by Tom Early
“Not dystopic at all,” Sam said slowly. “Not even a little.” We started moving, and I gazed out the window as the fields of flowers deepened in color until they were a purple so dark they might as well have been black. The air was filled with a low buzz, and I realized with a start that there must have been thousands of bees making their lazy way among the flowers.
Aiden caught me staring. “The flowers make for a lovely and relaxing setting,” he remarked, “and with what our gardeners have done with the hives, it also makes for an excellent first line of defense. Not that any attackers ever get this close, of course.”
We pulled over at the side of the circle the cobblestone road had made as a driveway, around a gigantic onyx-black fountain, comprised of what looked like hundreds of hands reaching upward, pulling the heels of several majestic-looking people in intricately carved period clothing. I took a closer look and reevaluated. The hands weren’t trying to pull the people down—they were lifting them up. And then I blinked again, and it was like they were pulling them down again. I shook my head—I wouldn’t have put it past the Ombras to have enchanted the fountain to move, and I really wasn’t invested enough to try and figure out why.
James let us back out of the carriage, and then it was time to ogle the manor in front of us. It seemed almost to stretch out of my vision, curving in around the fountain’s circle in a gentle slope. Dozens of stained-glass windows were fitted carefully into the carved black stone, and I could see dark shapes moving behind them all over. I wondered how many people lived there. Even the stairs leading up to the house were ridiculously ornate—made of the same black stone as the fountain, shining brightly enough to blind me in the daylight. Naturally, Aiden looked perfectly at home making his way slowly up them.
“I wonder if the black is like the current leader’s personal taste, or if this is just tradition showing itself off,” Sam said thoughtfully. “I mean, what if you really like, say, neon orange? Do you think you could actually get people to paint your house like that?”
“Please tell me you aren’t planning on living in a neon orange house someday,” I replied. “I don’t think I like you enough to make visiting you a worthwhile sacrifice.”
She punched my arm. “Ass.”
“Just saying.”
“If you’re quite done bickering,” Aiden called down from the top of the stairs, “I’d like to make some actual progress.”
Sam and I followed him up, and the massive iron doors of the manor opened before him. The opulence inside the manor reflected the outside perfectly. The walls were lined with beautifully painted oil portraits of severe-looking, dark-haired, attractive people, all of whom bore a striking resemblance to Aiden. There weren’t any markings to identify them, but it wasn’t exactly a stretch for me to figure out that I was looking at generations of Ombra Family leaders. All of them were gorgeous, sure, but there was something in the way they held themselves, even in the portrait, that spoke of incredible power and self-assurance.
Aiden led us down the hall to the left, and we passed by more than a few people dressed in perfectly creased suits, men and women alike. There were also more than a few women in stunning floor-length dresses discussing business, but there were probably an equal number wearing suits and pulling off the look better than I ever could. All of them had a clear purpose in whatever they were doing, and everyone gave off an air of almost bored competence. And all of them made sure to give some gesture of respect or deference to Aiden as we passed. It was intimidating as all hell.
“So you were raised here?” I asked, walking quickly to keep up with Aiden’s unforgiving pace. Sam had given up on propriety back at the entrance and was shamelessly jogging next to Aiden. “With all these people in your home at all times?”
“It’s not as bad as you’re likely making it out to be in your mind,” Aiden replied. “I had my privacy on the second floor until I was of age to begin taking some leadership roles on myself. And everyone who works in the manor itself is at the very top of the Family. All of them are perfectly professional—I was always treated with the respect my position demanded, if not my age.”
“Does that mean you just skipped the little kid phase entirely?” Sam asked, not even breathing hard. “Man, that explains soooo much. What do you even do here, anyway?”
“The Ombra Family, in short, is in charge of much of Gaia’s finances, influence on Earth, and is the leader of the information trade. Our techniques are rivaled by none, excepting of course Janus University, but they maintain neutrality in all things. When I am home, I assist in collaborations between the varying branches of the Family’s influence—gaining finance from Earth, establishing the net value of certain pieces of information, and so on.” His voice was tinged with pride. “It’s only simple managerial work at the moment, but still a job that not many are trusted to do well.”
“If that’s your definition of simple, then I’m definitely not getting a job with your family,” Sam said, then paused. “Though that’s mostly because none of the roles you’ve described so far seem to involve fighting.”
“Quite,” Aiden said dryly. “Try the Hartmann Family if you want fighting. They keep the cities safe and involve themselves in other, more… mercenary, pursuits. Though I understand they’re in a bit of a difficult position at the moment.” His eyes gleamed. “Something to do with blackmail and stolen family secrets, I believe. I do hope they manage to recover soon. It would be a pity if all of that influence were to simply disappear. And given the present instability of the situation with our neighbors, the Nejem Family has had a bit of a fall from grace as well. Such is the risk of a fragile economy, after all.”
I stared at him. “That was the most supervillain thing I’ve ever heard you say, and you once almost killed me, so that’s a high bar.”
