“A clever thief — much like a fox — always checks for traps after it finds the hen house.”


    — Callowan thieves saying.


    <hr>


    The space between words hollowed out a place within my friends. Whatever affliction had taken them screamed wrongness to my senses. They shouldn’t be that way. Nobody should be that way.


    An icy chair scraped.


    My aura flickered like a dying candle resisting Winter’s gale.


    Useless.


    Three steps.


    Blood pounded louder than an organ in my ears.


    Innovate wove tapestries of icicles as it contested the arcane artistry of Winter’s monarch.


    Another three steps.


    I reached towards Yvette. A barren wasteland littered with broken twigs intruded in the intervening distance. I swallowed back a scream — reminded myself to be exceedingly cautious — and turned towards our host.


    I stared into the eyes of eternity and felt small.


    “Careful,” the King murmured, each word etching the air with unrelenting want. “Ignorance can kill as surely as Winter’s bite.”


    The ice beneath my feet groaned and crackled as he spoke.


    What’s blocking me? Stay calm. Learn more


    “You did something to them,” I accused.


    A claustrophobic phantom compressed the chamber with its haunting presence as he leaned back into his misted sarcophagus of a throne.


    “Are you at war with the Tyrant of Helike?” the words spoken by our host reverberated throughout the room.


    My next accusation almost dived off the tip of my tongue before I realized the significance of his question. The Tyrant had negotiated with him for an unspecified favour that likely involved our conflict.


    “Not at this present moment in time,” I replied.


    Re-evaluating entering the Spire of Darkest Dreams right about then counted as an adequate distinction for me.


    I exhaled as the weight of forgotten memories lifted.


    “Then we may talk,” the dark haired creature said as he smiled at me.


    Now to find out what happened to Roland and Yvie.


    “You did something to them,” I repeated.


    “They will wake with time, though diminished,” he examined his sharpened fingernails as he dismissed my concerns.


    Diminished? Would they ever truly recover? My fingers dug grooves into the icy tabletop. I didn’t know what I would do if it turned out the affliction had permanence. I’d find a way to restore what he stole from them, no matter how long it took me. The King needed to negotiate with more heroes if he expected me to modify my order of priorities.


    “You did something to them,” my teeth ground together as I rattled the request off a third time.


    I had to stick to our rules. No questions. No bargains without clarifying terms. No saying the first words that teased the tip of my tongue. The crumbling of the cathedral roof didn’t excuse pillaging the vault.


    “The bauble was crafted in Wolof,” the forlorn echo of a dying storm rumbled as the creature sighed with contempt. “It’s extremely sensitive to the Light — unlike my constructs — and so your companions’ souls dangle over the abyss should you make a mistake,” the mist hissed with contempt. “An elegant trap to enforce compliance.”


    Ah, Wolof. The home of cursed trinkets and awful decisions. I examined the dove with care for a few moments before admitting to myself that the danger of breaking it was too high. Could I risk leaving Arcadia and returning with somebody else to help negotiate? Possibly, but the King of Winter would probably laugh me off. The ugly weight of helplessness seeped over my thoughts like a fog of past regrets summoned forth from the bleakest parts of my past. I bit back my fury and exhaled.


    “You’ve stolen their souls,” I whispered as my fingers anchored themselves in the frozen tabletop.


    The dark-haired fae waved a hand and frozen sculptures of both of my companions appeared on either side of him, only to disintegrate into nothing more than white powder a moment later.


    “You allowed mortals to follow you into the lands of the fae,” I flinched but held my ground as the words cut. “I wonder where the blame lies?”


    They came because I asked them to help, and I’ll make sure they leave in one piece.


    “You said they’ll wake up,” I pressed.


    An icy fog began curling from the King of Winter as he exhaled. A dark-skinned palm extended and set the dove atop the chilled surface. I heaved back my aura. Best not to risk breaking it by accident.


    “They will wake with time,” the creature confirmed. “Think of the trinket as a modified phylactery or soul box.”


