After Emma’s wedding, Liv once again found herself feeling very alone. The one friend she had in Whitehill, who had been something approaching her own age in spirit, if not in years, had now begun an adventure that left the two women with less and less in common.
Liv was happy for her friend, but she also felt it would be selfish to intrude too much on Emma’s new life as a married woman. She hunted less and less often, instead helping her new husband, Dustin, by taking orders and collecting payment at the forge, while he focused on turning out horseshoes, kitchen knives, and the other odds and ends in constant demand.
Emma’s father, Kale, was now an aging man of fifty-four years, and less willing to hunt the edges of the shoals for mana-beasts. Liv couldn’t have faced Emma if the old hunter had gotten killed trying to get her meat, so she did more and more hunting for herself, all through the flood season and into harvest. Her father came with her, and they used the time in the forested slopes that surrounded the river valley to practice her magic.
There was less call for the trick of transferring heat to warm her own body, so instead Valtteri set her to using the heat from one spell to melt the ice created by another. Liv’s defensive sphere, which she’d previously struggled to conceptualize in such a way that it could be opened, could now be melted through with the after-heat of summoning a frozen blade.
At night, before she went to sleep, Liv practiced circulating her mana through her body, and set to work on the fragile bones that had troubled her for as long as she could remember. Her father had warned her to start on something she didn’t mind breaking, but her left pinkie finger made it through her early work intact. After a month, she thought that she’d made progress, but still wasn’t eager to risk a fracture by testing her work. Instead, Liv simply made it a nightly routine, one that would be proven one way or the other in time.
It was the process of creating ice under pressure that continued to elude her, all throughout the year. Though her father assured her that it was not an easy technique to master, Liv couldn’t help but be frustrated at her own failures.
Liv’s chief connection to the world outside of the Aspen River Valley came in the form of the letters she both sent and received all through the warm months. She had wondered whether Matthew might visit, and even if he might bring Triss, but they wrote her that they would be accompanying a group of journeymen east to a culling on the border of Lendh ka Dakruim, in the lands of House Sherard. Liv fretted about that, given the events that had occurred at the capital, but Duchess Julianne did not seem worried.
“If they were going to strike at him, they’d be fools to do it in their own lands,” she told Liv, over dinner one evening. “This once, let us be grateful our enemies are not entirely fools.”
Cade wrote regularly, and even invited her to visit him at Bradon Bridge, but now that she had both her mother and her father, Liv didn’t want to leave them behind. Instead, she invited him to Whitehill, but the letter he sent in return told her that his father forbid it. Apparently, Baron Talbot wanted to keep his only son and heir close at hand, before losing him to Coral Bay.
So their understanding held, at least for the moment. Cade insisted that he still wished to court her, and Liv tried to pour her love of the mountains and the north into the letters that she sent to him, so that he might understand her better. The jeweled carcanet, Liv wore for Emma’s wedding, and then had Thora pack it away for the next time she needed to dress at her best.
When she wasn’t hunting with her father, practicing with her magic, writing letters, or helping Master Grenfell, Liv spent her time in the kitchen. Her first teacher had less and less to instruct her in, as the months and then years went by. The court mage also had a new crop of young students, a particularly bright brother and sister whose father was an overseer at the mines and able to afford their lessons. Liv spent most of her time in the Master Mage’s chambers helping them with their basic grammar.
The kitchen was more pleasant, chiefly because it was familiar, and Liv enjoyed helping her mother and Gretta with the meals. Gretta, it was true, did less and less actual cooking as time went by, but no one seemed to mind very much. When the harvest was in and the first chill of winter come, however, Liv noticed her mother knuckling a pained back more and more often.
“It’s just years of bending over pots and pans, stirring or rolling out dough,” Mama said, when Liv pressed her about it. “Happens to everyone as they get older.”
“You two need another assistant cook,” Liv grumbled. “I’ll speak to the Duchess about it.” She was always very careful to refer to Julianne by her title, when she was in the kitchen, even if they were long past such formality in private. “Especially once I go away to Coral Bay.”
She wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron. “You know that you don’t need to work anymore,” Liv told her mother, hesitantly. “Between the pension from the crown, and the accounts Father has given me access too, I could probably buy us a house. Not on The Hill, of course, but near the market.”
“That money is for you,” her mother chided her. “You’re likely to need it, whether at Coral Bay or after. How many crowns did you spend making that wand, anyway?”
“Not more than I could afford,” Liv replied. But more than she cared to admit to her mother.
“Besides, what would I do with myself?” her mother asked. “Sit at the window all day and watch people go by in the street? I suppose I could sell pies and tarts, but then I’d still be doing the same work, but in a smaller kitchen. I’d rather be here, with everyone I know.” She nodded to where Gretta dozed in the corner, having been lulled to sleep by a patch of warm sunlight.
