded the second smallest finger. Ivory, ebony, and ruby adorned it, coalescing into the geometric representation of a sword. It was meant to be the House Sword, but on the eve of a House War it merely looked martial.

As if he were regarding it in the same way, Gabriel coughed gently. She stiffened, met his eyes, and was rewarded by the slightest of smiles. “There are things you will never learn,” he said softly. “You will never dance well. You will never be a swordsman. You will never be an artisan.”

She nodded.

“But there are things that you are that no one else will ever be; do not forget it.” He lifted his head as the first of the priests preceded the Exalted into the audience chamber.

If everyone else in the room looked as if they required another week of sleep, the Exalted didn’t. It was something about their eyes, Jewel thought; they were golden and warm and that light touched the contours of their individual faces, softening the whole and dispelling the shadows cast by something as insignificant as lack of sleep. If hosts were required to dress and comport themselves with the utmost dignity, guests were not. The Exalted arrived in the same robes they had worn scant hours past. Jewel knew this because some dirt still clung to the hems and knees of the Mother’s robe. They had repaired to their cathedrals, in theory to speak with their parents, the gods in whose name they ruled their churches.

Jewel felt her throat tighten as she watched the progress of the Exalted. Their eyes appeared to be far brighter than they normally were; she knew, because each and every one of them gazed, as they walked, at her, their expressions troubled. She noted that Duvari was also in the audience chamber, and that he stood with his back to the far wall in the cold silence that passed for a personality.

The priests that attended them carried the ever-present braziers on their long poles, but they stopped halfway between the doors and the throne, and set those braziers—carefully—to one side; they then drew what looked like small stands from somewhere in their voluminous robes and set them up, with care, at three points. The braziers, still wafting smoke, were placed atop them.

This did not seem all that positive a sign to Jewel who, of course, said nothing. She did hazard a glance at Gabriel; he didn’t return it. His gaze was on the Exalted as they approached.

Etiquette did not demand that the children of gods abase themselves before any man or woman in the Empire. On occasion, the Mother’s Daughter set etiquette aside as a gesture of either gratitude or respect, but today wasn’t going to be one of those. She, of the three, was the grimmest, although it took Jewel a moment to realize why she’d reached this conclusion. Some of her Oma’s anger—and worse, much worse—fear could be seen in the set of her jaw and the stiff line of her shoulders.

She bowed to Gabriel, who rose. “Exalted,” he said, bowing deeply to each of the three.

“Regent,” the Mother’s Daughter replied. “We have, as promised, asked for the guidance of our parents.”

Gabriel nodded, waiting.

“They are concerned with the events of yesterday. While we could answer some of their questions, we could not answer all of them, and they asked for the opportunity to speak with Jewel ATerafin.”

The braziers on the ground suddenly made a lot more sense. Following Jewel’s gaze, the Exalted of Cormaris now stepped forward. “It is a request,” he said quietly, speaking to her and not to the regent. “The gods cannot command you.”

Jewel smiled; it was a grim smile. “Not directly, no. But if I were foolish enough to refuse, Exalted, would the gods not then speak to the Twin Kings?”

He was silent.

“The Twin Kings, of course,
can
command. I’m nervous. Gods make me nervous. But I’m not opposed to speaking with them. I would have liked more time to prepare, but I don’t imagine the gods actually care all that much what I’m wearing, how my hair is styled, or how I speak.”

At this, his lips twitched, and the gold of his eyes warmed. “As you surmise, ATerafin, they do not.”

“The Kings
do
. So I’ll happily grant the request now.”

“There is one more favor,” the Exalted said.

“And that?”

“You traveled to and from the garden grounds with…unusual companions. My father would like to speak with them, as well. There were three unusual creatures, your mount, and another that we deem immortal.”

Jewel winced. She was certain the gods wouldn’t find the cats all that charming—and equally certain that telling the Exalted their parents didn’t know what they were asking for would be very stupid. She had no idea where Celleriant
was
, and she didn’t look forward to riding the Winter King in the middle of a House full of servants who were already stressed beyond their capacity by the prospect of the funeral and its many, many visitants. She finally settled on, “I’ll try.”

The Exalted of Cormaris raised a brow.

