“Send your carls away, Duke Isgrimnur. I would speak for your ears only.”

“Ayaminu?” Isgrimnur’s heart was pounding. “By the Aedon, woman, what are you doing waiting in the dark like that? I might have killed you!”

The Sitha inclined her head. “You might.” She did not sound as if she thought it likely.

“Where have you been?” he demanded, the shock making him bluster louder than he might have otherwise. “I called for you many times during the rising of the dead, but you did not answer.”

“No,” she said. “I did not. And that is all I can safely tell you.”

Isgrimnur could not help wondering whether she had done something to betray him but could not imagine a reason why she would. “What is it you want, fairy woman?” he asked at last. “I have dead men to burn and a siege to finish.”

Ayaminu nodded. “I told you before, that you could not understand the deeps inside the mountain and the veins of what you might call madness among the Hikeda’ya. Before you plan the rest of your battle, I believe there are other deeps you must plumb. One of them is the history of our folk, which extends far beyond the arrival of mortal men in these lands.”

Isgrimnur poured himself a bowl of ale from a pitcher. It was colder than he liked, but he had cursed the weather enough already. He offered some to the Sitha-woman but she shook her head. “So speak,” he told her.

“I think you know a little of what is called The Parting, when the Hikeda’ya and my clan, the Zida’ya, went their separate ways,” Ayaminu told him. “The Hikeda’ya—the Norns or White Foxes, as you call them—have long declared that it was you mortals who drove our two tribes apart, the Hikeda’ya wanting revenge for the death of Queen Utuk’ku’s son but the Zida’ya unwilling to join them in destroying another race.”

Isgrimnur had heard something of this from young Simon, but he could remember very little of what their young king had told him of fairy history. Isgrimnur’s father had converted from the old faith to the Church of Usires Aedon when Isgrimnur was young, and it had been hard enough to learn all the new Usirean lore. He still swore by the wrong gods sometimes: he had scant room to carry around Sithi stories as well. “Treat me like an ignorant mortal,” he suggested.

Ayaminu actually smiled, a sight so rare Isgrimnur was a little startled. He generally thought of her as old, in part because of her snowy white hair and her slow, cautious speech, but by any mortal standard she was quite beautiful, and at this moment he felt almost captivated by her. Fairy glamours, he told himself. Don’t ever tell Gutrun or she’ll make you regret it.

“I am not the oldest of my people,” Ayaminu said, “but I am by no means the youngest. I was born well before the Parting, and lived the first part of my life in Hikehikayo, in the snowy Whitefells far to the west of here. I see the look in your eyes, Duke—do not be impatient. I have been patient with you, and even though my work here is finished, I have remained to tell you things you need to know.”

“What do you mean, your work is finished?”

“What I say. I never claimed my people wanted the same thing yours do. I have done all that was asked of me.”

“And what was that work?”

She gave him a solemn stare. “It is possible you will never know—these are strange times, and they have spawned many strange enmities and alliances which cannot yet be divulged. And it may come to nothing in any case—only the Dance of Years will tell. But I have done what I came to do, and I promise I have not interfered in your war.”

“Our war?” He felt a rising surge of anger. “You call it ours?”

She raised a hand. “Peace, Duke Isgrimnur. I have things to tell you, and we are wasting time. War is like a skein of wool. Does the wool begin with the skein, or the sheep from which it came, or even from the person who first conceived of weaving with it? Does it end when the skein is finished, or when the garment is woven, or does it exist until the garment itself finally falls to tatters? What about those who remember that garment? It is still alive in their memory.”

“I don’t understand you. This seems like scholar-talk to little point!”

“Perhaps. But whoever’s war this is, I have done what was asked of me, and now it is finished. It is time for me to return to my people. If a day comes when I am allowed to speak of my part in things, I promise I will tell you. But before I go, I will speak to you from my own heart and tell you something that I think you should know, so heed me, Duke. There are some inside the mountain—some Norns, as you call them—who wish to end the fighting.”

Isgrimnur felt himself turning red. “Are you mad? Did you see what they did? Did your work, as you call it, whatever it was, prevent you from seeing how our own dead were summoned out of their graves and set against us?”

“That was by the hand of Akhenabi, Lord of Song. But he is not the only one defending the mountain, and while the queen of the Hikeda’ya sleeps, he is not the only voice and hand that matters.”

The duke shook his head in angry confusion. “What are you suggesting? That we bargain to lift the siege? Even if I believed you, why would I do such a thing? My men want blood for blood and death for death.”

“Of course they do. That is the nature of anger, of pain. But both your people and mine choose the most clear-headed among them to consider all possibilities when the rest are mad for destruction. Your people have chosen you, Duke Isgrimnur.”

“Tell me straightly what you’re saying, Ayaminu. I am tired, and my heart is cursed heavy with all that’s happened.” He poured himself more ale, drank it off this time in a swallow. “What are you telling me?”

“I did not finish my own history, Duke Isgrimnur,” she said, still standing in shadow. “Be patient with me yet a while. As I said, I was born in Hikehikayo before the Parting. In that city in those days there was no great separation between the Norns and the Sithi. All lived together and were much alike, and all gave their loyalty to the whole people. But that changed, and not just because of the death of the queen’s son. Long before Prince Drukhi’s death, a certain envy had already crept into Utuk’ku’s heart. I will not muddle you with the tangled details, but when Utuk’ku and her husband left my folk to lead their loyal clans on a different road, it was more to do with past grievances and perceived slights than anything else. The death of Drukhi was only the excuse.”

“I am already muddled.”

“Then I will make it simpler, Duke Isgrimnur. Just as there are Sithi who do not love mortals, there are a few Norns who do not entirely hate mortals. I grew up in Hikehikayo when those you call Norns and those you call Sithi, like me, still lived together in peace. And despite all the seasons that have swirled by since that time, I still know some among the Hikeda’ya, and know their hearts.”

“Are you saying you could convince them to surrender?”

She made a noise he couldn’t unpuzzle, a little burst of breath. “Me? No. As long as the queen lives, they will not surrender, especially the Order of Sacrifice. But that does not mean that the end of this struggle cannot be made less bloody, less vicious.”

Isgrimnur groaned. “For the love of the Lord God, no more clans, orders, or history, I beg you! Just tell me what you mean!”

“Only this. Speak to them, as you would any besieged mortal enemy. Give them your terms and let the less bloody-minded of Nakkiga hope for something other than complete destruction. It could be that the results will be better than you can now foresee.”

“How do you know? Perhaps like Brindur I have come to feel that only destroying every last one of those murdering creatures will satisfy me.”

“I know little of mortals, although I have long studied them, Isgrimnur—but I think I know something about you. I will say no more. I cannot say more. And this suggestion of mine may come to nothing, but I would not rest easily when my own song finally ends if I had not made the attempt.”