Chapter Forty-Five

Now

I turn over in the dark and breathe softly. Somehow, I am still alive, though I cannot see the sky. The searching wind screams through cracks in the earth above me, but I am stuck in the no-time, the some-when. I close my eyes, touch a finger to my chest, and pry my way back into the present.

When I finally open my eyes, roots lay coiled around me like a bird’s nest, and I glimpse a sliver of blue sky above the crevasse I’ve fallen into.

I tap Virian’s mark three times, but I do not feel a reply. Perhaps I am too numb. I claw my way up, one crumbling handful of soil at the time.

The light disappears, and dirt tumbles over my head as the earth shifts, but it doesn’t swallow me. A hemp rope lands on my shoulder. I fit a bare foot into its loop and grunt as I push myself while someone pulls from above.

I fall onto the ground as ragged and raw as Astar fallen from the Heavens. My right hand is dirty but brown and familiar. My left hand remains bloody and raw but numb to touch. Brilliant blue cracks of sky streak the clouds above, and the air tastes as crisp as winter apples. Bato-Ko glitters in the distance, a valley of green cradled between the spiny mountains and a rocky plateau. I kneel before it. It is so different from everywhere I have traveled in this life, but here I finally feel like I am home.

Dayen helps me to my feet, and his amulets dangle against my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Narra. I was so scared I’d be too late. I tried to follow you, but the earth opened up…” He stutters and stuffs his amulets back into the neck of his tunic. “I’ve been a terrible friend. I owe you so many apologies. I want to make it right…”

He pulls me into a hug that is so tight I gasp. Of all people, I did not expect him to come, but he is warm and steady and welcome. Tears spill from my eyes as my heart overflows. Perhaps friendships can be mended just like old clothes.

Laughter spills from my body in racking heaves. Dayen asks me if I hit my head on the way down. But my head feels clearer than it has all my life. I have my answers. I know too much about life and death and love to ever be that girl, Astar, again. Omu tried to make me a weapon, but she did not forge me.

Life upon life, Astar’s memories drowned me in guilt, but once, not so long ago, a Demon gambled on my heart and set me free. And he was right. My family and my friends changed everything.

I am Narra Jal, I tell the ghosts in my chest.

They snarl one last time and release me.