The Dark Remains (78 page)

But maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was better they thought it an act of nature rather than an ancient
and ravenous magic. Sometimes it was best not to know what dark things dwelled in the world.

Now the walls of the Etherion fell inward, sending more dust into the sky. Aryn sighed, leaning her head on Grace’s shoulder, and Grace wrapped her arm around the young baroness.

It’s all right
, she spun the words over the Weirding, amazed at how easy it was.
We’re safe now, Aryn
.

I know
, the young woman replied, and sighed again.

Beltan and Vani stood close to one another, their expressions thoughtful. Grace was suddenly struck by how brilliant the big, blond man was next to the dark-haired assassin. He was like bold, bright day to her deep, secret midnight. She couldn’t imagine two people who were greater opposites.

But they have something in common, don’t they? They both love Travis. Beltan because that’s what his heart tells him, and Vani because of the cards
.

“I can’t bear to watch it,” Melia said softly, tears shining on her coppery cheeks.

She turned away from the destruction, and Falken held her, his faded eyes grim. In her arms the small lady held a tiny black kitten. Grace wondered where it could possibly have come from. The kitten let out a soft
mew
and patted Melia’s cheek with a paw.

More soldiers ran into the street, sun glinting off their breastplates, shouting at the onlookers to stay back.

“We should not draw attention to ourselves,” Vani said. “There might yet be Scirathi about. We cannot hope all of their number were destroyed in the Etherion.”

They moved into the mouth of a narrow street where they could watch the chaos from blue shade. Again came a low rumbling, and more dust rising into the air.

“Xemeth,” Vani murmured, her eyes full of pain.

Grace glanced at the assassin and thought maybe she understood. In a way it was because Vani had rejected
Xemeth’s love that he had allied himself with the Scirathi and freed the demon. All the same, that had been Xemeth’s doing, not hers. Grace gently disentangled herself from Aryn and moved to the T’gol. She hesitated, then laid a hand on Vani’s arm.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

Vani gave a stiff nod but did not reply.

Falken flexed his black-gloved hand. “Now that the demon has been destroyed, I hope the river of time will return to its rightful flow.”

Melia had dried her tears. “It already has. Mandu tells me that there are yet a few eddies and ripples, but no more, and that even those are growing calm. We shall not lose ourselves in the past any longer.”

Beltan shuddered. “Yes, that’s what it was like—getting tangled in the past.”

Aryn looked up, her eyes wide. “I thought … I thought it was just me.”

Grace gazed at the young woman, concerned. “What happened, Aryn?”

“It was horrible.” The baroness folded her arm around herself. “Like a bad dream, only so much more real than that. It was Midwinter’s Eve again, and I …” She drew in a breath and squared her shoulders. “I did something terrible in the dream, something I did once in truth, and of which I am horribly ashamed.”

Grace understood. Leothan. Aryn had slain the young lord with a spell. But he had been an ironheart.

“Then a shadow was there. It wanted me to leap from the highest turret of the castle. But I didn’t.” She looked up, blue eyes shining. “You see, I knew that wasn’t the answer, that dying wouldn’t undo what was done. I think the shadow was furious. It screamed at me, but I ran.”

Grace didn’t know what to say. She took Aryn’s hand—the right, not the left—and held the pale, folded appendage between her own two hands.

“Your dream is not so different from mine,” Beltan
said, the knight’s face uncharacteristically sober. “Like you, I saw again a dark deed that I once committed. It was … a man that I killed. Then the shadow came to me, and it bade me to turn the knife upon myself. I started to push the blade into my own heart. And then …”

Grace gazed at him. “Then what, Beltan?”

The big knight shrugged broad shoulders. “Then I realized that, whatever I had done in the past, there was something in my present that made me want to live.”

Grace smiled at him; she didn’t need to speak the name aloud.
Travis
. But what dark deed could Beltan have possibly done? He said he had killed a man, but he was a warrior. Had he not been forced to slay many men in battle?

