Long ago, before the Witch Queen Beren forsook her oaths, before she betrayed them all to the damnation of cold, she forged the power of the talisman, by magic and by right, and by the love a mother held for her daughter, so she would give all she could to save her child’s life.
He wanted to hate Caer. He wanted to have her trust and her love, and perhaps, long ago, he would have. But many nights ago the signs came, of light and life, of promise and love.
And he knew now those things might come to pass, and not all hope fled from his heart.
The pendant she clutched fell with a soft clatter. The light it bore when she held it faded, and soon it reverted to a simple adornment of metal and stone, its magic hidden within silver and sapphire depths.
And as he watched he clutched its mate, the pendant given to him by her mother so many years before. Belial will search the lands for her, but the demon cannot find her yet. I have given her this, for the time will come when evil will find her, and you must stand before her, and give your life for your people to be free.
Beren’s words echoed as he fingered the glowing stone, watching Headred’s every move. Could it be so simple? Could the stone light the way to her truth?
Beren’s shade gazed upon him as he stood outside of her daughter’s home.
Headred looked at her and sighed. “Take the stone,” he said, holding his hand out.
The Ice Queen stared at the pendant with desire, trying to deny the part of her wanting to take it, to be connected with her daughter for just a moment, when for so long she walked alone for so long. And curiosity seemed something she never could to resist. Yet it lay beyond her, as all things now waited beyond her.
The world swam around her and went into a vision. She held the light in her hand and soon stood in snow, and watched sadness grip the world.
Images swam past, resting on the night Beoreth fled the White City on Cheron’s back.
“Go now, Beoreth,” Beren commanded the wise woman, waving the way to the gates of the White City. “The time draws nigh when the darkness will break. Fensalir awaits you. Go,” she ordered through her tears. “Go while I can still bear to see it.”
“Milady,” Beoreth said, bowing her head and taking the child. And when she stepped within the gates of the city on the back of the centaur, she disappeared…
Caer gasped and dropped the pendant onto the floor. Beoreth rushed forward before she saw shock, not pain, on Caer’s face. The door swung open, and Headred stepped in, closing it behind him as a whirlwind of snow blew into the hovel with him.
“Milady, the time grows short.” Headred told Caer and turned from the specter of Beren as she faded to mist, still watching her daughter. Beren wondered what dark part of Caer’s destiny yet would be unraveled.
“I don’t know the magic I hold inside me,” Caer snapped, crossing to the door and whispering in anger, her face white, “but you’re going to go now, and I’m going to forget this ever happened.”
“No, milady, I…” He stopped and thought, and in the darkness of the night, he remembered.
The moonlight shone clear in the cold, dead gardens of Idalir, the Castle of the Sun. Beren waited, the moonlight seeming to shine through her, fading as her world faded. In her hand she clutched the talisman she forged by her magic, which her daughter would hold one day.
“Milady,” the boy Headred said. “You called for me.”
Headred would grow tall and strong, she knew. She felt the weight of the silver, the moon and the stars shining within them, the sun and the stone cast in them. They would be his now, for in the morn she would sleep in the world dead to her.
And in sleep she would hope.
“Give me your hand, my child,” she whispered.
He looked down at his hands and then stretched out his arm.
“‘Tis yours, Headred, son of Hamald,” she continued. “It contains the light of our lands, of our people, and within it lays the magic given to us to hold them.”
He nodded and stared as the light of the stone diminished in his hand. She smiled down at him as he frowned, looking at the stone as if his gaze would bring back the light. He alone could bring it back; this she knew.
“You will also possess its mate,” she said, holding out the second talisman. He reached out to take the pendant, the mate of the one he held.
“Why do you give me these, milady?” he mused. “I am not meant to hold them.”
“One day, Headred,” she smiled, “You will find the one it belongs to. To her you will give one, and the other you must keep. For your hearts are bound to one another. You are handfasted, and for so long as you live you will never love another but my daughter.”
