“When you said you’d be able to fit Rose with something, I was expecting that we’d be scrounging through whatever cast off junk you could find,” Liv admitted. “Not – this!”

The armory of House Bælris was more impressive than she’d anticipated, and Liv realized that she’d based her expectations on some combination of Castle Whitehill and Kelthelis. In the one, Baron Henry had spent a good deal of coin on providing his guards with upgraded windlass crossbows and jack of plate back when Liv was only a young girl – which meant there was a lot of old equipment set aside to gather cobwebs.

Kelthelis, on the other hand, had the same problem regarding good steel as with wood: everything had to be imported. It was much easier to make boiled leather armor from caribou hide, which could be hunted in abundance. Mountain Home quite evidently did not have that problem.

The room was floored and panelled in the same wood as the rest of the manor, with benches built into the center of the floor and armor stands, chests, and cupboards installed along all four walls. There was only one door, and Liv had caught sight of enchantments worked into it. She guessed that anyone who tried to enter the armory for the purpose of theft would meet a rather unpleasant fate.

Perhaps a third of the armor stands stood empty, and Liv guessed the missing pieces were currently in use by the guards on duty. The rest, however, held cuirasses, pauldrons, helms, and other pieces that were all obviously crafted with skill and well-maintained. The steel plates were etched with delicate sigils, and Aluth stirred at the back of Liv’s mind in the presence of so many enchantments.

Keri and his two companions had apparently opened several chests, and the cupboards as well. They were sorting pieces of armor into piles, but when Liv and her two friends entered, the Elden warrior paused and looked up to greet them.

“You’re not entirely wrong, I suppose,” Keri admitted. Liv saw that there were dark circles beneath his eyes, and she doubted that he’d slept well. To be honest, he looked exhausted and miserable. “We spent years hunting the Cult of Ractia all across the north,” he explained. “It was inevitable that we’d lose people along the way. That old gear is what we’re looking through now. Rose, would you let Linnea here measure you?”

“I will leave you all to it,” Ilmari said from out in the hall. “Let there be no question: whatever you take from here, Livara, is a gift. Your grandfather saved many lives at the Hall of Ancestors, including mine. Consider this a small token of our gratitude.” The old man turned and headed back down the corridor from which they’d come.

Linnea measured Rose quickly as any dressmaker, and then Arjun and Liv for good measure, as well. Liv guessed that she must have been related to House Keria, originally, for the woman had the same dark hair and skin as Airis and his family. She looked a bit older, as well – she reminded Liv of the weathered guards who’d spent their lives on the walls at Whitehill.

“I think she might fit in most of Jaana’s old gear,” the veteran suggested, after a moment, and at Keri’s nod she took Rose off to one side. Liv watched the two women fiddle with a cuirass, adjusting the straps to get it snug over Rose’s torso, until Keri interrupted her.

“I had your armor cleaned overnight,” he said. “But it’s been through quite a lot, Liv.”

She turned to find that he’d laid out her pieces of white leather on the floor. In the five years since Kaija, the armorer at Kelthelis, had made the set for her, it had seen Liv through one fight after another. From the caverns beneath Bald Peak to the Well of Bones, it had kept her alive on more than one occasion – and it looked the worse for wear, as a result.

The leather was gouged, scraped, and torn. One piece of the skirting was missing entirely, and the crest of white horsehair on the helm looked as if it had been rolled through the mud, then torn out in clumps.

Liv sighed. “What do you suggest?” she asked.

Keri and his other guard, a man whose name Liv hadn’t caught yet, exchanged glances. “We don’t have the time to repair it or make replacement pieces,” the soldier explained. “And, in all honesty, we don’t have someone who can match this quality of leatherwork. I assume it was made in Kelthelis?”

“Yes.” Liv nodded. “It’s alright if you can’t do anything for me. I was mainly concerned with getting Rose something – I don’t want her up front with a sword without some kind of protection.”

“There is one option,” Keri said. “You’re too small for most of what we have, Liv. But there are two sets of armor here that might have pieces to fit you.”

“Alright. What’s the problem, then?”

“Both sets were made for men, originally,” he admitted.

The man at Keri’s side coughed.

“...made for boys, originally,” Keri corrected himself. “My cousin and I, to be specific. Our first sets of armor, from when we weren’t fully grown yet. There are going to be some differences in your measurements that might make the fitting a bit awkward, but we can give it a try.”

Liv did her best to keep a smile plastered on her face at the idea of wearing armor that had been made for children. “There’s nothing to lose by trying things on,” she said, and hoped that she hadn’t just volunteered to have her chest crushed.

