Ch. 220 The Edge of Winter

Chapter 220: The Edge of Winter

The first frost appeared on the northern windows.

It was thin enough to vanish when the sun reached it.

Garrick pressed his palm against the glass and left a mark.

Carol tried to place her hand inside his.

They remained there until Helena came with their breakfast.

“Cold,” Carol said.

“Yes,” I told her.

She looked at my hands.

I had not touched the window.

“I didn’t do it.”

She considered that before following her brother to the table.

Veyra found me after breakfast.

“The northern weather is turning,” she said. “I’d like you to see how far away you can feel it.”

“How far?”

“That is what we’re finding out.”

Aurelia stood beside her.

So did Caldris, Maelin, and Thesra.

I looked at the four of them.

“That seems like a great many people for a little weather.”

“It is a great deal of weather,” Veyra said.

Evelyn came down the stair behind me, fastening her cloak.

“And I’m coming.”

“I assumed you were.”

“I wanted them to hear it too.”

We went beyond the lower fields.

The ground there rose gently toward a line of bare trees. From its crest we could see the castle, the new city stakes, and the western road.

Eliza had placed two guards where they could observe us without standing inside the working.

The Castellan remained with them.

He would watch the wards while I practiced.

Mary had insisted on a written account of what we intended to try.

Veyra had given her one.

Mary had then asked what would make us stop.

Veyra had added a second page.

I appreciated Mary’s question.

At first, the lesson was familiar.

Veyra raised a thread of cold air.

I found its edge.

She moved it.

I let it brush my working without following it.

Caldris added pressure from another direction.

Thesra called my name through it.

I heard her and remained where I stood.

Maelin asked me to release the strength I had used.

I drew it back slowly.

“Again,” Aurelia said.

I sighed.

She smiled.

The others did not appear to think I had suffered enough to deserve sympathy.

On the third attempt, Veyra withdrew her thread.

“Now find the weather without me.”

I looked north.

Cloud lay beyond the ridge.

Too far away for me to see whether it carried rain or snow.

I reached carefully.

Wind moved past my attention.

Then farther.

I felt cold against stone and wet earth beneath it.

For an instant, I thought I had found Veyra’s working again.

“No,” she said. “That is the hillside.”

“I can feel the hillside?”

“Keep your own shape steady.”

I found the edge of the weather beyond it.

A front of cold air pressed south between two ranges.

Water moved within the clouds.

Some had begun to freeze.

I knew where the snow would fall first.

The knowledge arrived whole enough that I nearly spoke it aloud.

Then another stretch of sky opened to me.

And another.

I drew a sharp breath.

Aurelia stepped closer.

“Uriah?”

“I can feel beyond the ridge.”

“How far?”

“All the way past Orselle to the sea.”

The answer frightened me more than the cold.

I tried to pull my attention back.

The weather followed.

Wind moved across the grass around us.

The first white grain of frost appeared along a stone by my boot.

Veyra raised her hand.

“Do not force it away.”

“I’m not trying to bring it here.”

“I know.”

Evelyn took my hand.

Her fingers were warm.

“The field,” she said. “Find the field.”

I felt the grass beneath my boots.

The stone wall below the slope.

The path we had taken.

Then I felt the north again.

The two places were present together.

A pressure gathered inside me.

I had known it before.

Beneath my ribs during a difficult working.

In the eastern passage when I brought too much strength back at once.

This was deeper.

It reached into places I had not known could hold power.

I could have opened them.

The thought was clear.

So was the certainty that something would change if I did.

“Tell me what you feel,” Aurelia said.

“A way through.”

She became very still.

“Does it pull you?”

“No.”

I looked at her.

“It’s waiting.”

The wind lifted Evelyn’s hair.

I felt every turn it made around us.

I could have stopped it.

I could have brought the storm beyond the ridge over Greykeep.

For one terrible moment, the distance seemed small.

I held my wife’s hand.

“The children,” I said.

“They’re inside,” she answered. “With mother and father.”

“I know.”

I closed my eyes.

Garrick would be asking for the boat.

Carol would want the cloth book, then decide she wanted whatever he held.

Their room was warm.

I knew how to find it without reaching toward it.

“Uriah,” Thesra said.

Her voice reached me plainly.

No command beneath it.

“Can you choose a smaller part?”

I looked again at the distant weather.

A bank of cloud moving over a bare hillside.

I chose only that.

The rest of the sky remained where it was.

Caldris let out a breath.

“Good.”

The pressure within me did not vanish.

It changed.

There was space around it now.

Maelin came to my other side.

“Can you bring your attention home?”

“Yes.”

“Take your time.”

I let the hillside go.

Then the ridge.

Then the field beyond our own.

The wind around us settled.

I kept Evelyn’s hand.

The pressure remained, bright and quiet.

I opened my eyes.

A little frost covered the stone by my boot.

It had not spread farther.

Aurelia stood before me.

I had seen her afraid.

I had seen her proud.

I could not tell which had come first.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You reached the threshold.”

No one spoke.

Even Veyra looked toward the distant ridge before answering the question on my face.

“Of apotheosis,” she said.

