by May Peterson
He strode to the door before I had a chance to question why he’d said especially for you.
His knock on the crystal portal rang through the stone, as if he’d struck a tuning fork. Gradually, the sound died. Hei appeared to stop moving. My breaths were tight. Then, the door creaked open.
A hand was pushing open the portal’s other side. A human hand. It belonged to a young woman who emerged in the stone-light. She stood with one arm against the side of the unopened panel, peering cautiously out. For all the environment suggested pomp and wonder, she was shockingly ordinary. Mild face, impassive expression. She examined Hei briefly.
“Welcome.” Her voice was as gravid and cool as the air filling the cavern. “Your plea has been received.”
Hei heaved a sigh, his shoulders untensing visibly. Sympathy surged through me—but this woman’s harmless demeanor did not put me at ease. Not yet. I didn’t speak, afraid of some arcane law that forbade me to follow Hei. But she nodded once toward me and cast the door wider. “Please. Enter.”
She ushered Hei and me in, the door sealing swiftly behind us. The place it had opened upon was far smaller than I had expected, anticipating some more elaborate catacomb yet to be the witch’s dwelling place. It might have been unremarkable—a rounded, stone-walled great room, a stove glowing in a corner. Curtains concealing adjoining rooms, tables and chairs arranged for comfort. Even the throb of the crystalline illumination was not so strange for Serenity.
It would have been unremarkable, except for the dais that rose up as the room deepened into itself, away from the door. For the vault that seemed to climb forever, its wide circle devoid of ceiling that shed white light into the room. Such an opening would have to ascend all the way to the face of the mountain. And on that dais, stretched under the skylight, was a contraption I had never seen. Had no name for, except that it resembled an orrery.
Golden and silver rings of metal were fixed to a massive base, turning gently as if by their own power. But instead of orbs fashioned to resemble planets connected to each ring, the rings themselves were unburdened—empty orbits. Instead, the motion of the rings created a de facto sphere of space. And within it floated miniscule gemstones. Diamonds, onyxes, rubies, blue sapphires, and iridescent opals. They ranged in size and clarity, but each burned with soft brilliance, gifting the room with its private radiation. They looked like an infinite array of stars, swathing an imaginary heaven, preserved in stone.
Somehow, their soft, self-sustained motion struck a chord in my heart. It was as though the firmament had been captured. And here it spun, endlessly, quietly. It was full. So full. I could not look away.
Until Hei touched my shoulder lightly, gesturing me to attend. The young woman had come to stand before us, the panoply of colors from the contraption gracing her back. I saw two things, then.
First was that it was only the three of us in the room. I must have imagined that this woman was an apprentice of some kind, and that the real witch would step forth, clad in the majesty and grotesquerie of untold years. But our hostess looked as if she could be my age—or the age I’d died at, anyway.
Second was that I had been wrong—she was not ordinary. Contrasted with the greatness of the hall, she was superficially no more unusual than any who lived in Serenity. A simple dark robe fell over her pale limbs, bound with a wide, cream-colored sash. Straight ebony hair was pulled back into a bun, remaining tresses dangling at her back. She had no superhuman appearance, no halo of fire or raiment of ice.
But trying to meet her gaze—there, under the pulsing aura of her device—felt like staring into the sun. Her expression was flat, emotionless, which rendered her presence as consuming as the mist which made up the world. She was perhaps no taller than Hei, and yet the sight of her was as vertical and mystifying as that ever-rising vault. Her hand had assembled this circling parade of stars, and the light of their memories shone on her like adoring subjects. Most of all, a silence pervaded her. The moments drew out my breaths, exposed the shaking and shifting of my body. But like Hei had on that night of Umber’s revelry, when everything had been haze but him, she was still. Still as the mountain, as the tundra itself, singing dawn-tinged songs of flames that never burned.
Warrior who has transgressed time.
An urge to flee all but overcame me.
Hei’s courage apparently dwarfed mine—he stepped forward, uniting his palms and bowing deeply, eyes averted from her. “I am Hei. Thank you for admitting us, Lady.”
