Matabar. Book II. Chapter 9 - "Allane'Eari"

Ardi watched the platform recede into the distance—if you could even call it a platform, since it was little more than a small wooden staircase leading from the station to a similarly wooden landing. Because of its meager size, it couldn’t accommodate all the people who had come to see the travelers off on its chipped, rough boards that had long forgotten the feel of lacquer. So many well-wishers had turned up that they were now crowded on the station’s balcony, spilling out onto the dusty ground along the rails, and even crossing to the other side, waving to their friends and family from across the tracks.

In the capital, the guards’ whistles would already be ringing out, herding the townsfolk clearly addled by heatstroke off the tracks and back onto the platform. But here in Delpas, at the sole station of this lone rail line, there were no other tracks at all. And indeed, there was only one platform. Passenger trains didn’t run often here—very rarely, in fact. There weren’t that many places to go. Another loading point lay to the north, from which it was several days’ journey to Evergale. Farther west, the rail line in this part of the country was still under construction. To the south, there were only military and trade seaports, with no civilian infrastructure. And to the east lay Presny. It was to Presny that trains departed a couple of times a week.

As a result, quite a number of people would accumulate while waiting for departure, especially in the summer season. And even the thirty-degree heat, combined with the humidity of Blue Lake, wasn’t enough of a discouragement to keep the townsfolk away. They milled about and waved to their loved ones. The men doffed their hats, the girls and women held handkerchiefs, and the children frolicked, waving their caps, shouting something and smiling.

At last, the locomotive shuddered, the pistons began to pound, the coal furnace roared, and the wide funnel shot a pillar of white steam into the air. The crowd scattered to either side, stepping back off the rails and clearing the tracks. The train jerked forward.

Ardi did not take his eyes off those dear to him. In the crowd, he easily spotted his mother, Shaie Egobar, looking a little sad, but calm and confident. Wearing a yellow dress and a small hat, with a parasol resting on her shoulder, she was indistinguishable from any other city lady fortunate enough to be among those unburdened by thoughts of where to get money, how to survive the winter, or what to eat the following week. Ardi felt a deep, viscous warmth in his chest, cozy and enveloping. Whenever he saw that Shaie and Erti were no longer anxious about the coming day, the young man stopped thinking about any of his own problems or worries.

Kena and Kelly had also come to see him off. The little girl sat perched on her father’s shoulders, waving her tiny arms so vigorously she nearly tumbled down, which prompted gentle laughter from those standing nearby. Ardan smiled as well. Once again, he was leaving behind his tangled, oh so unusual, but still dear-to-his-heart family.

Tess lightly squeezed his hand. He turned to her, gazing into her green eyes, and the feeling of melancholy—mild and even a touch sweet though it was—gradually receded, the tightness in his throat easing away.

“We’ll see them this winter,” the red-haired girl whispered.

Ardi understood that perfectly, but… due to the upcoming celebration and all its preparations, he wouldn’t have time to visit his family for New Year’s, and that would be the first time in six years that he’d spend that holiday far from his loved ones. While he’d been in the Alkade Mountains, Ardan hadn’t even remembered that he had someone waiting for him beyond the cliffs and forests, but now everything was completely different.

“So,” Tess said, clearly wanting to shift the conversation onto another track as quickly as possible, as she opened their itinerary. It was something like a menu: a map with markers printed on stiff cardstock and tucked into a broad leather folio. “Looks like we have another journey ahead of us.”

Of course, such luxury could be found only in a private first-class compartment, which Ardi would never have allowed himself to splurge on. A first-class ticket from the Metropolis to Delpas, then on to Shamtur, and finally back to the capital, cost an utterly indecent sum. Thankfully, such a ticket was purchased as a single unit (since one bought out the entire compartment), and inside it, you simply wrote in the number of passengers (so they could calculate the needed lunches, dinners and breakfasts). The journey in total took more than half a month.

