The Sacred Hunt Duology (97 page)

“And why do you not take this to the Kings?”

I expect
, the voice continued,
that you will know what to do with this information; one way or the other, it will get where it needs to go. I would advise you to keep as much of it to yourself as possible, excepting perhaps Miri, whom you should trust.

It was Meralonne. It had to be. And not only could he not see Devon, but it had become patently clear that he didn't particularly care if he could hear him either.

Devon was not a man to be irritated by such apparent lack of grace or consideration. The message was all that mattered, and as the words sank in fully, they became the focus of his world—and his world grew smaller and sharper and clearer with each passing second.

The middle of Veral. Why?

There was much to be done.

He did not wish to contact Mirialyn ACormaris; not at this juncture. If Verrus
Allamar was indeed the weak link in the enemy's forked plans, he no doubt had the solitary Princess under a fierce watch. Such a surveillance would not cause much more than the raising of an exasperated brow—they were not known for their friendly feelings toward each other. But they were—they had both been—considered above reproach and above suspicion.

• • •

“Morretz,” The Terafin said, as she looked up from her business, “I've known you for years, and I do not think I have ever seen you this uneasy. Please stop.” Colored by sunlight poured through the stained glass dome above, she looked an artist's skewed vision of The Terafin, and not the woman herself.

“Might I correct The Terafin?” he said, without otherwise acknowledging her complaint.

“If you must.”

“I have been exactly this uneasy in the past. It was during the House war with Darias and Morriset. You may recall it,” he added.

“Indeed. But I suppose I was young enough then to feel as uneasy as you did. Only one assassin made it past my guard.”

“Only one was required,” Morretz replied, rather sharply.

“Yes. Well. She didn't make it past you.”

“No. And that,” he added, as he looked down the bridge of his nose at the woman who ruled Terafin, “is because I was vigilant.”

“If that's what you're calling it,” she said wryly. “You make me feel like a coddled child.” She paused and then frowned. “I hate to be coddled. Cease.”

“If there is any particular aspect of behavior or service that you wish me to stop, I will be pleased to do so. Only specify it, Terafin.”

Which was, of course, the problem. Nothing in his routine had changed noticeably; he was just on edge. As, she reflected ruefully, were her Chosen. The words of the seer-born girl had electrified them all; they were waiting for the heart of the storm to descend upon them.

“Delores is pressing for a full session of the House Council,” she said, changing the subject by lifting a sealed letter and letting it hang a moment in the air.

“His concern is . . . touching. How does he justify his demand? It is not the time for a Council meeting.”

“It appears that he has heard rumors about a possible danger to The Terafin.” Her smile was icy and thin indeed. “The man has the best spies in the Empire. I wish he were working for me.” She let the missive drop to the table.

“Shall I respond?”

“I've already regretfully declined both his suggestion for the Council and his request for a personal appointment.”

“Risky.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes for a moment and raised a hand to delicately massage
her brow. “But there are risks that we've no choice but to take; this is one. I've set Gabriel against him; I believe that Gabriel can hold him long enough.”

“Long enough?”

She shook her head. “It's in the air,” she, said softly.

“Yes.”

“Morretz.”

“Terafin?”

“What we can do, we
have
done. There is nothing to do now but wait.”

• • •

Gilliam hated The Terafin's manse. Although in style it was superficially akin to the palaces in Breodanir, there were guards of all stripe and color in constant evidence, and servants underfoot at every turn. The dogs were just as like to be shooed away as gaped at, and they were testy to the point of being difficult.

Stephen knew it, watching his Hunter; he paced, just as his dogs did, very much the wild force in the pretty cage. He felt it a little himself; the Southern style of the Arannan Halls, while very strange, was also comfortingly free of pomp and ritual. Here, in the manse of the woman who ruled the most powerful family in the Empire, pomp was obvious in the sparest of details. She was a power, and one couldn't help but feel it.