I awkwardly produced something like a bow of my own, but kept her in my peripheral vision. My scratchy greeting was much less dignified. “And, I, ah, am Ari.” Brilliant.
Kaiwan stolidly took this in. “Salutations.” She gestured to the stove. “Would you like some tea?”
“Oh, yes, please! Thank you.” Hei almost squeaked. Aw. Maybe I was less alone in my fear than it seemed.
Kaiwan went to the kettle without further instruction, and I indicated the seats by the far wall with my head. A hearth-like opening ornamented that side of the room, except it was gem-light rather than fire that illumined it. Hei, gnawing his lip in that way he did, met my eyes briefly, and we sat.
While Kaiwan busied herself, I directed Hei’s attention to the orrery-like contraption. I kept my tone at a whisper. “Any idea what that is?”
Hei’s frown was thoughtful; he lifted the diamond in is grasp again. “This is an arcane prism; stones used to channel and contain magic. Maybe that’s just her collection.”
Shit. How many were there? And what did witches use them for? Before I could speculate further, Kaiwan wheeled over a cart with water, teapot, and cups. It seemed ritual, austere, for her to pour the tea with humble motions, the nimbus of grandeur still cloaking her. I had the fleeting notion that the smoky brew she dispensed would be rife with hidden truths, lay bare our hearts as we drank. But the infusion tasted no different than what I made myself.
Kaiwan sat across from us, sipping a cup, as casually as if we were friends who had dropped by. “So.” She smiled—the first such expression I’d seen from her—but it had no effect on her cool eyes. “If you please, tell me why you have sought me out. I assume you already know the price of an audience.”
Her eye shot to the prism Hei held. Hei all but dropped it. “Oh, yes! I’m sorry. Yes, of course. This is for you.” He extended it, hand trembling. She took it, inspecting it with narrowed eyes, then tucked it into her sleeve.
Kaiwan’s following silence was apparently the cue for Hei to go on. He seemed to be gathering his breath, his spirits. A glance over revealed he was trembling; I suppressed an urge to reach over and take his hand again.
“I came in the hope that what I’ve heard is true.” Hei’s gulp was audible. “That you can bring back to me someone that I’ve lost.”
I watched him covertly, noticing myself trying to decode the nuances of his expression, the tension in his back. His second person, the mysterious figure he’d made his pilgrimage for? Kaiwan merely raised a brow.
Hei looked down at his hands. “He’s dead. I want you to bring him back to life. Bring him back to me.”
It shouldn’t have torn through me with such force. Of course resurrection had to have been a possibility. But it felt like I was seeing him again, as I had on Ancestor Rock, wondering if he would jump. Like so many looking for everlasting life. He had been, all along. Just not for himself.
Kaiwan sighed and set her cup on the table. She stood. “I can. Easily.”
My eyes and Hei’s both shot to her in unison. “What?” Hei all but choked. “Really? I wasn’t sure—”
“Tell me more about him.” Kaiwan’s gaze shed a kind of quiet grace on him that reminded me of that skylight. It might have been mercy, or indifference, or either, shifting with the changing heavens.
“Y-yes.” Hei’s attention darted to me. Only for a second, chewing his lower lip, before he looked back. �
��I grew up with him. He was my beloved. His name is... Beniro.”
Ah. I closed my eyes, smiled sourly to myself. Of course. He hadn’t told me the whole story. Beniro having left the orphanage was just another way of saying he’d died. And no noble spirit had emerged from the dark to redeem him. So Hei must have come here, to the tundra, the diamond kingdom of the north, to redeem Beniro himself.
“How much do you love him?” Kaiwan’s voice fell like a blade, precise and hard. It jarred me from my musings, opened my eyes. What? How could she ask him that?
The question seemed to stun Hei for a moment. “He’s all that I have. His memory brought me here. But... I want more than a memory.”
“Do you want to see him live again for the sake of your emptiness, your conscience, your own pain? Or because he would have his life back? Is this for his sake, or yours?”
I wanted, spontaneously, to place myself between her and Hei. Shield him from the apparently bloodless mechanisms of her judgment. He didn’t deserve this. But the solemnity of her aura arrested me, immediately stirred doubt. Before I could shake it, Hei replied, his voice cracking, “Is...is there a difference?”
