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> As is often the way with witches, the duchess Ellaenie was snared at a young age by the manipulative crone Saoirse Crow-Sight, who seized upon the tragic loss of her parents to lead her down the dark path of manipulation, bewitchment and wickedness. It is, perhaps, forgivable for a grieving and naive girl to make such mistakes, but alas for those who loved her the former duchess has persisted in attacking the Church and has continued to consort and fornicate with the Crowns. She is an elf-friend, a scion of Heralds, and a keeper of the cruel status quo who stands against the sacred unity and the Oneness of mankind. Even in exile, she is a danger to the good people of Garanhir. —The Witch Duchess, a Oneist tract circulated in Enerlend circa 09.06.03

RESTFUL SLEEP

Eärrach’s lodge, his private earthmote

09.05.15.12.13

Ellaenie woke to comfortably rustic blankets, deep down pillows, and the sound of conversation in the next room. Rheannach’s musical tone, Eärrach's rumble…and two others she didn't recognize. One soprano and soft, one contralto and clipped.

She was still wearing only her white shift, but there were familiar garments waiting for her, the same fashionless ones Eärrach had given her before folded neatly at the foot of the bed. She dressed, then slipped out the door into the cabin’s main room.

Eärrach, Talvi and Haust were gathered around the table with Rheannach, each nursing a large drink. She stopped and gawped as the fact of that settled on her. Meeting just one of the Crowns had been tremendous enough, but three in one place at one time was overwhelming. The mere sensation of their presence was oppressive, unbearable, until Eärrach rose to greet her and she felt a newfound strength flow into her by his touch.

“Apologies,” he offered, taking her hand and escorting her to the last empty chair at the table. “But I cannot restrain myself, in the face of this development. He wields Mind truly, and that means there is an aspect of his being which might contend with us.”

Ellaenie found herself seated to Lady Haust’s right. As she sat, the hooded crown put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Ellaenie could do nothing but answer truthfully. “…No.”

“No, of course not.” Haust’s eyes may not have been visible, but she didn’t need them to radiate sincere compassion.

“Is…is Prince Sayf here too?”

“He’s retrieving Saoirse’s body and taking it back to Crae Vhannog,” Rheannach replied, gazing sorrowfully into her cup. “I would have done it, but the power Civorage has poses risks even for me to face, it was…it’s far, far more than we feared. He’s mastered Mind. That…”

“Should not be possible,” Queen Talvi said, grimly. Her ageless face was turned toward the fire, the light of which danced in cold white eyes. “As I have said thrice now, and should not keep repeating. Clearly it is possible for he has done it.”

“The Words were always more alive than we fully understood,” Eärrach said. He handed Ellaenie a mug of his spiced mead that had been waiting for her on the hearth. It warmed her hands as she took it.

“I…thought you created them?” Ellaenie asked.

“It would be more accurate to say that Autumn discovered them,” Eärrach gestured to the faceless witch, who nodded solemnly.

“Discovered, yes,” she agreed. Her voice had an ethereal quality that left Ellaenie feeling chilled despite the coziness of Eärrach’s lodge and fireside. “After peeling back layers and layers and layers of reality, after digging up all the secrets the World Before would yield about its nature, there they were, waiting behind the last axiom.” she drummed her fingers on the table, took a swig of mead, and added, “And after that, science stubbornly shut its mouth and refused to yield any more.”

“It quite badly shook her faith,” Eärrach commented. Haust’s hood came up slightly, and though the visible fraction of her expression didn’t change one iota, she nevertheless contrived to give him a weary stare that said: Now is not the time.

Eärrach raised an apologetic hand to her, then looked to Ellaenie. “You’re alive and free, at least. And that is far better than I had feared.”

“Far better than any of us feared.” Talvi looked away from the fire at last. “I was looking forward to meeting you. I wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

Ellaenie nodded her gratitude, though she found it quite impossible to speak. And before anybody else could, there was a soft sound, a faint thump. A moment later, somebody knocked on the door then opened it and entered rather than wait for an invitation.

Prince Sayf. Ellaenie could tell he had a face made for merriment and smiling, but right now it was solemn and sad. Still, a faint flicker of a smile touched it as he saw her sitting there. “Up and awake, I see. Good. And unharmed?”

Ellaenie sighed. “Not really.”

He paused, then nodded. “No. None of us are.” He agreed, and joined them at the table. “There were tears, of course. Questions as to how this happened. Talk of vengeance against Enerlend and the Garanese. I set them straight as to who their real foe is.”

“Thank you,” Ellaenie nodded.

“Of course.” Sayf put a hand on hers and squeezed it gently. Immense and terrifying though his grip undoubtedly could be if he should want it, his hand was soft and comforting. “The funeral is in three days, as per Craenen tradition. I’ll be there on our behalf, of course.”

The other three and Rheannach all nodded.

“You’d do that for her?” Ellaenie asked.

“I attend every one of my spouses’ funerals,” Sayf said. He took up a mug of mead and drained it. “Or hold it myself.”

Ellaenie blinked “…She was…you…and her?”

“Oh, yes.” Sayf sighed, looking suddenly lost in a fond memory. “For two hundred and seventy years, and half a year on top.”

He glanced at Ellaenie, who was reeling at that thought, and added. “She was no spring chicken when we wed, either. Uniquely of all my spouses, ever, she proposed to me. And she reclaimed her youth…and, when the time was right, when the work she’d set out to achieve was ripe to complete, she took up mortality again and returned to the ordinary flow of life.”

“It…sounds almost like she used you.”

“Well, yes! She did!” Sayf agreed. That fond smile crossed his face again. “…And what a remarkable woman that made her.”

He stretched out a hand and Ellaenie inhaled softly as an image, only slightly transparent, wove itself in smoke and color above his palm. She’d never seen any image of Saoirse’s youth before, but she couldn’t have failed to recognize her mentor, no matter the circumstance. The young version above Sayf’s hand had an unbent back and her hair, to Ellaenie’s astonishment, was pale ginger red—somehow, Ellaenie had always imagined it must have been dark—but she had those same piercing, shrewd eyes, and that same admixture of kindness and wicked mischief in her smile. She looked every inch as indomitable as she had been at the end.

“Did you…have children?”

“Five. The oldest is now Thaighn Kieran Crown-Child of Crae Vhannog, at least until the ridires hold a channaev and either oust him or accept him.”

“They’ll accept him,” Eärrach predicted.

“Unless Civorage gets to them,” Haust added, darkly.

“He’s no more omnipotent than we are, Autumn.”

“But he’s surprised us a few times now, both by his ruthlessness and by being a step ahead.”

“I—” Ellaenie paused. “I know we must discuss him. But I can’t bear it right now. If that’s to be your conversation, I’ll excuse myself and…I don’t know. Go take the air or something.”

“Agreed,” Talvi nodded. “He can wait for tomorrow. Tonight, let us talk more of Saoirse. I’m sure we all have tales of her…”

“Absolutely,” Sayf and Rheannach agreed in a chorus, while Ellaenie nodded fervently.

Below the shadow of her hood, a small smile haunted Haust’s lips, and she nodded. “Yes. That sounds much better,” she agreed.

“It’s settled, then.” Eärrach stood and moved toward the door. “And it calls for more drink. Let’s honor her properly, hey?”

Sayf drained his tankard and raised it. “Hear, hear!”

They gathered outdoors, while Eärrach brought up a new firkin from his cellar and tapped it. Haust gestured, and a number of logs floated over from the wood pile to arrange themselves into a neeatly stacked beach bonfire, which she lit by stooping down and blowing into.

They formed a rough circle around it, handing out the drinks, then stood and thought, and sipped. None of them spoke for a while.

Rheannach broke the silence first. “I remember the day we met. It’s like Summer said, she was so…so bold. She didn’t care what I was, and she certainly didn’t pull her punches. She spoke to me like I was younger than her, the first person ever to treat me so. It was…I should have been affronted, maybe. But instead it felt like…I don’t know. Like I’d had an estranged mother my whole life, and I’d finally met her. She was the coven’s beldame from the start, even when she looked youthful.”

“I’m beginning to think she was exceptionally gentle with me,” Ellaenie commented.

“Oh, she was. I never saw her treat anybody so kindly and softly as she was with you,” Rheannach agreed.

“Of course, she never had a daughter,” Talvi pointed out.

“No?” Ellaenie asked.

Sayf shook his head. “No indeed. Five sons. And of course, I could have given her a daughter if she ever asked for it, but…”

“But she preferred to let life be whatever it was,” Eärrach said. “The last time we saw each other, I reminded her I could cure her arthritis, or even make her young again if she wanted. Goodness knows, she’d earned far more than that from me, over the years.” He shook his head and swigged his mead. “She said no, of course.”

“If she’d accepted, I’d have suspected an imposter,” Haust agreed. She nursed her own mead cup between two hands, and sipped from it rather than swigging.

“But in her old age…along came a talented young orphan with a profound talent for magic and a mind to match it,” Rheannach continued. “You didn’t have the Sight on that first meeting, or you’d know, she went from grumbling at me that the whole trip to see you was a massive waste of time to…well. She adopted you pretty much on the spot.”

“I think I did too…” Ellaenie agreed. Her tears were running again now, but they were…not as bitter, somehow. “I didn’t know why at the time, but I went from nervously greeting a woman with a fearsome reputation to…suddenly I had a mentor. It felt as natural as falling asleep.”

“That was Saoirse,” Talvi nodded. “Ever able to find the natural path, and brave enough to take it. Even unto…this. She knew what must be done, so she did it.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Ellaenie commented.

“Indeed. But you’re wise enough to know it’s anything but, aren’t you?” Talvi sighed. “…I will miss her terribly.”

“As will I,” said Eärrach.

Haust simply nodded, her half-hidden expression mournful and subdued. Sayf closed his eyes, let out a heartfelt sigh, and dried the corners of his eyes.

Collectively, theirs seemed to be a modest sadness at best…but Ellaenie knew how old they were. Against their lifetimes, even Saoirse’s long span had been less than a single flicker of a candle flame. How endlessly many people had they known and said farewell to in their ages? And yet, they felt this one. Felt it so much that the whole world around them was becoming gloomy: the light seemed to have gone dimmer and greyer, the wind had stilled, the constant background rush and creak of trees was gone, and even the lake was perfectly flat and silent. Only the fire crackled on.

They stood around it for a long time, and Ellaenie found herself watching them. Eärrach stood with his head bowed and his eyes closed, Talvi’s eyes were open and staring into the flames, Sayf wandered off to refill his cup, Haust’s head was turned toward the far side of the lake, and Rheannach seemed to be watching something inside her own head.

Eventually, Eärrach’s lips moved. His hand traced a gesture as he touched his forehead, navel and both shoulders. “…Amen.”

Haust sighed. “Rest in peace, Saoirse.”

Sayf nodded, then squatted down. He raised his refilled cup above his head, then lowered it down and upended it to pour the mead out onto the ground in a wide circle. Somehow, it was this last action that broke the spell for Ellaenie. She breathed in, and felt the world’s mournfulness release her. Color and motion and feelings other than melancholy started to trickle back in. She didn’t feel good, she *couldn’t…*but she felt like she had her balance again.

“So…now what? What…” a thought crossed her mind. “What happened to Gilber? Is he safe?”

“He’s making some arrangements before leaving Garanhir,” Rheannach explained.

“And…Lisze? Adrey?”

“Lisze is one of the enemy’s thralls now. Adrey, I think, escaped that fate, and if she has…well. I don’t know what that means yet.”

Ellaenie breathed out, shaken and upset for Lisze, but if Adrey was still okay…that was better, at least.

“Alright. I have…I suppose I should figure out what my next step is.”

“Do not rush it,” Haust advised. “Our enemy will be consolidating after this victory, not to mention the difficulty Rhee put him to with that banishing magic. You have time to get a clear picture and think.”

Ellaenie nodded, and took another deep breath. Her back straightened as she finally found herself thinking again. Looking at the situation, weighing it, letting the Craft resonate against it and listening to what it whispered…

“…I’ll need somewhere to live,” she said. “I can’t very well stand on the shores of this lake forever…and I don’t think I should go back to Garanhir, yet.”

“You are a welcome guest,” Eärrach told her. “In fact…”

He cast a look at the others. Haust was the first to nod: she bowed slightly, took a step back and evaporated into a whirl of mist. Something like a cold kiss brushed Ellaenie’s cheek as she departed. Talvi likewise nodded, turned and walked away: she passed behind a nearby tree and did not emerge on its far side.

Sayf simply gave Ellaenie a nod, then with the showground flair and charisma of a mountebank, he swirled his cloak around him with his arm, twisted inside it somehow, shrunk to a busy colorful point, and was gone with a crack.

Rheannach touched Ellaenie’s shoulder. “There’s a ritual we must perform, as her coven,” she said. “Come find me after you’ve spoken with my husband.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll go prepare.”

She kissed Eärrach, who whispered a warm word in her ear then stood and watched his wife for a minute as she padded away around the lake.

Once she was maybe a hundred yards away, he turned to Ellaenie. “I have thoughts you may wish to hear,” he said.

“O-of course,” Ellaenie agreed, nodding.

“Walk with me.”

They turned the other way around the lake’s opposite shore, past the cabin and toward the higher ground where the forest came down to a shallow cliff edge, rather than sandy beach. Unusually for him, he walked soft-footed and quietly; the earth did not undulate under his mighty step nor fuse into rock under his unfathomable weight, nor did the trees sway by his mere shifting presence. So subdued was he, in fact, that the flowers didn’t even bloom nor the buds unfurl around him.

So striking was it, she simply could not help commenting on it. “I suspect you could sneak up on a fly, moving like this.”

“Well, I am a legendary hunter, or so I am told…” he offered, trying a wry smile. Even so, Ellaenie could tell his heart wasn’t really invested in humour.

“I…didn’t know any mortal could mean so much to you.”

“That’s the burden of power like ours, Ellaenie. The burden and the joy of it: we get to love everyone. And as we are stewards of this creation, we experience every death.”

“But Saoirse’s was more significant than most.”

“That is among the things I wish to talk to you about, young witch.”

They walked onward a little further.

“You must understand, and here I teach you a thing we have not yet found ready to affirm to the world, even if your beliefs suspect it: death is not the end. Not for any of us, not for an elf, nor a human, nor even a blade of grass. But it is tragedy, nonetheless. The central mystery of it shall not be breached this side of the divide, not even by the likes of I. And, so: all life is significant to one such as me. I feel every birth of every living thing, and I feel all their deaths. Even a soul such as Saoirse, as much as I loved her personally, is but a mote in that maelstrom of life.”

“And yet…you’re grieving.”

“…As I said, it is a mystery. All souls are equally precious, according to their kind…but not all lives are equally lived. Hers was better lived than almost any other I can recall. And better ended, too. That hex she laid on Civorage as her final act was…” he paused. “Well. You shall see in time.”

“You know something.”

“I am a wielder of Time, Ellaenie. Of course I know. I alone in this creation wield all the Words in their fullness by a mere thought. In the re-making of this world, I was the fulcrum through which all will and power flowed, and my sibling Crowns the shape-helpers in that task. To us, but especially to me…time becomes as a map one can survey, as if it were laid out on a table and most of its secrets were laid open.”

“…Most?”