“If that’s what you want,” Liv said, but she privately resolved herself to talk with Julianne sooner rather than later. Patch, one of the remaining mousers from Charlie’s litter so many years ago, wound about her leg purring loudly, and that was the end of the conversation.
Liv's father made several short trips through the waystone, usually in the summer months, as the years passed. Each time, he carried a letter from Liv to her grandparents, and brought one from them in return.
“I feel as if I should go with you, at least once,” Liv told him, after he’d returned from his second trip. Emma was pregnant that summer, and while her father was away, she’d spent a lot of time down at the forge, keeping her old friend company.
“They know you’re coming after you finish college,” Valtteri told her.
“Still, that’s another eight years,” Liv said.
“Eight years for the Vakansa is not the same as for humans,” her father said. “And the trip is dangerous. Still, if you feel strongly about coming, I will allow it when you’ve mastered crafting adamant ice.”
That promise gave Liv even more reason to practice, and also a countdown. If she couldn’t make progress by her father’s third summer at Whitehill, he would go to Kelthelis without her once again. All that winter, she put every spare moment into practice: everything else was a distraction. When she was being measured by the seamstress for new dresses - Liv had gotten what was probably her last growth spurt, complete with aches in her shins - she made daggers of ice in her hand, then melted them again, leaving a puddle on the floor.
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Each dagger, however, ended up deformed, cracked, and of uneven density - as did flowers, walls, spears, swords, soldiers, and anything else she made the attempt with. Some days, it was enough to make her scream. What had at first seemed like a long stretch of time quickly began to acquire a sense of urgency as the snows began to melt.
“It’s the same problem every time," Liv complained to her father one afternoon in the castle courtyard. “If I’ve got the pressure right one one side, I slip up and lose it on the other. Or if not, at the top, or the bottom.”
“Perhaps we should try the simplest of shapes, then,” her father said. “I had thought that using the shapes you were already familiar with would make this easier, but clearly that has not been the case. Why don’t you focus entirely on Orvis. And keep it small.”
Liv took three deep breaths to calm herself, and then got back to work. One melon-sized sphere of ice after another came out warped and deformed, cracked, or even broken into pieces the instant after it appeared in her hand.
As flood season wore on and crops were planted, she grew more and more desperate. When only a ten-day was left before her father’s date of departure, Liv had Steria saddled and rode up Deer Peak. When she reached the summit, she tied the mare’s reigns around a convenient aspen branch, sat down on the ground, and crossed her legs.
The entire river valley was laid out before her, and the seemingly endless chain of mountains at her back. Somewhere beyond them were the lands of the Eld, and the far north, where her grandparents lived. In every direction, the sky went on, infinite and blue. The clouds seemed low enough to touch, if only Liv stretched out her hand, and for a moment she was nearly overcome with the urge to just jump out into the emptiness. She wondered if there was a word of power that would allow her to fly, and felt a little dizzy.
Liv closed her eyes, and took deep breaths like Master Grenfell had first taught her over twenty years ago. Once, twice, three times, and then she stopped counting. The warm sun heated her skin, and the mountain breeze rustled her hair. She let herself simply sit and wait, until she felt almost on the edge of sleep. Then, Liv cupped her hands in her lap, and began.
“Celet Orvis,” she whispered, not even using her wand. She wanted to think of nothing but the shape of her spell, to have no distractions whatsoever. Liv pictured a ball of ice, perfectly round, in her hand, pressed in tightly on every inch of it’s surface. A steady inward pressure, from every direction at once. The word of power at the back of her mind roused, but she didn’t feed it any mana for a long moment, not until she was certain that her intent was precise and certain.
Finally, Liv reached inside her and brought the mana out. Near two years of practice under her father’s tutelage had honed her control, and now it moved through her body purposefully. As the mana passed, it did not harm her bones, muscles or skin. It caressed every bit of her from the inside, straightening what was crooked and rejuvenating the slightest traces of damage or illness.
The combination of incantation, intent, and mana coalesced in her hands, and nothing else existed. Only the pressure, the constant pressure on every side as the infinitesimal crystalline structures of ice formed. Liv pressed, and pressed, and then something shifted.
Frozen crystals began to fall into place, but not like anything that Liv had ever successfully made before. When the spell was complete, she opened her eyes to look upon a frozen ball that was even smaller than Liv had expected. She tipped it from one hand to the other, using the excess heat generated by the spell to keep her palms and fingers from being frozen. Then, Liv stood up.