I waited to feel different.

My hands were cold.

One boot had let water in where the grass remained wet.

My heart beat much too quickly.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That is enough,” Aurelia said.

“Am I changing?”

“You have not crossed.”

“Could I?”

She took care before answering.

“Yes.”

The word settled among us.

I had decided I wanted to ascend.

I had said it to Evelyn, her parents, Mary, and Melody. I had begun preparing with the gods.

It had still been a decision about a future I could not quite see.

Now I could feel where it began.

The Castellan came up from the watch point.

“The wards remain steady,” he said. “No passage opened. No power entered the children’s rooms.”

“Did I touch the wards?”

“Only as you ordinarily do.”

That helped.

Eliza joined him.

“The guards felt the wind change. Nothing else.”

“Were they frightened?” I asked.

“One asked whether it would snow.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That Veyra would know.”

Veyra looked at the frost beside my boot.

“Beyond the ridge tonight. Greykeep later in the week.”

Eliza nodded.

“I’ll tell him.”

Aurelia asked us to return to the castle.

I did not object.

Halfway down the slope, I became aware of the weather again.

No effort.

Cold moving over distant stone.

I stopped.

Evelyn stopped with me.

“It’s still there,” I said.

Veyra turned back.

“Yes.”

“Will I keep hearing it?”

“Perhaps. It may quiet as you learn what to leave alone.”

Aurelia watched me.

“What is closest?”

I listened.

“Evelyn breathing.”

“And after that?”

“Water in my boot.”

My wife laughed.

“There you are.”

Mary met us in the lower yard.

She looked at our faces.

Then at the patch of frost still visible on the hem of my cloak.

“What happened?”

I told her.

She asked whether anyone was injured.

No.

Whether the wards had changed.

No.

Whether I needed a chair.

I considered claiming I did.

“Yes,” I said.

She sent someone for one before opening her book.

We talked in the council room.

Aurelia explained what she could.

She had reached a similar threshold before her own change. Hers had come while she was trying to answer too many people at once.

“What happens if I cross?” I asked.

“I can tell you what happened to me. I cannot promise yours will be the same.”

“Will the castle feel it?”

“Almost certainly,” the Castellan said.

“Can we keep the children safe from that?”

“We can prepare their rooms and separate the nursery’s warmth from any new working. We have already begun.”

Evelyn nodded.

“And we can be with them.”

I looked at her.

She held my gaze.

Maelin spoke next.

“We should tell the others.”

“Everyone?” I asked.

“Those helping you prepare,” she said. “And those responsible for Greykeep’s wards and people.”

“Not the whole castle before we know what to expect,” Mary said.

“Agreed,” Aurelia replied.

Eliza leaned forward.

“I want a plan for the guards. If the weather changes while Uriah crosses, they need to know whether to shelter people or defend the gate.”

“We don’t know the answer yet,” Veyra said.

“Then give me both plans.”

Melody looked at Eliza.

“I’ll help.”

Mary turned to a fresh page.

By afternoon, word had reached Helena and Garrick Valewood.

I had expected them to come to the council room.

Instead, Helena waited until I returned to the nursery.

Carol sat on the rug with the cloth book.

Garrick stood beside his grandfather, holding the unfinished larger boat with both hands.

Helena took my cloak.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m all right.”

“I didn’t ask whether you were all right.”

She hung the cloak near the hearth.

Garrick Valewood looked up from the boat.

“Did you eat?”

“No.”

He passed me the plate beside him.

It held bread and cheese.

Apparently they had settled on the first two questions they intended to ask.

I sat on the floor with the children.

Carol climbed onto my knee.

She touched my hand, then my cheek.

“Cold,” she said.

“A little.”

She pressed her palm against mine.

A faint warmth passed between us.

I looked at Evelyn.

She had felt it too.

“Carol,” I said, “you don’t need to make me warm.”

Our daughter frowned.

I held her hand gently.

“I like holding it. That’s enough.”

She thought about that.

Then leaned against me without using her power again.

Across the rug, Garrick showed me the boat.

His grandfather had shaped its hull but left the bow unfinished.

“He won’t let me smooth it yet,” I said.

“It has an edge,” Garrick Valewood replied.

“I know. You’ve taught me to check.”

“Then you may help tomorrow.”

After the children slept, Evelyn and I went to the western observation room.

The round wooden platform remained empty.

Rain had left streaks on the windows. Beyond them, clouds moved toward the north road.

“I’m afraid,” I told her.

“I know.”

“I want to do it.”

“I know that too.”

“I thought those would stop being true at the same time.”

Evelyn came beside me.

“They don’t have to.”

I rested my hand against the window frame.

I could feel the distant snow without reaching for it.

I let it remain distant.

“Do you want more time?” she asked.

“I want to understand what we can.”

“Then we will.”

“And after?”

“After, you choose.”

I turned toward her.

“I already have.”

“You chose to ascend,” she said. “You still get to choose when you take the step.”

Beyond the glass, the clouds held their course.

I drew my hand away from the frame and took hers.

For tonight, the weather could pass over the ridge without me.

I knew I could reach it.

I knew I could let it go.