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Chapter Thirty-Two

Daeros—Tenebris

The owls catch us before we smash onto the ice. I could laugh. I had forgotten the owls.

We are too heavy for them to carry us both at once, back to the top of the cliff. I send Ballast first and wait for a little while by myself in the Sea of Bones.

It is quiet down here, the sun casting the glaciers in eerie shades of blue.

I think of my sister, and I wonder what she thought of as she fell.

I hope she thought of love and laughter.

I hope she remembered light. I hope, when the world is reborn, that I will see her again, as she was meant to be. Happy. Inventing things.

Tears prick at my eyes.

The owls come for me, and I let them bear me up, into the wind, into the sky.

Ballast waits at the top of the cliff. The edges of his white-and-black hair are singed. He smells of smoke.

“Brynja,” he breathes. He crushes me tight against him, and I muffle a sob into his chest.

I look up at him, and he smooths my hair away from my brow, and we stare at each other, caught in the dizzying awe of what we witnessed together, having walked for a little while in the realm of the First Ones themselves.

I want to melt into him. But there is work yet to be done.

Ballast takes my hand, and we turn together toward the armies. They’ve ceased their fighting, staring every one at the sun, and I wonder what it must have looked like to them, at the precise moment when the Yellow Lord was bound there.

The snow is dark with blood and gore, and hundreds of bodies—human and animal—are strewn about the ground.

Thorny roots lie broken and twisted, and the earth is shattered in the places where the rock monsters rose.

The Iljaria-beasts who still live have shifted back into their original forms, though remnants of their wings and claws seem still to whisper about them.

Less than half of the Skaandan and Daerosian armies remain, and the Iljaria forces have dwindled to a few hundred. The air reeks of death, and the cries of the wounded hang brittle on the wind.

Tears bite at my eyes. None of this had to happen, such reckless waste of life. And yet it did.

They wait for us, watch us come: Saga and Vil, Gulla and Aelia, Gróa and Drengur—Brandr’s scribe and steward—holding Brandr between them. There is blood on my brother’s temple, blood caught in the shock of his white hair. Ballast’s brothers, Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus, are there, too.

The armies wait, tense and uncertain, hands still gripping tight to sword hilts and spear shafts. The animals have drawn back but not dispersed, held in check by Ballast’s will. Again, his power stuns me—there are hundreds of beasts, and all of them obey him.

We stop a few paces away from the waiting armies. Saga’s eyes go to my hand, still caught fast in Ballast’s, and her whole being hardens. There is blood on her face, and more leaks through a rag tied tight around her left forearm. My throat hurts. I let go of Ballast’s hand.

The sun burns warm at my back. It bathes the battlefield with a stark brightness that sickens me. I don’t want to look at the bodies, don’t want to see the blood staining my boots.

“Lady Eldingar.”

I snap my eyes to Gróa, my brother’s steward.

“Command us,” she says.

I blink at her. “I command no one.”

“The Prism Master is powerless. We have no leader.”

Brandr doesn’t lift his head. His chest rises and falls. His blood drips into the snow.

“We have ceased our fighting upon the sign of the Yellow Lord’s binding,” Gróa goes on, “but give the word and we will annihilate these barbarians.”

“No,” I say, voice tight. “No. There will be no more fighting today.”

Gróa inclines her head to me. “As you wish, my lady.”

“What of the mountain?” says Vil.

I force myself to look at him. His side is leaking blood, his hand pressed hard into the wound, red running through his fingers.

“Skaanda claims the mountain,” he says through gritted teeth.

Zopyros wheels on him, sword high. “Get what’s left of your army the hell out of my country!”

“You are not a king,” Vil sneers at him. “You do not command me.”

“And it is my army,” says Saga fiercely. “Not his.”

Vil glances at her and ducks his chin in deference, though his body tenses, and the anger is still in him.

“Tenebris is claimed for Skaanda ,” Saga says, raising her sword so it catches the light of the sun. Behind her, the Skaandans shout a note of their war song and lift their own blades. She is fey and bright, a goddess on a hill. “Daeros will stand down.”

“Daeros will not !” snaps Zopyros. He lifts his sword, and the Daerosians crouch into a fighting stance.

The Iljaria just stand there, silent and watching, like they truly have no part in this conflict.

Ballast strides fearlessly between them, his blue eye flashing. “There will be no more fighting today,” he says. Then, shouting into the sky: “ There Will Be No More Fighting Today !”

The Daerosians knock their sword hilts against their breastplates in a show of respect and obedience. The Skaandans don’t move, blades gleaming in the sunlight. Saga’s jaw is tense, and her eyes flick to me.

Please, I whisper into her mind. Let there be no more death today.

Ballast’s brothers look at each other, a wordless agreement passing between them. They kneel all together, bowing their heads and laying their swords at Ballast’s feet.

“All hail the king of Daeros,” they chorus.

The Daerosian army echoes: “ All Hail !”

For a moment Saga stays frozen, sword fast in her hand, rage and wanting bright in her eyes. Then she takes a breath. “Stand down,” she orders.

“Saga?” Vil says, the anger holding him fast.

“Stand down,” she repeats.

Vil obeys her and lowers his sword, and the rest of the Skaandan army follows suit.

My heart beats, beats. Ballast stands before his army, gilded in light, and his beauty robs me of breath. I think he will never again walk in darkness.

Saga can’t look at me, her eyes everywhere else in the private tearoom: the window, the table, the pattern on the marble floor. There is food laid out on the table between us, but neither of us has touched anything. The tea has already gone cold.

She fiddles with her cup, running her finger around the rim.

“Are you sure you won’t stay?” I ask at last, desperate to hear her voice. “I’m not sure Vil is the best choice to negotiate peace.”

