“There is still much to do,” Ankaret said slowly. “We must negotiate a lasting peace between the realms. If there is ever to be no more Middlemist, or Knotwood, or Crescent, we must determine an alternative that will require no one’s service to maintain it. Or,” she conceded, “it is possible we will need to completely separate Edyn from the Old Country, if we cannot forge a peace. And we can do none of this without Jaetris and Zelphenia. We must find them, help them grow strong again.”
I nodded, gazing glumly at the priory. “There is so much left to do.”
“There is. But already there is less than there was. And look.”
She held up her small white hand. On her palm, in a tiny pile of ash, a new shivering flame sparked to life. She pressed it against her heart as if to imbue herself with it, and right there before my eyes she started glowing a little bit brighter.
“Every day we grow stronger,” she said, smiling up at me. “And on the days when that is not enough, we will find our strength in each other and wait for morning to come again.”
“You say that as if it’s so simple,” I told her quietly.
“Words are simple. Courage is not. But you, dear Mara, are abundant with it. Know that, and let the knowing comfort you.”
Gemma came up beside me and slid her hand into mine. “She is wonderful, isn’t she?” she said to Ankaret, beaming up at me. “My brave sister.”
I held her to me in silence until the feeling of tears passed. Ankaret flickered softly on her perch. We watched the snow begin to fall.
***
When I arrived at Big Deep, I was thinking longingly of nighttime and its quietness, and of Gareth in my bed.
The days were long now, and tiring, with messages coming and going constantly from the capital, from Vauzanne and Aidurra, from Ivyhill.
Researchers from the university were studying the Mist and its health and documenting their observations with painstaking thoroughness. Gareth, stationed at Rosewarren, worked with them day and night. They needed to be managed, their work analyzed and compared to similar studies being done at the Knotwood and the Crescent of Storms. We had to know for certain that there was no more danger, that the Mist was stable.
There were meetings upon meetings, both intimate and grand, of the royal councils and Olden delegations, scholars and mediators, military commanders from all three continents, my mother and Alastrina and Caiathos.
I was present at most of them, when my duties permitted, and felt uncomfortable at every single one.
My new mantle of Warden sat strangely on my shoulders. I refused even to take the name. I was Mara to all my Roses and allowedMadamonly on the direst of occasions. This made me feel like even more of a child next to Arora and Joseline, and though they were kind to me, likestern but well-meaning aunts, I never stopped searching for doubt in their eyes. Was I strong enough and wise enough to oversee the Order alongside them? Was I far enough removed from the Warden to be trusted? And now that the root of the Order’s binding magic rested in me, would I someday turn, just as she had, and endanger them all?
I wondered constantly what they really thought of me.
At times, I wondered what I really thought of myself.
In those first fumbling days, when both my mind and my body were exhausted, only two things were absolutely clear to me. One was that I had never been more thankful for my sisters.
The other was that I loved Gareth Fontaine more than I ever thought myself capable of loving another person.
Now, standing in the ruins of Big Deep, I watched him direct a crew of workers who were dismantling what was left of the house. Everything salvageable was to be sent away for use in the rebuilding efforts. The rest would be burned, and the land itself, stripped bare, would remain in Gareth’s name.
But apparently the workers had found something in the rubble that they weren’t sure how to categorize. I didn’t let myself listen to their conversation, though I easily could have, and waited for Gareth to come to me.
He did so with a frown on his face, gazing in bewilderment at a charred item in his hand. Then he looked up at me, scratched the back of his neck, his mouth twisting, and sat down heavily on a slab of stone.
I joined him. “What is it?”
“My mother’s medals,” he said after a moment. He held up the piece of ruined wood. Only a few ribboned brass medals remained, though there was room for at least twenty.
Gareth twisted one of them gently around his finger. “She had many more, but I suppose they’re gone now. She was so proud of them, polished them every day.” He stared at them for a long timeand then said, with a sad little laugh, “I can’t decide if I want to burn the godsdamned things with all the rest of it or hang them on my wall.”
Suddenly his face crumpled and he started to cry. “It’s stupid, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing at himself. “I hated the woman.”
I opened my arms to him. “Not stupid. Come here.”
He set down the medals and then grabbed me and held on to me desperately, his face buried in my neck. I stroked his hair. Soon my collar was wet; it was strange that this evoked fondness in me, and yet it did. The feeling of his tears was like some secret, precious tenderness.
“I didn’t expect to care when she died,” he mumbled into my shirt. “I didn’t expect to care about the house either. I didn’t expect any of this. What a warped thing to feel. The last thing I saw of her was her eyes, wide and terrified as she fell.” He paused. “Do you think that if she’d lived, she ever would have apologized to me? For any of it?”
