Oracle: The House War: Book Six (88 page)

The Warden of Dreams inclined his head. She thought, given the stretch of raven-black wings, she addressed the Nightmare brother; she could not be certain. He was a full foot taller than the tallest person present; slender of build; he was cloaked, but seemed almost a thing of shadow, something darkly ethereal with very little physical form.

“I did not realize what you would do when you journeyed from your lands into the wilderness.” He glanced at Shianne, who watched him.

The caution she had shown Andrei was absent. She bowed.

“You remember me?” he asked, evincing naked surprise.

“Yes. Firstborn and youngest, I remember. You are not now what you were then.”

His smile was bright, unfettered. “I have grown, Shandalliaran. I have grown.”

“So I see. I travel with the lord of these lands, now.”

He frowned.

“I do not fully understand what—or who—she is, but I seek the White Lady. Will you impede our progress?” She lifted her face to sky and light and blue and red, and her eyes narrowed briefly. But she smiled as she saw the trees. “These lands are far older than she—but they feel young, to me. And you are here.” She held out both of her hands, palms up, as if she expected him to take them in his own.

He shook his head. “I am not fully here.”

“You shouldn’t even be partially here,” Jewel told him. She was more than willing to interrupt the Warden of Dreams.

He ignored her. Shianne did not. “How do you come to be here at all?”

“Much has changed since you stepped out of all worlds,” he replied. “Much. The gods. The White Lady. The firstborn. Even your brethren. Do you understand what has occurred?”

“I have been informed of the facts—but no, Warden, I do not understand. Nor do I think I ever will.”

“Perhaps if you asked them, you might.”

Jewel froze.

The Warden lifted his face toward the canopy of lights that looked so much like fireworks captured in a single, raining moment. “One—only one—is present; he is not yet fully awake—but soon, Shandalliaran. Soon.”

“You’re here,” Jewel said, “because of the Sleepers.”

“Their dreams are not mortal dreams; they exist without boundary. They traverse all realms—and yet, none. No one of my brethren could travel thus; only me. Only us. I do not wish to see them waken,” he added.

“Then
why are you here?
”

“There are only two ways to prevent that awakening,” he replied. “You are not the only one who wishes their sleep to continue indefinitely—but, Terafin, I do not think you have the
will
to see it through. The Lord of the Hells does.”

“The Lord of the Hells,” Andrei replied, “does not have the power.”

“He is a god. She is a mortal. What must be done can be done—but not if she is here to oppose him: the Sleepers will wake in the exchange of hostilities. I aid his interests because they align—for the moment—with my own. I bear you no animosity,” he added, speaking to Jewel, although he looked only at Shianne.

“The feeling is not mutual.”

“I am afraid,” Andrei said quietly, “that I cannot allow the fall of this House.”

“The House will not fall. It will, of necessity, require a different lord.” The Warden of Dreams frowned and added, “I did not recognize you.” His lip didn’t curl—but it would have, had he been merely mortal. To Jewel he said, “While you survive, it is best to keep a clean house. You intend to disperse me—and you can, while you are here. But you will not remain. You might never return.” His smile was slender and dark and narrow. “It is my task to make certain of it; had I been given servants of certain competence, we would not now be having this conversation.”

“Finch. Teller. What’s happened?”

Silence. It was Haval who answered. Of course it was. “Councillor Haerrad was possessed by a demon. The demon used him to arrange for the poisoning of Finch, Teller, Jarven, and possibly Hectore. In your absence, Birgide Viranyi—”

“I know what she is,” Jewel said, terse now. Angry. No one asked her how she knew, which was for the best, because Jewel had no answer.

“Birgide protected all present; the demon in possession of the Council member was removed. We repaired to the forest itself, where the protections against the demonic and the magical are at their strongest.”

“Haerrad was possessed.”

“Indeed.”

“He is not possessed now.” It wasn’t a question. Before he could speak, she added, “For the objective, external observer, it might be harder to tell the difference. I am neither of those.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Haerrad burst into laughter; it was short, harsh, sharp—very much like Haerrad himself.

“I have only one question for the Councillor. Were you awake and aware when the demon possessed you?”

“I was.”

“Then I have one further question. Before you answer, understand that while I am not bard-born, Kallandras of Senniel
is
present. Was the possession facilitated by Rymark?”

