Keri ate a morning meal with the group from Whitehill. He had considered leaving earlier, and walking over to the Mountain Home encampment to eat with his father and the rest of his family, instead.

The food would likely be better – Whitehill, despite all they had done to support Liv, was still not as good at providing an Elden diet as they could be. But he found himself hesitating. Part of it was the natural inclination to put off something unpleasant. While he was looking forward to seeing his father and his son, Keri also knew that he would have to deal with Rika and Sohvis, and his Aunt Väina.

The other reason that he did not leave immediately was that he could tell, when Liv walked out of her tent, that she was beginning to feel the absence of rift mana. Keri could see it in the way she held herself – shoulders tense, a slight wince when she moved too quickly, and perhaps a tendency to hunch in on herself when she thought that no one was looking. He watched her, while she ate, and how she let the conversation pass her by without actually speaking, herself.

Keri frowned. She’d been running off all the exposure to rifts in Varuna, he imagined; and then, travelling through Bald Peak and visiting the ring must have helped to put this off. But the Hall of Ancestors was nowhere near a rift, and they would be here for days. Whatever Liv was feeling now, it would only get worse before they were done.

It occurred to him that, with Rosamund gone, there was no longer anyone taking care of Liv. Oh, Kaija and the members of that personal guard were keeping her safe, so much as that was possible. They would secure a perimeter, scout ahead, guard the entrance to her tent to turn away those who meant her harm. They would, no doubt, take an arrow for her.

Thora and, to an extent, Miina, would see to it that she was presentable. They would fill her closets with gowns, comb out her hair and braid it again; they would pour her hot baths, and fill her tent, even out here in the northern forest, with the comforts and luxuries they thought appropriate to her station.

Arjun would keep her healthy, and Sidonie would advise her on everything from the family trees of Lucanian nobility to the irregular forms of Vædic verbs. The elders would, no doubt, continue to teach her magical techniques that were, quite honestly, beyond Keri. In fifty or a hundred years, he might reach the level she was already at now.

Her father and grandmother loved her, in the way of families. Keri had no doubt they would support and comfort her where they could, but to them she would always be a daughter or granddaughter.

The only one who had simply loved Liv for Liv was gone, and while Keri couldn’t fault Rose for the decision she’d made, it did, to his surprise, make him angry. I don’t understand how anyone could have the love of a woman like that and throw it away, he thought to himself, as he set aside his cleared plate and had a drink of watered wine. If it was me, I would give anything for her. She deserves someone to love her and care for her. Not the queen - her. He was nearly overwhelmed by a sudden urge to take her in his arms, to do whatever he could to ease her pain.

Keri set his goblet aside, stood, and moved around the outside of the circle to where Liv was sitting. He walked behind Baron Crosbie and Kazimir Grenfell, Kaija and Thora, and knelt down just behind Liv’s log. “You’re starting to feel it?” he asked, in Vakansa.

Liv jumped, just a little bit, as if she hadn’t noticed him come up next to her. “It’s just a bit of a headache, right now,” she told him, responding in the same language. “Not too bad yet. I’ll be able to make it through the council. And when it’s over I have a tether back to Bald Peak.”

“Would you like me to bring you a mid-day meal back from my family?” Keri asked. “They will have brought more mana-dense ingredients than we had at Whitehill.”

“I had been thinking about eating with my father and my grandmother,” Liv told him. “But if you can bring something that doesn’t have seal blood in it, that would make me much happier.” She smiled, and he thought that it might be the first of the morning. Keri took it as a sign of victory.

“Have you decided what to do about that offer from House Kaulris?” he asked.

Liv shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of being tested by people I hardly know anything about,” she admitted. “Especially when I’m not certain what the test will be. I thought I would give them a response after you get back.”

“Even if I can get you three votes, that isn’t enough,” Keri said. “Only eighteen or nineteen, depending on Elder Aira.”

“Grandmother has promised to introduce me to elders from Houses Esteria and Isakki,” Liv said. “That’s what I’ll be doing while you visit with your family. Say hello to Rei for me.”

“If I can, I’ll bring him back this afternoon,” Keri said. He stood, and resisted the urge to lay a hand on her shoulder, to offer comfort. It wasn’t his place. Instead, he just told her, “I’ll see you soon,” and headed out.

The last time Keri had come to the Hall of Ancestors, he’d made the long walk around the central amphitheater to visit Liv’s father at the House Syvä encampment, and had brought Rei along. As he’d pointed out the carved trees to his son, he hadn’t given a single thought to the possibility that this place might not be safe. Not until Valtteri had told him about the presence of a traitor.

