Page 56 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)

The End of All Our Searching

It was the first truly hot spring day. The sun-warmed earth around the palace cast up such a scent of roots, of pale green points and fresh buds so giddying and rich, that Anya did not wait to wash or eat.

She hauled on clothes and ran outside, Gallia and Coren and Koo flying around her head.

The gaganas sang as they flew. Anya joined in, high and strong.

It was in gaganan, which shares almost no common vocabulary with English; this is a very rough translation:

“Praise gagana wings and beak and bones,

Praise the sky, which no man owns,

Praise the stars in the dark nocturne,

But praise more the sun, which will ever return.”

Christopher met Anya by the front door. He held two pieces of thick toast, spread with jam from the fruit trees in the orchard. He offered her one. Eating, they walked into the sunlight.

They stood on the great lawn, looking down toward the expanse of water.

The borometz came toward them—they moved closer, to be within its tendril reach.

Anya fed it part of her toast. The phoenix swooped low and landed at their feet, watching them with quizzical eyes.

And then it was a cavalcade: from every corner of the garden, the wood, the water, the creatures came.

A kanko ran up Anya’s boot; she lifted it to her shoulder.

The longma came angular and high-stepping toward them, and the baby roc, galumphing on his talons.

Gallia flew to land on Anya’s outstretched hand, and she scratched the feathers of the wise bird.

Life: they were surrounded by life—death’s insistent and glorious opposing twin.

Life burred, called, thrummed around Anya.

The air was full of cries and rustles, sweet noise, the soft breathing of living things.

It kicked the residual fear of the castle, of her uncle, out of her body: the burgeoning life of the place.

Joy was coming, as certain as the harvest.

Christopher broke their silence. “Look,” he said. “Look, there!”

A boat was sailing into the harbor of Glimt, Ratwin at its helm, guiding two sailors in. A woman stood next to her, a baby in her arms. The woman was plain in the face but bright in the eyes, with an expression that bespoke kindness.

Nighthand barreled down the steps of the palace. “Irian! Christopher!” And he roared the boy’s name again, not seeing he was only feet away. “ Christopher! We have found them! They have come!”

“Found who?” Anya asked. But then Anya thought she knew; a look at Christopher’s face told her. “The Immortal? The new Immortal soul?”

“That was what you were searching for?” said Christopher.

“I have had a dozen men out, seeking, this last year,” said Nighthand. “Every hour I could spare, I have been on the sea, seeking them.” He spoke fast and low. “Ratwin has sent out three dozen ratatoskas, seeking a child with the right birth day, the right birth hour.”

“And they found them?”

“That was the message that summoned me and Irian away. We couldn’t tell anyone, lest we be followed.”

“We had to move fast, and cover our tracks,” said Irian. “It was vital we didn’t unwittingly lead anyone to the child. The Immortal is always vulnerable, without protection.”

“Ratwin found news of him through the nereids,” said Nighthand.

“We met him, for just a few minutes. It is a boy child. He is a marvel. The end of all our searching! He has never yet spoken a single word—he is not yet a year old—but I am positive it is he. His mother, Senan, agreed to bring him here; for a visit, to begin—perhaps more, later, when he is older. He is very much beloved by those who meet him. He weeps, and laughs, and laughs again. The namer called him Aeterenus; they call him Teren.”

Anya found herself in the midst, suddenly, of a crowd: Irian, Nighthand, her father, the longma, the roc, Meri the mouse (“Oh, the ways I will assist him! To assist the baby Immortal!”). All had come to see the boat come in.

There was a call from the sky, and Naravirala landed on the lawn. “Am I come too late? I just heard your news—I could not bear not to see him.” Her wound was healed, and her face at rest.

Only Christopher stood a little way off.

He was very white. Anya went to stand by him. The boat came in to land, and the woman stepped ashore, the child in her arms.

He had a puckish, sparking face, with large eyes and a pointed chin. He looked both very young and entirely ancient: not like any other living person Anya had ever seen. On the palm of one outstretched hand there was a birthmark. It was shaped like an apple.

His mother, as mothers do, held the child as tight as if carrying a precious gem, but Teren laughed, looking out at his new surroundings with the eager precision of someone who has seen many million landscapes.

And then the child’s face transformed: his gaze went past Anya to the boy beside her. His eyes opened wide, and from them burned such love that the baby looked, suddenly, transparently eternal.

“Christopher!” he said.

Only that. But in that word there was a wealth of joy that went far beyond the knowledge of a tiny child—of any child at all.

It was the first word of the new Immortal: a good one. He balled his fists, and jutted his jaw, and the gesture belonged to Mal Arvorian, and the hearts of those who saw him rose and flew.

Christopher looked down at the tiny new-ancient face as if searching for something there; and his eyes suggested that he found it.