"I 'eard the Duchess 'erself 'as magic as can shield a whole army from bullets an' cannon fire. An' there's a man in 'er service, so I've 'eard, can stop time an' do as 'e likes while everyone else stands still as statues. An' then there's whoever destroyed the enemy's ships over t'city. So my question is…'ow the fuck come we don't 'ave magic like that in t'trenches?" —Overheard in the hospital tent, Shelford

Watching her loved ones

The Oasis 09.06.03.15.19

Pal had known rain on Sayf's oasis, many times. Her husband made sure the place got enough of a regular spritzing to keep the gardens in perfect health, and he did occasionally have bad moods…and sometimes he was just of a mind to sit and watch the rain. Rain could be beautiful, after all.

She'd never known rain like this, though. It was shredding leaves, de-limbing some of the more fragile plants, and scouring the stones. Where it ran into gutters, the gutters were rivers. Where it pooled…well, the violent thrashing surface of the standing water could hardly be called a "pool" at all. Hail pummelled down among the raindrops with such viciousness she was fairly sure some of the windows had broken.

And then there was the lightning.

She'd never known lightning could be constant. It rolled and seethe around in the clouds without ending, occasionally breaking out into a strike of such awful power that every mortal in the palace had either retreated to an interior room, or had stuffed their ears.

She had never, in sixty years as one of his harem, known Sayf to show such emotional imbalance. He was in a murderous mood.

So, for that matter, was Ellaenie. But neither parent's rage was enough to lure them from their daughter's side. But the striking thing to Pal's mind was that Saoirse looked…well, healthy.

Thinking back to her own childhood, now much longer ago than her youthful appearance would suggest, there was one girl Pal remembered…Layna? No, Layenna. Daughter at one of the whores at the Palace of Perfume. Mother and child alike had died of the same strange, wasting sickness that no doctor could correct, nor could any healer identify where and when they'd caught it. Pal had been kept away from them, for fear she might catch it herself…but Layenna had been a friend and playmate. So Pal had braved the disease and snuck in to their sickroom anyway, to be a comfort and to say goodbye.

Layenna had looked small and frail and flimsy. Like a doll somebody had thrown out the window. Her skin had been ashen and moist, her face pinched with discomfort even when asleep. It had been Pal's first close look at death and suffering, and not the last.

But Saoirse had the glow of perfect health. She was just…asleep, so it seemed. Only lightly asleep, if the twitching behind her eyelids and her soft, half-formed mumbling was anything to go by, but quite unrousable for all that. Still, Ellaenie sat by her bed and stroked her hair with the distant, numb expression of a mother with no control over her child's fate. And Sayf prowled the room between periods of lurking by the window, brooding.

Two of the very mightiest, utterly powerless.

Pal became aware of a touch on her arm, and looked around into a familiar veiled face. Neither she nor Haust needed words to reach an agreement, and they withdrew quietly from the room together. Neither woman spoke as they walked away, until they were alone in the Hall of Elemental Water, which was far more tumultuous today than usual. The delicate curtain waterfalls that graced the hall's long walls like panes of exquisite glass were were now ragged, boiling white walls. Normaly, this was a quiet place of trickling and tinkling waters: now it was thunderous.

Not that they needed to hear to speak. Not when a Crown was involved. Haust spoke quietly, but Pal heard her without difficulty.

"I think it's time," she said.

"Today? Now?"

"Yes. I know I'm being…cold…"

Pal sighed, and glanced back the way they had come. "I suppose somebody must be, today. It falls to us, then."

"How prepared are you?"

"I spent nearly a hundred years preparing, Lady. I certainly haven't been idle in my time here."

Haust's thin lips tightened into something as near a smile as the day would allow. "I know. Normally, I'd consult the others, but a guilty mother, a worried father, and a distracted king don't need the extra burden."

Pal nodded. What went unspoken was that all three could take the extra burden…but why? Who could have the heart to add to their troubles now?

Certainly not anyone who loved them.

"I'll need your help getting there, of course."

Haust nodded, and took her hand. Together, they turned and advanced into the foam and spray at the falling waters' feet.

There was a moment of pummelling wetness and drenching cold, which surrendered to Haust's power and transformed in a single stride, becoming…

Steam. Steam and incense, in a combination so dense they stung and blinded the eye. Tiles of a different design dripped with condensation, and dark, half-glimpsed bathers mumbled in faint confusion as the two women swished past them.

There were layers of curtains to keep the steam and smoke contained. They pushed these aside and emerged into a courtyard not dissimilar to the Oasis itself but less…less perfect. More human, more used and enjoyed and worn. More smelly, too, though not in an unpleasant way.

It was the scent and heat of home.

Pal shook and swished her gowns, needlessly. She'd walked into a waterfall and been soaked just seconds ago, but now she was perfectly bone dry. She glanced at Lady Haust and smiled at what she saw: the Veiled Witch had adopted the posture and garb of a serving wench, small and retiring. Always, it was her habit to go incognito.

Very well.

She straightened her back and strode forward, breathing in the dry foehn wind, a welcome change after so much recent humidity.

Her arrival did not go unnoticed. Back at the Oasis, she was one of the honored Crownspouses, one of Sayf's beloved, and the pilgrims and visitors who came to his earthmote treated her with awe and deference.

But in Arthenun Ilẹyeda, she was a queen. The news of her return spread in a ripple of shouts, running feet and ringing chimes. She smiled at the busy noise, and marched on toward her study.

The compound she now strode through was her oasis, her garden, her palace. Once, it had been the prison defining her life. She'd been born here, the daughter of a whore and destined by birth to be, at best, a courtesan.

Such gradations of status were all-important in Arthenun Ilẹyeda. A whore was a nobody; a courtesan was somebody, though she must apply herself constantly to maintain that position and not slide backwards into obscurity. A courtesan wasn't just a paid fuck, she was an entertainer, a mediator, a hostess, an ambassador, a social mover, an organizer and influencer, even an advisor. And, yes, sexually available for the right (exorbitant) fee.

For a man of means and influence to marry a courtesan was merely racy rather than a scandalous waste of his potential. It was a move that might even enhance his stock, if the courtesan in question was sufficiently prominent.

Palasarli's ambition, intelligence and willpower had made her more than prominent. She had, over a daring and aggressive career, rapidly elevated herself to the position where no amount of money was sufficient to bed her, and no worthy man would be so crass and stupid as to try and buy her. She had hosted the most important functions, mediated the most vital negotiations, entertained the highest and mightiest guests…and when she had taken a man to her bed, she had done so out of real affection and chemistry, not as the cynical reward in a transaction.

By her fortieth birthday she was the queen of Arthenun Ilẹyeda, the city's crown jewel, its most beloved celebrity. Fame had made her the most beautiful woman in the world: Dukes, thaighns, princes and guildmasters had vied, bribed and plied her, not to have her on their arm, but for the privilege of being on her arm.

That had been sixty years ago.

A woman with her near-perfect memory and eye for detail could do a lot from such a position. And though she'd stepped out of the courtesan's life after marrying Prince Sayf, she had not stepped away from her wealth and influence. Behind the veils and curtains, she all but ruled Arthenun Ilẹyeda, and after meeting Ellaenie and learning the circumstances of Saoirse Crow-Sigh's death, she'd seen to it that the Clear Skies Guild and Oneism never gained a foothold in her city. She'd invested her wealth in making the city-state rich, its people learned, and their economy deep and vigorous.

And she'd raised an army.

By the time she reached her study, her captains and generals had all been summoned. Some were already waiting for her, adjusting hastily-donned uniforms and straightening their backs as she entered the courtyard.

She knew them all by name. She knew all about their family lives, their virtues, vices, foibles and fancies. Her empire was built more on her near-perfect memory for people than on mere beauty and seduction. Ellaenie had once commented that it was almost a good thing she was entirely deaf and blind to magic—'You'd have been a terrifying witch,' she said.

Pal smiled at the memory, and turned it into a smile for her officers.

"I'm impressed, gentlemen," she said. "I only just got here."

"We knew this day was soon, Lady," Commodore Orsen replied, bowing slightly and putting a hand to his chest. He half-turned and indicated a young man beside him. "My nephew, Lady. Somoe. I made him captain o' the Coming Storm."

Pal gave the youth a warm and welcoming smile that made him glance bashfully at his boots for a moment. "Our new scout brig," she said. "Very fine. She's a weighty first command, Captain Somoe."

"I'll do what I can to be worthy of it, Lady," Somoe replied, and earned a mark in Pal's estimation. There'd been no boyish nerves in his voice, just a certain breathy eagerness. Good.

