Silverheim was a raucous bustle of noise and activity as Sorrel rode through the narrow stone archway in the grey outer walls. Colourful canopies adorned the sparkling granite, and bright awnings covered the merchant stalls that seemed permanently set up between the fortress and the livestock pens that sprawled across the plain. There were Tethiri dwellings of hide and wool dotted amongst them in a sort of makeshift extension of the stone town. Sorrel had spent every Midwinter Dark since he could remember roaming among those tents, and he knew several of the families there by name. He looked forward to seeing them again. Silverheim had four gates, two to the North and North-East and one to the South and one to the West, and stood with its Southern gates to the dark mirror of water that was Lake Draugr, with the hills beyond. Sorrel twisted in his saddle and shaded his eyes to gaze at the hills, noting that the settlement of Tethiri tents had expanded along the lakeshore a little more since he’d last seen it. His folk were becoming more and more settled; he wondered if there would come a day when they ceased their wanderings and built themselves stone walls roofed with thatch, their wagons turned over for hay-wains and market-carts.

The thought saddened him, and he bowed his head for a moment, and tried to remember all that he'd come from: sky, earth and grass were all his people should ever know. Even in death, the poselenech walled themselves into the earth with rock, away from the sky.

They were riding in through the Western gate. He rode at Henarian’s side, the younger man slouching in his saddle, one hand on his reins and the other on his sword-hilt, as if he’d only just got it and was afraid of being parted from it. The mounted warriors followed behind them, just as silently as they had come out, their bows of curved yew and carved horn slung over their pommels, their arrows raven-fletched. Most had ridden bare-headed, but a couple wore helmets of boiled leather, lined in soft grey fleece. Sorrel had seen large flocks of the grey-fleeced sheep in the pens outside the town walls, rounded up for the night to shelter them against wolves. The creatures were small and hardy, and didn’t look as though they took kindly to such imprisonment.

Henarian waved a hand as they passed under another tall arch, the company now ambling single-file along a wide street lined with shops. ‘Merchants’ quarter,’ he said to Sorrel, grinning. ‘You can get pretty much anything you want here. Silks, coffee, spices even. Although they cost a small fortune. The goods your traders bring are cheaper, of course.’

‘And I’m sure your shopkeepers welcome us with open arms when we arrive?’ Sorrel said drily.

‘Not at all!’ Henarian laughed. ‘But the Tethiri mainly bring livestock to trade. They’re competition for our shopkeepers, not total annihilation. And there are some who prefer not to deal with them.’

‘I have noticed.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not you?’

‘I know lies when I hear them.’ Henarian turned a corner onto a wider street, this one neatly cobbled, and with none of the street-stalls Sorrel had seen so far. The shops sported cleaner and larger windows, and some had painted gold lettering above their doors. He noted with interest that one or two sold coffee, and resolved to go and buy some as soon as he had the chance.

‘Many people know lies when they hear them and yet still give them an ear.’

‘I’m not interested in cultivating blind prejudice, when it might serve me better to take a man on his own virtue. My brother Kaithenal always said: get to know a man first, then hate him on his own shortcomings,’ Henarian said.

‘Wise man.’ Sorrel stifled a laugh. 

‘Maybe not. He eloped. With a Lyr Blaed woman, or so we think. He was last seen with one.’

‘Is that a problem?’ Sorrel let his voice turn sharp. He knew of the Lyr Deru distrust of the Lyr Blaed, which included the Tethiri somewhat, though not as much. They had come from the same root. People still viewed them with suspicion, thanks to the cataclysmic mistake they’d made, half a millennium ago. But people’s memories were long when it suited them. The Tethiri had not sided with the Lyr Blaed but that didn’t mean they’d allied with the Lyr Deru instead – and the Lyr Deru still carried a grudge for that.

‘It’s no problem for me.’ Henarian said. ‘I think my father is a little…over-zealous in his hatred of them. I’m not. Have you forgotten who my cousin is already?’

He pointed ahead to a small shop, four storeys high and tucked into a corner between the street and another gate. ‘Apothecary. Best in the castle. Anything you want, you can get there. Anything herbal or medicinal, that is. Perfumes too, soaps, remedies for any…’

‘Then why not have it within the inner walls?’ Sorrel smiled at Henarian’s sudden blush. ‘Or perhaps that’s the point?’

‘Herb master is one of your people, and dislikes not being on hand for all who need him. And he hates the walls. Besides, he is close enough, is he not?’

Sorrel laughed. ‘Close enough for an urgent need, far enough for discretion?’

‘Quite so. Look - ahead is the inner sanctum, so to speak.’

