end of a long pole, sharpened at both ends in the flames. At his leader’s signal, he pulled the pole out of the fire and jammed the cool end deep into the mossy loam.
“Don’t,” Harp said.
He was ignored.
Marron bent and lifted the head of the corpse at his feet. Holding it between his palms, he raised it high, then jammed it atop the hot stake. Blood sizzled. Smoke issued from the gaping mouth and nose.
Dart recognized the naked head, tattooed with disciplines.
Master Sheershym.
Dart turned away, hiding her face. Across the creek, more hunters knelt with sharp blades, straddling long branches, shaving them to points.
More stakes, already sharpened, lay piled nearby.
Marron stepped to a young girl who knelt at his feet. He twisted a fistful of her hair and cruelly bared her neck. In his other hand, he carried one of the same blades used to cut the stakes.
The giant reached out and covered Dart’s eyes.
But she could still hear.
Down by the hardened river of black rock, Brant allowed himself to be roughly searched. Hands dug over his body. Finally he was shoved forward to join Tylar at the edge of the black river of steaming rock.
Tylar studied his toes. He had already been searched, even stripped of his shadowcloak. He shifted a full step to one side, more than necessary, as if he were avoiding Brant’s company.
Out on the river, the Huntress had stood waiting. Only now did she come forward, striding through the steam, her skin shining with sweat and Grace. Her hair had been unbraided, giving her a wild look that stirred Brant in unpleasant ways.
Brant and Tylar were forced to their knees, spearpoints at their backs. Tylar, hobbled by his bad leg, fell to one hand.
Ignoring him, the Huntress crossed immediately to Brant. She held out her palm, her eyes bright with desire. There was no need to ask what she wanted.
Brant reached to his neck and pulled out the twisted cord from which the rock hung. It was bound tight. The Huntress motioned with her other hand. The spearpoint was shifted from his back and cut the cord. The stone fell free, into Brant’s palm.
She studied it, lifting her chin and staring down her nose. “It appears such a dull thing-but he was always clever. Sometimes too clever for his own good. Like entrusting it to an equally dull boy.”
She paced one step to the side, then back again, plainly hesitant with the prize so close. “I think I knew, back when you were brought before me. That was why I banished you-but afterward, I couldn’t remember why. The dark whispers filled my head again and I knew I wasn’t in the correct turn of mind to take its responsibility.” A bit of madness crackled. “But now I must be. Why else have you returned? It must be a sign, surely!”
Brant sensed she was trying to goad herself into taking it but was plainly fearful at the same time. He could almost sense the tidal pull and push warring inside her.
Beside him, Tylar remained crouched, his face down, leaning heavily on his one arm. But Brant noted a certain tautness to his shoulders. The way his toe shifted ever so slightly, catching a purchase on a lip of stone, like a climber firming his hold.
“The time must be ripe!” the Huntress cried out. “A plain sign!”
Brant held his breath.
Everything happened too fast.
The god lunged for the stone in his palm and grabbed it. At the same time, Tylar shoved off his good leg, away from the spear at his back, and pulled out a bladeless gold hilt that had been hidden beneath a flat yellow stone.
Rivenscryr.
Here was what Tylar had sent ahead, borne by one of Harp’s fleet-footed runners, to be planted in secret at the river’s edge. Bladeless, it had been easy to hide, easy to miss.
Rising now, Tylar spun off his good leg. Glass tinkled in his other hand, revealing a tiny repostilary hidden under his wraps. A splash of crimson spilled and struck a silver blade that shimmered into existence with the touch of blood.
Still turning, Tylar swung the freshly whetted sword for the Huntress’s neck, ready to take her head clean off-but while all this happened in a blink, Brant’s eyes had truly never left the Huntress’s face.
As her fingers closed on the stone, he saw something rise in her eyes.
His heart clenched.
“No!” Brant burst up and drove his shoulder into Tylar’s hip.
The regent went flying. His sword tumbled from his fingers and clattered on the black rock. He landed hard and rolled to a dazed stop.
Brant sat up, horrified at what he’d just done. In that long blink, he’d had no time for doubt. He did now.
Still, he knew what he had seen in her eyes. It was a match to the expression on the rogue’s face as the fires had consumed his flesh.
Hope.
Before him, the Huntress slowly sank to her knees, oblivious to Tylar’s attack and Brant’s defense. Around her, the other hunters fell back as if strings holding them had suddenly snapped. In a widening circle, they collapsed, limbless and dazed, to rock and loam.
Tylar, his face flushed with fury, crawled to his feet, one cheek deeply abraded and bleeding. But as he saw the hunters collapse all around, fury changed to confusion. He moved over to Brant, collecting his sword. But he refrained from continuing his attack.
On her knees, the Huntress cradled the stone to her heart, rocking slightly, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.
Neither dared speak.
Though the Huntress never raised her face, she slowly whispered, as if she knew they waited. “Such a small stone. A piece of our old home. Just large enough for one god to balance atop. And make whole what was sundered.”
There was no raving in her voice.
She finally lifted her face. Tears streamed down her dark skin. Her eyes shone with them, but nothing more. No Grace. Not in her eyes, nor in her tears, nor in the sheen on her sweated skin. It had blown out. But filling the void was a warmth, a softening of countenance that Brant had never seen in her before.
In that moment, she seemed so much younger and so much older.
“I remember,” she said, smiling with a sadness that ached the heart. “What was lost in ravings and passing centuries. What the Sundering stole, this small stone returned.”
“What?” Tylar asked softly.
Her eyes did not seem to see him, but she answered. “My name…it was Miyana.”
With the utterance, the ground shook. Loose rock rattled like broken teeth. Leaves shuttered with the noise of a thousand birds taking wing. And deep under their feet, a low roar moaned with grief and sorrow.
Behind the Huntress, the black river split to reveal its fiery heart.
Brant felt the heat as a breath of regret.
The Huntress- Miyana -turned her face to the mountain as the ground shook. It reminded Brant of Miyana’s shoulders a moment before. A silent sobbing.
She whispered toward the distant mountain. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be heard. But Brant heard it.
“Mother…forgive me…”
Miyana stood. She seemed to finally note the boy kneeling on the rock in front of her. Her words were hollow and haunted.
“Brant, son of Rylland…we’ve both been fate’s bone, gnawed and left with nothing.” She glanced over her shoulder to the greater forest. “But there is one mistress even more cruel. Memory. She makes no distinction between horror and beauty, joy and sorrow. She makes us swallow it all, bitter and sweet. Until it’s all too much.”
She sank again into herself. She took one step back, then another.
