And something happened. I’m not sure exactly what, but I felt magic move and concentrate on her. My vision blurred a bit, and when I could see Emily again, she was dressed in a white doeskin tunic and leggings. She carried authority in her straight back and raised chin.
“The spirits of those who bore witness in the past have accepted you,” said Liam. “Come and stand here.” He directed her to a place behind him and on his right.
Zane said, “The third witness is the avenger. Fighter for justice. There is blood on his hands and fire in his heart. He brings the deaths of his prey without guilt, for his causes are righteous.”
Zane looked at Peter and his men. Peter, in turn, a thoughtful look on his face, turned to Elyna.
“I believe,” Peter said, “he is talking about you.”
She looked more like a high school prom queen than an avenger. Elyna raised an eyebrow at Peter. He took her hand and kissed it.
She freed herself, rolled her eyes, and looked at Zane—then hesitated, her eyes finding the faint light rising in the east.
“For this day,” Liam said, “the sun will not burn you, nightwalker though you are.”
She stared at him, lips parted. Then she shook her head slightly and turned to Zane. “I accept.”
For her, the magic found armor. Not parade armor with gilt and silver links, but the battered kind that had served useful purpose in battle. It looked medieval to me, and Eastern European, but historical battle armor wasn’t a specialty of mine. She, too, took her place behind Liam, on the opposite side from Emily.
In his cabin, the frost giant patted his dog, sat down on an old leather footstool, and took up the instrument that was, for this last day, a lyre. He closed his eyes and played.
It did not matter that he was not a musician. It didn’t matter that he did not know how to play the lyre. Because what he played was magic, and he would continue to play from the edge of dawn until the fall of night on this day that marked the zenith of his power—the beginning of winter, for he was the Winter King.
Liam raised his hands, and the whole world changed.
Behind him and to his left and his right stood witnesses, but they weren’t the spirit of the lake, Emily, and Elyna. They were the embodiment of all the witnesses who had stood in their place in centuries past.
Tammy, now clothed in silver from her headpiece—a fantastical creation of tiny flowers and silver branches with silver leaves—to her metallic silver dress embroidered with tiny white stags and black pearls, stepped forward to stand before Liam. Her dress ended at her calves and exposed her strong bare feet. When she stopped, though, her face became a wilder version of itself. White lines of paint or ink drew themselves over her cheekbones and around her eyes in ancient runes. As each one completed itself, I could feel the power rise around us.
Peter stepped forward to stand behind and to the side of his daughter, his men in formation behind him. They could have stepped out of a Viking longship with their full beards and long hair braided in warrior locks. One carried a spear, another a seax, the third a bow, the fourth and last a sling—and my instincts told me that the weapons were important.
Peter’s elaborate sword felt like an artifact. I thought of Liam’s careful words when we’d asked him if he could sense artifacts in the lodge. I wondered if the sword had been here. I wondered if it was one of the swords the Dark Smith of Drontheim had made.
Dylis and Andrew stepped forward. Dylis looked like a fairy queen, her gauntness elevated to elegance and her dark blue eyes jewels set off by the silver-blue gown that flowed off her shoulder in the kind of simple lines that only magic could attain. A silver-and-diamond net encased her hair, each diamond as large as my thumb. The gems were not clear but subtly blue in color. Andrew wore fae armor, white etched in silver, and there was a silver crown on his head encrusted with blue diamonds. He held a sword, longer and finer than the one Peter held—and it, too, was an artifact.
I had intended to stay in the background with Adam, but I found myself stepping forward as well. My battered garments traded themselves for a doeskin tunic and leggings very like Emily’s, but mine were trimmed in white coyote fur. And I thought if I looked at myself in the mirror, I might not look entirely human myself.
At my side, his hand in mine, stalked Adam. He wore black armor and a cloak of black wolfskin. His eyes were yellow wolf’s eyes.
The groom was dressed in a tunic and trousers that would have been plain if they had not been made of silver. His feet, like Tammy’s, were bare. Upon his head he wore the horns of a great stag, and those, too, were silver. I couldn’t tell if it was a headpiece or not.
And there, beside the hot springs, standing on holy ground, Liam spoke the words that would bind the fate of the world for another cycle. As he spoke, music flowed around us and between us, re-creating the Great Spell of binding with bits of power it borrowed from all of us. It wove those little sparks of mortal and immortal with the vast power of the frost giant who played the harp.
It felt as though it took only a moment, but when the power dissipated, leaving us in our before-the-spell selves, the sun was setting again.
Interlude
Gary parked by the ranch entrance. Whoever had run the snowplow—or more probably the resort’s backhoe—had stopped clearing there. This left a huge berm of snow blocking the ranch’s driveway, but also a pretty good parking place where the big machine had turned around.
Gary had planned on making the trip in one day, but the bone-deep weariness that persisted in hitting him at odd moments since he’d recovered from the confusion spell had forced him to stop in Coeur d’Alene and spend the night. Maybe it was for the best that he’d arrived in the daylight after a good rest, anyway.
From the vantage point of the truck bed, he could see that someone had cleared out the round pen next to the barn and put the Belgians out for their breakfast. There was even a stock tank in the pen that he was prepared to believe held water. Mickey was head down chasing scraps. But Finn, ever the more alert, had his head and ears up and pointing at Gary. Gary waved at him, which caused the big gelding to step forward suspiciously.
Smiling to himself, Gary stripped off his clothes. He’d intended to check on the geldings first off, but they didn’t need him just yet. That moved up his other task to first place.
As a coyote, he leapt out of the truck bed and headed into the mountains. Running in the mountains was as close to the Christian idea of heaven that he thought he would ever get. And running in the snow was better.
Skimming the top of snow that was feet deep felt like a superpower that had nothing to do with anything except being nature’s most persistent survivalist. The storm was over, but it was December in Montana and the air was crisp and clean.
It felt like home.
Eventually he came to a cabin that looked like the original that the ranch buildings had been modeled on. The logs had been hand-hewn, and the stairs were a series of logs piled atop each other and lashed. The rather crude-looking door had a dog door on one side, and it gave when Gary pushed his nose into the bottom corner—the wards here still welcomed him as a friend.
Maybe Hrímnir had forgotten to reset them.
Gary took his human shape as soon as he was inside. He was unsurprised to find the cabin uninhabited. The snowmobile that was usually parked beside the porch was gone.