Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (6 page)

Daine snorted. "Sounds like you've been talking to midwives."

"Yeah, well. The cook's wife just gave birth to her first child, and the midwife gave a long lecture the entire time she was birthing." Finch snorted. Angel stepped around her with practiced ease, and pushed the door to Jewel's room open. "I'd've decked her, myself. Hold that thing steady. She'll want the light."

"She already has light," Jewel said, interrupting their conversation.

Of course. Avandar stood in her room, unwavering shadow that he was. His fist was glowing, or rather, the rock that sat cradled in the curve of his palm was. The shadows beneath his eyes made Carver's look handsome.

"You look like crap," Finch said sweetly.

He gave her the frown she more or less expected.

They'd grown around him, the way vines do around rocks, but they'd never managed to make him one of their own. Daine had already been swallowed whole. Of course, that might have more to do with the fact that he'd had to call Jay back from the brink of death, holding her soul inside his as he walked her back into the land of the living. .

Which, she thought, only barely described the den this particular evening.

"Get anything this time?" Teller asked hopefully. What he meant, what he wouldn't expose her by saying, was,
Are you willing to talk about it yet
?

She shook her head. Stopped. Nodded.

The door to her room was open; she could see them so clearly in the lamp-dimmed dark, she wondered if her vision weren't augmented somehow. If it was her gift, it was a bad sign.

But the clearest face, pressed as it was between the shoulders of Angel and Carver—who would never lose the habit of drawing their weapons, even if the weapons drawn had changed, when they heard that cry—was Teller's.

"Jay," he said. Quietly.

Teller, to whom she could never lie. At least not successfully.

Avandar was in the habit of correcting her den when they questioned her too commonly; he was not in the habit of interrupting them when their questions—or accusations, in this case—were contained beneath the surface of a single inquisitive word.

Her shoulders slumped; she slouched into her height.

"Jay?"

"Kitchen," she whispered.

She dropped into her chair, sliding it against the rugless kitchen floor with a satisfying squeak. Her feet were bare. Everyone got to see them; she propped them up on the table's edge and leaned back on two of the chair's four legs. It was warm enough that slippers made her feet sweat, and she hated sweating.

Angel dropped the lamp at its place by her side, or in this case, by her feet. Teller took a seat, quill in hand, inkstand long and shadowed by the flickering of burning oil. His hands were steady. Hers, oddly enough, were not; she kept them in her lap. They all knew that as a bad sign.

"You should be practicing," Avandar said quietly. "Whatever it is you've seen, it should be coming to you in your waking hours, and at your command.
You
are the seer; your visions are subject to your will."

"Avandar—"

"Or they should be."

"We've had this argument before."

"It is not an argument, Jewel. I merely state fact."

"I like your jaw enough to ask you to stop stating fact, okay?"

It wasn't entirely impossible that she'd lose her temper and slug him, although she almost never did anymore. House training had taken her temper away from her in bits and pieces and forced her to hide it in the strangest places.

"Very well," Avandar said, not at all bothered by the threat. "Your dream."

"It involves you, so pay attention."

That got their attention. She didn't really want it. "I've been having the dreams again."

Carver snorted. "So tell us something we couldn't guess."

"You know the drill. Three dreams. Three nights."

"You've had 'em longer than three nights, Jay. It's been— what—at least a week. I think tonight's the
eighth
night. If it's the same dream, that's some wyrd, all right."

"It's the same dream."

"What is it?" from Teller.

"I'm alone. I'm traveling alone. I think I'm the scout at the head of an army, but whenever I turn around, there's only one man behind me."

"Who?"

She raised her head. "He's wearing armor. But it's so bloody it looks like red steel. He's carrying a sword that's jagged and curved, a great sword—but he holds it in one hand. I know that I wouldn't even be able to lift it. A great helm hides his face, but not his eyes—his eyes—"

She could hear the scritch of Teller's quill against paper as she paused to draw breath.

