_________

1961, Modern Ceri Calendar

Year 17 of the 41st Tor —

300 years post Rena Dalyr's (Last First Seat of Galeda).

After all, the capricious rain wouldn't come to his rescue.

Toward the east what little remained of daylight struggled against clouds gathering above the mist-capped peaks of the Cold Range, growing darker and thicker at each glance.

Although the air remained untouched on the highlands, wary gazes in the audience bordering the redcircle around Heron already glanced at the mountain range.

When the stillness was perturbed, the senses barely caught on the arising whiffs, confirming rain wouldn't pour fast enough to save Heron from the foretold humiliation.

Heron was acutely aware of the presence of dignitaries in the audience, distinguishable from the blue mass of soldiers by their fine attires ornated with crests— unofficial judges of his capacity to join the ruling council of the capital, as though his noble blood alone wasn't enough to assure his ascent. Losing two of the five battles for the current skirmish campaign came as confirmation of the unvoiced concerns.

He clutched the hilt of his sword with forced resolve and slid the wooden length out of its scabbard, his hand stiff on the pommel. His body understood the imbalance of his last combat and refused to be fooled into calmness.

His opponent, Mainor, was a soldier enlisted to the third division of the royal guard. He stood at the opposite extremity of the redcircle, adjusting his gambeson and scanning his sword as if he searched for rough edges. Acting as if he found no imperfections, he turned to Heron invitingly, holding the weapon with a hand marred with callous and veins, its dull wooden tip brushing grass.

Heron could win if he landed the first hit, hard enough to disorient Mainor before he could retaliate. But the cruelty of fighting was that knowing things theoretically meant nothing least you have the strength and agility to execute them.

Master Salmior stood in the front line of the audience, shoulder-to-shoulder with the brigadier of the Blue Guard, looking as proud as ever. The scarce light rendered his red robe a stale brown. He scanned Heron with grey eyes cornered with wrinkles rooted so deeply around his nose Heron could trace them from the battle circle. Heron could almost listen the old man reciting the words with unshakable determination: the imbalance of skill will push the worst swordsman to his limits enough to progress, whatever the result, you win something.

The wind sped up enough to bend dark, chin-long strands of hair to Heron's swarthy face.

The gathering of soldiers opened path to brigadier Jallon. He stepped into the circle, his arms folded and tucked behind his back. His uniform was spotless, square, and ironed at all edges, of a blue deeper than that of the guards of his brigade. Jallon stared at one fighter, then another with a grin of thin lips pulled taut up to hard cheekbones and said the dreadful words.

"By the respect of the rules of the redcircle, shall the best win."

The brigadier hadn't abandoned the redcircle yet and Mainor already had the full length of his sword stretched like a wing. Behind him, a sky darkening further with overcast clouds.

Heron took a defensive stance and the fighters rotated in opposite directions slowly with cautious steps, Mainor watching Heron like an eagle ready to strike, Heron with a tight grip on his sword lifted at the height of his waist. To shoot forward at Mainor's first offensive.

Heron was certain all could forecast the end of the match: himself sprawled on the ground and Mainor, as usual, keeping a semblance of fair play and honor, as though good manners made it easier to digest defeat. Maybe it was better to give up now, Heron wasn't granted time enough to consider. Mainor swung his blade, his weapon spurting across the air, finishing with a hard thrust at Heron's side.

Although Heron managed a clean sidestep, Mainor had his attack carefully planned, cutting Heron's duck short with a kick to his thigh. The sudden flurry of attacks forced Heron into a straining series of parries that came about increasingly sloppier, until hard wood whacked him at his legs, arms and shoulder.

As murmurs behind him erupted, Heron realized he was cornered between the imminent attacks and the wall of the audience behind him. Bumping into the line of soldiers, he staggered to the center of the redcircle as soon as he found room between two strikes. He exhaled.

A wave of chuckles rumbled in the crowd. And a consensus seemed to spread: the monarch had produced an heir with two left hands.