It was seven days from the Metropolis to Delpas, then ten days from Delpas to Shamtur, and then two days from Shamtur back to the capital. The pleasure of such an adventure for two passengers in first class cost a tidy sum of eighty-eight exes, which was altogether even more than two of Ardi’s paychecks.

“First, we head back to Presny,” Tess said, running a finger along the not-very-clearly printed map and reading from the itinerary. “Then we’ll go a bit further north… It says here that the Alkade peaks will be visible off to the left side! Then we pass through the High Forest and along the tributary of Winged Island, then we head northward again all the way to Shamtur. In total, we’ll make forty-seven stops.”

Intellectually, Ardi knew that those forty-seven stops were simply forty-seven stops and nothing more. But given the peculiar events that had plagued the past year of his life, he saw in those stops a potential danger that was lurking just around the corner, hushed and unseen for now, but no less real a threat. On the other hand, a moving passenger train wasn’t even close to as impregnable as an armored Treasury train.

“Ardi,” Tess brushed her fingers against his cheek, “tell me a story. One of the ones your great-grandfather told you when you were little.”

Ardi thought about it for a moment. Why had Tess suddenly taken an interest in stories? Then again, there wasn’t much else to do at the moment, so he could certainly recall something or other.

“A sad one, a funny one, a story about love or about travels?” Ardan asked pensively.

Gathering up the hem of her light summer dress, the girl rose to her feet. Click-clacking her heels on the lacquered parquet, she took a few steps over to the door of their compartment.

“About travels,” she said in a slightly hazy tone, if one could call it that.

“About travels…” Ardi sifted through his memory for the stories Aror had shared with him beneath the old oak’s branches. “There’s a story about a Galessian prince who went north, to the Ice Lake, to find-”

Tess reached out and flipped the lock, securing their little quarters from the inside. Without bothering to bend down, she kicked off her shoes and stepped over to her fiancé. Gently, she lowered herself to her knees atop him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Ardi’s breath caught.

“To find what there?” Tess asked, a fiery little spark dancing in her green eyes.

“To find-” He began, but she captured his lips in a kiss.

Ardi did tell her the story, eventually. But it was much later.

***

He watched Tess scrunch her nose up adorably as she wrapped herself in the sheets that served them as blankets (in summer, on the steppe, especially in a train compartment, any sort of real duvet would’ve likely cooked them alive). Curled up like a kitten, she was murmuring something in her sleep and occasionally smiling, tugging the sheet higher and higher.

Ardi quietly climbed down from the bed (a real bed, albeit a small one, on a train!), pulled on his undergarments, and moved over to where a wall-mounted panel served as a table. He folded it down from the wall, tightened its clamping screws, and pulled an oil lamp from a niche in the wall. A strike of the flint later, a tiny, smokeless flame sprang to life on the wick, drawing up the viscous oil that smelled of cinnamon and lavender. He adjusted the oil feed and, making the flame burn several times brighter, shut the conical lamp’s glass door. On the side facing Tess, he draped the menu over the lamp so the light wouldn’t shine into her eyes.

After watching his sleeping fiancée for a few more moments, Ardi carefully opened his grimoire, taking care not to make a sound. For some time now—ever since his end-of-term exam with Professor Convel—the idea of recursion within a seal had been occupying his mind. And Ardi planned to begin with the spell he knew best: a reliable and faithful companion in numerous skirmishes—Ice Arrow. It was one of the first combat spells in the book of Nicholas the Stranger. Not much of that book remained unfamiliar to him; Ardi had already learned and read nearly two-thirds of it, and the last third, dedicated to the Blue Star (as far as Ardan could tell), was ninety percent theoretical, compiled from Nicholas’s abstract thoughts and ideas.

Even so…

Ardi ran his palm over the rough cover, which smelled of old leather, adventure and gunpowder. He flipped through the stiff, nearly-crackling pages of cheap paper covered in tiny, cramped handwriting, where several seals were crammed onto a page sometimes—not exactly the best way to go about things. Before long, he would have to replace the grimoire (at considerable cost, at that), but for now… For now, he drew out a ruler, a sharp pencil, and a homemade cheat sheet of formulas “of his own design.” After finding the basic model of Ice Arrow, he set about breaking it down into its components.

