“ONE DEGREE IS the difference between fluid and solid. The divergence between water and ice. But those who’ve grown up in the coldest places will know the shift that comes with wintersdeep, and the way we who live through it, shift with it. Dim days grow dimmer still, bleak nights bring bleaker thoughts. And as the landscape about you changes, so does the limit of your spirit. The dark weighs heavier when your cloak is soaked with melted snow. Laughter is best avoided when your beard is so caked with frost that it hurts to smile. Spring blooms, and autumn rusts. But winter?
“Winter bites.
“We’d entered the northern weald ten days past, and all was night and knives. Growths of maryswort lit the dark with ghostly blue luminance. Beggarbelly pustules and jagged runs of shadespine covered every surface. I was a knot of nerves, all of me on edge as I led Dior and Fortuna through the twisted wood.
“The deeper we trekked, the harder this twist of fate struck me—that I of all people would end up guiding this girl to safety, and that the salvation of the empire had somehow fallen into my hands, so many years after that empire turned its back on me. I didn’t know the truth of Dior’s blood, how it might bring all this to an end. I knew only that I wanted to keep her safe. And so, I barely slept, sitting with Ashdrinker in hand at nights, keeping vigil over Dior as she dreamed. Every snapping twig quickened my pulse. Eyes flickered like candles in the gloom, winking out as I looked at them. Footprints would be etched in the snow around our fire when we rose in the morn—wolves, maybe, save the tracks had too many toes and smelled of rot and sulfur.
“On the eleventh day, we found a clearing, an ancient tree in its heart. Its limbs were hung with sculptures made of twigs … and with dead bodies, some almost fresh. The other trees were bent toward it, branches pressed together like penitent hands, asphyxia growths hanging like curtains of hair about bowed heads. Voices pleaded at the edge of hearing. I swear that tree whispered to me as we passed. Saoirse had warned that the Blight in the north was far worse than the south. But in truth, she’d not told the half of it.
“Dior looked about and shivered. ‘And you wonder why I never left the city.’
“‘No,’ I replied. ‘No, I really don’t.’
“‘I don’t think we should’ve come this way.’
“‘Well, don’t blame me,’ I hissed.
“‘And why not?’
“‘Because … I’d rather you didn’t?’
“A stunning riposte.
“I glowered at the sword in my hand. ‘Bitch, you stabbed me. I’d be laying off the lip for a few more days if I were you.’
“Apology I gave ye. What m-m-more wouldst thou ask?
“‘How about never fucking do that again?’
“This … I c-c-cannot vow.
“‘Can you smell that?’ Dior asked.
“I lifted my nose to the wind, nodded once.
“‘Death.’
“We stopped for the night, tied Fortuna to a tree that looked like a weeping woman, arms up over her face. The sky was black as sin, the snow coming down relentless, wind howling all about us through the twisted boughs, the creaking branches, the tombs of kings that had once ruled this place when all was green and good.
“After a cheerless meal, I smoked a red pipe while we sat and shivered. All the night was alive, all my senses ablaze. I caught notes of decay entwined with a dozen breeds of fungus, thin embers of strange animal life, Dior’s blood. But beneath, faint as whispers …
“‘You should get some rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll wake you when it’s time for your watch.’
“‘You promise?’ she scowled. ‘Because you didn’t last night.’
“‘You needed the sleep. Being the savior of the empire is hard work.’
“Dior scoffed. ‘Savior…’
“The girl sucked her lip, blue eyes glazed as she watched the crackling flames.
“‘You really think it’s going to be like Chloe said? Just show up at San Michon, mumble some phrase from some dusty book, and huzzah, au revoir daysdeath?’
“‘I’ve no idea,’ I sighed. ‘But someone less cynical than me would point out you must be some kind of threat, else the Forever King wouldn’t have his son chasing you.’
