Chapter 88: The Frozen Breath.

The door opened to warmth. It was a sudden change, one so sudden and abrupt it could not, and was not, natural. It was a slow, gentle warmth. An inviting warmth.

The cabin’s interior was simple. A fire crackled in a stone hearth against the far wall. A wooden table sat near the center. There were two cups and between them was a teapot, with steam curling from its spout. The chairs were mismatched. One was slightly taller than the other. Vaelin was silent.

A woman sat at the far side of the table. She had white hair, falling well past her shoulders. Her skin was pale in a way that was different from my own. I looked sickly. This woman looked like fresh fallen snow. She looked younger than I had expected. She was not young, precisely. Her face was ageless and smooth, with tight skin that had no wrinkles at all. She was beautiful. Had been beautiful, even corrupted on the altar.

The woman looked up at me. Her eyes were a pale blue, and they were kind. “Sit down, child.” Her voice was low and warm. “You look terrible.”

I sat. I did not know why I obeyed so easily. Perhaps it was the warmth. Perhaps it was simply that nobody had spoken to me like that in a very long time. This was Eira, the Goddess of Frost.

Eira poured me tea. The cup was clay, and when I wrapped my hands around it the heat seeped into my fingers. My hands had been shaking since the battle. Here, they were perfectly steady. The tea was bitter, just how I liked it. Exactly how I liked it.

Eira studied me for a moment. There was something sad and distant in her expression. “You’re not from this world, are you?”

I went very still. The cup did not waver in my hands. That was the only thing I managed to control. I had guarded that secret more carefully than any other. More carefully than the Godblade. Only once, had I let it slip to a girl I thought was dying in front of me. “How?” The word came out before I could stop it.

Eira smiled, and it was a gentle smile. “Your soul is layered,” she said. “Its two lives pressed together, one atop the other. The seam is faint. Most would not see it but I am not most.”

I set the cup down. I picked it back up and set it back down again. I could not decide what to do with my hands. “Is it…rare?”

“It happens sometimes.” Eira tilted her head. “More often than people think. Most who carry a second life never realize it.” She paused. “Of course, it’s different in your case. You were moved here, that is rarer.” She smiled. “But not so rare as you think.”

This secret was a stone that had always been lodged somewhere beneath my ribs. I had imagined, countless times, what might happen if anyone found out. By now, I was certain that nobody ever would. That didn’t make the lump go away. This Goddess treated it as if I had told her I preferred my tea without sugar.

Something in my chest loosened. I caught it, and tried to pull it back. That was an old habit.

Eira noticed, I saw her notice. She said nothing about it, and poured me more tea. I drank again and the tea was good. It wasn’t just how I liked it, it was exactly how I always wished tea to taste.

“I have to admit,” I said, “that I half dismissed the idea of gods walking the earth. I knew it, intellectually. The histories are clear enough but some part of me-” I paused. “The… older part . That part always imagined you as distant things. Up in the sky somewhere, looking down on us mere mortals.”

Eira’s smile widened, just a fraction. “That was true, once. Gods did dwell above. It was a long time ago. A very, very long time ago.”

“What changed?”

The smile faded. “There are things even I cannot speak about, Esra.” She held my gaze. “And not because I choose silence. You are a smart girl, are you not?”

Her knowing my name was hardly surprising at all. Still, I recognized a cage when I saw one. Even a golden one. “How many of you are left?”

Eira was quiet for a moment. The fire's crackling filled the quiet. “Fewer than there should be.” She tilted her head. “A few dozen? Here and….” She paused again, her lips sealed.

I did not push further. There would be time for more questions, and I suspected she would answer some of them, but not all.

Eira’s gaze shifted. It moved past me. It went through me. She was looking at something I could not see. “Draw the blade,” she said. I hesitated. “It is fine here,” Eira said gently. “I only wish to see.”

