Not even the Kerayit princess’ weather magic could save them now.
The tip of the wooden sword poked out between Anna’s calves. Blessing wriggled and shoved forward as Anna staggered; the little girl thrust out her head, blinking as she surveyed the gruesome scene, as the wave of sound, grunts, cries, sobs, calm commands, and the screams of wounded horses, swept over her, as raindrops slipped down her little cheeks.
“Don’t worry, Anna,” she said in her self-assured voice. “My Daddy is coming to save us.”
2
THE gatekeeper who guarded the narrow entrance to the sphere of Aturna looked remarkably like Wolfhere.
“Liath!” The gatekeeper held his spear across the open portal to bar her way. Black storm clouds swirled beyond; she could distinguish no landmarks on the other side. “Where are you? I have been looking for you!”
“What do you want from me, Wolfhere? Who is my mother? Tell me the truth!” As she stepped forward, the tip of the arrow she held in her right hand brushed through him, and he dissolved as does an image reflected in water when it is disturbed. Had it really been Wolfhere, seeking her with Eagle’s sight, or only a phantom sent to tease her, or test her? Frowning, she passed through the gate.
Storm winds bit into her naked skin. Blades of ice stung her as she pressed forward, leaning into the howling gale. It was so bitterly cold. Gusts of icy wind boomed and roared. Her hair streamed out behind her, and she had to shelter her eyes with an arm, raised up before her face. In her left hand she held Seeker of Hearts and in her right her last arrow, fletched with the gold feather Eldest Uncle had given her. These alone remained of all the things she had started with. These alone, but for her own self.
The cold winds numbed her. Her lips cracked, became so stiff that she could not even speak to call out, to see if any creature lived in these harsh realms that might rescue her. Shivering, aching, battered by the freezing gale, she could only battle forward as her fingers went dead, as the pain of cold seeped all the way down to her bones.
It was so cold, a vale of ice.
She was going to die out here. Not this night, but another one, tomorrow perhaps. There weren’t even the pigs to keep her warm. She was going to die, or she was going to turn around and walk back into the chamber where Hugh was waiting for her, just as she had done that winter night in Heart’s Rest when she was only sixteen. Just as she had done that awful night, when she had given in to him because it was the only way to save her own life.
But it hadn’t been the only way. Da had hidden her power from her in order to conceal her from Anne, who was hunting her. Da had never taught her how to fight, only how to hide and how to run. Hugh had understood that better than she ever had.
She wasn’t a powerless girl any longer, frightened and helpless.
She called fire, and the cold blast of icy air split around her. The clouds melted away like fog under the sun.
Aturna’s realm dazzled her. She walked along the floor of a vast ravine, its distant walls so far away that their height was lost in a haze. Waterfalls spilled down on either side, flashing, blinding, as light sparkled off the falling waters. Daimones danced within the brilliant waters, too bright to see except for one with salamander eyes. Ahead, a pair of huge gold wheels thrummed around and around, the source of the wind.
In the vale of Aturna, home to the sage of wisdom, nothing was hidden from her, who could now look long and deeply within herself into the cold darkness that weighed her down.
She had relied on the strength of others for too long: Da and Hanna, Wolfhere and Sanglant, even Anne, who had made promises and never kept them. Even Jerna, whom she had ripped out of the world and back into the sphere of Erekes when she had needed her help to cross the poisonous sea. In the end, she could never reach out fully to others: not to Hanna and Ivar, who had befriended her with honest hearts; not to Sister Rosvita, who had sensed a kindred soul; not to Thiadbold and the Lions who had offered her comradeship; not to Alain, who had given her unconditional trust. Not even to her beloved Sanglant and her precious Blessing. She could not trust them until she trusted herself.
Almost as if that last thought brought it into existence, a staircase came into view, hewn of marble and rising up between the golden wheels. Tendrils of mist played around its base, and its height was lost in a bright blaze of fire, like a ring of flaming swords: the entrance, she knew at once, to the realm of the fixed stars.
Home.
The unexpected thought made her stumble to a halt. Her heart hammered alarmingly. She thought she would keel over and die right there, because she could not catch her breath. Flushed and sweating with exhilaration and astonishment, hope, and dismay all at once, she crouched to steady herself, resting her fist on the ground.