“Most. Some surprises have been reserved for us.”

Ellaenie reflected on his way of wording things once again: Eärrach always spoke as if there was, in turn, another power just as much greater than him as he was to Ellaenie, if not more so. He spoke of what was reserved, revealed and granted. He phrased his thoughts more like a servant than a king.

Servant or not, he could read her mind as though she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “Well, it’s simple, is it not? This world has a beginning. Meaning, it was created. Meaning, whatever created it cannot be of this world. As I am very much a creature of this time and place…there must be something greater, yes?”

“I…suppose?”

He chuckled indulgently. “Now, the real trick is thinking the implications through. You should have a long talk with Yngmir if you really want to get wrapped up in it. But in any case,” he sighed, “all of that is part of a larger bramble of ideas we need not delve tonight. My more immediate concern is you. Ah, here we are.”

They had come to a spot where the trail meandered to the cliff’s edge, and the topsoil was too shallow for trees. It wasn’t perfectly semicircular, but close enough, and the grass was short and speckled with white flowers.

In the center of the glade sat a bench. Not a hollow, flimsy wooden thing made of slats and gaps, but a huge oblong stone, knee-high on Eärrach and warm limestone yellow-white. Its outside face was carved with looping, fluid, many-sided emblems, some rounded and swirling, some angular and pointed. Some had three points or lobes, some seven, some eight. There was some significance there she didn’t know, and which Eärrach declined to explain.

The First of Four took a seat on the bench, and, with a profound soft sigh, he relaxed.

Ellaenie grit her teeth as the sensation of his ease washed over her. There was a feeling like being yanked sharply towards him for the barest shadow of an instant, a rather longer feeling of being stretched or pummeled somehow. The mere fact of him was enough to make the world creak.

In fact, when she looked around…she noticed a slight shimmer in the air, in a hazy bubble extending about ten yards in all directions from King Eärrach. Everything beyond seemed somehow distant and slow, while simultaneously moving too fast—

She was looking through something she didn’t understand, and it was wildly disorienting.

Eärrach noted her distress. “If you will forgive me, this spot is one of the few where I can truly relax. What you felt was the magic of this place taking on the pressure of my being.” He grinned softly, “You would be extremely ill-advised to step through that field. In here we are partially disconnected from the universe, and that affords me an opportunity to be fully embodied without endangering all creation. You can feel it, yes? Feel the pull?”

She could. It was as if there was a vast, impossibly powerful tug that was there somehow, nipping at her very being, trying to yank her towards the King with a strength that would annihilate her…yet it wasn’t able to. Somehow, the force was a ghost, felt but not effective.

“I…yes. It’s a strange sensation.”

“That is the gravity of my mass-energy you’re feeling. Here, it will not truly affect you, and that means I can let go. You have no idea how freeing that feels, even though it’s habitually effortless. I don’t indulge often, and I do not share this with many, but you…are someone I appreciate.”

Ellaenie sighed in turn, and, feeling that he intended for her to join him, she hopped up onto the bench and swung her legs. “I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. Not you, or Rheannach, or Saoirse.”

Eärrach laughed, deeply from his belly. “Oh, to be so young! As if any of us could earn love!”

Ellaenie didn’t know quite how to think about that, so she pressed onward. “…That map you spoke of. Might it have some answers?”

“Maybe.” He flashed an infuriating smile, and wrapped a tremendous arm around her tenderly. That feeling of incredible power pulling at her was almost dizzyingly powerful, yet she felt safe and comfortable against him; she snuggled against his unyielding flank and enjoyed his affection and his heavy musk and the furnace-like heat of him.

“Maybe you like riddles,” she looked up and teased, gently. That square-set face of his—the study in exaggerated male brutality—was nothing but kindness and delight.

“Or maybe it is just that you are young, and to be young is to be wrought of pure potential, while the old can sense great potential when it manifests.”

“Potential might never lead to anything, though,” Ellaenie pointed out. “I think I’d rather know I was bound for something, than just have the potential.”

“But if I told you what you were bound for, might that not change your course?”

“If my course is a storm that will sweep me into eclipse…”

“It might be, yet.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his great knees. Away on the lake’s far side and through the gentle shimmer of the ‘field,’ a thin coil of smoke was rising from where Rheannach was lighting the bonfire. “But what I see and admire in you, Ellaenie, is that you could be a skilled helmsman, so to speak. And what kind of steward would I be if I robbed you of the opportunity to set your own course? After all, if you never navigate the dangers yourself, you won’t ever become the expert I know you can be.”

“I have no idea what my course is, now,” Ellaenie said, wearily. “Yesterday it seemed so clear…”

“That’s because you haven’t thought, yet. Come: think aloud. Let me be your rubber duck.”

“….I beg your pardon?”

Eärrach laughed, seemingly embarrassed with himself. “Forgive me, that is an idea older than this world. Older than me, even! Once, long ago, it was the habit of certain…let’s call them mages, or scribes perhaps…anyhow, when faced with a particularly twisty bit of logic or something, they had learned that simply explaining the situation to something—a rubber duck, commonly—quite magically helped them solve the problem in their own head. And so…think aloud. What is the problem you face, and what can you do about it?”

Well…okay. May as well. And it sounded wise, absurd though he’d made it. “I…don’t have any power left,” she said, thinking slowly. “Well, no. I still have the Craft, of course. But Enerlend, that’s gone. I can’t go there safely, the other dukes are probably under our enemy’s thrall…anyone there now could be his agent. All my political influence is gone…or most of it, I suppose. I might be able to bank on being Saoirse’ student in Crae Vhannog, and many of the common people of Enerlend might still remember me fondly…maybe some of the nobles, too. Until Civorage enslaves them all, anyway. So I suppose it depends how swiftly and aggressively he claims them. How swiftly can he claim them? I don’t know…”

“That, I can answer,” Eärrach said. “He has great power to dominate a mind and compel action through a proxy, but that requires his constant effort and attention. He is not such as I, nor has he the requisite being to be so, thank God. The permanent ensnarement of a will? Erasing a person and replacing them with his own creature? For him, that must be done in person, and it would take him some time. And the result will be quite fragile, to one versed in the Craft.”

“…So I could break his hold over Lisze?”

“You? Not yet. You’re still very much a student of the Craft, an apprentice.”

“Then I need to grow in the Craft. Now more than ever,” Ellaenie decided. “But from who? I have lost my Beldame, and my Mother is…she has higher concerns. Doesn’t she?”

“Your Mother, my love, is your Mother. The relationship between Maiden and Mother in a coven is the tightest and most intimate for good reason. Do you think she’d have risked herself for just anyone?” Eärrach looked out toward the distant glimmer of firelight. “She loves you so dearly she risked everything to snatch you from the enemy’s jaws. And now she invites you to grieve with her. You, as her Maiden, are a very high concern indeed for her. Especially now. But in my experience, past a certain point, the best way to learn any trade is to take an apprentice of your own.”

“I’m not ready for that!” Ellaenie said, automatically. The very thought made her heart lurch.

“If you say so, though I suspect you underestimate yourself. But maybe so, in which case that’s something to work towards.”

“I’m not…qualified…to be a Mother.”

“Something to work towards there, too.” Eärrach said. His light, teasing tone carried an undertone of seriousness. And along with it, a not-too-subtle offer…

Again, the idea wasn’t at all unwelcome. Yet, somehow, she knew it wasn’t quite right.

“Well…yes.” Ellaenie sighed. “That was something I’d hoped for. Soon. Now, I don’t suppose being courted is ever likely…”

Which made her consider the tacit offer yet again. He would be quite someone to love—but he had other advice for her.

“My love, yours will be the opposite problem. Even if you quit into obscurity as some peasant mill worker somewhere, you will have suitors, I promise you that.”

The sentiment warmed her somewhat. “You believe so?”

Perhaps that was her heart fishing for a compliment, but regardless of motivation, he did not disappoint. “I said it at our last meeting: you are lovely. A man who does not desire you must feel no desire for women whatsoever.”

“Courted…maybe. But…all that goes with it? Marriage? Children?” Ellaenie sighed. “I was looking forward to all that. Now, it would feel like an indulgence, a dereliction of my responsibilities. And even if not…an extra responsibility when I already have so many on my shoulders.”

“Children are a lot of work, no doubt,” Eärrach agreed, then turned to look down on her. “But my experience at least is, they are the opposite of a burden, and they are the responsibility which makes all other responsibilities worthwhile.”

“But the world is…” Ellaenie hesitated, then gestured vaguely back in the general direction of Garanhir. “There’s a madman out there bent on enslaving us all. Any child brought into this world right now is in danger of that fate.”

“Yes,” Eärrach agreed. “And the morality of bringing a child into a dangerous world to face its dangers has troubled mankind from the very beginning. But I would put before you, perhaps, a small hint: I do not suggest anything in blindness to the topology of the future. I offer my advice. You are welcome to take it, modify it, or ignore it. That said…”

“I would be wise to listen,” Ellaenie said, perhaps a bit glumly.

Which Eärrach did not let slip by. “You feel perhaps you might be dodging some heroic duty.”

“Aren’t I? It seems like I’m the one this has come to…”

“Not the only one. There are, and will be, others. And if that does not suffice, then let me offer a further re-assurance: he is at this point destined to lose. Saoirse worked a curse on him the likes of which this creation has never seen. Remember those surprises I hinted at? That was one of them. He will be defeated. All timelines converge on that point, even if I must eventually destroy him myself. What matters now is the nature of his defeat, and the character of the free peoples’ victory. And that matters quite a bit. So…”

“So I shouldn’t feel the need to sacrifice myself, too.”

“All must sacrifice in this world. That is, after all, what death is all about. The secret to life is knowing when and what sacrifice is demanded of you. I think, for you, right now, there may be a calling to abnegation—your sacrifice may well be standing back and gathering yourself. But I cannot know! That is for you and God to discern, not me. I can only offer advice.”

“You can offer a lot more than that.”

“Heh!” He drew his thick legs up under himself to sit cross-legged, spread his hands palm-upwards on his knees, and exhaled. He wasn’t blatantly showing off, not this time. But he was quite deliberately making himself seen precisely as he was. And…

…Well, he was, among other things, the god of strength, virility, manliness, and the wild hunt, in all its carnal intentions. “…Yes. I can offer deep and surpassing knowledge of the Craft and the Art, of the histories of this creation and of the World Before. I can offer you immortality for as long as you wish it, youth for as long as you desire it, a physical and magical might beyond the scope of ordinary humans. I can offer you love, and the consummation of love. I could even elevate you and set you among the Heralds.”

“But I haven’t earned any of that.” Ellaenie curled her own legs up alongside her and again leaned against his flank, resting a comparatively tiny hand affectionately on his vast and mighty leg. “That all sounds…wonderful, but hollow, if that makes sense. I’d be left feeling like I was a toy and a plaything, or like I had something to live up to.”

“Can you not just accept a gift?”

“…I…no. No I can’t. I want to feel worthy of whatever gifts I receive.”

He sighed, shaking his great head. “You are too young and eager to realize it, but that is a breathtakingly arrogant statement. Since when has worthiness been any factor in a gift? All is gift, Ellanie. Your circumstances, your friends, your talents and interests, your very life itself. None of us can possibly merit those gifts, and that is precisely the point!”

“I…is it? I thought you were human once—”

“Was, and am! But not without help! Do you think I became what I am by some great act of intellect? Some stupendous contrivance of science? No! I am what I am, we are what we are, both by the willing life-gifts of many, many good beings over many billions of years, and the action of grace beyond us all. Once the revelation of the Final Secret had been given…” He drifted off, and looked down at his great, blunt hands, opening and closing them a few times. Then he sighed and his rough palm hugged her shoulder—almost her entire upper back, actually. “You are so very much like Rheannach.”

“I am?”

“That feeling of worthiness has ever been at the heart of our falling-outs.”

“Would you love her so much if she accepted all her power and all your affection as her right and due?” Ellaenie asked.

“Ah.” He nodded thoughtfully. “There we run into a self-fulfilling prophecy. She is as she is precisely because that is who I would love the most. If I was the sort of man who would better love a high and entitled queen, she would be a high and entitled queen.”

“…So…to accept gifts without any thought to deserving them is entitlement, but wanting to deserve them is arrogance? I think I understand why she struggles with you sometimes,” Ellaenie said.

He laughed. “Thus you prove me right again! That’s a sentiment that could have come off her tongue…and even that too is a part of my love for her. I do not want a weak and doting plaything. I want Rheannach. In all her passion, all her cleverness, all her uncertainties and angst and fire and wit.” He unfolded his legs and leaned forward to look across the lake again, gazing fondly at her off in the distance, and exhaling the soft sigh of a man completely in love. “She’s the perfect woman for me. Never more so than when she’s mad at me.”

“You’ve…twice now, you’ve hinted that you’d very much like to have me for a lover,” Ellaenie said.

He turned his attention sidelong toward her, and…yes. There it was. A twinkle in his eyes, and he was gently showing off again, by the way the lines of his body tightened without any overt show of effort. He was so much that even his subtleties were blunt and unmistakable. “I would, yes.”

“If Rheannach is the perfect woman for you, how can your eye stray like that?”

“Love is a different for a Crown: we are not gods, but we are channels of the Infinite.” He paused, and corrected himself. “Well…that’s true of everyone in some sense, but we are wider channels than most, let’s say. Or more general, or of a higher order. Among the transcendentals of all Reality, Love is the crowning glory, and I am presently its anointed instrument in this universe. I can and do love everything within this creation with the fullness of my being, which is a mystery the people of this world aren’t ready for. Admittedly, I do tend to emphasize it in forms the people are presently able to accept…” and it was here he smirked and…well. He was King Eärrach, and Ellaenie couldn’t help but giggle at his macho clowning around…and appreciate the show, even if being the target of it was rather more than she would normally have liked.

He was a gentleman, though—even in how he was ungentlemanly. He relented after briefly having his fun, and continued his point. “I enjoy it all too, because in truth I am charged to channel and embody love in all its forms. This is why I am also the builder-god of civilization in many traditions.”

There was a lot to learn in that statement, and Ellaenie sensed it would be some work unpacking it, later on—most everything he shared involved much contemplation. Fortunately, she was graced with a sudden realization: “you and Prince Sayf together are modeling man.”

King Eärrach gave her warm, deeply satisfied look. “Aye. Not perfectly, but understandably and approachably. Queen Talvi and Lady Haust in turn model woman.”

“Imperfectly.”

“And approachably. As the people of this world grow in spiritual sophistication, we’ve subtly changed our roles in culture and myth to adapt, especially in how we present ourselves. You are yet a very, very young people. Well-advanced in their technological ability, true enough: in fact, far more than we were at this point in our history. We’d not yet invented the wheel! But we already understood philosophy better than your greatest masters do, even today…I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Ellaenie smiled. “Yes, but it’s okay. I enjoy your ramblings. And it does help me understand.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I mean, it helps me understand many things, but especially why you and Rheannach are as you are. At least a little.”

“Then you’re doing better than I am some days!” He laughed and slapped one of his massive knees, which sent a force through the air that was simultaneously far and away the most violent thing she’d ever felt, and yet did nothing to her. Right then, his every tiny little movement carried the power of mountains and fire, yet she feared it not—strange magic indeed, in this place.

