36. ELEGY
ELEGY
YSIRA
They returned to find the Shrouded City preparing for a siege.
Hesaya met them first, at the edge of the fields, with Commander Teheda and four other militia members.
“I am now Gatekeeper of Otavok,” Hesaya said without preamble. “The Disciples’ choice was unanimous.” Her face was drawn, but her voice was steel. “No one made it through the Gate. You neutralized the immediate threat and bought us time to prepare. But that’s all.”
“Indeed,” Ged affirmed. “You need to fortify—”
Hesaya held up a hand. “It’s already done.
In the last hour alone, the enemy triggered multiple alarm systems. We have protocols for this, which have been in place for longer than any of us have been alive.
You will follow them as directed.” She paused, as though daring Ged to challenge her.
“We do not recognize Zivoran hierarchy. You are my ally, not my liege, and we do not have time to bicker amongst ourselves.” She looked at Ysira, too, then the knights.
“Am I understood?” Ysira muttered her assent.
Ged frowned at Hesaya, but Neri said, “Father. Do what she says.”
Hesaya almost smiled. “Var Naxal has spoken.”
She bowed—to Neri. Ged’s jaw tightened. But he inclined his head a fraction of an inch. “Gatekeeper.”
“Commander Teheda.” Hesaya beckoned at the stocky, mustached militiaman. “Take Seth Semira to the holding cell and restrain him. Ogden is waiting with sedatives.” She caught Teheda’s arm as he moved to obey. “Be discreet. Don’t leave anyone alone with him.”
Teheda nodded sharply. His men carried Seth away, and Jacen’s face grew alarmingly pale as he watched them go. He held Rakalem’s skull in a white-knuckled grip.
“I’ve called for a meeting between our leaders,” Hesaya informed the rest of them. “In the meantime, I suggest you familiarize yourselves with our defenses. Get what rest you can. We’ll be surrounded by morning.” She bade them go on ahead, toward the library, but Ysira lingered.
Jacen hovered at her side as she asserted, very quiet, “You let the knights in.”
“I did,” said Hesaya. “And I won’t hear another word about it from you. We can’t afford it.”
Before Ysira could respond, Jacen said, “I’m so sorry about Eneva and Mondral. I don’t know what to—”
“Don’t, then. What’s done is done.” Hesaya closed her eyes, centering herself. “At the Gate—you held back Turil. How?”
Jacen shook his head. “Not Turil. Seth. His mind is still there, beneath hers, so I kept her from acting by freezing his motor functions.” He frowned. “I . . . I have to think on this.”
With trembling fingers, Hesaya reached toward the skull in Jacen’s hands. “And Neri did this.”
“You should have seen it, Hes. He was . . .” Jacen didn’t seem capable of describing it.
Hesaya drew a shaky breath, clutching the front of her robe, and the hope on her face broke something in Ysira. She could do nothing but follow them to the library, mind racing and utterly alone, even as they caught up with the knights.
Neri was finally looking at Ysira; she knew because his gaze was like a pair of daggers in her back, but what could she say to him? Where could she begin?
Rakalem’s vanguard had broken Otavok’s defenses by the docks, through which Seth had arrived with Turil in his head.
Those tunnels had been collapsed, along with the entrance in the caldera.
Most of the civilian population fled along a southbound branch of Esh, and soon that route would be blocked as well.
Militiamen marched and hauled equipment, laying traps along the narrow, sloped streets of the Shrouded City.
They fortified the complex atop the hill, which contained the city’s lifeblood: the fields, the library, and the temple.
The fire had been put out. Scorch marks blackened the sandstone, and a soggy layer of ash and water coated the floors.
What little remained of the archive was strewn about the banquet hall, tended to by Disciples, many of whom wept as they worked.
Their fellows’ bodies—Eneva and the two Seth had slain—lay in a corner, stripped of their veils, polished stones over their eyes.
Mondral’s remains would have to be retrieved later, but word of his fate had spread. Solai sat against a wall with her face in her hands. A man who must have been her husband held her tight, staring blankly over her shoulder.
When Neri stepped across the threshold, a flurry of whispers spread through the hall. Then a hush, as every soul within turned to look upon the boy who had killed a god.
When one of the knights tried to follow Neri, Jacen held out an arm and barred his way. Jacen shook his head at Ysira. Wait, he didn’t have to say. Watch.
As Neri walked, alone, through the crowd, there was no celebration. Only silence. The people of Otavok knelt in his wake, and soon, he was the last one standing.