    What could I do? The enchantment would undoubtedly fail if it ever came into contact with me. Even the idea of gambling on the hope that breaking it would restore their souls repulsed me.


    “Some introduction,” I muttered as my nails gouged holes into my palms.


    Find out more.


    “Your fascination with stories precedes you,” the King’s voice echoed like a thunderbolt. “Of how you conspire with your friend,” icy spheres pierced Roland for a moment, “to do that which you cannot.”


    Ten years ago, I might’ve interpreted that as the King of Winter admitting my tactic threatened him. I liked to think that now I saw a little further. An intelligent enemy would remove my advantages, regardless of how threatening they were. What to do? Demanding he restore their souls seemed like taunting the Dead King while visiting Keter, but… they only served as a guarantee of my cooperation so long as they survived.


    “Let them go,” I ordered as I clenched my fingers.


    My heart lurched as the dove’s sapphire eyes flickered.


    A choir of lost souls wept through the frozen halls.


    Harrowed voices harmonized against the crystal pillars and chimed between the chandeliers.


    Then, an uneasy breath.


    A hollow not-light suffused every surface of the tomb.


    The chamber and its occupants: nothing else existed, as even the grains of sand in the hourglass froze.


    It’s unsettling how silent Creation is when there’s no sound at all.


    Silence died as the sovereign of Winter choked it out.


    An eerie not-noise haunted the halls in silence’s absence. It sounded like staring at a mirror with another behind you and seeing yourself reflected infinitely, only, on one reflection there stood somebody else.


    “Even the Meizans and Baalites learned with time that the waves bow to no King,” the hairs on my arms rose as I stiffened when the monster’s voice slithered inside my ears. “Are you bolder than them?”


    “Release their souls,” I repeated.


    “Mortal lives vanish faster than promises in Spring,” the fog whispered. “Better they serve as incentive.”


    A suffocating air of tension plagued the tower apex.


    I forced myself to remain still.


    Gods, please forgive me if calling this bluff is a mistake.


    “Give them back,” my voice cracked as the words echoed a third time.


    I met the steely eyes of the monster stare for stare as colour leached from the room.


    The monster sighed.


    That’s right. I’m not budging.


    “If repetition was enough to stem the tide,” the King said, “then Winter’s tale would’ve long since unravelled on its own.”


    Stick to the basics, Taylor. Holding heroes captive in Creation never ends well for the captor.


    “This is a mistake,” I asserted.


    How many layers of hell would this negotiation turn into?


    “How amusing,” words crackled in the air between us, “that one so young thinks to teach me of mistakes.”


    First the Tyrant, now the King of Winter. This pattern would die here. Playing unwilling servant to a criminal mastermind for the uncertain benefit of rescuing a captive had been an act of stupidity that I had no intention of repeating.


    “We can all learn more,” I countered.


    I required a crack to stick my chisel into if I wanted to escape from this trap. Actually… his imprisonment was my leverage.


    “My Hound of Winter told me of your second wish,” he mused.


    Larat talks with his boss? Colour me unsurprised.


    Were there any Earth stories I could wield against him here? Perhaps try to construe Summer’s Sun as something like the Holy Grail? He fit the role of the Fisher King if I squinted through a dirty enough lens. Better that than something like Faust. It’d be challenging to shove him into any story without being able to take any Role myself, but… not impossible.


    “Antagonizing the person fulfilling your dreams is a novel decision,” I challenged.


    How about flipping the hostage story? No, bad idea. Best not to jump into either of those hailstorms naked. I’d been uncomfortable chipping at the sovereign of Winter’s empire with the blade of narrative before he’d taken away my support.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    “A wiser woman builds her sandcastle higher up the shore,” he replied.


    His confidence rang false to my ears. A naked wound lay at the heart of my adversary. One that he couldn’t hide from me. Only the King of Winter knew how long he had fought for his freedom. He wouldn’t show his back to the best opportunity he had.


    “A wiser sand monarch doesn’t piss off the architect,” I retorted.


