Something didn’t feel right.

As Tia ascended the tower in her usual ritualistic manner, the Wind sounded… different. She couldn’t quite grasp what. The unsettling feeling had grown slowly over the past few days, although it was that day when it had become obvious.

Snow had begun to fall. Overnight, the colour of the world had turned into varying shades of black and white. Despite the copious amounts of salt and grit being spread on the ground in the Gwentians’ attempts to delay ice formation and improve walking conditions, the frosty whiteness had settled in deep. When Tia was making her way to the tower, she found her boots sinking beyond the ankles. The thick hide kept her feet dry. Little white fluff drifted from the sky, landing on her nose and making it tingle.

Mooncliffe had snow almost on a yearly basis, but the amount was nothing compared to Gwent. Dernexes often struggled with snow but the Gwentians continued on with their daily chores without any impediment, literally ploughing through several tens of inches of snow with ease.

It hadn’t occurred to her until that point, but thinking back, often a few inches of snow in Dernexes would cause transport to stop. Only messages could be sent from city to city, and only by the Windcasters; food transport would also have ground to a halt. In areas where food storage hadn’t been fully prepared, shortage would happen on a regular basis, particularly poorer areas such as Ratho or cities with particularly large population such as Kiramone. Master Anu had always prepared their little house for the winter with enough food – but not plentiful, so Tia and Mommu would often still have unsatisfied stomachs – and fuel.

She wondered if the fuel and food shortage in the winter had resulted in deaths. Not everyone had bountiful supplies. Not everyone had a Windcaster to predict the onset of winter. Not everyone had the adequate money or status to acquire the resources. But she was willing to bet her staff that King Ea and his family would never be short of food or fuel, even during dark and difficult periods.

The way Gwentians operated meant despite the deficits, rationing allowed the survival of almost everybody. Nobody would starve or freeze to death. Fair distribution of food would result in everyone being hungry, with unsatisfied stomachs, but they would still be able to work through the cold. Even Lahar had to forego a meal or two for the ones who had fallen ill recently and Tia hadn’t heard a single word of dissent. All the people suffered, but it was to a lesser degree. It made Tia feel less guilty about the situation, although her own stomach had complained quite a bit in recent days too.

The Wind blew again, bringing Tia back to reality from her tangent. It was difficult to describe precisely what was so different about the Wind that day, but it made her unsettled and gave her a sense of foreboding.

Setting the staff in front of her, she sang for Mommu again as she had done every morning. After their first and last encounter, she had not heard from him again. She wasn’t too worried though; knowing that he was alive and safe meant more to her than she could describe. Taking the new strap she had added to her staff and swinging it over her shoulder, she made her way down again.

The discomfort in the pit of her stomach remained with her for the rest of the day.

****

“Sorry to hear the library’s shut,” said the princess as she passed Tia a boxful of dried leaves and returned to her station. It had been a few days since their row, and as expected, Sarpanit had recovered much quicker than Tia and the two hadn’t spoken of that conversation again.

Tia sniffed the contents of the wooden box. It was musky, like old wood.

“None of the books are affected; I am just thankful for that. But the fixing will take several days. Where does this go?”

“That’s Camellia. Put it with the other beverages.” The princess made herself comfortable again on her high stool, kicking the heels of her thick boots against the leg rest and leaning across the wooden table top where various dried plants were piled. Her thick hair had been scraped back and tied not in its usual ponytail, but in a shining red-brown bun sitting atop her head. Stubby fingers swiftly sorted them out into clearer stacks by specimen and then by their freshness and viability. Those that had withered beyond usefulness were discarded into a brown sack at her feet.

“I am rather disappointed I will not be able to translate the Book of Wind until the fixation is completed, however,” Tia admitted, looking around for the label.

The apothecary where Sarpanit was usually situated was stacked to the ceiling with boxes and boxes of herbs and medicines. Dusty smells mixed in with all sorts of scents of weird and wonderful plants, intertwined in the air. There were at least a hundred different types for all sorts of ailments and uses, all neatly labelled. Spotting the Gwentian characters for “Camellia”, Tia used her foot to kick a stool across the stone floor and stepped on it gingerly. She emptied the contents into the respective box before hopping onto the ground.

“I’m glad you’re here though.” Sarpanit passed a new medicine to Tia; this time it was a corked glass bottle containing a thick, white liquid. “This is Papaver, a pain reliever.”

“It looks so nauseating.” Tia held the bottle at arm’s length and turning her head this way and that for the relevant name.

“When you are ill and in pain, you won’t care much about the look or taste of the medicine.” The other girl grinned. “The other healer trainees are all sick so it’s just me when the teachers aren’t here.”

“Is there nobody else who can help you? How about the children?”