Melia touched the blossoms of a
lindara
vine that climbed up the white wall of the lane. “The shadow in your dreams was the demon, I think. That was part of its magic. Had you done the things in your dreams that it wished you to do, then it would have won, and it would have consumed you.” She looked up, her amber eyes bright. “But you didn’t surrender yourself to the shadow. The ghosts of the past will haunt you no longer.”

Grace knew that wasn’t entirely true. The shadows of the past were still there. If she shut her eyes and reached out with the Touch, she could still see them as she had once before, attached to the gleaming life thread of each of them.

And yet …

The shadows were smaller now, and more distant. Even Grace’s own. She thought that, just maybe, she understood the reason. They could never leave their past behind, not completely; like a shadow, it would always trail after them. But also like a shadow, it had no real power, no true form. The dark would always remain, but that did not mean they could not face forward, into the light.

Grace drew in a breath, then she shut her eyes, reached
out, and Touched the shimmering web of the Weirding. She did it with abandon, without holding back any fraction of herself, and for the very first time, Grace embraced the glittering threads—embraced the fabric of
life
—without fear.

It was glorious.

Grace?

It was Aryn’s voice, speaking in her mind.

Grace, are you all right?

How could she explain?

I am, Aryn
, she spun back.
For the first time in my life, I really am all right
.

Doctor, heal thyself.

Grace opened her eyes. The others were looking at her with curious expressions. She grimaced, then laughed.

“Sorry,” she said, and left it at that. As Lirith had once taught her, it was all right for a girl to maintain a little mystery.

Her laughter faded then, and she found herself gazing at Vani, and at Melia and Falken. What had each of them dreamed about while caught in the thrall of the demon? Whatever it was, they seemed unwilling to say. Yet Falken’s weathered visage was haggard, and Grace thought she could guess what moment the shadow had made him live again: the death of a kingdom.

But Malachor isn’t dead, is it, Grace? Not completely, not if you’re here
.

It was absurd of course. But then, so were the hundred other things that had happened to her since that October night just under a year ago when she journeyed to Eldh. Back to Eldh.

She touched the steel pendant at her throat.
You’re a queen, Grace, whether you like it or not. But lucky for you, you’re the ruler of a kingdom that doesn’t exist anymore. You have to admit, that makes it rather convenient. All of the majesty, none of the burden
.

“What about you, Grace?” Beltan said. “What did you see in the shadow?”

She gripped the necklace, licked her lips. “It was the orphanage, back in Colorado. I was there again, the night the placed burned down. Only I—”

Her heart lurched, and she looked up at the others, cold despite the balmy air. “It was me. I was the one who did it. I didn’t remember it that way. I don’t … I don’t think I understood at the time. But now, seeing it again, it was so clear.”

Aryn moved toward her. “What was clear, Grace?”

“The fire. I was the one who started the fire that burned down the orphanage. With a spell.”

The baroness stared in amazement, and Melia pressed her lips together and nodded.

“I have heard,” Melia said, “that sometimes a witch’s talent can first manifest in a moment of great duress.”

Dizziness swept over Grace. Duress. Yes, that was one word for it. She remembered the stairs, the door opening, and Mrs. Fulch on the chaise, the gaping wound in her chest …

She gasped and looked at the bard. “Falken, I have to tell you something I saw. It was so horrible, I must have … I must have locked the memory away somewhere inside myself. But now I remember everything. I …”

The others gazed at her, concern on their faces. Falken took her shoulders in his hands and held her firmly but gently.

“What is it, dear one?” the bard said. “You’re safe here. You can tell us.”

It was so hard to speak. The words tumbled out of her like fragments of glass.

“Ironhearts. At the orphanage on Earth. I saw them making one. Mrs. Fulch. They put it in her chest, the lump of iron, and she woke up. And the other was there. The Pale One. And then I saw it in the wraithling’s
light—the symbol of the Raven Cult.” She shook her head. “But it’s not a raven’s wing. It was an eye … an eye set in a horrible face, and they said they were going to help him get back, to return to his world and rule it all.”

Melia’s face was ashen. Falken’s fingers dug into Grace’s flesh, his eyes intent.

“Who, Grace? Who were they trying to help get back to his world?”

Somehow she forced the words out one by one. “The Lord of Nightfall.”