He needed his own formulas because, inspired by the approach of Lady Talia and Senior Magister Paarlax, he had come up with a few new ideas for himself. And even if, for now—owing to his lack of access to training grounds—he could only experiment with them on paper… The young man’s mind had been longing for scientific puzzles rather than the endless chase after terrorists and conspirators for a while now.

“First, completely dismantle the seal down to its basic runic connections,” Ardi murmured to himself as his pencil ran across the page. “Then rewrite the arrays from scratch, separate the common structural links into simple functions and combine the functions into… into…”

Ardan didn’t know if there was an established term for the combination of a seal’s functions, but he wasn’t about to invent his own on the off chance he’d learn the official one later. After all, it was unlikely that his ideas were unique in a field of study over two and a half thousand years old—if one counted the Eastern Continent.

“And then start constructing the runic connections inside the functions, rather than within the arrays,” he noted, continuing to sketch out his plan.

Ardan recalled working in Aversky’s laboratory—may the Eternal Angels receive him—with a touch of nostalgia. He’d had a complex arithmometer at his disposal. It was much easier to calculate complicated, multi-component runic links with a device like that. But on the other hand, Ardi enjoyed doing these sorts of calculations by hand. They calmed him, and they satisfied that endless itch in his head which, like a drover with a goad, prodded the young man to seek out new puzzles and solve them.

Ideally, he planned to turn the outdated Ice Arrow—which had maybe had some practical uses five hundred years ago—into something more like…

Ice Bullet? Ardi thought to himself.

It would be a small but focused physical object, and in his case, due to certain external factors, it’d be an object made of ice. In the base model, one could stick to simple, round numbers and values. For instance: a mass of thirty grams, a conical shape for better aerodynamics, and of course, speed. For short or medium range, three hundred meters per second would suffice, and for any sort of extended range…

“Say… nine hundred meters per second,” Ardi thought aloud, succumbing to this bad habit as he lightly tapped the edge of his grimoire with his pencil. “A threefold increase would neatly correspond to the qualitative transition from the Red to the Green Star, which is also threefold in nature.”

And using this base model, one could rework Ice Barrage as well. Also, perhaps it was worth considering the fact that simple spells had stopped working against Blue Star Mages by virtue of their latest qualitative leap. Take the Davos brothers, for example. All their spells had had a dual structure: the direct offensive component, and on the outside—to make their opponent’s defense less likely to work—they’d carried their own protective shell. Or an offensive effect of a different order.

“We should think about that in advance,” Ardan made a note in the margin. “So that with further modifications, we can have the option to add to the seal immediately, rather than recalculate everything from scratch.”

However, something like that would require knowledge of multi-component seals—cases where not just arrays, but entire seals would be combined. This was a topic that wouldn’t be introduced until the second semester of the third year. And even then, they’d only introduce it in the Military and Engineering Faculties. Which meant that even more expenses at the establishments of the Spell Market awaited him as he would have to get textbooks and academic literature.

Ardan ran a hand through his hair, mussing the already-tousled locks. It was a vicious cycle of sorts: to earn money from his seals, he needed to spend money on study materials, but to get those exes, he needed to sell his seals… Yes, there was always the chance to earn something in the Sponsor’s League of Magical Boxing, not to mention Milar’s idea of selling Fae medicinal wares…

All right, those are all thoughts for tomorrow. It’s time to get back to the calculations! He told himself and returned to his work with renewed zeal.

***

Ardi hadn’t even noticed the hands of his pocket watch creeping past three in the morning. Unlike Tess, whom the constantly swaying, clattering train car lulled to sleep, Ardi, with everything that had happened, found that it only chased slumber away from him. And perhaps because he was so utterly absorbed in calculating runic links, arrays and functions for his new seal that he was practically creating from scratch did the young man fail to notice that the rocking and the clacking had ceased.

