She heard a low whistle and looked to her left, where the cave spilled open into a midnight desert. Neb stood there beneath a blue-green moon, talking with a man she did not know but suddenly feared. He was slender as a willow and dressed in tattered robes. He carried a thorn rifle, though she did not know why it was called that or what it did. And he meant to take Neb from her to a place where her dreams could not find him.
As if he knew this, he raised a hand and pointed to the moon and it became a cold, dead thing-and etched into the white of the lunar corpse, a sign she’d so recently seen carved into the skin of Hanric’s killers.
She opened her mouth to speak, but then saw Isaak. He lay broken open, and the man she feared was crouched over him, hands up to his forearms, deep and working within the mechoservitor’s chest cavity.
His name is Renard, a voice called to her from below. She turned her eyes away from Neb’s dreams and saw her own unfolding.
The stairs spilled out into a reading chamber, continuing their downward spiral across an open space littered with cushions and chairs. In the corner, seated upon a three-legged stool, a robed man played his harp.
“Who is he?”
“One who will make you weep before all is done,” Tertius said. “But you will laugh again after.”
Winters moved cautiously into the room, her hand no longer tracing the spines of the Book. “You are dead, Tertius.”
“They say so,” he said. “Yes.”
“What is happening to the Book of Dreaming Kings?”
Tertius smiled. “ ‘The light devours and burns brighter for it,’ ” he said, and she knew the words. They were from one of the Errant Gospels, possibly from T’Erys Whym himself.
Even as he spoke, flames belched up the stairs and the room began to burn. As if compelled, the scholar Tertius gave himself over to the harp, his fingers flying across the strings.
And in the moment that her dream shifted again, Winters knew also the song he played, though like the thorn rifle, she did not know how or why she knew it.
It was “A Canticle for the Fallen Moon,” composed by the last of the Weeping Czars, Frederico. It was a song about love and loss, about being separated by vast distance and finding one another at last.
And suddenly, the song was gone; she was alone and struggling in her bedroll near a guttering fire.
A wolf howled in the hills below, and Winters shivered.
“You are far from home,” a voice said from someplace below her on the slope. She felt cold fingers move lightly on the skin of her neck and arms. By instinct, she reached for her knife, then relaxed as Neb materialized at the edge of the fire’s glow. He wore his dusty uniform, and his long white hair had fallen over one eye in a way that made her want to touch him.
“So are you,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder at the blasted lands that stretched behind him. “Yes.” He stepped closer, and the fire whispered out as he did. “The dreams have gotten stranger,” he said.
“This one is nice,” she answered. Neither needed to mention how rare the nice dreams were. They were scarce in the first place and had become more so since Hanric’s death. She patted the bedroll beside her. Neb pulled off his boots and crawled beneath the covers.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll reach the summit and announce myself.” She could not see it in her dream, but the Wicker Throne and its leather harness lay somewhere within reach. She was sure of it. She felt the bite of the straps in her shoulders and back from the long days of carrying it north to the spire.
Neb wriggled near her. “I’m in Fargoer’s Town. I’m on watch soon,” he said.
Then, without further words, they intertwined themselves and she felt the warmth from him spread out to contain her. They did not kiss, though they had in times past. And they did not move their hands over one another, though that also had happened before.
Now, they simply held one another and took comfort from that holding.
And then she was alone again, stiff and cold, the clouds covering the starshine overhead as the sky grew mottled gray with morning. She smiled at the memory of her last dream and forced herself out of the bedroll and onto her feet, but the smile faded quickly.
I will not see him for a season, she thought. She did not know how she knew it, but it was a truth. Different worlds called to them now, but someday, they would be re united as Home rose and called them forth.
She packed quickly and then kicked over the lean-to and pushed dirt into the fire. There were puddles now where the snow had melted, leaving potholes edged in the red clay dust of the Dragon Spine Mountains.
