“Push harder,” Amelia Trafford urged.

Keri was lying back on the table, in the chirurgeon’s quarters, while she held his left foot in her hands, with his knee bent over his chest. He should have been able to kick her backwards into the wall: the woman was not a warrior, and half his weight.

But as with everything else since he’d woken on the ring, what should have been easy was frustrating, agonizing, and impossible. He gripped the sides of the table with both hands, grunted and panted, and finally managed to straighten his leg.

Mistress Trafford did not go flying.

Instead, she merely nodded and walked over to her desk, where she dipped a quill pen into her bottle of ink and scratched down the day’s notes. “You are actually getting stronger,” the chirurgeon told him. “Even if it doesn’t feel like it. I doubt you could have straightened that leg at all, when I began working with you. Your progress is, to be frank, quite astounding.”

“It doesn’t feel like that,” Keri admitted, resting on the table for a moment to catch his breath. Simple exercises like that should not have left him winded.

“I’m certain it doesn’t,” Trafford agreed, setting down her quill and looking up from her writing. “And it’s only natural to be feeling quite a lot of anger and frustration. But the truth is, Inkeris, that whatever enchantments Liv - the queen,” she corrected herself, “- set to work on your body, they did a remarkable job. Try to be grateful for that, and not focus on what you’ve lost. I’ll let your people in, now.”

With Rika and Rei returned to Mountain Home – and his former kwenim disappointed in her efforts to bring Keri with them – his days had settled into something of a routine. A bell working with Mistress Trafford each morning, after having a meal, and then appointments. That day, it was Linnea and Sidonie waiting for him to finish, which was usual – Sidonie kept the list of people who needed to speak to the regent – and Vivek Sharma, which was not.

Most of the time, the Dakruiman priest waited until later in the day to seek Keri out. Training with his new word of power had become something for Keri to look forward to, after his duties were done with. It was perhaps the only time that he didn’t feel useless and impotent.

Linnea helped him off the table and into the wheeled chair, while Sidonie began to reel off what needed doing. “We’ve had pigeons,” the spectacled mage told him. “An ambassador sent from Freeport stayed at the Sign of the Terrapin last evening, apparently. Master Meriet was kind enough to not only put her up, but also to send us the name.”

“Who is it?” Keri asked, with a frown. They’d expected an ambassador eventually, and everyone agreed that the choice of representative would say a great deal about the intentions of the council of regents. The peace agreement that Liv had hammered out after the battle was rough, and left a great deal to be desired.

“Baroness Amelina Ridley,” Sidonie answered, keeping pace as Linnea wheeled Keri out of the chirurgeon’s chambers and into the hall.

Keri searched his mind for any memory of the name, but he’d only been to Freeport the one time, and there were over a hundred baronies in Lucania, even after Whitehill broke away. He was certain Liv would have known the exact number, and the fact that he didn’t only made him question once again why she’d thought it was a good idea to leave him in charge during her absence.

“The Ridley’s have had strong ties to the mages guild ever since it was founded,” Sidonie explained. “Edythe Blackstone was a Ridley before her marriage, and she was the first archmage. She set the standards by which the rank would be achieved.”

The wheels of the chair creaked across the corridor of Castle Whitehill while Keri considered that. “I imagine she is going to have a lot of questions about Liv’s new college, then,” he reasoned. “And that she will want to speak to our acting guild mistress. Could you make certain that Lia Every is invited to my meeting with the ambassador?”

Sidonie nodded. “We also have a pigeon from Bald Peak.”

“A problem with the construction?” Keri asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “Actually, it seems that Liv has sent us back a few dozen prisoners. I expect it will take most of the day to march them south down the mine road and get them here. We don’t really have facilities to hold more than a few.”

For a moment, Keri wondered why Liv was bothering to take prisoners. In his time hunting the cult, he’d only ever focused on capturing people who might be able to provide useful information. But when he recalled how she’d released every common born man and woman who’d marched on the pass, he knew the answer. “She’s thinking of them like peasant levies,” Keri said, thinking out loud. “But she’s never really had to fight the cult as a whole before. These people are fanatics. Have the castle guards set up a stockade in the courtyard for the moment. I’ll sort them out once I see what we’re dealing with.”

They rounded the corner, and Keri saw that they were approaching the solar. Two Whitehill guards stood at attention, one to either side of the open door.

“Your first meeting is with Osric Fletcher,” Sidonie explained. “Priest of the Trinity.”

“Which is why I am present,” Vivek Sharma said, speaking up for the first time. “I thought that I might be able to – ease the discussion.”

“That makes it sound like this is going to be trouble,” Keri muttered. Sidonie left them at the door, and Linnea carefully maneuvered the wheeled chair into the sitting room, where a place had been cleared for it at one end of the table. Pandit Sharma followed them in, and Keri saw that Osric Fletcher was already rising from his seat, a gentle smile that told nothing of his intentions masking his face.

“Regent Inkeris,” the priest said, and offered a bow in the Lucanian style.