“And also,” he added, having re-settled himself on the stone, “as I said: you are very much alike.”

“As alike as a mother and daughter?”

“In one sense, maybe.”

“Well that’s the sense I feel most keenly. So, carrying on like you do with me when I have that sort of relationship with your wife…it feels a little…”

“I was going to say inappropriate, but…grotesque, yes.”

“Grotesque?”

Eärrach paused and hummed thoughtfully at the sky for a second. At length he lowered his head again and replied.

“For the Crowns, relationship comes in all forms, as we ourselves have experienced many forms over deep time. Our experience is encompassing in a way I do not think you will ever properly appreciate, meaning no offense. To Sayf I am simultaneously father, brother, son, colleague, friend, and lover, because over deep æons I have lived embodied as all those things, as well as forms of love you have neither experience of nor words for. And he the same to me, and so it is between all of us. While there are inescapable themes between us—I am an innately dominant personality, for example, in ways the others are not—the forms of our experiences has encompassed all realizations. With great age comes a fullness of experience. With youth, however, comes intensity, and one so young as you is best served by being one thing to each person. And your instincts know it.”

“Well, then I know what my answer to you must be. Because if I am best served by being one thing only to Rheannach, I’d rather remain her Maiden. Accepting your love would change the relationship between us, and…I’m not ready for that. Not yet.”

He nodded as though receiving the answer he had entirely expected, and approved of.

“I would be equally honored to be as a father to you, and all that entails.”

“I think…I think that’s what I need more,” Ellaenie admitted.

“Then that is what we are to each other.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “And I am very happy.”

She looked up at him…and her heart melted. His expression wasn’t the same. Now, instead of courting, even predatory, it was tender, and affectionate. Fatherly. Though he did wink at her, stood up suddenly, and with a snap of his fingers, clothed himself in a handsome set of leathers appropriate to the hardy woodsman he was, deep in the core of his soul.

“I think, going forward, it might be more appropriate if I acquiesced to some covering. What do you think?”

“It, um…frankly, you could wear a couple of burlap sacks and a dead badger and you’d still have…presence.”

“Ha! Like this?” And sure enough…

Ellaenie couldn’t help but giggle. Her giggle made him chuckle, his chuckle made her laugh, her laugh made him roar. And with that, as their mirth ran away with them and made Rheannach on the far side of the lake look up and stare at them, it also crystallized them. A father and a daughter, goofing around. It made Ellaenie feel…somehow, she felt whole again. As if she’d finally got back something that had been cruelly torn away from her, altered and never again to be quite the same, but still welcome nonetheless.

“We should head back,” he offered. “Come!” He extended an arm, and Ellaenie felt herself enveloped in a cradling embrace. The reverse sensation of him re-composing himself and his sanctuary releasing his grip crawled over her, but then it was over—he was back to the restrained self she now knew was his usual habit. He looked down, grinned at her, then he leaped—the most trivial thing for him, just bouncing on his toes, really—and they sailed over the lake, landing quietly on the far side, right next to the fire.

That he could will himself to such careful silence was terrifying in its own right. But now, he offered it as a gift, for the comfort of those he cared about.

Rheannach looked up at them to say hello, then blinked at her husband. “…What are you wearing?”

“Her idea.”

Rheannach looked to Ellaenie; Ellaenie gave her a small grin and a shrug. She saw a number of emotions flit over her Mother’s face, not least of which was a measure of pleased relief. In the end, Rheannach settled for stifling a smile and shaking her head as though she disapproved, unconvincingly.

King Eärrach resumed his woodsman’s leathers. Notably, they fit rather tighter this time…always showing off for Rheannach. Ellaenie giggled at the realization. He really was madly in love.

She’d made the right choice, she was certain of it.

She sat down on the log by the fire and exhaled. “I suppose I can’t really stay here. Not if I want to rebuild any kind of a power base and serve my people.”

“Mm.” Rheannach shrugged slightly, in a complicated way with both a nod and a shake mixed into it. “This is a wonderful place to build certain kinds of power…and you will need them.”

“Political and temporal power, though…”

“You’ll need those too. And you’re right, this is no place to cultivate them.”

“Where, though? Would they have me in Crae Vhannog? As their late thaighn’s Maiden, and with you to vouch for me—”

“They would,” Rheannach agreed.

“But?”

Rheannach sat back and stopped preparing her brew for a moment. “Crae Vhannog is a wondrous place. Caisteal Vhannog is a witch’s paradise, a fortress built by Art and Craft as much as by masonry, high on a hill. From its turrets, you can see the entire earthmote, from edge to edge in all directions, as though you were standing on the prow of an airship. You can watch the village lights gleaming at night, see the wains on the roads, even count the cattle and sheep in all the Crae’s paddocks if you choose…”

“…So small?” Ellaenie asked.

“Tiny. Twenty thousand acres, and a fit man could run its length and back in an afternoon. You see the issue.”

“There’s no real political power to be found there,” Ellaenie nodded, grimly.

“There’s some. But you need enough to take on all of Garanhir. And though the Craenen are good folk, they have a rhyme:

‘Misen agin mi braithrun, as agin ar kaithrun; Kaith agin ar seoslaug, Seos agin ar bhailaug; Bhailaug agin na crae, dhen Crae agin na Craenen. An saibhadhen Craenen uile as agin soaghule.’”

“Literally translated:” Eärrach offered, “Me against my brothers, us against our kin; Kin against our neighbours, neighbours against our town; Our town against the Crae, then the Crae against the Craenen. And after the Craenen have fought each other, us against all the world.”

“I’d heard they could be, uh…fractious,” Ellaenie said, after a thoughtful moment.

“The surest way to unite two of the Craenen against you is to pick a side in their squabble,” Rheannach said, with a smile. “I love them dearly. They’re fierce, independent, proud, musical, magical, brave and wise. If they could be united, they would be a formidable ally…do you think you can do it?”

“…Not yet.”

Eärrach grinned. “Spoken like Saoirse,” he said.

“Not really. I daresay if I was truly following her example I’d…” she paused, as her brain caught up with her mouth. “…Huh.”

“Oho! that’s the face of somebody who just had an idea!” Rheannach said. She picked up the cup she was brewing in. Her mixture seemed different this time: more herbal, less mushroomy. “A token for your thoughts?”

“…I was just thinking…if I was truly after Saoirse’s manner, I’d propose to Sayf and join his harem.”

They both burst out laughing, but it was the very opposite of mockery.

“Oh, that’s good!” Eärrach boomed.

“Well, his spouses are renowned worldwide for their influence, skill, talent and connections. Joining their number would be—” Ellaenie began.

“No, absolutely! You’re completely right! His Oasis is a place where you might operate openly without fear of reprisal, and the perfect place to start finding allies.”

“Each of the Harem are worth a dozen thaighns, at least,” Rheannach agreed.

“And you still get your courtship and all the rest that you thought you had lost into the bargain,” Eärrach added, and here he offered one of his trademark infuriatingly attractive grins, “I leave the details to you. I think you’ll figure it out.”

Rheannach smirked at him. “Definitely.”

“You don’t…you wouldn’t mind?”

“Why would we?” King Eärrach shrugged. “I am supreme, this side of death. I have been beyond competition in this universe and the last for longer than the other Crowns have existed. Why should I feel anything but delight for you and for one of my oldest and closest? He and you would make a delightful match.”

“If I’m worthy…” Ellaenie fretted.

”That, Maiden mine, is entirely within your power.” Rheannach said, firmly. “But…enough of your power base and plans for now. We may have grieved as friends for our friend, but the coven is now two and there is a ritual to perform.”

Eärrach nodded, kissed her cheek, kissed Ellaenie’s brow, and rose. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He slipped away with all the stealth of a huntsman, returning around the arc of the lake faster than his seemingly slow gait would suggest. Ellaenie sighed, closed her eyes, and focused her mind.

“Are we to be skyclad for this?” she asked. It didn’t feel appropriate, somehow.

“No. That’s for celebration and joy. Not for this.”

“Good. It…didn’t feel right.”

“Your intuition guides you well.” Rheannach offered her the cup. “Come on. There are so many rituals she never got to teach you, but common to all of them is that the Maiden drinks first.”

Ellaenie nodded, and drank half. The brew was bitter, spicy, herbal. The pungency of licorice, fennel, aniseed, asafoetida, and others she didn’t know shot right to the back of her throat and up her nose, but she fought back the impulse to sneeze, and instead drew a sharp breath. Rheannach nodded, took back the cup, and drained the rest before dropping the wet bouquet of herbs into the fire to smoke it up.

She took Ellaenie’s hands. “Summon up the Sight, and form a picture of Saoirse in your mind. All you knew of her, all she did for you, all your feelings toward her, all the feelings you felt from her…picture the lines of her face, the way she braided her hair, the texture and colour of her shawl. Picture her as clearly and completely as you can…”

At first, it was difficult. Ellaenie was able to picture only pieces of the whole, like the facets of a gem. Images flashed through her head of the way the old woman’s cheeks had dimpled when she smiled, the raucous grate of her snore, the particular way she would fidget her cane from hand to hand as she orbited the room while teaching…

Slowly, it started to come together, though. Distractions faded away, the heat of the fire and the rush of the breeze dimmed into the background and ceased to bother her. Even the feel of Rheannach’s hands in hers became unfelt. In the black void behind her eyes, and Saoirse’s image grew clearer, sharper, more defined…

Until, in a moment that felt like blinking without her eyes either opening or shutting, she was standing on an unseen solid surface in a black room, its walls and floor and ceiling so dark and so far away they didn’t really exist, yet glimpsed still by the peculiar un-hue of hallucination as one might see in the dead of knight when knuckling one’s eyelids.

And Saoirse, standing in front of her.

“Oh…child. I was half afraid ye were’nae ready for this. By the old God, ‘tis good to see you a last time afore I go, Maiden mine.”

Ellaenie blinked, feeling now entirely like her own body was here in this dark place, and whatever was standing back in the real world was—

The spell wavered. Saoirse reached out, took her hand, and steadied her. “Careful, Ellaenie. ‘Tis a delicate thing, this moment. Once lost, it can ne’er be remade.”

“I…are you real?”

“Och! Just like ye ‘tae ask the hardest question first.” Saoirse cackled. “The question that does’nae matter, an’ yet also matters the most. What does ‘real’ even mean? But, neither ye nor I have time enough tae answer it.”

“…You’re real enough,” Ellaenie decided.

“Aye.” The tender memory of a long, frail hand touched Ellaenie’s cheek as though tidying some errant hair away. “This is the last rite ‘fer a Beldame. Her passing advice tae her sisters. Whe’er it is true communion wi’ her spirit afore it crosses the threshold, or the witch’s own inner Craft givin’ voice tae what she knew o’ her mentor…not even the Four know. But ‘tis a chance to say our farewells properly, an’ take a final counsel.”

Ellaenie sniffed, though there were no tears here in this vision. “I feel…I feel like I should have seen it coming. Like I could have prevented it. Like you’d still be alive if I’d just kept focused.”

“Aye, o’ course. But ye forget, my love, beldames know just as much as ye and then a lot more atop it. We have sight an’ schemes beyond thine.”

“You mean…you saw this coming? You predicted your death and planned for it?”

“An’ I stuck a sharp pin in our enemy afore I went. He’ll feel its pain the rest o’ his days. Perhaps if I had not, perhaps if we had escaped as ye dream of now, it all would turn out for worse. Perhaps my death was needed, if ye are to see a happy end tae these dark days.”

“You can’t know that…” Ellaenie replied, made sullen by her renewed sadness.

“Can I not? Well, may ye live long and well enough tae know what it is like to have an innocent girl but a fragment o’ yer age lecture ye about what ye can and cannae know…”

Ellaenie’s laugh got stuck in her nose and became almost a scoff. “That almost sounds like another curse.”

“The very opposite, darling. May thy life be long, and full o’ the joys an’ folly of girls younger’n ye…think ye tae marry my old husband?”

“I do. I think…”

“Good. Name thy daughter after me.” Her cackle almost rang off whatever invisible walls this vision theatre had, then she turned and glanced over her shoulder. When she looked back, her expression had changed. “Two last bits I have, afore I go.”

Ellaenie nodded, feeling too weak and trembling to speak now. The first goodbye had been cruel for its shocking speed and suddenness. This was cruel because there was so much more she wanted to say, and hear…two bits was not enough. But she listened nonetheless.

“First…go to Sayf last. Visit Talvi at her keep, an’ dance wi’ Haust at her circle o’ stones. Go tae the Oasis last, for ye’ll not leave there for many a year after.”

“I will,” Ellaenie promised.

“And the second…”

She stepped forward, spread her arms wide, and wrapped them around Ellaenie. Ellaenie closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around her mentor, leaned into the ghost and memory and whisper of a tight, fond, hug…

Farewell, beloved.

Farewell… Ellaenie replied, holding Saoirse’s memory as tight as she possibly could—

And then she was awake and blinking, back in life and reality and the world again, feeling hollow and raw with tears running so freely that they dripped off her chin. Opposite her, still holding her hands, Rheannach was opening her own eyes with the same pain and sorrow written in her own expression.

For a second they stared at each other. Then they collided in a tight hug and did not let go again for a very, very long time. And yet, they were both glad. They had said their goodbyes properly, this time; an opportunity afforded to none but witches, bittersweet though it was.

It had been exactly, perfectly what Ellaenie needed. She felt cleansed, she felt secure, she felt ready to pick up her stick and continue the long walk forward.

And that, all by itself, was perhaps the most powerful magic she’d seen today.

----------------------------------------

> Arthenun Ilẹyeda! The Eni-Ilẹyedu avoid the City of Gardens, saying it represents everything they believe is wrong with urban living. But in this I cannot agree with them, nor it seems can many other writers. How many leagues of ink have have been spent writing how many poems in a vain effort to capture the palladium of Ilẹyede? How does one encompass the sweet spice of such unlimited splendor and vice in mere words? I shall not even try; you must visit for yourself. If you can go nowhere else in all the worlds, go to Arthenun Ilẹyeda at least once. —Prince Ruber of Valai, My Travels

THE PEACOCK GARDEN

The Oasis, Alhulw Earthmote

09.05.15.12.13

A drop of water landed on Pal’s book and left behind a dark, ragged circle as it soaked into the paper, causing her to look up sharply. Just in time for a twin droplet to strike her on the cheek.

“…Rain?”

She snapped the book shut, unfurled her legs from the garden couch she was lounging on, and rose to her feet as she tucked the book under her arm for protection. It was, definitely, raining. A few more spots struck her arms and shoulders and darkened her dress—a shame, that, as it would leave a mark on the silk—but now that she was upright she could see a silvery wall of weather sweeping toward her.

Pal was, she knew of herself, an eternally calculating woman, and she had two options in this moment. The first was to flee the oncoming rain, fail to outrun it, and make it into cover looking undignified and soaked and distressed—not her way at all—and the second was to strut proudly back into the palace and wear the inevitable soaking like a fashion statement.