She attempts a smile. “I’m ready to go home, Brynja. If I never see this mountain again, it’ll be too soon.”

I worry my lip. “Vil is disappointed.”

“That he doesn’t get to try his hand at being king? Yes. But don’t tell me you feel sorry for him.”

“I do.”

This surprises her enough that she raises her eyes to mine. “I thought you hated him.”

“I have never hated him, Saga. I blamed him, for a while, for Indridi’s death, but he didn’t kill her, and I can understand the fierce loyalty he has to his country. The truth is, he was my friend, and was far kinder to me than my own brother ever was.”

Saga shifts in her chair. “Was any of it real, Brynja?”

My throat hurts. “Of course it was real. I could have left you when we escaped from the mountain. I could have left you in the tunnels, or on the tundra. But I didn’t.”

“Am I supposed to say thank you for that?” Saga demands. There are tears in her eyes, and I feel them pressing against mine, too.

“Saga.” My voice breaks. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never meant to. But I did, and I’m sorry.”

She stares at her lap, twists her fingers in her skirt, twists and twists.

“What will you do?” I ask her quietly. “When you get home?”

“Try and forget all of this,” she says without looking up.

“I understand. But if you—” I hesitate, unsure of myself. “If you were to write me—”

“I’m not going to write you, Brynja. Why would I?”

I take a slow breath. “I understand,” I repeat.

“What about the Iljaria?” she asks after a moment, her voice unsteady. “What about Aelia and the threat of Aerona?”

“Aelia has seen with her own eyes that the peninsula is prepared to defend itself. We will urge her to persuade her father to reconsider his plans to invade. As for the Iljaria—they’ll go home. They’ll take my brother with them.”

“And you?” says Saga quietly.

For another brief moment, her glance meets mine.

“I will stay awhile longer. Help to negotiate peace. And then ...” My heart thrums quick, my mind buzzes with magic. “Then I’ll go home, too.”

“What does it feel like?” she asks me. “Your magic?”

“Like breathing. Like life.”

I am eager to tell her more, to share with my friend all the things I ever kept from her. But she doesn’t ask, and I have lost the right to tell her anyway.

“The darkness won’t come again, will it,” she says. “There will be no more Gods’ Fall.”

I nod. “We’ll always have the sun, now, I think.”

“I’m glad of that, at least.” She pushes her chair back. Stands. Looks me in the eyes. “Goodbye, Brynja. I can’t say I’ll miss you. But ... thank you. For saving me. For saving all of us.”

She leaves the room without another word, her skirt dragging over the marble, her perfume lingering in her wake.

The Iljaria leave in the evening, Brandr sullen and silent. I have not told my people that my brother’s true patron is the Ghost Lord. I should, perhaps. But I don’t. I do tell them he killed our father. I will let them sort out what that means for his homecoming.

“Will you not come with us, Lady Eldingar?” Gróa asks me frankly.

I stand with the Iljaria outside the mountain, snow skittering past my face in the light of the falling sun.

The light was long today, stretching for nearly twelve hours, as it usually does only in the height of summer.

I think of the Yellow Lord. I hope he is content with his choice; I hope he knows he chose rightly.

“When I have finished with my business here, I will return to Iljaria,” I tell her.

Gróa bows to me and swings up onto her horse. “As you say, my lady.”

“Brandr.”

He stiffens from his place on his own horse, his hands bound. He doesn’t look at me.

“I hope you find what you need,” I say. “I’m sorry it ended this way.”

Brandr curses at me.

I turn and walk back into the mountain.

It’s strange, eating dinner with such an eclectic array of people.

Ballast and Gulla are here, of course, and Kallias’s other three wives, Pelagia with newborn Charis wrapped in her arms. Charis was born during the battle, Pelagia told us, and came into the world hollering.

The rest of Ballast’s siblings are here, too, including little Xenia.

There’s Aelia and Vil. Rute, Finnur, and the rest of the children from the Collection.

In the morning, I, along with Gulla and Kallias’s other wives—Pelagia, Elpis, and Unnur—will begin the process of bringing the children home, or finding places for them if they have no home to go to.

When I’m not busy with the children, I’ll be in the council chambers, attempting to negotiate true peace between Daeros and Skaanda, and doing my level best to keep Vil and Ballast from killing each other.

Ballast meets my eyes across the table, as if sensing my thoughts. He smiles at me, and my insides turn to mush.

“Vil.”

He turns to face me, pausing in his progress down the corridor. His jaw is tense, his eyes hard.

I’m a jumble of nerves. “I hope that—I hope that my presence here won’t deter you from making peace with Daeros. I—I truly want to help.”

His lips thin. “Saga is gone, Brynja. You don’t have to pretend to be nice to me anymore. And just to be perfectly clear, I rescind my offer of marriage. There. Now we never have to speak to each other again.”

My stomach twists. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Vil,” I say quietly.

“You were a true friend to me in Skaanda, far truer and far kinder than I deserved, and I repaid you cruelly. It meant everything to me, and I need you to know—” I take a breath and forge ahead.

“I need you to know that there were times I wanted to bury Brynja Eldingar for good, to forget I was ever Iljaria and become in truth what you thought I was. What you needed me to be, and what I wanted to be for you. But I could never quite do it, and I’m sorry. ”

He scoffs. “Traitorous bitch. You should have knifed me in the heart the first time I saw you. That would have been easier.”

His admission guts me, and from the tightness in his jaw, I know he didn’t mean to say it so plainly.

“I hope someday you’ll forgive me,” I tell him.

But he just curses at me and stalks off down the corridor.

I don’t follow him. There is nothing else left to say.