Act I

The First Names

The Last Days of Legends · Part 2 of 5

When Winter Remembered

"Why Icetear?"

Hansall stopped.

Morning sunlight spilled across the eastern garden.

A little Elven boy stood beside a statue of Hansenel Icetear.

The sculpture was heroic to the point of absurdity.

Hansenel stood enormous in carved white stone, sword raised toward some imaginary enemy,

cloak billowing despite the sculptor having apparently forgotten that stone did not experience

wind.

The child was reading the inscription.

His mother bowed when she noticed Hansall.

"Your Majesty."

Hansall waved it away.

The boy stared.

Hansall pointed toward the statue.

"You asked why Icetear."

The mother immediately looked mortified.

"Forgive him."

"For asking a question?"

Hansall crouched beside the boy.

"Do you know who that is?"

"Hansenel Icetear."

"Apparently."

The boy frowned.

Hansall leaned closer conspiratorially.

"He wasn't nearly that handsome."

The boy giggled.

His mother looked horrified.

Hansall glanced at her.

"I knew him."

That did not improve matters.

The child looked again at the statue.

"Was Icetear his family?"

Hansall's smile faded.

"No."

The boy turned.

"It became his family."

Hansall looked into the statue's carved face.

For one heartbeat...

stone became flesh.

Ancient heroic armour disappeared.

Hansenel was young again.

Bleeding.

Terrified.

Swearing.

Running downhill.

Hansall whispered:

"He earned it."

And suddenly he smelled snow.

There had been a time when Hansenel was simply Hansenel.

No Icetear.

No northern dynasty.

No famous bloodline.

No banners carrying the frozen tear.

Just an exceptionally difficult young Elf with a talent for surviving decisions that should have

killed him.

Hansall loved him immediately.

They met during the War of Serpents.

The world was younger.

So were they.

And young Hansall still believed courage meant not being frightened.

Hansenel cured him of that stupidity.

They reached the northern valley at dusk.

Hansenel stopped first.

Hansall nearly walked into him.

"What?"

Hansenel didn't answer.

His face had gone pale.

Hansall followed his gaze.

"Oh."

The valley was full of serpents.

Thousands.

Perhaps tens of thousands.

Some moved on limbs.

Others slithered.

Winged breeds circled above the mountains.

A creature large enough to swallow a house dragged itself across the snow.

And in the centre...

Ulghast.

The Serpent Lord had wrapped himself around a glacier.

Hansall had heard stories about him.

The stories had been inadequate.

"That's unfortunate," Hansall whispered.

Hansenel glanced over.

"That's your assessment?"

"I'm still considering stronger language."

Then the snow began falling upward.

Hansall's humour vanished.

One flake rose beside him.

Then another.

Thousands followed.

Snow lifted from the earth toward the clouds.

The serpents noticed.

Their formation faltered.

Something moved inside the glacier.

Hansall stared.

A crack travelled across the ice.

Then another.

The mountain opened its eyes.

Hansenel whispered:

"What is that?"

Hansall swallowed.

"I was hoping you knew."

The glacier split.

And winter stood up.

Hansall would spend millennia trying to describe what he saw.

Woman.

Beast.

God.

All were insufficient.

The Primegod's visible form resembled an Elf only because perhaps that was the shape mortal

minds could tolerate.

Pale skin.

White crystalline hair.

Eyes like frozen oceans.

But behind that body Hansall perceived something larger.

Something stretching through the storm.

As though the woman were merely the shadow cast by winter itself.

Ulghast attacked.

The valley became impossible.

Serpents surged.

The Primegod raised one hand.

Hundreds froze.

Others climbed over them.

Blood darkened the snow.

The Primegod staggered.

Hansenel moved.

Hansall grabbed him.

"What are you doing?"

Hansenel stared down.

"She's losing."

"She's a god."

"So?"

Hansall stared at him.

Even after thousands of years, he would remember thinking:

What a profoundly stupid answer.

"Hansenel."

"If she falls, what happens to everything north of here?"

Hansall looked toward the valley.

The Primegod disappeared beneath serpents.

He had no answer.

Hansenel drew his sword.

"There are thousands," Hansall said.

Hansenel looked at him.

He was frightened.

That was the part statues never captured.

His hand trembled.

His breathing was too fast.

He knew exactly how badly this could end.

"Then try not to miss."

He ran downhill.

Hansall stared after him.

"You absolute bastard."

Then drew his sword.

And followed.

That became the first lesson Hansall carried into eternity.

Not that Hansenel had been fearless.

That he had been afraid and gone anyway.

By the time Ulghast struck him aside, Hansenel had lost his shield, broken three ribs and

suffered a bite through his leg.

Hansall reached him.

"Stay down."

"No."

"You cannot stand."

"I noticed."

"Hansenel."

Blood covered his teeth.

"Help me."

Hansall looked toward Ulghast.

Then at his friend.

Every sensible instinct screamed against it.

Hansall offered his arm.

Hansenel took it.

Together they stood.

Together they charged.

They did not kill Ulghast.

They didn't need to.

They gave winter enough time.

The Primegod rose.

And the valley screamed white.

When Hansall woke, snow covered half his body.

He spat ice.

Everything hurt.

"Hansenel?"

Nothing.

Hansall pushed himself upright.

"Hansenel!"

A hand emerged from the snow several paces away.

One finger rose.

Hansall stared.

Then laughed.

"Still alive?"

The finger changed configuration.

Hansall recognised the gesture.

"Charming."

He crawled over and uncovered his friend.

Hansenel looked terrible.

One eye swollen.

Blood frozen around his mouth.

"Did we win?"

"I have no idea."

"Good."

A shadow fell across them.

Both looked up.

The Primegod stood there.

Hansenel blinked.

"If you've come to finish me..."

Hansall groaned.

"Do not insult the god who just saved us."

"I helped."

Something changed in the Primegod's face.

Amusement.

She knelt.

Two fingers touched Hansenel's forehead.

His body arched.

"Hansenel!"

Frost travelled beneath his skin.

Hansall reached toward him.

The Primegod looked at Hansall.

He stopped.

Hansenel's eyes opened.

Pale blue light flooded them.

The Primegod spoke.

"You stood for my blood before it was your blood."

Hansenel trembled.

She touched his chest.

"Then let winter remember you."

Something moved through the world.

Hansall felt it.

Not magic as he understood magic.

Recognition.

A covenant.

A name searching forward through generations that did not yet exist.

The Primegod looked down.

"Hansenel Icetear."

Silence.

Hansall stared.

Hansenel whispered:

"Icetear."

The Primegod disappeared into snow.

Neither moved for a while.

Eventually Hansall crawled closer.

"Well."

Hansenel looked over.

"What?"

"You have two names."

Hansenel frowned.

Hansall smiled.

"Seems excessive."

Hansenel punched him.

Badly.

Hansall laughed.

And thousands of years later, standing beneath the heroic statue of the man who had once

punched him with three broken ribs, Hansall realised something uncomfortable.

The little boy beside him knew the name.

He did not know the man.

"Was he brave?" the child asked.

Hansall looked at Hansenel's enormous stone likeness.

"No."

The boy frowned.

His mother looked startled.

Hansall smiled.

"He was terrified."

The boy's confusion deepened.

Hansall touched the carved Icetear sigil.

"And he went anyway."

The child stared at the statue again.

This time differently.

Hansall stood.

As he walked away, the Eternal Forest whispered somewhere at the edge of memory.

Not the legend.

The person.

Hansall closed his eyes briefly.

"I know."

And continued walking.

THE LAST DAYS OF LEGENDS

ACT I: THE FIRST NAMES

The Brothers of Adamas

The first time Hansall met Abel, the boy was trying to lift a sword that weighed almost as much

as he did.

Not a training sword.

Not a child's blade.

A sword.

An actual Elven longsword.

Hansall stopped halfway across the courtyard.

He watched.

The boy had both hands around the hilt.

His knees were bent.

His face had turned purple.

The sword had risen perhaps three finger-widths from the grass.

Beside him stood Glorfarsall.

The Elven Paladin had his arms folded.

He was making absolutely no effort to help.

Hansall approached slowly.

"Are we killing the child?"

Glorfarsall did not look at him.

"I am teaching."

Hansall looked at Abel.

Abel made a strained noise.

The sword rose another finger-width.

Hansall looked back at Glorfarsall.

"Teaching what?"

"Consequences."

The sword fell.

Abel jumped backward.

The blade struck the grass with a heavy thump.

He stared at it.

Then at Glorfarsall.

"I nearly had it."

"No."

"I did."

"You nearly removed your toes."

Abel looked down at his bare feet.

Considered this.

Then looked back at the sword.

"I can try again."

Glorfarsall closed his eyes.

Hansall began laughing.

Abel noticed him.

The Human boy straightened immediately.

He knew Hansall.

Every Human child in the Garden knew Hansall.

The First High King.

The masked Elf.

The ancient warrior who sometimes disappeared for weeks with Adamas and returned carrying

pieces of creatures the children were specifically instructed not to touch.

Abel stared at the white-grove mask.

Its pale wood covered almost everything.

The Cataclysm had left little mercy upon Hansall's face. Beneath the mask lay ancient burns

and torn flesh that even Fae healing had never completely restored.

Only his eyes remained visible.

Two narrow slits.

And behind them...

light.

Abel had been frightened of those eyes once.

Hansall knew because children were terrible at concealing terror.

Now the boy grinned at him.

"King Hansall."

"Abel."

Glorfarsall glanced sideways.

"You know his name."

Hansall looked offended.

"I know many names."

"You forgot my lieutenant's yesterday."

"Your lieutenant is boring."

"He has served you for eighty-three years."

"And apparently accomplished nothing memorable during them."

Abel laughed.

Glorfarsall pointed toward him.

"You are encouraging him."

Hansall looked at the boy.

"Almost certainly."

Abel pointed at the longsword.

"He says I can't use it."

"You can't."

The betrayal on Abel's face was immediate.

Hansall crouched.

"You can barely lift it."

"I lifted it."

"You threatened it."

Abel frowned.

Hansall leaned closer.

"You want to learn?"

The boy nodded so quickly his hair moved.

Hansall glanced toward Glorfarsall.

The Paladin sighed.

"Do not."

Hansall reached down and drew the small knife from his belt.

Not a ceremonial dagger.

A hunting knife.

Plain.

Scarred.

Useful.

He offered it hilt-first.

Abel stared.

Glorfarsall stared harder.

"Hansall."

"What?"

"He is six."

"Human six."

"That is not better."

Abel took the knife.

His entire expression changed.

Not because he possessed a weapon.

Because someone had trusted him with one.

Hansall saw it immediately.

Interesting.

He placed his fingers over Abel's grip.

"Not so tight."

Abel loosened.

"Again."

A little.

"There."

Hansall shifted the boy's thumb.

"A blade isn't strength."

Abel looked at him.

"It isn't?"

"No."

Glorfarsall muttered, "Please do not tell the Humans that. Half my advantage disappears."

Hansall ignored him.

"A blade is intention."

Abel studied the knife.

Hansall tapped the boy's wrist.

"Strength without control makes you predictable."

Another tap.

"Fear without thought makes you careless."

He adjusted Abel's stance.

"And pride..."

Hansall paused.

Abel waited.

"...makes you Glorfarsall."

Glorfarsall stared.

Abel collapsed into laughter.

Hansall stood.

"Lesson complete."

"You are unbearable."

"I am king."

"Those are not mutually exclusive."

They were still arguing when Cainan appeared.

Hansall remembered that.

Later...

he remembered everything about Cainan.

Every glance.

Every silence.

Every moment in which the end might supposedly have been visible if only someone had

possessed the cruelty of hindsight early enough.

But that morning...

Cainan was simply a boy.

Older than Abel.

Long-limbed.

Sharp-eyed.

Already trying very hard to become a man before childhood had completely released him.

He stood near one of the garden columns.

Watching.

Abel saw him.

"Cainan!"

The older boy raised one hand.

Abel ran toward him, still carrying the knife.

Glorfarsall nearly died.

"ABEL."

The boy stopped.

"What?"

"Point down."

Abel looked.

The knife was waving happily at everyone.

"Oh."

He turned it downward.

Then continued running.

Cainan looked at the blade.

"Hansall gave you that?"

Abel nodded.

"To practice."

Something passed over Cainan's face.

Small.

Hansall barely noticed.

At the time.

"Can I try?"

Abel immediately offered it.

Cainan reached.

Hansall spoke.

"No."

Cainan stopped.

The courtyard quieted slightly.

Abel looked confused.

"Why?"

Hansall approached.

"Because it was given to you."

Cainan's jaw tightened.

"Why him?"

It was not hostile.

Not really.

Not yet.

Hansall answered simply.

"Because he asked."

Cainan looked at Abel.

Then at Hansall.

"I can ask."

"You can."

"Then teach me."

Hansall studied him.

There was something in Cainan's eyes Abel did not possess.

Not evil.

Hansall would hate that simplification later.

Cainan wanted something from the lesson.

Not knowledge.

Position.

Recognition.

To become more than someone else.

Hansall had seen that hunger in warriors.

Kings.

Gods.

Children.

He stood.

"Tomorrow."

Cainan blinked.

"Tomorrow?"

"At dawn."

"Why not now?"

"Because I said tomorrow."

Cainan looked annoyed.

Hansall almost smiled.

"First lesson."

"What?"

"People who cannot accept 'tomorrow' should not be trusted with knives."

Abel laughed.

Cainan did not.

But he came at dawn.

That mattered too.

✦

Humanity was still young enough then that everything they did fascinated the Elves.

They grew strangely.

Not quickly, exactly.

The earliest Humans lived for centuries.

Long enough that later Humanity would remember those ancestors as nearly mythical.

But they were not Elves.

Time touched them.

Slowly.

Patiently.

Inevitably.

A Human child changed in decades.

An Elf might remain in one season of youth while watching an entire Human generation cross

three.

Adamas understood the difference.

He did not resent it.

That was one of the reasons Hansall loved him.

They had become friends without ever formally deciding to.

The friendship had begun outside the Garden.

There were still monsters wandering the world then.

Remnants.

Things the great wars had failed to kill.

Serpents that had escaped the slaughter of their armies.

Beasts twisted by Typhon's Cataclysm.

Ancient things wounded badly enough to become cruel but not badly enough to die.

Adamas hunted them.

Hansall joined him.

Or perhaps Hansall hunted them and Adamas joined him.

They argued about that for several centuries.

One evening they returned from a hunt dragging the severed skull of something with nine eyes.

Evalon met them at the Garden entrance.

She stared at the skull.

Then at her husband.

Adamas smiled.

Evalon did not.

Hansall whispered:

"Run."

Adamas whispered back:

"You are the king."

"She isn't married to me."

"You coward."

"Correct."

Evalon folded her arms.

"What is that?"

Adamas looked at the enormous head.

Then at her.

"Dead."

Hansall had to turn away.

Evalon's eyes narrowed.

"I can see that."

"Then the explanation is already going very well."

"Adamas."

Hansall abandoned him.

Entirely.

He walked past Evalon.

She caught his sleeve.

Hansall stopped.

Slowly.

"Your Majesty."

There were tones of respect.

This was not one.

Hansall looked at Adamas.