    The fog clouding the tabletop shrieked out a spectral dirge of despair as it broke — then returned an instant later — as murder rippled behind the monster’s eyes.


    “Consider it an encouragement,” he replied.


    The throne groaned like a glacier, buckling under strain as the King rose. Miasma spread from the mouths of bleached skulls set along its base like tendrils reaching out to claim the room.


    Oh, look, Evil being Evil. That’s as shocking as frost in Winter.


    “Not helping,” I said.


    “The naive musings of an untested mind,” he dismissed. “You had no personal stake in our fate before my intervention.”


    This? All of this because he thought I required motivation?! Light danced on my fingertips. I drove stakes through my desire to strike against him before I made an irreversible mistake. It would be so easy to pit my will against his and lash out. I wouldn’t win the fight, but I wouldn’t lose it, either.


    “I’d have done it anyway,” my nostrils flared as my voice rose.


    I breathed in.


    Indulging my fury isn’t worth the cost of my friend’s lives.


    I breathed out.


    “Our circumstances make slaves of us all,” a hint of menace laced his words. “Now… how about a bargain?” he strolled languidly before the throne. “I’ll return the souls of your mortal attachments to their bodies should you succeed.”


    The mental image of the table cracking under my fingertips bought me a moment’s calm.


    “You aren’t the first to try controlling me like this,” I warned him as I stood.


    Snow trapped in the amber of frozen time clung to the air as the King of Winter opened the door and swept onto the balcony.


    “The snow remembers everything,” he said as he picked out a stasis locked raindrop from the air and crushed it between his fingertips, “even the shadows you’d rather forget. It’s fitting, isn’t it?”


    Repetition of tragedy held less appeal than swimming in Ater’s sewers.


    “They never upheld the bargain,” I explained. “There’s no reason to trust you, either.”


    “Trust…” his voice trailed off almost wistfully, “is a brittle blade, Taylor—better to wield the weight of certainty than gamble on its edge. I have little use for mortals. They are fragile things that expire in the cold moments between three of my heartbeats.”


    The King of Winter almost had a point. The issue lay in the, “almost.” Coil kept Dinah because of the value he placed on her power. The King of Winter might retain the hostages due to the leverage they granted him. Even less needed to be said about what would happen if anyone else discovered his successful use of hostages against me as a bargaining chip.


    “Last time, I folded,” I murmured. “I’d do the opposite if I could go back in time and stop myself.”


    The mosaic in my mind crystallized for a heartbeat, before collapsing in the next instant.


    I shivered along with the Spire as the King of Winter turned around and laughed.


    “The present mocks us all,” the monster acknowledged.


    My broken reflection stared back at me from the tabletop as I considered my next words.


    “You need me,” I pressed. “Your threat is empty, and we both know it.”


    I almost jumped towards Roland as blue frost creeped towards him before remembering the wooden dove sitting on the table between us.


    “Empty?” a hint of danger threaded through his words. “No, Taylor, it is merely well-worn. What threat remains sharp after eternity’s embrace?”


    “You’ve had eternity,” I countered. “Nothing has changed.”


    “Yet here you stand,” the tower trembled beneath the weight of his words, “bartering with me for lives you cannot save alone.”


    Why did the people I tried to assist keep pitting themselves against me? Why did they have to be so deplorable? Time and again, the fae turned themselves into obstacles. It burned like swimming in acid.


    “I could refuse,” I countered as I stepped beside him on the balcony. “Step aside unless you set them free.”


    Could I do it? Could I stand aside? I… maybe? No, no, even if the possibility did exist I couldn’t follow through with it.


    “Can you?” the King mocked. “What would remain of their souls when the season ends? The Tyrant offered to remove the Prince of Deep Drought from the conflict, provided I refuse to knowingly take any action which furthered the cause of Good for the span of this season in the aftermath.”


