The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  Not that she was sorry to run into Vani. Grace had seen little of the T’gol lately. Ever since their time on the fairy ship, Vani had been acting every bit as strangely as Beltan had, and things had only gotten worse since Travis left them three weeks ago.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” Grace said the words when she had only meant to think them.

  Vani stiffened. “As we all do.”

  “No, not as we all do.” Grace knew she should leave the T’gol alone with her pain. Instead, she closed the gap between them. “You love him, Vani. And so does Beltan. Travis’s leaving has been hard for you. For both of you.”

  Vani crossed her arms over her stomach. “It is for the best that he’s gone. This way he will not see . . .”

  “He won’t see what?”

  Vani only looked away.

  Grace studied her, searching for signs and symptoms, things she could assemble into a diagnosis. She listed everything unusual she had noticed about the T’gol in the last two months. There was her sudden bout of seasickness on the white ship, her unusual weariness on the journey to Calavere. Then there was the way she often folded her arms over her stomach, and the fact that her cheeks were flushed despite the cold.

  Think, Grace. Nausea, fatigue, abdominal cramps, and a slightly elevated temp. It could be something viral, or maybe an infection, or—

  Grace’s eyes went wide. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  Vani did not look at her. “Yes.”

  It took a moment for Grace to gather her wits. Vani was an assassin, a highly skilled killer. However, while it was difficult to see Vani as a mother, it was not impossible. Some of Grace’s shock was replaced by warmth.

  “How far along are you?”

  “Two cycles of the moon.”

  “And is Travis the father?”

  “In my heart he is.”

  What did that mean? Grace took a step closer. “I don’t understand.”

  Vani turned back, a bitter smile on her lips. “You are not alone in that.”

  What was Vani talking about? She couldn’t be two months along already. It had only been six weeks since Midwinter’s, when they met Travis at the Black Tower. Two months ago they had been on the fairy ship . . .

  Like a needle, knowledge pierced Grace’s brain. The odd looks, the strangely tender gestures. It was impossible, and yet it was the only answer. “It’s Beltan. He’s the father.”

  Vani said nothing, and that was confirmation enough.

  Grace gripped her arm. “But how? Beltan is—”

  “I know what Beltan is. He was tricked just as I was.”

  “Tricked?”

  Vani pulled away. “It was the Little People. They drew us below the ship, into a garden like this, only in full bloom. And they caused each of us to believe that the other was . . .”

  “Travis,” Grace said, seeing it clearly, as if through magic. “They made each of you think the other was really Travis.”

  Vani nodded, her gold eyes haunted.

  “But why would they do such a thing?”

  “I would that you could tell me.”

  Grace couldn’t. As Falken had often said, the Little People were queer and ancient, and while they were not the enemies of mankind, they were not friends either. Their ways were a mystery, and their purposes unknown.

  “Does Beltan know?”

  “I’m not sure. If not, he soon will.” Vani pressed a hand to her stomach.

  Grace examined the options. Vani was two months along. It was too late for a tea brewed of mistmallow seeds. And a surgical procedure was out of the question here, in these conditions. “So you’re keeping the baby.”

  “It is not the child’s fault how it was made. And who knows? Perhaps Travis Wilder was not my true fate. Perhaps I was only meant to pursue him, to be led to this.” Vani turned away, but not before Grace saw the tears roll from her eyes.

  Since Grace had known her, Vani had always been fierce and strong, but now she seemed slender and surprisingly delicate, alone and frightened. So often in her life, Grace didn’t know how to respond to people. But this she understood.

  Grace wrapped her arms around Vani and held her close. Vani resisted, but only for a moment, then she let herself weep. After a minute she was done, and gently but deliberately she pulled away.

  “You have to talk to Beltan,” Grace said.

  “I know. But not yet.” Vani wiped the moisture from her cheeks with a rough gesture. “I wish only that there was a way I could tell both Beltan and Travis together, so that I would have to speak these words but once.”

  “Maybe there is a way,” Grace murmured, startled at her own words.