Carrying the orb, she walked over to where a bare face of rock dropped off to the north. Perhaps thirty or forty feet below, boulders sat in the shadows. Liv threw the orb down at the massive rocks.
Instead of shattering, the globe of ice rang like a gong on impact, then rolled off to one side. Liv couldn’t help but let out a wild whoop, which echoed off the mountains. Then, she returned to her seat in the sun and set to work on doing it all over again, and again, until she had no mana left to work with.
☙
Instead of riding back to Castle Whitehill, when Liv came down from the mountain she immediately sought her father out at the house he’d purchased on The Hill. She didn’t bother knocking on the door: she’d been given a key long since. Instead, she simply marched in and found her father at the long dining table he hardly ever used, packing.
The length of the tablecloth was covered with clothing, snowshoes, bedrolls and furs, hardtack, dried fruit, nuts, jerky, hunting knives, and all manner of supplies. Valtteri looked up upon Liv’s entrance, his hand paused over a sheet of paper on which he’d made a list.
“You’re usually only gone for a ten-day or so,” she exclaimed, distracted by the extent of the sprawl. “Do you really need all of this?”
“Things can go wrong very quickly that far north,” her father explained. “Even for someone who knows what they are doing. A single accident or mistake can put you an inch from death, with no help to be found in the wide open places.”
“Well, I hope you’re packing enough for two,” Liv said, getting herself back on track.
“Does that mean you’ve met my requirements?” Valtteri asked her.
Liv took three deep breaths to center herself, and held out one hand. She wasn’t feeling confident enough to toss this off like a normal spell, not yet. She closed her eyes, and spoke the invocation: “Celet Orvis.” Just as she had up on the mountain, she guided the mana flow, and sharpened her intent, pressing in with as much mental effort as she could muster. When the magic subsided, and Liv opened her eyes, a ball of ice sat in her hand.
“Test it, if you like,” she said, and tossed it over the table to her father.
Valtteri caught the sphere in his hand and turned it over, examining it from every angle. “Good,” he said. “Very good, Livara. Alright, then. I made you a promise, and you have kept up your end. You may come with me to Kelthelis.”
☙
Liv made certain to write a whole new set of letters over the days that followed, in between making her own preparations. She let Matthew and Triss, Sidonie and Cade, all know that she was making the trip north with her father, and likely wouldn’t receive any correspondence until she’d returned.
Her father insisted that she bring all of her winter clothing to his house, to be inspected. “None of this would protect you in the winter months,” Valtteri remarked. Her boots, gloves, wool stockings, skirts and fur-lined winter cloak, he finally accepted with a sigh.
“We will have to have winter clothing made for you, so that you are prepared,” he decided. “But we are going in the warmest month of the year, and you know how to heat your own body if you have to.”
Everything was packed into saddlebags the night before they left, save for the clothing that Liv would be wearing for the journey. That evening, Thora agonized over remaining behind.
“But who’s going to dress you while you’re away?” the maid lamented. “Your hair is going to be a mess by the time you get back. And what if you rip a seam on one of your bodices? You’re hopeless with a needle, m’lady.”
“I’m sure I can survive a ten day,” Liv told her. “And you can’t come. It’s too dangerous a trip for someone without magic.”
That night, she enjoyed a last cuddle with the castle cats, and stayed up late sharing a pot of tea with her mother and Gretta.
“You have to tell us everything when you come back,” Mama insisted.
“I heard the sun doesn’t even set during the summer,” Gretta said. “And doesn’t rise during the winter. How do they even sleep?”
In the morning, when Steria was brought out into the courtyard already saddled for her, Liv was a bit surprised at how many people had gathered to wish her a safe journey. Her mother and Gretta, of course, and Duchess Julianne and Baron Henry; and not only Master Grenfell, but Mistress Trafford as well, and both Thora and Sophie. Julianne’s lady’s maid had given Liv a safe distance since their troubles years before, but any bad blood between them had long since settled. Even a few of the soldiers, such as Sophie’s husband Piers, and old Tobias, who’d made so many trips with her south to Fairford. Even Emma, with her father and husband and their infant son were there.
“You’d think I was going across the sea for months,” Liv said, after giving all the embraces was done with. She swung up into the saddle, and took her reins in hand. She’d left her staff behind in Thora’s care, but her bone wand sat in its sheath on her hip. She’d left off her gloves and winter cloak for the ride to the waystone, and she still felt nearly overheated under the summer sun.
“We’ll be back soon enough,” her father said, giving a wave to the assembled crowd.
“You take care of her, Val!” Liv’s mother shouted over the general din. “Bring her back safe!”
“I promise I will, Maggie,” her father called back. Then, they turned the horses to the castle gate, and rode out.