If they were not using wooden swords, Heron already would have lost chunks of flesh from his legs. All without having landed a single blow. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, a flush eating at his skin, dreading where hardwood would hit next.

"You're losing focus, Brother," Mainor warned, turning his thumb at himself. "I'm your target. Come on. You cannot be that weak."

Heron fought back the urge to spit out the words stuck at his throat: You are not my brother, bastard.

The briskness of Mainor's attack was disconcerting. One moment he had his finger still pointed at himself, another, his boots had trampled the empty grass between them. Suddenly, he stood an arm-length from Heron, swinging towards his face, fast as if propelled by the rising wind. Heron blocked the thrust, only realizing the trap he'd fallen into when two rampant kicks almost bent him into a crawl.

The pain spoke for him. "I surrender," Heron gasped out, limping away.

"You don't," Master Salmior shouted from the crowd.

For less than a second, even Mainor hesitated. When he whacked again — targeting Heron's ribs, then his ankles — Heron lost his footing. The pain made him doubtful his gambeson was still intact.

Heron didn't trace the sweep kick that sent him sprawling stomach-first onto the ground, weakening the grip on his sword. He tasted dirt on his mouth, sensing Mainor striding closer. He panicked. He was already down. Mainor wasn't supposed to - Mainor struck. With such strength, his weapon dug a whole into the ground.

"Enough," bellowed Jallon.

Heron stared at Mainor's weapon, standing upright and stiff, less than a finger away from his immobile, worn-out hand, the sunk tip cornered by grass lightly swung back and forth by the wind, now strong enough to traverse the barrier of the audience. Heron was trembling, that sword was too close to his hand, just a finger to the right and. . .

Jallon helped Heron to stand. "You are well, Lord?"

Heron nodded, unsure, staring at the three arbiters standing inside the redcircle, holding real steel blades straight and still, slicing through the ever-rising wind, the three tips at Mainor's skin: at his nape, his chest, the base of his abdomen. A push, and the blades would tear flesh, kill him.

All around, the crowd of soldiers stirred with murmurs and flaps of the fabric of clothes to the rhythm of the wind.

Although his half-brother was a nuisance, the idea of having him cut down felt wrong. "I am well, Sir Jallon," Heron affirmed.

Brigadier Jallon signaled to the bluemen to sheathe their swords and Mainor spoke right away, "Brother." He stared at Heron directly. "Look at me." His green eyes appeared clearer than usual. He was mixed of blood, thus his skin was a shade lighter than Heron's, but now his paleness stretched farther than his half Malay heritage justified.

"I didn't mean to harm you. But you need to take your preparation to be the Monarch more seriously."

"Silence," Master Salmior cut him off, "it's not for a miserable blueman to judge."

Then the first rumbling of the skies resounded. A bolt of lightning divided the sky in half, thunder booming in the distance. Sharp winds rushed from every direction, chasing the stillness and scattering dust as fast as it did the crowd of soldiers around the circle.

When Heron looked again, the dark clouds overhead moved like waves, advancing to Ceres, chasing away what remained of the late sunlight. Atop the heights in the Cold Range, past the valley of Ceres, the ice-bound mist was stirring, overflowing the black rock of the peaks.

Master Salmior strode to Heron's side, one hand tucking his thick robe next to his body, to keep the wind from exposing skin. The other hand anchored his triangular headpiece to his head.

"Will you properly take care of the soldier, Sir Jallon, please?" A firm hand around Heron's arm, he led him to their horses, tethered beside the walls of the barracks, for a retreat.

"It's worse on a battlefield, if I may qualify your brother's lack of restraint. Whatever has gotten into that boy?" he sighed. "Your generation seems determined to go against any written rules."

Heron flashed to the image of Mainor's weapon planted to the ground next to his hand. "He was trying to cripple me."

"Because crippling the heir to the Monarchy in front of the royal guard is the best way for a bastard to assure ascension to power. I suppose just after he'd been sent for a ten-year-long walk in the dungeons?" Salmior asked.