She protected the book as best she could and took the latter approach. The rain, when it reached her, was the perfect tepid temperature for a refreshing bathe, so she straightened her back and lifted her chin, and strode through the front doors a minute or so later with her dress stuck thinly and transparently to her skin, but her dignity and power entirely intact. Several nearby visitors boggled at her; the effect of the drenched fabric was rather more than mere nudity would have been, but such exposure held neither shame nor fear for Pal. She ignored them and, resisting the urge to finger, flap or loosen her soaked garb and thereby betray any discomfort, she strode on through the statue hall, took one of the hidden doors, then another, then a third and so entered the seraglio.

Two of her fellow crownspouses, Lokar and Galan, looked up at her as she entered, and promptly forgot all about their game board.

“…Caught in the rain?” Galan asked, after a second.

“Nobody told me,” Pal replied, tightly, “we were due to have any today.”

“We weren’t,” Lokar replied as he rose from his seat. “You need a hand with that?”

“Thank you.”

“Mhm.” He chuckled as magic shimmered around his hand. “Let me just fix the sight in my memory first…”

Pal folded her arms and feigned an impatient, cold look, but to the contrary his joke took the sting out of what might otherwise have been a humiliation. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Heh!”

He gestured, and a pleasant warmth like a sauna folded around her. Within seconds, she was steaming; Galan opened a window to let the sudden humidity disperse. After a minute more, she was dry and perfectly warm. Pal shook herself from head to toe, licked her suddenly dry mouth, and exhaled. Thank you,” she said, and kissed Lokar lightly on the lips. “I suppose we should check on him.”

“Aye.” Lokar shook his hand as though he’d burned it slightly. “Unscheduled rain? A sure sign of a strong mood. Unusually strong.”

“He’s had a few of those, lately,” Galan agreed. “Something big is happening, I’m sure of it.”

“It’s this new Oneist cult,” Pal told him, as she thumbed her book to make sure it too was dry. The pages had warped a little from the damp, alas. “I’ve been keeping an eye on them for him. They trouble him greatly.”

“The ones who came out of nowhere? I’ve not looked closely.”

“What do they believe?” Galan asked. He held the door open for them both.

“Well…at first blush, their public literature seems benign enough. An appeal for the lost, the lonely, the adrift and the dissatisfied to come find community, purpose and oneness.” Pal shook her head as she stepped through the door, touching his arm gratefully as she did so. “I haven’t been able to read any of their private material, but some of my many friends who’ve spoken to Oneists tell me they’re…bitter. Crown-hating. Elf-hating. Human supremacist.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Hm. Not like him to trouble over such things.”

“There’s something more to them,” Pal revealed. “Something he hasn’t told me, yet.”

“Maybe we’ll find out now,” Lokar predicted.

The trio wove their way deeper into the palace. To those who knew the Oasis intimately, Sayf’s location within it could never be a secret, and right now his presence was a weight, a pull, moving toward him almost felt like falling downhill*.* He was in the observatory, right at the earthmote’s trailing tip, where a viewer in the round glass room was surrounded on three sides by sky.

Lightning flashed a few miles as they entered, adding light and majesty to a distant column of cloud. A few seconds later, the boom of its voice briefly overwhelmed the already deafening drumroll of rain on the glass. Their husband, Prince Sayf, was standing at the far end of the room, watching the weather and smoking. He half-turned his head as they entered, then beckoned them to join him.

“Hello, loves.”

They crowded around him, touched and held and comforted him.

“Something happened,” Pal prompted, after a minute.

He nodded. “…Saoirse has passed.”

Pal’s long-cultivated poise shattered, instantly. She blinked as though struck, opened her mouth, closed it again, sketched a helpless shape in the air with a fluttering hand and sudden tears leapt into her eyes. “…Oh.” she said. It was a soft sound, high and plaintive and heartbroken, like a child complaining at having a toy taken away for bedtime.

She turned her head away and stood still for a long second, grief breaking her posture in a way that driving rain and public exposure never could. After a moment, she took a high and sharp breath, then another easier one, swallowed and wrestled her face under control. “I…forgive me. You couldn’t break that news more gently, husband?” She gave him a small glare and wiped away a smear of diluted eyeliner from her cheek.

“Would Saoirse have?”

“Hah!” the miserable laugh echoed off the domed roof. “…No. No, she wouldn’t. Oh…dammit.”

Sayf gave a small, sympathetic smile and put his arm around her. “I thought the beauty of a storm was an appropriate tribute. I’m sorry if you got caught in it.”

“You damaged one of my books.”

“…Forgive me.”

“You had weightier matters on your mind.”

“How did she go, in the end?” Lokar asked. “Somehow, I can’t imagine her shuffling off quietly of age and infirmity.”

“Didn’t you feel it?” Sayf asked him. There was a pause, then Lokar’s eyes grew wide.

“That was her?”

“What was her?” Galan and Pal asked, together.

“Ugh, untutored though you two are, I would have thought even you could have felt what happened last night. You two really are deaf and blind to magic, aren’t you?”

“Completely,” Pal agreed. “What happened?”

“A working of…some sort. I couldn’t make sense of it. But it was powerful. And…hateful. And righteous.”

“You can’t make sense of it because you’re a master of the Art,” Sayf told him. “Saoirse was the greatest living mortal master of the Craft. And she gave her life as a sacrifice in the casting.”

“What did she do?” Lokar asked.

“Cursed a man.” Sayf sighed again, then shook his head. “Forgive me, I’m being cryptic. Come: sit. Cerida will be here soon, and then I’ll tell all…”

Rithas was simultaneously the oldest and the youngest of them, in that the first of her past selves to marry Sayf had done so three thousand years ago, but her present incarnation **had only returned to remarry him just eight months previously. She was a gûlfey this time, a wood elf. Cerida Limgûlcan Rithas, and Pal had to admit, she liked the new Rithas. There was something oddly erotic about green skin…

But now was no time for such thoughts. Sayf greeted her with a touching of foreheeads and a brushing of noses, then sat down, framed against the distant rumbling tempest, and told them everything.

He was, of course, the best and most engaging storyteller in the world, and even when relating the grim events of the Words, how Civorage had somehow uncovered one, his personal fears and suspicions as to how, why and what other forces might be at play, the terrible abuse Civorage was putting Mind to…

There was no way to not be rapt.

“Why not mention this to us sooner, though?” Cerida asked once he’d caught up to the previous day’s events and Saoirse’s death.

“Because Rheannach and Saoirse and King Eärrach himself were involved. That being the case, we didn’t see it was worth troubling you with it.”

“It’s not like you to miscalculate so,” Galan pointed out.

“We all did. The four of us. We know the Words well, so we expected Civorage to destroy himself. Instead, he’s…surprised us. And now he’s shown incredible power, power enough to rival a Herald. Rheannach took a great risk when she rescued Ellaenie.”

“My friends in Garanhir spoke highly of her, since she took the duchy,” Pal mused. “And if Saoirse took her as an apprentice…are we to have a new wife, soon?”

Sayf smiled. “I won’t be the one to ask.”

“Ah! Waiting to see if she’s carrying on her mentor’s legacy?” Pal nodded. “She’s a beauty, by all I’ve heard. It’d be a shame to miss out if she doesn’t have the courage…”

“Mm,” Sayf replied, his mood warm, now. “We shall see.”

“You mean we shall see. You already know, you old rascal.”

He chuckled, and the sky behind him brightened a little as a few dark walls of cloud rolled back, admitting enough sunlight for rainbows. “Do I?”

“Fine, fine…” Pal sighed, and looked out the window. “Keep the rain, please. Saoirse always said it didn’t rain enough, here.”

“I shall.”

“Good…” Pal faltered a little. She’d only shared the harem with Saoirse for ten years or so, but she remembered the older woman’s wit, skill and sharp mind well. Somehow, she’d seemed like one of those people whose death was unthinkable, even as she grew venerable. All joking aside, all warm words notwithstanding…it suddenly came home to her that somebody she’d loved, respected, valued and ever been glad to see was gone now. Forever.

It hurt to a surprising degree. She’d grieved for many over her prolonged life, including her mother and siblings. But death’s ability to sting never truly faded, it seemed.

Cerida put a hand on her shoulder and gave a small squeeze. Pal took her hand, squeezed it back in thanks.

“I shall, ah…I think I’m going to…find something to do,” she said aloud.

There were nods, compassionate and understanding from all quarters. Sayf gave her a reassuring kiss and a warm thought, and she retreated to her own apartments, grateful for the support, but now more than ever feeling the need to actually do some work. So she swept into her apartments, ordered tea with a bell chime, and from there through into a private study which rivalled any studious mage’s in its way. And to those unfamiliar with her private shorthand, her notebooks would have seemed equally arcane.

It probably would have surprised those who glanced at her and saw only a Crown’s beautiful wife that Pal worked at all. But she hadn’t got where she was on the back of her looks, oh no. Oh, that was where it had started, admittedly, but one didn’t ascend from being born in a brothel to joining the Summer Harem on looks alone.

Pal had much to be thankful for, but first among them was a mother who’d known full well that a captivatingly pretty little girl who grew up in a brothel would most likely have her virginity auctioned away long before she could lose it undamaged in spirit, and had bent her every effort to giving her daughter a better life.

Fortunately for them both, in Arthenun Ilẹyeda there were social strata even to prostitution. Pal’s mother had not been the lowest of the low, those poor disease-ridden cheap ghosts on their way to an early tragic cremation, but the middle rung she occupied was no paradise either. The working girls of her brothel had endured a situation that was equal parts protection and exploitation, ever indebted, ever owing money to Madame. But at least there were armed men around to throw the undesirable and violent out of the building, and the power of dangerous names to scare the punters into remembering their manners.

Her ambitions for Pal had extended to the third rung: Courtesan. In Arthenun Ilẹyeda, it was considered normal and decent for wealthy men to be waited on and entertained by cultured, intelligent, beautiful women as they conducted their business. The more stunning, enchanting and brilliant the woman, the higher the price she could command, and the less often ‘entertaining’ her client involved having sex with him—the best courtesans could name a price for access to their bodies that very, very few men would be able to pay, and those who could were generally too thrifty to be tempted.

Pal had succeeded beyond her mother’s wildest hopes. To make it into that rarified grouping in the first place, one needed to master the arts, philosophy, politics, business, tradition, lore, and so much more, but Pal had swiftly risen to become the very best. She’d waited on the topmost echelons of society, performed for princes, dined with dukes and shared her thoughts with thaighns.

And she had become wealthy. Not just from the exorbitant fee for her services, but from the inevitable river of gifts that came with it. She was a display of wealth, after all: the men who used her services were expected to show off just how generous they truly were, and so Pal had lived in a sprawling villa full of treasure, more jewels than she could ever wear, finer gowns than she would ever want to wear lest they seem like an attempt to compensate for failing beauty and thereby detract from her...

But it hadn’t been enough for her to be somebody else’s display of wealth. So she’d invested that treasure in people. Gifts and favors, bribes and contracts, secrets and rumors and most importantly, an ever-growing spider web of names. People she could put in contact with other people, people who could achieve things, who would do things because it was her asking, because her pockets were deep enough or her connections valuable enough to make any favour worthwhile.

It was this, at last, which had drawn Sayf’s attention. And far from tearing her away from her web, coming to the Oasis and marrying him had only broadened her reach. Now, her network of friends and boons spread across all the earthmotes, and penetrated deep into courts, companies and confidences that few others could access. If she really wanted to, she could very probably have arranged a meeting with one of the Five Inner Lords of the Yunei Empire.

Not bad for a whore’s daughter.

There was no point in having a network like that if she didn’t use it, though. And now…now she was stung. Hurt and grieving because of a man whose name and doings had reached her ears many times these past few years.

Well. Now he’d made a powerful enemy. She just hoped she was powerful enough.

She selected her best letter paper and finest pen, chose an appropriate ink, then sat down at her writing desk.

It was time to call in some favours.

----------------------------------------

> “Look at the wall, and ask yourself whether you could have built it alone. Consider the cut stones, the mortar, the plaster and the paint. Do you know the secrets of making these? If you know any, you know only one or two at most. Now apply the same thought to your clothes, your carriage, your windows and floors and food. If it would consume all your effort to make one component yourself, how can any man claim self-sufficiency? He cannot: it is a lie. But now we have found this lie, how far must we chase it before we reach its end? And what truth will we find, once our quarry is brought down?”

>

> —Nils Civorage, “The Circle”

HIKING IN THE HILLS

Eärrach’s private earthmote

09.05.15.12.16

Whether the Saoirse she had spoken to in her ritual trance was the real woman’s lingering spirit, pausing on the threshold to say farewell, or had just been some intricate echo formed of memory, neither Ellaenie nor Rheannach could say. Either way, Ellaenie heeded her advice and went to the othe Crowns first, saving Sayf for last.

King Eärrach certainly approved, and was kind enough to wave her off with home-cooked provisions. A huntsman’s pie, good smoked jerky. Pemmican and biscuit just in case…

He and Rheannach, of course, ate only because they enjoyed it. So the fare he provided her with was excellent, made to satisfy the belly not merely fill it. She wasn’t straying off on a long voyage on foot across an earthmote, in any case.

Still. As Rheannach led her through rough forest and down winding animal tracks that Ellaenie was not yet woodcrafty enough to notice, she became grateful for them. The pie in particular was exactly what her body needed after a hard few hours of hiking.

This time, their transition between earthmotes was unsubtle. Their trail wound serpentine up the side of a hill, toward a bald summit where two craggy rocks thrust up through the soil like somebody had taken a giant woodcutter’s axe to the land and succeeded only in notching it. Ellaenie had her head down as she labored up the slope—life as a duchess had not prepared her for long hikes across rough terrain, and her legs in particular were quite upset with her—when she felt a change in the air as she passed between the cleft. The breeze blowing in her face had a real cold bite all of a sudden, far sharper than the Garanese crispness she was used to.

She raised her head, and the landscape in front of her was entirely unlike what she’d have guessed the far side of the hill to look like. There were no trees to be seen at all, just rolling scrub grass and heather, stretching brown and purple away into the hazy distance. When she turned and looked behind, the forest she’d just climbed up out of was not to be seen: instead, a stony gorge yawned behind her, admitting a silvery tongue of fresh clean water that flowed down the hill beside her to her left.

“Oh!”

Beside, her, Rheannach laughed softly. “Jarring, isn’t it?”

“Are these everywhere?”

“They are. And they were all wide open at first. How else do you think the First Peoples were scattered from the creation mote?”

“I always assumed they rode on wandering isles…” Ellaenie admitted.

Rheannach shook her head as she paused to survey the landscape. “Far too slow. No, in the early days you could go walking in the woods, step under a high root, and accidentally find yourself somewhere else entirely. When the Ordfey started to become cruel, we closed them down. Now, they only open to masters of the Craft.”

“Meaning the elves can’t use them at all,” Ellaenie realized.

“Exactly. Our way of expressing disapproval.” Rheannach shook her head ruefully. “They didn’t take the hint. Anyway: look! Our destination is in view.”

Ellaenie raised a hand to her brow and followed her pointing finger. Across an ocean of orange-brown grass and purple heather, one of the higher, barer swells of the land was crowned with tall, rough-carved menhirs.

“A stone circle?”

“The Court Unheld.” Rheannach stepped forward, and they were off downhill now, picking their way down a pale earthen channel carved through the grass by…what? Not the passage of feet, this place had a solitude to it that Ellaenie didn’t need the Sight to feel in her bones. Rain, maybe? Tiny, dusty, flat stones scdded and crunched under her boots as she followed Rheannach down.

