Matthew Sturges - Midwinter

But she was a gracious empress, was she not? She allowed them their invasion of Avalon, let them see for themselves what a trouble it was. She sent only the worst commanders, certainly, and purposefully gave them conflicting orders so that it all came to nothing. It had taken many years and many lives for them to see their folly, but that was so often what was required. It was a lesson that every generation needed to learn.

She'd come to understand that there was no idea so foolish that each new age could not revive it.

Soon the Chambers of Elements and Motion would come to life again. She had cast her net far and wide across her empire for the best masters and this new crop was every bit the equal of the one she'd lost to the Seelie. This time the Chambers would be better protected; she would not be beaten the same way twice. And in the Secret City, high in the clouds, so high that land could not even be seen from its decks, her Magi were turning out Hy Pezho's weapons by the scores. Building them required blood and death and innocence, but it was worth the price. That which would bring Regina Titania to her knees was worth whatever she paid for it. In the end, humbling the Stone Queen was all that truly mattered. Everything else fell away; everything else was transient. Only She remained, and only Her abasement would be meaningful.

As for Hy Pezho himself, well, he had been a piece of work. So much like his father. And he had come to the same end. This was another cycle that repeated across the centuries; the men who believed they could best her. Had any of them bothered to lift their noses from their red-inked books of thaumatics and instead perused a work of history, they would have discovered that there were reasons that Mab had ruled for as long as she had. But they never learned. It grew so very, very tiresome.

Ah, but there was something else coming, wasn't there? For the first time in many, many years, Mab had begun to have those special dreams, the dreams of foretelling. As always with powerful things, the dreams were both insistent and vague. Someone was coming. Someone would come to her.

And everything would change.

But that was later; there was no use putting this in the hands of her court seers. They would only equivocate and argue and pen endless discourses that amounted to nothing. She'd once split a prophet down the middle with a wave of her finger to alleviate the boredom of him. The others had been more careful after that, but not for long enough. Never anything for long enough!

But this city before her would last awhile, and that was good. And beyond it another, and another, and another.

One Year Later

The road Mauritane walked along was lined with wild strawberries and raspberry bushes. He stopped from time to time and picked a few of the tart, pink strawberries and washed them down with water from the stream beyond. Up the road, a tiny village stood at the bank of a wide river, smoke from their cooking fires rising from the houses and disappearing into the blue sky.

He shifted his pack to his left shoulder and continued walking, conscious of the absence of the military sword at his waist. He closed his eyes and smelled the honeysuckle, opened them and looked up again at the potent blue of the sky.

After leaving Sylvan a month ago, though, it was hard to imagine any place more beautiful. Sylvan during Firstcome was a sight to behold. With the coating of dirty snow gone, the city had come once more into its own. The mists were lifted and the valley was cleansed by the rains of Firstcome that poured over the temple and the city below, washing away the grime of the cold season that had passed, washing away the ashes and the bloodstains of last year's bitter struggle. All was still not well in the west and perhaps never would be. One battle would not solve anything, and the rancor between the Arcadians and the nobility there would not be washed away as easily as the remains of the battle.

And yet, strides had been made. Eloquet had, at Mauritane's relentless urging, consented to join the Royal Guard. He'd risen quickly in the ranks over the last year, thanks in part to his reputation from the Battle of Sylvan, and in greater measure to his skills as a leader and his love of country. He would someday make a fine replacement. An Arcadian as Captain of the Guard. That would be something.

Looking ahead, Mauritane could see a figure kneeling in a garden outside one of the houses. He changed his course and left the road, angling toward the lone gardener.

At the temple in Sylvan, he'd shared a bottle of wine with Satterly and Silverdun. They'd spent a few languorous hours renewing their acquaintance. They told stories from their days at Crete Sulace and talked about their lives now and how things had changed. They compared scars and relived old wounds. They remembered lost friends. It had been good.

Mauritane crunched through a litter of leaves from the oak trees overhead. A small field of wheat was all that separated him from the village now. The woman kneeling in her garden looked up at him and froze. She stood, slowly, dusting her hands off on her long dress. Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked across the swaying stalks of grain and called out his name. She leaped out of the garden and sprinted toward him.

The sky overhead was so blue; Mauritane thought his heart might break. Across the river, the bright sun of Avalon began to angle downward toward the mountains. Mauritane let his pack fall to the ground and ran across the field to meet her.