I glance at Sharadza. A tear slips from her eye, freezing solid upon her gentle cheek. I want to reach over and wipe it away. I resist the urge.
“You are Alua!” Sharadza shouts. “Wife of Vireon! Queen of Udurum! You cannot have forgotten this.”
The she-bear’s shaggy bulk shrinks.
“You are of the Old Breed,” I remind her.
It is no longer a hulking beast that stands before us. It is now the slim figure of a woman with blonde tresses hanging the length of her waist. The only remainder of the she-bear is a great white pelt hanging like a cloak from her shoulders. Beneath it she is naked, bare feet pale upon the icy ground. Yet she does not shiver.
“Alua.” She repeats her name, and now the feminine voice fits the body. She speaks in the common tongue of the Five Cities; the language of traders and diplomats, scholars and Kings.
Sharadza rushes forward and grabs her in a tight embrace. Both women weep. How much does Alua truly recall, and how much as Ianthe erased forever? I cannot say.
Alua raises her hand. A white flame erupts in the center of her palm.
I cannot help but smile at this display. Sharadza laughs, wiping frost from her cheeks.
“Names… faces… a few torn fragments of dreams,” Alua says. “These are all I have. I have lost so much…” Her tears flow freely now. She lets them fall. They turn to motes of ice before they reach the cave floor.
“Come with us,” I tell her. “Stand with us in the battle that is coming and face the Claw one last time. She is the enemy of us all, and she serves an even greater enemy. Come with us and make Ianthe pay, for she has twice wronged you and those you love.”
“My name is Alua,” she says, as if finally convincing herself.
Her sense of loss is deep. I feel it opening like an abyss inside the core of her being.
“Yes.” Sharadza cradles her hands.
A blast of white flame surrounds us. Encased in its blazing light, we burst from the cave and rise into the blue vault of sky. No longer must Sharadza and I flap our weary wings to fly.
Inside the flaming sphere Sharadza grabs my hand as well. Her glistening eyes stare into mine with a flood of released emotions. Her brother will rejoice when he finds that his beloved wife still lives. Vireon could not know how difficult it is to slay a true sorceress.
Yet we cannot seek Vireon yet. Sharadza knows this too.
More of the Dreaming Ones must be awakened.
A white comet hurtles south above the frozen world.
Inside the cocoon of white flames Sharadza speaks softly with the reborn Alua, whose look is that of a child being lectured by a kindly tutor. Her memories are only fragments, but she quickly understands the immediacy of our danger and the urgency of our mission. The name of Zyung she does not remember. I do not wish to burden her reintegrated mind any further, so I describe his horde and his goal. It is enough for Alua that he has allied with Ianthe the Claw. That above all else makes him her enemy.
The lands below rush by as we watch them through the sphere of pale fire. Once again we cross the Grim Mountains, yet at a speed that far exceeds that of our eagle forms. Alua weaves a garment for herself from the white flame. It cools and congeals to the smooth consistency of silk, and she keeps the cloak of snowy bearskin as a reminder of her most ancient aspect. Her dark eyes, too, remind me of the great she-bear.
She listens quietly to our voices, flashes of recognition igniting in her black pupils. Yet her mind is still clouded. Ianthe stole far more than her white flame. She has not spoken the name of Maelthyn, the daughter born of her womb and Ianthe’s sorcery. We do not have the heart to remind her of this terrible crime. Perhaps she will remember everything in time, and what a torrent of pain will follow that memory. Yet for now I need to keep her focused on the task at hand.
“Our destination lies northwest of Uurz,” I say. Alua’s head turns and the flaming sphere arcs westward above the Stormlands. “Some leagues east of the Western Flow, yet many leagues south of Vod’s Lake. There we will find a series of green mounds dotted with ancient stones. A great city stood there long before Men came to the Desert of Many Thunders.” I take Alua’s hand and show her a mental image of the grassy mounds. They are all that is left of the nameless city.
In a few short hours we have crossed from the top of the Frozen North into the very heart of the Stormlands. I see the Western Flow glimmering silver below us. I guide Alua toward the scattered mounds. There are tiny villages on the green plain here. All this land was black desert before Vod worked his great spell and slew the Father of Serpents. Yet no villages sit close to the low mounds that we now approach. A soft rain falls from thinning clouds, and rays of sunlight stir rainbows to life above the steppe.