“Nothing for Your Majesties to fret yourself with. The north is always strange. Perhaps a bit stranger this winter, that’s all.”

“Is it about the White Foxes?”

“Husband,” said Miriamele in a tone Simon knew all too well. “Sludig does not want to speak about it now.”

“Begging your pardon, but the queen is right,” Sludig said. “Not when all are drinking good wine and ale and sharing tales of old times. But while you are still here in the northlands we should speak of these other things . . . and we will.”

They returned to other stories, other subjects, but the mood had changed, and Simon for one could not summon back his earlier carelessness. “This is the cruel trick of being a king,” he said at last to Binabik. “You can have anything you want, but you spend all your time worrying.”

“That, I am fearing, is not just true for monarchs, but for most who live long enough to become grown men and women.” He smiled. “What is your worrying now, friend Simon? Is it what Sludig was saying, or is it still the silence from the Sithi that troubles you, as you were telling to me before?”

Miri had come to stand behind him for a moment; Simon could feel her cool hand on the back of his neck. “The silence from the Sithi is something that worries us both,” she said, “but it troubles Simon the most.”

“It should trouble everybody.” Simon thought he sounded loud, so he tried again in a softer voice. “We haven’t heard a word from them in several years.”

“How strange that is being!” Binabik shook his head. “Not even words from Jiriki or Aditu? They have sent no messengers?”

Simon shrugged. “Nothing. And we have sent them many messages, or at least tried. Perhaps it’s their mother Likimeya who wants it this way. She was never very happy with us—was she, Eolair?”

The count, who had fallen out of the other conversation, started. “Certainly Likimeya was not friendly to us in the way Jiriki and his sister were,” he said at last. “But after meeting her, I would not say she hated mortals, either. Cautious is the way I would put it. And after what her people have gone through at mortal hands, who could say she is wrong?”

Simon made a sour face. “Spoken like the diplomat you are, carefully generous to all sides. But what do you truly think?”

Eolair shrugged. He looked uncomfortable. “It is not entirely fair to ask me to shed the habits of a lifetime in a matter of moments, Majesty. But I suspect there may be something at work we do not know, some argument among the Sithi themselves. I cannot see any reason for such a silence otherwise.”

Miriamele nodded. “I think you may be right, Eolair. And from what Simon has said about his months with them, they also seem to keep time differently than we do.”

“Still, it is strange, this so-long silence,” Binabik said, but then noticed his daughter Qina, who had appeared as if from nowhere and stood silently in the chamber doorway. He beckoned her to him and they had a murmured conversation, then she nodded shyly to the others and went out again, quick and quiet as a mouse.

“The young ones are back from their adventuring,” Binabik said. “Morgan the prince is tired and sore, Qina says, so he is going early to bed.”

Miriamele looked worried. “Is he unwell?”

Binabik smiled. “A mere tumble of small nature, Qina says. Bumped and bruised a little, and shamed because of it, but otherwise without harm. He is in good hands with my daughter and her nukapik, who studies the healing arts. I do believe they are all becoming friends.”

The queen looked uncertain, but Simon sidled over to her. “The boy’s fine. They went out for a walk, he had a little fall. Probably had too much to drink. Don’t embarrass him by rushing off to look in on him. The trolls will take good care of him.”

She did not seem entirely convinced, but she sighed and let herself be guided back to a chair by Sisqi. Soon the conversation turned back to the Sithi.

“We Qanuc have not been much meeting with the Zida’ya—the Sithi-folk, as you are calling them—in recent years,” said Binabik, “but we have also been seeing no great change in their dealings with us. Do you agree, Sisqi my wife?”

She nodded emphatically. The other conversations had now ended, and all by the fire were turned toward each other. “Many Sithi coming to Blue Mud Lake only three summers gone,” she said. “They giving us news of many things, and sharing meals with us then. They sang.” Simon could hear the change in her voice as she remembered. “At night, beneath all stars. It had so much beauty!”

“But nothing was being said by them of silence between the Zida’ya and their friends in the Hayholt,” Binabik added, a frown creasing his brow. “Still, these were being ordinary Sithi—I mean not of the family of Year-Dancing that we are knowing best, Aditu and Jiriki and their kin.”

“All we can do is be patient, I suppose,” Simon said. “We have sent them many messages. One day, perhaps they will answer.” But he could not keep the deep sadness out of his voice. Once, he had held out great hope that the Sithi and mortal men could be reconciled, but it had been many years since a better friendship between their peoples had seemed anything but a foolish, idle dream. He stared at the fire, watching the flames and thinking of his last, terrible night in Jao é-Tinukai’i with Jiriki and the rest, the night the Norns had attacked their Sithi kin, the night Amerasu Ship-Born had died.

The others were thinking their own thoughts; for long moments the room was silent but for the crackling of the fire. At last the king turned to Sludig. “I’m sorry I’ve made a muddle of the festive mood, old friend, but now you might as well tell me what you’ve heard of the Norns. Is it just rumor or something more? The north is always full of tales that the White Foxes are coming again, that I know. That hasn’t changed since the days of the Storm King’s War. Grimbrand said there were many stories this winter, but he did not think it was so much different from other years.”

“Simon, don’t,” said Miriamele. “You agreed.”

Sludig shook his head. “Perhaps your husband is right, Majesty. And perhaps things are different here in Elvritshalla—it is a large, well-guarded city. Engby, where we live, is farther north—closer to the Nornfells. But I should let my wife tell the story, since it is hers.”

They turned to Alva. “What story?” the queen asked.

Alva looked a little surprised. “I had not expected to . . . it will seem foolish, or at least parts of it will . . .” Several of the others urged her to speak. “Very well,” she said finally. “But it seems a poor way to end an evening of good fellowship.” She turned to Sludig. “Send the squire back to our chambers for it, will you, my husband?”

Sludig called for a young man who had been waiting outside in the hall’s antechamber. The young man bowed as he was given his quiet orders, but he was struggling to keep something else from his face—distaste or even fear, Simon thought.

“What is this mystery?” he asked.

“I beg your Majesties’ patience,” Lady Alva said. “All will be revealed soon enough. But here is what I must tell you first.

“Elvritshalla, Kaldskryke, Saegard, all these places are much like Erchester, cities with towns and villages all around. If you stand upon almost any road nearby, within an hour you will hear a farmer’s cart or the sound of hooves as a royal messenger rides past, or glimpse hunters or charcoal burners making their way through nearby woods. But in Engby where I grew up, and where Sludig and I now live, if you walk away from the houses you can continue on for days without seeing another living human soul. Some of the older roads will not see a traveler for a year or more. But that does not mean that you will be alone.

“In the north, we have always known that the land of the White Foxes—the Norns—is close to our borders. There is a valley just beyond ours to the northeast that has been called the Refarslod—the Fox’s Road—as long as anyone can remember, going back to my great-grandmother’s day, because the Norns have always used it.”