She opened her eyes. It was so warm! Where was she? The sky was blue above her, enormous, infinitely blue. There were some birds nearby — she could hear their soft chattering — but none in the sky.

It was so warm. She was bathed in sunlight. She could feel it playing along her flesh.

Rivers ran wild in her blood, and for a while she lost herself within their rhythm.

Gradually she became aware that she lay on something soft.

Inardle turned her head. Reeds. There were reeds everywhere, and the surface she lay on was undulating, very slightly. She lay in the reed beds. She watched the reeds moving in a gentle breeze.

Their movements mirrored the running of the rivers in her blood.

There were insects crawling up and down the shafts of the reeds, dragonflies here and there among their bushy heads.

It was so pleasant here. She didn’t have to think. She could just lie still.

After a long while, Inardle turned her head in the other direction.

Axis sat, a few paces away, leaning back against a thick stand of reeds. He was naked, his clothes spread out as if drying.

Behind him, in the distance, Elcho Falling.

She looked once more to the sky.

There were several Lealfast above, invisible to most eyes, circling and watching.

Inardle wondered what they made of her lying here so exposed.

Then she thought of Eleanon, and the river within her turned bleak.

Inardle looked back to Axis. He was watching her and gave a small smile at her regard.

Inardle rolled her head again to look at the sky. She lifted a hand, laying it on her sternum between her breasts.

The skin was soft, unbroken, not even by a scar.

“I am sorry,” Axis said, very softly. “It was the only way to escape the hex.”

Inardle gave a nod. “I have been dreaming,” she said.

Axis said nothing, waiting.

“I dreamed I ran with the Skraelings,” she continued.

“Was it reality?” Axis asked.

Inardle gave another nod. “We ran in a strange, strange place. Axis, the Skraelings are in a strange place, both physically and mentally.”

“In what manner?”

“They are going to return to the water, Axis.”

“Here?”

She gave yet another nod.

“When?” Axis said.

She shrugged. “When they wish.”

They fell into silence, and Inardle slept once more.

Isaiah stood with Georgdi on one of the balconies on the eastern wall of Elcho Falling.

“What are they doing?” Georgdi said.

Isaiah didn’t reply immediately. He, as everyone else, had been convinced that Axis and Inardle were lost when the ice hex turned black and crumpled apart, but a few hours ago one of the guards had reported that the pair lay in a small circle of trampled reeds to the east of Elcho Falling.

Isaiah and Georgdi had rushed to see. At first they’d thought one or both might be injured, but now it was apparent both were well enough.

“Gods alone know what they are doing,” Isaiah said. “But Axis is aware of the way into the citadel, and if he chooses not to take it . . . well .” He paused. “I’ll place a lookout here to keep an eye on them, but for the moment, my friend, we have worse things to worry about than when Axis and Inardle might rouse from their stupor long enough to let us know what happened.”

“You can’t contact them?” Georgdi said, knowing of Isaiah’s ability to speak with Axis over considerable distance.

Isaiah gave a little shake of his head. “He’s actually cut himself off. Whatever happened to them has changed both somewhat. I think they are both readjusting to the land of the living. They’re doing it in a bloody dangerous spot, but that’s what I think is happening. They were in there for many, many days, Georgdi.”

Georgdi heaved a theatrical sigh. “These winged races .” he said, then he and Isaiah turned and walked back into Elcho Falling.

When she woke, Axis was still sitting, watching over her.

“It is pleasant here,” Inardle said.

Axis gave a small smile. “Yes. It is. I worry about being so exposed, though. When you feel able, we should move to a place more concealed.”

“There are Lealfast overhead,” she said.

Axis glanced upward, his eyes creasing in worry.

“Don’t worry about them, Axis,” Inardle said.

He looked back to her, his expression still concerned.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said again. “How long have we been here?”

“We returned from the hex yesterday. You have slept through the night and through half of this day.”

Time must have passed, she thought, for Axis was clothed now. His clothes must have dried. “It was a terrible journey out of the hex, Axis.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I dreamed. I ran with the Skraelings. But I also dreamed of you.”

He shifted slightly. “Inardle, I am sorry for what I did. I —”

“Eleanon made that hex and made those circumstances which meant you needed to kill me. It was the only way out for you. It was the only way for you to survive the hex. But . . . why am I here? I should not be here. I was to have died, no matter what.”

I have changed, she thought. The river runs murderous in me, now.

“Ah.” Axis smiled so broadly his entire face was wreathed in laughter lines. “Eleanon created a hex that was to recreate for me my battle with Borneheld. It was perfect, Inardle, his trap was perfect. Either both you and I died trapped in the hex, or I lived, but at your expense. Eleanon thought of everything. Save for one thing.”

Save for two things. “Which was?”

