Atesh and Drecia hung high over the mountains. Their light reflected off the lake where it lapped at the shore in the still evening. The air was damp and thick with evergreen from the forest surrounding Tricon as he watched mist form over the water.

  Although none dared venture there, all Yekarans knew this shore. They began here. Eons ago, before they were cast out and forbidden to return to the lush valley nestled in the heart of the ragged mountain range. Yet, they all dreamed of this place, paradise on Yekar.

  Terrans settled on its outskirts. Only the protests of the Yekaran clans kept them from spreading out into the fertile region. Maya was born in the farming village sacrilegiously close to its borders. It was the only thing about her he would change. He dreaded her visits home as much as she looked forward to them.

  The cry of a raptor broke the silence, and a breeze blew in from the south. Tricon shuddered at the chill it washed over his sensitive wing membranes and watched it swirl through the gathering mist. The vapors rippled back from the shore and gathered toward the center of the lake.

  The fog coalesced and took on a form that resembled a Yekaran inasmuch as a vapor can. The features were too soft, too indistinct and fluid, and when the head finally took shape, it had not one but two!

  The figure glided forward across the unnaturally still waters. The mist creating its body flowed and shifted, causing the entity to trail small curls and whisps of itself as it moved, but it gathered more from the ambient mist rising from the lake in the cool of the evening.

  Although he'd never experienced one of these dreams before himself, Tricon had heard stories of others who had. They weren't common, but a few times a generation, those past would speak to the living in such dreams. These weren't like the common dreams built on memories of loved ones past, but true communication across the veil, answered prayers for the faithful in times of great need. He stood rooted in place by equal measures of awe and terror, unsure who was reaching out to him now. Who had God sent to answer his desperate pleas?

  “Tricon,” it called to him across the still water.

  The phantom’s features were too blurred and distant to be recognizable. The voice was soft, but he heard it clearly.

  “Father?” Tricon asked. His voice broke on the word. His parents had been gone four years, and he hadn’t dreamt of them once. Why now?

  The left head dipped, causing the mist to curl and reform as it moved with unnatural slowness.

  “We felt your need, my lovely one,” the other head spoke with his mother's voice. “How could we stay away?”

  “But...”

  “We haven’t come before because you did not need us,” said Father. “If those we’ve lost visited every time we missed them, we would become dependent on dreams and forget to live.”

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  Tricon lowered his head, feeling embarrassed by his neediness. He felt like a child, lost and alone, clinging to any shred of hope and comfort he could find. Yet, the knowledge he’d been denied visitations in the past left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  “Ralic has Borcon,” Tricon said. Fatigue rolled over him, sapping him of his strength, with the admission. He sank to the cold ground. “Ralic had Kalie killed right in front of him, and he broke.”

  “Yes,” Mother agreed. “We know.”

  “He shouldn’t have even been there!” Tricon dug his claws into the ground. “He was hibernating. We all were! Back at the bachelors’ apartments, where we could be close if we were needed in an emergency.” He looked to the apparition where it stood still and serene. “Borcon had left instructions for Deligh to rouse him if Kalie was preparing to leave Reiont. He did at the start of each winter, but he was more anxious last year because Kalie's mother had been ill. The one time in all those years...”

  “He did as he thought right,” said Father. “Have you not left similar instructions these past ten winters?”

  “That’s not the point,” Tricon groused.

  “Say it,” said Father.

  “I should have been faster!” Tricon threw himself to his feet in his anger. The strip of land between forest and shore was too narrow for pacing, so he settled for flexing and retracting his claws. The resistance of hard ground, still half frozen this far north, felt good, grounding. “They brought us around as soon as they heard Borcon’s roar, but the storm had hit by then. The snow was blinding, and it was so cold the air felt brittle. The humans ran about with no problem, but I was useless. Just walking into the courtyard took ages. I still don’t know how we got into the air, but it was too late! They’d disappeared.” Tricon whined. “When the drugs wore off, we all just slipped back into hibernation. I didn’t even remember what’d happened until I was told again after I woke!”

  “There is nothing you could have done that you didn’t do,” Mother answered. “You are an intelligent and strong male, my son, but you cannot fight your biology. The cold affects us all. The stimulants used in emergencies cannot change that, only mask a fraction of the effects, for a time.”

  “Ralic knew this and used it to his advantage,” Father added. “The blame rests with him and his conspirators.”

  “Conspirators?”

  “He’s been planning what is to come for decades,” Father explained. “His allies are few but real nonetheless.”

  “Who?”

  “More on this we cannot say, Tricon,” said Father. “We’ve permission only to speak of why we came.”

  “Borcon,” said Tricon.

  “Be comforted, lovely one,” said Mother. “The Council will rule in Borcon's favor.”

  “He will live?” Tricon asked. Hope surged in his chest so full it was painful.

  “That remains to be seen,” answered Father.

  “The hearing will go in his favor,” said Mother, “but he is still very ill.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Do as you are,” answered Father.

  “Ask help from those who can give it and pray,” said Mother. “All else is beyond your control.”

  “But he suffers alone as I lie here!”

  “He is not alone,” said Father.

  “We are with you both,” said Mother, “always.”

  The branches around him rustled as the wind picked up again, sudden and bitterly cold. It rippled over the water and swirled about his parents’ shade. It drew the mists away in twirling patterns.

  “No!” Tricon roared. “Don't leave me.”

  The wind paid him no heed. It continued to batter him as it dispersed the evening fog and troubled the lake. The last tendril of vapor twisted toward shore and floated by Tricon’s side. He thought he heard “always” whispered again as it faded away to nothing.