“I cannot confirm that,” was Haerrad’s careful reply. “The possession occurred during a meeting with Rymark and Verdian. Sabienne was also present. We were not, however, in seclusion; the meeting did not occur within the manse. We dined at the Placid Sea. There were therefore servers and attendants, any of whom might be involved. If I were to be poisoned, for instance, during such a meal, Rymark would never touch the poison—or my various dishes—himself. It would be beneath him. It would,” he added, smiling, “be beneath me.”

“What we know,” Haval said, when Haerrad had finished and silence reigned for a beat, “is that the arrival of the possessed Haerrad was facilitated by an outsider. I presume it would be the person you now refer to as the Warden of Dreams.” He raised an arm when Finch started forward. She immediately froze in place.

Haerrad glanced, briefly, at Finch. “The demon’s intent was to supervise the deaths of all members of the gathered dinner party, but of them, Birgide and Finch were to die first. Is that not so?” For the first time he directly addressed the Warden of Dreams.

“Yes.”

The trees above their head burst into sudden flame.

T
HE BRANCHES DID NOT BURN.
Nor did the undergrowth. The fire spread slowly across the clearing until the whole of the contained space resembled a run-down fortification in a painterly vision of the Hells.

At its center were Jewel and the Warden of Dreams. For one long, drawn breath, no one moved. A terrible, silent repose gripped everything in the clearing except fire, and that fire crept up, at last, to enfold Jewel. Flames of orange and gold curled around her arms, falling to the ground like trailing sleeves; flames of crimson swirled around her chest, her hips, her legs. Snow could have made a dress like this—but perhaps not; it radiated heat and warmth.

The Warden raised his left arm; curled in his hand was the long handle of a many-thonged whip. He did not attempt to strike Jewel; that, she might have forgiven, in time. The whip seemed far more solid than the Warden; it traveled in a lashing snap toward Adam.

Adam did not move; Angel did. Where sword and supple whip clashed—briefly—Jewel heard the sound of metal meeting metal. The whip left a red welt across Angel’s cheek. It bled.

“Adam,” she said softly.

Adam did not answer. But she knew, here, that he must hold what the fire could not contain without destroying it: the winter, the cold, the memory of white. What she needed from the Oracle, she had not yet received. And she had
paid
.

Demons had been sent to cut her pilgrimage short. She did not understand how the demons had arrived in that winter landscape when it had been made clear that Jewel herself could not return there without the Oracle’s aid; it made her uneasy. More than uneasy. Jewel had found passage because the Oracle had opened the way. She could not imagine that the Oracle had likewise offered passage to the demons.

But perhaps that was wrong. It had been clear from the beginning that Evayne a’Nolan—the only other seer Jewel had met—loathed the Oracle. Perhaps her tests were not the only reason.

She glanced, once, at Adam’s bent back and the placement of his hands, and passed her hand over his head; the flame did not touch him. Without Adam, she could not return to face the Oracle. Without the Oracle, the full potential of her power would never be realized. And without that, what slender hope Averalaan had against the coming of a god, was lost.

The Warden did not even have to kill Adam in order to achieve this, and seemed to realize it. Jewel was not terribly familiar with whips, but thought this one did not travel the way it would have had it been wielded by the merely mortal.

“Shadow, Night, Snow.”

Shadow sniffed, but obeyed her unspoken command; they all did. They surrounded Adam. Only Night gave him the side-eye and flexed claws.

“If you knock him over, you will be in more trouble than you have ever been in your
entire
life
.”

Shadow and Snow hissed laughter, but that hiss sank into a growl as they turned their attention to the Warden. He lifted his hand; the whip faded.

“You will not bow to the inevitable,” he said to Jewel.

“I will bow to any inevitability that
I
see.
Your
fear is not
my
certainty.”

“You do not understand. Mortals oft dream of Kings and Emperors and distant, mortal heroes. They cannot conceive of beings that are not somehow an enlargement of their experiences and their brief lives. You have met your gods in the shallows of the Between; you have never met
a
god. You will,” he added.

But Jewel said, “The gods at the peak of their power couldn’t destroy the Cities of Man.”

He smiled. “The Cities of Man were not built on the Sleepers. They are almost as gods, Terafin—but they will wake in the heart of this city’s shadow. The gods did not destroy the cities you speak of because they could not breach the barriers erected around them. Had they been able to walk into the heart of those cities, the cities would have fallen in a day.” He glanced, once, at the three cats he referred to as eldest; they bristled.

