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No. Nothis. She’d never been his. She’d made it excruciatingly clear.
Holding on to the truth and not the dream was the only way forward.
Dawn broke, and the only customers remaining were the stalwart patrons who had never left. They were always halfway to the Guardians, intentionally divorced of any reality beyond the Tavern at the Top of the World’s wooden walls, and so Tyreste didn’t bother expelling them when the time neared for his meeting with Asterin and Sesto.
Asterin. And Sesto. They werethere,in the Cross.
“I can give them the boot,” Olov said as he finished stacking the washed mugs behind the bar.
Tyreste waved the rag in his hand. “Nah. They’d be lucky to remember their way home, let alone have the capacity for nosiness. Wouldn’t want them freezing in a ditch.”
“Could send a raven to their families to collect them.”
“I have a feeling that call would go unanswered.”
Olov chuckled. “Aye. That’s true.” He wiped down the bar in long, aggressive strokes. “Drago is already here doing prep, and Pern and Evert will be along shortly, but they know to stay in the back, to give you space. You know, I can brew a pot of strong coffee and wait with—”
“No, Father. Go on to bed. I won’t be far behind.”
Olov watched him closely. “You don’t want to spend time with your friends? They’ve come a long way to see you.”
Tyreste nearly corrected that word,friends, but it would have been an old instinct, one he hadn’t felt in years. The Edevanes and Sesto were his friends, then and now. His only close friends in the world, beyond his family.
But a quick visit north was only a tease of what he could have if they all lived closer. Tyreste’s heart was already raw, and their unannounced arrival only reminded him of all he’d lost.
“Everything all right, Son?”
“Yes. Course.” Tyreste lifted the last two chairs and stacked them atop the last table he’d cleaned. The rest were done, except the corner one he’d reserved for his visitors.
Olov didn’t look convinced, but he nodded anyway. “I’ve bolted the entrance for the service pause, so you don’t need to concern yourself with it. Your friends know to enter through the back. Drago, Pern, and Evert can hold everything down, and Faustina is coming in for a few hours as well. All I’m saying is we have more than enough help. There’s no reason to stay any longer than you want to.”
Tyreste shook his head. “Faustina, huh? It’s only been a month since Rik wed her, and you’re already putting her to work?”
Olov grinned. “She’s a Penhallow now. And nobody does more or less than they want to do here. You know that.” He tapped the bar. “See you tonight?”
Tyreste nodded and watched his father leave through the back. The two holdouts, sitting at opposite ends of the bar, both pointed hollow gazes at their ales. He wondered if they even knew where they were anymore.
He glanced around, searching for any work still needing done, but he’d already finished it. The bar was shined, and the floors and tables as washed as they’d ever be.
A low, raspy meow sounded from the other side of the room. Rikard the Mouser had finally made his way to the tavern, on his own time. He’d been a feral stray when Tyreste had “adopted” him all those years ago in the Reliquary dungeon, and not much had changed, except that the tomcat wasn’t locked away from leaving anymore. He chose to stay, every day and night, and the choice made him family.
“Over here, Riki,” he said, and Rikard padded over with a jaunty twitch in his striped tail.
With nothing else to do but wait, Tyreste pulled out a chair and sat.
Anastazja slunk down the stairwell with the same hushed, shameful energy of the carefree little girl who used to sneak in and out of Fanghelm to explore the village. Back then, there’d been no real risk, no consequences. The few times she’d been caught, all she’d earned was a sound but soft scolding, and by the following evening, her father would be back to reading to her from his vast library, her mother humming old Vjestik songs as she plaited her only daughter’s hair.
Now, the risk was real. The consequences were real. And there were no comforts to be found at the end.
Demons dealt in darker denouements.
Porridge wafted into the hall, greeting her at the bottom of the steps. When her mother had been alive, they’d had elaborate breakfasts, with meat and quail eggs and freshly picked vegetables from the stewardess’s garden—one of the few in the far north to produce anything but root plants. Ksenia Arsenyev Wynter was said to have had zydolny,or “the touch,” a Vjestik way of describing the unique symbiosis some of their people had with flora and fauna.
Anastazja hadn’t inherited her mother’s zydolny. Like most of her people, she had magic of her own, but it was useless against Magda, who could cut through her illusions, her healing, or anything she tried. The one thing she’dinherited the koldynacouldn’tsilence—her phoenix form—was the very reason Magda needed her.
Only the Wynter heirs could shift. Anastazja’s older brother, Stepan, had had to die for her to gain her wings. Every time she was forced to shift, to fly up the mountain, she missed Stepan all the more. Nothing made her feel closer to him, yet also further away.
She braced, plastering a smile for her father and Nikolaj, and entered the noisy dining hall.
