The palace of Crownhaven. The evening of the name day.
The king’s throne room was so bright that for a moment Lucian had to screw up his eyes.
Hundreds of candles burned in chandeliers as large as the carriage that had brought them. Their light fell on white marble, on golden pillars, on mirrors so tall that the whole hall repeated itself inside them, with all its people, its colours and its noise. Musicians played in a gallery. Servants with silver trays glided between the guests as if they had wheels instead of feet.
And everywhere there were faces. Smiling faces. Powdered, painted, gleaming faces that turned towards one another and turned away again, that nodded and whispered and laughed, so loudly that it clanged in Lucian’s ears.
Like a henhouse, he thought. Only with more jewellery.
“Back straight,” his mother whispered beside him, without moving her lips.
He squared his shoulders.
They were announced. A herald in a doublet embroidered with so many golden threads that it would probably have blinded people in sunlight struck the floor three times with a staff and called out in a voice that reached every corner: “His Grace Aldwyn, Duke of Ravenmoor! Her Grace Evelyn, Duchess of Ravenmoor! The young Lord Lucian Ravenmoor!”
For a heartbeat the hall grew quieter. Not silent, but quieter. Heads turned. Lucian felt the looks like needles on his skin, and he saw that not all of them were friendly.
Then the noise went on, and they walked in.
The king sat at the far end of the hall on a throne of white stone beneath a canopy of purple velvet. To his right sat the queen, a slender woman with fair hair and a smile that looked painted on. To his left stood two children.
Lucian knew the faces from the coins that passed through the merchants’ hands in Ravenhold. But on the coins Alaric III looked like a man of stone, stern and grave. In truth he was … friendlier. He was slim and not especially tall, with a short, carefully trimmed beard already turning grey at the cheeks. He wore no heavy crown, only a narrow golden circlet, and he smiled at everyone who came before him and had a word for each of them.
Lucian could have liked him.
If the smile had reached his eyes.
“Aldwyn.” The king spread his arms as they stepped before the throne, and even rose. A murmur ran through those standing nearby. “My dear duke. How good of you to make the long journey from the east.”
His father bowed, deeply, but not too deeply. “Your Majesty. Every happiness on your name day.”
“Thank you, thank you.” The king turned to Lucian’s mother, took her hand and brushed a kiss above it. “Duchess. Radiant as ever.” Then his gaze fell on Lucian. “And so this is the young raven. How old are you now, boy?”
“Ten, Your Majesty.”
“Ten.” The king studied him, and Lucian had the unpleasant feeling of being weighed like a sack of grain at market. “You have your father’s eyes. I hope you have his mind as well.” A smile. “But perhaps not quite so much of his tongue, hm?”
A few courtiers nearby laughed. His father did not.
He held the king’s gaze. “My son says what he thinks, Your Majesty. I hope it stays that way.”
For a moment, just the smallest moment, the king’s smile grew thinner. Then it was back, broad and warm as before. “Of course. Of course.” He clapped Aldwyn on the shoulder and sat down again. “Enjoy the festival.”
They stepped aside to make room for the next guests. In passing, Lucian took a closer look at the two children beside the throne.
The boy was perhaps a year older than he was, broadly built for his age, with red-gold hair and the expression of someone who owned the entire hall. Which, one day, he presumably would. Crown Prince Edmund. He was yawning just then, without putting a hand over his mouth, and when he noticed Lucian’s look he stuck out his tongue.
Lucian stuck his out in return.
He’ll never forgive me for that, he thought, seeing the prince’s outraged face, and felt thoroughly satisfied.
The girl beside him was younger, about Lucian’s own age, with the same fair hair as the queen. Princess Rosalind. She had not yawned. She had not done anything at all except watch. And when Lucian glanced at her, he realised she was not looking at him.
She was looking at his father. And then at her own. And then back at his.
Lucian could not have said why that sent a cold shiver down his spine.
The banquet began an hour later, and it was exactly as dreadful as Lucian had predicted.
There were eleven courses. He counted them. There was soup that tasted of nothing and fish that tasted of far too much, and a pie out of which a live bird flew when the cook cut into it, which everyone except Lucian found utterly delightful. He mainly found it disgusting.
And there were speeches. Many speeches.
A duke from the south talked for half an hour about the wine harvest. A bishop spoke on the virtue of humility while wearing a ring with a stone the size of a walnut. An old count, whose name Lucian forgot at once, told a story about hunting that had no discernible beginning and no discernible end.
Lucian sat between his mother and a strange freckled girl who giggled the whole time, and tried not to fall asleep.
