Prologue

In a far-away land of ice and snow, where wolves howled about the sheep-pens all winter and ghosts lurked in the shadows of dark firs, a Lady waited, high in her tower chamber above the expanse of snow and ice. Copper-gold flames roared in the hearth and kept the freezing winds at bay, and her feet were encased in wolf-fur slippers. She heeded not the winter, did not notice the bone-cracking cold or hear the voiceless moans of the ghosts of the waste. She waited, patient and unhurried, for the return of a traveller.

She greeted him now, her eyes sparkling with delight as he knelt to her and presented his gift.

Weeks had passed since he'd left her lands in search of a rare treasure, and for weeks she'd sat in her chamber, surrounded by her silks and velvets and the cold light of the icy sky, hoping for his return. He was here now, kneeling before her, his clothes outlandish and his skin tanned gold. She, who had never left her own lands, was fascinated. And he'd grown. Barely more than a boy when he'd left, he was now a man through and through, with fine muscles from weeks at sea and weeks on the road, and a quiet confidence that made her wish just for a moment that he wasn't so beneath her in status. Not that that had always stopped her. Not all the time.

The young traveller rose to his feet at the Lady's command and laid a box of carved exotic wood on her lap. She smiled, pleasure curving her lips upward, and her eyes held the gleam of wicked greed.

'Cherry-wood and rose-wood, my Lady,' he said, as her fingers traced the intricate carvings. 'A fine example of workmanship. But inside is what you really want.'

'Ah, yes. Thank you, Erwillian.' She flicked the catch up and lifted the lid, her breath catching in her throat. He was right. Inside was the real treasure.

Her eyes turned dark. 'By all the…..'

Erwillian licked his lips nervously. 'It is the last of its kind, my Lady.'

She lifted the mirror out of the silk-lined case, her tongue pink against the cherry-red of her full lips. The traveller swallowed. She was a creature of beauty, right enough, but there was about her that erotic dreaminess that caused many men to suffer fiery dreams, their hands reaching between their legs to grasp what she'd excited, waking after the fact heavy with fulfilment and shame. He shifted uncomfortably.

She looked up, her fingers still caressing the delicate filigree of the mirror's back. Its face was black; onyx, she thought, or black jade from the deserts. And it would show anything she wished to see, tell her any truth she wished to hear. It was hers, this last of its kind, the others having been destroyed by the Limean sorcerers who defamed all such magics as evil.

The young traveller, aware that he wasn't wanted but still hadn't been dismissed, coughed discreetly. She looked up.

'You may go, Erwillian,' she said, and he bowed himself out of her presence with relief.

Now. How to use this?

She thought it would work like a scrying bowl, and, taking it to her bed, settled herself comfortably on the silk cushions, the mirror lying loose in her hands. Her mind stilled, her thoughts calm, she asked the one question she knew the answer to. If the mirror gave her that answer, she would know it worked.

'Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?'