Liv tumbled, bodiless, west into the mountains that enclosed the Aspen Valley on all sides. Flecks of snow escorted her for a moment, then were left behind to whirl in the wake of her passage, and the wind that carried her gusted north into the lands of the Eld.
When she swept down out of the high passes in the mountains, she glimpsed a manor that sprawled across mountain slopes, beneath the dark boughs of northern pines. There was a watchtower, and stone walls, and steaming pools that made her want nothing more than to dive down into the hot water. A boy with sun kissed hair and pointed ears ran down the stone paths, laughing, to be scooped up and swung in his father’s arms.
Inkeris, Liv recognized, and then the wind blew her north again, past where the trees gave way to endless fields of ice, to a great chasm that led down into the ground. On the iced over rock slopes above the fissure, a great white bear, armored in frozen crystals that poked out from its back like thorns, reared back on its hind legs and roared.
Then she tumbled down, down into the fissure and the darkness at its depths, where ancient metal rusted away into the bones of broken machinery. Behind a pane of frosted glass, surrounded by sigils that pulsed with an icy blue light, rested a hulking suit of metal armor. The plates of the shoulders were wide as a grown man was tall, and beneath the helm Liv saw only darkness.
Then, the wind blew her up and out of the icy canyon, across the vast plains where herds of horned, strange deer ran, at last to frozen cliffs and then over a dark ocean. Great chunks of ice the size of hills floated in the water, with waves crashing against them. Black fins cut through the rolling ocean, and Liv could glimpse only shadows of the creatures skimming just below the surface.
She had the sense that she’d turned back south, then, and at last the dark waters grew brighter. Suddenly, Liv blew across a land of thick green forests, hot and damp. A great flock of brightly colored birds erupted from the trees beneath her, and she reached a smoking mountain.
There, a ring of people kneeled and sung songs of praise, but Liv’s attention was drawn to only one of them. A woman stood off to one side, dark hair tussled by the wind, appearing no older now than when she had last seen her sitting in the window of the Room of Curiosities, years before. Wren had a streak of purple in her hair, now, and dark circles under her eyes, as if her sleep had been troubled, or she had been sick.
“Who is this?” a woman’s voice asked, and Liv found herself wrenched about, gazing into the face of a figure seated on a roughly carved throne. The enthroned woman had dark hair that hung loose past her shoulders, to her delicate collar bone. There was something strange about the shape of her eyes, and the features of her face. She wore a dress of simple red cloth that did nothing to hide the voluptuous curves of her hips and her chest.
A great weight bore the wind down to the ground, and Liv with it. “Who taught you this?” the woman asked, leaning forward. “Tell me, girl.” Liv realized that the woman was speaking flawless Vædic. Then, the wind gusted again, scattering Liv back across the distant jungles of the west, and to the shores of the sea, and then up, up into the endless sky. Above, she saw the ring shining in the light of the sun, and wondered whether she could reach it.
With a gasp, Liv opened her eyes, to find her father seated before her, their knees nearly touching. “What-” she started, stopped, and then began again. “Was that real?”
“The gods show things that will be important in your life,” Valtteri told her. “Glimpses, only. If you wish to speak of it, I will tell you what I can, though the visions are often brief, and confusing.”
“I saw Keri,” Liv said. “Inkeris. I think it was at his home, and he was just picking up his son. Could he be back already?”
“You are,” her father said, with a shrug. “And the waystone at Mountain Home is closer than the distance between Bald Peak and here. Did you see the hot springs?”
“With stone paths between them, and evergreen trees overhead,” Liv confirmed. “And then north, past where all the trees ended, to a canyon in the ice. There was a white bear, with crystals of ice growing out of its back.”
“The Tomb of Celris,” Valtteri said, frowning.
“And then I went down, down to where there were hulks of rusting metal, and a suit of armor behind glass,” Liv remembered.
“The depths of the rift.” Her father leaned forward. “Livara, you understand you are not ready to go there yet, don’t you? That is where your aunt died.”
Liv nodded, closing her eyes for a moment, trying to keep ahold of what she’d seen before the details slipped away, like a dream. “There was more. I went west, to another land, covered in green. It must have been Varuna - there’s nothing else over the ocean, is there? A great smoking mountain, and I knew the woman on it. Wren. The one who pulled me out of the ice, and then stole the icon. And there was another woman, on a throne, and she saw me.”
“Impossible,” her father said. “It is our spirit that goes out on the winds, not our body. There is nothing to see.”
