Mistress of Winter

by Giles Carwyn

  “Are you ready?” she asked Ossamyr.

  Ossamyr squeezed her shoulder in reply, sending a steady stream of energy into her body. Shara closed her eyes and kept breathing, accepting everything her friend had to give.

  With her head swimming, she reached out and grabbed the containment stone from its pedestal. Solid. Smooth. Flawless. Holding it over the porcelain bowl, she pulled the black emmeria up into the stone. Black filaments rose from the pool of roiling blood to the bottom of the crystal. As soon as they touched, the filaments passed into the crystal, spreading out like ink.

  Shara kept pulling and pulling, forcing the malignancy into its cage. Her breathing grew heavy and ragged, breath hissing through her teeth. Behind her, Ossamyr grunted with the strain, giving all she had and more.

  Shara finally gasped as the last of it was sucked from the bowl into the stone. Letting out a single sob, she set it back on the tripod and slumped forward.

  The black cloud swirled inside the crystal, looking for a way out. Shara wanted to hold her breath, but forced it to stay steady and even as she watched.

  “Yes,” she murmured, sitting back up again. Her heart beat faster, daring to believe. Ossamyr slumped next to her and grabbed her hand.

  It held. They had done it. They had finally found the right—

  The crystal exploded.

  Shards of sharp rock peppered Shara’s skin like a thousand needles. It threw her backward, and she slammed into Ossamyr. They slid across the floor and crashed into the wall.

  The voice returned.

  You cannot contain me. I will not be held back from my prize.

  Shara pushed the voice out of her mind. Her body was a terrible weight, a huge boulder she couldn’t move.

  Get up, get up…she thought.

  With a weak cry, she struggled to roll over onto her stomach, pushed herself to her hands and knees. Her braid drooped limp across her face. She tried to draw a breath, but it ended in a sob.

  The walls and ceiling on the opposite side of the room were splattered with tiny droplets of the blackened blood. Somehow Ossamyr had deflected the emmeria away from them and kept them alive.

  You will be mine, my child, my sister, my bride.

  The droplets of black emmeria slowly started moving toward one another, coalescing into larger and larger drops. It dripped like oil onto the blasted floor, moving together, gathering into a pool.

  Panting, Shara spared a quick glance for Ossamyr. Her friend lay sprawled against the wall, her limbs splayed across on the stone like a cloth doll.

  The ever-growing pool of emmeria oozed toward them, trickling around the shards of crystal as though the room were on a slant.

  Shara forced her lungs to draw breath, struggled to control her thoughts. She emptied her mind, cloaking it from the voice that ran through her thoughts like greasy fingers.

  Her emotions were more difficult to shut away. Despair fought with frustration. Only her years of Nilani meditation came to her aid. With steady concentration, she purged herself, and the fire of her passion ceased to be.

  Shara… It searched for her. I’ll set you free.

  The black ooze stopped flowing toward her. It hesitated for a moment, unable to find her. Then it changed course, as though the angle of the room had shifted.

  Shara looked at the rat. It scuttled back and forth in its cage, gnawing desperately at the bars. Sensing the creature’s fire, the black ooze flowed toward it across the flagstones. It entered the cage, and a questing rivulet touched the rat’s claw. The creature leapt away, cowering into a corner. The black liquid rushed forward, washing over the rodent and soaking into its body. The rat shrieked, gyrating frantically around the cage. Bones popped, and its skin bubbled. It shrieked again. The furry flesh surged and expanded, filling the tiny space.

  “Shara! Are you all right?” Caleb shouted from below, pounding on the locked trapdoor.

  “Stay away!” Shara screamed, staggering across the room, snatching up the Sword of Winter and standing between the rat and the unconscious Ossamyr.

  With another shriek that deepened into a roar, the rat burst from its cage. It bubbled out to the size of a dog, then to the size of a bloody, twisted boar. Gnarled limbs curled underneath it, and its great head swung about.

  Claws scraped the floor. Fangs the size of daggers poked from beneath leprous, whiskered lips. It howled again, shaking the room.

  “Shara!” Caleb shouted again.