There were no trees, anywhere on the earthmote. Even if one were to find its way here, she doubted it would survive: the soil banks along the path were only knee-high at their deepest, not enough for a stable root. And the wind biting her cheeks had a patient, restrained quality, hinting at a preference for bluster and storm. It was like the weather was a usually boisterous and fearsome dog that was sitting quietly on his best behaviour for guests.

Their path dipped below the circle’s level then rose back up to spiral in on it, approaching a nominal “front” where a pair of extra stones broke the symmetry. As she looked inward between the menhirs, Ellaenie wondered when Lady Haust was going to—

She passed the last of the stones, and as she emerged on the far side she saw Haust was waiting for them in the middle of the circle, as though she’d been standing there all along even though she hadn’t been visible there a second before.

There was something unsettling about the Lady of the Fall. The lower half of her face suggested a delicate, pale, faintly androgynous beauty. That jaw and those thin lips could equally have belonged to a supple young man as to a stern-faced woman. The loose wrap of her thin gray clothing betrayed nothing of the body underneath, despite being diaphanous enough to suggest the color of pale flesh.

There was very little warm about her…except for her smile. She stepped forward to greet them, took Ellaenie’s hands and hugged her like an old friend. “Not many ever come here. Not even many witches.”

“Saoirse suggested it. Or…at least, the vision of her did,” Ellaenie explained.

“Well then. Welcome to the Court Unkept. I do not reign from here, I do not pass judgement, I do not entertain or even dwell here. I made it just to watch it decay…” Haust smiled around at the elderly, lichenous stones. “So far, it is lasting rather well.”

“I thought…didn’t I hear you were living as a mortal, somewhere?” Ellaenie asked.

“I am. Right now, I’m playing with dolls while my mother brushes my hair.” Haust smiled fondly. “She suspects me, I think. I’m a precocious, too-wise child and I learned clear speech very quickly…but she won’t ask. She doesn’t really want to know for certain.” Haust smiled fondly. “Power like a Crown’s isn’t contained to a single time or place. And of the four of us, I’m the subtlest and the least…anchored.”

Ellaenie jumped at a kiss on her left cheek. As she turned her head, another faceless witch smiled at her. “I can be in many places if I wish,” the apparition said.

“Or none at all,” a third added, to her right. Ellaenie looked back at the first, only to find she was gone. Outside the circle, a mist was rising from the ground, rapidly becoming dense fog. The worlds were going away, leaving them stranded in a tiny circle with nothing outside.

Rheannach was gone too. In her place, her magpie form hopped and croaked for a second, tilted her head, then took wing and departed. As Ellaenie followed her, the Hausts faded into shreds of mist and vanished as well. She was alone suddenly.

It was a terrifying feeling. She trusted Rheannach and the Crowns completely, and yet this sudden isolation, this sudden feeling of being here in this cold and barren, blind place with nobody to talk to descended on her and made her shiver.

“I…what are you doing?” she asked, aloud.

An echo from behind her. “Sharing a lesson, young witch.”

From her left: “You have received one from the King.”

From her right: “Now it is my turn.”

Ellaenie grit her teeth and fidgeted her fingers at her side. The feeling was intense now, as the fog closed in around her.

A whisper in her ear. “You’re afraid.”

Ellaenie steeled herself. “Your doing.”

Haust’s voice darted and wove around her now, overlapping and muttering and echoing in her ears, and sometimes she fancied she felt the tickle of cloth against her clothing, the brush of fingertips, of breath on her ear and neck, but there was never anything to see. The fog was close now, penetrating the Court Unheld so that even the menhirs were just looming indistinct shadows, barely real.

“Yes.” —“You’re alone.”—“Uncertain.”—“Ignorant.”—“Lost.”—“And I am making it worse.”—“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ellaenie shivered, swallowed hard. “I wish you’d stop.”

“But this is what you came here for.”—”This is my gift.”—”If I stop now, you’ll have learned nothing.”—”Do you still want me to stop?”

Ellaenie groaned. She was under a psychic assault now, the very air was thick and freezing with fear. The world was blind silver, nothing to see except the ghosts of her own imagination. Even Haust’s whispers seemed less real than her own pounding heart and ragged breathing now, and beneath even them, at the very edges of her mind, she fancied she imagined muttering voices saying things about her just on the wrong side of a veil.

She shut her eyes. Stiffened her muscles. “What lesson?”

“You have nearly reached it.”

“What lesson?” Ellaenie demanded, her fear starting to transform into something else. She stood and stared hard out into the fog, bristling and still terribly anxious of the dread that wanted to crumple her to the floor, but more than anything else determined now to see what this was all in aid of.

There was the faint crunch of a very real, physical footstep behind her.

“Take my hand.”

Ellaenie turned. Haust was alongside her now, and her fingers were oddly warm as she reached out and clasped them.

“Now…see yourself.”

There was a tugging feeling, a lurch. Ellaenie felt like she’d just been yanked off her feet and into the silvery mist entire. Haust was a ghost shape ahead of her, barely a flicker of grey amidst silver and white, just another shred of mist in a fog bank, but nevertheless solid and present as she led Ellaenie onwards, to—

The fog parted…and Ellaenie saw herself. Far more clearly than any mirror, it was more like looking through a window to spy on another Ellaenie. The one in front of her was standing tall, her fists clenched, her face strained but her back straight. The wind was making her traveling cape flap and her hair blow back from her face, revealing a tightly controlled expression and wide, watchful, alert green eyes.

Haust was holding Ellaenie’s arm now. She gestured, and the scene seemed to slow slightly. “What do you see?”

The glib answer died unspoken. Instead, Ellaenie cleared her throat and took a good, hard look at herself, employing the Sight as she did so. Who was this girl in front of her? What would she read in such a woman, if she were to meet her?

She wasn’t looking at an innocent, she realized. Pretty face and wide green eyes though she had, what stared out from them was will, the courage and tenacity to stand up to a psychic assault and powerful dread. In that tight, pinched expression she read an unyielding force, one that needed far more than ghosts and mist to break.

But one must always look deeper, with the Sight. And behind that steel and strength was…

Was a scared girl. Fighting back precisely because she was terrorized and traumatized. It was there in the little details, the way her fingernails bit into her palms, the way her lip trembled and her throat worked as she swallowed. There was desperation there, a terror that if she fell apart then the whole world would go with her. Ellaenie saw somebody who’d had all her hopes dashed, all her happiness torn away from her and was stumbling along mostly because she didn’t know how not to.

A castle, with foundations of broken gravel.

“…Is that really me?” she asked, aloud.

“We’re looking back through time, to just moments ago,” Haust told her.

“I thought I was…I thought I was stronger than this.”

“You are strong. Look at yourself! You have the mind and will of the Faceless Witch, my mind, bent on unnerving and dismaying you. Not many could endure that.”

“I trust you. That’s all. I knew there was a reason behind it.”

“There was.” Haust gestured, and the mists fell away with a feeling of pulling backwards, relaxing, unwinding. The fog rolled back and they were standing in the middle of the Court Unheld again, amidst clearing skies and weather. “This is my way of telling you to rest. I see your mind, I know you’re already planning and scheming to make your next move. And I’m telling you that everything crumbles, dear Ellaenie. There is no wall that will not one day be cast down and moss grow over the stones. There is no heart that will never break. There is no such thing as an untiring, indomitable will.”

Her fingers were cool again, now. “Everything decays. Everything fades. It is only through effort and maintenance that things last and keep strong at all. Your walls have been under siege since the night you were orphaned, and they took a grievous blow again these last few days. Now you have the chance to repair them. It is not selfishness—” she added, seeing Ellaenie’s objection before it had even finished nucleating. “It is what you need, and what is needed by all those you hope will come to depend on you. Maintain yourself. Mend yourself. Take care of yourself. Rest, recover, and grow glad again. Do not throw yourself into grim duty before you are ready, but find your gladness again, find something to fight for, beyond stubborn will.”

She touched Ellaenie’s cheek. Her voice was soft and intimate now, barely louder than a whisper. “Do you understand? It is not enough to have a foe. If all your works are built toward the defeat of your enemy, then you can only destroy. You must create. Create something that does not belong to your enemy, something that is not your answer to him. Create something that you love. Or else you will only ever be trembling in defiance of your enemy, defined by him. And that is a victory to him, even after you cast him down. Do you understand?”

Ellaenie trembled a small nod.

“Good.” Haust looked up and to her right: Rheannach was perched on one of the stones. As they looked at her, she swooped down and unfolded in flight to join them in the circle.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Ellaenie paused, considering her reply in light of what she’d just gone through. “I’m….yes. I’m well enough.”

Haust’s quiet smile conveyed the comment ‘good answer’ that Eärrach would have voiced aloud. Instead, she asked: “What would you like to do now?”

“…I…don’t know. Saoirse suggested dancing with you, but…but I don’t really feel like it.”

“Some other time, then.”

“I think…what would most set my heart at ease would be seeing Gilber and Adrey. If I could see for myself that they’re okay, that would be…”

Haust smiled, and beckoned her follow over to the “entrance,” the gap between the four largest stones. As she approached, the air shimmered, dust flowed up or out from the stones to form an opaque matte black fence between two of the menhirs. There was a tingle on the air that made Ellaenie’s hair want to break loose from its bun, but as they approached what had been black and featureless became alive with light and imagery…

She was looking into a study, in what could only be Auldenheigh. Indeed, as the image became clearer, Ellaenie could see familiar landmarks through the tall windows. And there, curled on a couch by the fire and surrounded by papers, wearing an expression of studious seriousness that Ellaenie hadn’t seen on her before, was Adrey Mossjoy…

And she was not alone.

----------------------------------------

INTERLUDE: 17 PICKLER’S LANE

Auldenheigh, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote

Adrey hadn’t considered herself an innocent for some years. In her head, her image of herself was sophisticated, experienced, maybe even a little jaded. The worldly big sister Ellie and especially Lisze needed.

Now she was beginning to wonder if Ellie hadn’t been quietly humoring her of late. Much of what she was reading was troubling, and enlightening in equal measure. And the company she was suddenly keeping…

She glanced up again at the woman opposite her, unable to resist another glance at her curious, alien face. She’d seen Yunei delegates before, but the woman now sipping tea in the armchair opposite her was far too tall and long-limbed to hold any rank among the Yunei. But her face was Yunei, delicate and high-cheeked and narrow in the jaw. Captivatingly beautiful.

More striking still, though, were her eyes. Adrey would never have guessed that somebody could have eyes with the hue and lustre of burnished gold.

The other woman had declined to introduce herself, beyond that she was a friend of Lord Drevin’s. She was dressed as though in deep mourning, covered from toe to throat in dull black wool, with a hood and dark veil that would have served perfectly for keeping bystanders from noticing her exotic face.

Adrey was going to need something similar, she realized. The common fancy was that Ellaenie was dead, killed by the same conspiracy as had assassinated her parents a few years ago. It would be only appropriate for her lady-in-waiting to wear mourning dress.

“I still can’t quite believe it,” she admitted. “I know Ellie was preoccupied with the Church of the One, but I thought it was a purely political matter of protecting the status quo from a group of malcontents. Now I find out there’s ancient magic and terrible evil involved, and the Crowns and Heralds themselves, and…”

“And it’s all a bit much,” the stranger agreed.

“A bit much? I just found out that my best friend’s magical tutor is Rheannach herself!” Adrey blurted. “How much more is going on that I don’t know about?”

“Much. You—and I mean this in a kind way—you are a privileged woman born to high society but not to leadership. You inherited wealth and comfort, but not responsibility. You have not been involved until now, partly as a kindness, partly because it was not clear you were suitable.”

“It’s funny, I’ve always thought of myself as the responsible one…” Adrey sighed. “And now here we are, with Ellie in exile, and Lisze is…is…”

“Dead.” The stranger’s tone had an almost reptilian cold bluntness to it: Adrey flinched. “She is dead. And something else, a foreign will, is walking around wearing her corpse for a disguise. She is dead, and her remains are defiled.”

She paused, watching Adrey struggle with the agony of those words, then leaned forward and reintroduced some comforting warmth to her voice. “But unlike the truly dead, there is still hope she may be brought back to life. She may yet be returned to her true self.”

“How?”

“It is not within your power,” the stranger said. “I assume you can charge and light a magestone, like any child of this land. But you have no great talent for magic, do you?”

“No,” Adrey admitted. “That was always Ellie’s thing. She tried to teach me once and I could manage some simple telekinesis, but it felt like I was trying to play the violin with two left hands.”

“Then saving your friend is not within your direct power. But you are not without talent and utility, I think. Gilber says you have a keen social mind, a good memory for all the powerful people in Auldenheigh and all across Garanhir.”

“And beyond,” Adrey agreed.

“In certain lines of work, that is a valuable skill indeed. It is not a direct route to rescuing your friend from her captor’s influence, but with your support, insight and assistance, those who can will have the means to do so.”

Adrey sighed, but nodded. “So I’m one of the corps, not a principal. That’s…a relief, actually.”

The stranger smiled. “You were close to the duchess, and to one of the enemy’s captives. Yours will not be a position without danger.”

“What dangers, exactly?”

“Most likely, the same fate as Lisze suffered. Scooped out of your own head and transformed into a puppet. Though unlike Lisze, you will have certain…protections.”

“How good are these protections?” Adrey asked.

The other woman didn’t do anything as crass as shrug, exactly, but the tiny movement of her head spoke volumes. “Better than nothing.”

“I see.”

They sat a long minute in a thoughtful silence punctuated by the crackle of the fireplace and the heavy tick of the long case clock in the corner.

“I’m….scared,” Adrey admitted, at last.

“Understandable.”

“But I’m going to do it.”

“Commendable.”

“I have just one question, though.”

“Just one?”

Adrey cleared her throat. “…Who are you?”

“I am Dragon.”

Adrey blinked, but was surprised to find that she wasn’t actually that surprised. “The Herald of the Court Unheld.”

“The very same.”

“…I have more questions.”

Dragon laughed. “I am sure you do,” she said as she rose to her feet. “But I am not here to answer them. I am here to get a good look at you, and decide whether you have a place in our corps de ballet after all. And I believe you shall, if you desire it.”

“I do,” Adrey replied, firmly.

“Then remain here, continue to read, and wait. There will be instructions soon enough, I am sure. Above all else, have patience: what we face will not be defeated overnight. Use this time to prepare well.”

“I shall,” Adrey promised.

“Good.” Dragon dipped her head and torso forward and down, very slightly, in the shallowest bow Adrey had ever seen…but a bow nonetheless. A gesture of recognition. Then she was gone. Her heeled shoes tapped sharply on the hallway’s tiles, the door clicked, creaked, closed, and Adrey was, physically speaking, alone.

She didn’t feel alone, though. Not any more.

She took a deep breath, and returned to her reading.

----------------------------------------

> “Here, then, is the truth we have chased: The self is a lie. It is a dream, an illusion, nothing more. If a man cannot live except by the efforts of his collective, and the same is true of every man, then how can an individual be said to exist at all? What are you?

>

> You cannot know by turning your thought inwards. But you will find the answer in your neighbor’s face.”