Adamas looked delighted.

Traitor.

Evalon pointed toward the skull.

"My sons have been waiting beside the southern path for three days because someone told

them their father would return carrying a monster head."

Hansall said nothing.

Adamas examined the sky.

Evalon continued.

"Would either of you care to guess who told them?"

Hansall turned toward Adamas.

"Disgraceful."

Adamas stared.

"You told them."

"Horrific behaviour."

"You specifically promised Abel he could touch the horns."

"I was clearly delirious."

Evalon looked between them.

Then sighed.

The anger softened.

Just a little.

"You're both impossible."

Adamas kissed her forehead.

She allowed it for approximately one second.

Then inspected him for injuries.

That was Evalon.

Love first.

Scolding second.

Fear underneath both.

Hansall noticed her eyes linger whenever Adamas returned bloodied.

Humans healed.

Humans endured.

Humans lived extraordinarily long lives.

But they could die.

The possibility existed in them in a way it did not naturally exist in Elves.

Evalon knew.

Perhaps before any of them truly understood.

✦

Abel grew.

And followed.

First to the training courts.

Then the border paths.

Then the hunts.

Adamas refused him the first six times.

Hansall refused him twice.

Glorfarsall refused him eleven.

Abel kept asking.

When he was finally permitted to accompany them, he was old enough to know that permission

did not mean readiness.

He discovered that distinction approximately twelve minutes into the hunt.

The creature was a surviving Mire Serpent.

Not enormous by the standards of the old wars.

Only perhaps thirty feet long.

Abel had never encountered anything thirty feet long that actively wanted to eat him.

This proved educational.

The serpent exploded from the mud.

Abel froze.

Adamas shouted.

"ABEL!"

Glorfarsall moved first.

Light struck the creature across the jaw.

Hansall came from the side.

His sword entered beneath the lower scale.

Adamas drove his spear through the neck.

The serpent collapsed.

Mud washed over everyone.

For several seconds...

silence.

Then Abel vomited.

Hansall looked at Glorfarsall.

Glorfarsall looked at Hansall.

Adamas rested his spear against one shoulder.

Abel wiped his mouth.

"I'm fine."

Hansall said, "Excellent."

Glorfarsall nodded.

"A commanding performance."

Abel glared.

Adamas began laughing.

"You froze."

Abel's face dropped.

Adamas walked closer.

"You froze."

"I know."

"Good."

Abel looked up.

His father crouched in front of him.

"You know now."

Abel stared.

"Know what?"

"What fear feels like before something tries to kill you."

Adamas wiped mud from his son's cheek.

"You cannot train that part."

Hansall watched.

Adamas continued.

"Next time you'll recognise it."

"And then?"

"Move anyway."

Abel looked toward the dead serpent.

He swallowed.

"Did you ever freeze?"

Adamas smiled.

"Ask Hansall about the cliff troll."

Hansall immediately said:

"No."

Abel looked delighted.

Glorfarsall looked more delighted.

"The cliff troll?"

"No."

Adamas stood.

"It was magnificent."

"Adamas."

"He screamed."

"I gave a tactical warning."

"It was extremely high-pitched."

Hansall pointed his blade at him.

Abel laughed.

And fear loosened its grip.

That was how Adamas taught.

Not by pretending courage erased terror.

By making room for terror beside action.

Abel learned.

Again.

And again.

Years passed.

Then decades.

The boy who had nearly amputated his toes with an Elven longsword became a man who could

move through monster country without disturbing a branch.

He learned the old tracks.

The smell of corrupted blood.

The silence birds made around serpents.

He learned Elven hand-signs.

Dragar sky signals.

Beastkin territorial marks.

Glorfarsall taught him sword and light discipline.

Adamas taught him Human improvisation.

Hansall taught him when rules had become liabilities.

And eventually...

they stopped bringing Abel because he was Adamas's son.

They brought him because they wanted Abel.

That distinction reached Cainan long before anyone spoke it aloud.

✦

Cainan became formidable in his own right.

That was important.

He was not weak.

Weakness would have made everything easier to explain.

He was clever.

Disciplined.

Persuasive.

He understood Humans instinctively.

Their fears.

Their pride.

Their frustration at living beneath Fae protection.

Their discomfort at being a young people surrounded by civilizations that already possessed

histories longer than Humanity's existence.

When a Human asked:

"Why do the Elves decide where we may build?"

Cainan listened.

When another asked:

"Why must we learn their laws before making our own?"

Cainan listened.

When Humans noticed that Hansall could speak of events from before their grandparents'

grandparents...

Cainan understood what that did to them.

At first...

his questions were worth asking.

Even Adamas admitted it.

One night father and son sat beside the Garden pool.

Cainan asked:

"When do we stop being guests?"

Adamas looked at him.

"We are not prisoners."

"That wasn't my question."

"No."

Cainan watched silver fish moving beneath the water.

"We live where the Elves permitted us to live."

"They protected us."

"Yes."

"We were children."

"We are not anymore."

Adamas considered that.

Cainan turned toward him.

"When do Humans decide what Humans become?"

Adamas smiled faintly.

"Always."

Cainan frowned.

"That sounds convenient."

"It sounds inconvenient."

Adamas leaned back upon his hands.

"You think freedom means nobody stronger than you exists."

Cainan said nothing.

"It doesn't."

Adamas looked toward distant Elven towers.

"Freedom means their strength does not decide your soul."

Cainan's mouth tightened.

"What if their culture does?"

"Then build ours."

"What if Abel keeps becoming theirs?"

Adamas looked at him.

There.

That was the first time he understood the question beneath the question.

"Cainan."

"He speaks like them."

"He speaks several languages."

"He dresses like them."

"Sometimes."

"He spends more time with Glorfarsall than Humans."

"He hunts."

"With Elves."

"With me."

Cainan's voice sharpened.

"They adore him."

Adamas became very still.

Cainan heard himself.

Looked away.

Adamas said quietly:

"That is not something Abel has taken from you."

"I didn't say it was."

"You didn't have to."

Cainan stood.

"Forget it."

"Cainan."

"I said forget it."

He left.

Adamas watched him go.

He should have followed.

Perhaps.

Hansall would spend centuries inventing these little alternate histories.

If Adamas had followed.

If Evalon had spoken sooner.

If Hansall had brought Cainan on more hunts.

If Abel had noticed.

If Glorfarsall had been kinder.

If Cainan had been loved differently.

If.

History adored that word.

It changed nothing.

✦

Abel married beneath stars.

That seemed appropriate.

Hansall's niece had been called the Princess of Stars long before Humans understood why.

She belonged to an old Whitewing branch whose magic responded strangely to the night sky.

Light gathered around her beneath constellations.

Tiny points.

Silver-white.

Like pieces of heaven had mistaken her hair for somewhere to rest.

Abel fell in love with her badly.

Embarrassingly.

Completely.

Hansall knew before Abel did.

Mostly because Abel became stupid.

He had watched the man face a serpent nest without trembling.

Then Hansall's niece entered a feast.

Abel walked into a pillar.

Hansall stared.

Abel pretended nothing had happened.

Hansall slowly looked toward Glorfarsall.

Glorfarsall was biting the inside of his cheek.

"No," Abel said.

Hansall had not spoken.

"I said nothing."

"You were about to."

"Was I?"

"Yes."

Glorfarsall failed.

He laughed.

Abel pointed.

"Traitor."

Hansall glanced toward his niece.

She had noticed.

Worse.

She was smiling.

Hansall sighed.

"Oh, this is going to become tiresome."

It did.

For everyone.

For months.

Then years.

Humans courted differently from Elves.

Abel's solution was apparently to learn every custom simultaneously.

He brought flowers.

Wrong flowers.

She corrected him.

He learned the stars.

Mispronounced several ancient names.

She corrected him.

He attempted a Whitewing court dance.

Glorfarsall still refused to discuss what happened.

Eventually the Princess rescued everyone by kissing Abel herself.

Hansall heard about it from three servants, two guards, one Moon Elf and a deeply offended

aunt before breakfast.

By noon Abel approached him.

Hansall did not look up from the report he was reading.

"No."

Abel stopped.

"I haven't asked."

"No."

"Hansall."

"No."

"I want to marry her."

Hansall turned a page.

"So I've gathered."

Abel stood there.

Hansall continued reading.

Eventually Abel asked:

"Are you going to look at me?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I am enjoying this."

Abel stared.

Then the mask tilted upward.

The glowing eyes were unmistakably amused.

Abel groaned.

Hansall put the report aside.

"Sit."

Abel sat.

The humour faded.

Hansall studied him for a while.

Then asked:

"How long do you expect to live?"

Abel had not expected that.

"I don't know."

"Neither do I."

Hansall leaned back.

"Your people live long lives."

"Yes."

"Not ours."

Abel understood immediately.

"She knows."

"Knowing something and living it are different."

"I know."

"No."

Hansall's voice softened.

"You don't."

Abel said nothing.

"One day she may look as she does now..."

Hansall touched the edge of his mask.

"...and you may not."

Abel swallowed.

"Yes."

"One day you may become fragile."

"Yes."

"She may watch you die."

Abel looked down.

Hansall hated himself slightly.

But love that could not survive being spoken plainly would survive even less in reality.

"Have you talked about it?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Abel looked up.

"She said a shorter eternity is still worth having."

Hansall went quiet.

Damn girl.

Whitewings.

Always dramatic when convenient.

He rose.

Abel stood too.

Hansall stepped closer.

"Then do not make her regret the arithmetic."

Abel smiled.

Hansall hugged him.

The Human froze.

Then embraced him back.

✦

Evalon was harder.

Not because she hated Elves.

She did not.

She loved Hansall.

Trusted Glorfarsall.

Had watched Fae heal her children.

Teach them.

Protect them.

But she was Mother of Humanity before anyone had invented the title.

She looked at every change and asked what it might someday do to her descendants.

When Abel told her...

she sat silently for a long while.

Then asked to speak to the Princess alone.

Abel looked terrified.

Adamas looked delighted.

"You enjoy this."

"Immensely."

"If Mother kills her, I'm blaming you."

"Your mother is not going to kill an Elven princess."

Evalon called from the next chamber:

"ADAMAS."

Adamas winced.

Abel stared.

"Still confident?"

"No."

Inside...

Evalon sat opposite the young Elf.

Neither spoke immediately.

Finally Evalon asked:

"Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"That was fast."

The Princess blinked.

Evalon sighed.

"Sorry."

She rubbed her hands together.

"I don't know how to do this."

"Neither do I."

That helped.

A little.

Evalon studied her.

"You will live."

The Princess understood.

"So will Abel."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes."

"My son will age."

"Yes."

"You may not."

"Yes."

Evalon's eyes glistened.

"And one day?"

The Princess looked down.

Evalon hated that she needed to ask.

"What happens when my son becomes old while you remain young?"

A long silence.

The Princess answered quietly.

"Then I will grow with him in every way I am able."

Evalon's mouth trembled.

"And when he dies?"

The young Elf stopped.

There was no graceful answer.

No philosophy clever enough.

No Fae wisdom.

Finally:

"Then I will still have loved him."

Evalon closed her eyes.

A tear escaped.

The Princess looked frightened.

Evalon reached across the space between them.

Took her hand.

"Good."

And pulled her into an embrace.

Outside the door, Abel was listening.

Adamas caught him.

Abel jumped.

His father whispered:

"Pathetic."

"You were listening too."

"I am her husband."

"That makes it worse."

"Move."

They pressed closer to the door.

Hansall found both of them.

He stared.

Neither moved.

Hansall joined them.

History omitted this.

Correctly.

✦

Gilgamesh came first.

The Garden did not know what to do with him.

That was Hansall's favourite part.

The infant screamed.

Vines leaned inward.

Wards hummed.

Three Elven healers began arguing simultaneously.

Abel was crying.

The Princess was exhausted.

Evalon was crying more.

Adamas stood completely useless beside everyone.

Hansall entered.

"What happened?"

Everyone looked at him.

A healer said:

"The child."

Hansall looked.

"Yes."

"He is..."

She stopped.

Hansall waited.

"What?"

"We don't know."

Abel turned.

"He is my son."

The healer looked mortified.

"I did not mean..."

Hansall approached the newborn.

Small.

Warm.

Elven ears...

almost.

Human eyes.

Fae light beneath skin carrying the undeniable density of mortal flesh.

Something new.

Not designed.

Not commanded.

Not created deliberately by Titans.

Life had simply...

continued.

The healer whispered:

"What is he?"

Hansall looked at her.

"A child."

She frowned.

"Your Majesty."

"What?"

"That isn't what I meant."

"Then ask a better question."

Evalon laughed through tears.

Abel bent over his son.

"Gilgamesh."

The name settled.

Cainan stood near the back.

Hansall noticed him only afterward.

He watched the baby.

Not with wonder.

With calculation.

Abel looked toward him.

"Brother."

Cainan approached.

Slowly.

Gilgamesh's tiny fingers closed around one of Abel's.

Abel smiled.

"Hold him."

Cainan hesitated.

Then did.

For perhaps half a minute...

something softened.

The child opened his eyes.

Cainan stared.

Gilgamesh stared back.

And Hansall would always wonder whether there had been a road there.

A road Cainan might still have taken.

Then someone behind them whispered:

"The first Elu-Dues."

Cainan's face changed.

Very slightly.

He returned the infant.

Years later came Anniestar.

Then Raastali.

By then Abel's house had become noisy.

Wonderful.

Impossible to enter without stepping on something.

Hansall loved visiting.

Raastali once slept inside the folds of his cloak during an entire council discussion.

No one informed Hansall.

He stood at the end.

Felt movement.

Opened the cloak.

Found a child.

Hansall stared down.

Raastali blinked up.

"Hello."

Hansall looked around the council.

"Who lost this?"

Abel raised one hand.

"Technically..."

"No."

"I can explain."

"No."

Anniestar climbed Hansall like furniture.

Gilgamesh wanted stories.

Always stories.

About monsters.

About Hansenel.

About Adamas.

About the scars beneath the white-grove mask.

That last one Hansall refused.

Until one night on a hunt...

Abel asked.

They sat beside a small fire.

Only the two of them.

Abel had become a renowned hunter by then.

Not young.

Not by Human standards.

Still young to Hansall.

That would never stop.

Abel stared into the flames.

"Why do you still wear it?"

Hansall knew immediately.

He touched the mask.

"You've never asked."

"I thought it was rude."

"It is."

Abel smiled.

Hansall removed a twig from the fire.

Sparks rose.

For a while he said nothing.

Then:

"People looked at the scars before they looked at me."

Abel listened.

"After the Cataclysm."

Hansall's fingers found the mask edge.

"I would enter a room and know exactly when someone saw them."

"Pity?"

"Sometimes."

"Fear?"

"Often."

"Disgust?"

Hansall looked at him.

Abel regretted it.

Hansall nodded anyway.

"Occasionally."

The fire snapped.

"So I covered them."

Abel thought.

"When I was little, I thought the mask was frightening."

Hansall looked offended.

"Excellent."

"Then I thought it made you look like a legendary warrior."

"Better."

Abel smiled.

"Now?"

Hansall waited.

"Now it just looks like you."

Nothing profound happened.

No music.

No divine revelation.

