Estavius had frightened me when I was a child. His copper eyes were too inhuman, too cool and pragmatic. His stance was unyielding, always alert and assured. His strange, layered tunics and sashes marked him as foreign, as did his eerily pale skin. I knew from my mother’s stories that the man had once been a friend, kind and loyal. But the culmination of that kindness and loyalty had been drinking the blood of the Pillar Eiohe, Imilidese’s brother, and accepting the rule of an empire. And though Estavius’s memories remained, their emotion was gone.
The soft fall of his dark blonde curls had done nothing to gentle his searching expression back then, nor did they now.
The Ascended Emperor of the Arpa Empire, Bearer of the Blood of Eiohe, held his plumed helmet beneath his arm as he met us at the edge of the forest with a knot of twenty guards. Behind him, the southern shore of the lake had been overtaken by a war camp, banners snapping over sturdy tents, blazing cook fires, milling horses, and some two thousand men. The sight was jarring, a piece of the south uprooted and replanted against the backdrop of the Unmade.
The eeriness of the sight was only increased by the ring of fire that surrounded the camp. Rows of watchful legionaries with their tall shields were visible through the flames, and smoke drifted up toward the glowing branches of the Binding Tree high above.
“Yske.” Estavius ducked his head to me and surveyed our company, his eyes lingering on Thray and Kygga, then Ursk. His Arpa armor was elegant and functional, a cuirass of layered plate buckled over a padded tunic and covered with a heavy fur-trimmed cloak of lavish but understated plum.
He looked back to Kygga. “Will the rest of the Windwalkers arrive before this evening?”
The Winterborn nodded gravely.
“You must have heard from my mother,” I observed. The tree lorded in the corner of my vision, warning and beckoning. “I can still go alone. Logur wants me on that island. No one has to die to get me there.”
“No one other than you,” Estavius said. His voice was practical, his gaze one of quiet observation. Unnerving, and steady. “I do not take risks, not with the lives of my people, or the children of my allies. We take the island. We heal the tree. We will be there when the portal opens and your people come through.” Estavius spoke of each step with impeccable finality and certainty. “Otherwise the western forces will step out into a sea of Revenants, surrounded on all sides.”
As reluctant as I was to see anyone else’s blood shed, the Emperor’s tone brooked no debate.
“Nisien will be there,” I commented, still watching his face. I’d grown up with my uncle’s stories of his years with Estavius as he once was, hunting monsters in the wild. They had loved one another, and the depth of their affection had been one of the greatest sacrifices Estavius made when he took the throne and became a conduit for one of the Four Pillars.
Now a smile touched Estavius’s eyes, though it lacked the depth it might once have had. “He will, and I will be there to meet him. For now, come with me.”
The Miri beckoned toward a gap in the ring of fire and we fell to heel. Heat gusted over me with a roar as we passed through, to where the flames had pushed back the snow to expose swaths of withered, parched grasses and fallen leaves.
Beyond the ring was a broad no man’s land, interspersed with roped corrals of horses. The camp was a hive of activity, neat rows of sturdy tents amidst the continuous churn of an army preparing for conflict. Every soldier was beardless, armored and armed, and every knee— soldiers, aides, camp-followers—bowed as Estavius passed. Curious eyes followed our small group, and I caught several legionaries looking at me with more than passing appraisal. But there was no threat here, only the quiet dread of the hours before battle.
We rallied in a large tent at the center of the camp where servants stoked braziers and layered a makeshift table with food and plates and jugs of warmed wine. One skittered in fright as Nui bounded up to him, tail wagging, then surreptitiously scratched her ears.
Estavius came to stand at the head of the table, murmured something in the ear of a servant, then looked at us. “Eat and rest here, while you can. Yske, do what you need to do to prepare.”
There was a gravity to his regard that I understood—he knew I was here to heal the tree, and he knew the cost.
I nodded, thumb brushing the knife at my belt.
“How do you intend to get to the island?” Berin asked.
“We walk.” Estavius looked to Kygga and Thray, who stood quietly next to one another beside the door. The space between them, I noted, was smaller than it had been a few days before. “Bring me your Icecarvers as soon as they arrive.”
* * *
I knelt in the snow outside the camp, facing the ring of fire, the shoreline, the lake, and the island beyond. The wind was cool and I was aware of two presences at my back—Thray and Berin—but neither interrupted me.
I laid my knife in the snow between my knees and pushed back my sleeves. Until now I’d marked most of my sacrifices on my hands, but the height, the breadth, and the magnitude of Imilidese’s Binding Tree would require far more than that. To accomplish my task, I would need to be more powerful than ever before.
I sketched five runes in the snow around the knife. They were old runes, runes for power and strength, bravery, steadiness, and success.
I felt Berin shift behind me, heard Thray murmur to him.
I infused each rune with the power of the High Halls, the power given to me by its waters and its fruits, its rain and its earth, over so many years at Aita’s side. To my Sight they began to glow a steady amber, threads of lavender twined into their hearts like blue in a blacksmith’s forge.
I laid my closed fist on my knee, knuckles up, and surveyed the back of my forearm. In my other hand, I picked up the knife with cold-bitten fingers.
“Yske.” Berin’s voice was strained, pleading in a way that did not ask me to stop, but rather lamented the necessity of this.
“Just stay by me.” I looked over my shoulder at him and Thray, the two of them of a height—her white hair blowing in a myriad of braids across her chest, his black hair carefully smoothed back and bound with leather.
Berin nodded and Thray smiled sadly.
I looked up at the tree again, the distant glow of its foxfire diffused by smoke and low cloud. I felt so small and fragile in its sight, one woman in the shadow of a god, facing the end of the world.
I cut. Line by bloody line, I traced runes in my skin. These ones also spoke of power and strength, but they were older than the Eangen markings in the snow at my feet. These were Aita’s symbols, learned at her side. I carved my mistress’s name rune too, just above my elbow, and traced one for Thvynder in the back of my hand.
I sang as I worked, a low, lilting song under my breath—a prayer to Thvynder I’d learned as a child, when the world was still healing from the fall of the Miri and the war in the south. My voice quavered and a part of my mind squirmed, terrified that in acknowledging my god as I worked old magic, I would invite wrath upon my head. But blood magic was mysterious, and its power vast—if there was a chance my god could hear me today, I would take the risk, and bear the repercussions.
By the time I’d finished there was so much blood on my skin and clothes that I swayed, ears roaring and stomach churning. But my power swelled. At last, I sent a thread of it across my skin and the runes turned to scars, fine pink lines against the parched white of my skin.
A crack like lightning echoed over the lake. I watched an enormous branch of the Binding Tree hit the water with a thunderous crash. Foxfire on the branch flared as waves rocked and beyond it, in the dark void of the Unmade, I saw shadows… roil.
I looked over my shoulder at Berin. He and Thray were not alone. The rest of the company had come, staring at the lake and the Unmade with the same mixture of unease and awe. The Windwalkers had come too, three score Winterborn now arrayed around us with their white hair and scent of snow.
I sheathed my knife, climbed to my feet, and flicked blood from my fingers into the snow.