The Moritian was silent, studying them while he contemplated how honest he wished to be. “For several years now, the queen has been making decisions that seemed inexplicable to me. Calculated to make us weak. Imposing prohibitive tariffs on Tabbi trade, driving away commerce we desperately need. Rabblerousing against the Empire and stirring up antagonism against a neighbor whose goodwill we can’t afford to lose.”

“There was a theory that she was courting invasion,” the sorcerer noted in a careful voice, not glancing at Qanath. “Maybe she had a buyer lined up, ready to give her the governorship if she could hand your territory to them.”

Havec’s uncle was shaking his head. “See, I thought that too at first. The two of us have never gotten on, but Gheara is no fool. She had to know what she was doing was dangerous. She’s been adding to the armory, though, putting swords in hands, encouraging those noxious hedge-witches. Why make the conflict bloodier and more protracted if she knew she was going to lose? If Ammon was alive all along, it makes more sense. He’s exactly the sort of person who doesn’t know the limits of his strength.”

“The sort of man who would invite a god as mighty as this one to take up residence in his body, thinking he could hold his own?” Amril suggested quietly.

“That sort, yes.”

Qanath heaved a sigh and rubbed at her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what they hoped to accomplish, not anymore. That thing, the Wight of Winter, Havec called it? It’s loose now in the material world and it doesn’t care about borders. It’s going to hurt everyone.”

Unlikely Allies Abound

They pushed on along the coastal road as the hidden sun stretched toward the mountains. The land rose here, what few trees there had been between them and the rugged shoreline falling back, giving them a fine view down upon iron-colored water dashing itself angrily against jagged rocks. The blizzard was strange to experience: you could tell how late it was in the year, in how leisurely the sun was about setting and how long the light hung around even after it was gone. It was spring, even if the weather wasn’t behaving like it.

Havec remained in control of his body even after they left the droghos behind. He was guessing that, so long as he kept on south, Kebbal would trust him to keep to the promise it had made on his behalf. At one point, he thought to worry that it had tired itself unduly in doing what it did, maybe even hurt itself, and he asked, Kebbal? Could you give me some sign you’re okay? His right eye snapped closed, then opened again, but it took him a second to grasp he had just winked at himself. He snickered, slapping a guilty hand across his mouth when he saw the startled way the others peered at him. “Sorry, it’s… It’s nothing.”

This stage of the journey was mostly uneventful. Hib saw one other droghos, or thought he did, but it was gone by the time the rest of them looked. The poor boy couldn’t sit still for seconds on end, such was his fear that something was following them.

Havec caught his mother looking at him more than once, and at first it made him defensive. After the fifth time he saw her doing it, he thought to wonder if the expression she was hiding behind that haughty mask was curiosity. She might not know much about the Empire, but she had heard these people styling him ‘exalted.’ She had to be wondering what that meant. When she gave him away to the bonding-broker, she had thought she knew precisely what fate she was consigning him to, and it wasn’t just that she’d never thought to see him again: she hadn’t expected him to come home a badass with a train of hangers-on.

It hadn’t occurred to him before to look at it from that perspective. To focus less on the things about him they would disapprove of and never understand, more on the ways in which he was too good for them. Probably this was obvious to everyone, even the people who didn’t want for it to be.

“Hey, um,” rendered shy again, he abandoned the man’s name in favor of his title, “Zaresh?”

“Yes, Avat?”

“The girl told me the school is mine…?”

“It is. There ought to be an estate that goes along with the Legacy, but I’m not the person to point you toward the proper bank.” He fell silent, then added, “There’s no reason you can’t sell it and pitch your tent somewhere else, although I’ve heard it can be hard to move real estate in the old country. Especially something big.”

“Huh.”

“You have plans?”

“I want to see where I spent the last six years. It’s bullshit that I lived a quarter of my life in this amazing place I barely laid eyes on. I figure I can steal a year or two before people get over being shocked that Xar had a secret heir and start expecting me to do my job. Anyway, I want to meet the others. See if anyone can help me understand this, since Xar never bothered to explain.”

“Can they be in one another’s presence without problems? Are there feuds?” When he saw the way Havec was looking at him, he added, “It’s said that students of Handan and Drish will set upon one another any time they meet, but I’ve never heard the origin of the dispute.”

“See?” Havec exclaimed, thrusting an accusing hand at him. “Seems like the kind of thing I ought to know.”

Farait bowed his head, saying humbly, “It would never have crossed my mind until I met you that perhaps Handan and Drish themselves are enemies. The way you speak of Kebbal has made me reimagine it.”

He had meant to respond, but a woman stepped out from behind a tree ahead of them, positioning herself squarely in their path. The darkness of her skin told them where she came from; the fine accoutrements she carried told them why she was here. This woman wasn’t sporting the brick red and bird’s-egg blue; she wore very little armor, and what metal there was had been painted black, but her confident bearing and the coiled way she carried herself made it obvious she was a soldier. She was wearing drab garb in green and black rather than the dashing uniforms he’d seen on that cavalry unit because she was a scout, a scout in an army that had gotten very good at its craft. Then it snowed, which was why she’d been crouched behind a bush when they showed up.

