Page 270 of The Cradle of Ice

“Why?” Graylin asked Daal, with many questions buried in that one word.

Daal didn’t answer.

The bat flew high, turned on a wing, and dove down. It looked like it was going to smash into the huge sphere, but it skirted to the side and vanished down the hole under it.

Graylin turned to Daal and repeated the question silently.

Daal answered this time.

“Hope.”

* * *

NYX FELL BACK into her own body and hugged herself. She was soaked in blood. Her broken shin throbbed with every inhale. She stared over at Bashaliia’s body, still warm but silent forever.

She reached to him anyway. She ran a fingertip down the bristly pinna of his ear, remembering all the whispers she had shared. She rubbed the velvet around his nose, fixing all the soft comfort it had given her. She slid a palm over his heart and rested it there.

Though Bashaliia was not here, this body was a map of her memories. She wanted to read it for as long as she could.

But another demanded her attention.

She still retained a small pyre of golden fire, all that was left of the life and verve of the raash’ke past. Yet, that was not all. Over that fire, a shred of blackness fluttered, the smoke from the ancient past—but it was fading fast.

She sang to it, sensing it fought to remain for a moment longer. She wove golden strands and brushed them gently against that shred of ancientness. She expressed her thanks. The mind answered with a gratefulness of its own. For this release. For allowing some measure of atonement and grace.

She also sensed a promise. That this wasn’t truly the end.

For the past, yes.

But not the future.

The ancientness stirred a memory out of her, one given to her by the Oshkapeers.

—overhead, more raash’ke ply the skies. Others hop along streets or perch on walls. Children play among them, especially with the smallest of the beasts.

She understood. The raash’ke could build a new horde-mind, one free of stain and guilt, to be pure again. To return to what they once were, what they were always meant to be.

She hoped that would come to pass, but she feared it would not. How could it? As always, that awful vision of a mountaintop rose up. She tried to force it away. She didn’t mean to taint this last moment, this final farewell.

The smoke of ancientness—just a haze now—heard her fear of what was to come. From that smoke, she felt pity and sorrow, yet still an underlying gratefulness. Then just as the smoke dissolved to nothingness—a final surge passed through her. She gasped, recognizing the bright burn of it. From her time with the Dreamers. It was a branding, an ingraining into her as firmly as the fiery map of the Fangs.

It was also a terror.

She recognized what had been burned into her.

As that ancientness released fully, it left behind a single word, a correction, firm and assured.

Gift.

Then it was gone forever.

Nyx sat quietly, trembling in the darkness, still fearful of that final gift.

Before she could find some peace with it, an urgent keening reached her.

Hope surged through her.

With her good leg, she pushed her back up the wall and balanced there. Above, a huge shadow swept back and forth across the distant moon of the crystal orb. Wings swept wide, slightly unsteady as Bashaliia struggled with his new form. He trilled his confusion and disorientation.