The train had fallen silent. Like a tired horse after a long gallop under the scorching sun of the summer prairie, the locomotive had gone quiet. Reaching for the oil can to top up the lamp, Ardan was surprised to find that the shadow dancing over his grimoire was no longer trembling. Frowning, he gently drew aside the thick drape drawn snugly over the window.

The train had stopped right in the middle of the steppe. Not at a station or any sensible place—it had just halted, and that was it. Not far off rose a hill, above which a dark expanse of sky spread out, studded with multicolored lights. The stop might have been explained as a technical necessity, but Ardi saw no one walking along the train, which had arced into a crescent, nor any stirring near the locomotive. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was as if the train had truly fallen asleep. It had frozen in place and, after closing its “eyes” (the bulky headlamps at its front), plunged into a deep slumber.

Ardan rose to his feet and, taking up his staff, went over to Tess. She was breathing evenly and still curled up in a little ball, fast asleep. The young man grasped her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. But the red-haired beauty didn’t so much as think of waking. Even when Ardi leaned in and carefully lifted her right eyelid, he saw the whites of her rolled-up eyes and a dilated pupil. Tess slept on so soundly that it was likely nothing at all could wake her up.

“It can’t be,” Ardi whispered and, leaning over his future bride, he “closed” his eyes. Forcing himself to relax, he “opened” his sight to the other side of creation and, bringing his hand near his beloved’s face, caught her breath. He listened to it and to the tales it told, and he saw in them outlines of things that had no business being in a person’s breath. Ardi saw a black wind and heard the whisper of stars.

The art of the Aean’Hane. The entire train was submerged in it.

The magic was evident in the now-halted pounding of the pistons, which had wrapped themselves in a dense, soothing blanket of peace and oblivion. It was present in how the thumping of the passengers’ hearts had fallen silent, slowing to the shuffling gait of an old man, as sleep had caught them unawares—some over their newspapers, some in bed, others in the sitting carriage where travelers had slumped onto each other’s backs, and sometimes right in the aisle. A dark wind—both black and transparent at once—had enfolded the train in a morning mist, only one that was as thick and viscous as wet cotton wool.

Ardi “opened” his eyes and once again saw only Tess sleeping before him, breathing softly and dreaming sweet dreams. Whoever had stopped the train wasn’t seeking conflict and meant no one any harm. They only wanted to talk. But Ardi remembered his great-grandfather’s and Atta’nha’s stories far too well to trust a nighttime visitor like this so easily.

He pulled on a pair of light pants over the underclothes in which he’d spent the last few hours, donned his vest and jacket, hung his grimoire at his belt, and slipped several rings with accumulators onto his fingers. Taking his staff in hand, Ardi opened the compartment door and, as he stepped out into the carriage corridor, gave a gentle tap on the floor with the base of his staff. In that same instant, the door behind him was momentarily covered with a web of metal. It flared and then vanished.

Sighing, the young man turned and walked toward the front, where he descended the folding stairs. His shoes sank into mushy earth and tall grass. A brisk, cold, tireless wind licked at his face, setting the green and golden stalks swaying. In summer, the steppe was as hot as a griddle, but at night, it got colder—sometimes even more so than the autumn weeks on the western coast.

Mart Borskov had once said that the Alkade prairies were reminiscent of the desert of Al’Zafir in this regard. That said, Ardi had never been there, likely never would go there, and honestly could barely even imagine what it meant for the ground to be made of sand.

Steadying his hat with one hand so the impish breeze wouldn’t whisk it away, Ardan climbed the hill with the help of his staff. And with each step he took, it seemed to him like the ground underfoot felt more and more like banks of cumulus clouds, and the sky overhead like a damp river stone shot through with veins of precious metals. Step by step, he went higher and higher, until everything around him went still.

She stood at the edge of the nighttime field, half silhouette, half starlight, caught somewhere between a dream and the silent gleam of the shining night. The tall grasses, like courtiers giving a reverent bow, inclined themselves toward her feet, their tips catching the sparks of golden constellations. Her hair swirled and flowed, merging with the canopy of the night sky, and each lock whispered about the secrets of twilight mysteries.

