Epilogue

Rain lashes the ground, creating small, quick rivers in the cracks of the red rock. Screaming wind tears across the mountain, ripping a boulder off the slopes and sending it flying into the valley below. It slams into a black stone platform, shattering a corner.

The girl trapped on that platform doesn’t even scream. She’s unconscious, locked to the stone as it tips off its base and slides to the valley floor. It knocks into the next platform, rattling the boy trapped on the surface.

Yorri’s eyes fly open. His back arches off the black rock. He opens his mouth and screams. Thunder muffles his terror. The wind rips it away from his lips. Not one of the thirty-eight other people trapped in the valley with him hears.

One by one they wake up. Some of them struggle, fighting to break the red cords binding them to the black platforms. Some only try to hide their faces from the driving, pounding rain. Others open their mouths and drink the pouring water like they haven’t tasted it in centuries.

Yorri closes his eyes and cries, his tears lost in the cold raindrops splashing on his face.

He remembers everything that’s happened since Neeva pressed a circle of black rock to the back of his neck and trapped him in unconsciousness, leaving him watching himself and everything that happened around him.

He’d thought being forced to watch others fake his death was torture. He’d been sure seeing his sister’s pain as she said goodbye was the worst it could get. He’d known nothing could be more maddening than being trapped in his body and hearing only the neverending crash of the waves against the rocky edges of Imaku. He’d prayed nothing would ever hurt worse than jerking to a halt at the edge of Imaku, watching Sanii and Khya fall into the water, leaving him behind. He’d lost hope when his blood-parents came and helped carry the platforms off Imaku, hiding him in absolute darkness in a place Khya would never find.

Now this.

Time passes. Days, maybe. Weeks. Entire moons. He doesn’t know. The storm continues to rage. Lightning flashes, so close it singes his skin and so bright he sees the shape of it streak across his eyelids. Yorri barely flinches. He doesn’t open his eyes.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

No one will ever find them here. Not even Khya. Not even Sanii. That much, at least, he knows.

No one is coming. Varan will make sure of that.