Keri would have preferred to clasp hands, in the manner of the Eld, but the chair made it awkward. Fletcher was, he saw, an unusually tall man, with gray hair, a lined face, and a posture that was beginning to stoop. His voice was strong, though, easily filling the room, and pleasant to listen to. Keri supposed that was an important quality for a priest to have.

“Thank you for coming,” Keri said. “You’re already familiar with Pandit Sharma, I believe?”

“Of course,” Fletcher said, and the two old men exchanged nods before taking their seats. Linnea quietly withdrew to a place at the wall, where she would be close enough to help Keri if needed, but otherwise removed from the conversation. “He and I have had several very interesting conversations over a good meal at the Old Oak.”

“From which I have learned a great deal about the worship of the Trinity in Lucania,” Sharma agreed, leaning back in his chair. “My friend has come today hoping for a bit of reassurance.”

Keri looked between one man and the other. “Reassurance about what?” he asked.

Fletcher hesitated, then leaned forward across the table, folding his hands together in what Keri guessed might be a show of nerves. “It is this business about what they’re calling her,” he admitted.

“Liv?”

The old man nodded. “It feels awkward to say queen, when I’ve known her so long – but Queen Livara, yes. Though that isn’t my concern. But more and more people are calling her the Lady of Winter. Some of them are beginning to ask me questions that I, in all honesty, have a difficult time answering. I’m told it was the Eld who began it?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Not quite,” Keri answered. “It was Ghveris, actually. But I know that Commander Aura has used the phrase.”

“Well the thing is –” Fletcher paused. “She isn’t, is she?”

“Isn’t what?”

“She isn’t actually one of the Vædim?” The priest shrugged. “It seems silly to even ask; I’ve known her practically her entire life, even if not very well. She grew up right here in Whitehill, there’s no way that she could be. Only the way that people seem to speak about her – they say she froze an entire army to death by calling a blizzard at the pass. That she brought that crown she wears back from the Tomb of Kelris.”

Keri sat back in his chair, and glanced over to Vivek Sharma. “The crown is from the tomb,” he confirmed. “I was there when she brought it out. So far as the blizzard is concerned, I wasn’t conscious to see that, but I don’t doubt it at all.”

“None of that quite answers my question,” Fletcher pressed.

“What is a Vædim?” Keri asked.

“A subject of intense theological discussion, to be certain,” Pandit Sharma remarked.

“It may be this is one of the ways in which the difference in human and Elden lifespan shows itself,” Keri admitted. “Because for us, the question is more literal. Our Houses were founded by descendants of the Vædim. Aira tär Keria is the daughter of the Vædic Lady of Thorns. She is half Vædim, half Eld, and over twelve hundred years old. She isn’t some myth to us, like Mirriam has become in Lucania. I’ve met her. So has Liv. And both Liv and I have Vædic blood, as well.”

“Whatever old blood may once have run through the royal family of Lucania is thinned by so many generations, it may as well no longer exist,” Fletcher admitted. “Though that won’t stop them bragging about it, I suppose.”

Keri shrugged. “But for people like Liv and I, that isn’t the case. We will age more slowly than people who don’t have that inheritance. We can hold more mana in our bodies. The word of power we’ve inherited comes more naturally. I know that people here in Whitehill have gotten used to thinking of Liv as half human, half Eld – but that isn’t really true. She’s closer to half human, a part Eld, and a part Vædim. And that part is descended from the Lord of Cold and Winter, Kelris.”

“You’re saying that the people of Whitehill lack the perspective to understand what they’re seeing, when they look at her,” Osric Fletcher reasoned. “And that is why they are starting to speak about her as if she’s some sort of fledgling goddess.”

“No.” Keri shook his head. “That may be part of it, but it isn’t what I’m saying. Liv was changed by the Well of Bones, and changed again in the Tomb of Kelris. She’s trained with perhaps the last woman who learned at the feet of the old gods. She was always a natural talent with magic, but she can do things now that I have a hard time believing. When our troops finally break through Ractia’s defenses, I fully expect her to be right there with the elders, fighting a goddess.”

“Which brings me back to my earlier question,” Keri continued. “What is a Vædim? If the answer is only one of the beings who came here and shaped our two peoples into slaves, then no, clearly Liv isn’t one of them. But she is their descendent, as am I. Do you measure by her magical capabilities? If that’s the case, she very well may be approaching whatever line there is that separates us.”

“There is a rumor,” Osric Fletcher began. “Well, not a rumor, precisely. Many soldiers came back speaking of how she sickened at the pass – that she only recovered when she was able to return to a rift.”

“I suppose too many people know about that to keep it a secret,” Keri complained. He would have preferred that Liv’s weaknesses weren’t bandied about so casually.

“No, I think any chance of that has passed,” Fletcher told him. “It only feeds the stories. They say it is proof that she is one of them - not an old god, but a new one. What do I tell them?”