Indigo and cobalt swirled in eddies around her, the sky aglow with the faint, diffused shimmer of barely-seen stars. It was as if those stars were drifting lower and lower, weaving a fabric around her form. Her gown—reminiscent of a dark waterfall and an unknown night—seemed to be woven from moonlight and forget-me-not petals, and in its every fold twinkled a subtle glint of stardust. If one listened closely and looked carefully, one could hear the music of distant bells echoing with ancient promises, which had come to rest for a while in her majestic silence.

“Highborn Sidhe,” Ardi said, removing his hat and inclining his head in a small bow.

It wouldn’t do to show impudence to a creature that had appeared in the night like this. In the stories of the she-wolf and Aror, those who’d dared such foolishness had always met a rather unenviable fate.

The Sidhe turned toward him for a moment, and that fraction of a second—that brief flash—was enough for Ardi to nearly choke. Choke on the realization of just how gray and drab the world around him was, how devoid of color and beauty, how simple and flat. And he saw all of it in her eyes, where a light brighter and more magnificent than any constellation lived.

The Sidhe turned away and, bending down, plucked a single wildflower. The sleeping blue bud unfurled in her hands, and the girl—as beautiful as Senhi’Sha herself—brought it to her face.

“Greetings, student of the she-wolf,” she said, her voice sounding like the wind a sailor had waited for breathlessly as his sails had hung slack for a week, and like the night beneath whose veil young lovers would secretly hide. Her voice sounded like nothing that could exist in the mortal world. And so Ardi wasn’t even sure that he’d heard it with his ears and not with something else.

Ardan straightened and, still gripping his staff tightly, averted his gaze slightly to one side. He wasn’t confident his mind could endure it if he looked too long upon the figure of this beautiful stranger. And, if he was completely honest, he’d prefer for them to remain strangers to each other.

Alas, by all indications, this visitor had other plans. And if the old tales had warned him of anything, it was that being the mortal who wanted to guess at what goes on in a Sidhe Fae’s head was never a good idea.

“You know my name,” said the girl woven from the starry night and a dark wind—not as a question, but as a statement.

Ardi did know it. He had read about her. Of the one who comes on a summer night when the northern stars shine and a cold wind makes people remember that summer will one day end and winter will surely come again. A being born of the Winter Court, appearing here in the midst of Summer’s domain.

“Lady Allane’Eari,” Ardi replied. “Sidhe of the Cold Summer Night, daughter of the Queen.”

In that dark hour, in the middle of the Alkade steppe, atop a hill covered in flowers and grass, stood one of Winter’s Princesses—the sister of Atta’nha herself.

“And what is your name, young Speaker?” Allane’Eari asked.

Ardan felt a searing, nearly irresistible urge to state his full name. It tore itself free from the depths of his consciousness, shaking the walls of will the young man had built around it.

“Ard,” Ardi growled out with immense difficulty, like a snow leopard. “Ard Egobar.”

The Sidhe, who had just tried to wrest his True Name from him by force, gave no sign of being disappointed or even particularly surprised that Ardi had managed to keep the secret safe. In fact, Allane’Eari likely didn’t even realize she had nearly ripped the whole truth from his lips rather than only a part of it—simply because the Sidhe hadn’t put any will behind what had just happened. It was sort of like standing under the lashing blows of a squall and claiming nature has conspired against you personally. But that wasn’t the case. The wind simply blows, being what it is. So, too, was the case with this Sidhe: her mere presence had nearly broken Ardi’s will.

“You know why I’ve come to you, student of my sister,” she said, still twirling the flower in her hand and paying no heed to her companion. The stars still streamed down from the heavens along the rustling folds of her dress woven from the night.

“The Sidhe of the Burning Dawn,” was all Ardi said.

