Mistress of Winter

by Giles Carwyn

Reef reached the shore and leapt into the surf. He yanked the little sailboat two yards up the beach with the first tug, even farther with the second. Ossamyr followed him onto soft white sand.

  She looked around at the turquoise lagoon surrounded by ragged cliffs draped in flowers. “By the Nine, this place is beautiful.”

  “Almost every place is, you look at it right,” he said. He stumped up the beach, sat down in the sand, and put his hands out behind him. The surf rolled up the beach in tiny curls, breaking softly in a ruffle of blue and white. The coarse white sand was like nothing she had ever seen. It was made from bits of polished shell that shifted underneath Ossamyr’s sandals. She slipped back a half a step for every step she took forward.

  She kicked off her sandals and sat down next to Reef. He watched her calmly as she held the bottle up to the light. “What will I see?” she asked.

  “The truth.”

  She smiled. “Is there a reason why you can’t answer a simple question? Do you people take a perverse pleasure in being cryptic?”

  Reef’s hard features did not soften in the least. “If I gave you words to describe what would happen, your mind would simply twist those words into an expectation. Then you would try to make that expectation come to pass.” He shook his head. “You’d miss any true understanding.”

  “And what am I supposed to understand?”

  “More than you do now. Perhaps the only thing that truly matters.”

  She nodded sagely. “That certainly answers all my questions.”

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to drink it,” he said, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the setting sun.

  Everything was so curt and final with the Silver Islanders. In Reef’s mind, there was a black line right down the middle of all questions. Either you were on the right side of that line, or you weren’t. She had been on the wrong side of his line once. She didn’t particularly want to go back.

  Ossamyr paused. The sarong she wore tickled her calves as it flapped in the breeze. “Let me rephrase my question,” she said. “If I drink this, will I die? Or go insane?”

  “People do not die from Siren’s Blood.”

  “I’ve heard of some who did.”

  “Only indirectly. The drink is not poisonous, and I won’t let any physical harm come to you. That is why I am here.”

  “You didn’t address the insanity part.”

  He shrugged. His short-sleeved tunic was open at the throat, draw cords hanging lazily down. The breeze ruffled the black hair on his chest. “You will be changed forever, one way or another. You won’t, you can’t, see the world the same ever again.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You can’t tell me?”

  “It won’t answer your question. You want to know what you’re getting into. There is no way to know.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Wine stock. Herbs. Fruit juice.”

  “And dead souls.”

  He nodded. “And that.”

  Ossamyr looked back at the bottle. She wondered, despite all of her joking, despite his calm demeanor, if he would let her leave this little island alive if she chose not to drink. How long would he wait for her to open it? The man was infernally good at waiting.

  But she wasn’t.

  Twisting the stopper, she broke the wax seal. Reef watched her very carefully, his normally relaxed posture suddenly tense and alert.

  She uncorked the bottle. A single light flew out of the neck, zipped silently around her head, then disappeared back inside. “I suppose I’m committed now,” she said.

  Reef nodded, held out his hand. Furrowing her brow, she started to hand the bottle to him. He shook his head. “The cork.”

  She handed it to him, and he flung it far out into the lagoon. “For luck,” he said, staring into her eyes.

  Swallowing hard, she hesitated, then brought the bottle to her lips. “To change,” she murmured around the mouth of it. Tipping the bottle back, she let the liquid run into her mouth. A flood of warmth rushed through her, and she gasped. It was just like she remembered, except more.

  She looked at Reef and giggled. “It’s so good!” She shook her head trying to clear the buzzing in her ears. “You could make a fortune with this stuff.”

  Reef’s gaze remained steady, his features as impassive as before. “Drink it quickly. You have a long night ahead of you.”

  She tipped the bottle back again, taking a long, deep gulp. Her head spun, and the ground moved underneath her. She fell back on the sand. Something warm and firm gripped her hand, and she looked over to see Reef holding her hand over the bottle.

  “You almost spilled it. You must drink it all,” he said. She upended the bottle, drinking and drinking and drinking until there was no more.

  Her head spun, and she stared up at the blue blue sky, giggling. Clouds glowed overhead like yellow-orange candle flames soaking up the rays of the setting sun. The warmth rushed through her body in a glowing river, and she felt like she had swallowed a sunrise.

  “This is the best ever!” she shouted, jumping to her feet and sprinting down the soft sand into the surf. She stopped when she was knee deep in the gentle waves and whooped for joy.

  Spinning around, she looked back the way she had come. Reef sat in the same place. The air rippled around him as if he was radiating intense heat. With a laugh, she sprinted back up the beach and fell to her knees in front of him, put both of her hands on his huge forearm. “I see what you are doing. You were just waiting to get me out here all alone, weren’t you?”

  He watched her calmly, unmoving as an old oak with children cavorting around its roots. She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said. “I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Putting his strong hands on her shoulders, he set her gently back on her heels.

  “You should be,” he said, his deep oak voice thrumming through her body. “You will be.”

  Something touched Ossamyr’s face, and she shook her head, pushed it away. “No,” she groaned, curling into a ball. “Leave me alone.”

