There were people absolutely everywhere, stopped in the midst of their chores to gawk. Havec’s homeland had seemed almost deserted, but there were more people crammed into this building than felt reasonable. The overwhelming impression Qanath was getting from them was uncertainty shading into fear. They displayed none of the anger she had encountered elsewhere.

Eventually, their guide left them in a cozy space, a rather small room on the first floor. Somewhere toward the northeastern end of the building, unless she had gotten turned back-to-front. Two tiny windows high on the walls of the northern face were hidden by snow piling up on the sills. Everything about this room was comforting to her, from the fire roaring in the fireplace of rounded rocks to the soothing blues and greens of the rug they were dripping on. The rows upon rows of books shelved in its walls.

A girl several years her junior arrived bearing a tea tray in her trembling hands and left again immediately. The stiffness of her gait suggested it was a struggle not to run. A much older man appeared on her heels, tall and thin, his beard trimmed short. He gave them a bow, then held silent, studying them thoughtfully.

If this was Havec’s uncle, he had very little of his nephew or his brother in him. His face was narrow and intelligent, and he had the bearing more of a scholar or theologian, calm and introspective. His eyes were Havec’s; gray and not blue, but widely-spaced and deeply-set. It was a moment before he said, “Greetings,” and his voice was deeper than she anticipated.

Both of them bowed.

“My name is Jonet, I understand you were asking after me? I’m afraid Mattew doesn’t speak your tongue.” He had the ring in hand, Qanath saw. The way he fingered it betrayed his uneasiness.

“I come with a warning from your nephew.”

“What?” he demanded before she could go on. His voice was sharp, and there was no doubt he’d understood her.

“I’m friends with your nephew. Havec—”

He had raised the ring toward her like a weapon, snarling, “Gheara sent you here to torment me? I don’t know what she’s plotting with her vile hedge-witches—Yes, I know about them,” he interjected with a bitter triumph it was uncomfortable to witness, “—but I would have thought even she was above such ugly games.”

“Look, I’m sorry about your son--”

Again he interrupted her. “What has she done with him?”

Amril placed a hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t know. How could he? He’s upset about the nephew he thought he lost, not the son he did.”

The Moritian neither confirmed nor denied this, looking back and forth between them from behind the mask he had hefted back in place. Qanath started when he turned away, but he only went to the tea tray sitting on the low table before the hearth. “Please, take your coats off and refresh yourselves before the fire, you can’t be accustomed to this wretched cold.”

She saw him twitch when he turned around to find a fourth person in the room, but he didn’t comment on it; the soldier who first answered the door would certainly have told him one member of their party could be a man or a bird and was probably neither of those things. He waited politely until they had moved around to the chairs drawn up before the fire before seating himself, then busied himself pouring tea. He offered to send for an extra cup, but Arandgwail had already flopped down on the rug in front of the fire and wasn’t interested in their boring human rituals.

If their host was being more mannered, he definitely wasn’t more friendly. As soon as each of them had a drink in hand, he demanded, “Explain.”

The proper place to start was to state their allegiance clearly. “We aren’t allies of the queen, we pulled that ring off her hand.”

“Living or dead?”

She was startled he could ask this so coolly – as if Qanath looked like the kind of person who went around killing people and stripping their corpses of tokens afterward – but she had seen for herself how judgmental Havec’s people were. How keen to leap upon any perceived frailty. All of that had been directed toward him previously, but now he wasn’t here to handle the attention, she was the one who would be on the scales. She could already guess that, if they judged her weak and lacking in will, they would feel no need to listen to her.

She took a sip of tea to give herself time in which to make sure her voice was under control. “Alive but in custody. Her son intends to hand her over to the Empire to account for her crimes.”

He must want more than anything to ask about his nephew, to learn why she kept alluding to someone he had believed to be dead for years. Possibly someone he had mourned. What he said, though, was, “What crimes has she committed against you, save to complain? Is Tabb the Ancient grown so fragile in its dotage it cannot bear to be disparaged?”

“You’re familiar with a town called Petron? Directly across the border?” Amril asked.

The Moritian bowed his head as if to say: how not?