At that, Kaiwan paused. A second fell by in which her gem-like calm appeared marred. By sympathy, or sorrow, or the nearest to those emotions her vast age had allowed her to keep. “For you, perhaps none. I dearly hope that is the correct answer. That his good and yours are one.”
Then her gaze swung onto me. “And you? What miracle would you see performed?”
I cleared my throat. I could have spent hours on that question. “Only Hei’s. I’m here for him. If there’s anything I can do to make it easier to accept...”
The offering had slipped out before I could consider its consequences, but no regret followed it. This might not even be the next step in my mist, but I didn’t care. I had so little to offer Hei. This, if nothing else, I would give.
Kaiwan watched my eyes for several moments, and I found that the animal instinct to run had passed. The whir and spin of her stones might have represented countless lifetimes. Tamueji appeared to fear Kaiwan more than she did Umber. This warrior who had transgressed time may be bigger than him, bigger than Serenity, a power as great as the moon or sea. But she had to have a reason, too, for being here. In this room, in this moment, she was just another soul.
She whirled, robe swaying as she stalked to the dais. Soon, the only sound in the room was the hum of the device, as though the mountain were breathing. After minutes, she spoke. “He can be returned to you. Anything can be undone. Anything lost may be found.” One hand rose from her sleeve, clenched into a fist. “But first, the price must be paid.”
An impulse pushed me to my feet. She was much easier to face when looking away. “How many prices are there? He just handed over a fucking diamond the size of your eye.”
“Ari.” Hei sounded small, but resolved. “Please. I know what I’m doing.”
I sighed, commanding myself to untense. Of course—he must be willing to pay anything if it would mean regaining what he’d lost. Who knew how much he’d already paid? And if I’d learned anything about Hei, it told me that he’d be prepared—and that he likely knew more than he was saying.
I allowed myself a full minute to consider him. “All right. So what is this true price, then?”
Kaiwan remained turned away, as if contemplating the patterns of her artificial stars. Hei hesitated, sighing deeply. “My heart.”
“What?” I spat it without thinking. Images flushed my mind of the light in Hei being extracted through a hole in his chest, some vital piece of him bottled for some eons-old formula. It reminded me far too much of Umber and his tolls, the liquid of the heart drained, emptying it of its fragile contents.
The tilt of Hei’s mouth was meek, apologetic. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I have to let her twine my heart with hers. Temporarily. But that’s all.”
All right. That sounded less...intense. And less potentially fatal. I frowned at the witch’s back. “I thought mages could only twine with each other?”
Kaiwan didn’t quite face my gaze. Her arms had vanished into her sleeves; she studied the floor, the lights playing there. “It is merely a skill, like any other. With practice, a mage can do this with nearly anyone.”
“Ari.” Hei sounded tense, as if he were waiting for me to pounce on her. “It’s fine. It’s nothing.”
“It is far from nothing.” Kaiwan leveled her focus at Hei, hardness emerging from her demeanor. Hardness like the mountain, like the diamonds in the air, an emotion or conviction too old and deep to read. “This act is extremely dangerous. It may leave you unscathed entirely—or rob you of your will to go on living. You should only take this risk if your heart is devoted fully to your task. To walk across this bridge, you cannot waver. Do you understand me?”
It hit me then—the three of us were standing in the shape of a triangle. Kaiwan’s attention cut a line across the room, pinning Hei in place. He shook, but did not look away. The air had become like ice.
“Of course I do,” Hei breathed, after a moment. “I’m as sure as I’ve been of anything in my life.”
I growled, surged forward, broke the triangle. Part of me wanted to wrench her gaze to me, spare him. “So you grant miracles to people, but only if, what—they’re willing to throw away everything? Does this keep you from having to be accountable if you fuck it up? So you can always say, ‘oh, you’re not unhappy with my work, you’ve just lost your will to live!’”
