[Fourth Era – Year 1036 of the Divinity War; Sirithae (formerly known as Hopron), Valley of the Innumenary]

  Jestil huddled with Irinai atop the roof of their Innumenary’s manor house, wet and freezing in the bitter storm winds of the night. Hail pinged off the forms of looming shadows clustered over them, occasionally rebounding from the rooftop to flick his cheek, temple, or eyelid. Only these trophies of the Innumenary, displayed from the housetop—petrified, half-skeletal corpses of slain morthel—sheltered them from the full wrath of the storm.

  Jestil threw his arms around Irinai’s back to share his dwindling warmth. Her thin robes were wet, clinging to her body, offering no warmth against the wind.

  It was just a trick like those books Irinai had mentioned, the ones calculated to fool the ignorant into releasing the Severed Lords. Just a trick to make him think his sister was something else. He clawed at his head trying to get the thoughts out.

  Then it came to him. She had said it herself. She’d lost her revenescent. So what did it matter what they had been? If they had been anything else? They could never be anything else now. She could have no children. Then it was better for them to be brother and sister now, than anything else. It was right. It was good.

  The tightness in his head eased. The frantic thoughts slowed.

  He wrapped his excess robes around his sister to protect her from the wind in every way he could. This was his fault. They could have simply abandoned Fane and Fraela, been warm at least, squished in some closet or barn, for even the barns were warmer than this.

  She looked longingly at one of the chimneys, but the hail intensified. “D-do you s-s-still have your scribing needle?”

  “I’m shivering too much to scribe another soul key. But the key from earlier is still active, for now.”

  “Then can you …?”

  “There’s a problem with that. Look.” He swiped blood from the needle onto the roof slates.

  “Nothing?”

  “Exactly. The roof is just like all the outside of the manor house. It’s shielded against entanglement somehow.”

  “Have you t-t-tried this?” She looked up at the morthel.

  “Oh, that’s wise, entangle yourself with the cursed monster.”

  Between the pounding hail, surging wind, and her teeth chattering, he only heard Irinai say. “…not asking … entangle yours-s-self, just—”

  “But in an entanglement, I’m the glue. I’m the connection. So yes, I’d have to entangle myself with a morthel.”

  “C-c-could try … ch-chimney … might not be sh-shielded.”

  “I already tested the chimney.”

  “When?”

  “When we were over there. I thought I could entangle our robes to warm them. Trust me, it’s shielded.”

  Irinai shivered. The wetness leaking from the corners of her eyes looked like it was freezing already. “C-can … you entangle … sacred flame?”

  “I can’t mingle my blood with it. The fire just consumes it.”

  She lifted the hem of his robe with a shivering hand.

  Jestil shook his head. “It will burn up.”

  “Hail?”

  “Burning hail or dousing the sacred flame. I don’t know which would be worse, or get me banished faster.” Jestil rubbed at Irinai’s arms to warm her. “I’d use stone, if I had any, that wouldn’t burn.”

  Irinai glanced up at the morthel again.

  “Other than the morthel,” he added.

  Irinai’s teeth were chattering now when she said “… hopeless.”

  “I guess I can at least try.”

  It seemed mad that Irinai would know so little of entanglement. But most women found it indecent somehow. Perhaps it was the way he felt about a woman’s Revenescent. Their own little private pocket dimension where little sculpted clay babies were nurtured until they became human.

  He left Irinai and the scant shelter, and approached the chimney, carefully over the slick roof slates.

  A drop of blood down the chimney worked for but a moment, until the blood turned to ash.

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  He bit off a corner of his robe, though the strain left his teeth sore. He applied blood to the cloth. Yet it turned to ash as well and broke the entanglement.

  If only he had some soul steel, but to forge the soul into metal required both blood and time, a great deal of each.

  Without soul steel, the best he could do was something that wouldn’t burn. Iron. “I do have this scribing needle.”

  Irinai’s gaze bore into him as she silently shivered.

  But to give up his scribing needle now, when the soul key was starting to fade. “I’ll entangle cloth with steel, so it won’t burn.”

  He managed to bite off a bit more cloth from the frayed end, with less effort. He soaked it in blood. Once entangled to the needle its frayed ends became barbs. He tossed it into the chimney.

  The entanglement held for nearly a minute before it, too, failed.

  Frustrated, he lay down beside Irinai again. Wrapping himself around her to impart as much warmth as he could, wet and shivering himself.

  “Irinai?” he called.

  Her teeth chattered an unintelligible response, which failed to break through the droning song of the storm. He turned her head and stared into her eyes. Her face contorted with suffering.

  His freezing hand felt for her forehead and yet he flinched as the shock of her fever-heat scalded him.

  Misery is like a branding iron. It’s easier to bear than to watch.