“Eleanon had heard of the story of my battle with Borneheld in the Chamber of the Moons. He’d assumed that the battle was about one thing — our bitter, hateful rivalry. The Chamber of the Moons was where it was to be settled. But a battle to the death to end a rivalry wasn’t the ultimate purpose of that night. The ultimate purpose was a rebirth — in the original situation, the rebirth of an Icarii prince named FreeFall. That was the magic that encased that night. Eleanon didn’t realise it. That magic was there again . . . I could sacrifice you, but I could also bring you back.”

“You dragged me through the ice and the snow. You risked everything. Ice encased your chest and you could not breathe. You dragged me back through the ice and the snow.”

Axis didn’t say anything for a moment, remembering that terrible journey. “Yes,” he said, finally.

“I know of it,” Inardle said. “I know how bad it was. Thank you.” The rivers ran gentle now, and Inardle understood they would never harm Axis.

“Do you know what I swore to do, during that journey?” Axis said.

Now Inardle regarded him with very bright eyes. “Kill Eleanon.”

“Yes. I will do that for you.”

Inardle rolled her head so she stared at the sky. The Lealfast had long gone — to report her life to Eleanon, no doubt.

Axis wanted to kill Eleanon.

A small smile curved Inardle’s mouth. Only if he got to her brother before she did.

Whatever ties had bound her to the Lealfast had now broken completely.

“Don’t worry about the Lealfast,” she told Axis. “I will know if they return, and I know they will not be able to harm us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She could see that Axis didn’t understand, but she saw also that he decided to trust her.

“Very well,” he said. “Sleep for a while longer, Inardle. I will build a fire for the evening and we can talk some more then.”

“I would like to talk about Azhure,” she said, and Axis nodded.

“We can talk about Azhure.”

She slept, and the rivers raged.

“They are alive?” Eleanon stared at the scouts. “They are alive?”

“Yes, brother,” replied one of the Lealfast who had circled high above the reed bank where Inardle and Axis rested. “They have a little camp in the reed banks just east of Elcho Falling. They . . . ”

Eleanon didn’t hear much else the scout said. How could they still be alive? Axis, perhaps, if he’d had the wit and the balls to murder Inardle (and Eleanon had gambled on him having neither). But the pair of them should not have survived.

There was no way Inardle should ever have emerged from that hex save as a brutalised corpse.

“Brother?” the scout said. “What should we do? We could attack and —”

“No,” Eleanon said. “This is my battle.” It had always been going to come down to just him and Axis, hadn’t it?

Eleanon looked at the sky. Night was not far away. Did he want to attack at night?

Something made him hesitant about a night attack.

Best to wait until morning.

“Dawn tomorrow,” Eleanon said, naming five other Lealfast he wanted to accompany him. “We will attack at dawn tomorrow.”

The scouts left and Eleanon walked a little way from the Lealfast encampment in the mountains to the north-west of Elcho Falling, and stared into the distance where his eyes could just pick out the citadel glimmering in its turquoise lake.

Axis and Inardle’s survival was irritating, frustrating, but it could be reversed easily enough. Just another day.

Everything else, though, had fallen neatly and swiftly into place. The Lealfast Nation was set to descend on Elcho Falling the moment Maximilian and his wife were inside. And they were on their way — Eleanon’s scouts reported the pair close to Elcho Falling in their pathetic little boat. Another few days at the most.

As for Ravenna . . . well, Ravenna had done her duty and Eleanon didn’t care what happened to her. If she were discovered, and if she told all, there was nothing that could be done by those in Elcho Falling.

She had fulfilled her purpose and for the moment Eleanon forgot her.

As he did so, the additional enchantment he had wrapped about Ishbel’s curse began, very slowly, to disintegrate.

Ravenna slowly ascended the great staircase of Elcho Falling. She took her time, using her senses to scry out the location of the baby.

He was here, somewhere.

StarDancer.

She ascended floor after floor, until she reached a level where the sense of the baby was so strong her eyes filmed with tears.

Oh gods, how had she come to this?

She wandered along a hallway, then entered a spacious chamber lit by the light from a large arched window in the citadel’s northern wall.

A winged woman sat by that window and in her arms she held a small baby.

She was nursing him.

Ravenna felt a dark stabbing pain of jealousy. Would she ever get that chance? Would Fate, the One, and all the others who hated her leave her alone to enjoy her son?

But at least his meal bought the boy some time. His last time with his mother.

Ravenna settled back into the shadows to wait.

When Inardle woke again, she saw that Axis had somehow found a large bronze curved bowl and in it glowed a small fire.

She sat up, feeling more awake, more connected, than she had on the two previous occasions when she had spoken to Axis.

Yet still the river flowed within her, deep and comforting.

“Where did you get that?” she said, nodding at the bronze dish and fire.

