Winter of Ice and Iron

by Rachel Neumeier

  “I look forward to hearing it.” He nodded to her and followed the other men from the room. Except for Quòn, who seemed to have decided he might like tea after all, because Eöté had moved the pot over the brazier and he had gone to join her.

  Kehera refused to worry about either of them right at this moment. She felt she had more than enough to worry about already.

  Captain Deconniy stood outside the duke’s apartment, speaking to the sentry. No one, Kehera gathered, was getting much sleep tonight. So far as she could see, only determination was keeping Deconniy on his feet. He ought to be granted a lot more than one day to recover, in Kehera’s opinion, but Innisth and Senior Captain Etar seemed to think he’d do better back on duty. Maybe they were right. Certainly he hadn’t seemed exactly happy while he’d been abed. Fretting over having left his post, she’d thought at first, though Innisth had pardoned him for that and Senior Captain Etar had agreed it had been the right thing to do. Fretting over Eöté, it had occurred to her later; Kehera had come to suspect theirs was a more complicated match than she’d initially guessed. And now the girl’s strange response to Quòn—she didn’t understand that at all.

  But she didn’t have time to worry about any of that just at this moment. She only nodded to Deconniy and the sentry.

  The sentry bowed, and Deconniy inclined his head. “My lady? It’s very late.”

  “Or very early,” agreed Kehera. “Is my lord awake within, do you know?” She was certain no one was getting much sleep this night, not with the Iron Hinge dawning tomorrow—they had actually entered the hinge already, since it was past midnight.

  “Well, yes,” Deconniy admitted. “His Grace sent for hot tea half an hour since. Shall I announce you, my lady? And you, sir?” He peered at Gereth, standing cloaked and hooded beside her.

  “You may announce me,” Kehera said. “But not, I think, my companion, just yet. He can wait in my lord’s antechamber until I send for him to come in.”

  “My lady—”

  “I do insist, Verè. This is to be a . . . surprise for my lord.”

  Deconniy hesitated. The sentry said in a low voice, “His Grace don’t always appreciate surprises much, my lady.”

  At her side, Gereth put back his hood and smiled at the men. “Verè. Hello, Ceriy.”

  “Sir!” exclaimed the sentry, and saluted with enthusiasm. “Of course you can do whatever you wish, sir. And welcome back, sir, and all good luck to you, if I may be so bold!”

  “You’re not bold, and thank you very much, Ceriy. It’s . . . good to be back.” Gereth looked at Captain Deconniy, waiting for his decision.

  “A surprise,” muttered the captain. He rubbed his forehead. “I—that is, it’s good to see you well, sir. My lady . . . if you’re certain about this.”

  “If he’s given warning, he might refuse to see Gereth,” Kehera explained. “But if he sees him first, do you honestly think he’ll send him away? Because I don’t think so at all. And if you do anything to interfere and he does send him away, Captain Deconniy, the duke will be very, very unhappy with you. Not that he’ll admit it. But you know it’s true.”

  “I think . . .” Deconniy paused. The sentry looked at him anxiously. “I think you’re right in every respect,” the captain said finally. He nodded to the sentry to open the door.

  “Yes, sir,” the sentry said earnestly, and added to Gereth, “It’s very good to have you back, sir.” Opening the door, he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “His Grace is in the study. Just let me announce you, my lady, and only you, as you say.”

  Indeed, Kehera could see the light flickering under the door. “Thank you, Ceriy.”

  The sentry nodded and crossed the room to rap softly on the connecting door. At the duke’s answer, he eased the door open and leaned his head within. Kehera heard him murmur, and Innisth’s voice answering. Then he turned back to them and nodded, holding the door a little wider for Kehera to enter.

  He shut it after her. The slight click of the door closing had a sound of finality.

  Innisth did not seem to have gone to bed at all. There were papers, maps and lists, spread out on his desk, with a half-empty cup of tea holding one stack in place and a plate cleared of all but crumbs weighing down another. He held a pen in one hand, the tip glistening with ink that was still wet.

