I do not support this course of action, Tallah. This is an even worse plan than your previous.

“You’ve been outvoted.”

How can you, Christina? How do you justify trusting our fate to some elend whelp?

Bianca was starting to get on her nerves. She had made her protests, loudly so, and had been outvoted for the final decision. Now, it would be kind of her to bloody shut up about it.

“It makes sense for us. If we salvage Tianna, we won’t have wasted five full years.”

And what exactly do you plan to do? You are not fit to face the princeling. If he joins the fray, we will not survive. We will have wasted ourselves on a mindless gambit. Again, I might add.

“I don’t need to win. I only need him to see me. I’m going to rely on you two for the element of surprise.”

You had surprise on your side the last time. It did not work out as I recall the reports. You survived the fire by the skin of your teeth.

Enough, Bianca, Christina finally said. We all know the risk. We can but hope we’re enough. Worst case, we have Professor Ludwig’s shard.

Which we don’t know where it leads to. This is pure folly.

“It is what it is, Bianca. We’ll manage. I can handle Falor.”

You can’t win.

“I don’t need to. Bloody his nose and run. It’ll be good to see how we measure up to him now.”

Christina let out an annoyed mental sigh. If Anna lied to us, I will give her such a flaying when we bring her into our communion.

And what will that achieve? We can’t feel pain. Bianca’s high tone was slipping in her impatience. Now she sounded more like her old, provincial self, rather than the mock Aztroa courtier.

It’ll make me feel better about this entire sorry business.

You two are children. I swear. Worse than. You are petty children.

Tallah let out a slow breath, trying to calm a cringing thing inside herself. She looked at the empty room and at the empty fireplace and at her empty desk, and felt the familiar, anxious twinge in her heart.

The mountain loomed in her mind’s eye, a dark, jagged spectre of razor-edged peaks, bottomless gorges, and winds that howled and moaned through crevices and across gaping maws of stone

Aztroa’s Crown wore its own crown of merciless storms with all the grace of a bloodthirsty tyrant and twice the cruelty. Tallah had overcome it once. Against the murderous cold, the mad, laughing wind, and the break-neck drops, she and Sil had endured and walked away from the horrors in the heart of the Crown.

Could she do it again, if she failed here? Probably not.

Best not to fail, then, Christina intruded into her private thoughts. Stop lolling about. We’ve cast our die. Let’s get you fit to face a walking calamity.

She pushed herself up from the chest’s lid and went to Sil’s emptied desk. Ten half-bands of new metal waited for her, five fresh limiters. Two on each arm, one on her neck. Two by two they clasped together and then tightened on their own. Cold metal on hot skin. Her furnace fire inside focused sharply as if squeezed by invisible bonds.

She produced a flame on the tip of one finger and ran it across her hands, moving it over and under her fingers, careful not to burn skin again. Her control felt almost perfect.

She does fine work, Christina mused. For all her faults, she’s quite adept at producing these trinkets. Only five do the work of the ten that someone of your capacity would need. Six, if we count the one with the trinket.

Tallah increased the illum flow. It moved through her with clarity of purpose, like liquid cold fire in her veins. Pain accompanied it, but it was now more a memory rather than the sharp stabs from the first days after her burnout. The more power she used, the more memory threatened to push into reality but she’d manage.

Someone’s coming, Bianca said. The door. Elend.

Vergil couldn’t have been gone more than half a bell strike. That left Verti or one of her girls. But it wasn’t time for supper yet. Sil wasn’t even back from her haggling.

“Good evening, Your Grace.” It was Verti herself. She was red-faced with anger. Pert, one of her big bruisers, stood a half-step behind her. He was holding his hat in his hands and nodded respectfully to her.

Verti wrung her hands in her apron and spoke as if chased, “I so apologise for disturbing you, Lady Aieni. But I believe you need to know this. You have been threatened.”

Well, that’s something to spring on a woman.

“Slow down, Verti. Who threatened me?” Tallah asked, feeling quite sanguine about the news. It made sense that the night would come with more surprises now that she committed to a plan of action.

