He pushed the latch. It gave downward, and the door opened on a night-bound waste, a howling gust of snow, and shards of ice that rose up with the sound of swords, completely to bar his escape.
He slammed the door on that ungodly sight, slammed it and leaned against it, chilled to the bone.
It was not just ice. It was a cold so intense it had burned his throat and numbed his hands. It was magical, or sorcerous, part of the deep, unnatural winter that, as often as the snow melted, had blasted out more and more and more, and never quite ceased.
It was his mother’s winter. It was the winter when Gran died. It was the winter when his dream of welcome with his father had come to grief.
He wanted this winter to end. He shut his eyes and wanted it to end, with all the strength he had.
Your wards are pitiful. The voice came to him clear and strong, as if Lord Tristen himself had stood right at his shoulder. It occurred to him that he had made no wards at all, already assuming it was not his premises, and that he was the one held, not the holder. He blinked and lifted his head, stung by his own folly.
Or perhaps you forgot, the mocking voice said again, not in the air, but in his mind, and he knew it was notLord Tristen. Lord Tristen, whatever else, might have cast him out of Ynefel, but mockery was not his manner— furthest from it. Lord Tristen had been, whatever else, kind, and told him no simply by saying nothing at all.
Liar, he said to that voice, or thought it, then, gathering his courage, said it aloud: “Liar!” Not even his mother had lied to him. It seemed a low, mean sort of behavior, to pretend to be what one was not.
He moved, moreover, and walked the perimeter, and laid the wards once, twice, three times all about, in fury and defiance.
Wind blasted at him, as if every ward at once had blown inward. The force blew cushions off the couches and lifted his hair and blew his cloak back. His hand tingled, half-numb. His wards were flattened, useless.
And the same young man confronted him, standing near the fire… but the fire showed right through him.
“Well, well,” the young man said. “Temper rarely works where skill fails.”
Rage grew cold. The taunting minded him of the court of Guelemara, and the manners there, where detractors attacked with soft, sweet words. He bowed ever so slightly, drawing up the armor he had learned to use there— pride of birth, of all things, and a study of the rules of courtesy the other violated. “My name,” he said with that soft sweetness, “is Elfwyn Aswydd. I own it with no shame. Do you have a name, sir wisp?”
A hit. The young man’s chin lifted, and there was an angry glint in his eyes, before a smile covered it, showing teeth. “Elfwyn Aswydd.” He bowed in turn. “A name, indeed. Was it from your father?”
“You know who I am, or you would find something else to do. Your name, sir.”
“My name. My name. I think you know it. Where isyour brother?”
That hit, too, in the heart. He kept his gaze steady. “Clearly your interest is in me, and my mother is in this. Or my aunt. Are you a kinsman of mine, too, perchance?”
“No.” Again, he had nettled the young man. “Such lofty manners from a goatherd.”
“A goatherd who has a name, a noble one, and old. Why should I trouble myself with a wisp?”
“Oh, waspish lad. Unbecoming in a boy.” The young man left the fire, and light ceased to show through him. “Is that better?”
“I hardly know,” he said, jaw set, “since you have not the courage to go by a name, or possibly are ashamed of it. Areyou ashamed?”
“Otter, Otter, and Spider. One you call yourself and the other people call you behind your back. There are your names, boy.”
“Improve my opinion of you, I beg you. It’s reached very low.”
“Oh, pert beyond all good sense. Shall I call your mother?”
“Is she alive?” It should, if he were virtuous, feel some pang, no matter what she was, but she had taken too much from him, and he mustered no will to care whether she lived, at the moment, except the grief of what he wished he had had from her.
The young man snapped his fingers. His mother was there. Or his aunt.
“Son,” his mother said, in that intonation she had. “Are you being foolish?”
“Prideful,” the young man said. “Prideful and difficult. His brother’s name, I think, rouses a little passion in him.”
“That Guelen whelp,” his mother said. “That Guelen boy. He will be your enemy, Elfwyn. He is what he is, and he is Guelen.”
He turned his shoulder and looked at a tapestry in the corner, for some better view.
But he saw instead a room in candlelight, like a vision, a blond young man with a lean, strong jaw. That jaw was clenched, and those eyes, those blue Guelen eyes, looked at him with such anger…
“Your enemy, in time to come,” his mother said.
“Then he is alive,” he said, taking that for comfort.
“He will hate you,” his mother said. “He and you contend for the same power, and you cannot both have it.”
“Well enough,” he said lightly. “He was born to it.”
A blow to his shoulder spun him half-about, and he looked up into the face of the man. It was like facing Tristen in anger. Those gray eyes bore into him, and carried such force of magic it lanced right to the heart, painful as the grip on his arm.
“Do not cast away your birthright,” the young man said. “Do not resign what you do not yet possess… what you do not yet imagine, Elfwyn Aswydd. Will you see? Will you open your eyes and know the world to come?”
A woman appeared in his vision, a beautiful woman with violet eyes and midnight hair, a woman who looked right at him, and into him, and that expression was so determined and so open that it lanced right through him.
“This is your wife, your queen. This is Aemaryen.” The view wheeled away to a giddy sight of far-flung woods and farmland, villages and a towered city. “This is Ilefinian.” Another, even wider, with towers rising in scaffolding. “Guelemara.” A third, low-lying, against wooded hills, and beautiful beyond any of the others. “Althalen, where you will rule.”
“I shall rule, shall I?” He put mockery into his voice. “You dream.”
“Is that your answer? Aewyn may kill you, while you mewl on about friendship and gratitude. Do you think he’ll forget you left him, for safety? He will remember. His father will rescue him, and you and he will go down different paths. You asked Tristen Sihhë for wizardry, and he refused you— fearing you, fearingyou, boy, as he ought. You will surpass him. You will have a magic so much greater the ground will shake, and he saw that. He knew. Hesent you out, well knowing your gran would die if you went back just then—”
“Murdered by my mother,” he said, regaining his anger.
“Fate,” the young man said. “Fate had him send you out, in fear of you, fate drew you home again, fate had to destroy your gran to get you to Henas’amef, and fate drew you to the library, where your heritage mandated you be…”
“Sorcery killed my gran,” he said bitterly, flinging the young man’s hand away from him. “Sorcery killed her, sorcery wanted that thing found! I wish I’d never found it! I wish it had been you that died in that fire!” he shouted, looking straight at his mother. “That would have been justice! Now get away from me!”
“Your kingdom,” the young man said, behind him, “your kingdom will not be denied. You see how cruel your own sorcery can be, if someone stands in the way—like your gran. You assured she would die, when there was no other way to get you to the library. You assured you would lose your brother, when you enticed him out into the woods—he will grow up a bitter, angry man, all your doing. If you had only taken that book to your mother, none of this pain would have happened. Who else will you kill, until you take the place you were meant to have? I assure you, there will be more pain if you go on denying your own nature. There will be more deaths. Who next? Lord Crissand? That will throw the south into confusion. There’s no other lord who can rule as aetheling—except, of course, you, my prince.”