  He stood up politely to greet Kehera, pen still in his hand, wolf-yellow eyes showing a trace of concern. “Yes, my wife?” he said, his tone courteous and just slightly tense.

  “My lord,” Kehera said softly, “I’ve come to beg your pardon.”

  Innisth set down the pen. His eyes followed the movement of his hand and rested for a moment on the cluttered desk. Then he drew in a careful breath and lifted his head again, as though it was not an easy thing to do, to meet her eyes. “What have you done?”

  Without a word, Kehera reached back and rapped the door sharply, once.

  Gereth pushed it open and came in. He wore no concealing hood now. For all his nervousness before this moment, his expression now was calm and confident, and he met the duke’s blank, astonished stare with deep concern, but with no sign of doubt or fear. “Hello, Innisth,” he said very softly.

  Innisth said, disbelievingly, “Gereth.”

  Kehera slipped out the door, and shut it behind her.

  She went up to the roof, to sit in the open air and wait for the Wolf Duke to make his decision and join her. Or send Gereth away and then turn his back on her as well. She knew now that if he made that choice, it would hurt her. Somehow she hadn’t seen that coming, even when she had insisted he go through with the planned marriage. She’d thought about Raëhemaiëth and how its influence would surely moderate Eänetaìsarè. She’d been a little bit afraid of Eänetaìsarè, afraid that its ferocity might influence her own . . . her own idea of herself. But somehow she hadn’t quite thought about whether her actual feelings might have begun to be engaged.

  Now she couldn’t mistake it. But now there was nothing she could do. She had already done everything she could. Either he would come to find her or he would not. So she curled herself into a nook between two crenellations and stared out into the darkness that shrouded the rooftops of Viär and listened to the wind that came down from the mountains. It seemed to her that the wind spoke with the voices of her own land, the many voices of Raëhemaiëth. That was an illusion, of course. She did not need the wind to listen to the Immanent of Raëh. She heard it all the time now. It was afraid. Or Tiro was afraid. Or Eänetaìsarè was afraid . . . though in its case, she would perhaps have said “wary” instead. It gave her courage, or a thread of anger that was like courage.

  But she knew that they all had such good reason to be afraid.

  A pearly tint touched the sky, hardly perceptible at first: dawn approaching at last from the other side of the mountains. Black streaks across the sky traced the curving path of the obsidian winds. The storms were still high, so far. If a winter dragon rode those black winds, she couldn’t see it, yet.

  Soon it would be full morning; the first morning of the Iron Hinge. And then . . . whatever would come, would come. She waited for it patiently, as she had learned as a child to wait patiently. As she waited for a step on the rooftop behind her.

  The morning gradually brightened. For the first time in weeks, the dawn brought neither snow nor sleet nor freezing drizzle. But the sky was opaque, streaked with glassy black. The dawn colors filtered past the perilous midwinter winds and took on strange grayed-apricot and grayed-rose tints. Even the sun looked grayed and dim. Shadows stretched out from the mountains, darker and grimmer than they ever fell during the ordinary days of winter.

  Behind her, there was a step. Kehera turned her head.

  Her husband came forward to stand behind her. He put a careful hand on the back of the chair, close by her neck, not touching her. He was alone. The rising sun behind him cast his features into obscurity. He said, “You have been here all night? Your people have neglected you.”

  �
�They never neglect me. I told them to leave me alone.” Reaching up, Kehera put her hand over his.

  He turned his hand over and closed his fingers gently around hers. “Gereth will stay by me now.”

  “I know. At least—I knew that if you had sent him away again, you would not have come to me afterward. I’m glad. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you have him back, Innisth. Not because of anything else. Just for that.”

  “Yes. I know.” He stood quietly behind her chair for a little while, her hand in his, looking out across the city toward the mountains. The bitter wind blew through his dark hair and ruffled his heavy cloak.

  Kehera leaned her head against the back of the chair and shut her eyes, listening to the wind. It was a spiteful wind, but she was not afraid of it now.

  He said at last, “Gereth made all your arguments again.”

  Kehera opened her eyes. “I know. You’re not angry I sent for him.”

  “No. I do not seem well able to be angry with either of you.” He touched her cheek with just the tips of his fingers.