In truth, he had no idea why a Princess of Winter had shown up to pay him a visit. He didn’t know whether it was connected to the fact that an obscure old writer, Anvar Riglanov, had somehow freed the Sidhe of the Burning Dawn from captivity; or with the fact that the aforementioned Sidhe had obtained an ancient artifact—an inexhaustible source of the Ley—thanks to Ardi; or perhaps she was here for some other reason known only to the Fae. Ardan could not really guess. And so he’d resorted to Skusty’s craft, telling the truth while still lying.

The wind blew from every direction at once. It was as if it were racing to bow before its mistress, to surge into her enchanting hair and raiment, becoming her breath and her words:

“You aided the fugitive, Speaker.”

“We made a deal, Princess—a deal that honored all the laws of the Queens. I broke none of them,” Ardan said firmly.

He still remembered the laws of the City on the Hill all too well. Atta’nha had virtually forced her apprentice to memorize them.

“How can one who sought benefits in a deal with someone who broke our laws claim that he himself broke none of them?”

Sleeping Spirits… For once in his life, Ardi had made the right choice by not taking that scroll.

“I say it thrice and thrice you shall hear me, Princess: from my deal with the Sidhe of the Burning Dawn, I received not the slightest benefit, and only returned to him what was already his by right.”

Allane’Eari fell silent. And the silence rubbed against Ardi’s legs like a gentle cat, but he did not let himself be deceived by its feigned kindness. One misstep, and that sweet cat would turn into a horrific monster that would devour him faster than he’d be able to realize where he had made the fatal mistake.

“You speak the truth, yet I can feel you lie,” the Princess pronounced at last. “Which means my sister and her children taught you well, last of the clay hunters.”

Ardi held his tongue. In fact, if the old legends were to be believed, staying silent in the presence of a Sidhe was the best strategy of all.

“You know, Ard, I remember the moment when you lay with the daughter of a man in my embrace,” Allane’Eari lifted her gaze to the sky and closed her enchanting eyes. “How my wind caressed her curls and how my coolness soothed your burning heart… I’m sorry that your paths diverged.”

Ardan continued to remain silent. He strove not to show his fear. And he was especially afraid because the bracelet Atta’nha had given him was no longer smoldering on his right wrist, emitting its black haze. With the arrival of the first day of summer, it had finally dissolved, having spent the last of its power. And only a complete idiot wouldn’t fear one of the Princesses of Winter.

“But the dream of the Sleeping Spirits is always enchanting because of what they see within it. Perhaps there’s something poetic in that… Black hair and red. Amber and emerald. Ice and flame. Maybe a bit overdone, but that’s only because…” Allane’Eari fell silent, but only for a brief moment. “You have taken that which is dear to us, Speaker. And so we have the right to take that which is dear to you.”

The flower in the Princess’ hands crumbled into icy dust, and the grass around her feet first glazed over with hoarfrost, then cracked and scattered in a flurry of snow.

“I took nothing from you, my lady,” Ardan countered firmly. “I owe you nothing. Nothing binds me to you.”

Allane’Eari smiled. Her expression echoed the way Alice smiled at Din Arnson whenever he said something absurd—the way one smiles at a fool.

“You are the reason the candle we sought for so long is once again hidden from us. You are the reason the fugitive we nearly caught is now beyond our reach.”

“The affairs of the Courts and the City on the Hill have nothing to do with me, my lady,” Ardan insisted. “And-”

“And was it not you, young Speaker, who twice came into our lands?” The Sidhe interrupted him, her smile widening. “And did you not know, even then, that mortals are forbidden from coming to us uninvited?”

Ardan’s breath caught, and his heart skipped several beats. The Fae never forgot anything, and never forgave anything. He truly had broken the Queens’ laws twice. And both times, he had naively thought he’d gotten away unseen. If the first time—when he’d led Duchess Anorsky into Senhi’Sha’s Garden—he was still considered a child, then the second time…

Damn.

He hadn’t gone “unnoticed,” and he certainly hadn’t been “forgiven for his mistake.” They had simply remembered, and set it aside in case they ever needed to make use of it.