  “Stay back!” Shara screamed

  The corrupted rat was as big as Shara now, but she stood fearless in front of it. It crouched, preparing to pounce, and she began to sing. The magic of the Lowani flowed from her voice and took control of the creature’s tiny, tortured mind. Its monstrous body shivered and bubbled as the black emmeria fought her influence. But while the emmeria was strong, its host was weak.

  The corrupted rat shivered, paralyzed. Shara held the long, smooth note. The rat hissed and shook its head, fighting for its freedom. Its blackened claws dug into the stone floor, but it made no move to harm her.

  Continuing to sing, Shara walked forward and slit the rat’s throat with the Sword of Winter. The diamond flashed in the darkness as it tasted the corrupted blood.

  The monstrous rat shivered as the blood drained from its neck, but it stayed where it was. Howls of rage rushed from the wound, whipping Shara’s hair out of her eyes. She held the rat steady as the ravenous voices whipped around the room and slowly faded to anguished whispers. Finally, the rat’s muscles could no longer hold it upright. The corrupted vermin slumped to the floor and died.

  Shara stared at the monster until the creature’s tail stopped twitching and fell limp to the floor.

  With a wretched sob, she dropped the sword. It clattered across the wood, and she rushed to Ossamyr’s side. Shara’s fingers fumbled for a pulse on her friend’s neck and found it. She gasped, slumped back against the wall, closed her eyes.

  Ossamyr was alive, breathing shallowly. Shara breathed in time with her, sharing what small strength she had, but she couldn’t hold the breath, she couldn’t keep it up.

  “Shara!” Caleb called again, searching for her with his mind. “Are you all right?”

  A shuddering sob wracked her body. She wrapped her arms around her naked chest and stared numbly over her destroyed workshop, the shards of her containment stone, the ruins of her life.

  CHAPTER 6

  I won’t let you do this,” Baelandra said to Ossamyr. Thunder boomed, and the rain poured down. Clouds darkened the sky. “I won’t let you throw your life away.”

  Ossamyr jumped to the dock and winced at the impact. “How do you plan to stop me?” she asked, grabbing a sack of apples from the wheelbarrow on the dock and tossing it aboard her waterbug.

  Her wound still burned, and Shara’s spell had sapped what little energy she had left. She needed a few days to rest and heal, but she needed this gale even more. She might not see another one this size until next year.

  Her ears had not stopped ringing since the ritual, and her vision had been fuzzy for a full hour afterward, as Galliana served tea, and Caleb cleaned up the mess. Ossamyr tried not to think about Shara’s emotionless expression as the Zelani mistress stared at the wall, her steaming cup tilted carelessly, tea scalding her bare thigh.

  Baelandra stood defiantly in Ossamyr’s path. “There’s no shame in abandoning a hopeless task.”

  The Zelani laughed harshly and moved around her. “Tell that to Brophy.”

  “Brophy knew exactly what he was doing when he took the black emmeria into himself. Can you say the same about this voyage?”

  Ossamyr threw a second bag into the little boat and jumped after it. “That boy never knew anything. That’s what made him so beautiful. He had a vision in his head, and he followed it until he made it real.”

  “Brophy did what he had to.”

  “As do I.”

  Baelandra gave her an imperious look, the one she saved for when everything else failed.
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  Try your wiles elsewhere, Ossamyr thought. You were not the only one who was raised at court.

  “You can barely stand,” Baelandra said. “This is a fool’s errand.”

  “And I am a fool. We were made for one another.”

  The rain pelted their faces as they stared at each other. Baelandra and Faedellin must have followed her all the way from the Zelani school. The leader of the Lightning Swords was a lion on the battlefield, but the second his wife showed up, he shut down and followed her around like a hound on a leash. She could sense him now, standing in the rain at a respectful distance, waiting for the women to handle the important matters.

  Ossamyr turned away and did a quick recount of her provisions. They should be stowed better, but she only needed the waterbug to get her beyond the city wall. The ship she’d had specially built for this voyage was tethered just beyond the Sunset Gate. She needed to shuttle her supplies out there and pull anchor before the crest of the storm passed her by. This squall had to carry her all the way to Efften, or she’d risk being becalmed until the next gale struck.

