The Unbroken Circle concerns itself less with right and wrong than with fairness. A wrong turn must be met with the same for the cycle to continue. The acts of good men are rewarded, perpetuating goodness in the world. Summer and Winter measure good and bad on scales created by the seasons, but The Divine sees only balance. A good man puts goodness into the world and righteousness is repaid. A bad man puts evil into the world and wickedness will be his reward.

-The Second Verses of Creation

Jordan sensed he was being watched as easily as he sensed the silken sheets and nest of pillows beneath him. The lingering smell of cocoa butter and vanilla tickled his nostrils, bringing with it buried memories of long walks and great talks. He saw Shakia in a simple sundress, framed in a shaft of golden sun. He missed her like the world missed summer. For him, she was his light.

The pain of seeing her, surrounded by light and leaning against a palace balcony railing, became too much, and he opened his eyes to be rid of the vivid image.

Haru leaned against a wood-paneled wall, studying him with an alien expression. The hate was gone from her eyes, replaced with something akin to pity. He stared at her until she grew uncomfortable and averted her eyes.

"While you sleep, you're even more of a mystery," she said. "During your waking hours, you exert such control of your aura that it sometimes feels as if you aren't even here. But while you rest, I can see the maelstrom swirling inside of you."

"Let's hope it doesn't send you into a berserk rage. Someone might get hurt."

She scowled, then took a deep breath.

"I wanted to apologize."

He cocked his head to the side and waited expectantly. Her scowl deepened.

"I'm sorry. It's just watching you kill those men, feeling you end their lives... I wanted to help, but I froze, and, for a moment, I thought you might get hurt because of me." She laughed bitterly and met his gaze. "Imagine that. I was worried about you, The Sunkiller. Ender of the World." She said the last as if the words left a terrible taste in her mouth.

"I'm a man like anyone else."

"Are you? If you're human, you've lived far beyond your normal life expectancy and your wounds heal faster than any patient I've ever seen. The gash on your back is gone without the hint of a scar. One might think you've been blessed by The Unbroken Circle."

"Cursed. Cursed to live in misery until my actions have frozen everyone and everything."

She threw her hands up.

"Why do you even care? You did this. Some stories say happily, others say reluctantly, but all agree you sought out The Last Queen and ended her line."

He closed his eyes and again saw Shakia in gold, her dark chocolate skin the only difference between her and the angry young woman standing over him. To him it felt like yet another of The Unbroken Circle punishments. Jordan occurred to him that his suffering would be eternal. Unbroken.

"What do you want?" he finally asked.

"Llaysl sent me to inform you that knights from Castle Isdaggen came looking for you this morning. He also thought we should talk."

"We've talked. You can go now."

She opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it and nodded. Haru shook her head and departed, leaving Jordan to his thoughts. Uninterested in reliving his pain again, he climbed out of bed and looked around the room.

Llaysl was a fan of browns, yellows, and reds. What he liked to call autumn colors. Though Jordan didn't quite know what the word meant, he recognized them as the shades of transition from summer to winter. As he walked around the room, running his hands along the nightmoth silk curtains lining the walls, there lingered the gentle scent of summer. He glimpsed his distorted reflection in a dozen oddly shaped bottles of liquids with labels like mercury, distilled aether, and leviathan essence. In the corner sat a small work table where a heady concoction slowly bubbled over a chemist's burner. In a frame on the wall hung a painting of two young elves and a knight standing astride the corpse of a giant. Llaysl, Rymmil, and their uncle, Sir Oberon.

Beside it was a much rougher painting of Princess Shakia and young Jordan. The angle and scene suggested the painter watched the couple from a distance, holding hands by a stream. They hadn't posed for the painting, its composer stealing a candid moment likely painted from recollection alone. The strokes of a practiced hand made the inaccuracies of the image look purposeful. Jordan brushed his fingers along Shakia's throat. In a flash he was on the battlefield again. The sudden vision of the dead golden woman laying in a pool of her own blood was sharp like a blade, cutting him deep. He jerked his hand back.