She swept past the men and into her study. They filed in after her, attentive and eager. This was, as Orsen had said, the moment they'd been commissioned to prepare for. It was the moment they'd built their lives around. She was about to validate their life's purpose.

Haust quietly handed her a scroll as she approached the table, and passed along her thought and knowledge of its content. Palasarli unrolled it on the tabletop and looked around the room.

"My beloved sister Ellaenie has done what she can to prepare her city, but it could never be enough," she said. "You see here, here and here, the combined forces of the duchies of Garanhir close in around Auldenheigh. When they attack, the defence will be valiant and bloody, but ultimately futile. People will die by the thousands"

Her officers gathered around the map and considered it. She saw them nod as they assessed the situation. Many of these men were Garanese themselves, refugees who had fled their homes rather than be Encircled or forced to do the work of an Encircled duke. Those men in particular were hungry to cleanse their homeland of Civorage's stain.

"You know what forces we have. You know how best to use them. The time has come, gentlemen, to join this war, and win it." She paused to consider them one last time, then sat down. It was the signal that strategy meeting was now in session.

"…Let us determine how."

"Think carefully before harming their children. It makes them much less tractable." —Attributed to the emperor Ekveby Amisten Henrutcof Llenava, In the Courts of the Elves

Nothing to do

Private Quarters, The Oasis 09.06.03.15.19

There were no stray hairs left to tidy up, no more adjustments to make to her daughter's blankets or clothes. There was nothing for Ellaenie to do. Nothing she could do. Simply resting her hand on Saoirse's head and gently stroking her hair wasn't anything at all.

There was nothing so pathetic as a mother who could do nothing for her child.

She didn't even know what was happening. Was it sleep? The flick and dart of eyes under closed lids gave the impression of dreaming, and then sometimes she'd take a sharp intake of breath as though about to wake, or at least mumble something. Sometimes she did mumble something.

But these scant clues it gave nothing away, not even to a witch's sight.

Ellaenie sat, and caressed her ailing child's head, and took in every detail.

Six years old. Far too young for this. Still at the very beginning of childhood, even, though her face was beginning to lose the cherubic roundness of infancy. The shapes and angles of her real features were beginning to come through, hinting at the woman who was still ten or twenty years away.

She'd take almost equally after both her parents, Ellaenie thought. She had the sharp but delicate Banmor jaw and cheekbones, and of course her eyes were an even more striking refinement of Ellaenie's own. But the mouth and brow were Sayf's. From her mother came a dusting of freckles across the cheeks and nose, and from her father came hair and skin that would have been the same rich riverbank hue if running around in the sun hadn't bleached one and tanned the other.

All of which was superficial next to what her mind and personality might become, given the chance.

A thick-fingered, beringed hand tidied a stray curl of Ellaenie's own hair aside and caressed her cheek.

"What are you thinking?"

Sayf's voice was soft for the first time in hours, and laden with so much tender concern that Ellaenie closed her eyes and somehow managed to relax a little.

"When was the last time I just watched her?" she asked. "I used to stand in the nursery doorway and watch her sleep…"

"I remember." Sayf sat down beside her, on a chair that flowed silently across the room to catch him.

"Why don't I do that any more?"

He shrugged. "Even the most wonderful and precious things can become routine. It's one of life's crueller tricks."

"…How do you avoid that?"

"Effort. Mindfulness." He shrugged again. "Sometimes I need a reminder."

She finally turned her face away from Saoirse, and looked to him. "…Is she going to—?"

"I don't know, beloved. I truly don't. I'm not even sure what she's doing right now. She's…wandering far from home."

"Can't you guide her?"

"I think…we think she needs a different guide."

"Eärrach?"

That shrug again. She'd almost never seen him shrug before. Three in one conversation told her more than anything else how he was feeling now, right down in his heart of hearts. It was the same feeling that had her in its grip: lost, and powerless.

Hard as that was for her…how much worse for a god?

Too restless to sit for long, he stood and prowled the room some more.

A thought struck her. "Sayf?"

"Hmm?"

"…How many children have you had? In all your time?"

He paused, hesitated, then sat down again.

"She's my…Three million, four hundred and seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-first."

Astonishment entirely constricted Ellaenie's throat. It wasn't the number that surprised her, though. Unimaginable though it was, that was the sort of scale the Crowns operated on. But what struck her was that, after so many, over so many years…this one was still precious enough to him that the harm done to her had put him in such a fearsome brooding mood.

"I…"

He put his hand over hers. "I know. It's hard to fathom. But Ellie, I love my little girl. And I'm…" his voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat to continue. "…And I'm afraid for her. The fact she's one of millions doesn't change a damn thing."

"In a billion years, what difference will it make?"

"To hell with a billion years' time!" Rare sharpness flashed in his eyes. "Here and now, that's what matters!"

A particularly vicious sheet of lightning crackled across the clouds outside, and Ellaenie flinched. He inhaled sharply and softened himself.

"…Sorry."

"No….No, I'm sorry. I'm…my head's full of—"

"I know." He put his arm around her, drew her close, and his voice dropped to a low, sad murmur. "And…you're not really wrong. Three and a half million? It's an absurd thing." He shook his head slightly. "But darling, if I ever forget how to love my children, I'll be less than human, not more."

Ellaenie mulled over his words. A Crown—a god, no matter how much he disliked the title—less than human.

She felt something melt inside her, releasing a swell of love for him. Their marriage was…unconventional, and at times a little awkward for her. She was one of his harem, and had chosen to be here for the power and influence and options it gave her in pursuit of her mission. It was a political marriage, really, though not without genuine attraction, affection and romance…

But here and now, they were just a mother and father afraid for their child.

Slowly, she nodded, and rested her head on his shoulder, and for a time they sat and took comfort from each other while watching Saoirse sleep.

Eventually, a new question started to make itself known, like a coal inside her that was heating up by degrees and only now become hot enough for discomfort.

"What are we going to do about…her?"

Sayf inhaled, so slowly and deeply that the swell of his chest felt like the rise of a mountain. After a silent, troubled eternity, he released it again in an equally slow rush.

"What Nimico did…" She felt his jaw clench, and his voice dropped into a dangerous rumble. "Part of me itches to destroy her."

"Perhaps we should," Ellaenie agreed. "Even if she hadn't done this, look at all the mischief she's done elsewhere. And she'll keep doing it, unless you plan to keep her locked up forever…"

A new squall battered against the windows for a minute before he replied.

"You might be right."

"…But?"

"But…the spectrum of possibility here includes a chance—and I don't even know how remote a chance—that what she has done to Saoirse may yet turn out to be the most wonderful gift, and the culmination of the Crowns' hopes and prayers. And it might be that whether that is what's happened will depend on what we do."

He caught the disbelieving, angry look in Ellaenie's eye and, for a fourth time, shrugged.

"This might be a gift?" Ellaenie asked, incredulous.

He held up a peaceful hand. "Even if good things come of an unspeakable evil, it was still an evil. Nimico has…violated our little girl, and I will not let that go unanswered. But good things may yet come of it, and whether they do may depend on what we do. That's all I meant."

Ellaenie frowned at him, then turned her attention back down to the bed, and to Saoirse. And she saw not just his meaning, but the how of it.

"…Where parents lead, the child may follow," she said.

"Mm. For better or worse, she bears the power of Spirit itself. She can do with vengeance, or with compassion. Which do you want for her?"

Ellaenie thought that over for a time. Finally, she smoothed her skirts and stood up.

"I'm going to speak with Nimico," she declared.

He nodded. "Be careful."

"Of her? What power does she have over me, here?"

"Of yourself, beloved."

Ellaenie paused. Then, nodding, she stooped to kiss his cheek and Saoirse's brow. She strode to the door, glanced back at the girl's bed one last time, then swept from the room and toward the guest quarters. The Oasis had never needed a prison before, so Nimico was detained in a guest suite. It was more luxury than she deserved, but knowing what she did of her, Ellaenie doubted whether the fallen Herald would appreciate it.

Lokar and Cerida had taken the responsibility of guarding her…though had seen no reason why they couldn't be comfortable while doing it. They'd dragged a couple of armchairs out of a nearby room and were curled up talking quietly when Ellaenie approached. Both immediately sprang to their feet and came to her.

"How is she?" Lokar asked.

Ellaenie shook her head, and accepted Cerida's hug. "Asleep. In a trance…dreaming. I'm not sure which. Is our captive awake?"

"I don't think so. I heard her pacing a few minutes ago…but who cares?" Cerida snarled. "Wake her up if she is."

"Has Queen Talvi returned?"

When they shook their heads no, Ellaenie smoothed her skirts, took a deep breath, gave them both a reassuring hug, and opened the door.

