I awaken with a jolt as the carriage sways to a stop. We’ve stopped twice today already, once to eat a meal around midday, and once in the afternoon for the horses. 

Staring blindly out of the window into the fading twilight, I realize to my slight horror, that we are not at our final destination. I hope we are not, at any rate, for there’s nothing outside but woods. I glance at my companions, and Sartra, though looking wan and pale herself, smiles faintly, while Bani begins to reach for packages beneath the seat.

“Stop?” I hazard, enunciating the strange word carefully. “Arvost?”

Sartra bows her head in assent. “ Yes, Damaya Safia. Vesti. Sleep.” She gestures for me to wait as she sees me move to get up. I sit back down on the edge of the seat, unable to relax. I’m being sent away obviously as some kind of punishment for my attack on that vile Astan. Yet it seems unlikely that they would send me to my death or some kind of abandonment if the two servants have been sent with me. It makes no sense. None of this.

Then again, there’s no saying what customs this society has. I think briefly of all those ancient cultures that would bury alive the staff serving a recently deceased king. Didn’t the ancient Egyptians do that?

But this is no ancient Egypt. For all I can tell, I’m not even sure if I’ve time-traveled to some ancient place on Earth, made even less likely by the fact that I can see not one, but three orbiting moons at night. Or orbiting somethings. Moons, planets, I don’t know. One is big and crater-y like our moon and a pale yellow, and the other two are smaller and more pinkish. Plus, a thick white band of stars that must be the arm of the galaxy we sit in, except it’s so much brighter than our Milky Way.

There are strange similarities, though. Plants, animals, even some foods. And while the country I’m in doesn’t match any in Earth’s history that I’ve heard of, it’s populated by humans more or less like ours. It’s like an alternate reality, our world but hyped up. Which is maybe a good case to make for this all being a coma dream.

Finally there’s a knock at the door of the carriage, and the door is swung open. Sartra nods to me, then, and I get up, gathering my robes to step through the doorway. With the help of the guard, I alight on the ground and look about me in the gathering gloom.

A fire has been lit, and surrounding its glow a small grouping of tents has been pitched. Guards move swiftly about, carrying firewood, blankets, caskets of wine, cheeses and fruit. A few fresh hares, caught earlier in the day, have been cleaned and prepared and now are roasting on a spit over the fire.

Sartra and Bani lead me over to one of the tents, which is spacious and covered in thick carpets and cushions. At least if they mean to leave me here to die, I get to do it while glamping. Two guards are entering now, carrying trunks between them, and Bani orders them about. They drop them in a corner, presumably at her behest, then leave the three of us to get settled for the evening.

After dinner, I sit on a low log by the fire and watch the flames, letting the relaxed chatter around me recede into the darkening night. Something about a campfire soothes me, our most basic and primal of comforts. For the first time since we set off, I let the warmth and the gentle crackle fill me and calm me.

There’s a slight twinge in my belly and suddenly I’m aware of how much my body aches from travel. My lower back is so sore, but I’m too tired to stand up and turn my back to the fire.

Some time passes like this before Bani materializes from the darkness and approaches me, touching me gently on the shoulder. I rise and follow her, with a surreal sense of my every movement. It’s like I’m watching myself from the outside, falling into line with these strange people and this unorthodox journey I’ve been thrown into. As if any of this makes sense.

As soon as I start walking, I halt slightly, realizing with inward sigh why I’ve been so very achey today. “Bani,” I say a bit urgently, “my—”

I break off. Shit, what’s the word in Verunian for a period, again? I should have written this one down. Probably something old timey. “My…woman time?” I gaze imploringly at her, hoping she’ll get it. She tilts her head in incomprehension and smiles at me reassuringly, patting my arm. Damn it.

Hastily, I gather up my skirts and crouch down on a patch of grassy ground uncovered by carpets so I won’t bleed all over everything, and Bani stares at me as if I’m crazy. She must think I’m about to do my business right here in front of her, but I’m stumped on how else to tell her.

After a few moments, though, something seems to click in her mind and her eyes snap in comprehension. She begins to root around the trunks in a purposeful way that gives me hope. Across the tent, Sartra looks up from where she’s been combing through her long hair with a bowl of fragrant water set on a little table. She points at one of the trunks. “In that one, Bani.”

God, I really do feel like a baby, needing everything handed to me. But I don’t know where anything is packed, and if I keep moving it’s going to be literally a bloody mess. In a moment Bani hands me a bundle of cloth and a braided belt, and I take them, thanking her.