Further up the table, only three places from the king, sat a man Lucian did not yet know. Tall, slim, with short, ice-grey hair, though he did not look old, and a face so smooth and motionless that it might have been cast in wax. He spoke little. He ate little. But every time the king said something, he inclined his head slightly, as if he had known it in advance.
Lucian leaned towards his mother. “Who’s that?”
She followed his gaze. For a brief moment the smile vanished from her face.
“Duke Gerald Winterhall.” Her voice was hardly more than a breath. “And that’s his wife, the Duchess Cordelia. And their daughter.”
Lucian saw the duchess, a woman in a gown of pale blue silk who sat as upright as if someone had shoved a broomstick down her back. Beside her sat a girl.
She had white hair.
Not fair like his mother’s and not grey like her father’s. White. Like fresh snow, like the towers of the palace in the morning sun. It fell smoothly over her shoulders, held back with a thin silver ribbon, and in the candlelight it shimmered almost blue.
She sat bolt upright, just like her mother, and ate with small, precise movements without dropping a single crumb. She did not giggle. She looked bored. Bored in a way Lucian recognised at once, because he had been wearing the same look for an hour.
Then she raised her eyes, looked straight across at him and wrinkled her nose.
Lucian blinked. What have I done?
He had done nothing. But he had the dull feeling that this made no difference to a girl whose father was called Winterhall.
By the ninth course he could stand it no longer.
The old count had just begun a second hunting story that turned out to be the continuation of the first, and Lucian’s mother was deep in conversation with the lady on her left. His father was speaking quietly with Duke Westbrook, who sat two places further along. Desmond stood at the wall behind them with the other bodyguards, watching the windows.
No one was watching Lucian.
He murmured something that sounded like “excuse me,” slid off his chair and was gone before the freckled girl stopped giggling.
Behind the throne room lay a garden.
Lucian had seen it through the great windows when they arrived, and now, in the dark, it was even more beautiful. Lanterns hung in the trees and cast golden circles on the gravel paths. It smelled of roses and damp earth, and the laughter from the hall sounded muffled out here, as if from another house. In the middle of the garden stood a fountain. A great round basin of marble, in the centre of which a statue of the first king of Arvendal poured water from a jug.
Someone was sitting on the rim of the basin.
Lucian stopped. In the lantern light, white hair shimmered.
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Oh no.
He wondered whether he ought to withdraw quietly. But the girl had already heard him. She turned her head, looked at him and lifted her chin, exactly as she had in the hall.
“That’s my fountain.”
Lucian looked at the fountain. He looked at the statue of the first king. He looked back at the girl. “No, it isn’t.”
“I was here first.”
“That doesn’t make it yours. Otherwise the whole garden would belong to the gardener.”
She opened her mouth, shut it again, and her eyes narrowed. She had grey-blue eyes, Lucian noticed, like water under a thin skin of ice. “You’re the Ravenmoor boy.”
“And you’re the Winterhall girl. Now we both know something.”
“My father says you Ravenmoors talk too much.”
“My father says you Winterhalls talk too little. Maybe it evens out.”
He sat down at the other end of the fountain, as far from her as possible, but not so far that it looked as if he were running away. For a while neither of them said anything. Applause drifted over from the hall, presumably for the end of a speech, or for the beginning of the next one.
At last she broke the silence, without looking at him. “My name is Emilia.”
“Lucian.”
“I know. The herald said so.”
“Then you didn’t need to ask.”
“I didn’t ask.” She turned towards him, and this time she no longer looked bored but offended, which Lucian found considerably more entertaining. “I told you my name because it’s polite. You should try it some time.”
“I’m very polite. I just don’t like being polite.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“It does. You just don’t understand it.”
Her nostrils flared. Lucian had to bite his tongue not to grin. He knew he was being mean. But after eleven courses, four speeches and a live bird in a pie, he felt that he was owed a little meanness.
Emilia folded her arms. “You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”
“Fairly.”
“Can you do magic?”
The question was so unexpected that it took him a moment. “Fire. A little.”
“A little.” She said it the way you might say of a pony that it looks a little like a horse. Then she stood, stepped to the edge of the basin and stretched both hands out over the water. “Watch.”
Lucian saw her close her eyes. Saw her brow crease in concentration. Saw her fingers begin to tremble slightly.
Then it grew cold.
Not cool like a night breeze, but suddenly and bitingly cold, like a winter morning in Ravenhold when the frost painted patterns on the windows. Under Emilia’s hands the water in the basin began to crackle. Fine white lines spread across the surface, branched like veins, grew together. The splashing of the jug in the statue’s hand grew softer, faltered, fell silent. The stream of water froze in mid-air into a glittering arch of ice.