Taunted by the red fabric all around him, Jordan became frantic in his need to escape. He found his clothes folded on a low stool beside his boots. Someone had taken a needle to the damage and removed most of the blood. Getting dressed he went for the door and stopped in front of a modest vanity mirror. Llaysl had fixed the hack job Jordan had done to his beard. His patchwork had been shortened and contoured to fit his face. Just the way Mona Lyssah used to cut it.

Jordan imagined he resembled his birth father, though he'd long ago forgotten what the man looked like. War and pestilence had claimed the Mdu clan long ago. Melancholy slowly ate away at their last son. Turning away from the man in the mirror, he left the room. Descending the spiral staircase, he emerged in the living quarters at the back of the shop.

Llaysl, Akiko, and Haru ate breakfast of gray porridge and freeze berries around the central brazier.

"I left your bowl by the stove to keep it warm," Llaysl said, leaning back like a languid cat. His robe opened slightly to reveal his pale chest.

"I'm not eating." Jordan walked over to Wyrm's Tooth and belted its sheath around his waist.

"You have to eat, Jordan." The elf's tone left little room for arguing.

Jordan scowled and collected his wolf fur cloak from the back of the couch.

"Did the knights leave a message or was it more of a friendly house call?"

"They said Lord Iceblood requests your presence at Castle Isdaggen at your earliest convenience," Llaysl said in an officious tone accented in orcish that made Akiko giggle. "Inform Lord Scoiden that he should not venture outside the walls of the city. For his own good."

"That sounds like a threat to me." Jordan fastened the clasp across his shoulder.

"Me as well, old friend."

"Sounds like they're afraid you'll make a run for it," Haru added. She turned her attention to her bowl when Jordan looked her way.

"I gave Lord Iceblood my word that I'd stay and help him. I wouldn't be surprised if that veiled threat was sent by one of his lieutenants. They didn't seem to trust me."

Jordan didn't want to think about the other option. Maybe after all these years, Kjord no longer trusted his word. He thought of the whispers and murmurs about The Sunkiller he'd heard on the streets since returning to Kronanhold. Jordan wondered if he would be wary of such a man as well. He cast his musings aside. If he wanted his word to have any value, he had to support it with action.

"If I'm not back by nightfall, you can find me at Orestine Tower. You're welcome to join me there, if you wish." He spared a glance for Haru. "All of you."

"I still need to wash and retwist those locs," Llaysl said. Sighing, he handed Akiko his bowl and gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen.

Jordan took one of his dreadlocks into his hand. He'd tended to his hair throughout the years, keeping it from mating as much as possible. He remembered when those first strands of gray infected the rest until all of his hair took on the appearance of trodden snow. He'd done the best he could but it was much easier to deal with such a volume of hair with help.

"Let him know I'll be back for the retwist," Jordan said to Haru as he moved towards the door.

"So now I'm your message runner?" she grumbled.

He stopped. "Never mind. I'll–"

"No, I didn't mean to– I'll give him your message."

"Thank you, but I don't want you to feel obligated."

She put down the bowl. "I don't feel obligated, I feel sick and confused. I don't mean to take it out on you, but I feel it the most when you're near me. I don't understand it and I don't like it. I'll try not to take it out on you."

Not wanting to inflame the woman's ire with the wrong words, Jordan nodded and departed.

He stepped over Hoa's tail as he entered the business side of the apothecary. The young man looked away from a scale and acknowledged him with a friendly hiss. Jordan's mind went to his time with Thuy and the other Timberwolves. He'd abandoned them when he fled the world. For Kjord, who was a prince, and Absinthe, who'd already made a name for herself as a hired killer, it was probably a matter of returning to what they were before him. For Yeshin, a penniless swordsman with a particular sense of honor, and Thuy, a freed slave, their roads must have been less clear.

More people he'd betrayed.

