Special Chapter: A Snowy Solstice
Menelyn was awakened by a tasty smell. Someone was baking something yummy.
Having such good food all the time made her feel spoiled. So did waking up in a big comfy bed, with fancy curtains all around, and soft pillows, and silky, spotless blankets. And so many nice clothes that they needed a whole special room for themselves--a 'closet,' it was called. Bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, too, and a mirror twice as tall as her. She even needed to decide which shoes to put on, every day! Menelyn never knew how to pick what to wear, but it was fine, because big sisters liked dressing little sisters. Speaking of which...
"Sister?" Menelyn called, feeling a little anxious. Aside from the room being nice and toasty, there was no sign of Izena, and that was strange.
"She's in the kitchen!" their father called back, from the next room. "But look outside!"
Menelyn did, and for the first time since moving to her new home, saw snow falling on Ezenta. She wriggled out from under her blankets, dropped down into her slippers--special soft and comfy shoes, just for indoors!--and scampered over to the windows.
The Academy had snow all over it, like a big frosted cake--of all the foods that made Menelyn feel spoiled, that was the one that made her feel spoiledest. In the plaza around the Academy, between it and Menelyn's new home, there were some people walking and playing in the snow, here and there, but not that many, probably since it was too early. Off in the distance, Ezenta's tall, gleaming blue walls were harder to see than usual, because of the snow-filled air, but the tops looked like they'd been traced with shiny white paint. Kind of like Menelyn's silvery pyjamas.
The dark wooden door to the hallway clicked open, to Menelyn's right, and father Azenum poked his head inside.
"Happy Solstice!" he said, smile as warm as the room. "Would you like to go check on your sister with me?"
Menelyn scurried over to the doorway, and took his hand.
"What did you think?" he asked. "Pretty?"
Menelyn nodded. "Pretty. Like cake."
Father Azenum chuckled. "Izena said you would think so. Careful on the stairs."
Menelyn nodded again, reached up to grab the dark wooden railing with her free hand, and went down one step at a time.
"Well done!" father Azenum praised her, when they reached the bottom. "Do it just like that, and you will be fine."
The Academy had lots of big, fancy staircases, just like this one.
"Would you like to visit, one more time, before tomorrow?" Tomorrow would be the first day of the year, and the first day of classes. "After breakfast?"
Going to the Academy made Menelyn nervous. It had those big staircases, and also really high ceilings, and giant windows, and too many hallways to keep track of, but the biggest problem was it was full of mages, and mages stared at her even more than normal people did. But she had to put up with it, so she could learn, or else she'd stay as useless as she had been to Mama.
"Izena will come?" Menelyn asked, just outside the kitchen. It helped that Izena got stared at, too.
"Of course I will! I'm your sister!" Izena answered, as they walked inside. "Where are we going? The Academy?"
Menelyn's big sister was seated on a stool, hunched over a moist black cake on the countertop. It looked as tasty as the whole house smelled. Izena's hands were close to the cake, like she was checking whether it was cool enough to eat, but Menelyn knew better: her sister was actually baking it! With magic!
"Didn't the city remind you of a frosted cake?" Izena was grinning at her. "Want some?"
After father Azenum released her hand, Menelyn scampered over next to her sister and stood on her tiptoes.
"How do you get it so perfect?" she wondered, hushed by awe. And drooling.
Izena's irises were so dark black that her pupils looked like shiny spots in the center. Smiling like she knew a special secret, she swung her eyes toward the cake, then back to Menelyn.
"Simple. I give cakes a choice: either they cook perfectly, or I burn them to ashes." Izena shrugged. "They usually choose wisely."
Menelyn nodded slowly to herself. Smart cakes.
"But I have a problem," Izena continued. "You know how the snow is so sparkly?"
"Like shiny paint," Menelyn agreed.
"Exactly. No matter what I do, I cannot make my frosting shiny enough." Izena pointed over her shoulder to a bowl of creamy whipped whiteness that Menelyn hadn't noticed. "If only I had a super shiny liquid to mix in. It would be just perfect."
Menelyn looked over at father Azenum. He was beaming at them both.
"Go ahead, just like you practiced," he urged. "Take a deep breath, and squeeeeeze through your palm."
Menelyn swallowed, turned toward the bowl, and after two beats of hesitation, moved over to it. Standing on her tiptoes, she stretched her right hand up, and squeeezed...but nothing happened.
"With your mind, not your muscles," father encouraged softly. "Try 'breathing' first, to remember the feeling. Feel the mana going into your pool, and out. Filling....and emptying...In...and out...Just breathe. And once you have that feeling, once you feel the mana...squeeze."
Menelyn just breathed, deep breaths with her actual lungs, until she could make out the feeling of her magic 'breathing,' too.
"That's it! You have it! Now, squeeze the mana through your palm. Just like yesterday."
