Rossin.
He expected hatred, but instead she looked remarkably calm. Pressing her hand on top of Merrick’s, Sorcha climbed to her feet, and all three of them embraced. Words were unnecessary between them. They all knew what had been lost, but also what had been saved.
In the silence, they heard a yip. Turning, they saw that the Fensena had entered the chamber. The huge coyote with blood drying on his coat was panting, but when he spoke it was with confidence. “Harbinger Sorcha Faris, while you still hold the title of head of an Order, I need that one favor you owe me.”
Sorcha sagged slightly, her arm around both Merrick and Raed. “You . . . you ask me this now?” Even exhausted her voice was outraged. “Have you not seen what we have just done, did you not—”
The coyote tilted his head. “Yes, very impressive, and I am grateful, but I think you will find I have done more than I ever expected . . . but nonetheless you still owe me that favor.”
Sorcha’s jaw clenched. “Very well, what do you want?”
“A simple thing,” the Fensena said, walking in closer. “Take up your partner’s cloak, wrap it around the Imperial blood, and tell my master he must be free.”
“Your master?” Merrick had a feeling he knew what the answer would be.
The coyote performed a little bow. “Yes, the Rossin. Only a leader of the Order can give my master the freedom he has always wanted.”
Raed, who had the most to gain in this transaction, held up his hand. “Hold on! Do you mean that the Rossin would be separated from me, free to roam the world?”
“Yes,” the Fensena replied simply.
“No!” Raed turned on Sorcha. “I have always dreamed of being free of the Rossin—but you cannot unleash him on the world. His bloodlust . . .”
“Raed.” It was Sorcha who interrupted him. “Did you really not understand the Rossin when we were in the Meld?”
Merrick stopped breathing for just an instant. He understood what she meant. They had been so tightly bound together nothing had been hidden. The Rossin’s bloodlust had subsided with the Bond; he had become more a part of the human world than part of the Otherside the longer he was bound to them.
He had not needed to kill to sustain himself for some time. When they had been one, his need for freedom had been theirs. They could still taste it, and what was more, they understood it.
Raed’s shoulders slumped, he sighed, and then nodded. “No one wants to understand an enemy,” he finally said, “but now I do.”
“Be not too worried,” the Fensena offered, “the Rossin, I think, will find being bound to one form, one life, not as much freedom as he might think.” A sly coyote grin spread on his jaws. “Think of it as the sting in the tail if it makes you feel better.”
“Very well then.” Sorcha bent and took up the silver fur Merrick had let drop and wrapped it around Raed. “Be free.”
It seemed such a simple thing. The pelt of the Rossin was given back to him by the Harbinger of the Enlightened—as Derodak had made it so.
When Raed staggered back, the Rossin was born anew into the world and ran. They glimpsed only the flick of his tail and heard his roar of delight.
The Rossin ran from Vermillion. His great pads made no noise as he pounded along the cobblestones. The war drums were gone. Citizens of Vermillion, those that still remained on the street that was, hurried to get out of his way.
He did not think they knew what he was, perhaps just some Beast that had escaped the Imperial menagerie in the tumult. He took no more blood from them, because he did not need to. The mad lust for it was gone, and it was another thing he was free of.
The sudden realization hit him as he bounded over a man tugging a recalcitrant donkey pulling a cart—he was free. He heard the donkey’s frightened bray, and the howl of the man, but they were suddenly a long way behind him.
He had his own body. The flesh he wore was his alone now. He was no longer geist, since that had been ripped away from him when Sorcha Faris broke all Bonds. She’d freed him, and in doing so fulfilled her promise to the Fensena.
His longs strides slowed, and the great pard looked around. He was standing at the very edge of Vermillion again, looking out over the swamplands, and it was as if he were seeing them for the very first time.
The Fensena’s warning now came to him. Without the powers of the geist or any connection back to the Otherside, the geistlord was nothing more than a large, peculiar creature. He had his intelligence, his size and his strength—and that was all.
The Rossin snarled, shaking his thick mane and inhaling the smells of this new world he had literally just been born into. He was indeed no longer a geistlord, but he was certainly no normal lion. He was indeed something new. This world needed something new.
Yet he only had one life now. The Rossin could no longer hide in the bloodline of the Imperial family that had taken his name.
As the Rossin stood there contemplating, he heard a sound in the streets behind him, and turned to see a small child that was staring at him. It was a boy of no more than five, standing in the shadow of one of the shacks that made up the Edge of Vermillion. He had wide brown eyes, and he was staring at the Rossin with not a trace of fear in his face.
The great pard saw himself reflected in those eyes, and he was no terrifying geistlord. He was a shadow- maned wonder with gleaming eyes. The child actually raised one hand and waved at him. He was fearless, and the Rossin wondered if perhaps there was a way that humanity would forget its terror of him.
A sea of possibilities opened up before the Rossin, and even though there was risk waiting for him out there, he was at least free. As the great pard sprang away from the city of Vermillion, he let out a roar. It was a promise of things to come—a promise of freedom.
TWENTY-NINE
Setting Sail
Three weeks after the end of Derodak and his Circle of Stars, four people, respectfully followed by two platoons of Imperial Guard, walked down from the palace to where the remains of the Mother Abbey lay.
One wore a black cloak with bands of emerald green and sky blue, two others thick brown wool cloaks, while the fourth was in a dress uniform of pure white and wore a band of gold on her head.
The Mother Abbey seemed a good place to contemplate what needed to be done and to bid farewell to one another.
Sorcha, Raed, Merrick and the Empress of Arkaym, with the now-confined-to-one-body Fensena trotting at their heels, picked their way over the ruins of the devotional, examining the space where the new Arch Abbot of the Order of the Enlightened wanted to build his new Mother Abbey. Merrick had decided not to call himself Harbinger—that he would leave for his predecessor.
“Are you sure you want to start again here?” Sorcha frowned and pushed some stones through the dirt with her foot. “This ground has seen a lot of death and pain.” Her arms were healing, though the marks the Patternmaker had carved on her skin had become nothing more than strange scars. No runic power had flowed through her skin since Merrick had cast the rune Ticat on her. She found she was at peace with that.
Merrick’s brown eyes grew distant for a moment, so that she wondered if he were attempting to peer into the future. He shook his head and smiled at her. “It has also seen a lot of laughter, healing and intelligent discourse. The stones we will bury far from Vermillion, but the ground is still solid. I know you wanted to build something new, Sorcha, but the Order is mine now. And besides,” he said, shooting her a sharp grin, “this is the place you and I first met. In days to come, it may become holy ground.”
In answer, she threw a clod of dirt at him.
