Winter's Crown

by Alexandra Little

  “Fine,” I said again. My tone was sharp, sharper than I meant. My father pulled away from me, keeping a distance between us. But I couldn’t bring myself to apologize.

  The tents were wide but short, held up by two poles on opposite sides and stretches of ropes staked into the ground. The tent flaps had ties to hold them closed in the wind. Eliawen directed Zarah and myself into one, and we dropped our things inside of it. We all managed to fit into the men’s tent for dinner, but just barely. Sitting cross-legged, we touched knee-to-knee, and had to hunch over to not hit the canvas roof. They had layered canvas on the floor to protect from the dirt and damp. How they fit it all in their packs, I couldn’t figure out.

  Lorandal untied a small lantern from her pack and hung it in the center of the tent. It burned with the same white flame as their torches. Aerik pulled out the bread and salted pork that he had gathered at the Fort, and passed it around. The elves didn’t eat. I wasn’t even hungry but, like being tired, it was probably best to pretend. I took my time consuming what I was given.

  “What happened?” Zarah asked, breaking the silence. “Back at the Fort. What was all of that?”

  Six pairs of eyes turned towards me.

  “Don’t look to me!” I said. “If I knew, this would be easier to solve!”

  “We didn’t witness most of it,” Aerik said.

  I told them, in as few words as possible, about the colossus and my own protector.

  “You had your own apparition to protect you,” Aerik repeated. “Where did she come from?”

  Eliawen shook her head. “Unfortunately I do not have answers either. It is one thing to study magic, and another to practice it. Our knowledge of the era that this creature belongs to is one that we have mostly forgotten. Those that do know it are few. We may need to seek them out in order to understand the apparition.” She looked to Dalandaras, who didn’t reply.

  “And do you know what Eva did?” Aerik asked. “She conjured up her own ghost.”

  “No I didn’t,” I replied. “It just happened.”

  “What was it?” my father asked. “We could tell it was someone, but we were a bit busy fighting those……things.”

  “It was a woman. A spirit.”

  “An elf?”

  I shrugged. “I was a bit busy too, you know. It was a woman. She didn’t look like an elf. She had a sword. As long as she was helping me, I wasn’t going to interrupt her by asking questions!”

  “What did she look like?” Lorandal pressed.

  “Is it really important what she looked like?”

  “Please, Evalandriel,” Dalandaras asked quietly.

  “She was human. She had long hair, if that matters.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “A breastplate and chainmail.”

  “What did the breastplate look like?”

  “It…wasn’t a human’s breastplate. It was smoother,” I realized. “There weren’t many sharp angles or any crude finishing. It was very elegant, if that makes sense. There was no color to it, though. I could only see its outline. Does this all matter?”

  “What is going on with all of this?” Zarah asked.

  All three elves shared a glance between themselves.

  My father looked at me and frowned. He touched a hand to his cheek and nodded at me.

  I touched my own cheek where it had been bruised in the collapse of the ruins. Nothing hurt, I realized. It hadn’t hurt since we took the elves there. I rubbed my jaw, just to be sure. There wasn’t even a residual ache.

  Zarah frowned at me too now. I dropped my hand.

  I never expected to miss the Fort, but I could go to my own room and lock the door, as childish as it was. Here I was stuck with all of them.

  “You summoned her,” Dalandaras said at last.

  “Wait…I summoned her?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And how would I manage to do that?”

  “The same way you found the ruins and learned the language. Something in you told you how to do it.”

  “I’m not the only one who found the ruins.”

  “It is impossible to find them without already having knowledge of them.”

  “Well it’s been done, or have you forgotten the four dead looters?”

  “We took precautions to prevent such things,” Dalandas said irritably. “You must have alerted them.”

  “I didn’t alert them.”

  “Aerik? Zarah?”

  “We didn’t!” Zarah said.

  “It was a good adventure,” Aerik said. “It was our little secret.”

