I closed the book and looked up with measured eyes.

  Cervis was in love with me.

  The knowledge came like a thunderstorm; it had brewed on the horizon, its course unknown, and then finally broke, fresh rains saturating and reviving all dead things, thunder wakening and livening forgotten spirits. I stood and faced Nyx.

  “What happens now? What’s our next step?”

  The night-fox sighed. “What makes you think I know?”

  “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. What comes next?”

  “We find the Fates. They won’t help you easily, though- nor are they easy to reach-”

  “I have a better idea.”

  “Cervis said to find the Fates-”

  “And we will. But he’s not the hero of this story, I am, and I know a way to make sure we’ll actually succeed at this quest.”

  Nyx let out an even longer and more dramatic sigh. “What’s your grand plan, Heroine?”

  “We’re finding Cervis’s people. Take me to them.”

  “They are far away, in a direction you just traveled from- you need to rest-”

  “I’ll rest when I get there. The Desert of Dreams defies human needs; I can cross it again. Take me to the Kingdom Under the Ice.”

  Travel leaves no weariness upon the heart.

  The feet may tire, blister, callus, ache till one thinks they shall simply fall off. The arms may refuse to lift. The shoulders may sag, and the back may slouch, and the head may grow confused and bleary as the body wearies. But the heart- the heart cares not for exhaustion. Blood full of love and fire courses through, endlessly, as the road continues to wind. And so I walked, and I walked, back across the Desert of Dreams, into the tundra, and across the tundra for seven long days. I withered under lack of sustenance. My throat grew parched, my lips chapped, as the neverending wind and lack of water left me dry and cold. I traveled, with all physical effort, and never once doubted cause for my efforts.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Then came the gate.

  “We’re here,” Nyx said, coming to a stop. “Good luck- entry is nothing I can assist you with.”

  He shifted from his cloaked form to his fox form and laid down on the near-black rocks of the mountainside, falling quickly asleep. The winding trail we had just come up hugged the mountainside, in some parts too narrow even for Nyx to walk comfortably, lined with ice and composed of a dark gray rock. We had come to a cleft in the side of the barren crag, which rose now in a bolstered black gate of solid stone. Pointed studs lined the surface in a grid and crossbeams larger than pine trees enforced the great gate.

  I stared it down for a long moment, feeling apprehension tense my shoulders and clench my jaw. I took a deep breath, watching it puff out in a small gray-blue cloud, and then stepped forward and knocked on the gate.

  A moment of silence allowed the knock to echo through the hollow chamber on the gate’s other side, and then a booming voice called: “Who dares disturb the Gatekeeper?”

  I raised my voice and bellowed back: “Aster Fallowfall, daughter of Everly, goddaughter of the Winds.”

  The booming voice laughed. “And what should that mean to me?”

  “You asked who I am- I have told you!”

  “Names are pretty, but you have told me nothing. Your kinships and relations are not who you are. You are who you have made yourself to be. What person braves the tundra to find a forgotten kingdom? What do you hope to find? A tomb of lost treasures, awaiting your vulturous hands? An accepting and acknowledging culture of barbarians seeking their civilized leader? Refuge for an ostracized failed revolutionary, banned from her own people? Who are you, Aster Fallowfall? What makes you so?”

  I measured his words and studied the blackening rock for a moment as darkness descended over the mountains. The journey back down would be impossible. I was winded from the trip up, the elevation having stolen the oxygen from me, and I had no intentions of journeying back down tonight. I faced the gate fully.

  “I am not the prettiest of my sisters. I have dark hair and plain gray eyes. My figure is so muscular it’s mannish, and my smile is more like a crescent moon than a ray of sun. I wear men’s clothing, and I have a brash, deep voice. I am not the prettiest, not even close. When Cervis came to my lands seeking a companion, we all thought he would want the most beautiful. I went in their stead. I am not the prettiest- but I have courage, and a touch of destiny about me. Cervis is that destiny. I come here in effort to save him. I am Aster Fallowfall, a heroine.”

  The gates swung open.

  Nyx’s head lifted, shock in his bright eyes. We stared down the black tunnel. All light seemed to be swallowed by the mountain, as, within inches of the gate, only inky blackness awaited. The Gatekeeper spoke no more, and nothing seemed to move within the tangible dark.

  Nyx looked up at me, concern in his eyes for the first time in my memory. “Are you really going into that?”

  I tightened my tattered cloak around myself and stared forward, even as my eyes watered.

  Are you afraid?

  No.

  “Yes- for Cervis.”

  Nyx stared at me a moment longer, and then lowered his head once more. “I’ll wait out here.”

  I walked to the edge of the blackness. My mother had blessed me with courage. I had told Cervis I was not afraid. This- this was a moment to prove it.

  I stepped forward.