The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,184

whirred. The valley waited, watched, its heartbeat a murmur on the breeze.

The truth was here. Somewhere. I walked on.

The pluck of a string.

And another.

Music. I spun, looking back from where I had come. The valley was empty, but I heard the mournful strum of the zitaraes, my mother’s song floating, and then when I looked back to where I’d been heading, I saw something else.

All ways belong to the world. What is magic but what we don’t yet understand?

A girl knelt on the rim of a wide bluff above me.

There.

The word fluttered in my belly, familiar. A word that had pushed and prodded me toward the maps, and then this valley.

Her eyes met mine.

“It was you,” I whispered.

She nodded but said nothing.

She kissed her fingers, and I heard the Holy Text braiding with the air.

And Morrighan raised her voice,

To the heavens,

Kissing two fingers,

One for the lost,

And one for those yet to come,

For the winnowing was not over.

The song that had filled the valley only seconds ago, was now hers, winding, lengthening, beckoning. I stumbled up the steep trail to the bluff, but by the time I got to where she had knelt, she was gone. The bluff jutted out, and the long valley was in my view in both directions, as still and silent as ever—except for her voice. I dropped to the ground, kneeling, feeling the warmth of where she had been, feeling her desperation from centuries ago. Feeling it now. The winnowing was not over.

Time circles. Repeats.

And the desperate prayers she had lifted to the gods so long ago became my own.

* * *

“Lia,” Rafe called, “what are you doing up there?”

I turned to see Rafe and Kaden on their horses. They’d brought my horse along too. I got back to my feet and took one last look at the bluff, the hills, and the ruins that towered over me.

“Preparing,” I answered, and I walked down the trail to meet them.

When we got back to camp, we sent scouts riding the swiftest horses to lookouts past the valley’s eastern mouth to watch for the approaching army. The rest of us began our work in earnest. Rafe and Kaden had mapped out the terrain and trails that could support charging brigades of soldiers. There were seven on one side of the hills and four on the other. Ruins would hide them from view until we were ready. The entrance to the valley was three miles wide, but it quickly narrowed. The Field Marshal, Howland, Marques, and the other officers would lead the charges when signaled. Our timing had to be perfect.

One division—mine—would be held out as bait and decoy. Our drumbeats and our battle chants would draw them toward us.

The high grass of the valley would help hide some of our defenses. Deadly rows of pikes were constructed and hidden. Nets were positioned for launch. Seige crossbows were strategically placed, though that was the greatest unknown—where and when the brezalots would be used—but I was sure his Death Steeds and his child soldiers would be his first line of attack. The Komizar would see my few thousand troops blocking his path at the end of the valley and assume the rest of my army lay behind me. Sending in his charging animals would clear the path quickly.

We worked without stopping And waited. Waited for the Komizar. Waited for Rafe’s troops. Neither came, and nerves grew raw. I said remembrances morning and night. I spoke to the troops, bolstered them, made promises to them and to myself.

Berdi, Pauline, and Gwyneth worked with the camp cooks to keep everyone fed and spirits up—at which they excelled. I pulled Natiya aside privately and walked with her into the valley. “Look there,” I said, pointing into the valley. “What do you see?”

“I see a battleground.”

I looked into the same valley but I saw a purple carvachi and ribbons twirling in the wind. I saw Dihara spinning at her wheel and Venda singing from a wall. I saw Morrighan praying from a bluff and Aster sitting wide-eyed in a tent listening to a story. A greater story. I saw a world past that didn’t want us to give up. I looked back at Natiya. I didn’t want her to give up on the world she had known either.

“One day you’ll pass through here again, and you will see more,” I promised. “Until then, I have a job for you. It’s more important than anything else we will do, and for it, you will not