    The foundation of my entire understanding of events transformed with that one sentence. My hands tightened around the frozen railing. The sheer audacity of it rooted me to the ground. Anyone. He would betray anyone. Kairos intended to ruin everyone’s dreams by creating some kind of logical trap through agreements with the different fae monarchs.


    “That does nothing for you,” I enunciated each word with care.


    His promise and my own were incompatible. No, they were worse than incompatible. The Queen of Summer had negotiated for something similar but opposite. Fulfilling the King of Winter’s Dream became inordinately difficult if Kairos killed the Prince of Deep Drought.


    There’s a contradiction in the making here.


    “Kairos Theodosian promised to fulfil my wish in exchange for something else,” the King said as his lips formed into a bloody crescent.


    The last flames of my hope that Winter’s monarch required my assistance guttered out.


    He raised one hand and examined sharpened fingernails.


    “That’s not all he traded for,” I said from beside the monster.


    Devils during a church recitation were more useful than his last answer. What else could he have bargained for? Security of some kind. One bargain lay hidden behind the question of where I stood in relation to the red-eyed ruler of Helike. The second bargain stood in opposition to my own. There would be a third if his story mirrored my own.


    “Many bargains were made under the lonely stars,” the false night deepened as he agreed. “Of the seven players in this game, he’s the one with the second most knives behind his back.”


    Seven players? Weren’t there more? I blinked, then performed a silent headcount.


    Roland, Yvette, Sulia, the Queen of Summer, Larat, the King of Winter, the Tyrant, the hidden player and me.


    “I count more than seven,” I commented.


    I winced as the balcony railing shrieked while he carved intricate glyphs into delicate frost with his fingernails.


    “Princess Sulia is little more than a prop to be used by the real participants to proffer their own argument,” he dismissed my words.


    I winced in second hand sympathy. I didn’t know enough about Princess Sulia to judge if that harsh evaluation of her competence held weight. That still left eight by my count. The King of Summer was either unaware of the hidden figure, or he’d dismissed their significance, or he feigned ignorance of them.


    I had a hunch.


    “Capturing Sulia must’ve been quite the feat,” I fished.


    Capturing Princess Sulia on the fields of Summer presented the king of challenge that I doubted Kairos could achieve. He needed assistance from someone to pull it off. I’d put my cards on the mystery player for the answer. Either the Warlock or the Ranger. It had to be. They had both the strength to subdue the Princess and possibly the mindset required to bargain with him. Another in a long list of people that Kairos intended to betray. An angry serpent coiled in the grass to strike when the hour struck midnight.


    “She’s been known to attend balls in Skade from time to time,” my interlocutor mused.


    … He either didn’t know, or he found the feat less impressive than I did. That avenue of investigation had closed itself to me one way or the other.


    “Give me Summer’s Sun,” my heart leaped as the words flew from my mouth.


    I… couldn’t afford to stand aside. The Tyrant would undermine everything if I did, and my friends would still be missing their souls. I’d always intended to negotiate with the King of Winter. Only, I’d schemed around setting up an agreement where I had him on the back foot.


    “I don’t have it,” his eyes twinkled with dark amusement as he denied my demand. “It’s guarded by Larat at the boundary between seasons.”


    What? Why? No, obvious. Another bargain with either the King of Winter or the Prince of Nightfall. What did the Tyrant stand to gain? The Sun being present on that field presented me with the opportunity to claim it there. One that… would’ve come to pass had Yvette not bumbled the negotiation.


    I stiffened at the implication.


    Our group would’ve avoided this meeting had we succeeded at the bridge and been unaware of the Tyrant’s schemes. That realization doesn’t placate me in the slightest. Not after what he did to Roland and Yvette. I’m not leaving this tower empty-handed.


    “Return their souls,” I demanded.


    “Their souls will remain hostage until my will is done,” the King of Winter refused.


    His agreement with Kairos undercut all my efforts. Could I undermine it? Only one of us could win this race. My bargaining position became stronger the moment he lost confidence in his second horse.


    “So,” I hardened my voice as I proposed my bargain. “Here''s the deal: I ensure the Tyrant doesn''t sabotage your Dream for three boons, but not at the cost of my friends.”


