Borin did not look angry. But this only frightened her more. Borin looked tired. Not the tiredness brought on by lack of sleep, but something much deeper. Something much heavier. Something worn thin by the years.
The warmth that Borin normally carried in his eyes had been extinguished, replaced by something heavy and dark that caused Elara's chest to ache.
His eyes looked through her, to something behind her. Something hidden in the darkness.
"The Sun-Thief's Winter," Borin said softly.
"One of the few texts brave enough to tell the truth."
Elara clutched the bronze-bound book tightly.
"Master Borin," she said. "This... this prophecy. The frost... is this related?"
He didn't answer her. Instead, Borin walked to the far wall and dusted off the faded portrait. A young woman looked back. A young woman with sharp eyes. A young woman with determination. A young woman with brilliance. A young woman with the robes of a chronicler.
Borin's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Her name was Kaelen."
Elara took a step forward. She wanted to turn away, to leave Borin to his memories. But she could not.
"She was my apprentice," Borin said. "She was the best apprentice I ever had."
A pause.
"And now... she is the one freezing the world."
Elara shook her head, a denial. "That doesn't make sense. Why would she—"
"Because I failed her." The conviction in his words made her uncomfortable.
Borin went further into the room and gestured for Elara to follow him. They saw a secret room, tucked away behind a short hall. Elara gasped. Inside the secret room were many objects, each of which was giving off a small hum of magical energy. There were strange devices and bits of things she did not even begin to understand, and in the center of it all— There was a map, an ancient and very detailed and magical map. A faint creeping white color was spreading across the northern part of it, in a pattern of frost on glass.
Elara stepped forward. "Is that…. Is that happening right now?"
"Yes," Borin replied.
"And she named it? The Seventh Season?"
"Yes," Borin replied. "A world of perfect stillness. No growth, no decay, no change."
Elara felt a sickness rising up in her throat. "That's not balance."
"No," Borin replied. "It is extinction, masquerading as peace."
He turned to her, his eyes fixed on her face. "Kaelen was looking for knowledge we did not want her to have. Knowledge not considered acceptable. Knowledge in the forbidden arts. The shadow arts. Not evil. Not malevolent. Merely dangerous. I countered with the iron arts. The arts of discipline. The arts of restriction. The arts of control."
There was a heavy silence between them for a long time.
Elara looked over at the map and saw the creeping white. "What happens when it reaches that point?"
Borin did not answer. He did not have to. When it reaches that point, everything stops. He pulled an object out of his robes. A compass.
But not like any Elara had ever seen before.
The colors danced on its surface: grey, blue, green, gold, all with an ethereal glow as if alive.
He pressed it into her hand. It was warm. Then cool. Then something else.
"You are not Kaelen," Borin said quietly. "She wanted to dominate the world. You want to comprehend the world."
Elara swallowed hard. "I'm just an apprentice."
"No," Borin said firmly. "You are something the Citadel has not seen in generations."
He pointed to the bronze book.
"The prophecy doesn't call for power. The prophecy calls for balance. For someone who can navigate the world between the forces without losing herself."
Elara looked at the compass as the colors danced again.
"You think that's me?"
Borin's expression never wavered.
"And what if we're wrong?"
Borin looked back at her. "Then we are already doomed."
The raw truth hit her harder than any comfort.
Elara took a slow breath. "What do I do?"
Borin nodded as if he had been waiting for her to ask the question.
"You start with what you already know,"
Borin said. "Iron. Order. Control. But you cannot stay here."
He pointed to the farthest reaches of the map. "Beyond the Citadel is a rift. And beyond that… the Whisperwild."
Elara frowned.
"The realm of illusions?"
"And silence," Borin said. "And truth, if you listen for it."
The compass needle quivered, and then lit with a soft, ethereal blue.
"It will guide you," he told her. "To each of the Six Weavings."
Elara held on to it tightly. Fear gripped her, but beneath that, Something else. She looked again at the creeping frost, at Kaelen's portrait, at the man who had put the fate of a world in her hands.
"Where do I start?"
Borin's face softened, ever so slightly.
"You start," he told her, "by becoming what you were meant to be."
A pause.
"A warrior of the cycle."
And for the first time since the frost began,
Elara moved forward.