He stopped. He looked back at Jacen and Ysira, and at Ged behind them, as if he expected them to say something. Jacen set a hand on Ysira’s shoulder. She must have been trembling.
“They’ll tell their grandchildren about this day,” he murmured to her. “They need to remember it. Remember him.”
Neri’s face had settled into horrible resignation. He resumed his slow pace through the crowd, letting them bow and touch his tunic as he passed.
A militiaman approached Jacen. He held out his hands, asking for the skull but too stunned to use words. Jacen gave it to him. The man climbed onto a table, raised it overhead, began to shout in Zal. Though Ysira could hardly hear him over the ringing in her ears, she caught “Sun et nath!”
They are dust.
After a moment of speechless shock, the hall erupted. Amid the shouts and cheers, those words became a rising refrain. A battle cry: “Sun et nath! SUN ET NATH!”
Neri’s shoulders had gone rigid, and soon, Ysira lost track of him in the chaos.
She waded through the crowd, dodging their questions, their prayers, their grasping hands.
Jacen did not leave her side, his grip tightening on her shoulder.
They beheld him with new eyes, too—no longer suspicious, but grateful.
Ysira struggled to maintain her composure until she could get out, find some dark and quiet corridor in which to disappear.
Now that the adrenaline had faded, the hurt set in.
Something deeper than physical, which Iyelekirin could not heal.
The weight in her chest threatened to drag her to her knees.
But rest was not for her, not now and maybe not ever again. No sooner had she slipped into the hall than someone called, “Ysira!”
She had expected Saraida to corner her eventually. She kept walking anyway, even as Jacen stopped and turned. To her horror, Saraida followed at a jog.
“Ysira. For gods’ sake—”
Ysira rounded on her. Saraida held up her hands, green eyes wide. “I just want to talk. I’m so sorry about Seth.” She glanced at Jacen. “I may not have loved him, but I considered him a friend. I know what he meant to Neri.” She hesitated. “Neri’s your son?”
Ysira was not interested in having this conversation again, but Saraida seemed determined to. She was shorter than Ysira but more solid, and blocked her way with the confident physicality of one of the Citadel’s finest warriors.
“I never knew,” she said. “That’s why you disappeared. You were pregnant.”
“I was Harvested,” said Ysira.
Saraida blinked. “That . . . explains a lot.” She studied Ysira with a look of gentle reproach. “I can’t believe you never told me.”
“What do you want?” Ysira put the question to her bluntly. Perhaps it was uncalled for, but there was something very strange and altogether too sincere about Saraida’s tone.
“The same as you, I expect. I’m here to fight. More literally, though, I’m here because of Neri.”
It was not what Ysira, nor Jacen, had expected. They exchanged a look. Ysira narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
Saraida squared her shoulders with the air of one on trial, ready to present her case.
“Under the Black Sun,” she said, “my family fared better than most. But my father was born in the Knots. He taught me that the Ancarath wealth could be a means to help the less fortunate, and that to have my grandmother’s ear was power.
I did little of consequence with it. But then, at this year’s first offering, Neri accused my grandmother of cheating the Harvest.”
Despite Ysira’s best efforts to control her face, her eyebrows shot up.
“I know,” Jacen said. “I was there.” He frowned. “Was he right?”
“I thought surely he couldn’t be,” said Saraida.
“Surely not. But I confronted my grandmother about it, and . . . she confessed. She had a deal with the Church. Telepaths were non-negotiable, but otherwise, she could spare—or condemn—whoever she wished.” Her mouth twisted.
“I don’t know if she condemned my father, but neither did she see fit to spare him.
Once I knew that, I couldn’t be complicit any longer.
I helped Ged seize control of my family’s resources and win over enough of the Guard for his coup to stand a chance. He wouldn’t have succeeded without me.”
For whatever reason, Saraida was almost pleading. It unnerved Ysira, but what could she do besides listen? Jacen, too, remained rooted in place.
“When I learned what Ged had planned for Neri, I didn’t believe it.
But now I’ve seen it. And everything has changed.
” Saraida’s voice trembled. “I was a coward. Neri’s courage was my catalyst, and now he’s also the one who can end this.
It’s—” She had to stop. “How can I see that as anything but destiny?”
Saraida had always been principled in a way that infuriated Ysira—the confident moral righteousness of someone who’d never had to bleed for anything.
Saraida had never known a world without a place for her, and so of course she believed in destiny.
That sense of unassailable conviction remained, but any trace of condescension had vanished.
Saraida drew her sword and held it out as though in offering. She knelt before Ysira. She bowed her head.