The motion wafted a few stray black feathers across the floor in the room beyond. It was one of the smallest guest suites, though still sumptuous by anything but the most exacting royal standards. Nimico was flat on her back on the floor and staring up at the ceiling, disdaining the bed or the couch or even the rug in favor of lying directly on hardwood parquetry.

Her eyes were open, and they were such strange eyes, Ellaenie thought. Her lack of pupils made it seem like she'd just got bored and stopped halfway while refining her own body's appearance. Two bland discs the hue of burnished brass flicked toward Ellaenie, then returned to whatever it was they'd been studying on the ceiling. The loose feathers had been shed by the downy stole of an unkempt, shabby, disintegrating black dress.

"Hello, your Grace."

Ellaenie paused. She'd been expecting…what? Sullen defiance? Unrepentant impish cheek? The boredom of unfathomable ennui?

Not a voice tight with regret.

Remembering Sayf's warning, she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

The Heights

The Mountain

"…Hey, Jerl."

Jerl couldn't have put any precise estimate on how long it had been since he'd last seen his lover. For all he knew, he'd been hiking and climbing this mountain for months, or even years. Certainly several days or weeks, but without the distractions of food and sleep, fatigue or the body's normal cycles to count the time, he couldn't be more sure than that. He'd been so lost in thought and experience as to not mark the time. Perhaps it was meaningless to mark time, here.

But Mouse looked…much the same as when they'd parted ways on the steps of that hotel in Auldenheigh. And that memory was as vivid as if it had been only a few hours.

Maybe it had been, for him.

And he looked embarrassed and sad.

Jerl kissed him. "Hey, you. What are you doing here?"

The embarrassed, sad look deepened and Mouse looked down at his feet. "…I, uh…" He sighed and cleared his throat. "…I think I got myself killed, Jerl."

Jerl had been freezing cold for a meaningless interval, now. Each flake of the snow landing on him felt impossibly cold, like each one was able to freeze and shatter his flesh.

But they were nothing next to the cold feeling that slipped down into his heart.

"Wh—? No, you're. You're right here, though. Or—you're real, right? You're not another—" he glanced at King Eärrach, who replied with a solemn shake of his head: No, this was not some vision or test. This was the real Mouse.

"…But—" he could think of nothing else to say. He could only object, without thought or form or argument.

"I'm sorry," Mouse told him.

"No. No, no no no, you're here, I can feel you, you're not even hurt! You're not dead, you're right—"

"We're in a place where what's real is more than what you're used to, Jerl," Eärrach reminded him, softly.

Jerl glared at him. Then turned back to Mouse and took his hand. It felt…warm, and light. And softer than he remembered.

"…No, Mouse?" he almost pleaded. "No."

Mouse just sighed, took his hand, and led him over to some nearby rocks to sit with him. And he explained. He told Jerl how he'd slipped away from the others, stolen a horse, and followed Jared Mab Keeghan over the front line.

"It's bad back there," he said, softly. "Enerlend's men know they can't win, but they're going to fight anyway. Even though they know they're all going to die…"

He described the artillery barrage that had come hammering down only a minute or so after he crossed the front. He mentioned seeing the Queen turn back after her raid on the battery, thwarted by the presence of hostile airships.

He told Jerl about the battle of Eshkipping. About the huge muscular brute Civorage had been using for a proxy…and the knife. He described the final effort when he'd used Mab Keeghan's receptiveness and trust of Civorage's power against them at the last moment. And he described what it felt like to slip away.

"…and then she turned up." Mouse finished. He turned and indicated the tiny, summery figure of Saoirse Sayfschild, who was sitting on another rock next to Eärrach, kicking her little bare feet as though completely immune to the bleak, frigid snowfield or the sorrow of their meeting. Though, when she saw Jerl looking at her, she stopped kicking her feet and gave him an oddly adult little smile of sympathy and pity. "And she brought me here."

"You need to be here," she said, simply.

"Maybe you're just—no. You just passed out, or—"

"No, Jerl."

And it was the truth. Jerl's denial could hold out no longer. The pain he'd been refusing to feel was suddenly there, right at the tipping point like a pot boiling over so that it rushed up from deep inside and defeated him.

The fact that Mouse put his arms around him and hugged him close did nothing to take it away or make it better. He just held on as tightly as he could and screwed his eyes shut as though if he kept the prickling, burning wetness locked inside this wouldn't be real, somehow, even here in this place where everything was the very definition of real.

A thought tore into him and he exploded out of Mouse's arms to round on Eärrach who was sitting next to his…for lack of a better word, his niece…watching her with an expression of unreadable interest.

"You! You knew this was coming, didn't you? This is all part of the damn test!" he demanded, but Eärrach was shaking his head slowly before he'd even uttered the second word.

"No."

The King of Crowns put such flat, immovable simplicity into the tiny word that all the flaring anger that had kindled in Jerl's muscles guttered out…nearly. Some ember held on, still smouldering hot enough to spur him to say more.

"You…No, you knew. You're—you can step in! He's still here, you could heal him, you could—"

"I'm not God, Jerl. I'm just the one immediately available for you to lash out at, and that's okay." He looked Jerl straight in the eye, and there was a firmness there that was neither cruel nor cold, but rather infinitely understanding. "But I do not meddle with life and death in such ways. And I certainly do not kill one man just to teach another."

All further objections were burned to ash, now. Jerl tried to find one anyway, wishing and pleading for there to be some hidden loophole, some argument he could make—

But he knew better.

He took in a long, shuddering breath and looked back down at Mouse. "…Oh…Fuck, Mouse. Why? Why go it alone? Why…?"

Mouse shrugged. "Somebody needed to."

"…No. No, I could have come with you. With both of us in the fight—I can undo it. I can set this right. I can pull back TIme and this time we'll—"

"Jerl."

Eärrach stood up. When Jerl turned to ask him 'what?' he extended a hand, palm open and upwards, and gestured down the mountain they had just climbed.

"You didn't notice," he said, "but we've reached the summit."

"Wha—? What does that have to do with—?"

But then Jerl looked down the slope and he saw what he was being shown.

He saw Time laid out before him, just as it had been on the day he first spoke the Word. He saw it all, the shifting, bewildering landscape of it, the way it flowed, parted, converged, knotted and stretched. He saw it now with the perspective of a Crown, with the perspective of a god.

He saw everything. And this time, unlike that first time, he understood it.

And, leaping out from the writhing tapestry of futures, presented for him by his intent and his desire, he saw all the reasons why he could not save his love. He saw all that would happen if he did, the price the world would pay. The price that even now, even for Mouse, he would never allow.

There was a glimpse, just the faintest snatch of one quiet note in a cacophony, a fleck of herb boiling to the top in a roiling stew, a single golden thread in an endlessly flapping flag the size of worlds: one line, one beautiful, perfect path where this did not have to be, where he and Mouse walked together down a long and blissful eternity…but its root was in the decision of another man to suddenly turn against all he had done and all he believed. Even as he watched, even as his hand reflexively stretched out toward it, that shimmering tendril of possibility snapped and disintegrated under the impossible conditions of its birth, destroyed by the very act of reaching for it.

With it went the last of his hope.

He dropped to his knees in the snow and wept.

"My beloved indulges in understatement. If we ever lose control of the Wights, then our mighty and wondrous Ordfey will swiftly become a hated footnote in their history. It is therefore worth cultivating an acute awareness for how much they will tolerate." —Attributed to the Consort Bekhil by Amisten Henrutcof Llenava, In the Courts of the Elves

Nimico's Room

Private Quarters, the Oasis 09.06.03.15.19

"'Your Grace', is it?" Ellaenie circled around the room, finding herself unwilling to get any closer, but unable to stand still. "You put your hands on my child and suddenly you're all manners? Are you mocking me?"

The last two words had unbidden venom in them. She wasn't in control. Hate and anger were crashing up out of her heart, now, refusing to be restrained.

Nimico didn't move, except that her dull eyes continued to track Ellaenie's orbit around the room. "No, your Grace. I'm not mocking you."

"She's six. Do you understand? Six years old! And you've bound her to a power no adult should have to face! Do you understand what you've done?!"

Nimico tilted her head slightly, considering her question. "Yes, I do," she said. "Perfectly well." Her voice was low, soft and calm. But behind her own rage, Ellaenie's training as a witch still detected the emotional undercurrents. Regret? Really? Regret?

Somehow, that made her angrier. Suddenly, her hand was crackling with the energistic power of her own Word. Air molecules seethed and flashed into dying brightness, wreathing her fingers in white-blue flame. Without willing it or wanting it, without noticing the action, she surged forward, took the supine creature by her throat and squeezed. The power burned in her, urged her to unleash it and reduce the monster who had hurt her little girl to dust. When she spoke, she couldn't do more than whisper.

