In the cell alongside, a creature slammed against its gate with its heavy, curled horns, clutching the bars of its cage with massive, reptilian claws.
Ram’s horns, Cal-raven realized. And those claws—two fingers and a thumb. Just as Snyde said.
Cal-raven crawled away from the view. Then he got to his feet, his thoughts in shambles, and staggered off into the night.
The hard wind took what was left of his understanding. Detail faded from the landscape. The white scar, still pulsing the memory of a distant beacon, was all that Cal-raven could see, even as he sensed someone cautiously approaching.
“Jordam,” Cal-raven whispered, “I’m lost.”
Strong arms caught him, lifted him, and carried him away.
EPILOGUE
Three days after Queen Thesera’s orders that the Seers be imprisoned and Ryllion slain, the soldier was still missing, and the Seers remained locked inside their invulnerable laboratories.
The riots that had broken out shocked Bel Amica’s defenders. They withdrew to enforce the walls around the palace towers, restraining the tide of people who believed they could not live without the solace of the Seers’ potions.
And yet, on this third morning of unrest, some things went on as if these were ordinary days. The fog bank moved out to sea, as it always did, crashing over Bel Amica’s rock like a mighty wave. The marketplaces were busy. The seabirds fussed and sang their complaints.
Tabor Jan woke from a deep sleep to find an invitation on his pillow. He rose and followed its instructions. He went down to the glassworks, where he was met by Krawg and—much to his surprise—Warney.
“You’re lookin’ better, there, Captain!” Warney exclaimed.
“I slept. I’ve slept two long nights now.” Tabor Jan stared, bewildered, trying to figure out what about Warney had changed. “Did you shave your beard or something?”
“How’d it be…” Krawg interrupted, fidgeting with the fringe of his yellow scarf. “What if I walked with you on the wall this evening?”
“Why’s that?”
“Seein’ how you’re a sort of hero now, folks will want to hear tell of Tabor Jan’s courage and the nest of beastman invaders. I reckon there’d be no better source for details than the man who made it happen. And I’d like to tell that story before anybody has a chance to get it wrong.”
“I’ll give it some thought.” The captain was happy to see the old men together again. “You’ll have to include Wynn and how his humble service on the docks gave him the opportunity for a brave act. And don’t forget Cyndere’s perfect arrow. Or the girls, Margi and Luci, who almost drowned when the water came in.”
Krawg was tying the scarf in knots now. “Yes, we’ve got to do this story right.”
“Oh, and Krawg…make it short.” Tabor Jan forced a straight face. “Too many characters, too much description—an audience won’t have patience for that.”
Krawg looked crestfallen. “I would.”
Leaving the old Gatherers to ponder the future of Krawg’s art, Tabor Jan walked through the open door of the glassworks.
Inside, he meandered through the bewildering reflections until he found Cyndere and Emeriene waiting in the glassmakers’ workshop. Cyndere seemed fidgety, lifting herself up on tiptoe several times and smiling a little more than seemed necessary. Then she took his arm and led him deeper into the glassworks, straight into a small room littered with paints, bottles of glue, and pieces of glass.
Obrey sat on the floor playing a game with Bauris and two very young boys. Emeriene, who sat between the boys with her arms spread like wings around them, introduced them as her sons, Tenno and Terryn. Her hands were locked on their shoulders as if she worried someone might snatch the boys away at any moment. Cyndere explained that they’d been found hiding on the queen’s ship, unattended and afraid, when soldiers stormed it in search of Ryllion. Emeriene’s husband, Cesylle, was missing—most likely hiding or fleeing into the Cragavar with Ryllion. Cesylle, like Ryllion, was a fugitive student of the Seers.
Tabor Jan expected Bauris to greet him, but the old man was absorbed in his play. Beside him sprawled an enormous viscorcat. Tabor Jan watched the animal carefully, hoping it was, indeed, tame.
“After seeing the worst our house has to offer,” said Emeriene, “Cyndere thought you deserved to see some of what’s best.”