The pieces Keri had worn as a boy hadn’t, of course, been designed to be worn over a dress, and so the very first thing Liv had to do was change into trousers and a linen shirt. Linnea had brought spares, apparently, though they were all too large. She was assured that everything could be taken in with the work of a day or so, and thankfully the old gambesons that Keri and Sohvis had used as adolescents had been saved along with the steel pieces of the armor.

In the end, she was surprised at how many pieces they were able to make work. Liv would be keeping her own helm, but the steel cuirass and pauldrons fit well enough. In the end, the steel faulds attached to the bottom of the piece had to be removed, because Keri in his youth had apparently been thin as a stick, and Liv was actually possessed of hips. Olavi – the warrior introduced himself, eventually – assured her that they could have the leather skirting from Liv’s old armor attached to the cuirass in its place.

She kept her original leather vambraces, and turned down the offer of gauntlets; Liv didn’t plan on fighting with a sword anyway, and she wanted to be able to wear gloves. Still, she was impressed by the enchantments worked into the steel when Keri explained them to her.

“Savel will keep you warm, just like your old armor did,” he said, tapping one finger against particular sigils worked into the metal over her chest. “Though it won’t help you stay cool in the Varunan jungle, unfortunately. There’s also a defensive enchantment. Subtle, and you can’t control when it will work, but it can help when you least expect it. The armor has a tendency to catch sunlight just right and reflect it into your enemy’s eyes.”

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“I like that,” Liv said, and couldn’t help but smile. She glanced over to where Rose had been fitted, with a great deal less difficulty. “You look like a proper knight, over there.”

Rose shook her head. “No one makes armor like this in Lucania anymore,” she pointed out. “It’s all jack of plate now, or jousting armor for sport.” She was covered head to toe in steel plate, from sabatons over her boots to articulated gauntlets and a helm.

“Now, the only question is what to do with you,” Keri said, turning to Arjun.

“I’m not a ksatriya,” Liv’s friend protested. “I’m a healer. I’ve never worn armor in my entire life. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“It would be useful for you to have something with the heating enchantment, though,” Liv pointed out. “Even if it was stitched into cloth. A cloak or a robe or something, to keep you warm when we go down into the Tomb.”

“That we can easily do,” Keri promised. “You won’t find what you’re looking for in the armory, but that is one of our most common enchantments.”

“I’ll make certain there’s something ready and fitted by the time we leave,” Olavi promised. Then, all of them worked together to get both Liv and Rose out of their new armor, and to pack away all of the pieces that had been put aside because they didn’t fit right.

As she was helping, Liv noticed that there were a few round shields leaning against one wall. They reminded her a great deal of Whitehill, and she couldn’t help but grin. She wrestled the best looking one out of the stack, picked it up in both hands, and carried it back over to the others.

“What’s that for?” Keri asked.

“This is for your son,” Liv told him. “Go and get him, and I’ll show you.”

☙

Not even an hour later, Liv, Keri, Rose and Rei stood upon the upper slopes of Menis Breim, the mountain on which the manor of House Bælris had been built. The late morning sunlight gleamed off white snow so brightly that it was nearly blinding, though Liv noticed that didn’t seem to bother Keri nearly as much as everyone else. A trace of his word of power, perhaps.

With a crunch, Keri stabbed the rim of the shield he was carrying down into the snow, sinking it as deep as a man’s hand. Rose, who’d taken a second shield from the armory once Liv had explained what she was planning, didn’t use the same force at first, and nearly lost hers on the slippery surface before grinding it in.

“Alright,” Liv said, crouching down next to Rei. The little boy had been packed into layers of fur and wool, including an absolutely adorable fur lined hood from which his rosy cheeks peeked out. “We’re going to start from up here, but you need to tell me where we should stop. Can you do that?”

Rei nodded eagerly. “Down at the hot springs, so we go right over the water and splash it everywhere!”

Liv couldn’t help but look up at where Keri was silently shaking his head. “I’m not sure your father’s going to allow that, little one,” she said. “But we can go in that direction and stop before we actually get to the pools. You ready?” At another nod from the boy, she drew her wand from its sheath, extended it, and cast.

“Celet Aimac Belia o’Mae,” Liv murmured. Cel woke eagerly, and she reached downslope with her Authority. She anchored the chute of ice just a few feet downslope from where they were standing, and sent it down the mountain along half a dozen turns and switchbacks, making certain to build up the outer edge of each turn so that no one would go flying off at high speeds. Finally, she shaped a great bowl to catch them at the bottom, just upslope of the steaming springs.

She was surprised at how easy the spell was, though in all honestly Liv supposed she shouldn’t have been. When she’d first cast it, twenty-five years before, she hadn’t even known what Authority was – just that the further away from herself she pushed the chute, the harder it got.

