She stared.

The sphere of Erekes was a vale of ice, a blinding sea of whiteness.

She had always assumed that Erekes, often hidden by the sun’s glare, would reflect something of the sun’s substance: burned, charred, or at least a desert. But of course, that was the weakness of assumption. Erekes wasn’t any of the things she had expected.

Wasn’t that the lesson of the sword? If you go into battle thinking you know what to expect, the hand of confusion will always sow chaos and death in your ranks.

Yet how could she have prepared herself for this? Instead of a neat trail of beacons leading her forward, she stared at a confusing scatter of stepping stones sprayed across the icy sea, too many to count. She took an arrow and, reaching, touched the stone directly in front of her. The arrow sank through the illusory stone and, sizzling from the bite of that poisonous seawater, dissolved into ash. Only the iron tip remained, floating on the gelid surface.

Three other stepping stones remained within reach and beyond them, hundreds more, receding to an impossibly near horizon. In daylight, it was impossible to tell which of the stepping stones was real and which illusion. The sea of ice had no limit, none that she could see, and she had only seventeen arrows left. Lucian’s friend, her sword, would have come in awfully handy right now, since it appeared that the icy liquid couldn’t burn iron. But she had thrown it away.

The knife edge of the wind tore into her back. Her tunic flapped around her knees. Her long braid writhed against her back, distracting her, until she finally flipped it over her shoulder, where it whipped against her jaw. She couldn’t feel her left arm from hand to elbow, and her right leg was numb from the knee down.

A pale shape flitted in front of her, careless as a breeze. Had this daimone come to taunt her? Or did it hope to guide her? Could she hope for their aid?

“Are there any here who were made captive at Verna?” she called. “Do you know me? I am Liathano, daughter of Anne and Bernard, wife of Sanglant, mother of Blessing. Can you help me?”

She saw more of them spinning and swooping among the staggeringly bright ice floes. Their movements seemed entirely random, unfixed and purposeless. What did they care if she triumphed, or failed?

The poison filtered up her limbs. She needed a guide quickly, a creature who could survive in the aether. Truly, she only knew where to find one such creature. She had to act fast.

On Earth she had learned to mold fire into a window. It proved no different here. Even in the sphere of Erekes, frozen in ice, fire came to her call.

It flared up with an audible crack, followed by a murmurous clattering like a thousand wings battering against an unbreachable wall. The sound died quickly. In the ice floes nearest her, daimones fled from the heat.

She wrapped fire into an archway, a window to see onto distant Earth.

“Sanglant,” she called, because the link to him was the strongest chain she had.

With her poisoned hand raised to shadow her eyes, she kept the living one outstretched toward the archway of fire, bleeding and burning sparks and swirling air onto another vista, pale and blurry as through a veil. Were those vague shadows human forms? The sea hissed around her.

“Sanglant!” she cried again. A small child’s body took form beyond the archway, so bright that it shone even into Erekes, casting a shadow. “Blessing?” Her voice caught on the beloved name.

To her shock, she heard an answer.

“Mama! Mama come!”

Ai, Lady! Blessing was so big, speaking like a two-year-old. Had so much time passed in the other world already, although she had only lived among the Ashioi for a handful of days? She wanted them so badly, but she hardened her heart. How easy it was to harden her heart.

“Sanglant, if you can hear me, know that I am living, but I am on a long journey and I do not know how long it will take me.” To get back to you. She faltered. He was only a shadow dimly perceived across an untold distance. Blessing blazed in the realm of shadows, but Liath could not really be sure if anyone else heard her or even was aware of the rift she had opened between Earth and the sphere of Erekes.

“Wait for me, I beg you! Help me if you can, for I’m trapped here. I need Jerna.”

Surely if Blessing had grown so large, Liath need not feel guilty about stealing Jerna away. A child of two could thrive on porridge and soft cheese, meat and bread and goat’s milk.

A daimone flashed as a silvery form across the shadows, beyond the veil.

“I see you!” She reached out just as Jerna’s gleaming, wispy form coiled protectively around Blessing, soaking the child in Jerna’s aetherical substance. Blessing cried out in surprise and delight, a sweet sound that cut to Liath’s heart. But she could not stop now. No time to savor it. The poison had reached her left shoulder, and her right hip. If she couldn’t escape the sea of ice, she would die.