Within five breaths the whole fountain was frozen.
Lucian stared. He could not help it.
Ice. Not water. Ice.
He knew what that meant. His father had explained it to him only that morning, without saying it outright: a sub-element. Something you had to work for, long and hard. And she was ten.
Emilia opened her eyes, looked at her work and turned to him with a smile so proud and satisfied that it changed her whole face. For a moment she did not look haughty at all. Only happy.
“Well? Still so clever?”
And then, because in turning she had stepped onto the rim of the basin, and the rim of the basin was now coated with a thin layer of ice, her foot slipped.
It happened very fast. A short, startled sound, a whirl of pale blue silk and white hair, and then Emilia Winterhall was sitting on the frozen fountain, in the middle of the veins of ice, legs stuck out in front of her and an expression on her face as if she could not believe what had just happened.
Lucian could have laughed. He should have laughed, after everything she had said. It would have been fair.
But he saw that her lower lip was trembling, and the laugh stuck somewhere in his throat.
He stood, climbed carefully onto the rim of the basin, nearly slipping himself, and held out his hand.
Emilia looked at the hand. Then she looked at him. Her cheeks were red, and Lucian was fairly sure it was not from the cold.
“I’m a Winterhall,” she said, very quietly and very dignified. “I don’t need help.”
“Fine.” Lucian did not move. “Then I’ll just hold my hand out here. By chance. Because I’m bored.”
She stared at him. He kept holding out his hand.
After a long moment she took it.
Her fingers were ice-cold. He pulled her up, carefully, step by step across the ice, until they were both standing on the gravel again. Emilia let go of his hand at once, smoothed down her gown, which was wet and creased at the back, and lifted her chin.
“Thank you,” she said, so fast that he almost did not catch it. “But I would have managed on my own.”
“Of course.”
“I really would.”
“I believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” Lucian admitted. “But the fountain was really impressive.”
She blinked. She had evidently not expected that. For a moment she seemed not to know what to say, and Lucian thought that perhaps she was not so bad after all. Perhaps she was just a girl who was always being told how straight she should sit.
“Emilia!”
The voice came from the entrance of the garden. A maid, plump and out of breath, hurried across the gravel towards them. “Emilia, for heaven’s sake, your mother is looking for you everywhere! And your gown! What have you …” Her eyes fell on the fountain. On the ice. On the frozen jet of water. She went pale. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”
Emilia squared her shoulders. She threw Lucian one last look, and he could have sworn the corner of her mouth twitched. Then she turned and walked, very upright and very dignified, in her wet gown past the maid and back to the hall.
Lucian was left alone at the fountain.
He looked at the ice. It was already beginning to melt. The fine white veins were turning clear, and the frozen arch of water dripped softly.
I’m a Winterhall. I don’t need help.
He did not know why, of all things, he remembered that sentence.
“There you are.”
Desmond was standing behind him. Lucian had not heard him come. Of course not.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” The captain regarded the melting fountain, and something twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Did you do that?”
“No. She did.”
“Hm.” Desmond was silent for a moment. “Winterhall’s little one. Ice at ten.” He did not sound impressed. He sounded thoughtful. “Come. Your father wants you inside. Something’s happening.”
Something really was happening.
When Lucian slipped into the throne room behind Desmond, it was quiet. Not quieter than usual, but truly quiet. The musicians in the gallery had stopped playing. The servants stood motionless with their trays. No one laughed, no one whispered.
Everyone was looking at the great door.
A dwarf stood there.
Lucian had never seen a dwarf up close. Traders from Orvundar sometimes came to Ravenhold, but they never stayed long and spoke only with his father. This one was smaller than Lucian had expected, barely taller than his own shoulders, but as broad as two men. His beard was red and braided into two thick plaits that reached down to his belt. He wore a travelling cloak so dusty from the roads that it was almost grey, and boots still caked with mud. His face was gaunt and tired, as if he had not slept properly in weeks.
Two palace guards stood to his left and right, hands on their swords, as if they did not know whether to let him in or throw him out.
“My name is Vardin.” The dwarf’s voice was rough and deep and filled the hall without effort. “Messenger of Kaldrun, King under the Mountain, Lord of Orvundar. I have ridden for three weeks to speak before the King of Men.”
On the throne, Alaric III leaned back. He smiled. “You have come on my name day, Master Dwarf. That is unusual.”
“Unusual too are the times.” Vardin took a step forward. The guards tensed, but the king raised his hand and they stayed where they were. “A month ago one of our patrols was ambushed in the Border Mountains. Eight dwarves. One survived.”