  Reef shook her again. “Come on,” his deep voice pounded on her brain. “It’s time to go back.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Let me sleep.”

  “You’ve slept for two days. It’s time to go.”

  She opened her gummy eyes and tried to focus on the object gripped tight in her hand. She was still clutching the bottle of Siren’s Blood, as dry as the sand beneath her.

  Reef helped her sit up. She shook her head and looked around, the bright sun stinging her eyes. Her naked skin was a sullen red, burned by the sun and covered in scratches and scrapes packed with sand.

  “Am I…” she said. “This is real?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “I thought I died.”

  “You nearly did.”

  Ossamyr fought to clear her head. Some memories were coming back. Others slithered away like quicksilver through her fingers. “Where are my clothes?” she croaked.

  “You took them off in the ocean.”

  Yes…The swimming, under the water, looking up at the moon. It had been glorious. She’d never wanted to leave.

  She lay down in the sand, but he sat her back up.

  “Let me go,” she groaned.

  “No.” He put a leather pouch to her lips and she drank deep. The cool water stung her parched throat.

  “Did the spirits speak with you?” he asked.

  Ossamyr grimaced as another flood of memories came fast and hard. The last of it. The last part. Her heart beat faster, and her breath came in gasps as she remembered. With an effort of will, she calmed herself, eased her breathing, and got her heart under control.

  “You reached the truth,” he said.

  She nodded. Her mind spun with the images, the sights, the smells of agony and rage. The spirits had taken her to the beginning of time. She’d looked upon the face of Oh, shared his tr
iumph, his deprivation, his redemption, and betrayal. She saw the birth of Efften; saw the ancient secret hiding within the glittering towers. She fell into the endless well of despair, shared a hundred screaming deaths, and felt her own heart stop beating time and time again.

  “You understood what you saw?”

  “How could I not?” she whispered. “I was there with them. I know what they’re hiding. I know how they died.”

  “Then you realize that we have no choice.”

  She hung her head, pressing her forehead to her knees. Tears dripped from her cheeks onto the sand. She rocked her head against the hard bones underneath her skin. Life was so fragile, so easily swept away.

  “The Awakened Child cannot reach Efften.”

  “I know. I know.” Ossamyr pressed her head against her knees, hoping to drive the pounding headache away. By the Nine! She couldn’t keep the images out of her head. She knew who the voice in the black emmeria was, knew exactly what would happen if he was ever set free. How could anyone live with that future bearing down on them?

  The Nightmare Battle was nothing but a skirmish. The real war hadn’t even started. And Arefaine was leading Brophy right into that storm. Efften’s most dangerous secret still lay within her silver towers, waiting for some fool to stumble upon it and set it free.

  “You’ll help us kill her?” Reef asked, crushing her hand in his.

  “Of course,” she rasped. “Of course I will.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Mother.”

  Issefyn turned her head, heavy with sleep. She was so tired.

  “Mother, wake up. They’re coming for you.”

  Her mouth was painfully dry. The covers were warm and soft over her body, and there was nothing she would rather do than continue sleeping.

  Her dreams shifted between the past and future, between who she had been and who she would become. Images of her unlocking the towers on Efften mixed with the thoughts of a nine-year-old girl as she returned to one of the happiest days of her childhood, the day she awoke and discovered her true self, her rightful place in the world.

  Issefyn could hardly contain her excitement when her father was summoned before the king. Her slaves dressed her in her finest feathered gown for her first visit to the underground palace.

  Her parents were fighting again, refusing to speak to each other as they entered the Catacombs, but Issefyn wouldn’t let them ruin her perfect day. Hulking guards ushered them into a tiny room to await their royal audience. Her father kept his eyes on the ground, and his breathing came in shallow little pants like a sickly old man. He looked pleadingly once at Issefyn’s mother, but she refused to meet his eyes. She stared at the wall with cold fury, her lips pressed tightly together.

  The entire family was finally ushered into the king’s presence. The throne room was immense. Golden carvings of The Nine glittered on the ceiling. Hundreds of Physendrian nobility fell silent when the three of them entered the room. With disapproving looks, they parted and backed up against the walls, leaving an aisle down the center of the long, narrow room on either side of a crimson carpet.

  At the far end of the carpet sat the king, a young boy barely older than Issefyn. He wore a magnificent cloak of red and gold feathers that draped over his shoulders and down the sides of his golden throne.

  Issefyn’s entire family knelt before the monarch just in front the plush red carpet. She was suddenly very frightened as everyone in the room looked at them with such disdain. She reached over to grab her mother’s skirt, but her mother swatted Issefyn’s hand away.

  “You may approach the king,” the steward announced. His voice echoed in the long, silent room.

  Her father started to get up, but one of the Ape guards shoved him back down. Left with no choice, he began to crawl forward. Two servants began rolling up the carpet just before he reached it. Below the carpet, the floor was unpolished volcanic stone, jagged and uneven.

  Her father hesitated for a moment before continuing onto the sharp stone, wincing with every step. Before he was halfway down the room, he was leaving a bloody trail behind him.

  He finally reached the steps at the base of the throne. The young king leaned over and whispered something in her father’s ear then waved him away. Her father mumbled an apology and began crawling back.

