Maertyn stepped into the hall outside the heavy, carved door. Afternoon sunlight slanted through the wide glass windows onto the carpeted floors. Students dressed in dark robes walked the halls, hurrying to their rooms with armfuls of books and papers clutched to their chests. The dark robes and the long lines of shadow cast by the light from the windows reminded Maertyn of the mages in their hoods.

　　The snooty boy, Gruffydd, left a servant in the hall to wait for him. The servant led Maertyn down the halls, and up a narrow staircase. Here, there were other men rushing between rooms, but they were dressed in clothes like his—plain, ordinary—and all carrying bedsheets and baskets. Servants to the students, moving among the grandeur unseen.

　　The doors led to a series of antechambers, each as well-appointed as Maertyn`s room had been, with bookshelves and low tables full of decorative objects. Men in student`s robes and a few dressed in finer velvets and furs lurked here, making a show of reading the books or lounging in front of the fires to talk quietly. They looked up to watch Maertyn pass and then glanced away again when they realized he was dressed like the servants. Someone who could not enhance their own importance.

　　Prince Anryn was in one of the deeper rooms, the walls papered over with maps and handwritten notes. She stood on a stool at the center of the room while men pulled and tugged at the clothes she wore. They were fitting her with a mail shirt made of shining gold links, and white creased linen trousers beneath it so bright, it rekindled Maertyn`s headache.

　　Dressed and clean, with a calmer look on her face than Maertyn was used to seeing, Anryn no longer looked like a girl. Had Maertyn met the Prince of Ammar on the road dressed like that, he might never have noticed the curse. Especially if he`d been drinking.

　　"Master Blackfire," Anryn greeted him. "I would like to present you to Griff, son of Lord Gruffydd, my oldest friend and groomsmen. Griff, this is Maertyn Blackfire. If not for him, I would be dead. And if not for your father, Griff, I would kick you out of the wedding and make him my groomsman!"

　　Gruffydd was there, too. Maertyn was surprised to see he wore nearly the same outfit as Anryn, only in silver. The jacket showed off his shoulders. The white made his wispy beard more obvious. Maertyn almost laughed. He didn`t even need the Sight to see the jealousy radiating between the two.

　　"You found this man outside Dorland?" said Griff, turning to face Maertyn, studying him. "Look at his shoulders! You could yolk him like an ox. You`ll never find a tailor and an armorer in all of Ammar who could let out my suit far enough to fit him."

　　"I would need different pants," Maertyn agreed.

　　Griff squinted at him, trying to decide if he was being mocked. Maertyn stared back, wondering how much the bearded boy could drink. He almost asked Griff this very question, but Maertyn remembered that he was among lords. The actual heir to the kingdom just in front of him. Suddenly tongue-tied, Maertyn held his peace.

　　"Stop glaring at him, Griff. I was only joking," said Anryn. "But you should be thanking him. Unless& you`re not happy to see me alive?"

　　"Do you think you`re being funny, Ryn?" said Griff. "Of course I am glad you`re alive. Though I don`t understand what you were doing wandering around the countryside with this& peasant when you knew Dorland was destroyed. Everyone was worried sick."

　　Prince Anryn ground her teeth. She glanced at Maertyn, but she spoke to Griff. "Now I need to ask you something very, very serious, Griff& The men you hired—the ones who drove our sleigh that day. They were men who came with us to Dorland in your party& Did you hire them to kill me?"

　　Maertyn wondered whether he should leave. Then, it occurred to him that Anryn wanted him there while she confronted her friend. Just as she`d tried to hide behind him when they met the brigands at the bridge.

　　"What? That`s absurd," Griff said. "Ryn, are you sure you`re alright? You go missing for two weeks and then turn up here drunk, and babbling about assassins& There`s not even a scratch on you&"

　　"What, you don`t think that I couldn`t defend myself?" Anryn interrupted, her eyes flashing. "Say the word—we`ll duel it out in the club right now. I am a Prince of Ammar, and my words are like oaths. I do not exaggerate. Maertyn, tell him."

　　For the first time that day, Prince Anryn looked straight at Maertyn. This was more conversation than he`d had to listen to in decades. He`d forgotten the ebb and flow of it. Maertyn did not know what to say that would not get Anryn into some kind of trouble.

　　"There were two men," Maertyn began. He struggled not to use the words she or her, though they thrust their way into his head. "They chased the prince into my village."

　　"Ryn& Are you sure that they were assassins?" Griff asked. He looked hard at Anryn. "Maybe they were just angry locals, friends of the witch you burned?"

　　 "Not another word," Anryn shouted, her face darkening with fury. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Gruffydd! You haven`t believed a single thing I`ve said—especially not that you hired assassins, knowingly or not."

　　The tailors stood back from her. Anryn bore down on Gruffydd, stepping down from the stool right up to his face. She only came up to his chin.

　　"You should have gone to the witch trial yourself. You should have at least gone with me. And you didn`t even come to look for me&!" Anryn said. Her voice broke on the last bit, the furious yell thinning out into a whine.

