The lands of the mortal species were split down the middle between Summer and Winter, Day and Night. This divide isn't just one of factions and ideology, but environment and temperament. The peoples of Summer and Winter reflected the old divide between The Unbroken Circle's children, the land embodied it. To the north were vast mountain ranges and places where blizzards swirled without end. To the south were beautiful beaches and deserts of black sand that burned with the radiance of the sun. Our world is one or the other, our world is both.

-The Second verse of Creation

An orc hunter grazed Jordan's wounded shoulder with a glancing blow, sending pain shooting through his side like lightning. Closing the distance between them, Jordan drove his dagger into the man's gut and slashed his eyes. He ducked a wild blow and the orc struck one of his allies. Stabbing that man in the back, Jordan took his hooked sword and charged at one of their bowmen. The man fired and Absinthe was suddenly there, taking the blow on her chitin. This time, she flinched from the impact. He threw his knife and the orc blocked it with his crossbow, buying Jordan time to draw near and cut him down.

An orc shouted a battle cry then abruptly stopped as a thick branch smashed the back of his skull. Jaq claimed the downed orc's crossbow and scrambled to Jordan's side. Absinthe joined them as the orcs regrouped, her skin visibly softening.

"I'm thirsty," she rasped, casting Jaq a ravenous stare.

"No," Jordan said, snapping his fingers and pointing towards the gathered orcs. "We cut these guys down and you can drink to your heart's content."

She blinked and her multifaceted eyes were once again human.

"Jordie, you'll let me feed without getting mad? Old age has really changed you."

"I just need you to survive this."

Five against three. Jordan would have liked those odds better if he'd known what Jaq was capable of. He knew Absinthe was a killer and the hunters had proven themselves amateurs, but numbers could carry a battle as easily as skill. He tested the weight of his borrowed sword and adjusted his grip. The orcs dropped their axes and spreaded out, readying their crossbow.

"Shattered rings," Jaq cursed under his breath.

The snow in front of the orcs came together then rose into a wall of ice at the command of a word of power. Bolts smashed into the barrier, one breaking through to fly past Jaq's face. Then the ice shattered and collapsed on top of their attackers. Jordan and Absinthe charged across the open space and fell on the orcs as they tried to free themselves. Grabbing the largest of the five by the beard, Jordan dragged the man to a tree and jammed a knife through his hand and into the thick trunk. Jordan put his blade to the man's throat and applied a bit of pressure.

"Are these your hunting grounds? Why did you attack us?" His orcish was slow, but he emphasized both phrases with murderous intent.

"Bounty," the orc grunted.

"Bounty for who..." Jordan's words trailed off as he felt the press of a familiar power he'd thought lost forever.

He looked up and his eyes were drawn to Haru and Akiko as they emerged from the snowy brush. The little girl stepped gingerly around the bloodstained snow while the young woman looked down at the dead bodies with a pained expression. Jordan shook his head, realizing his memories of the past were distracting him from the present. It was disconcerting enough that Haru resembled her, now he imagined he felt The Light emanating from the naturalist. He glanced at Absinthe, who watched him with an unreadable expression.

"Them. We were sent to kill them and bring their heads to the capital." The orc pushed himself up to a seated position. "The bulletin is in my boot," he said the last in the trade tongue.

Haru stopped in her tracks.

"What bulletin? What is he saying?"

"My tribe was paid a lot of silver to kill you and that little one. It was more silver than we'd ever seen in one place. Enough to buy passage to the Summer Islands and escape these dead lands."

"Enough," Jordan said.

"No," Haru snapped. "Who hired you?" She glanced at Absinthe, who happily gorged herself on a struggling hunter pinned by a huge chunk of ice. The sight drained some of the color from her dark skin.

"He never showed his face. He gave our huntress a huge bag of silver, and told us we'd be saving the lands of Summer and Winter." The hunter switched to orcish. "For the balance, their plans must be stopped, no matter the cost."