"Give me a reason I shouldn't kill you."

Nimico shut her eyes and shook her head, slowly. It seemed like the dignified resignation of a condemned woman waiting for the blade to drop, but…

But Ellaenie saw deeper. Deep down, and perhaps even unbeknownst to herself, Nimico secretly longed for the very oblivion that terrified her.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It wasn't compassion that drained the hate and anger out of her, then. It was a cold determination to not give the bitch anything she wanted. The sparking plasma around her hand cooled and faded, the heat and pressure surging through her limbs drained away.

She stood and retreated, absent-mindedly wiping her left hand on her skirts as though cleaning herself after touching something slimy. Nimico let out a deep, heart-felt, resigned sigh and slowly sat up to hug her knees.

"…No," Ellaenie growled. "Not without answers, first. You don't get to die until you've explained yourself."

Nimico nodded once, slowly. "Everything," she agreed. "Though…I can't give you a good reason, your Grace."

"Give me a bad one, then."

"Whim. Nothing more than whim." Nimico looked down at her hand. "I came here with…well, not the best of intentions, but the plan was to do you and your husband a service. I came here with a word vault that must be kept out of Civorage's hands, and which its keeper insisted on taking into battle with him. If Civorage gained Spirit, then that would be it. The game would be over, and Iaka would have won."

She sighed heavily. "But your daughter was there. And I had a moment of temptation. And I…" She looked up, looked Ellaenie in the eye, then quickly looked away as though recoiling from something burning hot. "…I don't really know how to resist temptation. I never figured out the knack. People always have those little impulses, don't they? 'What if I jumped in the river?' 'What if I slapped him?' What if I took all my clothes off right now?' 'I'm holding this knife…what would it feel like if I stabbed myself?' Sometimes…in me, the impulse comes and runs straight from thought to deed, like lightning to ground."

She's insane, Ellaenie thought. And she knows it.

"That makes you a rabid animal to be put down," she said aloud.

Nimico shrug-nodded, agreeing with her.

"Then comes clarity," she said. "Always afterwards. Always too late. After I've…hurt someone. After I've done something. After I've thrown away divinity itself just to see what it would feel like." A bitter laugh almost coughed its way up out of her. "The only times I feel alive are when I'm destroying something."

Ellaenie had gone cold, by now. Every word had the ring of a hated truth. And yet…

"You were made mortal thousands of years ago," she said. "But you've kept yourself youthful ever since. Magic like that isn't available to the thoughtlessly impulsive."

"You're right." Nimico looked up. "But it's not my magic. It's hers."

"Whose?"

"Iaka's."

Interlude: A Meeting and an Argument

Vedaun's longhouse, the Unbroken Mote Many years prior

There was a grave marker outside the longhouse. Nimico paused and considered it, drawing her shawl tight around her as the freezing wind tried to slice through it.

The landscape was like Vedaun himself, she thought—spare but powerful, beautiful but bleak. Perhaps he'd settled here because he knew himself? The hall still fit in it as perfectly as ever, given how carefully and how long he'd planned it before even beginning to level the ground. Now, the grave marker stood facing the downhill slope and the magnificent view beyond, and it was a work of sublime woodcarving. A totem chopped and whittled and sanded down out of a fir pole, depicting triumphs and moments and a name: ᛒᚱᛖᚦᚨ

Vedaun was still putting the finishing touches on it, she noted. He no longer defied the cold by going shirtless, but instead was crouched by the marker, applying the first layer of vibrant red paint, the same hue as his woollen tunic.

He half-turned his head as Nimico drew closer, then took his time to clean the brush and seal the paint pot before rising to greet her.

He was beginning to look old. Wrinkles had transformed the smooth expanse of a habitually hairless scalp into the rugged landscape of an old man's baldness. Muscles he had worked hard to maintain since their exile were fading away, bending his back as their support weakened. Patches of darker skin blemished his cheeks and temples.

She'd expected him to age more gracefully, somehow. Like she had.

"…I'm sorry," she offered, indicating Bretha's marker.

"She was eight-six," He shrugged. "And death came gently in her sleep. Cancer, I think. Not that she ever complained."

"She was your wife for…how long?"

"More than forty years." He cast the carved wooden memorial a calm look. "She will be waiting for me a while yet, I think. I have another twenty years in me, or longer still."

"Really? You look about ready to keel over any moment now."

He scoffed. "Tactful as ever, dear cousin…come in. Mugah's taking care of dinner."

"And Iaka?"

"Not here yet. For once, you are not the tardy one."

He escorted her indoors, and she noted immediately that the longhouse was already suffering for Bretha's absence. It didn't smell so nice, and small items had been left unregarded where they were placed, rather than tidied away. The thousand tiny, subtle tells that this was a place where only men lived, now.

Chathamugah wore age more gracefully than Vedaun. Hair that had once been a lustrous curtain of glossy black was now a lustrous rope of shimmering braided silver, in stark contrast to his rich, dark skin.

He even smiled at her. Nimico couldn't remember him ever smiling when they'd been Heralds. It was a new expression on him, as though mortality had freed him of the burden that had made him miserable.

"You're looking exquisite as ever," he said, as they traded cheek-kisses.

"I hate aging. My hands hurt all time time, and I never feel properly warm," she grumbled. "Especially not here."

"You regret your choice to come with us," he said. It wasn't a question—they'd had that conversation many times over the years.

She didn't reply. Instead she swiped a spoon and stole a sample of the lentil stew he was preparing. It was rich, full of the warmth of turmeric and coriander seed. He chuckled and shooed her away.

"Not ready yet! Go on, sit and be comfortable."

"At least you two won't starve for lack of good food," she said, settling down.

"True…but the table feels empty without her."

Nimico gathered her shawl around her and threw on a blanket too. "Why didn't you ever find a companion?"

He shrugged, but before any answer was forthcoming, Vedaun stumped in from outdoors, scraped and stamped snow off his boots, and kicked them into a corner to dry.

"She's coming," he said, with a frown.

"...Something amiss?" Chathamugah asked.

"Something strange. She's damn near skipping down the path."

"Skipping?" Nimico scoffed. "At our age?"

Vedaun shrugged and hung his axe by the door. "For all the world, I would say so," he said, and sank into a seat by the fire to warm his hands.

Minutes passed in a comfortable silence that made Nimico fidget. She'd never know how the two of them could just sit empty-headed and do nothing. Stillness felt uncomfortably heavy to her.

She was just about to stand up just for the relief of doing anything at all, when there was a sturdy rap at the door, which flew open and a figure out of history twirled into the room with a big beaming smile on her face.

They stared. At dark hair without a single grey strand, at smooth and unblemished skin lacking any wrinkle. At hands that had, when last they met, been swollen and round at the knuckle with arthritis but were now smooth and slender.

Iaka was a vision of youth come again. She saw their expressions, grinned ever wider, and spread her arms.

"I did it," she said, simply.

"…Shit!" Nimico surged to her feet, ignoring the clicking in her hips and knees. "How?!"

"Lodeheads! I told you they were the key! An unlimited source of power! The rest is just shaping it and using it properly." She twirled with a girlish vigour none of them had felt even when they were immortal. It was so infectious that Nimico swept her up in a huge, joyous, swirling hug.

Slowly it dawned on them both, however, that Mugah and Vedaun had not risen, and were not smiling. The slowed and stopped, blinking at the two men in confusion.

Vedaun spoke first. "That is your triumph, is it? More hubris? More defiance of the right order?"

He shook his head, took up a poker and jabbed it viciously into the coals of the hearth. "How many times must you burn before you stop putting your hand in the fire?"

Iaka's happiness transformed into immediate, flaring wrath, kindling the blue flames in her irises until they leaked out to either side and framed her temples. "I should have guessed," she said. "The old man, beaten by time, are you? Is your only ambition to join her in the dirt and leave this house you built to crumble?" She jabbed a hand viciously out toward the gravesight.

"That is the way of things."

Both Nimico and Iaka scoffed, and looked to Chathamugah.

"Mugah? This is what we've been trying to figure out ever since they forsook us!" Iaka said.

"You could resume your work!" Nimico agreed. "You could—"

"My work?" Mugah stirred the stewpot with an even temper and voice. "My work is a crusade against all that is unfair, uneven and imbalanced. I chose to become mortal, because it is an injustice that we should last forever in power, while mortals should be so finite and weak."

He skewered them both with an angry look. "If you think I would succumb to this temptation, then you never understood me, my so-called sisters."

The two pairs stared at each other across the room for a long beat, and it struck Nimico in that moment how different she was to them.

Why did I follow them? She'd asked herself many times since they day the walked away from the Crowns. They leapt from a cliff and destroyed themselves, but I thought at least they did it for a reason, because they have something they believe in…that I might believe in too.