He nodded again, watching as the light diminished in the second pendant.
“Will you not find her, milady?” he wondered. She smiled down at him, and for a moment he saw the light flicker in her eyes again, a light dead but a few hours before when she gave her child to another.
“No, my child, this world passes, and this age passes. I will wait as my mothers wait. This task I give to you.”
A single tear ran down her cheek.
“Go now with you,” she said with a laugh, wiping her face. “Go, take them to your father’s home and keep them safe.”
Headred turned to walk home.
“Headred,” she whispered. He turned to face her once more. “Promise me now; no matter what may happen, you will have hope, and you will love. Even though the world grows cold, your heart will be warm. Even though the world grows dark, you will watch for the light.”
“I promise,” he told her, and looking confused, walked from the gardens into the city.
For a moment Beren lingered, and after, she began to walk, from the place of light, from the White City, out into the winter and the frozen places. And her tears shattered onto the frozen earth…
Headred started out of the past, as Caer’s eyes flashed with cold fury.
“Milady,” he began.
“Stop it!” Caer whispered, seeing Headred through the window. “Stop with this lunacy. Go back to where you belong!”
“The darkness already wins,” he said as he gathered firewood from the stack beside the house.
He watched Caer walk away from her destiny and embraced the cold darkness of betrayal she felt in her heart.
And in Elphame, the world of the fairies, Mab waited for the morn.
Night fell on Fensalir, and the last of the sunlight faded. Above Caer, the heavens shimmered with starlight, and the lady in the moon smiled. Pondering, Caer gazed down at the silver half moon and stars, forged by her mother’s magic. The stone glowed with the light of the moon.
Beoreth often said: And the gods blessed their mortal children. Frigg gave to them her light, the light and power of the witches.
Headred retained the other pendant. Caer wondered if Headred’s love for her came from himself or their magic handfasting. Her heart ached. Her mind became muddled with confusion and self-doubt.
Caer entered her earthen home, and, as an afterthought, turned to look out into the vast, frozen forests of Sul.
The night drew on, and Headred still did not return from seeking visions. Where did he go? Caer stood in the doorframe, illuminated by the light of the dying fire, and listened to Beoreth sleep. The wise woman dreamed in peace, awaiting the dawn she feared for so long.
Caer wished for the dreams of peace and love would come to her as they once did.
She worried for Headred and wondered if she been too harsh on him. Her heart broke, and she regretted what she said.
She imagined him trudging through the snow, following the fairies, while his deep, dark eyes gazed north, to Ull. And he did not so much as glance back to the safe haven, or to those he left there.
And yet in her heart Caer could not fathom him abandoning her now.
She remembered their meeting in the woods, their mutual recognition, the woman he said he saw in dreams. There they met, yet she wondered if the love th
ey made lay in imaginings and not in the world. Perhaps more than magic bound them together.
And she prayed to dream of him as she once did and to know at least his love in her sleep.
Restless, Caer left the hovel and closed the door behind her.
The cold air caressed her face. She experienced it now, not just the cold and the dead of winter, but Miðgarðir, her world, sleeping beneath layers of ice and snow. She felt the power she always knew slept there, the light and the flame within her essence. Her chest pulsed with the heart of Miðgarðir as if it became her own heartbeat.
Could she feel Headred? Caer wondered as the snow crunched beneath her boots. Could she feel one so close to her, and yet so far away?
Caer iormeita, sistan niehereth, giharad nestlith. The voice she knew too well signed on the wind as it caressed her, a warm wind of change from a place beyond the mortal realm.
Caer, come to me, in silver palaces, in golden glades, called Mab.
The landscape changed. Where once snow covered the ground, now green grasses and towering golden trees surrounded her and dotted the landscape. Mists poured over the forest floor as the golden leaves fell in the eternal autumn of the fairy sidhes.