“I… I don’t know, Lady Aieni. The common room’s full to bursting. I was helping the girls when someone grabbed my arm in the crowd. They… she? I think it was a woman’s voice. It happened so quickly. She said, and pardon me for repeating, ‘They’re coming for Tianna of Aieni Holding. Third bell of the night. Tell her or this place goes up in flames.’” She cursed in elend and wouldn’t meet Tallah’s eye. “I have already sent for the constabulary. I will not have my guests threatened in my own home.”

Tallah laughed. She looked at the large bruiser, a retired adventurer that Verti kept very well paid to keep trouble away from the Meadow, and she couldn’t help herself. The elendine looked ready to sink through the floor in embarrassment.

She wiped her eyes and tried to compose an answer. “I apologise,” she said, still feeling the laughter bubbling inside. “Don’t mind such things, Verti. A threat on my person is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody would dare.”

Oh, the Guard would dare, she had no qualms about that. They’d likely come in force, with no thought spared for the fallout to come, to take out a soul thief.

“Don’t look so glum,” she went on, taking the elendine’s hand in her own and patting it. “I’m certain it’s nothing to worry yourself over.”

“But—”

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“None of that. I assume you brought your guard to ensure my protection?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said bouncer replied in a thick, grizzly voice. “At your pleasure, ma’am.”

She dismissed him with a shooing motion of her hand.

“Run along. You’d best see to the common room. I believe this was nothing more than some rabble-rouser trying to get you rattled, my dear.”

“But—”

She smiled and the elendine flushed bright crimson all the way up to the edges of her horns, uncertainty washing over her face in waves.

“I appreciate your care. I really do. But this is a hoax. I have no enemies, here in Valen least of all. And my father’s business partners are perfectly happy to have me as far from Calabran as possible.” She gave another reassuring squeeze to Verti’s hand before letting go. “Thank you so much for your concern, but it’s really misplaced. And know that I’ll be out tonight. I plan on seeing the Descent. If there’s any trouble, I invite it to my flame.”

Helped along by another encouraging smile, Verti relented, bowed, turned and left. Pert followed in her wake. Tallah waited until they were safely down the stairs before she slammed the door and let out a slow, satisfied sigh.

It’s a trap, Christina said.

It must be, Bianca agreed.

“I don’t care.”

Small gasps of laughter slipped out as she returned to the empty room. Without really meaning to, she opened up a Rend and retrieved a package from inside.

What are you doing? both ghosts asked at once.

Clarity of purpose. She’d missed it. Since Anna’s death, stuck in Valen, watching Winter’s snow churn outside her windows, she’d fallen into a sort of fugue. Cocooned by peace, lulled to sleep by the idleness of a season unchallenged, she’d started enjoying herself. She hadn’t been so still for so long for decades. If not for the blasted boy she would have dragged Sil out into the passes from the first day of Winter’s coming.

She undid the clasps of Tianna’s horrid dress and let it slip off her, like a snake’s shed skin, and walked to where Sil’s staff hung on its peg, a thin sheet covering it. She touched it, closed her eyes, and let its enchantment unravel.

My, my, aren’t you being dramatic? Christina couldn’t hide her amusement. Is that how you’re going to play this?

She caught her reflection in a wall’s mirror and smiled.

Ugh. Don’t do that, Bianca whined, you look positively ghastly. Get Aliana to heal that horrid scar.

Tallah approached the mirror and laughed softly. Grey streaked the red of her hair. She liked the look, though not so much the implication. Her eyes had shed what little shade of blue they once held. They stared back at her, silver and speckled with burst capillaries.

The scar… oh, her scar. It showed faintly pink-grey in the candle light and cracked the mirror on a jagged diagonal.

She remembered the spear head that had carved her face in two. The blinding flash of pain. The overwhelming iron taste of blood.

And she remembered the spear wielder howling when she fused his armour to his flesh. A boy, really, that hadn’t known better and died performing a duty he wasn’t fit for. She hadn’t thought of him in years.

Positively ghastly, Bianca repeated. Look away before I loose my innards.

Mertle would not have her gear ready just yet. That was fine. She still had her old uniform.

And it fit her. In the white and blue of the Storm Guard, she felt like a mockery of herself. It would at least remind the Guard that she had written the book on dealing with out-of-control channellers and if they wanted to play things cute against her they’d be walking away bloody. If at all.

