He coughed and more blood spilled past his lips. He reached up to clasp her hand. “Stop making bargains with that bastard, Disa. You did it again years ago, didn’t you? Rejected me to save me. Stop it.”
She almost lost her hold on him when Cimejen slid on his knees next to them. “Move,” he snapped and pulled Bron from her arms. Stunned, Disaris instinctively shoved back and tried to hold on to Bron.
Cimejen shoved her again. “Let me help him, itzuli!”
Help. Her thoughts spun, and she recalled a bit of conversation she and Bron had about a battle mage’s powers. His were wind and lightning. Cimejen’s had been fire. And healing.
Please, she prayed to any god listening.Please.
Cimejen placed his hands on Bron’s side, around the embedded arrow. “You owe me for this, jin Hazarin. What idiot goes into battle without donning his armor?”
Bron’s lips were blue under the crimson wash of blood. His eyes shifted to where Luda knelt beside Disaris. “We meet again, dear one.”
Tears spilled from Luda’s eyes. “Oh Bron,” she whispered, and her hand joined Disaris’s in stroking his head.
Cimejen’s hands began to glow, and he too paled as life-giving power flowed out of him and into his fallen battle-brother. “So much fucking blood,” he muttered. “What are you, a pig?”
No one laughed. Disaris and Luda prayed. Cimejen cursed.
Bron’s eyes squinted when he stared at Disaris, as if he struggled to see her. She forced back her own tears so his face wouldn’t blur in her vision.
“I have always loved you,” he said, the words barely there.
Please, she continued in silent supplicance. Please.
She smiled at him. “As you should, moon boy, because I’ve always loved you.”
He returned her smile. “The moon rises.”
She swallowed down the knot in her throat as her tears conquered her will. “And a star waits.”
Epilogue
Disaris stood in front of the Merisack and grasped her sister’s hand. “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to. I’d never expect it of you. You can stay here. The people of Gatisek would welcome you. Everyone there knew you were a prisoner of the Daggermen.”
Luda pulled her into a hug. “I want to go. I owe it to you and Bron. You both risked your lives, traveled through a lim portal, were pursued by a battle mage…” She turned her head and offered a bow to Cimejen who stood beside her. “I’ve become an itzuli too, though maybe not as good as you. If my code breaking helps to end the war between the two kingdoms faster, then I’m happy to offer my service to General Golius.”
Cimejen nodded. “The man isn’t picky about who the itzuli is, only that they can perform the task.” He lifted up the large, thick bag he held in one hand. “And presenting him with the Hierarch’s head should console him over the loss of his second battle mage.” Both women cringed at the sound the bag made when he dropped it at his feet.
He bowed to Disaris. “I think my life was dull before I met you, Disaris jin Gheza. If Luda is anything like you, I’m sure I’ll be highly entertained while she serves under my command.”
Disaris returned the bow. “I put her in your capable hands. Please keep her safe.”
She held Luda tightly and kissed her cheek. “Be well and know I love you.”
She stepped far enough away from the stone to avoid its effects and watched as Luda took Cimejen’s hand and recited the nine-verse passage that would return them to the meadow where the Hayman Stone stood. The violet light of lim magic surrounded the pair, pulsing thrice, then dying with a flash. The symbols on the face of the Merisack stone still glowed, but her sister and Cimejen were gone.
She stayed nearby until the stone had gone completely dark, just in case some unwary passerby saw it and grew too curious for their own good. The sun was setting by the time she mounted her horse and rode toward Zaras’s cottage.
Two of the windows in the front were lit, a welcoming beacon against the coming dark. The grave dug on the eastern side of the house faced sacred north so that the dead might take the shortest route to the Bright Lands. Disaris had stopped on the way home to pick wildflowers growing along the road. She placed them on the grave and bowed, tapping her steepled fingers against her forehead three times. “May we one day share cake at your table, again, Zaras,” she said.
When she entered the house, she smelled afresh the scent of the soap Zaras had made. The woman still lingered here, not as a haunting, but as a memory. When her son sold the house to Disaris, he’d also given her the soap recipe.
The pleasant scent was mixed with the much more astringent odors of medicinal tinctures and salves. She passed the kitchen,the table there covered from one corner to another with bottles, mortar and pestle, and sheaves of dried herbs.
She opened the door to the room she’d shared with Bron one wondrous evening before one horrific day and leaned against the doorframe to stare inside.
It was still a small room with a small bed, made even smaller by the large injured man sleeping in it. He opened his eyes, palest blue in the fading light slanting through the window. “Are they gone?”
