House War - The Hidden City Part 88

Lord Waverly was whimpering. And bleeding. She watched him as if from a distance, and when his eyes met hers, she smiled. Sharper edge in that smile than the knife held.

It hurt to walk. She walked anyway, breaking the stillness, adding a stilted motion to the noise, the breathing, the little sounds that spoke of fear and . . . and something else.

Desire. Death. Here, in the end, weren't they one and the same?

Rath had no time to think; just time to react, and even that was in scant supply. There was, however, freedom in the momentary pain of new wounds, the promise of obvious scars; fear took thought. Guilt took thought.

He had no time for either, now; just time to dodge, to roll, to maneuver awkwardly in a s.p.a.ce that should have allowed him some grace. Awkward was almost death; he skirted the edge of it, looking for an opening. He would have one, and only one; to waste it was to lose not just this fight, but the game.

The Patris could not now escape him, or it was over.

But the wings were like swan wings in force, if not in appearance, and they drove him back, and claws raked his arms. They should have finished him; he was being toyed with.

But even that, he could use.

This combat was like a conversation, a visceral way of exchanging insults and threats. There was blood, and it was his, but in the end, the only thing that mattered-as in all such bouts-was the final word.

Rath was devoid of words.

But in the distance, Lord Waverly was not, and his words, high and pained, did what Rath had not yet been able to do-they drew the demon's attention from the fight, as if even Waverly's pain and fear were a physical chain that he could not quite escape.

Only a moment, a second, an eye blink, but Rath had survived to be called Old Rath for a reason; he knew that this was the opening he wanted. And the sound of a dead man's pain did not trouble him or stir him at all.

Ararath Handernesse dropped his knives; they were forgotten before they clattered across the floor into the invisibility provided by crushed foliage. They had never been the weapons he meant to wield in this fight, even if he could not have predicted the fight itself.

He drew the weapons Sigurne Mellifas had given him, and he launched himself directly at the creature who was physical shadow, winged and crowned by darkness. They were too awkward a shape, to unwieldy, to be thrown; he could not afford to miss. He met the creature's outstretched hand with his ribs, felt claws glance off bone, and kept going.

And the blades struck flesh, and flame gouted from the wounds they caused, and the creature was shorn in that instant of arrogance and certainty. Rath let go of the hilts, throwing himself backward, too injured to roll. But no death followed him, no death dogged his awkward retreat.

Instead, flame, fire, the heart of it almost blue, the edges a golden yellow that Rath would never forget. They curled out, up, reaching like hands across the whole of the Patris' form, stretching to encompa.s.s even the wings, gaining speed and breadth as they moved and consumed what lay beneath them.

The creature spoke; Rath did not understand the single, harsh word. Nor could he take meaning from tone; he could take a vicious satisfaction from the pain it held, but that was all.

Ash fell like rain in the room, and it was hot where it brushed his skin, but in the end, it did not burn him, and in the end, it did not linger.

Bleeding, he touched his side and winced; he'd had broken ribs before, and knew by touch that he had added to that tally. But he could not afford to fall here, or to stop; he was a room away from Jewel, and it was one room too many.

The boy in the perfect uniform faltered only once, but when he did, he seemed frozen in place. Finch thought Carver could stab him and he wouldn't feel it; as she approached him, she saw that he was now completely white, his lips tinged almost the gray of death.

And it was not hard to see why; Finch froze in spite of herself as she saw the wreckage that waited for them around the corner: the broken gla.s.s, the piles of greenery that lay trampled and flat against the bright floors. Trellises, delicately built for the weight of vines and flowers, no more, had also fallen, tilting and listing in turn; an army might have moved through this room and caused less destruction.

But there was no army here; there was only one man, and he was staggering and bleeding.

Finch lifted a hand to her mouth to stop sound from emerging, but he must have heard it anyway, the choked little cry of recognition that might have been a name.

He turned to look at them, and as he did, pain pa.s.sed from his face, to be replaced by weariness and an utter lack of surprise. She would have gone to his side had he been any other man. Had he been one of them. Had he belonged, as they all did, to Jay.

But everything about his bearing warned her to stay back, and the others-they all must have felt it.

"So," Rath said quietly. "You're all here. I should have known."

And it was Teller who spoke first; Teller who broke the silence that followed his words. He was standing just off to the side, and he straightened out before saying a word, but he lifted his chin, his pale face, and said, "We've come for Jay."

