War (The House War Book 8) by Michelle West

Author:Michelle West [West, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927094358
Publisher: Rosdan Press
Published: 2019-06-18T03:00:00+00:00

The sun in a court that was timeless nonetheless turned; the shades of high noon ceded sky to dusk. Shadows slanted, and warmth dissipated; night fell. Jewel lingered near the lake Cessaly had called a bath. She had chosen to shed the white dress, to pack it—with care, although care was not required. She had also removed the fussy adornments with which she had girded herself, but she handled those more carefully.

The ring, however, she did not remove. This was not for lack of trying. Or perhaps lack of wanting to try, on some visceral level.

Angel did not hover. He understood her mood, understood her anger, understood her need to pace as if pacing were a foot race it was necessary to win. Even in the days when the den had been crammed into two rooms, her den-kin—with the exception of Duster—knew when to leave her alone. But he was never far.

Nor, to her surprise, was Terrick. Something had shifted in him when Shianne had gone into labour, and it had not yet righted itself.

Kallandras, for the most part, kept company with Lord Celleriant. But if the meeting in the vast, open-skied audience chamber had done nothing else for Celleriant, it had nevertheless made it clear that he would, one day, call this Court home again. The Winter Queen had made clear to all who observed that she considered Celleriant of value.

They did not doubt her.

Jewel wondered if they even could.

And her thoughts drifted, as she wondered, to the Kialli, and to Darranatos. From there, they moved to Shianne and her sisters. To Shianne herself. Darranatos had, in his fashion, loved the god they did not name. And he had, in his fashion, loved the White Lady. Even at the end, she had heard, in his rage and sorrow, the tremulous desire that the White Lady be exalted. If he had chosen to serve Allasakar—even thinking the name was an act of defiance—he had desired, for Ariane, a place, a singular place, of honour by that god’s side.

She had never forgiven those who had chosen to desert her.

She would never forgive them.

And she would never forgive the Lord of the Hells. Jewel had not understood the depth of her enmity; she had assumed—and why?—that any living being must oppose Allasakar. The gods did. The gods had.

But for the Winter Queen, it was personal, and Jewel wondered then if the seasons—Winter and Summer—existed as they did solely because of that enmity; they had not existed in that fashion in Shianne’s time.

That time, as so many others, had passed. She bowed her head. The whole of her focus was turned, had been turned, toward the new-born infant.

Perhaps, because it was, she did not immediately notice the presence of a visitor. She didn’t notice, in fact, until that visitor cleared her throat.

Evayne a’Nolan stood, hands clasped behind her back, waiting for Jewel’s attention. Jewel turned to fully face her. Some of the bitterness, some of the anger, deserted her as she studied the lines of the young woman’s face, softened by dusk and the gentler lights that alleviated darkness.

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