Oracle: The House War: Book Six (3 page)

She was, however, the only statue that moved, and when Jewel whispered “Oracle,” her hooded head turned. Her robes rustled—a grinding sound at odds with the visual ripple of cloth—as she stepped forward and out of the relief.

“Jewel.” She lifted her hands and cupped them in front of her chest, as Jewel’s throat tightened. But no crystal came to grace those palms; the Oracle did not offer a glimpse of the uncertain future.

“Yes,” Jewel replied, finding her voice. “We’ve come.”

“You will find the roads much changed,” the Oracle replied. Jewel frowned. The statue spoke not to her, but to Celleriant.

“No doubt,” was his cool reply. “But more to my liking than mortal streets.”

“You serve Jewel Markess ATerafin.”

“I do.”

“An odd choice of master, for one such as you.”

He stiffened, but did not reply; the Oracle’s lips turned up in a cold, hard smile—a smile whose texture had nothing to do with the stone of her lips. She turned her attention to the three cats. “And you, are you here at her behest?”

Snow hissed.

“You understand the rules of entry, and your master is mortal; she does not have the time to waste in the games you might otherwise play. Do you serve her?”

The cats exchanged a glance and a few growls. They did not speak.

The Oracle, however, nodded and lifted her head to meet Jewel’s gaze. “You do not understand what they are, or how they came to be here.”

“Can you tell me?” Jewel asked. Night hissed. Shadow nudged her with the top of his head, and she reached down to place a hand on the back of his neck.

“No. It is one of the things you will either learn to see or never understand. When dealing with the ancient and the wild, Terafin, it is never wise to offer information they themselves guard and hide. Do so only if you are certain you will survive it.”

“They can’t kill you.”

“Can they not?” The smile the Oracle offered as she spoke was markedly different. “Perhaps you are correct. But they can try, and if they are not to be feared, they are oft to be dreaded. They have never been entirely predictable creatures. Not even the wise could have predicted the results of the Winter King’s careful planning; what he wrought, we do not fully understand.”

Shadow’s eyes were golden; they were almost the same hue as the eyes of the god-born. Almost, but not quite. “Tell her,” he said to Jewel, voice almost a growl, “that we serve you when we’re
with
you.”

Jewel, however, frowned. “The Winter King considered the cats his greatest work. Did he not create them?”

Snow howled in outrage. Night was too dumbfounded to find his voice. Shadow, however, hissed.

“They are your responsibility, Terafin. I do not think it would be wise to leave them here. They are not, in my opinion, in danger where you will walk—but you have seen the danger they can be, if I am not mistaken.”

Adam stiffened. Jewel lifted a hand in den-sign, and he held his peace. Adam, more than anyone present, understood the danger the cats represented; Shadow had almost killed her at the behest of the Warden of Dreams. Had it not been for Adam’s presence, she would have died.

She knew it. She knew that the cats were deadly; she had always understood that. But Duster had been deadly as well, and Duster had been part of her home. “I don’t want to leave them behind,” she said quietly.

“I judge their presence a risk. You do not know the ways in which that risk might present itself—but such ignorance, even to one seer-born—is part of life. Only the dead are predictable—and even then, they are oft misunderstood.

“Do not seek this path if you seek certainty. A glimpse of the future—even a future of your choosing—will not quell doubt. Doubt exists where there is life and breath to draw it. Only the dead have no doubts.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Jewel replied, thinking—for the first time in months—of the Terafin spirit.

“No, daughter, but I am. I will accept the presence of your cats if you will surrender to me some token as surety of their behavior.”

“Pardon?”

Terrick now cleared his throat. “Pretend that this is, for the moment, the Merchant Authority. You have asked for leave to route your caravans through passages that are not Imperial in origin. The men who own those passages do not know you; they do not trust you.

“You post a bond as a financial guarantee of your intent. If the merchants in your caravan contravene the accepted codes of behavior in the lands they traverse, the bond is forfeit. If I am not mistaken, this woman is asking you to post such a bond.”