Rath winced again, and this time, Finch did move. They all moved, except for Lander and the boy who belonged in this hollow wonder of building, with all its glittering darkness, its lords, its money.

"Where is she?"

"There," Rath said quietly. "Come, now. But do not-" He stopped himself. "Come," he said, and the word itself was a warning.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

JEWEL HAD NOT even thought to hate him; the fear and the pain had been so strong that she had lost, for a moment, all ability to think. She struggled now with things she couldn't find words for-would never find words for; struggled to see what was there, beyond the envelope of her body, which had itself become foreign and painful.

Duster watched her. Duster, her hands red and slick, her eyes wide, wild, her face both flushed and pale. Her oddly colored hair, the slippage of all disguise, was ghostly; they belonged in a different place. Jewel looked at her and saw-Duster. Saw her truly, as Duster, no more and no less.

This was what Duster had come for. Not death, not that, but the fear and the pain, the humiliation.

Jewel's throat was raw and dry, and she swallowed air as if it would once again be denied her by the weight of, the pain of, his lips, his teeth, h.o.a.rding it in her lungs until she was dizzy. But she did not let the knife slip as she walked. As she continued to look. Upended chairs, the tablecloth, the fallen, shattered gla.s.ses; dark stain of wine that would always taste sour.

She saw broken flower pots, the story of struggle, saw also that when the chairs were righted and the tablecloths washed or replaced, this room would look as pristine as it had when she had first entered it, in a different life.

Saw, beneath Duster's knife, Lord Waverly. He was not the man he had been, only moments before; the cruelty was gone from his face, and the cowardice was so naked it was numbing.

And Duster waited, now, cutting skin almost casually, and never fatally; threatening death because the threat itself evoked fear and a terrible whimpering, a pleading, a useless attempt at negotiation with a force that was larger and darker than he himself had been.

"What are you waiting for?" Duster said, and although there were no sibilants in the sentence, it was a hiss of words over clenched teeth, as if this much control, this much of an offer was a struggle to make.

This offer to share. This offer of vengeance.

Jewel had no answer. She could walk. She had thought the pain would cripple her, but apparently that had been fear's voice, and as always, the truth was different. She was not without fear now.

She looked at the man, and he met her eyes, his own wide, and she could not recognize him, although everything in her screamed at the sight. Raw scream, fear and rage. What had she told Rath?

He deserved to die.

She had believed it then. She believed it now. The difference in the quality of that belief did not change the fact of it. You chose to come here, her Oma's voice said, at its most remote, its coldest. And you've survived. Learn, girl. Her Oma had always despised tears. Jewel rarely shed them. Not when there were witnesses. Sometimes the only witness she needed was herself.

But she had said he deserved to die.

And she had meant it.

"Jay!" A single, sharp word. It took her a moment to recognize it as her name. The name she had chosen because Jewel was such a precious conceit. She looked to her right, and there they were: Lefty and Lander in the shadow of Arann, Teller and Finch behind Carver. Carver himself, dagger glinting, eyes bright and dark as he surveyed the ruin of her clothing, the fallen tangle of her straightened hair, the bruises on her jaw, her swollen eye.

She saw Jester, utterly pale, his freckles unchanged; she saw Fisher, grim now, his silence weighty with things that would-must-remain unsaid. She saw shock in their faces, and saw the beginning of its crumble into something else.

And behind them, darker by far, Rath.

She saw Rath.

Saw that he was bleeding, that he favored his side, that he was smudged with dirt like fine ash. He did not look away when she met his eyes, did not flinch when she flinched. But she saw in him an anger that was already implacable and untouchable. She was not afraid of him. Nor was she afraid for him. But for the first time, she felt her throat swell, and the tears she now held back with effort, a dint of will that she had, over the years, mastered.

And she remembered why she had come.

Remembered that she had always seen Duster clearly.

Understood that although Rath was struggling with something akin to guilt, he was also measuring her, as he had always measured her. But against what, and for what purpose? She had never asked him.

She could not ask him now.

She turned to look at Lord Waverly, at Duster, felt the stillness breaking. Her hand shook but she did not drop the dagger; it was now her only anchor, and she needed it. Guide and guardian, she needed it.

She swallowed.

"I want you all to leave," she told them. Her den. They had come for her, and if they had come late, they were here. She didn't ask them how, and there was no need to ask why, and if she had thought to love them before, she knew now that she did, and that she would never stop. They were here for her.