  “And Tunir and Iasul didn’t want to spoil the fun by risking their mother finding out,” I added. “So your precautions have a hole in them!”

  “Are you saying,” my father interrupted, “that it is possible to summon things similar to what was imprisoned in the ruins?”

  “It is not the same,” Eliawen said. “I cannot explain the apparition of the ruins. But what Evalandriel did, it appears, is perhaps better described as conjuring. Lorandal?”

  He nodded. “I did not witness it, but from what you have described of it…you needed her, so you created her. I don’t know why she took the image of a woman, though.”

  “But I didn’t ask for her,” I replied.

  “You asked for something, then.”

  I had. Mother, help me.

  But my mother hadn’t come. Why had I even asked?

  Because the apparition was playing tricks with me, that’s why. Because she had been dead for months and that creature had brought her back in some form. Maybe her spirit had really stood there, or maybe I had just imagined her. But I had never hallucinated her until this mess had started.

  “Eva?”

  I blinked. Everyone—the elves, Zarah, Aerik, and Father—were staring at me. “What?”

  “You…weren’t answering,” my father said.

  “Just thinking.” Wonderful. Now I was drifting off. “About what happened. There wasn’t anything I did to conjure this woman.”

  “You whispered something just now.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Eva.” He said my name gently, almost pityingly. “I heard you say moth—”

  “I said forget it!” I dragged myself back to the tent flap.

  “Eva,” it was Aerik’s turn to pity me.

  “It is nobody’s concern,” I said. “”And nothing to do with this apparition. I suggest we get what sleep we can.”

  I crawled out of the tent and went to the other. I spread out my bedroll in a corner and used my pack as a pillow. I faced the canvas wall, focused hard on the weave of the fabric. The darkness was comforting. It was a relief that their words were indistinct murmurs from here.

  After a few minutes Eliawen and Zarah came in. I feigned sleep, but Zarah didn’t seem to buy it.

  “Goodnight, Eva,” she whispered as she settled next to me.

  I tried to relax, tried to clear my mind and think of nothing at all. Zarah and Eliawen’s breathing grew deep and even, but I lay awake.

  An hour passed.

  I sat up and eased myself past Zarah to the flap of the tent. I crawled out, careful to keep out as much of the cool breeze as possible. I tied the flap closed, and just…walked. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, and not in any hurry. There was no impulse driving me, like when I found the ruins and translated its language. I just needed…something.

  The sun was gone, but not quite. Beyond the mountains there was a sliver of dusky orange along the horizon. The clouds had cleared, and the sky was dotted with stars and streaks of sweeping green that moved slowly across the darkness. Sometimes the edges of the trails turned purple or blue. The scientists called it the aurora, the soldiers the dance of the spirits. The trails did look like dancers, thousands of them, lined up together.

  I walked until the tent was a hundred feet behind me, and I could scuff at the snow with my boots without fear that sharp ears would hear me.

  What had I done
that had summoned my ghost protector?

  Mother, help me.

  But there was no power behind that. Just a little girl’s need for her mother to hold her and kiss her and make all the troubles go away.

  I closed my eyes and took a breath, letting the fresh air fill my lungs. Had it been the jeopardy of the fight? Had it been that the colossus had raised its arm to kill me? Why had I even gone charging after it? Had I known, in the back of my mind, that I could conjure up my own apparition?

  I remembered my encounter with the apparition, when I had spoken the otherly language. What had that felt like? I had felt filled with a power. I had felt as if I wasn’t in my skin, as if I wasn’t truly present in the ruins. I had felt as if I was reaching for something that was beyond me, beyond where I was then, even beyond the centuries illustrated on the walls in the ruins.

  There was a tingle in the air around me, a gentle rumble of something that traveled through me. I recalled the image of the ghost woman, of my need for her.

  I opened my eyes, and there she was.

