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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

M Y TEARS HAD DRIED to salty lines down my cheeks just like the scars that had been cut through Brenna’s eyes. They itched as I made the journey through the portals from Myrelinth to the Order, but I didn’t wipe them away.

The brine of the surrounding sea slapped my face as I stepped out of the lake portal and cut across the field to the north side of the island. My chest ached from losing Maerhal, for Nikolai, for Syrra, for myself. But just as Hildegard’s funeral had brought the Shades together in our grief, Maerhal’s had stitched our bleeding hearts just enough to feel something other than the gash in our chests.

Brenna deserved the same.

We had come to save the Shades, but we had left one behind. I wasn’t going to leave her buried on that island alone, completely cut off from anyone who ever cared for her, any ancestors her bones might recognize in the kingdom.

Even if the Faelinth ended in ash and flame, Brenna should make it to those lands as we’d dreamed we would.

I pulled the empty diizra I had stolen from my pocket as I approached the side of the hill where I had buried her. The waves crashed against the cliff’s edge, scraping the rock with their watery claws and filling the air with their mist.

My palm flattened against the earth until I could feel the pulse of life underneath me. Every blade of grass, every wildflower, was connected to a web that pulsed through me like a shared heartbeat.

Brenna’s bones didn’t pulse. They were cold and dead just as she was, but I could sense the absence of life through the web. I traced the shape of their coldness, inking a shadow of them in my mind. I used the earth gift Elverath had given me to pull them from the soil.

One by one, pillars of every size lifted from the ground, each holding a piece of my first love. I blew a gentle gust across them, sprinkling the dirt through the air until the white shone through. A spout of sea water rose over the cliff’s edge by my command, washing them clean.

The bones shone under the night sky, more precious than any metal I had ever held. I let my powers leak out of me as I cried, leaving a trail of blossoms and shrubs with every step I took.

The training field was now a meadow. I lingered over each bushel of blooms, plucking one from every bush until I had a soft bed of petals covering the ground.

I picked up the bones one by one, starting with her feet, and placed them on the blooms. The salt seared my throat as I sobbed. The bones that had once been Brenna—the person who had been larger and brighter than anyone I’d ever known—was now a pile small enough to fit in one of Rheih’s berry baskets.

I looked down at the them but I no longer saw bones laid on petals. Brenna was lying on the bed of flowers, blooms poked through her blond curls that splayed out like sunrays lit behind her. The same curls I would have braided my own hair into if I had been able to bury her properly the first time.

Without thinking, I pulled the white hilt from its sheath and grabbed the length of my braid. The end trailed past my weapons belt as I held it in front of me. All those years, all those memories woven together at the ends. The last part of me she’d touched. I lifted the bloodstone dagger to the side of my face and sliced through my braid at my shoulders.

The freshly cut ends untangled in the wind as I circled the braid around Brenna. My hair was now the same length it had been the day Brenna and I met. A worthy amount for me to give to her while leaving enough length for Riven to braid his hair into mine if this war ended the way Damien wanted.

That was how it had always been. Brenna got everything I could give her, and Riven got the pieces that were left. It was unfair. Cruel to both of us. But my heart had been half dead for decades.

Something moved behind me. I turned around on my knee, dagger still in hand. The rock that Gerarda had kicked rolled to a stop beside my boot. With the rage of the sea, I hadn’t heard her approach.

“What are you doing here?” My words were sharper than I’d meant them.

Gerarda’s amber eyes lingered on my cut braid. There was a sheen over them as she finally looked at me. “This is not a ritual one does alone, Keera.” She swallowed thickly. “And Brenna deserves more than one person at her funeral.”

My lips trembled. “Almost everyone who knew her is dead.”

Gerarda’s jaw pulsed four times. “You, me, and Myrrah.” She pulled something from her pocket. Her palm opened, and I choked on a laugh.

“She kept it all this time?” I took the tiny ship from Gerarda’s hand and caressed the folds Brenna had made in the parchment. A reminder for Myrrah that she would set sail again.

Gerarda nodded. “I asked Myrrah if she wanted to come but she said she would only slow my journey.” She gave me a knowing look. Myrrah never slowed anyone down.

“She’s had her fill of funerals.” I placed the paper ship onto the pile and stood again. “So have I.”

“Indeed.” Gerarda stood silently over the pile with me, waiting for me to fill the silence, but I had already told Brenna everything I needed to. In my dreams, in my nightmares, in Vellinth with Syrra at my side. I was filled only with grief, but it was no longer cold and trying to drown me. There was a warmth to it, a fullness, it was my love for her persisting in a way that finally let me carry on.

“I actually don’t know the words to the song.” I turned to Gerarda. “Will you sing it?”

She placed her palm over her face and then her chest. “It would be my honor.”

Ish’kavra diiz’bithir ish’kavra.

From flame to ash to flame again.

Gerarda’s voice was powerful. It rose to heights that she held like birdsong through the highest treetops before lowering to a turbulent trill. Somehow the words sounded different; at Hildegard’s funeral she had sung with grace and refinement, but now her voice shook with the rage that had fueled Brenna every day on this island. It crashed and rolled with the tempo of the sea just as Brenna’s love had ebbed and flowed through my life.

Only when Gerarda sliced her hood from her cloak did I realize she was wearing black. It was not the black garb given to us as Shades, but Elvish-spun linen that held its darkness even after decades of wear.

