‘No,’ I said, shaking off her hand. ‘I cannot forget. He is my son and I must look after him.’
‘You must do what you must do,’ called my mother as I ran off through the corridors. ‘But remember, Ima, the day is fast approaching when you will have to make a choice. One or nothing. An eternity of peace with your own kind, or a very short life with an animal.’
I CAUGHT UP with you in the square and stopped, keeping my distance. The vigil was still going on, and the twin circles of the Devoted and their guards had now been joined by a candlelit throng following the same murmured chant. Caige was with them. His great, hooded head looked up at your approach.
All is light, all is light.
You stood before them in slow flakes of snow, suspended, your breath disrupting the frost-heavy air.
I approached. My boots cracked thin puddle ice.
‘Reed…’
You started at my voice and continued to walk, your eyes trained upon the circle. Some of the guards and candleholders looked up as you passed, and Caige tracked every step of your slow prowl.
‘Come,’ I whispered, ‘let us go home where we can talk.’
I held out a hand, but you ignored me. Your jaw clenched and unclenched, and your eyes burned a fierce orange in the glow of the guards’ torch light.
‘Reed—’
Then you laughed. It was a raw, untethered sound, a single deep exhalation that contained nothing of the boy you had been. The chant ceased, heads turned, and hoods shuffled. Caige pulled back his hood and walked from the line, stopping before you like a bull before a rabbit.
‘Witness this,’ he said. ‘While we prepare ourselves for our ascent to a higher realm, this human—this animal—cackles on the ground.’ He turned to the silent throng. ‘How could it have ended any other way?’
You stared up at him, trembling streams of steam escaping your nose.
‘Well?’ said Caige, turning back to you. ‘What do you think?’
Suddenly your face creased, and with a raucous hack you spat at his feet, and ran for the trees.
‘Reed, come back!’ I cried.
Caige snorted with disgust. ‘That’s right, back to woods with you. Back with the beasts, where you belong. But you won’t find safety there—your time is short, ape, your time is short!’
At the tree line I leaped ahead to block your path, but you continued, forcing me to walk backwards.
‘We’ll ride home together, all right? You, me and Boron, just like in the mountains. We can talk, and I can help you understand. All right?’
You stopped and glared.
‘Am I free?’ you said.
‘What?’
‘Am I free? I’m not a prisoner?’
‘No, of course you’re not a prisoner.’
‘Then let me go.’
With that you pushed past me and fled into the forest, alone.
Behind me the vigil resumed its chant, corrupting the still air like oil in meltwater.
FIFTEEN YEARS
— FIFTY-THREE —
I HAD NO idea where you would go when I let you run into the trees that day. Perhaps you would go to Fane, the cradle of your childhood. Or perhaps you would take root in some cave, or flee the coast altogether. Or perhaps you would swim out to sea, or jump from some great height.
I tracked you through the forest, keeping my distance as I watched your aimless circles. Occasionally you would pause and look about, as if you had suddenly woken to an unfamiliar place, or sit down, or lean against a tree, or hold your head in your hands.
But eventually your expedition waned and you drifted toward the Sundra, as a child does toward sleep. I followed you into Jorne’s dwelling.
He stood abruptly from the table. ‘Reed—’
You stormed past him into the Room of Things and slammed the door shut.
‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Where did you go? They wouldn’t let me see you. I couldn’t even get close. That vigil, it goes on day and night, nobody can get near—’
‘He knows,’ I said. And that was all.
I FELT A bitter relief at your wordless decision to stay with the Sundra, and chose not to question it. I was just glad to be as far away as possible from the events below.
They maintained the vigil for two years. Twice a day, fresh from sleep, a procession of candle-bearers would emerge from the halls and take the places of those in the square. It became a holy place, like those great citadels into which pilgrims had once swarmed. This is, in fact, what happened. Fane, Tokyo, Littleton, Sprük—all were abandoned and