All would come out. Eril-Fane’s throat was tight, his fists tighter, and his hearts felt huge with a sudden, immense, uncomplicated love—for his city, his people, his mother, his wife, and for these beautiful blue children who had survived all on their own. Ever since Isagol, any feeling of love had triggered other feelings—unspeakable, crippling ones that filled him with shame and revulsion. It was like stroking the pelt of a magnificent animal—soft, sun-warmed, a marvel of creation—to find it crawling with maggots, its glassy eyes rolling as it was devoured from beneath. She had done that to him.
But as he stood there in the heart of the citadel, witness to this collision of stories in which he himself played such a part, he felt no shame and no revulsion, just love—simple, pure, untainted love.
And a terrible clear-eyed certainty that his reckoning had finally come.
Chapter 42
“Dead” Was the Wrong Answer
Sarai had been so fixed on the pale-haired, wild-eyed Korako apparition that she’d hardly looked at the three who came behind her. Then one of them spoke up—the second woman, and she spoke in their language, the language of Weep. Her voice faltered, and her accent was strange, but the words were plain enough.
“Who are you? Where is Skathis? Where is Korako?”
Sarai looked at her, and whatever thoughts those questions stirred in her, she forgot them as soon as their eyes met. Recognition sparked in her, sharp as a shock. Like all four marauders, the second woman was armed and black-clad, her expression severe. Her blue face was plain, her hair brown, and one of her eyes was brown, too. But the other…The other was green.
Sarai felt light-headed. She was overpowered by a sudden certainty that she was still trapped and wandering inside Minya’s dreams. “Kiska?” she asked, unbelieving.
The woman blanched with surprise. All the severity fell away, and she looked even more like the little girl from the nursery. “How do you know me?” she demanded.
Ruby audibly sucked in a breath. Feral and Sparrow stared. They didn’t know her face, the way Sarai did from the dream, but they certainly knew her name. Minya had kept the names of the lost alive, all those she could remember. She’d made sure the others remembered them, too. They had a litany of them, in reverse order: Kiska Werran Rook Topaz Samoon Willow, and on.
“Your eye,” replied Sarai, dazed. Then something clicked into place in her mind, and her gaze flashed to the two men.
During the scream, she’d been too distraught to put it together, but now it clicked. The boy taken away before Kiska, his gift had been a war cry to flay minds and wreak havoc. “Werran?” she asked, her eyes darting between the two men. One looked sharply at the other, whose face showed the same surprise as Kiska’s. The hard varnish of his ferocity was softened by confusion. He seemed to be about Lazlo’s age. In fact, he looked a little like Lazlo. They could almost be brothers.
Or, they could really be brothers. Because it was clear from their reactions: These invaders in their oil-black garb with their lightning prods—these strangers—were the last godspawn taken from the nursery. They were kindred.
Sarai’s hand flew to her mouth. A thrum of wonder filled her, along with an unexpectedly sweet surge of gladness, in spite of all the fury and fear from the violence of a moment ago. Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding! She dropped her hand from her mouth to her hearts, and looked at the second man. He was young, too, sharp-featured, with dark hair and dark eyes and a shadow of beard growth. Repeating the litany in her head, she said, “I don’t suppose you’re Rook.”
She saw from his rapid blinking and hard swallow that he was. “You’re alive,” Sarai breathed. All her life this mystery had hung over them, but she had hardly dared hope that she might learn the truth from the lips of the missing children themselves. Could it be so neat? The last three taken, all returned together?
“But who are you?” asked Rook.
“We’re like you,” she told him. “We were born in the nursery, too. We’re…we’re the last.”
“The last,” repeated Kiska, taking in the five of them. Her brow furrowed. She was thinking of the last thing she saw as Less Ellen dragged her to Korako. She was thinking of Minya, and the rest— the toddlers they’d swung in their makeshift hammock. “But there were so many more.”
The fate of those others hung heavy over them all, and so did the fate of the rest, all those who came before. “There were,” Sarai said, their loss a part of her forever. “But what happened to you? Where did they take you? Are all the others alive, too?”
Kiska turned to Nova, whose ferocity had softened not a whit. Her pale brows were pinched together, her eyes slitted and flinty. They spoke, quick and harsh. Sarai couldn’t tell how much of the harshness was anger and how much was just the language. Kiska gestured toward them while she talked, explaining who they were.
Nova’s voice grew harsher still, and Kiska, flustered, nodded once, and turned back to face Sarai and the others. Sarai saw her compose herself and put her severity back in place like a mask. A chill went down her spine. Whatever kinship there was between them, she was setting it aside in favor of her allegiance to this woman. “Answer me,” said Kiska. “Where is Skathis? Where is Korako?”
If her voice had been less cold, they might have told her, but no one did. The way Nova was looking at them, it felt like a knife to their throats. What answer did she hope for? A new wave of fear washed over them all, and none of them spoke. At least, not out loud. But their minds answered the question in chorus: dead they’re dead they’re dead they’re dead. The words were echoing in Sarai’s thoughts when she saw Kiska stiffen.
She remembered then what her gift was.
Kiska was a telepath, and it was clear from the look in her eyes— the dismay, the sorrow, the fear—that “dead” was the wrong answer.
…
Nova saw Kiska’s look, too, and she knew it could only mean one thing. The treacherous whisper broke loose from inside her.
too late too late too late too late
Nova had peered into a volcano once, in some world whose name she’d forgotten. She’d seen magma, hot and bright, churning in its core, and that was how she felt—her gorge, like magma, rising, her rage ready to erupt. She didn’t wait for Kiska to spit out the words, stammering and sorrowful. She seized her gift.
She was already holding four gifts, and each one was a drain on her power. Kiska’s made five, as many as she’d ever held at once, and she felt the strain, but didn’t hesitate. With Kiska’s telepathy, she threw herself at the strangers’ minds and plunged right into them.
It was like flying into a tornado. She’d used Kiska’s gift before, but not often enough to get used to it—the whirl of thoughts and feelings. Fear, anguish, confusion, uncertainty assailed her eightfold and she almost recoiled. She heard the same words that Kiska had heard, but she didn’t know what they meant. Words were meaningless, but there weren’t just words. She could see their memories, too, a messy, mad tumult of them, like reflections in boiling water. There was so much chaos, so many images, but the one she wanted—or rather, the one she didn’t want, the last thing she ever wanted—was there among them. She saw, and she could not unsee, and she could not undo.
too late
She saw the life leave Kora’s eyes.
too late
She felt the knife as though it entered her own heart.
too late
Nova saw her sister die in the killer’s own memory.
forever and always too late
She let go of Kiska’s power. Kiska felt its return like a punch, and staggered with the blowback of Nova’s feelings. She wasn’t ready, and the raw emotion was crushing.
Nova was shaking all over. Her eyes had become pools of fire. The air was thickening around her with a cloud so dark it looked as though it had been pulled from a night sky with night still clinging to it. And as she shook, the room shook, too. The walkway heaved and juddered. Those on it had to grasp the rail.