"Your brother risks losing his uniform for his mistake. You are always forecasting your grave too. If Mainor was that calculating, he would have poisoned you. Long before the start of your preparation for the Monarchy. Even then, he would never be accepted by the ruling council as the new Monarch not even here in the capital. Not to mention how the Anutehi would react to such profanity. I see you still got a grip on those distasteful tales of assassination in the Ukewian noble families. We are unlike those savages, if it comforts you."

"No, Master," Heron lied.

"No matter," his eyes turned to the overcast sky thickening overhead, "I believe this storm is not quite the type of shower you need right now."

As they galloped across the courtyard to the palace stables, the wind blew from no particular direction, as if four distinct storms fought to conquer the skies, merging into a swirl that hit back, front and side alike.

When they dismounted, Heron marched ahead, inside the stables, across a thin layer of hay to find his stallion's stall. The twentieth in the second row, where he conducted it.

"Lord, if I may," the groom keeping the stables approached, intimidated, Master Salmior by his side. "Other stablemen agree it's best to transfer the horses to the undergrounds of the northern edifice, in case The Chill comes tonight," he said. "It appears it's likely. The winds coming from the ranges are cooling by the second."

Heron turned to Master Salmior. "Chill?" The word alone sent goosebumps up to his throat. It tasted like poison.

"Well, the conditions are reunited," said Master Salmior. "If the winds do not settle, the Chill is bound to be here by deepnight according to the Wisemen, but it shouldn't last more than one night."

Heron's hands tensed around the reins. "Ancients help us."

"They will," Salmior affirmed. "The Wisemen believe the winds are stronger than those of the previous Chill. Let the stablemen take care of the stallion and The Ancients will forbid the worse. Everything will turn out well. Suffices that you retire to your bedchambers, shut your windows and cover yourself with proper quilts. Don't forget to light the hearth."

"Perhaps you shouldn't stay here either," Heron suggested, managing his best not to let his fear surface.

"It won't happen again," Master Salmior huffed. "Will you trust me?"

How could he know the Chill wouldn't claim someone else this time? It thundered outside. Indeed, the air was freezing.

"Go now, Lord, please," Master Salmior muttered.

On the way to his chambers, Heron brushed past the agitated gatherings of servants on the grounds of the palace. All faces were plastered with worry.

The maiden rushed to the southern edifice of the domain, joining the chambers of the royal nursing academy. The bachelors, finding more humor in the situation, pulled one another onto chariots packed to capacity. All trotting to the barracks of the guard.

The doors of the laboring rooms the servants abandoned were immoderately sealed by inferior guards, bundled up as they guarded them. In a few hours those doors would become the only barrier between potential death and the safety.

On the second floor of the palace — which harbored the chambers of the dignitaries — guards of noble blood stood at every three doors.

Even after the door of his chambers was sealed behind him, Heron still stirred with fear.

As he took off his gambeson and let the leather garment fall to the ground, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, the bruises marring his shoulders and arms. A walk to the bathing rooms sounded like an immeasurable effort. His thoughts wandered elsewhere, leading him to his liquor skin instead. A familiar dryness settling in his throat, crawling up to his mouth.

In his drawers he retrieved the skin, without giving time for a second thought to permeate. The ache for his throat and the burn in his heart always decided for him. He drank.

The relief was instantaneous, but what he was trying to escape desperately still remained: had The Chill come this time to take him, the child, after taking his mother two years ago?

He emptied the skin and fell onto his bed, his head spinning, his guts turning.

Sleep took over.

He woke up to a wind rush beating against the palace's wall, throwing the windows open wide, flapping white curtains hanging at the upper edges of the oval gap like banners.

One moment his room was in complete darkness and the next, a lightning bolt blasted the world around him, overwhelming his vision faster than he could shield it. The explosive sound that resounded seemed to tear the domain apart.

When he came back to his senses, he was engulfed in darkness again. The air had turned dense and acrid, and the cold that had settled stabbed through the layer of his sparring clothes like needles.

