Keiro sat where they had left him, alone at the heart of the mountain the Twins had built—their new home, their show of defiance, their reminder to the world that they were back and would not be forgotten.
All for nothing, in the end. All of it, everything Keiro had done—everything he had been forced into, and everything he had done by his own choice. He had let himself become something other than the man he had always wanted to be, let himself change until he could no longer recognize his own self, and it meant nothing.
The victors would return soon—the Twins’ mountain was like a boil on their world, and they needed to cleanse it. They would round Keiro up with all the rest of the Fallen, and if he was very lucky, his punishment for being a traitor to the country and to the world would be service in a prison camp for the rest of his life. He couldn’t stand the thought of just sitting there, waiting for them to find him, waiting for them to shape the course of the rest of his life . . . but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. There were scores of exits from the mountain, but none of them would allow him to leave unseen. What, then, was the point? If he could have gone with the young twins, gone to ensure their safety . . .
There’s a different path for you, Etarro had told him, but Keiro could not see the road, could not find his way out.
He sat holding the stuffed horse Etarro had taken from the dead mage, stroking his thumb along its yarn mane. He didn’t know what it meant, didn’t know what he was meant to do with it. But Etarro had wanted him to have it, and that was more than nothing.
Something pressed lightly against his elbow, and Keiro turned to see stars amid the darkness of the mountain.
Cazi stood there, with a dozen other mravigi arrayed behind him. “Come,” Cazi said, gently, expectantly. Since they had met, Cazi had been trailing behind Keiro, always following, always ready. It seemed only fair that Keiro follow when asked. He tucked the stuffed horse into his robe, where it sat securely above his hip.
There was a place at the edge of the dais, hidden in shadow, where the wall of the mountain had been dug away—dug away by sharp claws that had not been shaped for digging, but that had served well enough when survival was at stake. Keiro followed Cazi into the tunnel that was barely big enough to fit him, crawling on elbows and knees, scraping his shoulders and hips as he went. The other Starborn followed, smooth and lithe and blessedly patient with Keiro’s scramblings.
“Where are we going?” he asked at one point, and the simple answer he was given was, “Away.”
The tunnel ended at a cavern, and the cavern was full of mravigi—all of them, he would hazard, every last one who had followed them from the Plains, every one who had survived Patharro’s scorching fire, every one who had searched so long to find their creator . . . only to lose him again. Keiro felt a thickness in his throat. Had they gathered to mourn Fratarro’s passing yet again?
No. Cazi had told the truth when he’d said they were going away. As the last of Keiro’s escort filed into the room, a pair of mravigi began pawing away at the far wall, scraping the stone and dirt that had been piled there to reveal the mouth of another tunnel, this one sloping upward—and this one filled with sunlight. And as Keiro sat staring, the Starborn began to file into the tunnel, one by one.
“You’ve been preparing for this from the start,” Keiro said wonderingly, to no one in particular.
His answer, though, came from the giant white-scaled Starborn who stood supervising it all. “We have been preparing for many things,” said Straz, first of the mravigi, who had been shaped by Fratarro’s own hands so long ago. “We had been hoping for many different endings. This one will do.”
“Why? Why . . . me?”
“We have been so long gone from the world. What we have seen of it has not made us wish to return. You know the world; you have traveled far in it. We are hoping you know of a place that will not revile us.”
Dumbstruck, Keiro watched the rest of the mravigi filter from the cavern, until it was only he and Straz and Cazi. The younger Starborn nudged him gently toward the exit, and Keiro went obediently, crawling up the tunnel, shielding his eye with one hand as he went against the brightness of the sun that felt so unfamiliar. When he emerged, they were far from Atura, the mountain a looming shadow in the distance. When he emerged, all the Starborn were looking to him, waiting, patient, expecting.
All of Keiro’s life had been walking. He had found such peace in a journey without end, a road that could lead anywhere. His heart had never been so happy as when there was firm ground beneath his feet and the sky stretching endlessly into the distance.
He hadn’t thought to have that chance again. With everything he had done, everything that had changed . . .
Keiro swallowed, and straightened his back, and began to walk toward the slow-setting sun, with all the Starborn arrayed at his back. He didn’t know where he was going, where he would take them, but he knew this was the path he had been meant for.