Corinn could only take in the vastness of it with no greater understanding of exactly what it was. The strong, aquatic smell of it drenched the air. And still it rose.
The Santoth tried to leap away. They roared their anger and slashed out with their foul sorcery. Nualo clawed for the book, begging Corinn to give it to him. She yanked it from his grasp when the sea wolves beneath him fell away. He splashed down among them, bellowing curses. The sea wolves loosed their tight weave and sent the sorcerers down to thrash among their tentacles and the great rolling heave of their bodies. Only the sea wolves directly beneath Corinn stayed together.
The queen pressed the book to her chest and looked at Hanish. He stared back. He reached out and took one of her hands. The two of them stood like that, the only stillness in all that great commotion. His mouth opened as if to say something. But instead of speaking he smiled. Of all the things he could have said and done, that smile was perfect. It was sad, resigned, and yet also confident. Somehow, it conveyed that this was as it had to be, the best of all possible outcomes. It said that what they went to now was nothing to fear.
Then the creature’s mouth closed around them all. It stopped its upward thrust and slowly, heavily, fell back into the sea. Above the churning froth into which it sank, the dragon Po circled for a time, crying out his distress. Circling, as the sea went calm beneath him, as the waves rolled on, and the wind, until there was nothing but the sea.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Standing alone in the dressing room he had been provided, Dariel listened to the murmur of the gathering crowd. He could not help but remember the multitude of voices he had sensed inside that glowing wall on Lithram Len. It was the same sound in so many ways, except that here, out in the main courtyard of Avina, the masses gathered in exuberant joy. They had mouths to speak with, hands to clap, free will to move themselves through the world. They had life to rejoice in, now more than ever.
Such had not been the case with the spirits trapped through the sorcery that encased them in that wall and somehow connected them to all the accursed soul vessels. Dariel did not expect to ever understand it entirely. He hoped he wouldn’t. Understanding the sorcery was the very thing that drove the Lothan Aklun to acts of revenge that had enslaved the entire world-themselves along with it-for generations. Better just to know that his bow of reverence had placed the raised rune on his forehead into the engraving meant to receive it. His living tissue touched that strange, glowing matter. A key. That was what Na Gamen had given him. A key that unlocked that cage of souls, freeing all the spirits that the Lothan Aklun had used to power their vessels. The moment it was done, the glowing wall had gone dark. Silent. Motionless. He had felt a concussion of energy, but it had come from elsewhere. In that small chamber, the cage of souls simply ceased to be, and the enslaved vanished into freedom.
“I freed them,” Dariel said. “Or… you freed them.” That was another thing that he was going to have to learn to live with: that he and Na Gamen would share his soul for as long as they both lived on inside Dariel’s mortal body. Acknowledging that, Dariel said, “We freed them.”
Bashar brushed his leg. He stroked the hound. Still a pup, but tall enough already that Dariel did not need to bend to reach him. All lean muscle and bone. Hunters. The ridge running against the grain up his back bristled stronger than ever. He looked at Cashen, who lay watching them. The pup thumped his tail. Considering the massive pads of their paws, Dariel had finally come to believe Birke had not exaggerated. The hounds would be enormous, and they would be there soon. Dariel repeated, “We freed them.”
“Yes,” a voice said, “we did.” Mor stood in the open doorway, in silhouette against the light behind her. Dariel could not see her face, but he knew her form and her voice. She walked in, more beautiful now as the lamplight illuminated her. “You look good in these clothes.” She reached for the collar of his new linen cloak, tugged it around a bit, seemed to like it even better. “Are you ready?”
Dariel said he was, but Mor did not move to lead him to the meeting being held in his honor. She stared at his face, tattooed just like hers. She stared at his forehead, which no longer had the rune embossed on it. His skin was as smooth as it had been before the Sky Watcher took the stylus to it. The key, once used, vanished along with the soul vessels.
“At least you’ll always have these Shivith markings,” Mor said.
“And I’ll never forget who drew them under my skin,” Dariel responded. “Rather painful, as I recall.”
Mor ducked her head a moment, laughed. “We’ve come a long way, Dariel Akaran. I’ll tell you something.” She leaned in a little closer and whispered. “I am a woman who finds beauty first in other women. That is just the way I am. But if I did like men… I might come to you to explore it.”
Dariel was glad she pulled back. His face had flushed, and he feared if she kept studying him so closely his cheek might start to twitch.
“I never told you what Na Gamen told me at the Sky Mount,” Mor said, strolling away and running her finger across a nearby desk. “I didn’t doubt him, but I didn’t want to accept it, either. First, he said you had a destiny here. He said your story, whether it ended well or ill, would be the story of our nation as well. I told him I despised the blood in your veins. Do you know what he told me?”
“What?”
“That it was your Akaran blood that made greatness in you possible. I thought that was foolishness, but the more I’ve thought about the many things he showed me, the more I believe he could not complete his work without an Akaran’s blessing. Does that sound right?”
Dariel nodded.
Mor did as well. “The second thing… was that he confirmed that my brother’s spirit force was still inside Devoth. Buried deep, he said. It was close to his true self. I had always thought my memory of that was true, and it was.” She picked up a stylus and felt the grain of the wooden handle. “He said that if I went in search of him-to kill him-I might succeed, but that I might not get back to Ushen Brae. He said I could have revenge or a future among the People. He did not think that I could have both.”
She hit the stylus against the palm of one hand for a time. Stopped. Glanced down and seemed surprised that she even held it.
“Which do you want more?”
“I wanted each more than the other, but I had sworn to fight for the Free People. I thought that once we had won I would track Devoth to the ends of the earth and cut each soul out of him until I found Ravi. I would have done it.”
“I believe that.”
“I would have, but now I don’t have to. Ravi’s been released.”
“Released? How do you know?”
“I felt it happen. I always felt his life force, Dariel. Every day since he was taken from me I’ve known that he still lived, trapped. You once called me cranky. You would be, too, if you had to live with that.” She tossed the stylus back onto the desk. “Anyway, I felt his soul go free. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know if Devoth is dead. I only know that it was a different thing from what you did with the soul vessels. Somehow, over there in your lands, Ravi found peace.”
I n the high hall a short time later, Mor led Dariel to the gathered Council of Elders. Yoen and the other elders stood waiting for him. They had arrived the day before, having trekked all the way from the Sky Isle on the news that Dariel had been accepted as the Rhuin Fa. Little did they know that as they journeyed, a short, crucial war would unfold. Little did they know they would arrive in a city rejoicing, with the league defeated at the moment that the soul vessels vanished. A great number of the invaders had drowned, but others were plucked from the water, prisoners now locked away and awaiting their fate.
Mor waved Dariel into the circle of elders. He stood, feeling awkward before them. He knew them all, if only from his brief time at the Sky Isle. Perhaps it was the new garments. It had been some time since he had worn clean clothes with sharp creases and fine stitching. Or maybe it was the crowd gathered in the squares just below them. He could hear them even better now, the sound drifting through the large, open balcony windows at the far end of the room. It was heady stuff to be a hero to so many people.
Heady enough to make young Spratling nervous, Dariel thought.