* * *

Since she knew where the cats were—and couldn’t immediately face the prospect of attempting to herd them—she set out in search of Celleriant. She did not, however, set out alone; the moment she descended the stairs that led to the throne, Torvan and Arrendas detached themselves from the House Guard and followed her. Avandar likewise retreated from the wall behind the throne.

Jewel paused in front of the Mother’s Daughter; she bowed. “I’m not entirely certain where some of my companions are to be found.”

The Mother’s Daughter reached out and caught both of Jewel’s hands in hers, forcing her up from the bow. She met Jewel’s gaze, held it, and then released her hands.

“I cannot help but think that the gods are unlikely to be impressed by your guardians,” Avandar said, when they’d cleared the doors.

“I’m sure they won’t, but they asked, and I’m not about to argue with the Exalted. Do you know where Celleriant is?”

“I? No.”

“Avandar—”

“Lord Celleriant is not a House Guard, Jewel. Nor is he Chosen. He was ordered to serve, but—”

She shook her head. “He gave me his oath,” she said in a soft voice.

Avandar stopped walking.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, although she didn’t actually look back to see his expression. “I would have told you if you hadn’t ducked out.” She continued to walk; Avandar didn’t. When she was half the gallery’s length ahead of him, she turned.

He stood in the slanting light shed by open windows. Dust, like flakes of snow on a dry, cold day, rose and fell in the air around him. “ATerafin,” he finally said. She heard the word as if it had been spoken in her ear.

She saw, for just a moment, the face of a different man emerging from the shifting lines of his unfamiliar expression.

“You do not understand,” he told her, voice still much closer than he himself. “Lord Celleriant is one of the host.”

“I understand.”

He shook his head. “How often do you think an Arianni Prince swears fealty to a mortal?”

Torvan and Arrendas now flanked her, and she wished—for just a moment—that they would go away. Them, the guards that were on display
up and down the gallery, the visible servants and pages walking briskly to and from other destinations.

She took a deep breath, expelled it, and let her shoulders sink. “Avandar, I don’t know.” When she met his gaze again, she saw an echo of ancient cities, ancient wars, and ancient deaths. She saw the ghost of a sword in his hand. “Please,” she half whispered. “Let me bury her. Let me pay her the respect she deserves. I’ll think about all of this after, I promise.”

“Jewel—”

“Be what you’ve been for half my life. Until then. Just until then.” She lifted a hand toward him.

His expression slowly shed the ages, but when he walked toward her, it was not as a servant. “I will wait,” he told her quietly. “But, Jewel—”

“I know. You want to tell me that it’s never happened before. You’d be wrong,” she added, before she could stop herself.

He lifted a brow, and this was a familiar expression; she clung to it. “I would like to know more about how I am, as you suggest, incorrect.”

“I don’t know. I know it’s true,” she added almost wearily. “But you’d probably have to ask Celleriant, and I’m betting he’d be damned if he answered.” She frowned, and turned back down the gallery hall. Torvan and Arrendas followed, as did Avandar.

The grounds were, in theory, off-limits. Theory was tenuous; the Master Gardener still had work to do, and if he had been ordered to wait upon the decision of the Exalted, he was nonetheless working at the edges of what had been a disaster some scant hours past, along with some half dozen men and women who all wore the distinctively dirty colors of the House. House Guards, meant to work and not to present Terafin’s best face to visitors of import, were not in the best of moods; arguing with the Master Gardener the day before every noble of note in the Empire was due to descend upon his territory was a task Jewel envied no one.

They did not, however, offer much argument to Arrendas when he spoke with them; Jewel didn’t hear what was said, but whatever it was, it allowed her access to the grounds; the House Guards simply looked through her.

“He is here?” Avandar asked.

Jewel frowned, but didn’t answer; she walked the newly remade path until it once again gave way to a destruction the distraught gardeners had been forbidden to repair. She moved beyond that with care, aware that a
stumble or fall in this dress would be disastrous. But she looked, as she walked, to the tree. To the trees, really. They were so tall and so wide they might have been transplanted from the Common, and they’d shed leaves on the turned dirt and broken stone.

“Celleriant,” she called.

She wasn’t surprised when he came out from behind the trunk of the central tree. His hands were empty; he carried no sword. He was pale—although, given his complexion, this wasn’t as obvious as it could have been. She thought him not fully recovered from his fight—with either the dreaming tree or the demon—but something about his bearing prevented her from asking.