been there.
None told her what real y happened back when.
“I suppose I’l have to ask. Bring out the board.”
...
Varthlokkur chuckled. So. The woman had been playing him with al the hustle and bustle. Though, of course, that had been in support of this.
“Nepanthe. Come look.”
Smyrena on her shoulder, Nepanthe came. She peered into the globe Varthlokkur was using. She saw Mist beside a large blackboard, smiling. Mist was dressed in masculine travel clothes. The board proclaimed, I am ready to come see my children in bold chalk lettering.
Nepanthe asked, “Are you going to let her?”
“What do you think? Can we trust her not to do something unpleasant?”
Nepanthe considered. “She’l behave as long as the children are with us.”
“I imagine you’re right. So. Start getting ready but don’t tel them. She could change her mind. I don’t want their hearts broken.”
Nepanthe put her arms around him, from behind, and kissed him on the right cheek.
He blushed. She did not notice.
He had longed for that sort of spontaneous affection across the ages.
Nepanthe went away.
Varthlokkur summoned the Unborn.
...
Ragnarson wakened needing to use the garderobe. He did that more frequently lately. But that was a problem for old men. He was not old. Not yet. No.
There was a moon out tonight. He lined it up so he could see it. It was living proof that there was a reality beyond his prison.
Something the color of freshly watered blood occluded the moon. Ragnarson started. What the hel ?
That?
Eyes old in evil stared for several seconds. Then the Unborn left.
Ragnarson’s heart hammered. That had been a shock.
What did it mean? Was a rescue under way?
Nothing came of it. It was just something to haunt his thoughts. When he wakened next morning he was no longer sure the monster had not been a nightmare.
...
The Unborn could do nothing but execute its orders.
Varthlokkur had made sure of that when he bound the monster. But the evil in the beast would express itself.
It tried tormenting the Empress, traveling to Fangdred, by dropping her, then catching her after a thousand feet of freefal . But she was no fun. She did not scream after the first surprise.
Radeachar never felt the magic being woven. It discovered the truth the third time it tried a drop. The woman plunged in silence. There was no pleasure in that.
There was pain aplenty, though. The farther she fel the worse that became.
Radeachar was not capable of complex thought. It did possess a strong drive toward self-preservation. That kicked in fast. Thereafter it concentrated on completing its task as quick as could be.
...
Fangdred boasted a smal courtyard behind its gate. In the lowlands the world was easing into summer but winter hung on doggedly in the Dragon’s Teeth. Ice rimed Fangdred’s grey wal s, inside and out. Black ice patched the grey pavements of the court. Mist slipped almost as soon as the Unborn set her down. She cursed. That inelegance was not flattering.
She grumbled about the cold, too. She had not anticipated the difference in weather, nor the impact of the increased altitude.
Varthlokkur, Nepanthe, Scalza, and Ekaterina came out to meet her. The children stared as though she was some fabulous beast. They did not run to her. In fact, Ekaterina retreated behind Nepanthe, peeked around with one eye, as though she was a shy four.
Loss shoved a talon into the gut of the most powerful woman in the world. It ripped.
She could quash an empire of a hundred mil ion souls but could not hold the love of her children.
Heading their way, stepping careful y, she reminded herself that she had not been much of a mother before she went back to the Empire. Not by the standards of workaday folk on whose backs businesses, nations, and empires were built.
The four withdrew into the warmth as Mist joined them.
Scalza was the perfect soldier. He bowed deeply and said,
“We bid you welcome, Mother.” There was no affection in his voice.
Ekaterina stammered something, then hid behind Nepanthe again. Nepanthe and Varthlokkur both seemed surprised, which suggested that Ekaterina was, usual y, much more bold.
Nepanthe said, “Dinner is being set. If you need to refresh yourself first…”
“I do.”
A servant showed Mist the way to quarters already prepared. The woman pretended to have no languages in common with the Dread Empress.
Nepanthe’s own children were with their mother when Mist arrived for dinner. The infant sprawled on her mother’s left shoulder, asleep. Ethrian sat to Nepanthe’s right. His eyes were vacant.
Hard to believe that he had threatened the existence of the Empire.
Uncomfortably conscious of Varthlokkur, Mist focused on Nepanthe. Her sister-in-law. Valther’s little sister. Nepanthe signified most in this domestic drama.
Varthlokkur would be the referee.
Servants brought simple fare, as was to be expected in a dreary castle in the most remote of mountains. Dining proceeded lugubriously, silence broken mainly by Nepanthe as she delivered gentle instruction to Ethrian.
“Eat your turnips, Ethrian. They’l help you get better. Good boy, Ethrian. Take your finger out of your nose, Ethrian.” And so on, with the boy always mechanical y responsive.
He was little more than a skeleton. He showed a fine appetite, yet remained as gaunt as he had been on emerging from the eastern desert.
At one point he met Mist’s gaze. He asked a quick question. She did not understand.
Scalza said, “He asked where Sahmaman went. He asks al the time.”
Ekaterina, in a voice like a mouse, chirped, “He’s getting better, Mother. He can talk now.”
Scalza added, “But it’s only the same three or four things.” Ethrian asked his question again. This time Mist recognized “Sahmaman” and “go.” His inflexion was not appropriate to a question.
“Who is he asking about?”
They al seemed surprised. Varthlokkur replied, “The woman who was in the desert with him.”
“The ghost?”
“Yes. But she was more than that. She was a true revenant for a while. She had flesh.”
The fine hairs on Mist’s forearms began to tingle.
Nepanthe said, “They were lovers. Not physical y. I don’t think. She sacrificed herself so that Ethrian could live.” Nepanthe stared down at her dinner. Even so, Mist could see the moisture on her cheeks.
Again, Ethrian asked, “Where Sahmaman go?” And Nepanthe told him, “She had to go away, Ethrian. She had to go for a long time.”
Mist realized that her children were staring, expecting her to say something.
She could not imagine what.
These were not the children she had come to see. She had hoped for sweetlings. But Scalza had become old and cold.