But now here they were, and it turned out what the other two believed in was…letting themselves die. In just giving up and fading out. They believed in even less than she did! And Nimico wasn't sure she believed in anything, except that she didn't want to die. Not when she had an alternative.

The impulse struck her to speak her thoughts aloud, and she did. What followed was an argument so hot it burned everything and when she and Iaka walked away up the trail some three hours later, they left behind two old men they would never see again.

Neither of them looked back.

The Summit

The Mountain

So. This was it.

This was what it meant to be a god.

Jerl had it, now. He stood atop the very peak of the mountain. From here, he saw the King for the nigh-infinite power he was. Knew that a universe entire—just as a describable start to his totality—walked embodied next to him, again bare-skinned to reality. Together, they experienced the Real.

How could Jerl bear the price?

[It is the price of being,] whispered the King's thoughts directly in Jerl's mind. Here, there was no separation, where one chose not to be separate. Communion of mind could go far beyond mere words. The King took in a deep breath and sighed. Idly, Jerl realized that in this place, the physical force of that breath would have been enough to make or destroy countless worlds.

He understood why the King forsook clothing, now. It was unbearable to put any barriers between one's self and the Real.

And unbearable not to.

Underneath it all, Jerl could feel the pull. The pull of the Promise, of paradise. True, absolute joy, without loss of self or of freedom, in the truest, deepest fullness of both. They glimpsed its outermost borders: a vibrant, ever-living place as Real as the mountain peak, as challenging and dangerous or as comforting and tame as a heart's true desire could ever wish. Reward beyond any possibility of understanding, communion with all there is, or was, or ever would be, in any world, in any time. Not even the King could do anything but stand in awe before the Promise.

And they couldn't leave. Not yet.

But Mouse had to.

A comfort, that. Mouse had no idea of the cleansing and the reward that awaited him in the Promise, that most ancient of contracts, sealed ages before Eärrach had been born. It was too much, too much Goodness for any man to know. Mouse couldn't know the glory he was entering.

But now, Jerl did.

Yet somehow, that didn't lessen the ache of Mouse's death at all. But it did make it…

Endurable.

He saw why Mouse was here now, and why Saoirse had brought him. He could see how she'd slotted herself into place here, with a child's innocent desire to do something kind, spurred from her own future by a broader and more calculating understanding. They had passed a threshold now, entered a nexus where she was inevitable. Nimico's doing, that. And Nimico had been given her say. She could have chosen otherwise.

Nimico had made her choice, and from that choice…she would never know the delights of the Promise. What awaited her was exactly what she had longed for all along.

Jerl could not think of a worse fate, even as he admired the beautiful artistry of it. No matter what, in the end, souls got what they truly wanted. No amount of this beautiful, terrible, wonderous spectacle of life could convince some souls away from their own destruction, but there was no punishment, at least not in any normal sense; there only a simple, cosmic and yet deeply personal…

'As you wish.'

He took a deep, shuddering breath, and knew he could look no more, for now.

"So…what now?" He said it aloud instead of thinking it, stunned for an instant with the power present in his own voice.

[We walk down,] came the thought-reply. "You need the journey to…become small again."

"I need to say goodbye, first," he said, aloud.

[Of course.]

Jerl nodded, and turned around. It occurred to him that all of what he'd just seen, done, said and thought, had passed in a seconds to the watching Saoirse and Mouse.

Mouse. Mouse. Who was shedding tears for him, now.

They wrapped each other tight in hug, and stood forehead-to-forehead, nose-to-nose.

"I love you."

They both said it at the same time.

Mouse laughed quietly, then sobered up. "What…happens next?"

Heart-ache beyond words. Jerl could not tell him. "Now…you will see."

Mouse exhaled slowly. "…You're even starting to talk like a Crown."

"Sorry."

"Yeah. Do that for me. Don't…fall into that same trap, if you can help it. Just be Jerl."

"For as long as I can be," Jerl promised.

They both became aware of tiny, soft hands taking theirs. Saoirse looked up at them. "You've got to pass it on," she told Mouse.

"…The Word?"

"Yeah. It's okay, I'll show you how."

Mouse nodded slowly, looked back to Jerl.

"…Remember me?" He almost pleaded.

Jerl squeezed his hands. "Always."

They kissed. Lightly, tenderly, sorrowfully. A communion that spoke everything their voices never could about, and it never seemed to end.

But it did fade. Slowly, and by degrees, Jerl became aware that his fingers were intertwined with nothing but frozen air. When he opened his eyes, Mouse was gone.

But Mind was flowing into him, up little Saoirse's arm and into the space prepared for it. This time it was gentle, rather than a punishing assault. This time, the Word unrolled itself for scrutiny by one who was properly prepared for it, who was ready to know it and to use it wisely.

One, in fact, who in a sense already knew it.

Jerl barely paid it any attention. Mouse was gone, but the embrace had never ended. He knew he'd always be able to bring back the feeling of his lover's arms and lips, with perfect clarity, just for remembering.

It wouldn't be enough. But it was infinitely better than nothing.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and sniffed back his tears, miserable beyond words and knowing he would shed many more of them, later. But he had been passed a torch, now. It was time to carry it forward.

"So…" he asked again. "What's next?"

"We walk down the mountain, so you can properly integrate. Then," the King cracked his knuckles. "We go to war."

He was grim for a moment, terrible in his countenance. But he softened as he looked down at Saoirse. "…It's time for you to go home, young lady. Your parents are worried sick."

Saoirse nodded meekly. "Yes, Uncle Earache."

Eärrach chuckled indulgently. "Good girl. I'll see you later." He gestured, and the child was gone with a wave and a swirl of drifting snowflakes.

"Is she—?" Jerl began, then realised he didn't quite know what he was asking. Was she okay? Was she a Crown? Was she something else? How was it she could come and go from here so easily, when he'd had to suffer through so much?

To his astonishment, Eärrach shrugged. "You know, I'm not sure myself. Being continues to surprise." Then he chuckled, "I think one way you and I are alike is we prefer to learn things the hard way. So, come! I have a cabin just down the way here a bit. It's still at the 'peak' and we can rest there as long as you need. It's got a fridge, and a gym fit even for me, and…"

He paused, playfully, and Jerl couldn't help but smile resignedly. That only broadened the already giant, corn-fed grin plastered across his handsomely smug, stupid face.

"…What's a fridge?" Jerl obediently asked the question he knew Eärrach was waiting for.

"Something wonderful. You'll wish you could have it anywhere once you see it."

Jerl paused, feeling oddly comforted by the strange humor in Eärrach's words. It felt like the sort of ordinary absurdity Mouse would have been amused by.

He looked back at where Mouse had stood, and remembered for as long as he needed. He let his feelings rise and be known, let them wash through him. The grief and sadness, yes, but also the gladness at having loved, and the comfort of knowing this was just a parting, for now. Maybe for a very, very long time, and who knew what more life would bring him? Who knew how changed he would be when finally it was his turn?

Well. Eventually, he was ready.

He turned, and followed Eärrach back down the mountain.

"They have the same impulses as us. They are, deep down, the same as us. There is nothing a Fey will do that a Wight will not, if given the proper chance." —Attributed to the emperor Ekve by Amisten Henrutcof Llenava, In the Courts of the Elves

Interlude: The Lodehead

Iaka's Tower, the Unbroken Mote Many years prior

"When did you build this?"

"Recently. It took about seven years to dig and find the lodehead. But once I had it, I built the tower in an afternoon."

Nimico craned her head back and considered the exquisite, dark architecture around her. Iaka's tower had a certain intense magnificence that managed to thrill her. Not for Iaka an austere, grey, bland hovel. This place was a statement. It spoke of might, will and drive. And incredible control, if she'd assembled it using the magic of the lodehead. There wasn't a single misaligned stone that Nimico could see.

"Impressive!"

"Thank you!" Iaka extended an open palm, inviting Nimico to pass through an archway. "This way."

They climbed a sweep of wide, level, polished stairs in a grand spiral around the tower's outer wall. Every window was stained glass, Nimico noted, and she recognized the scenes they depicted. Moments from the past, moments of hardship and suffering that had cut deep into Iaka's compassion for mortalkind and inspired it to grow, like pruning an unruly apple tree to yield ever better fruit.

She paused at one, remembering they day they had taken Rheannach to witness the jubilee games in Vathcanarthen. Iaka had beautifully captured the duel between Bekhil and Anoris, at the precise moment where an expertly timed and aligned sword-stroke had cut the armor from Bekhil's body but left her skin unmarked. Nimico remembered that moment, remembered laughing in delight at the decadent artistry of choreographed battle and the genuine skill that had gone into their every movement.

