Day 452
The flight is uneventful aside from brief comments from both Kaide and Yneir and some letters.
Kaide tells me that Annette didn't seem to have a particular direction she wanted to flow but that she was counselled to focus more on what she wants her life to look like than what kind of magic to pursue. It's good advice - advice that I'm proud to see Kaide giving.
Yneir comments that Wayward has significant magic invested into making it a place that remains steady and grounded for people there. There was a particular building that supported the magic but she didn't want to investigate - it'll be something for Bran and me to look at later. She uses his name, which is a nice change.
Dawn's letter is reassuring and I'm brimming with pride over how she handled the situation. That the Fae of Seasons still have long-lasting songs about the judgment of dragons is precious to me. Andstella can use that knowledge to great effect, I'm sure.
Tira's letter is more concerning and is immediately forwarded to Uncle Red. None of us are equipped to face Galfen. At least it makes some connective threads clear in how and why Drakken might have been targetting summer fae. I don't know how much Magdalena told Uncle about Jerun though.
When we land in Solace the humans are all escorted to rooms and taken care of while Lyssa and I cling to one another. Her back is badly wounded, from the biggest troll she'd ever seen. Our hands are inseparable even as Yneir hurries us all inside to see Bran (but not before pressing a small wrapped package into my hands, which I tuck away to deal with later...I'm not certain her gifts are always good things).
Bran is sleeping but he looks well. Despite my preoccupation with Lyssa I do notice a strange magical thrum as Yneir crosses the threshold and kneels beside him. She removes her mask to reveal an almost-normal looking woman - still beautiful but also pale and drained of the otherworldly beauty that once froze Camellia and me.
I should go...
She croaks before collapsing. I leave Lyssa with Bran as I carry Yneir out and settle her on a bench nearby so I can ask her what on earth is going on - more fate magic I assume. She is coughing up black blood and as I probe her magic further I see her own fire magic consuming her from the inside, using her fate magic as fuel.
I traded fate with that woman Bran loves. She was supposed to die in Deldrin.
I have such a tangled mess of emotions that all I can do is rest my head in my hands and close my eyes to think. I'm sick of this clumsy crow tugging and yanking on threads and thinking that might be the end of it. Thalien once told me that Vaneilli wasn't the right person to be his true apprentice because she saw so clearly that she got caught up in it. Thalien (and Bran) have never felt like they are caught in their own threads, trussed up like the tangled bird before me.
She has such a knack for finding the cleverest, messiest way to infuriate me. She
must be able to sense the raging feelings of care, protectiveness, anger, frustration, and determination I feel towards her but she doesn't say anything. Partly I wonder if she orchestrated this somehow - if she knew that there was a slim thread that if she saved Vaneilli, tended to Bran, fought off the scion, and then revealed this truth to me in this particular way she would inspire such determination to save her that she would come out of it alive. It doesn't matter; Fatespinners are allowed to manipulate like that, I just wish she was better at it.
I stare at her, seeing her magic eating her up like Lyssa's would have if she hadn't redirected it outside of herself. But Yneir's magic is intensely destructive, far more than Lyssa's ever was. If she wasn't containing it I'm sure we all would have been destroyed. With Lyssa I could exhaust her magic because I am an ever-bleeding drain on whatever source I can get my hands on when I cast the right spells. I don't think I can do that with Yneir's fire.
Kaide joins me in processing the thought - she needs to be neutralized both in the heat and destruction of her fire magic. The Unfreezing Sea is just as destructive as this fire but Kadia's island filters that out and leaves behind more nurturing cold...I send Lyssa to fetch Onyx again and I hurry to collect Hella.
Yneir is unconscious as we fly, her skin burning up and blistering. Kadia cools her with a frigid healing mist and I can remove her pain but we are barely in time arriving at the island. The flight has given us all time to form a plan based on what Tira and I did with Dawn - pulling out and destroying one kind of magic...though with fire and fate intermingled it might not work the same way. There's a chance she might not have anything left after the destruction has been drawn out.
This time at least I have something to replace it with myself - her own feather and the torch Gedrin gave me. They are the only pieces of fire that I have and I think by stringing them together she might accept her own magic back and I can push the Candlemaker's flames in at the same time.
For the first time in quite a while I see Hella reach for fate as we begin our work. I'm glad she did - it makes it easier for me to push Bran's bead of luck into the circle as well. The magical surgery feels like it fails at every point it could - her flames reach back across the gap between us, seeking more fuel. It almost feels like her fire and fate have entangled such that it wields its own fate against us. Finally though, aided by the endless energy of the Sea, we dissipate the fire and replace it with a more complex flame. The fate magic is still there, but weaker. She looks as she did earlier today - still beautiful but not radiant.
At the circumference of the circle we've been using there are new plants - bright red flowers growing at the base of some of the ice cold trees. Their pollen sparks and shimmers with fire...it's a very unusual thing to see in this place.
The flight back passes in an instant for me - I'm already half asleep as we take off. I haven't manually intervened in fate this much in decades. But this is the right way to do things.