I extended my hand. Vaelin materialized. The Godblade glowed. It glowed pink, and the color filled me with something akin to grief. Like rose petals on a grave, overlooking a hill. The sadness radiated up my arm, even as the impression settled into my head.

Eira looked at it for a long time. “Hello, old friend,” she whispered. The blade pulsed once in my hand. “What the world calls Godblades,” Eira said, her voice steadier now, “are a god’s Tenet. Half of their Gift, distilled into form. The blade carries their will, their purpose . The reason they gained power at all.” She looked from the blade to me. “The weapon you carry is Vindicta ’s Tenet.” She said the word gently, with all the care and affection in the world.

Vindicta. I turned the name over. It meant nothing to me, and yet Vaelin stirred at the sound of it. “Who was she?”

“A Goddess. Not one of the Ten, before you ask.”

I had just been about to, as it happened. Instead, I asked something else, “If the blade is her Tenet…what was her Gift?” It was idle curiosity, nothing more.

Eira smiled. “The Gift of Severance . An old power. Almost as old as the Req -” Eira paused. She took a deep breath, and continued. Her eyes were sad. “Severance was the power to cut anything. Not merely flesh or steel.”

I thought of the magical contract I had cut. It hadn’t been that long ago, and yet it felt like a different life all the same. It made sense. "And...what about a God's Edict?" I asked.

"You've been traveling through it for some time to reach here, have you not?" Eira asked.

Ah. I did not ask anything else. Questions warred within me for the right to be asked first. So far, none of them had quite won. Eira spoke up first.

“She was my closest friend,” Eira said. Her hands were folded on the table, very still. “But she was…restless. She was always struggling and always moving. She saw things the rest of us refused to see.” Eira looked down at her hands. “And I…my Gift was the opposite. My Intent was the opposite.” Eira paused. The fire dimmed. “Vindicta believed the world was corrupted. The way it was built and the rules that governed it. I suppose all Gods know it, in some way. Vindicta was the only one who tried to remake it.”

It had been some time since I’d breathed. “Corrupted how?”

Eira opened her mouth and closed it. Her jaw tightened. “I cannot say.” Her voice was strained. “The words…will not come.”

Truthfully, I had not expected any different. She took a slow breath and composed herself. “It is not just about one Kingdom, as you are thinking. It is grander than that. If you are on the path I think you are, Esra, you may learn someday, but it will not be from me.”

It was something I wanted to deny, but it felt rather foolish to do so, sitting in front of a Goddess. “Vindicta tried to break the world,” Eira said, quieter now. “To sever it at the roots and remake it. She believed it was the only way and I did not have it in me to break it with her.”

I said nothing. There was nothing I could have said, to grief far older than I was.

“I chose stillness. She chose rebellion.” Eira’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “That is the kindest way I can describe what I did to her.”

She did not say the word betrayal. Vaelin pulsed in my hand. The pink light deepened, flickered, then went still.

Silence held for a time. The fire burned and the tea cooled in my cup. The Goddess watched me. “In here, I can see everything.” she said at last. Her voice was very soft. “Every moment of your life.” She paused. “And the one before this.”

Something inside of me went up. A wall. The reflex was so practiced it required no thought at all. “That life doesn’t matter.”

Eira gestured toward the wall behind me. I shifted in my seat. A mirror hung there that had not been there before. It was simple and wood framed. The kind of thing you might find in any home, in any world.

I looked. I did not see Esra Veyne. I did not see the red eyed girl with silver hair, with skin so pale people thought her sickly. The daughter of a Duke. The Hero. I saw Ellaine.

She had black hair, lank and unwashed, falling past thin shoulders. Her face was narrow with dark circles beneath dark eyes. She was too thin. She had always been too thin. Her lips were pressed together. They always had been. I rose and stepped closer. My fingers found the glass and cold surface met warm skin.

“I forgot what she looked like,” I whispered. I had told myself I had forgotten. That was not quite the same thing, was it?