The others had all been disgusted by it, she remembered. But Nimico had understood the elvish crowd, and part of her had shared their hunger for novelty and rarity in a life made trivial by power. Looking at the window now, she felt a stirring of that old thrill, and remembered the thunderous song with which the elves had worshipped their queen-consort as she fought in the nude for their titillation and entertainment.

Ayé! Sii ol Bekhil, ayé! Ayé! Bomirdd! Bomirdd! Bomirdd! Ayé! Canarthakun kuuha olfey! Caernvirdh! Caernvirdh! Bomirdd!

That had been…what? Thirty years ago? And the crowd's energy still echoed out across the years and quickened her pulse.

Iaka's stained glass, however, focused on the human slaves waiting in the wings to charge in after the scripted fight, to be cut down like wheat before the reaper as they tried to overwhelm the deadliest warrior in the world by sheer numbers. And that, Nimico remembered, she had not enjoyed. h.

Iaka touched her shoulder and considered the image. "A horrible day. So much death and suffering, for entertainment. I'm glad we inspired Rheannach to do something about the Ordfey, even if she didn't join us in the end."

Nimico nodded. "She still has a lot to do," she said. Truthfully, she'd enjoyed the scripted melee so much that not even the senseless brutality of the slave-murders could quite stain the memory. But she wouldn't admit as much. Not to the sister who was about to return her immortality.

Iaka patted her arm. "Up we go," she encouraged.

There was an electric, greasy, humid feeling in the air as they climbed higher. The sensation of a powerful but raw magical field washing across the skin in unformed waves.

"I thought the lodehead was deep underground?"

"It is." Iaka indicated the tower's central well—there were a series of items hung there, suspended in thick black chains. A wide flat river rock, a disk of clear ice, a whole live tree, even the complete skeleton of a bear. Magestones and fetishes, exceptional only by their size. "But its energies are chaotic and overpowering. I learned the hard way they must be…filtered. Or perhaps the word is refined. And focused."

They emerged onto a flat rooftop, where Nimico paused. The stone under her feet was eggshell-thin and translucent, looking more like the membrane of some giant insectoid wing than a solid walking surface. Iaka, however, strode out across it as though it was as firm as the substance of an earthmote.

"Come on!" she said, and indicated a wide stone table. Soft leather restraints at each corner gave Nimico pause, but Iaka smiled apologetically at her. "You'll need to be restrained, I'm afraid."

"Why? Will it hurt?"

"No. But it will cause you to feel strong emotions. It's important you don't leave the field until I have finished, so…"

"…I see."

Nimico took a deep breath then, feeling her body's age in the hard coldness of the stone against her as she climbed on, she mounted the table, lay down, and let Iaka strap her in. Something about the situation made her feel nervous and tense, so she took refuge in cheek. "You know, if you wanted to tie me to a bed, all you ever had to do was ask…"

It was a weak joke, and Iaka's only reaction was to glance at her, stone-faced, and then continue her work.

She stepped back with a satisfied nod and retreated to the edge of the eggshell roof, where a wheel and chains hinted at some hidden apparatus below to block the lodehead's magic.

"Alright, brace yourself."

Nimico nodded and took a few deep calming breaths. She suspected Iaka hadn't been entirely truthful with her about it not hurting. Surely you couldn't restore a body to youthful vigor without some pain?

She'd find out momentarily.

"…Ready."

"Good. And…Nimico?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

Nimico's stomach dropped out with a sick lurch, and she opened her mouth to demand an explanation for this apology. But Iaka had turned the wheel, and the iron louvers below rotated, allowing a terrible power to leak up around her.

It should have been light. It should have illuminated her. Instead, a darkness engulfed her that was so utterly complete, so infinitely dark, that it was like the universe of light, life and reality had simply gone. She could see nothing at all, and had a horrible moment of sensory deprivation until she pulled on the restraints and felt them hold her. The cold hardness of the table was still with her. The bite and pressure of leather. The clink of chains.

The…whispering. Nonsense mumbling.

"Iaka?"

The whispering grew louder, unseen but close, as intimate as a lover nibbling on her ear but it felt hateful and dead. If the dead could speak, this would be their voice—dry and rotten and empty of mind and purpose.

"Iaka!!"

Panic gripped her. She knew what that voice belonged to.

"NO! NO! Sister, please!!"

Something cold touched her. And the cold sunk in, and in, and in, not in the merely physical dimension but into her spirit and mind, into the core that was Nimico.

She knew she would survive this only one way. She was still a Herald, fallen or not, and Iaka wasn't the only one who'd worked and developed her remaining power. Nimico's body may have been mortal, but her mind knew immortal secrets, and the shape of the great transcendent mysteries.

She plunged her attention inwards, chasing the invading deathly chill and seeing with dismay what its ravaging course had already taken from her. But it was slow, held back by the lodehead's magic. This wasn't a betrayal and murder, this was a controlled process intended to leave something of Nimico behind once it was complete.

But far less than Nimico would accept. She raced ahead of it, put up walls of fire, burned great scars across her own soul to create dead ground across which the invader could not cross. Like a hunter caught in his own trap and faced with the choice between death or slicing off her own arm, she amputated.

The battle raged for what felt like an eternity. Visions flashed in her mind, of a dark forest, dancing rituals, sacrifices.

With one hand she held the invasion at bay. With the other hand she reached out for the magic she knew was flowing around her, seized it, and wrenched it to her own ends. It burned her as she grasped and twisted it, leaving bits of her to flutter away into the dark like paper ash…

But it also forced out the invader, and filled what it didn't destroy.

Her eyes snapped open. With a shriek, she heaved on the restraints and tore them out of the table's stone. A blow shattered the table itself, a flare of magic flung back and scattered the groping Shades. The egg-shell dome of the tower's roof fractured and fell in, and Nimico fell with it, down and down and down as wood and bone and stone rained down with her and Iaka's cry of dismay rang out from above.

She landed on her feet. The impact would have driven a mortal body's splintered legs up through her collapsing rib cage, but Nimico just cratered the floor. She was strong again, her body whole and hale and youthful. Her hands, when she raised them to see, were smooth and unblemished. Her hair coiled in a silken, golden cascade around her shoulders. Her spine stretched and straightened without complaint as he drew herself to her full height.

She looked up the length of the tower, and saw Iaka peering over the edge, down at her.

She ought to be furious. She knew it as an abstract datum and nothing more. Her heart should have been boiling over with betrayal and rage, but instead she felt only a mild, disinterested irritation. Iaka had wanted her for a docile servant, stripped of personhood and will. Oh, she would have been immortal, unkillable and powerful…but there would have been no Nimico left. Only a puppet. A happy, content, unthinking puppet.

There was hate. She could feel it. But it glowed sullenly inside her like lazy hearthfire coals, when it should have been an inferno. An emotionally whole person would have gone storming back up the tower with justice on her mind, or at least murder.

But Nimico knew she was now no longer whole. She had regained her youth, and would keep it forever, she could feel that the magic had worked in that regard. But the price…

She couldn't even muster up much in the way of outrage. Just a kind of quiet sadness.

Bereft of better ideas or stronger impulses, she turned away from her treacherous sister, and marched out of the tower, to face the long future alone.

"It's been hundreds and hundreds of years since then. And every passing one seems to wear a little more off me. I was always impulsive and easily bored, before. Now…"

Nimico looked down and worried a feather between her fingers. "Now…I have to court catastrophe just to feel anything at all. And even that is losing its power. The thrill drains away sooner, the clarity fades faster. The day is coming where nothing at all will make me feel a damn thing. And then I'll just be…cold. And numb. And bored. Forever."

She raised dry, flat, sober eyes which bored into Ellaenie's. "I envy you, you know. You have such fire for your daughter. I wish I had something I cared about that could stir such passion in me as motherhood does in you…just one thing that could stir me."

Ellaenie was unmoved. "Did you ever try it?" she asked, flintily.

The fallen Herald barked a brief and bitter laugh. "Haven't you been listening? What kind of monster would inflict me on a poor child? I'd smother it on a whim! Or throw it out of a window! Or just walk away and leave it to starve."

Ellaenie's throat tightened as she opened her mouth to suggest perhaps it would have cured you, constricted by second thoughts that stopped her before the words could come out. Nimico was right. What moral being would put a helpless child in those fickle hands? By what right would anyone take a gamble like that?

She shifted uncomfortably, wishing desperately that she could remain angry at the creature in front of her. This rabid animal had hurt her daughter, and that was not to be forgiven. She was still angry!

But despite herself, a stubborn note of pity was pushing into her, like tree roots through a stone wall.