　　"I thought you ran away!" Griff said. He stepped back so that he would not have to tilt his head down to meet her eye. "I thought that you went off somewhere to sulk and left me to sweat, worrying about what your father would say if he found out we went sledding instead of heading to Mahaut."

　　"I would never run away," Anryn said. "I`m not a coward. And I would rather die than disappoint my father."

　　Maertyn`s back started to itch. Griff bowed again to Anryn, lower and longer.

　　She spoke to the top of Griff`s head: "Peasant or no, Maertyn Blackfire has done more for me in a week than you have in the last month. I am very serious when I say I will make him a groomsman and demote you to usher. If I don`t throw you to my father, first."

　　"Your father would throw me right back," Griff said, still bowing. "We`re paying for two thirds of the wedding, and the entire cost of the feasts."

　　The boy has balls, Maertyn thought. No wonder Anryn was jealous.

　　"Well, then let us hope that your father vetted the caterers better than you vetted our sleigh drivers," Anryn said. She stood back from Griff. "The Lord Gruffydd may leave."

　　Griff stalked out, brushing past Maertyn on his way. Maertyn waited while Anryn had her wedding costume taken off. She stepped behind a screen and passed bits of it to attendants to tuck into trunks.

　　By then, the sunlight in the windows was fading. Maertyn could hear loud voices in the halls and down in the narrow alleys. Shouts and laughter as students left their last classes for the day and headed out to find halls for gaming and drinks. The fire in the fireplace had been rebuilt at some point during the fitting. Maertyn saw that there was bread and wine laid on the table by the fire. He marveled that servants could move so quietly between rooms without being noticed.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

　　The prince emerged from behind the screen. She wore a robe that left much of her chest bare. Maertyn thought that now she looked like a girl again. Softer, graceful.

　　"I need a drink," said Maertyn. He headed for the table.

　　"Leave that," the prince commanded. She pointed over at another low table by her canopied bed where a gold paper box wrapped in a green ribbon sat. "I think you`ll want this instead."

　　Bemused, Maertyn opened the box, and saw the deep brown color of a whiskey bottle crowned with a red wax seal. Drawing it out, he recognized the hand painted label with the image of four wolves howling at a crescent moon. A number inked in swirling gold script below the logo.

　　"You found it," Maertyn said. His face ached with a smile.

　　"Yes," Anryn said. "I am assured that it tastes much better than shoe leather. Though, it is older than the vintage you asked for. Seventy-five, not twenty."

　　"Still younger than me," Maertyn said. He went to open the cork and found it waxed over. He looked around for something to cut it with, and picked up the little knife brought to cut the bread.

　　"You`re going to drink it now?" the prince asked, watching Maertyn peel the wax.

　　"You want to join me?" Maertyn asked.

　　Anryn made a gesture of polite refusal. Maertyn pretended not to notice the line deepening between her eyebrows.

　　Feeling the cork between his thumb and forefinger pop free from the neck of the bottle, Maertyn danced a little jig. Four Wolves, a seventy-five-year vintage! And here he was drinking it in the presence of the future king. His father would never have believed it. A bottle of the twenty-year had cost the family his great-grandmother`s Nynomathian pocket watch. His family had bought that bottle for Maertyn as a wedding present.

　　Maertyn poured the caramel colored whiskey into a teacup. He paused, struck by the significance of the memory. He poured a dram into the second teacup and brought it to Prince Anryn.

　　"You have to drink it with me," Maertyn said. "For good luck. For your wedding."

　　Maertyn thought she might refuse. Anryn seemed to enjoy arguing, both with strangers and with friends. But—perhaps because it was him who asked—the prince went along with it. She took the teacup full of whiskey from him and drank when he did.

　　It slid down his throat like silk. He glanced at Anryn and saw her face mirroring his own smile. That feeling came again, then sense that the two of them had done this before. Then, the moment slipped away, and her mouth fell into a frown.

　　"Are you a witch, Maertyn Blackfire?" she asked. She said it so fast, he almost hadn`t heard her.

　　Maertyn felt the warmth of the whiskey fade. He drank another sip, but this one did not taste as good. It tasted like another night ahead of him that he would live to regret.

　　Prince Anryn held up her arm, pointing the back of her hand to him.

　　"When I met you, this arm was black and red from the elbow down," Anryn said. "Maertyn, I fell on a burning pyre. I had a knife stuck into my back. And then, somehow& I was whole again? Waking up in your house and drinking your whiskey? I am not stupid, Maertyn Blackfire. Only two kinds of people can do what you did for me: witches and mages. So, which are you?"

　　"Neither," Maertyn said. He stared into the caramel colored liquor and looked for his reflection. "Both."

　　"That`s not an answer," Prince Anryn said. She didn`t call Maertyn a liar, but he knew that no one would believe the truth if he told it to them. He would have to show her.

　　Maertyn set down his cup, pushed back the sleeves of the shirts he`d layered, knelt, and stuck his hand directly into the fire. Anryn started toward him, horrified. But he was already pulling his hand out. Maertyn held it up to her, fingers spread wide. Not even the hair on his arm was singed.

　　"I cannot be burnt," Maertyn told the prince. "I have been this way for more than fifty years, ever since I came back from Nynomath. I cannot drown, I cannot starve. My hair does not grow, I do not age."

