It took a few days, but eventually the snow melted enough for them to get going. Lydia wasted no time in getting them all ready and leaving, though Tavin—as the one with the map—eventually took the lead.
They did, for a while, keep up banter to fill the silence. Leon and Nadia, who they spent most of the time with while they were together (which was until the day before, since the two didn’t need to wait for things beyond civilization to clear up a little more before heading out), was the first topic of conversation.
“So, Tavin, what do you think about Nadia?” Henry prompted with a smirk. “Cute, isn’t she?” Everything he said was meant to bring out a reaction; using the power that he, as an older sibling, had all rights to use.
Tim caught on too and gained an equally mischievous grin. “You two were spending a lot of time together.”
“She’s nice,” Tavin replied, maintaining the same emotionless expression. He knew what they were trying to do out of observance—the things they teased each other, their friends, and a few of Elena’s children—and he was not going to let them see what they wanted to.
“You know, I offered that they could come to the Stone Estate every once in a while,” Lydia remarked. She couldn’t help but join in. “They don’t live too far from the capital so the trip to the estate won’t be much longer.”
Tavin did respond to that part, though, with a mix of surprise and excitement. “You did?”
“Aha! You do like her!” Henry ruffled Tavin’s hair.
“W-wait, I never said—”
Tim joined in as well. “Welcome to the club. You’re already doing ten times better than Natheniel!” He looked back at Lydia and asked, “Mom, what do you think of her?”
She shrugged. “You guys know I don’t care as long as whoever it is isn’t an asshole and you listen to what Dimas says about butterflies.” She had to admit, he had some useful advice she wished she’d known sooner. She didn’t want to see any of her sons end up making the same mistakes she did.
With nothing else to add, they moved on to something else.
“What do you think could be at the end of a river that doesn’t flow into the Lake?” Henry mused. “I bet it’s something that has to do with memories. Oh! What if it’s like this book that ended up being something like someone’s journal?”
“Or it could be something completely mundane,” Tavin offered. “No one would have cared for its existence and only those who knew what they’d find here would follow it. There’s no need to make it fancy or enchanted when something simple could do.”
“How dare you assume things should be normal,” Tim teased. “What’ll make them worth getting to anyone if they’re not enough to catch someone’s eye?”
“Plus, what guy who makes a kingdom-wide treasure hunt decides to make something simple? Already he’s got to be insane, might as well go all out with it too,” Henry remarked.
Lydia, though mostly observing their surroundings, was still paying enough attention to comment, “That’s coming from one of the four that are stupid enough to go chasing that kingdom-wide treasure.”
“It’s in our blood,” he responded with a smirk.
“And it’s a waste of time if no one goes looking for it,” Tim added. “Or worse yet, not actually care about everything that they set up.”
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Tavin interrupted all of them to gesture to the river he’d led them to and say, “There’s no other rivers around here, so unless something’s off, this has to be it. Now for the question of the afternoon: left or right? Left would lead us to the mouth of the river. Right will lead us to the end of it.”
Seeing a vague figure in the corner of her eye, Lydia confidently decided, “Right.”
None of the boys asked any questions and simply followed along. They followed the river in silence to match the forest around them; they all stopped when they saw someone else kneeling by the river’s edge, using a small bit of fire magic to melt the ice in his hands. Whatever he’d done before then, it was clear it took a toll on him.
All three of the boys looked back at her but somehow she knew and shook her head. “Remember what it said about the river,” she said. “He’s not real.”
It didn’t make it any better to watch. Even if it wasn’t real now doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real before; she’d had her fair share of projections of the past to know that much. They didn’t move or say anything else, simply watching him.
“What did I drag you into, my dear..?” he eventually mumbled.
A wispy figure appeared beside him, though her exact form was impossible to make out. “You didn’t mean to,” was the just as ethereal response she gave. The memory of her was one dearly important, yet unable to withhold the flow of time all the same.
“We’re both going to die here, aren’t we?”
“That’s… what it appears, isn’t it?” The figure could still make a clear smile as she added, “But we are the House of the Phoenix. Even if we cease to be in the cold, perhaps we, like those mighty birds, will return from our ashes. We’ve done it once; I’m sure that we can do it again.”
“I don’t want this for you.”
“I want nothing more than to stay with you, if these truly are our final moments. Maybe we won’t be lonely when we reemerge if we fall together.”
He shook his head. “There has to be hope for one of us… someone must share the news of what we’ve seen, so that we don’t disappear again. Here—take all the supplies we have left.” He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, placing his bag in front of her. “Hurry, now. Don’t worry about me; what matters is that this is not where we end, that we may live on forever in memory…”
“But—”
He slowly stood up and helped her do the same. “I will try to finish what we started. Even if our story is one of woe, let it be told again. Let it survive on your tongue that those that come after us will have what we’ve learned here.”
She must’ve thought of many more things to protest, though eventually sighed and said, “Yes. I will carry our song on to whoever will listen.” She gave him what they all knew to be their last hug, then turned around and ran towards the four of them. Her figure disappeared right before she would’ve touched them.
“I must see what I can accomplish on my own…” He looked around the forest before seemingly randomly deciding where he should go. “Even if this body will soon fail me…”
Lydia gestured for the boys to follow him, with her close behind them as well. He started to fade the deeper they went into the forest, eventually disappearing entirely after collapsing in the snow. It wasn’t until a moment later that they dared to speak again.
“The renewed House of the Phoenix,” Tavin mumbled. “They were trying to do all of this on their own…”
“I guess it’s safe to say that she didn’t make it much further than telling anyone about it,” Henry remarked. He looked around a little before adding, “Do you think what we’re supposed to be looking for is around here somewhere? He led us all the way out here, there has to be some reason for it.”
Tim shook his head. “Nothing else is here, though. At least not anything that would’ve lasted however many years it’s been since it was placed to now—just a couple of rocks and twigs.”
“It’s got to be further,” Lydia decided. “He led us in the right direction but we’ve got to figure out where to go from here. Try looking for something to show us where he wanted us to be.”
They all nodded and spread out a little to search the area. It didn’t take long for Tim to notice something else. “So, is it just me, or are the shadows moving?”
“What? All three of you, get back here.” Lydia, in a mix of the general oh crap and the much more specific Imre is going to kill me, tried digging through her satchel.
Tavin’s nonchalance broke her growing panic, though. “They’re not real.” They all looked at him until he further explained, “It doesn’t feel any different than before. The Skiá are a part of another projection.”
“Are you sure?” Lydia asked cautiously.
He nodded. “I mean, it’s also pretty obvious when they aren’t even paying attention to us.”
Seeing that he was right, she decided, “If it’s a part of the memory projections then we should follow it. Just don’t do anything to alert them too much in case it turns out there’s a real one somewhere in here.”