We expected him to garden at Night, and he did;

  They always do.

  It’s all they want.

  Redemption comes in the soil between fingers

  and

  the simple pleasure of tending Her Body.

  Winds bring rain to grow these flowers,

  winds can kill,

  and the dead decay.

  The blossoms of Her Hair smell like

  whispers from Sibíko.

  He hoped for blossoms in Light, and She grew;

  New life means hope,

  But sorrow too—

  wind can’t kill what’s long since dead.

  —From “Whispers from Sibíko” by Derkut of House Beow?

  ~

  A vernal storm leveled off with the arrival of Nam?’s eye, blessing ?elasdur with Light. Dawn warmed the windows of àstin’s former office. The shelves were in disarray and the floor was scattered with the detritus of his life. Esor swayed in the quiet while clutching an armful of àstin’s books. He was wild-haired and rumpled, shirt untucked, an ink stain on his pocket. Esor had been sleeping on the pile of coats in the corner until minutes earlier.

  Corvin sauntered in with a tray of food. “I see you slept as well as you ever do in ?elasdur, Master Esor. Perhaps I should have abandoned you on Amezuz.” He set the tray upon the desk. “From my private pantry. You’ll find it tastes better than anything they serve in the staff canteen, though not as good as anything I hunted.”

  “Thank you, my liege.” Esor kept his gaze fixed on the toes of his boots.

  The Lord Mayor lifted the tray’s lid. “This fruit was grown in an orchard with nothing but filtered rainwater. You won’t taste a hint of Chaos.”

  “Again, my thanks.”

  “I’ve had the most marvelous sleep, myself. I look forward to working in Osurmite for the duration of Light. I speak with villages ahead of the Warlord’s raids. We can counter him before he takes another.” Corvin ate a piece of fruit and grinned.

  Esor did not return the smile.

  The mood in the room cooled as Corvin surveyed the distance between them. “You were at the execution, weren’t you?”

  “Your brother shared his balcony with me,” said Esor.

  “Did he, now?” What might have been a question was delivered flatly, eyes narrowing to shards. “You weren’t meant to see that.”

  “It’s difficult not to see when death is everywhere I look in this miserable, frigid hole!” Esor immediately regretted speaking out. He set the books on the desk, bowed his head, and massaged his temples. “Forgive me, but I must work. The—the previous educator left an expansive lesson plan, but I must unbury it. I’m certain you have better things to do than delivering breakfast to a Low teacher, my liege.”

  “I can decide how my time is best spent. You look miserable. Sit down and eat or I’ll send you to the infirmary.”

  The threat of Xeta’s attention was enough for Esor to sit. He ate meaty red fruit smeared across toasted bread. His shoulders never unscrewed enough to release the knot around his neck.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Corvin.

  “Only of the distant specter of sleep, my liege.”

  “You lie poorly. You are quietest when your thoughts are loud.”

  Esor took another bite before saying, “I would not be such pleasant company if I just executed the lover of my new wife.”

  Corvin seemed incredulous. “I fulfilled my responsibilities in Patrician Malor’s choice of justice.” When Esor did not meet his eyes, he said, “A marriage agreement between Houses was in the works long before scandal unfolded. àstin violated a valuable asset with that affair. The conjunction of marriage and execution is unfortunate, but worthy of no distress.”

  “Do you love Lady Vaseri?” asked Esor.

  “Silly question. Frivolous thinking. The Low may have the luxury of marriage for love, but it has no bearing on the decision for the rest of us.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Shouldn’t it?” Fist tight upon the desk, eyes low, he said, “Do you love any of your ?anvens?ter?”

  “No,” Corvin said. “But I tend them as a buck should tend his does and offspring, and what can love provide that I have not?”

  “Wholeness.”

  “Does someone make you whole, Master Esor?” Corvin asked. Esor shook his head. “Yet you speak as an expert! So young, yet you have already gained more wisdom than the generations of àlvar who built this empire as we now live in it. You judge my wives—you judge my justice!”

  “àstin was my friend,” said Esor.

  “His sins betrayed you as well! Unless you were accomplice to his behavior?” asked Corvin.

  “No—of course not. I had no idea.”

  “Then why bestow forgiveness upon a liar? Did you find something in his belongings that should have exculpated him?”

  “Perhaps,” said Esor.

  “Enlighten me,” said Corvin.

  “àstin was an orphan from Kamimatose—a fishing port. He was both older and less well-traveled than he claimed. A history of petty theft precluded most respectable employment, so he made a new identity. As near as I can tell, he swindled his way into those belongings while visiting the lands of Man, then came to work at ?elasdur.”

  “A liar and thief. Pray tell, Master Esor, was the teacher’s death unjust?”

  Esor rested his hand over his heart again, on the Cross, and shook his head. No. Yet he said, “You took his face so our All-Mother wouldn’t recognize him in death.”

  “To ensure he does not reach an afterlife where those he hurt dwell. His immortal soul froths with those like him—law-breakers, betrayers, violators.”

  “Somewhere his family won’t greet him.”