Sorrel saw that the street ran under another arch, just by the shop, and this they rode under now. It emerged into a wide courtyard, with Silverheim’s great mead hall set squarely in the centre. It was built not of stone but wood and hide, a memory of the original settlement, a tribute to the old ways of the ancient nomadic tribes that had been here before the Lyr Deru had come. Beyond that hall was the keep itself, a hulking tower of pale grey stone that seemed to penetrate the fog that had descended to hang low over the town and choke it in damp oppression. A full guard stood sentry before huge iron-bound doors atop a flight of steps as tall as a room. The buttresses at the foot of the tower were smooth as glass. Several iron gibbets hung from the walls, but were thankfully empty, though crows still congregated on the rusting bands to caw and shriek omens at men who might be thinking of breaking Silverheim’s laws.

Henarian led them round to the Northern gates, dismounted and flung his reins to a stable lad. ‘I’ll take you to the mead hall. Be warned. Arianlach is probably indisposed.’

‘Indisposed?’

‘You’ll see.’

He led the way back across the courtyard and through a door into the hall. ‘This isn’t the Royal dinner-hall, but Arianlach prefers it in here to the one in the keep.’

Sorrel looked around. He had not been in Silverheim’s mead hall before. It was like being in the belly of a whale: dark, warm and stinking of fish. And spilled beer, and the other unsavoury smells that usually came with drinking men. He stuck his sleeve over his nose then took it away again, not wanting to offend.

 Henarian led him to a table at one end, set on a dais, a wall hung with tapestries at its back. A young man slumped there, his head on the board.

‘Earl Cangarth,’ said Henarian with a flourish of his hand, and Sorrel fancied he saw a shadow flicker in his eyes. ‘Didn’t I warn you?’

Sorrel stared at Arianlach Cangarth, Earl of Silverheim, and, though he knew already that he’d better hold his tongue on this matter, also Crown-Prince of Vartjastafel.

The young man didn’t stir.

‘Look at him. Dead to the world!’

Henarian lifted a lantern and swung it over Arianlach’s head. The golden light turned Arianlach’s deathly pallor to something almost resembling life.

The young man was about his own age and as long-limbed and slender as a silver birch. Currently, he was not looking at Sorrel, so Sorrel indulged himself with a good, long look at him.

He couldn’t see the young man’s face fully. Arianlach slumped over a table with his head in his arms, his barleycorn hair hanging limply over one thin shoulder. His tunic of fine-spun wool was crumpled, the richly-embroidered hem spattered with the dull purple stains of wine. A stink of vomit seemed to permeate the air around them, and Sorrel realised it was in the damp, grey straw scuffed into a pile under the table at Arianlach’s feet. He held his sleeve to his nose again and tried to breathe through his mouth. A distinct odour of sour sweat mingled with the vomit, stale straw, and dog piss. A flea-bitten old hunting dog stared, watery-eyed and wet-nosed, back at him from Arianlach’s feet.

He stepped back.

Henarian leaned on Sorrel’s shoulder and put his mouth to his ear. ‘I told you he was sick.’

‘Sick?’ Sorrel leaned a little away from Henarian. ‘He’s drunk! Is he always like this?’

‘Most days. If it isn’t varrtir, then it’s the stinking stuff you people make from grass or something.’

‘The yellow gorse-wine? Then why isn’t he dead?’ Sorrel pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘That stuff can melt iron!’

‘Is a man made of iron?’ Henarian went around the table, lifted his foot, and pressed it into Arianlach’s ribs with insistent pressure. ‘Get up!’

Sorrel quickly reassembled his perceptions of where exactly Henarian ranked in this place.

And where he himself ranked. Henarian had led him in through the southern gates with not so much as a servant hurrying to meet them, and taken Sorrel straight into the Mead Hall. He stared up now at the great whale-bone arches of the roof, over which was stretched a patchwork of hides, forming a huge tent, or táldafen, as such constructions were known in Serahaleros. This one was even larger than the one his own tribe boasted. Huge lamps of black iron hung from the apex, the flickering yellow flames sputtering oily black smoke. Long pine trestles on either side of the long hall were being set for the evening meal, and high-backed settles alongside them draped in hides and soft furs. Arianlach refused to budge from his table, and Henarian said he’d been there most of the day.

No wonder he was sick. Sorrel’s mouth thinned.

He realised the Earl had raised his head and was staring blearily at him. ’Henarian? Who is this?’

‘The man you sent me to meet, since you couldn’t sit your horse for more than a heartbeat without sliding off again and cursing a hole in the flagstones.’

