Aletheia dreamed lucidly. As cold descended upon her, wrapping her in its tendrils, smothering her like a weighted blanket, she opened her eyes, and she saw hills.

Boulders jutted from the earth. Yellow grass sprouted from crags. The sun was high and hot, and the sky beneath it was flawless sapphire.

A reflection glared in her eyes. She had to squint to block it out.

She stood at the bank of a river flowing from nearby mountains.

A tall man wearing nothing but a cloth around his hips rushed past her. His blond hair was long and messy and streaked in the wind, and he was muscular and handsome. When he reached the banks, he jumped up to a boulder, leaped out over the water, and tucked his knees to his chest. He landed with a splash that reached halfway to the sky.

Aletheia covered her face. The water was very cold. It felt realer than anything real she could remember as it stung across her cheeks.

The blond man disappeared beneath the water. When he finally reemerged, he spun about in the river, blue eyes searching for Aletheia. When he found her, he called out:

“It’s hardly cold at all! I told you! Are you coming?”

Aletheia smiled. She took a step forward.

…and an elf pushed past her.

The elf was female but taller than Trito, lanky and muscular and narrow-built as an arrow. Her hair was long and dark. She gazed into her own reflection as her hands hovered by her hips.

“Do you truly find this joyful?” she said as she slowly pulled her equipment away. She was laden with arrows, swords, daggers, a bow, a cloak, silver armor….

“Nothing is more joyful than a brisk swim on a warm day!” the man said. He had an exaggerated manner and oozed charisma. “It’s called antithesis on the stage, you know—the burning chill, the thrilling calm, the….” He clearly ran out of ideas.

“Frozen current?” Aletheia said.

The man wiped off his face. “Exactly! It’s ironic.”

With that he swam upstream. The river was not especially wide, but it was deep here, and he looked like he was in the ocean as he fought against the current coming down from the mountains.

The elf removed her armor and equipment until she wore nothing but trousers and a ratty shirt. Then she dove into the water. She landed more gracefully than the man had, but her size led to a splash of about the same size.

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Aletheia watched them both. She wanted to follow. She wasn’t afraid of the cold. But something seemed very wrong.

She had been here before. She didn’t recognize this place, except that it was in the hills of Koilados, but she knew that she had gone swimming with these two and others more times than she could count. She recognized the way they talked and played. She had the urge to join in.

But….

She was too old. That was it. The last time she had been here, she was a little girl. Thirteen. That was a lifetime ago—literally. She had been a completely different person.

“What’s wrong?” the man said.

His voice was quieter now. He came over to a rock in the water and hung from it, watching her, as the elf swam on behind.

She clutched her shirt. If she were to take it off, he would see what her skin was like underneath.

She shook her head. “I don’t like it when my hands get wrinkly,” she said, the first excuse that came to mind.

“Our hands can be wrinkly together,” he said.

The elf dove and came back up closer. She frowned at them both. “Wrinkly?”

“Like a pruney fish.”

“You turn into a fish in water?” she asked, very seriously.

The man smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “It’s a kind of magic humans all have, yes. You see.…”

He kept talking, but the clarity of his voice faded. As Aletheia watched his face, his jawline like an Old Kingdom statue, she realized what else it was that seemed wrong. She remembered suddenly.

The man was Rook.

The elf was Astera.

Her two mentors.

And they were both dead.

“I don’t understand,” Astera said. “You can’t stop this from happening?”

“No, that isn’t—” Rook sighed and cut himself off suddenly. He turned around to Aletheia again. “Really. You have to come in. I won’t get to have half a second of fun if I’m stuck here with Astera and not you.”

“It isn’t too cold,” Astera said slowly, and she swam a few feet downstream. “Come in, Aletheia.”

“You’re here already,” Rook said. “Just jump in. Leave your shirt on. Come in!”

Aletheia slipped off her boots. She stepped to the water and dipped in a toe.

It was very cold. If it were any colder, it would have been solid.

“Feels pretty cold,” she said.

“Okay, it’s cold,” Rook said. “But you’ll get used to. It isn’t so bad as it feels.”

She stared at her foot. She wasn’t certain he was right. But it would have been so easy, to slip within. The cold didn’t concern her. She had magic, and although it seemed so chill that it would burn her, neither Rook nor Astera looked bothered. They were comfortable. Relaxed.

Really, the cold wasn’t so bad.

She still hesitated.

Rook leaped from the water and grabbed her.

Aletheia laughed in surprise and pulled away.

“Get back here!” he yelled.

But she didn’t let him catch up. She led him onto a nearby hill, in the sun, and far away from the river’s banks. She kept up the chase until her feet ached and she could go no farther; and at last he caught up to her as she slumped downward, embracing her around the waist and heaving her into the air. He gave her an innocent kiss on the forehead.

His skin was like ice.

“You used to love to swim,” he said as he put her down.

She stared up at him. She felt tears forming in her eyes. He looked so much like Corvo. He would have been an amazing father. And she knew by then that she was in nothing more than a dream, but she wished she could have been deceived for longer yet. She wished it were real.

So she would pretend. She would join her friends in the water. It wasn’t worth resisting. Then they could be together again. The cold would be worth that much.

But by the time they were back on the banks, the dream had faded. She saw no one around her. Rook disappeared, and the river was empty. She spun around herself and saw no cliffs or hills or mountains or water, but only white.

And she woke up.