Is this what Sayf meant, she thought bitterly, when he warned me to be careful of myself? Am I so soft?

Nimico blew on the feather and watched it dance away across the room.

"…You do feel something," Ellaenie noted.

"Hmm?" Nimico didn't take her eyes off the drifting down.

"You still have a sense of right and wrong."

Nimico shrugged. "Maybe."

"And you're afraid. I can see it in you. To the witch-sight, it's the brightest and loudest thing about you. You're so afraid, it shines out of you, and the more you try to hide it, the more it shows. It's the only thing you have left, isn't it? The fear of death."

Slowly, Nimico dropped her head. She was still for a second, then gave a mute nod.

"You don't even remember what anything else feels like, do you?" Ellaenie guessed.

"I…no, I do. When I survive doing something that might have killed me, I remember elation. I remember—"

"But it all comes down to the same thing, doesn't it? Do you remember what it feels like to look at something beautiful and marvel at it?"

Another long silence. This time, Nimico's head shook. "I don't remember if I ever felt that."

The groping pity reached in further and squeezed at Ellaenie's heart. Here is a broken thing, it said. Here is a pathetic thing. Perhaps it never had a choice.

…

Fuck that. She harmed my daughter.

Ellaenie stood, and drew herself up to her full, regal height. "Fear doesn't excuse you," she said. "Nor does your…affliction. You might know right from wrong, but if that doesn't change your decisions, then what good is it? I should have you put down. No—I should do it myself."

She extended a hand and drew on the power of her Word. With a sigh, Nimico nodded her head and closed her eyes with the dark relief of one finally accepting her sentence. She turned and pressed her forehead to Ellaenie's palm. For a long moment, they stood in a parody of benediction, the sovereign about to pass judgement on a criminal who had wronged her.

The power tingled in Ellaenie's palm. It would un-make Nimico at a thought, reduce her flesh to a shower of dust and a cloud of vapor. And the fallen creature deserved it. She even wanted it, though she was trembling and afraid. And the furious mother of a wounded child in Ellaenie's heart was raging at her: Do it! Do it! What are you waiting for?!

But looking inside and turning the witch-sight on herself, Ellaenie realized…she couldn't. Not like this.

Feeling weak and ashamed, she backed off a pace, then turned and fled the room. The power she had gathered for the execution blew the door apart in a wasteful flurry of wooden grit as she bowled through it, past Lokar and Cerida with tears burning on her cheeks, and away.

She ran, hardly seeing the palace hallways through tears of frustration, anger and shame, but her feet carried her surely to her quarters. To Saoirse's bedroom. To the door. To—

To the sight of her daughter sitting up in bed and smiling as she cuddled her father.

And now, Ellaenie's tears were of a far better kind.

The Lakeside

Eärrach's private earthmote 09.06.03.15.19

Today promised to be hot, which was rare. Usually the weather on this private mote was cool and crisp, prone to frost. But this morning had begun with dew, which daybreak had chased away in minutes. There was even a faint shimmer of heat over the bare rocks away down the lakeshore, so Rheannach had thrown wide the cabin's doors and windows to air it out.

Maicoh and Maingan had come back a couple of hours earlier, and were busily chasing each other around, mouthing and wrestling and playing on the shingle. Neither were in a talkative mood, being much more interested in their playfight, but she'd gleaned from them that Jerl had made it all the way to the summit.

With help, of course. But even with her husband's support, that was a feat which implied he was no longer entirely mortal. He'd taken the second step on a long road.

The hounds' return suggested the two men weren't far away, so she put a hearty dinner on, then took a cup of tea outdoors to sit on the porch and enjoy the rare weather. She'd been feeling lighter somehow for the past hour or so, as if a burden had lifted or a stormcloud cleared: Coven sympathy. Ellaenie's foul mood and anxiety over little Saoirse had been replaced by relief, and as her coven-mother, Rheannach could feel it.

Of course…right now she was more like the coven's beldame, even though that was a role the ageless could never properly fill. But it was the nature of beldames that any coven would eventually be without theirs, for a time. Rheannach would remain as the eternal Mother, and for a time they would be two Mothers and a Maiden, and then…eventually……*maybe…*Ellaenie would age. They all had, so far.

But perhaps not this time. These were unexpected, interesting times, and the old patterns of things weren't as they'd always been. Jerl had summitted the Mountain, for a start.

What might Ellaenie do?

Two familiar voices she'd been expecting came floating down the beach and she set her thoughts aside with a smile, drained her tea in a swig, and set it aside.

"…I still don't see why I can't just introduce the fridge to some clever inventor. The principle is…so stupidly simple! Is all this 'advanced' tech from our ancient past so head-smackingly easy?"

"Oh, no, most is fiendishly difficult. Fridges are trivial compared to what comes after. The first lock of the first door will be when humanity teaches rocks how to do addition."

"…What."

"Exactly! But don't worry, someone's likely to invent the fridge soon anyway, along with those adding rocks. Just two of many miracles coming in the next few decades…"

"Right. Like this 'airplane' thing Mab Keeghan invented….that's going to be a problem. Unless we build one first. I bet Derghan'll throw himself into that when I tell him about it. He'd love to one-up the Keeghans."

"Maybe! Perhaps he might appreciate perpetually cold beer, too…"

"Ha! Yes, of course it would be him!"

Rheannach grinned and rose from her bench. Jerl and her husband were walking slowly back along the beach, and she smiled to realise they were both comfortably bare-skinned, having evidently taken a swim in the lake. She could sympathize entirely—the mountain's chill had a way of soaking into the soul, and a plunge in those mirror-clean, ideally pure waters was the perfect remedy. And Eärrach was an enthusiastic nudist, always keen to convert his friends and almost always successful. By the plain look of things, some of his ancient ultra-healthy habits had evidently begun their impressive work on Jerl, too…

Everything had gone well, she thought.

She smiled at her husband, who replied with a gentle finger-waggling wave. Jerl didn't notice, being still lost in thought.

"Still, though," he said. "You could keep tomatoes fresh for…for weeks, at least!"

Eärrach nodded. "Eggs for a month, milk for a week or more…"

"And it doesn't even need anything beyond a water wheel to power! We could run it on ammonia!"

"Avoid that, trust me. There are much safer refrigerants. Anyway. If you'll excuse me…"

An eye-blink later, Rhennach found herself enveloped in her man's arms, affectionately crushed in a mighty full-body hug. She felt the very land lurch hard beneath her feet a spare moment later from the force of his sprint, heard the air slam-thump from the impossible speed.

He always did enjoy showing off for her.

"Were you gone long?" she asked, archly, and kissed the end of his nose.

"I counted heartbeats. It took our boy here seven years."

Jerl, who'd been casting around for a way to cover his modesty upon realizing she was there, completely forgot about it and blinked in shock. "…What?!"

He looked a little off-balance, Rheannach thought, and it wasn't just awkwardness at being unclothed in her presence. The weight of the Real still clung to him in subtle ways, and she knew that feeling. The world always seemed porcelain-delicate for a little while after coming back down from the heights. He'd adjust.

"Oh yes." Eärrach snapped his fingers, and Jerl flinched as a skin-tight pair of brilliant red and purple…underthings…materialized around his hips. Barely. Eärrach caught her eye and grinned, and Rheannach, as always, did a poor job of pretending she wasn't amused.

Jerl looked down and cleared his throat. "…I feel even more naked, now."

"My husband always did have an impish sense of humor," Rheannach noted, wryly. "Your own clothes are waiting for you on the bed through there. I took the liberty of mending them, I hope you don't mind."

He gave his thanks, made polite excuses and retreated, leaving her some time alone with her husband…

A warm, enjoyable, quiet moment in his arms. And she knew he'd missed her every moment of their long pilgrimage.

Jerl emerged a few minutes later, buckling on his hard-wearing and much-mended airship leathers. Rheannach saw she'd guessed correctly in her adjustments: he was a little leaner in the waist, thicker in the leg and a bit broader in the shoulder than when he'd gone up the mountain, which on his already substantial frame was quite impressive. He was, overall, a little more…Crownly.

He tugged his belt tight and tucked the loose end away. "Okay. Now: seven years?!"

Eärrach nodded and let go of his wife with one arm, though the other remained around her. "In the mountain's own time, yes. A full year of which was spent in the cabin! Which I don't mind at all, been a long while since I've had time to enjoy myself so thoroughly…"

An unmistakable look, that. He was clearly fond of Jerl in a complicated sort of brotherly way. Yet…not mere brothers, either.

Not surprising, really, Jerl had changed, though he still thought like a mundane human. "But here in the normal flow…?" He prompted, anxiously.

"About twelve and a half hours," Rheannach provided.