  Fane and Fraela had been hoping for something like this. Their hearts were already stained with it, but he wouldn’t let her go. He would hold onto his sister no matter the cost …

  He must have fallen asleep because he awoke to the sound of her coughing, shivering. A fever burnt through her head, but she was like ice and fire mingled. She groaned in agony.

  He had to do something. His body heat was not enough. If he could move the morthel over the chimney he would, but even if he had the strength they had been affixed to the stone here, mortared onto it.

  He took out his scribing needle. But what could he do? Entangle her blood with mine? The forbidden entanglement. That he even considered it proved his desperation. But he had to do something to help his sister. He was starting to feel numb from the cold himself, but she was smaller.

  As he lay there he fantasized about the day when he could force his cousins out to sleep on the roof. But of course, it seemed absurd, him driving out someone twice his size. He imagined opening the roof, flooding the room, but of course, it was sealed against entanglement. Or entangling his cousin with the embers that floated up from the fire, causing them to float away, the way they did with cloud burials. Probably a bad idea. Cloud burials were only performed on the dead. I’m not about to kill my cousin, even if he is trying to get us killed.

  But even as he dreamed of it, he feared they wouldn’t make it through the night.

  “Irinai, are you still with me?”

  Her teeth chattered so hard he wasn’t sure what she said when she finally did speak.

  He should go down, entangle their beds with this icy slush, let them sink into their beds like into mud, and then release the entanglement leaving them trapped. Though maybe he could leave it entangled with the cold. Leave them freezing. He fantasized about it as he lay there.

  As he pondered he realized, that was an entanglement that would actually work. And if his cousins were trapped like that he would be free to bring Irinai inside and warm her up beside the fire. That was it, he was going to go do it.

  But what if he got caught? What if his cousin woke up and stuffed him in that trunk again? What if Fain dropped it this time, from the third-floor window? Worse yet, what if he just left him hanging out there by a rope forever?

  But Irinai was freezing. No more weakness, no more fear, he was going to do it.

  He climbed down, the slickness of the rain and sleet made him lose his grip. He slid and caught himself on the barest edge of the eaves. His weight causing his forearms to burn and strain. But he was losing his grip in this slick wetness. He couldn’t adjust his grip or he would lose it entirely. He was going to die.

  Suddenly Irinai’s icy, wet hands were there, but they grabbed his kajin, and they were enough for him to find his grip on the eaves.

  Rather than trying to climb up, he tried the window shutters, but they were locked. Locked. They had been locked out. In desperation, he beat on the shutters. But it was no use. They held an unnatural strength beyond mere wood. The chamberlain liked to boast that they’d been made to withstand siege engines.

  What more could he do? He climbed back up, abandoning his dreams of entangling his cousins into their beds.

  Irinai was trembling, whether from cold or fever he didn’t know. The hail had turned to rain, cold rain, icy cold.

  Please, I need to save her. The soul key he’d inscribed below was fading fast. He took out the scribing needle. And he felt a warmth rush over him, not physically, but deep in his soul. He had to try one more time.

  He had nothing, only this scribing needle. But what could he do with a scribing needle? He needed blood iron. Blood, iron, and time. How long had he used this needle? How many times had he failed to clean it? Was it possible that it might work however weakly? It was his only scribing needle, and he knew he would regret the loss, and yet, for Irinai there was no question. He let it drink from his fingertip one more time, for good measure.

  Then he braved the freezing rain once more. It was so cold it burned. His hands felt numb. He slipped, and began sliding down the roof.

  He dug in with his fingers, boots, and the scribing needle itself, then hit a sharp edge in the slate and stopped.

  Carefully, he reached the nearest chimney, now shivering bitterly himself, teeth chattering uncontrollably. And he tossed in the scribing needle.

  He prepared to entangle the warmth to Irinai’s robes and to his own. A little blood that he hoped would wash out, but not tonight. He entangled his kajin robes and boots first, to test them. And he nearly screamed as they flared with heat as if they were immolating him. It took some adjusting to get it to where it wouldn’t burn him, but provide enough heat. Then he added in Irinai’s clothes.

  He heard her groan, but he held on. The soul key was starting to slip. What was he to do? In this state, there was no way he could scribe another, especially not without his scribing needle.

  In desperation, a mad thought crept into his head. He entangled the entanglement with itself. Not just once, but twice, three times. His head began to spin. The entropy, the chaos sickness. It was like he’d tried sealing a hundred contracts in a moment.

  He entangled it with itself a fourth time. He retched onto the rain-drenched roof.

  Five times. He fell, sprawled across the ridge of the roof, warmth shielding him from the cold of the wetness that covered him.

  Six times. What was he doing up here? Where was this? He was … attempting an entanglement. But why? It was so hot, but his head and hands were wet and freezing. Oh, that was right.

  He reached for the seventh entanglement when the soul key vanished. He retched again. Blackness took him, and he was drawn into his other life.