"Jordan!" Akiko's little voice made him pause with a hand on the front door. "Here!"

He turned and found her holding up a deep apple. More potato than fruit, they were difficult to foster but had a sweet nutty taste that Winter bakers coveted.

"Please eat something."

He met her innocent gaze and the corner of his mouth curled into the tiniest of smirks.

"Thank you."

"Llaysl told me to make sure you left with one." She hunched over like a thieving grabling and fished two more out of her robes. "I brought you two."

He laughed despite his melancholy mood. With a clandestine look around the room, he crouched down and took the deep apples.

"You'd better be careful. Grablings attract grablings," he said, reciting a popular old wives tale.

Funny part is that the tale was true. Thieves dens, pack rat warrens, and the offices of tax collectors were notoriously infested with the vermin. Ironically, goblins, the people most often associated with the deeds of grablings, never had any problems with them.

Jordan finished his last deep apple as he reached the postern gate to the outer walls of Castle Isdaggen. A pair of beastmen in vanguard livery snarled at one another in the midst of a dispute as he cleared his throat. The larger of the two hulking specimens waved dismissively.

"Feck off," he growled without breaking eye contact with his partner.

Jordan took a step back and glanced around for another means of entering the castle without making his way back around and up to the main gates. During his time in The Vanguard, he and his fellow knights had used this route to avoid the protocol and pomp of entering through the front. Back then, the postern was guarded by a runty frost giant, named Odigg.

"Guys— Gentlemen, I require entrance," he said, trying to remember the pompous inflections his fellow young nobles were fond of.

The beastmen regarded him with skepticism.

"Say that again," the big one demanded.

"I require entrance."

"I require entrance!" mimicked the other. "He said, feck off—" His words became the startled whine of a puppy as Jordan pressed blades at his neck and groin.

"Let me in now, damn you." Dropping all pretense, he spoke with promised violence. He was acutely aware that their claws were as deadly as his knives, and that they had ten each and he only had two.

"No one gets in without a password," snarled the larger beastman. He moved so that Jordan would have trouble keeping an eye on them both.

Maybe they were only partially incompetent.

"Odigg is king of this dirt hill." Jordan answered with the only password he'd ever known. Two hundred years old.

The guardsmen's eyes widened and they glanced at one another. They attempted to straighten their naturally crooked posture and adjust their uniforms.

"Forgive us, sire. Only beggars attempt this gate, looking for alms and food. We were just doing our jobs."

The larger guard tapped a pattern on the door. It unlocked from the inside in response. A mange-eaten yeti opened the door. His simian face grinned, his tongue darting out between the gaps of his large blocky teeth. He wore a filthy vanguard uniform stinking of freeze berry rum. Jordan mused that the knight in charge of guard detail would have had all three men hung by their pinkies for such shoddy work... back in his day.

"Is he new? I don't recognize him." The yeti's voice was loud and rumbling like an avalanche.

"No," snarled the guard enjoying the discomfort of Jordan's weapons. "He's a visiting lord, jackanapes. Look at his colors."

"So you did notice." Jordan eased his pressure on the blades and stepped through the portal.

The yeti bowed low with a perfunctory 'm'lord' as he passed. Jordan knew his way to The Hall of Frost, but couldn't help feeling like a tourist as he traveled from the outer wall to the first courtyard. In times of bitter cold, the courtyards were traditionally used as space for the commonfolk to shelter against the unforgiving elements. There they could rely on the stronghold's food reserves and heat. A safe harbor in desperate times. Jordan had expected to find hundreds crowded within. The snow-covered yard was littered with trash, but there were no tents or makeshift dwellings. In the coldest winter of their lifetimes, the gates had remained closed to the people.

He saw no sign of soldiers either.

Jordan suddenly became concerned with the state of Kronanhold and the rest of Winter's territories. Neither King Malcin nor his advisors would have let things decline to this degree. At least not the men Jordan had known.