He didn't reflect as he stood, as though his feet had a purpose of their own: to shut the window before he froze or was blasted by lightning.

As he readied himself to pull the latch of the window, he watched, brown eyes a slit against cold wind beating against his face, combing his hair askew. The view shook him up to his toes.

Overhead, waves of dark clouds stretched like smoke, blown westward from the mountains, burning white with flashing lightning beneath. The wind whirl settling over the Cold Range distorted the sky. What appeared like mist from the distance was a gust of frozen winds, floating above the forest and gaining terrain towards the city of Ceres in the lowlands, just a thousand gallops from the royal domain.

The Chill burned, it bent rainwater into the shape of stabbing ice. It was a windblow that scratched windows and whistled against walls until the dawn of the next day.

None of it was supposed to happen. Heron had attended the ceremony of gold burial to the Ancients with the clergymen at the beginning of the season to avoid The Chill. He had done so for the past two years. To avoid this destructive force from taking more lives. His royal blood was worthy, the Ancients should have listened. They should not have allowed lighting to strike inside the royal domain.

From the grove, beyond the gardens of the palace, where the lightning had struck, emanated smoke, ascending higher than useless fortified ramparts enclosing all corners of the domain. The dampness kept a fire from erupting.

When Heron grabbed the window's latch again, a shout etched with pain resounded from the distance. Without distinct words.

Heron scanned the land between the courtyard and the extremity of the gardens, but he saw nothing. Then the shout echoed again. A guttural scream of a man at the brink of his death.

Heron located the source of the call near the second chapel of the domain, amidst the grove, where the lightning had struck.

He imagined his mother two years ago, calling for help outside the palace while gusts of cold winds burned her to her bones. No one had witnessed the horror. But Heron knew it had been more painful than his mind could conjure.

Servyna had refused to find shelter until all the servants were safe inside the palace's walls. The next day, the guards had found her unconscious, barely shaking anymore. The three following weeks were a battle of survival she faced alone. Heron, impotent, hadn't been allowed to witness her struggle. She never opened her eyes again.

Heron didn't think twice. His fist pressed to his chest, he said a quick prayer to the Ancients, rushed to his drawers to find a thick tunic, and picked two quilts.

He stormed outside of his room, walking along a bright corridor illuminated by lanterns of white crystal-dust in ignition. All guards limited themselves to watch, until one of them voiced the questions they had all been willing to pose, "Is everything well, Lord?"

"Yes," Heron said, hyper-conscious of the guard's eyes on him, "everything."

"The lightening must have struck inside the domain," he added. "Strange to realize the ramparts cannot keep all dangers at bay."

The guard was frightened, too. Heron looked at his quilts folded in his hands.

"I am taking these to the ground floor. To cover the fruit left unattended by the servants," he said — marveled that was the best he could manage — "It's about half of everything I eat during the skirmishes." His attempt at a chuckle made him sound a fool. "After the Chill, it will be long until we can harvest fruit, right?" he added anyway. "If all if it freezes—"

The guard blinked, regarding him curiously. "If need be, I can help," he offered, uncertain. Perhaps questioning Heron's sanity, perhaps just averse to the task not fitting with his uniform.

"No, please," Heron said, "although I appreciate it."

He rushed down the stairs, to the ground-floor of the palace. To minimize deaths no exits or entries into the palaces were allowed until The Chill was over.

Heron aimed for the only exit of the palace not kept by guards: a small door of the kitchen accessible to domestic servants. It lead to the rubbish storage local that was enclosed by a wall as high as two men.

Heron walked the trajectory he pictured, climbing the cold-stoned wall to exit the palace. And for coverage once outside, he advanced inside the grove.

When the cold winds pierced the canopy, Heron battled his grunts, scurrying forward with a tight grip on his quilts.

The trees filtered the bulk of the rain pouring down. The heat of the blast of lightning still floated in the air, shielding him from the surrounding cold. But what little he gained from the heat was undone by the fading smoke irritating his eyes and throat.

Heron found the man while battling a series of coughs.