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Years ago, they say, Xerxes was a thriving civilization in a great desert—a pinnacle of learning, of art and music and magic and alchemy. Before anyone knew the gods were real, they were the closest thing. A kingdom that thrived in a burning wasteland would always be seen as strong, as powerful, as dangerous, but this? This place of light and brilliance, where wonder thrived? This paradise within the rolling dues, of shining gold and ivory and sandstone? Xerxes was an empire, and the people who lived there were divine, travelers whispered. Golden eyes, golden hair, skin of bronze and brown. Their magic was unparalleled, their strength beyond measure.
It was only a matter of time before they called themselves gods, too.
Unfortunately, the gods didn’t take kindly to that.
The story of Icarus was favored among Xerxeans—the boy who flew too close to the sun with wings of wax and fell, losing his life as his father watched helplessly. They just never expected that they would be Icarus, that their wings could melt. They weren’t made of wax, after all; they were gold and ivory and bronze, workers of magic, studiers of science, the most advanced and the most powerful kingdom on the continent. Perhaps the world. Who could challenge them except for the immortal and undying, the creators of life itself—the creators that didn’t exist?
But the gods did exist, as Xerxes found out when their king tried to claim immortality for himself at the cost of their peoples’ lives. Xerxes learned, as an immense forest grew around them at the hands of the goddess of life and the god of death raged and tore down their king and all his supporters, as they were closed off from the world and the pantheon that had hidden themselves since the dawn of time came down to earth.
It was still a place of learning and light and magic, but gold and ivory and sandstone became wood and silver and amber, the very nature of their world changed now that they knew who presided over it. Xerxes was even less reachable to the outside world, trapped within the forest-that-was-once-a-desert—a forest ruled by gods and their creatures, made as a divine punishment for a man’s attempt to become one of them (and for the slaughter of his own people for the sake of extending his life). It was myth, legend, immortalized in a new way. Still beautiful, but with a warning hanging over their heads. Cross the gods, and the gods wouldn’t hesitate to rain down hell. Not again. Their passiveness had ended because of Xerxes, and the whole world knew it. They were safe, though—the forest was grown, the king and his men were dead, and the kingdom that had been a pillar of light and magic rebuilt itself.
Tributes were paid. Temples were built. Festivals were named in honor of the gods, who in return blessed the people of Xerxes, their wrath calmed and the transgressions were forgiven. A land of eternal summer grew used to the changing of the seasons, winter to spring to summer to fall to winter once again. New magic grew and blossomed, there in that kingdom in the god-forest. For a few hundred years, all was well. All was peaceful.
Then the blizzards began. Wild, raging storms struck one winter, five hundred years after the gods revealed themselves and Xerxes rebuilt as a land of the forest—and continued into spring. Winter continued into spring, into summer, into autumn. Crops began to fail and die, and chopping down trees to clear space for greenhouses only seemed to enrage whatever god was lashing out at them further. Those who went into the forest to seek whoever was causing the storms never returned.
Three years went by, and the everlasting winter remained. Prayers to the gods went unanswered, and the inflictor’s name remained unknown. Nothing appeased them—gold, jewels, feats of magic, the finest foods of their nation, their greatest puzzled, most prized creations—and so now a prince of Xerxes rested on the strange altar they had placed in the midst of a clearing in the woods, wrapped in snow-white furs and shivering as he waited for a god’s wrath to sweep him away.
It was foolish, really. The deaths of innocent humans and the greed of others had been what drove the gods to appear, according to the legends. Wouldn’t this just make the one attacking the kingdom angrier? Surely they weren’t foolish enough to offer up innocent lives to appease the beings who destroyed their old way of life for killing innocents, he’d argued, glaring at the Royal Council even as the verdict was leveled: you will be sacrificed to the god in service to your kingdom.
They had overruled his father, Ed reflected bitterly, who had wept as they cited the immediate threat to the people of Xerxes as reason for them going over his head. The king had offered to sneak him out, to flee the palace and run with him and Al to somewhere free of the endless winter, of the forest, of the Council, but he’d refused. Where would we go? There’s no way out, and not enough food to last us unless we steal from the people who need it most. They’re still your people, asshole. Don’t throw that away for me.
He didn’t regret it, necessarily, but he sure as hell wished he’d asked for one more bowl of stew, or maybe a warming stone to hold as he waited for the end. He was chained to the altar, so it wasn’t like he could find his way back, but one of the heated rocks would help his fingers from going frostbitten and numb before he could—
Before I’m killed by whatever lives in the woods. By whoever is doing this to Xerxes.
The cold reached down to his bones at the thought, his mouth going dry, and he tugged the hood of the fur cloak over his head. I’m going to die today. It felt so much realer now that he was chained to an altar and the winter winds were stinging his face and he left Al and Hohenheim back in Xerxes and he was alone—
Wolves were howling.
Wolves were howling, getting louder by the minute—louder and closer, too. Somehow, in all of Ed’s thoughts of how his life might end since the Council’s decision, eaten by wolves somehow hadn’t featured. He assumed the god would disintegrate him, maybe, or freeze him for eternity, a fitting fate for someone sent to end an eternal winter. Both of those were dreadful, but he assumed they’d be relatively painless. Being eaten alive by wolves wouldn’t be painless. It’d hurt like hell, and it might not even break the god’s curse. Did it count if you were killed by things in the forest ruled by whatever god you were being sacrificed to, or was it the god themselves? Were the wolves being controlled by the god?
