[Super rough draft]

He found her in The Garden.

She was in the Winter quadrant, seated on a bench that overlooked a vast, placid mirror pool. The ground was pristine with snow, and there was a chill on the air. It should have been colder, by all rights, but the enchantments that maintained the artificial seasons within the bounds of the park-cum-holy site had been wrought with a degree of comfort in mind.

It always surprised him how beautiful his mother was. She was full of figure, with skin the color of teak. Her hair was a burst of autumn color- leaves in russet and yellow, orange and crimson. She kept it tied back to fall neatly to the small of her back. She didn't look away from the pool as he made his silent approach and sat down beside her on the bench. He couldn't help but feel like a little boy, awkward and uncertain.

“Oran,” she finally said. They'd been gazing at the pool in silence since he sat. She reached out, laying her hand gently on his shoulder, but then pulled it back when she felt him tense at her touch.

“You're angry.”

It was delivered as a diagnosis, as angry were an ailment with a simple cure. To most members of The Seasonal Path, the faith within she was a high priestess, it was. Mastery of emotion was one of the first paths walked, and it was one that Lioran had never even set foot upon. He continued staring at the mirror pool. There were so many things he wanted to say jostling against one another to get out that they got caught up and stuck, unable to fit through his mouth .

“Do you remember when your brother fell in the pool?” She was using her parable voice, the same gnostic tone that had brought so many Fae into the fold of the Path and kept them upon it.

He did remember. He and Sylvas had been young, so young he wasn't sure how old they'd been. The Garden had been their favorite place, and why not? They could tire themselves out playing hide and find in the tall forest of Summer and then race through Autumn, scattering fallen leaves in their wake before they arrived in Winter to build themselves a palace out of snow. Two little boys, impossible at that point to tell apart. One the planner, the other a creature of action. No, Lioran, the tower should go there. The moat needs to be deeper. The walls need to be thicker.

They had abandoned building that day. They were scooping up handfuls of snow, packing them down, hurling them at one another. Their laughter rang throughout the park, but not even the most devout would deny them their fun. They were twins, and among the Fae, that meant something. They were one soul in two bodies, a living lesson in the divine. Lioran was chasing Sylvas, and Sylvas tripped, stumbled, fell into the mirror pool.

It was much deeper than it looked. His twin had disappeared beneath the surface of the cold water instantly. A few faint ripples were the only mark of his submergance. Lioran had screamed, shouted. He could feel the cold seeping into him as it seeped into Sylvas, could feel the panicky pressure of a last lungful of air burning in his chest. It was the only time in their lives that they'd experienced so profound an empathic connection. Without thinking, he dashed forward and dove into the water.

Neither of the twins could swim.

Members of the faithful had heard his cries. They dragged the boys out and commanded the water from from their lungs. Coughing, gasping, shivering, they had awoken together in the snow beside the pool and instinctively embraced.

“The difference,” he whispered, dispelling the memories, “Is that this time I can save him.”

His mother didn't reply. She watched the still surface of the water as if she were waiting for something. Her hands were folded in her lap.

“Of course.” The words tasted bitter. “You don't think I can.”

“Oran.” She sounded tired. As fragile and brittle as an autumn leaf. “It isn't that-”

He couldn't help it. He wasn't even sure how, but he was on his feet, towering over her. His voice rang out, echoing across the pool. “Then what is it? Don't you want him found? Why aren't you doing anything?” The words exploded out of him, and the mob of his thoughts followed. “If it were the other way around I'm sure you wouldn't have any doubts that Sylvas could save me. Do you think he'd let you stop him?” He pressed his hands to his face, letling the heels of his hands dig into his eyes until he felt a dull ache. That pain was all he could do to anchor himself in a storm of frustration.

“Lioran. Son. Look at me.” Her words were ragged, just barely holding together.

As he peeled his hands away, he could see that she was standing too. He had been taller than her for nearly a decade now, but something within him shrank when he saw the fury in her eyes.

“Of course I want him back. Do you know what I do, every night, before I try to sleep? Try and fail, I might add.” She took a steadying breath. “I go into his room, and I sit on his bed, and I look around. I can tell you every book on his shelves in whatever order you want. I can tell you how many cracks there are in the floor. I look around, and I think. I try to imagine where he might have gone. I try to understand why he would have left.”

She was still standing, but she was trembling, and it had nothing to do with their surroundings. His anger fell away as he beheld her. He wanted to hold her, but he was afraid. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, she continued.

“And now, my other son wants to leave. Should I sit in your bedroom too, Lioran? What should I count? What should I memorize?” She fell against him, sobbing, and he curled his arms around her. “How can you even ask me to lose you? How, how, how?”

She couldn't continue. Her words trailed away off into more sobbing. She sobbed into his chest, and he held her in his arms, wishing he could think of anything to say that would transform this weeping woman back into his strong, wise mother.

“It was hard the first time you went off on one of your... excursions. You were only gone for a week, and I kept telling myself, 'This is what you taught him. He's a child of Spring. He has to find what he wants.' But I would close my eyes-” She inhaled sharply, exhaled. “I would close my eyes, and I would see you twisted all the wrong way at the bottom of a ravine, or swollen and black from some poisonous plant. But then you came back. You told me what you'd seen, what you'd done.”

She lifted her head, reached up to smooth the leafy tangle atop his. “You were always in your brother's shadow, always following his lead, but for the first time I could imagine the man you might become. And then you left again, and I lost sight of the man. There was just the little boy who couldn't swim. My son. My sweet, beautiful son. Every time, I worried a little less, but this...”