>

> —Nils Civorage, “The Circle”

A FREEZING BEDROOM

The Glacier Keep, Unbroken Earthmote

09.05.15.13.01

Ellaenie half-woke in a room made of ice, rolled over, and drew the blankets and furs tighter around herself.

She wasn’t actually feeling cold. Indeed, the bed was if anything slightly too warm. But that was entirely because she was well-wrapped in bedding: the frigid air of the room was otherwise tightening the tip of her nose and making her breath steam. Bitter cold, literally bitter on the tongue, duelled with the sheer coziness of the bed; she buried her nose in the blankets and snuggled down again.

It was her fourth day at the Glacier Keep. Lady Haust had been kind enough to bring her directly here, through a swirl of shroud and fog that had left her feething breathless and chilly, but Queen Talvi was yet to actually show up. But that didn’t mean Ellaenie had been neglected. On the contrary, she was being quite well taken care of.

By somebody she couldn’t see.

Queen Talvi had her heralds, of course. Padouak, who sang and danced on the ice playing flutes made of antler; Indrik, her lover and steed; Nichel, who would be down somewhere in the Keep’s endless basements, working his forge; Kylmatul, who rarely took corporeal form and preferred to exist as the cold wind itself.

And, according to Enerlish children’s stories, the Hidden, who served as the Glacier Keep’s butler and guard. Rheannach had corrected her on that, and explained that the Hidden was no Herald. It was a permanent enchantment on the keep itself, breathtaking in its subtlety, complexity and power, but fell far short of a full Herald. For a start, it was neither sentient nor aware.

It was an excellent host, even so. She woke up again from her cozy doze at the sound of a soft clink of ceramic on wood: a steaming mug of cocoa had just been laid on her bedside table. As she watched, it rotated itself half a quarter-turn to present its handle, setting the soft powdery sugary pillow-things floating on its surface bobbing.

“…Mmn….thank you,” she grumbled, and decided that this act of hospitality, sapient or not, meant it was time for her to get out of bed.

Her clothes were warm, at least. Freshly laundered and pressed to perfection overnight, then left to warm on a charcoal heated rack in a corner of the room. Pulling them on was blissful after the freezing air of her room, and the cocoa was like a cozy hearth in her belly. There was a note tucked under the mug, in a neat but decorative script: “Apologies for my absence. Please, come see me in the library when you wake.”

There was only one person it could possibly be from, and who was Ellaenie to refuse her invitation? She drank the rest of her cocoa as briefly as she could without scalding her mouth, then trotted out of her guest bedroom and down the long halls.

The Glacier Keep was as stunning as every story she’d ever heard of it, if not more so. Her mother had read about it to her when she was little, and in Ellaenie’s girlish imagination it had been mostly blue. That was certainly how the pictures had shown it in the book.

The reality was far, far more than shades of blue. Blue, if anything, was the least of its hues. Ellaenie’s boots crunched softly along floors of perfect white, their surface left scuffed and frosty for traction. Around her, the walls in this part of the keep were as deep and as green as a great lake, and by no means opaque. Her reflection shimmered, stretched, then fled away from her to plunged into thalassic depths, where each step changed the precise darkness and texture.

And that was just the guest wing. The pillars and walls in the grand hall were as flawlessly clear as a cup of water, so that the whole vaulted edifice seemed built, not merely of crystal glass, but of prisms. It was a place of rainbows, thousands and thousands of shattered rainbows shifting and twisting and dazzling in the sunlight as they played over a black floor shot through with white cracks, like the distant sky on a stormy night. And the forms! Ice could be deadly spikes, or rounded nodules. It could be coarse, or smooth. It could form sharp six-fold geometries, or delicate fern traceries.

But of all the details, Ellaenie found the Glacier Keep’s lights the most enchanting. There was no single large light source in any room, but instead thousands and thousands of tiny ones, as though the most industrious mage in all the worlds had scooped up fine gravel from a riverbed and enchanted every last little stone to glow before embedding them along the edges of every wall, hanging them from every lintel and framing every alcove. Most were a warm golden white, but here too there was variety: some were a blue so intense and sharp it pierced the eye, some were a riot of green and red, some even faded slowly from one shade to another, through purples and greens and pinks unlike any she’d seen in nature…

And then there was the curtain hall. At least, that was what she called it. It was circular, domed, and would have been dark except that when one looked up, the space below the ceiling was hung with flowing, twisting draperies of pure colorful mist that never stopped moving. Ellaenie had spent an hour just watching, the night she discovered them.

No, the Glacier Keep was not blue. It was every color under the sun and a hundred more besides.

And, of course, it had its library.

The shelves were floor-to-ceiling, naturally. But there, all conventionality ended: there wasn’t a single straight line anywhere in the library. It was more like a book cave, a bibliophile’s ice grotto. The shelving was all custom, fitted precisely to the curves of what seemed like natural walls. under a low, knurled ceiling. The lighting in here was mostly dim enough to feel like walking under threatening blizzard clouds, but the effect was intimate rather than intimidating. Reading nooks dotted here and there were lined with cushions, fur and clusters of those tiny magestones, creating islands of cozy light….and it was in one of these that Ellaenie found Queen Talvi, reclined sideways as though on a chaise and reading a fine leather-bound volume.

She bookmarked it as Ellaenie approached, closed and set it aside, then looked up to smile faintly. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, your majesty,” Ellaenie dipped a curtsey. It felt appropriate with Talvi somehow, and she certainly didn’t object but rather smiled faintly and gestured at something: the invisible butler force swooped a comfortable chair into position, which Ellaenie took as an invitiation to sit.

“I hope the hospitality of the Keep has been to your satisfaction?”

“It’s been…relaxing,” Ellaenie admitted. “I don’t remember the last time I just did nothing.”

“A minor conspiracy between myself and Autumn,” Talvi admitted. “Knowing what advice she would give you, we decided that if I was an impolite host and kept you waiting, you would be able to idle without guilt. After all, If I had welcomed you right away, you would only have remained as long as politeness demanded, and you would have fretted the whole time about your neglected duties, would you not?”

“I…suppose I would have,” Ellaenie admitted.

Talvi nodded, and accepted a small china teacup that bobbed toward her through the air as though carried by an unseen footman. “This way, a minor bit of rudeness on my part means you were able to relax and simply enjoy your time here. I beg your pardon for it.”

Ellaeni paused, then chuckled softly. “You have a funny way of showing your affection, Your Majesty.”

“Indeed I do,” Talvi agreed, giving her a grandmotherly smile over her teacup. “But I am glad you see it for what it was. Affection indeed. Especially if you plan to go ahead and marry Sayf.”

“I do. Assuming he’ll have me.”

“He would surprise and dismay me greatly if he did not,” Talvi replied. “We are all very fond of you, you realize.”

Ellaenie’s blush would not be denied. She looked down briefly and cleared her throat. “I still don’t know why?”

“Well, we are fond of everyone, of course. But you…” Talvi sipped her tea then set it aside, leaving it in mid-air. Her invisible butler swept in and took it away. “Honestly, you remind me very much of myself, insofar as I can remember what it was like to be nineteen. But to the eyes of a Crown, a person is a community of possible people all waiting to happen. And the most likely versions of you loom large just behind your shoulder.”

Her eyes—piercing crystal blue—twinkled with something approaching wonder as she looked not at Ellaenie, but about her. “Yes. Very much like myself. And like the others…” she said, softly.

“Ma’am?”

Talvi refocused. “Perhaps we are especially fond of you, not for who you are, but who you will be,” she explained. “But perhaps that would be unfair on you. In the end it does not matter: you do not need to know why. You need only know that you, my dear, strike my mind like the tension before a storm. And you are not alone in doing so. Something wonderful is coming, and you are…involved. Somehow.”

“Somehow?” Ellaenie frowned, trying to decide if Talvi was withholding details, or simply didn’t know them.

To her astonishment, the latter seemed most likely. Talvi’s excitement hinted at something novel and unexpected, something she hadn’t foreseen or intended. For a Crown to feel such…

“Somehow,” Talvi’s chosen face was calculated to be grandmotherly and venerable without frailty. She had a timeless, ageless quality that did not flirt with any pretensions at youth, but rather embraced all the beauties of maturity. “The wonderful thing about humans, my dear, is that the story never grows stale. Each new actor plays a different part, or even if it is the same part they play it in their own unique way. Who you are, who you will choose to be…is a landscape, while my perspective is as of a watchtower on a high escarpment, with a commanding view of all the lands around. But even the most well-situated watchtower will have blind spots, the land will have valleys and woods in which the inventive and crafty might be hidden. I can see much of your potential, but not all of it. And what I cannot see is fascinating.”

“I…thank you?” Ellaenie ventured.

“Forgive me if that all seems cryptic. Enerlish does not have the necessary words. No tongue does. But, allow me a question of you…do you feel you have a choice? Are you setting yourself on your path because it is what you desire, or because you are compelled?”

Ellaenie looked around at the books for a second. “Compelled,” she admitted. “For now, at least.”

“Compelled by whom?”

“By myself. I don’t know that I could tolerate myself if I didn’t fight back against what Civorage has done.”

“One could argue,” Talvi pointed out, “that makes you compelled by his action.”

“…I…” Ellaenie grappled with that a second, then scowled at herself. “Hmm.”

“Quite so.” Talvi nodded. “Sometimes the line between ourself and our enemy can become very blurred, and what seems to come from inside us instead comes from them. Let me put my question another way…you could go to the Oasis and start forming your resistance there, right now. But you plan to do more than that: you plan to join the Harem. Why? Why, in this moment when you are looking to reclaim power, would you desire to submit to a husband?”

“Who said anything about submitting?”

“That is what it is to wed, young lady. And unlike a marriage, where your husband would in turn mutually submit to you, you are proposing to join a harem, to become just one spouse of many under a mighty husband-lord. It is an inherently one-sided relationship, with him receiving all your affection, but you receiving only a fragment of his. Is that not rather beneath your station and dignity?”

“If it were any other harem, yes,” Ellaenie replied.

“It is just any other harem, in all the important regards. The fact that my good friend is mightier, older and wiser than any mortal lord does not change that fact. Joining it will not grant you special access to the crownspouses and their resources, for you would already have that just for asking. So…why? What is it that draws you down this path? Why submit to being one of many, when by rights you are a queen who could and should stand alone in splendor?”

“Alone?” Ellaenie asked. The word twanged out of her with the force of an arrow, unconscious, unplanned, uncalculated, unaimed…and yet it hit the bullseye. Accidentally, it carried everything she needed to say, everything she feared, and everything she hoped fo.

Talvi’s bright eyes bored into her a moment longer, then wrinkled in a smile. “Go on. Think aloud.”

“I’ve been alone,” Ellaenie said. “All my life! ‘Daughter of the duke, destined to be duchess,’ as Father put it. Do you know what that means? It means even my best friends were still my servants! Lisze and Adrey, my closest and dearest, and my Ladies-in-Waiting. My friends were below me in rank and privilege, while my peers in rank must always be rivals and colleagues. Saoirse and Rheannach and you four, you’re mentors and guides to me, above me. Who does that leave?”

She sighed and subsided on her seat. “I’ve never had…equals. And I want to. I want to know what it’s like to have a companion who is neither above nor below me, but on my level. I want to know what it is to share my position. And in Sayf’s harem, I see the chance at that. I don’t care if I have to let go of a little station to have that. I’ve already fallen a mile; does an extra inch really matter?”

“It might.” Talvi replied. “But I am satisfied. It is good to see you acting on your own wants. Very good.”

Ellaenie sighed, and felt something inside her, something that had been chafing slightly at this enforced four-day vacation, let go and relax. She dipped her head in a small nod, not quite sure what to say next.

Talvi reached forward, and pressed Ellaenie’s hand between her own. Though her hands were as cool and parchment-delicate as any old woman’s, they still thrummed with power to Ellaenie’s senses. “Your virtues are your vices, my dear,” she said, softly. “As is the way with good people. If I have any lesson for you, it is that your perspective must now shift. You can no longer be young, and see everything as needing immediate action. Cultivate the perspective of the old, cultivate patience. That is how you shall triumph, in the end.”

“Every day I delay—”

“You are not delaying. When you leave this place, when you go to the Oasis, once you are settled there and able to begin, I think you will find these few days of rest will more than repay themselves. Already, you are calmer, more focused, more certain of yourself.” She patted Ellaenie’s hand, then sat back. “If you will stay two days more, I would like that. If you will not, I understand completely.”

Ellaenie looked around. She had to admit, the library was such a wonderful place…and eager though she was to begin, part of her also deeply, desperately wanted to rest. Just for a little while.

“…I would like to stay two days more,” she agreed.

Talvi smiled. And for the first time since Saoirse’s death, Ellaenie felt safe again.

----------------------------------------

INTERLUDE: 17 PICKLER’S LANE

Auldenheigh, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote

09.05.15.13.01

Adrey was beginning to feel the need for exercise. Days of having nothing more active to do than take turns around the room were beginning to leave her feeling restless, foggy, itchy. There was something hot behind her eyeballs now, whenever she even glanced at a book.

Serjant Bothroyd clearly sensed it when he visited her. His visits were always brief, a quick check on how she was progressing with her reading, a polite conversation, then departing. This time, though, he departed rather sooner than usual. Adrey wondered what to make of it. She’d rather hoped the serjant would help her with her predicament, but no such luck.

Crowns, she wanted to get on a horse and ride somewhere. Or go dancing. Or just take a proper walk around town. But on that score, she knew better. She was learning much from her books and from the manuals Bothroyd and his associates had left for her, and she had faith in Dragon most of all. Having a Herald among their conspiracy was exciting in ways she could scarcely count. But that didn’t change the fact that her body was screaming at her to move.

She got her wish an hour after Bothroyd’s abrupt departure. A new man, this one small and wiry and blessed with rather fewer than the usual number of teeth. He looked, spoke, dressed and smelled like the worst kind of criminal ruffian, in a flat cap that stank of soot and machine oil. He had a parcel under his arm, wrapped in brown paper and twine.

There was certainly nothing wrong with his manners, though. He took his cap off as he entered and touched his forelock respectfully. “Milady countess. Apologies for interruptin’ ‘yer studies, ma’am. I’ve come on Serjant Bothroyd’s orders.”

“Oh!” Adrey set her book aside. “Uh, thank you. But may I ask what for?”

“Serjant said you was gettin’ restless, milady. Nor can I blame ‘yer, cooped up in here. He thought it might be time you got an education in our darker arts, if you follow me.”

“I don’t think I do, Mister…?”

“Oh, pardon Ma’am. Skinner, ma’am. Just Skinner.” He touched his forelock again.

Apt, Adrey thought. “Charmed. Uh…darker arts?”

“Killin’ arts, ma’am.” He flashed a gappy grin. “Proper way ‘ta knife a man, if needs must. I’m to teach ‘yer.”

“Good Crowns!”

“Indeed so, milady. Wi’ their authority an’ blessin’ as passed down through them as is a long ways above the likes o’ me.” Skinner had an ugly, twisted smile, but the twinkle in his eyes was strangely charming. “Her ladyship Dragon among others. She’ll not let you out o’ these walls until you know the right way to slit a nice juicy throat.”

“Goodness,” Adrey managed, weakly. “I just mean it’s, well…I wasn’t expecting to…or rather, I…Winter’s gifts, man, cutting throats?”