He paused, wrapping his head around that. "Is that why I don't feel seven years older? And…didn't you also say it felt like a few heartbeats…?"

Eärrach nodded. "Yes, from my wholly personal experience. I was also there in your experience, so I perceived both. And made good use of your personal time, too! You will understand better when you next visit the mountain, I promise."

Jerl nodded. "No, no, I understand. From…the right perspective, it's all perfectly sensible. I just…had other things on my mind."

Rheannach touched his arm. "I'm sorry about your love," she said, quietly.

"I…" Jerl went still, and quiet, lost in his head for a second. Then he emerged, and gave her a faint smile. "…Thank you."

"Will you stay for lunch?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"No, I…no. Thank you, but now I'm back in the flow of the world…it's time to get back. There are things to do. A war's about to erupt, and I need to be there. I have two Words to wield, now."

Eärrach clapped him on the shoulder. "Good. You're ready. Remember, you've trod now where only Gods and Heralds have stood before."

"I'm not likely to forget, my lord."

Eärrach nodded. "Home you go, then," he said, and snapped his fingers. There was a brief thudding pop as air rushed into the space Jerl's body had just occupied, the shockwave sent a wave chasing out across the lake's surface, and Eärrach relaxed. Nearby trees creaked and Rheannach suppressed a grimace. Even Maicoh and Maingan paused in their roughhousing.

"…Ugh. Had to reel myself in slowly as we walked down…" he grumbled.

Rheannach chuckled softly and took his hand. "Come and relax properly, then," she said.

She knew him well. For a moment, he considered sweeping her up and carrying her to their bed. But she caught his eye and that tiniest signal was all she needed to persuade him to do things her way.

Her way ended in their bed too, after all.

After a good meal.

Recovering the Raiders

Airship Cavalier Queen, near the front lines 09.06.03.15.19

"There. Bring us low over the river right there, and send down the ladders."

"Aye aye!"

Adrey snapped her telescope closed. She was daring the other side's anti-airship batteries to a terribly fine margin, she knew. Far finer than any sensible airship captain without her abilities would have. And sure enough, a few shells did burst in the air a few hundred meters away at the absolute limit of their longest fuse times, leaving black smudges on the breeze. But the Queen suffered no harm, and slipped in low above the treetops, steering to intercept the running figures along the river bed beside the road.

The Wend was one of the Heigh's larger tributaries, flowing down from the downlands trailward of the road. Right now, she was full and churning after a day of heavy rains up in the hills, her waters rippling flatly in that unsettling way which spoke of terribly powerful currents that would drag an unwary swimmer down and grate him against the rocky bed.

It was still a waterway used by barges in clearer weather, though. There was a tow path for the oxen, right now a muddy, slippery morass as the storm-swelled waters lapped over the bank and slurried the dusty surface. The elves didn't care: they sprinted along it with the speed and sure feet of wild horses, putting as much distance between themselves and their pursuers as they could.

"Steady…steady…" Adrey held out a hand, peering over the side and waiting until the moment felt just right and… "Now! Nose down one-third, hard to port!"

"Nose down, hard port!" Gebby called back, his hands moving with the deceptive apparent slowness of the experienced helmsman as he flew. They didn't need to move quickly, it was all in the economy of motion. He knew where they'd need to be next, and by the time they were needed there, there they were.

Adrey briefly wondered where Jerl had first found the man, and how much he was being paid.

The manoeuvre was timed and executed flawlessly. The Queen swooped low, aligned with the river channel, her rope ladders trailed in the swirling waters but they were perfectly placed for the elves to leap, grab, and climb.

"Nose up one-third, meet her!"

They lofted back up into the sky just as the first of the elves came over the rail. Last over was Ekve, with a…yes, a corpse tied to his back, lashed there securely by a broad strip of bag canvas.

Adrey stared at it. Horrible certainty fell into place even though she could see nothing of the body but its general shape and…

But she knew who it was.

"Oh, no…"

She darted to Ekve's side as the former Ordsiwat emperor laid his burden down on the deck.

"By the time we knew he was there…he was already gone," he said, dully.

"Right…his power would have made you forget him until he passed." Adrey knelt and touched the young man's face, then put her fingers to his throat to test for a pulse on general principle, though she knew it was pointless. He was already cold. So cold. "…Dammit. Words cancel each other out. I should have remembered him. I should have accounted for this."

"Not perfectly, you said," Wullem reminded her, softly.

"No…not perfectly." Her jaw clenched. "He was still a blind spot I couldn't account for. And it got him killed…Dammit! He deserved better!"

Around her, the rest of the crew had gathered to pay respects. Most of them, she knew, would barely remember Mouse at all. He'd always faded into the background of their minds whether he wanted to or not. HIs power had been both blessing and curse like that. It clearly bothered the men affected by it, who muttered apologetic little prayers for him and shuffled their feet awkwardly. Sinikka squatted and tidied the youth's hair a little, her face impassive and yet somehow betraying sadness anyway.

"Chal fa, mellwan…" she muttered.

Adrey looked down at Mouse again, fighting the urge to curse again. He'd been a good ally. Quiet. Reliable. The kind you didn't notice until they weren't there anymore. And now he was dead.

It didn't seem fair, somehow.

"What was he doing there?"

"Winning our fight for us," Ekve reported. "We could not get near Mab Keeghan. A whole company of men with guns opposed us, and it was all we could do to stay alive. But we all felt the command: 'Let go.' And Mab Keeghan obeyed. He fell from the mooring tower, and was slain."

Adrey nodded. "And his prototype?"

"We took gunpowder and blasted the wagon. How much good that will do, I do not know."

Mission successful, then, Adrey mused bitterly. Thinking like that made her a cold bitch, but it was still the truth…though what was a victory when the price was the death of a precious Wordspeaker? And what about Jerl? When he found out about this, he'd surely pull time back and do things differently.

Which means I as I am now will be…undone. I'll die, in a sense. The version of me having this thoughts will be wiped away, and the Adrey I once was will become someone else. We all will.

It was a chilling thought, and the wind whistling through the rigging seemed to cut straight through her woollen greatcoat.

How am I going to tell Jerl?

"It's okay," a deep, soft voice said beside her. "I already know."

To her shock, Jerl stepped past her. The entire crew retreated from him a step, none of them able to believe his presence as he knelt by his lover's side and, as Sinikka had done, stroked Mouse's hair, before adjusting his limbs into a dignified posture. He looked sad, but…not stricken.

He's already mourned. How? There hasn't been enough time…except for him, maybe there has been?

Jerl glanced over his shoulder up at her, and gave her a look that said two things: first that he could hear that thought, and second that she was right.

You have Mind now?

He nodded gently, then stood up. "…I'd like my ship back now please, Colonel."

Adrey blinked at him, then straightened and dipped her head sharply. "She's all yours."

"Thank you. Gebby!"

The helmsman ripped off the sharpest salute Adrey had ever seen. "Skipper!"

"Best speed for Auldenheigh."

As Gebby turned the prow toward home and sang out a dutiful 'aye aye,' Jerl gave a few more orders, calling for bagcloth for Mouse's body, and summoning Derghan up on deck from the fuel room.

He looked back to Adrey as his orders were followed, ignoring the awed looks his crew were giving him and the exceptional snap and hustle with which they moved. There was something different about him, now. Something deeper, wiser, older and more powerful. It was in the way he carried himself, the way he looked at things, the way he moved.

"Ellaenie will be back in Auldenheigh tonight," he said. "We need to hold a war council."

"Change of strategy?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I'll make the arrangements. You have…things to attend to." She glanced down at Mouse. Jerl sighed, and looked down at his lover with, yes, profound sadness…but once again, that clear impression that he'd already felt his grief, somewhere else.

"Just a funeral," he said, softly. "The real goodbye…already happened."

He granted her a glimpse of it. For a filtered moment, she felt the weight of the Mountain, the power of the journey he'd gone on, the changes it had wrought in him. She shivered at the memory of impossible, unbearable cold and crushing, irresistible weight.

She backed away and, without any further words, went to release a pigeon. It wouldn't arrive much before the Cavalier Queen, but it would still set things in motion. And it gave her time alone to think, and to calculate. All her predictions were suddenly wrong, she knew they were. New data had shifted the world, pivoting it around a new fulcrum. Terrible bloody war still loomed in the immediate future.

But previously her calculations had all suggested futility. Now…she wasn't sure. Which was definitely an improvement.

Behind her, Jerl sighed, turned his thoughts inward, and drew on the power of Mind he'd inherited. He wove it around himself a familiar way, telling everyone nearby to leave them alone, just for a few seconds.

Amidst the bustle of a busy ship, but ignored by everyone, he knelt down and kissed Mouse's forehead one last time.

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