"What did he say?" Haru asked, her brow knitting.

"He pleaded for his life," Jordan lied, the wheels in his head spinning over thoughts of plots and conspiracies.

The orc watched him for a long moment then gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

"Please, spare me."

"No," Absinthe hissed, followed by a very unladylike burp. Blood spilled down her chin and she lapped it up with a long thin tongue.

Akiko squeaked and hid behind Haru. Jaq looked up from looting bodies, concern on his face. The would-be bounty hunter caught a glimpse of Absinthe feeding and nearly lost his lunch.

"Answer my questions honestly and I'll let you live. How many more of your tribesmen are out there?"

"This was everyone," The orc winced as his weight pulled against the blade pinning him to the tree. "Our huntress went ahead with a small group to try and catch them in The Belgaul. We were to wait, in case they slipped past."

Jordan removed the rolled and crumpled piece of parchment in the orc's boot. Haru snatched it from his hand before he could destroy it. She unfurled it and grimaced. Balling it up she threw it at Jordan.

"This is your fault. This monster poisoned us and now these killers are after us. And it's all because of you."

Jordan picked up the bulletin and it was a copy of the bloody one he'd found on the dead hunters days ago. Again he felt the circle of events closing all around him. Someone sent Absinthe after him, a sadistic frenemy who'd he'd hesitate to kill, and someone else sent hunters to stop her pawns from moving in on him. At least two entities were playing a dangerous game with Jordan as the prize. He didn't tell Haru about the group of hunters who'd died trying to intercept her in the swamp or the message the person who wanted her dead had left with the orcs. Something made him hesitate, but he wasn't sure why.

He yanked the blade out of the orc's hand and stepped back.

"Where were you supposed to bring the heads?" he asked in orcish.

"We were told to stay in any of the inns on the edge of the city and he'd find us."

Jordan pondered that. He knew it was a man who wanted the girls dead, but little else beside that.

"Run. If I see you again, I won't hesitate to cut you down." Jordan watched the orc's eyes be drawn by the wet slurping sounds of Absinthe's feeding. "What I do to you will be a mercy compared to what other possible fate awaits. You've tried. You've failed. Take that silver and get your people to warmer climates."

With a fleeting look at Haru and Akiko, the orc stood and hurried off into the woods, wrapping his hand in a filthy rag as he ran.

"Compassion like that is going to be the death of you, Jordie." Blood stained her lips, but Absinthe looked like her normal, almost human, self.

"I won't let this forever winter sap the last bit of goodness out of me. Some people deserve a chance to do right... we can't judge them by their worst day and worst decisions."

She burped again. "If you say so."

They looted the hunters and the guildsmen, fortifying their own supplies. Absinthe collected as many of her knives as she could, and Jordan found a sheath for his curved orc blade. It would likely break under the pressure of the simplest blade art, but it had a useful edge to it. Jaq offered to carry Akiko, but was given her pack instead. Jordan noticed the little girl recover the bulletin he'd cast away and stuff it in her coats when she thought no one was watching.

Absinthe suggested that the others break their fast for lunch, but no one had an appetite after watching her feed.

With the remaining butterfly circling overhead, they secured their packs and continued along the old Vein of Tusks. "A lot of people are dead because of us, but I don't understand why." Akiko's innocent eyes held no guile or hint of subtext. It almost made Jordan tell her everything.

Instead he said, "They must believe I am someone I'm not and they wanted to stop you from finding me in my old swamp."

She took a loc of his gray dreads in her hand. "But why? Who are you? Who do they think you are?"

"I'm no one. An old man who time has forgotten."

Absinthe broke into a loud and hardy laugh. "No one! No one? Jordie, you are the most famous man in the history of the world."

Jordan didn't respond. Ignoring Haru's probing look and Jaq's curious glance, he switched Akiko to his other hip and continued through the snow.

They walked until the brightness left the gray sky, then set up camp in a shelter crafted from Haru's forestlore and the men's manual labor. They continued at first light the next morning.