In the distance she glimpsed the silver palaces of the fairies, and stringy webs of silk strung between the tall trees, the dew clinging to the silky strands, shimmering in the endless spring and twilight. The stars shone, and no moon hung in the heavens. In the distance Caer saw a light, the door to the sidhe. From the door the radiance of the sun from the mortal realm ever came.
Caer walked through the golden forest. She smelled on the warm air flowers and sweet fruit budding on the trees, over the scent of a cool rain on everything, as the world before the coming of the shadow.
The golden leaves crushed beneath her feet exploded into a million shimmering stars. She listened to the songs of the fairies who lingered in Elphame while their kindred journey to the council at Glasheim, watching from the trees. Creatures of the forest darted to and fro, unafraid of her.
Caer stopped as she came to a pool and gazed within it at Sul, where she came from, still gripped by eternal winter. Headred entered the stables behind the hovel, gazing up to the stars. In his hand he clutched the symbol of their bond, and in the moonlight, he kissed the stone.
“What I have vowed,” he whispered, “to my promise I will be true.”
“He tends to the horse I have sent to you,” the familiar voice rang behind her.
Caer turned to see the fairy Queen smiling. “I am sorry,” Caer bowed her head. “‘Tis wrong to look at others when they do not know.”
Mab laughed like the tinkling of bells. “’Tis never wrong to look upon a handsome face or a pleasing form of a man,” she said, her smile wider.
Mab’s fingers caressed Caer’s chin as she lifted it, bringing warmth to one who lived in the winter for too long, where the shadow of doubt endured.
A blast of cold rushed through the Fairy Queen. The magic of the fairies faded as the prophesied time drew near. Even now, the shadow of Belial pushed through the door, and soon even the sidhes would not be safe from her power.
“Do not bow to me, my daughter,” Mab told her. “I am not worthy of such acts.”
Caer saw Mab’s twinkling eyes and caught a light, feeling as it warmed her heart. “Did you bring me to this place?” she asked, whispering for fear the illusion of beauty and warmth would shatter around her.
“Aye,” Mab replied. “’Tis the places of my people, the golden glades and silver palaces beneath the sidhes.”
“Why?” Caer wondered.
Mab’s eyes softened. “Your heart becomes troubled. The talisman forged by your mother weighs heavy on your heart. You do not trust what lies there.”
“I do not trust others’ hearts. I do not know what lies in them.”
“And you doubt all you have known.”
“Aye,” Caer gazed at the man in the pool.
“You hear his words and look upon his face. Do you not trust what words he speaks when alone? Do you believe he does not love the woman in his dreams, as you love the man in yours?”
“I do not know what to believe,” Caer murmured to the fairy queen, whose silver, dewy wings spread in the starlight.
“Believe, my daughter, and trust in what lives within your heart,” Mab said. “In your heart you will find the truth you seek. And you may find it in others, if you dare to look.”
Caer felt the winter’s chill in her hands as Mab and the sidhes faded. She stood again outside the hovel, the fairy Queen beside her.
A sound of crunching snow came from nearby. Two horses walked from the edge of the trees, white and shining in the moonlight. Not far away, a small troop of fairies waited.
“These are my gift to you,” Mab said, leading her to the stables, to Headred. “They are from the stables of my palace in the sidhe. They will do as you command, and their spirits will always be pure. They will aid you in your journey.”
“You do not come with us?” Caer asked, and her face fell.
“We will meet again,” Mab touched her shoulder. “But for now, I think the time comes for you to follow your own path for a while.”
As Headred looked up he glimpsed the two women rounding the bend, leading white horses.
“Tend to these, my cousin,” Mab instructed. “For the souls of beasts and the spirits of mortals alike need tending.”
Headred glanced from her to Caer. The fairy Queen joined her troop and the light of the fairies faded into the night.
“I am sorry,” Caer said as the night fell full again, and they found themselves alone.