As well, Gilliam was put in the unwelcome role of follower; it was Stephen's unusual gift of sight that The Terafin required—requested—and therefore Stephen was both busy enough not to feel the stab of homesickness that struck his Hunter, and deferred to enough that he felt his own stature was undiminished by his stay on the soil of a foreign nation. Gilliam had been too long away from home.

But that would change; it would have to.

Yesterday, Stephen had toured the grounds, and then joined an inspection of the household staff, the guards, the Chosen; after this, a meal had been served and he had been allowed to retire to the privacy of his chamber, where Gilliam paced in annoyance and frustration.

Be easy, Gil
, he thought; he could almost feel Gilliam's teeth grinding.
We'll be returning home soon.

It was, as he counted back, the eighth of Corvil, and no matter what the state of affairs in Averalaan, he, Gilliam, and most probably Espere had little choice but to begin their trek back to Breodanir by mid-month at the very latest. Henden was coming, and upon its heels, Veral.

No Hunter Lord failed the call to the Sacred Hunt. Nor any huntbrother.

8th Corvil, 410 A.A.
Terafin

Jewel woke to darkness with a cry.

For the first time in weeks it was not nightmares of the walking dead, the waking dead, the vengeful dead that forced her to flee sleep. It was worse.

“Jewel?” Ellerson's voice; Ellerson's calm, still face cast into harsh relief behind the white glow of lamplight in darkness.

Beside her bed, strewn across a chair like castoffs, were a sleeveless shirt and dark leggings. Shielding her eyes from a glare that was already diminishing, she threw off her blankets and reached for them. The servants had tried—how they had tried—to have the clothing taken away; she'd fought with them over it for just such an emergency. A fierce smile folded her lips and was gone.

“Wake the others,” she told the waiting domicis.

“What should I—”

“Tell them it's now.”

He paused at the door a minute, wavering like the flame in the lamp that he held. She thought she saw appraisal in his glance, but that was all; he lowered the lamp so that its glow touched the underside of his chin, rather than illuminating his face. But he did not speak, or even begin to; his face was as impassive as she'd ever seen it.

She lost sight of him as she pulled the shirt over her head; when the soft ripple of fabric had cleared her face, the room was empty again, but the light remained, swaying slightly as it hung on a brass hook mounted in the wall. She did not stop to wonder where he'd gone; she knew he was waking the den.

The sea air was carried by a strong wind; the night was dark and cool, the air sharp. She closed her eyes, shutting out the details of her room, her sparse life in Terafin. In the distance she heard raised cries and the sound of metal. Nodding, she opened her eyes and grabbed the lamp, hurrying through the door, into the antechamber, and then into the hall.

Adrenaline shook off the physical effects of sleep and made of the world a sharper place, but there were things that only wakefulness brought back; it was only when Carver and Angel trod lightly across the threshold of the kitchen that she remembered whom she would not see this night: Arann. He was on his rounds as a House Guard.

The cries that she had heard, however faintly, in the distance could be his.

“Jay?” Finch. “What is it? What's happening?”

“Listen,” she said softly. “Listen well.”

Carver looked at Angel; Angel shrugged. Finch's eyes screwed up and she pressed her lids tightly together, but when she opened them, she, too, shrugged. “What are we supposed to hear?”

Thunder.
She rose, toppling the lamp; Carver cried out in a panic and righted it, mindful of the heated glass.

It hadn't happened yet. “Ellerson!”

“It is already done,” he told her quietly. “If you can be, be at ease.”

It surprised her; she had no words to offer, not even those of thanks. How had he known? How had he known what she, in her sleep-fogged state, had not? The cries were those not yet raised; the clash of steel a conflict not yet started. She shivered, feeling the chill in the air; it was cool, and early in the season for it. It had been twelve years since she had heard the sounds of an event before it had occurred—and that single time was a sweet memory compared to this one: the dance of the bears and the huge cats to the jangle of hoops and rings and bells.