I’m going to die here. He leaned down to touch the chain wound tightly around his ankle; the metal was bitingly cold, and he jerked back with a soft hiss before wrapping his arms around himself and curling up. They’ll have to rip through a lot of fur and stuff to get to me, though. Not that it was a great shield against the claws and teeth of full-grown wolves, whose howls and barks were growing ever louder, but it was better than being out here naked. Which, aside from being humiliating, would have probably killed him within the first hour.
It was cold.
It was so, so cold, and the wolves were so close, and he could hear great, rhythmic thuds like the footsteps of a creature many times bigger than he’d ever seen before. Ed squeezed his eyes shut; he’d been angry before, angry at the Council and the gods and himself, but now he was just…terrified. He was going to die. He was nineteen, and he was going to die alone in the woods after being mauled and eaten by wild wolves.
I want to go home.
The wolves were here now, he could hear them panting, hear whining and barking—and then a great, low, rumbling bark that silenced them all. Ed dared to open one eye, before terror seared through his veins and froze him in place, because the wolf in the middle was the size of a small cottage and had teeth nearly as big as he was and blue eyes as cold as the forest around them. A thin keening of fear escaped his throat despite all that he’d promised himself—won’t try to run, won’t hide, I’ll look them in the eye—and he curled up on the altar, waiting for the jaws around his throat, for his body to be bitten in half, for something.
Instead, a lyrical voice rang out, bright and clear and thrumming with power. “Well, this is a surprise,” it—she, judging by the sound, though he could very well be wrong—said, and he bit his lip as a cold, gentle touch grazed his cheek. “I knew that they were getting desperate, poor dears, but this certainly isn’t going to help. You’d think they’d have learned that the gods don’t like needless sacrifice, hm?”
“That’s what I said,” he blurted out on instinct, before going deathly still.
This is—
Oh.
Oh, no.
Ed’s eyes flew open, and he stared up into deep, drowning blue, as fathomless and cold as the waters of a glacial lake. An unreasonably beautiful smile stretched across an inhumanly exquisite face, hair the white-gold of winter sunshine spilling in loose waves down her back, and twisting white antlers stretched from her head. Her hand, delicate and snow-pale, moved from his cheek to his chin, grabbing it as the massive wolf rumbled behind her; the hand that isn’t tilting his head to the side is holding a staff like the twisting branch of a birch tree.
Even without all of that, the sheer power radiating from her would give her away immediately.
Goddess.
“No bruises,” she murmured, and he blinked in shock as she released him. “They didn’t have to fight to get you out here, did they? You went willingly.”
He blinked again—not like I had a choice, where would I go?—before nodding. “Yes, Goddess.”
Her nose wrinkled slightly at that; it was such a human expression that he jolted in surprise. “You don’t have to answer me like that, flower.”
“Flower?” he repeated indignantly, and could’ve kicked himself. This was a goddess. You didn’t talk back to literal deities, especially not when their wolf packs were surrounding you and you were chained to an altar. “I—I meant no offense—”
She laughed; the sound was music and new snowfall and hot chocolate after ice skating, and he couldn’t stop himself from staring as she shook her head. “That’s much better. Flower,” she added teasingly, and he gritted his teeth before glancing up at her worriedly as she touched a hand to the chain. Frost crept up it and swallowed it whole, before it shattered and melted into the ground.
He was free.
He could run, if he wanted to. Get away. “Why did you do that?” he asked instead, looking back up at her. “You—you could’ve—”
“Killed you?” she finished, and he couldn’t hide his flinch. She shook her head, looking disappointed. “I don’t intend to let you go back to them, at least not now, but I promise no harm will come to you while I’m here. The Council is using your life to appease me when they are the ones stealing from their own people, who brought the winter upon themselves.” Her lip curled slightly, and while Ed certainly shared her opinion of the Council, it was unsettling to see sharp fangs hiding there. “They’ll be dealt with soon enough one way or another, but this…”
The gods didn’t take kindly to human sacrifice, Ed remembered, more than a little dazed. “And—and my people?”
“Will be fine,” she promised quietly. “There will be enough to go around, I promise. I have not let any innocents die in my winter, and I will continue to protect them…and that includes you.” She held out her hand, her smile faint and soft—but strangely warm. “I can’t let you go back to them, but…I can bring you with me, if you’d like. You would be safe, and cared for.”
Foolishness. This was foolishness. He had no reason to believe her—none at all. She was the one responsible for the eternal winter, for the three years of fear and cold. She was a goddess, and goddesses were fickle. Who knew how long her offer would last?
But this was also a goddess offering to take him away. He’d never left Xerxes, never seen anything else, and now a goddess was offering to whisk him away. To keep him safe—and really, he didn’t have any other options. He couldn’t wander the forest, but she’d already said he wasn’t allowed to return to Xerxes…and he didn’t really want to. To go back to Al? Yes, absolutely. Back to the kingdom itself, under the thumb of the Council? Not in the slightest.
Ed took her hand, let cold fingers close around his. “What’s your name, Goddess?”
Blue eyes crinkled at the corners, winter sunshine glowing through them as she lifted him up onto the wolf’s back—hands on his waist, gentle and kind (and, he realized, blushing furiously, like a knight with some fair princess). “Winry,” she answered, and he closed his eyes as the wolf began to lope through the snowy forest again. “Goddess of winter.”