Also Sheppard is wise.

"The traditional home of the Ice Witches, and when the Tzarina is not one of them indisputably the greatest feat of Ice Magic they're willing to admit exists."

"What about when she is?"

Is there any sign of the more common kinds of magic turning into these new ones or perhaps vice versa?

"Then whichever Tzarina it is - ruling or not - raises the Ice Wing of the Bohka Palace on top of gardens which are never particularly grown up, to leave room for it, and it is very rude to claim Frosthome outdoes it. Tzarina Katarin is quite possibly the greatest Ice Witch since Miska and Shoika themselves, and her Ice Wing is about twice the volume and even more elaborately decorated. I don't think anyone would be tempted even if it weren't rude." Except those with witchsight who can see the power below Frosthome, but he has been sworn to secrecy on that. ...The not-book might be able to. Problem for later, hopefully.

There is not. Looking deep, there are maybe currents leading in and out, but they are pretty deep, into stone that makes seeing them very hard.

"Well it certainly looks very impressive." Rodney will refrain from commenting on the details of the a fortress in front of its guards. They look rather intimidating and an arrow or sword could kill him just as dead as a gun if it hit in the right place.

"Yeah, very striking. You said it was the traditional home, I take it that means it's a base but is it also where they're trained? How does someone become an Ice Witch? Assuming that's not a secret."

"An apprenticeship model, for the most part, which often passes through here but not always. Girls are examined for talent at the fall equinox, some in private in wealthier families who have witch relatives and the rest in public in the square by visiting witches. Those who have it are recruited, and the visitor takes her as an apprentice, or if she was so lucky as to find more than one may pass her to another. They take some vows and are Ice Maidens until they finish their training, which is mostly under the witch who found them but particularly among the court witches will often involve handing them off for a few months to another to learn something else. When they finish, they are full Ice Witches, released from some of the vows, and take up independent duties protecting Kislev and their sisterhood."

"That makes sense, I imagine it's a very skill intensive thing to learn and apprenticeships tend to be the most effective way to teach most things if you have enough teachers."

"Doing magic is, as I understand it, not that hard. Doing it safely, much, much moreso. Everyone does it by apprenticeship, and I suspect that's as much to have sharp eyes to watch anyone trying the easy way as to teach the skills for the hard one."

"Doing it safely sounds pretty important from what you've said so I very much approve."

"It's hard to love a system where the penalty for slacking in the wrong way once or twice is execution, but yes, it's hard to argue it's unwarranted so on the whole so do I."

"Oh, I suppose I should have guessed that from some of the context."

"Also most boys who turn up with the talent are executed, due to the prophecy I think I mentioned about a male Ice Witch destroying Ice Magic entirely, though nobles and wealthy merchants near the border send them south to the imperial colleges instead." Ones further north might beg Hag Witches, he's pretty sure that's not just him.

"That's... not ideal. Uh... should we be moving on? I assume they don't offer tours?"

"It's not. ...The guards don't mind us being here, I've been inside myself, but if you want a tour of some of the lower levels, while that can probably be arranged in the future, I'd have to talk to Lady Kajetana. Probably we should head east to the gardens."

"Sounds good to me." He knows he and Rodney are under guard but uh... being near people who explicitly execute their own students for what sound like small if significant mistakes is not a comfortable thing.

When they're a block or so away, Teodor says, "They've tried other things, but for everything that's permanent, most of the men they affect choose death of their own volition within a few years. The Lady Witch explained it to me as being like bricked into an isolation cell forever, even as all your other senses work. Some of their factions have supported ferrying even peasant men south, but the others argue one might find his way back half-trained and become the one they fear."

"Are prophesies generally reliable or is this all a sort of better safe than sorry thing?"

"Mostly reliable, but they're also very rare. One of the Winds - Azyr, the wind of the heavens - gets short-range prophecy more regularly, I think, and that can be more conclusively averted by acting on it. I believe this particular one was received through the Ancient Widow."

"I see." He really doesn't but it's not something worth arguing or asking for more details about.

"There is only one other specific long-term prophecy I've heard of coming to its conclusion; it was widely thought that an old Ursunite prophecy about a tzar who would renew the church and the land meant the tzarina's father, Boris Bohka Ursus. He claimed the greatest ice bear anyone's ever reliably seen and then certainly did a great deal of both of those things, but then he died after a fairly short reign. Since then some people say that he's the first tzar reembodied and he'll return again when we need him, but while his body was lost in an ice river and never found I'm pretty sure interpreting the prophecy that way is just wishful thinking."

"It does sound a bit like that yes." In his opinion if the future can be changed like that then it's quite possible the guy who was prophesied to destroy ice magic has already done that and they're just killing a bunch of people for no reason... it doesn't sound tactful to bring that up though.

It is quite possible but see previous discussion about Ice Witches and ruthlessness.

They pass along a large boulevard and see what is either a modest palace or a very large and fancy mansion, with a grassy park laid out in front of it once they pass. Some unmelting ice sculptures decorate the park, but mostly it's mundane.

It's pretty, there's a slightly different tinge to enjoying ice sculptures given the givens though. "Nice sculptures."