“If needs must, milady,” Skinner replied evenly. “Better you than them, I would say. An’ ‘tis good exercise, you’ll find. Like to blow the cobwebs out good an’ proper.”

“Well, I’m hardly dressed appropriately…” Adrey pointed out. “But, I suppose that is what your parcel there is for?”

“That’s right, milady.” He set it on the table for her. “You’ll find me in the cellars once you’re dressed.”

And with that he turned and headed down the stairs, whistling an off-key airshipman’s shanty to himself. Adrey unwrapped the parcel and blinked at what she found. The clothes were decidedly working-class. Wool stockings, a short stay, a cap to control her hair, a shirt of unbleached and undyed linen…and breeches. She’d never worn breeches in her life.

Well…it was practical, she could see that much. Unladylike, but easy to move in even though it left her feeling uncomfortably half-naked.

Needs must, she supposed. She took a deep breath, and trotted down the stairs to the cellars. These she had not yet explored, on the basis that in her limited experience the only things to be found in cellars of any house was storage. Now it turned out that Number Seventeen’s cellar was no pantry or storeroom at all. Instead, there was a square of fine sand, about three times as wide as Adrey was tall, and a number of mannequins around the walls.

Skinner had moved one of these to the center of the arena. He looked Adrey up and down in a disinterested way that said his choice of clothing for her was not some lecherous excuse to get her down to little more than underwear after all, and grunted with a nod. “Good fit?”

“I feel very…exposed,” Adrey admitted.

“I can imagine, after wearin’ fancy gowns all your life. Imagine you feel a bit below your station too, ma’am.”

“Rather, yes.”

“For ‘yer own safety an’ secrecy, you may have to dress an’ act the part of even lower forms of life even than me,” he grinned gummily again. “Unlikely, though. I daresay the masters’ plans for you involve keepin’ you at your present station, among peers. But still. Bein’ able to slip into the role of a servin’ girl might just save your life one day. That’s not for me to teach, though. Come: let’s blow out them cobwebs.”

“Yes. Absolutely,” Adrey agreed. “So…knife fighting. I never imagined I would learn it…”

“An’ I never imagined I’d ever teach it to a countess,” Skinner retorted. “But here: look at this beauty.”

He produced a dagger with a flourish that left Adrey so astonished she took a step back: she hadn’t even noticed he was wearing it. “This ‘ere’s the regimental issue fighting dagger,” he said. “Pretty much every infantryman in Enerlend has one o’ these. Good honest Auldenheigh steel, stamped out by the cutlery works down Riverside. It’s simple, there’s a million of ‘em, an’ they’ve been tested long in battle by men who lived and died on their worth. Not much to look at, is it?” He flipped it over and offered it to her, handle first.

Adrey had to admit, it was not. The blade was just a long, tapering triangle, thick down the middle and dull, in more than one sense. Rather than gleaming and polished, the steel was as grey and unreflective as a fireplace poker, except for the very edge which was startlingly silver. The handle was shaped as though somebody had stretched and flattened a barrel, and it had a small, stubby guard that seemed barely worth mentioning. Dull in the sense of flat, uninteresting and unreflective…but not blunt. No, its edge was very, very keen indeed.

“No…” she agreed .”But I suppose that would be the point, wouldn’t it?”

“Quite so. This is no fashion statement, milady. This is your escape plan for if it’s kill or die. She might not look like much, but this ol’ bitch will strike a man dead between one breath an’ the next if you stick ‘im just right.”

“Goodness…” Adrey repeated, feeling a little queasy.

“You do unnerstand what you’re signing up for, ma’am? What we’re fighting here?”

“I have lost a friend to them,” Adrey told him, recovering her conviction. “She is a puppet, a slave. And, if some of Serjant Bothroyd’s darker hints are true, she is defiled. I know quite well what our enemy is like, thank you.”

“An’ what about torture?” he asked. “Imagine long needles inserted under ‘yer toenails, or clever tools that’ll break each delicate bone in ‘yer hand one by one. Imagine a man covering your face with wet cloth and pouring water on so you feel like you’re drowning, over and over again for hours until you faint or break. You think you could endure that?”

Adrey gulped. “I….don’t know.”

“You couldn’t. No-one can. That’s the whole point o’ torture, milady. There’s not a soul alive who can weather it unbroken. This—” he indicated the dagger “—is your escape. One way or t’other. Best you learn it well so you can use it the one way, don’t you think?”

Adrey nodded, earnestly. Skinner watched her a second, then nodded.

“Outstanding,” he said.

“So…where do we begin?”

“With wooden ones, so neither of us gets carved up.” He took the dagger from her, sheathed it, and produced two dented and battered oak replicas. He handed one to her, then took the other and squared off. “Now. First rule of knife fight is this: if it goes on longer’n the first stroke, you’re gonna be bleedin’. This ain’t gentlemen’s fencing, this is two folks trying to kill each other with a sharp stick, so close they can smell the other man’s dying breath. So when the time comes to kill, you kill. Do not hesitate, not for a heartbeat. Ideally, the other fella should not be squared off in front of ‘yer like I am now. Ideally, he should be dead before he ever knows you have the knife. But…for now, brace yourself. I’ll not go gentle, milady. This will bruise ‘yer.”

Adrey nodded, and raised the knife in front of her the same way he was holding it. She took a deep breath to say something like ‘okay, let’s begin’ or ‘I’m ready.’

Something terribly violent happened to her. Before she’d even finished inhaling, she was face down in the sand, her wooden dagger was clear across the room, and the tip of Skinner’s weapon was against the side of her neck. “Dead,” he declared, quietly.

It was a salutory lesson, the first of many he inflicted on her that morning. By the time they were finished and Adrey’s body was crying out to sit down and rest, please, she’d been thrown around, slashed, stabbed, bludgeoned, and even slapped, an honest open-palm slap across the cheek that quite stunned her. Skinner offered no apology for it, and she demanded none: she took his meaning and lesson to heart from the very first. This was not gentlemanly fighting according to a set of sportsmanlike rules, and a real foe would not apologise for murdering her. Which meant Skinner ought not apologise to her for showing her the truth.

Still. His verbal manners remained intact throughout. And once they were done, he offered some parting thoughts along with the cup of tea he brought her as she sat on a bench and recovered.

“I’ve trained far worse, milady. You came along a good ways today. And you’re far less shy than some damn good men I’ve known. I’ll make a gutter brawler of ‘yer yet, I think.”

Adrey found herself laughing at that thought. “I sincerely hope,” she said, “that I will never have to use any of what you are teaching me.”

“So do I, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Skinner. This has been…eye-opening.”

He nodded, touched his forelock, and made to leave. “I’ll see ‘yer tomorrow, then.”

“Oh, dear. You’re not giving me more than a day to recover? You’ve bruised me from collar to ankle!”

“Missed a few spots, did I?” he flashed his few surviving teeth again. “Don’t worry, we’ll get ‘em. Tomorrow. Ninth hour.”

“…I’ll be ready.”

He nodded again, and was gone. Adrey drank her tea in silence, groaned herself to her feet, and stumbled back upstairs feeling quite ready for books and study again, thank you. The thought of going through all that again anytime soon was more than a little dismaying…

But at the same time, she found herself feeling newly confident, somehow. Something about what she had just gone through had lit a small fire in her that she’d never expected to feel. It was most curious, perhaps even a little alarming…

And more than a little thrilling.

She returned to her books, and studied with renewed zeal.

----------------------------------------

> “Power can never be granted; it can only be seized. But once seized, will you shoulder its burden alone? Rare is the man who can carry such weight, and happier is the man who shares the load.”

>

> —Nils Civorage, “The Circle”

READY TO BEGIN

The Oasis, Alhulw Earthmote

09.05.15.13.04

Warm air.

Ellaenie paused and breathed deep of it. She’d…strangely enjoyed the cold of the Glacier Keep. Maybe it was Talvi’s blessing or some quirk of Winter’s presence, but each breath had felt fresh, inspiring, exciting, even magical. Even the way Talvi’s freezing air had bit at her nose and cheeks had felt refreshing rather than hard.

Now, the moment she stepped from one earthmote to another was driven home in the way the temperature soared between strides. It was like stepping through a curtain into a heated room, or opening the door to a steaming hot bath. The crisp dry sharpness vanished, and Ellaenie was almost driven back a pace by humid, fragrant heat. The air smelled of spices, flowers and peacocks.

They were on a balcony, high on the peak that dominated Alhulw Earthmote’s trailing edge. The whole palace was visible from here, laid out in the shape of some strangely contorted dancer skipping between round pools. Up here, small paper tokens and narrow banners affixed to wooden archways fluttered in the breeze, and the beacon fire to guide in airships at night was ablaze in a haze of sweet-scented smoke.

Behind her, Talvi inhaled deeply, then shook her head with a small smile suggestive of tolerant disapproval. “I’ll never understand his passion for heat,” she admitted.

“I do like the warm,” Ellaenie ventured.

“Ah, warmth is pleasant as a reprieve from the cold, but there are many ways to escape the cold. Good clothes, a fire, a fur shawl, a blanket, a hot drink…there are fewer ways to escape from ever-present heat, and none of them are lasting. And there are only so many layers one can remove, hmm?” Talvi smiled indulgently. “Not that you are afraid to remove them all, when the occasion demands…”

“Well…true.” Ellaenie admitted, feeling a tinge of heat in her cheeks. “But, uhm…”

“Oh, dear girl. We’ll cure you of that blush yet, I’m sure. You really have no need of it.” Talvi smiled again, then looked up. “But, I see your host approaches. He won’t mind if I say farewell and let you have him all to yourself, so…farewell. Your company these last few days has been a source of warmth.”

Ellaenie, deeply touched, opened her mouth and found it quite impossible to say anything adequate. Talvi knew it though: she smiled again, took a step backwards, and just for a second the bite of a wintry breeze and a shower of snow crystals kissed Ellaenie’s cheek, driving away the Oasis’ humid heat.

She was still touching her face when soft footsteps joined her at her side, accompanied by a waft of perfume and male scent, and the jingle of jewelery.

“She always did know how to make an exit,” Sayf commented, with a smile in his voice. “How are you?”

“Better.” Ellaenie didn’t look up at him, yet. Now that the moment was here to have some time alone with him, she was somehow feeling too shy. “Rested.”

“Took the time to grieve properly, you mean.”

“…Yes.”

“Good. I was worried you would not.”

Ellaenie looked up at him at last. “I feel…a little ridiculous,” she confessed. “Coming all this way with such a half-baked plan…”

Sayf chuckled, and leaned against on the railing next to her. “You are ridiculous. Everyone is. I certainly am.”

“You think so?”

He shrugged. “Look at me.”

Ellaenie took the invitation as given, running her eyes up and down him and trying to see what he meant for her to see. Ridiculousness?

Well…yes, probably. He was dressed in bright silks and a whole treasury of golden bangles, chains, rings and piercings. His eyes were lined in black and set on either side with tiny jewels glued to the skin, and he even wore lipstick, a subtle one with the hue and lustre of old copper. His hair was tied up and pinned by something elaborate and feathery. His chest was bare to the belly, which was a little large, and his face bore lines that, in a human, would have suggested too many nights partying and overindulging while not getting quite enough sleep.

He was beautiful, in a flawed way. Much more beautiful than Eärrach, she thought. The King was far too much, far too perfect, while Sayf disarmed himself with imperfections that suited him, even if they were only affectations.

”Ridiculous’ is…not the word I would have chosen for you,” she ventured. “But it doesn’t not fit.”

“It doesn’t not fit you, either,” he replied. “You really thought you’d come here and just ask to marry me?”

“I…well, yes,” Ellaenie admitted.

“That is absurd, you realize.”

“But you don’t disapprove.”

“On the contrary, I’m delighted. But this is only our second conversation. Isn’t your proposal a bit premature?”

“How many conversations did you have with Saoirse before she proposed to you?”

“Hah!” His teeth flashed brilliantly as he laughed. Each was decorated with a tiny jewel, she realized. “None at all. She literally marched up to me and demanded it, then spent rather a long time explaining why I should…but you, my love, are not Saoirse Crow-Sight.”

“No. I’m not. And I’m not trying to be her, either.”

“So who are you trying to be?” He held out his hand, twisted it slightly, and produced a glass of some effervescent drink as though plucking it from behind the air, somehow. When he handed it to Ellaenie, she found it smelled faintly of cherry blossom. She paused, a little taken aback by both the question and the gesture, then sipped. It chased away a thirst she hadn’t even noticed.

“I…you know, Talvi asked me something too,” she said. “She asked me why I’m doing this. Why I’m…why not just come here and ask for help and be your guest?”

“You would be welcome. And I would help you,” he agreed. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her I wanted peers. Wanted…somebody to be among. And that’s true, but I’ve had a couple of days to chew on it a bit more and I think, even more than that…because it sounds like fun,” Ellaenie admitted. “Talvi spoke as though she considered it a little demeaning. Beneath me.”

“She would, yes. Talvi has always thought that a harem is more like a collection than a relationship. An indulgence on my part, an act of pure ego.”

“Is she wrong?”

“Not even a little bit. But the indulgence is in who I select for it. The very best, the most impressive, the most powerful and beautiful and wise…and always, always, it’s their choice to join, and their choice when to leave. That’s what I get out of it: the ego boost of knowing that the very finest people alive are with me by choice.”

“And in return?”

“Love. Children, if wanted. All the pleasures of intimacy. A family. And my solemn promise that, collection though my harem may be, it is the most treasured collection in all the world.”

“…I do like the sound of it,” Ellaenie admitted. “It’s…unduchess-like.”

“And you have a rebellious streak?”

“It’s more that…” Ellaenie finished her drink. When he took the glass off her, he dissolved it into butterflies and she watched them ambulate away on the breeze. “Wow! Um…it’s…part of me feels guilty about this…”

“Go ahead,” he encouraged, softly.

“I feel…liberated. It’s like…I, I never minded my rank. I never resented being born to it. And I mean, goodness, how spoiled and stupid would I have to be? Who could possibly resent being born wealthy and powerful? But it came with an obligation, didn’t it?”

“Power does, yes.”

“Right. Well…I wouldn’t have chosen to lose it. But if there’s any good thing to be taken from Civorage’s victory, it’s that now, I don’t have that weight on my shoulders. For now, anyway. I mean to pick it up again as soon as I can, but…but right now, I’m no longer a duchess. So I don’t have to act like a duchess any more. I get to be just Ellaenie, for a time.”

“And who is Ellaenie?” Sayf asked her.

“I don’t know, exactly…but whoever she is, she gets high on mushrooms and dances naked in the woods.”

“Heh!” he laughed and leaned closer. “She sounds fun.”

“And she practices witchcraft even though the people of Enerlend despise it. She wants to do her duty, but she doesn’t see why that has to mean being all joyless and buttoned up. She’s lived two lives until now, and would like to figure out how to knit them together so that she can be one complete thing rather than two half-things. And she has a fondness for beautiful things, and she…she thinks you are very beautiful.”

“That I am.” He smirked at her, his dark eyes far too complicated for her to read. She didn’t even try exerting the witch-sight; it would have been like staring into the sun. “And so are you.”