She. Not I. She. Because Ellaine was someone else. Had to be someone else. I stared at that reflection for a very long time. A very, very long time.

The Goddess did not speak immediately, and after some time, I forgot she had even been there. I did not know how long she took before she spoke again. “She liked that novel. The one about the orphan at the magic academy. The Hidden Star of the Academy’, was it? A colorful name.”

My hand curled into a fist against the glass. “She did not like it.” I said.

“Ellaine did not like its ending.” Eira corrected. “But stories are not just their endings, are they?”

My hand squeezed tight, tight enough that the knuckles were white. It was a stupid book. A stupid book given by a stupid friend for a stupider girl's birthday. I had liked it well enough. My breath hitched. Just once. I pressed my forehead against the mirror and closed my eyes.

“Her world was a remarkable place,” Eira said behind me. Her voice held wonder, not pity. I would have shattered under pity. “A world without mana and without gods. And yet its people built marvels of their own. Towers of glass and light.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It was not a lesser world. It was a different one. And different things have different worth.” I did not speak. “She was not worthless, Esra.” Eira’s voice was very gentle. “Neither was her struggle. You carry her because she earned the right to be carried.” The Goddess’ voice was close now. I knew she was standing behind me, though I could not face her.

Something inside me cracked. There were warm arms on my shoulders, a forehead pressed against the back of my own. “I hope she wasn’t.” I breathed out. It was all I said. It was all I could say.

I pulled myself together. It took longer than it should have. When I spoke, my voice was steady, because I needed it to be. Because there was always a part of me that was thinking.The Goddess seemed to know without me saying it. The warmth receded. She moved back. I turned, saw her sitting at the table again. I joined her. Something inside of me felt lighter.

We did not speak immediately, though I was now convinced the Goddess knew what I wanted to ask. My hands fumbled against each other. I took a breath, looked up at her. At Eira. “The Wastes,” I said. “What actually happened during the Second Great Demon War?” The question was a retreat. I knew it. She did too.

“The demons came,” she said. “And the Ten fought them.”

“But?”

“But they were wrong.” Eira’s gaze grew distant. “The horde…there was something beneath them. Something darker and much older and far more alien. The demons were the tide, but all tides are moved by something else.” She folded her hands. “We killed the Demon King together. It cost us. In return, the Demon King wounded each of us. Corrupted each of us.”

I thought of what I had read -of the Ashen Wastes and the Everfrost and all the other regions I had only seen on maps.

“Every god lost something of themselves,” Eira continued. “A piece of their power. Their domain. Their sanity, in some cases.”

“Each God lost something…and each region represents one of them.” I said. “The Everfrost is yours.”

She smiled in that grandmotherly way. “You are a smart girl, Esra.”

Her smile slowly faded. She looked down at her hands. “I lost more than the nine. I lost everything. It has been this way for a hundred years. Will be this way for a thousand more before I finally pass.” Eira was doubtless talking about the same corruption I had seen on Sere’s shoulder and on that dragon.

"Can I clean the Wastes by dealing with this...corruption then?" I asked.

Eira did not speak, though I felt that she wanted to. It was one of those questions. Instead, she spoke of something else. “We did not win that war, one hundred years ago.” Eira said quietly. “We survived it, and the difference is everything. We put up barriers, but they will not hold forever. Even before us their had been an older block, one that lasted longer than anyone can imagine. That corruption will come again. If…if I listened to Vindicta…it might never have come at all.”

The fire had burned low. The shadows in the cabin had grown longer. I had not noticed. My mind was racing. Each answer only gave me more questions to ask, ones I knew the Goddess would not be able to answer.

But…but before all of those, there was one thing that needed saying. “I’m sorry.” The words came out rougher than I'd wanted. “For killing Vyranthos.”

Eira was quiet for a long time. “He searched for a cure,” she said at last. “For decades, he searched. He searched across every corner of the world that would still have him. Places where the other gods would not go. Places where nothing should go.”

