Epilogue
IT RAINED in Tiverius for a further three days, and then the sun came out. The sonorics levels dropped dramatically, and people came out of the shelters. The tide of sonorics was receding, but it would be some time until the border regions were accessible again, not to mention the southern platform.
When the losses could finally be counted, the figure was staggering. Ensar, Solmeni, Fairlight. Entire towns wiped off the map. In addition, much cropping land had become inaccessible and crops lost through the weather or lack of care. Viki had given approval for all districts to farm as much as possible, and fortunately, the bad weather had delivered more rain further north than usual, but still, this would be a hard winter in Tiverius.
One morning, Milleus left his brother’s house and walked to the cemetery. He wandered through the rows with familiar plaques and familiar names. So many of his former senators had already died.
He stopped at the wall that contained the han Chevonian cubicle. There was a small statue of Eseldus, a smaller version of the one that stood in the courtyard of the house. Sady’s house now. Milleus could have the guest quarter, Sady said, but after today, he wasn’t sure he wanted to intrude in Sady’s life. Sady had never intruded in his life either.
Kalius had offered him rooms, since he was living alone as well; but he liked Kalius as much as Kalius liked him, and the less said about that, the better. In all honesty, he considered leaving the city for good. He had his goats; he could set up a travelling farm, taking the animals where the milk was needed and where hay was plentiful. Else, he might follow the youngsters up the platform if the issue of sonorics would indeed be gone forever. He figured they could use someone experienced to talk to.
Today, however, was about family. He had brought a cloth and cleaned and polished the plaque that said Suri han Helonian and put a bunch of flowers in the cubicle. He tried to think of her, but after all that had happened recently, he was ashamed that her face would not come as easily as it once would have. It was so long ago. He’d made mistakes, but he could do nothing to change them.
“Father.”
He jumped at the voice behind him.
Andrean stood there, already in his formal dress. “Uncle said I could find you here.” His son’s gaze went over Milleus’ comfortable woollen robe.
“No, I’m not going to the ceremony like this,” Milleus said, meeting his son’s eyes. Mercy he looked just like his mother when she used to nag him.
An uncomfortable silence hung between them.
“I just wanted to ask . . .” Andrean hesitated. “What do you think about this marriage?”
“You ask me about marriage?” Milleus snorted. His son had always been the first to condemn him for Suri’s death.
A further uncomfortable silence.
“Well, I think that my brother is old enough to make his own decisions. Your uncle has also acquired the responsibility for a large group of southerners, and if history is anything to go by, many of them will never leave. War, sonorics, other disasters, it’s happened before and will happen again. I do not see it as a problem that he takes his wife from amongst those refugees. If I’d have been less lucky in winning the Aranian war, we might have been those refugees, trying to eke out a living in hostile Arania, and we would have been grateful for a friendly hand.”
Andrean shrugged, opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it.
Milleus tidied up the cubicle, shut the ornate grille that kept the ground squirrels from eating the offerings, and walked with his son out the cemetery gates.
Neither said anything because that was their way of dealing with each other’s differences, but that didn’t worry Milleus. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and all Tiverians had decorated their fences, front gates and doors with flowers, most of them woven from straw for lack of the real thing. Already, people lined the road to watch the parade. Never in living memory had a proctor in office gotten married. And it was a perfect day for a grand wedding.
* * *
The next spring:
A soft breeze stirred Isandor’s hair as he crested the ridge, a breeze scented with green and flowers. The sky was deep blue above and little streams trickled between the rocks on either side. At the head of the column, he kneed his camel up the last of the slope.
Bordertown.
Blocky houses lay scattered in the landscape, but the southern platform was a far different place from the one they had left. It was green. Flowers bloomed in the fields as far as the eye could see. Flowers bloomed even on the roofs of the houses, which had lain abandoned throughout summer and winter, until, finally, it was safe to come onto the platform again.
The line of camels inched into the grass, so green it hurt the eyes. Isandor reached out to his mother. In her white dress, she looked divine. Her hair stirred in the breeze, loose locks falling over her shoulders. It was going grey at the temples. But she looked healthy. Her cheeks glowed. The breeze made her dress flutter about her so it drew taut over her full breasts and slight rounding of her stomach. She had not spoken to him about it, but he knew the signs, even if only in the amusing way her Chevakian man treated her like a goddess. After a life of being a breeder, she would be able to keep the last child she would ever bear.
She had asked to come on the trek, to have one more look at her homeland before turning back to Tiverius and her new husband.