Her gaze was more curious than hostile. Her eyes went from Farait – his uniform visible in glimpses beneath the heavy coat and a dusting of snow – to the imponderable of Hib. Havec and his mother from the wrong side of the border, although at this point there were still on the Moritian side of that border and this scout was actually the one who was trespassing. He expected to be recognized and bowed to, but they had left on their mission after Lieutenant Pannus took his people east to help the town of Petron.

“There are twenty archers watching you.” She added laconically, “So you know.”

“Farait Tamur, 112th of the Fourth,” Hot Priest replied. “Division chaplain.”

“And why are you wandering around without your unit in what’s soon to be the midst of a battlefield, Zaresh?”

Hot Priest nodded over his right shoulder. “Avat Havec anKebbal. And his mother, Gheara, who is queen of this country and author of certain recent events.”

She snorted. “How much you had to drink, Zaresh? You’re a disciple of Papuanda, am I right?”

The man’s face solidified, although Havec didn’t get the joke. “Mahudar. We left Fentew immediately after Lieutenant Pannus emptied the garrison because the Avat knew where his mother was hiding and hoped to see justice done.”

It would be wrong to say this made the scout uneasy, but she did sober. “Pannus knows about this kid?”

“I know about him,” Farait responded, drawing himself up to his fullest height and glaring down his bold nose at her. “Do you believe a lay soldier is better fit to judge simply because he has more stripes?”

Although she wasn’t really chastened, she bowed her head in apology. “Didn’t mean to disrespect, Zaresh.” She studied Havec, then blew out a gust of breath. “Can’t say I mostly care for their spooky milk-skin, but that is a fine piece of ass. I wonder if he has the usual mud-brained barbarian hang-ups about sex?” There was a fleeting pause filled with awkwardness, then she said, “He can understand me, huh?”

Havec scratched his head. “Yeah.”

She gave him a bow, turning away so swiftly it was practically the same motion. “Well come on, then. Let’s go find your lieutenant.”

He had wondered if the threat was a bluff, but the moment they set off after her, people appeared on either side of the road, stepping from behind trees or standing up out of dips amidst the rocks. He thought to wonder if it was wise to pull all their scouts in just because they met a couple people with a story to tell. Then he wondered if this was all their scouts. For all he knew, there were twice as many people. “Hey, Smart Mouth?”

The scout turned back to him. “Hila Nox. Sergeant. What?”

“Whatever you say, Smart Mouth. There are creatures walking this storm, we’ve seen four of them. They would look like adolescent children to you, but too pale, too thin, not wearing much in the way of clothes.”

She grimaced in distaste, but simply said, “Okay.”

“They aren’t… malevolent, but they serve something that is. I assume these aren’t the only people you have.” He waved at the soldiers descending from their hiding spots onto the open trail. “You need to warn them to stay away. It’s the only thing you can do. The droghos won’t go out of their way to bother anyone, but if you get close enough to fight with one, you won’t get the chance. If you get my drift.”

“I see. Thank you for warning me, Avat.” There was nothing you could point to as overtly disrespectful in her voice, but Havec could tell she was having a hard time believing he was what they said.

He hadn’t realized how close they were, but it turned out the border was only maybe two miles on. They came around a bend in the coast and they could see it, even in the waning light: the tall, wooded hill sloping up to the west and the vast scar down its face where an avalanche had torn up every tree. Amidst that mound of white that must also be a tomb were many darker shapes that could have been the remnants of trees or the remnants of homes. Between it and them lay the camp of the army he and Qanath had watched from a roadside ditch what felt like months ago, back when life seemed simpler.

Sentries had spotted them as they approached. The rest of the scouts scattered as they hit camp, leaving the sergeant to guide them between the treacherous crisscrossed ropes, soldiers eating supper morosely in the still-falling snow. They arrived at a much larger tent than the others, lit from within, at the same time as the officer they had met in the town further west.

His eyes went first to his own priest but bounced immediately onto Havec, and he stopped in his tracks, planting his fists on his hips. “Avat!” He seemed not to know whether he was pleased or simply stunned. “What are you doing here?”

Havec dismounted, patting his horse along the neck. “After you left, I got to wondering. I went to my mother and retrieved her,” he indicated the woman still sitting her saddle proudly, gazing disdainfully down on all of them, “so you could ask her yourselves.”

If the lieutenant had been amazed, now he was positively floored. “Your mother. The Queen of Moritia.”

“That would be her.”

The flaps of the tent they were standing next to slapped open and a man in his middle years poked his head outside, demanding, “What is going on out here?” His eyes went to the scout. “Sergeant Nox?”

“Major. This is apparently,” she gestured to Havec, then fell silent, as if she didn’t want to voice the words herself lest they still turn out to be a lie.

“Avat,” the man said shortly. “Pannus told me about you. The unfortunate circumstances of your predecessor’s demise gave everyone a scare. Not sure I can rightly express how grateful I was to learn you were out there, doing your necessary work.” He didn’t sound very grateful, but he didn’t sound mocking either; just someone who couldn’t bring much passion to bear.