He was frozen in place, his arms loosely coiled at the small of her back until she drew away. She seemed to have regathered herself, but he couldn't recognize her face. The expression on it was so foreign, so unlike any he'd ever seen on her. He realized that this was the first time he'd ever seen her vulnerable.

“So yes, I sent word to the portal sanctuary. I told them not to let you go. It went against everything I believe as a priestess, but I'm your mother, Lioran, and I've already lost one son.” Her composure crumpled. She staggered back to the bench and sagged onto it. “I can't lose another, I can't, I can't, I can't...” She buried her face in her hands and shuddered with silent sobs.

Lioran couldn't be sure what he was feeling any more. There was sorrow welling up as he beheld her, colder than the water of the mirror pool and no less revelatory. There was anger- residual anger at her, his father, Daru, himself, and most of all, Sylvas.

They'd been inseparable as children, two parts of the same whole. As they'd grown, though, they'd developed separate interests. Sylvas had walked The Path. He had outstripped the library in the temple by the time he was fifteen. In the last few years, Lioran had been hard pressed to follow whenever he started in on one of his theories, spouting words like “confluence” and “anima” and “numinae”. Still, even though he might as well have been explaining things to a wall, Lioran was the one he'd gone to. And Lioran had gone to him, too: when things first became confusing with Daru, and then when things were fantastic with Daru. Sylvas was just as fluent in feelings as Lioran was in the arcane, but still. He'd listened.

When they were younger, Sylvas had often had nightmares. He was the elder, if by only a few moments, but when he had those nightmares, he would crawl into bed with Lioran, and they would fall back asleep together, as tangled beneath sheets as they had been in the womb. When he was with Lioran, the nightmares went away.

His mother was still on the bench, still hiding her head in her hands. He went to her, and sat beside her again. This time, he didn't feel like a little boy. He let his hand glide in soothing circles across her back. “I wish I could stay, Mother, but... you don't have two sons. You have one son, cut in half.”

She regarded him. Her face was streaked with tears, but slowly, finally, she nodded. Her face was blank, a mask carved of teak. Rising to her feet, she all-but-whispered: “Walk with me.”

He looked his arm through hers and let her guide him. They slipped away from the mirror pool, abandoning the manicured path to tread across the snow through a copse of barren, desolate trees. He could see the terminus between Winter and Spring ahead, just down the gentle slope of a hill. The transition was abrupt, from pure white to vibrant green.

“I can't stop your going.” They had been walking in silence for long moments, and she did not look at him as she spoke. “But I can't ease your way, either.” She had found her priestess-voice again. “All I can do is prepare you as best I can for what lies ahead.”

They stepped over into Spring. The earthy, tangy smell of new grass flooded his nostrils, and was soon joined by the scents of myriad flowers from all across Althanas in full bloom. This was his favorite part of The Garden, warm with balmy breezes, the perfect place to lie on his back and stare up at the sky.

“There are things you don't know, Lioran. You were away for so long. Sylvas... well, you know how he is. He was fascinated with The Ancients. He knows more of them than most of the scholars in Highspire. The Path stopped having answers to his questions years ago, and so he began to look elsewhere.”

Lioran knew that much. He remembered his brother's frustration; after all, he had been the one Sylvas vented to. They continued to eschew the well-trod routes through verdant Spring. He could feel wild flowers brushing against his legs as they walked, still linked at the arm.

“What I am trying to say, Lioran, is that the brother you seek to save may not be the brother you remember. He vanished the way he did because he knew that no one would approve of where he was going, or what he would do to get there.” She glanced at him, pressing her lips together.

“Mother, what is it?”

They had taken the most direct route toward Summer. It was not so harsh a transition between it and Spring; the only real sign, at first, was the sudden warmth he felt bathing his skin.

“He took... a document, from the temple.”

His nose wrinkled. “A document? He stole it?” He was imagining, what? A bill of lading, a list of signatures?

She nodded. “A very old one. It details the first compact between the Fae and the Seasons themselves, at least, that is what we have been told. The dialect is so ancient that translations are very incomplete. He had begged me to study it, but I was worried. His behavior had become detached, even for him, so I made excuses. I never thought-”

“You know for certain it was him? What could he want with it?”

She nodded again. “He was seen in the shrine. Nobody thought anything of it until the next day when he was gone, and the compact along with him. As far as what he wants with it?” She shrugged. “I can't say. He was secretive, these last few months. Withdrawn.”

Every step they took, the ambient heat increased. Perspiration began to shine on both of their skin. They were nearly, he knew, at the heart of Summer now, within a thick forest of ancient oaks that towered above them. They stopped before the greatest of them, so thick that one could walk around it once in the same time it had taken them to arrive from Spring.

“I know that you've never taken The Path to heart, Lioran, but you are more a child of Spring than anyone I've ever known.” She turned to face him and took both his hands in each of hers. “If you're going to find Sylvas, if you're going to bring him back, you will need more than the innocence of Spring. You will need the molten surety of Summer, the calm reflection of Autumn.” She squeezed his hands. “You will need to know the profound loss of Winter.”

He watched her as she drifted into her oratorical cadence. He had watched her speak with such passion many times, but never before had she spoken that way to him. She needs it, he realized. She needs to be a priestess right now, in order not to fall apart.

He swallowed the painful lump that had swelled like a tumor in his throat. “I will try, Mother. I will bring him back to us.”

She smiled, sadly, and held his hand. Together they turned, staring up into the boughs and crown of the tree at the Heart of Summer.