Keri was surprised that the priest so openly asked for guidance: it spoke a great deal to how lost the old man must have been feeling. “Tell them the truth,” he said. “That she went into the Tomb of Kelris, and destroyed the last trace of her ancestor. That it changed her, and that is why she can’t spend too long outside a rift. That she won’t answer their prayers, but that she will do everything she can to protect them.”

“And remind them,” Vivek Sharma suggested, “that the old Lord of Winter was a monster with a cold, frozen heart. And that, perhaps, each of them can do their part to help make certain that Liv never becomes like him.”

“You think there is danger of that?” Keri frowned.

“I think that she has, of late, discovered the need for a ruler to be cold and hard sometimes,” Sharma pointed out. “But we cannot allow that to become all that she is. It would not be good for her, and it would not be good for the rest of us.”

Keri thought back to the day that she’d made chutes of ice at Mountain Home, the flush of her cheeks, the smile on her face at sharing Rei’s simple joy. He found the thought of her losing – or giving up – that part of herself jarring.

“I’m not certain how much help we’ve actually been to you,” he admitted to Fletcher. “The question you’re asking doesn’t have an easy answer.”

“I understand more than when I came,” the priest said. “And I believe I have an idea or two about what should be done. Thank you both.”

☙

Keri met with the Lucanian Ambassador over the mid-day meal. In addition to Lia Every and Sidonie, they were joined by Kazimir Grenfell, not in the great hall, but in the old court mage’s rooms.

For a moment, Keri looked around at the bookshelves, preserved pieces of mana beasts, chunks of white stone, various experimental enchantments, and the accumulated mess of decades spent teaching, and tried to imagine Liv as a young girl, sitting in a little chair while she listened to Grenfell lecture. The thought put a smile on his face.

“Have you settled into your rooms well?” he asked Baroness Ridley, once the footmen had filled the table with trays of food. For this meal, everything was mana-rich – not only because Keri needed it, but also as a demonstration to the ambassador of the benefits that came from a good relationship with Al’Fenthia.

“Well enough.” The woman’s hair was gray and clipped short, and her face more handsome than pretty, at this point. Amelina Ridley spoke with a rapidity and confidence that made it feel like he’d been confronted with an incoming wave, crashing against the beach. “I’d prefer to be at home, of course, but given what a mess Benedict has made, we must all do our part in cleaning it up, I suppose.”

She turned to Master Grenfell. “I’m sorry for what happened to your nephew. If I could have seen a way to save Isaac’s life without losing my own, I would have done it.”

The old mage grimaced. “Thank you for the thought,” Grenfell said. “Though it might have been more comforting if it were accompanied by Ridley troops taking our side at the pass.”

“There is no world in which that was going to happen,” the baroness said firmly. “The new laws gave us enough of an excuse to refuse to help the crown in their petty little war, and we did so. Professor Every, I’ve been asked to convey your brother Gilbert’s greetings from the capital. You dragging him into this has put your house in a bit of a difficult position, politically.”

“Gilbert can take care of himself,” the acting guild mistress said, reaching for a goblet of wine. “Clemency for our entire family was one of the peace conditions.”

“Told the Lord Commander that he was unavoidably delayed by - flooding, was it?” Ridley shrugged. “He’s lucky that you all won. As it is, Lucania has greater concerns.”

“We all do,” Keri grumbled. Concerns that he would have rather been dealing with, in all honesty, instead of sitting down to eat an ocean away from the front lines. “Ractia is a threat to all of us, and the alliance has been distracted by Lucanian troubles for too long already.”

Ambassador Ridley huffed, and paused with her fork hovering above her plate. “I was speaking of this disastrous rift in the mages guild,” she said. “Two charters, with two separate governments? Two colleges? An acting guild mistress in Whitehill? This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. The Watchful Order of Magim must reintegrate, and go back to serving its most important purpose – the preservation of magical knowledge, and the education of the next generation of students.”

It was Grenfell who spoke up next. “And how do you propose that be accomplished, Ambassador?”

“Simple,” Ridley answered. “Now that the fighting is over, and Archmagus Loredan has the capital in hand, it's time to bring everyone back home to Coral Bay and set things to rights. Your students are waiting for you, Professor Every, and I daresay you’ll be more comfortable back in a classroom than trying to do –” she waved a hand as if batting away flies – “Whatever is happening here.”

Keri blinked. He’d been expecting to negotiate border tariffs, perhaps – to push for reparation payments to compensate the Grenfells and to repair the wall at the pass. Optimistically, he’d even hoped there might be a possibility of bargaining for Lucanian forces to help fight against Ractia in Varuna.

At his side, Lia Every dropped her fork with a clink of silver on silver. Keri didn’t think he’d ever seen her so upset before.

“You must be insane,” the acting guild mistress said. “After they all voted to kiss Benedict’s boot, after they all let Genevieve Arundell buy them like dockside whores, you think I want to go back? No. The guild is split, Ambassador, and you’d better get used to that fact.”