  Vani gave her a curious look, but Grace shook her head. She would have to think about it later. Right now she needed to perform a thorough examination on Vani, to make sure everything was progressing as it should be.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back in where it’s warm.”

  Grace held out her arm. Vani stared at it a moment, as if unsure what she was supposed to do with it. Then, tentatively, she hooked her elbow around Grace’s.

  “I am not good at this,” Vani said.

  Grace glanced at her. “Not good at what?”

  “Sharing secrets with another.”

  Grace smiled. “That’s what friends are for.”

  “A T’gol has no friends.”

  “This one does,” Grace said, tightening her hold on Vani’s arm, and they walked that way back to the keep.

  10.

  It was evening by the time Grace returned to her chamber. She had spent over an hour in Vani’s room. The T’gol had been reluctant to allow herself to be examined, but Grace was a queen and a doctor. She was not about to take no for an answer. Realizing this, Vani had submitted.

  As far as Grace was able to tell—without blood tests or an amniocentesis—Vani’s pregnancy was progressing normally. At first Grace wished for an ultrasound machine, only then she realized she had an even better tool. She pressed her hands to Vani’s bare, flat stomach, shut her eyes, and reached out with the Touch.

  Instantly she saw the fetus. It was tiny, its life thread a wisp of light attached to Vani’s own shining strand. While Vani’s thread was brilliant gold, the fetus’s thread had a green tinge to it, like sunlight on leaves. Had that come from Beltan? Grace probed gently with her thoughts; small as it was, everything was in order.

  “It’s a girl,” Grace said, smiling, eyes still shut. “I’d say you’re a little ahead of—”

  Hello, Aunt Grace, a piping voice said in her mind, faint but clear.

  A gasp escaped her, and her eyes flew open.

  “Is something wrong?” Vani said, her brow furrowed.

  Grace shook her head. “No, everything looks fine. I was just saying you seem to be a little further along than I would have expected at eight weeks. But everyone’s different.” She shut her eyes again, listening, but this time she heard only the beating of two hearts. She had to have imagined it.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Vani watching her. Grace rose and spoke in a brisk tone.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. You and the baby are both in excellent health. You should try to keep the maddok and wine to a minimum. I’ll fix you a simple that will help with the morning sickness.”

  “Thank you,” Vani said, pulling her jerkin back down over her stomach.

  “You know, I have a feeling it’s going to be hard to find maternity leathers,” Grace said with a laugh. Vani smiled, and for the first time that day it seemed like things really might be all right.

  Now, as she opened the door to her chamber, Grace wasn’t so certain. The events of that morning came rushing back, as did the enormity of the task that lay before her. She pushed through the door, wanting nothing more than to stir up the fire and flop into bed.

  Aryn and Lirith stood from two chairs by the hearth.

  “Oh, sister,” Aryn said, rushing forward and throwing her left arm around Grace.<
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  “Aryn,” Grace said, stunned. “What’s wrong?”

  “It can’t be true. You can’t be leaving us.”

  Grace sighed. So they had heard the news of what she was to do. Gently, she pushed Aryn away.

  “I have to go,” she said. If she acted like this was something she actually wanted to do—rather than an idea that turned her knees to rubber—it might make it a little easier for the others. “If we can man Gravenfist Keep, we might have a chance of holding the Pale King back.”

  Lirith moved forward with a whisper of russet wool. “Do you truly believe that, sister?”

  “I’m trying to,” Grace said with a wan smile.

  “You’re tired,” Aryn said, pulling Grace toward the fire and making her sit in one of the chairs. Lirith poured them all cups of wine and took the other chair, while Aryn sat on the floor and rested her arms and chin on Grace’s knee.

  “Let’s stay like this forever,” Aryn murmured, gazing into the fire. “Just the three of us, together. Let’s pretend there’s nothing in the world we have to do except stay here, and drink wine, and talk about foolish things.”

  “That’s a fine fancy, sister,” Lirith said. The firelight gilded her dark skin like gold on wood. “I wish that it could be so. But we each have our tasks.”

