Over at the sinkhole, Thyon spotted the shape in the sky and paused in his hauling to point up and say, “Look.”
The pace of the donkey cart would not do, so they ran, all of them—Ruza, Tzara, Calixte, himself—through the deserted streets toward the city center, watching as creature and rider disappeared behind the roofline. Thyon ran because the others did, but he felt like an impostor. They had reason to run: Calixte out of eagerness to see her friend, and Ruza and Tzara either for that reason or else to do their part in defending the city against him. Thyon honestly didn’t know which, and he didn’t think they did, either. In any case, when they reached the garrison, they all went straight through the gate without turning to look back, and Thyon slowed, and came to a stop outside. He wasn’t Tizerkane. He couldn’t go in there. Calixte wasn’t, either, but she was different. She was liked.
The things she’d said before flashed through his mind as he stood alone outside the gate. It all boiled down to what kind of outsider one strove to be, and he felt it keenly: He was the wrong kind.
He would go around the garrison wall. It only took up a couple of city blocks. He didn’t know where Strange had landed, but if he walked the perimeter, he supposed he’d find out. And if he’d landed inside, well, it wasn’t as though Thyon had anything to say to him. Why had he even come? He might have stayed behind, climbed down into the sinkhole, and gone into the library on his own.
To walk stupidly amongst ancient texts that he could not decipher.
“Nero!” A shout.
Thyon turned. It was Ruza, his head poking out through the gates. “What are you doing?” he called, annoyed. “Come on.” As though it were a given that he should follow.
Thyon ran his fingers over the bandages on his palms, swallowed past the unaccountable lump in his throat, and did just that.
…
When he’d flown up from the city, Lazlo had been holding Sarai’s body, too distressed to appreciate that he was flying, and too grief-stricken for fear. Not to mention that flying up is an altogether different proposition than flying down. Going over the balustrade felt like plunging off a cliff, and there was a heart-stopping moment when he feared it was a mistake, and Rasalas would drop like a stone. But he didn’t. He soared. They soared, riding the magnetic fields like a raptor on an updraft.
They spiraled downward, descending toward the Tizerkane garrison in the center of the city. The last time Lazlo had been there, Ruza and Tzara and some of the others had joked about blowing the godspawn into “blue stew.” Their hate, as Suheyla had tried to warn him, was like a disease. Would they hate him now, too?
Flying lower, he spotted figures on the ground: running flat out, as though to man posts. He heard shouts. His wariness increased and he proceeded slowly, holding his breath as he came level with the watchtowers. Silhouettes moved within them. He couldn’t make out faces. He luffed Rasalas’s wings, feeling the weight of eyes as they settled onto the street—softly, with none of the jarring or cracking of paving stones that had been Skathis’s way. He dismounted and walked slowly forward, thinking that he would pose less of a threat away from the creature. Then he waited.
After a few moments that rang with raised voices he couldn’t quite make out, the guardhouse door opened and Eril-Fane emerged, followed closely by Azareen. Both looked regal and weary, and, he thought, older than when he’d seen them last. Still, he had to remind himself, they weren’t so old. When Eril-Fane became the Godslayer, he had been but Lazlo’s age: twenty. Fifteen years had passed since then, putting him at thirty-five, and Azareen a little younger. They could still have a life ahead of them, after all this was over. Perhaps
even a family.
Lazlo stood where he was and let them approach.
“Are you all right?” Eril-Fane asked.
The question caught him off guard. Of all the things he’d braced himself for, simple concern had not crossed his mind. “Actually, yes,” he said, though they were bound to think it strange until he had a chance to explain. After all, the last time they’d seen him, he’d been clutching Sarai’s corpse to his chest, and they had no way of knowing that she survived, in her way. “And you?”
Eril-Fane admitted, “I’ve been better. I hoped you’d come. Tell me now, Lazlo. Are we in danger?”
“No,” Lazlo answered, and was profoundly grateful that it was true. If it weren’t for Ruby and Sparrow drugging Minya, he would have landed here saddled with the decision of who to save and who to sacrifice.
From Azareen issued a sound of disbelief. “So everything’s just fine now? Is that what you’re telling us?”
He shook his head. “I’m telling you that you’re not in danger. That doesn’t mean everything’s fine.” He saw her wariness, and couldn’t blame her for it. As succinctly as he could, he apprised them of the situation:
That Sarai was dead, but not gone. That her soul was bound by an ageless little girl, the same one who held all the ghosts in thrall, and who had attacked their silk sleigh. That the girl alone of the godspawn possessed a will for vengeance, and that she was drugged now, unconscious, buying them time to come up with a plan.
“Kill her,” said Azareen. “There’s your plan.”
“Azareen,” Eril-Fane reproached.
“You know I’m right,” she said, then told Lazlo, “She wants revenge, and you want to protect us? Go back up there and kill her.”
“Azareen,” repeated Eril-Fane. “That cannot be the only answer.”
“Sometimes it is. As it was for Isagol, Skathis, and the rest. Sometimes killing is the only answer.”
Harsh as it was, Lazlo supposed it must be true, that some people were beyond all hope of redemption, and would only cause grief and suffering as long as they were allowed to live. “I hope this is not one of those times,” he said. Reasons ran rampant in his mind. She is a survivor. She is what you made her. She is my sister. But he only said, “She holds Sarai’s soul in the world. If she dies, Sarai will be lost.”
This quelled Azareen’s insistence. She clamped her mouth shut and remembered the way Eril-Fane had fallen to his knees and wept at the sight of his dead daughter. If it truly came down to a choice between godspawn and humans, well, then she would do what needed to be done. But she knew that if it came to that, it would spell an end to any hope, however remote, of her husband reclaiming his right to live and be happy.
“Her name is Minya,” Lazlo told them, hoping to make her real to them. “She was the oldest in the nursery when…Well. She saved four babies.” His eyes flickered to Eril-Fane. It all led back to the Carnage, and it felt like blame to say so. “She…she heard everything.”
“Don’t try to spare me,” said Eril-Fane, grim. “I know what I did. And now she wants revenge. Who can blame her?”
“I can.” said Azareen. “We’ve endured enough. Sacrificed enough!”
A new voice answered, “That’s seldom our decision to make.” It was Suheyla. When she’d witnessed Lazlo’s descent, she’d been headed for the garrison already, with a stack of her big discs of flat-bread, wrapped in a cloth and still hot, balanced on her head. Now she regarded him from under her burden. This was her first sight of him blue, and it jarred her less than she’d feared it would, perhaps because she’d braced herself. Or maybe it was just that his face was still his face, his eyes still his eyes—guileless, earnest, and full of hope. “Look at you,” she said, lowering her bread to the ground. “Who’d have thought?” And she held out her hand to him.
He took it, and she laid her other—her tapered wrist where once a hand had been—atop it and gave a squeeze. It reminded him of the sacrifices the people of Weep had made, and also of their resilience. “I was as surprised as anyone,” he said. “I’m sorry to have left without saying good-bye.”