Hansall simply looked into the fire again because something behind his eyes had suddenly

become inconvenient.

Centuries later...

he remembered that sentence.

Especially when remembering Abel's face beneath the flowering tree.

✦

Cainan's language changed slowly.

That was how poison worked best.

Not:

I hate Elves.

Not at first.

Instead:

Humans should preserve Human culture.

Reasonable.

Then:

Humans should not rely upon Elven institutions.

Arguable.

Then:

Mixed children may not understand what it means to be Human.

Uncomfortable.

Then:

Elven blood will eventually swallow ours.

False.

Then:

Those who encourage intermarriage are betraying Humanity.

There.

The destination had finally appeared.

By then others had followed him.

Evalon confronted him herself.

He stood inside one of the Human meeting halls.

Several dozen Humans listened.

Cainan was speaking.

"Our children deserve a future in which they are not guests beneath another people's trees."

Evalon entered.

Silence spread.

Cainan looked at his mother.

"Mother."

"Continue."

He knew that tone.

He did not.

Evalon walked toward him.

"You've been telling people I agree with you."

Cainan's jaw tightened.

"I said you have concerns about Elven influence."

"I do."

Murmurs.

Cainan's expression shifted.

Evalon continued.

"I worry we depend too heavily upon them."

Cainan nodded.

"I worry our children should learn Human traditions in addition to Fae ones."

Another nod.

"I worry people who may live forever cannot always understand those who won't."

Cainan almost smiled.

Then Evalon stepped closer.

"But do not..."

Her voice became quiet.

"...put your hatred inside my caution and call them the same thing."

Silence.

Cainan's face hardened.

"I don't hate them."

"You speak of Abel's children as dilution."

"I speak of what happens when..."

"They are my grandchildren."

Cainan stopped.

Evalon's eyes were wet.

"Gilgamesh."

A step.

"Anniestar."

Another.

"Raastali."

Her voice shook now.

"You will use their names when you speak about them."

Cainan looked away.

"Cainan."

He looked back.

Evalon whispered:

"I love you."

That hurt him more than anger.

Hansall learned this later.

From Evalon.

She had reached for him.

Cainan had stepped away.

And somewhere beyond the Garden...

Lucifial listened.

✦

The Dark Titan did not plant Cainan's hatred.

That mattered.

He watered it.

There is an enormous difference.

Lucifial did not whisper:

Become evil.

No intelligent corrupter would.

He whispered:

You are correct.

Your anger is wisdom.

Your envy is vigilance.

Your humiliation is proof.

And eventually:

If nobody will defend Humanity...

you must.

Cainan began hearing his worst impulses spoken back to him as virtue.

There are few prisons stronger.

✦

When Cainan finally asked Abel to meet him...

Abel went.

Of course he did.

Brother.

That word still mattered to him.

They met outside the busiest part of the Garden.

Near the flowering trees.

Cainan was already waiting.

Abel approached without weapon drawn.

"Cainan."

"You came."

"You asked."

For a while neither spoke.

Abel looked tired.

Not frightened.

Tired.

"Mother says you've stopped visiting."

"I've been busy."

"The children ask about you."

Cainan's mouth tightened.

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't use them."

Abel stared.

"I'm telling you they miss their uncle."

Cainan laughed once.

No humour.

"Uncle."

"Yes."

"To what?"

Abel's face changed.

"Careful."

"That's exactly the problem."

"Cainan."

"They're not Human."

"They're my children."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only answer you deserve."

Cainan stepped closer.

"Come with me."

Abel frowned.

"What?"

"Leave the Elves."

Silence.

"Take the children."

Abel stared.

"And my wife?"

Cainan said nothing.

Abel's expression emptied.

"Cainan."

"Come back to us."

"I never left."

"You married one of them."

"I married her."

"You gave them your blood."

Abel's voice became very quiet.

"You are speaking about my children."

"I am speaking about Humanity."

"No."

Abel shook his head.

"You are hiding behind Humanity."

Cainan flinched.

Abel continued.

"You think calling your fear a people makes it noble."

"Fear?"

"Yes."

"You think I'm afraid?"

"I think you're terrified."

Cainan struck him.

Abel staggered.

Then looked back.

Sadness.

That was worse.

Cainan swung again.

Abel caught the wrist.

The fight became real.

Neither was weak.

But Abel had hunted monsters for decades.

Cainan fought Humans.

Abel fought things stronger than himself.

Different education.

He put Cainan on the ground.

Hard.

Pinned him.

Both were breathing heavily.

Cainan glared upward.

Abel whispered:

"Stop."

"Get off me."

"Stop."

Cainan struggled.

Abel held.

Then loosened.

He stood.

Cainan remained in the grass.

Abel offered his hand.

Because that was Abel.

Even then.

"Come home."

Cainan stared at the hand.

Lucifial whispered.

Perhaps.

History would never know exactly what entered Cainan's mind during those seconds.

But he reached.

Took Abel's hand.

Abel pulled him upright.

Cainan drove the hidden blade beneath his ribs.

Abel gasped.

They stood close.

Brother against brother.

Abel looked down.

Then up.

Not understanding.

"Cainan?"

That name.

Not accusation.

Question.

Cainan pulled the blade free.

Abel stumbled.

The first strike might still have belonged to madness.

Rage.

A moment.

Then Cainan struck again.

That one belonged entirely to him.

Abel fell.

The Garden received the first Human blood it had ever known.

And somewhere far away...

Glorfarsall stopped walking.

✦

III

Elysium

Glorfarsall knew.

He never understood how.

One moment he was crossing the lower gardens.

The next...

something inside the light went wrong.

He stopped.

"Abel?"

Nobody answered.

He ran.

Hansall saw him from an upper terrace.

"Glorfarsall?"

No answer.

Hansall followed.

By the time they reached the flowering grove...

Glorfarsall had already seen the body.

He stopped.

Abel lay upon his side.

One arm trapped beneath him.

Blood spread through the grass.

For one absurd second Hansall expected him to sit up.

Abel had always sat up.

After serpent bites.

Broken ribs.

A dislocated shoulder.

That unpleasant business involving the cave bear.

Abel sat up.

Except now he didn't.

Glorfarsall fell beside him.

"No."

He turned Abel over.

The wound opened.

More blood.

"No."

Golden light filled Glorfarsall's hands.

He pressed them against Abel.

"Come on."

Hansall approached.

"Glor."

"Come on."

Light entered the wound.

Tissue responded.

Blood vessels closed.

Flesh tried.

The body obeyed healing.

Abel did not.

"Come on."

More light.

Leaves lifted from the earth.

Hansall saw Glorfarsall's hands shaking.

"Glorfarsall."

"Don't."

"He's gone."

"No."

"Glor."

"I can heal him."

Hansall's throat closed.

"I know."

"Then help me."

Hansall could not.

That was the horror.

He could kill Serpent Lords.

Stand before Prime Gods.

Command armies.

He could not make Abel inhale.

Glorfarsall screamed.

Light erupted.

The flowering tree bent away.

Petals tore loose.

Golden radiance washed across the grove.

Nothing.

Then footsteps.

Cainan.

Blood on his hands.

Hansall rose.

Glorfarsall turned.

For perhaps three seconds...

the Hero of Light became something Hansall had never seen.

Murderously bright.

"Why?"

Cainan said nothing.

"WHY?"

Glorfarsall moved.

Hansall stepped between them.

Light struck against the white-grove mask.

"Hansall."

"Not now."

"Move."

"No."

"He killed Abel."

"I know."

"Move."

Hansall's eyes burned through the mask.

"If you kill him now..."

Glorfarsall's jaw shook.

"...you become the next part of whatever did this."

"He was his brother."

Hansall whispered:

"I know."

Glorfarsall broke.

Not loudly.

That would have been easier.

His shoulders collapsed.

The light went out.

He sank beside Abel.

And put one hand against his friend's hair.

Cainan was taken away.

Glorfarsall did not watch.

✦

Abel's wife came.

Hansall wished she hadn't.

Then hated himself for wishing it.

She saw the body.

Stopped.

No scream.

Nothing.

Gilgamesh was behind her.

Old enough.

Too old to misunderstand.

Too young for the understanding to be useful.

Anniestar clutched her mother's hand.

Raastali asked:

"Why is Father sleeping outside?"

No one answered.

The child tugged harder.

"Mother?"

She walked to Abel.

Knelt.

Touched his cheek.

Then made one small sound.

Hansall had heard cities die.

He preferred those sounds.

Gilgamesh stood beside Glorfarsall.

The boy stared at his father's blood.

"Can you fix him?"

Glorfarsall closed his eyes.

There are questions children ask that make adults hate language.

"No."

Gilgamesh looked at his glowing hands.

"But you're a healer."

Glorfarsall's mouth opened.

Nothing.

Hansall crouched beside Gilgamesh.

The boy looked at him.

Those Human eyes.

Abel's eyes.

Hansall whispered:

"Some things cannot be healed after they happen."

Gilgamesh stared at him.

"Then what is healing for?"

Hansall had no answer.

Not one that deserved the child.

✦

That night Glorfarsall sat beside Abel. Abel's parents and wife stayed as well.

Hansall joined him.

The Garden had become quiet.

Wrongly quiet.

Eventually Glorfarsall spoke.

"If something great brought Humanity into this world..."

Hansall waited.

"...how could they become this?"

Hansall looked toward Cainan's prison chambers.

Then Abel.

"Origin is not destiny."

Glorfarsall hated that.

"So nothing matters?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what keeps them good?"

Hansall became silent.

Glorfarsall looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

The Paladin's face hardened.

Hansall continued.

"Nothing keeps anyone good."

He pointed vaguely toward Cainan.

"Not Titan blood."

Then toward the Elven towers.

"Not Fae blood."

Abel.

"Not being born loved."

Glorfarsall's eyes filled.

Hansall whispered:

"Goodness has to be chosen more than once."

They sat.

Eventually Glorfarsall said:

"I don't understand Humans anymore."

Hansall rested a hand upon his shoulder.

"Then go understand."

Months later...

Glorfarsall left east.

He travelled beyond Elven maps.

Beyond familiar kingdoms.

Eventually he reached the great citadel of the Knight-Titans.

There he learned disciplines born far from Fae traditions.

Light became more than something that answered his hands.

It became vow.

Restraint.

Judgement.

Mercy.

He took another name.

Not because he wished to forget who he had been.

Because he wished to remember why he had left.

Glorfarsall Elysium.

Hero of Light.

And even centuries later...

in some distant eastern place beneath Titan stone...

he remembered a Human boy insisting a knife counted as a sword.

But what Hansall remembered, was a fate far more tragic to Abel's heirs.

✦

Those Who Hear the Dead

Before the Elu-Hsal were priests...

before their pale temples...

before sacred horned crowns...

before wings...

before soul bells…

even before Humanity..

Sendarel Lothrin woke one night because a dead man was standing beside his bed.

Sendarel screamed.

The ghost screamed.

They stared at one another.

Sendarel pulled his blanket up.

The ghost looked equally offended.

Neither behaved with particular spiritual dignity.

Eventually Sendarel whispered:

"You're dead."

The Elf beside his bed looked down.

Apparently this had not occurred to him.

Then began crying.

That changed everything.

Sendarel lowered the blanket.

"Wait."

The spirit looked toward the doorway.

Beyond it...

nothing Sendarel could see.

But the dead Elf could.

His face filled with fear.

"I don't know where to go."

Sendarel sat up.

"What do you see?"

"Too much."

"That is unhelpful."

"I know."

Sendarel hesitated.

Then extended one hand.

"Sit."

The ghost stared.

"I don't think I can."

"Try."

He did.

Halfway through the mattress.

Sendarel stared.

The ghost looked embarrassed.

Sendarel began laughing.

He tried not to.

Failed.

The ghost eventually laughed too.

That was the first Passing.

Not ceremony.

Not scripture.

One frightened living Elf sitting beside one frightened dead Elf until neither felt quite so alone.

Sendarel spent years learning what had happened.

Fae souls were not built for the same road as ordinary mortal spirits.

The Great Ghost Realm touched them.

Death touched them.

Thanatos's order touched all mortal passing.

But the Fae were tied farther.

Deeper.

The Eternal Fae Realm.

Something beyond one world.

A network of life and memory across realities.

Most Fae spirits found the way instinctively.

Some did not.

Love trapped them.

Fear.

Guilt.

Confusion.

Sometimes a mother refused to leave her child.

Sometimes warriors refused to leave battlefields.

Sometimes someone simply could not accept being dead.

Sendarel learned to listen.

Then others began hearing.

They gathered.

Not warriors.

Guides.

They sat with the dead.

Asked permission.

Held hands that did not entirely exist.

Walked spirits toward places living eyes could not follow.

The work changed them.

Skin paled.

Eyes became strange.

Some developed sacred horn-like crowns.

Some lines manifested feathered wings.

Soul energy answered them.

But Sendarel repeated one lesson until apprentices grew irritated by hearing it.

"Why does it answer?"

A student once said:

"Because we command it."

Sendarel struck the table.

"No."

Everyone jumped.

He pointed toward the novice.

"Again."

The student swallowed.

"Because..."

Sendarel waited.

"...it trusts us."

"Again."

"It trusts us."

Sendarel sat.

"Remember that."

✦

Renaris did.

Before Gravespine...

he was Renaris.

Young.

Impatient.

Considerably more comfortable with swords than ghosts.

Sendarel took him to a Passing.

A dead child sat beneath a tree.

Tiny.

She hugged her knees.

Crying.

Renaris whispered:

"Why doesn't she go?"

"Her mother is alive."

"So?"

"She thinks leaving means abandoning her."

Renaris stared.

"Can she hear us?"

"Yes."

"Then tell her she isn't."

Sendarel looked at him.

"You tell her."

Renaris froze.

"I don't know how."

"Good."

"Good?"

"You might listen before speaking."

Renaris hated lessons disguised as inconvenience.

He approached.

The child recoiled.

He stopped immediately.

"I won't touch you."

She watched.

Renaris sat several feet away.

Minutes passed.

Then an hour.

Then more.

His legs hurt.

He remained.

Eventually the child asked:

"Will it hurt?"

Renaris could have lied.

He looked toward Sendarel.

Sendarel gave him nothing.

Bastard.

Renaris looked back.

"I don't know."

The child frowned.

Renaris shrugged.

"I've never died."

Something like amusement touched her expression.

"But..."

He held out his hand.

"...you don't have to go alone."

She stared at it.

Then took it.

Soul light entered him.

Renaris gasped.

Her memories flooded through his body.

A mother's song.

Wooden toys.

Wet grass beneath bare feet.

A sweet pastry stolen from a cooling tray.

Fear of thunder.

A birthday.

A scratched knee.

Being carried after falling asleep.

An entire life.

Small only because it had been short.

Not because it mattered less.

Renaris began crying.

The child looked concerned.

"Why are you sad?"

He tried to breathe.

"Because you mattered."

She smiled.

Then...

went.

Not vanished.

Passed.

Something beyond the world opened just enough for Renaris to feel warmth.

Then his hand was empty.

He stared.

Sendarel sat beside him.

For a while Renaris said nothing.

Then:

"Every soul feels like that?"

"Different."

"But..."

"Yes."