  She stood in her chainmail, her sword sheathed, her arms resting loosely at her sides. She was still translucent, but there was more of her. More detail. More color. She was my height. Her hair was brown, and curled loosely. Her breastplate was silver. Her eyes were still white and dead, but her face had a little color to it. She had an odd kind beauty to her.

  If she weren’t a spirit, she’d look like me. Almost exactly.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  She cocked her head, but said nothing.

  “Can’t you tell me?”

  I found that place inside myself where I didn’t feel truly in my skin, and found that otherly language. “Tell me.”

  She bowed slowly.

  I reached up to touch her face. My fingers just barely skimmed her cheek. There was something there to touch, cool and leathery. But after a moment it warmed, and her flesh gained color and solidified. She closed her eyes and leaned into my hand. I could feel the pressure against my fingers.

  “That’s not a good idea, pet.”

  My hand fell. The ghost woman, a sad expression on her face, faded away, and I found myself very aware that I was in my own body, in the cold night, in the mountains.

  The voice was so familiar. I had wished and wished to hear it again, dreamed of hearing it again. I wanted to turn and see her, didn’t want to turn, couldn’t make up my mind either way.

  “You won’t look at me?”

  “You’re dead,” I said with certainty. “I saw you die. And I’m not in that timeless place. So you’re not real. You’re just some trick of the apparition.””

  “No,” my mother said in a slow, considered way. “No, I think I’d know if I wasn’t real.” She laughed. “You look like your father, with your hair all wild like that and that great swath of fur across your shoulders.”

  I felt a laugh of my own coming on, but if I allowed it to come out then a sob was going to follow. “You went for years without mentioning my father, and now that you’re dead it has to be the first thing you talk about?”

  “The image struck me, that’s all. You have his height, too, but I knew that when you shot up like a sapling when you were eleven. Look at me, pet. I want to see your face. It’s been awhile.”

  I forced my feet to move, my body to turn around.

  I expected a spirit, something half-solid as the apparition had conjured.

  But my mother standing here, now, looked as she did in life. She was solid. The cold was turning her cheeks pink, and her breath was coming out in puffs. She looked like the sailor she had been in life. She wore the blue single-breasted jacket she never buttoned up, her vest and shirt collar embroidered with shells, her cotton trousers tucked into her boots. Her golden hair was unbound and twisted in the breeze. Even Dauntless hung from her belt, the same Dauntless that was back in the tent with my pack. It was only the footprints that gave her away as a ghost, or hallucination. Her boots didn’t sink into the snow as mine did.

  “I’m dreaming,” I whispered.

  “No,” my mother replied.

  “I’m going mad, then.”

  She smiled that mother’s smile, which told me I was being a little ridiculous but that she’d humor me all the same. “Perhaps.”

  “Then what is all of this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The sob that threatened came just a little closer to the surface. “You’re not being very helpful, Mother.”

  “I thought I was dead, but now I’m here, only I’m not sure how I got here. I’m afraid I can’t be very helpful right now.” She looked around, at the mountains and the sky and the ground. “Is it cold? It seems like it’s cold.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen snow.” My mother turned around, taking in the mountains and the sky. “Your father brought me north once, when we were just married. Not this far north, of course, but he took me in winter, when snow was on the ground. I didn’t like it much.”

  “How…” My voice broke. “How did you get here?”

  “I’m not sure.” She frowned. “I can’t remember.”

  “You always remember everything. Which cargo and how much was destined for where, who owed you money and how much…”

  “Those were easy things, pet. Death doesn’t seem to be very easy.”

  The sob came out then and I walked past her, around the curve of the mountain, away from her and the tent. I’d walk back to Port Darad if I could. “Just stay away from me. Don’t torture me like this.”

  “I’m not trying to, pet.” Her voiced followed me, though no footsteps crunched the snow. “You called. I came.”

  “You didn’t come to me before.”

  “When I died? No, I couldn’t go to you. I tried, but the ropes were tangled too tightly.”

  I spun around. “You wouldn’t let me save you! You shoved me away!”

