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 million souls but could not hold the love of her children.
Heading their way, stepping carefully, 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, usually, 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’ll help you get better. Good boy, Ethrian. Take your finger out of your nose, Ethrian.” And so on, with the boy always mechanically 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 all 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 all 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 physically. 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. Ekaterina appeared to be convinced that she was always just one step from having the world strike her another cruel blow, with cause and effect irrelevant.
How could that be? Varthlokkur was no grand choice as a father figure but Nepanthe was a good mother substitute.
Varthlokkur said, “There are extreme abandonment issues. But things were improving.”
Meaning her visit might sabotage the good work Nepanthe had done?
Everything we do, she thought, impacts others, often in ways we do not foresee.
“This is a finer meal than I expected, considering your isolation.”
“Thank you,” Nepanthe said. “Cook will be pleased.”
After that everyone seemed to wait to hear from Mist, except Ethrian, who asked after Sahmaman again, and then said, “On Great One go boom.”
…
Silence stretched. Mist became uncomfortable. Her children showed no inclination to interact with her. She did not know what to do. Her own childhood had offered no examples of good parenting.
She asked, “Could I see my father while I’m here?”
Varthlokkur shifted slightly, suddenly wary.
“I know my father and uncle died here, in a trap set by you or the Old Man.”
“Actually, by someone a step further up the food chain. They’re in the Wind Tower. We don’t go there much. But, all right. The risk is minimal. I’d say nonexistent but I did see Sahmaman come back, in all her power.” The wizard rose.
Mist did the same. She glanced at Scalza. The boy said, “I’ll help clean up. I don’t like those creepy old mummies.”
Leaving the common room, Varthlokkur said, “It’s a long climb. Another reason we don’t go up there much. Plus, the Wind Tower contains a lot of bad memories.”
Mist finished the climb fighting for breath. “I’m not…used to this… altitude.”
“You never get all the way there.” He was breathing hard himself, but not fighting for breath the way she was.
Mist looked around at a large chamber that had been cleared out, then vigorously cleaned, quite recently. For her sake?
“Scalza doesn’t like me much, does he?”
“Scalza knows his family history, on both sides. He has an exaggerated ideal of what his mother ought to be. The woman inside his head isn’t you. And you won’t be here long enough to evict her.”
“I could take him back with me.” Only later did she realize that Ekaterina had not been mentioned. Which was disturbing. Mist herself had survived childhood mainly because she had had a knack for going overlooked. Ekaterina seemed to have that same capability.
The wizard wasted no breath on the absurdity of her suggestion. “All right. Wishful thinking. The worst of us want to be thought well of by our children. Where are the Princes? I don’t see them.” “Here.” The wizard drew aside a curtain identical to those that masked Fangdred’s interior walls, keeping the cold at bay and the warmth confined. Moving this curtain showed that the room was bigger than it seemed.
“That’s where it all happened?”
“It is. The Old Man should be on the higher seat in the center. I don’t know what became of him.”
That seat was empty, of course. The remains of the Princes Thaumaturge occupied lower chairs to either hand. Varthlokkur removed the dust sheets covering them.
Mist stared, in silence, for more than a minute.
“Is something wrong?”
“I can’t tell which one is which.”
Varthlokkur confessed, “That would be beyond me, too. This is where they were when the Star Rider left the Wind Tower. They’ve been moved several times since.”
“How did you get in?”
The question surprised the wizard. “What do you mean?”
“Nepanthe told Valther that the Wind Tower was sealed off after that night and that the sealing was proof against your power.”
“Not forever. I chipped at the spells for years.”
“Chipped at them. And when you got in the Old Man was gone.”
“Yes. Though I’m not sure that the Star Rider didn’t take him, back then.”
“Yes. You are. You think him coming back for the Old Man was the break you needed to get through.”
“You’re right. It’s probable. With the Old Man gone there might’ve been no reason to keep the Wind Tower sealed.”
“This one was my father. He has a scar on his neck. He took the wound the night he and Nu Li Hsi murdered Tuan Hoa.” “Somewhere, in some hell, your grandfather had a good laugh the night they died.”
“I’m sure. You were here.”