Foothills of the northern mountains
58 Winter 217
Ethan
The horse lumbered along the uneven road, its hooves caked with mud. Brown speckles painted the bright white legs, camouflaging the sheen of an otherwise illustrious coat. The animal seemed more aware of the strange, warm rain than its new rider who held the reins so loosely the horse followed the path almost without guidance, navigating the road on intuition and experience. The sky was filled with strange, dark clouds and a warm rain that wet the earth and pierced patches of ancient permafrost lining the foothills of the northern mountains.
It had been decades or more since the last time rain had fallen in such a manner, and centuries since it had occurred in during winter. This was the North and, in winter, precipitation fell as snow or hail or it didn’t fall at all. This was lost on Ethan as he plodded towards the friends who had moved on ahead. At such a pace, he was unlikely to catch them but his thoughts were elsewhere. He kept replaying the events that just occurred, trying to make sense of things.
When he first arrived at the clearing, he watched Roland and the Swan soldiers herd his friends like cattle to a central point. He silently observed as the giant man slashed with the strangely familiar obsidian blade, his movements belying strength, power, grace… and hesitation. Ethan had witnessed his brother compete for years; when Roland was determined to win, he held nothing back—and he always wanted to win. Yet, as Ethan watched, he saw The Wolf marching forward, what he saw was a man dragging his feet like a child with a particularly unwanted chore—the chore would be done, but without haste or enthusiasm. It was a plodding affair, much like his horse’s current gait. The destination seemed inevitable yet he was in no rush to see it through.
And then, when Roland saw the constellation emblazon itself with light from Roux’s shoulder, he stopped completely. He ignored the Grand Inquisitor’s commands, orders barked with venomous condescension. More than this, he turned against her. He found the strength to defy those who had broken him so completely that—until that moment—not one glimmer of hope was left in his eyes. Ethan knew this because he had looked for it. He had sat at a bar, searching the man’s gaze for any hint of the brother he once knew.
There had been none.
Yet it was still present, somewhere, that small glimmer of his past self; hidden in some dark place, tucked away so completely that his captures would never find it. And all it took was the light from Roux’s constellation to guide him back to the surface.
Ethan had no such light.
Understanding this, he realized in that moment what had happened to place him here on this bizarre life of adventure, surrounded by others that were selected by powers he could never understand for a purpose he would never hope to decipher: It had been a cosmic mistake. Roland was marked for greatness. He was supposed to be the one to leave that small, dead village with the others. Ethan was intended to be taken by the Swans, fighting and dying on the front lines, just another anonymous dead soldier lost in skirmish of some distant battle. Fate, it would seem, had mixed up the brothers.
In the moment, it was of little comfort to know that even gods made mistakes.
He did not dwell on this, however. He had long since begun to see the gods for fools and was happy to be separate from them. Whatever plans they made were terrible. People lived and died in ways that no god could justify. In his mind, there was good evidence that the world Ethan knew was mostly ignored, too insignificant for gods to take notice. And only when powers greater than Theirs touched the souls of certain mortals, would they bother to sit up and take notice.
It didn’t matter.
Ethan was blissfully untethered from those beings and whatever They wanted. He was free to make his own plans, live his own life, however short and strange it may be.
But these philosophical ramblings could not completely distract him from what had just occurred. Roland was dead. If Ethan had been just the slightest bit quicker, perhaps he wouldn’t be. Perhaps…
Ethan unconsciously ran his thumb along the expensive brooch often worn by the Grand Inquisitor. Although created from precious metals, elegantly designed and masterfully crafted, it held no real value beyond its association with the dead woman who once wore it. It was a mark, nothing more. The conclusion of an assassination he was tasked with carrying out.
Unguided, Ethan’s horse slowly came to stop, shaking some water from its head. The beast was unfamiliar with its current freedom to chart a course for both itself and its rider and was uncomfortable with such liberty. The pair stood on the road, each awaiting instructions for where to go from here. The rain continued its assault, now warm enough to feel pleasant against the skin.
Ethan stared into a space somewhere beyond the nebulous patch of road his eyes fixed onto. There was little to see but he perceived even less. The world around him was drowned beneath the seething sheets of rain and faded from Ethan’s mind.
His thumb continued to explore the ridges of brooch. “It’s done,” he said aloud although there was no need. Bishop did not need words to be spoken for him to hear. He closed his eyes, tilting his face towards the heavens, letting the warm rain wash away the soot and dirt, mixing with tears as it cascaded off his tattered uniform.
Bishop
It had been hours since Ethan had heard the voice which had become a parallel to his own thoughts, a voice that was not his voice and not his mind, but somehow there among his thoughts all the same — a voice accented with Isendelian nobility and stained by age and perhaps once cigar too many. Bishop’s guidance and commentary made quiet now beneath the weight of what had happened there among the snow and the rain, an unspoken empathy and reverence for what had come to pass.
The onyx-bladed longsword seemed to pull at Ethan’s shoulder in some way which had little to do with its weight, the burden filling the quiet and the space between the pines until at last it was broken.
“So it would seem. You’ve done the impossible, Ethan Fairchild. The Grand Inquisitor and the Field Marshal of Isendel’s Northern Army are slain. This is a wound in your enemy will feel and one that will not so quickly mend.
“The Noble Houses of Northgate will, of course, be there to shoulder the burden and take control of the region to secure the Barony’s significant investments against the growing danger of these wretched witches and the vile influence of the northern barbarians where failed the Barony’s most capable officers.
“I suspect your friend Kelwin has little interest in Northgate, judging by what we’ve seen here. Despite all of it — that man walks away with what is most important to him — the girl who holds all the keys.
“So… what now, Ethan?”
Ethan
“Now…?” Ethan repeated, dully.
Now, he found himself relatively numb in spite of a dull ache he couldn’t quite place. Now, his heart was filled with pain both muted and heavy. Now he had to continue on in the face of a world that would burn a forest and claim the lives of its strongest, most beautiful creatures yet allow tenacious rats to scurry free, unscathed.
But Bishop understood Ethan at least as well as the young man knew himself, and his question had its intended effects. The gears inside Ethan’s mind to beginning turning once again. His pain was carefully set aside in the workbench of his mind, clearing space for the thoughts that were needed to respond to his mentor’s question. It was this characteristic that inevitably sifted his existence back to a series of steps, one foot in front of the other, as he alternately walked or danced his way through life. Or, in the moments such as this, when he was too weak to do either, it was the force that carried him onward, calling him to crawl towards whatever need was in front of him. It would seem his greatest gift was the relentless instinct to move forward. Like water winding its way through a mountain, always finding its way back to some larger body, Ethan flowed onwards.
He tilted his head down to face the road before him once again, his face now sheltered against the rain by the hood of his cloak.
“Now,” he repeated a final time, “Danica and Talith are missing. So now we are going to get them back.”
With this his tears abated, the rain began to lighten and, with a flick of his wrist, Ethan Fairchild began to move forward.
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