“But isn’t there anyone now like this Geloë?” asked Morgan, who seemed finally to have grasped the seriousness of their concerns. “Somebody who knows about the Norns and what they might be doing?”

“There is being nobody like Geloë,” said Binabik with a sad smile. “Not before, and not now that she is being gone. And there is also being nobody living today as knowledgeable about these things as your namesake Doctor Morgenes, Prince Morgan. No, it seems we will have to find the solving of this ourselves.”

The troll was right, Eolair realized, even as the others began again to discuss the Norns and what Lady Alva’s story might mean. There was no other like Geloë. Eolair had not known her well—he had only been in her presence for a few days, when he had visited Prince Josua’s camp during the Storm King’s War—but the memory of her bright, hunting-bird’s eyes would never leave him. From a distance she had looked like many other peasant women, short but solid, with the cropped hair and unprepossessing clothes of someone who cared little what others might think of her. But to be in her presence, to be examined by that yellow stare, had been to feel her power—not the might of a conqueror or even a will in search of mastery over others, but the unselfconscious power of a stone standing in the middle of a mighty river—something which did not move but instead let everything else bend around it in a rush of pointless motion and noise.

And she had dirty fingernails, Eolair remembered—something else he had liked about her. Too busy doing what needed doing to waste any time being anything but herself. Gods, yes, he thought. We would be immeasurably better off if all the Scrollbearers still lived—Geloë and Morgenes and Jarnauga and Father Dinivan—and if they were all here now to tell us what to do. But Geloë had died at the hands of the Norns, as had Jarnauga, and the red priest Pryrates had murdered Father Dinivan in the Sancellan Aedonitis and burned Doctor Morgenes to death in his own chambers.

Eolair looked around the room. Here they all sat, the king and queen, the trolls from distant Yiqanuc, Tiamak who had been born in the marshy Wran, and young Morgan, confused and frustrated by all the things he did not understand. But now we are the ones who must protect the realm, he thought. It is up to us to be those that others will speak of in some future time, the ones of whom they will say, “Thank the gods they were here.” Because if we are not—if the tide of vengeance comes rolling down from the north again, and we fail to hold what others helped us keep at the last time of darkness—there may be nothing to say, and no one left to say it.

Miriamele had just sent her ladies ahead to prepare the bedchamber when she noticed Binabik waiting at the door of the jarl’s study. The small man looked tired, but she thought she still might be unused to this aged version of a familiar face. She smiled at him. “It is so good to see you and Sisqi, Binabik. And your child, Qina—she’s grown to be such a beauty! It all gives me heart.”

He bumped his fist against his chest. “Heart is what we are all sometimes needing. As we say in Yiqanuc, ‘Fear is the mother of wisdom, but every child must be leaving the home one day.’”

Miriamele was still trying to work that out when Simon finished his conversation with Sir Kenrick about the disposition of the guards. Since they were staying in the house of a trusted ally, there had apparently been little to discuss.

Sir Kenrick paused in the doorway and bowed deeply to the queen, then looked down at the troll and made a curious half-bow, like an overbalanced nod: as with most of his fellows, the stocky captain marshal never quite knew how to treat the royal couple’s odd friends. Matters of deference and title were often especially difficult. Just a fortnight past, Miriamele knew, Lord Chamberlain Jeremias had been almost in tears trying to decide what Binabik’s rank, “Singing Man of Mintahoq Mountain,” signified as far as precedence at table.

“He’s my oldest and closest friend,” Simon had told him, then hurriedly added, “after you, Jeremias, of course.”

“One more question,” Kenrick said now, “begging your Majesties’ pardons. Perhaps if we make good time to Vestvennby we could give the men a day of freedom there. It would cheer them up after all this snow and short rations.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” said Simon.

“We will consider it, Sir Kenrick,” the queen said with a meaningful glance at her husband.

“Why shouldn’t they have a day in Vestvennby?” the king asked when the captain had departed.

“I didn’t say they shouldn’t, although we’ve lost time already with this storm. I just said we would consider it. Together. Before we make announcements.”

“I didn’t think you would disagree.”

“You don’t know unless you ask, husband.”

He pursed his lips, but at last nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”

For a moment she wanted only to put her arms around him, only for the two of them to be alone somewhere without responsibilities, just a husband and wife. But that would not happen. That would never happen. She sighed and squeezed his hand. “Right, then. I think Binabik is waiting to speak with you.”

“With both of you, to speak with exactness,” said the troll, stepping forward. “But it is about something you were saying another day, friend Simon. When we were in Elvritshalla, you told that you have stopped dreaming. Was that a true saying?”

An expression crossed her husband’s face that also reminded her of a younger Simon—a worried one. “It was,” he said. “It is. You know I’ve always had strange dreams, Binabik, but especially in the Storm King years. I dreamed of the Uduntree, didn’t I? Long before I saw it. The wheel, too, never knowing I’d be strapped to one! And I dreamed of Stormspike Mountain back in those days as well, and the Norn Queen, when I didn’t know anything about her. In Geloë’s house, when we walked the Dream Road—remember?”

Binabik nodded. “Of course I am remembering. And also what the great Sitha lady Amerasu told you—that you were perhaps one closer to the Road of Dreams than others. Has it changed in the years we have been apart?”

Simon shook his head. “Not truly. Sometimes it is less, but in the weeks before our son John Josua got ill, I dreamed of Pryrates every night. Miri can tell you.”

“No, I can’t. I don’t want to remember.” Sometimes it seemed like that terrible loss was everywhere around her, barely hidden, and to poke at anything, no matter how seemingly innocuous, was to risk revealing it. A moment before, she had been thinking of a thousand other things, but now it was back, the pain nearly as fresh as the moment they had lost their only child. “But yes,” she said when she had composed herself, “Simon had terrible dreams in those days. Terrible.”

“Once I dreamed that Pryrates was a cat, and that John Josua was a mouse, but he didn’t know . . .”

“Enough!” said Miriamele, far more harshly than she had intended. When the two of them looked at her in surprise, she could only wave her hand. “I’m sorry, but I can’t bear to hear it again.”

Binabik frowned in sympathy. “I do not think the whole story must be told again, but I do have more questions for asking. Should I take your husband somewhere else to speak with him?”

“No. I’m well. If it’s important I want to know too. Go ahead.” She was a queen, she reminded herself—the queen. She would not hide from mere emotion, no matter how terrible its source or painful its visitation.

“Was it during a single night that this stopping happened, Simon?” Binabik asked him. “Or is it something that only later came to your notice?”

He thought about it. “When did I tell you about it? The night Sludig and his wife came, wasn’t it? What saints’ day was that?” He frowned and pulled on his beard. “Saint Vultinia, wasn’t it?”