    “I see no reason to hear out any offers while I hold your companion’s souls,” the dangerous fae replied. “You may leave if you wish. Winter’s end is nearer than yours,” his voice dipped, “and theirs lies closer still.”


    I disregarded Winter’s bite as I leaned over the balcony and stared at the frigid waters below.


    “The Tyrant deceived you,” I told him, “and I can prove it. I swear by the Gods Above, that he dreams to injure everyone in the way that hurts most,” I declared.


    “Reneging on an agreement with me would be the height of folly,” he said with a steady voice.


    You can veil your words all you like, but I know my words struck a nerve.


    “Not even you are exempt from his scheming,” I corrected. “I also swear that his terms with you contradict my existing pact with Summer’s Queen.”


    “That’s proof of something else,” the King replied. “He is bound by oath to assist me. His bargain stands if you fail.”


    “He won’t hold it,” I disagreed.


    The King of Winter examined me for several heartbeats.


    I examined him in return.


    The cracking of hail against the Spire’s walls settled into a steady rhythm as the monster broke the amber and time took wing once again.


    “No,” Winter breathed out as the King acknowledged my words. “He is a storm without season. A child of Winter in name, if not in truth. Speak your terms and I will listen,” the King’s voice dropped. “Forget your place, Taylor, and Winter will remind you of it.”


    I almost opened my mouth and asked to free my friends immediately, before caution’s whispers held my tongue. Acting on that thought would interrupt the story I’d been establishing. I wasn’t about to throw their lives away for a narrative, but I also wasn’t about to throw away the narrative if it was the best chance to save their lives.


    “The souls of my friends won’t be traded away,” I stated with care.


    I swallowed bile as I contemplated what to do. Defeating the King of Winter in battle here — assuming that I even could — would come at a cost of so ruinous that I refused to pay the price. That left negotiation and capitulation. The swamp of negotiation threatened to drown the narrative we wove if I failed to traverse the perilous waters. I loathed the choice I’d settled on. The thought of looking my friends in the eyes and telling them what I’d decided nauseated me.


    “I will neither trade them away nor release them early for one of your three favours,” the King of Winter confirmed my suspicion. “They will remain in my custody until my will is done.”


    That leaves working this into the broader story. Be careful, Taylor. The order matters.


    Both the wording and intent of the first and second requests remained unchanged from the modified plan I’d concocted with the help of Roland and Yvette. I had no intention of allowing fae troubles to follow me after I’d succeeded, and both were necessary to clear myself of them. I also wouldn’t risk the souls of my companions to the charity of the fae, which meant using the third request as insurance.


    “Upon the successful completion of my quest to end the seasonal Cycle of Summer and Winter, all past debts, agreements, and obligations of any nature, written or unwritten, owed by me to any Winter fae, directly or indirectly, will be annulled.” I took a deep breath as I finished listing the first lengthy request.


    I’d never have been able to word that without spending a year arguing with nobles.


    Mountains had easier faces to read than the glacier I bargained with. The stakes were too high for me to leave this to chance.


    “Easily granted,” he acknowledged.


    “The second is a key that has always existed and will always exist, forged from the deepest frost of Winter, imbued with Winter’s timeless recollections of present defeats,” I listed the second request.


    “A key,” he mused. “What door are you trying to open? Whose chains are you trying to remove?”


    “Not for you to know,” I snapped.


    The implacable monster stared down at me for an agonizing instant before he gave an almost imperceptible nod.


    I’m sorry that I can’t free your souls sooner.


    “The third is the souls of my friends restored undamaged and unaltered to their bodies in the future at the moment when this cycle of seasons turns its last,” I grit my teeth as I recited the last request.


    “Bargain struck,” the King of Winter smiled like a satisfied cat as he sealed the pact.


    I stomped down on my trepidation as the Spire of Darkest Dreams reverberated with his words.


    I’d see this story through to a happy ending.


    I had to.