And she was here, in her own fas.h.i.+on, for them.

But there were some things she hoped to spare them, and this-this was one. Had she truly thought this far?

She shuddered, she struggled for composure, she held it. There were so many things that were worse than this. She was not alone. She had not been forsaken. She had not been sold, or abandoned. Nothing had been taken from her.

No.

No. She would not go there.

She told herself the story of her life, forming and reforming it, finding in its threads something strong enough to bind her, to hold her together. She needed to do this, because they were here, and they were watching, and she was the den leader. She accepted this now, because if she wasn't- If she couldn't be- But where had they been when she needed them? Treacherous, horrible question, and it was so visceral, she could not uproot it; it echoed, the words and syllables merging into something so sharp it was more than accusation.

And as she heard Lord Waverly whimpering, as she heard him begging for their help, as she heard his voice die into pain again, and yes, sobs, she understood that the answer to that question had to be: here. They were here.

Because this was what she needed of them.

She had planned to come here.

She had planned to kill Lord Waverly. Or to let Duster kill him. But she had also planned to deny Duster what Duster was taking now: the pleasure of the s.a.d.i.s.t. It had been her only real thought, her only clear thought, and it was not clear enough now, but it remained there because they were here, her den, the people she had chosen.

And yet . . . she wanted to walk out on him. To leave him to Duster. To find, in the hollows of her imagination, a death for him that would linger, a death that he would greet, in the end, with relief. A death that she could set against the other memories that would not leave, her own bleeding, her bruises, her own loss.

She saw Duster clearly. Saw Duster, for a moment, in herself. Understood that what she had planned so clearly, and so easily was no small thing to ask.

But it had to be possible, to ask it.

And she had to be able to ask it.

Carver said, "We're not leaving without you."

She could have ordered him to leave. She could have done that. But she had asked. And she had been rejected. And perhaps, in the end, that was for the best. She said, "I'm fine." And sounded fine. To herself; perhaps to them.

Rath said nothing.

But when she turned to Duster, when she looked again at Lord Waverly, she asked a single question. "Duster, is that what I sounded like?"

And Duster's face contorted, as if the question itself had been asked in a language that she had heard so long ago she had to struggle with the memories to even understand it.

Jewel hated the question. But it was the right question, and something surrounding her snapped as it left her, breaking cleanly in the middle, and allowing her to emerge. Not unscathed, never that, but the shadows no longer engulfed her; she could reach out to either side and touch them; she could draw them back in and hold them in what she had idealistically called her heart, or she could deny them: but she could never again be unaware of them.

She said, again, with a slowly building revulsion, "Is that what I sounded like? Did you hear me?"

And Duster shook her head in confusion, although her knife hand did not waver, and her determination did not break.

"He deserves this," she hissed. "After what he did-to me-to you-he deserves this. You must know that."

Jewel beckoned Carver forward, and he came instantly, wordlessly. She held out her knife, and he understood what she asked of him; he took it. He was the sheath.

"He deserves this," Jewel replied calmly, coolly now. "But you don't."

Confusion, uncertainty. This, too, was Duster. It was the only way in which she showed vulnerability, and it was close to the edge.

"I kept my word," Jewel said, as proudly as her Oma would have said it, and with just as much determination. "But this is not what I want."

"And if it's what I want?"

"Then you'll take it," Jewel replied. "Just as he did. You'll take what you want. But you'll be him, Duster. You'll be him, and I will not have you in my den if you make that choice.

"Kill him," Jewel added. "But kill him quickly."

"But why-"

And something broke again, and it was a good break, and Jewel looked at Duster, met her eyes, held them. "I'm not strong enough," she said, soft voice now, almost a whisper although no one in the room could have missed it. "I'm not strong enough for this. I could kill him," she added. "I want to kill Lord Waverly. I do want that. I'm not ashamed of it.

"But I can't kill this man. I could have killed him, when he was-" She shook her head. "But not like this." And it was true. All of it.

Because Duster had not answered her question, Jewel did. "I did sound like that." It was costly. To say it. To admit it. But more costly, in the end, to hide it. She would not always be strong. She was not her Oma. But if she could somehow manage to be strong at the right time, at the right minute, if that was all the grace that was allowed her-that would be enough. Had to be.

He tried to speak to her. He saw the weakness. He understood that, were he now in a room without Duster, he would be allowed to crawl out. And it would be wrong. He would recover, and he would have power again, and he would use it in the way that he had used it, time and again.