Kronanhold proved nothing like Jordan remembered. The thriving farming communities that had once surrounded the city proper had grown in his time away, but there was no abundance of cold weather crops or grazing livestock. The many farms were broken, dilapidated things with squatters clinging desperately to the ruins. They proved better off than those who still lived behind the city walls. Those closest to the wilderness had to contend with duppy and other predators, but there were still wild insects and the occasional animal that could be slaughtered for food. Within the city, they traded safety from the outside world for space and food.

The capital had once been the center of commerce and diplomacy for Winter, the reflection of Imani-Shinfa and her Summer Palace as seen through a frosted mirror. Now it was a massive necropolis where the denizens didn't realize they were the walking dead. Streets that once bustled with Winter's finest held only beggars and city watch. Stone buildings that had once been the glory of The Kings of Winter had become crumbling reminders of society's decay. Jordan stepped over a steam vent and the stink of acrid chemicals burned his nose. Even the hot springs that had always sustained life in Kronanhold during the deepest of winters had deteriorated.

The stink of corruption carried past the cold's dulling effect.

"Welcome home, Jordie."

He didn't respond, but Absinthe knew him long ago. She knew Winter had never been his home.

She stopped a young boy and gave him a couple of wooden coins to run off on an errand. Someone screamed and people poured out of a nearby tenement. Members of the city watch fought against the flow of humanity, weapons drawn and moving towards the commotion..

"That mob is heading this way," Jaq said as he backpedaled. "We should get off the streets." He tried to take Akiko's hand and she pulled away.

"Keep your hands to yourself." Haru elbowed him in the gut and he staggered back.

Jordan had words for him, but they were cut off by the sound of renewed screams from the crowd. A body fell out of the tenement's second floor window. Then another and another. Then they were jumping out, thin with glowing white eyes. They attacked the fleeing people as the watch waded in.

"Restless," Jordan said, his hand going to Wyrm's Tooth's hilt.

Absinthe spat in the dirt. "Corpses. I hate corpses." She scanned the street signs. "We probably should get off the streets. An old friend has a shop nearby."

More restless poured out of a second apartment building. More city watch responded to the threat.

"Come on!" Akiko shouted.

Jordan looked around and realized the others had already started moving. It took him a moment to respond. There were so many people, so many bodies, and everything was just different enough to leave him disoriented. The first of the fleeing people ran past as he finally got himself moving.

A few streets later, they ducked into an unassuming shop with the symbol of the apothecary college and the low-elven character for peace marked on its sign. Inside looked like an old musty library but half the books were bottles of ingredients.

"Peace to you and your family," yawned a familiar voice from behind a stack of books on the counter.

"Well nothing but conflict for your family, sire," Absinthe said, plucking a spherical replica of the world.

Chuckling, the shop's proprietor came out from behind the counter, nose buried in a ledger of some kind. Heavy robes adorned with a bandolier belt, loaded with various potion vials, hid an indistinct form. His long pointed ears were pierced with small silver hoops.

"I didn't expect you to return for another few months. The way you talked about your most recent bounty, I thought you'd be gone for half the year at the very least."

The merchant looked up from his book and his mouth dropped open. His eyes locked with Jordan's and, for a moment, the two were speechless.

"Surprise," Absinthe snickered.

"Llaysl?" Jordan couldn't believe his eyes. His old friend looked the same as he had when they'd first met, two hundred and fifteen years ago.

"Sir Jordan Mdu Scoiden, is that you?" The elf crossed the room and stopped with his hands on Jordan's beard. "Under all this gray you still look like a young man."

"What human doesn't look like a young man to your people?"

The two laughed and embraced.

Taken aback, Haru grabbed Akiko and pulled her aside, placing them close to the exit. Absinthe grinned and waved goodbye before turning her back on the pair, unconcerned that they might flee.

"How is this possible?" Jordan asked, running his fingers through the elf's hair from the auburn roots to the vermilion tips.