He made no further attempt to harm Adam.

“Can the firstborn die?” she asked the Warden of Dreams.

His smile was the knife’s edge; brilliant, sharp, slender. “Yes, Terafin. Yes, we can. But you cannot kill me. You lack the will. I am too powerful for you, now.” His wings rose; they were the only thing in the clearing that fire did not touch. “If you wish to rob me of power, there is one simple way to do it: kill the dreamers. Mortals are not so powerful in this age, at this time, that it would be difficult for you. You would barely have to raise hand; you could slaughter the majority of the citizens of your fair city in a day. Perhaps a week; there are pockets of resistance that might withstand the full force of your attention for some time.

“I do not think they would withstand it forever. You cannot kill the Sleepers—not yet, and perhaps not ever. The gods feared them when they rode to war, and you are not a god. But you could be, in this small, enclosed space. You could do as gods did, when the world was young and they yet dwelled among us.” His wings spread as he spoke.

Jewel remembered the legend of Moorelas’ ride. She knew that the Sleepers had been sent with him to kill . . . a god.

Shadow growled.

“Will you tangle with me again, Eldest? The outcome of our last encounter was not, in the end, decided in your favor.”

The tenor of the growling changed and multiplied.

Jewel folded her arms. “Do not even think it,” she told the three cats, without glancing at any of them. “The Warden is
mine
.”

“I have already said you cannot destroy me.”

“I don’t need to destroy you,” she replied. “These lands are mine, and I’m beginning to understand what that means. You do not have my permission to cross these borders, and yet you are here. What will you offer in compensation for your trespass?”

His dark brows rose, shifting the lines of his expression; his eyes became rounder, the line of his mouth fuller; the corners moved as he smiled. Jewel offered him the slight nod that was the Imperial acknowledgment of equality. “Warden of Dreams.”

“Well met, Jewel Markess ATerafin.”

“Are you in league with your brother?”

“I do not wish the Sleepers to wake,” he replied.

“And by destroying what I hold dear, you believe you can stop them?”

“No. There is no certainty, save one: if the Sleepers wake, the dreamers here will die. What you are unwilling to do, they will do in the ice and fury of their ancient rage and loss. It is to protect the many that we have chosen to dispense with the few.” His smile was, unlike the smile of his brother, gentle and resigned. “If it eases you at all, I am complicit in this action. You are Jewel. If it were necessary, you would give your life in defense of the people in this city—the thousands of dreamers you will never meet or touch.

“Your death might prevent theirs.”

“Will it?” she demanded.

Finch crossed the invisible line that divided them; Angel, from the opposite direction, did the same. They moved, for one moment, with the same intent, the same thought—the same sense of protectiveness that had characterized their early, struggling years. They did not stand in the alleys of the holdings or in the tiny, cramped room the den had called home—but it didn’t matter. Clothing, experience, the passage of years and the gaining of power and rank could not touch what they had built—it could, and did, make it stronger and more certain.

Yet she felt the fire’s heat dim as they came to stand by her side.

Finch said, before Jewel could speak, “It’s irrelevant.”

The Warden considered her gravely. She wore no raiment of fire—but for a moment it appeared she had swallowed flame; the intensity of her glare should have burned. Angel, sword in hand, was silent, content—as he so often was—to let the women do the talking. At this moment, nothing they could say would not speak for him.

Celleriant did not move. Jewel heard—or felt—the presence of his sword, but to her mild surprise, he also chose to defer to Finch.

“Irrelevant?” the Warden asked, his voice just as gentle.

“You meant to have the rest of us die. You meant for Terafin to be ruled by someone who serves the Lord of the Hells—and in the end, that must mean you are content to let the Empire itself fall to that god. We’ve seen the hand of his servants at work before—and we’ve listened, helpless, to the torture and murder of citizens of Averalaan.”

Even Haerrad shifted position as Finch spoke; his chin rose. In the red-tinted light, the scars that he wore as badges or adornments seemed both newer and rawer. But it was his eyes that caught—for a brief moment—The Terafin’s attention.

She hated him. She would always hate him. She saw hatred in him now—but all of it, in the end, directed at the Henden of 410. And of course it would be—Haerrad, like Jewel, could be driven into a frenzy when confronted with his own helplessness, his own ineffectiveness. She thought—and this surprised her—that Haerrad’s scars in that regard might be deeper and harsher than even her own. But she understood that in some small way the words of the Warden of Dreams—the gentler, kinder half—had kindled in him a visceral sense of enmity and denial.