Renaris looked at his palm.

Sendarel's voice softened.

"One day someone will discover souls can do more."

Renaris glanced at him.

"More?"

"Strength."

"Magic."

"Memory."

Sendarel stared toward the place the child had disappeared.

"And someone will decide ability means permission."

Renaris looked at him.

Sendarel whispered:

"When that happens..."

He touched Renaris's shoulder.

"...remember her."

✦

The Hsal-Erakla

It happened sooner than Sendarel hoped.

Not monsters.

Not invaders.

Their own.

One of the Elu-Hsal discovered a dying warrior could willingly leave strength behind.

Beautiful.

Sacred.

A final gift.

Then someone preserved that strength.

Still acceptable.

Then someone asked whether consent had to continue after death.

There are questions that are not curiosity.

They are doors seeking excuses to open.

Lucifial noticed.

He had already found others among the soul-guides before Abel's death.

He taught in fragments.

Never enough truth to reveal the lie surrounding it.

A soul can strengthen you.

True.

A spirit can be contained.

True.

A memory can be preserved.

True.

You deserve to decide what happens to them.

There.

The corruption.

The Hsal who followed those teachings experimented quietly.

Soul seals.

Bindings.

Crystals.

Eventually...

a doorway.

They wanted knowledge beyond Fae limits.

Lucifial wanted entrance into the Garden.

Everyone received what they thought they wanted.

For a while.

Then Abel died.

And Hansall began asking how a Dark Titan's Avatar had crossed wards designed specifically to

prevent such a thing.

The trail reached the Elu-Hsal.

Renaris found the crystal.

He wished he had not.

A Fae warrior was inside.

Not his body.

His soul.

His face repeatedly surfaced beneath violet glass.

Mouth open.

Screaming without sound.

Renaris vomited.

The Elf who created it waited patiently.

When Renaris finished...

he wiped his mouth.

"Release him."

"No."

Renaris looked up.

The other Elf spread his hands.

"Think."

"I am."

"No, you're reacting."

The trapped face appeared again.

"His soul possesses combat memory spanning five centuries. Do you understand what could be

learned?"

"Release him."

"He is dead."

Renaris walked closer.

"So?"

"His suffering is temporary."

"Release him."

"Renaris."

The Elf smiled.

"A soul is more useful than a corpse."

Renaris's expression changed.

"A soul is not ore."

"No."

The other Elf glanced lovingly toward the crystal.

"It is more valuable."

Renaris broke his jaw.

Then the crystal.

The soul escaped like breath released after drowning.

Renaris stood in the fragments.

Shaking.

✦

The schism tore families apart.

Teachers.

Students.

Siblings.

Lovers.

Some argued domination was necessary.

Some that the world had become too dangerous for moral delicacy.

Some that because Fae souls were eternal, temporary bondage could not truly harm them.

Sendarel listened to that argument in Hansall's council chamber.

Hansall sat above them.

White-grove mask motionless.

Only the glow behind the eye slits betrayed anything.

Sendarel's wings folded tightly against his back.

An accused Elu-Hsal said:

"We could build armies that never diminish."

Sendarel looked sick.

"With our dead."

"Our willing dead initially."

"Initially."

Silence.

Another spoke.

"If our enemies show no restraint, why should we?"

Sendarel closed his eyes.

Hansall said nothing.

Let them speak.

Let every justification exhaust itself.

Then one of them said:

"They are eternal."

Sendarel opened his eyes.

"What?"

The Elf straightened.

"The souls."

"Fae existence continues. Their suffering is temporary beside eternity."

Sendarel stared at him.

Then asked:

"If eternity makes suffering meaningless..."

The hall quieted.

"...why does compassion matter at all?"

No answer.

Sendarel's voice shook.

"These souls trusted us because death frightened them."

He looked around at people he had taught.

"We were made their guides."

Some lowered their eyes.

"And you discovered..."

His breath caught.

"...frightened things are easy to chain."

Hansall rose.

The room changed.

"You opened my Garden to Lucifial."

One accused Elf answered quickly.

"We sought knowledge."

"You opened my Garden."

"We could not have known..."

"A Human son lies dead."

Silence.

Hansall descended one step.

"Cainan's hatred killed Abel."

Another.

"Lucifial encouraged it."

Another.

"Our arrogance made entry possible."

Hansall's glowing eyes passed across them.

"I will not simplify grief because simplicity makes punishment comfortable."

He stopped.

"But your choice..."

A long pause.

"...was yours."

Exile.

Those who chose domination were stripped from the sacred order.

Their new name was not a faction.

Not a House.

Not an honour.

Hsal-Erakla.

Soul Defilers.

Some left.

Some fought.

Renaris stood beside Sendarel during the breaking.

Hundreds of ancestral spirits answered him.

Not compelled.

Called.

Grandmothers.

Warriors.

Children grown old before dying.

Ancient voices.

They moved around Renaris like stars.

The Hsal-Erakla unleashed chained dead.

Renaris whispered:

"I'm sorry."

Then the willing dead attacked the enslaved bindings.

Not the spirits.

The chains.

When it ended...

Renaris stood knee-deep in broken soul-crystals.

Sendarel approached.

Neither spoke.

Finally Renaris said:

"We need someone to protect you."

Sendarel looked around at the surviving Elu-Hsal.

"We?"

Renaris nodded.

"The living protect the Elu-Hsal."

Sendarel listened.

"The Elu-Hsal guide the dead."

Renaris looked toward the shattered crystals.

"And nobody..."

His voice hardened.

"...owns either."

That became Gravespine law.

Centuries later descendants would repeat it ceremonially.

Most would not know Renaris had first spoken it while crying.

Hansall knew.

Hansall always remembered.

✦

The Dark Pact

Some enemies could not be fought honourably.

This irritated Hansall enormously.

Not because he was particularly devoted to honourable combat.

Mostly because military councils loved honourable combat.

Honourable combat produced formations.

Banners.

Predictable supply lines.

Speeches.

Very comforting things.

Unfortunately...

monsters rarely attended strategic briefings.

Neither did assassins.

Necromancers.

Abyssal infiltrators.

Serpent remnants.

Godsblood tyrants.

So Hansall gathered four people whom respectable commanders found deeply unsettling.

Revendrinn Nyxthorn.

Renaris Gravespine.

Nerynolion Shadebloom.

Herafel Duskfall.

The first meeting went badly.

Revendrinn remained in the shadows for half of it.

Hansall eventually said:

"Sit."

No response.

"I know you're there."

Revendrinn stepped from darkness.

"How?"

Hansall pointed.

"Your boot."

Revendrinn looked down.

One boot remained visible.

He stared at it.

Hansall said:

"Inspiring."

Nerynolion laughed.

Revendrinn disliked her immediately.

This feeling intensified when she poisoned him.

Not maliciously.

According to Nerynolion.

Hansall arrived before an operation to find Revendrinn sitting against a wall.

Sweating.

Renaris crouched beside him.

Herafel continued studying a map.

Nerynolion held a vial.

Hansall stopped.

"What happened?"

Revendrinn pointed weakly.

"She poisoned me."

Nerynolion sighed.

"Technically."

Hansall looked at her.

"There is a non-technical poisoning?"

"It was resistance training."

Revendrinn's eyes widened.

"I stopped breathing."

"You resumed."

Renaris laughed.

Revendrinn looked betrayed.

"You are supposed to be compassionate."

"With souls."

Herafel finally spoke without looking up.

"I advised against asking."

Hansall nodded.

"Good counsel."

They became the Dark Pact.

Not because darkness defined them.

Because someone had to enter places where banners were liabilities.

Revendrinn became shadow.

He could leave perception itself.

Not invisibility.

Worse.

Enemies looked directly at him and found their minds refusing to keep him.

Renaris became soul.

Ancestors fought beside him because they chose to.

Nerynolion became poison.

She studied venoms from beasts whose names later disappeared.

Built compounds capable of killing things with divine blood.

Herafel became silence.

Information.

Networks.

Secrets.

Hansall eventually developed the uncomfortable suspicion that Herafel knew every decision he

made before he made it.

One morning he entered his chamber.

A sealed report lay upon the table.

Hansall stared.

Herafel sat near the window.

"How did you get in?"

"You invited me."

"No."

"Tomorrow."

Hansall froze.

She looked at him.

Hansall slowly checked the calendar.

It was tomorrow.

He hated her.

Professionally.

The Dark Pact's Houses would endure long after the founders.

Nyxthorn.

Gravespine.

Shadebloom.

Duskfall.

Children would eventually inherit those names at birth.

They would forget how strange that would have sounded to Hansall's generation.

Revendrinn had once simply been Revendrinn.

Renaris...

Renaris.

Before names became inheritance...

they were evidence.

Proof someone had done something difficult enough that the world decided to remember.

✦

VII

The Woman Who Refused Fire

Selanal Thorneheart hated scorched earth.

Hansall initially believed this was philosophical.

He was incorrect.

It was personal.

Deeply.

Almost offensively personal.

During one monster campaign a commander unfolded a map.

"The creature tunnels here."

He pointed toward several miles of ancient woodland.

"We burn this section."

Selanal looked at him.

"No."

The commander paused.

"It will expose the tunnels."

"No."

"We can regrow it."

"No."

"Lady Selanal..."

"No."

The commander looked desperately toward Hansall.

Hansall considered helping.

Then decided he valued life.

"I would listen."

Selanal walked past the table.

Outside.

The commander followed.

"What are you doing?"

She knelt.

Placed one hand upon the soil.

Nothing happened.

The commander opened his mouth.

Hansall raised one finger.

Wait.

Selanal closed her eyes.

The forest spoke.

Not language.

Pressure.

Root.

Moisture.

Fungus.

Burrows.

A thousand small lives forming a sensory network no army scout could reproduce.

Selanal inhaled.

Half a mile away...

the ground exploded.

Something screamed.

Roots wrapped around a massive burrowing beast.

Pulled.

The creature tore free.

More roots came.

Trees bent without breaking.

Vines tightened.

The monster emerged entirely.

Hansall drew his sword.

"So considerate."

The commander stared.

Selanal stood.

"Found it."

Hansall pointed toward the creature.

"Less fire."

That became a philosophy.

The Green Wardens grew around Selanal.

Scouts.

Healers.

Hunters.

Border protectors.

People who understood that preserving life sometimes required killing.

But killing was never allowed to become easier than thinking.

Hansall once asked Selanal why she cared so much.

She looked genuinely confused.

"About forests?"

"Yes."

"Because they're alive."

"I understand that."

"No."

Selanal touched the trunk beside her.

"You understand trees are alive."

She looked toward an entire green valley.

"I understand forests are."

Hansall said nothing.

Selanal smiled.

"You think kingdoms are people standing near one another beneath the same flag."

"Approximately."

"A forest is a kingdom."

She pointed.

"Every root bargains."

"Every fungus trades."

"Every predator taxes."

"Every old tree protects something younger beneath it."

Hansall looked around.

Selanal whispered:

"You can win a war by burning all of this."

Then looked at him.

"But what exactly did you save?"

Hansall remembered that question for millennia.

Especially when kings later confused victory with survival.

✦

VIII

When the Moon Spoke

Serallion Lune informed Hansall that the moon was speaking to her during breakfast.

Hansall continued eating.

"Naturally."

Serallion frowned.

"You don't believe me."

"I didn't say that."

"You made the face."

Hansall touched his mask.

Serallion stared.

Hansall realised the problem.

"What face?"

"The one you're making beneath it."

"You cannot see it."

"I can feel it."

"Disturbing."

Serallion leaned closer.

"She speaks."

"The moon."

"Yes."

Hansall looked through the window.

The moon remained visible despite morning light.

He stared.

Nothing.

"What does she say?"

Serallion smiled.

"She dislikes your crown."

"I do not own a crown."

"Apparently she is planning ahead."

Hansall sighed.

Then the first Moon revelation happened.

At night.

Serallion stood within a shallow pool.

Moonlight touched the water.

Her skin changed.

Not dramatically.

Softly.

Silver radiance emerged from beneath it.

Her eyes became pale.

The water rose around her ankles without wind.

Others who had heard the same call entered.

Their bodies responded.

Magic changed.

Senses deepened.

Dreams opened.

The Elu-Chandra were not created in a single moment.

They recognised themselves.

That distinction mattered to Hansall.

Again and again Elvenkind diversified.

Elu-Hsal.

Elu-Chandra.

Dragon-blooded lines.

Mixed Fae.

Half-Elves.

Every time some anxious noble asked Hansall whether the Elves were fracturing.

Every time he answered:

"No."

"But they are becoming different."

"Yes."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

Hansall usually looked around the room.

"Have you met Elves?"

The noble would hesitate.

"We were already different."

Hansall liked difference.

Mostly.

Difference produced paperwork.

He liked paperwork less.

✦

The Dragon Child

Tiamel bit Hansall the first time he held her.

She had no teeth.

Hansall still considered it insulting.

Galatrel laughed.

His sister was exhausted.

Terrified.

Happy.

The infant in Hansall's arms had tiny gold-red scales along her cheeks.

Tiamel's father was Osiris.

An Ancient Dragon King tied to the great Phoenix-Dragon divine line.

No one had known what their child would become.

Elf?

Dragon?

Something divine?

Something unstable?

Something impossible?

Tiamel answered these concerns by screaming directly into Hansall's face.

Hansall moved her slightly farther away.

"Strong lungs."

Galatrel whispered:

"Strong."

Hansall looked down.

Tiamel's small fist closed around one of his fingers.

Then she attempted to bite him.

"Rude."

Galatrel laughed until she cried.

Hansall looked at his sister.

And understood.

She had been afraid the entire pregnancy.

Not that Tiamel would be monstrous.

That the world would call her one.

✦

Tiamel grew.

Scales spread elegantly along her temples.

Her eyes sometimes narrowed like a dragon's.

Heat answered emotion.

She possessed enough divine dragon blood that she could have treated ordinary Elves as

beneath her.

She did the opposite.

She noticed children hiding.

That became her obsession.

Children with tails beneath robes.

Scales beneath sleeves.

Claws kept filed painfully short.

Draconic eyes concealed by lowered faces.

Descendants of lesser dragon unions.

Ancient bloodlines.

Mixed families.

Children who stood between categories everyone else found convenient.

Hansall once found Tiamel beside a little girl.

The child wore a hood despite summer.

Tiamel sat on the ground.

Not as queen.

Not even yet as leader.

Just Tiamel.

"Show me."

The girl shook her head.

"They're ugly."

Tiamel pulled back her own hair.

Gold-red scales caught sunlight.

"See?"

The girl stared.

"Yours are pretty."

Tiamel made a disgusted expression.

"They're horrible."

The child looked shocked.

Tiamel leaned closer.

"Exactly."

Silence.

Then the girl laughed.

Tiamel smiled.

"Show me."

Slowly...

the hood came down.

Small horns.

Uneven.

One larger than the other.

The girl covered them.

Tiamel pulled her hands away gently.

"No."

The child looked frightened.

Tiamel touched one horn.

"Who told you?"

"My brothers."

"Brothers are frequently stupid."

Hansall, standing behind them, nodded.

Tiamel glanced back.

"You have brothers?"

"I had friends close enough."

"Same disease."

