“I knew this would happen,” I heard Audrey’s words. “Do you want your supper cold, or do you want to get up?” There was a nudging.
I told her I’d get up, but it came out in an incoherent jumble. Feeling like I was lifting the weight of mountains, I managed to squeeze open an eye; I never knew an eyelid could be so heavy.
“Comfy, isn’t it?” Through a haze of mist, I saw Audrey holding a bowl in her hands. Steam poured from the bowl in nearly solid waves, falling over the rim and running across the glass floor. With my open eye, I looked through the glass and the steam, down to the sparks of light from the lower castle that pricked the velvet night.
I groaned. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Awhile,” Audrey replied.
I rolled onto my back. I could see through the bed canopy to the stars past the clear ceiling arches. Shadows of birds flew through the nocturnal sky, or perhaps the shadows were the figures of white hines.
With an effort, I sat up. Audrey dropped the bowl into my hands. The bowl’s steam spilled out to blend with the mist rising from my sheets. When I blew into the bowl, the smoke parted, revealing the sheen of an oily stew and a shaft of meat covered with wrinkled red skin.
“Madam Molla’s smoking lamb stew,” Audrey said.
I picked the meat up by the bone, examining the folds of red wrinkles.
“It’s a nighttime favorite in Alhallra. People eat it before they wash and go to sleep. Especially during the sacred season of winter. We often have it to remember the Last Mage, since it was the final supper he requested before he gave his gift to Alhallra.”
I inspected the thick red meat. Gingerly, I took a bite. It did not taste like any lamb I had ever eaten. The meat was rich and savory, delicious. The scented steam curled over my face as I ate. “The sacred season?” I asked, as I swallowed.
“I’ll show you after you’re done,” she said. She smiled in a melancholy way. “Here’re some night clothes, um… pajamas, for you.” She tossed a blue cloth at me. It was silk, with a light shine. Audrey wasn’t wearing her Moreinen dress anymore; the white gown she had on was a lighter texture, long and layered, almost like my bed canopy, with hints of silver and fastened with a twine of silver rope. “These are my pajamas,” she replied to my gaze.
I laughed. “They’re awesome.”
Past the glass walls, a flock of white hines flew towards us from the dark. Through the floor, I could see them as they glided away among the spires below.
“There is a legend about those hines,” Audrey said, as I wolfed down the last of the lamb. “Finish your stew and put on your pajamas, and I’ll show you.”
I hurriedly drank down the broth then changed behind the bed curtains. The blue robe was long and satiny. Audrey gave me a pair of matching blue slippers.
We descended the stairs outside over the glass rim of the balcony. In the open night, the air was cold. I pulled on my fur coat against a steady fall of snow. Around us, the glass of the castle unfolded, its towers spiraling in intricacies across the night. As a portion of earth in sky, the gardens stood elevated on a rise, white with snow. Waterfalls poured frozen to the towers below, caught in the act of falling. Ravens circled the garden trees, shadows against the pallor.
Audrey’s nightgown flowed behind her over the final glass steps. We walked along a clear walkway threading outside among the spires.
“How did things go with your sister today?” I asked.
She smiled, as if I had asked an awkward question. “My sister and I, we’ve always had our differences.” There was something in the way she avoided my gaze that caught my attention. I wondered what they had talked about, but I asked nothing further.
I braced myself against the cold within the warmth of my coat. Audrey, however, seemed comfortable, natural in only the light folds of her gown. I thought how she belonged in this fantastical silver landscape. Here she was home, and I, a visitor. Nevertheless, the splendor of the Alhallren night was worth enduring the bitter chill. A mist, cold in the moonlight, settled like a ghost among the far crystalline spires.
The glass architecture was beginning to look familiar to me. Inside the castle, I recognized a flight of steps, pillared and lined with windows. Audrey swung open the elliptical double doors at the height of the staircase and lit a flame in the palm of her hand.
It was so silent within the caverns of the hall, it seemed as if our breaths echoed. I heard the faint sound of running water. The slim waterfall at the far end was frozen into sheets of ice. Through its frozen layers, I could discern the silver points of stars in the sky. Tapestries of Angels hung long from the high ceiling; I remembered those tapestries when they had hung in the hall of the old king, back when the castle was made of stone. Around the Angel tapestries, on the tall windows, frosted murals shone silver on the glass.
Audrey walked across the hall to the murals, her pale gown trailing, like a ghost in a palace of ice. I made to follow her when I slipped and fell hard with a splash. As I sat up, a film of water ran over the floor under my hands.
Audrey’s amusement was plain in the white light she held on her palm. Her smile deepened in one corner. “Perhaps, we should have more light so you can see.” She tossed her flame high and lit sparks overhead. The pale flames fell, as though they would descend through the hall, before they stopped, hovering near the ceiling.
