This is good-bye. The last time I will see my brother.
We have given him everything he wanted. We stand at the border of what will now become two lands, two peoples. Songbearer and Silent, separated for all time.
Once Yllis’s barrier spell falls into place, there will be no crossing—those were the terms of the treaty. That stipulation was put in by our side. Many Songbearers have grown weary of the fighting. It is against our nature. Some feel if they never see another Silent, it will be for the best.
Already I miss the way things were, but this was my decision and I must stand by it.
“Will you embrace me one last time, sister?”
The odd, smooth bracelets adorning Eero’s wrists hold the magic of Yllis’s binding spell. The blood magic that ensures Eero doesn’t use whatever stolen Song may be left inside him. He can cause no further harm before the Mantle is erected.
His eyes shine, and I see the boy I once knew within them. One last time could not hurt.
I step closer. My arms wrap around him. We came into this world together, and I thought we would stay that way forever.
A sharp pain pierces my side. I pull back from him and stare at the dagger sticking out from between my ribs. I gasp up at him in horror, but Eero’s face is a mask.
I reach for Earthsong, trying to knit the wound, but something is wrong. My Song is weakening, slipping out of my grasp like a wisp of smoke. I breathe in, and in some more, but the breath never makes it to my lungs. Eero whispers a string of foreign words, and I fall to the ground.
Everything goes black.
Voices call my name.
One voice.
Yllis.
“Oola! Oola! Please come back to me. My love, please.”
He begs and pleads, apologizes and bargains.
I try to go to him but am locked in place. My breath is gone, and I am separated from my body.
Three archways loom before me. The widest leads back to my body. Another leads to the World After.
But the third calls to me, though narrow and ominous. I step through it, sealing my fate.
The World Between is a smoke-filled antechamber full of endless images of the living. Neither here nor there, it is vast and lonely, only grazed by the living in their dreams. Some believe all dreams take place here.
For me, it is a nightmare.
From here I bear witness to my body on the ground. Eero smashes the bespelled bracelets. He is full of my Song, stolen from my last breaths.
Yllis gives a great cry. He gathers a swell of Earthsong and sings the spell to create the barrier between the lands. The cornerstone engages, and I feel its power pulsing through the energy.
Eero steps away from his Silent followers, over to the band of astonished Songbearers. Yllis is too focused on his spell to notice. The barrier slams into place, leaving him holding my body on one side with the throng of Silent and Eero, bursting with my Song, on the other with the rest of the Songbearers.
This was his plan all along.
He never wanted to be shut up alongside the Silent forever. He merely wanted to have an inexhaustible supply of Songbearers to steal from.
Eero stands at the barrier, his expression smug. “Worry not, Yllis. She is not dead. She will awaken at any moment and live quite a fine life without her Song. She will know what it is like to be me.”
Two archways still stand behind me, the one leading to the Living World pulsing brighter than the sun. Calling to me. Pleading with me. I am being given a choice.
Eero’s look of triumph changes to a frown. “She will awaken,” he says, a tremor invading his voice.
Yllis growls and pulls my body closer.
Eero tries to move forward, but the barrier stops him. He beats against the invisible wall with a fist. “Oola! Oola!” he screams.
Both archways dim and begin to fade. I must make my choice quickly.
If I go back to the Living World, I can resume a life without my heart. The World After holds no appeal, though Mother and Father are there. How can I face them with what I have done to Eero?
Here, in the World Between, I may watch. That will be my punishment.
Justice finally served for my crimes.
I will watch.
The archways fade and disappear.
I watch Yllis bear my body back to the city and cut a chamber into the mountains to house me. Above the chamber, the Silent construct a magnificent palace.
Yllis chooses a loyal Silent to rule. A young man of character and honor, Abdeen Alliaseen, to lead the people in the absence of their Queen.
Yllis makes Alliaseen promise to ensure that history is kind to me and bears no recollection of my fault in the start of the war. He spends weeks, months, years locked in his laboratory, scouring the libraries of the Cantors, searching for something. Doing what he does best, studying magic.
I watch on the day he finds what he has been seeking. He chants words in the ancient tongue of the Cavefolk, words I don’t understand. He takes the pendant bearing my father’s sigil, the one I always wore around my neck, and cuts himself, spilling his blood over it. He calls for Alliaseen, who, when asked, spills his own blood on the sigil without hesitation, binding the spell. The blood congeals and the magic grows, encasing the pendant in a bloodred stone.
Blood magic will do what Earthsong cannot.
Blood magic may be broken only by those who bear the blood.
Yllis journeys back to the barrier he created and crosses it, using another bit of magic.
He gathers those unafraid of standing against a now impossibly powerful Eero. Those who want to learn to fight. Songbearers are peaceful by nature, but these men and women have been broken. They become something new. He crafts the words of a promise to me, one these new soldiers vow to keep.
I watch as my beloved Yllis wages war on my beloved brother, and I watch when Yllis is slain. Eero is too strong, and the stolen Songs have twisted his mind and made him far more ruthless than even the broken Songbearers.
Yllis dies with the stone in his hand.
His final spell traps his own Song in the stone.
The Keepers of the Promise are supposed to take the stone, cross the border, and present it to the prince, whose touch will unlock the magic. But the Keepers he commanded to hold back and stay safe, rush in seeking revenge. None survive the battle.
The stone sits where it lies. Yllis’s gift to me, his whispered spell to bring me back to my body and gift me his own Song, lies under the rubble of the fallen city as his body turns to bones.
The archways are long gone now.
If they were here, perhaps I would pass into the World After to be with him. To thank him for trying to save me.
But being with Yllis is not punishment enough.
So I watch.
For a very long time.
Sometimes, a dream will find me and pierce the loneliness.
But more often, it is endless agony. Standing by watching while the centuries pass.
And now, Jasminda, you have heard my story. Judge me for my faults if you must. But you bear the only evidence of Yllis’s love for me. His Song is in your hands.
Release it.
Release me.
It is time for me to end this.