‘It’s me, Aldasair. I came back after all.’
Aldasair grabbed him and embraced him, and then held him back to stare at him closely. There was a glassy look to his eyes now, and Tor suspected that his mind had not healed entirely, after all.
‘What happened to you?’
‘That’s a very long story, cousin, and I do want to tell you all about it, but first of all would you—’
‘Your face, Tor, what happened to your face?’
For a second it was difficult to breathe, as though his lungs had turned to ice. He had forgotten. His cousin was reaching out well-meaning fingers, about to touch his scars. Tor stepped back lightly.
‘That – is not something to be explained out here. Could we—?’
‘And who is this?’ Aldasair had stepped around him, peering at Noon, who was looking at him with a faintly amused expression.
‘Ah. May I present Noon of the plains people, a companion of mine who has—’
‘You travel with a human?’
Tor cleared his throat. ‘Noon, this is my cousin Aldasair.’
‘I figured that much out.’
The campsite was entirely silent now, watching their little scene. With faint desperation, Tor took Aldasair’s arm. Only the tall man with the axes seemed to sense their need for privacy; he was carefully looking the other way, as though he’d spotted something incredibly interesting on the far side of the gardens.
‘Please, Al. My sister. Is Hestillion still alive?’ He wanted to follow up the question with, and what are all these bloody humans doing here? but it was so very quiet now. Only the crackling of the campfires accompanied their voices.
Aldasair jumped as though he’d been pinched.
‘Your sister! Quickly, come with me.’
A thousand memories with every step. The palace gates were rusted in places but they did not screech as they once did when Aldasair led them through – someone had oiled them recently. The wide path that led to the palace had once shone with the brilliance of its polished white stones. Now many of them were shattered or lost, but someone had attempted to wash the rest – Tor could see dark streaks on some where a wet rag had been dragged across an accumulation of filth. Tiny details, but signs that Ebora was not quite as dead as when he had left it.
‘This place,’ said Noon, her voice low, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Aldasair led them up the wide marble steps, through the gigantic lacquered doors – the elaborate golden trees had mostly broken or been chipped away, and these had not been repaired – and through into the palace itself. He took them down corridors, and here and there Tor heard human voices behind doors. It was difficult to concentrate.
‘Where is she?’ he asked finally, not able to keep it in any longer. ‘Where is Hest?’
‘Where else would she be?’ said Aldasair. ‘In the Hall of Roots.’
Faster than Tor had expected, they were standing outside another set of doors he remembered very well. The golden dragons and phoenixes looked dusty and tired. Aldasair paused then, looking at Noon.
‘She may have to wait outside.’
‘What? Why?’
His cousin looked uncomfortable, although Tor sensed it wasn’t down to any embarrassment. There was something here that Aldasair didn’t understand, or was afraid of. Looking at his face, it was easy to remember the vacant man Tor had left behind.
‘Hestillion has yet to allow any of the diplomats into the Hall of Roots.’ Aldasair blinked rapidly. ‘Which I don’t understand, because I thought that’s why they were here. To see it. Him. To help bring him back.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Noon brightly. ‘I’m not a diplomat. And given I’ve just flown over a mountain on a bat to get here, there’s no way you’re keeping me out of that room.’
‘A bat, did you say?’ Aldasair’s eyebrows had disappeared up into his mop of hair.
‘Enough.’ Tor reached past them both and pushed the doors open. Inside, the Hall of Roots was a shadowy, cavernous space. Outside, the last of the sun’s light had burned away to orange and purple, and all of the objects Tor remembered from this room, the paintings wrapped in parchment, the sculptures hidden in greying linens, had all been moved to the outer edges. Directly ahead of them, solid and dark and enormous, was the trunk of Ygseril. There was a collection of oil lamps, placed haphazardly on the roots, making it look as though a crowd of errant fireflies had decided to rest there, and amongst it all a slender figure sat, knees drawn up to her chest, her head to one side. Her yellow hair was loose, partially hiding her face.
A memory rose up in his mind, sharp and sick, and he was helpless against it; he remembered coming into this room, wondering where his sister had gone, only to find her perched on the roots, the body of a human child slumped before her. The human blood that had doomed them all already soaking into the dead roots of their god.
‘Hest? Hest, it’s me.’ He shouted across the hall, too aware of how his words were eaten up by the space between them. Despite that, the head of the figure snapped up, as if roused violently from a deep sleep. As they watched, she stood up and walked across the roots, slowly at first and then with greater urgency until she nearly fell as she came to the edge. Instinctively, Tor began to trot towards her, until he found that he was running. And then she was running too. Tor had thought that nothing could have hurt him more than the cold fury she had shown him on the day he’d left, but as he looked at the desperate, unbelieving expression on her face, he felt that pain shrivel into nothing like parchment on a fire.
‘Tormalin?’ Her voice was hoarse, as though she hadn’t spoken for years. ‘Tormalin? Tormalin?’
She stumbled into his arms, muttering his name over and over again, her red eyes wide.
‘It’s me, Hest,’ he said into her hair. ‘I came home.’
She drew back from him, and seeing his face, all the strength seemed to rush out of her. He staggered as she fell to the floor, a sick tide of dread rising up in him as he saw the dirty cuffs of her robe, the way the hair on the back of her head was matted, as if she had been bedridden for months. There were dark circles under her eyes. She was alive, but where was his strong, unflappable sister?
‘Your face,’ she gasped. ‘What happened to your face?’ She took his hand, the one rippled with scars, and squeezed it as if checking it was real. ‘Tormalin, what have you done?’
‘There was an accident.’ He forced a smile. Her fingers dug into his arm, her nails ragged and soft. ‘But I am fine. I came back. Aren’t you glad to see me?’