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Chapter Thirty-One

Daeros—the Sea of Bones

Already the heat and light of the Yellow Lord are too much to bear. My eyes tear and my skin burns and still he grows brighter, brighter. I can’t see Ballast anymore, but his hand is yet caught in mine, our feet pounding in unison over fast-melting snow.

Ballast? I say, frantic, into his mind.

His answer comes hesitant, unsure: Here, Brynja.

We draw near to the edge of the glacier sea and slow our steps.

The Yellow Lord is impossible to look at. All is light, light, scorching every part of me. My heart sears and my lungs boil and I think I will drown in light.

“ Stop !” I shriek at the Yellow Lord. “ You Have to Stop .”

His voice comes out of the brightness, solemn and weary. “I cannot, little Eldingar. My power has been unbound. It will not stop until it has consumed all darkness, on the earth and under it.”

Behind him, the sun rises, but I cannot tell him apart from the brightness of that ancient star.

I think of the Sea of Bones, where it’s said the Ghost Lord walks, hand in hand with the Gray Lady, guardians of the dead. Ballast and I cannot bind the Yellow Lord anew. But they could.

The Sea, I whisper into Ballast’s mind. I only hope he understands.

Then we’re running again, hurtling toward the Yellow Lord. The world is white before my eyes.

We slam into him and I cry out in agony. All is heat, light, pain. But we don’t stop.

The sun rises and the Yellow Lord burns and we fall with him, into the Sea of Bones.

I lose Ballast somewhere in the light, his fingers slipping from mine. The Yellow Lord weeps as we fall, the power bursting out of him, still growing and growing. It is agony to be near him, but his torment must be worse, boiling from the inside.

We fall and fall, and I feel strangely outside of myself. The fear is still there, the pain, the loss. But there will be relief soon. Rest.

My people have long believed that if they are devout enough in life, they will be rewarded with the power and immortality of a First One after death.

I have both served and betrayed my people; I don’t know what awaits me at the bottom of the Sea.

I only hope we’ve bought enough time so that Saga and the others can make it to Tenebris, that they’ll be saved from the Yellow Lord’s annihilation.

Brynja, comes the frantic thread of Ballast’s voice in my mind.

Here, Bal.

I grasp for him, but I can’t reach him, and that’s what makes the fear rush up, the horror and the sorrow of death grip tight.

Brynja!

The ground rushes up to greet us. The light burns, burns, and then—

The music of bubbling water, the quiet warmth of an underground chamber.

I blink and see the Iljaria city that Ballast and Saga and I wandered through two years ago.

It’s illuminated by soft, unseen lamps, and the whole place smells of yeast and honey.

There is the fountain where Ballast and I sat while Saga bathed.

There are the statues, the murals, the flagstone floor.

I am here and yet not here, for I seem to have no hands, no voice. I wonder if I am already dead, shattered at the bottom of the Sea of Bones, or if this is a vision, the ravings of my dying mind.

I blink again and see the Yellow Lord, kneeling in the midst of the room, his head bowed. Light ripples all along his skin, and tears drip from his eyes and turn to steam.

The Prism Lady stands before him, her hair a river of white that falls to the floor and pools around her ankles.

She looks at once young and ancient, her skin very pale, her eyes no color at all, and yet every color at once.

With her are the Blue Lady, the Ghost Lord, and the Bronze Lord, who sits in a carved chair, his ruined arms laid on his knees.

“Youngest of us all,” says the Prism Lady, crouching down to the Yellow Lord’s sight line, taking his chin gently in hers. His light does not seem to harm her, but her face is heavy with sorrow. “You have been unbound.”

“So,” says the Yellow Lord, agony twisting his features.

“Once,” says the Ghost Lord, taking a step nearer, “we offered you a choice, a dwelling place that you scorned.”

The Yellow Lord weeps, weeps, and the steam of his tears hisses on the flagstones.

The Blue Lady comes forward, butterflies and bees tangled in her curls, a lion pressed against her hip, a falcon on her shoulder. “Once, you nearly destroyed the world with your power. We will not allow you to do so again.”

The Bronze Lord does not speak, but he bows his head and weeps along with the Yellow Lord.

The Prism Lady takes the Yellow Lord’s hand and raises him to his feet. He looks at her but cannot quite meet her eyes.

“We offer to you once more the choice that was previously so abhorrent to you,” says the Prism Lady. “You will be bound, you will never again be loosed, but we will bind you in light instead of darkness, if you will choose at last the dwelling we made for you.”

The Yellow Lord takes a breath. “And if I do not choose that, my lady?”

“Then you will be bound in ice and rock, encased in iron, swallowed up in the domain of the Black Lord, whom you so despise.”

“I choose what I should have chosen before,” says the Yellow Lord softly. “I choose to be bound in light.”

The Prism Lady nods, and the Ghost Lord locks fetters about the Yellow Lord’s wrists.

Then the city is no longer around us and we are soaring through the sky in a winged ship, the Prism Lady at the bow and the Yellow Lord in the center, flanked by the Blue Lady and the Ghost Lord, with the Bronze Lord at the stern.

The winged ship flies up, up, toward the sun.

And then we’re sailing into the light, and it welcomes us.

The sun is living, blazing, liquid fire, but it does not burn. The winged ship bears us into the heart of the old star, where waits a tall, fair house with white gates and a river of light running past it.

The Yellow Lord steps from the ship and bows his head to the Prism Lady.

“I did not know,” he says. “I did not know that you built for me such a dwelling.”

The Prism Lady smiles sadly. “I have never wanted any of my children to dwell in torment. Here your light will burn for all eternity, and harm no one.”

The Yellow Lord steps through the gates of his house. There is a flare of light, the searing feeling of joy , and then the ship turns around, and flies out of the sun.

I blink and there is no ship, no First Ones. There is only the sun, rising, and me, falling.

Down and down and down.

The Yellow Lord is gone.

And I will end as I always feared I would, falling, shattered, broken.

Fingers tangle suddenly in mine, hold tight, squeeze.

Here, Brynja, says Ballast.

Here, Bal, I say, and I am fiercely glad to not be alone in my nightmare.

I cling to him as we fall down and down.

Into the welcoming embrace of the Sea of Bones.