“Your debt to us binds you to the City on the Hill, Speaker,” Allane’Eari continued. “And thus I have the right to demand its repayment. A repayment multiplied by the fact that our Flame is lost to us once again. And its loss did not happen without your involvement.”

Ardan felt a flare of Ley sear his consciousness—so bright and burning that it was as if someone had pressed hot iron to his mind. The Princess of Winter spoke the truth. He really had erred… Only the mistake wasn’t recent. He hadn’t been wrong to hand over the Sidhe Flame. He had erred six years ago, when he’d fled from Percy and his brothers through the Fae lands. With that single act, he had bound himself with unseen ties to the City on the Hill.

But just because a confused twelve-year-old hunter had made that mistake, that didn’t mean Ardan wouldn’t try to wriggle out of the situation now.

“Princess, you are right,” Ard replied with a bow. “How could I forget that occasion when you helped me escape from my pursuers and allowed me to pass through your domain. I am grateful to you for that service—small though it was, it was of great importance to me—and of course I am prepared to repay you, by the law of the Queens, with a service equally small, yet of great importance to you.”

Of course, wriggling out of it didn’t mean Ardan would emerge unscathed, but at least he could reduce the payment demanded.

“As for the Flame, it never belonged to me and…” Ardan broke off.

And the Sidhe laughed. She laughed as only a cold summer night could laugh, its free wind roaming the steppe.

“They truly have taught you well, Speaker named Ard Egobar,” she said. She turned to him and took a light step, and in an eyeblink, she was standing right beside him. She barely came up to his chest, yet at the same time, the youth felt as though he were standing next to something unfathomable and boundless. The Princess raised her hand and ran her palm along his cheek. “You remind me of Aror, boy. Your eyes… they are just like his. Aror came to my chambers once, but he did not want me—only that which I possessed… Perhaps you, Ard, will want me?”

Ardan looked into her eyes, where starlight glimmered in the depths of the night. He looked, and he fell. Deeper and deeper, losing both himself and his awareness. He had no will, no purpose, no memory, not even a sense of self. All that remained of him was a searing desire to seize this lovely being, to tear off that dress woven out of the night, to throw her down into the grass and…

A breeze carried the scent of spring grasses blooming by a brook.

The Princess hissed and recoiled. On her palm—the one that had been touching Ardan’s cheek just a moment ago—a cut had opened, and silvery blood dripped from it.

“You love her, Ard,” the Princess snarled with unconcealed malice, the mask of enchanting allure and warmth falling away from her in an instant. “Truly love her… truly… Just like Aror.”

Ardan, breathing heavily, clung to his staff. So that was what a true Witch’s Gaze was. And that was what it meant to be without Atta’nha’s bracelet on his wrist.

“We gave you the ability to walk when you could not, Speaker,” the Princess said, gradually regaining her earlier detached composure with each passing moment. “Therefore, this winter, when you can walk, you will have to stand. That is your payment, Speaker—by the law of the Queens. And if you break it, then we will take from you what is dear to you.”

His heart began to pound faster, and Ardi felt the wind around him grow colder. Colder and… darker. And before he understood what he was saying, or to whom, an earnest oath burst from his lips:

“Then I will kill you, Princess. You and everyone dear to you. Even if it takes me centuries of my life.”

Ardi caught himself then and would have said that he’d misspoken. That it was only because he had, for an instant, yielded to her Witch’s Gaze. But the truth was, a Witch’s Gaze forced you to speak what truly lay in your heart.

The Princess regarded him with undisguised regret.

“I know, Speaker. I know that is exactly what you will do. You haven’t broken just our laws, have you? I sense the stains of the Dark Names on your soul. Right now, they’re only tiny blots—barely noticeable specks. But they are growing. You know that too, don’t you? You can feel them?”

Ardan recalled the destruction of the Imperial Bank, and how he, as a child, had read a certain scroll from Atta’nha’s library.

“I see that you can feel it,” Allane’Eari continued, seeing the recognition on his face. “You chose your own path, Ard. And sooner or later, you will stumble. No one can keep the Darkness on a leash for too long. One day, you will become a Dark Aean’Hane. Because that is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits.”