"In his wake, as if he's a tide, there are just
so many
dead. I can only see them truly in the shadow he casts, but everything is there. It's as if he's just walked through all of history leaving a corpse behind for every year that's passed. Children. Women. Men in the strangest armor I've ever seen.

"He—"

Silence. They were waiting. She hated that they were waiting, but she appreciated that they could. "I've never done anything really important without you," she said quietly. Her voice was the dream's voice, but her words were her own. She saw Carver and Angel glance side to side; saw Finch frown. Arann wasn't with them; Daine looked—because he was smart—to Teller.

Teller continued to write.

"I realize that he only walks when I walk. That if I stand in place, his shadow doesn't grow any longer. So I stop."

"Then," she said softly, "I hear horses. Or something that sounds like horses. They come from where I've been heading. I look up, and I see her."

Silence. Edged now, sharp with things unsaid.

They waited while the oil burned.

"She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Her skin is fair and unblemished, her hair is long and pale and fine."

Teller frowned. "
Long and pale and fine, like a blade's edge, she pierced their hearts and led them, led them all, the fine chase, the dark road
."

They all turned, even Jewel.

"It's the poem. Shurtlev's 'Winter Hunt.' You remember it."

"I… remember it." Jewel closed her eyes. "But this… woman… She is mounted on—on a creature that was once human. At least I assume it was; it has a human face." Her eyes almost snapped open; she was denying the clarity of vision; replacing it with the familiarity of friendship.

"I want to run. But she's already seen me. She knows who I am. She
knew
who I was, even though I've said nothing. She lifts a horn to her lips and blows it; they appear at her side."

"They?"

"Her host."

"Jewel."

She turned to look at Avandar, who had only barely learned not to interrupt her.

"When you say host, what do you mean? This… hunt… Teller is correct. It is described in Shurtlev's 'Winter Hunt,' and it may be—"

"Thousands."

"Pardon?"

"Thousands. She's emptied her court."

"How do you know this?"

"It's my damn dream," she snapped back irritably. "How the Hells do I know anything in a dream?" But she choked back the rest of what was only hysteria trying to find expression. "She—gods, she was so beautiful—she says, 'We've come for the Hunt; the hunting has never been so good.' And then she calls my name.

"I know I'm dead. She's just so compelling, I'm not sure I care. But then he speaks, I mean, the man who's been following me. He says, 'Only give me the word, and I will save you.'

"He steps forward. And as he does, the dead pile up at his back. Only this time, I can hear them screaming; I can see them falling; I can see the shadows swallowing them whole. It makes him stronger. It feeds him.

"I tell him to stop. I tell him to
stop
. And she—she rides in." The lamplight flickered. She stared at it, into its heart. "The bodies appear to either side of her, as if they're some sort of afterthought, as if they're just dust from the road.

"And then he says, 'Do not challenge me.'

"She says, 'I have her name.'

"He says, 'The name gives you the right to combat, but it is power that decides her fate.'

"And she waves her hand, her unmailed, pale hand, and the land to either side of the road we're standing on is suddenly turned to desert; it falls away. Behind her, behind the body of her host, is a lake that glitters like diamond; cold, beautiful. She says, 'These lands were my lands, and I mark them still. What was given was given, and thanks are offered and my ceremonies performed, however weak those have become.'

"And he says, 'I will pass through, and I will take what I have claimed.' "

"Jay?"

"He lifts his helm then."

She turned in her chair.

1

Her domicis stiffened in the silent kitchen.

"Avandar?"

"Yes."

"It was you."

He nodded. Stepped back.

It was Teller who said quietly, "It isn't finished yet."

The domicis lifted a dark brow.

"No," Jewel said softly. "It isn't. He takes two steps forward. More dead. I tell him to stop. She stops as well. There's movement from the North—and as they look North, their faces are lit with a sudden light; red light, bright light. It seems to go on forever.

"A voice speaks out of that light.

"It says, 'This world is mine, and all deaths serve my purpose.'

