Skykeepers

Instead, Strike turned and beckoned to her. “Sasha? Come here, please.”

Frowning, she moved up and joined them, her heavy black robes swirling around her ankles. “Yes?”

He handed her the bowl. “Bless them, please. And then let them grow.”

The pinch smoothed out and she smiled. Touching the hopeful little seeds, she felt the magic in them, the life. She sent them a song and felt them respond. Then, acting on instinct, or ch’ul, or maybe just a mad impulse, she swung her arm and sent the seeds flying in a glittering arc, out past the torches to the ash-shadowed court-yard. There was a ripple of laughter from the magi, a shimmer of magic from beyond the torchlight. And she knew that in the morning, there would be life in a spot that for so long had represented only death.

“Nice,” Michael said when she returned to his side. “That was very nice.”

Then it was time for round two of the day’s ceremonies, the more somber of the two. Ambrose’s funeral.

“You ready for this?” Michael asked as Jox started herding everyone toward the ball court, where they’d set up the funeral pyre so it would be downwind of the wayeb feast. After the fire burned itself out, the ashes would be allowed to fly on the canyon winds, as Ambrose had requested, back in another lifetime.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” And, as she reached the traditional wooden structure upon which they’d placed Ambrose’s wrapped body, head and all, she realized she was ready. She’d come to terms with Ambrose and the ways he’d failed her, the ways they’d failed each other. He had given up his own life to save hers, on his queen’s orders, on her mother’s orders.

The sun kissed the horizon, turning the sky to a bloody smear that warned of impending storms. The light cast strange shadows as she picked up the pulque-laced torch she’d prepared earlier in the day, sealing it with both chocolate and her own blood. She held it out to Rabbit, who stood with the others in a loose circle around the pyre and its wrapped bone bundle. “Will you do the honors?”

He nodded, held his hands cupped together, and whispered, “Kaak.” Fire. A flame kindled in his palms, soft and kind, not the fireball of war. He held the spark to her torch, spoke another word, and sent the flames dancing across the alcohol-soaked brand. Then he stood beside her as she touched the torch to the pyre, and urged the flames to make it quick and do it right. She knew he’d done the same for his own father. Knew Ambrose would approve.

The others moved up around her, standing in silent support as she fulfilled a promise that had started out causing trouble and ended up showing her the way to her family, to the man she loved, whether by chance or destiny or, most likely, a combination of the two.

In losing her father she had found her family. And now Ambrose had come home. Finally. “Gods speed you to your rest,” she said softly, thinking for a moment that she could see his face in the flames. “And thank you. For everything.”

The bone bundle caught and flared, and the heat intensified, driving them away from a pyre that had become a bonfire. She thought Ambrose would’ve enjoyed that too.

“Hey.” Michael touched her arm. “You good?”

“Yeah.” She turned to him, smiled up at him, and felt a weight lift off her soul. “Yeah, I am.” But she faltered a little when she saw the look in his eyes, the hint of reservation, of worry. “Michael, what’s going on?”

He took a deep breath, tried for a smile and missed. “I know this probably isn’t the right time or place to do this,” he began.

Her heart took a nosedive, and all the old insecurities rose up, threatened to swamp her. “If you’re dumping me, you might want to rethink. Third-degree burns on your ass won’t be much fun.” She tried to make it sound like a joke. Failed.

“I’m not dumping you.” He sounded exasperated rather than annoyed. Then he hitched up a pant leg and dropped to one knee in front of her.

She looked down at him, at the firelight illuminating one side of his face, the darkness touching the other, and her heart stopped, simply stopped in her chest. “Michael?”

The others had gone very quiet around them; the only sound was that of Ambrose’s funeral pyre.

Then Michael reached into a pocket and came up with a small velvet box. Held it out to her. “I can’t give you the jun tan, but I want—I need—you to wear something of mine; I want to know that you’re mine, from this point forward. So we’ll do it the newfangled way.” He paused. Took a breath. “Sasha Ledbetter, will you marry me?”

It was the moment her younger self had dreamed of. And her more mature, grounded self fumbled the shit out of it. “I don’t . . . I mean, I didn’t think . . . Oh, hell.” She blew out a breath. Made herself stop babbling. “Yes.”

His eyes glinted. “Was that a yes, you’ll marry me, or are you still stuttering?”

She laughed. “A little of both?” She felt the smile start, felt warmth and heat and love expanding inside her chest, growing out beyond the bounds of her body as her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. Of course I’ll marry you. I love you. Every piece of you.”

“And I love you,” he said. And, as the bonfire showered sparks behind them, she realized he’d been wrong about one thing: It was the perfect time and place for them, for the ceremonies of life to counter those of death.

He rose then, and flipped open the box, which held a fat, princess-cut diamond in the most exquisitely traditional of settings. Tradition for a man who was anything but traditional, she thought.

It should’ve jarred. Instead, it fit perfectly. As did the ring.

“I love you,” he said again, the words coming easily, from his heart. “I can’t promise you the jun tan or a quiet life, but I can promise you that nobody will ever love you as much as I do. Nobody will ever need you the way I do.”

The words were raw and honest. And she answered in kind, touching her lips to his before she said, “Nobody’s ever challenged me the way you do, and I know I’ve never loved anyone the way I do you.

Just love me; that’s all I ask. We’ll figure out the rest as we go along. Deal?”

He smiled against her lips. “Deal.”

They kissed to a round of applause from the assembled group. And when they parted, something danced across Sasha’s nape. A coyote howl lifted from the near distance, the wild music rising to the sky. Eyes drawn by something—maybe magic, maybe instinct, maybe just a wish—Sasha looked through the fire to the empty ball court beyond the pyre. There, in the firelight, stood a tall, lanky man with a tired face, a long gray ponytail, and a pronounced stoop to his shoulders, as though he’d spent many years trying to look smaller than he was, trying to blend into a life he hadn’t chosen.

“Ambrose,” Sasha said, tears welling up to spill over and track down her cheeks. She lifted her hand in a wave, saw her new diamond glint in the firelight. “Thank you.”

The spirit—ghost?—lifted a hand, returning the wave. The fire distorted the air between them, but she could swear she saw a smile on the spirit’s face, and no hint of madness in its eyes. For a moment, she imagined he looked like the man she’d glimpsed on his good days, in the gaps between obsessions.

And in that moment, she imagined that all was forgiven between them both.

It is, she heard in the crackle of the fire, in a multitonal voice that shouldn’t have existed outside of the barrier. Michael stiffened at her side, letting her know he’d heard it, too. Then the spirit’s form wavered. And disappeared.

“What did he mean by that?” he asked quietly.

“It means all is forgiven.” She lifted their joined hands to her cheek, rested her face on his strength.

“It means we go on from here and do the best we can do.”

“That I can manage.” He gathered her close, pressing her against his broad chest and rocking her gently as the others ringed the bonfire once again.

Strike and Leah, Nate and Alexis, and Rabbit and Myrinne paired off, the mated couples wrapping together while the other magi and the winikin stood apart and alone. They watched the fire burn down, even knowing that Ambrose’s spirit had passed onward. Sasha suspected each of them saw something slightly different in the flames—scenes of the past, of futures near and far.