“I was once StarMan and Star God,” Axis said. “Are you saying a small dish and fire is now beyond me?”

She smiled at him. “You have your clothes, and yet I have none. What happened to my robe?”

“It was too badly torn and stained, Inardle. I discarded it.”

She nodded, understanding. “I shall need another.”

“Perhaps we could —” Axis began, but she lifted a hand, waving him to silence.

“Do you remember that time when I lay injured in the column escorted by the Emerald Guard? You left us to meet up with Maximilian, and then you and he rode out to meet us as we rejoined with you.”

“Yes,” Axis said, “I remember that time.”

“You remarked that I looked very well . . . I was wearing a rather lovely silvery robe, I believe, and you asked where it had come from.”

He smiled. “You said that not all your command of the Star Dance was as fragile as I seemed to think.”

“I did. I was, of course, at that time trying to hide from you that my command of the Star Dance was actually very powerful, but I could not resist a little boast. Shall I now show you from where my clothes came?”

“Please do.”

Axis’ eyes were twinkling, and Inardle returned his smile. “Do you like green on a woman?”

“I could get used to it,” he said.

“Then I shall wear green,” Inardle said. She rose, moving about the perimeter of the circle of trampled reeds, moving slowly and seductively, every so often glancing over her shoulder to make sure Axis was watching.

He was, an amused look on his face.

As she moved, Inardle collected a dozen straight reeds.

She came back to the centre of the circle and sat down to one side of the fire. She glanced at Axis, then laid the reeds out before her in an interlocking grid pattern.

“So,” she said.

“So,” Axis echoed. “So .?”

“So,” she said and, taking the lowest reed in the loose grid, she lifted it up high.

Axis had expected all the other reeds to fall asunder, but to his amazement, as Inardle swept that lower reed into the air, so all the reeds glimmered and, suddenly, what Inardle billowed in the air was not a reed, nor a collection of loosely interwoven reeds, but a length of lovely gossamer green material.

Inardle laughed at the expression on Axis’ face. She rose, shook out the material, wrapped it around herself, and stood before Axis clothed in a lovely form-fitting green gown that swept down to her ankles.

“Could Azhure do that?” she asked.

“Azhure could do many things,” Axis said, “but not that.”

Inardle sat down. “Talk to me of Azhure. We never spoke of her before.”

No, thought Axis, we never spoke of her before. He had not wanted to discuss Azhure with Inardle, because he would have felt uncomfortable doing so. Now, however, he felt no qualms and instead felt a great ease in talking of her to this woman.

“It was strange for me,” he said, “when first Isaiah pulled me back into life. Azhure was in the Otherworld, but here I was, with a brand new life. We’d been lovers and companions for, what? Fifty or so years. To suddenly be without her . . . it was strange and unsettling.

“But even more unsettling and strange was how quickly I readjusted to the lack of her company. I still loved her, I still do love her, but . . . I don’t miss her. Life caught me up in its embrace. There were more adventures to be had.” His eyes twinkled. “More women to meet.”

“Ah, so there was a stream of women before me.”

“No. None before you. I’d met Ishbel and was attracted to her, but the idea of seducing her was merely an intellectual exercise. I never for a moment thought I’d actually carry it out.”

“Besides, you’d need to have competed with Isaiah and Maximilian and you must have feared failure.”

Axis laughed. “You have a sharp tongue on you, Inardle.”

She gave a little shrug.

“So,” Axis went on, “there was no one before you.”

“And what I did to you,” she said, “how I betrayed you, must therefore have stung doubly.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d wanted to love again, but didn’t know how. And then there you were, and I was losing myself in you, and then .”

They sat in silence, looking at the flames of the fire rather than at each other.

“I also understand,” Axis eventually said, softly, “how difficult it must have been for you. How torn you must have been. How difficult it might have been to have approached me. I did not allow you an easy path to confidence.”

“But here we are now,” she said.

“Yes,” Axis said, looking at her fully, “here we are now.”

She raised her face and looked him in the eye. “I have changed, Axis. If I’d been brought back to life anywhere other than the water I would have been who I once was . . . but that didn’t happen. I regained life in the water. I have changed.”

“I know,” he said. “The River Angel runs deeper in you than previously.”

Ravenna waited until Salome lay down to sleep, her husband beside her.

Neither of them — nor the child this time — realised her presence.

She waited until they were asleep and the baby asleep in the cot beside their bed.

She walked calmly forward and picked up StarDancer.

He looked at her, blinking in confusion as he woke, then his eyes widened.

I am sorry, StarDancer, Ravenna said to him. I have come to kill you.

Then before StarDancer could react, Ravenna clutched him close and ran from the chamber as fast as she dared.

Elcho Falling erupted into pandemonium.