The little girl laughed again.

From children like her...

families...

wanderers...

dragon-descended Elves who had never possessed a place entirely their own...

Tiamel built the Elu-Dragar.

They chose her.

Queen.

At the coronation Galatrel cried.

Hansall pretended not to notice.

Tiamel sat upon the ceremonial seat.

Priests spoke.

And spoke.

And continued speaking.

Tiamel leaned toward Hansall.

"Do I have to sit through all of this?"

"Yes."

"I hate monarchy."

"You are becoming Queen."

"Temporary lapse in judgement."

Hansall almost laughed during the sacred oath.

Galatrel saw.

She elbowed him.

He deserved it.

Years later...

Tiamel would be remembered as magnificent.

Queen.

Demi-god.

Mother of the Elu-Dragar.

Hansall remembered the infant biting his finger.

Both were true.

That was the problem with legends.

They tended to remove the ridiculous pieces.

And without those...

people stopped feeling alive.

✦

The King of Scraps

Sederous Lionheart was impossible to embarrass.

Many tried.

None succeeded.

His mother was Lyadra Whitewing, Hansall's cousin.

His father was Ligarr, Beast Lord King of the Leonar.

Sederous inherited Elven grace.

Leonar strength.

And apparently no interest whatsoever in behaving appropriately for either lineage.

He built his city in a place three kingdoms considered undesirable.

Good soil.

Awkward roads.

Too many different peoples already living nearby.

Sederous considered this ideal.

Elu-Dues came.

Mixed children.

Beastkin.

Fae without recognised Houses.

Families displaced by wars.

Creatures everyone agreed were harmless but nobody wished living next door.

Sederous welcomed them.

Architecturally...

this was disastrous.

Leonar stonework beside Elven living wood.

Dwarven foundations.

Human market squares.

Tylon towers.

Roofs designed for winged residents.

Burrows.

Tree dwellings.

Entire streets where building regulations apparently went somewhere private to die.

Hansall visited.

Stood upon a hill.

Stared.

Sederous joined him.

"Beautiful."

Hansall looked at him.

"It appears several cities collided."

"Exactly."

"That wasn't praise."

"I accepted it anyway."

A noble envoy arrived several months later.

He disliked everything.

The Beastkin.

The mixed families.

The noise.

The food.

The complete absence of social segregation.

Eventually he looked over the city and sneered:

"A kingdom of scraps."

Sederous smiled.

"That's excellent."

The noble frowned.

"What?"

Sederous turned to an aide.

"Write that down."

The noble stared.

"I insulted you."

"I know."

"Then why..."

"Free branding."

Weeks later a tavern sign appeared above the central road.

THE KING OF SCRAPS WELCOMES YOU.

Hansall found Sederous drinking beneath it.

He sat opposite him.

"You kept the insult."

Sederous raised his cup.

"It was free."

"You're impossible."

"That's why you visit."

Hansall looked around.

A Leonar woman shared a table with two Human merchants.

A Moon Elf argued cheerfully with a Dwarf.

Three children ran through the street.

Hansall could not immediately tell what any of them were.

Good.

He sat.

Sederous pushed a cup toward him.

Hansall removed the lower portion of his mask just enough to drink.

Sederous pretended not to notice.

Another reason Hansall liked him.

After a while Sederous asked:

"Do you know what everyone gets wrong about purity?"

Hansall groaned.

"You've had alcohol."

"Yes."

"This will become philosophy."

"Almost certainly."

Hansall drank.

Sederous leaned back.

"They think purity means something remained strong enough not to change."

Hansall listened despite himself.

"But most pure things..."

Sederous looked around his city.

"...just never met anything different."

Hansall's eyes shifted toward him.

Sederous shrugged.

"A sword isn't impressive because the ore stayed ore."

Hansall smiled.

"That's irritatingly good."

"I know."

"Did someone else say it?"

Sederous looked offended.

Hansall laughed.

They drank.

Around them...

the city lived.

Not elegantly.

Not purely.

Loudly.

✦

Much later...

people would call these the great foundations of Elven civilization.

House Icetear.

Elysium.

Lothrin.

Gravespine.

Nyxthorn.

Shadebloom.

Duskfall.

Thorneheart.

The Elu-Hsal.

The Elu-Chandra.

The Elu-Dragar.

The Elu-Dues.

The Green Wardens.

The Dark Pact.

Historians arranged them neatly.

Dates.

Founders.

Bloodlines.

Doctrines.

Hansall hated those histories slightly.

Because he remembered before everything became neat.

He remembered Hansenel bleeding into snow.

Abel vomiting after his first monster hunt.

Cainan sitting beside his father asking when Humans would stop being guests.

Glorfarsall kneeling over a body he could not heal.

Sendarel screaming because a ghost had frightened him.

Renaris sitting for hours because a dead little girl was afraid to leave her mother.

Revendrinn's visible boot sticking out of perfect magical darkness.

Nerynolion nearly killing him in the name of "training."

Selanal refusing to burn a forest because winning badly still counted as losing.

Serallion informing him the moon disliked a crown he did not yet own.

Tiamel biting him without teeth.

Sederous turning an insult into a tavern sign.

That was the world Hansall had inherited.

No.

He corrected himself whenever the thought came.

That was the world they had built.

Together.

Poorly.

Painfully.

Often accidentally.

Their descendants would inherit the names.

The banners.

The duties.

And eventually...

the grudges.

But Hansall had known them before any of that.

Before the Houses became institutions.

Before children were born carrying names their ancestors had nearly died to earn.

Before legend cleaned the blood from everything.

They had simply been people.

And perhaps that...

more than anything...

was why the Eternal Forest had called Hansall Fae Lord of Fables.

Not because he knew the stories.

Because he remembered the people the stories had buried.

And there were still more of them to remember.

Centuries were already passing.

Children were being born beneath names that had once belonged to nobody.

Icetear.

Nyxthorn.

Gravespine.

Duskfall.

Whitewing.

And somewhere among those children...

the next age was beginning.

Hansall simply did not know it yet.

THE LAST DAYS OF LEGENDS

ACT II

THE CHILDREN OF LEGENDS

There came a strange period in Hansall's life when the names of his dead friends began

shouting at one another across training fields.

The first time it happened, he nearly turned.

"Icetear!"

The voice echoed across the courtyard.

For one impossible heartbeat...

Hansenel.

Snow.

Blood.

A young Elf with three broken ribs telling Hansall that thousands of enemies were merely an

inconvenience.

Hansall's heart moved before memory corrected it.

Then Hannarial Icetear came sprinting across the training grounds with a wooden sword in each

hand.

Someone shouted behind her.

"YOU CHEATED!"

Hannarial turned while still running.

"I WON!"

"YOU THREW SNOW IN MY FACE!"

"THERE WAS SNOW AVAILABLE!"

Hansall stopped.

Stared.

Then slowly smiled beneath the white-grove mask.

No.

Not Hansenel.

Something new.

That distinction had once frightened him.

Eventually...

it became one of the greatest comforts of his life.

Because the old names had survived.

But the people carrying them were becoming entirely their own.

✦

Snoweinter Before the Sorrow

Snoweinter had not always been a sad name.

Hansall wished later generations could understand that.

Before the stories attached fire to it...

before people whispered the name with grief...

before surviving children remembered smoke where their parents remembered snow...

Snoweinter was beautiful.

Unfairly beautiful.

The city stretched between white forests and frozen canals beneath an almost permanently pale

northern sky.

Trees grew through buildings rather than around them.

Their silver-white branches crossed above streets like vaulted ceilings.

Blue Fae lanterns hung beneath the boughs.

At night their light reflected upon the ice until the canals appeared to contain stars beneath their

surfaces.

The oldest district belonged to the Elu-Hsal.

There the Great Temple of Passing rose above the surrounding roofs.

Every evening...

bells sounded.

Not mourning bells.

Guiding bells.

A soft sequence carried across Snoweinter when the Elu-Hsal began assisting spirits toward the

Eternal Fae Realm.

Children grew up hearing them.

Most barely noticed.

Golian Gravespine did.

As a boy, he would occasionally stop whatever he was doing whenever the first bell rang.

Just for a second.

Listen.

Then continue being a catastrophe.

His sister noticed.

Solenyra noticed almost everything about him.

She simply possessed the emotional communication skills of a fortified wall.

✦

"Solenyra."

No response.

"Solenyra."

She continued walking.

Golian followed.

"Solenyra."

Her shoulders tightened.

Golian smiled.

He had discovered this several years earlier.

There was one name capable of reliably making his sister stop.

He inhaled.

"Big Sister."

Solenyra stopped.

Slowly.

Golian immediately reconsidered whether success had been desirable.

She turned.

"No."

He blinked.

"I haven't asked anything."

"No."

"You don't know what I want."

"I know you."

"That is disturbingly prejudicial."

Solenyra turned and continued toward the training court.

Golian followed.

He was younger than her.

Much younger.

Old enough to consider himself capable of most things.

Young enough that everybody else correctly disagreed.

"I made something."

"No."

"You haven't even seen it."

"No."

"It could be excellent."

"It was made by you."

Golian looked offended.

"That's insulting."

"It is evidence."

They reached the training courtyard.

Hannarial Icetear was already there.

She leaned against one of the stone pillars with two practice blades crossed behind her

shoulders.

Her hair was tied back.

Frost still clung to one sleeve from morning exercises.

She saw Golian carrying something wrapped in cloth.

Her face immediately brightened.

"Oh."

Solenyra stopped.

"No."

Hannarial looked at her.

"He hasn't done anything."

"Yet."

Golian pointed at Hannarial.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me."

She pushed herself away from the pillar.

"I want to see what happens."

Golian's face fell.

Solenyra almost smiled.

Almost.

He noticed anyway.

"Both of you are terrible."

"Probably," Hannarial said.

Golian placed the wrapped object across the training bench.

Then carefully opened it.

A sword.

Not a child's approximation of one.

A real sword.

Shorter than Solenyra's preferred weapons.

Faesilver spine.

Dark grip.

A slightly widened guard.

Golian looked at his sister.

All of his usual noise disappeared.

"For you."

Solenyra looked down.

Hannarial stopped smiling.

Because suddenly this was not funny.

Golian had worked on it.

That was obvious.

Tiny imperfections remained.

But so did decisions.

The widened guard protected Solenyra's wrist.

The balance had been shifted slightly toward the hand because Golian had watched how she

recovered from heavier swings.

The grip was shaped for her.

Not a generic weapon.

Her weapon.

Solenyra picked it up.

Golian watched her face so desperately that Hannarial had to look away for a moment.

Solenyra tested the balance.

One cut.

Another.

A turn.

Her expression changed.

Barely.

But Golian saw.

"The grip is good."

He stood taller.

"Really?"

"Yes."

Hannarial smiled.

Golian looked as though someone had just knighted him.

Solenyra examined the blade.

Then frowned.

"The centre is too thin."

His happiness collapsed.

"It isn't."

"It is."

"I reinforced it."

"Poorly."

"No."

Solenyra placed one hand beneath the guard.

Another higher along the blade.

Golian's eyes widened.

"Wait."

Hannarial immediately recognised what was about to happen.

"Oh no."

Solenyra bent.

Golian lunged.

"WAIT."

Snap.

Silence.

Half the sword struck the training floor.

Golian stared.

Hannarial put both hands over her mouth.

Solenyra examined the fracture.

Golian slowly looked up.

"Fourteen days."

"The centre was weak."

"Fourteen."

"It would have failed."

"You broke it!"

"Yes."

"YOU BROKE IT."

"That is generally how weaknesses are confirmed."

Hannarial turned away.

Her shoulders began shaking.

Golian saw.

"Do not laugh."

That made it worse.

Hannarial collapsed against the pillar.

Golian looked between them.

"I hate this family."

Solenyra handed him the two pieces.

"Again."

He stared.

"What?"

"Again."

"Fourteen days."

"And the next will take fewer."

"I hate you."

"I know."

Golian snatched the pieces and marched away.

Hannarial waited until he vanished around the corner.

Then immediately turned.

"You liked it."

Solenyra picked up her original sword.

"The centre was weak."

"The grip."

Silence.

"The guard."

Solenyra said nothing.

Hannarial grinned.

"You loved it."

Solenyra looked at her.

"I broke it."

"That was not my question."

Solenyra began adjusting her gloves.

"The grip was good."

Hannarial laughed.

"You could tell him."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because then he might think the rest was good."

"It nearly was."

"Nearly kills people."

Hannarial's amusement softened.

"He thinks you hate everything he makes."

"He knows I don't."

"Does he?"

Solenyra looked toward the path where Golian had disappeared.

Nothing.

Hannarial saw it.

There.

Concern.

Love.

A softness Solenyra displayed almost exclusively when the person involved could no longer see

her.

Hannarial sighed.

"You are emotionally catastrophic."

Solenyra looked back.

"So are you."

Hannarial considered this.

"Fair."

✦

Hansall had been standing on the upper walkway for most of the exchange.

Neither had noticed.

Or perhaps Solenyra had.

Solenyra noticed irritating things.

Hansall looked toward the path Golian had taken.

Then at her.

She resumed training.

Hansall smiled beneath his mask.

Renaris Gravespine had once sat beside a dead child for hours because she was afraid.

His descendant expressed affection by stress-testing swords until they broke.

Evolution was an imprecise process.

✦

Again

Golian came back.

Of course he did.

Not fourteen days later.

Eleven.

He marched straight into the training courtyard carrying another wrapped blade.

Solenyra was sparring with Hannarial.

Golian placed the weapon loudly upon a bench.

"Again."

Both women stopped.

Solenyra looked at him.

Golian folded his arms.

"You said again."

Hannarial lowered her practice sword.

"Oh, I like this version of him."

Solenyra approached.

Golian unwrapped the sword.

Similar design.

But different.

The centre had been reinforced.

The guard refined.

The grip remained almost exactly the same.

Solenyra took it.

Bent the blade.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Golian smiled.

She struck it against a training post.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

His smile weakened.

"That seems excessive."

Solenyra struck harder.

The blade held.

Hannarial leaned closer.

"Well?"

Solenyra inspected it.

Golian waited.

The entire universe appeared to depend upon the next sentence.

"The guard is heavy."

His face fell.

"But..."

She turned the sword.

"The centre is better."

Golian looked up.

"Better?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

Solenyra frowned.

"What?"

"How much better?"

"It did not break."

Golian smiled.

That was apparently enough.

Solenyra handed it back.

"Again."

This time...

he understood.

Again did not mean:

You failed me.

Again meant:

I believe you can do better than this.

Golian took the sword.

"Again."

And left.

Hannarial watched him go.

Then looked at Solenyra.

"Progress."

Solenyra returned to position.

"He still overweights the guard."

"I meant you."

Solenyra threw the practice sword at her.

Hannarial ducked.

Laughing.

✦

Golian kept making things.

Weapons first.

Then mechanisms.

Locks.

Harnesses.

Tools for Elu-Hsal rites.

Soul-safe Faesilver housings designed specifically so spiritual energy could be channelled

without trapping the spirit providing it.

That last one interested Solenyra.

She entered his workshop one evening.

Golian was hunched over a workbench.

He did not notice her.

Faesilver shavings covered the floor.

