“What remains?” he asked, and the pressure of her fingers in his helped him get the words out and listen for the answer. He hadn’t been lying earlier: she was a comfort. “Kvanla, you said, and Heliodar and Nerapis too. Did Silane survive?”
In a sense, it was academic; nobody he’d known would still live there. At best, his father’s house would stand, and those in it might have heard of Great-Uncle Amris, who’d disappeared in the war. Still, he felt his heart lift a little when Darya nodded. “Smaller than it was, but not by very much. The south did better than most—warmer, and there are those caves in the mountains, with heat and mushrooms. Kvanla, too, as I guess it’s harder to kill fish and seaweed, but we were never much of a kingdom to start with. Silane and Criwath are the only real kingdoms left. And Heliodar, in fact if not in name. Nerapis is just the main city these days, and the Myrians…well, they have their towns and their fortresses. The barbarians up here—”
“Many went over to Thyran, by force or by will. Those who resisted had fled south before he and I met, or been put to the sword, at best.” Amris pictured the map of the world, like a moth in shape. Klaishil had been in Criwath, with the deep forest and the nomads to the north and the Serpentspine Mountains making a western border. Heliodar lay beyond the Blue Hills to the south, in the other section of the “wing,” cradled by a bay, and the Arenthan River cut it off from Silane. From there, seabound Kvanla straddled the “tail” where the mountains flattened into scrubland, and Nerapis had held the territory from the Pramath Harbor all the way up to the chain of lakes where the Myrian families had squabbled.
Nobody had gone to the far northeast, not since the battle between Gizath and Letar had scarred that section of the land. There’d always been forests and hills scattered around, claimed by one land or another but really belonging to no king or council. They’d been islands of darkness in the golden web of civilization. Now, Amris saw bigger patches of darkness around a few points, like campfires at night.
Darya’s hand was a rope, pulling his mind forward into the present. “The other peoples?” he asked.
“Retreated. Mostly. Kvanla’s ports trade with the waterfolk at high summer, but they’ve gone far under the sea otherwise. The stonekin helped Silane some, but they don’t come out of the mountains.”
“And we’re still in Criwath?”
“In theory. Oakford is a few days’ ride back, and it’s only been occupied again for thirty years. Wearerebuilding,” she added. “But that’s as far as we’ve gotten. Thyran’s leftovers, and the other things, are thicker on the ground the deeper into the forest you go, and nobody has the people to spare for an expedition, let alone to try to take ground and hold it. Even the Sentinels only come on missions, and generally we get in and out as quickly as we can.”
“I’m sure I’ll think of more questions to plague you with. But just now—” He spread his hands, illustrating emptiness.
Doing so meant letting go of Darya’s hand, which he did with surprising reluctance, then a shade of guilt about that. Neither he nor Gerant had expected the other to be celibate in times of long separation, particularly when he was on campaign, but a living lover far away was a different matter from one who was present and dead, or dead and present. Amris wasn’t sure which was worse.
“I’m not surprised. In your place, I think I’d be walking into walls and forgetting my own name.” With her now-free hand, she pulled out the flask of lignath, took a swig, and held it out toward Amris. “Here. Should keep off the worst of the nightmares.”
He drank, then paused. “If you use this for wounds—”
“Yes,” said Darya, after swallowing more hardtack, “better not kill it. It also burns very well.”
“Far from startling news.”
Between food and spirits, the day’s exertions settled quickly on him. As Darya finished up her own meal, he pulled off his boots, stretched out on the floor, and tried to remember how best to make a pillow of his arm.
“Hey,” said Darya. “Take the altar cloth.” She was pulling it out of her bag as she spoke. “Not as if Sitha will mind, if you can stand the dust.”
“But you—”
“My armor won’t stop an arrow so well as yours, but I can sleep on it without breaking my neck.”
“Sound reasoning. Thank you.”
“I’m known for it—and you needn’t bother snickering,” she added, obviously to Gerant.
In the faint green-and-silver light, as magic and the moon blended, Amris watched Darya fold up her tunic. Her sword, with Gerant in the hilt, she lay down between them like a maiden preserving her chastity in an old tale, though Amris doubted the intent was the same.
“May I?” he asked, and reached out a hand toward the sword by way of indication, though he didn’t yet make contact.
“Wha—Of course,” Darya said, embarrassed. “Sorry, should have thought of that.”
“These aren’t circumstances any could anticipate. I hadn’t thought it either, until now. And I thank you.” Amris laid his fingers on the gem.
It felt as any other polished stone would have: smooth, hard, and cold. Had he not known Gerant was in there, nothing of it would have called to mind the gentle, scholarly man Amris had known, the one with nimble fingers, sure lips, and bright eyes to match the mind behind them. Yet he did know, and while it was an incomplete balm for the ache in his heart, it was balm nonetheless.
“Good night,” he whispered toward the gem, and thought that the emerald shone back at him for a heartbeat.
All the world was new and strange. Yet, he thought as he watched Darya lie down and let his own eyelids slide shut, he wasn’t sure there were two better people to introduce him to it.
Chapter 10
Almost always, on waking, Darya’s first thought was grudging acceptance:Yes, all right. All right.What she was allowing changed from day to day, but the feeling ofwell, fine, thenwas essentially the same whether she faced the breakfast dishes in the chapter house, the remnants of a previous night’s celebration, or in this case, the possible end of the world.
In the light, Sitha’s temple was more beautiful, and sadder. Dust motes spun through the air, and patches of green and red and blue light splashed across empty pews and an altar where nobody had stood in three generations. The smile on the carved face above it looked wistful now, though maybe it always had and Darya just hadn’t noticed the night before. Sitha and Poram, the priests said, had both wept when their children fought, and since the Traitor God had neverstoppedfighting—