Jewel nodded slowly and turned to look down at the cats. They met her gaze with the faux-innocence she found so exasperating—and, in the end, so endearing. “This,” she said—for the benefit of an entirely absent Teller, “is why I never wanted cats.” Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she exhaled. “Avandar, can you get the gem bag from my pack?”

Avandar nodded, but before he could carry out her request, the Oracle lifted a hand. “If the analogy Terrick has offered is apt, it is inexact.”

The Northerner stiffened slightly; in no other way did he betray the surprise his name on the Oracle’s tongue had caused.

“There is no monetary component to what you must now do; no exchange of gold awaits you at the end of your journey. If you benefit, it will not be in a way that mortals will easily understand—and if they did, Terafin, you might become the object of sympathy—or its darker cousin, pity.

“I therefore ask that you leave, as surety, an item of value to you. The item might be priceless among your kind; it might be worthless among your kind.”

“Everything I value with which I might part, I left at home,” Jewel replied. “All of the things I now carry with me, I carry because they might be of practical use.” She glanced at her wrist, where three strands of winter hair were twined in a near-invisible bracelet. “If I’m to have any hope of returning to a home that still stands, I can’t leave them with you. I brought gems as trade if the road leads us back to mortal lands. We’ve brought food of the type that is meant for long, sustained travels.

“I have my companions, and I will not leave them behind; nor would I willingly leave them in your lands while I ventured into the wilderness. Even if I was willing to do so, they are not my possessions. I don’t own them, and I cannot simply give them away as a gesture of good faith.” If the Oracle had been willing to take the gems, Jewel would have left a greater part of their number in her hands; she’d made clear she was not.

What else did she now carry?

She could not part with Ariane’s gift. She considered the leaves she had taken from her forest, and even opened her pouch to remove them—but her hand froze before she’d unbuckled it. Not those, then. What else of value did she have? She had the dress Snow made. She had worn it once, and she was not in a hurry to don it again. The problem with the dress—aside from its obvious importance to Snow—was that she did not truly value it.

She wore one necklace. The links, as she drew it up from the confines of her traveling clothes, were warm where they’d lain so long against skin. It was the necklace Snow had given her to wear with the dress he had made. The pendant, in this room, seemed to pulse like an exposed heart; it was not a comforting sight.

“No,” the Oracle said, before she had pulled the pendant clear. “Not that. I will not question your effrontery in wearing it, and I will not refuse you passage in spite of its presence—but the danger is now entirely yours to bear. Cats will leave all manner of things in their wake, but in general, the wise do not wear them.” As she spoke, she glanced at Snow, who appeared to have lost a few inches of height.

He muttered.

“You are bold,” she told him. “But it is left to others to bear the weight of your momentary whims.” She fell silent as Snow continued to lose height and bearing.

Jewel glanced, last, at her empty palms. In the oddly muted light of the statuary, the gold of the two rings she wore made her hands look unaccountably white and colorless, as if they had never seen sunlight.

Rings. Two rings.

She turned her hands over, although examination wasn’t necessary. The ring on her right had been a gift from Amarais, an inheritance of a kind that could not be laid out in wills and signed testaments. Left in the center of the fount that was the justified pride of the Terafin terrace, it would have remained hidden in perpetuity to any eyes that weren’t Jewel’s.

Jewel had never completely understood why Amarais had chosen to hide one ring and one sword—a fine sword, but of the kind that the patriciate commonly owned—in the center of that fountain; to do so had required all of the magical skill and subtlety Morretz had accumulated over his life.

But she understood why Amarais had left the two items to her. They had belonged to Ararath. They had belonged to Rath. So proud, so angry, he had, in the end, loved them both as he could. And they had loved—and lost him. The ring itself was a signet ring of heavy gold; a stylized H contained rubies at the end points of the Weston letter’s height. One was cracked—it had arrived that way.

Rath was dead. The dead had no need of rings. They had no need of memories, either. Only the living did—but Jewel was still alive. Her right hand closed in a fist as she looked, last, to the ring that adorned her left.