  Grace clutched her wine cup. “What tasks do you mean?”

  Aryn and Lirith exchanged a look, and the fire went cold. Grace knew the two witches had attended a High Coven in Ar-tolor last summer, when Grace was in Denver. Grace didn’t know exactly what had happened at the coven, but over the months she had gleaned bits and pieces. Enough to be afraid.

  “Boreas has sent a call out to the Warriors of Vathris,” Lirith said. “The men of the bull prepare for the Final Battle.”

  Grace’s lungs were too tight; she couldn’t breathe. “You can’t, Lirith. You can’t ask me to defy him. I know the Witches are the enemies of the Warriors, but I gave King Boreas my word, and nothing can make me work against him.”

  “No, nothing can,” Lirith murmured, gazing into her cup. “You’re not part of the Pattern as Aryn and I are. There are no threads to bind your actions, but Aryn and I must do as the Pattern commands. And it commands us to bring the Warriors and Travis Runebreaker under our control, lest they work together to destroy the world.”

  Grace shook her head. “You can’t believe that, Lirith. King Boreas is anything but evil. And Travis would never do anything to harm Eldh. That’s the one thing in all of this lunacy I can believe.”

  Lirith sighed. “I agree, sister. I have seen firsthand how kind he is, but I have also seen the power he wields, and how it is not always under his command. Even so, I would not choose to work against Travis or King Boreas, but there is no way to escape the Pattern.”

  “Actually,” Aryn said softly, “there might be.”

  Grace stared at the baroness. Lirith set down her cup, slipped from the chair, and knelt on the rug beside Aryn. “What do you mean, sister?”

  Aryn leaned back. Her blue eyes were haunted, yet there was a resolve to them. “I’ve joined a shadow coven,” she said.

  Lirith gasped, and her brown eyes went wide. Grace didn’t understand what these words meant, not as Lirith clearly did, but all the same they sent a thrill through her.

  “Sister,” Lirith said, reaching out as if to touch Aryn’s arm, “what have you done? The shadow covens were forbidden long ago, and for good reason. Many of the witches who belonged to them were cruel of spirit and deed.”

  “But not all of them,” Aryn said, her tone defiant. “Do you remember Sister Mirda?”

  Grace didn’t recognize the name, but Lirith nodded. “She was at the High Coven. We never learned where she came from, but it was her words that softened the Pattern. Were it not for her, the Witches would be seeking, not to control Travis Wilder, but to slay him.”

  “She came to Calavere before Midwinter,” Aryn said. “When Queen Ivalaine brought Prince Teravian back.”

  Connections crackled in Grace’s brain. “So that’s who was with you,” she said to Aryn. “The time you spoke to me across the Weirding, when we were being held prisoner on Kelephon’s ship, I felt another presence with you. It was this Mirda, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Aryn said.

  As the fire burned low, they listened as Aryn spoke about the shadow coven, and about what Sister Mirda had told her. While the prophecies of the Witches told that one they called Runebreaker would destroy Eldh, there were other prophecies, ones just as deep and ancient, that spoke how Runebreaker would save Eldh as well. Because this idea was anathema to most—how could the world be at once destroyed and saved?—the Witches chose to ignore the second set of prophecies.

  However, over the years, a few witches remembered. It was the purpose of the shadow coven to which Mirda belonged to work for the cause of Runebreaker, to make sure his destiny came to pass. And the Warriors of Vathris were part of that destiny.

  “I knew it,” Grace said, her cheeks hot from wine and fire and excitement. “I knew Travis would never destroy Eldh.”

  “But he will destroy it, sister,” Lirith said. “If one prophecy is true, then so is the other. How that can be, I do not know, but the crones of old were wise, and their vision far-reaching, and I believe they saw truth.”

  Aryn gripped Lirith’s hand. “So you’ll join the shadow coven?”

  Lirith didn’t hesitate. “I will, but I do not see how it helps us. We are still bound by the Pattern.”