“Oh, they’re all shovelling snow at the bottom of the valley. Remember where I took you to see Papa a while back? They’re at the bottom of that hill, clearing the path for the carts. My sister, too.”

“Ninlil? Is she not too young for this sort of labour?”

“Everyone has to pull their weight, Tiamat. Princesses are no different.”

“Will they not be cold? The days are getting shorter, after all.”

“Nah, they’ll be fine. Remember how the other end of the valley slopes up so it’s just a really, really big hill once you get all the way down?”

Tia nodded.

“It acts as a big wall against the wind, so it’s actually much warmer than us at the top. The only downside is that it gets awful dark much earlier so you can’t see around you much. They’re saving the fuel as well, so they can only go by what they hear when it’s near dusk.”

“Is that not rather dangerous?”

Sarpanit shrugged, her deep blue eyes scrutinising a long piece of white tree bark. “Chores must be done. Everything has its risks but we’re all willing so that nobody starves to death. If that path is buried, we lose our source of clean water. That path has to stay open, free of snow.”

“But…” Tia stared in confusion. “There is snow all around us. How can one die of thirst when there is snow everywhere?”

The older girl laughed at her. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Tia scowled.

“Gwentian snow is toxic if you drink or eat it in large quantities. Papa said something about accumulated toxins in the soil, so we can only drink from underwater sources.”

“I may not know much about Gwent, but you need not be so degrading about that,” Tia said, sulking.

In the distance, the dinner gong sounded. With another grin, Sarpanit dropped it into the box which said ‘Salix’ and slid off her stool, dusting the front of her leather apron. She slid it off and hung it on a peg on the wall, before giving the small, compact room behind her a quick glance to make sure nothing was out of place. Tia waited, her staff swung over her back and her hand hovering above the door handle behind her.

“Let’s go eat. I’m so hungry.”

Sarpanit locked the apothecary door behind her and hung the big brass key around her neck. Tia held up the oil lamp, without which they would be in near darkness. Dusk had almost fully settled and the sky held the remaining traces of fiery orange. She couldn’t even make out the tall stone walls beyond the stone pillars. The space beyond three steps of the edge of the veranda was swallowed by darkness.

As the two girls chatted amiably, the heavy feeling in Tia’s chest grew and grew. They were but a few metres away from the dining hall when she stopped dead, a hand reaching up and grabbing the fold of the thick overdress tightly.

“What’s wrong, Tiamat?” Tia barely registered Sarpanit’s concern. Panic flooded to the tips of her fingers and her head started pounding. The air had grown heavy, so heavy. How could she have missed this? The hairs along her forearms and the back of her neck stood up straight. She almost vomited from the overwhelming sense of dread.

“I…” She blinked and gasped. She couldn’t put it into words, except that something was very, very wrong. “I do not know… but something terrible is about to happen.”

“How do you–?”

“Sarpanit!” a familiar voice shouted. Both the girls turned to their left to see a middle-aged man running at top speed towards them. His cheeks were red from the exertion and he was waving his right hand frantically, gripping a scroll.

“Nabu?” The girl tilted her head in confusion, one hand supporting Tia’s elbow. “What is it?”

“Do you know where your father is?”

The advisor was panting hard, his thin lips pale with the cold. There was urgency in his pale green eyes that made Sarpanit alarmed.

“I haven’t seen Papa since lunch time,” she said, her brows knitted. “He was going down to help with the snow-clearing down the valley. Ninlil’s there too. Why?”

“An urgent message from Colchain.” He passed the scroll to her. Tia glanced from Sarpanit to Nabu, her heart pounding. Even without understanding the blocky Gwentian script and without seeing the princess’s darkened features, she could see it was terrible news. The girl’s face blanched.

“What is it?”

“Colchain… our city in the east. They’ve just been ravaged by a snowstorm and now it’s heading our way.”

Tia’s stomach plummeted like a rock. Without another word, she handed the oil lamp to Nabu and placed her staff on the ground, tuning in to the Wind with her eyes shut.

The high walls surrounding them impeded much of the content in the voice of the Wind, but having understood the source and meaning of the horrendous feeling of dread in her guts, she knew what to listen out for. She mentally kicked herself for not working hard in the forecasting part of Hearing; that was Mommu’s forte.  She preferred Hearing the Singing and had neglected the other half of her training. She was a fool.

The muffled Wind had a tremulous timbre in its tone. Beneath the colourful melody, there was a deep, raging power; the sound was as though it was echoing through shattered glass, approaching closer and closer. She had never heard the sounds of a snowstorm before, for Dernexes was a relatively warmer country, but she had heard the tinkling noises of snowfall and the roar of storms before. The terror as she had never experienced from any natural phenomenon poured over her.

“Tiamat?”

Her eyes flew open.

“It comes,” she said in a hoarse voice, “within the hour.”