My personal, though limited, hygienic needs attended to, I crawl under the blankets laid out for me in between Sartra’s and Bani’s sleeping pallets. It wasn’t lost on me, either, that a guard is posted outside of our tent. As if I’d have anywhere to run to.

The mind is strange—strangely adaptable. Maybe the heart, too. Almost as soon as I close my eyes, do I drift off into a deep sleep and a dream in which I can’t seem to stop running. Beside me runs the heavy tread of some great animal, but I can’t tell if I’m running from it, or with it.

For a week, we continue at this pace, stopping every day as the sun begins to sink, making our camp, and then rising the next morning to continue onward, drawing ever further north.

The air grows colder, and the land begins to change, the deep and dense forests giving way to meadowlands and marshes. We approach what look like little villages or hamlets, but they look so rough and humble. We merely march onward, and I stare out the window back at the curious villagers who stop in their work to watch us pass. To the far west, I think perhaps I might be seeing the sea, but it’s too hazy to tell. Ahead of us, the meadows roll on in seemingly endless hills, with scatterings of trees and the occasional stream.

Bani sits beside me every day and has kept up a more or less constant stream of chatter that I drift in and out of attending to, but she doesn’t seem to mind. I can’t always understand her, anyway. My knowledge of Verunian is still pretty limited.

I wonder if they even speak Verunian wherever we’re going. Still, her pleasant moods are uplifting and keep me from total despair even if half of what she says is a mystery.

Sartra, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to benefit much from her companion’s cheerfulness. Oh, she’s endlessly polite and even kind, if distant. But she seems continually lost in her own thoughts, lapsing back into silence at most opportunities and staring out the window while a book lies unread in her lap.

Once or twice she’s caught my eye, and I look away guiltily as if I’ve intruded on something private. I think I have, to be honest. There was a definitely a vibe between her and Brevir as we were leaving.

But it’s none of my business, I suppose. I do feel bad that she’s been saddled with the task of accompanying me. She is so obviously not a servant. But I didn’t have much choice in that either, did I? So.

And meanwhile we travel on and on and on. I’ve lost count of our progress, to be totally honest. I think it’s by the eighth or ninth day that the meadows have distinctively become tundra, and we finally hit our first snows.

Our little caravan comes to a halt, and the servants and I are allowed down to stretch our legs while the carriages are rolled onto and secured to sledge runners. I’m impressed to realize that they were affixed the whole time beneath our carriages.

Sartra and Bani are busy at our trunks, pulling out thicker cloaks for us to wear, and heavy blankets to lay across our laps.

I take a pile and am turning to lift it into the carriage when suddenly a shout erupts from within the camp. Several of the guards’s heads turn swiftly, their hands at the hilts of their swords, voices rising. One guard is pointing at something in the distance. I follow where he’s pointing and my breath catches in my throat.

“Borni!” Sartra grabs my arm and I nearly drop everything. She and Bani hurriedly pull me back towards the carriage, while I crane my neck, trying to get another glimpse. A guard shuts the door firmly on us. Quickly, I lean out the window to see, but I can’t make out anything.

But I’m sure it is what I thought it saw. Borni. Bear.

But it wasn’t like any polar bear I’ve ever heard of, absolutely huge, and its coat so white and rich that it seems almost silver, or blue, difficult to tell in the fading light.

Guards are moving swiftly now to pack up, and in a few minutes we’ve started traveling again. Through the carriage window, I can see a few guards flanking our procession on horseback, their swords still drawn at the ready. But I can’t see the bear.

About twenty minutes pass. Eventually, they exchange a few words with each other and resheathe their weapons, and the tone of the party seems to calm. Gradually, my nerves begin to relax. It seems this bear had other prey on its mind, or else was too far away to notice us.

Three more days at this rate pass, till I begin to wonder if we will ever stop traveling, and what on earth these people are doing with me. Half-hours pass together where my chest becomes tight with anxiety at the unknown, and my thoughts grow wild. It’s all an elaborate sacrifice, and I’m the offering for some foreign god.

Then my thoughts turn to yet again disbelieving wonder that I am here, in a real and tangible place that feels like a fantasy come to life. My arm is riddled with fingernail marks from pinching myself. It’s possible I need to hit my head really hard to wake myself up, but I’m afraid to try.

But every new moment brings with it some fresh wonder as we travel ever onward, and this itself is such a distraction that for spells of time I forget that I am anywhere but where I’m supposed to be.

The landscape has become a wintry sea of white, cold and remote yet strikingly beautiful. In the distance, I gaze upon staggering mountains almost blue.

The sky is the most breathtaking, with stars so sharp and clear, and the three moons that hang above us like a trio of sisters. They range in size, forming a loose triangle across the sky. I wonder what ratios of mass and gravity keep them all orbiting in harmony.