  “You’ve sailed this course three times before,” Baelandra persisted, stepping back into Ossamyr’s line of sight. “You know where it leads. Your death might end your pain, but that’s all you will accomplish.”

  Ossamyr let out a breath, slumped over her baggage. The rain was getting stronger every minute. She was losing her storm. Still, she turned to look Baelandra in the eye. “We can’t defend Brophy forever,” she said. “Ohndarien’s walls were breached before, they will be breached again. The containment stones on Efften are our best hope to end this for all time. If we can save Brophy, then we can cleanse the Vastness as well.”

  “That is a pleasant theory,” Baelandra said tartly. “But there is no reason to believe you would succeed now when you have failed so many times before.”

  “The Islanders would be crazy to brave a storm like this.”

  “On that we agree,” Baelandra said pointedly.

  Ossamyr ignored her and started to double-check the rigging, yanking each rain-soaked line to make sure it was secure. The desert queen had become a consummate sailor in the last ten years. The ironies of her life never ceased to amaze her.

  “Please stay, Ossamyr,” Bae said, dropping the imperious veneer that clearly wasn’t working. “Brophy’s sacrifice saved your life. He saved all our lives. Don’t throw that gift away. Find some joy in the time he has given you.”

  “You mean abandon him?”

  “No! Stay. Stay and help us defend him even if we can’t wake him. Shara needs you. She loves you. And she can’t do this alone.”

  Ossamyr knelt and untied the stern line, leaving a single half hitch looped over the cleat on the dock. “Shara will be fine. Shara is always fine,” she said, wanting to believe it.

  “No. Shara’s not fine. She’s hanging by a thread, and you know it. She needs you. As a friend and an anchor to her spells. She couldn’t do them without you.”

  Again, Ossamyr laughed. “Don’t you understand how far beyond me Shara is? I cannot even fathom some of the things she does.” She shook her head. The heavy rain matted her dark hair against her scalp. She had always doubted that this latest spell would work, but somehow their defeat had stung far more than she’d expected. “Shara does not need me to help her fail.”

  “Without you, she would be dead tonight. Caleb said so.”

  “Caleb knows even less than I do.”

  “You are one of the finest Zelani in Ohndarien.”

  “Yes!” Ossamyr said emphatically, her eyes flashing. “Yes…Now hear what I’m saying. Shara is beyond me like the archmages of Efften are beyond her. Me helping Shara build a containment stone is like a newborn helping a five-year-old build the Hall of Windows.”

  Baelandra walked up to the little boat. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Of course I don’t want to do this. Do you think I want to go out there? Those madmen destroyed my ship! They killed my crew!”

  “Are you sure you aren’t going out there to let them finish the job?”

  “Gods, Bae!” Ossamyr shook her head. “How can you even say that?”

  “I say what I see.”

  “Well let me tell you what I see. I see that boy. Every moment of my life. Even when I sleep, I see him.” She stabbed a finger in the direction of the Hall of Windows. “I put him up there in that gilded cage as surely as I put him in the Wet Cells. And the key to that prison is sitting on Efften. Just sitting there! The only thing standing between me and victory are those damned Silver Islanders.”

  Baelandra knelt and released the stern line, but kept a tight grip on the ragged hemp rope. “Brophy put himself in that cage, not you. It’s not your job to save him.”

  Ossamyr untied the sail, letting it luff in the heavy wind. The only thing stopping her was Baelandra’s hand on the mooring line. Ossamyr raised an eyebrow and looked from Bae’s hand back to her face.

  “What would you have me do? How would you prefer that I spend my time? Should I fuck the first waiter that comes along? Squeeze out his babies and wait for the end of the world?”

  Baelandra looked quickly over her shoulder, but Faedellin was well out of earshot. Her green eyes flashed as she looked back. “Unfair, Ossamyr.”

  Ossamyr turned away, regretting her words. She took a deep breath, reining in her own turbulent emotions.

  “I’m tying to save your life,” Baelandra said.