It was the Terafin House ring. Not the ring she had worn for most of her adult life as a Council member, but the House ring itself. There was one, only one, of its kind. She had worn its weight for a scant few months. No, she thought, counting, two months and nineteen days. It was not her possession; it was, in its entirety, the smallest symbol of the office she’d taken. When she died, it would be passed to the woman—or man—who succeeded her.

But she knew, as she studied its heavy gold face, sapphires glowing as if displayed in direct sunlight, that this was what the Oracle was waiting for. She had not removed the ring once since she had been acclaimed Terafin. Her hands shook as she removed it now.

No one spoke. Angel briefly touched her arm and gestured. She wanted to shove the ring back onto her finger. She told herself that she could afford to lose Rath’s ring; she couldn’t afford to lose the House signet. She could give away the damn leaves—she had an endless number of them. Even the dress, although she’d have a put-out or enraged white cat to deal with for the rest of their journey. Or the rest of her life.

But the ring rested in her open palm, and her hand was steady as she held it out to the Oracle.

The Oracle nodded. She passed a hand over Jewel’s upturned palm—and the ring it contained—and the ring vanished. She had not touched it. “Yes,” she said softly. “It is always difficult to decide what to leave behind, and often, there are no good choices. I will safeguard your ring to the full extent of my ability to do so. Only if you transgress will it be lost to you forever.”

“What are your rules?” Jewel asked stiffly. “By what laws am I to be bound?”

Shadow snorted in obvious disgust.

Night said, “What did you
expect?
She’s
stupid.
”

Even Celleriant was smiling. It was a condescending, arrogant smile.

The Oracle, however, did not appear to notice any of this. “It has been many, many years since a daughter of the ancient cities has approached my realm. Not all who reach its heart choose to accept the challenge offered. But if it will comfort you, know this: none of the supplicants had the luxury of time. Many came alone.

“Isolation is safety, of a kind—but it is not, in the end, your safety.” She turned. The wall, curved and smooth in her absence, waited. She did not point or gesture; she did not speak. Instead, she placed her hands against her chest; Jewel stiffened as they sank beneath the surface of stone robes and stone flesh.

The air was still, the hush expectant; no one in the room, not even the distant Kings, appeared to breathe as the Oracle withdrew a crystal from the center of her chest. The resultant light from its heart flooded the room, washing out the color that remained.

“The more you see, the more there is to fear—but regardless, the future will come. It will shape you, Jewel, if you allow it. But if you are strong enough to pierce the veils of now, you will be allowed, in some small way, to shape it in turn. It is the only gift I offer, and acceptance is costly: it was not meant for mortals.”

“Why,” Jewel asked, breaking the hushed silence, “was it given to us at all?”

“That, I cannot answer.”

“Because you don’t know?”

“Because, daughter, I do not know.”

“You’re reputed to see everything.”

“And so I might, should I so choose—but what is seen is oft misunderstood, as you yourself must know. What is seen at a distance is a glance, no more. Such a glimpse might inspire dread or greed or rage. I see you here, before me, as I saw you when first we met. I understand, in some limited way, what motivates you. But I cannot see the whole of it. I cannot
be
you.

“And there are things about you, Jewel Markess ATerafin, that I do not think I could fully understand unless I lived the life you have lived in near blindness.”

The wall from which the Oracle had stepped began to shift, stone moving, slowly, as if it were the surface of melting ice.

“And Evayne?”

“Pardon?”

“Evayne. Evayne a’Nolan. Do you understand her?”

“Better, in many ways, than I understand you. She is not what you are, Jewel. She is god-born and bound by geas and bitter, bitter hope. You will speak with her again; perhaps before you have made your choice. I will say this much: she does not choose the roads she walks. What choice she has—and it is imperfect—is what she sees when she walks them.

“If she comes to you, she might be your age. She might be the age you were when you first crossed Terafin’s threshold. She might be your peer, and she might rival Sigurne Mellifas at the height of her many powers. I ask, if she arrives, that you allow her to speak, regardless of age. Where you walk, you take some part of your home with you.

“Where she walks, she is forced to walk in isolation.” She turned to Kallandras. “Be kind.”