When Cyndere pulled back a heavy curtain, Tabor Jan stood mesmerized as crescendos of light pulsed through the intricate glass lace of Obrey’s window. “Must you keep this hidden?”
“You saw how people have lost respect for true beauty in this house,” sighed Cyndere. “Best to leave this where it will be preserved.”
“Strange,” said Tabor Jan. “Strange that they riot because you’ve punished those who sought to kill their queen.” He sighed and turned back to the light. “Forgive me, but I’m ready to leave for New Abascar.”
They were quiet for a time while Obrey, Bauris, Emeriene, and the sisterly’s sons rolled marbles back and forth across the colorful floor.
“Bauris,” said Tabor Jan quietly, “Thank you. I don’t understand how you knew, but you were right. The tetherwings…they did have something to tell me.”
Bauris rose to sit in the large, cushioned bear-chair like a king on a throne, smiling as if he knew a world of secrets.
“May I?” Tabor Jan knelt to stroke the viscorcat who lay purring drowsily in a sunbeam. “Never touched a viscorcat before.” As he ran his strong hands down the cat’s silky black fur, he wished that he could purr as well. He dug his fingernails in behind the cat’s left ear, which so thrilled the animal that he stretched out his hind legs and let out a rrrrowwlll of pleasure.
“That’s Dukas,” said Bauris. “He’s happy today. He’s so happy to have her around again.”
The cat sighed contentedly as if to agree.
“Who?”
“My favorite.” Bauris beamed at his visitors. “She’s come back.” He looked from one visitor to the other, then shrugged. “Nobody’s paying attention.”
When Frits stepped into the room, holding a bundle of golden cloth, he furrowed his brow. “Such a gloomy crowd. And I’d been told this was a playroom.”
“It is a playroom!” shouted Obrey. “Will you join the game?”
He laughed. “Perhaps later, Granddaughter. You should chase out all these serious adults before Milora finds them. You know how she feels about people disrupting your play.”
Cyndere was sitting on Obrey’s workbench, and Frits approached her, unwrapping the treasure. “Here it is. Your mother’s new chalice.”
They gathered around and stared at its exquisite complexity, at the way it caught and cut the light, opening it up and refracting rays of radiant color. “It’s for her voyage. See how the eagle’s feathers ripple when you turn it in the light? I took this down to the Escape for her departure ceremony, but things did not go as planned, did they?”
“No. Partayn’s with Mother now,” said Cyndere. “She’s having difficulty adjusting to life without her puppeteers.”
“When she’s ready, she can drink from it on the shore of some new world.”
Cyndere smiled sadly. “Our own world needs a bit more attention before that happens. She won’t sail until we sort some things out.”
Incredulous, Tabor Jan turned to Cyndere. “Your mother’s still going to make the voyage?”
“It will be best,” said Cyndere, “if she’s away for a while. We’re encouraging her to go. She’s so distraught. I caught her trying to unstitch her new face last night. She needs to get away from here. And Bel Amica will be better off with Partayn on the throne.”
“If I can be of any help while I wait for Cal-raven, well…you’ll have to interrogate your defenders, I assume.”
Cyndere raised a hand to assure him. “You’re generous. And, yes, some of our defenders will have to be questioned and even imprisoned. Most are reaffirming loyalty to the queen. Many served my father, so they’re ready to tear
Ryllion to pieces.” Cyndere took the goblet from Frits. “I’d like to have a house worth defending again. A house full of beauty like this.”
“You’ll observe,” said Frits in hushed enthusiasm, “that we included no moon-spirit symbols in the chalice’s engravings. No wolves howling. We went back to early Bel Amican rituals. This blackstone symbol is a gem from a necklace that Queen Bel Amica herself wore when her throne was first established.”
He pointed to the outline of a small silver bell, the kind that might hang in a tower.
“Mother once told me a story about Queen Bel Amica and her obsession with bells.” Cyndere ran her finger over the smoothly sculpted symbol. “There was a certain tone she heard when she awoke in the morning. She had no memory of where she might have heard such a thing. No bellmaster ever found its equal. Many tried. Bel Amica used to be full of bells instead of mirrors.”