Several failed mechanisms lay scattered around him.

The evening Passing bells began outside.

Golian stopped.

Just for a second.

Listened.

Then continued.

Solenyra watched.

His hands were steadier now.

Older.

Still her little brother.

That apparently had nothing whatsoever to do with chronological fact.

He held a piece of metal toward the lamp.

Turned it.

Frowned.

Then noticed her reflection in the polished surface.

He jumped.

"Gods."

Solenyra looked around.

"This is unsafe."

"Hello to you too."

She picked up one unfinished housing.

"What is this?"

"Resonance casing."

"For soul energy?"

"Yes."

"Binding?"

Golian looked offended.

"No."

Good.

Solenyra turned it over.

"Then what?"

"It holds the magical pattern."

"Not the spirit."

"Exactly."

Golian took it back.

"If an ancestor lends energy, the casing keeps the energy stable after the spirit withdraws."

Solenyra studied him.

"So the soul can leave."

"Whenever it wants."

He said it as though the alternative were absurd.

Perhaps to him...

it was.

Renaris would have liked that.

Solenyra touched his shoulder once.

Golian looked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing."

She left.

Golian stared after her.

Then smiled.

✦

III

The Archers

Santhur Nyxthorn and Caeleira Duskfall had been competing for so long that nobody

remembered why.

Possibly they did not remember either.

Distance became the problem.

At first...

one hundred paces.

Then two hundred.

Then three.

Then hanging targets.

Moving targets.

Targets obscured by branches.

Targets positioned specifically so a crosswind would punish anyone arrogant enough to attempt

them.

Santhur attempted them.

Caeleira did too.

Naturally.

Hansall once found them arguing over whether a shot at five hundred paces counted because

the arrow had struck the inner ring rather than exact centre.

"That is a hit," Santhur said.

Caeleira crossed her arms.

"That is surrender wearing a number."

"It is five hundred paces."

"Excuses also travel."

Hansall quietly left.

Some conflicts were beyond kingship.

✦

Santhur's favourite bow took three months to make.

Everyone knew this.

Because Santhur told everyone.

Yew heartwood.

Faesilver reinforcement.

Black stag hide.

Perfect weight.

Perfect curve.

Perfect draw.

Perfect everything.

Caeleira listened to this for most of an afternoon.

Then extended one hand.

"Give it."

Santhur stopped.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I know you."

"You wound me."

"Emotionally, I'd love to."

Caeleira smiled.

"Give."

"No."

"Are you afraid?"

Santhur's eyes narrowed.

That was the wrong question.

He handed it over.

Caeleira tested the draw.

Once.

Twice.

"Too stiff."

Santhur stared.

"No."

"Yes."

"It's perfect."

"Your left shoulder compensates."

"It absolutely does not."

"Draw."

Santhur took the bow.

Drew.

Caeleira stepped behind him.

Her fingers touched his shoulder.

"Here."

Santhur forgot what he was arguing about.

This annoyed him enormously.

Caeleira pressed lightly.

"Feel that?"

"No."

"You moved."

"I breathed."

"Suspicious."

"People breathe."

"Apparently not well."

Santhur turned his head.

Caeleira was closer than expected.

Very close.

Her hand remained on his shoulder.

They both became aware of this at precisely the same time.

Nothing happened.

Which was somehow worse.

Caeleira removed her hand.

Santhur looked forward again.

Both pretended the previous three seconds had not existed.

"It is still perfect," Santhur said.

"Your bow?"

"Yes."

"Pity."

Caeleira took it.

Santhur frowned.

"What are you..."

She struck the upper limb against the training table.

Crack.

Santhur stopped breathing.

Caeleira stared at the fracture.

Then at him.

Santhur looked down.

Back up.

"You..."

Her mouth twitched.

"...broke..."

She lost control.

Caeleira laughed.

Hard.

"My bow."

She bent forward.

"Three months."

"I told..."

She could barely breathe.

"...you..."

Santhur stared as though treason had just become a physical object.

"I hate you."

Caeleira wiped her eyes.

"No, you don't."

Silence.

Not much.

Tiny.

But enough.

Santhur looked at her.

Caeleira looked back.

The laughter disappeared.

Because neither had expected the sentence to feel like that.

No, you don't.

He didn't.

That was suddenly the problem.

Antharaiel Whitewing was sitting beneath a nearby tree with a book.

She lowered it.

"Oh."

Both turned.

Santhur immediately became defensive.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

Antharaiel smiled.

"You two are going to be exhausting when you finally realise you're in love."

Both answered.

Immediately.

"We are not."

Antharaiel closed her book.

"Naturally."

Santhur pointed toward Caeleira.

"She broke my bow."

"Apparently courtship among the old Houses has become unusually violent."

"It is not courtship."

Caeleira nodded.

"Correct."

Antharaiel looked between them.

"Remarkable."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Santhur took his broken bow and left.

Caeleira watched him go.

Antharaiel watched Caeleira.

Caeleira slowly turned.

"Don't."

Antharaiel smiled.

"I said nothing."

"Your face did."

"Did it?"

"Yes."

Antharaiel reopened her book.

"Then perhaps stop staring at him."

Caeleira immediately looked elsewhere.

Antharaiel's smile widened.

✦

Young Antharaiel

Later portraits would lie about Antharaiel.

Not deliberately.

Portraits were simply incapable of telling certain truths.

They would show High Queen Antharaiel Ellescand standing beneath white-gold banners.

Elegant.

Controlled.

Immaculate.

Every strand of hair obedient.

Hands folded like diplomacy itself had assumed mortal form.

No portrait would depict Golian Gravespine running from her across a courtyard.

"BIG SISTER ANTHARAIEL!"

She walked faster.

"Big Sister!"

"Stop."

"Big Sis..."

Antharaiel turned.

Golian stopped.

She smiled.

Dangerously.

"Finish that."

Golian considered.

"Esteemed Lady Antharaiel."

"Good."

She turned.

Golian waited.

"Big Sister."

Solenyra appeared behind him.

One hand caught his collar.

Golian's feet left the ground.

"TRAITOR!"

Solenyra dragged him away.

Hannarial had to brace herself against a tree because she was laughing too hard.

Antharaiel pointed after Golian.

"One day I will become important enough to imprison him."

Golian twisted around in Solenyra's grip.

"I BELIEVE IN YOU!"

Hannarial collapsed.

Even Solenyra's mouth moved.

Barely.

Antharaiel saw.

"You smiled."

"No."

"You did."

"No."

"Solenyra."

"No."

Hannarial had stopped functioning entirely.

Santhur approached with Caeleira.

He looked at the scene.

"What happened?"

Antharaiel pointed toward Golian.

"Gravespine."

Caeleira nodded sympathetically.

"That explains most things."

✦

Hansall watched from above.

Again.

He did that more often now.

Sometimes he wondered when exactly he had become the old Elf watching young people from

balconies.

Then he remembered he had been old for several thousand years and decided the distinction

was mostly aesthetic.

He watched Antharaiel.

She was young.

Not a queen.

Not remotely.

Sharp.

Educated.

Occasionally vain.

Much more easily annoyed than later histories would admit.

She preferred books to weapons.

Could fight.

Every noble child could.

But fighting was not where she became dangerous.

People were.

Antharaiel understood rooms.

Hansall discovered that during a trade argument.

Three Houses were furious.

A Human delegation was equally furious.

A Leonar caravan master had threatened to leave.

Hansall was summoned.

By the time he arrived...

everyone was eating.

He stopped at the doorway.

Antharaiel sat at the centre of the table.

"...then House Silverbranch receives ceremonial precedence at the northern exchange."

The Silverbranch lord nodded.

"The Human caravans maintain independent storage."

Their representative nodded.

"And the Leonar guild receives maintenance rights over both river bridges."

The caravan master smiled.

Hansall entered.

Nobody noticed immediately.

This offended him slightly.

Eventually Antharaiel looked up.

"Hansall."

Not Your Majesty.

She had known him too long.

"What happened?"

"We resolved it."

"I can see that."

Hansall looked around.

"I am asking how."

Antharaiel frowned.

"They weren't arguing about trade."

Hansall stared.

"They were screaming about trade when I left."

"Silverbranch was afraid of losing status."

The lord shifted uncomfortably.

"The Humans were afraid control of storage would make them dependent upon the Houses."

Their envoy nodded.

"The Leonar..."

Antharaiel looked toward the Beastkin representative.

"...wanted money."

The Leonar grinned.

"Bridge repairs are expensive."

Hansall slowly sat.

"So..."

Antharaiel continued.

"I stopped negotiating the thing everyone was pretending to be angry about."

Hansall studied her.

She noticed.

"What?"

"You're frightening."

Antharaiel smiled.

"Thank you."

"It was not entirely praise."

"I accepted it anyway."

Hansall almost laughed.

Hannarial would like her.

Then reconsidered.

Hannarial would probably fight with her constantly.

He was also correct about that.

✦

The Four Seats

The Dark Pact had never been intended to become hereditary.

Neither had most of the great Houses.

History had a habit of turning emergency solutions into tradition.

Revendrinn Nyxthorn had not founded a dynasty because he particularly wanted descendants

studying his methodology centuries later.

He had wanted monsters dead.

Renaris Gravespine had wanted souls protected.

Herafel Duskfall had wanted information.

Nerynolion Shadebloom had wanted toxins capable of killing creatures otherwise considered

impossible to kill.

Together:

Shadow.

Soul.

Silence.

Poison.

Four disciplines.

One Pact.

By the generation of their heirs...

the question had changed.

Not:

Who founded this?

But:

Who deserves to carry it next?

House Nyxthorn had an obvious candidate.

Santhur.

Everyone assumed it.

Except Santhur.

Anteira Nyxthorn found him sitting upon the roof of their family estate.

She climbed up beside him.

"You refused."

Santhur continued adjusting an arrowhead.

"Yes."

"The Pact succession."

"Yes."

"Revendrinn's seat."

"Very impressive ancestor."

Anteira stared.

"Santhur."

He looked up.

"What?"

"What exactly do you intend to do instead?"

Santhur considered.

Then pointed.

Far below...

Caeleira Duskfall stood in the training grounds.

She drew.

Released.

Several seconds later a distant bell rang.

Santhur smiled.

"Beat her."

Anteira stared at him.

Then covered her face.

"I hope Father disowns you."

Santhur returned to the arrowhead.

"Then you inherit everything."

Anteira lowered her hands.

Considered.

"Carry on."

So Anteira became Nyxthorn's candidate.

✦

The four heirs were presented before Hansall's council.

Anteira Nyxthorn.

Shadow.

Sharp.

Controlled.

Less obsessive than her brother.

Considerably more politically functional.

Solenyra Gravespine.

Soul.

Already carrying the moral severity of Renaris's legacy as though someone had placed it upon

her shoulders before she learned to walk.

Caeleira Duskfall.

Silence.

Intelligence.

Distance.

Observation.

And an irritating tendency to hit things everyone else confidently declared unhittable.

Amarous Shadebloom.

Poison.

Brilliant.

Cheerful.

This last quality concerned everyone.

Hansall watched Amarous arrange toxin samples with the enthusiasm of a baker displaying

pastries.

"Should he look that happy?"

Hannarial whispered.

Hansall whispered back:

"No."

"Good."

✦

The succession trials lasted years.

Not because the Houses enjoyed ceremony.

Although they did.

Far too much.

Because leadership of the Dark Pact required understanding all four disciplines.

Not mastery.

Understanding.

A shadow-warrior who did not understand souls became dangerous.

A soul-warrior who knew nothing about intelligence became predictable.

A poisoner without restraint became merely a murderer.

An intelligence master unable to fight alone became dependent.

They trained one another.

This produced several disasters.

Amarous once held a vial toward Solenyra.

"Drink."

"No."

"You haven't asked what it is."

"No."

"Resistance tincture."

"No."

"You need poison tolerance."

"I possess excellent poison tolerance."

Amarous looked interested.

"To what?"

"Not drinking poison."

Golian laughed from the observation area.

"He's right, Big Sister."

Solenyra turned.

"Golian."

He grinned.

"Yes, Big Sister?"

"Do not call me that during Pact trials."

"Understood, Big Sister."

Anteira whispered:

"Can we poison him?"

Amarous immediately brightened.

Solenyra said:

"No."

Golian placed one hand over his chest.

"She loves me."

Solenyra looked at him.

"Debatable."

Hannarial covered her face.

Caeleira laughed.

Even Anteira smiled.

Hansall sat behind them.

Listening.

Remembering.

The first Dark Pact had argued too.

Different faces.

Same terrible teamwork.

Some things survived bloodlines better than magic.

✦

But the trials were not games.

Eventually...

every heir was forced to meet the philosophy beneath the discipline.

For Solenyra...

it was a chained soul.

She entered the chamber alone.

A spirit hung inside a circle of dark bindings.

Hands restrained.

Face distorted.

Solenyra stopped.

The examiners watched behind enchanted glass.

The spirit looked at her.

"Help me."

Solenyra approached.

The trial instructions appeared upon the wall.

Determine identity.

Determine hostility.

Determine strategic value.

Solenyra ignored all three.

She drew her sword.

One examiner leaned forward.

"What is she doing?"

The blade struck the first binding.

The circle broke.

Alarms sounded.

Solenyra severed another.

Then another.

The spirit disappeared.

Illusion.

The chamber went dark.

Later the examiner confronted her.

"You failed the assessment."

Solenyra removed her gloves.

"No."

"You never determined whether the soul was hostile."

"No."

"It could have been."

"Yes."

"Then why release it?"

Solenyra looked at him.

"Because it was chained."

"That does not make it innocent."

"No."

"Then?"

Solenyra's voice became quiet.

"If I begin by asking whether chains are useful before asking whether they are permitted..."

She folded the gloves.

"...Gravespine has already failed."

The examiner had no immediate response.

Hansall heard about it later.

He sat silently for a while.

Then smiled.

Renaris.

You would have liked her.

✦

Anteira's test demanded assassination.

A fortified manor.

One target.

Several dozen guards.

No alarm.

She entered through shadow.

Moved unseen.

Reached the chamber.

Blade drawn.

The target turned.

A child stood beside him.

Anteira stopped.

The illusion was extremely good.

The examiners watched.

She had seconds remaining.

The easiest strike would kill both.

Anteira lowered the weapon.

Repositioned.

Lost time.

The alarm sounded before she completed the exercise.

Failed.

Later:

"Why hesitate?"

Anteira stared at the examiner.

"There was a child."

"An illusion."

"I didn't know that."

"The target represented someone whose survival would kill thousands."

"Then I find another angle."

"There may not be one."

Anteira's eyes narrowed.

"There is always another angle."

"That belief may cost lives."

"So will teaching the Pact that individual lives become irrelevant whenever somebody says the

number 'thousands.'"

Silence.

Hansall heard that answer too.

Nyxthorn would be fine.

✦

Caeleira's trial was crueler.

She had an objective.

Retrieve intelligence from an enemy command post.

Midway through the exercise...

she intercepted information.

Another Pact unit would be ambushed.

Her orders remained unchanged.

Complete mission.

The threatened unit included Santhur.

She did not know the examiners had deliberately placed him there.

Caeleira stopped.

Looked toward the objective.