“She spoke to me,” Liv said, shaking her head. “Called me ‘girl,’ and asked me who’d taught me how to do that. She spoke Vædic, and there was something odd about her face, as if she didn’t look quite human, or quite Elden either. And when she spoke, it pushed me down, as if a great stone had been placed over my body, and I couldn’t move.”
Valtteri was silent for a long moment. “I must speak of this to my father,” he finally decided.
“What does it mean?” Liv asked him, opening her eyes again.
“The people and places you saw will be important to you,” her father said. “And that frightens me. Your aunt saw the depths of the Tomb, as well, and it killed her. I could not bear it if you went down the same path.” He stood, and offered her his hand. Liv accepted it, and Valtteri easily pulled her up to his feet.
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Liv asked him. He turned and headed back out of the shoals, and she followed after picking up her staff.
“Only for a short while,” her father said. “A few days, a ten-day at most, just to speak with your grandfather. Then I will be back. There is so much to teach you, and only a few short years to do it in.”
“I could go with you,” Liv offered.
“No,” her father said firmly. “I will be using the waystone in the shoals of the Tomb, and until we understand more I dare not take you anywhere near that place.” He stopped, turned, and caught her by her shoulders. “Promise me, Livara,” Valtteri demanded. “Promise me you will not seek the things you saw out. Not yet. You are not ready.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I won’t,” she said, frightened by the urgency in his eyes, the strength of his hands on her. “I won’t do anything until after I’ve finished at Coral Bay, at the very least.”
“Good.” Her father took a deep breath, then released her and did his best to smile. “Come. Let’s get you back to Whitehill.”
They found his northern gelding just where they’d left him, cropping wild grass in contentment. Her father lifted her up into the saddle, then swung up in front of her, and they were off, taking the road south back to Whitehill.
☙
Liv’s father didn’t leave immediately: by the time they’d returned, it was dark, and they were both hungry. “How are you not cold?” Liv demanded, shedding her winter cloak and slumping into the chair closest to the hearth in the great hall. There was not only hot stew, but venison steaks fried up in butter and garlic, as well as the last of the day’s bread. Liv was surprised that the first bite of steak didn’t send a noticeable jolt of mana into her belly, and realized that she was positively brimming with magic from the rift.
“A trick I will teach you,” her father explained, in between bites. “Think of it this way. When you use Cel, what are you actually doing?”
“Freezing things,” Liv said, with a shrug.
“But you don’t actually understand what that means,” Valtteri said. “The process of freezing is one of removing. Removing heat and motion. Where does that heat go?”
“I- I’ve never thought about it,” Liv admitted.
“By default, that heat and motion is absorbed by the ambient mana in the world around you,” her father explained. “In a sort of compensation. Our family’s word, unlike most, actually strengthens the mana around us, to a very small extent. Nearly unnoticeable, because the effect diffuses so quickly. Like pouring a pot of boiling water into the ocean. But with sufficient control, you can funnel some of that heat into yourself.”
“Is that how my aunt was able to hold a sword without destroying her hand?” Liv asked, setting her fork down in excitement.
“She was using more than one trick to do that,” her father said, with a smile. “For one thing, your entire conception of ice is too basic. Any sword you make right now will shatter in a single blow. I will teach you to make ice that is as strong as steel. But, that will need to wait until I return,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” Valtteri continued, “I will ride to the waystone beneath Bald Peak and use it to get back north. I’ll fight my way out of the rift and meet with your grandparents at Kelthelis. I won’t stay more than a day or two, but when I come back I will tell you anything they are able to share with me about what you’ve seen. If you want to write a letter to them, I suspect they would be very pleased to receive it. While I’m gone, have Master Grenfell test the number of rings you can hold again.”
“Why?” Liv asked.
“Properly cycling the mana from a rift tends to expand one’s capacity,” her father explained. “If you were able to handle the density of the depths, that would push you even further, but we’re not going to attempt that yet. Get an accurate measurement, and put in all the orders for your wand. I won’t be gone long, and then we will continue your training.”
☙
It was difficult not to be nervous at the idea of her father using the Tomb of Celris as a means of transport: from the way he’d spoken about the rift, Liv got the feeling it was far more dangerous than Bald Peak.
Even if it was only a minor rift, during the last eruption Baron Henry had been crippled, Master Grenfell scarred, and several men had lost their lives. Liv’s father was going alone, but he also spoke as if he’d made the journey before, so she tried her best not to worry.
Having a few distractions helped.