Each night, we make camp now over the snow, with straw stuffed beneath the carpets of our tents for better protection from the cold ground. I wake up each morning shivering, and usually find that Bani has stolen the blankets.

Today, though, something is finally different. After several hours of pacing through the snow, we arrive at a small settlement made up of a cluster of wooden buildings, and fenced in areas where cattle and pigs are gathered.

A woman and her daughter pause in their work of filling a pig trough to stare at me, and the little girl points and says something. The woman grabs her hand and pulls her towards a house, glancing back at me warily.

But the sight of any kind of civilization is so welcoming, I almost don’t care where we are, or what these people think of me. I just want to be inside somewhere warm.

My heart soars even more when the carriage door opens, and the guards guide us towards one of the larger buildings, what must be an inn or tavern, with a welcoming column of smoke rising from the wind eye in the center of the roof, promising warmth and hot food inside.

I follow Sartra and Bani into the inn, and sure enough, once we step through the doors we’re greeted by a long, low and wide fire pit stretched across the center of the floor, with benches clustered round. Dried herbs and flowers hang in bunches above it from the ceiling, giving off a sweet, smoky aroma that soothes my aching head from travel.

Several men look up in surprise at our party, and voice a question to us in a foreign tongue. One of the guards replies in the same language in ringing tones of authority.

Across the room I see a man emerging out from behind an alcove lined with barrels, stacked wheels of cheese, and casks of something I would very much like a drop of.

The man approaches us warily and gives a quick nod. I can’t help staring at him for a moment. Like the men camped round the fire, this man is tall and strongly built. He looks middle aged, possibly, with sandy brown hair pulled back from his temples in fine braids, and a thick, stout beard. His hairy forearms are strong as an ox’s. He’s wearing a knee-length tunic roughly embroidered at the neckline, with a leather belt around his waist holding several compartments, serviceable trousers, and leather boots trimmed with fur.

He regards our party, our fine clothes and guards standing at attention, and seems to make a snap decision. He gestures to the fire, and Sartra touches my arm gently and says “Sit and eat, Damaya Safia.”

I sink gratefully onto one of the benches and Bani hands me a wooden cup full of something warm. I sniff. Oooh yes. Hot mead. Wonderful. I drink deeply, easing my shoulders. Imagine sleeping in a bed tonight. What a luxury.

I barely remember but somehow I’m guided towards a bed in a little room off to the side and sink gratefully to sleep, Sartra and Bani on either side of me.

It is early morning and I’m deep in a dream.

Strange, it is the silver-white bear, the one we saw a few days ago—but now it wears a crown and I walk beside it through the deep snows as if in a royal procession. I reach up, and discover that I, too, am wearing a crown. Only my crown is made of flowers and vines, and across the thick whiteness of the landscape, deep blue flowers have burst through the snow in a lush carpet of color.

Sartra wakes me early and bids me to get up. She’s already dressed and looks as fresh and cool as a queen. Across the room, Bani yawns sleepily across the room as she fastens her gown. Sleepy and disoriented, I sit up on the bed and look about the room.

Strangely, the room is lit only by the fire, but every surface seems to glow with a distinctive outline. I blink and my vision clears, and everything focuses as normal. I rub my eyes. I’m probably still tired from yesterday’s journey.

Then my eyes land on a large wooden tub in the corner of the room by the fire, with steam rising from it. I nearly swoon.

A bath! After nearly two weeks of travel without one, the sight of it almost makes me cry. Why I’m being offered one now is anyone’s guess, but I’m not about to pass up the opportunity. Quickly I throw off my nightgown, shivering in the cold but barely caring about that anymore or even any sense of modesty. Gratefully, I sink into the hot tub and sigh in pleasure.

I wish I could stay in that hot tub all day soaking, but Sartra and Bani seem impatient, and anyway, the water is growing tepid. Reluctantly, I stand up and step out onto the carpeted ground, wrapping myself in a thick towel.

Bani stands ready with an undergown of some kind that looks much nicer than what I’ve been wearing thus far. I blink, looking at it more closely. It’s a gorgeous, creamy kind of silk, with tucks and gathers around the bust to naturally curve around the body, and little embroidered details. I slip it on, and it feels surprisingly warm. This is…unexpected.

Still tired, I am not really processing why the change in clothing as Sartra hands me a pair of warm stockings to slip on, then a pair of fur-lined boots. Then the strangeness truly begins, for Sartra and Bani take out clothes of even greater extravagance.