“Thank you,” Aiden said, sounding genuinely pleased.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Even better. Ah, here we are.” We’d continued through a string of rooms that didn’t seem to have any purpose other than to provide a space for the many well-dressed people we’d seen thus far to talk, and finally came to an intricately carved oaken door. Aiden placed his hand on a section of the wood carved into a runed circle, and light flared along the lines, followed by a series of sharp clicks that had me looking for locks that didn’t seem to be there. Then the door swung open, and once I walked through, I was too distracted to think about anything at all.
Janus University’s library was an enormous structure, efficient and modern at the top and aging to become like an old castle with stone and torches farther down. It was undeniably bigger than the library I was in now, but this was the library I had fantasies about living in. The walls were absolutely covered in rows of books on gleaming wooden shelves, the floor carpeted with something opulent and purple, with desks and chairs lit by orbs of light scattered intermittently around the place. There were old-fashioned ladders in place to help with reaching the upper shelves and stacks of books in the corners that had presumably been read recently. The sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window covered a section of the floor in brilliance, illuminating a few stray dust motes lazily floating through the air.
“Fay, you’re drooling” came Sam’s amused voice. “Seriously. You’ve got your tongue hanging out of your mouth like a dog. I’m embarrassed for you.”
I checked. “I do not.”
Sam shrugged, unrepentant. “Might as well have, with the face you were making.” She turned to Aiden. “So, nice place. Any idea where we should start looking?”
“I’m afraid not,” he admitted. “I don’t actually spend much time here—my position rarely requires me to come in here personally for records relevant to my activities. There is a system in place, however—the ledger should be over here.” He walked over to the desk by the door, where an absolutely massive leather-bound book was lying open. “Here we are. Files on individuals under investigation are on the far wall, toward the right.” He glance
d at me. “Care to help me narrow down what exactly you’re searching for beyond ‘old stories’?”
I hesitated for a moment, then thought better of it. It wasn’t like telling Aiden could hurt me in any way. “Anything to do with Winter, as in like an entity, not a season. Or, uh, both, really. It’d be really old—like before most of human history old.”
Aiden frowned, flipping through the ledger. “You might try the personal collection beneath the stained-glass window. That’s where Mother keeps the rare books that only she owns. I’ll keep searching for where else you might find something.”
“Thanks.” The shelves beneath the window were filled with books of varying size and color. Some were immaculately bound with gold and leather, while others were little more than sheaves of paper held together by tangled string. Some had summaries written on top of them for lack of a cover, while others had storybook names or simply titles in other languages. There were more than a few of them in what looked like Italian or possibly Latin, actually, and I was exceedingly grateful for the translation spell included in Janus University’s list of things to know. There were books that looked like they were just ancient romances—I made a note to ask Aiden if I could borrow the one on Achilles and Patroclus, and especially the one about Dante and Virgil—and there were others that were a little more mundane, if still incredibly rare, like the folder containing architectural sketches and details of what looked to be the Parthenon back in its glory days. The way it referred to the gods was more than a little suspicious, but I shelved that line of thought for when I wasn’t busy dealing with my own continued existence-in-jeopardy routine. An essay on potable water from sometime back in Medieval times, a series of letters from—was that Shakespeare?—to some unnamed guy, and… a book on ancient myths, sources from since-destroyed books found in a structure left behind by the Dawn Civilization. It started off with the disclaimer that translating the text the Dawn Civilization left behind was an iffy prospect at best since spells didn’t seem capable of unraveling it, but it still looked old enough to be promising. I brought the book over to a nearby desk and flipped it open, mouthing the translation spell under my breath until the words began to make sense.
Apparently the book was a collection of myths and short stories that the author had heard about the Dawn Civilization, which they had then attempted to verify or disprove using the fragments of text found in the structure. It was more like a scientific article, with hypotheses that were either proved or disproved by the end, but about stories instead of numbers and chemistry. And from what I was reading, it was very clear that people really didn’t know much about the Dawn Civilization at all.
One story claimed that their people were preternaturally beautiful and immune to the passage of time, while another argued that the Dawn Civilization wasn’t even just one race like humans, but was rather more like the Chironians, with differing species coming together in harmony into a single ruling body. And then there was another story that claimed the people had an incredible grasp of magic, which was what allowed them to populate all of Gaia with ease, while the one immediately after it said it was because the number we believe them to be is far greater than how many of them there actually were, and they were actually solitary enough that they didn’t leave enough of an impact on the planet to be attacked anyway.
All of these stories had little scraps of translated text backing them up and bringing them down. In short, it was a mess, and I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t—and this much wasn’t even common knowledge.
Then on the last page, I found one of the few stories that seemed to have more evidence in favor of its truth than against. It said that while the Dawn Civilization was powerful enough that they now would easily be regarded as legends for their strength, in their time there were four entities stronger than all the rest by miles. Their exact role was unclear. They weren’t gods or rulers, though some of the people apparently treated them as such, forming camps around two of them in particular. Their purpose was more that of…. The author wasn’t sure how to translate the word. It was more nuanced than just protection. More like shepherding, maybe? But it was made pretty clear that these four were even older than the Dawn Civilization, and while the people might have known them, they were obscure figures even to them. The four were described as being intimately connected with the land itself and the change the land went through.
