Skirmish by Michelle West

Author:Michelle West [West, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781101563106
Publisher: Daw Books; Penguin Group
Published: 2012-01-03T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The Exalted were silent.

Jewel was silent as well. But she felt both stunned and slightly sickened as she turned to her domicis. To Avandar, called Viandaran by the gods, as if they recognized him on sight. As if they had spoken to him before, and not in the Halls of Mandaros.

He offered her a slight smile.

“Yes, Viandaran. What you suspect, we also suspect. What, now, will you do?”

“I? I will fulfill my contract with her. While she lives, I will serve.”

The Lord of Wisdom frowned. “Your service has been costly, in the past.”

Jewel lifted a hand as the landscape beneath her feet began to shift in both color and texture. If she was subconsciously reconstituting images of the distant past, she had no desire whatever to conjure any of Avandar’s. In the South, in the desert, she had seen enough. “It will not be costly here. What he did in the past, he will not—cannot—do to Averalaan.”

“How, if he so desires, will you prevent him, ATerafin? He cannot die.”

“He can,” she replied.

His eyes widened.

“But not yet, not now. Allasakar is not the only god who can grant him the freedom he desires.”

His brows rose. She’d managed to surprise him over the years, but never like this. “ATerafin—”

She lifted her hand again. “I don’t know more, Avandar. I just know.”

The three gods spoke among themselves in a thunder of syllables that traveled beyond her comprehension. Judging from Avandar’s expression, it was beyond his as well, although he clearly liked it less.

“Very well,” the Lord of Wisdom finally said. “Leave us, ATerafin. We have much to discuss with our children.”

If she could somehow transform the whole landscape of the Between in which gods and mortals might mingle, it didn’t belong to her; she felt the ground shift beneath her feet as the world shattered and re-formed before her eyes, and the throne in the audience chamber snapped into clear view. Girding it were the House Guards; occupying it was Gabriel.

She glanced around; Duvari still leaned against the far wall, and the cats stood by her side, lolling in a way that implied they were very bored. Luckily, they hadn’t descended into complaint.

As she blinked, the Exalted began to move toward the three braziers that still emitted their faint trails of smoke. They gestured, and the embers from which the smoke rose were guttered.

“Regent,” the Mother’s Daughter said, tendering a bow of respect—and exhaustion. “We must repair to the cathedral again. We will return in two days to convene the first day of the funeral rites.”

Gabriel raised a brow. “The gods—”

“The gods are troubled, but we give leave to return to your duties; we have much work to do on their behalf before we return to your halls.”

Duvari now lifted himself off the wall, his eyes narrowing into unfortunate slits as he strode from the back of the chamber to where the Exalted now gathered. He bowed to them; it was the first time Jewel had ever seen a bow used as both an interruption and a demand for instant attention.

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