and it is yearning, Terafin. Yearning, loss, desire. But you do not conflate beauty with desire—or love. You are unusual.”
She said, without thought, “Neither does Sigurne.”
He withdrew his hand, and his expression lost all warmth. “Understand that I am fond of her. She was a child of the Winter in all ways. She will die; she is aged greatly. But I do not want her to pass beyond without experiencing the grandeur and the majesty of the world. She has spent so much of her life denying its existence.”
“She will not thank you.”
“Oh, but she will, Terafin. You admire her. You respect her. You are even wise enough, on rare occasions, to fear her. You have both dedicated your lives to protection and guardianship. But for Sigurne, the guardianship is almost at an end; as all mortal guardians, she has outlived her usefulness. She is not you, Terafin. She dreads the laying down of her burden, but she also welcomes it. When you have done everything in your power to delay the inevitable, when you have done more, there is no shame, no guilt, in surrender.”
“She will never surrender.”
“You quibble again, but I understand why, and I will allow it; where you walk, you will not have the comfort of ignorance. She will not walk your road, but she has walked dark roads before. You feel that she is like you. She is. But your first teacher was Ararath of Handernesse. Sigurne’s first teacher was not mortal. What you felt for Ararath, when you were a girl, Sigurne also felt, and it was not—it was never—safe.
“Come,” he said again. He lowered his hand. “Take me to this object of sentiment.” Shifting position, he offered her an arm. She stared at him for a long moment before she accepted, resting her hand lightly on the crook of his elbow.
* * *
The table was as she’d last seen it. So were the chairs. The books were in an unkempt stack. Meralonne was a member of the Order of Knowledge; he reported to Sigurne. But he was not Sigurne. The volumes of questionable origin did not trouble him in the slightest.
“Viandaran.”
Avandar set the closed book on the table.
“If this book is meant to have power of any significance, it can mean only one thing.”
“And that?” Jewel asked as she withdrew her hand. The Chosen took up positions at their customary distance; Avandar, however, chose to stand closer.
“The pages were crafted from the flesh of living beings. It is a potent way of creating a book, if one intends the book to be an object of magic in its own right. It is not the only book present in this library that was crafted in such a fashion. But those books are dormant now; they might cause mischief, but they do not have the power to be truly dangerous.”
“You think this book is dangerous.”
“I do.”
“And that implies that at least one of the contributors to its many pages is somehow still alive.”
“Yes, Terafin, it does. It cannot be Kialli flesh. In any way that matters, the Kialli chose death when they chose to follow their Lord.”
“Demons have been used to craft weapons. Summoned demons.”
“Yes, but weapons of that ilk are not meant for mortals. Too often, the mortals become the weapons; the demons, the wielders. None crafted in such a fashion reside within your armory.”
“Meralonne—it can’t be the skin of mortals. Not if the book is ancient, as you say.”
His smile was strange. “There is no immortality waiting for your kind, although men have yearned and bartered for it since the advent of mortality. But there are individuals who have been granted their heart’s desire. You know of one. It is possible, Terafin, that he was not the only one.”
“His immortality was granted by a malevolent god.”
“Malevolence was not required,” Meralonne replied. Avandar did not speak. “There are ways to contain the lives of mortals; there are ways to put them beyond the simple reach of time. It is not an act that could be performed by the Kialli. Nor by me or my kin. But the Winter Queen could, should she desire to do so. There are bindings that are older and deeper than the simple march of years.
“The Winter King, Jewel, is ancient.”
“He is no longer a man.”
“No. But the Winter King that was at last hunted was ancient, endless; he had power and his dreams were cold and dark. There are ways. But your kind does not take well to immortality;