No, not so sweet; one of the bears had been maddened, and a death had occurred there, beneath the closed pavilion of Southern delight.

Thunder and lightning, her granddam had called it.

“What's already done?”

“The guards and the Chosen have been alerted; they are all awake, and they are preparing for intruders. Jewel?”

There was only one man in the room who ever called her that; out of habit, her den wisely chose the more familiar Jay. She looked back, into the broken shadows. “What?”

“I believe that now is the time to decide upon your course of action.”

She hated it, to need the reminder, but she accepted it without demur. “Right. Carver?”

“Got it,” he said, lifting the edge of his shirt to show an ornate dagger hilt.

“Good.”

“Why don't you take it?”

“Because next to Duster, you're the best person we've got with a knife.” The words faded into an uneasy stillness. Jewel cursed inwardly, wondering how she could forget the death, and knowing at the same time that it was the most natural mistake in the world—for it was during moments like this when Duster really had become the second in command. All her angles became edges, and all her edges became honed and sharpened.

They'd never had a big dust-up without her.

Angel broke the silence. “Yeah, well. What about the rest of us?”

“The rest of you are to listen for the key words we spoke about. You hear 'em, you get the Hells out of the way. Got it?”

“And?”

“And if you don't hear 'em, let the men in armor take the brunt of the fighting, but help as you can.” She rose. “Now, follow me.”

“Where?” It was Teller, with his slightly rounded eyes and his knowing little
smile. What he knew was this: Jewel had no idea where she was going; she was running on instinct, and praying that it worked.

“Just follow.”

• • •

The halls were darkened and heavily patrolled, but the guards had their orders, and when the dark-clothed den of The Terafin's most unusual young visitor slunk past, sticking to the shadows they could find, the House Guards tensed but did not seek to act. There were few servants in the halls; the hour was late. The only noncombatants that seemed in evidence appeared at the front and the back doors of the manse, carrying torches and oil for the lamps. There were glowstones as well, although not many, and they were almost always in the keeping of the leaders of the clusters of guards.

Jewel walked quickly, her very way of movement a type of speech with rhythms and cadences familiar to those who followed in her wake. They did not speak, not even among themselves; they could see in the hunch of her shoulders and the stiffness of her quick steps the fear that she always took care to keep out of her voice. They followed, in the order they often kept; Carver at her back, and then at his, Finch and Teller; behind them, Jester of the keen ears and poor vision, and Angel pulling up the rear. That had been Arann's position until this night, but at least he was still alive to fill it again, should the need arise.

She could feel the dead at her back, and occasionally glanced into the shadows to catch sight of them if she could; she saw the living, and the spaces behind or beside them where the dead would once have walked. But she felt no fear and no guilt, no terror or horror; the dead were sleeping peacefully this one night.

She would strike a blow for them if she could.

• • •

“Can you not remain here?”

“Morretz,” The Terafin said, her voice as cold and sharp as fine steel, “the discussion is at an
end.
You will not raise this point again, now or in the future. Is that clear?” She did not choose to wait for a reply, but instead turned to face Arrendas ATerafin. “How long has it been?”

He gave her a full-armed salute which was both exact and fast; it was the answer she wanted, not the patina of drilled respect. “Not more than twenty minutes, Terafin.” A fine sheen of sweat made his skin, around the dark bristles of close-cropped beard, glow.

“The Chosen?”

“Readied.”

“Good. Has the mage been called?”

“Torvan has been sent to summon the mage,” Arrendas answered.

“The guards?”

“The House Guard is being led by Alayra.”

The Terafin nodded grimly. “Morretz?”

Morretz' bow was grace personified, but his eyes were darker and more troubled than they had yet been. He stepped forward, hands outstretched and carefully balanced beneath the sheath of a long, curved sword. Gold inlay, jeweled by the hand of a maker, declared the motto of Terafin:
Justice shall not sleep.
Each of the Chosen had seen this sword once, but only Alayra, in the grounds below, had seen it twice. Until now.