  Kehera leaned her face into his touch, though she kept her tone neutral. “But he did not persuade you.”

  The duke said, “No.” But he hesitated just perceptibly before he spoke.

  So Gereth had moved him. Kehera had been right to send for him. She and Gereth together might yet change his mind. If there was still time, now that they had entered the Iron Hinge.

  “You are cold. Your hands are icy. Will you come in?”

  It was hard to stand up. The cold had made her stiff. Innisth put a hand under her arm, and Kehera let him take her weight. The warmth indoors was like a furnace for the first moments, almost painful, but after that it was very pleasant.

  But on the stairs, she suddenly found her balance gone, and only Innisth’s quick response saved her from a fall. He spoke to her, but she could not understand his words. She was lost in a surging maelstrom of thoughts and sounds and inhuman memories. Raëhemaiëth. She thought it must be Raëhemaiëth, but the Raëh Power had never felt this way, nor struck into her awareness with so much violence.

  The dizziness faded, and redoubled in strength, and faded again so that she blinked past the flurry of sensations and images and strange awareness that assailed her. She was no longer on the stairs, but the world surged and twisted so that she could not tell where she was. Innisth was beside her; she knew that. She clung to him. But though she knew he spoke, she could not hear him. A tangle of clamoring winds rose again, not exactly winds, but deafening and confusing. It seemed to her that beyond that confusion, there was another kind of clamor, metal crashing against metal, and the shouts and screams of battle. And above that, she heard the resonant cry of a winter dragon, full of the violence and fury of the icy winds, the dark midwinter storms that spun down from the heights. . . .

  The confusion passed as suddenly as it had come. Kehera blinked, and the world settled into its proper relationship with space and solidity. She was in Innisth’s private room in Toren Viärin’s house, half lying on a couch. Her husband was there; she was gripping his hand with both hers. Gereth hovered beyond him, and another man she did not know, who had at his shoulder the poppy-and-thorn physicker’s badge.

  Behind the quiet in the room, she heard again the deadly scream of the dragon. Sitting up, she reached out to her husband, gripping both his hands hard in hers. “Innisth!” she said. “Innisth! Do you not know where the Dragon is? Irekaìmaiäd is at the gates of Raëh; it has come to the very gates!”

  She was hardly aware of Gereth dismissing the physicker with murmured reassurances. All her attention was on her husband, who had straightened sharply as she spoke, his expression closing. “Now is not the time,” he said. He tried gently to break her hold, but she held fast, and of course he would not use violence to throw her off.

  “But it must be now,” she told him fiercely. Her own ferocity astonished her, but she did not give way; determination rose up in her, hot and angry, and she cried, “Now is the only time we will ever have. Don’t you know that, Innisth? This is the only chance we have left! If the Dragon wins in the north now, it will win entirely, and then it will feed all the kingdoms into its endless winds! It will never leave you alone! Never think that is possible!”

  “You are mistaken,” he responded, answering her anger with uncharacteristic quiet. “If I ally now with your brother, we will all be lost together. Eänetaìsarè will not be able to extend itself so far, and we will save nothing. There is nothing I can do to help your brother without losing everything.” He hesitated for just a second and then added, “If your brother saves anything from the day, if he comes to me, I will shelter him and any of his people. I will shelter him if I can, Kehera—”

  “This isn’t about my brother!” Kehera exclaimed. She shoved him violently away, furious at his willful blindness. “Do you think this is about Tiro?”

  Innisth took one step back, caught his balance, and stood still again, looking at her with surprised attention.

  Gereth said quietly, “Nor is this about winning. Sometimes one must fight, even if there is no hope of winning. Had you forgotten that, Innisth? You?”

  The duke said nothing. But Kehera thought Gereth had struck a true blow, where all she had said had seemed to slip off without leaving any mark. She closed her hands until her fingernails bit into her palms and was silent, willing Gereth to continue.

  “You know what has gathered in Raëh,” Gereth said. “Every tie remaining in southern Emmer and northern Harivir. They are all there, all bound to Raëhemaiëth. If you join Eänetaìsarè to that, if you set your strength behind Raëh, how do we know what might be possible? If you bring the strength of Coär and Viär and Risaèn with you, do you think Irekay could break you all?”