Though descriptions of them vary wildly, the author wrote, these four beings seem most to represent forces still found in existence today—the Seasons. The youngest of them is described as the bringer of new life, of love and growth and potential and fecundity. It’s worth noting that the gender used to describe this being in the texts seems to change depending on the role the being was filling at that point in time. The middle one is described as blazing sunlight and power, a figure revered by the leaders of the people not for the power it exerted over them—it made no effort to rule them—but by the effortless way it simply made people defer to it regardless through sheer presence. The older one was quiet and observant, rarely speaking to the people, choosing instead to wait in forests or at the hearts of storms. It is said that one spoke poorly of it, once. And though age did not touch the people’s flesh, still this one’s body withered away to nothing. But the last of the four was the one that was the most feared, for it brought the end. It chose some few to give the gift of the end to, and sent them out through the land, which in its presence turned searing white and blue. Some few of the people worshipped it too, for the terror it instilled, but all knew to be wary of the Final Season.
I stared at the passage for a long while, rereading it twice. It was mostly conjecture—the author admitted they weren’t sure what half of the words in the text were actually supposed to mean—but it was more than the nothing I’d had before. And it answered the question that had been bothering me since I first learned about Winter living inside of me—the whole living Season thing was apparently a full set. There were three other Seasons wandering around somewhere, each with the staggering level of power I knew Winter could bring to bear, and that was a terrifying thought. What if they weren’t sealed away inside someone like Winter was in me? There had to be more to it than this. There was no way that the Seasons wouldn’t show up somehow in mythology over the years. Not if they were as powerful as this story made them out to be.
I heard Aiden stand up behind me and the sudden intake of breath that followed. “Mother,” he said warmly, but I could hear the tension behind it. “So lovely to see you.”
I turned around in time to see a woman with sweeping black hair and a perfectly fitted black suit lean in and kiss Aiden lightly on the cheeks. “Aiden,” she said, still facing away from me. “You didn’t tell me you were coming home. I would have had a luncheon prepared for you.”
I shivered at the sound of her voice. It was husky and lilting, much like Aiden’s, but it practically vibrated with power. She turned toward me, revealing a fine-boned face with long-lashed eyes that were almost black in color. Her smile when she saw me was a single perfect twist of her mouth, and as her gaze raked over me, I could almost feel all of my secret shames and confessions begging me to say them aloud. It was… unnerving.
“I know about you,” she said suddenly, and I did my best not to flinch. “You’re Didas’s current pet project. He’s keeping you very close to his chest, silencing any rumors that might connect you to the slight, ah, tremor a few months back, but I’m better at this game than he is. I’ve seen the pieces he’s collecting.” She stepped closer to me, and then it was as if her already black suit had darkened a few shades further and taken on a depth it had no right to. I could feel myself leaning forward slightly, as though there was a force pulling me in. A gentle hand snaked out and held my chin in place, the woman’s eyes burning into my own. “Tell me,” she said softly, “what is it that makes you so special, boy? Why is Didas so interested? Who are you?” I opened my mouth to answer her. It didn’t occur to me to do anything else. I could
n’t have said no if I wanted to, and why would I want to refuse her when she was so very kind to me?
“Hey!” Sam shouted, storming forward, and I snapped out of it as the woman recoiled and turned to face her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing to my friend?”
“I’m merely asking him his name,” she said smoothly. “I should think it my right to know as much, considering that this is my library you are intruding upon.”
“What you were doing wasn’t asking,” Sam growled, stepping forward until her face was right up in front of the other woman’s. “Try that again and I break you.”
The woman raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow, and the darkness in her suit roiled like an ocean at storm, spilling out of the boundaries of her body and slamming Sam into the wall before she had a chance to do a thing. I remembered the darkness Aiden had summoned during his last match with Sam. That was nothing, compared to this. If Aiden’s magic was shadows and whispers, this woman was like a black hole. Her darkness had this unfathomable pull to it, and when Sam wrapped herself in light and tried to escape, the darkness swallowed up her efforts like they were nothing at all. I heard Sam cry for the ercinee, and nothing happened. I could see her try to move, but she was as pinned down as I’d ever seen her. I started to cast a spell of my own, but stopped when I realized that there was no way I could do anything against someone like this. Not without letting Winter out again.
“Don’t attempt to challenge a practitioner on her own soil, girl,” the woman said, smiling. “Even if I were not who I am, it would still have been a foolish act.”
“That’s enough, Mother,” Aiden said angrily. “These two are my guests. I will not have you attempt to ensorcel one of them and attack the other. An attack against them in my own home is a slight on my honor.”
“I will not tolerate disrespect,” Aiden’s mother said, ignoring him in favor of looking at Sam, still smiling. “If that is understood, I will let you go.” Sam managed a shaky nod, and the woman released her to fall gasping to the floor, clutching her chest. I ran over to her immediately, helping her back to her feet. “I am Caterina Ombra,” Aiden’s mother said impassively, watching us glare at her without any change in expression. “And as the master of this house, I would like you to tell me what you are doing here.”