  “What else could I have done? Reject every convention governing this world we live in and spare an adulterous liar preying upon the gentry who conned his way into his position?”

  Esor leaped to his feet. “A Lord Mayor of your stature could have pardoned him without consequences!”

  “For what reason?” Corvin asked.

  “àstin lied to get a job when natural circumstance disqualified him. He fell in love with the beautiful, forbidden daughter of the Patrician—and who among us has not been a fool in matters of the heart? You could have spared him. Would you spare me? Can we be friends in a world where you hold such power over my life, Corvin?”

  Corvin’s arm snaked around Esor’s back, drawing him near as gut strings to their lyre. A pleased melody rolled in the back of the Lord Mayor’s throat. Esor could feel it within himself, forced to vibrate upon the same frequency of emotion, resonating with complementary pitch.

  “Therein lies your true fear,” purred Corvin. “I would not permit you to be harmed like àstin. You’re safe with me. These words will not reassure you, young buck, because I cannot change what we are. I lost the opportunity to be equals with any Ildòrian of any caste when Navar? died. Had I not, we would remain disparate, Levusàlvar and Dokàlvar. I am a threat to you, and there is nothing that can change it. But my offer of friendship is sincere. I will protect you.”

  Esor freed himself from the Lord Mayor’s arms. His breathing was erratic, cheeks burning. “I cannot be touched by hands so recently bathed in àstin’s blood.” Esor stormed away from Corvin and his offering of breakfast. He bowed when he reached the door, stiffly formal. “I will send Dak if I learn anything new, my liege. I know he is always listening. I haven’t forgotten where I stand with Great House Kovenor.”

  Corvin let him go that time. He remained motionless beside the table and watched Esor until the door clicked shut behind him.

  ~

  TIME IN ?ELASDUR PASSED laboriously. There were no street festivals for the summertime sabbats. Shutters never seemed to open on the windows in the city, and the roads never dried, making it as muddy to traverse as the village. At midsummer, Dak delivered additional blankets to Esor’s bedchamber along with a warning: “Bundle at Night. The chill can strike at any time. We lost a kerotera the first summer the Kovenor sheltered here.”

  “It will never grow warm?” Esor asked incredulously.

  “Not this year. Getting near to Avie Ud, the All-Mother’s control weakens, and the así steers the storms,” said the footman. “Lorkullen will strike without any warning.”

  Dak’s warning proved prophetic.

  One Night, Esor raced a snowstorm back to his bed chamber. The walls of his room had only become leakier since the last winter, so only hiding underneath all those blankets kept him comfortable enough to sleep until morning.

  The Light thereafter was no warmer.

  No flora grew in ?elasdur.

  Esor spent the weeks slogging between the manors of lords for social visits. He was always hoarse from shouting over wind and sweaty from fighting to climb the palace spire. The work did not end when he returned to the tor. Someone needed to teach àstin’s students.

  The former teacher’s belongings cluttered the classroom for months after his death, so Esor moved the boxes to his bedroom where he could lie among them. He entertained waking nightmares while staring at shadows clinging to the ceiling. The flickering of lantern light reminded him of blood splattering on the flagstone.

  He wrote new entries in àstin an Galefar’s most recent journal, left halfway complete.

  If true love unlocks a Heartbox, is it forever sealed when love dies? I wonder if you and Vaseri held a secret which could have solved my mother’s puzzle. If so, the answer has been sundered by death and concubinage. But surely your love was not true, àstin. I saw Vaseri beg Corvin for more pleasure while you were in the gaol. She must have known you would die, yet so eagerly did your lady-love surrender to new pleasure. There is no love in ?elasdur.

  What should be uniform loathing—a sense of revulsion at ?elasdur’s barbaric ways, so far astray from the Path I sought in Church—instead broils as fear and need. Loathing is there, yes, but the need! Everything here frightens me while stunning with beauty! My soul demands it all, greedy for the conflicted pleasures of friendship your killer seems to offer.

  Corvin would give me adventures to beautiful places. Corvin would give me fine clothing. Corvin would offer every treasure I can imagine.

  Corvin. Corvin.

  Esor set down his pen. Ink pooled over the blotter. He paced away, rubbing a hand over his eyes, smearing black on his forehead. He sat on the edge of his bed. He returned to the desk, swearing as he tidied the mess of ink. Even the Heartbox had a blot, sitting by his elbow. Esor swiped an impatient thumb over the ink to smear it away.

  If I had already known of your affair, I could have closed the door rather than call to Samej. I could have helped you. You could have helped me. There is nothing I can do for you now.

  àstin, if I had told you my secrets and fears, would you have told yours?

  I am alone here. I am alone.

  He sagged against the desk, shoulders shaking. Esor shot baleful leers at his bed but did not try to rest.

  Underneath his words, Esor began drawing antlers. At first one set. The antlers grew from there, like branches on a tree, until they engulfed the bottom half of the journal’s page, devouring every word he had written, obscuring thoughts that could have the skin flayed from his face and his soul damned to Chaos.