A gown of silky golden material, with a scooped neckline that sweeps beneath my breasts to reveal the creamy white chemise beneath. Trailing sleeves tie in little intervals up the arms, leaving more little openings to reveal the chemise. No wonder I’m wearing such a fine one, since it seems more intended to be shown than hidden.

Sartra turns around and bends to a chair, picking up a thick, fur-lined robe or overdress with deep sleeve openings. I slip it on almost like a vest, and hook the finely-wrought silver clasps. Bani then sets up a small mirror on the trunk for me to admire myself, and I give my somewhat confused approval.

The strangeness of my journey only grows more mystifying with this new effort to make me look good in the middle of a snowy tundra. The idea of concubinage comes to mind again, but the further we drive into the wilderness the more this seems a little ludicrous. I mean, who even lives out here? A local lord, maybe? All that I can imagine is some tiny wood cottage, occupied by a little old hermit.

As I muse on these questions, the servants are likewise doing new and fancy things to my hair, sweeping it back from my forehead with jeweled pins and intricate braids, then setting a finely netted cap of gold thread over my head, weaving my hair into it.

But then Sartra produces a veil, and somehow this minor element to the costume makes the odds in favor of concubinage seem to triple. My stomach plummets as she secures the gossamer-thin veil to the cap, folding back and draping the fabric behind me.

Fuck fuck fuck. How did I possibly let my guard down at any point on this journey? What kind of idiot have I been? But then, where was I supposed to go?

I sit frozen in slight disbelief as Bani expertly dabs kohl around my eyes, then adds some rosy salve to my lips and cheeks. Makeup? This is an even worse sign. No one bothered with makeup, not even when I was back in the palace.

Now we are back in the carriage, which I seem to have returned to with no memory of it as I have now devolved into having an out-of-body experience. My mind is churning as it rumbles over the snow, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. I need to not panic. I’m not necessarily right, after all. There’s absolutely no reason to suppose that any customs from my world would be done over here.

What’s a veil, after all? A dozen different symbols for a dozen cultures. I mean, it’s really cold here. A veil would be super helpful for blocking the wind. Yes, the wind.

But all the evidence is pointing one way. Sartra and Bani aren’t veiled today, though they have both since bathed as well, and dressed with particular care today. And here I am, in a carriage procession, on my way to…something.

The next few hours pass in a blur as I stare blindly ahead and contemplate what lies in store for me. I’m going to be sold into slavery. I’m the key sacrifice in an ancient ritual that guarantees a good harvest. I’m being pawned off as a concubine in exchange for something—maybe, furs? Or salt.

We’re skirting the feet of snowy mountains that rise all around us. At some point we cross over a river on a well-made stone bridge. At another point, I almost think I’ve seen the silver bear again, tracking us in parallel along the edge of the treeline up the side of the mountain. But no one else shouts or hurries us along, and I wonder if it’s just in my imagination.

Then suddenly, we turn round a bend, and my view from the carriage window shifts, making me start forward.

Before us stretch miles of staggering, craggy cliffs, their snowy slopes dazzling in the mid-day sun. And curving around their base in a graceful and meandering arc, flows the most crystal blue water I’ve ever seen. A fjord. I’m fixated by every detail I take in, for my violet eyes seem able to focus on every striation and craggy surface of the cliffs, every facet of rippling water in the fjord. I’ve never seen with such clear detail before and for a moment, it takes my breath away.

But it’s not merely the arresting beauty of the land that makes my breath catch in my throat. It’s what lies within it, startling in its suddenness after days of wilderness. A civilization.

No, not merely a civilization—a city of stone, as if carved from the mountain itself, just by itself here in the middle of nowhere.

It rises out of the mountain, surrounded by a thick stone wall, obscuring all but the uneven rooftops of many, many buildings. And one building in particular—a tower, deep within its confines, seems to rise straight from the depths of the earth, tall, proud and controlled.

Cut into the mountainside, stone steps wind down from the city towards a harbor lining the far shoreline, with wooden boathouses and piers, and tumbling stone buildings with steeply pitched roofs and faint plumes of smoke rising from their center. Vessels of varying sizes and shapes bob slowly in the water, from simple dinghies to real ships or longboats.

Connecting the stone city to the other side of the fjord is a great stone bridge, an astonishing feat of architecture in what otherwise feels like a medieval land. But I remind myself that this place is not from our past. There’s no saying what the history of this people may be, whoever they are. Or what advancements they might have.

And now my heart really is fluttering, my stomach churning, for it all suddenly sinks into place that this is my final destination. And I seem to have tacitly agreed to an arrangement that I may not be able to get out of so easily.