Two Years, or a Hundred
At Nina's question, both spirits fell silent at once. She waved a hand, wondering if she had asked it wrong.
"It's not flirting or anything. You really do feel familiar. Um... is it always like this, meeting a spirit?"
The spirit in armor answered.
—This time, it is the first.
"This time?"
She was about to ask whether that meant there had been a last time, but the horned spirit spoke first, bright and merry.
—Body and soul, offered up together. You do make us feel as if we've become fallen spirits.
Nina went sheepish.
"Is that not allowed?"
The armored spirit nodded.
—If you will trust us, that is enough. We do not demand what a fallen spirit demands, nor anything else.
"The simplest thing, and the hardest."
Nina gave an awkward little laugh, then blurted an "Ah—" and pointed at herself.
"Then I'm not dead? I'm all right?"
She looked from one spirit to the other, her face gone strange.
"Don't tell me that now I've seen the two of you, I can't go back..."
—The living can neither see a spirit nor feel one.
The horned spirit added, teasing.
—But it isn't every day a human offers up her soul as well, and we wanted to see your face. We bent the rules a little.
—Know us, and borrowing our power will be far easier.
Nina nodded. If trust was what it took to borrow a spirit's power, then seeing them with her own eyes was the surest way.
She tipped her head.
"I do have a question, though. What kind of spirits are you?"
The air turned delicate. Something strangely bitter hung in it, and Nina rushed to fill the silence.
"This one... I know. You're the one I called last, aren't you?"
She pointed at the woman as she spoke, and the woman nodded. An immense flame, burning without end.
"The Sun."
Even through the veil, Nina could tell she was smiling with elegant grace. A golden aura wound about her like a corona.
"But this one... you aren't North Wind, or Frost."
He was something greater than either of them. At her words the armor seemed to droop, somehow sulking, and the Sun was quick to speak.
"Master of North Wind and Frost. The one who comes gladly when you call them old comrades—the one who wields North Wind and Frost as a shield."
Nina turned it over, then spoke with care.
"Winter...?"
Her voice lifted a little at the end, but at the name Winter drew his shoulders straight.
—Yes.
"Heavens."
A groan escaped her.
The more concepts a spirit contained, the higher that spirit stood. The Sun, and Winter. It was no different from calling them supreme spirits—beings ordinary myth would count as divine.
—Your body was not enough to take the whole of my power, and so much of it was damaged.
The Sun reached out and gently swept Nina's hair back.
—I kept the harm from reaching even your soul. The body, however, must be remade.
Nina nodded at Winter's words. Winter carried the sense of defense as well, of a shield.
"Then it's a good thing Winter came first..."
Otherwise she truly would have burned down to the bone. The Sun nodded.
—Because Winter was already here, your body was preserved even when I descended. Even so, setting you back as you were will take quite some time.
"How long will it take?"
—Quite some time.
The Sun mimed a sharp swing, and a golden switch formed in her hand.
—So I thought I might teach you the sword in the meantime.
"What?"
It was so sudden that Nina's mouth fell open.
—Your swordsmanship. It did not look to me as if you had ever studied under a proper master.
"Well... I'm a farmer's daughter. Everything I know, I learned after I came to the knight order."
Even so, her skill there was among the very best. She was just tipping her nose up—she had talent, didn't she—when the Sun went on without mercy.
—I cannot bear for my contractor to possess swordsmanship that wretched. Winter, wouldn't you say?
Wretched!
Her mouth was still hanging open at the verdict when Winter nodded.
—Mm.
The Sun whipped the switch through the air.
—We have the time to spare, for once. Let us learn it properly.
Winter put in, quietly.
—In the meantime, I will reconstruct the body. I shall raise its durability. It will be remade under our influence, so it may differ a little from what it was.
"Differ?"
—The color of the eyes, and of the hair. Other things, by degrees, as well.
Unease crept over her.
"Enough that people won't recognize me?"
—Not to that extent.
Winter said it, and added:
—Your hair will be silver-white, as mine is, and your eyes gold, as the Sun's are.
"I can't exactly check either of you."
The Sun burst out laughing.
—Do you dislike it?
"That much, it can't be helped."
The Sun stroked her horns.
—Then shall I be a little more generous? We are reconstructing you anyway. I will raise the density of bone and muscle both, and make you sturdy. How does that sound?
"I'd be glad of it."
Nina nodded as if it were nothing at all. The Sun laughed under her breath and flicked the switch, and the world around them changed again. It was a training yard, every manner of weapon set out in rows.
—Shall we begin?
The Sun's teaching knew no mercy. Nina was driven hard enough to die, and she did not die. However ruined her body became, a single snap of the Sun's fingers set it right again.
And not the sword alone—the spear, how to answer magic, archery, even riding...
She had just reached the thought that training like this would make a master of the sword even out of a fool.
—It is finished.
Winter had appeared.
—A shame. There is still a mountain left to teach.
The Sun let out a long sigh. Nina flung the sword aside with the relief of someone who had survived.
Winter's voice was low.
—I have said it before, but when you open your eyes, a good deal of time will have passed.
A thread of anxiety pulled tight in her.
"It feels as if I've trained for a hundred years at the very least. Don't tell me that much time has actually gone by?"
The Sun tilted her head.
—Mm. In human time, about two years?
"Ah..."
Whether that was less than she had thought, or more, she couldn't tell.
"Everyone will be worried. But if it's two years in human time, how long did I actually spend here?"
For a moment the Sun and Winter said nothing. Into that silence Nina cried out, aghast.
"It really was a hundred years, wasn't it?!"
Winter answered at once.
—If they are worried, you had best go back and see them.
—Come. Open your eyes.
The sudden urging flustered her.
"What? Huh? How do I open them? They're already open!"
She said it blinking. The Sun reached out and covered Nina's eyes. Covered, and still the light was blinding.
—Draw a deep breath, and let it out. But aren't you curious?
"About what?"
—Why you should have memories such as these. That sort of thing.
Nina laughed under her breath.
"No. I already know the answer."
—Do you?
"To meet Adrian, of course."
At that confident answer she heard the ghost of a laugh, and with it the Sun's hand drew away.
"May I open my eyes now?"
Nina asked, but no answer came. She eased her eyes open, and she was standing in the Purple Forest.