  Mother had tears on her face, too. “We were both too far under. If you didn’t get to the surface, you’d die with me. You couldn’t have cut all the ropes away in time. Wipe those tears away, now.”

  I focused on slowing my breathing. The sobs calmed as well. My mother’s tears dried too. She was beautiful. I reached for her as I had reached for the ghost.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” she said sadly. “As much as I want to touch you too.”

  I let my hand fall. “Why not?”

  Mother frowned. “I’m not sure. I don’t think the dead and the living are supposed to touch. You shouldn’t invite us back; it’s not good, pet. And you have other things you need to do.”

  “Things more important than seeing you?”

  “Well, putting that apparition back is probably important.”

  “Was that you, down in the ruins? I saw you.”

  “I saw you, too. But I couldn’t reach for you then. It stopped me.”

  I half-laughed, half-sobbed again.

  “I miss you,” Mother said.

  I nodded. If I spoke, then all the tears and all the hurt would come out again and I couldn’t have that, not right now. There were enough tears already, and I wasn’t going to be caught crying by my father or Aerik or any of them.

  “I don’t like where you’re going,” Mother said suddenly.

  It took me a moment to find my voice again. “What?”

  “Where the elf is leading you. I don’t like it. You’re a sea creature, my girl. Don’t let it seduce you.”

  “But—” I blinked, and she was gone.

  I stood there, staring at where she had been, trying to will her to come back. I waited, unable to stop trying, not willing to return to the tents, but there was nothing. I wanted to scream, to pound my fists against something, to curse he apparition and the storm that had killed her and my father because he hadn’t been there. But finally I turned back towards the tent. I took my time, following my footprints in the snow. As I rounded the curve of the mountain, Dalandaras was there. He at least had the cour
tesy to look slightly guilty.

  “You were not in the tent,” he said. “I was worried.”

  “I…wasn’t tired,” I said. “”I wanted fresh air.”

  “You strayed quite far.”

  “I wasn’t lost.”

  “I heard your voice.”

  “I am allowed to talk to myself. I have a lot of things to think about. Or is it considered a strange thing to do among elves?”

  “You are certainly allowed to talk to yourself,” Dalandaras said slowly. “But you have not slept. And it is almost time to go.”

  I glanced at the sky. The horizon had grown orange, the green aurora fading. Had the hours passed already?

  “Evalandriel,” he said quietly. “Experimenting with these things is dangerous to do when you have no knowledge of them.”

  “How much did you see?” I demanded.

  “Enough,” Dalandaras said. “It is dangerous to play around. My grandfather paid the price for playing the same game.”

  “What I do is my business, not yours.” I brushed past him.

  “I am sorry about your mother,” he said. “But you cannot bring her back.”

  “She is not your business.” I passed him, only to see my father emerge from the men’s tent. Before he could say anything to me, I said: “”And not yours either.”

  My father opened his mouth to reply, but Aerik stumbled out behind him, and Zarah out of our tent.

  “That wasn’t enough sleep,” Zarah muttered before yawning.

  “It’s not the hours, it’s the bedding,” Aerik replied, his bedding in his arms. “I’m too used to a hammock.”

  “You look well-rested,” Zarah said to me as I came up to them.

  I held back a nasty retort. What would my reply have been a week ago? “I can’t help being born prettier than both of you,” I said lightly.

  Zarah laughed. That was good. It was better than talk of dead mothers.

  I gathered up my things and watched as the elves dismantled the tents with efficiency. Breakfast was eaten quickly, and we were on our way.

  It was an easier journey than before. We had come into the mountains taking valleys that had been an uphill struggle. Now we were taking paths that angled downhill. It was easier to focus on maintaining speed. We took no breaks. Clouds gathered in the sky, providing spotty relief from the sun. Zarah and Aerik and Father managed to talk, and even the elves joined in. But despite my desire to appear normal I couldn’t bring myself to say anything as well. I let the sounds of their voices flow around me.