From any of the beings I understood, even the eldest of the moon-souls in Serenity, I should have expected anger. A demonstration of force, a rebuke. Kaiwan’s eyes merely crawled across the space to me, her posture unchanging. “Without this act, I cannot perform the miracle. No other way exists.” She nodded briefly, and turned back to the floor. “This is why I offer, but only if it is worth everything to you. Otherwise, the risk would outweigh the gain. You must consider this the absolute last choice available to you. Do not make it unless every other choice under heaven is exhausted.”
I closed my eyes, released a breath. The absolute last choice—fuck. And such a choice was exactly what Hei had come here to make.
Hei’s voice sounded closer, as if he’d approached me. “I am willing. No other choice remains.”
I opened my eyes, searched him. The dearness of his sad countenance, the brow that had not long ago been gleaming with sweat in the light of my fire. He smiled, softly, and placed one hand on my shoulder. “But...not yet. There is still one more thing I must do before I will be ready. Would you permit me to come again? I can pay a second time.”
Kaiwan appeared to consider a moment. “That will not be necessary. Merely return to my seal when you have decided. I will not turn you away.” She did not lift her eyes from the stony floor.
“Thank you.” Hei’s relief was audible. “Thank you for doing this. I—I came a long way.”
Kaiwan walked past us, calmly, and opened her door.
“Please,” she said. “Do not thank me.”
* * *
The route back outside was shorter, with fewer twists. When it deposited us back on the dusty slope, the moon was declining.
My urge to flee returned with greater power than before—I wanted away from this stark wall, the shaded promises of Kaiwan and her pocket of time within. It felt like we’d just brushed with some austere, cosmically towering god, and stepped away whole. Whole, but shaken.
Hei was quiet, hugging himself. I touched him, waited for our eyes to meet. “Let me take you away from here.” I leaned in, kissed his temple. “We can go back to my place.”
He nodded, simply, minutely, as if there were nowhere else to go. I gathered him and took to the air.
The wind off the mountainside was colder now, somehow. As though meeting Kaiwan had plunged us into some new season Serenity had never seen before, a deeper winter t
hat the arctic chill had to give way to eventually.
Tamueji’s evidence was beginning to fit into the picture. Hei knew that Umber and his flock ruled the depths of Serenity. He must have shed everything else in his lonely, orphaned life to come here—if anything had remained to shed. Of course he’d find out everything he could. And I dared not imagine what he’d had to do to prepare the riches he must have needed to travel here and meet Kaiwan’s price.
If Umber knew about Kaiwan, he’d never spoken of her, at least not that I knew. But surely it was impossible to have dwelled here for generations and not know of the witch’s presence. Maybe he feared her, bowed to her, as even the stones appeared to bow to her.
This boy, you see, has a very intriguing purpose in this city.
I arrived at my perch, ushering us both in against the coming day. There were so many things I ought to ask him, try to understand. How had he found out about Kaiwan? Was this about more than Beniro’s death? Did he think he would survive this? Did it matter to him?
But the answer to all those questions was hovering before me, supplying Hei’s mysteries with meaning. He had his own mist. This was the path he had discovered in it, leading him deeper and deeper into the mountain’s ancient sorrows.
Only two questions really made sense anymore.
Hei sat on the edge of my bed, slumping as if exhausted. I wanted to go to him, comfort him. But I needed to try.
“Hei. I need to ask you something.” The first question. “The night we met again in the night-streets. You said you were already coming to like me. What did you mean? Why?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes widening slightly. “Oh. Well.” A faint laugh escaped from his lips. “Kadzuhikhan wasn’t the first person to greet me with rough treatment. I think on the day I arrived, I asked for directions from someone on Bare-Sky Road, and they said they’d bet I tasted good with gravy.” I narrowed my eyes, and he chuckled. “It was probably more flirtation than anything. But then, when you caught me at Ancestor Rock...you seemed concerned. Like nameless mortal pilgrims dying in plain sight was a tragedy, something you wanted to prevent. It felt so out of sorts with the city’s numbness that I had to wonder if that was why you were there. Waiting, watching.” He looked down at his hands. “I have to be honest, Ari. I think I’ve been using you. I came here with every intention of doing this alone. But then I met you, and...it became clear that I just couldn’t. I might have turned back already without you. I decided it was all right...all right if I made a friend.”