“I am sorry,” he turned and stepped towards her. Her chest pounded, “for I did not explain my desires or my feelings. I should not have closed my mind and heart to you.”
“Nor I,” she said and smiled.
“You are not the girl I saw in dreams,” he murmured. “The girl I saw left long ago, faded in the past. You are the woman I dreamed of.”
“I am not a dream.”
He stepped closer, his chest pressed to hers. “Aye, ‘tis not a dream.” He brushed his lips against hers.
The air grew hot with passion. Stars exploded in the heavens of Caer’s mind, as the dreams she held inside broke free. Through his lips on her own, the spark of magic in her burned into a flame and awoke a passion she never knew.
“You should rest.” He opened his eyes. “The morn will come in a few hours, and tomorrow we begin our journey.”
“Of course.” She turned to walk away. He felt a yearning to go with her, a yearning he would not, could not yet give in to.
“Dream of me,” he called.
“Aye.” She turned the corner and entered the hovel. There would be only dreams of passion for her this night, or for many nights to come.
*****
Drifts grew the night before. In the morning light, the snow and ice glistened, and the cold breeze chilled and awoke those within it. Though the flurries still fell, the snow made the world new and whole. Its beauty shimmered in the pale dawn light.
As she awoke Caer opened her eyes to the empty bed where Headred slept. Caer’s dreams left her uncomfortable. They were as stormy as the clouds, though unlike the clouds the dreams became pervaded by heat and passion, and not the fury the storms unleashed.
And once she awoke in the firestorm of her lover’s passion, and saw Headred smile in his sleep.
Beoreth tended to a brew she would bottle, for her rheumatism. How would the sojourn affect the aging Beoreth?
For the first time Caer realized what Beoreth sacrificed to bring her here, to care for her. Once married, Beoreth bore her own children and grandchildren. Would there be great-grandchildren awaiting her in the cold north? Did they even know she still lived? Caer stood and pulled on her boots and a woolen gown.
The door opened, and the cold air blasted through the hovel as Headred entered.
“The horses are ready,” he informed Beoreth.
“We should begin.”
Beoreth poured her brew into a large bottle and corked it. She glanced around the hovel, her home for many years, for the lifetime of Caer, a babe not so long ago.
“We will leave as soon as I finish gathering supplies,” Beoreth took charge of the situation. “We need bread, water, and ale in the cupboard. Take some sacks and bag it, for I fear food will be short on our journey.”
“Dear mother,” Headred said, exasperated. “We do not have time…”
“Blankets,” she interrupted, pointing to a stack of thick blankets she piled on the table. “Warm things, furs. They will be useful when night falls and it grows cool.”
Caer laughed as he threw up his hands and went to stuff the blankets and furs into a sack.
“Caer, my brews please.” Beoreth waved at the potion cupboard. “One does not know what one will find as one journeys.”
“Perhaps the bedsteads too?” Headred wondered.
“Perhaps?” she wondered.
Caer giggled. Headred showed his resentment for the sarcasm with a cross expression.
“Headred, are the supplies packed I have already given you?” Beoreth questioned.
“Yes, dear mother, and I begin to think you will leave nothing behind.”
Beoreth laughed.
“Perhaps…”
“No.” Headred said, and hefting the sacks, braved the snow.
Caer stifled another laugh and helped Beoreth into her wrappings, taking on her own. When he returned, they stood ready.
The fairy horses waited in the stables. They snorted, their breath a frozen mist. In the sunlight they shimmered. As she observed them, Caer realized the wondrousness and weight of the journey they now faced. She turned to see Headred and found his face inches from her own.
“Have you ridden before?” he asked.
“Course I have you great baboon,” Beoreth said and, despite her age, managed to lift herself onto the steed.
“No,” Caer said, once again finding laughter bubbling out. “Will you show me?”
“I will try.” He hefted himself onto the horse. Caer shrieked when he hoisted her up and sat her on the saddle before him.