Her hands tightened on the table. “He came back when there was nowhere left to search. By then…he was not himself. The corruption had taken too much.” She paused. “I could sense him outside this cave. His presence. His warmth.”

She looked at me and her eyes were clear. “You gave him mercy. I could not. And you do not need to apologize for what you intend. He would not have minded.”

I held her gaze. There was nothing I could say to ease the weight of her burden, even as she eased mine.

Then Eira asked a question. It was a simple question, asked without drama or flair. As if she were asking me to pass the tea. “Will you do the same for me?”

The fire still crackled. The teapot still sat between us, half full. Everything was exactly as it had been a moment before, and yet the room felt like it had shifted. I looked at this woman. This goddess. She had shown me more warmth in the span of a conversation than my own mother had shown me in a lifetime.

She had seen Ellane and had not flinched. She had told me I was not worthless, and she was the first person to ever say it who had known enough to truly mean it. And she was asking me to kill her. I wanted to refuse. The word sat on my tongue and would not leave. My heart beat fast, so fast it might burst from my chest.

“Yes,” I said finally. The word was quiet. It was the hardest thing I had ever said.

Eira smiled, and it was not a sad smile. Eira reached across the table. Her fingers touched my cheek. They were warm. “You are going to do remarkable things, Esra Veyne.” Her voice was steady and sure. “Terrible and remarkable things. Try to make sure the remarkable outweighs the terrible.”

I tried to speak. My throat closed. I nodded instead. It was a goodbye. I knew it without her having to say it. Eira had looked more and more strained as our conversation had went on, though she hid it well. She was kind, even now.

The cabin began to fade. The warmth dimmed and the walls grew translucent, the edges of them dissolving like frost beneath sunlight. The last thing I saw was her face. The goddess smiled at the blade in my hand that I had not realized I was still holding.

“I’m sorry, Vindicta.” The words were loving, tender and final.

I was back in the cave. Cold stone pressed against my knees. The warmth was gone. All of it was gone, replaced by a deep cold.

Eira’s body lay on the altar. It was exactly as it had been when I first entered. The corruption crawled across her skin in those terrible branching patterns -thicker than what had touched Sere, thicker than anything I had seen on the dragon. Her eyes were open and just as empty.

I extended my hand and crimson light colored the white all around me. Vaelin was shuddering. The blade trembled in my grip. The anguish came through our bond. It did not speak. Instead, there was a pressure . I felt the blade resist. It had pulled me here, and now it flinched.

I wrapped both hands around the hilt. I pressed back. I tried to be gentle. It’s alright. She asked.

The blade stilled. I brought Vaelin down in a single, clean stroke.

There was resistance, and I forced my weight down on the blade. The resistance faded. The corruption shattered. Eira’s body went still. The black threads across Eira’s skin dissolved. The darkness in her hair faded. For one breath, she looked as she had in the cabin: beautiful and whole. There was the faintest smile on her lips.

The pressure in the cave vanished. There was the rush of air. It boomed as it left the cave, doubtless going much farther still. My hands were trembling again, and this time, it was not Vaelin. Wet drops fell on Eira’s face. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath.

In my mind, came a whisper. So quiet I almost missed it. I am sorry too, my love.

I stood in the silence. The blade dissolved on its own. It retreated somewhere deep inside me, somewhere I could not follow and would not try to. I turned and walked toward the light.

I stepped out of the cave. The sky had changed.

The pale, suffocating white that had pressed down on us since we first set foot on the Everfrost was gone. In its place, was sunlight. Yellow sunlight that broke through the clouds.

It fell across the peak, across the snow and the dark blood of the dragon and the remaining expeditoners. They were staring up at it as if they couldn’t believe what their own eyes were showing them.

I stood in it, let it touch my face. I closed my eyes. The warmth was soft, like a mother's embrace. “Thank you, Eira.” I whispered and moved.

Some broken part of me did not fix itself, but it certainly held together more firmly.

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