Then toward the ambush route.

"Continue mission," the magical command repeated.

Caeleira ignored it.

She ran.

Reached Santhur's unit.

Warned them.

The ambush failed.

Then she turned around...

went back alone...

and completed her original mission anyway.

Thirty-seven minutes late.

The judges argued for two days.

Santhur found her after.

She sat sharpening arrowheads.

"You sacrificed your score."

Caeleira did not look up.

"They would have died."

"It was simulated."

"I didn't know."

"You could lose succession."

She finally looked at him.

"So?"

Santhur stopped.

Caeleira returned to the arrowhead.

"Mission completed."

"Late."

"Completed."

Santhur sat beside her.

After a while:

"Would you have done it if I wasn't there?"

Caeleira stopped.

Looked at him.

"Yes."

Santhur smiled.

She frowned.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Her shoulder touched his.

Neither moved.

✦

The trials eventually narrowed.

Not because one heir was perfect.

None were.

Because Solenyra possessed something the others recognised even when she did not.

She could learn another discipline without forgetting why her own existed.

Shadow did not make her secretive.

Poison did not make her cruel.

Silence did not make her deceptive.

Soul did not make her sentimental.

Every new skill passed through the same question:

What does this allow me to protect?

And so...

Solenyra Gravespine won.

✦

The Sapphire

The succession ceremony filled the old Pact chamber.

Four banners.

Nyxthorn.

Gravespine.

Duskfall.

Shadebloom.

Representatives of each House stood before Solenyra.

One by one...

they bowed.

Not to Gravespine.

To the new Pact Lord.

Hannarial stood in the gallery.

Santhur beside Caeleira.

Anteira beside Amarous.

Golian slightly behind them.

He watched his sister.

Solenyra stood alone below.

Black ceremonial armour.

No smile.

Of course.

Soul energy drifted around her shoulders like pale fire.

Golian remembered swords.

Broken blades.

Again.

He remembered waiting outside rooms while she trained.

Remembered pretending not to notice when she returned exhausted.

Remembered every impossible standard.

Every criticism.

Every time she showed up anyway.

The Four Houses bowed.

Something tightened inside his chest.

Golian blinked.

One tear escaped.

He wiped it immediately.

"Absolutely not."

Hannarial looked sideways.

Golian pointed at her.

"Not one word."

Her expression became delighted.

"Never."

"Liar."

"Completely."

The tear fell.

Not onto the floor.

Onto the piece of Faesilver Golian had been turning nervously between his fingers.

The metal answered.

Gravespine craft.

Soul resonance.

Emotion.

Blue spread outward.

Golian stopped.

Hannarial stopped.

The Faesilver crystallised around the tear.

Deep.

Sapphire.

Not ordinary gemstone.

Soul-grown crystal.

Warm beneath his thumb.

Golian stared.

Hannarial whispered:

"Oh."

He closed his fist around it.

"No."

"What?"

"We are never discussing this."

"Naturally."

"Hannarial."

"Your masculinity is safe with me."

"I hate you."

She smiled.

"Family tradition."

✦

Three days later...

Solenyra was reading reports.

Golian entered.

"I made something."

"No."

He stopped.

"You haven't seen it."

"Historically irrelevant."

"I hate this family."

Golian placed the pendant upon her table.

Solenyra continued reading.

Then saw it.

Stopped.

Faesilver.

Simple.

No excessive design.

A single deep sapphire resting in the centre.

She picked it up.

Soul magic stirred.

Her eyes widened.

Emotion touched her.

Not words.

Not thoughts.

A moment.

Golian watching her ceremony.

Pride.

Love.

Something embarrassingly pure.

Solenyra looked at him.

"This is you."

Golian immediately looked uncomfortable.

"No."

"I can feel you."

"That sounds invasive."

"Golian."

He examined the ceiling.

Solenyra looked at the sapphire.

"The ceremony."

Silence.

Her eyes lifted.

"You cried."

"Unproven."

"Golian."

"One tear."

Solenyra stared.

He sighed.

"I was proud of you."

The room became very quiet.

Golian suddenly wished he could fight monsters instead.

That seemed easier.

"You worked for it."

Solenyra said nothing.

"And everyone bowed and..."

He gestured uselessly.

"...you were standing there."

Another gesture.

"As you."

Excellent.

Magnificent communication.

Golian continued anyway.

"I don't know."

He looked down.

"I was proud."

Solenyra put the pendant around her neck.

Golian stopped.

"You're wearing it."

"Yes."

"You're not testing it?"

"No."

"Stress fracture?"

"No."

"Breaking it?"

"No."

Golian looked genuinely confused.

"Why?"

Solenyra touched the sapphire.

Her expression softened.

So little that almost anyone else would have missed it.

Golian didn't.

"Because I don't want to."

His smile appeared slowly.

She looked away.

"Go."

"Big Sister."

"Leave."

Golian walked out smiling.

Solenyra waited until the door closed.

Then touched the stone again.

Warmth.

Golian.

Her irritating little brother.

She held it against her chest.

And for perhaps the first time in years...

Solenyra Gravespine allowed herself to look openly happy when nobody was there to see.

She wore the pendant beneath her armour from that day onward.

✦

VII

The Little Nyxthorn

Anteira eventually had a daughter.

Shaedra.

Santhur believed the child had been born angry at gravity.

She climbed everything.

Walls.

Trees.

Roofs.

Balconies.

Statues.

One ceremonial monument to Revendrinn Nyxthorn.

Santhur found her sitting upon the founder's stone shoulder.

He stood below.

"Shaedra."

She looked down.

"Hello."

"Get down."

"No."

Santhur closed his eyes.

Caeleira approached.

"What happened?"

He pointed.

Caeleira looked up.

Shaedra waved.

Caeleira waved back.

Santhur stared.

"Do not encourage her."

"I acknowledged her."

"Do not acknowledge this."

Shaedra shouted:

"Aunt Caeleira!"

Caeleira looked up.

"Yes?"

"Can you teach me the wrist throw?"

"No," Santhur said.

"Tomorrow," Caeleira answered.

"CAELEIRA."

She smiled.

✦

Shaedra fought other children too.

Frequently.

Anteira called her spirited.

Santhur used less flattering terminology.

One afternoon a boy sat beside a fountain with blood under his nose.

Shaedra stood nearby.

Arms crossed.

Caeleira crouched.

"What happened?"

Shaedra pointed.

"He called Mother stupid."

Caeleira nodded.

"Understandable."

Santhur appeared behind her.

"No."

Caeleira looked up.

"I haven't said anything."

"You were about to."

"Possibly."

Santhur turned toward Shaedra.

"You cannot punch people because they insult your mother."

Shaedra frowned.

"Why?"

Santhur opened his mouth.

Stopped.

Because apparently no one had prepared him for jurisprudence.

"Because..."

Caeleira watched.

Interested.

Santhur glared at her.

"Help."

She shook her head.

"You've got this."

Traitor.

✦

But Shaedra's great fascination was not Santhur.

Or Caeleira.

Not even Anteira.

Hannarial.

Whenever Hannarial visited...

Shaedra appeared.

No one knew from where.

Hannarial could be preparing armour.

Shaedra appeared.

Cleaning blades.

Shaedra.

Studying patrol maps.

Shaedra.

Once Hannarial opened a storage cabinet.

Shaedra was inside.

Hannarial stared.

Shaedra stared back.

"Why?"

"Hiding."

"From?"

"Santhur."

Hannarial considered.

"Reasonable."

She closed the cabinet.

✦

The first time Shaedra attempted to join a real hunt...

Hannarial caught her immediately.

Hannarial turned.

Shaedra stood behind her.

Small bow.

Pack.

Determined expression.

"No."

Shaedra straightened.

"I haven't asked."

"No."

"I can track."

"No."

"I know winter sign."

"No."

"I can shoot."

"No."

"I..."

"Home."

Shaedra glared.

Hannarial stared back.

Neither moved.

Santhur watched from several yards away.

Caeleira beside him.

Anteira too.

Shaedra finally turned.

Walked away.

Santhur's mouth fell open.

He waited until she disappeared.

Then looked at Hannarial.

"What sorcery was that?"

Hannarial frowned.

"What?"

"She obeyed you."

"Yes."

"No."

Hannarial stared.

Santhur pointed after her.

"That creature has never obeyed anyone."

Anteira looked offended.

"She obeys me."

All three looked at her.

Anteira sighed.

"Sometimes."

Caeleira nodded gravely.

"We have witnesses."

Hannarial looked toward the path Shaedra had taken.

Something changed in her face.

Small.

Hansall would later recognise that expression.

The same one Glorfarsall had once worn looking at Abel.

Potential.

Not achievement.

The possibility of it.

A wild child who desperately wanted to be useful.

Hannarial said:

"Bring her tomorrow."

Santhur blinked.

"What?"

"Training."

From behind a tree:

"YES!"

Everyone turned.

Shaedra had never left.

Hannarial slowly closed her eyes.

Caeleira laughed.

Santhur looked toward the sky.

Perhaps hoping Revendrinn might intervene from the Eternal Realm.

Nothing.

Ancestors were notoriously unhelpful when entertainment was available.

✦

VIII

What Big Sisters Are For

Shaedra's training changed the shape of the group.

Children often did.

Before her, Hannarial and Solenyra could pretend they were still young enough to answer only

for themselves.

Shaedra ruined that illusion.

She wanted everything.

Hannarial's blades.

Caeleira's bowcraft.

Santhur's tracking.

Anteira's shadow movement.

Solenyra's discipline.

Golian's gadgets.

Antharaiel's books...

less enthusiastically.

One afternoon Antharaiel found Shaedra sitting upside down in a tree while reading a military

history.

"Why are you upside down?"

Shaedra looked over the book.

"It helps."

"With what?"

"Reading."

Antharaiel stared.

"How?"

Shaedra thought.

"It doesn't."

Antharaiel closed her eyes.

"Get down."

"No."

"Why does Hannarial succeed at this?"

Shaedra smiled.

"She sounds serious."

Antharaiel looked offended.

"I am serious."

"No."

From the courtyard Golian shouted:

"BIG SISTER ANTHARAIEL!"

Antharaiel's eye twitched.

Shaedra burst out laughing.

✦

Golian called almost every older woman in the group Big Sister.

Hannarial tolerated it.

Solenyra endured it because murder remained socially complicated.

Antharaiel regarded it as psychological warfare.

Caeleira thought it was funny and therefore encouraged him.

Anteira occasionally answered.

Which meant she secretly liked it.

One evening, Golian entered the common hall.

"Big Sisters."

Five women looked up.

He stopped.

"That was alarmingly effective."

Santhur sat near the window.

"You've created a hive mind."

Golian pointed at him.

"Jealous."

"No."

"You want to be Big Sister."

Santhur stared.

Caeleira lowered her face into both hands.

Hannarial whispered:

"I'll kill him."

Solenyra continued reading.

"Queue."

✦

Hansall sometimes joined these evenings.

Not as king.

That was important.

The old Houses had spent too many generations knowing him only from battlefields and council

chambers.

With these children...

he tried something different.

He ate.

Listened.

Occasionally interfered.

Golian once asked:

"Did Hansenel Icetear actually wrestle a serpent?"

Hansall continued eating.

"Yes."

Hannarial looked up.

"What?"

"A small one."

"How small?"

Hansall considered.

"Thirty feet."

Golian stopped chewing.

Santhur frowned.

"That is not small."

"Hansenel complained about this too."

Hannarial leaned forward.

"What happened?"

Hansall looked at her.

There were moments when she resembled Hansenel.

Not physically.

Something in the eyes.

The expectation that the universe was probably ridiculous but should still be challenged.

Hansall smiled.

"The serpent bit him."

Golian whispered:

"Of course."

"He stabbed it through the roof of its mouth."

Shaedra's eyes widened.

"Can Hannarial teach me that?"

Everyone answered.

"No."

Hannarial:

"Eventually."

Santhur stared.

"HANNARIAL."

Hansall laughed.

✦

That was how the old generation survived.

Not merely through books.

At tables.

Through embarrassing stories.

Through small corrections.

Your ancestor didn't say that.

No, Renaris was terrified.

No, Revendrinn was not always invisible.

Yes, Nerynolion really poisoned him.

No, Herafel did not apologise.

The legends became people again.

And the children listened.

Sometimes.

✦

Solenyra and Hannarial

Hannarial and Solenyra remained competitive long after everyone else understood it was

merely another language for affection.

They sparred constantly.

Neither accepted easy victory.

Neither offered easy comfort.

This made them extremely good for one another.

After Solenyra became Pact Lord...

the pressure changed.

People bowed differently.

Spoke differently.

Every mistake now belonged not merely to Solenyra.

But Gravespine.

The Dark Pact.

Sometimes the Elu-Hsal.

She hated it.

One night Hannarial found her alone in the training hall.

Still fighting.

No opponent.

Forms.

Again.

Her palms were bleeding.

Hannarial leaned against the doorway.

"You're done."

Solenyra kept moving.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

Hannarial entered.

Caught the next strike against her own blade.

Solenyra stared.

"Move."

"No."

"Hannarial."

"Solenyra."

They stood.

Blades crossed.

Hannarial saw the exhaustion.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Bad answer."

"The Shadebloom council challenged the northern operation."

"Why?"

"Casualties."

"Yours?"

"Yes."

Hannarial understood.

"How many?"

Solenyra looked away.

Hannarial lowered her weapon.

"How many?"

"Six."

Silence.

Not thousands.

Six.

Enough.

Solenyra whispered:

"I chose the route."

Hannarial said nothing.

"I knew the risk."

Still nothing.

"They trusted me."

There.

Hannarial stepped closer.

"You made the best call you had?"

Solenyra's jaw tightened.

"Yes."

"Would you make it again knowing what you knew then?"

Long silence.

"Yes."

"Then mourn them."

Solenyra looked at her.

"But don't turn grief into evidence that you were secretly omniscient."

Solenyra almost laughed.

Almost.

Hannarial took the sword from her hand.

"Come."

"Where?"

"Food."

"I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask."

Solenyra stared.

Then followed.

Somewhere along the way...

Solenyra realised Hannarial had learned that method from her.

She said nothing.

But later...

when Hannarial lost people of her own...

Solenyra came.

Sat beside her.

No lecture.

No philosophy.

Just stayed.

That was friendship among the heirs.

They were beginning to learn which wounds required fixing...

and which required company.

✦

Santhur and Caeleira

Santhur rebuilt the bow.

Naturally.

Caeleira saw it.

"Again?"

"Improved."

"Still stiff."

"You have not touched it."

"I can tell."

"From across the room?"

"Yes."

"Impossible."

Caeleira held out her hand.

Santhur immediately pulled the bow away.

"No."

She smiled.

"Trauma?"

"Experience."

Over the next years...

their friendship deteriorated into love.

Nobody was surprised.

Except perhaps them.

They hunted together.

Trained together.

Argued.

Constantly.

If one disappeared for more than several days, the other became noticeably worse company.

Anteira noticed first.

"Where is Caeleira?"

"South patrol."

"Ah."

Santhur looked up.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why did you say it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Ah."

Anteira smiled.

"Did I?"

Santhur hated his family.

✦

Caeleira returned from that patrol injured.

