93

Kaylin

A flurry of sand swirls over my face and I open my eyes to the web of Ma’ata that covers me. Have days gone by? Weeks? Months? I cannot yet think of decades. “Teern!”

“Resting well, son?”

“Let me up!”

“It’s far too soon to raise your phantom. It took quite a clobbering on the road to Asyleen, I hear.”

“Where’s Ash?”

“Hate to say I told you so, but she, and her phantom are on a new path.”

“Her phantom?” I struggle against the entombing corals. “We had a deal!”

“We did, and I recall saying that if you let her out of your sight, even for a moment, the deal was off.”

I curse him loud and long.

“Calm down, son. It’s unfortunate, Atikis sending you to ground, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“What happened to Ash?”

“So many things… Brogal’s bindings, Rowten, the Sierraks, Bakton’s shadows, Atikis, Anon, Tann. But the most important thing that happened to her, son, was you.”

It doesn’t make sense and I struggle all the harder.

“Now, your turn,” Teern says. “How did you allow the Gollnar red-robe to best you?”

I hold very still, trying not to gnash my teeth at the memory. “Sierraks captured me when I tried to rescue Ash. They had rune chains. We were loaded into a wagon at Oteb and on the road to Asyleen, Atikis turned up. I was about to put him and his phantom off the path when he threatened Ash’s life.”

Teern chuckles. “I’m guessing that stopped you?”

“It stopped me dead!” I’m not ashamed of this. I never will be. “He wrapped me in stronger runes, and when the Brotherhood of Anon traded their first whistle bone for Ash, he ran me through with his sword.”

“I’m sure that was frustrating.” Teern tilts his head. “But well done, all the same.”

I stop struggling. “Pardon?”

“You have fulfilled your role, Kaylin.”

“What role?” My blood heats as I spit the words at him.

“In releasing Ash’s phantom. Tricky enough business, breaking a normal binding. I thought it was done when you returned to Baiseen. I never guessed Brogal would risk a soul binding after that.”

“What are you talking about?” I snap. “I didn’t even know she was savant!”

“It wasn’t any one thing you did, Kaylin. Never is. But day by day, your connection to each other drew her phantom closer to the surface. Her thinking she watched you die was most helpful. It got her to the core of her heart. Win–win.”

“This is not a win!”

“And Salila and Marcus putting Atikis down, side by side,” he continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “You won’t see the results, but hopefully it will be worth it, too.”

“Worth what?”

“The planning, of course. So many pieces to the puzzle.”

If I had more strength, I would draw my sword and plunge it into Teern’s dark and phantom-less heart. “You made this happen?”

“Not all of it, but do you think I would leave the events of the next Great Dying to chance?”

My mind spins. “You sent me to kill them. To kill Ash!”

He laughs at that. Quite heartily. “Kaylin, when was the last time you killed an innocent?”

I frown, still confused.

“Yes, I sent you as an assassin, knowing full well you wouldn’t do it. I hoped an attachment would develop but didn’t count on it being so strong. I guess I should have. All phantoms love Ash, don’t they?”

Rage courses through me. “You let me believe I was betraying you? Manipulated me the whole time?”

“Truth is, son, you did betray me. But, if you knew my mind, it would have freed you to tell Ash everything. She was in your head, was she not? Communing mind-to-mind?”

I can’t deny it.

“So you see, I couldn’t have her knowing that Mar are phantoms of the sea, rising from the bodies of their entombed savants that lie eternally aware in the blessed Ma’ata…”

I struggle. It’s not feeling so blessed right now.

He pats the corner of my tomb and I scream at him.

“Savants who cannot die but whose phantoms can go to ground. If she had known, you, and your death would not have had such an effect, would it?”

I try to interrupt but he’s not finished. “Mortality is an essential ingredient for love, Kaylin. Winning another’s heart means nothing if you can’t lose it just as quickly.”

It hits me full in the face. Ash thinks I am dead. “You will not survive to regret this!” I explode in spasms, twisting and straining, but unlike Brogal’s binding, the Ma’ata doesn’t give an inch. In the case of the Mar, the savant and the phantom are truly one.

“Steady, Kaylin. You must regain your strength before you rise again.”

“How long have I been down?” I gasp.

“Not long enough, son.”

I wince. “Let me up!”

“Can’t. You know that. Give it a decade or perhaps two or three.”

“When the Great Dying has covered the land? Teern! By the bones, bring me blood and let me rise. Let me go to her now!”

“Shouting in my head won’t help your cause,” the Sea King says. “Rest. There’s nothing else for it.”

“But Ash! If she survived the bone tunnels, I must find her.”

“Oh, she survived them all right, though Avon Eyre will never be the same.” Teern leans over my face. “Raven Japera has her now. The girl needs training and, well, more about that later.”

“You are Teern! You can break the rules.” I let out a sob. “Please. I love her.”

He shakes his head. “Love breaks many rules, Kaylin, but not this one. Go to sleep.”

I fight the restraints, cursing Teern in every language I know, including my own Tutapan, but he’s gone. The current washes over my entombed body and sand, stirred by the Sea King’s departure, settles on my Ma’ata covered face. Far above me and to the north, I sense the bright sun shining. Less than an arm’s length away from it, the flaring red light of the second sun cuts through the water to reach me.

“Where are you now, Ash? Can you hear me?” I call, but there is no answer save for the whispers of the sea.

When I finally give in to the healing Ma’ata, I make a vow. I will rise again, before Ash leaves this path, and when I do, I will find her. And then nothing, not Teern, not the crown of bones, the second sun, or the next Great Dying will keep us apart.

I send my last thought to her with all my heart and soul, hoping against hope that she will hear. “Ash, lass. I’m alive. Please don’t give up on me.”