He would never openly support her; she was certain of that. But he understood now what was at stake in a way that he had not before Finch spoke. The choice itself was stark. Would he kill Jewel to preserve a city or an Empire? Yes. He would have killed her to gain the House Seat, and her death would have caused no loss of sleep, no hint of regret. But the alternative was beneath him.

It was a cold, cold comfort to know that even Haerrad had limits.

Finch continued. “Better that the Sleepers wake and slaughter us all outright than that we fall to the hands of the demons, as we almost did that Henden. If I understand what you fear, we would die swiftly, but we would not die in near endless pain, stripped of all dignity. You have no care at all for the lives we live, only the fact that we sleep—and dream.”

“Where there is life, there is hope.”

“But there
is
life, right now. We don’t accept that we are helpless in the face of the Sleepers—or the Lord of the Hells. You may believe it—you probably do. We don’t. If we were no threat, if we had no hope, the Lord of the Hells would never have interfered with House Terafin; the attempt would be pointless. He has wasted resources and servants in these games—and men of power do not wage war against mice or cockroaches.”

“It is
the war
that will threaten the precarious balance of fading sleep; they are almost waking as we speak. Their waking dreams have a power and a substance that mortal dreams cannot; the exception are the Sen, and even the Sen require lands such as these upon which to both stand and build.”

“Then kill the god,” Finch replied.

His brows—and his wings—rose. “That would not be possible for me, even in his current state.”

“That is the only option we will support. If he does not wish to wake the Sleepers by bringing his war to the Empire, tell him to keep his war to himself.”

“I offer you the chance to tell him that yourself, if you desire it.”

“We decline,” Jewel said.

But Shianne said, “It is a generous offer—and a costly one.”

The Warden smiled. “You have been greatly missed.”

Shianne’s smile was colder in all ways, a reminder that ice could be beautiful. “I have need of this woman; I cannot allow you to kill her. Nor can I allow you to kill or entrap her companions. You are in her lands, and you have offered no apology and no restitution for your trespass.” She turned, then, as if she was done with the confrontation, and lifted her face to the skies, exposing the long, perfect line of her throat.

She lifted one hand as well, and spoke softly; Jewel could not understand a word.

But Kallandras, apparently, did. “With your permission, Terafin?”

Jewel nodded. “Meralonne has already called the air,” she added. “He fights in its folds, even now.”

“Meralonne has been granted your permission to fight in defense of your realm. I have not.”

“In every way that matters, you have always had it. Yes. Go.”

Celleriant moved as Kallandras stepped lightly into the moving breeze. “He will not thank you for your intervention.”

“I do not intervene at his request.” The bard bowed to Shianne. “Be ready, lady. I do not think he is aware of your presence.”

“He is not,” she agreed. “Nor is the traitor he fights.”

“I will leave you,” the Warden said.

Shianne, however, shook her head; her smile shifted, but did not falter. “The mortal—that is the word, yes?—is inexperienced; she is too new to the wilderness and its many strengths and weaknesses. You are not, of course. She has not given you permission to traverse her lands. In her absence, you have nonetheless done so. But she is present now, and she has not given you permission to leave.”

The Warden’s expression darkened—literally. So, too, his wings and the shadows he cast. Jewel noted them: there were two. “You cannot think that she can prevent me from doing so?”

Shianne frowned. To Celleriant—who had made no move to join the Senniel bard—she spoke; he answered. Once again, the language was beyond Jewel’s comprehension, but at this point she expected that; she made no attempt to retain the words in memory.

“Do not think to attack me here,” the Warden said—although it wasn’t clear exactly who he addressed. Jewel guessed that he meant the soft, edged words for her ears, because she could understand them.

Celleriant leaped into the air; he, like Kallandras, did not land.

“Hers is the greater power here,” Shianne told the Arianni Lord. “I understand the desire to test one’s strength; do we not all succumb from time to time? But the boy will not survive that trial; he struggles, even now. We are free of the storm and the anger of the ancient earth—we must continue our journey, soon.”

“You are not my lord,” Celleriant replied; he did not so much as look down at Shianne.

“No. I am, for some small time, merely one of your companions. But I serve the White Lady, as you do.”