  “I know,” she said in a softer tone. “You shouldn’t. But I appreciate it. It’s…” Her voice caught in her throat. She forcefully cleared it. “Thank you.” She paused a long moment, then said, “Now let go of my ship.”

  Baelandra was silent, but did not release her hold on the mooring line. The rain poured down her face, and she licked it off her lips. Finally, she set her jaw and spoke, her words muted by the storm. “Even if you succeed, do you think it will get you what you want?”

  Ossamyr did not reply.

  “Imagine these winds carry you all the way to Efften, and you slip past the Silver Islanders in the storm. And let us believe that Issefyn was right, and the containment stones are actually there. And let us further imagine that you somehow return with them, what then? What will you have when he wakes? A friend?”

  Ossamyr swallowed hard. The boom bounced against her leg in the heavy wind.

  “Will he be grateful to you?” Baelandra continued. “The last time he saw you, you betrayed him. You lied to his face and led him to the slaughter. You sacrificed him to save yourself. That may have been eighteen years ago to you, but it was yesterday to him.”

  Ossamyr pressed her lips together, fighting the surge of despair in her chest.

  “It was Shara who found him in the Wet Cells, Shara who saved him. And it was to Shara that he gave his heart.”

  “Yes,” Ossamyr said slowly. “I won’t deny him anything. Brophy is free to follow his heart.” She leaned forward, bringing her face within inches of Baelandra’s. “And I am free to follow mine. Now let go of my ship before I rip your eyes out.”

  The two women stared at each other as lightning slashed across the sky. Ossamyr’s hand clenched into a fist, and she swallowed back the nausea rolling in her belly. But she stopped, looking past Baelandra.

  A cloaked apparition appeared through the driving rain, and Ossamyr’s hand dropped to her side. Baelandra turned to see what Ossamyr was looking at and stepped back.

  Ossamyr let out a breath through clenched teeth as Shara walked up and gently took the mooring line from Baelandra’s hands. Ossamyr wondered if Baelandra had maneuvered her after all. Was the point only to stall until Shara arrived?

  The former Sister of Autumn backed away, fading behind the curtain of rain.

  “Leaving without me?” Shara asked softly. The wrinkles around her eyes were tight as she fought to keep herself on her feet. Anyone else would have seen a beautiful woman, soaked by the rain. But Ossamyr saw the strain that it took for Shara to s
tay upright.

  “You wouldn’t come if I asked,” Ossamyr said.

  Shara shook her head. “No, and you know why.”

  Ossamyr looked away. The rain dripped from her cheeks and nose. Beware the former queen of Physendria. The words echoed through her mind. The boy is mine. He loved me first.

  Ossamyr would have killed Shara that night in the quarry. If they hadn’t stopped her, she would have stabbed her best friend in the back. She wanted to tell Shara about the wine, about the note. She wanted to scream that it was all a lie.

  She looked back at Shara, opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. And Ossamyr knew she couldn’t stay any more, she had to go. It was best for everyone.

  “Why did you come here,” she whispered.

  “For this.”

  Shara leapt from the dock to the waterbug and threw her arms around Ossamyr. A whimper escaped from her throat, and she returned the embrace fiercely, letting it linger as they both shivered in the rain.

  “Go,” Shara finally whispered. “Ride this storm of storms and bring back his salvation.”

  Ossamyr looked north, toward the Hall of Windows. She couldn’t see Brophy’s flame through the squall. But she knew it was there, sheltered under a storm shield, burning on, ever on.

  Shara held tight for another long moment. When she let go and stepped back, she was smiling. Hopping off the boat, Shara untied the bowline and tossed it to her.

  Even without a sail up, the wind caught the little craft and pulled it away from the dock. Ossamyr raised a few yards of the main sheet, and the waterbug lurched forward over the waves. She looked behind her and watched until Shara slowly disappeared into the rain.

  It was best for everyone.

  CHAPTER 7

  You’ve sent her to her death,” Baelandra said, walking up beside Shara as the waterbug’s white sail faded into the darkness.

  “Perhaps,” Shara murmured, barely hearing her own voice over the patter of the rain. “But I didn’t set her on that path, I simply knew that I couldn’t keep her from it.”