Bianca, you’ll be our time keeper for this one, Christina said in the tone of one laying out a complex plan. I’ll be shield for tonight unless needed. I need you to keep aware of our movement and the time it takes.

What for?

“So we don’t happen to kill Vergil.”

Tallah pulled on her old gloves and flexed her fingers. Not as good as those Mertle made but these could handle her heat well enough.

We’ll assume the boy’s speed and path from here to the Sisters and then to the smithy. To be on the safe side, we’ll restrict our perimeter to three quarters of what it would normally be.

Those are assumptions piled atop assumptions, Christi, Bianca said, somewhat reproachfully. I will not be held responsible if the boy’s head explodes.

“I will keep a mirror on hand and stare into it every bell strike from now until eternity if that happens,” Tallah warned, and relished the feeling of absolute revulsion that washed off Bianca.

I’d go mad.

“Good. Christi and I could use the company.”

She tied her hair back into a loose ponytail and fitted her silver mask. The world snapped into focus and was bathed in the rich spectrum of illum, undisturbed save for herself.

“I’ll swing us by the Agora to grab supplies. Then we’ll head to the Fortress.” She wrote a note as she spoke, outlining the plan for Sil in their private shorthand. “Bianca, I’ll use you for mobility. Christi, if we clash with Falor I’ll need your help. Best we don’t play every card right away.”

With a bit of luck, he’ll be here while you’re carving up the Fortress, Christina said.

Over the whistling blizzard, she could hear, faintly, the bells of the spires. She counted eight of them. Evening was at an end. Three bell strikes to the moment the warning had mentioned.

Cold mist and fat flakes of snow tumbled into the room when she opened the window that looked down into the narrow streets and alleys. Nothing stirred in the illum flow. Not the raging torrents that accompanied a sorceress, nor the smoother vortexes of healers. She stuck her head out and took in a more thorough look, searching for the minute tremors that announced an Egia.

Nothing. People moved in the streets, huddled under heavy coats and bundled tight in furs, but nothing that spelled immediate danger. Valen celebrated. Three bell strikes to midnight and people trickled out of their homes to form long columns that shuffled towards the Fortress for the Descent and the festivities to follow. In that direction illum roiled and churned, a sign of channellers converging to be blessed by whichever deity deigned to show up.

Careful movement would keep her hidden from Rumi Belli’s sight for long enough that she could reach her targets. From the Meadow to the Agora, and then to the Fortress via the Guild.

They know you have the mask, Christina reminded her. I would be careful in how I assembled my forces if I planned an ambush.

I have a suggestion, Bianca said, pensive now that they were in motion. I will tell you on the way. We may yet limit our risk to something less suicidal.

Bianca surrendered her power to her use. As always, it was confusing and unwieldy but it served well enough. Tallah reached out with an illum tether, anchored it to a distant rooftop, and yanked herself off into the night.

Snow crunched softly under her boots when she landed on the slanted roof, her diminished weight too low to dislodge the thick, frozen carpet. She turned back to the Meadow and saw Sil’s print in the illum moving through the staircase, her power’s ripples diluted by distance.

A gust pushed her forward and she had to enforce her anchor lest she be blown off. Frozen snow stung her exposed cheek and her ears hurt with the cold, but it all felt so good in the moment. The healer was calm, reflected in how she showed to the mask’s sight.

“Good that we left when we did,” she mused as she crouched in the snow and swept her gaze over the packed streets. Anyone looking up would only be blinded by the snowfall and the strengthening wind.

I doubt she would have agreed readily to any of this, Christina answered.

Tallah jumped off the roof and launched herself towards the Agora. Bianca’s power thrummed in her back and her grip on it was becoming firmer by the moment. She swung herself sideways, gained momentum, and sailed over rooftops in a high-cresting arc. Winds buffeted her flight but new anchors kept her moving where she meant to, riding storm winds and sheets of sleet and ice.

We will pay for our supplies this time, Christina said, a hint of reproach in her voice. I will not be made accomplice to theft again. You can afford both the time and the griffons. Do not make us into common thieves. Not again.

We may be truly dead in three strikes, Christi. Is this the time for fancies?

Her conscience let out the imitation of an annoyed sniff. It is always the time for being morally upright. We may be many things, but we will not stoop to common thievery.