Groaning, she pushed blistered feet into tattered boots and shrugged herself into the harness. Leaning forward, she tipped the Wicker Throne onto her back and started her climb. She felt the leather straps cutting into her skin and felt fire in the soles of her feet and in her knees as she forced herself forward.
Three days she’d borne this load, and today she would enthrone herself in the thin air above the world and announce the beginning of her reign.
As her shadow, Hanric had done this once on her behalf-a labor of love that only now could she fully comprehend. She blessed him for it in that moment, and wept as she moved her feet. She did not sorrow for his loss. Her tears were for the work ahead of her. There was something about carrying the throne upon her back, feeling it bite into her flesh, that spoke to the weight of her role. I am the Marsh Queen.
“I am Winteria bat Mardic,” she said beneath her breath. “I am True Heir to the Wicker Throne and the Dreaming Queen of my People.” She’d practiced the words until they came easily to her tongue.
For as long as she’d remembered, she’d fantasized about this day. She’d always known it would be a bloody day, but she’d imagined a slower climb, perhaps in the spring just after her birthday. And in those girlish daydreams, Hanric walked with her. He kept pace just behind, offering a kind word here or an encouraging word there. And her people lined the path with flowers even though she blushed at the open way they adored her.
Once she’d met Neb, a new note had been added to her daydreams. He walked with her and she was the Homeseeker’s Bride, there taking her place upon the throne and declaring herself queen of her people.
But the reality of it was an achingly cold climb, completely alone. She climbed because she had to, and when she reached the top, she unbuckled her harness and turned the Wicker Throne into the wind. She unstopped the flask and tipped the rancid blood magicks into her mouth. They were sour and briny on her tongue, and she had to choke the vile fluid down her throat.
She waited, counting silently.
When she opened her mouth, it was the voice of many waters that rumbled across the sky, spilling out upon her people. The voice over-flowed her lands, her words reaching distant towns and farms as a whisper after marching strong and clear so many hundreds of leagues.
“I am Winteria bat Mardic,” she cried out. “I am True Heir to the Wicker Throne and the Dreaming Queen of my People.”
She said it twice more and then sat down upon her throne.
She sat there, looking out upon her lands with a quiet heart, until the sun began to drop low and far to the west.
And as the sun dropped, she looked away to the east instead and watched until the light was gone.
Then, she stood and strapped on her harness.
With a sigh, Winters lifted her burden once more and descended into the beginnings of another cold night.
Neb
Neb started when firm hands shook him awake, and suddenly the cold mountain air and the warmth of the woman from his dreams vanished. Aedric stared down at him, his face lined hard in the low lamplight that played over the walls of the barn they slept in.
Nodding to show he was awake, Neb crawled from his blankets and pulled on his soft leather boots, wondering if their guide had returned yet.
True to his word, Renard had brought them into Fargoer’s Town just as the last of the sun blinked out and swollen stars swept up into the night. He’d helped them barter for lodging in a barn that stank of pigs and goats just outside the walls of the town proper and then had left them there to gather what news might be helpful to them.
The small settlement was farther into the Wastes than Neb had believed, farther even than his eye from the heights of the Keeper’s Wall could have discerned. He’d heard stories of Fargoer’s Town, but the details had always been scant. He’d filled those gaps with such items and characters that lent themselves to the romance of archaeology. The reality of it was disappointing. He dimmed the lamp behind him as he let himself out into the starlit landscape, closing the barn door as he went. Aedric waited for him in the deeper shadows near the corner of the barn. Near him, Isaak stood. The metal man’s eyes were closed, but behind the shutters, light flashed and popped even as gears whistled and steam whispered deep within his metal surface.
“He’s ciphering,” Aedric said in a quiet voice. “Renard showed him a map before he left. He’s projecting possible routes our other friend may have taken.”
Neb watched the metal man for a moment, then said what he knew Aedric must already be thinking. “I don’t see how we can find him.”