Andrea Höst: The Towers, the Moon

Despite their dark colour, the Tears of the Night stood out particularly well among the motes, glowing with a purple radiance that transformed them into small moons. Able to see the branches and trunks tolerably well thanks to her symbiont, Rian skipped toward the nearest moon, but changed direction as several partially-clad figures also converged. Here on the fringes there would be too much competition: best to try to push ahead.

The path she followed seemed to be sloping upward, and she realised that there were wide, spiralling ramps in the forest, allowing the wingless to access the upper reaches, and ensuring the centre of the sprawling chamber was not left empty. Rian bounced quickly forward until she was at least a third of the way into this part of the forest, and then she slowed, oriented on the nearest luminous purple bauble, and headed toward it.

After barely a glance at the image of a mouse-masked owner, Rian attached the ten-Tear to her veil. This round was her chance to regain some losses, for her night vision gave her an immense advantage, allowing her to move through the sky forest at relative speed – and forewarning her of this round’s hunters.

Three lithe shapes were moving down the slope ahead. They resembled stoats or weasels, but banded black and white, and as long as Rian was tall. Each was ridden by one of the la clochettes, but the tiny sprites were silent, clutching the ears of the furred hunters, straining to see through the glimmering dark.

Any movement risked drawing their attention, so Rian stood her ground. But she could not hide her scent, and the three coursed toward her…then shied away, flinching almost, and disappearing over the side of the broad, curving slope.

Rian stood in the Great Forest, in the sky forest, in a place of night and shivering leaves. Around her slid long bodies: not of the gargouille, or the striped weasels, but of the golden-horned amasen of Cernunnos, the great snakes of good fortune. She no longer wore the mask of the snake, but of the stag, and she strode unimpeded, all barriers falling from her path as she took into her hands droplets of night. Bear. Dove. Silver lion.

The stag mask vanished when Rian took up D’Argent’s ten-Tear. Panting faintly, she looked about and saw she had been brought to the brink of a pool of light spilling through a vast doorway. That had been a new experience. Cernunnos himself had walked with her. Were the night’s events his doing, after all? Or was he simply lending his power because of the bond of allegiance between them, and because the challenge triggered his own circumstances? The hunter became the hunted. The hunted, in turn, would hunt.

She had arrived well ahead of the pack, and paid over a mouse and a bear and a dove to complete the round, then passed through the doorway into a sumptuously appointed star-shaped hall.

Among the provisions for comfort and further gaming were a generous scattering of members of the Tower of Balance, ready to oversee the payment of forfeits, and Rian was not in the least surprised to find Alexandrine standing at her elbow. Cernunnos was not the only power pulling her strings this night, whether the Duke of Balance called himself a god or not.

"Are these games always so elaborate?" she asked Alexandrine.

"This is one of the major challenges," Alexandrine said. "To honour the sweet-singers."

"It’s something they enjoy?" Her sweet-singer had not wafted down to join her, though she could still make out its voice, clear in the growing chorus above.

"In a manner, they are competing as you have done. As if with a race of horses."

The black-winged woman looked amused, but did not outright suggest Rian represented a poorly-chosen outlier at long odds. As was to be expected with any wild gamble, Rian had not performed well. She had achieved her primary goal, but the game had cost her eight of her own ten-Tears, which ironically – or as a matter of suspicious coincidence – left her with Tears equal to the cost she had paid for double entry to the Towers in the first place. And one more.

"I have a forfeit I would like to claim," she told Alexandrine, raising D’Argent’s ten-Tear. "Whenever that is possible."

Entirely unsurprised, Alexandrine nodded, and touched Rian’s shoulder. The world shifted, and Rian found herself alone in a room where shimmering curtains wavered in not-very-vertical directions, as if they were reaching out to the single table and two chairs set in the room’s centre.

Rian sat down, and briefly inspected her feet. The bruises no longer hurt, though small purple circles marked where she’d found particularly sharp stones or gnarled roots. She wondered if she’d get the rest of her dress back, when all of this was done. The rules hadn’t been clear on that point, and it would be awkward travelling even the short distance to the special Towers train in only two layers of gossamer shimmer.

"I compliment you, Mademoiselle."

Rian glanced up from contemplation of her clothing, and found that Alexandrine had returned with D’Argent – who thankfully still wore the Mask of Léon. At last. Time to finish this.

From the count of the ten-Tears hanging from his veil, D’Argent had been a little more successful in the challenge than Rian, but her last fear – that he had obtained one of her ten-Tears, and thus could cancel out her forfeit through exchange – was quickly assuaged, and so she said briskly:

"My forfeit is the custody of the mask of a silver lion."

Alexandrine nodded briefly, and D’Argent’s ten-Tear rose from the table, and split into two fragments, one of which vanished. The man promptly unlaced his mask and handed it to Rian.

"Thank you," she said, interested to see that the ribbons and threads that surrounded him so thickly had shifted when he gave up the mask. Some had grown more prominent, and others had receded.

With the veil concealing only his lower face, D’Argent was revealed to be quite a young man, with fine black eyes, lightly-marked brows, and dark brown hair.

"I look forward to seeing it again," he said, with emphasis.

That was, at the very least, a promise to check to see that she returned it to the Sourné. Rian put the mask on the table, and glanced at the remainder of his ten-Tear, worried he would pursue the question of how the Mask of Léon had fallen into Henri’s hands.

"Do you wish to claim another forfeit?" Alexandrine asked, obligingly.

Rian hesitated, for she had been left with only a small number of D’Argent’s Tears. How would he react if she attempted to extract a binding promise from him, but failed because she did not have enough for the cost?

And what to do about her discoveries regarding the Prince Royal?

"Is it so very hard to decide?" D’Argent asked, sounding amused. Still standing, he leaned forward in order to gaze into her eyes through her mask. "I do not think I have ever met you before."

"It seems very unlikely," Rian said, blinking at the complex array of emotions that near proximity revealed. Genuine entertainment, a note of desire, but also a distinct sense of pride, and of challenge.

"Are you, perhaps, thinking of constraining me in some way, Mademoiselle Serpent?" he murmured.

Threat. Excitement. Determination. Even if she had sufficient Tears to extract a binding promise, Rian would not pursue it with this one. He would most certainly seek a way around the terms of whatever she asked, and exact revenge for her effrontery. But she was now sure he wouldn’t let the matter drop, even if she didn’t push him to retaliation.

Wanting a little more time, Rian said: "No need to loom over me. Why not sit down, so we can talk?"

D’Argent snorted, but moved to obey, and Rian took the opportunity to focus on the threads and ribbons wavering around him, making another attempt to delve into them. This time she was rewarded.