The line of camels cut a track through the grass and flowers so tall that the heads grazed the animal’s belly. It was slow going, because Isandor’s camel, in the front, needed to tread carefully to avoid obstacles hidden in the grass.
“Ee-yup!” someone called from behind.
Ontane had steered his camel off to the side to a house with a shed in the front yard. He tapped the beast on the neck to make it sit. After it did so—protesting and stretching and twisting to graze—he slipped off the saddle. The shed door stood half open, broken and splintered, and halfway to the front door of the house lay a hump of dirty fur, from which white spokes protruded.
Isandor made his camel backtrack to where Ontane waited.
“This is your house?” Isandor asked.
“So it be, Sire, in none-too-happy condition. The wife will be devastated.”
Isandor nodded, but he thought Dara was far too content in Sady’s household to ever be serious about returning to Bordertown. Not to worry about that right now.
Jevaithi had also halted her camel to look at the odd arrangement of fur and white sticks. “What is it?”
“I have no idea.” But as he said that, he knew what it was. “It’s a bear.”
Jevaithi’s face twisted into a horrified mask. She lifted a hand over her mouth. “The poor thing.”
Isandor felt a chill. The poor animal might have been lost or abandoned, hadn’t been fed after everyone left, and when it had managed to escape from the shed, had been too weak to find food. Bears were fish eaters. The only ocean here was green with flowers.
The desiccated carcass and the flowers encapsulated what the destruction of the Heart meant for the south. New life, but also the death of some old life. By the skylights, what would the City of Glass look like?
“Well, this is where we leave you.” He tapped his camel on the shoulder and it sank to its knees.
Ontane bowed. “Your Highness. I would like to thank ye for everything. I’m sorry about your loss, Sire.”
Isandor glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, the rest of the column had come up the plain. Two camels carried the stretcher between them that held his father’s body, dried and preserved in layers of cloth, as it had been found recently in a field by a Chevakian farmer. Some people had wanted to burn Tandor’s body like that of a traitor, but although he had been a traitor, he had also given his life to put it right. And it might well be the only right thing he had ever done. He was a Thilleian prince, and deserved to be remembered as one, for good or ill.
“We will bring him home,” he said, staring at the horizon. “We will rebuild the city. We will find a way.”
Loriane came to him, her arms wide. She whispered, “Son.”
Isandor took her in his arms and smelled her perfume. She was warm and soft, and familiar. She would stay here with Ontane who had promised his wife to bring some of their items from their house and return to Tiverius with Loriane.
Other people from Bordertown already fanned out to their houses, while the majority of the column waited. The packing camels carried supplies to survive the coming months, until they could give the sign that the rest of the people from the City of Glass could return home. Whoever wanted to return home. Milleus had said that if it was safe, he wanted to come.
Isandor hugged his mother. Her eyes glittered with tears.
“Be well, my son. I wish you could stay.”
“You’ll be very happy,” he said. “He’s a good man.” And she wouldn’t be alone. Dara would probably stay, and Myra, too, if Farius’ family gave their son permission to marry her.
“I know.” She returned a weak smile, and moved her hand to her belly as if scratching it. “If it’s a boy, he will carry your name, or a girl, Jevaithi’s.”
Isandor kissed her on the forehead. “I love you. We’ll visit soon.”
While his mother hugged Jevaithi, Isandor signalled for the column to start moving again.
His eyes met Carro’s. His friend sat atop his camel, wearing full uniform. His face was blank, an expression Isandor had come to accept as normal from Carro. Isandor didn’t know what went on in that head, but he knew that Carro, and the new Supreme Rider Barton would serve the royal family for the good of the people, and not to strengthen their own power.
“Well, let’s go then.” He swung his wooden leg over the camel’s back and slid in the saddle. Ouch. This mode of transport had much to be desired, but it would be a while before they could fly eagles again. With no snow, sleds had become useless. Balloons, maybe. Yes, Balloons. He must talk to Sady about that.
He dug his heels in the flanks of the camel and it unfolded its awkward legs—back first—with a howl. At Rider Barton’s whistle, the column set in motion once more.
They had a task to do.
THANK YOU very much for reading Blood & Tears.
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The trilogy is finished here, but in the Moonfire Trilogy, we return to the world of Isandor and Sady twenty years later. Everything they thought they knew about icefire is turned upside down. The people have one single chance to save all life on their world.
Find where to get the first book, Sand & Storm, here.
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