The shore. Black sand as fine as powder, the stench of washed-up kelp. Water. Cold waves lapping at her back, and the taste of salt in her mouth. The sound of gulls, the hush of the ocean.
Karys breathed, and water filled her mouth. Her eyes flew open. Coughing, she lifted her head from the foam-flecked shallows. The sky over the sea gleamed pale orange with the dawn; the coast stretched empty and shadowed in either direction. Her legs cramped as she sat up, her skin frozen like she had been lying in the tide for hours. The flesh of her shins was whole and unmarked. All of her injuries had disappeared. She cast around, shivering hard.
“Ferain?” she croaked.
No reply. She was alone but for the seabirds drifting over the high reaches of the cliffs. No footprints on the beach, just her, washed up onto the shore like driftwood. Karys struggled to her feet, her heels sinking into the sucking dark sand, and stumbled up the bank.
“Ferain,” she called, louder.
The sun had not yet appeared on the horizon, and the light remained soft, the edges of objects imprecise. The hazy outline of her own shadow extended over the ground before her, slack and lifeless. She could not stand to look at it. Karys broke into a run. The tall cliffs rose higher, curving east along the bay, and there was the alcove, the indentation at the base of the wall—the same cave she had entered with Oselaw, the passage into the Sanctum. Her breathing ragged, she dropped down before the algae-fringed hole.
“Ferain!” she shouted.
“He isn’t down there.”
Karys whipped around. The Bhatuma was standing on the beach behind her. He had not been there seconds before; only her own footprints marked the sand. His expression was one of mild amusement. The sleeve of his shirt had torn away; where the Construct had wounded Ferain, the skin ran with pale, pure silver. Karys’ chest tightened.
“Give him back,” she said softly.
“Or what?”
She pulled open the Veneer, and reached to attack. Faster than thought, the Bhatuma rebuffed her. An invisible force drove into Karys’ midriff, sending her sprawling backwards on the sand. She gagged, clutching her stomach.
“Like a kitten,” he remarked. “Hissing at the ocean.”
She lifted her head. “Give him back.”
“Can’t.” The Bhatuma shook his head regretfully. “He’s gone, kitten. I ate him.”
Karys snarled. She drove up from the ground, and grasped the fabric of the Veneer a second time. The Bhatuma made a contemptuous sound. His power collided with her once more, and he threw her back down.
“A slow learner, aren’t you?” he said.
Karys gasped for breath. Her head pounded; beneath her, the black sand felt hard as tar. She fought to rise.
“Persistent, though, I’ll give you that,” said the Bhatuma.
She made it to her feet. When she spoke, her voice sounded unlike her own: harsh and uncontrolled. “You’re a liar.”
The Bhatuma gave her a look of pity, and she hated him for it, hated that he used Ferain’s face that way.
“Do you really believe I’d share a vessel?” he asked. “Come, you aren’t naïve. You should know better than—”
“I can still feel him!” Her voice rose to a shout, and she struck her chest hard over her heart, over the Split Lapse scar. “I can still feel him now. Don’t lie to me, I know he’s there!”
For a second, the Bhatuma looked startled. Karys took a step toward him.
“Part of him belongs to me.” The words spilled rapidly from her mouth. “We did not break apart cleanly; part of him stayed with me, part of me stayed with him. Ferain is alive—you can’t deceive me, because I can feel him.”
A moment of silence.
“Well,” murmured the Bhatuma, “aren’t you full of surprises?”
Karys took another step toward him.
“Please,” she said. “Please give him back.”
Behind the Bhatuma, the first rays of light hit the sea, scattering gold over the water. He raised his right hand, examining Ferain’s slender, blunt-nailed fingers in the faint glow of the sun. The edges of his body caught the light, and the shadows warped at his feet.
“My kind are not born as humans are,” he said. “Our potential is held within the Embrace, fully formed; we wait for an opportunity and an affinity. And in the end, after all the long years of waiting, there was only one opportunity. Mine. This isn’t how it was meant to be, but I’m awake, and you are largely to thank for that.”
He lowered his hand, and turned his eyes on her. They were a rich hazel colour, warmer than Rhevin’s but with the same russet cast.
“Valaht,” he said. “Ambavar is dead, but I’m of the same strain. For your aid in my restoration, I brought you out of the Ephirit’s realm, and I healed your wounds. But I owe you nothing further, kitten.”
Karys shook her head, struggling for words. “Whatever you want—whatever I can give you—”
“And what will you give, hm?”
It came out a whisper. “Anything.”
Valaht sighed.
“Make me your Favoured,” she said, increasingly wild. “Make me your vassal. I can serve you, I’ll give you my life.”
He raised an eyebrow. “As you did for your last master? Or Nuliere before him? If there’s one thing you lack, kitten, it’s fidelity. You’re as faithless as they come.”
“Let me be a tool, then,” she said. “Use me however you want. I am begging you—please, please just let him go.”
The shadows swarming at his feet drew together, and the distance between Valaht and Karys disappeared. The Bhatuma stood right before her. He lifted his hand and tenderly took hold of her chin. Her breath stopped. Briefly, Valaht allowed hallowfire to gleam behind his eyes, and they shone ice-blue with power.
She felt something move inside her: the brush of a cool, familiar weight beneath her breastbone.
“I just don’t think,” said Valaht softly, “that you are very useful.”
Karys reached for Ferain.
The Bhatuma’s fingers left her jaw; he vanished, and the shadows gathered and re-formed a few feet further away. Silhouetted against the dawn, he smiled at her.
“So long, Karys Eska,” he said and then, as an afterthought, he added: “Oh, and I believe these might be yours.”
He tossed a pair of leather boots onto the ground between them.
Karys’ heart beat fast. She stumbled toward him.
“No, wait,” she said.
Valaht laughed. The shadows bled into the black sand, dissolving in the light, and he was no more.
A cold breeze blew off the water. It traced across the shore, drawing up a stinging haze of dark powder. Over the sea, the sun touched the horizon, brilliant, blinding. Karys stood alone. Her silhouette fell long and monstrous on the ground behind her; the only sounds were the waves and her own breathing. The moment seemed to stretch into eternity, as though the Lapse had closed around her now, as though she hung suspended and apart from the world.
She could feel the place he used to occupy. Where Sabaster had divided them, she felt Ferain’s absence. And there, faded and pale, the echo left behind—the faintest shadow of his presence still within her.
Karys touched the scar over her heart.
“To the end of the world,” she whispered.
She picked up her boots, turned from the sunrise, and began the long walk back to the city.