Isaiah looked at the ice ball bobbing about in the small pool of water that led to the underwater tunnel, then looked at Axis. The StarMan was sitting on the edge of the pool, coughing water out of his lungs and waving off the concerns of Georgdi and Insharah.

Isaiah’s attention turned back to the ice hex. He nodded at a guardsman standing by and together they hauled it out of the water, cursing as it almost slipped from their grasp on several occasions.

Then Isaiah squatted down to run his hands lightly over its surface. He could just make out Inardle inside, curled into a tight ball. He rolled the ball over a little so he could see her face.

Her eyes were closed.

Isaiah glanced at Axis, now standing and stripping off his sodden clothes for dry attire, then grasped the ice hex a little tighter, sending his senses scrying inside.

Axis tossed aside the towel he’d been using to dry his hair, and walked over to Isaiah. “Can you help?” he said.

“No,” Isaiah said, standing. “She’s too far gone, Axis.”

Axis stared at Isaiah. “No, surely . . . there must be something you can do.”

“She’s too far gone, Axis,” Isaiah said, “and the hex is too tightly wound.” He began to walk toward the door leading from the chamber.

“No,” Axis said.

Isaiah turned back to him. “Leave it, Axis.” He nodded at the guardsman who had helped him haul the hex from the water. “Push it back into —”

“No!“ Axis said, taking a step forward to block the guardsman’s approach.

“She is well on the path to her Otherworld, Axis,” Isaiah said. “Let her go. Isn’t this what you have always wanted?”

Axis opened his mouth, then closed it again. What did he want?

“There must be a chance,” he said. “She’s not gone completely yet. What is it you are not telling me, Isaiah?”

Isaiah walked back to him. “That ice hex has been constructed with great and malevolent care, Axis. You want honesty from me? There is a small — a tiny— chance that Inardle might be dissuaded from the path she takes now and led back to this life. Who knows if she wants that? Eleanon —”

“Let me take that chance, Isaiah,” Axis said.

Isaiah took a deep breath as if controlling anger. “Listen to me, Axis, and listen to me well. That ice hex was not designed to trap Inardle. It was designed to trap you. Inardle is the bait. Eleanon constructed a hex that will trap you into a journey from which you likely will never emerge. It is a hex designed to isolate you completely — from this world and from the Otherworld. It is a hex designed to trap you in some horror that I cannot understand.” Isaiah frowned. “I don’t understand it . . . it involves someone . . . a name I don’t know .”

“What?” said Axis. “Who?”

Isaiah looked at Axis steadily. “The hex involves someone named Borneheld. Inardle has been sent to be his wife.”

Borneheld.

Axis thought his heart would stop. Borneheld? Inardle had been sent to be his wife?

“Who is Borneheld, Axis?” Isaiah said. “And why would Inardle be sent to be his wife?”

“He .” Axis had to clear his throat. “Borneheld was my brother. Half-brother. We shared the same mother. We were bitter, hateful rivals in life. We loved the same woman — Faraday. She left me to be his wife. I killed him, eventually, after great wars that cost tens of thousands of lives. I, ah .”

I battled him to the death in the Chamber of the Moons in a duel that dragged on for an entire night.

“I killed him, eventually,” Axis finished.

“Be sure that Eleanon knows this history,” Isaiah said. “He has constructed a hex that he is certain will both tempt you and destroy you.”

Axis was so shocked by the revelation of what the hex contained that his mind could not grasp what Isaiah was saying, let alone the implications of it.

“Walk away from it, Axis,” Isaiah said. “That hex is truly evil. We can destroy it and farewell Inardle’s soul. There is no reason for you to enter it.”

If Axis “walked away from it”, would Inardle be trapped forever as Borneheld’s wife?

Faraday had suffered terribly as Borneheld’s wife. Terribly. Axis had been her only hope of escaping him.

Axis’ mind filled with memories of that terrible night when he had battled Borneheld. They’d met in the Chamber of the Moons in Carlon. Two hundred people had filed into the circular, columned chamber to stand silently in the inadequate torchlight watching the duel between the brothers. Axis had fought only with his powers as a soldier and swordsman. He’d tossed aside his Enchanter’s ring to Faraday’s dismay (oh stars, Faraday had been there, watching!) and had faced Borneheld only with his sword. Borneheld had fought with muscle and tactics honed by countless battles, Axis with the grace and fluidity of the Icarii and the skill of a BattleAxe. They had been evenly matched.

It had been a terrible battle. The chamber was filled with the sound of swords clashing, the heavy breathing of the combatants and the scuffing of their boots across the green marbled floor. StarDrifter had told Axis later that the combination of these sounds had made a strange, dark music — an echo of the Dance of Death, the Dark Music of the stars.

All Axis could recall of the battle was the hatred he’d felt for Borneheld, his exhaustion, and the growing terror that he might be the first one to slip and offer his throat to Borneheld’s sword. By the end of that bleak night both had been drenched in sweat, their limbs trembling with fatigue.

There was something about that night Axis had forgotten? What was it? What was it?

There had been some ally . . . someone who had given him that single moment, that sliver of an edge against Borneheld that had, in the end, enabled Axis to defeat his brother.

The heart, the heart torn and bloody in his hand, lifted up and tossed to .

Axis’ head snapped up and he looked Isaiah directly in the eye.

This was no longer about Inardle.

It was about Borneheld and about a brotherly feud that, even after almost fifty years, still smouldered red hot.

And it was about the eagle.

“I’m going in,” Axis said, “and I’m taking along a friend.”