This time, as he made his way past the camps of the other houses, coming around into unconquered territory, Keri wasn’t able to relax. Had all of Ractia’s spies within House Iravata been rooted out? Perhaps. Did that mean she had no more influence among any of the Elden houses? He doubted it. Another reason to be wary of the offer from Raija kæn Kaulris.

He passed their camp on the way. Hardly any of them were out of their tents, and even the guards went entirely wrapped and veiled. The thought of Liv walking into that camp, utterly at their mercy, was not a comforting one.

The weight of Keri’s troubles was eased, for a moment at least, by the sight of his son’s wild, pale hair shining in the sunlight. Rei was sitting on a small folding camp chair near the cookfire at the center of the Bælris camp, book open in his lap, next to Elder Torstis, who had taught Keri history when he was a boy. That, at last, answered the question of who the third vote from Mountain Home would be.

“I don’t understand why he just left, though,” Rei complained. “If he knew the old gods were wrong, why didn’t Bælris help the Trinity?”

“Our ancestor’s heart was so grieved by the bloodshed, by the fighting that divided the Vædim, that he withdrew rather than take arms against his brothers or his sisters,” Torstis explained. It was the same line he’d given Keri, decades ago, and just as unsatisfying now as it had been then.

“It was a mistake,” Keri said, coming up behind his son and leaning down to kiss Rei on the head. “He should have done what was right. If he had, we’d have temples to four gods now, instead of the Trinity.”

“Daddy!” Rei squealed, dropped his open book in the dirt, and leapt up from the chair, knocking it out of the way in his rush to throw himself against Keri’s legs. “You’re walking!”

Keri couldn’t help but make a grunt, and he had to take a step backward, steadying himself with the walking stick. “Careful,” he warned, but it brought a smile to his face.

Elder Torstis fixed Keri with a disgruntled look. “I believe I told you, when you were my student, that it is not our place to question our ancestor. A lesson that remains as true now as it was then.”

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“I never thought it was a good answer, when I was a boy.” Keri hesitated, then dropped his stick, put his hands beneath his son’s arms, and lifted Rei up into the air, against his chest. For a terrifying moment, he thought that he might fall, but he managed to stay upright and keep his balance. “If you see people fighting for their freedom, fighting against evil, and you could help them, but choose to stand aside, that is the act of a coward.”

Torstis opened his mouth to argue, but was interrupted by Keri’s father.

“You look better than the last time I saw you,” Ilmari said, thrusting the flap of his tent aside and striding out to join them around the fire. “You no longer need that wheeled chair?”

Keri shook his head. “It took a lot of work, and a lot of pain, but I can make do with a walking stick most of the time, now,” he explained. “I can ride. I can even walk a bit or stand on my own, so long as I’m careful and don’t push myself too far.”

“Good. I’m glad,” Ilmari said. He walked around to stand before Keri, and the old man reached up to grasp his shoulder with one hand. “It’s good to have you back. We put your tent up, for when you arrived.”

“I’m actually staying with Liv,” Keri said. “Though I thought that I might stay here through the midday meal. And I also thought that you might want to walk back with me this afternoon and visit,” he told Rei. “I know that Liv has missed you, and I believe Master Grenfell told me that he was bringing a small hand telescope just so that the two of you could look at the stars together. How does that sound?”

Rei pulled back from Keri’s chest just far enough to nod eagerly, but the movement was enough that Keri had to set the boy down. “Finish your lessons with Elder Torstis, then, while I speak with your grandfather.” He bent down to scoop up his walking stick, and turned his steps toward the carved trees of the outer forest. Better to have the conversation with his father alone, before Rika, Sohvis, or Väina interrupted.

“Why don’t you want to stay here, with your family?” Ilmari asked, once they’d gone far enough to be unobserved. “Is it because of Rika and Sohvis?”

Keri nodded. They had come up beside a cedar carved into the form of a gyrfalcon, and it reminded him of Liv. He wondered if there was a tree carved into a bat, and whether it would be very different from Wren’s form: a northern bat, rather than a jungle bat.

“Thank you for asking her to bring Rei to visit me at Whitehill,” he began. “It was good to see him. I feel like I’ve already missed too much of his childhood.” Keri paused. “But Rika herself was… not good for me.”

Ilmari frowned. “You must love your kwenim without grasping, Inkeris. You were only promised to be joined long enough to raise a child. She might have left and taken another man, in time, no matter what happened. Jealousy is poison.”

“I’m not jealous,” Keri said, shaking his head. “I’m angry that she betrayed me. That while I was away, fighting for our family, she was falling in love with someone else. That she kept it a secret, and only told me when she was forced to. If I’d died in Varuna, do you think she would have been relieved? I suspect she might have. No, I’m not jealous – I don’t want her anymore. I love the son that she gave me, but I don’t love her any longer. And I don’t want to see her. I don’t see how I can ever go back to Menis Breim while she is there.”