"And then," she said softly, no longer looking at domicis or lamplight—or anything at all—"the killing starts.

"I'm in the middle of it; it's suddenly real. There are faceless people running around screaming in terror; there are dying children, dying women, dying men. They become dead so quickly they slip through my fingers, but if I don't sift through the dying, I won't find them in time.

"And that's why I'm there. To find them."

"To find who?"

"I don't know.
I don't know
. I've ridden this dream out to its end eight times, and I don't know what it is I'm supposed to know. I only know that I can't fail, or we all—"

Teller put the quill down. Rose. "Jay?" he asked quietly.

She looked across the table at him. Reached out with a shaking hand. "No."

"But we—"

"No."

"What's going on?" Carver's voice. Strained.

"She's leaving," Teller said quietly. "And she doesn't intend on taking any of us with her when she goes."

Moonlight. Darklight, nadir at its strength.

Why was it that she always came to be here when the darkness was strongest? She knelt. She was too weak to stand. The truth. The dead weren't faceless.

Teller knew. She was certain that no one else did.

"I can't do this," she said into the night, into the clarity of emptiness. Avandar had not even contested her desire to visit the shrine without him; although he hovered in the distance, he had chosen to retreat into a privacy as solid as any she could impose upon herself.

But that was acceptable to her. She knew that he understood her dream far better than he wanted to.
Knew
it. Did not choose to question him. She had her own ghosts, her own demons, her own guilty secrets.

"I can't do this," she said again.

"Then why," he replied, answering at last, "does Teller know that you're leaving?"

She turned, putting the altar firmly behind her.

In the moonlight, pale and thin though it was, she recognized the face he had chosen to wear. Teller's.

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

His eyes were like moonlight. "Why have you come, ATerafin? This is the altar upon which service is pledged. To my House. To me."

"I can't do what you ask of me."

"You have already decided to go."

She looked away. Cursed, not bothering to restrain herself. The night heard the words, and the dead. Neither of them were moved. "Years of dealing with merchants," she told him softly, "and I still can't bluff my way through a negotiation."

A brow rose.

"Yes. This is a negotiation. It just doesn't sound much like one 'cause it's late, I've had no sleep for a week, and I'm always at a disadvantage when dealing with the dead."

"A negotiation occurs when there is something to be negotiated. I fail to see that here."

"Yeah, well. Being dead probably doesn't help much." She tried for flippant. Got most of the way there. But her heart wasn't in it.

There was only one thing her heart was in. "I want you to take care of them."

"Jewel."

"Not the Terafin. I know it doesn't work that way. But them. My den. I want you to protect Teller. And Finch. I need you to watch over them."

"If I could, Jewel Markess, I would watch over
all
members of my House."

"There must be something you can do. You speak to
me
."

"Yes, I do," he said softly. "Just as I speak to The Terafin. You understand this, Jewel." He paused. His mannerisms were nothing at all like those of the man whose face he wore, and she wondered why he'd chosen Teller. "Why don't you take them with you?"

"You know why."

"Do I?"

"I don't know if anything is going to survive where I'm going."

"But you know there's no safety here. The truth, Jewel."

She knew why he wore Teller's face, then. Teller was the only one of her den she couldn't lie to. Or rather, the only one who knew when she was lying, and who seemed—by the complicity of silence—to understand why.

"If they're not here, the House falls."

"Yes."

"And if I'm not there, the House falls."

"Yes."

"Gods, I
hate
this." She spun to the altar and back. Once. Twice. Three times.

"And I," he said softly. "But I will tell you this: they must stand in your stead. Trust them."

She was stony faced. She'd never understood that expression before.

"They offered me their service. I accepted it." The night began to dissolve him. "It may surprise you, but you are not the only ATerafin of import; not the only ATerafin whose service the House depends on. You have surrounded yourself with people you trust. This is not uncommon.

"What is uncommon is that they are—all of them—worthy of that trust. You see clearly. You chose well.