36. ELEGY #2
“My resources are many,” she said, “and they are yours.” She looked up as Ysira stared in mute shock. “I still call you friend. Sister. I believe that your son will bring justice and save this world. It will be my great honor to serve him.”
Sister. Saraida had never before used that word. How many years had Ysira spent longing to be seen as her equal? Yet this felt like the end of something. Like the person in front of Ysira—kneeling—was not Saraida at all but a diminished facsimile wearing her skin.
But what was Ysira to do? Tell Saraida to get a grip?
Tell her, and Jacen, and Hesaya, and all the others No, never mind; it really is Ged you should swear yourselves to?
Was she to Tell them about her every doubt and regret, about Eneva’s last words—It’s not what we remember—or about the butchered spider?
Ysira’s head spun. Her knees threatened to buckle. Suddenly, she had an inkling of what Neri must have felt that night in the desert when she’d told him the truth of who she was and what he might become. When he asked her if she wanted this and she had told him yes.
Since she and Neri had escaped the station, Ysira had been building momentum, racing forward with the single-minded determination that had always kept her alive. Now it was as if she’d jerked to a stop, arms wheeling, before a chasm as wide and deep as the Scar itself.
She looked to Jacen for any sign of an outstretched hand that might keep them all from toppling into the abyss. But his eyes were on Saraida, and he was asking her to stand. He clasped her hand in his. A tear ran down her cheek.
From somewhere far away, Ysira heard Jacen say, “Thank you. Var Naxal thanks you. He will honor you in the world to come.”
Ysira found Neri at the railway station, at the very edge of the militia’s perimeter. The tunnel leading out past the waterfall had been collapsed, lending the area a darker, claustrophobic quality. Neri stood alone, facing down the battered ancient vehicle as though it were an armed opponent.
As Ysira approached, he gave no indication of noticing. A globe of red light rotated over his palm. He threw it at the vehicle, causing it to teeter sideways.
Ysira stopped at what she felt, for the time being, was a safe distance. Neri hurled another globe of energy, and this time, the vehicle tipped off the tracks and landed on its side with an echoing crash. It was a conscious, controlled display of power, far more than he’d been capable of before.
It still seemed to exhaust him. He braced his hands against his knees, refusing to look at her. “What do you want?”
“You’re angry with me.” Ysira folded her hands behind her back so he wouldn’t see them shaking.
“You’re right to be. I want to apologize.
” Neri faced her, breathing hard. “I need to practice. I can’t freeze again.
If you hadn’t acted, with Seth, I don’t know what I would have done—if I’d have just let—” He couldn’t finish.
“You and Father were both right. I was worthless. Defective.” Ysira’s voice broke. “Neri, I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I figured it out.” Neri struggled to steady himself. “When I was afraid, before, Naxal took over. I wasn’t afraid this time. And . . . it listened.”
Ysira started to ask him what changed, but she already knew. She’d told him herself as they journeyed to Otavok. Use your anger. Bury the fear. Fear was surrender, inertia; rage was momentum. Her stomach clenched.
Then he asked, “Did you ever want me?” The question must have been festering inside him, and now it exploded to the surface. “Did either of you?”
Of course, this was about more than what Ysira had said to him—this was about what she’d said to Ged. Now Neri knew, definitively, that there was no love at all between his parents. He could no longer pretend their relationship had been anything other than what it was.
“I know you probably didn’t have a choice when you left.
I’m not stupid. But did you ever—” He stopped.
“I did the math. You said you were gone for four cycles after the Harvest. Knight candidate graduation is always one cycle before that. Did you want me, or was it just too late by the time you knew?”
The answer should have been easy. Of course.
Of course I wanted you. But it would have been a lie, and it stuck in Ysira’s throat.
The truth was that she did not know. She could love him so much, it caused her physical pain, a rock lodged inside her heart, and still she would never know, because the Harvest had robbed her of the chance to figure it out.
Neri wiped his eyes, angrily, desperately trying to pretend her silence did not affect him. “I don’t think Father really wanted Damir or Casandra, either.” He laughed—an awful sound. “Look at us. The cripple god and his mother who didn’t want him. It’s such a joke.”
He nodded at the ground, as though sealing an agreement with himself. He faced the tracks and the toppled vehicle once more.
Light built between his hands until Ysira felt its feverish heat, and the platform trembled.
Reality itself seemed a mere sheaf of fabric.
Neri drew energy through from the other side as if it were water, faster and faster until seams began to split.
Too much. Too fast. The air rippled, sparked—and tore.
The vehicle crumpled. Neri clenched his fist. His veins glowed bright, snaking out like dozens of worms beneath his skin. His sclerae drowned in red. Metal shrieked and crunched inward, caught beneath a force of impossible gravity, collapsing until it vanished entirely.
Ysira stared, transfixed, as Neri released his grip on the Source. The gap in the universe winked shut. The red glow subsided, leaving spidery dark stains on his brown face, as though he’d been scorched from within.
He doubled over like he might vomit. He trembled from head to toe, his skin grey and clammy, but slowly, he straightened.
“I can do this. For everyone the Harvest took, everyone on the station we couldn’t save, and everyone who’s still counting on me.
” His voice wavered. “For Seth. If I was never meant to be here at all . . . maybe it’s for the best. I can be whatever this world needs me to be. ”
He started to turn away from her.
“I had a plan.” The words slipped out of Ysira before she could think better of them, and Neri stopped.
“For a little while. I had a plan. I was going to get a boat and take it down the deepriver, get as far from Zivora as I could before you were born. Then we would have lived . . . somewhere green.”
A broken sort of laugh escaped her. It had been such a stupid, hopeful plan. It would never have worked.
Neri seemed to understand. “Instead, you took me back to him.” He looked up, blinking uselessly against the tears.
Ysira forced her emotions back, back where they couldn’t interfere, and said, “When the demon spoke through Seth, she said you wanted your father dead. That you’ve prayed for it. Is that true?”
Neri did not reply. It was a familiar silence—the silence of an answer they both already knew.
“I will never let him hurt you again,” Ysira said. “I swear it.” Then she said something foolish: “When this is over, if you want, we can go somewhere far away. Just like I planned. Jacen can exorcise Naxal, and we can leave this all behind.”
Neri looked as if he didn’t believe her. But what Ysira felt, now, was horribly real.
To the void with Zivora. Maybe Ged should have it. There might yet be a future open to Ysira and Neri both in which they could play whatever roles they chose, free of duty, free of vengeance, somewhere beyond the Scar.
“It’s too late.” Neri sounded older than his years and far wearier. “Mondral died for me. Eneva died for me. And now we’re at war.” He shook his head. “It’s too late, Ysira.”
Defective, Ged had called Neri. Defective, until he’d sent him into the canyon to become whatever he was now.
But Ysira still remembered a fleeting thought she’d had soon after Neri was born, as she had gazed into his wide black eyes and realized that if the rest of her eternity was just that one moment .
. . she would have been content with it.
He was perfect. He was priceless. She had never needed him to be anything more than what he was.
How strange a thought, that it could be possible to love someone so completely, unconditionally, for no other reason than that they were.
But they had all made their choices, or been robbed of them, and either way, it was done.
Neri was right. Because of his parents, because of the gods, because of Iyelekirin, because Naxal had chosen him, only Neri could wield this power.
They were hurtling toward an ending that had been written long ago.
Ysira released the fleeting thought. She said nothing more.