It was a symbol—the hood Brenna never got to claim. Gerarda sliced her hand as she sang, coating the hood in her blood before passing it to me. The hood that had rightfully been Brenna’s, the one Damien had taken from her.

I sliced my own palm with my bloodstone blade and turned toward the palace of Koratha. I looked up at the middle tower topped in gold and wondered if Damien was watching us through his magnifying window. Part of me hoped he was, that he had to bear witness to this last act of defiance Brenna and I were doing together.

Gerarda and I lay the hood over the pile of bones. She laced her bloodied palm through mine and my magic seeped into her, stitching the flesh back together without a conscious thought. The last words of the funeral song hung from her lips like a final farewell and then the world went silent.

“ Ish’kavra diiz’bithir ish’kavra ,” I whispered, and then I set the pyre aflame.

We stood as the hood and bones burned away, singeing the petals underneath it before they too turned to ash. Gerarda drew a circle on the grass with her foot. “Light another fire here,” she said, pulling a knife from her belt.

The flames ignited in an instant. Gerarda placed the blade in the fire before grabbing the diizra from my hand and opening the top of it.

I could have used my magic to lift Brenna’s ashes into the small satchel, but that wasn’t intimate enough. Instead, I scooped what was left of her in my hands and let the ashes roll down my fingers into her new resting place. When the job was done, I used wind to blow the dust from my palms too. The particles whirled together in a tight braid before dropping through the mouth of the diizra .

Gerarda folded the opening into an intricate roll that reminded me of a flower still tucked into its bud. Then she pulled the red-hot knife from the fire beside us and sealed the edge of the golden bag for good.

She pulled the chain from the other end free and held it up for my head to slip through. When she let go, Brenna’s ashes fell directly over my heart.

I gasped. “It’s warm.” The diizra had been cold in my hand but now it almost pulsed against the bare skin of my chest.

Gerarda nodded. “That life is now yours to carry. For a year until it will be yours to let go.”

I lifted my hand to my chest, the palm acting like a shield even though there was no threat nearby. “What if I don’t survive the year?”

Gerarda only shrugged and started walking back toward the lake where Riven waited for us both. “You have to.”

The training field was cloaked in shadow. Thick tendrils licked at my feet as I walked, climbing to my hips.

Thin vines of shadow twisted around my wrists like snakes, tightening as they coiled until I was held in place. Someone appeared from the darkness in front of me.

Feron.

He walked without need for a cane, his violet eyes glowing, but no ground shifted underneath my feet.

I smirked. “Impressive, Elaran.”

Feron’s face contorted, skin fading to a light brown. I was staring at myself. “Not as impressive as me,” Elaran said in a mocking tone before shifting back to herself. “And not nearly as impressive as that.” She pointed to Fyrel, whose eyes glowed amber before she transformed into a fox and then a badger and then a wolverine. Each form progressively bigger than the last.

She ran her furry body between my legs and flopped onto her back. I knelt and scratched her belly. “Is it draining to maintain the different forms?”

There was a flash of light and Fyrel was herself again with my hand on her stomach. “The smaller the animal the easier it is to maintain. I could spend all day as a field mouse and not feel tired, but shifting between different creatures is draining. And the bigger forms.” Determination flashed across Fyrel’s face.

“Don’t overextend yourself,” I told her. “This gift is already useful; you don’t need to push it further.”

Fyrel nodded with a quick glance at Gwyn.

She was standing at the bow of a small boat. It soared through the water with no sail, just Myrrah at the stern shifting the currents of the lake with amber glowing hands. In just a short time, everyone had made so much progress.

I turned back to the others. Crison had a flock of birds flying over the field, and Vrail was using her gift and books to learn anything that could help us win against the shirak .

I nodded at Gerarda. “Where’s Dynara?”

Gerarda waved her hand and her shadows disappeared to reveal the open training field. The real Feron smiled at me from his seat, but Dynara was nowhere to be found. “They have come far in a short amount of time.”

Gerarda crossed her arms. “Not far enough.”

“We are better off than when we first saw the waateyshir in Silstra.” I surveyed the field again. “Where is Dynara?”

A thin gold line appeared in the air next to me. It stretched downward, carving a circle into nothing. I held my breath as the circle closed and a thin watery veil appeared with the golden leaves of Sil’abar glowing on the other side of it.

Dynara stepped through.

“A portal maker,” I said in disbelief.

Dynara smirked, waving her amber glowing fingers. “Not a very offensive gift.” She turned to Gerarda and Feron.

“But a very powerful one,” I said, stretching my arm through the portal. The sunlight warmed my palm even though the day in Myrelinth was overcast and cool. “This changes everything.”

Feron’s smile widened, and he nodded.

Dynara blinked. “You think it’s useful?”

“Yes.” I pulled my hand back. “How many can you make before reaching your limit?”

“A couple dozen or so.” Dynara tucked her hair behind her rounded ear. “Less if I have to close every one.” She raised a glowing fist and punched it through the portal she had just made. The veil froze and then shattered to the ground. “You can use me in battle?” she asked, doubtful.

I smirked. “We can use you to ferry us in and ferry Halflings out. Damien will never know when we’ll attack.”

Dynara’s frown grew into a mischievous smirk.