RESURRECTION #3
Ysira clenched her fists to still her shaking hands. She did not want to be saying this, and Neri did not want to be hearing it.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s done.
What’s important now is that my demon—Iyelekirin—can heal me from anything.
It transformed me.” She had to wonder whether somewhere in all that violence, parts of her had gotten lost. If in putting her back together, the demon had left something out.
But she could not resent the very thing that kept her heart beating.
For better or worse, this was what she was now, and so would it be for Neri.
Enough of these tears. She had a mission, and she would not be distracted from it.
“Iyelekirin transformed you, too,” she told Neri.
“They wanted to keep us there on that station, experiment on us, so they could understand how.” She wiped her face again and moved closer to him.
His expression held only shock as she touched his sternum, indicating the fading bruises, the gash on his arm that was already scabbing over.
“It taught your body to heal faster, made it more resistant to the Source’s energy.
I made you, and so Iyelekirin shaped you this way. ”
“It didn’t do a very good job,” Neri said bitterly. “Look at me.” He stuck out his bad foot. “I don’t see well, I’m too small, I can’t even breathe right.”
“It must have seen those things as insignificant,” said Ysira. “What is sight to a telepath? What are size and strength to a god?”
Neri stared at her with something bordering on panic.
“We’re going to the Shrouded City,” Ysira said. “They follow the old Zal ways. Because of my demon, I’m what they call valak. I’ll have an honored place among them. And you—they will be willing to kill and even die for you.”
Ysira thought of Tharanoth’s map, of all those distant worlds.
The empire he believed would be his to claim, with ultimate power at his disposal.
All that possibility out there, for justice, vengeance, a future for them and all their people.
Perhaps their destiny lay not down in this dirt beneath the shadow of the Church and the Harvest, but out among those endless stars.
“What do I do, then?” Neri asked. “What do I say to them? I don’t—I can’t—”
“I’ll help you.” Ysira grasped Neri’s shoulders, because he’d begun to cry. She said, “Listen. You don’t have to say anything at all if you don’t want to. I can speak for you.”
“Is that why you’re telling me all this?” A note of desperation entered Neri’s voice. “Because if they know you’re my mother, they have to listen to you, too.”
“No!” Ysira spoke too quickly. It made him flinch. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you don’t have to do this alone.”
“I don’t know if I can do this at all,” Neri exclaimed. “I can’t control it.” His shoulders shook. “I killed them. I killed Casandra. I can’t.”
“You can,” Ysira insisted. She looked askance, hesitating.
“I spent my whole life thinking I was worthless. When I was Harvested, I knew it. But my demon changed everything. I didn’t see it at first, but this is a gift.
I have power now, and so do you. If you can only harness it . . . the very stars are yours to take.”
She knew the truth of it as she spoke, and it took her breath away.
But Neri began to sob.
Did he not believe her? What she wouldn’t give, to make him see as she did. They had a path forward. The future was, for the first time in both their miserable lives, full of limitless possibility.
“At the Shrouded City—listen. We’ll meet someone called the Gatekeeper. I can speak for you. You won’t face this alone.” She took Neri’s face between her hands and wiped away the tears. “My son. I will not leave you again.”
Something in Neri broke then. He sagged against her and buried his face in her shoulder. His frail body shook as he wept. Ysira embraced him in turn, and for the first time in eleven years, she held him tight. He was still so small. She breathed in his scent, freezing the moment in her mind.
They stayed there until the storm cleared and muted twilight broke through the lingering dust clouds, dancing like ghosts on the fading gusts.
Neri followed Ysira’s gaze up, to the star-speckled black beyond. “I can’t go home again,” he whispered at last. “Can I? Nothing is ever going to be the same.” He stared and stared at those stars, seeing them as he never had before. Then he asked, “Do you want me to do this?”
He seemed terrified of what she might say. He had asked for her opinion once before, in the caves below Zal Fel. She had told him, I want you to be safe.
That remained true. It would always be true. And so, Ysira said, “Yes.” “All right,” Neri said thickly. He met her eyes, as if begging her to believe him. “I understand.”
They spoke no more, though Neri clung to her. By the tension in his shoulders, Ysira suspected he did not sleep. Late into the night, all that broke the silence was the gentle, sibilant sound of grains of sand as they shifted with the wind.