Once she was done, Keri brought over the shield he was holding and carefully laid it down at the top of the frozen chute. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Rei scrambled onto the shield and sat himself down.

“Someone should go with him and hold on tight,” Liv recommended, meeting Keri’s eyes and nodding.

“Go ahead and get on, and I’ll hold it,” he said.

Liv bit her lip, stood up, and lowered her voice so the boy couldn’t hear. “She’s wrong, you know,” she told Keri.

“Who?” he asked, frowning.

“Rei’s mother. Rika. You’re a good father, and he needs you,” Liv murmured. “I can tell that you’d be here, if you could. Protecting your family isn’t a bad thing – it shows that you know what has to be done, and have the courage to do it. I would have given anything to see my father when I was a little girl, even if it was only from time to time.”

Keri looked away for a moment, and the wind coming over the mountain pulled a strand of blonde hair out of his hood. “Thank you,” he said.

“Now climb on,” Liv urged him. She knelt down again, took hold of the back of the shield, and did her best to fix it in place.

There wasn’t even a hint of grace evident when Keri finally clambered onto the shield and wrapped his arms around his son; in fact, he rocked the thing so much that Liv couldn’t keep a grip on it anymore, and had to let go. The shield slid forward, rapidly picked up speed, and then shot off down the chute. Rei’s laughter and his father’s screams echoed off the mountainside as they slid into the first turn.

“You should have made me go first,” Rose told her, with a laugh. “Then at least I wouldn’t have known what was coming!”

“You’re going to love it,” Liv told her. “Here, put the shield down so I can climb on.”

“And where am I going to fit?” Rose asked.

“Behind me!” Liv said. “Obviously. You just have to get in close and hold on tight.”

☙

Of course, after his first ride down, Rei was so excited that nothing would do but that the four of them trudged back up the mountain so that he could do everything again. They spent the rest of the morning like that, up and down to the delighted laughter of Keri’s son, until finally they managed to pull him away for luncheon.

“Thank you,” Keri said, once they’d all had something to eat. They were so late to the hall that the rest of his family had already had their fill and left, and the four of them only just made it in time before the servants began clearing away all of the dishes. “I can’t remember the last time that I’ve simply been able to play with him.”

“It’s good to remember why we’re fighting, isn’t it?” Liv observed. “I took my friend Emma sliding like that when we were young, just after I’d first learned how to use my magic. She’s married with her own children now.”

Rose reached under the table to fold Liv’s hand in her own.

“Anyway,” Liv said, “I need your help this afternoon. There’s something I want to do before we go to the Tomb, but it’s more mana than I’m comfortable using entirely by myself.”

“Of course,” Keri said. “It will take the rest of the day for all the armor fittings, and the supplies to be gathered and packed. We can leave in the morning. Though I suspect time of day won’t matter that far north.”

“I’ve seen the other side of things in the summer,” Liv agreed, rising from her seat. “When the sun never quite sets. At this time of year, it won’t ever quite rise. We’re going to be relying on you for light, you know,” she told Keri.

They dropped Rei off for his much belated daily studies with an Elden tutor who looked rather stern, and then walked down together to the waystone.

“You don’t need Arjun?” Rosamund asked.

“Three should be plenty for this,” Liv said, shaking her head. “No, last I saw him he was sorting medical supplies. I get the impression he wants to bring more than could possibly fit in a single pack. Best leave him to it; we’d only get in the way.”

Once they’d reached the circle of white stone, Liv easily found the sigil which would take them to Bald Peak. She’d used it often enough, returning from both Kelthelis and Freeport. Rose and Keri knelt down to either side of her to share the load, and together they sent enough mana into the waystone to activate it.

When the three of them appeared on the bluff beneath Bald Peak, Liv half expected to find King Benedict’s soldiers waiting for them, and was relieved when she was wrong. There was one thing different about the area, however: a small wooden building, little more than a shack made of logs, had been built off to one side of the waystone, far enough from the River Aspen that flood season wouldn’t threaten it. A curl of gray smoke trailed up into the blue winter sky from a stovepipe fixed to the peak of the slanted roof, which was covered in at least a foot of snow.

“Declare yourselves!” a familiar voice called from the building, and Liv saw that arrow-slits had been left in the walls for the use of crossbows. Crossbows which were, she was now certain, pointed directly at them.

“Piers?” she called over. “Is that you in there?”

After a moment’s pause, the door of the guard post, she now realized – opened wide. A middle-aged man, holding a crossbow butt at his shoulder, stepped out into the cold afternoon, his breath steaming in the winter air.

“M’lady?” the Whitehill guard gasped. “Is that you?”