Chapter 14 The Light
The Light
The light hits first.
It presses into my vision with a force that feels almost physical, bright enough to make me narrow my eyes. Beyond the wards there had been only bodies and the hollow black of things that did not die. Color had ceased to exist.
Here it returns all at once.
I blink, trying to orient myself. There are soldiers. A line of them, more than I expected, positioned along the boundary with a quiet readiness that does not waver. Alarna keeps its wards guarded from the inside.
A figure breaks from the line and walks toward me, unhurried.
"Your Highness," he says, lowering his head. "We will escort you to the palace."
I do not know how he knows who I am. I look like something dragged off a ship that was never meant to make it, which is exactly what I am.
My clothing hangs in torn pieces, stiff where blood has dried into it.
The bruises left by Mysin and his men have faded but remain visible, impossible to mistake.
The fever broke days ago but my body still carries the exhaustion of it, and the lightcraft took whatever was left. I am upright through will alone.
And yet no one turns away. No one falters. They look at me as though they already knew exactly who would come through those wards and simply waited for it to happen.
I do not know where I am supposed to go. The escort is the only direction I have, and I take it.
"Brother."
The voice comes from somewhere to my left. Talen turns toward it before I can follow the sound, already moving, already gone.
Nyara falls into step beside me without being asked. The three of us are what made it through.
The walk to the palace is longer than I expect.
The people we pass are unhurried, their clothing soft and loose in muted colors that seem to belong to the light rather than interrupt it.
There is something undeniably free in the way they exist here.
A place sealed behind wards should not feel like this.
Nothing about how they carry themselves suggests bracing or guarding.
The palace grows clearer as we approach, wide openings stretching along its length, gold threading through the structure without excess.
It does not hold the light so much as let it pass through.
Nothing about it feels heavy or closed. Rathmor rises in my mind without prompting, all shadow and weight and containment. This is none of that.
The brightness gathers around everything as we walk, almost aware.
I was never something uncertain here. I was always meant to arrive.
"The Queen has been waiting for you."