He tried the first gate into the inner fortifications he came across and the unguarded door was unlocked. Concern mounted as he walked a boot-worn path through three feet of snow to the castle entrance. There he was met by a group of orcs wearing the colors of Lord Iceblood's household and a ravenblood of The Vanguard. They stopped him with hands on weapons.

"Halt and declare yourself."

"Sir Jordan Mdu Scoiden."

The orcs studied him with curiosity, but the ravenblood wore his surprise openly on his beak. A tall orc with long red braids and a gaudy nose ring narrowed her eyes.

"Lord Iceblood gave instructions for us to head down into the city and ferret you out if you hadn't arrived by noon." She moved in close, towering nearly a foot taller than Jordan. "By Hakus' description I thought you'd look... older."

"I get that a lot." Used to dealing with orcs twice his size and yetis out to prove something, he didn't let her bulk intimidate him. "Where are all the guards? The men guarding Odigg's way are less than adequate."

The orcs sneered.

"We came to the capital with Lord Iceblood. Those fleabags have been guarding this place under the orders of Lord Hardgrave." She laughed. "Discipline is not their forte."

"That's an understatement." Jordan glanced back. "They're dressed as vanguard."

The orcs all turned to the ravenblood. His blue feathers ruffled gainst his jet black skin. He shook his head, leaning against a dingy pillar.

"The Vanguard hasn't had any real soldiers in decades," he said. "There hasn't been a Seasons War in two centuries. Not a lot of need for more than just muscle to guard The King and mostly the knights handle that."

Questions filled Jordan's mind. With no more Summer there was no need for The World Horn to blow. No World Horn, no contest of power. No contest, no need for The Vanguard, but The King would still need an army to maintain his rule over the people. Even as he thought it, he wondered with much of Winter covered in snow, what was there left to rule? Guarding Castle Isdaggen had once been a post of honor, why were inept ruffians allowed to hold the position?

The look on the tall orc's face suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Lord Iceblood is waiting," she said pointing upwards.

"Come, sire," squawked the ravenblood. "I'll escort you."

Jordan slowly nodded and accepted the offer. The orcs all bowed as he entered the castle, following the blue bird. Jordan didn't need a guide, but an escort gave his presence an official air. They traversed a mix of dusty junk-cluttered halls and more frequently used spaces where castle staff worked individually or in small groups. It was a culture shock for a man who had clear memories of a place bustling with activity.

During his last visit to the castle the staff who ran Isdaggen numbered enough for a small army. These people had been bright-eyed and proud to be responsible for the upkeep of Winter's seat of power. They were a far cry from the hollow-eyed wretches that skulked the corridors as he and the blue bird passed. What castle guards they encountered were in the company of more yeti and beastmen vanguard. The lack of orcs among them, orcs who had always been the backbone of Winter's armies left Jordan concerned.

The austere strength of the castle was gone, faded down to nothingness. In its place stood a cold and drafty monument to a time before the forever winter where the mighty ruled from on high and the people felt protected.

"What happened to this place?" Jordan asked, more to himself than anyone else.

"The riots, sire."

"The riots?"

"Yes. After the second food shortage the city erupted in a week of violent rebellion. The city watch couldn't be relied on so the castle guardsmen went down to the streets, led by the knights of The Vanguard." He stood a little taller, taking pride in the retelling. "They broke the rebels, but the knights suffered terrible losses. More were lost during the executions. Kronanhold barely recovered. Isdaggen didn't."

Jordan took the measure of the ravenblood. The young man moved with a comfortable violence. He knew how to fight, though there was a rookie's optimism in his large yellow eyes.

"What is your name, sir?" Jordan asked as they ascended a flight of stairs.

"Pietro Bedwin, sire."

"Thank you for the escort. I believe we're here."

Hakus and a dozen others stood before a pair of huge double doors. Adorned in a variety of color combinations and armed with well-maintained weapons of varying shapes and sizes, Jordan had no problem recognizing these men and women as knights of The Vanguard. They all watched him like wolves on the hunt.