“We should have a contest,” said Obrey, “to make the most beautiful bell.”
“Frits could craft us a bell made of glass,” said Cyndere, turning the chalice upside down and tapping it lightly with her nail. “Please take no offense if my mother barely notices the chalice, Frits. The best things dazzle us so slowly.”
And that, thought Tabor Jan, is why House Abascar cannot stay.
“What was that?” Emeriene looked at the captain.
Realizing he had spoken aloud, Tabor Jan said, “I only meant that we learned to be patient and attentive during our hardships in Barnashum. While we’re grateful for your help, we mustn’t delay. We’ve become distracted from our own story.”
“You cannot rush such a huge endeavor as rebuilding a house.” Emeriene took her youngest son’s hands in her own and showed him how to snip the marble toward a bracket that Obrey held in place.
“No.” Tabor Jan smiled sadly, looking into Obrey’s window. “Careful as we’ve been, we’ve lost so many important pieces along the way. New Abascar will be a cold and blustery place for a while.”
“Look,” whispered Cyndere, “the sun’s coming through.”
It was true—sunlight was streaming into the room in bold rays, captured and focused by breaks in the glass.
Tabor Jan watched Cyndere’s face, which was canted into the effusion of light, and he thought to himself that, broken as she was, the queen’s daughter was as extravagant as Obrey’s window.
“Frits,” said Cyndere, “I’ve asked Abascar’s healer to spend time with Milora. We must restore her health so the three of you can go home.”
“You are gracious,” said Frits.
“I suspect,” said Cyndere, “as you do, that the Seers made her sick just to force you to come to Bel Amica and work here. We want to make this right. You should be working in freedom, following your own vision rather than flattering my mother.”
“They can go north under Abascar’s protection,” Tabor Jan said quickly. “Cal-raven has a particular care for those who catch light and color in this world.” He looked up to Obrey’s window. “He once gave his strongest pledge of protection for a girl called Auralia who—”
“Auralia. Yes, her name is known in Bel Amica,” said Cyndere.
“She was young,” said Tabor Jan. “No family to speak of, her history a secret. Cal-raven spoke with her for only a few moments. But she won his heart by her way with colors.”
Bauris stood and elbowed the captain. “This is my favorite part,” he whispered. Tabor Jan patted his arm, uncomprehending.
Obrey snipped a red marble to Emeriene, and it ricocheted off the side of the bracket, careening across the room. It bounced off Frits’s boot and rolled to the doorway. Emeriene’s older boy rose to chase it, but Milora, just arriving on the scene, stopped it with her bare toes.
Seeing Milora scowl in disapproval at the solemn crowd, Cyndere clapped her hands together. “We should leave Obrey to her play.”
“My work!” said Obrey solemnly. “It’s my work!”
Milora rolled the marble under the ball of her foot, clearly impatient.
Stifling a laugh, Cyndere turned to Tabor Jan. “I know you have much to do to prepare your people, Captain. But Cal-raven and Henryk will not be back for several days. I hope you can take the time to join us for a quiet meal tonight—Emeriene, her boys, Frits, my brother, and myself.”
The captain’s expression revealed his surprise. “You honor me too much.”
“I’d like to light a ceremonial lamp and place it in the center of the table. And around it, we’ll speak of wishes and dreams. The future.”
“After all that has happened,” he said, “you want to call to the moon-spirits?”
“To call whatever power we believe is listening. The Keeper. Ghosts of our loved ones. Whoever might be out there weaving our threads together.”
“Will there be wine?” Tabor Jan asked.
“You saved my life and the lives of my family. For that, I’ll personally fill your glass.”
He smiled. “Just a glass?”
“Come now,” she laughed. “Let’s not get greedy.”
“Let’s go, boys.” Emeriene drew her sons away from the game and toward the door.
Cyndere followed, threading her arm through Tabor Jan’s and leaning into him a little. He lost the rhythm of his step for a moment but quickly found it again, letting events unfold without a plan.
Bauris returned his attention to Auralia’s cat.
