Page 61 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

My eyes creak open like a rusty iron door.

The world is a blur, and shapes bleed one into another.

As the haze begins to clear, tall beings made of light drift over me.

Their hands dance over my body and their fingers trace invisible lines in the air.

They never speak, but movements vibrate through this space to become low, constant hums.

I don’t understand all that’s happening to me. Who are they? Are they a threat?

Then I see Agon the Kindness pacing in front of a window, his hands clasped behind his back. His red robes rustle softly with each step.

And I see the Fynals, Elyn and Sybel, standing at the foot of my bed behind the healers.

They both wear gray suede tunics and breeches, their hands clasped together tightly in one large fist. Elyn’s brow furrows as her eyes dart between the healers and me.

Sybel gazes steadily at me, but her lips are trembling.

Are we together in Execration? Are we in After-Anathema?

I blink and try to focus, to make sense of my surroundings, but pain and anxiety tighten like a vise around my body.

This space is too small, too much. The chaise at my side is too close.

The pillows beneath my head are too soft.

Everything around me, too still. My thoughts, too fragile.

This bedroom looks like my bedroom in the abbey, but is that how Execration looks for everyone?

Before I can understand where I am, the room blurs again, and I find myself caught between this world that I recognize and the certainty that this place can no longer exist. The realm known as Vallendor is no longer. Unless…

The Between?

I’ve been infected with Vallendor—its rot and decay have infiltrated my body, its death entwined with my life, and I can no longer dwell anywhere else—including Anathema. So I must’ve been shunted to this place instead.

I don’t want to be here.

I turn my head, but fire spreads down my neck and floods my chest. I gasp but almost immediately am distracted from that acute pain because the man with golden smoky eyes has appeared at my bedside.

“You’re here,” Father whispers. “Rest.”

“Here”? Where am I? I try to ask, but the pain returns, and I can’t form the words.

I can’t move toward my life or to my death. In the Between, I can’t see a path to either, and I don’t know where to climb.

I close my eyes and let the healers decide.

…

I rest in a field of bluebells that stretches on forever.

The daystar casts warm golden light across an ocean of blue, and the petals glimmer like sapphire.

The meadow smells sweet, and I take deep breaths, filling my lungs with crisp, clean air.

I reach out to touch the flowers around me and am startled by my hands.

They’re too smooth, too soft, too small. A child’s hand.

Elyn sits cross-legged beside me, grinning, her hair in two smoky white braids. She is also too soft, too small; she is also a child here. “You keep breathing all the air,” she says, wriggling her nose.

I smile and lift my chin. “Nuh uh. You said that last time, so I asked Veril and he says we will never, ever run out of air. I can breathe as much of it as I want. So…” I close my eyes and take a dramatic whiff.

Elyn laughs, and together we lie back, our heads touching, on the soft grass in this field of bluebells.

The daystar bathes us in warmth and security.

Petals brush our skin like our mothers’ kisses as puffy white clouds drift across the blue sky and morph into soft shapes—lions, boats, faces.

Vallendor Realm will live forever as long as Lumis and Selenova make their treks, dawn to dusk, in the heavens.

I lift my hand to shield my eyes— Oh! My hand is bigger now.

“Do you see?” Elyn asks. “You’re changing, Kai.” Her voice is light, like a bird chirping at dawn.

“Yes, I see,” I say. “But I don’t understand how or why this is happening. Will you help me?” My voice is deeper than hers, like new smoke wafting from the earth.

“Will you help me ?” Elyn says. “I asked you first.”

“Yes, I’ll help you, but—”

She pulls one of my many braids. “You got a big butt.”

I snort. “Who came up with that stupid game?”

“Dunno. Stop saying ‘but.’”

“I’m not strong enough yet,” I say. “I’m not…all of me yet. What will happen to me, now that Vallendor is no more?”

Elyn and I roll onto our bellies to face each other.

Now, she is a little leaner, her face narrower.

She wears one braid instead of two. She peers at me with those gold eyes and says, “You are all of you. You just think some parts of you don’t count.

” Her voice remains bird-like, but the bird has grown and lost the worm despite her early rising.

“You’ve proven yourself to High Lord Megidrail and to the Council of High Orders—”

I cock an eyebrow. “Do you have actual proof that the Council believes that—?”