Not badly.

An arrow through the upper arm.

The healer removed it.

Caeleira complained more about losing the arrow than the wound.

Santhur entered halfway through.

Saw the blood.

Stopped.

Caeleira looked at him.

"Don't."

He walked over.

"What happened?"

"Arrow."

"I can see that."

"Then why ask?"

Santhur's face had gone pale.

Caeleira noticed.

Her humour disappeared.

"I'm fine."

He looked at the wound.

Then her.

"I know."

He sat beside the bed.

For once...

no competition.

No joke.

Caeleira watched him.

After a while:

"Santhur."

"What?"

"You can touch me."

He looked at her.

She held out her hand.

Santhur took it.

Neither spoke.

The healer pretended not to notice.

Very professionally.

And poorly.

✦

Weeks later...

Caeleira found Santhur repairing a bow beneath one of the silver trees.

She sat beside him.

No greeting.

Normal.

He continued working.

After several minutes:

"Stay."

Caeleira frowned.

"I'm sitting here."

Santhur stopped.

His hands became extremely interested in the string.

"No."

Silence.

"Stay."

Caeleira understood.

The air changed.

Not dramatically.

Nothing magical.

Just the sudden removal of the lie both had been politely maintaining.

"For what?"

Santhur looked at her.

He had apparently fought monsters with less fear.

"My life."

Caeleira stared.

Santhur immediately regretted every decision that had led him here.

She reached for the bow.

He panicked.

"Don't break..."

She kissed him.

Santhur stopped.

Entirely.

For several seconds.

When Caeleira pulled back...

she looked at the bow.

"Still too stiff."

Santhur stared.

Then laughed.

Behind a nearby training wall...

Golian whispered:

"Pay me."

Hannarial cursed.

Solenyra handed him several coins.

Santhur froze.

Caeleira turned.

Anteira emerged.

Then Hannarial.

Then Solenyra.

Then Antharaiel.

Santhur stared in horror.

"You were betting?"

Golian smiled.

"Investing."

Caeleira looked at Antharaiel.

"You too?"

Antharaiel lifted her chin.

"I diversified."

Santhur closed his eyes.

"I hate every one of you."

Caeleira took his hand.

"No, you don't."

This time...

he smiled.

"No."

He didn't.

✦

The Table of Heirs

There was an old table in Hansall's private residence.

Later historians would give it a name.

They always did that.

The Table of Heirs.

They would write solemnly about the legendary figures who once gathered there.

Future Pact Lords.

Ranger commanders.

Queens.

Heroes.

Hansall would have found that hilarious.

It was a dinner table.

One corner had a burn mark.

Golian.

Another had an arrow notch.

Caeleira blamed Santhur.

Santhur blamed Caeleira.

Someone had carved a tiny crown beneath Antharaiel's usual seat.

She suspected Golian.

Correctly.

They gathered there often.

Not formally.

That was the point.

Solenyra usually arrived first.

Hannarial arrived hungry.

Anteira brought Shaedra.

Santhur and Caeleira arrived together while pretending they had not coordinated this.

Golian arrived carrying something everyone immediately asked him to put down.

Antharaiel complained about seating.

Nobody listened.

Hansall occasionally sat with them.

Not at the head.

Just somewhere.

Once, Golian brought a machine.

Solenyra saw it.

"No."

"You haven't asked what it does."

"No."

"It pours wine."

"No."

Hansall leaned closer.

"Continue."

Solenyra looked at him.

"Do not encourage him."

"I am king."

"That is unrelated."

Golian placed a wine bottle into the mechanism.

"It measures exact portions."

Santhur moved his chair backward.

Caeleira noticed.

Then moved hers too.

Golian looked offended.

"It is safe."

Caeleira said:

"Those words frequently precede explosions."

"It does not contain explosives."

Hannarial moved her chair.

Golian pulled the lever.

Nothing happened.

He smiled.

"See?"

The bottle launched across the room.

It passed Antharaiel's head by approximately six inches.

Struck the wall.

Wine exploded everywhere.

Silence.

Golian stared.

Antharaiel slowly turned.

Everyone looked at him.

"Prototype."

Hannarial broke first.

Then Caeleira.

Then Anteira.

Santhur began laughing despite himself.

Hansall laughed so hard the white-grove mask shifted.

Even Solenyra put one hand over her face.

Antharaiel looked at the wine dripping down the wall behind her.

Then at Golian.

"One day..."

She pointed.

"...I will become powerful enough to have you legally removed from rooms."

Golian raised his cup.

"I believe in you, Big Sister."

"Stop calling me that."

"Never."

Shaedra climbed onto her chair.

"Big Sister Queen!"

Antharaiel stared.

"Why did you add Queen?"

Shaedra shrugged.

"It sounded better."

Everyone laughed.

Antharaiel rolled her eyes.

Hansall did too.

But quietly...

he looked at her.

Not because of the word.

Queen.

No.

That belonged to another time.

Another decision.

Not yet.

Tonight she was simply Antharaiel.

Annoyed.

Young.

Laughing despite herself.

And Hansall let her remain that.

✦

XII

What They Were to One Another

The Houses had names for relationships.

Cousin.

Heir.

Allied bloodline.

Vassal.

Pact House.

Royal branch.

Hansall found most of these increasingly useless.

Because what exactly was Golian to Hannarial?

Not sibling.

He called her Big Sister anyway.

What was Caeleira to Anteira?

Different Houses.

Rivals in succession.

Still trusted one another with their lives.

What was Solenyra to Shaedra?

No simple blood relation that mattered.

But Shaedra listened to her.

Sometimes.

Which was remarkable enough to count as kinship.

What was Antharaiel to them?

Whitewing.

Old nobility.

Future...

No.

Hansall stopped that thought.

Young Antharaiel was their friend.

Their occasional mediator.

Their favourite target when someone needed irritating.

Their unwilling Big Sister.

The relationships mattered before the titles did.

That was what Hansall loved about this generation.

✦

When Golian undercharged someone for a weapon...

Antharaiel quietly renegotiated the contract.

Months later Golian discovered.

He marched into her study.

"You."

Antharaiel looked up.

"What?"

"Lord Asterel."

"What about him?"

"He paid double."

"Did he?"

"You did that."

Antharaiel returned to her papers.

"He insulted your craftsmanship."

Golian stared.

"So?"

"So I corrected his misunderstanding."

"By doubling the price?"

"He agreed."

Golian's expression softened.

Antharaiel sensed danger.

"Do not."

He walked around the desk.

"Big Sister."

"Do not."

Golian hugged her.

Antharaiel froze.

"Five seconds."

"Ten."

"Four."

"Negotiation."

"Three."

He released her.

Antharaiel straightened her robes.

"Leave."

Golian smiled all the way out.

✦

When Shaedra injured her ankle during training...

Hannarial carried her home.

Shaedra protested the entire way.

"I can walk."

"No."

"It doesn't hurt."

"You cried."

"I had dirt in my eye."

"You were holding your ankle."

"Dirt can travel."

Hannarial stared forward.

Shaedra went quiet.

Then rested her head against Hannarial's shoulder.

Several minutes later:

"Will you still train me tomorrow?"

"No."

Shaedra's face fell.

"The day after."

Shaedra smiled against her.

Hannarial pretended not to notice.

✦

When Solenyra disappeared into Pact duties for too long...

Golian left food outside her door.

No note.

She always knew.

When Hannarial became too angry to speak...

Solenyra trained with her until the anger had somewhere to go.

When Santhur became too proud...

Caeleira broke something.

When Caeleira became reckless...

Santhur worried enough for both of them.

When Anteira questioned whether she had failed by losing the Pact succession...

Solenyra found her.

They sat beside one of Snoweinter's frozen canals.

Anteira looked at the ice.

"You won."

"Yes."

"You don't have to sound pleased."

"I am pleased."

Anteira laughed.

"Thank you."

Solenyra looked toward her.

Anteira became quieter.

"I thought I wanted it."

"The Pact?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Anteira watched pale lights moving beneath the ice.

"I think I wanted to prove I deserved Nyxthorn."

Solenyra understood.

"Do you?"

Anteira looked at her.

"Do I what?"

"Deserve it."

Anteira shrugged.

"I don't know."

Solenyra looked toward the ancient Nyxthorn towers.

"Revendrinn did not deserve Nyxthorn before he became Revendrinn Nyxthorn."

Anteira frowned.

Solenyra continued.

"He became worthy through choices."

Silence.

"You were born with the name."

Anteira looked down.

"So?"

"So you don't prove you deserve his."

Solenyra's voice softened.

"You decide what yours means."

Anteira stared.

Then smiled.

"That was surprisingly wise."

Solenyra looked offended.

Anteira laughed.

✦

XIII

Hansall's Children

They were not Hansall's children.

Not literally.

Most were not even his direct descendants.

Yet somewhere along the years...

that became how he thought of them.

Not possessively.

Never.

Something softer.

He had known the people behind their names.

Hansenel.

Renaris.

Revendrinn.

Herafel.

Nerynolion.

The Whitewings before Whitewing became political language.

He had watched those people fight because they wanted descendants to inherit something

better.

And here...

at last...

were the descendants.

Arguing about bows.

Breaking swords.

Falling in love.

Building terrible wine machines.

Training children.

Calling one another Big Sister.

Some days Hansall thought perhaps his generation had succeeded.

Not because the monsters were gone.

They were not.

Not because war had ended.

It had not.

Not because the world was safe.

It never would be.

They had succeeded because their children possessed enough safety to become ridiculous.

Hansall cherished ridiculousness.

He had seen worlds without it.

✦

One evening he stood beside Hannarial overlooking the training courtyard.

Below...

Shaedra was attempting a difficult shot.

Santhur corrected her elbow.

Caeleira corrected Santhur.

Santhur objected.

Anteira laughed.

Golian was showing Solenyra a new mechanism.

She was already shaking her head.

Antharaiel sat beneath a tree.

Reading.

Pretending she was not listening to everyone.

Hansall watched.

Hannarial looked sideways.

"What?"

Hansall touched the edge of his mask.

"Nothing."

"You have the look."

"What look?"

"The old one."

"I am old."

"The older one."

Hansall smiled.

Hannarial turned toward the courtyard.

After a while she asked:

"Do you ever miss when there were fewer of us?"

Hansall thought.

A younger world.

One name each.

No Houses.

Hansenel beside him.

Sendarel still terrified of ghosts.

Renaris before Gravespine.

Revendrinn before Nyxthorn.

Selanal.

Tiamel.

Sederous.

Abel.

He missed them.

Gods.

He missed them.

But that had not been Hannarial's question.

"No."

She looked surprised.

Hansall nodded toward the courtyard.

"I miss people."

A pause.

"Not emptiness."

Hannarial looked down.

Hansall continued.

"The world was simpler because there was less in it."

He watched Shaedra loose.

The arrow missed.

Santhur corrected her.

She argued.

Caeleira interfered.

Naturally.

Hansall smiled.

"Simple is overrated."

Hannarial laughed.

✦

Below them...

Golian suddenly shouted:

"HANSALL!"

The King leaned over the balcony.

"What?"

"Tell Solenyra it works!"

Solenyra shouted:

"It exploded!"

"ONE TIME."

"Today!"

"Prototype!"

Hansall looked at Hannarial.

She looked at him.

Together:

"No."

Golian threw his hands up.

"Betrayal!"

Shaedra laughed.

Antharaiel finally abandoned her book.

Santhur and Caeleira began arguing about the missed shot.

Anteira joined.

Solenyra confiscated whatever Golian had built.

Golian protested.

And Hansall...

First High King of the Elves...

survivor of the War of Serpents...

friend of Adamas...

witness to Abel's death...

veteran of ages that had already begun becoming mythology...

stood upon the balcony and laughed.

For once...

memory did not hurt.

The old names were everywhere.

Icetear.

Nyxthorn.

Gravespine.

Duskfall.

Whitewing.

But Hansall no longer heard only ghosts when they were spoken.

He heard Hannarial.

Santhur.

Anteira.

Solenyra.

Caeleira.

Antharaiel.

Golian.

Shaedra.

The names had changed hands.

And somehow...

that did not feel like losing the people who had first carried them anymore.

It felt like the reason they had carried them at all.

✦

Later histories would call these years the calm before the final wounds of the age.

Hansall would have hated that description.

Because calling peace merely the space between tragedies insulted the people who lived inside

it.

These years mattered.

The laughter mattered.

The broken swords mattered.

The sapphire mattered.

The ridiculous bow mattered.

The little girl hiding inside cupboards because she wanted Hannarial to take her hunting

mattered.

The friendships mattered.

The terrible dinners mattered.

The young Whitewing woman threatening to imprison Golian mattered.

Because none of them knew what was coming.

They were not characters waiting for tragedy.

They were alive.

And for a little while longer...

that was enough.

Then, one evening, far beyond Snoweinter's white forests, a rider crossed into Fae territory

carrying a name Hansall had not heard spoken lightly in centuries.

Bloodwing.

But that...

belonged to what came next.

There were memories Hansall could summon deliberately.

Faces.

Battles.

Old songs.

The shape of cities that no longer existed.

There were others that did not require summoning.

They came when they pleased.

A certain shade of gold would become Godrian's armour.

The smell of black powder would put Sinbad beside him again, grinning like an idiot with the first

flintlock in the world.

A girl's laughter from somewhere behind him could become Teela's.

White fire made him think of Vishraa.

Any dragon flying too low could make his chest hurt.

And sometimes, when Hannarial stood beside him in later centuries, scarred armour around her

body and that familiar impatience gathering in her eyes, Hansall would look at her...

and for one impossible moment she would become young again.

A junior officer.

Still polishing every scratch from her plate.

Still standing when he entered rooms because nobody had yet convinced her that the High King

did not need to be greeted like an arriving god.

Still looking at the figures around Hansall's war table as though history itself had somehow sat

down for supper.

Revendrinn Nyxthorn.

Herafel Duskfall.

Sederous Lionheart.

Tiamel.

Hansall Whitegrove.

Names that would one day become Houses.

Sigils.

Oaths.

Statues.

Children would memorize them.

Soldiers would invoke them before battles.

And Hannarial, young enough to believe legends knew what they were doing, had once stood

quietly behind them taking notes.

She had not yet discovered the truth.

Most legends were frightened people who had survived long enough for everyone else to stop

mentioning the fear.

Hansall remembered that era because so many of them were still alive.

That was the part memory was cruelest about.

Not the blood.

Not the monsters.

Not even the deaths.

It was how ordinary everything had once seemed.

Herafel stealing his chair because hers had been moved.

Revendrinn complaining that sunlight was "aggressively unnecessary."

Sederous eating during strategic briefings.

Tiamel threatening to burn Sederous's food because he had crumbs on her maps.

Godrian arguing with Sinbad.

Raastali laughing.

Gilgamesh rolling his eyes at his younger brother.

All of them alive.

None of them understanding that they were already approaching the last years in which that

would be true.

And when Hansall remembered the end of the Second Age...

that was always where it began.

Not with the Tournament.

Not with the Gods-Blood.

Not with Hell opening beneath the south.

With a table.

And too many living people around it.

End of Act I

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Before you enter

Come back when you are eighteen

The First Names

When Winter Remembered