16. REVELATION
REVELATION
YSIRA
Ysira awoke in a bed, under a cover of unfamiliar fabric. When she stirred, a strip of light brightened around the ceiling’s circumference and illuminated the room.
Light.
Last she could recall, there had been too much of it, down in the dark below Zal Fel. Her passenger had led her to a Gate. Those armored people had found her, then—
Neri. They could have followed her trail back to Neri. Ysira sat bolt upright, heart pounding.
Where was she? Her bed was a sleek oval, the table a perfect circle, both melded seamlessly with the wall. Everything seemed to be made of the same black material, smooth as metal under running water.
A mirror faced the bed, flat and clear as a cloudless desert sky.
Ysira had never seen an image of herself so vivid.
She looked haggard. Older than she’d thought.
Her hair hung in an unwashed tangle around her dirt-smeared face, in stark contrast to her loose white shirt and pants.
The clothing was so clean and silky, it could have been liquid.
She slipped out from under the cover and stood. The floor was frigid beneath her feet. She sniffed the air, picking up a sterile odor. As she crept past a certain section of wall, bracing to be attacked at any second, a hidden door slid open.
Her pulse quickened. She padded through the door, into a hall as dark and glossy as the bedroom. The dim ceiling lights reflected against the floor. A faint, highpitched hum with no obvious source filled the area.
Despite the trepidation lurking in her core, she felt strangely light on her feet. She had the most bizarre urge to run and leap and see how far she might go. The air was rich and clear, as though she had been living in a cloud and it had suddenly lifted.
Then Ysira came upon a massive window, and her legs went weak.
At first, she could not be sure what she was looking at.
There was blue-green Oe, its rings as familiar as ever.
But her vantage point was impossible. Another sphere, centered in the window, hung in a sea of star-speckled black, like the moons in the night sky.
But she could also see both Ixion and Nue, their pocked grey surfaces flush with Oe’s light.
If these were the moons, the central one had to be—
A gasp escaped her. The sphere was green, and brown, and blue.
There was so much blue, stretching over most of the globe.
Ysira had to tear her eyes away from that impossible sea to look east. East—to a great expanse of brown, gold, and, like a deep gouge in the flesh of the world, red.
She knew that shape, from countless maps at the Citadel.
And then there were the coasts, the mountains, the fragmented mass of the Fractured Peninsula . . .
Her world. That gouge was the Scar and that sphere, surrounded by stars, was Celes Lor.
Ysira’s first wild thought was that this must be the gods’ celestial paradise, but she had never been faithful. No, her demon marked her for eternal torment. She was alive. This was real. She had seen this very image on that frieze in the temple ruins.
In the distance, beyond Oe, a bright spot crested the edges of the sphere. Red-gold spears of light flared out from what could only be the sun.
When Ysira was a child, she had gazed in awe at the White Cathedral’s soaring buttresses and towering effigies.
She’d thought herself small. But then she’d ventured into the immense, ageless stone maw of the Scar and realized she was much less than that.
And here, now—on the threshold of infinity—she didn’t have words for it. No mortal language did.
Compared to this, Zivora’s gods were trifling, pathetic things. How could anyone worship something so small?
Ysira touched the window with trembling fingers, sinking to her knees. Terror and awe bloomed on the horizon of her consciousness like that rising dawn, so bright she fought the urge to look away.
All she’d known her whole life were shadows, foggy reflections of reality, and while she’d begun to guess some greater truth existed . . .
She could never have fathomed it.
She pressed her palm to the cold plane. She could cover her entire world with her hand. Tears sprang to her eyes. Despite everything, she found herself smiling, because amidst the smallness, another feeling crept up on her. Surprised her with its intensity: hope.
Perhaps she’d lost her mind. She could have stared at that miraculous view forever.
But there was still Neri to consider, and all the strange and terrible events that had transpired. Ysira had to move, and plan. She ripped her gaze away from the window.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” said the god behind her.