A murmur went through the hall.
“The orcs did not fight like orcs,” Vardin went on. “They marched. They hid their fires. They attacked at the sound of a horn, in ranks, in time. And they had someone watching them.” He let his gaze travel over the faces, over the dukes, the counts, the ladies in their silk gowns. “Someone has united the tribes of the east. For the first time in three hundred years. King Kaldrun bids me tell you that Orvundar will hold the east, as it has always held it. And that this time we will not manage it alone.”
No one said anything.
Lucian looked around. He saw the duke from the south who had talked about the wine harvest squirming uncomfortably in his chair. He saw the bishop staring at his ring. He saw Duke Winterhall, whose smooth wax face had not moved by a hair’s breadth. And he saw the king, regarding the dwarf with that friendly smile that did not reach his eyes.
Alaric took his time answering. “We thank King Kaldrun for his warning. And we are grieved by the loss of his brave warriors. But, Master Vardin, you will understand that the borders of Orvundar are Orvundar’s affair. Arvendal has its own cares. Its own borders. We cannot send troops into the mountains every time a few orcs …”
“Your Majesty.”
The voice came from the table. Calm. Not loud. But in the stillness of the hall it carried into the furthest corner.
Lucian’s father had stood up.
Lucian saw his mother reach for Aldwyn’s sleeve, very briefly, and let her hand fall again. He saw Westbrook, two places along, press his lips together. And he saw Desmond at the wall, whose hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, not to draw it, but the way you hold on to something.
“Forgive me for interrupting you,” said Aldwyn Ravenmoor. “But I live on the border of Orvundar. My farmers trade with the dwarves. My smiths buy their iron. If Orvundar falls, then the orcs will not stand before the gates of the dwarves but before mine. And after that, before yours.”
“Duke Ravenmoor …”
“For generations the dwarves have held the east for us, Your Majesty. Generations in which we quarrelled over fields and boundary stones while they died for us in the mountains. I am not saying we must send an army tomorrow. I am only saying that we must listen to them. Now. Before it is too late.”
It was silent again. Then, somewhere further down the table, someone said: “He’s right.”
It was Westbrook. He stood too, heavily, with a red face. “Ravenmoor is right. My people have been hearing the fighting in the mountains for weeks.”
“Mine too.” A gaunt man at the other end of the table. Harrow, Lucian thought. The name Westbrook had mentioned that morning.
A third rose. A fourth nodded without standing. Lucian saw something change in the hall, saw the faces that had been looking away a moment ago turn towards his father. Not all of them. Not even most. But enough to be noticed.
And he saw the king.
Alaric III was still smiling. He smiled at Aldwyn, friendly and warm, and tilted his head slightly, as if weighing the words.
“Your zeal does you honour, Duke. As always. The people love you for it, do they not? One hears your name in the streets more often than mine.” A soft laugh, and some courtiers dutifully laughed along. “We shall take counsel on it. Tomorrow. At our leisure.” He raised his goblet. “But today is my name day. Today, let us celebrate.”
The musicians began again, a little too hastily. The servants moved. The murmuring returned and turned into laughter, and after a few moments it was as if nothing had happened.
The dwarf Vardin was still standing by the door. No one offered him a seat.
Lucian’s father slowly sat down again.
And Lucian, standing beside Desmond at the wall and seeing everything, because no one paid attention to a ten-year-old boy, saw something else.
He saw the king set down his goblet and let his gaze wander to Duke Winterhall. Only very briefly. Only for a heartbeat.
And he saw Duke Winterhall nod.
They drove back shortly before midnight.
The streets of Crownhaven were still full of people, lanterns and music, but inside the carriage it was quiet. Lucian’s mother held his father’s hand. His father looked out of the window and said nothing.
Lucian wanted to ask what that had been between the king and Duke Winterhall. He wanted to ask why the dwarf had had to stand alone at the door. He wanted to tell them about the fountain and the ice and the girl with the white hair.
He said nothing. Something about the silence in the carriage told him it was not the right moment.
When they rolled through the gate of the residence and the carriage stopped in the courtyard, Desmond got out first. He opened the door and helped Lucian’s mother down, then Lucian. His father got out last. He stood in the courtyard for a moment, looking up at the windows of the residence, at the dark roofs all around, at the distant white towers of the palace shining over the city.
Then he turned to Desmond.
“We leave tomorrow morning. At sunrise.”
Desmond nodded. “And tonight?”
Lucian’s father looked at him for a long time.
“Post your double guards, Des.”