"You can't be serious. If this confounded cold doesn't kill me, I'll easily live another hundred years. But what of you?" He lowered his voice. "Only the Kings and Queens of Summer and Winter can live such unnaturally long lives, and even that comes at a price."

Jordan shook his head. "I don't understand it myself. I kept expecting old age to creep up on me and it never did, aside from my hair." He stiffened as Llaysl traced the line of rich black hair that mirrored the crescent shaped scar running from right eye to left chin. "I was talking about you being here in Kronanhold."

"Oh... I'd felt the Dichotomous Shift a few years before the last war. I'd felt myself pulling away from Summer and migrated north to see if Winter could be my home." Llaysl placed a long ribbon in his ledger to keep his page. "I was here when ... when everything changed, and I stayed."

"Dichotomous Shift."

"We elves aren't like you humans. We feel our season in our bones. It's a part of us in a way that only the orcs can understand. When our souls change, it feels like everything we've ever known no longer makes sense. Even if we don't admit it to others, we can't deny the change within."

"I don't quite understand, old friend, but I'm glad you're here."

"And I'm glad of the same." Llaysl planted a chaste kiss on Jordan's lips and the two hugged once again.

"I definitely didn't get that sort of welcome," Absinthe whined.

"That's because you're such a terror to everyone you meet," Llaysl laughed.

"Llaysl, how do you know Absinthe?"

"Simple. I'm the best alchemist this side of the Walking Forest and she's been my best customer for a few decades."

"Talk shop over drinks often enough and you start to bond." Absinthe giggled. "Llay has lived an interesting life–"

"Enough of this!" Haru cut in, her voice booming through the shop. "You've dragged us here as a lure for Jordan, and you've had your little reunion. Akiko needs the antidote for this Druid's Bane, now."

An eldritch light filled her eyes, casting her black skin in a luminous soft blue glow. The glass jars on the store shelves reflected her in a corona of green leaves. Jaq fell over the massive spherical replica of the world in his rush to get from between Haru and Absinthe. Llaysl fished out a pair of goggles from inside his robe and placed them on, studying Haru. He whistled, which drew her baleful gaze, then put his hands up in surrender.

"You need the antidote too," Akiko whispered.

Absinthe glanced at Jordan with a dangerous look in her eyes, then slowly turned to Haru, her features growing slightly gaunt. . "I have him here. I'm not sure what more use I can wring out of you. I have a reputation to maintain, you know. It's important that people understand I'm not one to be bullied," she hissed, her eyes becoming black on black orbs.

"But you are one to break from your word?"

Everyone turned to Akiko. She flinched under the scrutiny, but she held her ground, little hands on little hips. Jordan winked at her and a tiny smirk quirked her lips.

"I never break my word." Absinthe rolled her eyes and her visage returned to normal. Wagging her finger at Jordan, she knocked the books off the counter and took a seat.

"Absinthe!" Llaysl said sharply, making her jump despite her unperturbed expression.

"Do you still have the antidote I'd asked you to store?" She asked.

"Of course, I–"

"Good! You can give it to my friends here, while I escort Jordan to my patron." Reading the look of defiance on Jordan's face, she grins. "Give me an excuse, Jordie. I really want one."

Jordan sighed then nodded.

"This is for the best. I need to speak to your boss and explain to him why I was better off in my swamp."

"Fine with me. I just want my silver." She hopped down from her perch. "Let's go then."

She purposefully walked past Haru and out of the shop. Only once the papillon was gone did Haru relax. The power building inside of her dissipated and the light left her eyes. Llaysl looked up from the books he gathered off the floor and nodded at Jordan.

"I'll take care of your friends."

"Thank you," Jordan said, fighting back the anger building inside.

Whoever hired Absinthe would be sorry they involved innocent people in their scheme. He'd make sure of that. Ruffling Akiko's hair as he passed, he left the shop and joined Absinthe for his appointment.