“Several days ago, it was destroyed by a pair of giants, lured down from the mountains by Moritian sorcerers.”

All color fled the man’s face.

“It was your nephew’s theory that your sister-in-law was to blame, not least because she was in hiding in the mountains surrounded by a picked guard while you were here just miles up the coast, ready and waiting to take the fall for it.”

The façade broke, and he set his tea down, covering his face with one shaking hand. “Is he truly alive?”

It was Qanath who answered: “Yes.”

“There wasn’t a body,” he whispered. “But thanks to the fire, I never knew whether that had significance. Maybe it had simply been destroyed. I was afraid to hold out hope.”

She decided on the spot that he didn’t need to know his nephew had blamed him for it. “The fire was a front to hide what really happened. His mother sold him to a bonding-broker, he’d been in bondage ever since. When his master died, I explained to him it wasn’t actually legal to own him against his will, and here we are.”

“Has he come back to take the throne?” No hint in his voice or expression how he felt.

“No,” she said as firmly as she dared. “His thought was it should go to you.”

“And then? I heard you mention that my son is dead.” He didn’t seem to be particularly troubled by it. Neither of them commented, but he seemed to read something in their faces. “Ammon loved the boy, I never saw him give much thought to it. But Gheara and I both knew the gods had played an evil joke on us. She got my son and I got hers. I never wished an early end on my own seed, but Hemell was theirs from the moment he emerged from the womb, arrogant and heedless, disdainful of any virtue save strength.

“We were never easy in one another’s company from the time when he was very small, and the instant his cousin died, the queen took him from me anyway. She had a duty to train him as her heir, she told me, a duty I could never hope to fulfill.” He fell silent, then murmured, “If all she ever wanted was to trade, she could have just given the boy to me. I would have taken him.”

Arandgwail sat up, resting his chin on the low table between them. “Are you talking about the man with white hair?”

He had addressed this question to their host, but it was Amril who answered. “Yes, Ara, he is.”

“Isn’t he interesting? There’s another person inside him.”

His uncle didn’t seem to know what to make of that. Qanath drew a deep breath and forced herself to say, “While he was away, he became something important to my people. If he leaves our borders, my people are going to follow him. In numbers. I don’t know how you can expect him to rule your country with a hundred reverent Tabbaqerans surrounding him.”

“I don’t see what right you have to decide on his behalf. Or is he still your slave?”

That made her want to shout, but she wrestled the anger into check. “That wasn’t what I meant. He told me himself he has no desire to stay. Probably because we treat him with respect!” That came out hotter than she meant it to, but she hadn’t appreciated the implication that she was partly to blame for what happened to him simply because of her nationality. It wouldn’t have stung if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind on previous occasions.

“He finally came into his own,” his uncle mused. “I often suspected all he needed was a chance to learn himself outside the crushing confines of his parents’ expectations. Ammon wanted so badly for the boy to be a miniature Ammon, gods! it was obscene how much he loved that his son looked just like him. As for Gheara, it was clear from a young age that my nephew—” He stopped.

“He’s told me he was bookish and retiring,” Qanath suggested.

He looked at her strangely, she wasn’t sure why.

“Your brother is back from the dead.”

The expression Jonet turned on Amril was totally blank. “I saw his body. I sat with it overnight before the funeral, after it had been prepared for burial.”

Rubbing at her burning eyes with her fingertips, Qanath responded, “Nevertheless. We met him in a cave up in the mountains. Havec said the place is a gateway to the underworld.”

“Your brother’s soul was back in its body, cognizant but unable to move,” Amril took up for her. “Your nephew told us they were going to use your son’s body so he could come fully back to life, but we foiled that plan and left him in the cave with all his hedge-witch servants slain. Not twelve hours later…”

“The god of winter passed us in the woods of the material world, wearing your brother’s flesh,” Qanath finished. “We don’t know what exactly they had planned, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t this.”

“Ammon, you fool,” his brother whispered, “what has become of you?”

“We assume their goals were worldly and political, but we have it from a priest that the god will want nothing but to spread the clouds of winter across the world,” Amril added.