In the new light, I saw that thin streams ran half-frozen across the glass floor.
“They should have a ‘Caution: Wet floor’ sign.” I got to my feet, patting my coat so droplets of water sprinkled off. I crossed the room more carefully to her side.
The lights shed a dim glow over the Great Hall. But there was still more than enough darkness for the window murals to shine clear. Behind the murals, the castle spires unraveled in shafts of crystal within a snowing night.
Audrey pointed to a mural depicting a woman and boy among countless flying hines. “This is the legend of the white hines. A long time ago, a young Moreinen prince had a white infant hine, an elbine, that was dying from the Moreinen heat, since pale hines are more sensitive to the sun. At that time, the Alhallren queen was visiting Moreina. She offered to take the hine back with her to the Krystalline, where it would be safe from the sun. When the queen died years later, the prince gave a flock of white hines to Hallia to honor her. That is why there’re white hines here. Every hine in Hallia is a descendent of that flock.”
I strolled along the windows, studying the murals, each with its own story. I stopped when I noted something familiar: the figure of an Angel holding an orb, the same as the statue at the front gates. The panels also showed a girl with the Angel. I realized I’d seen her in the touch, dangling from a monument in a city square, being pulled on chains by a demon. The demon too was featured in the mural, frozen in anger and hatred.
“This is the Legend of the Beginning,” Audrey said, coming over to me. “This is why winter is our sacred season.” She indicated the demon. “This is the Angel Val. In the beginning, He made a man and a woman from the earth, so that humans will be the slaves of the Angels. He set them to tending His garden and bound their minds in ignorance to Him, that they may obey Him and worship Him, blind and unquestioning, slaves to Him. In exchange, He sheltered them with comfort and gave them happiness. The woman He called Vee, meaning ‘from Val’, and the man was Dama, a word meaning ‘husband’ in the ancient tongue.” She pointed to the Angel holding the orb. “That is Val’s brother, Hal. He is worshipped above all other Angels, because He took pity on humans in our weakness and slavery. This city, Hallia, is named after Him, meaning ‘The City of Hal’, as well as our land – Alhallra means ‘Land of Hal’.” As she gestured, her fingers brushed across the orb in Hal’s hand.
“What is He holding?” I asked.
“It’s the moon,” she said. “Hal wanted to free humans from slavery to the Angels. So one night, He pulled a fragment of wisdom from the heavens by breaking off a piece of the moon. That is why the moon isn’t full every night. And
that is why the crescent is the Alhallren symbol of knowledge. Hal fashioned the moon into an apple and appeared before Vee in Val’s garden. He offered her a choice. She could stay safe and happy in Val’s garden, but remain His slave, or she could take the wisdom offered and become free, but strive and suffer to make a life of her own. Vee is known for her bravery because she chose freedom. She shared the apple with Dama, and so Val lost both His slaves and all the children they would have had. In retribution, Val imprisoned His brother in a fortress of ice at the tip of the world. That’s why ice is sacred to us, a symbol of Hal’s suffering for the sake of humans. And that is why winter, the season of ice, is the most sacred time of the year, with Winter’s Day, the peak of winter, being the most highly celebrated of all holidays.”
“So you eat Madame Molla’s stew during the sacred season.” I didn’t quite grasp the connection.
“Look there,” Audrey said.
Sparks of white fire flickered in the air over a glass panel. I went to stand in front of it. Across the smoothness of the glass, the familiar figure of an old man shone bright in the mural. He was bent on a gnarled staff with three Stones in his hand.
“This is the Legend of the Gift Stones,” she said.
There was a central panel of the old man holding the Stones, offering them to a king with a stern advisor beside them. In other panels, the old man was in the temple with his brother, and then with the nightingale in the castle, and finally back with his brother in the temple ruins.
“It’s everything I saw,” I said.
“This was the legend I told you. This is the Last Mage and his brother, the White Mage. The Mages are said to belong to a golden age of wisdom that’s been forgotten and lost to our time. But because the Last Mage so loved our land, he gave us the Gift Stones before he passed away. Winter is Hal’s season, the season of the one who gave us the gift of knowledge, and so it’s also the season of giving. Thus, we drink Madame Molla’s stew during winter to remember the Last Mage and the Gift Stones.”
“I see.”
“And also to keep us warm,” she chided.
But I caught a sullenness about her. “What did you talk about with your sister today?” I asked finally, tentatively, my smile fading around my lips.
All the worry she had kept at bay flooded into her expression. There was pity there for me, and a sickness gripped my stomach. “Kevin.” She paused, then raised her eyes to me. The gesture seemed to take an eternity. “Satine forbids you to return home. I’m sorry, but you can never go back.”
Chapter 30