  But Innisth only turned his face away and said, “Gereth. My old friend. It is too late.”

  “Even if that’s true, we have to try!” Kehera retorted. “You can’t truly believe the months or years you will be able to wring out of time will be worth leaving the rest of the Four Kingdoms to suffer the destruction as the Irekaïn Power becomes a God!”

  “I cannot save the world. If I set my strength here, around this new kingdom of ours, I will win safety for us all. That is all I can do. I cannot do more.”

  “Innisth—” Kehera began, leaning forward, unwaveringly certain.

  But he said, “It is not possible. I tell you, Kehera, I am sorry for it. But there is nothing I can do.”

  Kehera drew a furious breath, let it out, and recovered her temper enough to look at Gereth for help. The older man lowered his head and sighed. He rubbed his hands slowly together, as though he were cold, but his voice was steady. “I think you’re wrong, Innisth. I hope you’re wrong. But even if you were right, whatever you may believe you’ll gain by standing back and letting the north fall, there is one thing you’ll lose irrevocably by that decision, and there will be no turning time back to retrieve that.”

  Innisth flinched slightly. He turned his wolf-gold eyes to meet Kehera’s gray stare, and she wanted to say something decisive and final. But then she could not think of anything to say, and so was mute.

  “Kehera,” he said very softly, and paused.

  “Innisth,” she answered quietly, using his name as he had used hers. “What shall I say, when I have said everything?” She added in a low voice, “To our shattered dreams we cling, but they break against the beating of our deepest hearts and fears.”

  “It is I—” he began, and stopped, and went on more softly still, so that she could barely hear him. “You must know, Kehera, this will be no good. No matter what I would do, it is too late. A week or more to reach Raëh. Longer for an army. It is too late.”

  But Kehera answered with equal intensity, “Innisth, this may very well be the only good we will ever have. Even if it is too late, we have to try.”

  Then the door opened, and Quòn stepped into the room. Verè Deconniy was behind him; he seemed to have moved to try to prevent Q
uòn from coming unannounced into the duke’s presence, but somehow the man had slipped past him or around him and come in anyway. Innisth straightened in offense, his expression stark and forbidding, pinning Deconniy with a look of hard reproof that made the young captain flinch and duck his head. But Kehera looked at Quòn with sudden hope and said to them all, “Maybe it isn’t too late—if the Fortunate Gods will help us now.”

  Quòn gave Kehera a small nod, not appearing to notice the tension in the room or the duke’s chilly anger. He said calmly, as though continuing an academic conversation about some abstruse theory that wasn’t of much practical importance, “Irekaìmaiäd has learned to use its ties to hollow men in order to transcend the bonds of place and establish bridges between its own lands and distant lands. That is more properly the act of a God; or one might say, such an action is not properly within the purview of any mortal Power. But it has done this, and as fortune would have it, I was not there to prevent it. However, as I am here, I believe the Raëh Power might itself safely form such a bridge between two mortal people, if both hold its close tie and each is willing to yield to the other. It will require the close attention of a God to prevent the apotheosis of the Power, which must afterward be willing to yield its mastery of the ties and resume the bonds of place.”

  There was a short pause. Then Kehera said uncertainly, “I think I understood that.”

  Innisth looked extremely forbidding. But before he could speak, Gereth said to Kehera, “I’d lay any odds that your brother would trust you enough for that to work. I think he can hold his end. He’s grown since he took the tie.”

  Kehera looked at him, looked back at Quòn, took a breath, and nodded. “Of course.”

  Her husband said in a flat tone, “I forbid it.”

  They gazed at one another. Then the duke lifted one eyebrow, and Kehera said in polite introduction, “This is Quòn. I don’t think you’ve met. Don’t blame Captain Deconniy for failing to keep him imprisoned in Eäneté, nor for preventing him from coming here; I’m not sure anyone can stop him going anywhere he wants. He’s a sorcerer, or something like a sorcerer. He bears a tie to a God.”