“…And I remember a vision King Eärrach showed me. Or maybe the better word is temptation. I’d…” she found she was leaning toward him, now. As though his mere presence was something she could fall into. “I’d like to give in to that temptation.”

His hand was on hers. “But not lose yourself in it.”

“No. Never. I think I want to indulge my temptations so that I can know exactly who I am.”

“Knowing yourself is a journey that will take the rest of your life.”

“Then I’d better get started, hadn’t I?”

He laughed at that, then gazed at her for a long time, his eyes flicking across her face as he took in every detail. This close, she could feel the warmth of his body even over the heat of the sun and the beacon fire. Whatever he saw, his smile grew softer, and wider, with each second.

She knew what it felt like to be deliberately seduced, by now. And Sayf was a master who must have done it…how many times before? A thousand? A million? A trillion?

Did that make her a passing fancy? How could something like her be anything else, to something like him? But to be a god’s passing fancy hardly seemed insulting. She was not beneath notice: he wanted her.

And she wanted to be wanted. So she let it work. This was, after all, what she’d come here for. But there was enough pride in her to make him chase her a little, first.

“Prince Sayf, I haven’t even seen the place, yet,” She told him with mock stiffness. “Are you really going to turn on the charm that much without the courtesy of a tour?”

He straightened up and roared with laughter, right from the belly. “Oh! Oh, you’re good!” he declared.

“So I’m told,” she replied, pleased with his reaction.

“Very well. If it’s a tour you want…”

There was a slight lurch. Ellaenie wavered on her feet, and realized they were no longer atop the beacon mount, but indoors, in a sizeable round hall with a polished marble floor, beautifully simple stone archwork, and a high ceiling painted exquisitely with a scene of the First Day.

And a statue. A breathtaking, perfect statue.

Sayf certainly seemed fond of it. “I always like to begin the tour here, with this. The pride of my collection.”

It was occurring to Ellaenie that she wasn’t actually all that familiar with the male body. The only man she had actually seen in the nude was Eärrach, and he hardly counted. He was far too…extreme to set any standards by. But the tall statue in the middle of the hall seemed to be not only a study of the male form but a loving tribute by one who found it fascinating. And she had to admit…it was breathtaking.

“Where did you get it?” she asked

“A long time ago. It’s needed some conservation work over the years of course, but properly done conservation faithfully preserves the original.” He smiled sideways and down at her. “This is as faithful and exact as I could make it. And of course I have woven protections around him, to keep him from harm.”

Ellaenie’s nod was a little absent; she was still taking in all the details. Goodness, the artist had even captured the delicate thin skin of the back of the hand, and the bones and veins underneath. “You have…many things like this?”

“None other like this. But my collection is full of many, many treasures. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll give each one just as much time as you’re giving David here. Don’t rush. Every last piece in this palace deserves your full attention.”

“Ah. So does the tour stop here?”

He chukled. “Not at all. But…ah. Here comes another treasure.”

Ellaenie turned. A woman was approaching. A tall woman, taller even than Sayf himself, meaning she towered over Ellaenie by a couple of heads. The flare of her dark hair seemed to add even more altitude, her skin was such a rich dark brown as to be almost black, and her equally dark eyes were full of predatory mischief and sultry interest. Ellaenie had never been looked at in such a way, at least not so openly, nor by a woman.

The newcomer’s lips curled slightly, accepting Sayf’s compliment as her well-deserved due as she strode toward them in a gown that seemed calculated to display and accentuate, though in truth she needed no accentuating. Her skirts flowed and swayed with her step, which had the sinuous, fluid grace of a cat.

She wrapped herself around Sayf’s arm. “Your manners are still lacking, husband,” she chided him, softly. “Surely you should introduce the living before you introduce the statuary?”

Sayf chuckled. “The statuary isn’t in the habit of walking up and demanding to be introduced,” he retorted, kissed her, then stepped aside to make introductions. “Beloved crownspouse Palasarli of Arthenun Ilẹyeda, this is Her Grace Ellaenie the Duchess of Enerlend, Maiden of the coven of Thaighn Saoirse Crow-Sight.”

Ellaenie risked ungluing her tongue from the roof of her mouth—it had been the only thing keeping her jaw closed—and recovered her wits and courtly manners enough to curtsey. “Your highness.”

Palasarli curtseyed in kind, and took Ellaenie’s hand to kiss it. “Your grace. Welcome to the Oasis. And please…between us, I am Pal.”

The pivot from sultry to sweetly warm was instant and effortless, so much so that Ellaenie felt it lighten her heart. “Thank you.”

“You mean to join us?”

“I do, yes,” Ellaenie nodded. “But…I do have a question for you first, if I may?”

“Of course!”

“Why did you want to?”

Pal arched an eyebrow. “Why would I settle for less than the very best I can get?”

“And…you don’t mind sharing?”

Pal smiled. “Am I sharing? Or have I joined a community of the very best, a rare and exclusive club? It may not be a traditional marriage, but I am not a traditional woman…nor are you, I think. I am content. I think you shall be too.”

Ellaenie considered that. “…Thank you.”

To her surprise, Pal leaned in, kissed her on the cheek, then let go of Sayf and turned to walk away. “We’ll become better acquainted later,” she promised. “For now…he’s all yours.”

They watched her go. Ellaenie only exhaled once she was out of sight, and realized that Sayf was watching her watch Palasarli.

“Striking, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“You are no less so.”

“I…I have trouble believing that.”

He simply smiled, and offered her his arm. “Come. I promised you a tour…” he said.

She was glad to accept.

----------------------------------------

INTERLUDE: A FIGHTING PIT IN A CELLAR

17 Pickler’s Lane, Auldenheigh, Enerlend, Garanhir 09.05.15.13.04

For today’s exercise, Adrey was wearing proper clothes and…standing still. Apparently.

So. There she stood. Cute ankle boots, wool stockings, long skirts, corset and gown, even her long coat. And, tucked away in her pocket, strapped against her leg, was her dagger.

Skinner gave her a serious look up and down and nodded. “Good. Can’t see it at all. Meself, I’d rather make a few little changes to ‘yer dress so you can keep more’n one, but that’s ‘fer later.”

“Well I’m glad it’s invisible,” Adrey stated. “Now what?”

“Now, we’re going to practice drawing it. Go on! Quick as you can!”

Adrey blinked, then thrust her hand into her pocket, searched around, found the handle, yanked on it. The knife’s crossguard snagged in the ribbons holding her pocket around her waist and by the time she’d detangled it and drawn her weapon…

Skinner shook his head.

“Dead,” Adrey said, before he could.

“Yup. But ye’ve naught to feel bad over. This were not a failure: t’were a demonstration.”

“…Wasn’t it?” Adrey sheathed the blade then set about re-hanging and re-tying it, angling it just a little forward so she’d be able to draw it up through the pocket ties without the crossguard getting tangled.

Skinner nodded as he poured himself a cup of water. “Remember, you’re not setting ‘yerself up to use this in a fight where you need to draw it in an eyeblink,” he said. “’Cuz here’s the hard truth, countess. ‘Yer a soft-living noblewoman, ‘yer exercise is horse riding and turns about the garden. A hard fightin’ man has twice ‘yer strength, speed and reach. You will never win a stand-up fight, no matter how I train you or how well you learn. What you are learning is how to strike him dead in cold blood with a single blow he never sees coming. You don’t have to draw it fast, you just have to draw it quiet and unseen.”

“I still can’t imagine myself doing that, if it should ever come to it,” Adrey admitted.

“Nor could I have, when I first did it. But t’were that, or die.” Skinner shrugged. “At least you’ll have the benefit o’ training.”

Adrey paused. “…May I ask…?”

“’Ow many?”

“Yes.”

“Seven.”

Adrey considered him, taking note of the scratchy, faded tattoos that covered his knuckles and throat, and were just visible under his thinning hair. “That’s…”

Skinner’s gap-toothed, gummy grin put in another appearance. “Less than this ugly mug would suggest?”

“I was going to say it’s a lot.”

“One is a lot. It’s a man’s life you’re ending, after all. If it were easy, the Darkdrake wouldn’t be askin’ me to train you in it.”

“What makes you think I can?”

“Me? I don’t think you can. I don’t think you can’t. I ‘ave no opinion, countess. I’m just paid ‘ter do a job.” He drained his water. “The question o’ whether you can or can’t, that’s all up to you. Do you think you can? If so, we’ll keep goin’. If not…door’s right there.”

Adrey blinked at him, quite astonished by this completely indifferent non-reply.

Her thoughts turned upstairs, to what she’d been reading this past week. To all the things she’d learned, about just how fragile a thread the prosperity of Enerlend and its people hung by. And they turned to Lisze, and what had been done to her.

Never. She would sooner draw the dagger and plunge it into her own heart than become a puppet like poor Lizzy.

She paced the fighting square in thought for a moment, and then—*pocket, grip, draw, turn, lunge—*she was face-down in the sand again, but Skinner rubbed a sore spot on his arm where her blunt practice blade had only just been turned aside.

“Winter’s tits! Not bad!”

“Didn’t quite get you,” Adrey pointed out, as she picked herself up.

“No. You showed sign. But that’s something we can work on.” He flashed his few teeth at her again. “The bit I can’t teach is whether or not you’re a killer at heart, and it turns out you might be. I’m impressed.”

“I…”Adrey paused. “…Thank you?”

He simply nodded. “Now. Lemme show you what gave you away…” he said.

Adrey watched, and listened.

And she continued to learn.

----------------------------------------

> “Lay down your mugs and pack your bags, We’re leaving on the wind. Go and kiss your girls and hug your lads, We’re leaving on the wind. Away across the shattered sky, Away, away our ship shall fly, So drink your whiskey dry, comrades, Cuz we’re leavin’ on the wind.” —Enerlish airshipman’s shanty.

NEW SCENE

The Oasis, Alhulw Earthmote 09.05.15.13.11

Ellaenie woke to the sound of slow, deep breathing, the firmness of a living chest under her ear, and the weight of warm arms around her.

“Mm?”

A thick, dark thumb brushed a curl away from her face as she raised her head. “You dozed off.”

“Sorry….mm.” Ellaenie sat up. They were in the Oasis’ library, which had already become her favorite place in all the Nested Worlds. It was just…perfectly right for her. Ellaenie knew herself well enough to guess that the shortest road to her heart passed through a good library, and Sayf’s was a tribute to the beauty of books…and more specifically, to the wonder of stories.

In this domed room with its glass ceiling was recorded the legends and tales of every culture of the worlds going back to the First People. It was a nightly event that the stage in the library’s precise middle would host some ancient parable of a forgotten, long-extinct folk, recited by one of the Oasis’ disciples. They would stand under the dome and chant an epic in accompaniment to soft harp music, proclaim prose in a stentorian voice, or act out a saga with much humor and liveliness, as the tale and tradition demanded.

But it was also designed to celebrate the quiet beauty of being wrapped up cozily in a corner, lost in warmth and words. Out in the room’s corners, the noise from the performance was part of the background, just another layer in the peaceful texture.

There was even a fireplace because, in Sayf’s own words, no library was complete without one. The flames never seemed to burn the fuel away, and Ellaenie fancied that a book cast onto it would emerge unscathed. She hadn’t asked, and wasn’t about to experiment to find out: she was just glad for the feel of heat on her skin. A reading session would have been incomplete without it, somehow.

“What time is it?” she askked.

“Fifteenth hour. You only dozed off for a few minutes.”

Ellaenie nodded and stretched, rubbed her eyes awake, then sat and looked at him for a second. Sayf. Summer. Cankuu.

In her heart, if she was honest, she’d had doubts when she came here. Talvi’s question and Haust’s lesson had still been churning over in her heart, making it uncertain. And they were worthy doubts to have. This was, after all, a marriage she was proposing to enter into, a commitment and a chapter in her history that could never be unwritten. It deserved serious thought.

But here he was.

She’d noticed that he altered himself, subtly, to suit each person he interacted with. To most, and to Ellaenie at first, he held to his “neutral” form, the jeweled and silk-clad prince with an ageless male beauty and a few calculated imperfections. And all of that still applied, of course. He wasn’t so dishonest or so guileless as to be completely chameleonic…

But still, there was something subtly different, subtly more right for her about him now, after these five days of courtship. He wore his hair more neatly, the cut of his clothing did slightly more to flatter his silhouette and make him seem slimmer and taller.

“Would you like me to continue?” he asked, and indicated the book he’d set aside. It was a collection of stories told by the human slaves of Vathcanarthen, a glimpse into beliefs and lives thousands of years old. Fascinating, but…

“You just want to put me to sleep again,” Ellaenie accused, tapping him lightly in the middle of his chest.

A roguish smile crept up his right cheek. “Perhaps. It’s a lovely sight.”

“…Do you sleep?”

“When I want to. Usually I don’t.” He looked across the library toward the night’s performance. “There’s always something going on. Life is…so very infinite. So very fractal. In the right mindset, you’ll find it’s impossible to be bored. I hate to miss any of it.”

“But you were happy to let me doze on you.”

“What can I say?” he looked back toward her. “I can admire a work of art for hours.”

Ellaenie’s breath caught. It was…so corny a line, so smooth and experienced. But not even a tiny bit disingenuous. And it made her aware that she was sitting in his lap, his hand resting on her hip, hers on his chest…

His hand came up, touched her chin, and the desire to kiss him was so strong that she couldn’t have denied it even if she’d wanted to. His short, neat beard tickled at her nose and lips, his arms slid around her waist and drew her close.

She’d felt loved many times, now, by many people in many different ways. Parental warmth from her own parents and from Rheannach, big-sister clucking from Adrey, little-sister teasing from Lisze, hot lust from Eärrach turned lately to fatherly affection, grandmotherly guidance from Saoirse, avuncular care from Gilber, distant queenly concern and the intense scrutiny of a teacher from Talvi, the brief blush of hoped-for romance from Betrem…

And now…a romance realized. The heady feeling of knowing that she held a man’s fascination, made doubly powerful by the particular of who and what the man in question was. And, going the other way, her own fascination with him.

How could she not be? He was an embodiment of the side of maleness that spoke more to her. The…tamer side, if that was the right word. The difference was subtle, but where Eärrach felt like a tremendously powerful and terrifyingly dangerous force constantly kept in check by will and effort, Sayf felt the other way around; like whatever terrifying potential was within him had to be summoned up and exerted, rather than let off its leash. He was gentler. Kinder. Funnier. Softer. His inner demon was no raging predator prowling behind bars, nor a sniveling deviant kept in line by fear. His was a lazy lump that would happily sit idle if not goaded…

And of course, he had long since mastered it. She rather liked that.

She paused, her nose still touching his, her eyes still closed as she listened to everything running through her mind, her body and her heart. She realized she was smiling. “…Oh, wow.”

“Mhm,” he agreed, softly.

“Even for you? With all your experience?”

“I have no experience of you, Ellaenie.” He kissed her again, swifter and sweeter this time. “You’re unique. In all of time, in all of this world and the last, I’ve never known you before.”

There was no word for the feeling his words lit inside her. She opened her eyes and looked into his and saw a kind of wonder and delight in his gaze that she couldn’t name. “…That’s…”

He nodded: he knew and understood. “…Marry me.”

“Yes.” She had no doubts, no questions, no hesitation.

And the joy on his face was worth every step of the journey to come here.