The frozen north: Ayrin's journey

Madness

Shep was talking. He had his back to Isiri and was leaning heavily on a balcony, staring out over Riverend. Night had fallen and the port-city was aglow with the soft collective presence of a thousand-thousand candles, torches and lanterns.

"The hunter will find the boy and he will fall. The boy shall fight the king. With a crown of ice above their head. The blade will mark one. Blood shall bind the other. The hunter will seal the prison when the battle is won. And the dead will make peace when it is done." Shep chanted into the warm, heavy air.

"That's what they told you?" Isiri approached him, gripping the railing.

"That's what he told me. The others would not share it. Or their own words on their vision." Shep shrugged.

"Why you, though?" Isiri frowned. "They've always spoken to the guild in the north. Why ask you up there? What makes you so special now?"

"We've known each other a long time, maybe he trusts me more. He came to me first, long before they talked to the guild." Shep said, eyes going unfocused as he remembered something distant. "Years ago, I met him in Threeroad. He took the form of a beggar. We were friends for a while. Or as close as someone like that can be with someone like me. After a while, I grew tired of his preaching. I told him to take it up with the guild and never saw him again. Until a few months ago."

Isiri frowned deeper. "You never mentioned that. You said he only talked with the northern branches."

Shep shook his head. "I never said that. You just assumed. Anyway, you're getting caught on irrelevant details." He waved a hand at her, cutting off any further words. He spoke in that dismissing tone that he often took when Isiri began any line of questioning into his past. The perfect inflexion of voice that irritated Isiri. It had the intended effect of silencing her for a few seconds as her irritation festered inside her.

It was some time before she spoke again. "Alright then, that aside, what in the gods' names ever possessed you to go up there in the first place?" Isiri said, patching up her composure with fresh anger, a little too much venom in her words. "What? Did he come back and say 'go north' so you do? You tag along with the back end of a failing crusade and almost die horribly with the rest of them? And then you disappear for half a year." Isiri growled at him. "We thought you were dead!" She said each word slowly, punctuated with a sharp jab of her finger. She moved to finally strike him but he stepped to the side. "All for what? The mutterings of one the five, not all of them, just one of them."

Shep opened his mouth to say something and thought better of it, closing his mouth and nodding, "more or less." He shrugged. "But he says it was worth it. Those words are important."

"Okay? Important to whom?" Isiri raised an eyebrow. "Why can't these damned seers ever give you any names?"

"Well, I think the hunter is rather easy. Don't you?" Shep nodded downward, indicating to himself. "It has to be me, of course. Why else would they give the message to me?"

"Okay, assuming that's correct. And the boy? This king? Are you going to commit regicide? It says one of you will fall. Is it metaphorical or literal? And which one?" Isiri's voice grew in volume as she spoke.

"I guess we'll see." Shep sighed. "For someone who styles them self 'grand seer', his predictions seem to be frustratingly vague." Shep smiled slightly, his humour masking his unease. He turned and sat against the near wall, exhausted.

Isiri stood above him, contemplating whether to kick him or sit down next to him. She begrudgingly decided on the latter. After a long silence, she spoke. The words were startlingly hard to form but they eventually broke through her anger. "We missed you."