Melia gasped, and Falken swore. The bard seemed to realize he was squeezing her brutally and let go.

“Grace, forgive me, I …”

She shook her head, laid her hand on his arm. Her mind worked furiously, putting the pieces together, making her terrible diagnosis.

“It’s him, isn’t it, Falken? I asked you about it once—how if the Little People could come back, why couldn’t the Old Gods? And it turns out he’s been there all along, on Earth, searching for a way. He’s been behind everything—the Pale King, the Raven Cult. Even the Scirathi. I’m sure of it, from what Xemeth said. He’s the cause of all of this.”

Aryn and Beltan exchanged puzzled looks, and Vani frowned.

“Who do you speak of?” the assassin said. “Who is the master of all these evils you describe?”

Grace licked her lips. “Mohg.”

Melia was shaking. “The eye … of course. We should have seen it before. Not a raven’s wing, but an eye. The eye that was blinded—”

“—and which sees once more,” Falken finished.

Melia’s face was stricken. She held her arms out to Grace, then pulled them back in. “Oh, my dear one, what did we do to you? We thought to protect you, and instead we sent you into the very hands of darkness. How you suffered because of our deeds. You must hate us.”

Grace couldn’t bear it. She had not regained her heart only to have it break like this.

“I love you, Melia,” she said softly. “I love you and Falken both, so much.”

The amber-eyed lady turned back, her face writ with agony and astonishment, as was the bard’s.

Grace moved to them. “You fought for the lives of my parents, and for my life as well. How could I do anything but love you both?”

She caught them in a fierce hug. For a moment the bard and the lady were too stunned to move, then they returned her embrace.

“My little Ralena,” Melia murmured.

“No,” Falken murmured. “Our Grace, all grown up.”

At last they stepped back from one another.

Beltan was gazing at them, green eyes hazed with confusion. “I don’t understand, Falken. No surprise there, I know. It seems I’m always the last to catch on to these big, world-shaking sorts of things. But why does Mohg want to get back to Eldh?”

Aryn clasped Beltan’s hand. “You’re not the only one who’s slow at catching on, cousin.”

“He wants to finish what he began a thousand years ago,” Falken said, voice hoarse. “He wants to do what together the Old and New Gods prevented him from doing once before.”

“Which is?” Beltan said.

“Mohg wishes to break the First Rune and reforge Eldh in his own image, enslaving it and all of its people forever.”

These words left them speechless. Outside the lane, the crash of stone had ceased, and the soldiers had done their work, for the streets of the Second Circle were clearing.

Vani moved with lithe steps and peered out. “I do not like this.”

“What is it?” Melia said, drawing closer.

Vani turned around, her gold eyes gleaming. “My
brother, Travis, and the others. They should be here by now.”

Only as she said this did Grace realize it was true. They had been so caught up in their discoveries they had forgotten about Travis, Sareth, Durge, and Lirith.

Falken scratched his chin. “Doesn’t it take some time to go through the gate? I just assumed it did.”

“No,” the assassin said, her words sharp as knives. “Transport through the gate is instantaneous.”

A frown lined Beltan’s face. “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“What does it mean?” Aryn said.

Vani met each of their gazes in turn, and Grace felt fresh, new dread well up inside of her.

“It means,” Vani said, “that something has gone wrong.”

This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be.

Travis blinked as a brisk wind kicked up gritty dust in his face. Tumbleweeds danced and rolled across the broad dirt street that stretched before him. Wooden buildings lined the street, their sharp square fronts jutting up into the blue-quartz sky.

“This does not look like Tarras to me,” Durge said in his rumbling voice.

That was an understatement. Travis opened his mouth, but it was too hard to speak. The unnatural cold of their passage still gripped him. As he watched, frost evaporated from their clothes in curls of steam, sublimating under the bright force of the sun—a sun that seemed at once whiter and smaller than the sun that shone above Tarras.

Lirith shook her head, moisture glittering in her black hair. “Sareth, what is this place?”

The Mournish man took a step forward, his wooden leg stirring up more dust. “I do not know,
beshala
. Nothing about it is familiar.”