“She loves you, Dukas,” he whispered. “She told me so while I was away. She told me how you used to carry her through the forest. But now that she’s come back over the wall, she has to remember everything again. Give her some time. She’ll play with you.”
Obrey stared up at him, her face full of unresolved questions. Bauris knew that his words were making her uncomfortable. But then, his words made most people uncomfortable. What could he do?
He had come back through the well on certain conditions. He was forbidden to speak directly of those gentle, shimmering strangers who had found him at the bottom of the well and carried him upstream to revelation. He was forbidden to speak of all they had shown him.
He could not make his friends see what he could see—the witnesses passing through the chambers, through the corridors, through the walls. Nor could he explain for these poor, half-blind people why all his fears had dissolved, why his joy endured through every trouble.
The pact had to hold. The people of the Expanse would never really know the truth unless they found it for themselves, made that climb, beheld that view. They had to discover—or better, remember—the golden thread within them and follow it home. Telling them would never do.
Milora took a broom in her white glassworking mitts, and proceeding cautiously on her bare feet, she swept marbles and fragments of colored glass aside.
“Everybody marvels at my window,” grumbled Obrey, “but they never thank you for it.”
“That’s because they all think you made the window,” Milora sighed. “They assume so many things. Since I live with you and your grandfather, well… I must be your mother, right? Since I know glasswork, I must’ve grown up in Frits’s clan, right? If they asked more questions, they’d learn how wrong they are. But oh well. Scissors and scraps. It’s not important. So long as they don’t disrupt your play, what harm can that do?”
“Why do they think I made the window?”
“Because since the day I made it for your playroom, everyone has called it Obrey’s window. And it is your window, my dear. It’s there to inspire you because I love to watch you play. I’m sure I used to mess around like you do. But life’s got a way of beating the play right out of you.” She knelt, set the broom down, and put her arms around Obrey. “I’ll never, ever let life beat the play out of you, my dear.”
Bauris bit his tongue until it hurt.
Milora narrowed her eyes. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“This is my favorite part,” he said.
Milora sat down on the workbench and studied the window, unbinding her head scarf. “I’
ll have to ask Frits to cut my hair again.” As the scarf slipped to the ground, the viscorcat got to his feet. Purring so rapturously it was almost a snarl, he rubbed a furry cheek against her shoulder, then threw himself down to playfully wrestle the loose scarf.
She rubbed the cat under the chin. He pressed his eyes shut, smiling, and groaned. “You want me to take off my mitts don’t you?” She began to slowly unwind the strips of her mitts. “Cal-raven,” she said absently. “He’s a strange, impulsive man.”
“He has a funny name,” Obrey announced.
Milora cocked her head. “He does, doesn’t he? Well, he’s lucky to have a name that means something, I guess.”
“What’s wrong with ‘Milora’?”
“Nuthin’s wrong with it.” She spread her unwrapped fingers, and the white strips fluttered to the floor. “I like it because Frits gave it to me. But I want my real name.”
“Must’ve been weird for Grandfather. Findin’ a grown woman lyin’ bare by the river like that. I remember him carryin’ you in. Even though you were asleep, you wouldn’t let go of those milora flowers in your hand.”
“No clothes. No memories.” Milora pushed her hand through the air toward Bauris. “Erased. Whoooosh.”
The emerjade ring on her finger caught his attention. She fingered it with curiosity, tracing the shape of the figure that she saw so vividly in dreams. Then she shrugged and reached down to scratch the cat behind his ear. “Dukas,” she murmured.
“I hope Cal-raven’s back soon,” said Obrey. “I like him. I want him to live with us.”
Milora smiled, amused, then whispered his name again as if it were strangely familiar, and she watched Obrey get lost in her play.
A GUIDE TO THE CHARACTERS
House Abascar (AB-uh-skar)
ale boy—A former errand-runner in Abascar; friend of Auralia; gifted as a firewalker who can pass through fire without burning; now a survivor responsible for leading hundreds from the rubble of Abascar and south to the gathering in the Cliffs of Barnashum. Some call him “Rescue.”