“‘Nor that bitch with the mask you fought at San Guillaume.’ Dior chewed a ragged nail, spat it into the fire. ‘She seemed to know something.’
“I nodded, remembering Liathe and her bloodblade, that pale mask and the paler eyes beyond. Sanguimancers. Vampires of ancien blood. Mysteries within mysteries, as ever. I looked down at the sevenstar on my palm, the veins beneath my skin.
“‘It could all be lies. Maybe everyone playing this game is a fool. We’ll learn the truth when we get to San Michon, I suppose. There’s deceit and madness aplenty in that library. But there are truths too. Astrid and I found a few. When we were young.’
“‘Esani,’ Dior murmured.
“I glowered at the sword on the frost beside me. ‘You talk too much, Ash.’
“‘I think she gets lonely,’ Dior smiled. ‘Stuck in that scabbard all day.’
“‘My heart bleeds.’ I flicked snow at the silvered dame. ‘Along with my stomach.’
“‘It can’t be coincidence, though, can it? A fifth bloodline, with almost the exact same name as Michon’s daughter? Esan. Faith. Esani. Faithless.’
“‘I don’t know, Dior. We looked for years in that library, Astrid and Chloe and me. We found mostly nonsense. There’s power in my blood, and I’ve learned a trick or two. If I ever get my hands on Danton’s throat while I’m at my best, he’s in for a reckoning. But truth is, my bloodline never made much difference to the way I lived my life. Astrid used to tell me that was what made her proudest. Raised among those Dyvoks and Chastains and Ilons, and I stood tallest of all.’ I tapped the veins at my wrist. ‘Not because of this.’
“I thumped a fist over my chest.
“‘Because of this.’
“‘Aim your heart at the world,’ she smiled.
“I nodded. ‘One day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.’
“Dior lay down by the fireside, cloak beneath, fine coat draped over her. A mop of ashen white covering eyes that were the blue of long-lost skies. Scrawny shoulders and clever hands and the blood of a dead fucking godling in her veins.
“‘Tell me about your daughter,’ she murmured.
“‘Go to sleep, Lachance.’
“‘I will.’ She smiled, eyes closed. ‘But I like your voice. It’s smoky. Relaxing.’
“I looked at the name tattooed across my fingers. Drawing down another draught and exhaling a plume of scarlet. ‘What do you want to know?’
“‘Anything. What’s her favorite color?’
“‘Blue. The water around our house was almost blue some days.’
“‘You live on a river?’
“I shook my head. ‘Lighthouse. Just off the southern coast. Tide came in with the moons, covered the bridge to land. So nothing could cross over at night.’
“‘Clever.’
“‘I have my moments.’
“‘Does she like it there?’
“‘I hope so. It’s south. Down past Alethe. Sometimes we got flowers in spring.’
“‘I’ve never seen a flower,’ Dior sighed. ‘What’s her favorite?’
“I could smell it stronger now—that scent Dior had caught on the wind. Truth told, it had been following us all day. Like a shadow. Like a ghost. I looked to the dark beyond the firelight and saw it—a shape I knew as well as my own name, silhouetted against the corpses of fallen trees, dead emperors moldering in frozen tombs.
“‘Gabe?’ Dior asked.
“‘What?’
“‘What’s Patience’s favorite flower?’
“‘Silverbell. Like her mother.’
“‘You must miss them.’
“I shook my head. ‘I’ll be back with them soon.’
“‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘That I took you away from them.’
“‘No more questions, girl. Go to sleep.’
“Dior curled up in her coat, face toward the flames. And I sat there in the cold, watching the eyes that were watching me. I could see her more clearly now; no longer a dark shadow, but a pale one, porcelain skin draped with bolts of black hair, soft as silk and thick as smoke. She said nothing, just waiting until the breath of the girl beside me slowed and smoothed, breast rising and falling in the peaceful cadence of sleep.
“The shape drifted back, deeper into the shadow.
“And I stood, following into the dark.”