When Paul Kerr finally awoke, it was from a dream in which he was dying in a wormhole, although that had simply been the conclusion of a longer dream of aliens, and parasites, and war, and a girl with golden eyes and bronze hair whom he had loved like no other.
Now he opened his own eyes, slowly, carefully. He was in a white room, dimly lit. There was some pain, but it was tolerable. He stayed very still as the memory of the dream faded. In time he heard a door open, and he looked in the direction of the sound. A woman in white robes entered and began fussing with his pillow, followed by the girl with the golden eyes, and then a boy like himself, but younger. Others were behind them, and he searched for their names and found them: Steven, Thula, Meia, Alis.
“Syl.”
He spoke her name. She took his hand.
“Did we win?” he asked.
“We did,” she said. “But we lost so much . . .”
• • •
They laid Ani to rest in the Marque. A line of Sisters stretched from her chambers to her tomb, and each one took her turn to help bear the Archmage on her last journey. Syl and Meia, along with Cocile and Toria, carried her bier for the last steps. They placed her shrouded form in the glass tomb below a great dome that looked out upon the universe, so that her resting place would always be filled with light, as befitted a child of the stars.