  As he crawled back to them, an overwhelming hatred exploded in Issefyn’s heart. She looked at the king, chatting with the people around him, pretending her father didn’t exist. She looked at her father, hobbling forward, shrunken with shame. She could barely look at him. She despised his weakness, his incompetence.

  She turned to the king, sitting on his throne of gold, and knew that she would marry him one day. She would stand at his side, share his bed, feed him delicacies from her plate. She would perfect the secrets of Efften her mother was teaching her and make them her own. She would dazzle the Physendrian nobles and make them her own. She would make this kingdom her own. She would make this world her own. And they would all crawl before her.

  Issefyn tossed in her sleep, clutching the black containment stone to her chest.

  “Mother.”

  She opened her crusty eyes, squinting in the bright light of the new day. A cloying stench filled the room, and she wrinkled her nose. Her head pounded. It was difficult to focus, but she pushed the covers from her body and sat up. Victeris stood by the window, a sardonic half smile on his face.

  “They’re coming for you,” he said. “They are already in the school.”

  He was every inch the slender young man she remembered, from the coal-black hair to the way his delicate fingers rested on his arms.

  Issefyn stood on wobbly legs, clutching the containment stone. Glancing down, she found the source of the awful smell. Caleb’s bloated body lay sprawled on the floor. The blood from his mangled face had dried on the marble.

  “How long have I been asleep?” she mumbled. Her mouth was filled with cotton.

  “Mother, listen. You can hear them at the gate.”

  Her magic was weak, dilute, but she sent her feeble awareness outward, through the door and down the stairs outside the school. Her lip curled in a sneer. Vallia was coming, along with the other Sisters and a half dozen soldiers from the Citadel. The frightened men clutched their swords, their sweaty fingers holding tight to their courage.

  They whispered to each other as they crossed the courtyard, but Issefyn could hear them clearly.

  “What if the child is making up stories?” Quinn asked, upset at being here. Her head was a turbulent clash of mixed feelings. Ceysin’s spell still coated her like the slick film of sex, but her own personality was reasserting itself, rising with a sense of betrayal.

  “Baelandra’s daughter wouldn’t lie about this. If she said she saw a body in the room, she saw a body in the room,” Vallia said, her rusty voice filling Issefyn with loathing.

  Issefyn opened her eyes, losing the connection. The door to the room hung awkwardly on the lower hinge. The top had been torn from its moorings and dangled by a single bolt. The doorjamb was splintered.

  She shook her head. How could she have slept so long?

  “They are coming to kill you, Mother,” Victeris said, standing by her side again. “Now is the time. I can save you. Open your heart to me.”

  “No,” she whispered, casting about the room. She’d left other cities like this, when they finally discovered what she was doing, but she had always had advance warning through her magic. And now they were in the foyer.

  Breathing hard, she tried to clear the fuzziness away, fought to think, but her attention was scattered. She heard the hunger in Victeris’s voice. Had he done this? Had he kept her asleep?

  She couldn’t throw a glamour over herself. There were too many looking specifically for her, and those damned Sisters with their heartstones would pierce the illusion. But the heartstones no longer worked. Or did they? She couldn’t remember.

  Tucking the containment stone under one arm, Issefyn pushed the bed toward
the door. She grunted and shoved with all her might, slamming the door at an angle, overlapping the doorjamb.

  “That won’t stop them,” Victeris said. “Surrender to me, Mother. You were born for this.” His voice seemed deeper, darker. His hunger surrounded her.

  “No,” she said, pushing again at the bed. “Never. You are not my son. My son is dead. All of my sons are dead.”

  “Perhaps,” Victeris said. “But you need me more now than you ever needed your sons.”

  Vallia’s pack of rats reached the stairs. Issefyn heard their footfalls, though they tried to move silently.

  “Remember,” Vallia murmured. “Do not touch the black stone. That is more important than anything. Touch the stone, and we all die.”

  Issefyn backed away slowly, looking frantically around the room. She stepped to the window that had been the gate to her son’s death. It was too high. She would never survive that jump.

  But there was a ledge, just below, a windowsill leading to Caleb’s room. Breathing through her fear, she wrapped the stone in her skirt, raised it up, and held either side in her teeth. With a glance at Victeris, she climbed over the windowsill, clung to the ledge, and lowered herself. She willed herself to drop but couldn’t make her fingers let go. It was forty feet to the flagstones below.

  Victeris leaned his head through the window, a dagger in his hands. “Enough of these games, Mother. It’s time for you to join me.”

  He’s not real, she told herself. He’s just in the stone, just in my mind.

  Victeris stabbed her hand with the dagger, and she cried out, dropping the skirt from her mouth. The stone spilled out, and she caught it between the wall and her thighs.

  He stabbed her again and again. She winced, but did not let go. It’s phantom pain, she told herself, just a phantom.

  The soldiers arrived at the door, pushed it, but it was wedged tight by the bed. They pushed harder, and the bed shuddered.

  Issefyn stared at the narrow ledge below. Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the wall with her toes. The stone fell, and she kicked it through the open window into Caleb’s room. She heard it bounce off the desk and roll onto the carpet below.