  “Yes,” Aryn said, “but does the Pattern truly require what you think it does?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Aryn rose, standing before the hearth. “Sister Mirda left Calavere a few days before you returned. She told me she had to meet in person with the other witches who are part of the shadow coven—that they did not dare speak across the Weirding for fear of who might overhear. Before she left, she showed me a way to look deeper into the Pattern.

  “On the surface, the weave of the threads seems to say we must work against the Warriors of Vathris and Travis Runebreaker, but if you look beneath, to the warp of the loom from which the Pattern was woven, what it really says is that we must work against them to save Eldh. Yet if working against them would somehow prevent Eldh from being saved—”

  “—then the Pattern will allow us to work with them,” Lirith said, leaping to her feet. “The Pattern will allow us to do whatever would save the world in the end.” Her dark eyes shone. “You have given us hope where there was none, sister.”

  Aryn looked at Grace. “Will you join us?”

  Grace couldn’t help smiling. “I think I already have,” she said. Aryn’s words were a great relief, but one question nagged at the back of her brain.

  “Lirith,” she said, “you mentioned that the shadow covens were forbidden long ago. What would happen if Ivalaine discovered us?”

  It was Aryn who answered. “We have no fear on that account. If Ivalaine and Tressa are not members of the shadow coven, they are at least sympathetic to its cause. Although, as Matron, she dares not reveal it.”

  “And what of Sister Liendra?” Lirith said. “She was at the center of the Pattern, and she seeks to be Matron in Ivalaine’s stead. Most of the Witches follow her lead. What would happen if Liendra were to discover us?”

  Aryn turned away. “Then our threads would be plucked from the Pattern, and a spell would be woven over us, so that we would never be able to use the Touch or the magic of the Weirding again.”

  Grace shuddered, and Lirith’s face went gray. Being cut off from the Weirding would be like a walking death—alive, but unable to feel any of the light or warmth all around them.

  “I’ve got just one more question,” Grace said as Lirith and Aryn made ready to leave. “Lirith, you said the shadow covens were forbidden for working cruel spells.”

  The witch nodded. “They brought the hatred of the common folk upon the Witches. That’s why they were all disbanded.”

  “
Only they weren’t,” Aryn said, shaking her head. “Mirda’s shadow coven survived.”

  “And that’s my question,” Grace said, crossing her arms. “If this one shadow coven endured, others might also have survived. And if so, what if they aren’t ones that work for good, like Mirda’s coven? What if they’re the wicked shadow covens, the ones that gave the Witches a bad name?”

  Silence pressed close. The coals settled on the hearth, and sparks crackled up the chimney.

  “Come, sister,” Lirith said at last, taking Aryn’s good left arm. “It is time we all went to bed.”

  11.

  Grace woke to the sound of bells.

  She sat up in bed, the shards of a dream falling away from her like broken pieces of glass. Her hair was snarled, and her nightclothes clung to her, cold and clammy with sweat. The space beside her in the bed was empty and cold; Tira had spent last night in Melia’s chamber. Frigid air poured through the chamber window, along with hard granules of snow. The wind must have pushed it open.

  Grace scrambled from the bed and reached to pull the window shut. She halted. Twenty feet below, at the base of the castle’s north wall, prints dented the crust of new snow. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked as if the prints had been pressed into the snow by small, cloven hooves. She lifted her gaze, toward a feathery smudge hovering in the distance. The hoofprints made a line pointing straight toward it. Gloaming Wood.

  Shivering, Grace shut the window and moved to the fireplace. She stirred up the coals, threw on several sticks, and as flames leaped up she shucked off her nightclothes and pulled on a wool gown the same frosty purple as the predawn sky.

  As she dressed, her mind raced. It was the sound of bells that had roused her from her dream, and she had heard bells yesterday in the castle garden. The Little People were trying to communicate with her, she was certain of it. But what was the message?

  Grace tried to remember the dream the bells had awakened her from, but it was already growing fuzzy. She had been alone in some sort of castle or keep, running down empty halls, searching in shadowed chambers for something. Searching for a key. But the key to what?