There it was: the admission that he’d hesitated to make, even to himself. That the place he’d grown to adulthood was no longer home. And if Mountain Home wasn’t, where was?

“I cannot help but feel that this is somehow my fault,” his father said, after a moment. “I thought she would be a good match for you. The three of you were so close as children. I knew that Sohvis wanted her - your aunt spoke to me of it. I thought perhaps he would give Rika a second child, some years from now…”

Though it didn’t change anything, somehow, Ilmari’s admission made him feel better. “For what it’s worth, I forgive you,” he told his father. “But I don’t believe anything that happened was your fault. Sohvis could have come to speak with me, before the joining. Rika could have sent a message. Their choices are not your burden to carry, Father.”

“It is good to hear you say it, I suppose,” Ilmari grumbled. “What will you do, then? If you won’t come home?”

He shrugged. “Ractia needs to be found. That will be a task that takes years, I suspect. We haven’t even begun to organize it. Liv - my friends will need my help.”

“You’ll stay with her, then. In human lands.”

“In alliance lands,” Keri said. “And I hope that Rei will be permitted to come and visit.”

His father waved a hand. “I will ensure it happens – whatever Rika has to say about it. But this talk of ‘alliance lands…”

“The fight isn’t over until Ractia is found,” Keri said. “We need to work together to do that.”

“Not at the cost of our freedom,” Ilmari shot back. “Not at the cost of our independence. And not at the cost of our people. Our men and women have been fighting for too long. They need to come home – to rest, and to heal.”

Keri frowned. “No one is saying otherwise,” he argued. “But some of us are still ready to fight. And those people need to be organized. Which means the alliance must continue.”

“An alliance, or a kingdom?” his father asked.

“I don’t want to argue with you.” Keri sighed. “Let us find what we can agree on. Wren Wind-Dancer. Can you agree that she has earned forgiveness, for whatever she did at Soltheris?”

Ilmari sighed. “Yes. She brought us warning of the Iravata’s treason, and she fought with us all the way through Varuna. On her, you have my vote – and I will ensure you have Torstis’s, as well. But not her father. It is not safe to let him live. Blood and Shadows, he gave the risen goddess a child.”

“Fine.” Keri had always known that mercy for Nighthawk was a more difficult argument than for his daughter. “Juhani of Soltheris. He disobeyed orders and executed prisoners indiscriminately. He must be punished.”

“Agreed. We have no use for soldiers who cannot follow orders.”

“Will you support making the alliance permanent?” Keri asked him. “A unified army, ready to face Ractia when she returns?”

“No.” Ilmari’s voice was firm, almost angry. “When we are needed again, the council will meet here and decide what is to be done. No commitment until that time comes. Those who wish to aid in the hunt will be free to do so, but we will not be part of whatever kingdom your friend is building.”

It wasn’t what Keri had hoped for, but it was better than he’d feared. Two votes, for two of the things they wanted. “Thank you.”

“If you want your aunt’s support, you can talk to her yourself,” Ilmari said. “And Keri. Understand that there are going to be questions asked, in front of the entire council, about your friend. Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of a Lady of Winter.”

“I understand.” Keri reached out for the nearest tree – the one carved into a gyrfalcon. He steadied himself by leaning against it. “May I warn her?”

“Of course.”

There was a rustle of dry leaves, and both men turned.

Tall and proud, with her face carved like the rock of a mountain, Väina tär Väinis approached them, from the direction of the camp. “Torstis told me you had come, nephew. I hope you weren’t going to leave without speaking to me?”

Ilmari grunted. “I’ll leave the two of you to it.” He strode past his sister.

“He doesn’t agree with what I’m going to ask you,” Väina said, coming to a halt within arm’s reach of Keri. “I hadn’t seen you since you were wounded. You look better than I had expected. I assume that means you’re over the worst of it.”

Keri nodded. “What does my father not agree with?” he asked, already dreading the answer.

“A bargain, which you can take to your friend,” his aunt explained. “If she meets my conditions, she may have my vote on every question that comes before the council.”

“I hadn’t expected that,” Keri admitted, shifting his balance to keep his bad leg from falling asleep. “I honestly thought that you’d be pretty well set against her.”

“Your father votes on principle,” Väina said. “Trinity bless him. I choose my votes based on more practical concerns. Two houses have already accepted Livara as their queen. No matter what my brother would like, division is already upon us. The only choice is where our family falls – on the inside, or the outside.”

“You’d join Bælris to Liv?” Keri asked. “What is your price?”

“Why, the price of all alliances,” his aunt told him, with a smile. “Your queen must take a man from our family as her daiverim, for at least long enough to produce a child. And when she finally passes, however many centuries in the future that may be, her heir will be of our line.”