“Your sister once told me that even if the whole world tries to tell me who I am, I alone choose who I truly am,” Ardan replied.

Allane’Eari smiled a touch sadly.

“My sister is a powerful witch. There is no one in the Winter Court who could rival her in might or in her mastery over the Snows and Ice, Ard. But she was never particularly wise.”

“Perhaps, Princess, but it was that sister of yours who protected and watched over my father’s people, not you. So I’m inclined to trust her more than you.”

“Blood of Aror…” Allane’Eari’s eyes gleamed with that familiar smile. “And now look where it has brought my sister and her people… You are like Aror, in spirit and in will both. You would make an excellent, mighty Sidhe. Come with me, Ard,” she said, extending her hand to him. “Come with me to the City on the Hill. You should have gone there the very moment you learned how to Speak. Come. Such is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits. Come. You will become Sidhe. The Snows and Frosts of Winter will wash your soul clean, and the Darkness will retreat. Come. You will take your place in the Queen’s retinue. Come. You will be my husband, and I will be your wife. Come and-”

Her words went on and on, and images swirled before Ardan’s eyes. Foreign images. Visions of a life unfamiliar to him. Not his life—someone else’s. Someone walking along unseen paths, someone who saw the world as it truly was, not as mortal eyes perceived it; he saw someone who was grasping secrets so intricate and beguiling that they couldn’t be described by anything capable of making sound; he was living and breathing where there was neither air nor heartbeat, only… only something.

And she was there beside him. The Princess of Winter. Allane’Eari, the Sidhe of the Cold Summer Night.

Ardan clutched at his chest—clutched at the little flame of green eyes shining far away, along the coiled path of his life.

“You have no power over me, witch,” Ardan barely managed to say.

A wind rose. Stars swirled above.

“Come with me, Ard!” She boomed, her voice suddenly thunderous and deep. “Aror promised you to me!”

Ardan did not listen to her. He tried not to hear a single sound.

“You do not know my True Name,” he intoned, reciting the words the she-wolf had taught him and pouring everything he had into them. “You have not walked my paths. You do not know where my home is, or who my spirits are.”

“He promised you to me!” The Princess screamed. “You are the payment for his debt!”

“Depart to where mortals have no place, for there is no place for you here, witch. Here, only the blood of my forebears flows. Here, only the whisper of my spirits is heard. Here, there is no place for you or your kind, witch. Here-”

He didn’t get to finish the incantation. She seized him by the chin and with great ease—like he was lighter than a feather—hoisted him into the air, staring deep into his eyes.

“I can wait, Speaker. She is only mortal, after all. I waited five centuries for Aror’s debt to be repaid. I can wait another five just the same. Remember your debt to my Mother, mortal. This winter, you will pay it. And remember that your life belongs to me by right. By the right that Aror gave me.”

She crushed her lips against his. And in that kiss, there was nothing warm, nothing gentle, nothing human—only something animal, feral and furious, as icy and merciless as… as a cold summer night.

***

“Ardi…”

Ardan opened his eyes. Tess stood before him, wrapped in a sheet, sleepy and tousled.

“You stayed up all night doing research?” She asked, rubbing her eyes.

Ardi looked at the table strewn with papers, at himself—he was clad only in his underclothes—and at the lamp, which had burned through all its oil. His staff stood near the door, and the accumulator rings lay in his bag.

Sending papers flying, not caring if he tore something, he scooped Tess up and crushed her in a bear hug, burying his face in her hair, and fell silent.

“Ardi… what’s wrong?” She placed her warm, delicate hands on his back. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Ardan did not answer her. He would have liked to believe it truly had just been a nightmare. The blue lip print on his left wrist said otherwise, however.

Great-grandfather… How much had he been unable to tell him?

Well, it didn’t matter. Ardi still wouldn’t be able to speak with him about it now.

The important thing was that one more item had been added to his list of tasks. A very important one.

He needed to find out how one could… kill a Sidhe.