EPILOGUE
Death comes to all, it heeds not bad nor good
Our lives are candles, reaching for the flame
The scales, when balanced, measure out our time
But who’s to say we cannot live again?
A glimpse beyond the veil once sealed her fate
And in that dark tomb is now where she waits
—THE BOOK OF UNVEILING
Elsiran women in blue robes marched down the aisles of the city of white tents, each bearing a crate with supplies of some kind. Aside from the few soldiers who kept their distance from the refugees, these women were the only Elsirans Zeli had seen.
The older Lagrimari men who spoke Elsiran and served as translators called the women “sisters.” It took a while for Zeli to understand that they were not all part of an enormous family, but a religious order of some kind. Like Avinids, but not. The women were kind, helpful, and, as it turned out, responsible for the well-being of the hundreds of refugees who’d poured into the country before the Mantle fell, and the thousands entering since then.
They worshipped the newly awakened Elsiran goddess, a woman who, like their new queen, both looked and spoke Lagrimari, according to those who’d seen both of them. Zeli hadn’t, and cared little about who ruled this land—anyone was better than the True Father she thought, surprising herself. But such thoughts were no longer treason, not when he’d been arrested and locked away in an Elsiran prison.
And what sort of place were so many of her countrymen entering? The land was green and fertile, much like the Lake Cities, but everything here looked fresh and modern. She’d thought the Magister’s estate such a beautiful, serene place but it was a hovel compared to the structures in the towns they’d passed in their journey west across Elsira.
The tents in which they were now housed were simple, but kept out the rain and chill. Zeli stayed with Tana, Ulani, and three other motherless children, and Gladda stopped by every day to check on them.
The Keepers had set up a school in the camp for the children, and Zeli had offered to help teach the younger ones. She was on her way there, but had stopped to watch the progression of the blue-clad Sisters, distributing supplies.
Something about their serenity and clarity of purpose called to her. A Sister with a rippling burn scar on one side of her face caught her staring and smiled. Zeli smiled back.
As she headed toward the grassy area being used as the school, her attention snagged on a cluster of long-bladed grass shooting up in tufts. She stooped down for a closer look. This wasn’t hispid blade, but it was similar. She reached out and felt the strength of each little leaf between her fingers.
She could make something of this. With enough of them she could weave a bracelet. Something for luck.
She tilted her face to the sky and smiled.
Kyara opened her eyes, huffing in breaths as the dream receded. She had been in the World After, having come face-to-face with all the people she’d killed. Every single one of them had accused her, laying the blame squarely at her feet.
Where it belonged.
She clutched at her chest. The wound was still there, though the locket was missing. Where was she?
Polished chrome bars filled her vision. Another cage.
She sat up, finding herself on a thick, divinely soft mattress. What a thing to sleep on, especially in a prison. She nudged it, alarmed at how it sprang back into place.
“It’s filled with feathers.”
She turned sharply to find a teenaged boy peering at her from the cell next to hers. His shock of ginger hair and amber eyes marked him as an Elsiran. Freckles peppered his nose. He sat on another feather mattress, and just beyond him, an identical boy stared at her, as well.
“You speak Lagrimari.” It was the first thought that had entered her mind. The boys’ strange golden eyes blinked back at her.
“So do you,” the second twin said, mockingly.
Kyara frowned. “But you’re Elsiran.”
Both boys shrugged. Another in the cell stirred, rising from his spot on the floor to stand. He was Lagrimari, middle-aged but strong.
“I taught my children Lagrimari so they would know where they come from,” the man said.
Kyara’s gaze fell from the man to the two boys and back again. Something stirred in her memory, but she was too shocked to access it. “Your children?”
She had a million questions all vying for position in the front of her brain. But first things first. “Where are we?”
The man’s face grew solemn, and the boys both looked away.
“Very far from home,” the man said.
“Yaly,” the closest twin said.
She sank back onto the unlikely comfort of her mattress and sighed.
Raal. Of course.
“You all have been here for some time?” she asked.
The father nodded sadly. “Years.”
She bit back a gasp. Years? She could very well be here the rest of her life.
“What do they want with you?” the surly twin asked.
“My Song. My twisted, deadly, hateful Song. They think it will make them immortal somehow, but it will probably just start a war among the three worlds and wind up ending humanity as we know it.”
No one spoke in the cell next door. Kyara rolled over to look at them. “Sounds crazy, right?”
Their solemn faces spoke volumes. None of them thought it sounded crazy at all.
No one spoke after that.
Kyara’s eyes eventually fluttered closed and images of Darvyn filled her mind. She would have gladly traded her Song, and anything else her enemies wanted, to go back in time and tell Darvyn she loved him.
An outer door opened, and footsteps came toward the cells. Raal entered with Ydaris at his heels.
Both twins rose from their mattresses to stand next to their father. They were tall, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and sturdy. They eyed the two Yalyish with open contempt.
“I see you’re awake, my dear,” Ydaris said, her voice dripping with false care. “Good.”
The door to Kyara’s cell opened with the help of no mechanism that she could see. She did not move from her delightful mattress.
“We’re ready to begin.”