Henarian slipped onto the bench next to his cousin and beckoned Sorrel to sit also. ‘It is my great honour to introduce you to my new sister-husband, Prince Ellazhán mab’Virishn’ y Sorreilli.’ He spoke the name with a dramatic flourish that Sorrel strongly suspected was meant to mock him. He kept his expression carefully neutral.

‘Too much,’ said Arianlach, after several heartbeats of heavy silence. He spoke in a soft misty lilt unlike the more clipped Northern tones Sorrel had heard so far. Its tones reminded him of the kánlaith.

‘Too much?’ Sorrel said. ‘Earl Cangarth, I hope you…’

Arianlach waved him into silence. His pale lavender eyes glazed a little as they roved over Sorrel. His mouth lifted at the corners. ‘Can’t say all of that even before a drink! I know your people, the Tethiri. Three-Worlders, aren't they? Or were originally. And your name is Sorrel. Am I right, horse-lord?’

‘It is my familiar name,’ said Sorrel. He wondered what could make a man with as much status and standing as an Earl turn to such a state through drink. Arianlach looked halfway to death on a journey he didn’t intend to return from. ‘I am honoured to be your foster-brother, Earl Cangarth.’

‘Ewe’s piss! Foster-brother? Blazes, I had forgotten. How could I forget such a thing? Why, drink of course! Blessed oblivion. My apologies!’ Arianlach grasped a half-empty cup of watery ale and raised it. His hand shook. ‘I’ll drink to your arrival! Welcome, then, foster-brother. Welcome to Vartjastafel, to Silverheim, and to this shit-stained piss-bucket of a hide-and-heather mead-hall!’

Sorrel grimaced. The Earl’s eyes were glazing over again, bloodshot and puffy, pale lashes thick with mucus. His hair looked as though it hadn’t seen a comb in several days, and a long, ragged scratch marred one smooth cheek from temple to chin. Not a blade, but a nail, perhaps. Or a claw. The hound? Sorrel peered underneath the table, but the dog had laid its head on its paws and gone to sleep. It didn’t look capable of marring the Earl of Silverheim in such a manner. He eyed Arianlach’s hands, the skin so delicate and pale that his veins showed blue as he gripped the cup of ale. The Earl wore no rings, only a silver bracelet wrought with the delicate, swirling designs of the Lyr Blaed. It banded a bony, slender wrist below the ruffles of his shirt that fell back, unbuttoned, the fine white linen stained and frayed.

He wondered if there was any real point to his being here in Silverheim. Rumour had it the Earl was a powerful mage. Or would be, if he didn’t imbibe copious amounts of alcohol. Sorrel shuddered. Did he drink to mask the painful effects of the witchbane, the terrible medicine that countered the curse of Lyr Blaed?

The Earl wasn’t all Lyr Deru like his father and stepmother and the rest of the Cangarth clan. He was part Lyr Blaed, the blood-cursed people who had once been the indigenous people of the land, like the Tethiri. Who his mother really was, nobody seemed to know. She’d long been banished, anyway. Or dead.

Sorrel had not studied the witchbane’s ingredients, but he knew it suppressed magic as well as the curse. Magic the Lyr Blaed weren’t allowed to have. How strong was Arianlach’s Lyr Blaed side? Sorrel peered at him, intrigued. Surely he had enough power and status to refuse the witchbane if he wanted? Did his Lyr Deru half even mean he suffered from the curse?

Sorrel’s own people – he himself – had the same magic, born of the grasses and winds and moonlight. He looked at his hands, and was surprised to find he’d clenched them into fists, pressing into his thighs. He took a deep breath and splayed his fingers. He could not imagine giving up his magic. It was a part of him, just as his eyes were, and his hair, his heart, his soul. Giving up his magic would be like cutting his soul free. Even if it injured him. He could not imagine how Arianlach suffered.

That’s the reason for the drink. It has to be. No man would this to himself otherwise!

Sorrel put his hand out, then stopped and drew it back, an inch shy of the Earl’s thin shoulder. What could he say, that would help? They’d met mere moments before. Arianlach would only laugh at him.

Sorrel sighed. He was here on pretense of diplomatic relations; a fosterling for a year and a day. If good relations held and his term went well, he’d seal their countries’ alliance by marrying the Earl’s cousin.

Sersa Hervik.

He ran the name over his mind again, and wondered what she was like. If she was anything like the men of her family, he’d be in for a rough ride.

But there was another reason he was here. He chewed his lip in agitation. Two other reasons. Real reasons. Reasons no-one else knew.

Find him. If you don’t, we are all lost. We need you. The Three Worlds need you. They need you all.