“Seventeen rings,” Master Grenfell declared, after passing the last wisp of blue-gold mana into the rough stone he kept for such purposes. “That is about in line with what I would expect to see from someone exposed to a shoal for the first time - only it isn’t your first time. We’ve already visited once, when we got the wood for your staff. You didn’t go past the shoals, did you?”
“No.” Liv shook her head, then placed her hands on the massive mana-stone. “My father taught me something. A sort of coming of age ritual. I think I’m considered an adult by the Eld, now,” she said, with a smile. The stone warmed and pulsed beneath her palms as she drew the mana back into her body. Then, curious to see whether it would work, she inhaled deeply, finding the feeling of what she’d done in the shoals. A hint of mana rose from the stone and streamed through the air into her open mouth.
“I see,” Master Grenfell said, watching her. “The Eld have many techniques they have hesitated to share even with the mages’ guild. Please be cautious about practicing them without your father present to guide you,” he cautioned Liv. “If you do something incorrectly, I may not know how to help you.”
“I will be,” Liv said. “I’m going down to see the blacksmith today, after I look over the bones of the stag. And maybe a leatherworker, as well.”
“You have the plans we drew up?”
Liv nodded, and pulled her hands away from the stone. “I do. Thank you, Master Grenfell!”
In the cold cellar, she found that Gretta and her mother - likely with Emma’s help - had been quite busy butchering the carcass of the enormous buck. All the meat had been carved, either to be smoked or cooked or discarded, and the bones aside for Liv to pick through. She suspected that only the chill of the cellar was keeping them from stinking too badly.
“Do you know which ones you want?” Gretta asked her, from where she hovered at the foot of the stairs. “Whatever you don’t use, I want to get out of here as soon as we can.”
“Some of these leg bones, I think,” Liv said, picking out the long, relatively straight pieces of the skeleton. “Why don’t we clean up all these, and get rid of the rest. That way, if something goes wrong, I have extras.”
Gretta helped her load them into a large covered pot - the sort usually reserved for a roast - which they filled with a layer of water. Between the two of them, they got it set up next to a bed of low coals off to one side of the cooking heart, to simmer slowly all through the day.
“Can’t let it boil,” Gretta said. “That’ll just ruin them. We want all the bits to come off nice and easy, and then it’ll be time to dry them out for a few days. I’ll keep an eye on it, don’t worry.”
Once Liv had picked out her bones, she spent most of the afternoon shopping. At Master Gregory’s smithy, she ordered half a dozen of the smallest springs that Dustin could wind, and promised that she’d be at the wedding.
Hardwin, who made beautiful stamped belts from his shop on The Hill, assured Liv that he could make her a sheath for a wand, and a double wrapped belt to hold it. Mistress Joan, who bought rough stones from the mines to polish and set in jewelry made by her husband, promised to get to work on a pommel-sized hunk of mana-stone. Liv made a trip to the bankers’ guild with Duchess Julianne, to withdraw enough funds to pay for all of her orders.
“I understand that things have changed quite a bit for you in a very short period of time,” Julianne remarked, on the carriage ride back to the castle. “Even since I gave you the option of those adoption papers.”
“It’s been a bit overwhelming,” Liv agreed, looking out the window. She still found the idea awkward. “I think that I wouldn’t feel right about it,” she said, finally. “I’m only just getting to know my father, and I gave him a letter for my grandparents. I want to meet them, too.”
“Why don’t I set them aside and keep them for you,” Julianne said, after a moment. “In the event they’re ever needed, or you ever change your mind. And if that day never comes, they won’t do anyone any harm gathering dust in my husband’s study.”
“Thank you,” Liv said. “I meant to ask - is it still Baron Henry, or just Lord Henry, now?”
“No one’s taken the title away from him,” Julianne said. “Though my own does supersede it, now, and Matthew will inherit a duchy rather than a barony. What we’re thinking of doing is to rename Henry Baron of the Aspen Valley, and that can be a title for Matthew’s second child, someday.”
“I can create other baronies, as well,” Julianne observed. “For instance, if you decide not to marry the Talbot boy. In fact, come the spring, we intend to send teams out to survey the mountains. If we can find a few veins of something useful that would support a mining town, it may happen sooner than my brother might have expected.”
“I don’t think that my life is going to keep me in Lucania forever,” Liv said, finally putting into words what she’d learned from her vision. I'm not certain it would be fair to anyone to talk about staying, when I don’t really believe that will happen anymore. But,” she said, turning away from the window and making an effort to smile, “all that won’t be for a bit yet. In the meantime, this is home.”