“Listen to me. You shouldn’t regret what you’ve done to save Vallendor. Your efforts were sincere and accomplished with your whole heart.”

She didn’t answer my question.

“But Fihel,” I say.

She pulls the end of one of my two braids. “Stop saying ‘but.’”

I chuckle and slap at her hand.

“There’s a reason that you keep thinking about Fihel,” Elyn says, “and why you keep worrying about whether you destroyed that city. That’s because every single hamlet, town, or province that you razed mattered to you. They were all Fihel.”

I lower my head. “Which is why today—”

“Kai, they will not send you into this war ill-prepared. That is not in their interest, either.”

“They will permit me to be all of me, then?” I ask. “Despite all my wrongdoings?”

“And what about all the right you’ve done? Does that not count?”

I consider all the bad things: I’ve destroyed provinces without permission from the Council of High Orders. I’ve allowed pride and impatience to lead me away from my true purpose. I’ve led others to ignore the Council’s directives, which led to chaos and rebellion.

Then I tally the good things, ignoring Elyn’s knowing gaze: I’ve been an exemplar of the power and grace of Supreme through my stewardship and protection of Vallendor.

I’ve faced down tyrants who enslaved those they’ve conquered.

I’ve blessed both believers and nonbelievers with coin, crops, and coupling.

I’ve inspired arts, engineering, and cultivation among mortals, and I’ve celebrated and grieved with the mortals of this realm.

Is that not enough? Does the accounting not accrue in my favor?

I can’t answer Elyn’s question, and that failure brings tears to my eyes. I ask again, “Will I be all of me when this war begins?”

“Yes, but know that this fight won’t end until you vanquish the traitor.” Elyn sits up from the bluebells, a woman now, with strong hands and wisdom in her stern gaze.

“There are those on Vallendor and across the Aetherium, even, who don’t want us here,” she says.

“They think we’re disrupting the natural order, but if we’re to survive, if we’re to remain in our space, we must continue to fight.

If we’re to be good seeds in a land filled with brambles and thorns, we can’t just surrender and slip away into the night.

” She touches my cheek and smiles. “Open your eyes, Kaivara. Welcome to your life.”

…

My father stands on the bluff that overlooks the field of bluebells, a sharp silhouette against the sky.

The wind tugs at his crimson leather shirt.

The hide of his breeches has been softened by ages of wear.

His boots are scuffed from countless journeys across rough terrain.

He stands tall and unmoving, his gaze fixed on Vallendor, searching for something only he can see.

Like the inkings on his skin that represent the realms he’s destroyed, Father’s dark hair has meaning.

His maze of twists and braids is meticulously woven, each braid telling its own story, marking battles fought.

The plaits over his left ear: the map used to surround the instigators on the realm Graviel.

The curved braids at his crown: the freedom road created for those who’d been enslaved on Realm Idwah.

Taught by the Renrians, some mortal tribes across Vallendor learned to mimic Father’s braids of maps and memorials. Some have hidden rice, beans, and seeds within them, as a means of survival when they were torn away from their homelands.

I stand beside him in my bare feet, wearing a gown of light cotton.

“Father?” My voice sounds strong but remains ragged around the edges.

I’m not yet confident enough to look at my hands.

Last time I did, they were swollen and bruised by Miasma.

My face… I don’t even want to think about how my face must look.

He smiles and looks over at me, then turns back to the field of flowers. “This place…”

“Welcome to Vallendor. Excuse the dust.”

He takes a breath and touches his heart-spot before lifting my chin with his fingertips. “You look like your mother right now. That hair on your head… Do you still cry when someone else combs it?”

“Mmhmm.” I bite my lower lip and push my fingers through my curls. Free of braids and threads of luclite, my hair blows in the breeze like the bluebells covering the field.

The Vallendor my father knew, once upon a time, no longer exists.

Beyond the still-pristine glen, sickly green clouds form above the Sea of Devour.

Otherworldly—gerammocs, sunabi, aburan, and resurrectors—fight, die, and rise again all across the realm.

Mortals—humans, Dashmala, Gorga, Jundum—die in their beds, set fire to the homes of their enemies, and raid towns, temples, and tracts of land not theirs.

Children of every mortal race slash the throats of their playmates without mercy.

How are we still here?

Why hasn’t the world ended?