Menelyn imagined pushing the 'air' inside her magic lungs down her arm and out through her palm, like squeezing frosting from a tube. Within a few seconds, a glob of liquid light dropped into the bowl, falling just slowly enough to look off.
As soon as the glob came out, Menelyn's hand jumped back to her shoulder, as if she'd burned herself. She still couldn't believe that she could actually do it. It was way too magical.
"Perfect!" Izena squealed, and squeezed the air out of Menelyn from behind. "So, cake for breakfast?"
Father chuckled. "It is Solstice, I suppose. But let's at least put some fruit on top, so I can pretend my daughters are getting proper nutrition." He tilted his head and frowned at nothing. "Actually, with that much white mana...it's probably not bad, on the whole."
When Izena finished spreading the shiny frosting, Menelyn stared wide-eyed. The cake went beyond shiny snow--it was like a block carved from light! But even though the cake was so pretty, Menelyn only felt a little sad when father started cutting a slice. Mostly, she felt ultra-spoiledest.
"Mmm!" Izena hummed, licking frosting off her fingertips. "Tastes like happiness!"
Menelyn nodded.
As they crossed the plaza, with her sister holding one hand and their father holding the other, Menelyn could feel Izena staring at her. Was there a piece of cake on her face? It wasn't until they were inside the Academy that she learned the real reason.
"My little sister is the cutest," Izena wheezed, after the door thumped shut behind them. "The cutest ever. Mine. The absolute cutest."
Menelyn blushed toward her fluffy white boots and took her time stomping the snow off. Today, Izena had dressed them both in all-white, with matching clingy wool hats and quilted snowsuit skirt things, and...well...Menelyn's sister had called her a "little snow fairy," in front of the mirror, and she couldn't argue. The silvery hair was what really did it.
"The snowflakes in your hair are pretty," Menelyn tried to counter. The darkest black hair that ever existed spilled out from under her big sister's hat, all the way down her back, and there were little white sparkles caught all over it.
Izena smirked, posed, and batted long, black lashes dusted with white sparkles.
Menelyn was frozen by awe.
Their father chuckled.
"Azenum!" a voice boomed across the entry hall of the Academy. "Izena! Happy Solstice! And who's this?"
Menelyn barely managed to swallow a yelp, and ducked behind her father's long black coat.
"Broko!" Azenum called back, and waved. Menelyn could see that her sister was also waving, with a big smile, so she dared to poke her head out of hiding.
The man approaching them was tall and large--muscular--and he was probably about the same age as father Azenum, but his coat was green instead of black, and his hair was brown, except for hints of deep evergreen that Menelyn had learned were mage-signs, invisible to normal people. Most mages she had seen were blue or black. White like her was rare. Green was even rarer.
At first, this green mage had a big smile, but it faded to shock not long after Menelyn leaned back into view.
"Azenum..." the mage repeated, his voice now strained and quiet. "Who?...Where?..."
"This is Menelyn." Father Azenum patted the top of Menelyn's hat. "She's from the far south--a small village in the north of Kanenn. She will be living with us now."
"My little sister," Izena added.
"...Ah..." The big man deflated. "...Ah..."
He crouched, and gave Menelyn a little wave. "Does miss Menelyn speak Ezentic?"
"Just about fluently," father answered. "Menelyn, this is master green mage Broko Elur. You can see the Elur house from your window--it's the green one. He's an old friend of mine, and a helper."
"Hello," Menelyn murmured. "I'm white."
"Oh, there's never been a mage who couldn't see that, young lady," master Broko told her gently. "You're...it's hard to believe you're real. Will you be starting here tomorrow?"
Menelyn nodded. "So I can help."
Master Broko grimaced. "I am ashamed to admit that we grown-ups will need it. But you should know that you're already helping."
Menelyn shook her head. "Couldn't help Mama," she mumbled, and tried not to cry.
"Neither could I, and for that, I am so, so sorry," master Broko said. "But you are helping, and I will tell you how. Just like you, I have seen firsthand what so many around here want to pretend isn't happening in the south, and I know that I am not strong enough to stop it. After the Solstice, and the start of the new year, I'll be headed back to the south, and I will leave knowing that all we need to do is hold on for long enough, and we will win. Time is on our side. And that's because you, and your big sister, are here"--he pointed to the floor of the Academy--"learning and growing. And that is a great help. A very great help. So, focus on your studies. If you do that, you are a helper. Alright?"
He stood back up. Menelyn kept trying not to cry, and clenched her fists.
Tomorrow.
It would start tomorrow.
She would be the best.
Never useless, ever again.
"He's exactly right," father Azenum agreed, giving his friend a little bow. "I assume we have your timely arrival to thank for our snowy Solstice?"