　　He was surprised to hear himself say the words aloud. In all the years since the wreck of his life, Maertyn had told no one what had happened to him. There had been no one left to tell. And when he saw people in villages start to make the black stick dolls with the glass eyes meant to look like him, he resolved never to tell anyone.

　　Anryn knelt down beside him and took his hand, turning it over to examine Maertyn`s fingers, his palms. Her touch was like the rest of her, an uncanny mix of masculine and feminine, hard grip and soft skin.

　　The prince looked up into his face with that line of worry between her eyebrows. Maertyn couldn`t quite name the feelings it stirred in him, but he didn`t want her to worry.

　　"It is not all bad. I am home now. No one bothers me. I can drink all day long, if I want to. Want to see?" Maertyn reached for the whiskey.

　　"What? No—no, I don`t want to see you get drunk, not if you`re going to take your clothes off again," Anryn huffed. She let go of his hand. "Nothing bad happens to you when you drink, but what will happen to me?"

　　The prince stood and went to sit in a chair by the fire, half-collapsing into it. She propped an elbow on the arm of it and covered her mouth with her knuckles. Maertyn took the chair opposite and poured himself another cup of the rich people`s whiskey. He drank it and poured himself another.

　　"So you can drink yourself to death but never die. What else can you do?" Anryn said, at length. "You said that you see things. Can you& see who is trying to kill me?"

　　"Not unless they were standing right here thinking of doing it," Maertyn said. "I only See what is right in front of me, and sometimes even that does not work."

　　Maertyn had never mastered more than his own fire under the mages. Everything else—the Seeing, the Weaving—came from the curse. Those secrets of the mages were ones that Maertyn Blackfire stole straight from the people who ruined his life.

　　"And you see` me as a woman?" the prince asked. "Even now that you`ve seen& the rest of me."

　　"Yes," he said. "I can See you. I think that you are under a curse, like me, and your body is what it is, but it does not work the way that it is supposed to."

　　Even drunk, it was an outrageous thing to say. Anryn`s face flushed and that line between her brows grew even deeper as she glared at him. He realized, too late, that he had never apologized to her for the night before.

　　"Prove it." Anryn said. "Prove that I am cursed, or we`ll find out if you really can`t burn at the stake."

　　In all his years, Maertyn liked to think that he knew better than to let someone test him this way. Parents, priests, chatty bartenders& They all asked the question, each in their own way. Wanting to know what was wrong with him. Why he could not just keep still and never feel the place between light and shadow. They did not understand that once the seam was torn open, it could not be closed again.

　　Words could be no answer, here. Maertyn would have to show instead of tell. "Does that window open?"

　　Anryn went to the window while Maertyn gathered together the rest of what he would need. He took a silver tray from one of the tables and put it on the ground by the fire. He went to the window and took a handful of snow from the windowsill and set it on the tray to melt. Then he went to take herbs from the vases in the room, crushing them between his fingers to bring out their scent.

　　When the moon rose high, and its light filtered through the open window, he sifted the crushed herbs onto the melted snow in the tray. He said aloud the stolen words inside his head that had been learned by someone else, in a language he did not even know.

　　To test the spell, he held his hand out over the tray. The melted snow cast a reflective sheen over the silver that shimmered and resolved into a crystal-clear image. He and Anryn could both See Maertyn`s hand reflected: gnarled, spotted, and wrinkled. Easily eighty-years-old.

　　Anryn crouched down by the Seeing mirror. She took his hand again in her strong grip. Turning it over in her hands, poking his wrists, trying to find the trick.

　　There wasn`t one. Maertyn took his hand away from her.

　　"Now you," he said.

　　The prince leaned down to look into the Seeing mirror. The face that stared back from the mirror was the Prince of Ammar`s. The same eyes, the same cheeks, and nose. What was different was the way they all fit together. The hard angles smoothed into round lines. The cheeks were fuller, the lips more plump. The hair was the most striking difference; it hung around her face in long black locks that shone in the light from the fireplace.

　　The prince sat back on her heels and shook her head, flinching. "That`s& nonsense. Just some mean parlor trick."

　　"Look at the rest of you," said Maertyn.

　　Anryn glanced down at the mirror. Maertyn looked too, unable to resist his curiosity. Sure enough, where the prince`s robe fell open at the chest, there were two full curves disappearing beneath the silk collar. They heaved when Anryn inhaled sharply.

　　Maertyn sat back and watched Anryn`s face. It reddened, then purpled. Scarlet bloomed over her lip. It spread to her hands when she pressed them to her nose, squeezing to catch the blood. Maertyn started to reach for her, but she jerked away from him.

　　Anryn jumped to her feet. With a furious kick, she sent the Seeing mirror skittering into the fire.

　　"Get out, Goddamn you," she said. When he did not rise quickly enough, she shouted, "Maertyn Blackfire may leave."

　　The doors to the room were thrown open. Attendants hurried in to usher him out and see to the Prince of Ammar`s nosebleed. Maertyn remembered to grab the bottle of Four Wolves on his way out.