Day 453
Back in Solace I immediately fall into a proper sleep with Lyssa. It's long past noon when I wake to find Tira quietly reading beside the bed. Seeing her is a relief, especially as she hands me fresh tea and points me sternly towards the adjacent room with a prepared bath and proper elvish appetizers.
The enormous bath is soothing on my tired muscles and my tender wing stub, protected by a thin layer of magic. Hopefully in half a week it will be fully recovered. Despite the relaxing water I find my mind drifting and listing out the reports I need and the order in which we'll need to finish mopping things up.
When Lyssa joins me we manage to sneak in a pre-report despite Tira's insistence that I relax before assembling a war council.
She tells me about the 'Honored Teacher', the biggest troll she'd ever seen and carrying a massive axe. They were saying that trolls had broken dwarves shackles before and would break them again as part of their ancient duty to stop elves from rising to power again, keep the world safe from elvish shadows. Most of the trolls there seemed to be fairly old and seemed to have a personal dislike of anyone with pointy ears, and they spoke archaic elvish.
The battle itself resembled a Drettir uprising. They went after elves and the most wealthy dwarvish families - just like a peasant uprising. Both elves and dwarves were lynched, namely the most prosperious. But the fighters didn’t seem local. Lyssa killed all the trolls and then Torrick used his Voice to silence the rest. They can’t disobey but Torrick is torn up over using that power.
I tell her about Whitewater as we dress (with Tira's help - she's hovering more than usual) and sweep off to the council chambers Tira has prepared. Opening the doors feels like coming home in a way I didn't expect; after more than a year of travelling and building family I'm in a command tent again, laid out exactly how mind are always laid out.
Peripheral maps on the walls, a great table with the primary map and magically labelled flags. Written and summarized reports beside my chair. The atmosphere is the only thing that makes it clear that this is a new situation. Uncle Red is leaning on windowsill idly playing his flute, Bran is at an adjacent table eating, Amytri is poring over the map with a frown on his face. The only hold-out is Zadiyah, kneeling as I enter and then immediately being swept up in a kneeling hug as we chide her for her formality.
She is family, though she hasn't been near enough for her to feel it. It's good to have her back. And good to have Bran up and moving again, the youngest of the bunch and yet to pick a name for himself. He takes the teasing easily, as always.
And then the reports can begin! Dreamfall is not represented but I send a note to Camellia asking for her to send information.
Lone Mountain Keep survived the winter well. Rosalia guided them through the winter and gathered refugees from the surrounding countryside. It’s now a settlement of 3500 people, many humans, some escaped dwarves slaves from Brighton. No one froze, no one starved, not much bothered them until the attack. By the end of the summer they’ll have a proper fortress town. They miss me and hope that I’ll be able to visit soon.
I feel the loss of Rosalia dully - I was looking forward to seeing her again and what she had done with the Keep. She's family and she was betrayed. And the people who betrayed her were so neatly and immediately dealt with that her death feels like such a meaningless mistake. I know enough about compartmentalizing that I tuck that sadness away; I'll experience it when I go to the Keep and can honour it more. Here it feels like a ghost of a feeling.
The humans accompanying Galfen had corrosive-spelled knives. Many of them are very old but some seem human-made and new with similar magic. Seems like Galfen gave them magic that would help them or the humans created something in his image. Zadiyah has gathered them up and hopefully we will be able to destroy them. A missive from Renelli seems to confirm the magic used in them and we are on the right track for countering it - the Grove sap elixir will buy us more time to think and prepare.
There were so many moving parts to set up all these attacks that they must have been planned throughout the Storm. Amytri notes that Drakken predicts things well but this was overambitious for him. He thinks that only the Master might have inspired him to do something this large but Uncle says it has been 4-5 thousand years since the Master moved directly. We all know that we are not equipped to face the Master directly - even if Magdalena were with us.
It doesn't feel right to me - it would be strange if all of this were because of the Master's plotting...I imagine if he were more directly involved it wouldn't have been so easy to avoid serious losses with just a bit of fate. It's more likely that Drakken's plots overlapped with Galfen's in a way that made them both move more than they would have otherwise.
Flags on the map stand out more clearly:
- Drakken: Armies coming from Eir in the North, which Mystery took care of.
- Drakken: Humans attacking in Solace.
- Galfen: Humans attacking at the Keep.
- Unrelated: Seasonal Fae in the Northern Grove.
Others still feel obscured, or blended:
- Two groups of dwarves in Dreamfall - wizards and assassins.
- Trolls and dwarves marching in Drognar.
- Human-trained dragon fighters in the North.
- A force of Undead between New Whitewater and Dreamfall.
- Whatever happened in Deldrin...though I imagine that was Drakken.
But for now we are in a good place - gathering information. Uncle Red says that he will deal with Galfen - threats of both him and Magdalena will hopefully be enough to cut him off. He'll leave in the morning to do that before going back across the Barrier to find Mistress. I glow at the idea that he'll finally reveal himself properly and she'll have the same steady comfort and strength that I feel when I'm around her.
The next few days will be a little chaotic as we continue to prepare for a wedding, a coronation, some new familial Oaths, gathering of war resources, and a delegation going home again.
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