The master green mage went from solemn to grinning, and did a bigger and fancier bow. "Ezenta's streak won't end while I have anything to say about it, I promise you that! A thousand snowy Solstices, and a thousand more to come!"
Menelyn had already been mulling an idea, and hesitating, but after hearing that, she was determined.
She 'breathed,' and 'breathed,' then took as deep a 'breath' as she could, cupped her hands, and squeezed her liquid light out. Even after it overflowed onto the floor, she kept squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.
This was the most magical thing she knew how to do. So far.
Master Broko watched the puddle of light spread across the floor.
"...The days are darkest just before they brighten," he muttered.
"Indeed..." Father Azenum patted the top of Menelyn's hat again. Izena was smirking with pride. "I assume the front has stabilized, if you're here?"
His friend sighed. "Merely another consolidation phase, I expect. At every one of these pauses, the fools keep managing to convince themselves that this time he'll be content, but withwhat? He offers no terms, no manifesto, no indication of his purpose, no communication of any kind. What is he doing, behind the lines? Everyone who knew him here describes the same man: a bookworm with a soft spot for injured animals, about as strong as me. Now? I can't distinguish fact from hysterical nonsense in non-mages' accounts, and still no--"
Suddenly, the green mage realized he was saying too much.
"I'm sorry, girls. I shouldn't speak of such things. Focus on your studies."
"I have burned as many of Oscanion's minions as anyone," Izena insisted. "And my little sister is afraid because she doesn't know things. Hiding the facts will not help her."
There was always a blackness around Izena, following her everywhere, and right now, she seemed extra dark black. Menelyn's skin was tingling, and her palms were wet. Somehow, deep inside, she just knew that this girl in front of her could burn the entire city to ashes, wall-to-wall, with a thought. Any time she wanted.
Instead, she got up early to make yummy cake.
Menelyn's big sister really was the coolest. The coolest ever. Hers. The absolute coolest. Also the prettiest.
'If the bad guys come, I will break them.'
There really was nothing to be afraid of.
Menelyn checked that her silvery hair was nice and straight and down her back, like it was supposed to be, and stood next to her sister, trying her best to look just as fearsome.
She tried her best, alright?
Father Azenum took a single deep breath.
"Broko, reality demands our answer to an outrageous question: How many cities are my daughters' childhoods worth? How many millions?" For the first time since the camp, Menelyn watched her father wipe away tears. "They want to hear, so speak freely. I already told Menelyn that Oscanion targets mages. Izena is right. Worrying about the unknown is worse."
Master Broko briefly stared at his friend, then crouched again, and searched both sisters' eyes.
"I was about to say that still, to this day, no mage has ever been able to get close to Oscanion and live to tell anyone about it, which means we don't know the answers to important questions. Oscanion suddenly became much stronger. How much stronger, and how did he do it? We don't know. Oscanion casts spells that no one has ever seen. Are there more that he has so far kept secret? We don't know. When you decide that you are ready to fight him, we won't be able to stop you, no one will, but you had better be very sure that you are ready. So, focus on your studies."
On Ezenta's first snowless Solstice in a thousand years, Menelyn had bawled Her eyes out. So had Izena. And the next day, they'd returned to their studies.
Over the millennia, the dates of the solstices had swung around the calendar. In fact, winter and summer had almost finished swapping. And the winter solstice was no longer tied to the new year, anyway; in the Age of the Goddesses, that special day was the anniversary of the final victory in the original laboratory at World's End. Ezenta's Temple of the Liberation now filled the Academy's former site and purpose, and Ezenta's utterly ancient walls, today only marking the edge of the city's historic core, could no longer be seen through the dense forest of towers surrounding the Temple plaza.
But both the Corza and Elur homes sat intact, right where they'd always been.
And Ezenta's current streak of snowy Solstices stood at 8418.
Soon, 8419.
"Remember, not just any snowstorm will do," called the master green mage in charge of fifteenth-year instruction. "Light, and fluffy! No wind, and just barely cold enough for accumulation! You must cast with precision, and harmonize!"
Ancient tradition dictated that the most senior cohort of green mages assemble in the plaza and cast the spell together.
Menelyn and Izena watched from the Temple's entrance. Today, They had picked a flowing, full-sleeve black gown embroidered with snowflakes of Light, along with snowflake bracelets, a snowflake necklace, and dangly snowflake earrings. And low, closed-toe heels of Light--Kennalaria had insisted that any other choice with this outfit would constitute a fashion disaster.
Many of the students kept sneaking nervous glances. Imagine, if after 8418 years, it was this class that called a howling blizzard! Or even freezing rain!
Menelyn waved, smiled gently, and gestured for the nervous students to focus on their studies.
"Relax!" Izena called out to them. "If you mess up, I will vaporize whatever storm you summon, and you can try again!"
Another day, another eye-roll.